The shop... the shop...
The fires burned inside the work shop too.
The smell of charred cherry wood floated down to him.
No... no...
One hand reached back to his searing head. His fingers touched something that didn't feel like hair. He drew it back, charred bits clinging to the skin. His other hand tried, reflexively, to squeeze itself into a fist. But it couldn't close, because there was another hand inside his own. He rolled to his side.
"Belle!"
He pushed himself up, glass crunched under his kneecaps.
"Belle!"
The sounds of people shouting and scrambling outside, the crackling of fires, the crash of debris smashing into... something... it all vanished. Things fell silent on the chair makers ears. The glowing blaze and the smoke outside and inside and the screams and the rising fires all around and the falling fires from the sky went silent. Went blank.
He rolled over to his front. He pushed himself up and knelt. Coughing, choking, big, callused hand still closed around the smaller one inside it, he sat back on his heels, splinters and glass and digging in behind his knees, into his thighs, into his heels. A sound came out of his mouth that wasn't a cough, wasn't a scream. A pained and painful moan his own ears didn't even hear.
"Belle..."
The white hair was gone, burned off her head, which was tilted at an odd angle.
There was nothing living in that body.
The chair maker clutched the hand in his.
Outside, the night glowed. The flames lit up the burning rubble. It looked like an earthquake had rocked the city.
It looked worse through the professor's cracked glasses.
He'd dropped them, recoiling at the explosion, and now one lens had a thick crack running halfway across his vision. Out on the street, it didn't matter much: everything was fractured.
Jostled by the fleeing people in the street, the professor bumped railings and storefronts as he stumbled away towards the bridge out of the city. Uninjured in the first explosion and the second and unharmed by the raining debris, he was now bruised and bloodied by his own clumsy flight. He caught his shoulder on the corner of a building and stumbled again. And again. He shivered at the heat coming from inside the buildings to his left and flinched from the rain of fiery bits from above.
The professor jerked to a stop.
No...
His sleeve had caught on a stick of a debris, hanging from one of the burning structures. He shivered again, and winced at the light – the unnatural firelight against the darkening sky. So close. So close. The old neighborhoods beside the docks were the last before the bridge. He was almost there. He fumbled, struggling to free himself and keep a hold of the briefcase tucked under his arm. It was only secured by one clasp, the other open, papers poking out. It slipped and he dug his elbow into the leather to keep it from falling. He tugged desperately at his sleeve, still caught on some broken piece of something. The case slipped again.
No! Stop!
Almost crying, he squeezed his elbow harder against the briefcase to hold it and tore at his sleeve. As the fire burned hotter – or maybe that was his own blood running terrified in his veins – he jerked his arm free from the debris.
It was a sign, shaped like a throne, hanging lopsided in front of a doorway, hanging by one chain. The other chain hung down to the ground, broken. The professor glanced inside. The fire didn't look nearly as close as it had when he was stuck. The far wall smoldered and dripped. The smell of plastic, thick in the air, was diluted here. Mixed with another scent...
Charred wood...? Wood!
Even in the older sections of the city with houses built before the drought, most buildings weren't made out of real wood – most bits having been sold off years ago. The professor couldn't help it, he stood there, still holding onto his ripped sleeve, and breathed deep. The scent was unmistakable.
Then he choked.
The fire was moving fast.
The professor turned to leave, but paused as a white shock of hair caught his eye. On the far side of the ruined structure an old man sat while the house burned around him.
Fool!
He turned away again. One step, two steps. He followed the people moving further from the city, further from the burning and melting buildings.
A howl rose from the building behind him.
The professor turned back. Through the doorway he could see the old figure still sitting amid the rubble of his home, unmoving except for his lips which opened around a mournful wail. The professor looked back to the fleeing people, to the edge of the city, to the bridge that was so close.
The wail continued.
He sighed, then coughed as more of the smoke and acrid smell of burning plastic and wood filled his lungs. Then, covering his mouth with his torn sleeve, he turned away from the bridge and made his way to the burning workshop.
Somewhere behind him there was singing. Faint, wordless singing.
Something crashed.
The door? The door. It had burst open. Or fallen. Or exploded. The chair maker didn't look and didn't care. He closed his lips over the escaping sob-moan, the pained animal sound. The air was thick with burnt smells: the charcoal of his work, his livelihood going up in flames, the varnish that had shone so brightly over the cherry, the chemicals of the non-wood compounds in the walls, the floor, everything that wasn't organic and everything that was, all smoldering. A cough forced it's way through his lips. Saliva flew between his clenched teeth.
His house was melting. Melting and burning and crashing.
Someone shouted. A man. By the door. Or what might have been the door or might have been an empty hole where the door was. The chair maker did not look.
Another shout. Then hands.
Persistent hands grabbed the chair maker's shoulders from behind. The man said something. The chair maker did not hear and did not listen.
"No."
It said something else. He did not listen.
"No."
The hands pulled at him. They dragged him Then two arms were around him and the arms dragged him up.
"No. Belle..."
He was such an old man! He tugged helplessly at the delicate hand that was still in his own, pulling himself back down to the floor. He was bent as the arms behind him tried to pull him up and he clung to the pale hand. But the arms were so strong! Or they were stronger than the old chair maker. He was so old... The arms were pulling him, pulling him up, pulling him up off the floor, then he was almost standing and the pale hand in his was slipping.
"No. Belle.."
The arms pulled him backwards, backwards still bent towards the floor, backwards to the workshop door, and the pale hand was slipping and only it's fingers were in his now.
"No."
The pale hand fell with a thunk.
His own hand was empty and the hands behind him were still pulling him up, pulling him back, pulling him away to the door.
No. The chair maker struggled.
"Come on!"
"What?" The chair maker looked around. There was a man behind him, the man that the arms belonged to. "What are you doing?"
"Come on!"
"No, I don't think–"
"For fuck's sake, jackass! Get moving!"
"I have to wait... wait for my wife... I'm sorry, I don't know who you are."
"I'm leaving. That's who I am. I'm leaving and so are you. We are leaving! Now. Let's go!"
"No I have to wait... my wife is here..."
"Move old man! Someone will pull her out later. Come on."
"I think–I think she needs help."
"You need help now. You. You need to go!"
"No."
"There will be burials later. Come on!"
Burials.
The chair maker doubled up. His lungs spasmed, the acrid air forced it's way through his lips again. He coughed and coughed. He couldn't pull away from the arms that were pulling him away from his wife. One step. Anoth
er. Another. He bumped into something. A voice was babbling beside him.
"That's it now. Watch yourself. I think your sign's broken. Caught myself on that earlier. Okay, okay. Come on now."
Chapter Ten
in which there is news...
Sweat shone on the news anchor's forehead. Dark circles hung under her eyes. Her face was worn. There were lines on it that Harper had never seen in images of Union women. Deep lines marked the sides of her mouth, thinner ones ran along her forehead and her eyes looked like they had been scrunched up for too long.
Like an old farmer's wife.
The anchor woman's hands moved to her hair. She looked down, she looked to the side, she gazed over the camera with blank, confused eyes. She kept talking.
"...total numbers unknown. Union officials on the periphery report thousands missing. Communications to the embassies are slowed to a near standstill, lines flooded with calls of Union citizens asking after relatives, friends traveling on Skyland. Uh, um... "
The anchor's eyes blinked. Fast. They flicked over the camera. To the side. Back to the camera. One finger wiped quickly across her nose, then jerked back down to the table. She looked down, back up, all the while talking, talking, talking.
"...services in almost every chapel, the faithful keeping vigil all over the Union..."
In the background of the broadcast, an image showed hundreds of people clothed in black, holding candles, holding hands, holding pictures. The eerie music of the Infinite Space whispered under the news anchors voice. Harper flinched.
The image disappeared from the projection as the woman kept talking, but the singing rang in Harper's head, even though the observation deck was silent. The song-wail, the prayers of the Infinite Space had been stuck in his ears since the ship's own vigil had ended. They were like Space, those prayers – continuing, wordless expanses of voice. Alien. But now the worshippers on the ship were silent.
Harper was glad. He didn't like space, and Infinite Space was worse. The thought of anything infinite made his stomach turn. Just the thought of all that nothingness going on and on and on and on... But he wasn't looking at the endless black spaces beyond the observation deck window now. He was just looking at the news projected on it.
"...speculation that this is the work of the Sky sects native to Skyland. While Skyland is the heart and origin of the religion, attention has also turned to the other periphery planets on the edge of the Union. Union troops stationed on bases around the periphery have been put on highest alert..."
The broadcast had been going on for hours.
Someone had succeeded where he failed.
Abomination. Abomination.
Harper repeated his father's words in his head. He tensed his eyebrows, scrunching his forehead. He could feel his nostrils flare as he forced his lips into a deep scowl. He crossed his arms, planted his feet apart and tried to snarl at the broadcast on the observation deck window and the endless Space beyond. The habit of the Sky Reverend's son had not expired when his body's clock hit zero.
"...Union ships headed out to Skyland this morning. Special troops from planets on the periphery have already moved in..."
"Don't."
Harper jumped as Zara's voice whispered beside him.
"You look like him, you know," she said.
He stared at her and shook his head. I know. He didn't say anything.
"You do," Zara whispered.
Harper turned away from the news projected on one corner of the ship's vast window. Zara's eyes flicked away from it and locked on his. He looked at her and tried to block out the voice of the news behind him.
She was so clean!
Her dirty long-necked tunic, and Harper's too, had been abandoned in favor of the light cotton outfit that the Union worker on their level had kindly offered. The white shirt and pants were dull and shapeless but they were not smeared with waste or dust or sweat. Her black hair was combed and washed. It caught the glow of the ship's lights and threw it back, dancing. He tugged absently at one of the locks.
"Harper?" Her eyes were no longer on him, they rested somewhere over his shoulder looking in the direction of the news projection.
"Hm?"
"Do you think this means... we can't go back?"
"To Skyland?"
"Yes. Back home."
"Why? Do you want to?"
"No, I mean, not now. I know we won't see it for... a long time. I know that. I just mean... sometime. Do you think we even could? If–if we wanted to?"
"I don't know."
He really didn't. No one he'd ever known in his life in the fields had ever been off of Skyland, let alone to Union Proper. He did not know what awaited them. He did not know what fortune they would find there. He did not know how their lives would turn, how they would be filled, how they would end up. Would they ever have the means to return? Would they have the time? Would they even be allowed? Harper did not know.
He realized that, without saying it, he had come to think of theirs as a one-way trip.
"Would you want to? If you could, would you?" he asked.
"Yes. Wouldn't you?"
"Hm." I am a traitor... an abomination. Like the city, like the Union. Could I return?
Harper's scowl deepened, the furrowed brows clenched even tighter together, his frown deepened – the grimace now directed not at the broadcaster but his own troubled thoughts. He wondered about going back, but he wondered more about whether he even wanted to. Or whether he would ever want to. He really hadn't thought about it before. At all.
Stop.
Now was not the time think about it. He looked down and met Zara's eyes, looking up at him, wondering.
"Stop it," she whispered, echoing his own thoughts. She reached a hand up and stroked his face, he felt her fingers run over the hard lines of his scowl, his eyebrows still knitted together in attempted anger. "Stop it... you look like him..."
"He is my father."
"Yes, your father. Not you."
Harper closed his eyes. He tried to relax his face. He shook his head, trying to loosen up the muscles in his neck, his cheeks, around his eyes. He rested his chin on the black hair, so soft, so clean, so–
"Harper Fields?"
He opened his eyes. "Hm?"
A man stood behind Zara, looking Harper right in the eye. He was dressed in heavy cloth the color of dirt, but the clothes were very clean, pressed with fold lines still in them. There was a black cord around his neck, but he was not one of the Infinite Space passengers. Harper looked around, to his right and left there were two others dressed in the same dirt-brown suits. Harper turned his head further and caught more figures out of the corner of his eye, behind him. They all stared – hard, unmoving stares fixed on him and Zara.
"Harper Fields?"
"Who are you?"
"Unit 721. We came aboard from the–"
"Came aboard? When?" He hadn't even realized they'd stopped. The ship was huge, aside from the softly rumbling engines, he could not feel any movement.
"Five minutes ago. Mr. Fields–"
"You're soldiers?" Union soldiers...
"Yes."
"What do you want?"
"To talk to you. Are you Harper Fields?"
"How did you find me?"
"That's a yes, then? It wasn't difficult. You are registered as farmers. There aren't many of you on board."
"Of course."
"Come with us please."
"Why?"
"Harper..." Zara's whisper made him looked down at her. She pushed a little against his arms, which he'd reflexively tightened around her. He released them just a bit and looked back up at the soldier. He could feel a little bit of the scowl returning to his face. He shook his head.
"No. Look, I don't know why–"
"Come with us. Please. This is not a request."
What do they want? Harper felt his brows tighten even more and his frown deepen. He did not need to pretend to be annoyed this time.
"Harper
..." Zara's whisper floated up to him again. Then she turned to the soldiers. "What do you want?"
"We just want to ask him some questions ma'am. That's all. He'll be fine with us."
Right.
Harper did not share his father's hatred of those outside the farms of Skyland, but he didn't trust them either. Still, it did not look as if there were much choice. And better he go now, than risk violence here with Zara at his side.
"Just me?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
He let his arms drop to his sides. Zara took a half-step away, but stood on tip toes to look him in the eye. For a second she rested her cheek against his, then brushed a kiss across his jawbone and stepped away.
"It's okay..." she crooned.
A reassurance to herself or to him, Harper didn't know.
Chapter Eleven
in which there is tea...
The tiny ships looked like ants. Next to the towering ships of the city they were like toys, like a child's flight–training toy, powerless, slow, barely able to get off the ground. But they weren't. They'd flown in like bullets from space, like an alien hail of bullets.
And the chair maker watched.
Not through the window. Through the tea.
The cup on the window sill was worn, like everything on this planet, the china roughened by sand. The city lights glinted off the brown water inside, and in the glint, the hail of bullet-ships was reflected.
And the chair maker watched.
The tugging on his arm was getting really rather annoying.
"Your tea is getting cold." The professor was starting to sound like a toddler's school teacher – repetitious, dull, simple. "Your tea is getting cold."
The chair maker looked down at his elbow to the persistent hand tugging at his sleeve.
"I don't... I don't need it..."
"Yes, yes you do. Come on, now have a drink. You don't want to die of thirst now, do you? Not when you could be blown up now, eh?"
"I need to... I need to go..."
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