Children of a Dark Sky (standard:science fiction, 2664 words)
Author: D. L. Morgan	Added: Nov 17 2003	Views/Reads: 3945/2417	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story of a young girl and her friends experiences on a far away planets unique transportation system. Preview of a finish book. http://books.lulu.com/morgan

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

She pulled the white ribbons from her long black hair. She cried, 
thinking about how much she missed her mother, wishing that she had 
never died. Evening came and Tatana tried to fall asleep,  tired and 
hungry. 

She was cold. No one who stayed outside at night lived very long. The
cold of the night had killed others and soon would kill her. Tatana 
waited for the cold of the night slowly to take her too. Out of the 
corner of her eye she saw a rollie. It was pink. All the rollies she 
had seen were green. That's the color they were in the day time. If you 
can see them. It was soon joined by a blue one. Rollies avoided people. 
Someone once told Tatana that rollies are real good eating. "You skin 
off the thick fur and boil them for a whole day. But rollie stew is 
delicious." 

The blue one left and the other one stayed, curling up next to Tatana.
Rollies have no feet or hands. They move by changing their muscles. 
Kind of like a round snake with thick fur. Tatana used the pink one to 
warm her hands. 

In a short time the blue one had return with ten or more. Tatana
couldn't count them all. They were pink or blue, not the green that she 
was used to seeing. They covered her like a blanket. Tatana slept well, 
using her clothing bag as a pillow. 

In the morning all the rollies were gone. 

"You still here? You've been outside all night long?” 

Tatana rubbed out the sleep from her small blue eyes, and nodded yes as
she looked up. 

"You have any clan that'll take you?" 

Tatana shook her head no. Her face was red from crying most of the
night. 

"You want to join the Guild?" 

Tatana gave no response. She looked up at the flyer, trying not to stare
at the woman's cleavage, more then most women have. The flyer's face 
was still pretty. She was still young. Too old to be a flyer, though; 
at thirty summers she had made enough scrip to retire. 

"I should send you to work in the village... Nay, I could not be that
evil... Come in." 

"Thank you," Tatana said, as she stood up carrying her small chamois
bag. The woman could see the fear in Tatana's eyes. 

"Don't thank me. I'm going to feed you and then you can get water for
me." 

Tatana looked at the stranger and almost shuddered, thinking that she
must be kidding. Only sliders got water. (Sliders - Water boys) 

A feeling of dread came over Tatana. She looked around in the small,
dark hut. Tuffen walls and a thatched roof. The small windows had not 
been opened. It was dark inside until she opened the brown chamois 
flaps and tied them to the ruffen that hung from the rafters. 

Tatana ate from a plain ceramic bowl. The grub was a rice and mutton
mix. It was a lot better than the cornmeal that she had been eating for 
the last week. 

“You're done? 

Tatana wanted more to eat, hoping that the woman would see that she was
not full. She shook her head no. 

"That's all you get, child." 

The woman now sat across from Tatana on a small picnic-type table. In
the light coming from the three opened windows Tatana could see the old 
flyer's cap that hung over her shoulder and onto her back. She wore a 
faded red blouse and the fact that she wore light brown chamois pants 
and not a long white dress, would make her stand out as a flyer 
anywhere. 

"How old are you?" 

"I don't know." Tatana replied. 

"I figure you to be ten or eleven summers old. A good age to learn how
to fly. Guess I am going to have to fix my kite. Actually, you will fix 
it and learn to fly it yourself." 

The thought of flying excited and scared her. Her mother always allowed
her to watch them fly in the dark blue sky, although her grandmother 
hated them. 

"Right now I want you to go for water. Go out and find Jabone and tell
him that I had sent you to help him," the flyer said, as she pushed 
Tatana gently on her back and out the open door. 

Tatana asked how she could find Jabone. 

"Easy. Just follow the cliff." 

Tatana walked near the cliff edge. She tried not to look down. It was
over three jumps high. All her life she was told never to go near the 
edge. She remembered her young friend who had gone to the edge to look 
down and never came back. (Jumps - About 100 feet) 

The path coming from the village was well worn. There was no mistake;
this was the path for sliders. A boy, maybe a summer older came up to 
her. He was carrying two wooden buckets. They were hung by ruffen rope 
from a tuffen pole that was slung over his shoulders. 

"Are you Jabone?" Tatana asked the boy. 

He had short hair and wore a light brown thin chamois T-shirt and pants
that were a little too large, held up by a belt made of a ruffen rope. 
His arms were burned by the sun. His dark blue eyes almost twinkled on 
his freckles face. He looked tired and abused. He had bruises on his 
arms and hands. Someone had been beating the boy. 

"Yeah. And who are you?" he asked. 

"Tatana. I have been sent to help you." 

Tatana smiled at the boy. 

He frowned. 

"By who?" 

"The flyer," she said, as she pointed back in the direction of the
flyer's hut. 

"Have you ever been down a ruffen rope?" 

Tatana shook her head no. She wanted no part of climbing down the
ladder. By its very nature, it did not look safe. Two cords, about two 
feet apart and only a man's thumb in diameter. The rungs were even 
thinner. About every ten feet or so there was a tuffen bar to keep it 
from collapsing upon itself. 

"Ok, I want you to take these buckets back to the village after I have
filled them." 

He seemed to jump over the edge with no fear of the great height. Within
a few moments he came back up and tied a full bucket of water. Then he 
did the second. He told her to take the water to the village and come 
back with the empties. The buckets were way too heavy for Tatana to 
lift. Jabone dumped out half the water so she could carry them. Then he 
filled two more for himself. 

"So you are going to be a flyer. Don't tell anyone but I am jealous. I
wish I could be a flyer. But you know only girls can fly kites and you 
have to be born into the Guild to fly zeps...are you an orphan? Yeah, 
me too. I was given to the water master last summer. He can be tough 
but for the most part fair. When I started this job I had my hand 
slapped almost every day." 

Tatana knew what he meant by to have his hand slapped. This was the
common discipline that all children faced. She could remember how her 
mother would tell her to hold out her hands to be slapped. The worst 
the infraction, the harder the slap. Once she had been caught near the 
edge and she could not hold up her hands for a full day. 

Tatana could not believe that he was still talking. Lights, can't this
kid shut up? 

Jabone liked his work. He got respect from the other children because he
was the only one of them to go to the edge and over it. Tatana was 
thankful for the break; it was so much easier to carry back the 
empties. Her arms and shoulders were sore and it was only her first 
trip. At the edge Jabone told her to come to the ruffen ladder. 

She shook her head no. It would be a lot bigger person then that chatter
mouth Jabone to get me over the edge onto that thing passing itself off 
as a ladder. 

"Come on, don't be scared." 

"No!" 

"Why do you think you are here? The flyer wants you to get over your
fear of heights." 

"How do you know?" 

"Because the flyer told me a long time ago that if she had ever sent
someone to work with me, my job was to get them over their fear of 
heights. Come on, don't be scared. It is not as bad as everyone makes 
out. Tie the safety line around your chest like this. Every ten rungs 
there are two safety lines. Tie the new one before you untie the last 
one. You can't fall, and if you do, it is only ten rungs." 

"Have you ever fallen?" 

"No. Even my Master, Ga-rule ties himself to the safety lines. Only
fools like Nomad climb without them." 

He tied himself off, then her, and with some more words of encouragement
he got her to the edge and slowly he had her follow him down the ruffen 
ladder. Tears started pour from Tatana's eyes. She wished she was doing 
any other job that a child would be given. Sheep tender, candle maker, 
cobbler apprentice, or even the dreaded sand closet. To watch sheep all 
day or to burn one's fingers on hot wax or to smash one's fingers with 
a hammer has got to be better than this. 

After ten rungs they would change safety lines. He would use the one on
the right and she would use the left ones. He showed her a special 
knot, called a flyer's knot. It was tight and strong but with one pull, 
it would come undone. 

About halfway down the wind blew hard causing the ladder to sway and
scaring Tatana once more. 

"I don't like this!" Tatana cried. 

"Yeah, me too. But you get used to it. Trust me. I have gotten some real
rides on windy days. That was nothing." 

They finally reached the water spigot. It was a tuffen pipe shoved into
the soft sand of the cliff face. Clear water poured out of the one 
pipe. Jabone had her fill as he carried two buckets up at a time. Then 
she climbed up by herself following Jabone to the top. Never in her 
whole life was she happier. She had a tingle of pride as she looked 
over the edge and beyond. 

In the distance she could see the flash of a long white light that shot
from the ground to the sky. The gods must be proud of me. 

She helped Jabone for the whole morning. At noon his master came to the
edge and gave Jabone lunch. He had no grub for her. Jabone told his 
master that she was sent by the flyer to help them. 

"She doesn't want to feed her lunch, is more likely." 

Tatana thought it odd for a man with a round belly would worry about
grub. His unkempt hair and tattered old clothes made her wonder if the 
plate was clean. 

Jabone shared his lunch with her. 

The day seemed long and Jabone was always talking, mostly about himself
and the trouble that he had gotten into. Each story would end with his 
hands getting slapped. 

Jabone and Tatana would place two water buckets in front of each hut.
Then they would go on to the next hut and fill two more. After all the 
huts had water they poured twenty more into the cistern. The children 
of the village gawked at Tatana as she helped Jabone. They wanted to 
know who she was, but did not stop their own daily chores to ask. At 
the end of the day, Tatana went back to the flyer's hut carrying the 
last two buckets of water. 

"How was your day?" The flyer greeted her. "Never mind. Are you as tired
as you look?" 

"Yes." 

"It's is ‘yes, sister' from now on." 


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