Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

And indeed, the sky had blackened just as it should have one evening at 2100 local time, the sun fading and then completely disappearing as the crystals polarized, darkening the re-creation of southern Africa that filled the bottom of Copernicus. The only light came from the lamps located at each crisscrossing of the load-bearing cables; collectively, they providing as much illumination as the full moon did on Earth’s surface.

The night had continued on like any other, with beasts prowling, and humans huddling for warmth, and protection, and companionship.

But sometime during that night, the computer controlling that circadian winking, that daily shifting of the sky from opaque to transparent, had crashed. When morning should have come, the polarizing membrane did not clear. The world of the last biological humans was cut off from the rest of the universe by a night that seemed as though it would never end.

* * *

Prasp ran, each stride taking him two bodylengths farther ahead. He flapped his arms, moving the great wings of skin and sticks, beating them up and down, up and down, as fast as he could, and—

Yes! Yes!

He was rising, lifting, ascending—

Flying!

He was flying!

He rose higher and higher, the ground receding beneath him. He could see the savanah grasses far below, the giant, sprawling Acacia trees diminishing to nothing.

He kept flapping the wings, although he could feel that his face was already slick with sweat and he was gulping in air as fast as he could. His arms were aching, but he continued to move them up and down, his body rising farther and farther. He’d always known the faint lines crisscrossing the dome were actually thick cords, as big around as his own waist, for he had seen them where they touched the mountains that encircled the world. And now he was getting up far enough that he could see that thickness, see the pinpoints of light at each of their intersections resolving themselves into glowing disks, and—

Pain!

A spasm along his right arm.

A great ache in his left wrist.

A seizing of his back muscles, a throbbing in his shoulders.

So near, so close, and yet—

And yet he could go no higher. He wasn’t strong enough.

Sadly, Prasp held his arms out straight, keeping the wings flat. He began the slow, long glide down to the grasses, far, far below.

It took a long time for him to come down. As he got closer to the ground, he became aware that a crowd of people had assembled, all of them looking up at him, many of them pointing. As he descended further he could make out their expressions—awe on some the faces; fear on a few of them.

Prasp skidded along the grasses until he was able to stop himself. Kari came running over to him, arriving before the others. She helped him remove the wings, and, once he was free of them, she hugged him tightly. Prasp could feel that her heart was pounding almost as hard as his own; she’d clearly been terrified for him.

Others of the tribe soon arrived. Prasp wasn’t sure how they were going to react to his flight; had he committed a sacrilege? Balant, the tribe’s greatest hunter, was among those who’d been watching. He looked at Prasp for a time, then held a clenched fist high over his head, and gave a great whoop—the tribe’s custom when one of its members had made a spectacular kill during the hunt. The others soon followed Balant’s lead, whooping with excitement as well.

Prasp was relieved that they’d accepted his flying, but he couldn’t join in the shouts of joy.

He had failed.

* * *

We, The Uploaded, had no way to monitor what was going on beneath the roof over Copernicus, but we could guess. We knew that the artificial lamps on the underside of the roof would have started at low power during that fateful night, collectively providing no more illumination than the full moon as seen from Earth. But we also knew that they were controlled by a separate computer, and so presumably weren’t affected by whatever had caused Copernicus’s sky to remain perpetually opaque. Those lamps should still flare with light rivaling Sol’s own for sixteen hours per Earth-day day during the lunar night. Our simulations of the ecosystem suggested that some of the plant species under the roof would have died off, unable to get used to fourteen Earth-days of dim light, followed by fourteen more of two-thirds bright light and one-third dimness. But many other kinds of plants, most of the animals, and, yes, the humans, should have adapted without too much trouble.

But as to what those humans might be doing, we had no idea.

* * *

Prasp left his wings near his hut. There were some, he knew, who privately ridiculed his attempts at flying, although none would publicly contradict Balant. And certainly none of them would damage the wings. Prasp was known for his cleverness—and that cleverness often yielded extra meat while hunting, meat he shared freely with others. No one would risk being cut off from Prasp’s bounty by wrecking his wings, or allowing their children to do so.