The Arched World

by Davi Cao

Angeline got a backpack made of honey, and a crown in no time. The little things spinning in her galaxy, she who also became a planet of that busy ecosystem, they filled her up with honey, using her storage capacity to become wiser. Angeline didn’t energize ous, she didn’t bring the ou.uo new participants, but still she grew their collective capacity by being able to carry stuff.

  “Get out of this, you’ve had enough of it!” John grabbed Angeline by the shoulder, forcing her out of the circle.

  “Angie, we’re worried about you, they’re trying to incorporate you into their madness.” Mary helped their leader.

  Removed by force from the circle, her grip shattered by military hands, Angeline staggered toward the rest of the group, waiting for her in the mist. The native humans kept spinning with a broken link until completing one full turn, to mark her absence, and them closed on itself again.

  “Is this the honey?” Malcolm jumped on Angeline as soon as she got close.

  “Yeah, I guess this is how they make it, and we’ve found a goldmine here, my friends.” John put Angeline’s arm on his shoulder to keep her up while she got back to reality.

  “Did you taste it, huh? Can we get some, uh, can we try it? I’m thirsty, I need it, I really do!”

  “Wait, let me check it first. Give me a glass or something.” John stared at Angeline's backpack.

  Malcolm picked his glass with the speed of a lighting, dropping it on the smooth floor and grabbing it back in no time. John picked it up and dipped it on Angeline’s backpack. It filled with honey, a thick viscous fluid with clots of its substance. He drank it with closed eyes in one long sip.

  “It’s good. Suit yourselves.” He nodded to the glass in his hand, dipping it in her crown to compare both contents.

  Mary, Malcolm, John, Angeline, and the rest drank from what she received from the native humans.

  “I could eat this forever without getting tired.”

  “Life is good, isn’t it? This is a wonderful place.”

  “I want more, though. Can we get it from the natives?”

  “It’s worth a shot. If they attack us or something, don’t worry, I’ll fight back.”

  Each expeditionary chose a native human and consumed his or her whole storage in the interval of minutes. Honey didn’t fill up one’s stomach, although it provided complete nutrition and satisfied thirst as well as hunger. They could have it forever unless pushed back by external forces.

  Angeline opened her Terran backpack to grab a pair of speakers, looking for Laura’s message for the times of temptation. Before she could set it to play, though, the tower stopped rising in the middle of the circling humans, a sign that all the honey had vanished. To have more, they’d have to wait for the ou.uo’s production.

  “Get away from the mist, out, out, let’s set camp outside.” John urged his crew away from the vanishing dust.

  “It’s about time we tell the base of what we found, sir. I’ll put the sign in.” Mary followed the leader out.

  “You do that, yes. Malcolm, give Mary a hand. Send Laura our beacon, tell them we found our first honey.”

  Mary unfolded the antenna she brought in her backpack, sticking it on the floor with Malcolm’s help. She plugged the microphone in the radio apparatus and sent a message.

  “This is Mary Simmons from expeditionary crew number six. First honey village found, a one day walk from drop zone. We’re safe, met no hostility. We’ll camp until we hear from you. The beacon is here for tracking. Over.”

  “That’s great, Mary, now leave it there. We should fill our honey bags before leaving again, and we’d better not eat it all. It’s our food and water, remember that, everybody?” John opened the pack on the cart carried by Alice and Olin.

  Angeline stood still, her eyes fixed on the circle of native humans spinning in rarefied dust. She scrubbed her palms, she smelled them to taste the scent of native people still fixed on her skin. John took her crown off and removed her ou.uo-made backpack, leaving her naked with only her Terran clothing on.

  “Is that Ai.iA?” Colin said, walking toward the tower in the middle of the human circle.

  “I guess it is!” Dalana burst into laughing. “What are they doing?” She turned around to check on his surprise.

  “Are these things like... Building her? A bigger version of her?” Colin frowned, waving his ghost hands through the tower's waist rods.

  “Oh, a statue, maybe. It’s not a tower, it’s an image of Ai.iA, that's for sure. They’ve stopped, though, you see that? They’re only worried about making honey.” Dalana jumped high to check the humans' crowns.

  “Do you think they need the honey as building material?”

  “It looks like so, doesn’t it?”

  “Ah, they’ll have to pause, then, because John is coming to take more.”

  The expeditionary crew sided with the native people to collect the few drops of honey produced by the ou.uo, with bags over wheels behind them. Angeline raised her hand over the back of a dark-skinned woman entrenched in the big circle, but Mary slapped her wrist.

  “No, Angie! That’s dangerous for you. They’ll drown you in their trance and you’ll never want to leave from it. Focus on the honey.”

  “Sorry. It was nice to be with them.” Angeline caressed her wrist.

  “Yeah, but it’s nice to be with us too, so don’t fall for that.” Mary creased her forehead.

  Dalana wished for an inter-dimensional container attached to her finger. She dipped it in Mary’s bag, which hardly held an inch of honey, and put it in a multiversal distiller she created behind a mound.

  Honey seeped through its tubes and decomposed itself in a myriad of particles, all familiar to Dalana. It had strings filled with knowledge, indicating a world interwoven by minds. It wouldn't react to heat or electricity, for it only had a small foot on the physical world. Most of it found its solace between many kinds of dimensions, some tiny honey springs even suspicious about the Creators' realm. It traveled through all possibilities, and took its carers along.

  With the concept at hand, she thought about a fountain, a fountain of honey, with five orifices coming out from the ground surrounding Ai.iA’s tower. A large pool digging the ground, able to hold as much honey as all backpacks and crowns combined, with more coming out by the minute from the fountain. She imagined it and wished for it, materializing in front of the people.

  “What the hell...” John tripped on his wheeled bag with the fountain’s sudden appearance.

  “Run! Run!” Malcolm screamed, leaving his bag behind to take shelter at the tents.

  “Wait, it’s just honey! They’ve got much more than we thought! It’s an oasis.” Mary grabbed Alice’s sleeve before she could run.

  Angeline passed under a pair of holding native arms and knelt in front of the fountain’s pool. She dipped her finger in the liquid and drank from it.

  “It’s honey. A fountain of honey.” She then stood to get her bag with the crew.

  The ou.uo stopped producing honey and spun in unison in their orbits, their movement so synchronized and regular that for the first time they didn’t try to dodge the humans passing through their galactic disc.

  “Ouch! They’re attacking us, down, everybody down!” John crouched on the floor, hit on the forehead by a flying ou.

  “They’re not, they’re just not averting us anymore! Something happened!” Angeline yelled from behind the wall of native people.

  “Stay down, stay down!”

  The ou.uo saw infinity, they knew all the answers. Infinite honey in their area, the knowledge of a million humans combined in one tiny spot. It was too much for them, it meant a wealth beyond the scope of their own existences. They became drunk with it, snob with such much power.

  To complete their ultimate project, they needed less infinity than they already had. They made mistakes, the tower lacked in everything, it rose like a pale portrait of their goal. With infinite abundance, the answer revealed itself.

  A cloud of handlers
dove into the ground to grab pebbles, which they threw against feathers with enough precision to make them bounce and strike at rings, making dust that made heat as the main product. At their first strike, Angeline’s hair burned and she jumped in the honey pool.

  “They’ll cook us!” Malcolm screamed, pressing the burn on his cheek.

  “Out, out, abandon camp, leave the area, go, go,” John yelled, running toward the dark tower to help getting Angeline out. “Do you hear me? Run, get away from here, all of you.” He got to Mary, who had her face stuck on the floor.

  Another burst of heat struck at the ou.uo, hurting the expeditionary force with the fire of an oven. John fell on the tower, hitting its wall, his hands on his eyes.

  “Ah, I can’t see!” he shouted, darkness invading his sight, his mind, burning brain cells.

  “We have to get back, John needs us.” Angeline limped on her left foot, running to get away from the oven.

  “I can’t, it hurts too much! He’ll come to us if we scream, hey, John, over here, here, come, walk our way!” Mary yelled, dragging Angeline behind her.

  The ou.uo vaporized the tower. Ous spun so fast in the inner orbits as to become invisible, spilling the fountain’s honey high with every plunge, covering the native humans’ front with a wall of viscous fluids. Drops fell on their skins and healed their burns, while they kept spinning their circle of holding hands.

  “Look at what you’ve done! You went too far this time.” Colin watched the world crash upon people without action.

  “Oh no, oh no.” Dalana bounced in place, wailing with hands tight around her neck. “I didn’t want it to be like this, no, no!” She shook her whole body with eyes fixed at the fleeing people.

  Angeline stopped running and looked back when the noise of impact ended behind her. The honey wall collapsed, revealing a giant creature in the middle of the people’s circle. John squirmed with hands pressed against his cheeks, covered in blue, bathed by honey and dust, healed, staring at the monster rising in front of him.

  “He can see again! He’s not blind! John, John! Come back!” Angeline shouted, running toward him.

  “No way, Angie, get back here, look at that thing!” Mary held her friend’s wrist.

  The monster had two square heads and ten side rods around her waist. Two bendy arms came from between both heads and a thin long limb with a rounded tip sprouted from under her, which she used to punch in fast pace against the floor to keep her afloat. A giant Ai.iA.

  The creature activated her bottom limb and raised her body twice higher than her own height. With every punch below her body, the ground ceded, growing a hole.

  Ai.iA grabbed John with one of her thick arms, then spun around herself with all ten side rods extended, grabbing all humans circling her. She extended her other thick limb toward Angeline and her friends, stretching it without limits, covering their distance with the easiness of a walking pace.

  Colin raised a mountain in front of the group then used its mass to strike at the arm, while making the path ahead of Angeline shine with urgency. They ran for it, ignoring the battle at their backs, and when Ai.iA insisted in overcoming the small mountain, Colin made it swallow her limb. The monster shook herself until managing to break its bond, but instead of going after the fleeing humans, she retracted it and kept on digging.

  Holding all native humans and John, who yelled for mercy, she punched the floor and disappeared into the hole she bore with continuous strikes. The ou.uo went along with the captured humans, excited about the trip. At last they would meet their notorious neighbor, the giant monster trapped inside the col.loc, the only other source of conscience with which its infinite wisdom could share thoughts and experiences.

  “They took John, they took him, I saw it, oh...” Angeline ran after Mary with closed eyes.

  “We have to get out of here! Come, Angie, don’t despair, we must keep going.” Mary covered her friend with a tight embrace.

  “No, we have to stop, we have to follow him, no, don’t leave him die like this!” Angeline shook her head between Mary's hands.

  “Shush, there’s nothing we can do, let’s go, we have to get back to the origin.”

  Colin followed them, adjusting his stairs and the bridge to the col.loc’s excitement. Dalana stayed behind, peeking at the hole. Ai.iA disappeared in the depths of darkness, and the hole began to close.

  The fountain remained, spouting honey on the smooth floor. Dalana wished for a clean floor, rid of fountains and honey, and materialized it. The land returned to its earlier immaculate state. She saw Colin and the expeditionary force climbing the stairs toward the mountain top, and walked their way.

  ∙ 16 ∙ Cornucopia

  “So tell me, what did you learn from your doings?” Colin said, one brow raised to scrutinize Dalana, who walked behind the group of expeditionaries.

  “Honey fountains are not as good as I thought. Did you understand anything of what happened there?” Dalana put her hands in her front pocket.

  “Of course not. This place here makes no sense to me, and I feel nervous for seeing humans existing for such purposes.” Colin shrugged. “They did nothing but walking around and spinning while holding hands, and in the end, they were dragged underground. If it weren’t for your fountain, nothing of this would have happened, but it would still be strange.”

  “Strange is good, unless when people die because of it. You shouldn’t worry, Colin. I won’t make any other fountain like that in this world. It causes more hassle than it’s worth.” She bit her lips.

  “Thank you. Now we should focus on bringing more people in here to begin colonization. If they find other native humans circles, they can farm them to survive.”

  “Is this how you plan to use the vastness of these alien col.locs?” Dalana gasped at his tone, the darkness in her mouth mingling with that of her skin.

  “I’m in here to spread Terra’s word, Dalana, to make noise and drive Mae toward me.” Colin poked his chest with his index finger.

  “I thought you were using Laura to do that for you.”

  “That’s right. I’ll talk to her. Could you take care of our group for a while? I have to get back to New Terra and meet her.”

  “Can’t you do that from here? Don’t go. Create a drone in her place. Just think of it and wish for it. It will be the same.” Dalana looked down, pulling her pocket's flap.

  “Ok, I hadn’t thought of that. Go ahead, then, I’ll meet you when I’m done.”

  Colin stopped in the valley between stairs, watching Dalana follow the group. She nodded at him and touched his back, walking with the exaggerated swinging of her upper body. He imagined a drone equipped with audio and image sensors, a drone that would appear at Laura's place and send him data to the visor he’d wear. He wished for it, and it materialized.

  Goggles appeared on his face, like a virtual reality headset, and the first image he saw came as Laura in the kitchen, eating breakfast.

  “Good morning, Laura,” he said through the drone.

  “Oh, hello. You’re different this time. I heard that the expedition found a honey farm. Is everything alright?” she said, spreading butter on a slice of bread.

  “We had an incident a few hours ago. The farm is gone, John is dead. What’s left of the crew is getting back to the origin.”

  “That’s tragic. I’m praying for them. Did they give up of the mission already?” She widened her eyes, hands pressed on her cheeks.

  “It seems so. But they’re part of the first ones. Laura, you must speak to the world. You should call all nations to help occupying the lands. It’s doable, there must be many human villages in there, and once found, they can keep large populations by honey alone.”

  “I’ll try. Reaching the entire world is hard, though, without satellites. And people are starting to doubt me.”

  “Don’t worry, let’s make sure you reach out to everybody leaving no doubt about your holiness. I’ll make you speak from the skies.”

  Laura dr
ew her brows together, staring at the table. The bread's crust enticed her, crispy and warm, the scent of flour and milk sweeping through the kitchen. She ate it while her mind worked on her plans, nodding at her thoughts as they revealed their potential.

  In the blue of the day sky and in the darkness of the night, Laura’s face took over the world. She appeared through clouds, her eyes became brighter than the upper col.locs and the suns. People looked up and a huge screen dominated the view, the prophet of tradition spreading the word of her God. When she spoke, the air trembled and produced gushes of wind that blew trees and papers on the floor.

  “My dear ones, we found honey. Our expeditions are successful, they found precious goods on alien lands. Other people inhabit in there, native ones, our siblings of generations long gone, and it’s our duty to respect the sovereignty of their lives. But it’s unfair to allow them monopoly over such a marvelous substance as the honey stored on their backs and heads. We found out that it’s possible to cooperate with them, and through this commerce we can restore the vigor of our world’s economy.

  “I call for the peoples of all nations and creeds to help me in occupying these new worlds. My company is calling for volunteers from every place. You’ll find wealth and adventure, you’ll help building a better future. Our first international brigade will depart from our contact point in five weeks. Anybody can join us.”

  Angeline found the origin's beacon before anybody else. She led the group through a landscape that had already transformed since their first passage, but the sensor in her hand beeped more often as they got closer to the point. After leaving the cratered area, they had to walk through smooth blue terrain unaided, for not even Colin remembered where they came from and could offer no help.

  “I don’t want to get back,” Olin said, approaching Angeline in a whisper.

  “Me neither, but we have no choice. Even waiting for the next approach will be risky, in our case,” Angeline said, her face reddened by the inclement sun shining above them.

  “That’s why we should look for more villages. We can survive forever with honey.”