“And this is the reef’s wasteland,” Seldom said. “This coral is old, drained of its nutrients.”
On the poor ground beneath them was a big animal, thick and strong with long jaws and a fleshy sail down its back. Rising up on its hind legs, it greeted the ship with a solid, high-pitched wailing.
“A burnish-hound,” Seldom said.
The children pushed their shoulders against Diamond.
“Do you see any papio?” Elata asked.
Seldom looked everywhere, admitting, “I wish I did, but no.”
Elata shoved her face against the flexible window, pushing to look ahead, pushing as if she wanted to split the rubber and fall free. “I see the station,” she said. Then after a pause and one abrupt deep breath, she said, “Oh my, my! I think that’s . . . it is has to be . . . I can’t believe it . . . !”
“The papio?” Seldom asked.
“A corona,” she said.
“Dead?” he said.
She laughed. “If it was alive, I’d be screaming. Wouldn’t I?”
Horns sounded from below, modulated, rich with meaning. The Happenstance turned away from the corona. Diamond caught a glimpse of something long and pale, but then it vanished behind a tall knob of blue-green coral. The station was a sprawling, thinly populated collection of industrial buildings and bunkhouses, and on the outskirts were circles of ground stripped of foliage and roughly smoothed out, pylons standing in the middle of each circle, waiting for ships to be tied against them. A small busy man waved red flags, and the Happenstance paused above him, bleeding just enough hydrogen to begin a slow, graceful fall. Then a troop of capable monkeys galloped out of a bunkhouse, grabbing the lines cast off from the ship, and they climbed the pylon, each weaving its own slipknot before falling into boisterous arguments about which knot was best.
The pilot was first down the gangway, cursing to the one human about his miserable luck and his extraordinary good fortune. “That engine flew to pieces, but did we catch fire? Did we puncture? Did we fall into the sun? I don’t know whether to moan or cheer, so I’ll do both. How about that?”
The man with the flags nodded absently, watching three children and one older man approaching.
“Merit,” said Nissim. “We’re looking for him, sir. It’s very important.”
The man was short and strong and perhaps a little simple. But he liked being called, “Sir,” and talking about the famous corona hunter always brought a smile to his filthy, unshaven face.
“I don’t know where Merit is,” he said. “But steer for the carcass. The man brought us a half-giant this morning. A beauty. I’m sure he’s there now, kneeling in its shadow, begging for forgiveness.”
Everything was amazing, and Seldom laughed at everything. “Do you know who this fellow is? This is Merit’s son.”
The flag man was pleasant but not terribly impressed. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he told Diamond. Then voicing some old, well-rehearsed joke, he added, “You certainly got lucky, my boy. You don’t look at all like your father.”
Seldom and the flag man laughed together, for different reasons.
Diamond’s head dipped and he walked on.
The Happenstance’s pilot remained behind, steering the conversation back to what mattered: the condition of his broken engine and how soon could he roundup the mechanics to help him and his crew make repairs.
The Master dropped his goggles down around his neck, and the others did what he did, following him along a broad trail covered with pulverized, closely packed coral. With a teacher’s voice, Nissim said, “The reef is rough and we don’t have adequate shoes. So walk the established paths. And please, whatever you do, stay close to me. This isn’t safe country for the prepared, and we aren’t even that.”
“I know,” Seldom said.
“We’ll be careful,” Elata said agreeably.
“And I have one command,” Nissim said. “From now on, nobody mentions fathers and sons. I think we need the habit of keeping certain kinds of knowledge private.”
Seldom asked, “Why?”
“For a flock of reasons,” the man said. “And I’ll just leave my warning at that.”
The native ground was bluish-gray, full of holes and crevices, and wherever there was a dab of soil, plants thrived. Leaves were thick and fleshy, holding tight to their water as they faced the scattered sunlight. The trail rose up onto the big knob of coral and flattened out. Walking beside Diamond, the Master said, “If a boy wanted, he could walk all the way around the world.”
Turning his head, Diamond began the journey in his mind.
“The reef is a circle growing on the world’s waist,” Nissim said. “The underside is what lives, and like trees, it grows toward the sun but only so far. Like the trees, size and weight limits how far the coral can reach. Rain and plant roots break up the coral, and like old glass, every little crack builds into large fissures. And when the edges are weak, the edges fall free.”
“Avalanches,” Seldom said with relish.
Nissim nodded. “Little landslides are common. But someday everything we’re walking on is going to shatter, sliding down to where the coronas live. Then new coral will grow in the gaping hole, and the slow majestic business of building the reef starting over again.”
“But not today,” said Elata.
“Most likely not,” said the Master.
Diamond looked away from the sunlight.
“You’re watching for the papio,” Seldom guessed.
“No,” Diamond said. The human forest was vast in one fashion, but this country was just as enormous, marvelous and limitless. The coral never quit rising as it approached the world’s edge, growing dark with shadow and the old, black-leafed forests that thrived in shadow. What was he searching for? Diamond forgot to walk, stopping on the trail while hunting for the words, and after a few moments of feeling lost, he ran to catch up with the others.
The trail crossed a weathered ridge before descending into a short broad valley. The ground was gravel and sand and easily walked. Several small fletches drifted at temporary moorings, forming a semicircle, and a small town of tents had been erected in the last little while. Rumbling generators and tiny two-man airships were scattered across the open ground. Seven spherical balloons were partly deflated, barely able to hang in the air, each tethered to a long flattened silver-white shape. Diamond’s first impression was that a peculiar airship had crashed in this remote place, and the balloons were ready to lift the wreckage back into the sky where it belonged. But Elata and Seldom said, “Corona.” They said the word together, with the same quietly astonished voice. And Diamond looked again, fresh eyes working the mysterious shape.
Nothing looked like a head; there were no visible eyes or mouth or nostrils. The body had some shape while it lived, or many shapes, but in death it was a vast bulk of flesh that had been dragged across the valley’s abrasive floor, balloons and fletch engines yanking the corpse until came to rest here. It seemed unnaturally long and too narrow at the same time. Where the skin was stretched most, scales were pulled apart, revealing milky skin. Even at a distance, the monster was huge. And then they walked closer and still hadn’t gotten close, and the corona was too enormous to absorb in one long glance. Diamond’s heart hurried and his breath deepened. There were no feathers, no leather, just silvery scales on the white skin that had already been dried by death. For no obvious reason, one portion of the body was buoyant, as if a great bubble was trapped inside, or better, an inflated balloon had been swallowed and was trying to lift the carcass free. That seemed like such a reasonable explanation that Diamond mentioned it to the others, and Elata began by saying, “Be nice, Seldom.”
Seldom walked with his hands woven together, riding on top of his head. “No, that’s just a corona bladder that’s still inflated.”
“With hydrogen,” Diamond guessed.
“No, with a vacuum.”
“What’s that?”