K Jeter - Farewell Horizontal

There had been angels. He remembered that, too. Rows and rows of them, in all directions, in the twilight shade under the cloud barrier. The inflated spheres behind their shoulderblades like muted sunbursts, the traceries of veins all soft blue in the half-light, lace into ash. All around him, in every direction he turned, rolling on his back in air, arms spread wide as he fell, the wind along his ribs, breath solid in his mouth…

That was the last thing that he remembered. There wasn’t any more after that. He saw Lahft again, leaning forward, her hands gripping the edges of the peeled metal, waiting patiently for him.

“Okay.” Axxter nodded. “I get it. You… caught me. When I came falling through. Right?”

She looked away, considering the statement. The little wheels were almost visible inside her skull.

“Caught.” She pursed her lips, staring out toward the edge of the atmosphere. “Falling…” Her eyes suddenly widened in alarm; she reached down and grabbed Axxter’s wrist, locking it tight in her grip.

“No… no.” He gently tugged his hand free. “I’m not falling now . I was falling then . Remember?”

“Then…” Her face clouded with effort. Bright joy broke through: “Catch! Caught! ” She hugged herself, pressing some invisible body to her breast. “Caught you then!”

The angels’ elastic sense of time, first a point too small to be seen, then a rubber ball that filled a hand, but never any more than that. Axxter reached down and tugged the makeshift rope away from his chest. “Yeah, well -” It explained a lot of things. She must’ve been hanging around, the way she had been, outside the Mass camp’s firing distance, when all the shit had come literally down. Or else she’d been consorting with her buddies, all happy angels together, underneath the clouds. And it’d just been his good luck to come crashing through the soft roof of their world, right at the best of all possible spots. At any rate, she’d been there for him; had put the grab on him, a great big hug – he wished he could remember that part; battered as he was, the nude body perched above him, the bare pink feet dangling inches away from his face, still twinged the other living part of him. Incorrigible; he sighed and shook his head. The rope parted, and he dropped the two ends swinging away from him. He twisted about, boots freed for a moment until the pithons took hold in their new positions. Face and chest toward the wall now; he let out the lines from the belt, so that he could lean back in relative comfort and look up at Lahft.

“Caught me, right. Okay…” Bit by bit, pieces fitting together. “Christ, I must’ve hit you like a ton of bricks.”

She tilted her head, the smile puzzled.

“When I hit you.” He slammed one hand into the other to demonstrate. “When you caught me. Boom. Then what happened?” Wasting time, he knew. There was a bunch of shit he should be taking care of, rather than just poking into the exact mechanics of his continued existence. Like finding out where the hell he was, and if it was anywhere close to all those who wanted to kick his ass. That should’ve been priority one. Still -

“Boom.” Lahft nodded sagely, arms still wrapped around herself. “Then. Falling – right?”

“Fell.” He could imagine it, his deadweight dropping the hugging angel along with him.

“Long, long way.” She pointed to the clouds, and whatever was below them. “So I go big .” The translucent sphere behind her shoulders expanded in demonstration; she lifted a bit off the metal seat as the gases inside the membrane made her buoyant. “Then. Not falling.” The smile again.

“Not falling – right. Then what? Uh – drifting?”

“Drifting.” She nodded. “Big, and the wind -” She made a pushing gesture with the palm of one hand. “Drifting and drifting. A long way. Then. Here.”

She wasn’t going to be much help in getting his bearings. Location was probably as fuzzy a concept as time for the angels. No difference out there in the air. They could’ve gone drifting over whole sectors of wall, one angel with her flight membrane ballooned out to the max, and her unconscious payload; until some favorable gust had brought her up against the building’s wall, close enough for her to grab on. His pithons had latched on, triggered by the proximity of steel, and she had knotted together that rope from whatever scraps she’d found nearby. Then waited.

Axxter looked to either side, leaning back against the pithons’ tension. Bleak, featureless wall stretched out. Gotta find a plug-in jack, he decided. There had to be one around here somewhere. So he could call his bank – before anything else, he had to do that. He had to know how bad his financial situation was. His bank account was probably wiped out by whatever fine he’d been hit with for cutting the transit cable. Maybe even in the absolute red right now; he’d be hustling for years to get it paid off. Still, if Public Works Department had left him with anything at all, he could make a start at finding out what he needed to know. Like where he was, and how many were out looking for him. Ask & Receive – he could place a shielded, anonymous call to the info agency; by the time the Havoc Mass had wangled a trace, he’d be long gone. If he had the money left to pay for the info. Axxter bit his lip, letting his thoughts spin along without brakes. Gotta find some place to hook up so I can make the call; that was the first thing -

He stopped, his string of thought suddenly broken. The light around him had turned red, the building’s wall deepening with it. That puzzled him, and he couldn’t tell why. Except that it had been all bright, well into the day, when he’d come to, found himself hanging here. The red light tinged darker as he stared about; he could see it on the backs of his hands. It was as though time had decided to run backward; it had become as loose and arbitrary for him as it was for the angels. The dawn following the daylight, coming after it rather than before -

He knew Lahft was staring at him, puzzled at his sudden confusion. Staring at him, as he stared out into the sky, toward the far edge of the clouds. Out where he saw something he had never seen before.

The clouds were all molten gold and red, turning darker, even to black as he watched.

The sun was setting, vanishing below the rim of the cloud barrier.

Axxter went on staring, as the sun became a slice, then a red point. He had never seen the sun set before. Nobody had.

† † †

He had a long time to think about it. All through a long and cold night, waiting for even the gray shadowlight that would come from the sun rising on Cylinder’s morningside.

By himself; Lahft got hungry, or bored, and went floating off. Axxter figured he’d see her again. In the vertical cradle of his pithons, he hung close to the wall, shivering in the dark winds, working things out inside his head.

He was on the other side. The eveningside – that much was clear. Where nobody – nobody he’d ever heard of, at least – had ever been. Just his luck – a whole new world stretching out in all directions, and he’d landed up in it with nothing but the clothes on his back. In one piece, at least; he had to admit that. The throbbing of his bruises had diminished, the blood ebbing back to his heart. One sharp pain remained in his side, which he’d prodded once with his finger, then promised himself he wouldn’t touch again.

Must’ve been drifting out there for – what? A day, two days? How long would it take to get this far from everything? Axxter gazed out into the darkness, wondering. Unless drifting wasn’t the exact word to be used – maybe Lahft, with him in her arms and her flight membrane distended all the way, had got caught in a ripping current out near the atmosphere’s edge. Out in the jet stream: that would’ve raced them along, right over all the sectors of the morningside, right over Linear Fair, the Right or the Left one. And then – spang – down here in unknown territory.