Homeward

5 - Up and Down

We reached a cliff. Far below, I could see an old, meandering river. Nearby, I could see the ruins of what looked like a bridge spanning the ravine: Built structures jutted from both cliff faces but did not connect in the middle. If we were going to continue, we would have to climb down the cliff or find a way to make it across the broken bridge. Neither of those felt like a good option.

"I hope it knows where it's going," I mumbled to Talson, who remained tucked away in my coat. We had been walking for at least an hour since our last rest at the sideways tree. The robot had stopped at the cliff's edge. It occurred to me that this robot might not understand that we couldn't fly and that, f it used its magnetic propulsion system to cross the ravine, it would leave us behind.

 What if the people who built these bridges had had wings like the Spearfishers of Uuwad? Maybe those weren't bridges at all, but were instead raised perches from which flying creatures might take off. What if the original inhabitants of this planet had spinnerets and could cross between the two structures by tightrope? This was my Agency training again: Do not assume that everyone in the galaxy is just like you. In fact, assume the opposite. 

To my relief, the robot didn't suddenly take off into thin air. It seemed to wait patiently for us, as if we had finally arrived at our destination. The mottled blue light shining within its milky carapace was glowing again. It bleeped an inscrutable message.

"I agree," I said.

Even though it brought me dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, I walked closer to the robot, thinking that this would provoke it. But it just floated there, still and quiet. This was the closest I had been to it yet. I noticed that from this distance, the light inside of it seemed to move around like metallic fluid, giving the bot a subtle vitality.

Don't tell the bureaucrats at the Agency that I said that. They strictly curate the legal boundaries between life and non-life. They wouldn't want me even flirting with anthropomorphism like that.

We seemed to look at each other, the robot and I. I watched the slow swirl of light within it, and I can only assume that its sensors were recording and analyzing my heart rate, my eye movements, the composition of my exhalations, and one thousand other aspects of my micro-data.

Then, I felt the urge to touch it. I reached out and gently tapped its covering, like I was too afraid to knock loudly on someone's door. But it heard me!

It took my touch as a signal and sped into action. It rushed off toward the base of the "bridge," and I chased after. I didn't want to fall off the cliff, and the rocky ground at the edge of the ravine seemed prone to collapse at any moment, but I couldn't risk losing track of my one guide here in this alien world.

"If this whole thing gives out under us," I said to Talson while trudging along, "I want you to now that it was an honor knowing you."

After about a kilometer, we had reached the broken bridge. But I realized that it wasn't broken at all. As I had considered earlier, it did seem to have been constructed this way: Two identical structures stretching out over the ravine but unconnected. Suddenly, standing on the structure's lowest part, it struck me as something new: A dock.

"Airships!" I whispered to myself.

The robot was a few meters away from me, slightly further up along the length of the dock. It bleeped in satisfaction, bobbing slightly in place before it began to rise further into the air. It floated to the edge of the dock--no, slightly beyond the edge--and continued to float higher.

"Now what are you getting at?" I asked, squinting as I looked up.

"Oh." 

There it was. Sparkling in the sunlight where it hung among the clouds: Andheyb, the Crystalline City.

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Author's Note: Whew! I've been under a deadline at work so wasn't getting as much writing done, AND I was having trouble getting this section beaten into a shape I liked. This is my third or fourth re-working of it! Thank you for your patience! More to come soon. Give the section a vote and leave a comment if you're enjoying the story!