beyond them loomed the forest. The trees stretched as high as Unity skyscrapers, and they were so wide that thirty humans couldn’t join hands in a circle around one. Green ground-hugging vegetation misted the ground beneath them. The lowest tree branches were several stories above the ground. It was breathtaking. Sejal, a child of streets and skyscrapers, had never been outside the city, and though he had seen images of forests, he had never imagined them as looking like this.
“It’s amazing,” Sejal said, awed. “And it’s so quiet.”
As if on cue, a booming roar shattered the air. Sejal jumped. The sound was echoed by another in the far distance.
“What was that?” Sejal whispered.
“A dinosaur,” Kendi told him absently. He kept throwing glances over his shoulder as if he were looking for someone.
“A dinosaur?”
“A prehistoric lizard from Earth. The dominant animals on Bellerophon are big lizards, so the first colonists started calling them dinosaurs.”
Sejal peered nervously toward the trees. “Do they hurt people?”
“That’s what the fence is for. It keeps the dinosaurs from squashing the ships-and vice-versa.”
Kendi lead Sejal across the airfield, into the spaceport, and through another customs check. Kendi had to invoke his authority as a Child of Irfan to get Sejal, who didn’t have any sort of passport, through this stage, but Sejal barely noticed. Like the Unity port, the Bellerophon port was extremely busy. Small carts and platforms zipped by. Speakers blared announcements. Restaurants filled the air with food smells. None of this was what distracted him, however. It was the aliens. They were everywhere, walking, lurching, or slithering in shapes and sizes Sejal had never imagined. More than once he saw the creatures like the four-legged one that had saved him in the Dream. He couldn’t help staring, and Kendi had to yank him forward several times.
“I’m not used to all these aliens,” he said in apology. “Do they all live here?”
Kendi shook his head. “Most of them are just passing through. Humans and Ched-Balaar-the four-legged aliens-are the main people on Bellerophon. There’s a fair chunk of other races at the monastery, though.”
“Aren’t the Ched-Balaar the ones who showed humans the Dream?” Sejal said, again awed.
“That’s them. Come on. There’s a train to the city leaving in a few minutes, and I don’t want to miss it.”
He hustled Sejal out the port’s main entrance. A monorail train waited on a track, and the last people from the platform had boarded. Kendi and Sejal leaped aboard just as the doors were sliding shut. The train slid soundlessly forward, then uphill. Vegetation blurred into a green wall.
“Why are we going up?” Sejal said.
“The monastery-and the rest of the city-is built in the talltrees.”
“How come?”
“Easier on the ecology and easier to avoid getting eaten by a dinosaur.”
A few minutes later, Kendi and Sejal disembarked on a wooden platform high above the ground. The track and platform were partly supported by the massive branches of the talltree and partly supported by thick cables drilled into the trunk itself. The monorail slid quietly away and vanished into the leafy branches. Between the cracks of the boards under his feet, Sejal could see the empty air that dropped several hundred meters straight down into gray mist. Green leaves and brown branches surrounded them. Behind him lay the station, a building that curved around the talltree. Platforms, ramps, ladders, and staircases formed a network further up the trunk, connecting the tree to others in the forest.
“Where’s the city?” Sejal asked.
“You’re in it,” Kendi said. “This is the town center. Over there’s the town hall.”
Sejal blinked. Now that Kendi had pointed it out, Sejal could make out other structures built into other tree canopies. They were all but hidden by thick foliage.
“Come on,” Kendi said, plucking at Sejal’s elbow. “We need to go up a couple more levels to catch the shuttle back to the monastery.”
Sejal tried to obey, but it was difficult. Everything was so strange. He had no idea where he was or how to get around. With a pang he realized that if he and Kendi got separated, he wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to go or what to do.
They trotted up a wide wooden staircase. All the buildings and platforms, in fact, seemed to made of the wood instead of aerogel. When he asked about this, Kendi replied that talltree wood cured hard as steel, making it an ideal building material.
Humans and Ched-Balaar strolled the platforms. In contrast to the spaceport, no one here seemed to be in any hurry. The Ched-Balaar, in fact, were particularly slow-moved and graceful. They moved in pairs or small groups, often with humans. An odd chattering noise followed them, and Kendi explained that the Ched-Balaar spoke by clacking their teeth together. Classes in the Ched-Balaar tongue would be part of Sejal’s education at the monastery, though the instruction would be limited to understanding the language; no human could produce Ched- Balaar sounds.
They arrived at another platform and boarded another monorail. A while later, they disembarked along with a dozen or so other passengers. Sejal couldn’t keep his eyes off the Ched-Balaar in the group. Their long, mobile necks made a slow sort of dance when they moved their heads, and their hand gestures were smooth and languid.
A clattering sound brought Sejal’s head around. A Ched-Balaar stood next to them, apparently saying something, though Sejal had no idea what it was.
“Ched-Hisak!” Kendi said, and grasped both the alien’s hands enthusiastically. “Great to see you! Let me introduce my student Sejal Dasa. Sejal, this is Ched-Hisak.”
The Ched-Balaar turned to Sejal and held out its hands. Nervously, Sejal took them in his own. The palms were smooth and soft, like fine suede, and they engulfed Sejal’s hands. As they did, a jolt shot down Sejal’s spine and he gasped. Sejal had almost forgotten what happened when two Silent touched the first time. Ched-Hisak chattered at him, unfazed by the sensation.
“He greets you as one Silent to another,” Kendi said. “You can answer-he’ll understand.”
“Hello,” Sejal said uncertainly. “Pleased to meet you.”
Another monorail pulled up and Ched-Hisak released Sejal. Chatter chatter chatter.
“Thanks,” Kendi said. “We should get moving ourselves.”
They both bid Ched-Hisak good-bye. Ched-Hisak boarded the monorail and Kendi lead Sejal up the platform.
“He was one of my first instructors at the monastery,” Kendi explained. “You’ll probably have him, too.”
Sejal’s stomach tightened. “I thought you were going to be my teacher.”
“I can’t teach you everything,” Kendi said with small laugh. “You need to learn history and literature and computers and mathematics and a bazillion other things.”
“Music?” Sejal said hopefully. The monorail doors started to slide shut, then paused as a man darted into the car. Kendi and Sejal found seats in the nearly-empty car as the train slipped forward and the leaves outside made an emerald blur. The man who had boarded at the last minute stood blinking by the door. He had snowy hair and a few wrinkles. Sejal met his eyes for a moment. The man looked away.
“You mean your flute?” Kendi said. “Sure. ‘The greater your knowledge, the smaller your risk,’ as Irfan said. Once you complete the basic requirements for your degree, you can study anything you want.”
Sejal’s head was suddenly swimming. “My degree?”
“Without a degree, you can’t work in the Dream, at least not for the Children.”
Sejal fell silent for a moment. He was going to college? The idea hadn’t occurred to him, not with everything else that had been going on. Excitement filled him.
“When do we get started?” he demanded.
“As soon as you get settled in,” Kendi said. He crossed his legs at knee and ankle and suddenly Sejal wondered what it would have been like if Kendi had come on to him as a jobber. An image of the two of them in bed together with Kendi handing Sejal a fistful of kesh flashed through Sejal’s mind. He grimaced. That was behind him. He didn’t need to do that anymore.
The white-haired man settled himself in the seat next to Sejal despite the plethora of empty seats elsewhere in the car.
