Read Skyland for Free Online Page B

laughed. It was a nervous
laugh, because how else could someone talk to someone they'd never
see again? Sam didn't know because nobody he knew had ever left
before. "I've never been brave and you know it. And I'm already
lucky standing where I am right here. I'll be better off when you
lot leave already. All the Suns I'm getting from the passengers
will go a long way here."
    "For sure, for sure." The older man looked
down into the dust.
    "You know I'd give you some, but the rich
snot's not paying me till I deliver the piece to his ship.
Otherwise–"
    "No, no"
    "And I don't even know what kind of currency
they use over wherever you're going. Maybe they don't even use
Suns. Maybe they use Moons or something."
    "Hah! Moons..." The old man chuckled.
    "Yeah..." The chair maker shifted awkwardly.
He did not like to talk about his currency. He felt guilty about
the huge payouts, but they were far from lining his pockets.
Carpentry was an expensive vocation.
    "Speaking of moons...." the old man outside
the window gestures over his shoulder. "I've got to go meet
one."
    "You do. Go on. Say hello to the Sky for me
when you see Her. And the moon when you pass it."
    "Will do, will do."
    "Good luck."
    "To you too."
    The older man turned and started to move
slowly away again towards the ship, bent under his giant pack.
    The chair maker too turned away from the
window and went back to his stool and back to his chair. He ran his
hand over the cherry wood yet again. No more marks there. He
brushed off the dust and blew on it to get more off. He took out
the varnish to seal the spot. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding
together as he lifted the top off. He snorted against the fumes.
One wrinkled hand covered a dry cough.
    Air... if only there were just some fresh
air...
    But the air of Skyland was never fresh,
anyway. Even with the window wide open, there was only dry dusty
atmosphere in the workshop. Air enough to sustain life, but not
satisfy it.
    He went to the window and closed it. He took
a scarf from a hook on the wall and tied it over his nose and
mouth. There would be sand and grit in the coating of varnish
anyway. Everything on this planet held dirt on it and in it like
the kale. But the chair maker tried to keep it off his work as much
as possible, blocking out even the slightest hint of a breeze.
    For a hundred thousand Suns it was the least
he could do.
    The man who'd bought the chair was leaving
on the fourth ship. The chair maker had two days to smooth out some
of the nicks and put one final coat of varnish on it. Two days to
perfect a piece almost a hundred years old. An antique that would
serve no purpose.
    He looked at his watch and shook his head.
Light was fading and when the candle went out, his work would stop.
Until the chair made it to the fourth ship and the chair maker got
his Suns, he could not afford more light.
    He dipped a brush into the varnish and
smoothed it onto the wood.
    The door clicked open.
    "Hi."
    The chair maker turned around and pulled the
scarf from his face. "Belle."
    He set down the varnish, and stood, holding
his arms out to the old woman.
    He caught her in a hug and held tight,
stroking the white hair that ran down her back. The strands caught
on the calluses of his fingers. Grains of sand rolled in the locks.
He kissed the side of her head. One strand of hair caught in his
dry, chapped lips. The chair maker blew it away.
    He pulled back and looked at his wife. The
weathered face, touched just a little with the dust of the air,
rosy under her white hair, beamed. She gazed over his shoulder out
the window towards the shadow of the great ship.
    "It's magnificent."
    "Did you get up close?"
    "A little," she said. "I got to the edge of
the docks, but they're not letting anyone right next to it without
a ticket. They started loading this morning – twelve hours early!
It can hold so many. Can you imagine it?"
    "I can't."
    "And all those people going up to touch the
Sky! Can you imagine?"
    He smiled and