The Everlasting Earth Read online

  Fits held a hand up to his helmet, and moved two fingers forward, toward the bottom of the container. The two life signs popped up into his display as red dots, just as they had on the screen in the cabin. They were directly in front of him and the captain, just at arms length behind the container wall. He set a hand on the captain’s shoulder, and yelled through the loudness of the storm. “Open it!”

  The captain motioned for two of the crewmen to open the front gate. The haul was so comptacted that as the metal section began to slide up, most of the items stayed in place, but the man almost wept as the gate finally stopped, and an array of plastics, and hard textiles and unknown devices either fell to the deck, or flew out and into the winds, and over the massive, metal buoys on both sides. The man was distraught and distracted. Fits disregarded him, and dove for the open gate. Short, heavy gusts of air flowed from the tech on his arms and legs and back and waist, keeping him steady without a single safety cable.

  Fits kept one knee on the deck, and one foot near the gate, as he reached into the heavy rubble of the haul. The dense, smooth fabric of his suit kept what he knew were sharp objects from penetrating, and kept heavy objects from pressing for too long. Looking through his helmet panel at the darkness of the haul, he got a hold of something large. When he saw that it was white, and oblong, he grabbed it by an attached bar, and pulled with as much strength as he could. As it loosened, he stood, and fell back, crashing to the deck, his helmet and tech bouncing hard off of the metal surface. The ambiguous container that he had pulled with him screeched, and slid to a stop near the rear wall of the cabin.

  “Close it!” the captain yelled to his crew.

  Fits shook his head, and took a deep breath of filtered air, and slowly, got up to his knees. He rubbed the spots that he already knew would be the next day’s bruises, wiped dirt from his helmet panel, and looked down at what had been found. His display showed the same two red dots, there, in a long, white object made of two identical, oblong, concave sides. They were made of some kind of metal, attached by bolts, and there was the outline of a doorway on one side. Fits walked up and knelt down to the contraption. With his left hand he reached for a grip in the door. With his other, he readied the gauntlet on his right forearm, pressing two fingers into his palm. He felt the sides of the cannon extend around his forearm, and caught a glimpse of the hazy glow near his wrist. Over his shoulder, he sensed two of the crewmen backing away, and clinging to the railing around the container.

  In a single motion the watcher grabbed the door grip, pulled, and leaned back. There was nothing. No movement. No sound. There was a murky, wet darkness inside. At his whispered command the narrow lens on the top of his helmet beamed on, and shone a bright light down through the doorway. There, he saw a human arm. Without another thought he lunged in, and felt the shoulders, and the ribs beneath them, and pulled. Even through his filter, the smell was pungent. He struggled against it, and something else unseen, a hook or a rough surface. A moment later, he yanked the man out onto the deck. He looked at him, and sat in shock. Behind him, the crew was in the same state. But the captain ran up, his boots clanking and shaking the deck, and knelt down next to the man.

  “Get a mask!” the man yelled and motioned. “I’m sorry, Sir,” he said loudly to Fits.

  How? Fits thought to himself. How did he get past us? How did he make it so far out?

  The man had breath, though it was faint. Fits examined him, gently running his gloved hands along the man’s arms, and chest. His clothing was wet, and thin - a long, ripped shirt and pants, shabby looking boots - but he was mostly covered. His skin was a pale brown, the palest Fits had ever seen, as if he had been out to sea, with no sun for years. And the man’s closed eyes were sunken, and weary.

  A crewman knelt down next to the man, placed a fitting mask with a clear front panel over his face, and secured it behind his head. “We’ll take him in,” the crewman said loudly, and waved another over to help him.

  In Fits's helmet there were still two life signs blinking. As two crewmen got hold of the unconscious man, he moved carefully back to the small, open door, and leaned his helmet over into the strange boat again. He could see now that it was indeed strong enough to have survived the waves and currents that must have taken it under. But its weaknesses - the shabby hinges, the small, cracked windows - had not been shored up properly. The boat had flooded, though the water was still shallow. Fits looked from side to side, letting his helmet’s light bounce off every surface. He heard the captain yelling something behind him, but could not make out any words. Then, he felt a tug on his right arm, just above the rear of the cannon. He quickly deactivated the weapon, and pulled the child up by his arms, out onto the deck. Then lifted the boy up into his arms, and stood.

  The boy was awake, but barely. Though the winds blowing about made him impossible to hear, he could see the child weakly mumbling something. His mouth seemed to be saying ‘father’ over and over, without any thought, as if he were dreaming. He held the child tightly to his chest, and moved with swift steps back toward the cabin, staying close to the wall as he made his way to the nearest door. Behind him, the rest of the crew and the captain followed.

  Between the forward and aft stations in the cabin, on the starboard wall, there was a bed laid out, set down on the floor, with the man already lying on it. His mask had been removed, and he was breathing short breaths with two crewmen kneeling down at his sides. They were each about to remove their helmets.

  “Put his mask back on!” Fits ordered them.

  They looked back at him strangely.

  “We don’t know what they’ve been exposed to. Put his mask back on. And get me one for the boy.”

  Fits moved quickly, and laid the boy down next to the man. The child was barely moving now, and had stopped his utterances. He coughed up a splash of dark colored water, the same as what had been inside their boat. One of the crewmen handed Fits another mask, and he secured it, over the boy's face and behind his head. He looked to the father, to his reattached mask, and saw dark spittle on the inside. Then he stood, and took a step back, surveying the situation. He felt the captain walk next to him.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” the captain said. “I would never have guessed. I’ve only heard of people wanting to escape. But to make such an effort, and in this weather…” The man removed his helmet, and ran a hand worriedly through the thick hair on his head.

  Fits, having run through the possibilities as the captain was speaking, was hesitant to respond. He knew more than the captain could. Every watcher had to know more. He whispered a command, opening a secure line to the station at the Southern Range. The sound of someone answering clicked into his left ear.

  “Commander Fits, Sir,” a young woman said. “This is Ensign Rial. Go ahead.”

  “I’ll be bringing two people back for medical attention,” he answered quietly. “Get our doctor ready in a secured room. Tell no others.”

  “Yes, Sir. I’ll direct you once you’re on approach.”

  “Very well. Fits out.”

  Fits lifted his helmet and pushed it back, and continued looking down at the unfamiliar father and son. Then he turned and faced the captain. “You and your crew did well today. This was an unfortunate, and unexpected interruption.” He extended his right hand.

  The captain looked taken aback, and appeared hesitant to reach near the watcher’s gauntlet, but he nodded, and did so. He wrapped his hand around Fits’s metal-covered forearm, around the cooled surface of the weapon that was now retracted. Fits kept his grip firm as they shook.

  “Yes, Sir, uh, Commander,” the man answered humbly. “And, uh, what do you think happened? With these two, that is?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll find out. But once I’m gone, you can go about your business. I’m sure the sorters are close by now.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The captain said, and looked back down at the man and the child. “They’re dressed oddly.”

  Fits followed his gaze, and looked
at the two again. The whole crew’s attention was on them now. The captain was right.

  “Looks like they haven’t eaten in a while either,” said one of the crewmen. He reached for a box nearby, and tilted the lid up, and pulled out a small metal bottle and something wrapped in a waxy paper.

  “No!” Fits shouted. He felt all of the eyes in the cabin turn toward him. He had spoken too quickly. He was processing too much information, and too fast, risking revealing what he suspected, what he was almost sure of. “Excuse me, crewmen. We just can’t know what they’ve been exposed to, or for how long. Leave their treatment to us. Now, if one of you would, strap them to that bed, and help me get them into my gull.”

  The crewman who had offered the aid put both items back in the box, and pushed it aside, and stood and stepped away. Another crewman found the straps beneath the bed, and another helped him position the man and the boy on the soft surface, and then secured them in place. The man coughed loudly, spitting more dark water into the front of the mask. His eyes seemed to open, for an instant, before shutting again. Both he and the boy were nearly limp, only shaking slightly as the two crewmen raised the bed up on its mechanized supports. They looked to Fits, and at his direction, carefully turned the bed with its occupants toward him. Once again he lowered his helmet, and turned, and headed for the nearest door to the deck.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE CITY

  There were too many civilian craft now, flying through the city’s criss-crossing, concentrated streams of air. There were a dozen more than the same day of the previous year. The change was not discernible in the traffic of the busy first-level stream, nor in the two less-populated streams above, but Nico could see the number in a row of glowing text on the bottom of his helmet’s visor. The values were reported daily from the city’s headquarters, making any on-duty watcher fully aware, not only of the number of newly-registered craft, but to whom they belonged, and of what materials they were composed, and of the amount of tech outfitting their frames. The numbers had been steady for months, until that morning.

  More craft in the city meant more work for its watchers. Most citizens were careful pilots, following the flows of air in their chosen lanes, not moving between the three levels at high speed, adhering to the signals at the quartets of air movers that designated each intersection. But with the growing population, with people moving into the city for shelter from the storm’s ever-increasing winds, there were inevitable disruptions in traffic flow. One week prior, Nico and a patrolman had rushed to the scene of a collision. A craft had descended from level three to level two at such speed that a much larger craft had spun out of its trajectory. Each craft’s tech had compensated. Each craft had suffered little damage. The pilot at fault, however, had not been pleased with Nico’s decision to revoke his license for five days, and seize his brand-new craft for the same. But as far as Nico was concerned, any citizen’s frustration toward a watcher meant the city was safer.

  It was past midday. The sun had not been seen for what seemed like months, but Nico could still tell that it was there. Enough of its light still managed to push down through the dense, pillowy clouds above, reflecting off the metal and glass panels of the tallest buildings, which cast shadows into the multi-level pathways between them.

  Nico was idling in the first stream, fifteen yards up, at the northeast corner of a residential building. Most of the city’s buildings were designed only for living. This one was made of smooth, red and brown stone, and stood ten stories. To his left, behind the north-facing wall, was one of the building’s walkways, covered in a typical clear, pliant barrier made up of dense panels of re-formed plastics from the ocean. On the other side of the windows he could see a few familiar people walking. One of them also recognized him, and waved, assuring him that he spent his time in the sector at this particular point much too often. Over his shoulder, in the same wall, there was a pair of secured access gates for craft to enter and exit.

  He sat upright. The air from the stream ran steadily beneath his seat, passing through the two wind-tech engines upholding his jumper. He kept his boots steady on either side of the seat, along the running boards, and could almost feel the cold air beneath their heavy soles. He gently pressed his knees into the panels on either side of the seat, keeping hold of the steadying controls behind them. He kept his left hand on the curved handlebar, just above the front end of the body support, just behind the glowing control panel. The small screen, overshadowed by the swooping windshield, currently displayed values for the craft’s unwavering acceleration, and its unmoving pitch.

  Like all watcher craft of the city, the jumper’s body was painted a shining white, with black-lined lavender lettering on each side to confirm its designation and its belonging to the watchers. For jumpers there was never any confusion. They were not allowed for civilians. They were too fast, and too agile, too easy to tumble from without body-attached tech. For watchers, however, they were perfect, especially for emergency response.

  Along the jumper’s underbody was a row of lights, forming an encircling rectangle, running even along the corners of the engines, which provided a status for other watchers and for any civilians passing by, on-foot or otherwise. Nico was maintaining an intermittent, radiating yellow, indicating that he was on-duty, and that the situation in the immediate vicinity was normal. Two blocks behind him, a carefully-placed light near the second stream was glowing blue, indicating stability in the city’s surrounding electromagnetic shield. In his visor display, he could see the position of the other six watchers in the sector, patrolmen whose signals were also glowing yellow. One block ahead of him, and four stories below, he could see a crowd gathering, the one he had anticipated, in the city’s park.

  Two centuries before his time, as the people of Lwo had neared completion of the city’s construction, the Lords had ordered that a central space, one they had already left open in the city’s plans, be developed into a park. The people, they had said, whose numbers were already low, would need such a place in the midst of utilitarian buildings, which despite their potential to shine in and absorb sunlight, had been designed primarily to protect their occupants from the unpredictable wildness of Lwo’s atmosphere. The people had then followed through, creating a shared space that emulated some of the earth’s more flourishing past.

  The park was a ninety-nine yard circle, full of rich, green grass, with multi-colored flowers from the forest providing a distinguishing round outline. Within the grass there were pathways made of varying types and colors of flattened stones, stones that the oldest Lwoans often said would have been polished and used inside some people’s homes long before Lwo had been formed. Amongst all the intertwining paths, in the grassy spaces between them, were set larger stones that were hewn at the top to allow some form of seating for those who so desired. And near the southern end, along the circle’s center line, was a platform. It was the most unnatural looking thing in the park, supported by cylindrically-cut rock, and topped with painted wood and metal. It was fifteen yards wide on each side, and ten yards wide on each end, allowing any speakers or performers plenty of room for expression, something the Lords had also known would be needed.

  At each corner of the stage there were lights set on high posts, and at the base of each post there were short columns of large, open-ended, truncated cones, all carved from wood, and facing outward to carry any sound that came from the stage. Today there would be plenty of sound. There were five microphone stands, four chairs, and a percussion set, all carefully placed and spaced.

  Nico continued to focus on the park, and whispered a command into his system to magnify. A rectangle of light formed in the center of his visor, providing a closer view, while still allowing a peripheral view of the traffic and the buildings nearby. The number of people in the park was slowly increasing, and they were all getting closer and closer to the stage.

  “Count life signals,” he said softly. The number came up just below the magnification. There were close to five t
housand citizens in the park. For the time of day, it was one of the larger crowds to ever gather there at once. Holidays - the First Sun of Summer, the Day of Winter Moon, Founding Day - were the only other days when so many might have gathered.

  From the east side of the stage a group began moving up the set of wooden steps, and were greeted by thousands of loud cheers and waving hands. There were three men, and two women. Nico magnified his view more. The air was always cool outside, and like many in the crowd, the men all wore long pants, heavy shoes, and knit hats. Their long shirts were full of colors. Two of them had beards. One looked almost too young to grow one. He sat down at the percussion set. The other two remained standing, one with a large horn, and the other with a heavy, shining guitar. One of the women wore a long skirt of black, and a long, white shirt. An orange scarf was wrapped around her neck and shoulders. She was carrying a plain, black and white keyboard, and set it up near the percussionist before sitting down behind it. The other woman would be the star of the day’s show.

  As always, Loren was the last to step onto the stage, and as she did, the crowd cheered even louder. She strutted, and spun in her flailing lavender skirt, revealing brightly colored leggings below. She waved to the crowd as she made her way to the microphone at the center of the stage. Her hair was short and dark, beneath a short, purple headdress. She wore tinted glasses that seemed to sparkle in the light. And her dark sleeves, cut out at the shoulders, ran all the way down past her wrists, and fanned out around her fingers. There was more than enough room for her in the center of the stage, with the percussionist and guitarist on one side, and the horn and keyboard players on the other. The bandmates, almost in unison, looked out at her, and as she turned and smiled, they smiled back.