Fiction • “Above the Ice,” by Matthew Timmins •
[Nota bene: This story was published on SHOWCASE in the transitional period between the original weekly webzine format and the later WordPress site, and thus has been nearly impossible to find until now. Enjoy!]ChaaSooNiik had never been this far above her home vents before. Her mother-sister had told her what to expect but the reality of it was still shocking. She pressed a splay of fingers against the lifter’s speaker-window and wriggled uncomfortably inside her heat-skin as the vehicle’s echo showed her the water outside: no spheres, no movers, no people, not even any fish; just a lumpy composite mass drifting slowly downward, probably a dying reef-colony come loose from the ice.
The lifter too was empty, save for herself and the operator. The lifter had emptied quickly at first and then more slowly as it ascended, the other passengers disembarking at anchor-cities, hunting platforms, or isolation spheres. At each stop, as the chattering females peeled away from the lifter’s passenger column, collected their luggage, and swam out of the dome, the vehicle grew quieter and quieter until ChaaSooNiik could imagine herself one of the sacrificial mourners of legend who had escorted the floating dead up to the impenetrable ceiling of ice.
Which was where she was going, in fact....
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