Skyland Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
bridge. Then they were in the loading area. Harper looked around.
Zara was still twisting in his grasp. His father had disappeared
beyond the crowd.
    "No, no. There are too many," she said, and
kept saying, again and again. "There are too many..."
    "We will go with them."
    "What?"
    "We will join them. Zara, they need farmers.
It will be a better life for us."
    "But the Sky..."
    "She will take care of Herself. We are in
our own hands." And we will be closer to Her than the hateful
Sky Reverends ever will be. We do serve the Sky!
    He took one last look around for his father,
but all he saw was the jostling heads of city folk, outliers, and
here and there an ashamed villager. Ecca and her family had
disappeared, too.
    Harper put his arms around Zara's shoulders
and hugged her tight to keep them from being separated. Together,
they were swept up the ramp towards the ship. Then there was a man
before them in a red jacket. He held a tablet.
    "Tickets!"
    "None."
    "Occupation and number?" he shouted over the
noise of the crowd.
    "Farmers – two!" Harper shouted back.
    "Alright, inside!"

 
     
    Chapter
Five
    in which there is Sky
(?)
     
    The ship's size as seen from its base could
not possibly prepare Harper for the true massiveness of the thing.
Standing beside it outside, he had just seen a wall rising up from
the ground. Inside, the empty space yawned around him.
    "Where are all the people?" Zara asked.
    Harper just shook his head. Even though the
docks had been packed shoulder-to-shoulder, once inside, each
person had their own space in the giant foyer. Here and there
people stood in groups, waiting outside the doors that lined the
far wall or peering out the many windows on the near side or
talking to red-coated Transport Union workers. Launch time was
ticking closer and closer (Harper's internal clock was still
counting down as it had been for days,) surely most of the people
were aboard. But inside these massive walls, there was no crowd, as
if the interior of the ship just went on and on and on forever.
    The quiet was eerie too. The noises of the
docks had been cut off almost instantly when they passed over the
threshold. For a second, Harper stood with Zara just inside the
front door, and stared around the wide room, completely at a loss.
Until,
    "No reservations?"
    The friendly voice came from a girl, even
younger than Harper and Zara, standing beside them. She wore the
high-necked red coat of the Transport Union, and like the
ticket-taker, she held a tablet. She poked at the screen a few
times and then looked up, expectantly.
    "No," Harper answered.
    "Okay. It looks like we can put you in slice
A on level 23."
    "Um..."
    "Over there," she gestured to the far wall
of doors. "Slice A is opposite us, so take the elevator right in
the middle there to 23. One you're up on the level, they'll tell
you where to go. You can leave your things... oh."
    She tilted her head to one side and looked
curiously at their empty hands. Harper worried for a moment that
she would be suspicious, maybe even report them for a search or
questioning. But she just shrugged and continued cheerfully. "Well,
you can go right to your room after you're assigned, or you can
watch the launch from the lounge on 23."
    As if on cue, a female voice, calm and
mechanical, boomed through the ship: Final Notice: Outer doors
are closing. Launch in ten minutes. And with a great scrape and
clang, the massive doors shut behind them.
    "Well, have a nice trip!" the Union worker
girl said. She gave them a wave and moved off to another group of
idling passengers.
    Harper and Zara headed across the massive
entry hall to elevator A. They followed an elderly couple in, and
the doors shut behind them. The old woman hit the 23 on the panel
and up they went. Thirty seconds later...
    Sky.
    The elevator doors had opened and Harper
looked out at the expanse of deep blue. He stepped out of the
elevator.
    "It's so beautiful..." Zara whispered.
    Across from them was a great