Gillian Anderson - The Sound of Seas

A prow with a dragonlike carving on the front. It was similar to the one Caitlin had drawn while doodling on the airplane while returning home from Haiti.

That was too much to add to the mix, so she didn’t. How could she possibly have anticipated seeing this? Unless she was remembering from the past…?

Good God, don’t try and make sense of this now , she told herself. Stay in the moment.

A second scaffold was suspended from the rear of the airship. Hoists lowered bags that she assumed were filled with waste or casks that needed refilling. It was a clean, efficient operation powered by weights like elevators in some of the older buildings in New York.

The trio was quickly under the shadow of the airship. Caitlin felt a chill going from bright sun to gray shadow; it had nothing to do with a change in temperature but a sense that recess was over. Unprepared as she was, events were about to become far more challenging. And though her instincts told her she could trust this woman, Caitlin still had no idea what Standor Qala meant to do with her. Perhaps Qala would lock her up in the airship. Still, Caitlin allowed herself to go forward.

The scaffolding that was lowered from the front of the airship was for personnel. She was correct about crew having time on the beach to stretch their legs and wet their feet. From what she overheard, with its fish-spotting duties done, the airship would be making cargo runs to other locations in Galderkhaan on its way to Aankhaan. The plan seemed to be to arrive while the celebration was just beginning, adding even more majesty to the night.

They boarded the lift at the base of the tower. There were hip-high metal rails around the sides and Caitlin held one with both hands in anticipation of the platform being jerked aloft. To her surprise, the ascent was quite smooth. As they rose, the splendor of Falkhaan, of ancient Antarctica, revealed itself in epic pieces. Ahead and below was the village itself, a collection of some two dozen wheel homes and courtyards and a roused populace going about their day. To her right, which was north, was the sea—windswept with choppy breakers in the horseshoe, smooth without. Neither wave nor wind posed a peril to the small crafts on it. In the distance, large fish leaped from the seas in unison, smaller fish among them who were seeking safety from ­albatross-like seabirds. There was a great deal of hunting and pecking from the birds’ large beaks as they tried to nab the smaller prey. Some succeeded, some failed, but even failure left some fish wounded. These fell back and were easily carried off from the surface.

The small airships above were silent, save for the flapping of the finlike projections that obviously controlled their rise and descent, others that managed forward and backward motion. Nets maneuvered into position to catch the leaping fish. To her left, beyond Standor Qala and Vilu, was a very distant vista: a plain of ice and distant peaks. She had no idea whether settlements like Falkhaan were created by channeling magma from the Source and melting the ice or they were simply oases in the ice sheet. As they neared the top of the column she saw another village some two miles distant with what appeared to be another cemetery road connecting it to Falkhaan. The village looked to be a cluster of farms growing something that resembled cotton, definitely a fiber of some kind. Carts laden with cloth were moving along the cemetery road that stretched beyond it into a hazy valley.

The wind was louder up here, not quite thundering in her ears but making it very difficult to hear anything else. The slight smell of something sulfurous also became more pronounced as they neared the top. She likewise felt an increase in the heat, the little that drifted down instead of rising.

That must be the magma of the Source located in the belly of this tower.

It caused the vista of the harbor city to ripple gently.

Soon to be leveled … all of it , Caitlin thought with a fresh sense of horror. She did not want to be a part of this. She did not want the responsibility. I’m going to wake, I have to wake —

“Mother?”

At first, Caitlin wasn’t sure she’d heard the whispered voice speaking in English. She had been looking away from Vilu. Now she turned toward him and saw his eyes partly open. The boy was smiling thinly.

“Mother,” he repeated, not as question this time but as a statement.

Caitlin started, did not know how to respond verbally. She touched his forehead comfortingly and returned his smile. Despite her expression, she prayed she had misheard, that this was not Jacob.

Standor Qala heard the boy as well. “Did he say something?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Caitlin lied.

The Standor turned to the boy just as the elevator scaffold reached the top of the column. She stepped onto the far side of a ledge below the large inverted V. The platform was nestled firmly against the side of the tower. There was a ramp that led from the center of this platform into a gated opening in the side of the gondola. The gate was open. The gangplank wobbled slightly as they stepped on it, and a moderate wind blew across them. Caitlin was glad for the handrails along the sides, and held them as she followed Qala. Vilu’s eyes were on her the entire time. The gangplank was about a dozen feet long. Halfway across, the boy stretched his arms over Qala’s shoulder, toward Caitlin. Qala twisted her head around slightly. Her eyes followed the small hands, saw the fingers wriggling playfully.

“What’s going on?” the commander demanded.

“It seems the boy is awake,” Caitlin said as matter-of-factly as possible.

“It is not like Vilu to be more interested in a stranger than an airship,” Qala remarked. “What is going on?”

Caitlin remained silent.

With a disapproving look, Qala turned her eyes ahead and strode forward, Vilu squirming to keep his eyes on Caitlin, his hands reaching for her. A guard at the open gate saluted by touching the fingers of his left hand flat against that side of his head. Qala bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment.

As soon as they were both on the open deck of the gondola, Qala turned to Caitlin. “I asked a question,” the Standor said.

“Let’s talk after we see the physician,” she suggested.

Qala hesitated. It was a look of a woman who was not accustomed to having her orders replied to with an alternate suggestion.

“The boy first,” Qala agreed. “Then you will share what you know.”

“Even what you might not believe?” Caitlin asked.

“Everything,” the Standor said, strongly emphasizing her words with a movement of her hands.

Caitlin nodded firmly.

Draped over Qala’s shoulder, looking at Caitlin, Vilu responded by signing at her. Caitlin’s heart began to rise in her chest: once again, the gestures were not Galderkhaani.

“This is not the Nautilus ?” he said. “Am I dreaming?”

“You are awake, sweetheart,” Caitlin replied.

“I can hear,” the boy continued, in signed English. “I know it’s you—but why don’t you look like you?”

“It’s… complicated, baby,” Caitlin replied in English. She suddenly felt her grasp of the Galderkhaani language slipping, and not because she was communicating in English. The tingling had suddenly returned to the back of her neck.

“Kuvez ma tulo ?” Qala asked, turning the boy’s face from Caitlin.

She looked at Qala sharply. “I… understand… not,” she said in broken Galderkhaani, her arms fumbling with gestures that had been so easy a moment before.

“ Buz eija lot ?”

“Christ God, no!” Caitlin responded in English, grabbing for Vilu.