Faster Than Falling: The Skylighter Adventures Read online

  FASTER THAN FALLING

  THE SKYLIGHTER ADVENTURE

  NATHAN VAN COOPS

  For Horacio Garcia, Eddie Molina, Reed Skupny, Christy Meyer, Daniel Meyer, Marc Pipes, and all the other kids who shared my childhood adventures, real and imaginary.

  And to my big sisters: Amy, Sarah, and Jenny. Because even though growing up was hard, I never had to do it alone.

  -NVC

  Get a free bonus eSketchBook including original art by the author and the complete custom illustrated map! Get your free gift at www.nathanvancoops.com/bonus

  -NVC

  CONTENTS

  The Globe Mother

  1. The Express

  2. The Globe Mother

  3. Mr. and Mrs. Roose

  4. Samra

  5. Atlas

  6. The Star Park

  7. Amelia

  8. The Festival

  9. The Arrival

  10. Kipling

  11. The Sun Dragon

  12. Kaleb

  13. Restless Fury

  14. Night Thief

  15. Daylight

  16. The Rift

  17. The Leak

  18. The Bargain

  19. The Fleet

  20. The Sky Forest

  21. The Tree People

  22. Erin

  23. Chane The Knower

  24. The River

  25. Port Savage

  26. Borgram

  27. Scarabs

  28. The Rope Fall

  29. The Key

  30. Marlow

  31. Abducted

  32. Enzo

  33. Quimby

  34. Eric

  35. The Fall

  36. The Attack

  37. Starfire

  38. Admiral Orloff

  39. The Relic

  40. The Storm Gate

  41. The Return

  Epilogue

  Bonus

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Nathan Van Coops

  1

  THE EXPRESS

  Kipling was going to be the first to spot it. He just knew it.

  Perched atop the most easterly of the globe daughters, he could scan the sky from Piper’s Peak in the north, all the way to Southfang. The sight of the jagged mountaintops stabbing through the clouds usually brought delight and awe to all the patchlings—a deep wonder born of bedtime stories on cold nights, and mothers and fathers with a flair for the theatrical. Today those tales were a distraction good only for eight-year-olds. This season Kipling was twelve, and he was going to be the Watcher.

  The sky revealed nothing so far, just puffy white clouds scattered below him and a twelve-thousand-foot drop to the surface of the ocean. In the distance, the sea foamed and frothed as it continued its relentless assault on the cliffs at the base of the Great Fanged Mountains.

  The other boys and girls in Kipling’s patch had mostly scrambled up Tamra Ohna, the floating globe just to the south of his position. Tamra Ohna was an older globe floating higher in the sky and presumably offering a better view, but Kipling had been watching this arm of the globe patch for the last two weeks and, as he predicted, this afternoon he was sitting nicely in Tamra Ohna’s shadow. As his friends jostled for position atop his taller neighbor—squinting in the sunlight—he had a clear view from the shade, and he had this globe, Mona Leana, all to himself. Well . . . nearly.

  “Why do you even want to be the Watcher?” Rufus yelled, still attempting to extract himself from the tangleweed at Mona Leana’s base. “It’s not like you get extra meals or anything.”

  Kipling, sitting cross-legged atop the leafy, floating sphere, leaned over to observe his friend, then went back to searching the sky. “People respect the Watcher. It means you’re the best at spotting things. It makes you important.”

  “But we already have a Watcher.” Something snapped as Rufus struggled out of the creepers and started to climb the globe.

  Kipling frowned but kept his eyes on the horizon. “Don’t break the vines. My dad will yell at us.”

  “Sorry,” Rufus muttered. “It wouldn’t let go.” He huffed and puffed his way up the side of the globe, using whatever handholds he could find in the leaves and blooms on Mona Leana’s surface. He finally gained the top, adjusted his buoyancy belt, and plopped down next to Kipling. “See anything yet?”

  Kipling leaned forward and stuck his face out, knowing the few extra inches wouldn’t make much difference, but wanting to at least clear Rufus from his peripheral vision. He sniffed the air, hoping to catch a whiff of the peculiar oily scent that always came with their annual visitor. “We have to watch for red. He told me that he was going to paint the nose this spring. He promised he’d make it red.” Kipling grinned as he relayed this information to his companion. Rufus nodded but didn’t seem especially overwhelmed by the news, a small disappointment for Kipling, who had kept the secret all year, gloating over this tidbit that would give him a slim advantage over his older and more seasoned competitors.

  “What do you think he’ll bring us this year?” Rufus asked. “I hope he brings more of the honey rocks. Those were the best. Also the toffee chews, and the gum whistles . . .”

  “He can’t just bring candy every year.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s important. He’s got a job to do,” Kipling said.

  “Father says he’s just a crazy old Grounder and I’m not supposed to go chasing after him anymore. He says I need to stop acting like a patchling and start being a man.” Rufus twiddled a piece of vine absentmindedly between his fingers until the tangleweed bloom came off in his hand. He realized too late what he’d done and tried to brush it off his fingertips discreetly.

  Kipling just shook his head. “My dad says he’s important because he brings us news and messages. He says without The Sunshine Express, we’d—” He stopped talking as the spot of red on the horizon caught his eye. “There he is! It’s him! Where’s my trumpet?” Kipling cast about in search of the star lily root he had carefully hollowed out and perfected playing in anticipation of this moment. The trumpet was nowhere to be seen. “Where did it go? I need to—” Kipling’s heart sank as Rufus reached underneath himself and pulled out the twisted root. The delicate stem of the mouthpiece was dangling at an angle from a strand of bark. “Nooo!”

  Rufus grimaced in shame as Kipling snatched the root from his hands. “Sorry. I didn’t see it.”

  Spinning to search the horizon, Kipling tried desperately to coax a sound from the busted horn. A pitiful sputtering was the only result.

  “Wait, you can use mine!” Rufus exclaimed. “I made one, too!” He patted the sides of his trousers and felt around under the buoyancy belt. “It was here just a minute ago.” Kipling only had seconds at most to fulfill his dream, so he helped his friend search, then dropped his gaze to the patch of tangleweed Rufus had struggled through on the way up. Sure enough, the boy’s trumpet was caught in the vines surrounding Mona Leana’s main stalk. Kipling expelled his breath, shoved Rufus out of the way, and leapt.

  The cluster of tangleweed around Mona Leana’s globe was thick and sturdy this season. Kipling had been out to this end of the patch for years of pruning duty with his father and then more recently on his own as his father decided the chore was now his responsibility. While the plant was indeed a weed, and essentially a parasite on the floating globe patch, it served a purpose, binding the many globes of the patch together and granting handholds along an otherwise smooth stalk. As Kipling landed in the mess of vines, his hand immediately stretched for the trumpet, snatching it from the air just as the impact of his landi
ng jolted it loose and sent it tumbling toward the sky below.

  The thrill of his success wilted as a long tone blasted out from the top of Tamra Ohna. Kipling recognized the rich sound belonging to the horn of last year’s Watcher, his older brother Kaleb. Kipling slumped into the vines and let the star lily trumpet fall from his fingertips. His piece of root danced its way into the blue below, disappearing completely into the void of sea and cloud. He stayed there, crestfallen, until he could hear the whirring and popping of the aircraft in the distance, even over the cheering from Tamra Ohna.

  Observing the long drop below him didn’t bring any particular emotion. Fear of heights was for Grounders. Kipling was a Skylighter, and Skylighters never fear a fall.

  “Um, Kip? A little help?”

  Kipling lifted his head as Rufus drifted by, his buoyancy belt keeping the boy from sinking or floating away but also hindering his ability to navigate his way back aboard the stalk. Rufus waved his arms a few times, trying to swim his way toward Kip, but to little avail. Kipling untangled a bit of creeper and tossed it to his friend, reeling him back in.

  “I’m sorry I made you lose your chance at Watcher. I can tell them you saw it first if you want. I could tell them about—”

  “It’s okay.” Kipling patted his friend on the shoulder and looked into his rotund face. “Sorry I shoved you so hard.” He glanced up to where the other kids were celebrating his brother’s victory. “You and I know. That’s good enough, right? Come on. Let’s go see what the Express brought.”

  2

  THE GLOBE MOTHER

  Corra Mara was the oldest globe mother aloft in the northern hemisphere. Nearly five hundred feet in diameter, its volume of internal gases could raise the entire globe patch to an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet in the peak of summer. It cruised the jet stream, riding the easterly winds and soaking up the sun. Corra Mara’s long tendrils trailed through the clouds below, drinking them up into its core. Some claimed that over half the globe patches in the world were now its offspring. This year the giant globe was due to release two more of its daughters into the sky and it was a cause to celebrate. At least for everyone except Samra Rose.

  Samra was still in her hammock when she heard the trumpet. Her father had given her permission to go with the other patchlings to watch for the Express, but this year her heart wasn’t in it. How could it be, when this was her very last season on Corra Mara?

  She rolled over in her hammock of colored silkbug ropes and tried to force herself to sleep. Perhaps if her parents found her asleep on this gorgeous, festive day, they’d finally realize the depths of her misery. So far her best efforts had proven ineffective. She’d tried arguing. She’d pouted. She’d even promised a hunger strike, only to have her own stomach betray her. Her stepmother had just laughed when she refused her greens for the second meal in a row. “Samra, you eat more than your father. Not that I know where any of it goes, skinny as a twig like you are.” She’d been right. Samra had snuck down to the pantry that night and stuffed herself so full that she started floating out of her hammock in the morning.

  Her father said being a Skylighter and refusing to eat the globe greens was like a fish trying to give up water. She supposed he had a point. The leaves of the globe patch were packed full of bollite and lumium—the same elements that got turned into bioluminescent, lifting gas in the center of the globes after being exposed to sunlight. It did the same thing to the Skylighters’ anatomy on a smaller scale due to their high body heat, and the process physically changed the density of their bodies relative to the planet’s denser atmosphere.

  Samra was happy that at least she didn’t have to balloon up like a globe in order to float. She didn’t think she’d enjoy being the size of a globe daughter.

  As it was, Samra was only okay at floating. She’d lost her chubby buoyancy weight early and was able to run and jump all over the patch by the time she was six. She’d learned to plummet earlier than any of her friends. While they were still drifting up into the catch nets of the nursery, she’d learned to expel her lifting gases and drop like a rock, enjoying the freedom of falling. She’d keep exhaling till she almost blacked out, relishing the rush of speed before finally having to breathe and arrest her momentum.

  But the one thing Samra hadn’t figured out was her glowing. The older kids all lit up on command and could use the extra heat to soar upward when they wanted to, or even lift things. Samra had no control. Some days she’d think she had it figured out only to have one of the other patchlings make her mad, and she’d darken completely, her pale yellow skin turning scarlet with emotion. She always claimed she did it on purpose to show how angry she was, but she wasn’t sure anyone believed her anymore. Maybe Rufus. But then again, Rufus believed just about anybody.

  The yelling from the top of the distant globe daughter was too loud, too many voices. It meant Kip and Rufus hadn’t succeeded in their plan to be the Watcher. Samra frowned and parted the tendrils that formed the wall of her aerie. Making an opening large enough for her head, she peeked out to see the cause of the commotion. A big group of older boys was whooping and hollering on their way back across the thick stalk that linked Tamra Ohna to the Globe Mother. She recognized Darian and Tolmer and a few of the others gathered around the tall figure of Kaleb, who was, as usual, the center of attention.

  Samra could admit that Kaleb was handsome. His hair had changed color early, transitioning from the light green of a patchling, straight through tawny adolescence, to an adult brown so dark it was nearly black. At almost seventeen, he didn’t have much reason to spend time with the younger patchlings, but since she was a close friend of his brother, Kip, she saw more of him than other girls her age. Perhaps that was why she didn’t get goo-goo-eyed over him and start giggling every time he walked by, the way the other girls seemed to.

  Her closest neighbor, Khloe, used to stand near the edge of a platform and pretend to faint whenever Kaleb got near, hoping that he might rush to save her. It never worked anymore. Kaleb had caught on after the first few ‘rescues’ and tended to keep his eyes averted anytime Khloe looked in danger of wilting. Khloe was plenty buoyant anyway, so it’s not like she was ever really in any danger. Rescues were all the rage with Khloe’s crowd and they conspired daily to find new ways for boys to come to their aid. There was already a group of girls convening at the end of the stalk bridge, waiting to ambush the boys with compliments about their victory.

  Samra turned her attention away from the Tamra Ohna stalk and instead concentrated on the two boys scrambling their way down the gangly and overgrown return route from Mona Leana. The lower-flying globe daughter saw much less traffic, as evidenced by the trouble the two boys were having getting back. Rufus was the most obvious. His additional width with his buoyancy belt on made him easy to spot. Kip, by contrast, seemed almost in danger of disappearing as he leapt and bounced over vines and roots thicker than he was. He had Kaleb’s athletic frame, but somewhat in miniature, and his hair still had lingering bits of green, though he usually pretended they weren’t there.

  Samra was every bit as tall as Kip and just as good at jumping, but she did admire the way he could flit and tumble over things and climb his way around the patch. Samra could plummet faster than him, but there are only so many places you can get to by falling.

  Samra looked around the cramped tendril pocket she called her room and realized her parents were unlikely to be back soon enough to make her sleeping protest worthwhile. She wasn’t about to let them know that she had been secretly heeding their advice about attempting to enjoy her final days with friends before departure. She had too much invested in her protests now to let them off the hook completely, but she knew they were right.

  In a few days it would be the spring festival and time for the mature globe daughters to detach and seek their own way in the winds. Her family would be founding members of the new colony, and it would mean a great deal of honor for her father. Her stepmother had reminded her that it didn’t n
ecessarily mean she would never see her friends again—you never knew when the winds might blow two colonies together for a time. Samra tried to imagine what it might be like to run into Kip and Rufus after years of being on her own colony. Would they still remember her? They’d better.

  Samra swung herself out of her hammock, exhaled forcefully and dropped through the hole in the floor of her aerie. She climbed down the tendril ladder and swung out onto the walkway her family had woven to the main stalk. From there, she could just see Kip and Rufus climbing aboard the main mass of the Globe Mother. She hurried to catch up.

  She found the boys on the landing platform, along with all the other patchlings who had come to meet the Express. There was Enzo, the wizened, silver-haired pilot, untying packages from the nose cargo hold. The littlest patchlings were tugging on the shirts and trousers of their elder siblings, trying to see what goodies the pilot may have brought this season. Enzo didn’t disappoint.

  The wiry old man seemed even thinner than last year, and he had always had a bony, birdlike frame to start—especially for a Grounder—but he lifted the heavy package from the hold with a noticeable twinkle in his eye. He unwrapped the crinkly paper packaging and revealed a wicker basket packed with sweets. The little green-haired patchlings squealed with joy as he began to hand out rock candy hammers and thick, chewy butter toffees.

  Samra squeezed into the crowd behind Kip and poked him in the ribs. “What happened? I thought you said it was as good as yours this year.”

  Kip glanced back to see who was poking him, then faced forward again, trying to elbow past Finnigan Tundus, their patchmate from school. Finnigan wriggled under Kip’s arm and held his ground.

  “It was my fault,” Rufus explained. “I messed it up.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kipling replied. “Kaleb can keep the stupid Watcher prize. I didn’t want it that much anyway.”