Haladras (2 page)

Seized with fear, he struggled to catch the jetwing’s
thruster with his hand. He was falling too fast. The deck was too close.

The suit—it made him too heavy.

In vain he tried to activate the other thruster in his right
hand. But without the other, it was futile. Skylar flailed in the air, as if he
could slow speed of his fall with his arms.

Suddenly, something streaked in front of him. And all went
black.

TWO

S
KYLAR GROANED LIKE
a person on
the verge of death and forced his eyes to crack open, letting in painful
slivers of light. Everything looked bright and blurry. Instantly, his eyes
snapped shut again. His head throbbed. His ears rang. His whole body seared
with pain. A bile taste filled his mouth, and his stomach churned as if he were
going to vomit.

He tried to breathe deeply, to calm himself.

What happened?

Pain.

He groaned again before slipping out of consciousness under
the weight of it.

*  
*   *

Several hours later, consciousness tugged at him again. He
did not immediately open his eyes, but laid still, waiting for the tidal wave
of pain to overtake him again. It didn’t come. His head no longer throbbed. His
ears no longer rang. The nausea had passed. The rest of his body felt fine,
with only some minor discomfort in his left arm. His head, too, ached a little;
nothing compared to his previous agony.

He ventured to open his eyes. They still protested under the
sudden brightness, blinking rapidly. After a few moments, they adjusted to the
light, and Skylar took in his surroundings. He saw little worth seeing. Bare
metal ceiling and walls. Blinding white lights. A steel cabinet. Nothing to
give him any clue as to his whereabouts.

Not feeling sufficiently strong to turn or lift his head, he
left off inspecting the remainder of the austere chamber.

“Where am I?” he wondered aloud, then shut his eyes again
and attempted to remember what had happened to him. Evidently, he’d been hurt.
How, though?

“Feeling better, are we?” came a raspy voice.

Skylar started at the sound of it and opened his eyes. A
thin, crooked nose and huge pair of eyes stared down at him.

“Don’t be alarmed, my boy,” said the figure.

Skylar made no reply.

The figure, whose voice sounded like a rusty hinge, was an
elderly man with sunken cheeks, pointy chin and wing-like ears, bushing with
sprigs of gray hair. He wore a pair of bulbous goggles, which amplified his
wide-eyed stare.

“Now,” the old man continued in his creaky voice, “let’s
have a look at your hurts, shall we?”

The old man produced a light and shined it in each of
Skylar’s eyes, blinding him again.

“Good...excellent,” he said with a strange sort of
satisfaction. “Now, how are our little surgeons doing? Let us have a look...”

Placing a black visor over his goggles, the man moved his
face uncomfortably close to the side of Skylar’s head. Skylar tried to watch
out of the corner of his eyes. What was he doing? Was he a physician?

“Almost done,” said the queer old man, as if speaking to
himself. “Yes, yes…a fine job. They always do. Almost done.”

The man removed the visor and smiled at Skylar. Several of
the man’s teeth were missing, and of the remaining, all pointed in different
directions.

“Uh...who’s almost done?” said Skylar. “And with what, Sir?
Where am I?”

“The boy wants to know where he is,” responded the old man,
as if there were someone else in the room. He chuckled lightly. “Why, in the
infirmary, my boy, where else?”

“What infirmary?”

The old man chuckled some more. “‘What infirmary?’ he asks. The
Cloud Harbor infirmary, of course. Dr. Beezin, at your service.”

“Cloud Harbor!” cried Skylar as his memory came rushing back
to him.

The convoy...Captain Arturo...

Suddenly, he remembered everything.

“What happened to the convoy ship?”

“Don’t distress yourself, my boy. The convoy has long since
docked.”

“And Captain Arturo?”

“Long departed, I’m sure, my boy. In an awful hurry, I
hear.”

Skylar closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. Everything had
gone wrong—terribly wrong. Arturo was gone. Rasbus would never let Skylar near
the dock again. In one brief moment his dreams of joining Arturo’s crew were
crushed.

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“All is well. Don’t worry yourself. You’re still weak and
need your rest. If anyone else was injured, they were not brought to me.”

“That was quite a fall you had—I’m told,” continued Dr.
Beezin. “You’re lucky to be alive, I’m told. If I were you, I’d be grateful I
only lost my leg.”

“What!” Skylar craned his aching neck to see down the length
of his body. A white sheet covered his torso. Nervously, he attempted to lift
his right leg. The sheet lifted with it. He still had his right leg. Almost too
fearful to try, he slowly made to lift his left leg. For a heart-stopping
moment nothing happened. But it was only his mind playing tricks on him. The
sheet rose. His left leg was still attached.

Skylar let out a sigh of relief and let his head fall back
on his pillow. A gleeful laugh erupted from the doctor.

“They always fall for that one. Oh, I do love that trick!”

“Very funny,” snapped Skylar. He felt in no mood for games
or tricks. Not after the utter disappointment he’d just suffered. Still, he
found it difficult to feel too angry, so great was his relief to find both his
legs still attached to his body.

“It’s alright to laugh, my boy. It is a good jest. No, the
only thing wrong with you—medically speaking—is a fractured skull. And our
little helpers have just about mended that.”

“What little helpers?”

“The littlest of the little helpers. Synthetic osteoclasts.
Bone builders. They are inside that thick cranium of yours doing some
construction work, you might say.”

Skylar had never heard of anything like synthetic
osteoclasts. With a character like Dr. Beezin it was likely another joke. He
decided not to pursue the subject further. Besides, the idea of any foreign
microscopic object roving around in his head made him feel uneasy.

“How long was I unconscious?”

“‘How long?’ he wonders,” replied the doctor. “How
long...well, seven hours, twenty three minutes, as I calculate it.”

Skylar was stunned. His mother would be beside herself with
worry. Did she even know about his accident? He hoped not. As it was, she
didn’t like him working at the harbor. She considered it
too dangerous
.
Everything was too dangerous in her eyes. This little incident would only give
her more reason to dislike the harbor. Not that that mattered much now; Rasbus
would certainly ban him from the docks.

It wasn’t my fault
, he disputed with himself.
The
winch stopped working. It was the only thing to do.

“Now just hold still, my boy,” cautioned Dr. Beezin,
disrupting Skylar’s thoughts. “It’s time to extract the osteoclasts. Just hold
nice and still.”

Less than Skylar liked the idea of foreign bodies inside his
head was the idea of
extracting
them from his head.

“Uh, how exactly are you going to do that?”

“In the same way that they got in, of course. With this.”

The doctor held up what looked like a gun, but with the long
and disconcerting tip of a monstrous needle. Its highly polished steel contrasted
sharply with the doctor’s gnarled and bony hand, which gripped the device as
though it were a noble saber. What a horrifying implement! It looked as though
it should belong to a demented torture master, not a surgeon.

Dr. Beezin let out another laugh. “Easy, my boy. It’ll be
painless. Trust me.”

Skylar, however, didn’t feel easy. Bracing himself by
clutching the sides of the bed, he prayed the doctor would not puncture his
brain with the terrible needle-gun. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for
the pain. A high-frequency whirr sounded in his ear. Then he felt a sharp
pressure on the side of his head. He clenched his teeth tighter.

You’d think he’d administer an anesthetic first,
he
though anxiously, expecting at any moment the sharp pressure to turn into
unbearable pain. It never came. Before he knew it, the pressure vanished and
Dr. Beezin was saying, “That’ll do, my boy. You can release that death grip of
yours.”

Skylar let go his grip, opened his eyes, and let his tense
body relax.

“What did you do?” Skylar asked after he’d recovered from
the shock.

“Sucked out your brains, of course.”

Skylar didn’t laugh. Reaching up, he inspected the side of
his head, expecting to find something different. A bandage, a hole, a
bump—something. If felt as normal as could be.

“Am I free to leave the infirmary, then?” asked Skylar.

“Well—”

“The question is,” boomed a familiar voice before Dr. Beezin
could respond, “Do you really want to leave the infirmity?”

Skylar quickly turned his head toward the voice. There stood
the massive form of Rasbus filling the doorway, glaring harshly at him.

*  
*   *

Three and a half leagues separate Cloud Harbor from Kaladra,
the main city of Haladras and Skylar's home. It might have been three hundred
leagues for how long the trip seemed to take. Perhaps it was because of the
awkwardness Skylar felt sitting beside Rasbus in the same transport with no one
else around. The port master had remained mostly silent, sitting at the
controls of the transport like a mechanical pilot. Skylar didn’t know if he had
ever seen Rasbus when he wasn’t yelling at every poor soul who came into his
line of sight.

Rasbus had insisted on taking him to his mother. And Skylar
had only resisted a little. In truth he did not feel up to flying. His whole
body felt bruised and weak with fatigue. His head swam when he stood up. He
would have killed himself for certain had he attempted to fly home on his
jetwing. Not that flying was an option. His jetwing had been severely damaged
in the fall. News which had nearly brought tears to his eyes. The chances of
replacing his jetwing were practically nonexistent.

That jetwing represented his most cherished possession. What
would he do without it?

Could this day possibly get any worse?
Skylar thought
as he peered out across the desolate landscape, now mottled with long shadows
of rocks and outcroppings. The sun had lost much of its intensity as it sank
into the horizon. A cool breeze streamed across his face as they sped along.

“You’re lucky to be alive, you know that?” said Rasbus in
the quietest voice Skylar had ever heard him use. “If Kindor hadn’t caught you
with that lift...” he shook his head. “What were you thinking? I never saw
anyone do something so stupid.”

“Kindor caught me with a lift?” said Skylar.

“Quick thinking on Kindor’s part. He broke your fall by a
good ten meters.”

“Kindor’s alright, though, isn't he?”

Skylar, feeling suddenly very curious, forgot to whom he was
talking—the man who spoke, but was not spoken to.

“He wasn't injured, no. But I’ve discharged him from duty. I
can’t have officers making idiotic decisions like that. You had no business
manning that winch.”

“I knew what I was doing. Kindor felt confident I was
ready.”

“Kindor was wrong!” boomed back Rasbus in a way that made
Skylar’s bones rattle. “Do you have any idea what could have happened if that
cable had not been released?”

“Of course I do!” said Skylar, feeling his anger rise. “Why
do you think I did what I did?”

“It shouldn’t have come to that. It wasn’t your job—”

“There wasn’t enough time to deliberate the situation in a
committee. I had to act.”

“Don't get impertinent with me. I have half a mind to
terminate your apprenticeship. A trained, experienced winch operator would know
exactly what procedure to follow and how much time he had. You weren’t ready,
Skylar.”

Rasbus sighed and his hardened features gave way to tired,
careworn lines. When he spoke again his tone was calmer.

“How do you think I felt when I learned it was you who had fallen?
I thought you were dead, Skylar—we all did. What would I have told your
mother?”

Skylar made no reply. For the first time in the years he’d
known Rasbus, he’d never seen Rasbus express any emotion but irritation. The
moment quickly passed. Rasbus resumed his mechanical state.

Skylar stared back out at the desert.

“Dr. Beezin,” said Skylar after a time. “He told me Captain
Arturo left the docks in a hurry. Do you know why?”

“That’s Captain Arturo’s business, not yours,” snapped
Rasbus.

“But—”

Skylar broke off. He could tell from the taut muscles around
Rasbus’ jawline that he ought to keep quiet. Neither spoke for the remainder of
the trip.

Like most inhabitants of Kaladra, Skylar’s home was on the
side of the rock walls that formed an immense gorge. The homes were carved into
the wall, like grottos. The temperature of the stones helped keep them cool, in
spite of the scorching Haladrian sun. It was a singular sight to behold those
walls at night, all aglow with soft amber lights emanating from square windows
like a mosaic of gold tiles.

Rasbus docked the transport outside Skylar’s dwelling and
helped Skylar out onto the narrow landing. Before Skylar was on his feet, his
mother rushed out, her face full of concern.

“I’m alright,” said Skylar before she could begin fretting.

Little good it did after she saw him grimace with pain when
he tried to stand.

“What happened?” asked his mother, hastening to his side to
help.

“I just had a little fall—nothing serious.”

“A fall! It was that jetwing of yours. I knew I shouldn’t
let you...”

“Mom—”

“Let’s get the lad inside, Dahra. Then I’ll explain the
whole matter,” said Rasbus.

Once inside, Rasbus made good on his word, explaining the
entire incident to his mother, taking care to leave out a few ugly specifics
here and there. Thus he saved her from unnecessary distress and Skylar from
having to convince her that he really was fine. Rasbus had impressed Skylar for
the second time that day. The iron port master was nearly a different man
around his mother. He was polite, agreeable, mild-tempered. Still, he avoided
small talk, getting straight to business, so that soon after his arrival he was
taking his leave.