LINES IN THE SKY

As the sun arced high above, Jax vanished into the darkness hugging the city's surface, the descent cable taut as he climbed down. From the sunward side, faint sounds of the tribe greeting the day could be heard in the quiet. As the faint vibrations of the descent cable stopped, a shadow stiffly peeled itself free from an open window, looking down into the featureless clouds below.

"So much like them," Grandmother Ange said to herself. Over the years, she tried to keep the stories from Jax, avoid telling the ones she knew would thrill him, or at least change them to make a different point. His heart and mind were strong, but always in the center, an emptiness. That same emptiness, she knew, drove his parents.

Maybe, she thought as she swung outward, I should have told him what really happened. But how could she? The remembering still hurt: a cool, glass-edged morning that promised warmth, until Jax's parents emerged from the surface clouds, climbing upward so fast she hadn't noticed at first how misshapen they were, the growths and ridges and things best not remembered, even in passing.

How hungry they looked.

What would they have done, Ange wondered, had they reached the tribe? Would they have been able to explain what happened? Would they have slaughtered everyone? Too much risk, too much threat. Before their guttural cries could wake the others, she'd acted. The pair of climbing axes she took from a marauder years ago were sharp, and the tribe remained safe as her blood family fell.

From the sling on her back, she pulled a folding platform and deftly clamped it to a nexus of cables, including Jax's gripper cable. Here, Ange would wait for her grandson to return. His parents had returned within a day. Well-maintained axes, still gleaming, hung at her hip.

Alone, Ange waited for Jax to return from darkness, bearing whatever he'd become into the light.