“Now ‘fruit’ is the simplest translation. On the one hand, that just means the edible seed of any plant. It might be the only fruit in one grand Creation. But the ancient word means quite a lot more: it was used to describe a great tree covered with countless branches, each branch heavy with fruit. Just one of those sweet treats is the world where we happen to live. That’s what I realized. Sitting alone inside that library, close to the perfect center of the perfect world, I began to understand that what we think of as the Creation is what those lost authors called ‘this great small realm.’

“It presses against one’s sanity, I know. But regardless what people are taught and regardless what we’d love to believe, this world is not everything. There are other fruits suspended on many branches, and perhaps we aren’t the only people. That was my revelation. My great scholarly paper was focused on that premise, outlining a set of fantastic, inevitable conclusions and proving every point as well as I could.

“I wasn’t an idiot. I did expect doubts. There are people who are terrified by any idea, and I accepted that. But I didn’t appreciate the pride and power of our rulers. If vast realms are set beyond the walls of the world, then our great men and women are tiny. And if the fruit tree is vast, then we are next to nothing.

“That idea is what made them furious. That’s why I was tried and convicted of heresy—an ancient crime rarely invoked but always in the books, always waiting its day. And that’s why I lost my life’s work. And that’s why my papers were burned. And while I watched, my precious cylinders of ancient coral were taken to the bottom of the University Tree, and one after another, they were thrown off into the scorching, cleansing sun.”

The Master turned away, wiping at tears.

Diamond looked out the window, embarrassed and sorry, waiting for his thoughts to make sense. How could anything be larger than this enormous world? But even as he denied that impossible idea, dream-like images swirled in front of his mind’s eye. Suddenly he had too many fantasies to count and none felt real, and he believed each one of these impossibilities. In despair, he covered his face with his hands. A thin breathless cry leaked out. Then some little word was whispered. Who spoke? Diamond dropped his hands, looking at Seldom and at Elata. They were trading whispers while watching him—that sense of being spellbound never more obvious.

Master Nissim took a deep breath, ready to speak again.

Two quick explosions shook the Happenstance. The left engine screamed, and startled, Diamond stood up, face against the window. The propeller was still spinning, pushing dense black smoke behind them. Dirty red flames flickered inside a shell made of iron and corona scales. Elata and Seldom were beside him, laughing nervously. Then Nissim pulled them away from the window, and the engine coughed, and the rattling slowed to a hard steady pounding as the smoke kept rushing out and the propeller seized up. Long white blades were frozen in place, each one cut from a corona bone, each carved into an elegant, lovely airfoil.

The pilot ran into the cabin cursing. “Back, back,” he warned everyone but himself, picking Diamond up by the shoulders and pushing him away. Someone in the cockpit yelled a question, and the pilot flung himself against the rubber window, muttering an answer that couldn’t be heard even by the boy standing behind him.

“Is it off?” shouted the cockpit voice.

The pilot backed away. “It’s done.”

“Fire?”

“Seen worse, but it’s burning,” was the expert assessment. “Throttle back starboard. Half power.”

The remaining engine quieted substantially.

With total faith in the window’s strength, the pilot pressed against the flexible material, pushing out into the air as he gazed at the ship’s body. After careful study, he said, “No punctures. No secondary fire. Good.”

“What happened?” Elata asked.

“The engine exploded,” Seldom answered.

The boy’s answer brought a hard long laugh. Hands on his hips, the pilot looked at his little audience. “My good loyal trustworthy engine, and it blows. Think of the odds. But the ship is mostly right, and we’re not ridiculously far from our destination. Not close either, mind you, but let’s just count our fortunes and limp in the rest of the way. Nice and slow, and hope that we don’t blow the other engine too.”

On that grim note, he left again.

Nobody felt like sitting. Standing was easy when the fletch was cruising at a lazy pace, and there were plenty of reasons to feel fortunate. Diamond returned to the left side of the cabin. The sun was brighter than ever. Nothing lay below except twisting limbs and enormous leaves. Some leaves were dark green, others almost transparent. Some grew from the surrounding trees, while parasites and epiphytes clung to every worthy surface. Colored birds and drab birds and enormous, machine-like insects flew everywhere. The air had grown heavy and definitely warmer. Diamond was sweating, and he wasn’t moving, breathing slower than ever, holding one good breath deep and then slowly letting it out again.

Sitting on a wide tree branch was a human, a man calmly watching the ship pass. Feet dangling and the face curious, he stared at the gasbag and the smoky dead engine, and then he noticed the boy leaning against the window.

Diamond waved at the man.

The man lifted his arm and then thought better of it.

Master Nissim said, “That’s a forester, probably. There’s a lot of good wood to be pruned from these trees.”

“Or a bandit,” Seldom said.

Nissim didn’t believe so. He clucked his tongue while patting Diamond on his side, feeling where the little knife still rode against his hip.

They didn’t mention the knife or any ordinary dangers.

“Do you think it’s true, Master?” Elata asked. “Is there another world?”

“No,” Seldom said.

Nissim responded with a long pause and then his own question. “And why do you believe there isn’t, Seldom?”

“The world is all there is. What more can there be?”

“That’s the faith for you and every other old man,” Nissim kidded. “ ‘There can’t be anything else because this is everything we need, now and forever.’ ”

Seldom shrank down, thinking.

Branches started closing in from every side, and the surviving engine throttled up in response, buying speed and a fresh trajectory.

“Suppose there was another world,” said Seldom. “Suppose it was filled with people like us or people like the papio. Or somebody else, maybe. Wouldn’t they sometimes come visit us? And couldn’t we fly to their homes and see them for ourselves?”

Elata grabbed up Diamond’s hand.

“Wouldn’t the strangers be everywhere?” asked Seldom.

“But,” Elata began.

The Master looked at her. “Yes?”

“Every house has hollow places,” she said. “There’s always little holes in the wall that nobody sees, nobody cares about.”

“But I know what I know, and I’m right,” Seldom said.

Elata glanced at Diamond, ready to say something more.

But then the ship slowed abruptly, everyone stumbling toward the bow. A screeching roar came from every side, long branches shoving against the hull and engines and wings. The pilot was steering them into a tangle of snags. But the limbs were young and pliable, and fletches were woven from the flesh and tough bladders of supple young coronas. Nothing was punctured, nothing hooked. The Happenstance slowed again and then surged, emerging into a wide empty cylinder hacked from the forest—a vertical avenue made with axes and power saws—and Diamond found himself floating inside a river of light that carried the sun’s brilliance into the highest reaches of this perfect, seemingly endless world.

ELEVEN