All that happened long before the injured fletch ship arrived; and an interesting day suddenly grew into something quite a bit better.
There was no debate inside the body, no battles of doubts and desires. Huge eyes focused on the visiting machine, seeing its name and the homely monkey woman riding the ship’s bow, and inside the same moment, every voice said, “Happenstance.”
In all, there were eight voices, and in the next moment, most of the voices began to tell old stories about that particular ship.
Tree-walkers were smaller than papio which was why they preferred to ride inside enormous bags of gas. At least that was an explanation often heard in this realm. They were tiny and scared monkeys, but the blimps and fletches and big airships inflated with explosive gas made them feel a little larger and just a little less fearful.
Eight voices inhabited the body hiding inside the old crevasse. They shared the same long mouth, the same bowl-like ears, while twin black and gold eyes stared at the magnificent world.
Over more than nine hundred days of life, each voice had watched the gas ships come from the distant forest and then return again. With identical memories, unerring and apparently effortless, they learned the names of important ships and the special monkeys, just as they absorbed each of the faces and names and life histories and peculiar talents of those deemed worthy of looking into their great face. On several occasions, they saw the monkey ships destroyed. Ships had accidentally caught fire and fallen apart, corona skins and motors and dying bodies plummeting through the floor of the sky. And coronas had destroyed other ships that came too far out from the forest.
The Happenstance triggered all of those stories, and no two voices agreed on anything but the details. These eyes were equal windows, yet some of the voices were thrilled, even amused by these disasters. Others were nothing but sad. Each voice was balanced on a soul, and souls were notoriously independent. Reactions varied according to their natures, but there were deeper variations too. Each told its stories in its own manner. They shared senses and experiences, and they shared a massive home of odd bones and mismatched meat; but some different part of what had happened before had to be accented. Different details were pulled out of a perfect memory. Every voice clung to its version of the same tragic incidents, marking the death of creatures that had done nothing wrong to them, and for that matter, nothing right either.
The damaged fletch arrived, and the Eight talked and talked and talked.
Except one of the voices didn’t tell any stories.
Something here seemed odd or important. But she wasn’t sure what she was thinking, which was a good reason to say nothing. She watched the tree-walkers come out of the fletch. Some to them might never have stood on real ground before. They talked to one another and talked to the man who waved flags, and then the newcomers walked from one low spot to the next, coming a little closer, and she stared at their walks, noticing more by the moment.
Every voice had its name.
The silent voice preferred to be called Divers.
Nobody else noticed what Divers noticed. Monkey children were unusual and interesting, and she studied them closely in the corners of the eyes, noticing the deep oddities holding tight to one of those tiny bodies.
And still she said nothing.
Another voice finally mentioned the children, in passing, and then another wondered what they were doing on the reef.
Still, no one else seemed to notice what was most strange.
In many ways, this shared body looked like a papio, except built on a gigantic scale. But it had always been clumsy to the brink of crippled, which was why caretakers were essential. Each voice had a small or large role in tightening muscles and relaxing muscles while keeping the entire structure in rough balance. Too many times to count, there had been mistakes. The Eight had fallen down jagged slopes, crushing fingers and gouging eyes. Entire limbs had been lost for no reason but simple clumsiness. Yet none of the wounds lasted for long, which caused some to suggest that the Creators were wise in their hearts, and despite evidence to the contrary, they were kind, fashioning a creature that couldn’t hurt itself for very long.
Perhaps, and perhaps.
But Divers’ voice had the largest role in shaping the body’s growth and then making it move. And as the others spoke endlessly about memories and odd conjectures, telling the same but different stories about events long passed, she took hold of every muscle that she could, and with one titanic urge, caused their body to rise up from the comfortable mat, one leg and then its mate driving it forward onto the crumbled, desiccated coral.
Seven voices shouted their fierce disapproval.
Divers said, “Quiet,” and then she said, “You blind fools.”
That earned more comments, insults and several reflexive attempts to stop their forward motion.
Coral grit slid down the slope, kicking clouds of dust into the weak glare of the day.
The odd boy heard something, or maybe he felt the Eight’s presence. Or it could have been chance that turned his head, making him look up at their hiding place.
In unison, the great body froze where it was, muscles rigid, clamping down on the breath trapped inside its various lungs.
The boy paused, and they felt seen.
But then he walked on.
With every step, his oddness became more obvious.
Giant eyes grew dry, and tears flowed. But each voice fought the urge to blink, for fear of missing anything.
They watched the boy leave the others, running beside the corona, which was so very dangerous.
“Whatever he is,” said one voice, “he has to be as stupid as a bellringer bird.”
Then the dead neck leaped, and the foot was chopped off.
Every voice gave its opinion—scorn or pity, and sometimes both.
Then the foot was recovered, and the boy returned it to his leg, and the famous slayer stood before this magical creature. Sensitive as the big ears were, no words were heard. But there was a sense about what was happening before them, and what the slayer and boy were to each other.
Every voice had opinions.
Not one of them spoke, watching spellbound.
The boy stood on his dead foot, which wasn’t dead. Then some of the monkeys walked with him down into the valley, and they became even tinier as they stood next to the empty air.
“He is like us,” the voices whispered.
Which begged the old question: what exactly were “us”?
Then the Ruler of the Wind appeared, bringing the Archon of Archons to the lands of the papio. But the giant airship wasn’t important, and List was just another monkey from the trees, and the arrival was like the false calm that comes to a story when it loses its way.
“Run, run, run, run,” Father said.
Diamond did just that.
Voices chased after him, shrill and close and then not so close. Suddenly there was nothing to hear but his quick breathing and the bite of sandals into the rough coral dirt. He didn’t look back. He felt as if all he had to do now was run forever. Forever might be possible. A boy who could reattach his severed foot should be able to run day and night, eating what he could grab and sleeping in those little bites of time while both of his feet were in the air, free of duties. Running forever wasn’t what Father had wanted. It was Diamond’s plan, nobody else’s, and he promised himself that he wouldn’t stop until he was halfway around the world, and only then he would pause long enough to glance over his shoulder—days and days between him and his pursuers.
The tent village was stretched out before him, and those very strange people were standing on the flat, foot-packed ground. Papio faces sported long, strong jaws and teeth bigger than human teeth, or his. They had pink hair on their scalps and some men had long red beards, and there were colorful, intricate tattoos wherever the brown skin showed. Eyes were bright and gold, staring out at Diamond from deep holes. Neat, durable clothes ended with bare broad toes on the long feet and bony hands curled up, knuckles touching the ground when the papio were doing nothing but standing. Knives and pistols rode on several of the belts. They didn’t stand any taller than humans, but they were massive with muscle and bone. Golden eyes stared at the running boy. The faces seemed very different from human faces, but the same emotions made their expressions flow in important ways. Then one of the papio, the delegate woman from the beginning, pointed her eyes and arm at something behind the running boy, and then she hollered a few sharp, senseless words.