Sitting on a wide tree branch was a human, a man calmly watching the ship pass. Feet dangling and the face curious, he stared at the gasbag and the smoky dead engine, and then he noticed the boy leaning against the window.
Diamond waved at the man.
The man lifted his arm and then thought better of it.
Master Nissim said, “That’s a forester, probably. There’s a lot of good wood to be pruned from these trees.”
“Or a bandit,” Seldom said.
Nissim didn’t believe so. He clucked his tongue while patting Diamond on his side, feeling where the little knife still rode against his hip.
They didn’t mention the knife or any ordinary dangers.
“Do you think it’s true, Master?” Elata asked. “Is there another world?”
“No,” Seldom said.
Nissim responded with a long pause and then his own question. “And why do you believe there isn’t, Seldom?”
“The world is all there is. What more can there be?”
“That’s the faith for you and every other old man,” Nissim kidded. “ ‘There can’t be anything else because this is everything we need, now and forever.’ ”
Seldom shrank down, thinking.
Branches started closing in from every side, and the surviving engine throttled up in response, buying speed and a fresh trajectory.
“Suppose there was another world,” said Seldom. “Suppose it was filled with people like us or people like the papio. Or somebody else, maybe. Wouldn’t they sometimes come visit us? And couldn’t we fly to their homes and see them for ourselves?”
Elata grabbed up Diamond’s hand.
“Wouldn’t the strangers be everywhere?” asked Seldom.
“But,” Elata began.
The Master looked at her. “Yes?”
“Every house has hollow places,” she said. “There’s always little holes in the wall that nobody sees, nobody cares about.”
“But I know what I know, and I’m right,” Seldom said.
Elata glanced at Diamond, ready to say something more.
But then the ship slowed abruptly, everyone stumbling toward the bow. A screeching roar came from every side, long branches shoving against the hull and engines and wings. The pilot was steering them into a tangle of snags. But the limbs were young and pliable, and fletches were woven from the flesh and tough bladders of supple young coronas. Nothing was punctured, nothing hooked. The Happenstance slowed again and then surged, emerging into a wide empty cylinder hacked from the forest—a vertical avenue made with axes and power saws—and Diamond found himself floating inside a river of light that carried the sun’s brilliance into the highest reaches of this perfect, seemingly endless world.
ELEVEN
Two engines were pushing the ship, each possessed by rhythms and harmonics familiar to ears that missed very little. She recognized the ship by its sounds and saw it plainly in her mind, and from the changing pitch and volume she could envision its future. The fletch would come close but not very close and then swiftly move away. On a normal day, she would remain where she was and how she was, changing nothing needing. But then the steadier engine gained an odd rattle, banging once and again, and the fire inside its belly suddenly jumped free.
The explosion was thunderous, persistent. The entire forest was frightened. Pretty shells retrieved their insects and hollows sucked up their monkeys, while various wings picked up their bodies and fled. She watched the wings rush away. She listened to the ship slowing, its surviving engine growing soft and careful. Moments like this were rare. Fletches liked to fly as if moments were precious and distance was cheap. Yet despite being crippled, the ship stubbornly maintained its original course, giving her the luscious chance to enjoy a good close look at something different.
Yet every action wears costs. Motion meant burning energy as well as a piece of the day. No matter the precautions, there also was the insidious risk of being seen by the wrong eyes, and she never wanted to be seen. And of course this could be a trap designed for outlaws, or as unlikely as it seemed, for her. But the worst risk was that nothing bad would happen, or worse, that this little adventure would end well. Sweet-tasting indulgences had their way of building tendencies, and she appreciated how tendencies became habit. Render the joy from one good experience and the mind was ready to accept that same risk again; survive ten thousand happy risks and the ten thousandth and first would look harmless, regardless of the looming dangers.
How many wise creatures stepped on the wrong branch before falling to their deaths?
Too many to count, she reminded herself.
The forest calmed itself, and she made ready. Traps could be waiting. Studying her surroundings, she sniffed deeply and listened to the fletch and to everything else, and then once more she looked at the world, using fresher eyes. Only then did she feel secure enough to slip out from the protective shadows, changing colors to match the green glare of the day, running lightly along the nodding limbs.
Animals noticed her passage. She wore camouflage and worked for silence, but there was no perfect way to be invisible. Indeed, she learned long ago not to try too hard to vanish. Startle a bird, and it would screech and fly away, drawing eyes in inconvenient directions. No, it was better to give birds little warnings that she was coming, convincing them that she was nothing. Monkeys were worse hazards, since they often shouted words that tree-walkers and reef-humans understood. That’s why she chose to look like a harmless creature or some peculiar gust of wind and leaf. Appearing suddenly in front of a large troop could bring a cacophony, which she never wanted. The entire forest had to accept her as mannerly and simple, and most of all, harmless. Chasing the same logic, she made herself appear smaller than she was while making comforting noises and calls of peace. But perhaps her finest trick was leaking odors that any nose would find reassuring. She could dance past jazzings and chokers and all of the nervous monkeys in the world, and every beast caught a whiff of something that was pleasant, and every mind smiled in its fashion. And only when no animal noticed—as she filled the world with happy noise and happy stink—would she risk nabbing a body or two for a meal.
But today she ate nothing. The crippled ship continued pushing ahead, and she ran parallel to its course and then glided even nearer, finding a fine perch where she could hesitate, watching her surroundings once more. Every tree wore a name given by her, and she knew the major branches and most of the little ones. Nothing was out of place. Yet she turned nonetheless, turned and ran away from the rumbling engine, testing every hunter’s patience.
Nobody followed; nothing cared.
And she attacked a crooked trunk, climbing higher, making herself bigger and far stronger as she scampered through the shadows above the midday canopy. The forest lived inside the world and inside her mind. Better than its human pilot, she knew where a fletch would fly and the tangles it should avoid while heading out of the canopy. She did a fine job guessing which limb would supply her with concealment as well as an excellent vantage point. She placed herself ahead of the ship, and nobody saw her when she hid where she had never stood before. With every eye, she watched the Happenstance approaching, growing loud and huge, and then it steadily slid past again. Human bodies stood and sat behind the clear rubber windows. Human faces stared at the ship’s controls and at one another, and they talked to one another and to themselves, and then finally she saw the little faces of children looking out at the dense forest.
One boy glanced at her with intensity.