Steven Harper - Dreamer

Ara looked up. “Who’s doing what?”

“Kendi. He’s making cow eyes.”

“I never made cow eyes in my life,” Kendi protested. “I’m just glad to be home.”

Gretchen snorted. “Uh huh. In a month, all you’ll be complaining about the humidity and how the trees get in the way of the view.”

“You need to shave your mustache more often, Gretchen,” Kendi said. “You’re coming across all prickly.”

This argument would have gone further, but Ara firmly put an end to it and Kendi turned his full attention back to piloting. Ben had already put the sound-dampeners on full, and the power drain made the ship sluggish. The Unity didn’t care how much noise a ship made, making the spaceport a deafening place. Things were different on Bellerophon.

After only a tiny bit of wrangling with customs, the Post Script crew was given official permission to disembark. Kendi, who had stuffed his few belongings into a single satchel, stood at the hatchway with Sejal beside him. Sejal’s possessions consisted of a single computer button with his journal on it and the collapsible flute in his pocket. He was fidgeting restlessly as Kendi opened the hatchway.

A breath of cool, damp air redolent of moss and green leaves wafted over Sejal. He inhaled deeply. His first alien breath. Kendi had landed the ship at the edge of the airfield, and the wide brown trunk of a tree dominated the view from the hatchway. It was so tall, Sejal couldn’t see the top. Between the ship and tree was a transparent chain link fence, probably to keep unauthorized people off the airfield. A light fog hovered lazily among the trees like a tattered white cloak. A bit awed, Sejal could do nothing but stare.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” Gretchen ordered from behind them. “Some of us have lives, you know.”

Sejal took another humid breath, then stepped forward with an oddly stiff gait. He almost paraded down the ramp, then hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” Kendi asked beside him. Gretchen pushed past them, satchel in hand, and disappeared around the ship.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been on another world,” Sejal said. “I seems like…I don’t know…like it should be something special.”

“Take a look around you,” Kendi laughed. His white teeth shone against his dark face. “Does this feel ordinary?”

Sejal looked. Ships of all shapes and sizes rested on reinforced gray aerogel just as they did in the Unity, but beyond them loomed the forest. The trees stretched as high as Unity skyscrapers, and they were so wide that thirty humans couldn’t join hands in a circle around one. Green ground-hugging vegetation misted the ground beneath them. The lowest tree branches were several stories above the ground. It was breathtaking. Sejal, a child of streets and skyscrapers, had never been outside the city, and though he had seen images of forests, he had never imagined them as looking like this.

“It’s amazing,” Sejal said, awed. “And it’s so quiet.”

As if on cue, a booming roar shattered the air. Sejal jumped. The sound was echoed by another in the far distance.

“What was that?” Sejal whispered.

“A dinosaur,” Kendi told him absently. He kept throwing glances over his shoulder as if he were looking for someone.

“A dinosaur?”

“A prehistoric lizard from Earth. The dominant animals on Bellerophon are big lizards, so the first colonists started calling them dinosaurs.”

Sejal peered nervously toward the trees. “Do they hurt people?”

“That’s what the fence is for. It keeps the dinosaurs from squashing the ships-and vice-versa.”

Kendi lead Sejal across the airfield, into the spaceport, and through another customs check. Kendi had to invoke his authority as a Child of Irfan to get Sejal, who didn’t have any sort of passport, through this stage, but Sejal barely noticed. Like the Unity port, the Bellerophon port was extremely busy. Small carts and platforms zipped by. Speakers blared announcements. Restaurants filled the air with food smells. None of this was what distracted him, however. It was the aliens. They were everywhere, walking, lurching, or slithering in shapes and sizes Sejal had never imagined. More than once he saw the creatures like the four-legged one that had saved him in the Dream. He couldn’t help staring, and Kendi had to yank him forward several times.

“I’m not used to all these aliens,” he said in apology. “Do they all live here?”

Kendi shook his head. “Most of them are just passing through. Humans and Ched-Balaar-the four-legged aliens-are the main people on Bellerophon. There’s a fair chunk of other races at the monastery, though.”

“Aren’t the Ched-Balaar the ones who showed humans the Dream?” Sejal said, again awed.

“That’s them. Come on. There’s a train to the city leaving in a few minutes, and I don’t want to miss it.”

He hustled Sejal out the port’s main entrance. A monorail train waited on a track, and the last people from the platform had boarded. Kendi and Sejal leaped aboard just as the doors were sliding shut. The train slid soundlessly forward, then uphill. Vegetation blurred into a green wall.

“Why are we going up?” Sejal said.

“The monastery-and the rest of the city-is built in the talltrees.”

“How come?”

“Easier on the ecology and easier to avoid getting eaten by a dinosaur.”

A few minutes later, Kendi and Sejal disembarked on a wooden platform high above the ground. The track and platform were partly supported by the massive branches of the talltree and partly supported by thick cables drilled into the trunk itself. The monorail slid quietly away and vanished into the leafy branches. Between the cracks of the boards under his feet, Sejal could see the empty air that dropped several hundred meters straight down into gray mist. Green leaves and brown branches surrounded them. Behind him lay the station, a building that curved around the talltree. Platforms, ramps, ladders, and staircases formed a network further up the trunk, connecting the tree to others in the forest.

“Where’s the city?” Sejal asked.

“You’re in it,” Kendi said. “This is the town center. Over there’s the town hall.”

Sejal blinked. Now that Kendi had pointed it out, Sejal could make out other structures built into other tree canopies. They were all but hidden by thick foliage.

“Come on,” Kendi said, plucking at Sejal’s elbow. “We need to go up a couple more levels to catch the shuttle back to the monastery.”

Sejal tried to obey, but it was difficult. Everything was so strange. He had no idea where he was or how to get around. With a pang he realized that if he and Kendi got separated, he wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to go or what to do.

They trotted up a wide wooden staircase. All the buildings and platforms, in fact, seemed to made of the wood instead of aerogel. When he asked about this, Kendi replied that talltree wood cured hard as steel, making it an ideal building material.

Humans and Ched-Balaar strolled the platforms. In contrast to the spaceport, no one here seemed to be in any hurry. The Ched-Balaar, in fact, were particularly slow-moved and graceful. They moved in pairs or small groups, often with humans. An odd chattering noise followed them, and Kendi explained that the Ched-Balaar spoke by clacking their teeth together. Classes in the Ched-Balaar tongue would be part of Sejal’s education at the monastery, though the instruction would be limited to understanding the language; no human could produce Ched-Balaar sounds.

They arrived at another platform and boarded another monorail. A while later, they disembarked along with a dozen or so other passengers. Sejal couldn’t keep his eyes off the Ched-Balaar in the group. Their long, mobile necks made a slow sort of dance when they moved their heads, and their hand gestures were smooth and languid.