On the Wind

By Allen Kitchen, march 2008

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“Try adjusting the focus a bit more, Nub – you should set it to infinity for a good look, as poor as that look is.” Sag twitched his large, brown tail behind him and clung automatically to the wooden rails around the periphery of his home as it swayed slightly in the increasing winds. Living in the highest peak of the Deanderlus tree, closest to the eastern edge of the worldtree, his home shook from the slightest breeze.

But it also had a commanding view out across the emptiness that extended to the horizon beyond the gigantic tree’s branchs. That’s why he’d bought it in the first place. It was an ideal location to use his people’s most recent invention – an invention his grandson was struggling to use right now.

“What is this machine called again, grandfather?” the pre-pubescent brown squirrel asked, trying to turn a circular wooden wheel with something a young boy would consider care. As it was, the wheel didn’t want to rotate, in spite of the lad’s efforts.

Sag reached over and tapped the apparatus to knock the binding wooden gears loose again. He made a note to talk with the gearmaker about tweaking it so it wouldn’t stick so bad. It was too bad that the craftsman lived a fraction of the way to the other side of the tree. It was a 4 day journey, and he wasn’t a young squirrel anymore. Spending nights in travel hostels was far from comfortable nowdays.

“It’s called a telescope, Nub,” Sag told him as the wheels broke free with an audible snap. “There. You should be able to get a better look now.”

Nub shook his head as he stared into the eyepiece. “All I see is fuzzy yellow on the bottom, and fuzzy blue on the top,” he said. The young boy’s tail gave an annoyed twitch.

Sag nodded and came to stand by Nub. “Here,” he said as he nudged the young squirrel aside. “Let me set it up for you and then you can look through it. Okay?”

Nub stood respectfully at the side of the telescope as his grandfather adjusted the complex assembly of wooden tubes, wheels, gears and strange clear stones.

“And you say you found the plans for this in one of your old books?” Sag didn’t have to be watching to know that Nub was pointing to the vast library of books behind them. Column after column of carefully assembled Andrian tree leaves stitched together with resin-covered spider silk and protected inside chips of bark. Labels on the bark listed things like theoretical chemistry, math concepts beyond accumulation, and optics.

Sag had thousands of such books. Together, they formed one of the finest and most extensive research and experimentation libraries in the entire world tree. It was one of the things he was most proud of; his science library.

The other thing he was most proud of was waiting patiently to look through the telescope again. Sag smiled and got the focus right, then stepped back to let the bright young one see for himself – as he’d asked to – just what all the recent fuss was about.

Nub stared through the lens and squinted, his young brown squirrel eyes narrowing at the oaken cylinder. Then Nub straightened up in alarm and he stepped back away from the telescope.

“I saw it!” the young brown squirrel chattered in an excited voice. “You were telling the truth. There are other trees out there, far away across empty space.”

Sag smiled and nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “Other world trees, so far away that we can’t see them without the use of the most advanced technology.”

Nub’s look of astonishment lasted for a couple of seconds. Then it changed, turning into one of concern. He looked worriedly at the elderly scientist. “Is that why you are in so much trouble with your trunk’s society guides?” he asked. The concern in Nub’s voice was genuine, if young.

Sag’s smile faded slightly. “Oh, that’s part of it,” he slowly admitted. “Basically, nobody wants to hear that there are other worlds out there. It scares them and disrupts all of society, something the guardians don’t like.”

“But why, grandfather?”

“Why do they want to prevent disruptions to society? Well Nub…”

“Not that!” Nub’s nose wrinkled in irritation. “Anyone out of his baby fur knows that the guardians keep order so that we can all live together in peace without having to fight over living areas, food, water, and other things. What I don’t understand is why they are mad at you for finding out that this isn’t the only world tree? It’s not like you put it out there or anything.”

Sag took a glance at the telescope to make certain it was not in danger of being damaged. Then he stepped down onto the notched branch that led to the wide, circular floor that formed his home in the high branches of the Deanderlus trunk of the Worldtree. He walked down and lowered himself onto the padded cushion placed atop a knot in the wood. The seat was well worn and shaped exactly to the contours of his old brown squirrel body, the result of many decades of use.

“It’s simple, Nub,” Sag explained. “You know what the scriptures say; that the one great tree was created by the almighty and that he put it here for us to live in.” Sag let out a sigh as he got comfortable in his seat. “If there are other trees out there, then the scripture is wrong and there isn’t one great tree after all.”

Nub stepped down in stood in front of his grandfather, facing him. “So?” the young male asked. Ah, the innocence of youth, Sag thought to himself.

“Nub, if the scriptures are wrong about one thing, then can’t they be wrong about other things? Maybe even all things?” Sag watched as the realization sank into his grandson. “What if everything that makes up our society is wrong? What would happen if everyone threw out the rules our civilization is built upon?”

Nub shook his head. “That’s silly,” he exclaimed. “You don’t have to question everything just because you find out you were wrong about one thing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course! If you get one answer wrong on a test, does that mean all your answers are wrong?”

Sag felt that sensation of pride well within his heart again. He knew that the lad was sharp, but sometimes he spoke with a wisdom that was far beyond his years. If only… if only his daughter had been as clever and quick-witted as his grandson, he wistfully thought to himself.

“Yes, you are right, of course.” Sag laid his tail flat on the floor behind him and let the rest of his body relax completely into the seat again. “One thing wrong does not automatically mean all are wrong. But people, well…” Sag pondered how to explain the rest. Smart or not, the subject wasn’t easy to properly explain to a child. In fact, being smart probably would make it even harder for Nub to understand the idea – ignorance was always the most confusing thing to a clever mind.

“Their belief is that all the rules in the scriptures were created by the divine one himself,” Sag carefully went on. “Thus, in a lot of people’s minds, they are absolute and beyond question, every single one of them. My being able to prove that there are other trees out there means that one is incorrect. And if one part of the scriptures is wrong, what others might be wrong as well? It leads people to question the entire order of society. And as you might guess, the leaders of our society don’t like that one little bit.”

Nub listened intently to his elder. His bright eyes were fixed on the older squirrel’s, and he drank in every word.

“But if there are other trees out there,” Nub asked, “then who cares what someone else says? Facts are facts – either something exists or it does not.”

A door slammed at the side of the house, closest to the treebranch that the home was built upon and provided a pathway to it. Sag’s eyes snapped open in surprise, though whether in shock at his grandson’s brilliant reasoning or at his own daughters surprise appearance, even he wasn’t certain. He stood up and rose from his cushion and pulled his tail upright along his back again as was proper when a lady came into the room.

“Are you feeding Nub your crap stories again, dad?” The brown female squirrel looked unhappy. She was dressed in the traditional Mordr, a half kilt which covered the breasts and the reproductive regions. She was also somewhat covered in a mossy green color that stained her arms and hands. Tiny bits of moss stuck out from her russet hair, which was twisted and arranged in dozens of rows as was commonplace for females her age.

“Good afternoon, Fay.” Sag greeted her with a nod. “You are back from the moss farms early today.”

Fay tromped angrily toward Nub and pulled him toward her. She ignored his protest and turned a steely gaze toward Sag.

“I thought I told you to stop filling his head with your nonsense!” she barked. Her ears and tail radiated her irritation. She then turned away from him and looked her own son squarely in the eyes. “Nub, the truth is, the only thing he can prove is that there are very large green things in the distance, a distance so far that no squirrel can reach them. That’s all.” She turned her head and glared at Sag again. “Anything else he’s telling you is just speculation and fantasy. So don’t listen to a word of it. Okay?”

Nub looked down at his feet. “Yes, mother,” he quietly said in automatic deference to his dam.

Fay let go of him and angrily tromped toward Sag once more. She almost knocked over a delicate ceramic vase on a table as she passed. “All you have to do is watch your grandson and keep him out of trouble,” she fumed. “That’s all you have to do. But no. You have to keep telling him about your crackpot ideas, don’t you?”

Sag shook his head. “Nub asked to see through the telescope so he could know what all the fuss is about,” he began.

“The fuss?!” Fay was furious. She stood nose to nose with the old squirrel. Their teeth nearly knocked together. “You think there’s a fuss, now? And when Nub meets the same fate as your previous students, what are you going to call that – a minor disturbance?”

“Now that’s not fair, Fay…”

“I don’t care if it’s fair or not, old man! I don’t want Nub walking around, spouting off your unproven, crackpot ideas until the guardians do the same thing to him as they did to your last class of students. Before you were forbidden from teaching anymore, that is. I could have you share their fate just by telling the guides that you are defying them by spreading your ideas to my son in defiance of their orders.”

Sag swallowed hard. Not that he was truly afraid of Fay’s turning him in, particularly because she had her details wrong. The guardians forbade him from teaching in school anymore; they said nothing about what he could or couldn’t do in his own home. No, he wasn’t afraid of her reporting him. But Fay’s temper was formidable and only an insane male tempted making her wrath worse.

“I’m sorry, Fay,” he muttered.

“Do you even remember their names?” Fay challenged him. “Six of the brightest minds of my generation – gone now, all because of you! Do you even care? Or are others merely disposable hindwipes to you?”

Sag’s face grew hot. He felt his ears automatically move to their angry cant. “You’re way out of line,” he spat back. “Nobody is disposable to me. Not my former students. Not Nub. Not you. Nobody.”

Fay backed away from her father and spat on the ground. “Well, you have a funny way of showing it, tempting fate with your grandson’s life. Until you can make a telescope that can see well enough to prove that the green dots you spy are actually trees and not… something else, you just keep your stupid ideas to yourself and stop confusing my son. Or I will go talk with the guardians and see to it you end up just like your students did. Am I making myself clear enough for you?”

Sag snorted. “Then who will look after Nub while you are working?” he asked. “The rest of your family has abandoned you.” And little doubt why, he added silently to himself with a disappointed mental sigh. As much as he loved his daughter, he understood why her husband and his extended family threw her out of their clan and sent her back to him, the only other family she had still alive. He had to love her as she was his daughter. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t dislike the way she behaved. She truly was a harridan at times.

Fay pushed Nub toward the door. “He’d be better off running wild in the bottom branches, close to the underworld, than hanging around with you where he’ll actually end up in the underworld itself,” she angrily snapped. “And thank you so much for reminding me about my situation and rubbing my nose in it. It’ll make what I have to do much simpler.”

“Another threat, Fay?”

His daughter turned and glared at him as she stood by the doorway.

“No, old one,” she firmly said. “Not this time.” With that she spun on her heel and stomped out the door before slamming it behind her.

Sag watched her and his grandson leave. He wondered how it was that his daughter could go through life so angry all the time. Always slamming doors in her wake, and yet never once getting her tail caught as she slammed them. He wondered how she did that? Probably just a practiced motion, he decided. Oh well. By tomorrow, he thought, she’d have forgiven him for teaching Nub in defiance of her wishes. And he’d be Nub’s babysitter once more, ensuring the young male didn’t get into any trouble or mischief as Fay worked to support him.

He wasn’t worried about Fay’s going to the guardians. Blood was thicker than rain, as the stories went. Besides, she needed him. Like what he believed or not, she needed him to look after Nub. She would do nothing that would cause herself more trouble than she already had, he thought. Sag sighed aloud and nestled back into his cushions to take a nap and to convince himself that this entire ugly episode was nothing but a bad dream.

The oldest and most senior of the 6 guardians looked down from his knot on the tree’s huge trunk, and glowered at Sag. “I thought we made our earlier instructions quite clear,” he fumed. Though one of his eyes was gone and covered with an eyepatch, the eyebrows above both of them radiated his aggravation.

Sag unhappily looked upwards, straining his neck to see the guardians. Their lofty position was designed to put those who were brought before them into a state of unease. The crowds in the surrounding branches who whispered and pointed at him accomplished much the same effect. This he knew consciously, and it wasn’t a new experience for him either. Still, it worked – Sag was quite uneasy about the whole situation.

“I did not disobey you, elders,” he replied upwards. “My grandson asked me to show him how the telescope worked. And I showed him, in my own home. That’s all.”

“That’s all, you say?” The chief guardian appeared surprised at Sag’s claim. “And did we not tell you that you could never teach again?” he replied.

“Actually,” Sag began as he picked up a carefully scrolled Acacia leaf, “your orders were that I was forbidden from teaching in any school again, anywhere in the world.” He held the leaf on high. “These are transcripts from your own court, created as is my right of documentation by the court’s own scribes. Check the details for yourself if you want.”

The eldest just shook his head. The remaining five held theirs as if they felt a familiar headache coming on. The witnesses in the surrounding branches whispered and hissed in a barely audible tone. Sag strained his ears to hear a hint of Fay or Nub. He knew they were up there. They had to be; after all, it was Fay who had brought the matter before the court in the first place, and Sag had the right to face his accuser.

Not that he planned to do so. He frowned, and was for the first time glad that his wife was dead, so she didn’t have to witness her own daughter publicly condemning him.

“So your defense is going to be that you didn’t break our order, because you weren’t in a school.” The elder’s one remaining eye looked weary. “Do I understand you correctly?”

“That is correct, wise one.”

“Cutting the letter and the intent of our ruling finer than an ass hair, don’t you think?”

Sag shook his head. “If I may quote from the scriptures…” he began.

“No,” the guardian said with a wave of his hand. “We, the guardians, know the scriptures inside and out already, thank you. No need to recite what we have all memorized and can repeat in our sleep.”

“Even Dramaticu chapter 10, verse 2?” Sag asked.

“What, the part about the line between right and wrong being thinner than a leaf?”

“Yes, that’s the one.” Sag wanted to smile at getting the elder to do his job for him. “It also says that fine distinctions are what make us intelligent. And that if we don’t consider the details, if we just rote react without a sense of justice, without thinking, then we are but plants without brains or souls.”

One of the other judges groaned aloud at Sag’s quoting of the holy scriptures. “Must we put up with another marathon seminar about the sciences and how they fit in with the scriptures?” he moaned. “My migraine still hasn’t passed from the last time, and that was over a year ago.”

“Yes, yes…” another said with some irritation. “If it’s between letting him leave with a warning and listening to another dissertation about the possibility of other worlds, I say let him leave. Anything for a moment’s peace.”

The remaining judges muttered their agreement that they’d be lenient on Sag this time, for their own sakes and not his. The oldest guardian leaned over and glowered at the scientist with his one good eye.

“You are lucky that we grow tired of the sound of your voice,” he grumbled sourly. “And you are also very lucky that your crime did not quite reach the level necessary to cut off your ears and throw you down into the underworld, never to return to our branches or our civilization, though some of us are close to doing that anyway.”

Sag swallowed a lump in his throat as the chief guardian brought up such a painful memory.

“But don’t think for a second that you aren’t without blame here, or that we aren’t going to punish you. Ass hair or not, you knowingly went against what you knew were our wishes – the letter of the previous order be damned. You knew it. You did it anyway. And if we wanted to press the matter forward, you’d end up in the underworld with your students.

“Instead we are simply going to amend our previous ruling a little bit,” he continued. His voice dripped with anger. “You are hearby ordered that you may not teach anyone, young or old, living or dead, present day or in the future, at your home or anywhere else on this world…” The guardian looked to his neighbor for advice. “Think that about covers it? You do? Okay, good.” He then glared down at Sag again. “For the rest of your life.

“And know this, Sag,” he continued lowly. “Today, we are weary enough to be rid of you simply by letting you go. The next time we see you before us, we might just decide to be rid of you, your radical ideas and your corrupt voice by getting rid of you permanently.” He shook his head. “Don’t make your daughter and your grandson watch you being thrown from the lowest branches down to the dirt and decay of the underworld. It’s not a pretty sight, watching a loved one being thrown into darkness, never to return. Don’t risk that doom for yourself, or for your grandson.”

Sag’s heart skipped a beat. Did they just threaten to condemn his grandson as well as him? That innocent child? They wouldn’t. They couldn’t! Sag met the elder’s steely gaze and his chest tightened.

The guardians WOULD do it, if for no other reason than to make an example of them both. The soulless, heartless, monstrous…

“Do you understand my order this time?” the elder demanded. “Do you think such a smart and intelligent squirrel as yourself can follow such a simple direction? Because Sag, if we see you again, we’re going to make certain it’s the last time.”

Sag wanted to climb up the trunk and punch the doddering old bastard square in the incisors. Really he did. But all that would do is instantly get his ears lopped off and earn him a one-way trip to the underworld. Along with his grandson. Sag swallowed hard and hoped that his daughter heard what the elders had decided. After all, it was her actions that brought Nub to their attention today in the first place.

If Nub was going to be safe from the guardian’s stodgy wrath, it was Sag who would have to pay the price. Sag nodded acceptance of the orders and lowered his head.

“As you command, voices of the creator,” he grudgingly replied in the proper legally acceptable response. Only for you, Nub, he silently added to himself.

Sag stepped off the long, spiral staircase which wove its way down, down, down the trunk of the Acacia tree. Some light shown from the side to the left. This was the very edge of the world and there was a gap between the branches and the ground, which allowed whatever rays of light that bounced off the distant, empty space to enter. It formed a very narrow strip of yellow light at the horizon, with no other natural light sources around. Further into the trunks, even that light ceased to exist and the darkness was absolute.

Sag marveled at the touch of the ground of the underworld, kneeling down to feel its hard, gritty texture in his hands. It was so different from the wood and bark he normally felt beneath his feet. He could just see the roots of the gigantic tree he’d come down in the dim light. Since all the trees in their world had huge, overlapping leaves at the lowest level, the tree let absolutely no light escape and penetrate to the ground. So the ground, where the roots are, was perpetually in darkness. And his people called it the Underworld, since they all lived in the tree above and had nothing to do with this area beneath them.

Well, normally nothing. Having no other way of getting rid of their excrement or their dead, both were cast down below into the Underworld at various locations in the canopy. One of the various jobs his people had was that of Caretaker, who kept the world clean and free of disease and stench. They would collect offal in their backpacks and discard it into the invisible reaches of the black, barely explored Underworld below.

This was also the fate reserved for criminals or those who threatened the peace and order of society. Those who the Guardians deemed a danger to the group. The condemned had their ears cut off to visibly mark them as threats. Then, they were cast away from the tree, thrown bodily into the underworld, never to be seen again. Live or die, the criminals were never to set foot in the tree again. And those who tried to return were easy to spot, since their ears were gone – they were killed on the spot.

“Mars?” Sag called into the silent gloom. “Mars, are you out here?”

An uncomfortable silence greeted him. Sag started to shiver and he wished he had remembered to bring some kind of shawl with him to stave off the chill. He forgot how cold the underworld was, having almost no sunlight.

“I’m over here, teacher,” a gravelly, grating voice said. Sag looked up to the top of the nearby root and barely saw a scraggly hunched figure climbing up to the top of it. The figure wore rags stitched together from several garments. His body was thin and his fur was falling out in places, a clear sign of malnourishment. And on top of his head, flat nubs stood where his round ears used to be.

Sag turned toward his former student, swinging his backpack behind him. “You don’t live right at the stairs anymore?” he asked. He began climbing the root to reach his unfortunate outcast.

“No,” Mars said with a cough. “When the rains are heavy, all of the underworld floods. We’ve taken to living up a little higher on the roots of the tree to keep from washing away.”

Sag reached the landing and was breathing a little faster. “How are you and the others?” he asked. His concern for their well being was genuine and was the reason why he carried a backpack of supplies all the way down the trunk. It was a crime that would instantly get him thrown down here with them, if he got caught.

Mars coughed again and groaned. “As good as can be expected,” he sadly said. “My guess is that the trees didn’t produce many seeds this year. Usually a few fall to the earth and we eat them. This season, there has been nothing.”

Sag nodded and hooked a clawed thumb toward the sack on his back. “That’s why I brought plenty of food for you and the others,” he said. “And yes, the tree has been somewhat lean this year. But new techniques are being used to prevent even small losses, so I’m afraid that the loss of good food is pretty much permanent.”
“Terrific.”

“I take it the fungus farming hasn’t been all that successful?”

“Oh, it’s working. And thank you for bringing seed stock down for us to start from. But they aren’t all that nutritious and they taste like dead flesh, besides. Arvin is working on ways to improve both with various roots down here. But the results have been mixed.” Mars turned and started to stagger around the knob of the root away from Sag.

Sag took a deep breath and started after the sick one. Old or not, Sag had no trouble catching up, even with a full backpack. “And how are Arvin, Chay, and the others?” he asked.

“Careful of that shadow there,” Mars warned, pointing a wretched hand. “It’s not a shadow, it’s a hole in the root. We sometimes find water there. It’s poisonous, but distilling can make it drinkable.”

“You aren’t answering my question,” Sag pointed out as he dodged the dark recess. Had Mars not said anything, Sag probably would have stepped there, thinking it just another trick of the light brought on by all the light coming practically horizontally.

Mars walked around another root knob and pointed to a rickety structure built atop the root. It was built of strips of decayed bark from several kinds of trees. What looked like mud was used to cement it all together. A dim fire burned inside, if the flickering orange light was any indication. Fire wasn’t alien to his kind, Sag thought silently to himself. But it was seldom used and only in special locations by specially trained squirrels. Mars and the others were probably the only ones in the world tree who used it daily as a matter of routine.

“This is our new place,” Mars said with a phlegmy hack. “We have the central forge built, as you can see. We made it out of several special sands found further inwards, deep in the dark. That’s where the others are now; getting materials for use in their experiments. They left a few moments ago, in fact.”

“No doubt when they heard the sound of my voice.” Sag sighed sadly. “They still blame me for their being here, do they?” Sag felt a familiar pang of regret in his heart.

Mars staggered to the door and opened it, bathing Sag in golden red light from the furnace standing in the middle of the isolated hut. “Come in, come in and get out of the cold.” As Sag entered and put down the sack, Mars closed the door and secured it with a flexible twig. “And yes, teacher, they still blame you.”

Sag sat on a dead, broken branch that served as a chair next to the round fireplace. He saw various apparatus and glass items laying about the wood branch which half-circled the far side of the hearth. With a shrug he took off the pack he was carrying and set it on the floor.

“If there was anything I could do to change what has happened, I would do it,” he glumly said as he warmed his hands by the warmth of the glass forge. “I still wish they had sent me down here instead of you like I asked them to do.”

Mars sniffled a bit of congestion out of his nostrils and sat down at the edge of the worktable. “You and I both know why they exiled the students and not the teacher,” he muttered. “Getting rid of you would only get rid of your body. Your ideas would spread, becoming secret knowledge to be sought out. By ensuring you would never have another student or seeker of knowledge willing to listen to you, when you finally die, your theories will die with you.”

“A very wise understanding of the situation,” Sag said.

“cough – I had a very wise instructor.”

“Not wise enough, I’m afraid.”

“None of us are wise enough to get through life unscathed.” Mars tilted his head, smiled and looked at the bag. “It isn’t even the holidays yet. What gifts did you bring us?”

Sag smiled weakly back at his former pupil. He admired Mars ability to find the glimmer of hope when all around wept in hopelessness. When he and the other five were publicly humiliated by having their ears cut off, he proudly told the guardians that he would create a laboratory of his own down where their laws could not reach. And there, he would create all sorts of discoveries – discoveries in the forbidden subjects and darkest powers. And that the guardians would one day live to regret their shortsightedness and ignorance.

And create such a place he did. It wasn’t a good lab, operating with almost nothing for supplies and materials. The fact that all six of them had to spend most of their time searching for food also limited their experimentation.

“I brought you plenty of concentrated food,” Sag told him. “It takes little to nourish you, so be certain to eat it in as small a quantity as you can. It’s not filling, but it’ll keep you alive for a long time. I’ve also included copies of the latest discoveries in the great university up in central earth. I figured you six would be able to take their experiments to places they are too scared to think.”

Mars grinned and nodded back to the old man. “Thank you,” he said, getting up again and walking to the far end of the hovel. “And as always, I have things for you.” He picked up several pieces of leaves and bark, wrapped in a tying vine, and brought them over and set them in front of Sag.

“We’ve found a way to improve glass by getting the fire much hotter,” he said. “The technique is laid out in there. Be advised though, that it consumes fuel much faster as well. And if there is any weakness in your forge, the forge will crack, as we discovered earlier.”

Sag shook his head. “Moved because of flooding, eh?” he teased.

“Well, after the first place burned down, we needed to move anyways. It does flood, you know.”

Both squirrels laughed for a moment. It was almost like old times again, laughing and trading barbs while they examined the latest research and discovery involving that new mystical invention, glass.

“And also, I have a special surprise for you, teacher.” Mars reached under the bench and pulled out a carefully concealed package. It was two sheets of bark, carefully protecting something in the middle. “I’ve been keeping this hidden from the others. I don’t think they would appreciate it near as much as you will.”

Sag was curious. “What is it?” he asked as he undid the knots on the vines securing the package.

“Do you remember the Wind Blown theory you taught?”

Sag paused. Did he remember it? He wrote the thing. But he’d so trained himself to stop at any mention of his theories and his work that he momentarily forgot where he was and who he was talking to.

“Of course,” he replied. “If there are other world trees out there, they are likely to have trees different than the ones here. And the winds which blow would sometimes blow leaves from these other worlds into our underworld. All we have to do is look for them.” He shrugged. “As you know, the guardians didn’t exactly support the idea of life outside this world tree. No expedition took place and no evidence was recovered.”

“No expedition or evidence, until now.”

“What?”

“Just look in the package.”

Sag returned to opening the package, now with shaking hands. If what Mars said was true… He pulled the bark bits apart and looked at the contents with amazement and shock.

“Now teacher,” Mars went on to say, “of the 81 types of trees in the world tree here, are there any with serrated edges like that?” Sag could make out the pride in Mars’ voice. “Any at all?”

Sag looked very carefully at the dried leaf, careful not to touch it or break it further. It was very brittle and about half of it was missing. But there was no disputing the leaf was alien to this world tree. The edge appeared jagged, like it was meant to cut something. Like it was sharp. No leaf known looked even remotely like this.

“Where… where did you find this?” Sag asked in a trembling voice.

Mars laughed for a second before breaking out in another coughing fit. When he finished, he wiped his nose with a nasty sleeve and said, “Found it down here, in the underworld, where all the refuse collects. Turns out that there are, in fact, alien world trees out there other than our own. That artifact is proof of it.”

Sag quickly closed the package and tied it up again. “If only there was a way to see further with the telescopes,” he said. “Or travel to them on one of Merck’s fanciful dream machines that he was always drawing up.” He finished the last knot and looked up at Mars’ face once more. “Has he made any more progress in actually building one?”

“He’s accomplished a great deal, and even made a small model of one vessel. I have to call his design successful because we never saw it again.”

“You never saw it again?”

Mars shook his head. “We launched it when the seasonal western winds came up,” he explained. “Just under the edge of the canopy. It moved faster than any of us expected and we couldn’t keep up with it. Apparently the winds are stronger the farther away you are from the tree. It quickly disappeared across the emptiness and was never seen again.”

Sag shook his head in wonder. “You six have just rewritten the books of knowledge, exiles or not,” he told him. “With this evidence and the potential way to go out and actually see these trees, the guardians will have no choice but to relent in their condemnation of us all. You’ll be reinstated, the first and only squirrels in history to get to return. I’ll be able to teach again. And together… together, we’ll be able to build Merck’s machine, send a squirrel to the nearest world tree and back again! Oh, this changes everything!”

Mars looked sadly at his teacher. “You really believe that, don’t you?” he asked.

“Of course! Not even the rule-bound guardians can ignore hard evidence.”

“They can, however, make evidence which endangers their rule, vanish without a trace,” Mars added.

“Don’t be silly, Mars,” Sag admonished. “You keep on looking for more alien leaves. And tell Merck to think about what he needs to build a full sized exploration vessel. We are going to be going to other worldtrees sooner than he thinks.”

“This is the final twig!” the eldest guardian shouted. His one good eye radiated anger as he clutched at the dais and glared down upon him. His brown tail twitched angrily behind him. The crowd yelled and stamped their feet in the galleries of the branches surrounding the guardians’ chamber. “We show you patience and compassion, far beyond that we should. And this is how you repay us – by sneaking down into the underworld and consorting with the damned?”

Only sheer willpower kept Sag’s ears from twitching nervously. He looked around the gallery at the faces of the other squirrels, searching for Fay. He didn’t see her. He was alone. While that fact saddened him some, at least he knew she wasn’t one of those calling for his ears.

“It was necessary, wise leader,” Sag said as he turned to face the elderly, gray, one-eyed elder. “I’m sorry I broke the laws.”

“Oh,” the judge said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’re sorry? Why, that makes everything all right then, doesn’t it?” He spread his hands wide and looked at all the others surrounding the accused. “Did you hear that, everybody? He said he’s sorry!” The crowd only paused in their snarling long enough to half-heartedly laugh at his attempt at humor.

“We have laws for a reason, Sag,” the judge continued as he fixed his steely gaze back on him again. “They keep society running and protect all within it. They are the rules that enable everyone to be fed, be healthy and be safe. Now, if we just disregard any of them anytime we feel like it, civilization itself is put in danger. And we, the guardians, cannot allow that. Especially for some antisocial, crazy old schoolteacher!”

Sag frowned and crossed his arms. “Now that’s unfair,” he fumed back. “The only way to prove the theory is to go down to where the evidence is. Besides, it isn’t like I broke any big laws or anything.”

“They are all big laws, Sag!” The elder’s one eye shone red with rage. “All of them. What, you think we have nothing better to do than write stupid laws that don’t solve important problems?”

“Elder…”

“And the reason, Sag,” the guardian continued, “yes, the reason nobody is allowed to go down to the underworld, is because the damned sometimes have contagious diseases. If people go down to them, they come back with whatever horrible illnesses we threw out of the tree in the first place. Society can’t function if everyone is dead from galloping whatchamacallit.

“As for your theories that debris from other rumored world trees can be found in the underworld…” The elder removed the dried leaf from its protective case. He held it in his right hand. Sag winced as he watched part of the priceless artifact fall away from the rough handling. “This, Sag, proves nothing.”

Sag’s jaw fell open. It would almost be worth the pain and suffering he’d put up with and the uncertain future he would face, so long as he could prove himself right.

“How can you say that it proves nothing, elder?” Sag said incredulously. “Look at the edges! What tree in our world has serrated edges like that?”

“You took a leaf from our world and doctored it up to look like this.”

“Are you accusing me of fraud?” Sag felt the back of his neck getting hot and his need to twitch his tail vanished. How dare he!

“I’m saying that you’ll do anything to prove your case,” the chief guardian replied.

“I would never hide or obscure the truth,” Sag snapped back. “Unlike some old, rule-bound, one-eyed idiots I could name.”

The crowd gasped at Sag’s angry retort.

The guardian’s ears swung down furiously as he leaned over the edge of his lantern.

“You obscene little cretin,” he snarled. “You believe in your fantasy about other world trees so blindly, that you’ll break any of our laws on safety, morality, or even simple decency. You are willing to endanger every one of us in your baseless dream about other worlds out beyond the endless sandy voids.” He shook his head rapidly. “I should condemn you to exile in your own damned imaginary worlds out there.”

Sag responded almost as fast as he thought. “I accept!” he called out.

“If I could I would…” The guardian paused his tirade and a look of surprise washed over his face. “What did you just say?”

Sag took two steps forward and strained his neck upwards at the guardians. “I said, I accept your sentence,” he said. “I shall go to one of the other worlds. I accept your exile from the world, as you said.”

“Oh, for the love of…”

“Hey, you said it.” Sag crossed his arms defiantly across his chest. “Unless the word of the guardians isn’t worth anything, I’ll have to follow your order.”

The elder snorted in disdain. “You haven’t had much success in following our orders thus far,” he commented. “Else you wouldn’t be where you are today. Besides, while the thought of you trying to cross the void is somewhat entertaining after all the trouble you’ve caused, there simply isn’t way for you to actually do it.”

“Oh, but there is,” Sag replied. “My students – maybe you remember them – have designed a vehicle that can make it across the void. I will take it away from the world tree and leave. Then, when I’ve gotten undisputable proof, I’ll come back and show all of you. I’ll even sell all my things to pay for it. All I ask is that you allow me time, materials and permission to go down to the underworld to build the vehicle.”

The elder let out a small chuckle. “An interesting way you chose to die, Sag,” he said with some amusement. “There isn’t any way to cross the void. You’ll just go out there and roast in the sun.”

Sag shook his head. “My students who are already down there think otherwise. They built a prototype vehicle that caught the wind and moved across the empty space. It disappeared out there.”

“Oh, so you’re offering to get on board and disappear yourself?”

“In a sense, yes.”

The guardian stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Not that I don’t find your offer attractive on some levels,” he said. “But we are a civilized people and we don’t allow our condemned to go killing themselves, no matter how inventive the method they think up.”

Sag crossed his arms across his chest and flattened his ears defiantly on his head. “You are condemning me for spreading falsehoods,” he snapped. “Am I not allowed to defend myself by proving that it’s not false?”

“Oh god… here he goes again,” one of the other judges moaned. “If we can’t cut his ears off, please cut mine off instead. At least I won’t have to hear his heresy anymore.”

Sag turned to stare at the elder and frowned. “It’s only heresy if it isn’t true,” he pointed out. “I have some evidence of other worlds there, being quickly turned to dust in the elder’s less than gentle hands. I and my students can build a vehicle which will go out to the other worlds and return with solid evidence.”

“You seek your own death out there in that void! There’s nothing out there. No other worlds. No food. Nothing.”

“If you are right, then you’ll be rid of me and my wacky theories, once and for all. Isn’t that true? If you are so certain you are correct then you have nothing to lose.”

“We can’t let him do this, eldest,” the guardian complained as he turned to look up at the highest chair in the circular arena at the top of the tree.

The eldest squirrel just held up his hand to the other guardian, silencing him. Then he looked down on Sag with a very wicked smile. “You are that certain of yourself, teacher?” he asked. “You would be willing to stake your life on your belief? Because, Sag, you know what the consequences are if you are wrong.”

Sag nodded, still defiant. “Yes, eldest, I know.”

The eldest let out a small laugh, He leaned forward on his podium and fixed a gleeful eye on Sag. “I’ll admit, your dying by your own hand chasing your wild fantasies has a certain appeal. If you’re wrong, nobody in their right mind will ever again pay any attention to your theories; they will all die with you.”

Sag twitched his tail once. “And if I’m right?” he asked. The sentence hung in the air like the air before a thunderstorm. “If I reach another world tree and return with proof, are you willing to face the truth, even if it questions your faith? And are you willing to return my students from their unjust life sentences, if the evidence I bring back proves that they and I are right?”

“You are not right,” the eldest repeated.

“But you aren’t confident enough in that to put it to a test. I’m willing to wager my fortune, all I have, and my very life. What are you willing to wager? Anything?”

The crowd murmured, partly in disbelief, partly in agreement with Sag. How could the eldest refuse such a request. Was he not right? What risk was there to the eldest since he was certain that Sag would never return again? How was that different from throwing him to the underworld in the first place? Was the eldest worried that maybe he’d be proven wrong?

All the elders looked around the room at the rumbling crowd, apparently sensing their first inklings that the elders were hiding something. The elders looked around the room with a twinge of alarm. They were used to making decisions and having them obeyed without question. Without even a hint of independence. It was clear from the way that they looked back and forth amongst themselves that they didn’t like this new independent streak in their people.

Sag grinned up at the eldest. He already knew that he’d won this final battle of wills. The frowning eldest would agree to this contest, if for no other reason than it got him out of the picture.

“Very well, schoolteacher,” the eldest growled, fixing his one steely eye firmly on Sag. “We don’t care how you leave us, so long as you leave us. And if you want to go out and die in the endless void, why should we care? Go to your doom, then.”

Sag nodded and accepted the eldest’s condemnation. “I’ll need time to sell my things and use the funds to purchase materials to build the vehicle, as well as supplies,” he said. “If this is to be a fair contest, that is.”

The elders looked back and forth wildly as if they thought their leader had lost his mind. But the eldest didn’t waver or turn away from the condemned for a second.

“And how much time will you need?” he grumbled.

Now Sag looked uncertain. He had not expected that question. “I… I really don’t know,” he stammered. “I would have to consult with my students in the underworld before I can…”

“I grant you until the Western winds start to blow once more,” the eldest cut him off. “If you are still up here then, we’ll cut your ears off and be done with you. So you had better be gone before then.”

Sag dropped his hands to his sides. “That’s not fair!” he complained.

“Oh, so now we aren’t being fair? We could take your ears right this minute, you know…”

“But I don’t know how long it’ll take to make the vehicle and what materials it’ll need!”
“You should have thought about that before you staked your life on it,” the eldest said with an air of finality. He and the other elders turned and walked on private branches away from their lecterns, ignoring the buzzing and excited crowd.

Sag sank to the ground, and cursed himself for a fool because, for once, the eldest was right.

Sag rubbed his eyes and wished that that desert sands weren’t so irritating. He looked down from the makeshift shack his students had managed to assemble on a small outcropping of rock just within the canopy of the world tree. There, in the harsh but regular light of the sun, sat the rough shape of the vehicle he would ride out into the void. Working so far from the tree’s trunk meant splitting the group into two with one working while the other spent the day walking back to the stairs for food, water, gear to build with and whatever else was necessary. It was slowing progress, but was necessary since the guardians were livid about the plans to manufacture the machine under torchlight. It was an understandable fear, Sag had to admit. Thus they were working closer to the void than anyone had every done before.

They were also working at the limit of technology itself. Sag was secretly very impressed with his students and wished that there was some way he could get them back to civilization again. The machine they’d developed and partially built was unlike anything anyone had ever dreamed before. It was a flat boxlike structure built atop of four axles, all made from whatever garbage and debris they could find combined with what he himself purchased upstairs. His house and belongings didn’t sell for as large a sum as he’d hoped for. Some of the books he brought down with him and gave to his students for use in the great project. The others he surrendered and sold. Of the things he missed from his previous life a few months ago, several of those books were at the top of the list.

Not that it mattered anymore. His old life was gone; gone like the wind he planned to harness to take his tiny craft out to the distant world trees and back. Gone forever. He didn’t have any free time to sit around reading poetry or the latest news from other parts of the world. There was always something to do on the vehicle. Either a wheel wouldn’t ride in the grooves notched into the axles or the mast for the sail kept breaking loose from the vehicles body or… or something. It was maddening, all the things that kept going wrong. Solve a problem, another would appear. And it wasn’t like there were previous versions to refer to, either.

“Taking a break, teacher?” Mars voice came up from the ground. Sag looked down. The brown squirrel was still thin, but at least his ribs didn’t stick out as bad anymore. The money and the agreement with the guardians brought better food down to them, which went a long way with most of them for his getting them into this predicament in the first place.

Sag blinked in the hard light. “Actually, I find there is less sand in the air the higher I get,” he said.

“Well, be careful you don’t wreck the shack. We don’t have the supplies to make another one right now, and I don’t feel like sleeping on the ground anymore. Sand gets in the most uncomfortable of places.”

“Like my eyes.”

“Understood. Just please, be cautious. We didn’t design the roof to support any load.”

Sag grumbled his understanding but climbed down from the top of the shack anyways. “If it makes you feel better,” he complained. “Is there any improvement on the wheels and hardening them against the wear and tear of traveling across the sandstone?” he asked.

Mars offered a hand up to help Sag climb down. “We’ve found a dried tree sap that is all but impervious to anything,” he replied.

Sag waved off the offer of help and landed on the ground with a thud. “That’s good,” he said.

“But it takes about two months in the sun to cure it and make it solid.”

“That’s bad.” Sag pondered the problem for a moment before turning to his number one student again. “Can we speed that along by heating it and the wheels together in the furnace?” he asked.

Mars looked surprised. “Heat wood in the furnace?”

“Okay, that was a stupid idea.”

“Not as stupid as our actually trying it earlier,” Mars said. He looked a little embarrassed. “The sap isn’t flammable, but it smokes very badly and becomes brittle which defeats the whole purpose in the first place.”

“True.”

“But we did have a happy discovery afterward. We can mix sand into the sap and it does three things. It speeds up the curing, and it makes it much harder as well.”

Sag nodded. “And what is the other thing?” he asked.

“It reduces the amount of sap we’ll need. We have enough to make all the wheels already. In fact, we have all of them curing right now, so we’ll be able to make schedule easily.”

Sag shook his head and gave a weak grin. “You could have just said that all the wheels would be ready on time,” he commented.

“Aw, now what fun would that be?” Mars replied, a wry grin on his muzzle as well. “Besides, I want you to know what the tricks are that make this vehicle possible. You might need to know them when you reach the other trees.”

“What for?”

“Let’s be serious here, teacher.” The earless squirrel’s grin vanished in an instant. “You are crossing the void in a machine that has never existed before. There are no guarantees that you’ll even make it to the other trees, though I’m confident you will. But your getting back in the same machine? That might be a problem. There is no telling what condition your space craft is going to be in when you get there. You may need to repair the tires, the masts, the sails, the frame… who knows? So I want you to be able to find local materials and use them to fix whatever is broken in order to get back home again.

“Because teacher, I’m doing this as much for me and the rest of us as I am for you. We all got condemned down here because we believe something the Guardians don’t agree with. We believe that there are other trees, far beyond our ability to see and walk. And when you return with proof, we will all be able to go back again and live a normal life like we used to. Not even the Guardians will be able to keep us in the underworld for believing in the truth. “And when you return with the evidence - some leaves from trees we don’t have here, for example - the proof will be without question. Then our sentences will be commuted and we can all rejoin society again.” Mars put a hand on Sag’s weary shoulder. “You understand that more rides on your return than just your own life, right? All of us have our lives in your hands. We did then and we do now.”

Sag stared at his student for several uncomfortable moments. He’d been so caught up in his own vain pursuit of the truth that he’d forgotten that he’d already cost a number of the best and brightest their lives. All this time, he’d assumed that Mars and the others were helping solely because they wanted to assist him in exchange for the food and materials he temporarily brought them. It didn’t occur to him until now that his students had their own reasons for helping, beyond their bellies and their boredom. That they were counting on his proof for reasons besides being able to rub the Guardians’ noses in it.

He was ashamed to be in the same room with his long suffering and hard working group. Sag hung his head in shame and made a silent promise to think about his students first from this day on.

“I will return,” he quietly told Mars. His muzzle pointed to the ground. “I… will see to it you are all freed from your sentences so you can return to your previous lives.”

Mars nodded and took his hand away again. “I know you will, teacher,” he quietly said back to the elderly squirrel. “And I have one final thing to show you. It’s inside the shack and it’s the one piece of gear you won’t be able to build for yourself. Indeed, it is unique in all the world tree and we can’t make another one ourselves, either.” Mars then walked to the wooden shack and pulled the makeshift latch off and went inside.

Sag followed him inside. Inside the shack were the supplies that were being collected for the journey. Dried foods to last a long time. Barrels of water, sealed tight to prevent spillage under any conditions. Mars had stopped on the other side of a wooden barrel with a lid over it. He took the lid off and looked up at Sag. “Take a look,” he directed with a tint of pride.

Sag looked inside the wooden barrel. There was a sliver of light wood floating on the surface. And glued to that was a thin sliver of some dark brown material he couldn’t identify. The mechanism floated quietly on the water.

“What is it and what does it do?” Sag asked, somewhat confused.

Mars smiled again. “Pick the wood up, turn it around, and put it back in the barrel again” he said. Sag didn’t understand, but he followed his student’s directions and picked up the wooden sliver. Then he turned it around and put it back in the water again.

What he saw almost made him drop the whole thing. “How can this be?!” he cried out in astonishment. Down in the barrel, the little wooden sliver had turned back and was pointing the same way it was before. “No matter how I turn it…” he started.

“It always points the same direction,” Mars finished for him. “Yes, you are correct. We don’t know what the brown thing is, but it was sticking out from the wall of the giant crater in the center of the world tree. We don’t know how it works either, but Brane discovered that it never changes direction when it floats in water. We are giving it to you so that you always travel the correct direction, both leaving and returning. We have already marked the directions on the edge of the barrel; one line for the trip out and two lines for the way back. It is unique in the world tree, so do not lose it or damage it for any reason. It is your one and only guide across the empty void.”

Sag stared in astonishment at the incredible invention. “If I wasn’t a scientist, I’d almost believe it was magic,” he whispered. Then he reverently handed the device back to Mars again. “You and the others have accomplished amazing things in a very short time. Your names will go down in history together with Mogan and his genius.”

Mars put the lid back over the cup and set it back on the table again. “Just as long as we don’t suffer the same fate as Mogan, I’ll be satisfied,” he replied. “We are giving you every possible technology and edge we can implement to ensure you return home alive.” He fixed a steely gaze on Sag’s eyes. “See that you return, teacher, or our names will be associated with his failure and his doom as well.”

*****

The western winds were just beginning to blow when Sag set out on his journey. The vehicle, which he named “Truth”, was as ready for the task as he and his students could make it. Four axles with two wheels each. A large sail on a tall shaft which caught the wind and propeled him across the almost infinite emptiness. Almost 4 dozen barrels, filled with dried foods and clean, drinkable water. And a single control which turned the back wheels, giving him some control over the ship’s direction. Within limits, of course. There was no way he would be able to travel against the wind, for example. But in a few month’s time, the winds would be coming from the east, and he would be able to come home. The guidance needle would make sure he returned the exact same way as he left.

And when he returned… oh, he could imagine the faced of the guardians then. He couldn’t see them now as he was at the beginning of space and they were way up there in the tree someplace. They were watching to make sure he left, he was certain. They were probably also celebrating his departure with food, drink and merriment. He nodded to himself and started to lower the sails to their fullest. Let them laugh, he thought to himself. For when I return, the last laugh will be mine, and my students.

The large sail billowed and flapped in the breeze. As the morning sun rose in front of him, his little ship vibrated and shook, moving further and further away from the world. And though he had many duties to attend to as he traveled, he could not help but look back occasionally. No other in history had ever been this far and seen what he was seeing. He made notes as he went in a notepad carefully constructed for just this purpose. He recorded the time and the appearance of the world behind him as he traveled. First, it filled his vision. Then it receded into a narrow green band that only went halfway across the horizon. Now, a couple of hours out, the world was only a small green dot that was barely visible to his eyes. In a short time more, it would be completely out of sight.

He had much to do as he traveled across space. He had to check the angle of the enormous sail, easily as tall as five squirrels. He had to periodically check the direction displayed on the mysterious course corrector which was floating in a special barrel of water, apart from the others. That was the very last water he would drink and only as a last resort. Without the course corrector, he would be traveling blindly without the faintest clue which way he was moving. Marks on the barrel matched the small thorn attached to the gourds which floated in the water and held the chuck of black rock suspended and able to rotate freely. If he kept the thorn on one mark, he was leaving home. By keeping the thorn on a mark exactly opposite on the barrel’s edge, he’d return.

That was the theory, anyway.

It was midday now, and there was nothing green anywhere around anymore. He wasn’t happy with how quickly the world disappeared from view. Sag frowned and verified that his food and water weren’t coming loose. In only a quarter of a day, there wasn’t a sign of the world at all. So he had to get within a quarter of a day travel from the next world, or he’d go right past it and never even know that he’d missed it. His first clue would be his dying of thirst somewhere in the middle of nowhere. He checked the course corrector again, just to be certain, and started raising the shelter to shield him from the sun.

That first night, Sag didn’t sleep hardly at all. The spaceship made too much noise running across the sandy void, for one. And it was too cold for another. He shivered in the dark and wished he’d had more foresight to bring extra blankets with him instead of relying upon a single thin wrap. He moaned and went outside onto the ship’s deck to stretch and maybe exercise a little bit to warm his extremities up a bit. The ship rocked and rumbled as the winds drove it across the ground, and Sag quickly thought better of his trying to move about in the dark where he might fall overboard. With no light out at all, only the rope railings would prevent him from simply stepping out into space and being lost forever. He shuddered at the thought and went back inside his narrow shelter and curled his tail tightly around his body.

Sag scribbled in his journal, recording his log for the second day. The wind was quite a bit less today than it was the day and night before. It was possible that the wind didn’t blow too far from the world trees. He certainly hoped that wasn’t the case. He had no reason to believe that was true, as he didn’t see any logical reason for it. But his sail was barely filled, and the vehicle’s speed was easily one eighth what it was before. It worried him, as did the amount of water he was drinking. Due to his being so exposed, he was consuming more than he’d expected. If he kept consuming water at his current rate, he would be out within 10 days. And if he kept slowing down like this, he might not survive to see the distant world at all. He completed his records of how much food and water he’d consumed as well as how far he’d traveled, and did some calculations in the margins. Frowning at the results, he carefully stowed the journal in a safe place within the floor.

By day 5, the wind had vanished completely. There were no clouds in the sky and the sun beat down mercilessly on the tiny vehicle and its lone occupant. Sag was sweating more than he had ever sweat in his entire life. The small shelter in the back of the spacecraft provided shade, certainly. But the black cloth also got very hot. Sag had to resort to hiding in the shade of the sails instead of in his shelter. At least under the sails, there was air moving, hot as it was. But when the sun was high in the sky, the shade from the sail disappeared completely. He noted the complete lack of motion and wind in his journal, and wondered again if wind didn’t exist great distances from the world trees. The farther he got, the less wind there was. His data was limited, certainly. But it was the only data he had.

He also wondered if – if that theory was correct – his journal would ever be read by anyone at all. Sag tried to keep his spirits up by not thinking about such depressing ideas and by making notes about everything he saw, no matter how trivial. How the sun appeared over the same spot on the front as it did yesterday. How the wheels were holding up. He even climbed down onto the ground to take samples of the strange gravel out here. It wasn’t dangerous to leave the machine since nothing was moving. The rough white gravel was coarser than he expected and was better described as loose, heavy rock. That was quite different than the finer sand back home. He saved the samples and recorded everything in his journal, frowning as he noted that half his water was already gone.

In the middle of the night, the wind had picked up again. Within a scant minute, it had turned into a ferocious thunderstorm. Sag barely had time to pull down the sails to keep them from being destroyed. In an instant, the ship was being lashed by winds stronger than any he’d ever heard of in all the world. It wasn’t hard seeing the ropes to tie the sail – the constant lightning in the sky gave plenty of strong, if intermittent light. But actually tying them in the midst of the maelstrom was something else entirely. There were some tears in the sail here and there, half from the fierce wind and half from his trying to save the sail. But he managed to strike most of it and save it from outright destruction.

Then the sky seemed to split, and power barely in his comprehension poured down and shook his ship like a leaf.

Even without a sail, the wind was so fierce that it propelled him across the ground twice as fast as when he’d left. It was faster than they’d ever planned on going. Sag clutched the sail mast and held on for dear life. His claws dug into the wood and he clenched his eyes closed against the howling storm. The rain penetrated deeply into his fur. He shuddered in terror as the ship jumped and bounced violently all over the place. The food and water barrels were being thrown around every time the ship rocked. It threatened to topple over many times.

Once Sag opened his eyes, saw the ground rushing where the sky should have been, and clenched them closed again.

He said a silent prayer to God in the skies above. He was rewarded with the shelter being torn off and scattered in tiny bits to the skies above. He screamed aloud and bounced with the machine, but the wind catching in his throat and caught in his throat, stifling his cry.

Day 6 started out gray and wet with cold drizzle from behind. The wind was still strong and the machine was still pushing the vehicle forward, even without the sails being open. Sag shook his body and shivered in the cold wind. He wanted to wrap his blanket about him against the drizzle. But he couldn’t find it. No doubt it flew off with the rest of his shelter in the thunderstorm, he thought.

Sag shook his head as he took stock of the vehicle. The sails were partially damaged. He opened them partway, making the vehicle go faster. He figured that would make up for the time he lost when the winds died earlier. He also figured that if they disappeared before, it could happen again. The more distance he made and the quicker he made it to the next world tree, the better. Then he turned to open the barrel that held his course indicator.

The barrel wasn’t there. The ropes which had held it in place against the mast had broken, and only their frayed ends were left.

Sag felt the first twinges of panic again as he checked the ship over, searching desperately for that one particular barrel. He also noted that 3 other barrels of water and food were likewise missing. But that barely registered with him. That one barrel was the one thing he couldn’t travel without. It was the only way he had of knowing which way he was going. Without it, he could miss the other world tree entirely. Without it, he couldn’t make it back home again. He rushed to the back of the ship and hoped that he would see it somewhere behind him.

His hopes sank as he realized how quickly the machine was moving, and how far it had traveled since the storm. There wasn’t even a trail he could follow; the water which covered the ground hid any ruts his ship might have left in the stones. Even if the barrels weren’t destroyed when they hit the ground, they were so far behind him that he had no chance of even finding them, much less recovering them again.

Sag sank against rope guardrails and held his face in one hand. It was over. He started to sob uncontrollably as he visualized Nubs face. He would never see his grandson again. He would never see Mars again. Nor Fay, his other students, the elders… he wouldn’t be able to wipe those smug looks from their faces. Even if he somehow found the other world, stumbling onto in by dumb luck, he would never be able to find his way home again. He would never return to free his students. He had failed them. He had failed them all.

He gripped the rope with one hand as he wept. He let the ship keep moving, not caring which way it was going now. Moving, not moving, what difference did it make? While he could refill the water barrels with the rainwater that covered the ground, without the course indicator, he would travel blindly and eventually run out of food. He cried as he let the truth sink in – he was going to die out here and nobody would ever find him or know what happened to him.

He had never felt so utterly and totally alone in his life.

Sag fixed what he was able to fix that day. He repaired as many tears in the sails as he was able and took stock of what food he had left. He also combined all the good water into a couple of barrels. Then he used a ladle to scoop up the dirty water below the ship and filled the remaining barrels on the deck. He didn’t know when there would be more rain and it was better to have it should he run out of his good water than die of thirst. He could survive longer without food than he could without water. Not that it probably mattered. The end result was going to be the same. He wasn’t sure why he bothered with refilling the water barrels. Just a hope against hope, he supposed.

He was so exhausted that night, he collapsed in a heap beside the barrels. They were the only sort of wind break he had left. His dreams that night were dark and disturbed with visions of simultaneously baking and frying to death.

The next day, Sag awoke as the sun rose over the ship’s deck. He winced and blinked in the light. Shivering, he shook his fur out and walked forward to the back of the ship. He gripped the steering column that he had tied to move straight ahead and stood straight up. He looked ahead at the partly cloudy sky and let the sunlight warm and dry his fur.

Then he noticed what part of the ship the sun was rising over. It was on the other side of the mast that he noted in his log earlier. The past couple of days, the sun had been on the other side of the mast. Back when the ship wasn’t moving and… Wait, was it on the other of the mast both days that the he was motionless? Or was he imagining things?

Sag frowned and squinted in the light. The bright sunlight made strange shadows from the barrels and railings. Sag stared at them and warmed up for a couple of minutes. Then he walked over and retrieved his journal to double check himself. There it was, ink on leaf. The previous two days, the sun had risen on the other side of the mast. And the ship was pointed the right way, just not moving forward.

He clutched the damp book to his chest and walked back to the steering pole again. He looked forward again and thought quickly. He had no proof one way or the other, since he spent his whole life in the world tree and didn’t have much direct data on the sun. But if the sun rose in the same place over the empty spaces every day, could he use it in place of the course indicator?

Certainly it would work – if the sun always rose in the same place out here. That was a pretty big if. After all, he’d be staking his life on it. He thought back to his tomes back home and wished he had the one about the sky in his hands right now. He had always been more interested in the science of clouds since they foretold storms and the lightning which sometimes damaged parts of the community. He’d never paid any attention to the sun. After all, it was always there, and always the same when not hidden by the clouds. Why should he care? He wished now that he’d paid more attention to what the texts said about it.

He untied the ropes holding the steering in place and changed course slightly, putting the sun back on the other side of the mast once more. Then he secured the steering with the ropes again. It was a long shot, he knew. And there were so many guesses and assumptions that his scientific mind rebelled that he was even contemplating it. But truth was, he didn’t have anything else to go on. So, with a little prayer that he was correct, he turned the ship so that the sun was on the same spot this morning as it was when he still had the guidance system.

On Day 9, the western winds were still going and Sag had the sails fully out. Not that they were in great shape, but they propelled the vehicle sufficiently well. Food and water were running low. The clouds had vanished completely a couple of days earlier and the days were extremely hot once again. The water that covered the ground had all evaporated away, disappearing over a full day. Sag was miserable in the humid heat and his body stank of sweat. He’d made a makeshift sun break with two barrels and a scrap of sail that had ripped off and hung uselessly from the mast. It worked halfway well. He made a note in the journal that he was finally having to drink the water he’d collected from the last storm. It had an odd metallic taste to it.

He didn’t get to finish the entry before the ship lurched hard, throwing him into the sun shade and knocking it apart. The ship shuddered and jerked, then started turning to the right. It jerked again and Sag stumbled to his feet, rushing to the steering pole. He grabbed it with both hands and untied it quickly before pulling the lever to turn the ship left again. Almost immediately there was a hard, grating sound. What’s worse, the ship did not turn as he directed it to. The whole vessel vibrated with the low groaning noise.

Sag quickly tied a rope to hold the pole at full turn, and leapt to the central deck, turning his head to and fro to try and figure out where the noise was coming from. He located the sound at the back of the ship and rushed back to the steering column again. He stuck his head out over the side and looked down at the wheels.

What he found made his already low spirits sink even further. The two wheels were turned opposite each other and were each trying to turn the vehicle a different way. In a glance he realized that the wooden beam which allowed him to change the direction of the left wheel had broken in the middle. If he didn’t get the ship stopped fast, the two wheels would disintegrate on the stony ground and he’d be stuck out here, permanently!

Sag ran to the right side and undid the knots that held a large stone and rope in place on the deck. Mars and the others had thought about how he would need to stop when he got to the next world and arranged this stone to act as an anchor. He pushed it over the side. It landed with a thud. There was a jerk as the rope to the anchor ran out. Sag fell forward onto his face, just short of the mast. He got up and realized that the ship was slowed, certainly, but was not stopping.

The additional noise coming from the back made it plain to him. The anchor? He was dragging it. There was too much wind.

Sag leaped to the mast again and struck the sails as quickly as he could without tearing them further. As the cloth fell to the deck, the ship slowed, then finally stopped with a jerk. Sag sighed with relief as the ship came to a stop, and rolled up the canvas to put it back on the mast later.

He climbed down to the ground and found it even rockier than before. The surface of the void was now composed of flat stones with the occasional jutting outcropping sticking up from the surface. Sag walked to the back, inspecting all the wheels for damage. The only damage he found was the steering wheels in the back. The member which ran from the steering column and changed the direction of the wheel was sheered in two.

Sag took down some chests and made a makeshift ladder so he could reach the broken beam. It looked like something hit it from the front. Probably one of the outcroppings of rock, Sag mused. If one was tall enough to hit the steering but not the bottom of the ship, that could happen. He used a lever to force the tires into proper alignment and pushed the beam back into one piece again.

Now the only problem was making the steering beam whole again.

The solution he finally came upon after fighting with the contraption for the better part of half a day, was to take two smaller boards and splint them on both sides of the broken timber. Then he took a rope, soaked it in his preciously low water to make it lengthen, and wrapped it tightly around the length of the entire beam. As the rope dried, it would shrink and hold beam and splint solidly together as if there was no break at all. So that took care of the broken steering. He would have to keep his eyes open for tall outcroppings of rock from now on and steer around them as best he could, Sag thought. What would he do at night when he wouldn’t be able to see them? Sag wasn’t sure.

Sag also wasn’t sure how he was going to get the anchor back up onto the ship again. They’d put it on so he could stop – one time only. Mars and the others never imagined this circumstance. Neither had Sag. The first problem he found was simply lifting the anchor in the first place. It was far too heavy for him, even with a lever. Which made sense, since it needed to be able to stop a moving spacecraft.

After a short time he decided that the task was impossible for one squirrel all alone with no support structures or block and tackle. And wanting to get as much distance as he could before the sun went down, to better analyze the ground ahead of him before deciding to run all night, he climbed back on board, cut the rope and unfurled the sails once more. The little disaster had cost him almost the entire day of travel.

And he still wasn’t sure if he should let the ship run through the dark anymore. If another tall rock hit the steering, he was doomed. He wasn’t even sure the repair he’d made this time would hold up. If it broke again, he’d probably have to jettison the entire wheel and rely upon the one remaining steering wheel. He wasn’t too sure if the ship would even work in those conditions. And if something hit that wheel… Yes, it was far safer if he did not let the ship move when it was dark.

Later that evening however, when he realized he only had 3 days of food left, he changed his mind. The Safe approach would result in his starving out here. As the sun went down, he left the sails in place.

There were no further impacts through the day or night. Sag decided that the tall stones existed only in a narrow area, since the ground returned to the usual pebbly composition shortly after he got underway again. Sag slept fitfully through the night, tossing and turning in the darkness. He kept expecting the ship to crash again, striking invisible obstacles hidden in the dark. And when he finally did sleep, the only dreams that visited him were visions of his stepping over the guard ropes and plummeting forever into inky blackness. He awoke shivering. But this time it wasn’t the cold that was responsible.

On Day 10, Sag wasn’t completely sure he was on course anymore. The clouds covered up the sky, and the sun wasn’t in view anymore. He cursed wearily and did his best by looking at the shadow of the mast. He studied his last remaining bit of food, and decided to stretch it as far as possible by only eating a half of the usual already small daily ration. He would be hungry, yes. But six days of too little in the belly would be better than 4 days of nothing in the belly. And besides, that would stretch things so that the food and the water would run out at the same time.

His thoughts were as bleak as the sky. But he continued on.

Day 13 found Sag weak and frustrated. The food was almost completely gone. So was the water. He had the ship going the right way again, as the sun was out and it was a cloudless day. Good for navigation; bad for water conservation. And while there was always the chance of it raining again, there was almost no chance of it raining fruits and nuts. There was zero chance of either coming from a cloudless sky anyways. Sag tried to ignore his growling belly and itchy eyes. He made his notes in his journal as usual and resisted the urge to throw all the empty barrels over the side as he did his inventory.

Day 16 was a very simple day for inventory. He didn’t have any. The last bit of food and water were consumed at the end of the day as the sun went down, a red fire behind his ship. Sag leaned wearily on the steering pole and looked glumly at the sun sinking over the horizon. Somewhere back there, he knew, were the ones he loved. And they loved him. Most of them, anyways. He pondered what they were doing now. He thought about Nub and hoped his grandson didn’t think too hard about what had happened to his grandpa. He also thought of Fay and cursed himself for being such a poor father.

If he’d been half as attentive to Fay as he was to Nub, then perhaps she wouldn’t have grown up so self absorbed. If only he’d treated her as well as he had treated his students. She was a good child, eager to please and precocious. But after his wife died, she became quiet and withdrawn. And Sag was in a difficult phase in his career at the time, and he didn’t notice what his daughter was turning into. First sullen and aloof. Then rebellious and manipulative. She finally took to having sex with any male who was passing through their area, all to get back at him. Eventually she gambled once too often, and Nub was born. Fay tried to play at being a wife and mother. But the rage within her was too fierce. They turned her and Nub out, and she came back to her original home – and the man who caused her to become an emotional wreck to begin with.

He didn’t make a log entry that day. He was too tired, and his heart just wasn’t into documenting this, his second greatest failure. His mind was filled with thoughts about his results as a father, which he now considered to be his greatest failure of all. He looked back at the sun sinking in the distance and wished that he could do it all over again.

By day 18, Sag didn’t even try to guide the ship anymore. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have the strength to deal with the rudder even if he cared. Dark clouds formed over him and he had the glimmer of hope that some rain would soothe his parched throat. But none came. The only relief he had was that the sun wasn’t baking his brains. He moved as little as possible. He checked and rechecked the barrels for some drop of water or spec of food he might have missed. There was nothing.

No, there was nothing at all.

Day 19 was overcast again. Not that Sag had suddenly gotten eager about navigation through the night. No, he had given up. He had finally given up. His belly was knotted in hunger and his throat was so dry he considered biting his own arm and drinking the blood. He glimpsed over the front of the ship, and saw nothing ahead but endless void. Then he looked behind him, and saw nothing but the same. All around him was endless emptiness, devoid of any plant, any water, anything at all except the occasional spacecraft wrecking rock. It was hopeless. He was done for.

Sag curled up in a fetal position by the steering column. He gave a mental congratulation to the guardians for being right after all. Then he closed his eyes, gave a quiet whimper, and went to sleep. It was over, all over.

Sag awoke later when he heard something thud onto his ship. At first he didn’t care. If another rock wanted to wreck his ship, let it. Not like it would matter much to him now, dying and all. He heard several more and steeled himself for the ship-destroying impact that would finally put him out of his misery. He did not fear it. He welcomed it. With all his dehydrating heart and starving belly, he welcomed it. But several moments passed and there were no more impacts. He heard what he imagined were footsteps on the deck. But that was impossible.

Then he heard a sound. It sounded like speech, but not like speech. He realized that he was hearing things, which wasn’t a good sign. His mind had finally gone, broken down by exposure, thirst and starvation. The only thing he really had in the world, and he was losing it.

Sag then heard the voice again, louder and more urgent in tone. He still didn’t understand what the words said. Then he remembered his earliest scriptures lessons, and the story about angels coming to take you to the Cloud Tree where you’d live together with everyone who’d passed on before you in eternal bliss. Was that what was happening? Were the angels here to collect his soul? Was he… dead, at last?

His thoughts were shocked from his head by a piercing sensation. A stream of water was passing through his lips. Water! It hurt his parched lips and dry throat, but he automatically swallowed it as fast as it entered. Oh please don’t stop! he silently begged. With everything that had gone wrong, he expected the lifegiving water to be cruelly taken away any second. But the water kept coming, restoring his strength and giving him the will to live again.

Sag finally opened his eyes and blinked in amazement at what he saw. Three other squirrels were standing on the deck! They had tan fur instead of brown and they were slightly smaller than he was. And they were curiously dressed – white robes which flapped in the wind and covered all but their hands and their heads.

One of the strangers was kneeling over him, giving him a drink from a round container that he assumed was a water barrel. It didn’t appear to be made from wood though – it had a shimmering translucent yellow texture to it. Sag reached up and grabbed the jug and greedily drank the water as quickly as the jug would pour. The stranger didn’t try to stop him and she turned to talk in that strange language to her other two cohorts. It wasn’t until she turned and Sag could see her shape from the side that he could tell the stranger was female. She pointed to the other two and gave what sounded like an order, no matter what language it was in. The two immediately struck the sail and let the canvas lay on the deck. The ship slowed and stopped – the vibrations coming up from the deck told Sag that much.

Sag struggled to get his arms behind him to lift himself up. The aliens chattered amongst themselves then rushed over to help him to his feet. The aliens all wore the same robes with black scribbles front and back that he could only conclude was writing. But except for their odd color and size, they were unquestionably squirrels – squirrels from a different world! But what world? And what were they doing out here in the middle of endless space?

Sag then looked over the side of the railing. Parched or not, he gasped at the sight.

Dozens of vehicles about a quarter the size of his own were surrounding him. They had sails of gold and the ships were in a strange, triangular shape. They were low to the ground and had much smaller tires. Only a single wheel in the front provided steering. They were made from something other than wood, though Sag couldn’t identify the substance. The small craft closest to him had stopped along with his ship while the half dozen further out sped around and circled in wide circles, keeping an eye on things from a distance. A number of aliens were walking on the ground, coming toward his ship.

Here and there, Sag could see the trunk of a young tree sprouting out from the ground. And in one of the nearer alien ships, he saw a sapling strapped to the mast. Sag’s jaw dropped in astonishment. They were planting trees! They weren’t content with the size of their world; they were making it bigger! That’s why the aliens were here. That’s why they found him out in space. They WORKED in space. They lived here, planting new trees and making their home larger and larger. Like farming, only they were growing worlds instead of food.

He staggered in shock. The aliens caught him. The female immediately gave another order and the two males holding him upright gingerly turned him around and half carried him across the deck. He raised his eyes and caught his breathe as his eyes took in the sight of the distant world tree. Its green foliage stretched from horizon to horizon, just like his own world did. But somehow, Sag knew that this world which had been expanded upon by a space faring race would be many times more immense than his own.

Sag started to laugh out loud. The aliens appeared confused but continued to take him to the rope ladders they had used to board his vessel. Sag laughed as he realized that he’d not only found another world like he predicted, he’d found a populated world. A technologically superior world at that! He’d stumbled blindly into a world where they didn’t fear the void, but used it for their own purposes. They traveled it at will, if but for short distances.

Well, he would show them how to travel farther distances than they ever dreamed. He would tell them of other worlds and other squirrels far out beyond anyone’s ability to see. Seeing their strange craft, he had no doubt they’d be able to make a ship even stronger and faster than his own.

Sag started down the ladder and grinned, imagining the eldest’s face when he returned home again… with friends.