Page 24 of The Surviving Sky
“No, not that,” he muttered, and swallowed. “Not only that. The trajection. The jungle. All of it. We shouldn’t be here. We should be back in the ashram.”
She touched his elbow lightly. “Exactly what are you afraid of?”
His gaze when it met hers was uncertain. “I don’t know. It’s instinct.”
Ahilya had heard this before, too. The jungle always made architects nervous, but she had expected better from Iravan. She glanced at him and then back at the yaksha. As angry as she was with him, he was the most competent man she knew. Could she afford to dismiss him?We don’t have much time, Dhruv said in her mind.If we don’t do this, we can wave our professions goodbye.
Ahilya sighed, tugged at her harness, and pointed up at the yaksha, looming above them. “I need to get up there.”
Her husband stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then the patterns of his tattoos changed. Plants grew over Ahilya, up her legs and her thighs. They tightened their grip, clasping her waist, curling around her harness. She began to rise. Her view twisted from Iravan’s face to the foliage. Thick green leaves blocked her; branches slapped against arms that protected her head. Sticky sap dripped on her neck.
Then she emerged clear of the growing canopy.
She blinked, gray filling her vision. She was level with the yaksha’s knee, then its shoulder, and finally its left tusk. The spiral stopped, and she hung there, suspended, feeling the plants grip her tighter. In front of her, the gigantic tusk shone a dull yellow. Curled aroundit—exactlywhere she had left it five yearsbefore—atracker glinted gently.
Ahilya reached out and cut the fibers. The tracker dropped into her palm, heavy and familiar. Grinning, she attached it to her necklace, where the receiver and transmitter clicked together into a bulky pendant. She delved inside her satchel until she held the replacement tracker, and carefully attached it where the first one had been.
Oam called out her name, and Ahilya twisted her head to see him spiraling on the other side of the yaksha in his own tornado of foliage. The apprentice grinned, his expression exhilarated. He let out a soft whoop.
She grinned back. “Can you believe this? I never thought I’d see this creature again.”
Oam watched her, his eyes wide. “You’re incredible, you are.”
Ahilya laughed, pulled out her skin-density scanner, and watched the readings.The percentages are no different from a human’s, she thought, as though already writing in her solarnote.But with true comparison, this can disprove the prevailing theory of yaksha survival, which relies on their sizes. She replaced the scanner back in herbag—itwould continue calculating as she took otherreadings—andturned to look down. Iravan had trajected a clear view for himself. He waited there, pacing back and forth, his eyes disturbed, a crease forming on his forehead.
“Higher,” she called out. “I need some pupil readings and I need to scope its hearing.”
He nodded, his golden headlamp and blue-green trajecting light bobbing. The vortex carried her upward, past the nubby fold from where the tusk grew, until she was at level with an eye. She saw herself reflected, life-size but warped.
Ahilya gasped.
There was a strange pattern glinting in the yaksha’s eye, almost like it had developed more rings around the iris. Ahilya gripped her retinoscope. Powered by Iravan’s trajection, the slim pen-sized machine buzzed in her hands. She waved it like a beacon in front of the pupil. The yaksha didn’t blink.
“Ahilya,” Iravan called out from below. “Something isn’t right. I think I know why the jungle feels odd. Why it’s fighting my trajection.”
She glanced down but he had moved several feet away. Only his dim blue-green light was visible, moving in small circles through the weeds. Ahilya replaced the retinoscope with the eye refractor. She gripped the refractor and repeated the motion, waving it for several moments.
“These are the same species we use to testsafety…”Iravan called out. “But why aren’tthey…”He trailed off, but the tension in his voice was palpable.
Ahilya stopped what she was doing and gazed down at him, frowning. “What do youmean—”she began, but then the spiral holding her dropped a few feet, knocking the breath out of her.
Her heart thumped loudly. She gripped the edge of the foliage spiral. Gasping, she looked down. She could see Iravan now, crouched among the weeds, far from her. His eyes were wide with horror.
And then the spiral collapsed under her, leaves and branches splitting in an explosion.
It seemed to Ahilya she was falling very slowly. She had plenty of time to observe Oam drop alongside her, his face terrified. She had time to note she was screaming. She had time to note Iravan cast his arms wide, time to see the green ground rushing up.
Then, through a shower of leaves and bark, Ahilya crashed onto something soft and bubbly. Her vision swam. Her left elbow twinged.
She arose slowly. She had landed on slippery moss.
Iravan stood several feet away, still blazing like a torch in the dimness of the jungle. His teeth were gritted in a snarl. His eyes bulged. He was waving his arms, but the movement seemed sluggish.
Oam had landed on his own pillow of moss. Ahilya stumbled to her knees, sliding on the moss, fury taking over her fear.
“What in bloodyrages—”she began, but Iravan cut her off, his voice tight.
“Lost control.”
