Horizon Beta

by D. W. Vogel

  The Master clicked out our instructions. “Waterbugs. Most.” This time each of us had a large basket to put our catch into, instead of a circle scraped into sand like on the beach.

  I was first into the water, taking a huge breath as I dove. My strategy was to get far away from the other boys as fast as possible. The waterbugs we were collecting would scuttle away into cracks on the river’s floor as soon as they saw our lights. The more boys that tried to hunt them, the fewer there would be.

  I kicked away upstream, knowing I’d be tired after a long hunt. Easier to swim upstream now while I was fresh and drift back down with a full load.

  The stones in my bag lit my way where the river flowed under solid rock. I swam hard through the empty water. Up ahead was a small pool of light, with waving plant fronds anchored to the river’s bottom. The plants needed light to grow, and the water was dotted with them. Waterbugs loved them, and for that reason, so did I.

  One. Two. Three. Lightning-fast I grabbed them, feeling their hard carapaces wriggling under my hands. Into the bag at my waist.

  I rose to the surface, grabbing at the edge of the hole in the cave ceiling where the light shone through. It was just large enough to stick my face up and grab a few long breaths, which I did before diving back down.

  Another boy, Miguel, was searching through the fronds I had just hunted, and I swam on, farther upstream. The cave forked up ahead, and I knew anyone following me would turn right. The path down the left corridor was much longer to the next air hole, and no one but me would likely take the chance. I turned left and kicked against the current.

  Darkness and water. I knew each turn and counted them off in my head as I swam. Large boulder on the left. Deep hole on the right. Duck under the low pass. Around where the tunnel caved in last year. Right at the fork.

  Finally I saw the light, impossibly far away. Kick and glide, pull and stroke. My lungs burned.

  I popped up, gasping for breath. The current wanted to pull me back down the corridor, but I swam around to where a huge vine trailed from one of the holes in the roof down into the water and grabbed onto it, resting for a moment. This chamber was huge, with lots of openings to the sky. The air was full of screeching calls from inside the cave and outside. My sense of direction told me I was nearly halfway to the mountains, far out under the forest surrounding the grassy fields.

  It was a great place to hunt for waterbugs. All the sunlight and open air meant tons of plants grew all around the edges and bottom of the river. I dove down, darting in and out of the vegetation, snatching up bugs from every dark crevasse. Soon my bag was bulging with squirming bugs. I put even more in the bag that held the few glowstones I carried. After all my years in the water, I didn’t need the light, only the ballast, so there was room for more bugs.

  Stuffed to brimming, both bags tickled against my legs.

  A large, dark shape shadowed the water beneath me and I pushed myself out of the way as a river beast surfaced next to me. It puffed air out of its hairy face, ignoring me completely. The river beasts were huge, much longer and fatter than a Lowform. They had thick, short hair all over their bodies and soft, furry faces. They were strong swimmers with wide tails that propelled them through the water moving from one patch of vegetation to the next. I was always startled to run into one, but they were no danger to anyone, and often seemed playful when they encountered us.

  “No time to play today. I need to win this.”

  It puffed again and turned a baleful eye on me, whiskers fluttering, before it dove back down to browse on the plants in the bright shallows.

  Time to head back.

  The current carried me easily, reversing my course. I flowed along in the darkness until I reached the green glow of the entry chamber. Once there, I paused, looking around. A few of the boys were scrambling around the edges, too afraid to leave the safety of the known. They wouldn’t collect more than a couple of waterbugs if they were lucky.

  I spotted Chen, bobbing at the surface. From below, I tugged on his leg and he descended, cheeks puffed.

  From my overstuffed bag, I pulled handfuls of waterbugs, carefully pushing them into Chen’s bag before grabbing his hand and pulling him to the surface.

  We scrambled out of the water and pulled our bags up to the baskets. Each waterbug had to be smashed on the head with a rock so it wouldn’t scuttle out of the basket. It was messy work, but by the time I was done, my basket was full.

  “Thanks, Noah. I owe you.” Chen smashed the bugs I’d given him with a grin.

  We were each only allowed one dive for this challenge, and I was almost the last one back. Once my bugs were dead, I scanned the boys, each standing next to their baskets. Gil was there, with what looked like only three or four bugs. Chen had more, and I grinned at that.

  Everyone was back except Miguel. He was a strong swimmer, and my heart beat faster with every minute he didn’t return. There were so many dangers in the river. It was easy to get lost in the dark, underwater caves. Some of the passages ended in tunnels too small to swim through. If you swam down one of those and realized there was no way out, you might not have the strength to swim back.

  I clicked to the Masters. “Miguel lost. I find.”

  They clicked negative.

  We waited.

  I tried again. “Miguel lost. I go.”

  Negative.

  Chen shivered next to me, rubbing his wet arms. “He should be back by now. Maybe he’s in one of those caverns you told me about.”

  “Maybe.” I watched the water’s surface, flowing by in the dim green light.

  I appealed one more time to the Masters. “Miguel good Diver. Lots of bugs. I find.”

  They conferred silently for a moment, then clicked. “Yes.”

  I dove straight in. Miguel had been searching at the fork upstream. He wouldn’t have followed me to the left, and if he had, I’d have passed him on the way back. He had to have turned right. There were a lot more air holes on that path, but none led to anything as big as my favorite hunting cavern.

  Halfway to the next air hole, I saw him. The light from his glow bag lit his face from below. He bobbed in the middle of the water column, anchored to one of the waving fronds that had become tangled in his carry bag. His eyes were open and sightless.

  I pulled at the bag, tearing the fronds until he was free, and grabbing his limp arm. He floated along behind me as I darted down the tunnel. When I reached the cavern, the other boys helped me pull him out of the water. We beat on his chest and pushed water out of his stomach, but his eyes stayed fixed and open and he took no breaths. After a few minutes the Masters clicked at us to stop.

  One of them picked Miguel up in its huge claws and carried him up out of the chamber. The rest of us watched in silence.

  “Carry food,” the other Master clicked, and we all picked up our baskets of bugs.

  I won the day’s diving with the most bugs in my basket.

  We left Miguel’s empty basket sitting alone in the dim green cavern.

  Chapter 5

  Noah

  I did not sleep well the night Miguel died. He had been one of our bunkmates since we were taken from the Mothers’ Hall over ten years ago. We had trained together, talked late into the night together, laughed at silly things together, and dreamed together of our futures. He never wanted to be anything but a Diver. Didn’t aspire to Queen’s Service, like I did. Miguel was a friend, and the empty corner where he usually slept echoed every breath I took.

  My dinner of green soup and one of the bugs I’d harvested lay solid in my stomach.

  We’d had empty corners before. Sometimes boys just disappeared. Men, too. On the rare occasion when someone disobeyed an order from a Master, or strayed into a forbidden area of the Hive, more often than not, they would just disappear. The Hive had no place for anyone that wasn’t a perfect part of our shared home. We never mourned those we lost like that. The Masters knew what was best, and how
to keep us safe from Lowforms that couldn’t follow the rules.

  “Hey, Noah, you awake?” Chen whispered from his place on the hard floor next to me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I thought about it. I knew he was asking because I had been the one to pull Miguel’s lifeless body from the water. It wasn’t the first time I had seen a dead body. There had been other Divers over the years that stayed down too long or came up too fast. They gurgled and screamed, doubled over in pain, clawing at the water’s surface. If we got to them in time, they usually died some days later. If we didn’t, they would sink beneath the waves, and eventually parts of them would wash up on shore, having provided meals for all the things that dwelled in the sea. We take from the ocean, and it demands payment from us. We knew the risk.

  But this was Miguel. And that was the right word, wasn’t it? It WAS Miguel. He was no longer part of our present, or our future. Everything Miguel had been was now in the past. That transition was what ate at me that sleepless night.

  “Yeah,” I replied to Chen. “I’m okay.”

  Poor Miguel. He should never have ventured so far from the entry pool. If he hadn’t been so determined to do well in the Ranking, he would still be alive tonight.

  With the Masters, there was no question of who did what. They were born for their tasks, and each one had the tools from the time they emerged from their pupal stage. Diggers had huge foreclaws for gouging out the deep tunnels that crisscrossed under the Hive. Builders had great, gaping mouths which they filled with dirt and wood from the forest, chewing the mass into a paste which hardened into the towering walls that protected us. Soldiers emerged with wicked sharp pincers on their forelegs, and the paralyzing, venomous tail spikes. Every Master knew what it was from the moment it popped out of its cocoon. Only Lowforms had to struggle so hard to learn our place. Miguel was right to give his all. I just wished I’d taken that tunnel. Maybe I could have found him in time.

  In the morning we slurped down our breakfast and assembled in a corridor at the edge of the Lowforms’ permitted area

  One by one, a Master took us into a room. Those of us left outside timed the one inside by the fading of a glowstone. Each boy got the same amount of time in the room, and when one was finished, the Master would send him away so that he couldn’t talk to the rest of us. We had no idea what was in the room. Our numbers dwindled until only a few of us were left in the dimming glow.

  The Master clicked at me. “Now. You.”

  I jumped up and followed it into the corridor. We made several turns, which I noted absently, trotting along behind the Master. This was one of the smaller Master Soldiers, more recently emerged and still in an immature molt. Its carapace would crack as it grew a new one inside, over and over until it achieved its final, massive size. For now, when it stood on its hind legs, its mouth was even with mine.

  We arrived at the opening to a room. It was brightly lit with fresh stones, but I couldn’t see inside past the Master.

  “Go. Build. Fast.”

  The Master stepped back and I scuttled into the room, following the direction of its front leg gesture.

  Build? Build what? We weren’t Builders. The Masters built the Hive. Female Lowforms wove baskets and clothing. What was I supposed to build?

  The room’s floor was littered with unfamiliar objects. I glanced back at the Master, who stood in the doorway watching me. Build what?

  I crouched down and examined the nearest piece. It was made of hard, smooth metal, a large round disk with a hole in the center. There were smaller holes around the edges. The same metal edged the huge vats of algae that made up our food, strong and dark, non-reflective. It made a flat sound when I tapped my fingernail against it.

  The other objects were even stranger. There was a metal tube, as big as the soft, colorful tubes in the sea that had long, feathery gills to sweep the water but would retract if a Diver swam too close. When I held this heavy thing up in front of me, I could see a faint reflection in it, of my own puzzled face, and the expressionless Master behind me.

  Build?

  I looked back at the disk. The hole in the center looked about the same size as this tube. I experimented for a moment, pushing the two together, until I was rewarded with a satisfying click. The two pieces were joined into one, a disk with a tube sticking out the top. Had I done it? A glance back to the Master said no.

  What else was there?

  The next piece was large and flat, covered in some kind of cloth, with a thick weave and dull colors. The bottom of the piece was made of the same smooth metal as the disk, and it had a small hole in the middle. That hole clicked nicely into the tube on the disk. Put together and set upright, it made a small platform, with the woven side up.

  There was another large piece, nearly identical to the cloth-covered platform I’d just put together, but longer. It had no hole in it, but on closer examination, I noticed a flat piece of metal sticking out the bottom with four tiny holes. Further searching revealed a pile of tiny metal tubes with spirals etched into their length, and a small, flat line on the wider top.

  What were these things? Where had they come from? And how much time did I have left?

  The Master in the doorway said nothing.

  Three more pieces sat on the floor. Two were the same; cloth-covered and oblong, and one was different, a long metal stick with a hard yellow end that fit perfectly in my hand. The tip of the stick was flat.

  Like the ends of the tiny, spiral tubes. Which would maybe fit in the little holes.

  I looked all over the platform, searching for a place to put the tubes. On the underside of the platform, little holes matched up perfectly to the other pieces I had. I laid the platform on the side, and held the largest piece up to the holes that fit. The tiny tubes fit into the holes, and when I pushed the stick into the flat groove in the tube, it was obvious that it got tighter when I spun it in one direction.

  How much time was left? Had I been in this room forever?

  I matched up the other pieces on each side of the platform and attached them the same way. It looked funny like that, so I flipped it back up onto the circular base.

  Of course. It was meant for a Lowform to sit on. After a quick glance at the Master, I tried it out. The strange cloth was surprisingly soft when I sat on it, and my arms rested naturally on the two side pieces. Who had made this amazing thing? Was this the only one? I’d never seen anything like it.

  The Master in the doorway clicked at me. “No-build.” It meant for me to take it apart.

  As I reached for the stick, I thought about the object, taking it apart piece by piece. Had I done it right? Was I the fastest to put it together? Would it be enough? I placed each piece back where I’d found it, setting the room for the next boy. If only I could tell Chen about it . . . give him an idea of what he was supposed to make. But he was smart. Probably smarter than me. He’d figure it out.

  I followed the Master away from the chamber, and sat outside in the sun, waiting for the rest of the boys to finish the challenge.

  In just a short while, we’d know.

  Chapter 6

  Noah

  Chen didn’t figure it out. We whispered about it when he came outside, waiting for the last boy to finish his time.

  “I froze,” he said, sitting on the ground on the flat, rocky patch between the Hive and the beach with his head in his hands. “I could sort of see what I was supposed to do, but every time I picked something up, I just kept looking at the Master in the doorway. I got the tube on the disk, but the stick-thing just didn’t make any sense. It seems so obvious now.”

  “It will be all right,” I said. “You did well enough at everything. And you’re a great gardener. The Masters know that. I think you’ll get it.”

  We waited forever, as the afternoon sun fell behind the massive Hive. A hot wind still blew in from the sea, and the screeching cries of little insects filled the air. Ar
ound us, Masters and Lowforms scurried, doing their daily tasks. A group of Soldiers exited the Hive, heading out on a patrol. There were two Lowform Runners with them, and they filed along up the beach. I watched them until they were out of sight.

  Finally the last boy came up. I could tell from his face that he hadn’t figured out how to build the thing. Was I the only one?

  Across the rocks I could hear Gil boasting. I wasn’t the only one. He built the Lowform seat as well. One other boy, Jerome, seemed to have gotten it most of the way finished. Everyone else had either choked under the pressure, or been totally baffled about how the parts fit together.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe I’ll get it.

  All of the younger boys trooped out and formed a circle around us. I’d done this every year since I was taken out of the nursery, watching the older boys learn their fates. Fifty or sixty kids moved into silent order, with us in the middle. Three of the Masters scuttled out of the Hive and approached our little group, cutting through the circle of younger boys. We all jumped up and stood at attention. The Masters stood with their hind ends toward the sun, and I had to squint against the fiery sky to see them. My eyes burned.

  “Rank finished,” the center one clicked. “Jobs.”

  One by one they clicked out our names. Three of the boys ended up as Cleaners. They rushed inside to join the ranks of men who hauled waste from the Hive, both Lowform and Masters’, and dragged it out to the sea. It was hard work, but they would grow strong. Two were named as Runners. This was odd, as Gil had beaten both of them in the footrace. Their chests puffed with pride as they strutted into the Hive. Soon they’d leave with Soldiers. If they were lucky, they’d come back with them. If not, they’d give their lives in service to the Hive. Ultimately, we all would.