The Memory of Sky

by Robert Reed

  “And if I don’t come home,” he said to the man. “What about my mother?”

  “Your payment becomes her payment. And if the mission is successful, she gets your full bonus too.”

  Mother was a big plain lady with a secret bit of papio in her family history. As soon as her son was old enough to understand, she confessed that his father had been a diplomat stationed in the District of Districts—a smallish papio living far from home, living with a significant drinking problem and a habit of abusing local women. Her only child looked papio at birth and every day since. That’s why he was raised in a special school for the handful like him. He was taught his father’s language and the coral-bound customs, and then he was fully grown, as big as he would ever be but still wearing a child’s voice and proportions. That’s why he was selected ahead of everyone else. Alone among his peers, he could pretend to be a special boy, inserted into another child’s life for a few critical days.

  Someone special was living near Bright River. The man in charge told him that secret, and suddenly he was Zakk. That was his new name, the same as a papio boy who was going to be sent to that remote place, ready to serve as a caretaker for that exceptionally odd creature.

  One day the Archon of Archons came to visit the school. That was a great honor; nobody needed to tell him so. The Archon called him a hero and examined his body, and then he explained how the papio kept their secrets. Zakk would learn nothing of substance until he arrived at the secret site. Caretakers were allowed to call home, but since every call-line was monitored at both ends, he had to speak to the real Zakk’s parents. A vocabulary of code words had been built from ordinary words. One relay station along the reef had friendly ears, and every important meaning would be transmitted straight home. But the Archon promised that the mission wouldn’t be a success until Zakk was home, and then the two of them could sit inside the palace, calmly discussing everything that he had seen and every impression that he had earned.

  The boy who wasn’t a boy nodded. “I’ll be talking to the real Zakk’s mother and father,” he said.

  “You sound more than a little like him,” the Archon promised. “With the distance and interference in the lines, they won’t know the difference.”

  “And nobody else will see the trick?”

  The little man puckered his lips before saying, “Not immediately. We have a sturdy network in place, something that I inherited with my office. Records and your credentials will make everyone happy, for a few days at least.”

  The papio-shaped man was happy enough to smile.

  “This is an enormous opportunity,” the Archon said. “For you and for the world.”

  The new Zakk kept nodding and smiling.

  “This is a very special creature that they’re holding,” the Archon began.

  “Like your son?”

  A smile blossomed. “A gift from the corona, yes.”

  “And like Diamond.”

  “One of a kind.” Then the Archon reached out, squeezing the young man’s shoulder. “But the papio are different than we are. We are good to our children, but they’re torturing theirs. We have evidence, strong evidence, that they have savaged him once and probably will again.”

  He knew about the papio. They were drunks and rapists, and often worse, yes.

  “What happens to the real Zakk?” the spy asked. “Where will that boy be?”

  The Archon’s smile changed, but it stayed a smile. “Oh, he’s going to be sidelined for a little while. But don’t worry. No harm comes to him, or anybody else.”

  “I’m not worried,” the new Zakk said.

  Then their conversation paused. The Archon surveyed the classroom, eyes focusing on the cages filled with animals and corals from the papio realm. The man was struggling to find some comforting words to add to the pile.

  The new Zakk said, “Diamond.”

  “What about him?”

  “I’d like to meet him, once I get home again.”

  “And you will,” the Archon said immediately, with too much energy. “That I promise. In fact, I see a lot of strong reasons why you two should be good friends.”

  And then it was many days later, and sitting on the sourlip coral, Zakk repeated those delicious words.

  “You two should be good friends,” he muttered.

  Jet engines growled and the cannons barked. Armored fletches were pressing forward, and the papio wings were crisscrossing while firing and taking fire. But at this distance, the battle remained muted, every contestant small. The noise was so minimal that Zakk could make out the distinct crunches of boots grinding into the coral dust behind him, and then the boots stopped and he heard the voice of the soldier.

  “Your hands,” the soldier said. “Drop the binoculars and lift both hands where I can see them.”

  Zakk did what he was told. When did he ever struggle against authority?

  The soldier stepped and stepped, and then he stopped again. He had been running, but his breathing was already as slow as Zakk’s. Soldiers were marvelously fit. When he got home, Zakk would start to train like a papio soldier. Diamond was supposed to be fast on his feet. Maybe they could train with each other, and when they weren’t training, they would share stories about being alone and odd in the world.

  “What are doing here?” asked the soldier.

  “I was looking for Divers. Do you know where she is?”

  “No.”

  “She was going to meet Bountiful when it lands,” he said.

  “Who told you about Bountiful?” the soldier asked.

  Zakk told the truth, naming another soldier.

  The feet behind him shifted, growing comfortable with their stance.

  “Which ship is Bountiful?” asked Zakk.

  The soldier didn’t answer.

  Nobody else had joined them, but it was easy to imagine other soldiers spotting the two of them sharing this high ground, quickly converging on tiny, dangerous him.

  What else could he do?

  “It’s the green blimp,” the soldier said abruptly.

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Lower. Look lower.” The voice was tight, just short of angry.

  “What’s wrong with that ship?” asked Zakk.

  “It’s been damaged. Severely, by the looks.”

  Bountiful was a green bag that was falling as quickly as it pushed ahead. Instead of being long and trim, it was sagging, particularly in the middle. And in those next moments, even with bare eyes, Zakk noticed a flicker of piercing blue flame near the stern—the first traces of a fire that would only grow worse.

  Concerned, the soldier said, “I don’t know if she’ll feel the reef.”

  “I think she will,” Zakk said.

  The soldier waited for a moment, and then he asked, “Who are you?”

  Zakk started to answer.

  “No, really,” said the papio. “Tell me something true.”

  An unexpected thought came to Zakk. That happened quite a lot, and maybe it was because he was a mixture of bloods. Hybrid animals often had greater powers than their parents. Whatever the reason, the idea arrived fully formed, and he liked it enough that he had to smile. The entire world was descending into war, and an armed man was standing behind him, certainly holding a gun at his skull . . . yet he felt relaxed enough to turn his head to one side, showing his expression to the soldier.

  “Why are you grinning?” the papio asked.

  “I’m just wondering if we’re like Divers. Like Diamond. Maybe all of us are the same as them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Zakk said nothing.

  The hammer on a big pistol was cocked.

  Not caring if this was a mistake, Zakk set the binoculars against his wet eyes. Fletches were burning. Bountiful looked ill and sorry. And at the last, with a quiet voice, he said, “Maybe we’re also children of the corona. Have you ever wondered about that?”

  What was amazing was the absolute lack of amazement. The boy was talkin
g wildly about the sister that he had just met and the other sister, or whatever she was, lurking in the high shadows of the reef. Nothing else seemed to matter to Diamond. Bountiful was wounded, plunging out the sky. Its human crew had been let out of confinement, the surviving soldiers giving tree-walkers permission and helping hands to buy the ship more speed and more lift. Yet inside all of that chaos and purpose, what mattered was the quick crazed voice telling Merit about the creature that had clung outside the cabin window, and the other creature that Quest had seen just a few times, at extreme distance—an entity that the papio now and again mentioned inside their whispered conversations.

  “Divers,” he said. “That’s my other sister’s name.”

  “Where’s Quest now?” Seldom asked.

  The other children were listening too.

  “I don’t know where she is,” Diamond said. “She promised to stay close, but she was hungry . . . and that was before the attack.”

  Bountiful had recovered most of its trim. People who couldn’t work were sitting on the shop floor. A couple of the crew members were digging into one of the storerooms, working to assemble and inflate one of the little airships.

  Merit yelled at them, and he tried to stand.

  “Don’t,” Nissim said. “Let the leg rest.”

  Somewhere in the mayhem, his left knee had been wrenched. Even with adrenalin quickening his blood, Merit had trouble coping with the pain.

  Pointing at the storeroom, he said, “There isn’t time for cleverness. Tell them.”

  “Okay,” Nissim said. “But what good can we do?”

  “Deploy crash chairs. And find a working receiver, get an open line to the bridge.”

  The Master nodded, and in a moment of genius, he kicked Karlan.

  “Get up and help me,” he said.

  Karlan cursed. But a moment later, with the weariest of groans, he stood and started walking.

  Diamond had stopped talking about sisters, but he hadn’t quit thinking about them. One glance at his big eyes said as much.

  “And what does Quest look like?” Elata asked.

  “Anything she wants,” Diamond said, delighted. “She shapes the body she needs, or she peels away everything to become small.”

  “What about Divers?” asked Seldom.

  A different siren began to sound, spreading through the ship with a rhythm that Merit knew too well.

  “Fire suits,” he shouted to Nissim and Karlan. “Unpack all of them, now.”

  The crew from the storeroom came running, throwing themselves into the task. And the three children continued to sit on the floor, not calm and not even a little relaxed; but they acted as if time didn’t matter, as if their conversation could be cut off anywhere and resumed at some later, better moment.

  Good was sitting between Diamond’s legs, and he dropped his head whenever he heard the wings approaching, as if that would make the machines miss. Suddenly he lowered his head farther than ever, and the children and even Merit did the same. A pair of wings roared past, probably embarking from High Coral Merry on their way out to shoot at List’s fleet.

  “Divers,” said Seldom, holding to the topic.

  “She’s like a giant papio,” Diamond said. “Quest doesn’t dare get close to the reef. The wilderness is too thin and high, and she might be seen. But from a distance, once, she saw Divers all alone.”

  “You’re sure it was her,” said Elata.

  “She’s huge. As big as a big room,” Diamond said. “And she had hurt herself on the coral. That’s what Quest saw, and that’s what she showed me.”

  The other children nodded.

  “I saw her bleeding, and then it was healed. Like me, and like King too.”

  “Quest is the same as you two?” asked Seldom.

  “But she’s even more powerful than us.”

  Diamond looked giddy and sick, joyous and ready to collapse. A father knew how to read his son’s face, and Merit had only a little trouble piecing together the clues. Putting an arm around the boy, he said, “Maybe we should stop talking. Save our strength.”

  But the boy had to tell him one last wonder. “Her blood was red. I saw that. It was red and shiny just like mine.”

  Nissim dragged up shiny fire suits, looking like flattened bodies. Karlan was standing at the edge of the shop floor, one giant arm holding a strap so that the big body could lean into the open, affording him a better view of the world.

  Merit fought his leg until he was standing.

  The suits came in various sizes, few able to fit anybody properly. Diamond found the smallest two and gave them to his friends, and while Elata dressed, Seldom said, “You can’t let yourself burn. Even if you healed, that would be awful.”

  “I’ll wear something big and share it with Good.”

  Good jumped when he heard his name.

  The crash chairs were built into the long back wall, and everyone would sit with the wall on their right, backs to the bridge. It took several recitations to dress and get into position. Merit wished he could help more, and he was glad not to be tempted. He claimed a chair behind his son, and Diamond turned and looked back at him. But the face was working to smile, the last of the genuine joy being spent.

  As promised, the oversized suit had room for a monkey. But the animal had his own plan, climbing into a high cupboard filled with tools that were quickly flung across the shop, leaving an empty volume that was dark and cool when the door was secured behind him.

  Outside, coming too slowly and too late, were a squadron of whiffbirds. But the at least wings had stopped flying close, making the world quieter when the final siren came to life—a bright screeching roar warning of an imminent collision.

  Karlan was last to claim a crash seat, but he didn’t bother with the undersized suits.

  Nissim was behind Merit, struggling with the clips on his various belts.

  Bountiful’s engines screamed, begging for speed. Then they suddenly fell silent, and Elata asked, “What’s that mean?”

  “We’re going into reverse,” Karlan shouted. “Kill some momentum before we smash into the reef and die.”

  The airship jumped, passing from the open air into the confused breezes above the coral. Merit looked out the missing doors, glad for the pressure of the belts and sitting close enough to his son to touch him, waiting for smart words to come to mind—a last thought before everybody but Diamond was cooked to death.

  That’s all that seemed possible just then.

  And then a papio appeared, galloping down the hallway and into the shop. The man was using an arm and both legs to run, and under the other arm was an insulated box bound tight with cords covered with various pillows pulled from various beds. The stranger ignored everybody else, sprinting to the first missing door and grabbing the same strap that Karlan had held, eyeing distances and speed before very carefully flinging the box into the open air.

  Merit looked ahead, checking on Diamond.

  His son had dipped his head, and his father couldn’t be certain, but Diamond looked as if he was crying.

  Then the old slayer looked at the open door and the papio standing with the strap in hand, and suddenly the papio was off the floor and rising, caught up in some fantastic gust of wind that was visible for a moment. It looked like a quivering mass of hard gray smoke, and whatever it was carried the papio up the side of the ship, out of sight, so suddenly that it seemed as if the man had been imagined, had never been.

  Bountiful’s engines coughed and returned, propellers aiming for a hard reverse.

  The great ship slowed noticeably, and it plunged harder.

  Merit hoped for a valley, flat-bottomed and relatively safe. But then he saw a ridge of coral edging towards them, lifting higher as they dropped . . . and to his son, to everybody, he shouted, “Wait for us to stop, then run!”

  The collision was abrupt, and it was softer than he had any right to expect. Grinding roars ended with a merciless jerk of corona bones and lightweight alloys. In
an instant, the bottom section was torn free of the half-deflated bladders. The shop and hallway, cabins and galley were lodged inside a long crevice, and they stopped moving while the rest of the ship found itself lighter again, leaping high before shredding and collapsing, the engines igniting a wealth of hydrogen in a scorching blaze that even at a distance felt like the world had been shoved inside a hot angry oven.

  Screams came from everyone, and then silence.

  Merit couldn’t say when he got to his feet or if there was pain. But he was mobile enough to run, and what he did first was unfasten Diamond’s belts and then the other children’s. The knee didn’t complain until they were out on the barren, eroded coral, and he was counting every head, not believing the number but still thinking that this was so much better than he dared guess. Karlan’s hair was burnt, and maybe some flesh. And Nissim had gotten only one belt fastened, and now he was bent double and looking sick. Bountiful’s bridge and upper quarters were destroyed, the wreckage scattered along the higher portions of the ridge. The various fires were awful but growing weaker, and Merit wished the crew were alive, and he was thinking about Fret . . . and that’s when Seldom asked somebody, “Did you see him die?”

  See who die? Merit thought of Good, but the monkey was here too.

  “Something grabbed him and took him,” Seldom shouted.

  “That’s what I saw,” Elata said. “Was it real?”

  “What was real?” Diamond asked, stepping out of his fire suit.

  “That papio man,” Seldom explained. “When we got over the reef, he threw that box out the door. And then . . . ”

  “Your sister picked him up,” said Elata.

  “It had to be Quest,” Seldom said.

  “She was going to eat him,” Elata said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Seldom said, shaking his head. Those kinds of thoughts troubled him.

  “Where did you see Quest?” Diamond asked.

  “I didn’t,” Seldom said.

  “She was higher on the ship, riding on the bags.” Elata said the words and then believed them, pointing up the long slope.

  Diamond turned, and after a moment of saying nothing, he began to run toward the brilliant blue fires.