Free Skye Object 3270a by Linda Nagata Page A

I don’t think it’s the monkey house.”
    â€œWe can’t talk here,” Devi growled. “Just come on, Skye. Trust me, okay?”
    She wondered why she should. She had only just met him. But strangely enough, it was easy to nod and say, “Okay.”
    They followed the street all the way down to the base of the city, where it merged with the broad promenade that bordered Splendid Peace Park. Splendid Peace was a huge greenway that ran all the way around the city’s circular base. The park promenade separated the woodland from the city’s residential slopes. Devi darted across it, startling several real people who were out for an evening stroll. Skye heard gasps, and two or three mutters that sounded like crazy ados .
    At those half-imagined words, a rich, luscious sense welled up in her, a bright consciousness of being alive, crazy wild alive, full of life that was as sweet as night-blooming flowers, intoxicating as music tuned to your mood. She let this giddy sense fill her, until it bubbled out of her mouth in a merry laugh.
    Devi turned to look at her with a quizzical gaze.
    â€œCome on,” she urged him in return. “Hurry!” And she sprinted past him, tagging him on the side as she went. Behind her Zia shouted, and Buyu called out in surprise, but Skye didn’t slow down. She dashed into the park, her filmy skirt waving behind her like a fin.
    She followed a narrow, luminescent foot trail that led her away from the promenade and into the darkness that huddled under the spreading branches of the trees. She could hear Devi running a step behind. She had no idea where they were going—where he intended them to go—but in that moment she knew where she wanted to be . . . in the most isolated, awesome place in the whole city.
    She raced along the foot trail, startling the occasional couple clutching in the shadows, and every time the trail branched, she took the fork that led deeper into the park, until, within a few minutes, the city’s lights were all but lost behind the vegetation. Her breath tore in and out of her lungs, sweat poured from her cheeks, and her belly felt slack with hunger, but she didn’t slow. If she could run fast enough, she could run away from fear. She knew she could.
    A few minutes later the path came to an end. It flowed into a shimmering pond of light—a gleaming pavilion only a couple of meters wide. Being afraid was part of being alive, wasn’t it? She edged across the pavilion. Her shoulders heaved as she drew in great lungfuls of air bearing the scent of flowers and mulch, the sound of night insects. Shrubs crowded the pavilion on all sides but one. She crept up to that open space. This was where the world ended.
    The city of Silk was like a conical bead hung on the column of the elevator cable, enclosed by a transparent canopy that kept the air in. Here at the base of the city, along the outside edge of Splendid Peace Park, the canopy reached all the way to the ground.
    Skye eased forward until her toes reached the very edge of the pavilion, and then she looked past her toes . . . at nothing. Or rather, at a great empty ocean of space unfolding before her.
    Her heartbeat had begun to slow, but now it picked up again. She breathed a little faster. If she raised her hand, if she moved her toes just a little farther, she would feel the canopy’s transparent membrane, and the effect would be shattered. But for now it felt as if she stood on the edge of the world, on the edge of life, with the Universe spread out beneath her feet and if she took but one step more she would plunge into it.
    The dark mass of the planet loomed below her. Tiny sparks of lightning could be seen flickering in some distant thunder storm. Beyond the planet lay the thready white gleam of the nebula where uncountable numbers of butterfly gnomes lived their silent lives, and beyond that the bright stars whose names she didn’t know, and the