Constrained by Horizon

[Jorus Merrill]

By night, the mountain's crown sliced out a flat triangle from the starscape. The higher Dorsca climbed, along a trail he'd never seen before, the more the mountain blotted out the sky. In past years he'd come up here to touch eternity or see far across the ocean or just to be alone with his shameful anger. Tonight something else compelled him, and he couldn't put a name to his longing. An image came to mind over and over, a meteor streaking up from the pinnacle. He'd dreamed that for a month.

The trail vanished. Dorsca looked down from the brilliant stars, the sea-dragon that marked the sky from horizon to horizon, and let his eyes adjust. Behind a ridge of hardened lava, a deeper darkness suggested a cave. He paused to catch his breath, leaning on his fish-spear, then forged ahead.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

The tunnel came to an end, but the path didn't. In darkness this profound, Dorsca relied on his feet and hands and skin to know what came next. Dirty footprints terminated abruptly at a wall that flexed just so when he leaned on it. It had the texture and look and scent of rock, not wood, but it still bent. A trick of some kind, camouflage. Maybe someone had glued stone dust to wood or thin copper or even stiff palm-fiber cloth.

Dorsca found the edges where the strange surface met colder stone. The flexible patch measured about three paces by three. He wedged the butt of his fish-spear under the bottom edge where it didn't quite line up. Bracing the spear over his knee, he shoved hard. The wall shifted and warped slightly. From there, it was a simple matter to get his fingers in the gap and haul away.

The entire section of wall ripped free, revealing a tunnel branch. On the wall, sparks danced around a broken thing like a nest of fireflies in tangled vines. The whole thing lived in a case that reminded him of a copper jewelery box his grandmother had owned. A spark bit his finger as he tapped the white metal.

Down the tunnel, a dim glow beckoned Dorsca farther.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

The cave ended at a smooth boulder of the same pale metal as the box. Someone had carved or hammered a round door in the boulder. Lifeless fireflies blinked placidly around its rim: the source of the glow. Within the boulder was a more profound darkness. He couldn't make it out against the light.

Wariness overpowered curiosity. He stuck his spear through the round door and felt around. The bronze tip clanked off metal, but nothing grabbed the spear, and when he pulled it out he found it undamaged. The firefly-like lights blinked faster. He found himself hesitating, and that wasn't like him. Raising his chin, he stepped through.

But not into the dark metal room.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

He was outside again, under the stars, unobscured by the volcano's peak. A web or net of metal arced over him, a dome like a turtle’s shell. The night sky lay beyond it, above it, clearer and colder than he'd ever seen. The stars burned steadily without a twinkle.

The dome, he realized, was like a house or a cave. It held supplies and storage containers both familiar and alien. Another metal boulder with another round door stood behind him. Somehow he'd gone from the mountain cave to this place in a step and a heartbeat. And yet nothing suggested a supernatural origin. It all struck him as grounded, even shabby. He set his spear against a curved, transparent wall and ran his finger along a gray metal crate. Dust, but strangely scented.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

A voice murmured behind a stack of jars or barrels. <<Hello?>> Dorsca called, reclaiming his spear. The voice spoke again, too faint to understand, and the cadence seemed off.

The source turned out to be nobody at all. Another metal box, this one large with a slanted top, blinked from a dozen points. One light waxed and waned in time with the voice. When Dorsca touched the light, it depressed with a click and the voice stopped.

But not before he’d determined that it spoke in no dialect he'd ever heard. It didn't even match up with the strange accents you might hear a trader use when hawking goods from another archipelago.

On the other side of the dome, something heavy moved quickly and smoothly, like a boulder sliding on a muddy slope. Dorsca crouched and peered between the stacked barrels.

Nothing supernatural distinguished the man who emerged from a door which hadn't been there before. A little shorter than Dorsca, and leaner, he had olive skin and a trimmed black beard. He wore some kind of dirty blue cloth over his whole body, and strange tools hung from his belt. He wiped a black fluid off his hands with a rag and tucked it into the belt. The left-arm tattoo of a married man peeked out from his cuff. Dorsca had no such mark.

His eyes met Dorsca’s and both men froze. The bearded man hissed a phrase in the metal box’s dialect, then switched to the tongue of Dorsca's home islands. <<Who are you? How did you find this place?>>

 

[Jorus Merrill]

The bearded man spoke without a trace of an accent. Now that Dorsca thought of it, he'd seen this man around, fishing with his red-haired wife. He'd blended in like a local. If memory served, he was the cousin of that one family who used to live on the other side of the island. The scarred man, the ageing dark-skinned woman, the little girl who'd stolen Dorsca's fish once before she grew up into a beauty.

Dorsca looked down at his white knuckles, and forced himself to release the spear. It clattered on the metal floor. <<I dreamed a meteor shot back to heaven from Lopongo’s peak. I dreamed it every night until I found a cave with a false wall. Your name is Merrill, isn't it.>>

Merrill nodded once. <<You can't tell anyone what you've seen here, or about the cave. It's vitally important.>>

<<Even if I don't understand what I've seen? Its significance?>>

<<Especially then. What's your name, son?>>

<<Dorsca, called Waverunner, and I doubt you're five summers older. You may be wed and master of these doors, but I am an adult, Merrill. I am not your son.>>

Merrill tensed, then shrugged and sat on a metal crate. <<You're right. It's still crucial that nobody learns about this place. If I could fix your memory->>

<<You would do that to someone? Make them forget? That's barbaric.>>

Merrill rubbed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. <<You're right about that too. I'm sorry. You caught me by surprise. Normally I'm much better at this. Dorsca, I'll show you the truth, explain it all, and you'll understand why things are the way they are. You'll understand why it's so important to everyone​ and everything you know that you keep your mouth shut.>>

 

[Jorus Merrill]

<<Hundreds of summers ago, maybe thousands, a ship came to your...shores, carrying your ancestors. They believed in peace more than anything, and they were running from something dangerous. They found safety on your islands.

<<Others came later. Brodo Asogans, they're called, curious little people. They watched your ancestors and realized there was something special about how they lived.

<<Do you remember when Barbue and his cousins fought the Tokoa brothers, Dorsca? Two dead, five exiled? Imagine a fight between a hundred. A thousand. A hundred thousand. Imagine they hurt or killed anyone who stood between them, even elders and children. That's called a war. It doesn't exist on your... shores; it never has. Your people's archipelagos are the only place where war has never happened.

<<And the common yellow metal your people hammer into pots and spoons? In other places, you could barter one of those pots for a whole ship. A fleet of ships.

<<Your home is safe and stable, but I've spent years keeping it that way. So have the Brodo Asogans in their hidden homes. If your people learn about war, someone angry enough might decide to try it someday. If your people learn about other places, other places might learn about them. Then war would come here, and they would tear down all the islands and dredge up all the seas to rip the yellow metal out of the rocks. Everything we both love about your home, our home, would die.>>

 

[Jorus Merrill]

As Merrill justified himself, Dorsca stalked the dome's boundaries. Out beyond the transparent walls, dark wasteland stretched out to blend with the sky. A blue-green sliver peeked above the uneven horizon. Ocean, studded with island formations he knew from archipelago maps, with clouds above them-

<<We're standing on one of the moons,>> said Dorsca.

Merrill came to stand beside him. <<That's right.>>

<<And this dome is an air bubble, because we're up so high that the air is too thin to breathe.>>

Merrill blinked. <<That's right too.>>

<<No need to sound so surprised, Merrill. I'm a fisherman, not a child.>> Dorsca found his hands clenching to fists at his side. <<This is my earth and my sea. I assume there are others, where my ancestors came from, and these Brodo Asogans, and you. How many are there?>>

<<They're called planets or worlds, and there are thousands of thousands of thousands.>>

<<How many have you seen?>>

<<Near as I can figure, maybe five thousand. None like this one, though.>>

<<What is it called, my everything?>>

<<Q-27.>>

<<A letter and a number. Part of a larger number?>>

<<A much larger number.>>

Dorsca nodded. <<One grain of sand on a beach.>>

<<One pearl.>>

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Dorsca couldn't tear his eyes away from the visible slice of his world. Even so, other thoughts raced like sharks for blood.

<<Who are you to make these decisions for us? For all of us? You've protected us like a father, but I'm not your son. My elders aren't your daughters. You have tools of good metal. You implied there are ships that sail between worlds. I don't recognize the supplies in this room.>> He closed his eyes and turned away. When he opened them, he looked down at Merrill. <<These things could help my people, couldn't they.>>

<<And destroy your way of life.>>

<<Our spirits are stronger than that. Our way of life has lasted a hundred generations. It has a strength of integrity you've never found elsewhere. So why would you assume that knowledge would damn us?>>

<<I've seen it happen. I used to link up forgotten planets with the...sea-dragon across the sky, all the stars we can reach. Unfair trades took everything from them and their cultures vanished.>>

<<So there is a way to do it and a way not to do it. Trade in our terms, hold our advantages close.>>

<<You have no advantages,>> Merrill snapped. <<You have fishing spears. They have weapons that can kill a behemoth from a day's walk away. Your planet's only defenses are secrecy and my family.>>

<<And ignorance.>>

<<To an extent, maybe.>>

Dorsca sneered and turned away. <<I refuse to believe that without evidence.>>

 

[Jorus Merrill]

<<You're not wrong, Dorsca, but my wife and I have wrestled with this since you were a boy. We've shared the truth with elders sometimes, and talked with them about risks. If there was a better solution, I'd like to think we'd have found it by now.>>

<<I have one.>>

A hint of tolerant amusement flickered across Merrill's face before he could hide it. <<What is it?>>

<<You say you found other worlds, other grains of sand on the beach. Give me new shores, me and others who would come with me. Let us work for our home world's benefit. Let us learn what we need to learn and decide how to mix our realities. Let us prove to ourselves that our way of life can endure in a state of knowledge, not just in ignorance. You talk about our people like happy, naive children.>>

<<You've never known war, or the hazards out there.>>

<<Then we will adapt, and if we die, we'll be far away from home, and our people will be safe.>>