Linda Nagata - Memory

On the escarpment the vegetation soon grew so dense that only an army of highway-building kobolds would have a hope of finding a straight path through it. Being only three players on bikes, we were forced to follow winding game trails that had mostly been made by creatures much shorter than a player seated on a bike.

I leaned close against the handlebars, but branches still whipped my face and shoulders. Beneath me, the bike tires stretched and jumped and grabbed for traction, kicking up mud as they fought to keep balance, and to climb, but their vertical reach was only ten inches. Every minute or two we’d have to stop and lift the front tires of our bikes over a rock step, or onto a fallen trunk, and once we had to port all three bikes across a narrow ravine with near-vertical walls, because we could not get up the speed to jump it. It was hard work, but at least it was not hot. Clouds closed in around us just past noon, drawing curtains of fine gray mist across the last views of the lowlands, and shortly after that it began to rain.

We kept on. Several times the game trails vanished against vertical stone, or disappeared into fast white streams, or wandered back downhill where we did not want to go. At such times we struggled to turn the bikes around and then we backtracked, looking for any suggestion of an opening in the dripping vegetation.

It was very late on that dreary afternoon when we finally reached the top of the escarpment. We topped out beside a trickle of water that drained an odd little meadow of thick grasses that turned out, on closer inspection, to be a bog. It looked like paradise to me. “Let’s camp here,” I said, dropping the kickstand on my bike. I gave into exhaustion and tumbled to the soft ground, sure that I could not get any wetter, until I felt chill water seeping against my shoulder blades. Oh, well. Moki jumped down from his perch in the saddle bin to lick my face. Then he raced away, happy to stretch his legs.

Gigantic trees leaned over the little bog, ghostly gray silhouettes that faded in and out of the mist. I could hear birds calling in small, squeaky voices, but I could not see them.

Udondi and Liam had gone on across the clearing but they stopped when they saw I was not following. “Jubilee?” Liam called, his voice strangely muffled by the mist.

“Let’s camp here,” I repeated. “It’s the only place we’ve seen all afternoon with enough room to unroll a sleeping bag.”

“We can camp here if you want,” Udondi said. “But come closer to the trees. It’s dryer.”

“There is no such thing as dry!” Just the same, I forced myself up one more time, climbed onto the bike, and trundled across the spongy ground.

I got a surprise when I reached the trees. All those layers of greater and lesser forests that we had squirmed through on the journey up the escarpment did not exist here on the plateau. Beneath the trees the ground was carpeted with moss—nothing but moss. Raindrops glittered like tiny diamonds strewn across the perfect green. I could see into the forest for maybe twenty yards before the mist closed in and it was like that everywhere: huge tree trunks and a green moss carpet. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath of contentment. “So, I guess we could sleep anywhere here.”

And that’s what I did. I rolled out my sleeping bag, switched on the heat, and crawled inside with a dinner packet, drifting off before it was half-eaten.

Moki must have finished the rest, for the packet was empty when I wakened to the old-man voice of my savant. Night had fallen, and the rain had stopped. Stars glittered to the west, where I could see past the bog to the edge of the escarpment and the vista beyond. The savant floated beside me, gleaming silver, just an inch or two above the ground. Liam must have gotten it out of my saddle bin and set it to watch.

“What is it?” I whispered, listening to the soft breathing of the others from the darkness nearby.

“A call from Yaphet.”

Yaphet. I’d almost forgotten about him.

“What time is it?”

“Thirty minutes past midnight.”

Ah. Our usual time of discourse. I slipped out of my sleeping bag into a night colder than any I had felt before. I drew in a sharp breath. I had always heard that mountains were cold; it snows in the mountains after all, though never in the lowlands. I wondered if it might snow on us before we crossed the Kalang.

My field jacket was still damp, but I pulled it close anyway. Moki appeared from somewhere, and with the savant soaring beside us to light the way, we stumbled toward the bog.

That night the Bow of Heaven remained invisible, but the stars were bright and I could just make out the edge of the escarpment. An exposed rock, softened by moss, sufficed for a rather soggy bench. Above and beyond and even beneath me, stars filled the black canopy of the sky. I had never looked down on stars before. We were that high and for several seconds all I could do was stare at them until the savant whispered again for my attention. “This is a time-limited channel.”

“All right. Link. Link now. Yaphet?”

The warning placard appeared, then immediately minimized, and Yaphet was there—still at home in his room. I was surprised at the rush of relief I felt knowing he had not left home. “Jubilee.” He looked at me with worried eyes. “Were you sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know if I should call.”

“It’s all right.”

He searched my eyes, as if seeking there for some hidden truth. “You’re okay?”

“A lot has happened, since we talked last.”

“You’re not at home, are you?”

“No.” I pushed at my disheveled hair, then drew a deep breath, trying to drive away the lethargy of sleep. We had only a few minutes. “I’ve left home. My brother—my older brother—though he’s younger than I am now—he was taken by the silver years ago. I never told you about him, Yaphet. His name was… is Jolly. We thought he was dead, but he’s not. He’s alive but lost. He’s at a station in the Iraliad. I’m going after him. You must not tell anyone this. Yaphet? Do you understand?”

His scowl told me he did not. “This isn’t funny.”

“It isn’t meant to be.”

“You’ve set out for Vesarevi, haven’t you? Why don’t you just say so?”

“Because I haven’t. And I won’t. Not until I get my brother home.”

He looked at me doubtfully. “You’re… serious?”

“Yes. The ruined city, I told you about that. It was from the time of Fiaccomo.”

He nodded stiffly. He still did not believe. And yet he did. I could see that conflict on his face.

“I think my brother is somehow like Fiaccomo—”

“No. That’s imposs—”

“Just listen!” I hissed. “There is another who is not destroyed by the silver and he is hunting my brother too. It’s why you must tell no one. No one .”

He looked at me in helpless confusion, before remembering himself. “Our time…” He gestured to the corner of the screen.

I glanced at the clock. Our time was almost up. “I’ll call you when I can, and explain more.”

“Where in the Iraliad?” he asked quickly. “Where are you going?”

Would he come if I told him? Would he? Did I want him to?

“Jubilee, you know I’d never do anything to bring you harm. Tell me.”

And if he would harm me? I would know it now, before I ever met him. Until that time, I would still have a choice. “Rose Island Station,” I whispered.

“Okay.” The link closed, and he was gone.

I sighed deeply and shoved the savant away, watching its silvery wing shape bobble on the air, wondering what Yaphet would choose to do. It was Moki’s soft growl that brought me back to the present.