The Navigator, page 43
"Yeah." Quill's face was deathly pale. "I'm fine."
Petal could sense her fear. She turned back to Cynax.
"Quill doesn't have to come along, does she? I can do this by myself, right?"
"What are you talking about? I'm going. I'm going with you, Petal. I'm sure as hell not staying here."
"The human's participation isn't necessary," Cynax crackled. "If she elects to stay behind, I will program another trellis to pick her up, and ferry her back to a human-inhabited, more temperate location."
"No." Quill latched onto Petal's left hand. "I'm staying with you, Petal. We're going together. We're not separating."
"Good," Cynax brooded. "I wish both of you success. If you think of any further inquiries in regards to your task, remember, we will be in constant contact."
Petal nodded. She and Quill gathered up their provisions and the little nanite kit. The door to the mainframe whooshed open and Sentry lumbered his way inside the dome. He scanned the mainframe and then sat down, waiting for the two girls in the threshold.
Quill put her free hand across her stomach and began to walk outside. Petal walked up behind her, and poked her back so she'd turn around. Once Quill did, Petal pointed to her belly.
"Are you sure you're okay? You look off. You're hiding something from me. I can feel it. Is there something wrong with your stomach? You're always holding it."
"It's nothing. I'm fine. . .let's go."
"Okay." Petal took Quill's hand, continuing to hold it as they walked forward.
When they reached the door, Petal knelt down next to Sentry.
Sentry stared up at Petal with a completely blank expression; his six, spider-like eyes studying her with inhuman detail. His jowls continued to dribble blue goo.
Petal reached down and pet Sentry's side with an open palm.
Sentry didn't react as Petal rubbed his coarse fur. He continued to scan her body and analyze her body odors, committing everything about her to memory.
Quill was appalled. She tightened her grip on Petal's free hand and pulled her forward, away from the creature, toward the open doorway.
"Sorry. I've wanted to do that for a while. Once you touch something, it's not so scary anymore." Petal followed Quill out the exit with Sentry in tow. Just before the door closed, she turned back to Cynax. "Goodbye, Cynax. Thanks for everything."
- 67-
Quill, Petal, and Sentry stood out on the frozen surface of the polar plateau. Colonial Monitoring Station OTSM-5 surrounded them, but its domes were invisible from the outside, blending in perfectly with the radiating-heat pattern of the shifting snow.
Both girls were insulated from the bone chilling, polar weather by their new Khoi clothing. Sentry too, was immune from the deep freeze. His thick coat of synthetic fur could protect him from unfathomably colder temperatures.
As Petal stared out at the horizon and the endless snowdrifts, Quill turned her gaze up to the heavens.
The polar sky above the two girls was so cold it could barely hold any moisture, and it was thus a perennially cloudless, powder blue. Very high up in this blue expanse, Quill could see a tiny silver speck, a small flying object that seemed to be hovering in the sky.
"Can you see that? Up there!" Quill shouted at Petal so she could hear her over the constant wind. The Khoi gloves she had on were thick and bulky like a child's mittens.
"Uh-huh," Petal looked up at the dot in the sky. She was clutching the nanite-kit with both hands. The grip of her alien pistol poked out of her jacket pocket.
"I think that's it. The trell. It's coming closer."
"Rooooooooooooooo."
Sentry sat down on his hind legs, and let out a long, wolf-like howl. His moan sounded guttural and lonely. He got back on his feet and began to pace back and forth in a frantic circle, trying to get the girls to back away from the trell's landing zone.
Quill picked up on Sentry's cue. She shouldered the knapsack full of alien provisions and crunched her way through the snow, walking back toward the mainframe. Petal followed her, and the little dot in the sky loomed larger until it took a more defined shape - a perfect, silver rectangle.
"This is it!" Petal stood up on her tippy-toes and leaned into Quill's chest, trying to talk to her over the howling wind. "We're actually going into the sky! I've always dreamed of being able to fly! This is incredible!"
Quill cringed from the polar wind. She and Petal were wearing Khoi eye goggles and hoods to prevent snow blindness and to block out the bitter cold, but the tip of Quill's nose, and the top of her eyebrows were exposed and getting frost-bitten.
"This isn't supposed to be fun! This isn't going to be fun!" Quill warned. "It's going to be stressful and dangerous. There are things up there that are going to try to eat us!"
"I know! But I've always imagined doing something like this. I don't think this is going to be fun. Just. . . exciting!"
"I'm done with excitement. When this is over, I'm sitting on my butt and doing nothing for a long time."
The silver rectangle in the sky continued to loom closer. After another two minutes, it swelled to one hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. Slowly, it came to a gentle rest in the air, hovering ten feet in front of the girls and a foot or two above the ever-shifting snowline.
Petal jogged over to it
Quill scanned its surface without moving.
The trell was just as Wyman had described - a featureless, flat, silver platform. There was nothing underneath it. The top of the platform was smooth as glass. It had no bumps or grooves or irregularities. The only noticeable feature on the platform lay at its center. At that point, a thick, gray cable hooked onto the platform. That central cable was about a foot wide and was made of hundreds of strips of a coiled metal that looked like stainless steel. The tethering cable went from the center of the trell into the sky, stretching all the way up to infinity.
Before Petal hopped onto the trell, she hunched over and fiddled with the silver nanite-kit. She had to remove her gloves to open it. Once she took them off, her hands began to ache from the cold. She rushed to open the kit and place one of the little silver disks inside of her ear before they turned blue.
While Petal struggled with the kit, Quill walked through the snow, slowly plodding her way over to the trell. Her Khoi boots crunched the ice with each step. Her breaths formed a white cloud that hovered around her hood. She paused next to Petal, just in front of the trell, so she could see what she was doing.
Petal pulled one of the silver disks out of the kit just as her hands turned pink. The little disk was soft and pliable. She put it flat against her ear canal and then began to feed it in gently. The disk bent under the pressure, forming a cone that dipped into her eardrum.
After she inserted the disk, she slipped her gloves back on and snapped the nanite-kit shut.
"This is Cynax-8172," a voice crackled inside of Petal's skull. "Crewman Fatima, are you able to hear me?"
"Yes." Cynax's voice made the little disk vibrate in her ear, tickling her throat and sinuses, nearly giving her a coughing fit. "I can hear you."
"Good. I can hear you as well, but only if you speak at a reasonable volume. This communication device is able to pick up the internal vibrations your larynx creates when you speak. I can reconstruct your words from those minute vibrations."
"Are we ready?" Quill hollered the words into Petal's free ear. Polar winds raged around them.
"Can we board the trell?"
"Yes. It is ready."
Petal boarded first. She put her right knee onto the trell and let Quill push her onto the platform. Once she was aboard, she turned to help Quill up, holding her hand out.
Quill hesitated. She stared out at the surrounding snow, standing in place for a moment.
Sentry was next to Quill, a foot or so back from the trell, watching her and Petal intently. When Quill didn't attempt to board, he nudged her forward with his gooey snout, jabbing his nose against her backside.
Quill glanced down at Sentry, looking deeply into his six, empty eyes. She held her hand just above his snout while he stared up at her, quizzically. She then put her hand behind his right ear, just in front of his last row of eyes and began scratching him.
"Heh-heh-heh-heh."
Sentry panted. He turned his head so Quill could reach the other side. His jowls excitedly dribbled more blue fluid.
"Good boy." Quill tried to smile at the alien creature. Although his reaction was kind of sweet, she still thought he was repulsive. She took her hand off him and climbed onto the trell. Once she was aboard, she waved down at him.
Sentry backed away from the trell and sat in the snow. He looked up at both girls and let out another, thunderous howl.
"Roooooooooooooooooo."
Petal skipped over to Quill, her Khoi boots clanking against the steel with each step as if they were made of iron.
"See? Not so bad, right? You like him better now?"
"No. He's still disgusting. I'm - I'm just facing my fear."
"Well I think he's kind of cute."
Quill puckered her face. The trell began to ascend. It was being pulled into the sky by the thick cable at its center. Even though it was rising at a rapid speed, Quill couldn't feel the motion. It felt like the trell was lighter than air. Like it and everything on it was floating.
Quill watched, awestruck, as the trell continued to rise, soaring higher and higher over the lonely polar plateau - twenty feet - then fifty - then one hundred.
The plateau below was featureless except for the tiny blob that was Sentry. The giant wolf creature was still sitting in the snow, looking up at the trell and the two girls, howling. Soon his brawny body was blotted out by the endless white snowscape below, which all bled together into a bleached infinity.
Quill teetered back and forth, feeling a bit of vertigo from the trell's rapid ascent. She walked over to the central cable and leaned a hand against it to try and regain her sense of balance. The wind grew fiercer from the trell's ever-increasing altitude.
Once the trell rose to about five hundred feet, a clear barrier, similar to those that had sprung up around Monitoring Station OTSM-5, activated, encapsulating the trell in a giant bubble. The bubble was colorless but its walls had a crystalline pattern. Just like the barriers in the Monitoring Station, the bubble walls blocked out the wind, but let the piercing cold in.
After the barrier sprang up, Petal felt safe enough to approach the trell's edge. She grabbed Quill's hand and dragged her over to the side so they could take in the view together.
By now, the trell had risen to over one thousand feet. When the girls looked over its edge they saw the ice-choked coastline of Terra Australis Incognita. Beyond the white coast they could see miles out to sea - all the way out to the mysterious, yellow fog line.
The trell continued to rise and swing away from the coast of the hidden land at immense speed. Quill watched as the white snowscape gave way to endless blue ocean. The mysterious yellow fog that she and Petal had sailed through just two days before lay directly below the trell now. It was just a thin smudge of yellowish smog hanging over the endless wave tops.
Within seconds, it too vanished into nothing.
Quill continued to stare down at the face of the sea, which lay almost three thousand feet below. Its surface looked smooth, motionless, and finely polished. She tried to see if she could make out the Polar Wanderer, but she was now so high up it would be impossible to pick out. It would look like just a tiny speck or another random whitecap.
Slowly, she inched her way back from the edge and gazed up at the cable that anchored the trell to the sky. The cable was taut. When she looked straight up it, it produced an optical illusion that made it seem like it was sagging down in her direction. The top of the cable was still invisible to her, hanging down from somewhere high above the clouds, from somewhere beyond the sky - beyond Ea, even.
Petal was still standing at the very edge of the trell, eyes locked below, peering down at the twinkling ocean. In her silver Khoi jacket and pants, she looked like an antediluvian astronaut. A few wisps of red hair poked through the gap between her goggles and hood, beautifully contrasting her monochromatic clothing.
When Quill looked to her right, in the direction the trell was being pulled, all she could see were clouds - a giant bank of churning thunderheads that were so incredibly vast, they took up her entire field of vision.
The Tear Drop Station
- 68-
Quill threw an empty, alien tin over the side of the trell. The platform continued to soar through the sky at breakneck speed. She watched the silver tin pass through the trell's protective bubble-barrier like it wasn't even there. It plummeted down to the ocean, which now lay over three miles below.
The trell was so high up, she thought she could see the curvature of Ea when she looked out to the horizon. Quill knew that the atmosphere at that height must be too thin to breathe, but the trell's protective bubble seemed to have trapped enough pressurized air inside of it to prevent her and Petal from asphyxiating.
The two girls had spent the past six hours pacing back and forth atop the trell, occasionally slurping up a few mouthfuls of revolting food from their sack of Khoi provisions. The trell's altitude was so extreme, the ocean below looked solid. The ripply sheen of waves on its face didn't move, frozen in place. The sun reflected off it in one giant, fiery pillar that stretched from east to west for thousands of miles.
Quill glanced up at what was left of the sky. The atmosphere above the trell was a dark, royal blue that seemed to switch to a spatial black when she looked directly upward. The cable the trell dangled down from had no anchor in sight. The satellite it was tethered to was still several miles above them.
Petal was standing at the edge of the trell, staring down at a few, wispy cirrus clouds that were nearly level with the platform. She'd been standing there for over an hour, lost in thought, silent and barely moving.
A flurry of sounds and scattered images flashed on and off in Petal's mind's eye in a disorientingly random pattern. The hundreds of faces, voices, and second-long waves of emotions that intruded on her consciousness felt like the afterimages she used to experience every time she woke up from a dream.
Do Khoi dream? Have all of my dreams just been my mother's memories?
I should have asked Cynax. . .
Petal shook her head. There were so many questions she'd yet to ask Cynax about herself and her kind.
Petal looked to her right, up at the radiant afternoon sun. The sun seemed slightly larger from this high up in the sky. Its shimmering brilliance forced her to close her eyes. When she did, more flashes of memories danced across the back of her eyelids.
In her mind's eye, Petal saw a man. A small, thin man with fiery red hair. He was lying in bed, next to her, in a green room that lacked windows. Petal felt a strong pang of heartache for this nameless man. She instinctively recognized him as her father. She inched across the bed to press her body up against his, and suddenly skipped out of that random memory and into another.
Now Petal was standing in an empty city square. Golden buildings towered all around her. The structures had a postmodern style - a dreamy fusion of geometric shapes and the morphology of various sea creatures. The top of one of the buildings had been molded to look like the head of an alien, horned dolphin. The other buildings looked like bulbous, golden jellyfish standing on stilts. A thin tram linked all of these structures together; its undulating, golden shape mimicked the sinuous body of a sea snake.
When Petal raised her eyes up from the city, to look at what should have been the sky, all she saw was a dark blue, almost black canopy. An entire ocean of shifting, dully illuminated water.
Is this yours too, mother? Do I have my own memories? What do I remember?
Petal focused on that thought, trying as hard as she could to disentangle her mother's memories from her own. At first it felt impossible - a painful cerebral block. Slowly, this mental wall crumbled and she found herself curled up into a little ball inside of a small vehicle. A man was sitting a few feet in front of her in a copper seat. He peered back at her; two sky-blue eyes, a mop of fiery hair, and a worried smile.
"Stay calm Fatima. You'll be safe soon."
Petal recognized the sound of her father's voice. She slumped forward and crawled to his chair on her hands and knees, too young to walk. She and her father were inside some kind of Khoi watercraft. Directly in front of her father was a large windshield through which she could see the wavy surface of the sea. Her father adjusted the craft's controls and leaned forward, shouting into a receiver.
"Cynax! Cynax! Answer me! You cannot keep on ignoring us!"
