When Flash looked at the hologram, he didn’t ask “How can fish swim in the tops of trees?” Instead, he just reminded himself that “Anything is possible.”
And it was.
As he gazed at the forest scene that rose up from the bed linens, night fell over the display. The shadows deepened into violet and black. The sky faded to gray with a few bright slivers of illuminated cloud. Details softened until only the shapes of the trees were silhouetted against the far wall of the room. The faceted wall of transparent color behind him had gone dark, so Flash stepped out onto the balcony. The whale had returned. It hung, motionless in the air high above the castle courtyard, casting its shadow across the wall.
It looks like our ride is here, he called back to Lem..
The whale just floated there while Flash dressed.
When he was ready to leave the apartment, he turned to Lem and said OK, let’s go.
I’m not going anywhere, she said.
Flash headed back out onto the balcony, and without hesitation, stepped across a narrow gap and onto the white whale’s back as though it were only inches above the ground.
Rather than descending to pass through the gate, they glided out over the castle wall. The whale maintained its altitude, and the ground fell away below them as they crossed above the mountain cliffs. Skirting the crystal plain, the creature knew exactly where Flash wanted to go.
From his perch high in the air, Flash looked down upon the Ololian landscape. He marveled at the vivid, rolling terrain, and could make out the features in great detail. Valleys with winding rivers, caves in rocky cliffs and shimmering meadows begged him to come down and explore. Flash longed to hike the foothills below him as the ground rose up toward him. Nothing was going to deter him from reaching his destination. The glassy reeflike skyscrapers were more compelling than ever, because his daughter was somewhere among them.
She had come into his life so suddenly. So unexpectedly. She grew quickly, and left before he was ready. She was a piece of him. What did he do before she came into his world? What did he think about? He couldn’t remember. She had fundamentally changed him. Friends come and go. You miss them at times. Flash had wished for love. It came, but it took a different form than he had envisioned.
Flash told himself that this was natural. Children are supposed to grow up and find their own life in the universe. He told himself often.
Maybe if he told himself enough, he could accept it.
The columns loomed. They were much bigger than he thought they would be. They captured and intensified the light in a dazzling display. The whale was just a speck against a tower’s base, and Flash felt smaller still.
The scale of the spires was daunting, but this did not intimidate Flash. The whale seemed to know where it was going, and Flash had remembered to bring the Ololian book, which was one of his few possessions.
They approached a tower of pale blue. He could see into it, but not through it, and it reminded Flash of ice or pure aquamarine crystal. At its base, the mountain range was impenetrable, but the structures tapered as they rose leaving gaps between them. Transparent bridges linked the towers here and there, and as Flash had observed from the TNI2, staircases spiraled up the exterior leading to tunnels or caves, accessible to those with a particular head for heights.
The whale rose silently, and though Flash had never ridden in a hot air ballon, he imagined it would feel something like this.