Page 5 of The Sunlit Man

This planet must have a slow rotation, the hero observes to his erratic valet. Note how these vehicles can easily outrun the sun.

Ahead, opposite the sun, an enormous planetary ring rose in the sky—a broad arc that reflected the sunlight.

Nomad had little opportunity to enjoy the return to safe twilight. Several of the people on the cycle tried to pry loose his chain, but at such speeds—and with him as a weight on the end—that would be difficult even if he hadn’t sealed the loop. He wondered if perhaps they’d stop to deal with him, but they kept on flying after the other cycles, never more than a few feet off the ground.

Eventually they slowed, then stopped. Nomad came to rest in a patch of wet soil, appreciating the sensation of something soft. He groaned and flopped over, trousers a mess of rips and tatters, freshly healed skin beaten and battered, hands still manacled. After a moment of agony—spent trying to appreciate the fact that at least no new pains were being added—he turned his head to see why they’d stopped.

He could see no reason. Perhaps it was just for the drivers to get their bearings—because after a short conversation, the hovercycles took off again. This time, they rose higher in the air, leaving Nomad to dangle. This was better, at least, because as they flew, he didn’t get slammed into anything. He assumed they stayed low earlier because they hadn’t wanted to risk rising too high into the sunlight.

They flew for what felt like an hour until they finally reached something interesting: a floating city. It moved through the landscape, an enormous plate, lifted by the thrust of hundreds of engines burning underneath it. Nomad had been on flying cities before,including one on a planet near his homeworld, but rarely had he seen one so…ramshackle. A motley collection of single-story buildings, like an enormous slum, somehow raised up above the ground—but only thirty or forty feet. Indeed, it seemed like even getting to that modest height was straining the city’s engines, their lift barely enough to clear the landscape’s obstacles.

This wasn’t some soaring metropolis of technological splendor. It was a desperate exercise in survival. He looked back into the distance, where the light on the horizon had faded to invisibility. Yet he knew the sun was there. Looming. Like the date of your execution.

“You have to remain ahead of it, don’t you?” he whispered. “You live in the shadows because the sun here will kill you.”

Storms. An entire society that had to keep moving, outrunning the sun itself? The implications of it set his mind working, and old training—the man he’d once been—started to worm through the corpse he’d become. Why wasn’t the weather on this planet, even in the darkness, a tempest? If the sun was superheating one side all the time, you’d never be able to survive on the other side. That they could was evident, so he was missing something.

How did they feed themselves? What fuel powered those engines, and how did they possibly have time to mine or drill for it while moving? And speaking of mines, why not live in caves? They obviously had metal to spare. They’d used some to chain those poor sods to the ground.

He’d always been inquisitive. Even after he’d become a soldier—pointedly turning away from the life of a scholar—he’d asked questions. Now they teased him until he beat them back with a firm hand. Only one mattered. Would the power source of thoseengines be enough to fuel his next Skip and get him off this planet before the Night Brigade found him?

The hovercycle roared, climbing toward the city. He dangled under the last of the four, weighing it down, the engines underneath throwing fire his direction and heating his chain. Auxiliary could handle it, fortunately. Curiously this small rise in elevation made Nomad’s ears pop.

Once the cycles reached the surface level of the city, they didn’t park in the conventional way. They moved in sideways and locked into the city’s edge, their engines remaining on, adding their lift to that of the main engines.

Nomad dangled by his hands and chain, his pains fading as he healed once again, though this healing was minimal compared to what he’d needed to recover from that sunlight. From this vantage, he could see lumps of barren hills and muddy pits below, like sludge and moors. The city had left a wide trail of burned, dried-out dirt behind it. Obviously, with a scar like that to follow, it was easy for those flying cycles to track their way home.

He was surprised how well he could see. He blinked, sweat and muddy water dripping into his eyes, and looked up at that ring again. Like most, it was actually a collection of rings. Brilliant, blue and gold, circling the planet—sweeping high in the air, extending as if into infinity. They pointed toward the sun, tipped at a slight angle, reflecting sunlight down onto the surface. Now that he could study it, a part of him acknowledged how stunning the sight was. He’d visited tens of planets and had never seen anything so stoically magnificent. Mud and fire below, but in the air…that was majesty. This was a planet that wore a crown.

His chain shook as someone began to haul him upward. Soon hewas grabbed by his arms and heaved up onto the metal surface of the city, into a crooked street lined with squat buildings. A small crowd chattered and gestured at him. Ignoring them, he focused instead on the five distinctive figures behind them—people with embers in their chests.

They stood with heads bowed, eyes closed—embers having cooled. Two were women, he thought, though the fire that consumed their chests had left no semblance of breasts, only that hole stretching two handspans wide, bits of the ribs poking through the charred skin. Embers in place of hearts.

The rest of the people were dressed as he’d seen below: high collars that reached all the way to the chin, swathed in clothing, each wearing gloves. Several wore the white coats, formal, with open fronts but insignias on the shoulders. Officers or officials. The rest wore muted colors and seemed to be civilians. Some of the women wore skirts, though many preferred long, skirtlike jackets, their fronts open to reveal trousers underneath. Many—both men and women—wore hats with wide brims. Why did they wear those when there was barely any light?

Don’t think about it,he told himself, exhausted.Who cares? You’re not going to be here long enough to learn anything about their culture.

Many had pale skin, though nearly as many had darker skin like his. A smaller number had a variety of shades between. The crowd soon stilled, then lowered their eyes and backed away, parting to make way for some newcomer. Nomad settled back on his heels, breathing in and out deeply. The newcomer proved to be a tall man in a black coat—with eyes that glowed.

They simmered a deep red color, as if lit from behind. The effect reminded Nomad of something from his past, long ago—but this wasless like the red eyes of a corrupted soul, and more like something that was burning inside the man. His black coat glowed too, along the edges, in a similar red-orange shade. Nomad thought he had one of those embers in his chest as well, though that was covered with thin clothing. It didn’t seem to have sunk as deeply into the skin as the others, as he still had the shape of his pectorals.

His glow was mimicked by many of the buildings, the rims of walls glowing as if by firelight. Like the city had recently been aflame, and these were its ashes.

The man with the glowing eyes raised a thick gloved hand to quiet the crowd. He took in Nomad, then nodded to two officers and pointed, barking an order. The officers fell over themselves to obey, scrambling to undo Nomad’s manacles.

Nervous, they backed away as soon as the manacles were off. Nomad rose to his feet, making many of the civilians gasp, but didn’t make any sudden moves. Because, storms, he was tired. He let out a long sigh, pains having become aches. He told Auxiliary to stay in place as a chain; he didn’t want them to realize he had access to a shape-changing tool.

The man with the glowing eyes barked something at him, voice harsh.

Nomad shook his head.

Glowing Eyes repeated his question, louder, slower, angrier.

“I don’t speak your tongue,” Nomad said hoarsely. “Give me a power source, like one from the engines of those cycles. If I absorb that, it might be enough.”

That depended on what they were using as fuel—but the way they kept an entire city floating, he doubted their power source was conventional. The idea of fueling a city like this with coal waslaughable. They’d be using some kind of Invested material, perhaps charged in that sunlight.

The leader, finally realizing that Nomad wasn’t going to respond, raised his hand to the side—then carefully pulled off his glove, one finger at a time. People gasped, though the move revealed only an ordinary, if pale, hand.

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