Another few inches gained, and the slack in the line began to curl against my waist. Black spots swarmed at the edges of my vision. I hissed through gritted teeth and knew, with as much certainty as I’ve ever known anything, that I’d only have one shot at this.
Still holding on with my left hand, I released the hold I had with my right and allowed myself to roll. Throwing all my weight into the spin, I put everything I had, and a little bit more, into whipping my right arm around.
I don’t know what I would have done if I’d missed it. The tether would have arrested my fall again, but I’d have been back where I started, too exhausted to start again, with the only safety line still attached to my back and still almost impossible to reach.
But my right hand found the line.
I spun, gasped as my grip almost failed to survive the counterswing, then gasped again as I righted and the line now curling in front of me whipped across my face, drawing a nasty friction burn on my cheek.
But once I stopped spinning, my body was no longer an inverted V, bent at the waist and trapped with a view of the clouds. Now I had my back to them and my eyes fixed on the remains of my hammock. The material of the upper structure had further deteriorated in the long minutes since my last close look. It was now marred by big gaping holes surrounded by clusters of smaller ones. I could see additional ribs of the same material, composing the central spine, descending from the hammock’s highest point like a pair of interlocking arches, to anchor the rib in four places.
Anything I could hold on to was good news.
All I had to do now was climb up, hook my legs around the circular spine, and scramble up and over.
That was still going to be difficult, but the hard part was done, I thought.
I was wrong.
By the time I straddled the circular spine, grateful for the substantial comfort I found in contact with such a solid object, the air around me was flecked with falling snow.
Not water-snow. This was another phenomenon, resembling little flakes of ash. They tumbled around me in thin flurries, captives of One One One’s high-altitude breezes, each speck a little pinprick of tan color I was only able to discern because of all the lights of Hammocktown, shining through the wreckage above me.
I didn’t know what the specks were until one came to rest on the back of my hand. It was an irregular square about half the size of my pinky fingernail, neutral in texture, so light I wouldn’t have been aware of its arrival at all had I not been watching at the moment. There were probably any number of flakes just like it already dotting my skin and in my hair. This one seemed to be sizzling, though I couldn’t feel any difference between its temperature and that of the surrounding air. Even as I watched, a small hole formed in its center, and the straight lines of the outer perimeter turned saw-toothed as bits and pieces of it dissolved into nothingness.
It was a piece of my hammock.
The process responsible for dissolving the lower half was still hard at work on the upper portions.
The loose canvas at my side rippled in the wind. I tightened my thighs around the thin rail and probed the cloth with my left hand.
It felt softer. Fuzzier. The more it broke down, the more pitted and rutted its surface became. The imperfections may not have been visible to the naked eye, but they did change the texture, and my fingertips could feel the difference.
Whatever was happening here didn’t seem to be affecting the hammock ribs, yet, but I had no guarantee that they’d remain intact forever.
I yelled again, testing the hiss screen: “HEY! HELP! I’M OVER HERE!”
Then listened.
Nothing.
I couldn’t tell whether I was still within the hiss field, or outside it in a Hammocktown where everybody else had died, but either way, my options remained limited.
I had to get to solid ground.
Unfortunately, I was on the far side of the circular spine, opposite the bridge to the rest of the community. To get there I’d have to use the spine as a tightrope. The sections of hammock still remaining intact would only hinder me in that attempt. I couldn’t straddle the spine, let alone walk upright, in any of the places where material flapped. Nor was I sure I had enough will left to move at all. I couldn’t think of the emptiness below me without wanting to close my eyes and shut myself down.
The only solution to that was to start moving.
First things first: retrieving my bag. I’d tethered it before tethering myself, and I wasn’t willing to surrender it.
I reached over, grabbed the shoulder strap, and looped it over my head.
Then I undid its tether.
Fear flared when I realized that it was as vulnerable now as I was…and that there were any number of ways it could unbalance me and pull me over the side.
I didn’t allow that thought to lead to considerations of dropping it.
More snow flurries around my head.
Canvas shrapnel tumbled past me, and into the void.
The tent above me had deteriorated enough to reveal the Uppergrowth. Three Brachiators dangled in plain sight, their broad, shaggy backs blind to me. One bore a little baby Brachiator, one-tenth the size of its mother, clinging to her back with equal determination.
I considered finding some way to signal them, maybe getting some help, but changed my mind as soon as I realized that any one of them could have been responsible for what was happening to me. Even if not, just what could they do to help anyway? They weren’t exactly the most agile creatures I’d ever known.
I had to do this myself.
Another flurry of canvas snow.
Somebody right behind me said, “Why don’t you just fall?”
It wasn’t an implanted thought but an implanted sound, unmuffled by static or distance.
It was neither male nor female, young or old, mad or sane: just a slick, measured everyvoice, flensed of everything that might have given it character. Only the words themselves betrayed its malicious nature.
“It’s not like you haven’t considered the option,” the voice continued. “The Dip Corps knows how much of your waking time you spend thinking about it. In the files they never let you see, they call you a third-tier suicidal personality, of the sort that automatically imagines self-destruction as the easiest possible solution to every serious problem, before your intelligence kicks in and you concoct another solution you like more. The analysts among your keepers like to credit that tension between your self-destructiveness and your self-preservation for your success as an investigator.”
I didn’t know who this unknown Heckler was. There was nothing in the voice to recognize. But the arrogance was familiar. This was the same cruel bitch, or bastard, who had sent me those hate mails. If it was also the perpetrator responsible for killing Warmuth and Santiago, then my current lifespan was probably measurable in minutes.
Good. Minutes were an improvement when fighting seconds. Now all I had to keep was the shithead talking. “N-nice to know.”
“They also compile yearly studies on your emotional state, as well as the immediate likelihood of your self-destructive side ever getting what it wants, in order to maximize your potential as a diplomatic asset. Would you like to know your current stats, Counselor? Would you enjoy a pie-chart measuring just how much you think your life is worth?”
I used the nearest vertical rib to guide myself to a standing position. After about ten seconds of sheer hell, I managed to get to my feet without killing myself. I didn’t straighten up all the way, as there was still loose material billowing around just over my head, and one flap in the face could have knocked me over the edge and sent me on an unwanted tour of the lower atmosphere. But I did manage an uneasy crouch, with knees bent and feet balanced.