Adlartok stood on a hill overlooking the graveyard where Meriwa said goodbye to mom and dad. Both had passed away several years back.
The sun glared from a blue sky as Airborne ships came and went, many of them now used by Walkers and their associates. Cupun and his mate reaped the benefits of a home-raising bee in the fields near the worm farms. But once they completed the house, he and Roxanne would join Adlartok and Jamison on another rescue mission. Ever since the merging of the races, reports of stranded humans came in often. Someone had to help.
Tulugaak had journeyed back down south. Although he favored the cold weather, he said the ice wasn’t yet the same as it had once been on several return visits. But he wasn’t alone. A few of the original clan had survived.
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Meriwa didn’t believe her parents lived in the ground. Neither had they ascended with the angels into the heavens, for angels, like other mutants, were merely genetically altered huma
Nukilik awoke to the rumble of a surface quake. Smoke and fire seeped through a splintered gap in the main living room floorboards, but most of the clashing came from the girl’s bedroom at the rear of the cabin. Pine logs along the east wall groaned as the wood twisted and then splintered free of the bindings. The rearmost section of the ceiling and roof heaved upward and then drooped but held. Icy winds rushed through fresh gaps in the sod insulation. Everything was breaking apart.“Essentials, nothing but essentials,” he shouted as his two daughters burst into the living room, already dressed and carrying outdoor clothing in hand. One tall and one short, they moved through the darkness like stick figures outlined by the red haze of an open fire pit.Nukilik pulled on his winter boots before standing. For a big man, he was quick, but his wife, Amka, was faster. She was already rushing through the open doorway to ensure the girl’s safety. The st
Bjorn awoke before the first glint of sunlight angled up from beneath Kabutar, the easternmost of the seven floating nests. Disorientation sent a wave of excessive sensory surges rippling along the pedicel of his antennae. Although now receding, the remnants of a tangled, irritating dream stirred in the back of his mind.Surface dwellers gathered before a waterfall cluttered with flowing symbols, calculations, and worms. Grass slimed over with yellowed muck splotching a circle of sunbaked dirt. Behind the cascading veil of oddities, a woman—his mother as best Bjorn could remember her—The reoccurring night-phantoms gave way to his anticipation of the coming events. Today was special. Night moisture lingered near and comforting, and Cloud’s gray honeycombs promised fair weather to Kabutar.Bjorn remained perched on the stiff, shiny curls of transport vines that served as a natural roost throughout the city. Gray and greenish shadows shi
Bjorn’s father, Captain Radoon Gydlin, head trades delegate to Below, was among one of the few citizens the imperial council authorized for negotiations with surface folk. Today the Captain would travel to Below. Today he would also introduce Bjorn to the process of trading. Bjorn had never been on one of his father’s trade journeys, not even when the Captain had but sailed to a neighboring nest. Just two seasons back, Captain Gydlin visited Ulou to meet Bjorn’s aunt and enjoy a festival. He had refused Bjorn an opportunity to partake in that journey. “Increased burden on the security team,” his father had said. “The intensity of current political disagreements stirs a strange and brooding rage between parties.” Bjorn flew on, pondering the angles of governmental disputes, the mystery of dreams, and wondering what might be yet to see in Below. Otherwise, he would have noticed the attack that came in from his rear. A shadow darted out from the above ri
Diving to the nearest base level, Bjorn hastened toward the docks. A crackle in the morning breeze flowed through the air. Another storm was near. Citizens clustered under shelters, taking cover from what could come. Massive long-sloped loading ramps descended in a spiral wave toward the outer edges of Kabutar. Hand trimmed by the city’s best carp-masters, the buoyant Oxygen Infused tube-vines could have taken any shape necessary, but the lower ramp’s design encouraged walking rather than floating. According to Bjorn’s father, Below’s air pressure made it impossible for Airbornes to hold aloft by pectoral alone. Thus, he needed to practice walking on unaided leg muscles. Horns signified the air fleet’s arrival. Departure would come quick enough. Even here on the outer edge of Cloud, some rain could fall. No one cared to labor in such slime. Hurrying along, Bjorn soon reached the dock’s bottom level. While angling away from the ramp, he noticed
As they neared the upper side of Silla gorge, Nukilik and his people marched single-file through a near-blinding downfall of rain and sleet. Complicated by icy mud-slicks, slush-bottom washouts, and high-heaped rockslides, the nasty goings never let up. The quakes were now far behind, but the associated sounds and effects had not ceased. At least the thunder and lightning had moved off into the distant sky. The path through the gorge’s higher portion should’ve been open, easy to pass through, and a bit of shelter from the storm. But at every new turn in the corridor, the natural rock formations with various overhangs had collapsed. Rock, mud, and clutter riddled the pathway. One major rockslide, in particular, forced Nukilik to consider turning back for a regroup. Instead, he called on little Meriwa’s uncanny ability to find solid ground amid the most slippery footing. She took them up and over, one angle at a time, never missing the right handhold and never trusting
From the command center on the Amera’s bridge, Captain Gydlin plugged into a mind-link and tapped a nearby point in the air. The ship started descending, retracting and storing the charging cables during the process. Without a link, Bjorn could not follow his father’s purposes, but he had read the working of air-ships in school. Electricity generated from wind turbines and frequent lightning clashes within Cloud charged a great bank of batteries located at the city's base near Mother Tree’s primary Kabutar trunk. From this source, air-ships, technology, and other machinery drew power. Hot air in balloons kept the wooden ships aloft, and a compressor expansion chamber in the vessel heated the air. Ballast blades and cool air intakes controlled rise or fall. Just in time, they were away from Mother Tree and Cloud. Back in Kabutar, a slow rain started falling. “Enjoy the view,” the Captain said. “You are free to roam.” He twitched his left pectoral fin,
The ship’s stern consisted of four decks, each smaller than the one beneath it. Bjorn caught up with his father on the third, in a meeting room attached to the captain’s cabin. “Why so many marines?” Bjorn stood in the center of a crescent-moon perch curved along the left bulkhead of the berthing. Mind-links protruded from outlets along the overhead timbers, and his father perched on an elevated circular vine. Hykin waited to the right wearing a smirk that cut into Bjorn’s pride. “Protection. son,” The Captain said. “The Walkers have an unpredictable nature that sometimes leads to unprovoked attacks. Life in the Below degrades the mind.” “I thought we had a good relationship with certain locals,” Bjorn said, his gaze flashing toward Hykin. The journey to the ship’s bridge had been a trip to make a trip, and the delay had humored the old guard to no end. Bjorn wanted to let him know that fold-setters in the likes of a dried-up merchant mariner would do wise to
The surface world’s air couldn’t support the Airborne method of flight; Bjorn fell like a kite without wind. When he plunged into the foaming waters, the slurpy moisture clung to his pectorals like hagfish slime. Getting caught in the most awful rain ever conceived couldn’t drown him any quicker.He sank, pressed back to the surface, gagged, and sank again. His gills pumped sludge, and a fire raged in his throat. He went down again.A casting net fell from a lower deck, and Bjorn snagged hold for dear life. In the excitement of a moment, he had forgotten the requirement to walk rather than glide. His father’s rules were more than a mere display of authority. Had not Twister and Stinger been on the quick, he may well have choked to death beneath this world’s oily waters.As they pulled him free, his gills cleared, and his breathing returned to normal. Now, he must face his father’s wrath.The scolding never came. Even as