A second crewman appeared. His gray uniform was tight and too long in the arms, and he had a happy face that was just as put-on as his shirt. “Bound for the canopy,” he shouted, throwing biscuits at the monkeys. “Marduk’s final station, and then Rail and Hanner and Bliss. Welcome to all.”
A well-to-do couple went first, displaying important pieces of paper.
Nissim offered coins.
The attendant counted them quickly and accurately. “Your family?” he asked.
“They are,” Nissim said.
“Fine looking bunch,” the attendant said, paying no attention to the dissimilar threesome.
Nissim led them up the gangway and then paused, looking back at the school.
Nobody was following.
“That’s a different kind of monkey,” Diamond guessed.
“Capables, they’re called,” Seldom said. “Although they have to be well-trained to be that way.”
“Who doesn’t?” Nissim joked.
A big horn sounded, and one capable untied the gangway while the other kicked the post’s fingers, triggering them to release.
Diamond found himself in the back of a long narrow cabin. Tall-backed benches were set in rows, and Elata claimed an empty bench. She sat and patted the bare space beside her, and Diamond sat and then lifted up again, peering out the window.
“No, let’s trade,” she said. “I’ll let you watch.”
Nobody else looked outside. Every other person saw nothing remarkable or beautiful. This was just the world and not even an important portion of the world, and what mattered most to travelers were their private, often secret thoughts.
Whispering, Diamond asked, “Where does rain come from?”
“Below,” Seldom said, waiting all this time to explain. “It flies upwards when the night ends. That’s how every morning begins.”
Nissim was sitting on the bench in front of them. He turned and smiled, one elbow perched on the wooden back, two fingers thoughtfully tapping his curled mouth.
“Rain doesn’t fly,” said Elata.
“Sprays,” Seldom said. “That’s what I meant.”
Nissim said nothing, studying the boy that had unexpectedly wandered into his life.
Questions begged to be asked. Diamond wanted to know everything about rain, but he was also thinking about flying, and that brought the blimp to mind. “How do we stay in the air?” he asked Elata.
“Gas holds us up,” she said.
“Hydrogen gas,” Seldom added.
That first word meant nothing.
Sensing confusion, Nissim used a teacher’s voice. “Air is made up of different species of gas. Some are common, others rare. And the lightest gas is hydrogen. Certain plants make quite a bit of hydrogen, and we harvest what we need. Have you ever seen wood float on water?”
Diamond nodded.
“That’s what this aircraft is doing now. Floating.”
“But we’re falling,” he pointed out.
“That’s because the blimp always starts its run heavy. It begins up high and works its way down the tree. The air gets thicker as we drop. Do you feel your ears aching? Well, they might. Or might not, I don’t know about you. But the blimp falls, picking up more passengers and cargo, increasing its weight which helps it fall faster, and then it drops a little ballast, lightening the load just enough, after which it runs above the canopy to the turnaround point.”
“Ballast,” Diamond repeated.
“Sawdust and water,” said Seldom.
“Usually,” said Nissim. Other people were watching the conversation. His face needed to be closer to Diamond, his voice lowered. “At the end of the run, the pilot drops most of the ballast, and our blimp jumps back to the top of the world.”
Diamond stared out the window. The school and black blimp were far above; walkways and homes and elaborate buildings covered Marduk’s endless trunk.
“What’s at the top of the world?” Diamond asked.
“Not the sun,” Seldom said.
Nissim placed one hand on Seldom’s head, shaking him gently. Then in a whisper, he explained, “Not many go there, and nobody would want to live there. It’s always dark, always night. But that’s where Marduk and these other trees put up their roots. Against the world’s ceiling, everything hangs.”
The boy blinked and sighed. Hard thought brought another question, and he asked, “What is the world’s shape?”
Seldom smiled smartly. “Guess.”
Nissim frowned but didn’t reprimand.
“You don’t have to,” Elata said.
But then Diamond put up his hands, fingers and cupped palms drawing a sphere. In his mind, the sphere was smooth and perfectly proportioned. And of course it was enormous. And when nobody corrected him, he described what was in his mind, stressing the enormity of this realm about which he knew almost nothing.
Then he felt finished, and nobody spoke.
Diamond readied himself for corrections and laughter. But Seldom spoke first, nothing but amazed. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s what it is. The Creation is a perfect, perfect ball, and that’s all there is.”
The blimp and its floating gas kept falling. Diamond watched the world, and Nissim and Seldom and Elata took turns describing the world. It was as if the boy had two sets of eyes, one pair staring out from his skull while an even bigger pair was turned inwards, watching an imaginary ball filling with forest and people and the blazing, still unseen sun. The eternal sun lay at the bottom of the world. Hundreds of species of trees hung from the highest, flattest portions of the ceiling. The District of Districts was fixed to the top of the sphere, while Marduk was far out where the forests thinned and the wilderness began.
“Bloodwoods are much bigger than blackwoods,” Seldom said. “Marduk is a twig next to them.”
Diamond tried to imagine those impossible giants.
“The District of Districts is in charge,” Elata said.
“What does ‘in charge’ mean?” he asked.
“They’re the bosses,” she said.
“Like parents?”
Something was funny. When the laughter stopped, the Master explained, “There are nine districts, but nearly half of the population lives in the District of Districts. In all things human, they have the largest say. They take money from us and steer the laws, and while every District has its own army, they control the biggest army that keeps us safe.”
“My father was a soldier,” he said.
“Many serve,” Nissim said.
“What do they protect us from?”
“The papio,” Seldom said.
Elata shook her head. “We don’t fight the papio anymore.”
“Because we have armies,” the boy said.
She touched Diamond on the knee. “Mostly soldiers fight monsters. And other tree-walking people too.”
“What people?”
“Bandits in the wilderness,” she said.
“There’s other bad people too,” Seldom insisted.
Nissim looked around the cabin, his mouth shut.
The blimp was changing its pitch and velocity, propellers rumbling with purpose. Diamond pressed his face against the window glass, spying another landing jutting far out from Marduk.
“What’s the wilderness?” he asked.
“Dangerous,” Seldom said.
Elata said, “Beautiful.”
Nissim agreed with both answers. “Different trees grow outside the districts,” he said. “And there are different animals, creatures you would never see here. And once you move even farther out, out where the spherical world becomes vertical, another realm takes over.” He pulled a slick white coin from his pocket, handing it to Diamond. “The reefs are coral. This is cut from a kind of coral. It’s a hard, half-living material. What’s alive is part plant, part animal. It feeds on sunlight and gnats and feces, and the reefs are older than any tree, and that’s where the papio live.”