It makes me wonder if maybe there’s fuel for them somewhere. The engines in the still flying part of Bune, which is now far away from here, have a very strange way of working. They look nothing like this. But where there is a nozzle, there should be rocket fuel. Right?”
He nods, very seriously. “Of course. Nosl and roket. Common sense. Perhaps there’s guano, too. And tekila and brunch.”
Out of nowhere, I have a sudden urge to embrace this giant of a man who’s putting up with all my nonsense and totally taking it in stride. “Sorry. Sometimes I just don’t know the right word for things, so I use the ones from my planet.”
He gives me one of those half-smiles again. “I think there’s a good chance this planet doesn’t have those words at all. Until now. Do you want to go further down?”
I walk to the edge of the deck and lean out. The light is still there, and now it doesn’t look like a reflection at all. But the structure we’re in gets more open down there, probably less easy to descend.
“Yes,” I decide. “Just as far down as we can get without taking too big of risks.”
He nods. “Okay.”
I drop down to a suitable girder one foot down. “You’re good at saying alien words. I’ll teach you English if you want.”
Brank’ox follows me down, then drops another level. “Will that be useful?”
“Oh yes. You can talk to the girls. Or you can listen to what they say without – is that thing safe to stand on? —them knowing that you understand them.”
“Hold on to me when you— that’s it. But they all speak perfectly understandably as it is. Just like you.”
“They do. But you could secretly learn English, and then one day suddenly just speak a long, perfect sentence. It would be fun!”
“How long would it take? That part is slippery, watch out.”
“Oh, a few weeks. If you study hard. A few months, maybe.”
“Place your foot there and then… yes, that works too. Months of hard study? That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”
“Well, no. Not fun as such. But it depends. Can you catch me if I just drop down there?”
“I can. Oh, sorry…”
“It’s all right, that dress is always riding up.”
“Well, if it will be months, then let’s wait until we’re sure we want it.”
“I agree. Hold my hand while I drop down to that thing there… aieee! Ah, okay. Thank you. That was close.”
We gradually make our way down through the maze of construction, talking nonsense. Brank’ox casually saves me from falling to my death a couple of times. He seems to have lightened up a lot after the dactyl attack, and that makes me unreasonably chipper.
We’re down almost to the bottom. The light I saw is obviously a light and not a reflection.
Suddenly, there are no more girders and beams below us – they have all collapsed into a messy heap on the bottom. That crash must have been incredibly hard.
“It looks like we can’t go further down,” Brank’ox observes.
I tap my lips with one finger. “We can’t. It was a good try. Would you agree that the light is not a reflection?”
“Of course. It’s its own light. A small, steady lamp in the floor.”
“Something in here is still producing power,” I ponder. “But that’s not too weird. After all, the top part worked well enough to fly away from here, and the girls say it’s fully working on the inside. I guess these aliens just built solid stuff. Shall we climb back up?”
Without a word, Brank’ox hoists himself up one level and reaches a strong hand down so I can grab onto it. He easily lifts me up, then continues to the next beam up and repeats the process. All I have to do is hang on to his forearm, as hard and thick as a bundle of steel cables, while he pulls me up three feet at a time. It’s even faster than going the other way.
His incredible strength amazes me. Halfway up, my own arms are aching from taking my own weight, and I’m not even doing any of the lifting.
We find our backpacks.
Brank’ox shields his eyes. “The sun is half set. We must walk home in darkness.”
I peer over the edge. Indeed, the jungle down there is growing dark really fast. “Will that be safe?”
“Not as safe as in daylight.”
“Because I was thinking,” I lie, looking around, “that maybe we can spend the night here.”