The Stars Are Legion(74)

“Hold on,” Casamir tells her. I get behind Casamir to help her guide the rope, and the balloon with it. She unties the balloon from the metal crag and Das Muni slowly begins to rise.

As Das Muni’s feet leave the ground, she squeezes her eyes shut. I watch her ascent, so slow and laborious that I don’t believe she will reach the hole in the sky.

Casamir does not take her gaze from Das Muni. She shifts her weight back, righting the balloon’s course to ensure it doesn’t hit the edges of the hole but goes up clean through it.

“Not bad for a tinker, huh?” Casamir says.

“Not for a tinker,” Arankadash says.

The balloon continues drifting upward. I hope there’s something for Das Muni to affix that rope to up there, because I’ve just started really imagining the climb up. It’s at least twice the height of the climb that Casamir and I did back in the recycling pits.

Casamir hisses and steps back again. “Help me right her!” she says. “There’s a wind up there!”

Das Muni is tugged hard to the left of the hole. I grab the rope and help haul the balloon back. She’s only a few body lengths from the top now.

“All right, let go,” Casamir says.

I do. The wind has died down and the rope is no longer pulling in the other direction.

“Think she’ll get eaten by something up there?” Arankadash asks.

“Too late for that now,” I say.

The balloon rises into the crack in the sky.

“All right, help me pull it flush against the side,” Casamir says.

We pull against the rope so Das Muni can get her footing on the rim of the hole, but we can’t see much of anything anymore. The light hurts my eyes, and by now I’m a little blinded from staring up at it for so long.

“Now what?” I say.

“Just hold it.”

We wait. Sweat pours down my face. Casamir wipes her forehead on her sleeve.

I can’t stare up anymore without pain, so I look down, trying to clear my vision. Arankadash is right. There could be anything up there. What’s making the light? If it kills Das Muni and pops the balloon, we’re stuck. What then? Turn around? Find some other way up?

“Little help!” Casamir says.

I grab the rope. The balloon is tugging more strongly now.

“That mean she’s free?” I ask.

Casamir doesn’t answer.

I suppose it could mean all sorts of things. It could mean something ripped her off the balloon and ate her.

I see something fall from the sky. I step forward, instinctively, ready to catch Das Muni falling.

But it’s not Das Muni. It’s the rope. The one we need hooked up there so we can haul each other up.

Arankadash grabs it as it snaps down. It’s just barely long enough for her to reach.

“I’ll go up,” I say.

“No,” Casamir says. “Me first.”

“The heaviest person should go first,” I say. “That will give us two people on the ground here to help haul me up.”

“Yes,” Casamir says, and sighs as if I’m an idiot, a sigh I am getting used to. “But if the heaviest person waits until last, then there will be three people to help pull them up from the other direction.”

When I work it out, it makes sense, but the idea of leaving Casamir and Das Muni together, or Casamir, Arankadash, and Das Muni together without me doesn’t sit right.

Casamir folds her arms. “It’s science,” she says.

I gaze back up at the hole in the sky. “Well,” I say, “I can’t argue with science, now, can I?” No more than I can argue about gods with Casamir.

We work together to pull the balloon back down and get Casamir strapped to it.

Arankadash and I pull on the rope affixed above, and with the balloon’s help, we send Casamir up into the light too.

She yells something down at us when she gets up there, but I can’t make it out. I only hear the second part: “Send Arankadash!”

Arankadash and I haul the balloon back down and knot her up.

“This seems to be the easiest part,” she says.

“I like easy,” I say. “We deserve it.”

I haul from the bottom, they haul from the top, and after a few minutes, Arankadash, too, disappears into the halo of light.

I’m alone on the ground for the first time since I fell into the recycling pit. I should enjoy the silence, but I can’t help but stare out at the water and the floundering boat, which has fallen over on its side.

I walk over to it and right it, then push it back into the water. It paddles off happily, hopefully back to the other side.

There’s yelling from above, so I run back and haul on the balloon so they don’t think I’ve been eaten.

I tie off the balloon on the metal crag while I knot it around me. By now, the rope is slippery and frayed. I chance one last look up into nothing, then yank the rope free and call, “Haul me up!”

The balloon lifts me just enough so my toes brush the ground, but that’s it. I have to admit Casamir’s reasoning about weight is sound.

I begin to rise in fits and starts as they pull me up and up, into the light.

I stare up one more time, squinting, because I want to see and understand what I’m getting into, even knowing it’s far too late.