Jopale considered the ironies as he carried his bags to the front of the intestine, then out through an artificial sphincter fitted into the worm’s side. From there, it was a short climb to the station’s high wooden platform. A bright sign flashed from the top of the greeting arch, displaying the present atmospheric readings, followed by the cheery promise, “No hazards, none foreseen.” The sun hovered just above the eastern horizon, stratospheric clouds and low pollution obscuring only a portion of its fierce glare. Squinting, Jopale faced the sun. At least two large balloons were visible in the sky, suspended on long ropes, spotters busily watching the land for geysers or more subtle ruptures. Behind him, long shadows stretched toward lands rendered unfit for normal life. Not that nothing and no one could live out there… but still, Jopale felt as if he was standing on the brink of a profound desolation, and that image struck him in some innate, profoundly emotional fashion…
The caretakers walked on top of their friend and along the concave, heavily greased trail, examining the worm’s gray skin and poking its long tired muscles, sometimes using electric wands but mostly employing nothing but their bare hands. The worm’s reflexes were slow. The old caretaker said as much to the younger workers. “She’s gone too far with too many in her empty bellies,” Master Brace complained, gesturing at the milling passengers. “She needs half a cycle at least, and all she can eat.”
Jopale realized their delay would be longer than he had anticipated. Pulling two tickets from his traveler’s belt, he carefully read the deeply legal language. If he didn’t reach Port of Krauss within another fifteen cycles, the worm’s owners would refund half of the value of the first ticket. But that was an inconsequential gesture, all things considered. Because the second ticket promised him a small cabin onboard a methane-fueled ship that would leave for the New Isles two cycles later. Punctuality was his responsibility. If he was late, the ticket was worthless. And Jopale would be trapped in the Port with every other refugee, shepherding the last of his money while absorbing news from around the world, hoping that the coming nightmare would take its time and he could eventually purchase a new berth on some later, unpromised vessel.
What good would fear do him now? Or rage?
“No good at all,” he said with a stiff voice, turning his back to the sun.
The station was a strangely quiet place. The only other worms were small or plainly ill, and even those specimens were pointed west, aimed at the darkness, as if waiting for the order to flee. Besides caretakers, the only human workers were soldiers. Older men, mostly. Disciplined and probably without families—exactly the sort of people to be trusted in the worst of times. Two soldiers stood farther up the worm, guarding the sphincter leading into the stomach. Mockmen waited in the darkness. Each creature had its owner’s name tattooed on its forearms and back. Humans had to come forward to claim what was theirs, and even then, the soldiers questioned them with suspicious voices—as if somebody might try to steal one of these creatures now.
The mysterious young woman was standing with the other passengers, her book in one arm, eyes pointed in the general direction of the unloading.
“Which is yours?” Jopale asked.
She didn’t seem to hear the question. Then he realized that her gaze reached past the mockmen, bright tan eyes staring at the night lands, her mind probably traveling on to her destination.
“Good Mountain, is it?” Jopale asked.
“I’m sorry, no.” She was answering his first question, smiling in his general direction. “I don’t own any of these creatures.”
Jopale had brought a mockman from home, to help with his bags and his life, as well as giving him this ready excuse to stand where he was, chatting with this young woman.
With a quiet, gentlemanly voice, he offered his name.
She nodded and said, “Yes. Good Mountain.”
They had found a pattern. He would ask some little question, and she would answer his former question.
“The word ‘mountain’,” he said. “Do you know what it means?”
She smiled now, glancing at his face. “Do you?”
He allowed himself the pleasure of a wise nod. “It is an ancient word,” he answered. “The oldest texts employ it. But even by then, the word had fallen into a rotten disuse.”
“Really?”
“We have words for ridges and hills. With great clarity, we can describe the color and quality of any ground. But from what we can determine, using our oldest sources, ‘mountain’ implies a titanic uplifting of something much harder than any wood. Harder and more durable, and a true mountain rises high enough to puncture the sky. At least according to some expert interpretations.”
She laughed, very softly. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“That’s why they picked the name,” she explained.
Jopale didn’t understand, and his expression must have said as much.
“Of course, there’s no actual mountain there,” she admitted. “It’s just a flat plain shoved high by a set of faults and buoyant substrates. But there was a time, long ago, when the Continent pushed in from every side, and an entire island was buried. Buried and carried a long ways under the sea.”
The woman liked to explain things. Was she a teacher?
“Interesting,” Jopale offered, though he wasn’t convinced that it was.
“That island is like a mountain in reverse, you see. It extends a long ways below the waterline. Like a fist sticking out from the bottom of the Continent, reaching deeper into our ocean than any other feature we know of.”
“I see,” he muttered.
But why she would call it, “Our ocean”? How many oceans were there?
“That’s why the science station was built there,” she explained. “ ‘A good mountain to do research.’ That what my colleagues used to joke.”
“What kind of research?” he asked.
“Land distortions and water cycles, mostly. And various experts who work with that submerged ground.”
He said, “Really?” with a false enthusiasm.
The woman nodded, returning to her distant stare.
“Is that your specialty?” he asked, trying to read the binding of her book. “Prehistoric islands?”
“Oh, no.” She passed the heavy book to her other arm.
“Then what do you do?”
It was an exceptionally reasonable question, but she was a peculiar creature. Smiling as if nothing had ever been funnier, she said, “Do-ane.” She wasn’t quite looking at his face, telling him, “That is my name.”
He didn’t have a ready response.
“You told me yours. I assumed you wanted to know mine.”
“Thank you,” Jopale muttered.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything else.”
He nodded and shrugged. And then his mockman emerged from the stomach: A mature female with big blue eyes riding high on her broad stoic face. Jopale had recently purchased her from a cousin, replacing the mockmen he had lost when the valley flooded. For her species, she was smart and adaptable. By any standard, she was loyal, and in countless domestic tasks, she was helpful. And like every passenger from the worm’s stomach, she smelled of acid and other unpleasant secretions. But at least this creature didn’t want to play word games, or dance silly secrets before his eyes.
Jopale spoke to one of the soldiers, proving his ownership to everyone’s satisfaction.
“My bags,” he ordered.
The creature snatched each by its rope handle.
“This way,” he said. Then with a minimal nod, he excused himself from Do-ane, pushing through the station, searching for some place where the noble refugee might eat a fit meal.