Skyland Read online

  All of Skyland was beneath them, a dark globe against a darker space.

  "Zara, where is it? Where is the Sky?"

  "I don't know, love..." She shook her head beside him. "I don't know."

  Chapter Six

  in which there is a chair...

  The chair's shape didn't matter.

  Nothing whatsoever mattered about the chair, except the fact that it was empty.

  The chair was empty and large and glossy with a thick varnish that amplified the red of the wood, and a deep seat that looked like it had sat under too many asses. It hadn't. It had been made in that shape from the beginning. But none of its qualities made the slightest difference to its functionality.

  Nothing about the chair served any purpose.

  Not like a stool.

  A stool served to rest a tired body on. A stool saved the knees from the wear and tear of squatting, it saved the pants from the stains of sitting on dirt floors, and it saved the legs from the soreness of standing. A chair did not have any special or useful purpose. A chair was just a stool that somebody decided to make fancy.

  At least, that's what the chair maker thought.

  The chair maker didn't want to make fancy things, he wanted to make useful things. He wanted to make beds for resting in and tables for eating off of and stools for sitting on. He wanted to forget about chairs and just be Sam the carpenter.

  But he wasn't.

  The customers with the big wallets and the big asses did not want stools. And they didn't want beds. And they didn't want tables. Not from the carpenters anyway. Their expansive mattresses, deep and plush and heavy, would require an amount of wood that could see a carpenter, and his customer, thrown behind bars for Consumption. Same for the tables which had to hold the lavish platters of delicacies for the charity dinners – almost a nightly occurrence in some parts of the city (the charities' food supplies were exempt from the Consumption laws.) Tables and beds made a living for the city's metalworkers, but not for its carpenters.

  And the carpenters' customers wanted chairs.

  Stools did well for sitting, but not for putting food on the table.

  So Sam the chair maker made chairs.

  One chair could fetch a hundred thousand Suns, enough to buy ten years of kale and half a ton of the best fertilizer to grow it. Not that the chair maker bought much kale or fertilizer. Every extra penny went back into the wood. The scavengers drove a hard bargain, and the long-healed scar on the chair maker's arm, running from wrist to elbow, was a constant reminder that arguing was dangerous. Compassion, too, kept his arguments silent, compassion for the most desperate Skyland had to offer, those who would travel hundreds of miles just to get an armful of twigs.

  And in ten years' time, he hoped, there would be something more worth buying than kale, and fertilizer would be cheap. Everybody hoped.

  And maybe then there would be no more chairs.

  In ten years time, when some quick-growth trees had grown back, and wood for chairs wasn't so hard to come by, then the useless things wouldn't be the symbol of wealth and extravagance. The price would fall, of course. But the chair maker didn't think he would mind. It would be a fair trade for a living planet. And for the possibility that he could return to being Sam the carpenter, making stools and tables and beds, as he had learned to do since he was a child when trees still ringed the city nearly a century before.

  The reddish chair with the thick varnish and deep seat was empty.

  This bothered the chair maker.

  Not so much that it was empty, but that it would remain empty. It might be a useless item but nobody was ever even going to try to make a use out of it.

  Pity. Such a pity.

  He walked in front of it and turned around to set himself down on it – to make it useful, just this one, just for a moment. But as he put a hand on one arm, his fingers brushed a divot in the wood, a tiny nick.

  The chair maker sighed.

  He straightened up, turned around again and sat instead on the little three-legged stool beside it. He ran a hand over the arm of the chair, finger pressing into the one divot, then running along the length of the arm looking for others.

  It was a pretty thing, the chair. Plain, unpainted. It was the wood the owner'd want to show off. It had been well kept over the years, nicks sanded away, varnish replenished periodically to preserve it. The cherry grain would have glowed ruby in the afternoon light if there had been any.

  But there wasn't any afternoon light.

  The ship blocked it all out.

  The varnish on the chair only reflected the dim sheen from the one candle in the shop – a luxury, but also a necessity for the detailed work of the chair maker. Half a mile away, the closest ship still cast gloom on the stool maker's workshop. He squinted at the surface, sanding lightly here and there smoothing out imperfections – scratches and divots and one or two splinters that stuck up through the top coating. It would get another coat of gloss that night to mask the touch-ups.

  Someone laughed.

  The chair maker smiled. He looked up from his work. He looked out the window to the shadow of the ship. People were starting to gather around its base. Some walked slow, bent under giant packs, others moved easily, wheeling carts piled high with their worldly possessions, still others slunk in from the country empty handed. Some had binoculars, hands clutching them or waving them about in excitement. Flight was not uncommon for city folk, and these were most all city folk, the villagers and farmers were to scared to go near the rockets. Abominations they called them. The city folk were much more comfortable with their closeness to the Sky. But piercing the heavens right through to the other side was a rare event, and they were excited.

  More people were laughing now and chatting and shouting.

  A child ran around, arms outstretched, rumbling like a plane.

  Like sapphires, the growing crowd glittered, many dressed in their best blue for the occasion. Some in clear blue of a bright day at noon. Some wore the stormy grey-blue of a world that only existed for most of them in stories, a memory – or a hope – of the ancient clouds full of rain, deep and wide and frequent. Some wore elaborate patterns of mixed shades from the pale color of a baby's eyes to the midnight depths and everything in between. Some only wore Sky-colored headbands, ribbons, scarves woven through hair or around wrists, around necks – even those who couldn't afford a wardrobe of the holy color celebrated the day with what they had.

  And here and there, in between the celebrators, the brown-clothed country folk walked.

  The chair maker had put his own cobalt jacket on to celebrate the occasion. He set down the sandpaper on the seat of the chair and brushed off the wood dust from the sleeves of his coat. He got up, knees and legs rested from sitting on his own simple seat and went to the window.

  He leaned on the sill and grabbed a piece of kale out of the window box. He rubbed it and waved it around a bit and blew on it to get off some of the dust. It was still crunchy when he put the leaf in his mouth and started chewing. But he smiled as he chewed. The kale didn't taste so bitter today.

  A man even older than the chair maker, walked, bent under a bag the full length of his torso and much fatter. He was moving slowly towards the ships

  "Roger!" The chair maker leaned out the window to shout. "Roger!" He waved to the older man who stopped and turned.

  "Sam." His head still bent under the giant bag that spilled over from his back onto his neck and the back of his grizzled head, his eyes looked up towards the chair maker.

  "Wish you luck... One last time."

  "Just me, Sam? Just me? Still not coming, then?"

  "Still not."

  The older man shook his head and the bag wobbled precariously. "You could do well."

  The chair maker smiled. "I know."

  He could do well. There were few trees on Skyland and thus few carpenters. They worked mostly on little trinkets made from sticks saved from the compost in the brown fields. Trinkets and antiques. An
ything bigger than a pinky and made less than one hundred years ago was a rare commodity. His skills were in high demand among the wealthy – most of whom were leaving on the ships. He could have a place in their new home, wherever that was going to be.

  But he was old.

  He was old and tired and stuck on this dry rock of a planet, for better or worse.

  "Save my spot for someone with the energy to fill it," he said.

  Rodger shrugged awkwardly under his burden. "Have it your way."

  "You know I won't fly in the Sky for anything. And Belle won't either. We'll stay right here and petition the Sky from solid ground. She'll look to us, she will."

  "And not to us?"

  "Who knows."

  "It's a lucky man who gets into the heavens before he dies."

  "More brave than lucky, I think."

  "You're really sure, then? You're really sure you haven't got the braveness or the luck to come with us?"

  "Yes old man!" He laughed. It was a nervous laugh, because how else could someone talk to someone they'd never see again? Sam didn't know because nobody he knew had ever left before. "I've never been brave and you know it. And I'm already lucky standing where I am right here. I'll be better off when you lot leave already. All the Suns I'm getting from the passengers will go a long way here."

  "For sure, for sure." The older man looked down into the dust.

  "You know I'd give you some, but the rich snot's not paying me till I deliver the piece to his ship. Otherwise–"

  "No, no"

  "And I don't even know what kind of currency they use over wherever you're going. Maybe they don't even use Suns. Maybe they use Moons or something."

  "Hah! Moons..." The old man chuckled.

  "Yeah..." The chair maker shifted awkwardly. He did not like to talk about his currency. He felt guilty about the huge payouts, but they were far from lining his pockets. Carpentry was an expensive vocation.

  "Speaking of moons...." the old man outside the window gestures over his shoulder. "I've got to go meet one."

  "You do. Go on. Say hello to the Sky for me when you see Her. And the moon when you pass it."

  "Will do, will do."

  "Good luck."

  "To you too."

  The older man turned and started to move slowly away again towards the ship, bent under his giant pack.

  The chair maker too turned away from the window and went back to his stool and back to his chair. He ran his hand over the cherry wood yet again. No more marks there. He brushed off the dust and blew on it to get more off. He took out the varnish to seal the spot. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as he lifted the top off. He snorted against the fumes. One wrinkled hand covered a dry cough.

  Air... if only there were just some fresh air...

  But the air of Skyland was never fresh, anyway. Even with the window wide open, there was only dry dusty atmosphere in the workshop. Air enough to sustain life, but not satisfy it.

  He went to the window and closed it. He took a scarf from a hook on the wall and tied it over his nose and mouth. There would be sand and grit in the coating of varnish anyway. Everything on this planet held dirt on it and in it like the kale. But the chair maker tried to keep it off his work as much as possible, blocking out even the slightest hint of a breeze.

  For a hundred thousand Suns it was the least he could do.

  The man who'd bought the chair was leaving on the fourth ship. The chair maker had two days to smooth out some of the nicks and put one final coat of varnish on it. Two days to perfect a piece almost a hundred years old. An antique that would serve no purpose.

  He looked at his watch and shook his head. Light was fading and when the candle went out, his work would stop. Until the chair made it to the fourth ship and the chair maker got his Suns, he could not afford more light.

  He dipped a brush into the varnish and smoothed it onto the wood.

  The door clicked open.

  "Hi."

  The chair maker turned around and pulled the scarf from his face. "Belle."

  He set down the varnish, and stood, holding his arms out to the old woman.

  He caught her in a hug and held tight, stroking the white hair that ran down her back. The strands caught on the calluses of his fingers. Grains of sand rolled in the locks. He kissed the side of her head. One strand of hair caught in his dry, chapped lips. The chair maker blew it away.

  He pulled back and looked at his wife. The weathered face, touched just a little with the dust of the air, rosy under her white hair, beamed. She gazed over his shoulder out the window towards the shadow of the great ship.

  "It's magnificent."

  "Did you get up close?"

  "A little," she said. "I got to the edge of the docks, but they're not letting anyone right next to it without a ticket. They started loading this morning – twelve hours early! It can hold so many. Can you imagine it?"

  "I can't."

  "And all those people going up to touch the Sky! Can you imagine?"

  He smiled and shook his head. He stroked her face glowing with wonder, the eyes all lit up like stars. "Do you want to go? I could barter for tickets... the buyer for this thing," he gestured to the chair "could connect us. He offered, you know, instead of the Suns, he offered tickets. He's high up and he could probably still–"

  "No, my Sky. You know I don't."

  "We could. If you changed your mind. It is not too late."

  "I want to stay right here and watch it take off. It'll be spectacular just like the other one, won't it?"

  "Yes, I think it will be."

  The chair maker moved away, back to the window. He opened it. The hot, dusty air tasted fresh after the fumes of varnish inside the workshop. The chair makers wife came and leaned her head on his shoulder. He took her hand.

  The sun was fast approaching the horizon and more and more people were swarming towards the ship.

  "It's almost time." The elderly creak of the chair maker's wife's voice was high, excited. Her lips, as dry as her husbands, quivered in a wide smile. The chair maker looked down at her, his own expression mirroring hers.

  We've got all we need right here.

  "I'd so much rather see it from down here," she said, looking up at him. "I think I'd be so nervous to go into the Sky – not until I have to."

  "May that day be far away."

  She nodded. "And She will watch over us from above," she quoted from the Sky Tomes.

  "Yes."

  He unclasped her hand and put an arm around her shoulder, hugged her tight again. Her thin arms reached around his waist. He was secretly glad that she refused to go on the ships. The chair maker had always kept his feet firmly on the ground and he liked it that way. The flying machines scared him. He squeezed her close.

  You are safer here. And things will be better after.

  The noise of the crowd was growing as more and more people flocked to the docks. The light was disappearing fast now. The lone candle burned brighter in the chair maker's workshop. He knew he should pinch it out now that he was no longer working. Soon it would be time to retire to bed and save the light for another day. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from the docks where the rumble of the crowd was beginning to turn into a roar.

  Almost...

  Then some part of the chatting masses went quiet. Then another. Then another. A wave of quiet moved out from the base of the ships until there were only a few people here and there still talking. Then it was silent.

  An announcement was being broadcast over the heads of the people gathered. The chair maker couldn't hear what it was. From this distance the voice sounded like it was underwater.

  But he heard the deafening cheer that went up from the crowd a second later.

  "It's time..."

  "They're ready..."

  The engines roared.

  Smoke billowed from the base. The engines chugged and the thing lifted off the ground, slow, graceful. The smoke cleared and the ship rose higher and higher
. People cheered.

  "They're off..." whispered the chair maker's wife.

  Then it blew.

  And the cheers turned to screams. Flaming bits rained down on the crowd.

  Chapter Seven

  in which there is space...

  It's all black.

  Harper closed his eyes. Again. The blackness behind his lids was natural, expected. It was the comforting night blackness he saw before sleep. The Sky was still there, past his eyelids, shrouded in the dark helm of night. But it was there.

  Or at least it had been.

  Where is it now?

  He opened his eyes. Again. After only a minute he had to look. Like a gawker at a bloody disaster zone, he couldn't keep his gaze away.

  The black... not Sky... not Sky... space stretched.

  It stretched far, far, far. Going out from his eyes everywhere he looked outside the ship, going away, away – to where? It just went on as far as he could imagine.

  He tried not to imagine it.

  His jaw clenched. He ground his teeth together. His eyes squinted, but he couldn't close them, he couldn't look away. The thought of the familiar darkness that waited to comfort him made his eyes well up. It was too much. He missed her. He missed his Sky.

  Harper sniffed.

  "The first ship left Skyland today with almost five thousand passengers–"

  Five thousand?

  Harper had trouble believing the tally on the broadcast. Surely, there had been millions crowding the dock. He shook his head. He'd never seen that many people. He'd never even seen five hundred together.

  "–Flight plans indicate the ship is indeed bound for Union Proper, but it remains to be seen which planet will take the settlers."

  He listened anyway.

  "Oh... ah, this just in–"

  One hand twitched in his lap. He held it tight in a fist. His eyes moved to the news projection on the observation deck window.

  "–Den has said they will take the refugees. They have yet to say whether they will take all Skyland settlers or whether the eight ships to follow will have to seek refuge elsewhere–"