I became a Jordan Scholar at the age of 19. Before you ask, yes, that is young, even in my world. I became a student there when I was 14. Being a prodigy is not as fun as it looks. They never were quite able to stifle my insouciant zest for life—though they did try. But it’s like Stockholm Syndrome, you know? The life of a Scholar was the only life I knew.
Further back? You want childhood backstory? That’s boring. Fine. Fine! But this means you have to tell me yours too. Oh, I’m sure it’s boring. All right, listen up. Born. New Amsterdam. Jewish family. Mom was an opera singer, Dad was a piano tuner. The old story. I was found out for a prodigy by 5 and it was all private tutors and advanced classes from there. We still found ways to have fun though, right, Fern?
So, blah blah, Scholar. Teaching, researching. Mammals were my specialty. “Hmm, ironic, with the name, eh?” Quoth every joker I met at every party in my twenties. When we had time for that, which was rare. It was miserable there. Felt like you were paddling to nowhere, but at the same time, like you were drowning in work and running out of time.
Like I mentioned, I knew Lyra. She was my sometimes-student. I don’t think she even bothered to remember my name. No, not because of the nickname. No! ...Yes. No, I’m not telling you what the nickname was. Oh Hermann, you’re going to be so disappointed when you find out. It’s so bland. It's the most uncreative nickname. I’m going to draw this out as long as I can, just to heighten that letdown.
After a few years, I got into the prehistoric mammal business. Archaeology—lots of interesting bones up North. We started joining research expeditions, chipping away at the glaciers. Great stuff in there. It was a time of real excitement about the North. Everyone wanted a piece. In retrospect, I bet a lot of that money came down from the Church. They were covertly funding Dust research in the North. But wherever it came from, I got some of it.
We were lucky, because we never found anything big. I knew a guy who found a prehistoric man, perfectly preserved in the ice. Not a human—a pre-human. Neandro-what? Neanderthal? Is that what you guys call them? See, we don’t even have a word for that, you know why? As soon as that scientist let out a peep of what he’d found, he vanished. His neandro-man along with him.
So like I said, we didn’t actually find the grazer skeleton, it was sent to us. No, I don’t think it’s a zalif. I’ll do some more comparisons, but I’m almost certain. Will you please let me talk? I haven’t even got to the interesting stuff. It was sent to us by a field associate, name not important. But I met this associate through a different associate, a man named Stanislaus Grumman.
Stan is real interesting. I think you’d like him. Everyone likes him, I guess. He appeared on the academic scene ten years ago and made a name for himself as a Scholar, real fast. He just came out of nowhere, and suddenly, he was everywhere. But now, he’s a shaman—but like, an honorary shaman—he lives with the Yenisei Pakhtars but he isn’t Tartar by blood. Yenisei? You have no idea what I’m talking about? That’s fine. They're Northern Tartars. No?
I first met Stan when I was a student. I must have been...17? He gave a paper on variations in the magnetic pole, presented at the Berlin Academy. I watched him debate—I was in total awe. He was at Jordan for a few years and we became buddies. He was sort of a mentor. ...I had a bit of a crush, I’ll admit. He left Jordan to join the Tartars, oh, seven years ago now. But before he did, he gave me an important gift.
The I Ching.
Yeah, I know. He showed me how to use it. He said I might need it, but he didn’t act like he knew how or why. Then he just ran off to become a shaman.
So, back to the grazer skeleton. I know, you hate my storytelling style. I’m getting there. This is four years ago. I get it. Church threatens me. I kick up a fuss. Church backs off. Sort of. I start feeling all kinds of eyes on me. I’m still doing my research, trying to fit this bastard into the fossil record. No such luck. A year passed by and I got paranoid, like, what if I put this thing together wrong? What if it’s not a diamond at all? I disassemble it, reassemble it. No, I was right. (Of course I was.) I start studying other fossils—maybe it’s not a mammal, maybe it’s a reptile. No, no reptiles like that in the record either. No luck.
Thanks. My second year studying this diamond deer is winding down, and my book is almost ready. Oh, I was writing a book. Did I not mention that? Okay, okay, sorry. Yes, of course I’m writing a book! A monumental shift in Earth's natural history deserves a little more than a monograph, I think. No, no one wanted to publish it. But I was trying my best, all right?
In the end, it was my fault. I got complacent. I thought that because no one wanted to publish my findings, the Church would lose interest in them. Really, they were biding their time. Finally they swooped. I was accused of indecency before I knew what hit me.
I wasn’t about to go the way of Darwin. I packed my shit and—
Accused? What did they accuse me of? Oh. Gross indecency, like I said.
...No, I wasn’t seeing anyone then. They blackmailed an old flame into accusing me. When your dæmon is male, everyone already expects it anyway...
You know, I didn’t anticipate the Church going for my personal life—it was going to be either that or some shit about being Jewish—but I should have. I should have. I was too wrapped up in my work.
My work. That’s always been the most important thing about me, to me. I can never understand when it isn’t, to other people.
...
So. We're dishonorably discharged. We still have our contacts up North, though, so we hightail it out of England.
Exile had its pros and cons. We spent the next two years scurrying around the tundra. We wandered, got a dogsled and some training, did odd jobs for Tartars and witches and bears. And all the while, we had our ears to the ground, listening for talk about digs and bones. We were saving up for dig equipment of our own, and tracking down the site where the original diamond deer came from...
But wandering instead of working wasn’t a great fit for me. No, it was a great adventure and all, first adventure of my stuffy book-bound life. But I wanted a mission. A goal. Like I used to have. I think you can understand that.
So, it’s about a year and a half into our exile. We got a sweet gig with the bears—yes, the bears. Hermann, do you not have bears on your earth? No, forge bears, armored bears. Talking bears. Yes, of course they talk!! I’m limiting you to one question every five minutes.
So yes, the bears are intelligent. And they’re damn good blacksmiths. They live in a sort of loose kingdom in the North, above Lapland. They’re in a weird place right now, politically, which provided us a good business opportunity. The new bear king loves humans. He has one special human guest who needs lots of rare philosophical instruments. What am I? A human. What do I know all about? Philosophical instruments. We had this gig running errands for Lord Asriel (the human) for a few months, and it was frantic and hush-hush and honestly, pretty fun. Can I have another sip of that?
Thanks. So we’re on our way north to deliver this funky gyroscope when it happens. The sky splits open. We weren’t far from Asriel when he did it—maybe a day away. So we saw it pretty close. First, the most dazzling display of the Aurora you can imagine. Then boom, it was like the atmosphere was an egg and the sky cracked right open. Fog came pouring out. Thickest, heaviest, most maddening fog you can imagine. It concealed whatever was on the outside of that crack, swallowed up the whole North, and it did not clear. For days.
We made it to the nearest town. Rumors were wild. Everyone was saying it was the end times. We were pretty sure whatever had happened, Asriel had done it. I was still curious, but navigation was impossible—compasses going haywire, no sun or stars to steer by. And on top of that, there was the weather. Everything was melting. We were traveling by sledge and our dogs could barely get anywhere in the mud.
Still, that kind of thing never stopped me. By “that kind of thing,” I do mean “circumstances that should make my goal impossible.” We head out. We head north, or at least, we think it’s north. But it must have been somewhat east, because who do we run into, but Stan Grumman.
Stan didn’t have long to talk. Said he had a date with an aeronaut. He asked if I still had the I Ching. I said yes. He told me to use it for navigation. He said... Well, yeah. You won’t like this. He said I was on the right track, that my wandering was actually my “mission,” and that I had to deliver the I Ching to someone. And deliver myself. He gave me some very particular directions to find a window on the tundra. But he said it would take a few days, and when I got lost, to consult the I Ching again, because “only Dust” could be counted on.
So we did. We got north, used the I Ching, found the door. By that point, I was going a little nuts from lack of food or sleep. It is hard to sleep when there isn’t daytime or nighttime. And when you think you’re on a mission from God. No no, not God, I’m just joking. No, seriously. We were genuinely collapsed when you found us. I don’t know how long we were lying there.
And well, that’s how we got here. Your turn.
✵
Hermann felt Newton had glossed over some things, but it was nothing compared to how he was going to gloss. First of all, because he knew how to be concise. But also, because he had much less to tell.
“Do you know how the gyroscope works?” Hermann asked.
“Not really,” said Newton, “But it can’t be hard to figure out. What do you say we take it up in those trees and test it out?”
Hermann almost smiled. “You aren’t climbing any trees with that arm.”
“Excuse me, I could say the same about your hip!”
“So—Grumman told you that you had to deliver the I Ching to someone?” Hermann said.
“Yes.”
“Do you think he meant me?”
Newt made a face. “Duh.”
“When did you realize it was me?” Hermann asked.
“I certainly didn't think it was you at first,” said Newt. “I thought you were in our way. I decided it was you when... when you told me you were looking for Dust,” he lied.
“'Decided'?” said Hermann.
“I get a say in this, don't I?” Newt said. “If I’m going to have a fated collaborator, I can say it's you. If I want to.”
“I don’t believe fate works that way.”
Newt shrugged. “Don't care. Life story. Go.”
“I’m keeping the one question every five minutes rule,” he said warningly. Newt rolled his eyes. Fern gave a snuffling sigh and rolled over onto his side, eyes still closed.
⁂
I was born in 1963 in Bavaria. I grew up there. I always had an interest in and aptitude for mathematics, but this was never embraced by my parents.
My parents are an... unusual couple. They met in university. My mother was Jewish, but her family was not strict. My father’s family was Catholic, and very strict. Or rather, my father was very strict. He is extremely devout. But they loved one another, so they were married, and my mother renounced her religion. She did it for my father; but her conversion always had a streak of skepticism, and I recognized the wedge it drove between them.
So perhaps it was a misguided wish to bridge that gap, on my part, but... when my father encouraged me to become a priest, I agreed. I became—
✵
"You what?”
“A priest. Are you suddenly hard of hearing?” snapped Hermann.
“Hermann! You can’t just drop this on me like it’s no big deal...”
“Newton—”
“Did you do it? Are you an ex-priest? Oh, my god, are you still a priest?”
“Newton, please use your brain. Would a priest complain about receiving a mission from angels?”
Newt made a considering face. “Maybe a priest who isn’t completely bats, but, I take your point.” He settled back against the wall where he sat. “Go ahead.”
⁂
Thank you. I was willing to become ordained, as long as I could do my studies at the same time. It was not hard to study both the Bible and physics. I earned my degree early and then devoted myself to the church.
I don’t know what to say except that, when I was twenty-one years old, a few months away from being ordained, I had a crisis of faith. I did not believe. I do not know that I ever had. I realized how blindly I had been clinging to what were, at bottom, nothing more than habits. Habits ingrained in me by a disinterested mother, a zealous father, and callous teachers.
Our worlds are different, Newton, but there is cruelty in our church too. I witnessed things... yet no one listened to me when I tried to report what I saw.
If I did not believe in the organization, and I did not believe in its god, there was nothing left. I quit. My father has not spoken to me since. This was fifteen years ago.
What?
...
No, it was just a convergence of realizations. There was no inciting event.
I fled to England. I went back to school. I hid in my books. Theoretical physics was where scientists went to kill God, so that was where I went. Sometimes I’ve thought... sometimes I think I really went to find Him. But no matter. Go I did. I became the director of the Oxford Dark Matter Research Unit. I worked for almost ten years in that laboratory, and in the end, what did I come out with? A smashed computer drive and a mission from angels.
✵
Hermann shook his head, finished. Newt could tell that he was lying about at least one thing.
“My story is less interesting,” Hermann said. “And most of it, you knew.”
“Not the most important part,” said Newt, still sounding offended that he had not been told sooner. “A half-Jewish priest... You should know, that’s almost as alien to me as you having no dæmon.”
He was still slouched on the packed dirt floor, his back against the wall. Hermann sat hunched on his stool. The night had long fallen and the moon risen high outside, sliding needles of moonlight slowly across their floor. The fire was flickering, needing more wood.
“It’s not usual in my world either,” said Hermann. “That part of my history is not what I would consider the ‘most important part’ of my life. To borrow a phrase, I consider my work the most important thing about myself, and I can never understand when it is not, to other people.”
“Point taken,” said Newt. “Again.” He sighed. “I guess that explains some things. Like your constant rejection of anything remotely unempirical or unphysical.”
“Does it,” said Hermann flatly.
“Reverse piousness,” said Newt matter-of-factly, hoisting himself up on his elbow. “You switched so hard that now you’re fiercely devoted to the other side.”
“Even if that were accurate—did I not accept the existence of Dust, right in front of you, mere hours ago?”
“Yes, but only because you could finally see it, empirically and physically,” said Newt. “Still all highly scientific, yet somehow, I notice, highly subjective? I’d say fierce, blind devotion to principles is just how you operate.”
“It is not blind devotion, it’s rationality,” Hermann said vehemently. “And if we’re going to change this exchange of information to a psychoanalysis...” He stopped.
“What?” said Newt. The fire cracked warningly behind him.
He saw the look on Hermann’s face.
“No, say it.”
But Hermann said nothing.
“No, go on. About Fern, right? If you didn’t get why people in my world consider it deviant before, now you know. Feel better?”
Hermann’s stomach lurched. Newton was right. That had been what he stopped himself from saying.
“And by the way, I know you’re lying about why you left the priesthood,” Newt said, jabbing his finger at him. “Something did happen.”
Hermann shook his head mutely. His mouth still refused to open.
“I don’t know what, but Hermann, I was completely honest with you, and if you—”
“Love,” Hermann said, like the word had been pried out. “I fell in love.”
Newton stared at him.
“With a man.”
A night bird cooed outside.
“I... I was not surprised, by what you told me tonight,” Hermann said hoarsely. “I had figured it out.”
There was a pause.
Newt said, “Are you still together?”
“No,” said Hermann, surprised by the smallness of his own voice.
“I see,” said Newt. He sat back against the wall.
Hermann stared at the fire and Newt stared out the other window. The line of their gazes crossed, but their eyes did not meet.
“It’s late,” Hermann said at last.
“Don’t you think it’s strange...” Newt said, seeming not to hear him. “I come from this oppressive religious world, and they hate everything I stand for... And you come from a secular world, yet you almost chose to become part of that religious order?”
“But I didn’t,” said Hermann. “And now they hate me too.”
Newt almost smiled, but did not. “That’s true.”
He kept staring at the flames. Hermann watched him.
“Will you tell me about him?” Newton said.
“No.”
“Okay.”
They both watched the fire.
The next day they began planning their climb into the wheel-pod trees. The mulefa were skilled ropemakers, and had many varieties which they let the humans test out. Their complementary disabilities were going to make the climb difficult, but they made the planning even more difficult, because they could not agree who was going up. Each said the other should not go. Every practical decision was prefaced by several minutes of back-and-forth. The mulefa were mystified by this form of collaboration, but since they didn’t understand what was being said, they mostly ignored it.
The unexpected rawness and nearly-real fight by the fire paved a strange runway. When Newt woke the next morning, he expected things to be more distant. But Hermann was on him immediately with petty complaints, in, if anything, a more familiar way. For the next few days, they didn’t address the things that had passed between them by the fire. Newt thought that was because they had got too personal. It felt like there was a sensitive spot, waiting like quicksand to suck them back in. The more they argued about unimportant things, the easier it was to stay in the safe zone.
So they bickered their way towards a climbing system. Newt knew about ropes and harnesses because he had done some rock climbing, he claimed.
“When?” said Hermann unbelievingly.
“Oh, here and there,” said Newt vaguely. “Lots of mountains in the North.”
“I don’t believe archaeological expeditions do a lot of rock climbing.”
“Maybe not in your world...”
“Oh, please.”
Whether Newton’s experience was invented, he did know a lot about knots. He wove a climbing harness and a harness for the anchor person who would stay on the ground. They would need to sling two ropes over the lowest branch, one for the safety harness, and one for climbing. To make the second rope climbable, they tied a series of loops in the rope, for hand and footholds. When they were done, it was almost a hundred fifty feet.
For that was twice the height of the lowest branch, and the rope had to be twice as long in order to hang back down and be secured. They debated about the best way to get the rope over the branch. Since Hermann would not approve Newt’s experimental spike boots (“Why do you hate innovation?”), they settled on a bow and arrow.
There were other preparations to make first. Newt took ground-level measurements on the gyroscope to compare to canopy-level measurements. They also needed a more portable way to carry the panes. A zalif offered a bamboo-like tube to install the panes the right distance apart.
“You’re going to make two, right?” Newt said.
“Two what?”
“Two telescopes.”
“That would be silly,” said Hermann.
“How would that—”
“I am making binoculars,” Hermann said.
Newt thought about that.
“But two is better than one.”
“...I am making two.”
“No, binoculars is not two, it’s one!”
“It has two lenses, Newton,” said Hermann in his don’t-be-an-idiot voice.
“Alright, alright,” said Newt. “We can share. I guess.”
“You say that as if you're coming.”
“Ha, ha.”
Hermann went back to scoring small circles in the glass panes. Fern gnawed restlessly on a stick.
“If you insist on making binoculars, why aren’t you just putting the lenses in your old binoculars?” Newt said after a moment.
Hermann looked up.
“What? I mean, you already took them apart.”
Hermann glared at him.
“You didn’t think of that, did you,” said Newt.
“Of course I did,” said Hermann. “The bamboo is... wider.”
Newt grinned. “Weak.”
Hermann picked up his things and stood huffily. “Working near you is impossible,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” said Newt, still smiling as Hermann stalked off.
He and Fern exchanged a look.
“Do you think things are different now?”
“Since your argument?”
“Would you call it that?”
“Hard to tell,” said Fern.
“He certainly seems crankier,” said Newt.
“I don’t see that as a bad sign,” said Fern. “It isn’t real anger. He’s saying what he thinks... So even if that’s usually, ‘Shut up Newton,’ he’s direct about it. If anything, more direct than before.”
Newt frowned. “Weird.” He fiddled with the gyroscope. “I don’t think I get that. He would be easier to understand with a dæmon. And he would be easier to deal with, too. Humans shouldn’t be without them.”
Fern made a non-committal sound and went back to gnawing on his stick.
“No, really,” said Newt, looking at him. “It’s lonely. It’s lonely being a person. Can you imagine me, without you? I would have thrown myself off the Jordan bell tower by 17.”
“I think you do get it,” Fern said, ignoring Newt’s last comment. “You certainly do your best to get a rise out of him. This is just how the two of you communicate.”
“But is it better than, like, sincerity?”
“How much did you enjoy sincerity, the other night?”
Newt made a face. “Not much, man.”
“Well, then.”
The bow and arrows took a whole day to make. In the morning, Hermann whittled the bow while Newt puttered around. For a while he fussed with his plant clippings, which he was now cultivating in little clay pots in their yard; but covertly, he was watching Hermann work.
His research partner sat on his stool in the grass, legs apart, stick wedged under his left armpit while the right hand drew his knife repeatedly down in swift, impressively uniform cuts. His hands moved with purposeful, enviable grace. He was bent so sharply Newt could not see his face, but he could hear his labored breathing.
He paused to scratch his neck, then resumed.
Newt chewed a piece of grass.
Hermann sat up and lifted the stick with both hands, testing its give. It bent appropriately. He turned the stick the other way and worked on the other end. Fern rolled over and squirmed restlessly on the dewy grass.
Hermann finished evening out the width and began carving notches for the string. His eyes moved sharply, following the tip of the knife like a cat tracking a bird.
“Newton,” he said without looking up.
“Hm?”
“Do you have the sinew?”
“Uh-huh.”
Hermann looked up.
“Can you get it, please,” he said.
“Oh,” said Newt. “Yeah. Sure.”
He went into the hut and brought it back out. It was grazer sinew, treated and turned into a tight catgut-like material the mulefa used to bind wood. It had very little give, which was just what they needed.
When Newt returned, Hermann had finished the notches.
“I’ll bend it, you tie the string,” Hermann said as Newt sat down facing him on the grass. “I trust you know what knot would be appropriate.”
“Yeah,” said Newt. “Then we’ll glue the knot.”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” he said.
Hermann laid the bow on the grass between them. Newt laid the string parallel. Hermann took the bow by each end, and pulled, bending it as far as he could. Newt watched his bony knuckles turning white with the effort. He heard a small strained exhale.
“Newton.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “On it.”
He hurriedly tied a temporary loop in one end of the stiff string, holding it close to his chest so he could use his immobilized hand. Then he looped it quickly around one notch. He took the other end of the string and, shifting his position, moved to the other notch.
“Move your hand,” he said. Hermann obliged with a tiny puff of a sigh.
Newt looped the sinew around this notch and pulled, taking the tension off Hermann and onto the string. Without being asked, Hermann moved his fingers over the string, holding it in place.
He took his other hand off the bow and picked up the loose end of the string for Newt. Newt took the slack with his good hand and pulled it round the taut string, then made a tricky twisted loop which Hermann dropped the end into. Newt pulled it tight, then nodded to Hermann who took the string end again. He repeated the loop and drop. In a moment, the knots on one side were tied. They switched to the other side, where Newt undid the temporary loop and Hermann held the string to the notch with one strong hand. They repeated the co-knotting. When Newt said “okay,” Hermann let go with a quick exhale.
The bow sprang out only a tiny bit. It stayed taut.
“Sweet,” said Newt, a little breathless. He grinned at his research partner. Hermann, tension released, even smiled back.
Hermann whittled the arrows in the afternoon with some guidance from Newt. Hermann had not really ever seen a bow and arrow in serious use, because, why would he? But in Newt’s world, especially the North, they were still a fairly common weapon. They had got some feathers from the mulefa, who, strangely enough, saved the feathers dropped by the tualapi. These were large and sturdy, and Newt thought they would make some excellent arrows. When Newt approved the balance of a prototype, Hermann made two more. By that time the sun was setting. They discussed with the mulefa and decided to begin the tree expedition tomorrow morning. They walked back home, having the same argument again about who would climb.
“You don’t need two arms to climb,” Newt was saying, “They’re just helpful. Two legs, you need.”
“Two legs, I have,” said Hermann. “I’ll just climb slowly. Why do you think I use a cane, Newton? To take pressure off the hip. If I am climbing, pulling myself up by my arms—both of which are functioning—I will be mediating pressure in the same manner.”
“You’re lying to yourself if you don’t think that’s going to hurt like a bitch the next morning,” Newt said.
“I think I know my own limits, thank you,” said Hermann. “Unlike you, apparently.”
“Unlike me?” said Newt. “My arm is—”
“Newton,” said Hermann, looking at him as they walked. “You cannot be serious.”
“What?” he said. “I’m totally serious, man.”
“No,” said Hermann. “Which one of us is suited to climb: the one with a hip problem, or the one whose soul is physically embodied in the form of a non-climbing animal?”
Newt opened his mouth to make a heated reply, then shut it. He looked at his dæmon with a frown. Fern was trotting impassively beside him
“I can make him a harness.”
“Before tomorrow?”
“Man, when were you going to tell me?” Newt demanded his dæmon.
Fern sneezed. “Never?” he said. “I don’t want to climb.”
“What!”
“That shit is high, Newt,” he said, “And Hermann is right. I am not a climbing animal.”
“There isn’t time to make a harness now, anyway,” said Hermann, trying unsuccessfully to hide his satisfaction. They were almost at the hut.
“Wow, I can’t believe this!” Newt said. “You waited until the last possible moment to bring this up, just so I wouldn’t have enough time to fix it.”
“Maybe so,” said Hermann, pausing outside their door. “But you are also responsible for the oversight, Newton—I mean, you’ve lived together your entire life and you claim to have gone climbing before, it’s hardly my fault if you...”
Newt’s hand shot out, taking the handle before Hermann could. He held the door shut.
“That’s cold, man,” he said. “You know I wanted to go.”
Hermann looked up at him.
“Once I take the first trip, I will be able to set up a more permanent and stable system. The mulefa have pulleys. I can install them.”
He frowned at Newt, who was looking strangely tense in the dimming dusk.
“So that all three of us will be able to climb,” he added, somewhat loudly.
Newt studied his research partner through narrowed eyes, still holding the door shut. Shrewd. Was this revenge? Probably not. Could he make Fern a harness before tomorrow? Probably yes, if he stayed up late. The last bit of sunset was giving the physicist the slightest rosy glow, and Newt thought about whipping around to catch the sun before it sank below the horizon. They lived in sight of the ocean, but he had yet to see the green flash. He had only caught it once on his earth. Maybe this atmosphere did not have the right qualities for it. He didn't remember what qualities those were. He should ask Hermann. Hermann would know.
Hermann was staring at him with a frown. “Newton.”
Newt nodded. He was thinking about the sun, but in his time thinking about looking at it, it had finished sinking—the glow was gone from Hermann’s face.
Anyway, it hurt your eyes to look right at it.
That didn’t usually stop him.
“Sorry,” said Newt, letting go of the door. “Got distracted.”
“Evidently.” Hermann made no move to open it.
“Pulleys will be more stable,” said Newt, skipping the ‘you’re right’ part of the sentence that they both knew was there. “You can go up alone tomorrow but... know that I’m not happy about it.”
“Thank you for the permission,” Hermann said dryly.
“Just... be careful.”
Hermann sighed and opened their door.
That night, Hermann dreamed that he had a correspondent he had never met. They exchanged letters thick with something—scientific intrigue? Something more? In the dream he could not tell—while all around them the ice age returned, covering every continent with glaciers and choking every ocean with ice floes. They finally met under the last surviving deciduous tree on earth. It was Newton, of course.
The expedition set out early for the wheel-pod grove. Hermann rose with the same shapeless anxiety he got on the way to the airport before a long journey. The expedition party was the two of them, Atal, and two more mulefa. Both humans were still nervous riders, though they would never admit it to each other. But the air that washed over them was so clear and fresh that, for the duration of the ride, it seemed nothing could go wrong in this world.
They had only made three arrows, owing to time. Hermann was deferring worrying about the climb by instead worrying about the shooting. He was the only one who could operate the bow. But he was not a good shot.
Under mulefa advisement they picked a tree, in the middle of the grove and in sight of the sea. They tied the first arrow to the light line; this string would be tied to the main ropes once the arrow made it over the branch, and used to haul the ropes over.
Hermann did not have to hit any target, he simply had to shoot higher than the branch. He told himself this as he took aim, angled up, estimated the distance, and with a careful exhale, let go.
Hermann seriously underestimated the arc. It didn’t even make it halfway up.
He dragged it back and tried again. Better, but still not very close.
The third time, it pierced the trunk of the tree. He cursed quietly, trying to keep his head. He felt the eyes of the mulefa on him, the mulefa whose very lives counted on this operation. When he yanked the string, the arrow fell back, but the tip stayed in the bark.
Newt, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, said, “Don’t worry. We can fix that one if we need to.”
Hermann said nothing. He tied the light line to the next arrow and tried again.
His fourth shot fell short again, but his fifth went over. Newt whooped. “Nice shot, Hermann!”
Hermann sighed with relief and began shaking the string to shimmy it down the other side. It did not move.
“I think it’s caught on the branch,” he said. He tugged, and felt a fateful snap. The string and the tied half of the arrow fell to the ground, broken.
He looked at Newt, stricken.
“We only have one left...”
Newton looked like he was doing some fast thinking.
“I could do it,” said Newt. He could see Hermann was too agitated for an ‘if you hadn’t broken my arm’ crack so he didn’t make one. He had an idea. “If...”
He chewed his lip, then held out his hand. Hermann put the bow in it.
“You’re going to have to be my other arm,” said Newt.
“Very well.”
Newt took the bow. He held it in his right hand and pointed it up, assessing the target. Then he nodded to Hermann, and Hermann took the last arrow and nocked it for him, resting it on Newt’s forefinger on the bow. Hermann positioned himself perpendicular to Newt, his right elbow brushing Newt’s bound arm. He mirrored Newt's stance like they were partners in a strange waltz. Hermann took the feathered end of the arrow between his fingers. Newt lifted his bow arm and made some adjustments, leveling it to their target.
“Aim’s not about measuring,” he said, voice low because Hermann was so close. “It’s about instinct.”
“Not my strong suit,” said Hermann to Newt’s temple.
“I know, man.” Newt had found an angle he felt good about. “All right. Go ahead.”
Hermann inhaled and pulled the string taut. His forearm filled Newt’s peripheral vision, shaking slightly.
“Hey. Relax. No shaking.”
Newt put his temple against Hermann’s elbow to brace it, and without much thought, rested his impaired hand on Hermann’s ribs.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said. “We’ll get it.”
Hermann’s eyes stayed fixed on the target, but he nodded. He steadied slightly.
“Here we go,” said Newt, following Hermann’s eyes to their shared destination. “On my mark.”
He lifted his arm a tiny bit more and said, “Back, and—shoot.”
Hermann shot. The arrow sailed high above the branch and arced down towards the ground, string trailing behind like a falling kite.
Hermann exhaled with relief and they let the bow down in a shared motion. Newt whooped.
“Nice shot, man!”
Setting up the ropes took another hour because Newt and the mulefa fussed so much over Hermann’s safety. The ladder rope was anchored to the closest tree, and the harness rope was anchored to Newt, who would continually take up the slack so that if Hermann slipped, he would not drop far. At the last minute he decided he was too light and anchored himself, the anchor, to Atal. She was also concerned, and agreed readily. Fernweh circled round throughout, sniffing everything repeatedly and growling at any animals who came too close.
Finally, they were ready for Hermann to climb.
“Got everything?” said Newt, watching him close his little pack.
“Yes,” said Hermann. He had the gyroscope, the amber binoculars, the notebook and pencil.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Newt’s hand shot out and stopped him from closing the bag. He pulled out the binoculars.
“Oh, I see,” said Newt with unforgivable glee. “Innovative strategy, Dr. Gottlieb...”
Hermann glared. He had, as Newton suggested, installed the amber lenses in his old binoculars.
“Shut up,” said Hermann, snatching them back. Newt smirked and let him take them. He shouldered the bag and got ready to climb.
Few people in the world of the city by the sea seemed to remember the man with the cane and the pack. Many days passed between each thread. But Father Gomez was patient, and found them each—the children who remembered him, the man unafraid of the specters. The elderly couple who remembered him, the man who was mysteriously protected. So were Father Gomez and his beetle dæmon. Why, they asked?
Now a week had passed since his last witness. No one more seemed to know a thing. No one after the elderly couple had seen him. But Father Gomez was a man of faith; he prayed each morning and night for a sign, for the strength to find it, gripping his crucifix and his rifle tight all the while. On the eighth day, as he searched up a dusty ridge, he saw something strange. A puddle.
For it had just rained in the world on the other side of a window, and the rain had fallen through to this one. Father Gomez slipped his hand through the window, and touched the grass. It was real. Still damp. This was where Gottlieb had gone. He was sure of it.