He raised his arms and gave a signal to his followers on the beach, who at once set to, dragging the canoes one after another onto the fires. The grooms objected ritually and had to be ritually restrained, but there was a lot of laughter. It was clearly all in fun.
Clancy frowned.
“Why do you do that?”
“When a man marries, his wandering days should end, isn’t that so?”
The king winked.
“That moon-boat of yours, it won’t burn quite so easily!”
“What do you mean?”
Clancy looked over to the headland where Sphere was perched on its tripod legs. A fire was burning beneath it.
“Hey! What are they doing! Stop them!” he cried out, and then laughed at himself. How could mere fire harm a vessel designed to cope with space?
The king laughed good-naturedly with him, putting a friendly arm round the shoulders of his son-in-law to be.
“Those rocks are easily shattered under the moon,” he observed, “and we have fires in the caves below as well.”
When he heard Com translate this, it took Clancy a few seconds before he grasped the implications – and in that short time the first boulder had broken loose and crashed down into the sea.
“No!” Clancy shouted. “Make them stop! It’s my only way back!”
The king roared with laughter.
“I’m not joking!” cried Clancy, looking around for the rope ladder to get down. “Have the fires put out at once!”
Over on the headland a second boulder crashed down, then a third. And then the sphere itself tipped over, its surfaces glinting in the pink moonlight as it rolled onto its back, its tripod legs sticking up in the air as if it was a stranded sheep. Some more rocks exploded. In agonising slow-motion, or so it seemed, Sphere went over the edge, crashing against the cliff – once… twice… – hitting the sea with a mighty splash, then slowly sinking beneath the waves.
With one foot on the rope ladder, Clancy watched, appalled. And the king, still laughing, his face wet with tears, reached down, helped him kindly back onto the platform and gave him a warm, fishy hug.
“The boats are burnt! So now you can go to Wayeesha.”
Clancy walked over to the rough wooden rail at the edge of the platform, looked out at the bonfires, the glittering sea, the giant moon, and remembered Wayeesha waiting for him in the hall below.
As he had trained himself to do in even the most extreme situations, he examined his thoughts. What he found surprised him. He turned to the king with a smile.
“I’m going to regret this. And I fear that you, my friend, are going to be seriously disappointed. But right now, it’s strange, I feel as if I’ve put down a burden. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so free!”
“A good ending for the book!” Com observed.
“What book you idiot?” said Clancy. “Are we going to write it on seaweed, or carve it into the stones?”
Then he proffered the yellow egg to the king.
“Here,” he said, “it’s yours. I don’t need it, and I feel you ought to get something from your alliance with the sky. No need to translate that last sentence, Com.”
“Is this wise?” asked Com, as the king turned it over reverently in his large hands.
“No,” said Clancy. “In a few months your battery will run out and you really will just be a plastic egg. Then what will the king think of my gift?”
He went to the rope ladder and began to lower himself, carefully avoiding looking down.
Copyright
This collection copyright © 2008 by Chris Beckett
The Turing Test © 2002. Originally published in Interzone, October 2002. The Warrior Half-and-Half © 1995. Originally published in Interzone, December 1995. Monsters © 2003. Originally published in Interzone, February 2003. The Gates of Troy © 2000. Originally published in Interzone, April 2000. The Perimeter © 2005. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 2005. Valour © 1999. Originally published in Interzone, March 1999. Snapshots of Apirania © 2000. Originally published in Interzone, October 2000. Piccadilly Circus © 2005. Originally published in Interzone. May/June, 2005. Jazamine in the Green Wood © 1994. Originally published in Interzone, August 1994. Dark Eden © 2006. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2006. We could be Sisters © 2004. Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November, 2004. La Macchina © 1991. Originally published in Interzone, April 1991. Karel’s Prayer © 2006. Originally published in Interzone, September/October 2006. The Marriage of Sky and Sea © 2000. Originally published in Interzone, March 2000.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, rebound or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author and publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
ISBN number: 978-0-9553181-8-4
Cover design by Eran Cantrell
Cover layout by Dean Harkness
Typeset by Andrew Hook
Published by:
Elastic Press
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