Page 19 of The Surviving Sky
Fury still rippled through him. Bharavi might have forced him to reassess his material bonds and reconcile with Ahilya for the benefit of the council, yet the two paths still blinked in his mind, as though every instant were a fork between choosing Ahilya and his own intuition. The memory of the Resonance, its familiarity and strangeness, beckoned him. Iravan crushed the need to seek it within the Moment.
Ahilya still watched, a question in her eyes, so he cleared his throat. “The council is considering we trade again with other ashrams,” he said. “Maybe Reikshar or Kinshar, the next time we fly. We’ll exchange some of our sungineers for one of their architects.”
Ahilya’s hands twitched, then stilled. “I thought the council was beginning to agree that sungineers were as vital to the city as architects.”
Iravan snorted. “If the sungineers did enough, then maybe. But this earthrage showed us how little we can rely on them. It’s one thing to create lightbulbs and power looms so citizens can live in convenience. But a sungineer’s real purpose is to find us a better way to sustain flight. Some way where the architects don’t drain themselves every earthrage.”
It had been Iravan’s exact argument at the last council meeting when Kiana, one of the Senior Sungineers of Nakshar’s council, had tried to defend her team. The bespectacled woman, with her redwood skin and piercing gray eyes, had explained how the lab’s latest inventions had assisted flight.
“With enhanced thrusters, we’ve avoided seven yaksha collisions,” she’d said, tapping her cane on the wooden floor for emphasis. “And magnifiers will identify us a prime landing site. We no longer have to land arbitrarily and hope the architects can stabilize the ashram.”
Her voice had been enthusiastic, but Iravan had leaned forward on the round mahogany table that had been grown for the meeting and rolled his eyes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Kiana, but thesemachines—don’tthey rely on transformers that convert an architect’s raw trajection into usable energy?”
“Well, yes.”
“And thesetransformers—weren’ttheycreated—oh,I don’tknow—ahundred years before?”
Kiana had nodded tightly.
Iravan shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Areyou—amodern-daysungineer—stillresting on those laurels?”
“Invention is not as linear as you’d like, Iravan,” the Senior Sungineer said. “We are bound by whatever materials the ashram supplies to us. I’ll admit the transformer was sungineering’s last big invention, but we’ve made great advances in its application.”
“But none of it works without an architect! Your transformers merely take an architect’s energy and use it to power toys. What use is that for flight efficiency? How does that protect the architects from the efforts of trajection? From Ecstasy? How does that protect the ashram from falling into the earthrage if the architects stop trajecting?”
“What about the heat shields and the dust probes?” Kiana burst out. “What about the tools we’ve made for the citizens’ infirmary? Think of how those have changed our lives.”
“But all your machines are still architect-dependent,” Iravan said, frustration making his voice louder than normal. “You aren’t creating anything new at all; you’re just trying to perfect the same old thing. We don’t need gadgets; we need a battery that can replace the need for constant trajection. We need,” he said, “to give architects a rest.”
The other four councilors began to chime in. Mutters and raised voices had filled the temple as old arguments resurfaced. Nakshar’s council oversaw many nuances of ashram life, but none was as much a source of controversy as flight architecture. Every plant that made the ashram, every sungineering project that was approved, how citizen homes contributed to an efficient maze, all of it returned at the heart to balancinglifewithsurvival.
The meeting had finally adjourned with Kiana and Senior Sungineer Laksiya grudgingly agreeing to prune their teams should there be no more progress from their lab.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Iravan said now to Ahilya, although he said it more for Oam’s benefit. “It’s normal business for the council. We just have the impossible task of trying to find the best way for Nakshar to survive every earthrage.” He gave them a mild smile and shrugged.
In a series of loud creaks and sighs, the snakeroot brush opened on the edge of a large pond that surrounded the ashram like a moat. Beyond it, from the other bank, a briar dome loomed in every direction, enclosing them within it. The dome was a thick, thorny wall allowing in light and air but keeping the ashram separate from the jungle; it was what Naila’s key was encoded for.
Iravan trajected, reaching for the lilies in the water. Giant leaf pads emerged, their diameters expanding into an engorged circle large enough to hold the three of them. Iravan stepped onto a leaf and the others followed.
The lily pad bore them gently to the other side toward the briar wall. The gentle bobbing was almost soothing, but Ahilya looked troubled, her eyes unfocused. Her hand clutched her satchel, where she absently outlined a cubical piece of equipment over and over again.
“Enough of that,” he said, dismissing the council’s troubles with a wave of his hand. “Will you tell me about your study?”
“You know what my study is,” she muttered. “Like you and the council, I’m trying to find out how best we can survive an earthrage.”
“By looking for yaksha habitation in the jungle.”
“It didn’t seem like such a ludicrous idea to you before.”
Iravan glanced at her. He knew about her standing agreement with the council, of course, even if Ahilya had made the deal before he had become councilor. A memory came back to him when as a Junior Architect he had newly arrived from Yeikshar. Early in their courtship, he and Ahilya had lain on their backs, limbs entangled, staring at the clouds over them, discussing their ideas on survival. Those conversations had been the food to nurture their relationship. She had propelled him toward becoming a Senior Architect, and he had encouraged her theories. On becoming a councilor, he had even tried to intervene on herbehalf—butthe others had shut him down without ceremony. Over the years, Iravan had learned too much to disagree with their decision. The changes Ahilya wanted to make in the ashram would be terrible for architects and for survival itself.
“It was never a bad theory,” he said now. “But I think you’ll find the records of early architects were right.”
“What—thatthe sizes of the yakshas are their only defense against the earthrages? That they have no particular habitat?” Ahilya let out a derisive laugh. “Naila was skeptical too. You architects are all the same. You only think about evasion, not about survival, with your buildings in the sky.”
“Evasionissurvival.”
“Not for the yakshas. They live in the jungle. They thrive here. They must have a home, some kind of shelter, even if they burrowor…or grow shells. Studying them will reveal something.”
