Over the Darkened Landscape

Voyage to the Moon



Standing on the pad, he let his gaze drift back up to the full moon, ignoring the techs for the moment as they zipped and buckled and sealed him into his orange launch suit. The moon hung low in the night sky right now, but would slowly drift into place directly overhead. He hoped the high foreheads had calculated the perigee and launch rate correctly.

“Helmet,” said one of the techs. He nodded briefly, gazing for a second into his reflection in the visor, reading the backwards letters of his name badge in bold script: Armstrong. He then stood stock still as they fitted it over his head and sealed it into place. He hefted his auxiliary dephlogisticator, heard the hiss as air began to stream into his suit, then nodded at the tech when he pointed at his own throat. Yes, he could breathe fine.

From there he was helped into the launch vehicle, eased onto the couch and plugged into the console before the door was shut, sealing him off from the outside world. Then things were silent for a few more seconds, just the hiss of air and his breathing echoing around inside his helmet.

“You read?” The tinny voice of the Mission Specialist calling jolted him out of his momentary reverie. He tried responding, but found both his throat and his lips were dry. He licked his lips then swallowed, tried again.

“Loud and clear. How long do I have?”

“We open the box in less than a minute. The site is still in shadow, but you’ll only have another thirty seconds or so before it starts.”

“Roger that. Just hope we can keep in touch after I launch.”

“Thirty seconds. They tell us you’ll be able to. I’m sure they’re right.”

He grunted. “Hope so.”

“Get ready. Box is opening now. Water’s running.”

Another voice came on. “Check. Pressure acceptable.”

“Clear the pad,” said the Mission Specialist. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Confirmation. Target has acquired light.”

He gritted his teeth, waiting for the first jolt, hoping it would only be that and not he and his vessel being crushed. But nothing came. He was about to ask what was happening when the second voice came on again.

“We have contact on all three stalks.”

“Roger,” came a third voice. “Automated systems working fine. The mirrors are steering them, directing the light correctly, no faults found.”

“Ready the latches.”

A row of gauges and blinking lights sat above his head. He reached up and cleared the board, readied three switches. “Tell me when.”

“Get ready,” said the Mission Specialist. “Number Two now.”

He flipped up the second switch. There was a scraping sound and the vehicle slid up and to the left a bit.

“Number One now.”

He threw the first switch. More scraping, and this time the nose tilted up and to the right.

“Number Three now.”

He threw the final switch, listened to the grinding as it bumped against the hull and then was caught by the latch. “All green inside,” he said.

“Roger that,” came the reply. “Looks like three good contacts from down here. Liftoff is going fine, and velocity is increasing.”

He could feel more motion now. At first the most he was getting was the sensation of being jostled and bumped back and forth. But now he was beginning to feel the acceleration, enough that he was even being pressed back into his couch.

“Five hundred meters,” said the Mission Specialist.

“Roger.” Checking his chronometer, he blinked in surprise. Test launches had never gone this quickly. Of course, limited resources had kept them from using more than one in each of the two previous tests, rather than the three for this voyage. He hoped he wouldn’t overshoot.

“Thousand meters,” came the voice again. It was sounding more distant and tinny. They were going to try and hook repeaters along the length of it, but if they weren’t successful, he could count on losing contact very soon now.

Nothing to concern himself about now. He busied himself by checking instrumentation, making sure everything was working all right. Every once in a while he looked out the small window in the hatch, watching the Moon as it grew ever larger.

“Fifteen hundred meters.” The voice sounded even farther away now. “Damn it. Sorry, we weren’t able to get the repeaters on. The whole load got crushed when one of the stalks coiled over.” He closed his eyes, listened to his breathing and to the steady rumble as he ascended higher and higher.

“Roger. Watch for me at the appointed hour, no matter.”

“Affirmative.” The voice scratched, broke up for a few seconds, then for a moment was overridden by voices from the Firmament, mysterious message crackling and hissing in the background: “Welcher Engel ist dies? Von welcher Höhe sprichts du?” Then one last whisper from Earth. “Do us proud.”

He knew he was going to be on his own this trip anyhow, with or without communication with home. More Firmamental interference was starting to slip through, so he shut off the choralis and turned to watch the Moon grow larger.

Soon he would be there, and no matter what happened after, he would always be known as Jack Armstrong, First Man on the Moon.

Provided the beanstalk was able to get him there.





The face of the Moon now covered the entire sky. He could now see the gardens the astrologers had divined, long rows of green marching alongside the blue of a finger-shaped lake. And at the end of the lake there hovered the clouds that were there each and every day, hiding what no one knew.

But the astrologers and the high foreheads said they knew it must be important, and that was why Jack was on this mission. Even if it was only contact with whoever tended the gardens.

It seemed now like he was upside-down, land rushing to greet him as he plummeted towards a crushing impact. But at the last minute Jack activated the forward parasol, and in the ensuing shadow the stalks twisted and twirled in their desperate search for moonlight. The vehicle did a stomach-wrenching spin and then settled down on the surface of the Moon as light as a feather.

Jack switched on the choralis. “The Aquila has landed,” he said, sure they wouldn’t be able to hear him, but still wanting to follow the established procedures.

The speakers responded with more Firmamental interference, a high, soft voice saying, “Ningún angel está a salvo en este lugar. ¡Ten cuidado! ¡Ten cuidado!”

A twist of the handle and the latch popped open. It was daytime here, as opposed to night back on Earth. Jack supposed this made sense, with the face of the Moon being lit so bright with every pass it made overhead.

He unbuckled himself and sat straight up, leaning over to get as good a look as he could through his helmet. He had landed on soil, dark gray dirt that looked to have the consistency of the fine chalk one of his old schoolmasters had used when summoning a demon for lessons. In the distance he could see a band of green, and beyond that what looked to be fog. Overhead sat the Earth, a broad blue and brown disk, and beyond it sat the Sun, harsh yellow peeking out from behind its (Earth-related) nighttime hiding spot along the Universal Plane.

Hefting his dephlogisticator, he swung his legs over the edge and gingerly set foot on the surface of the Moon. He felt lighter here, enough to possibly make a significant difference in his step. Choralis still on and still whispering scratchy nonsense, he announced, “That’s a small footstep for one man; a giant reach for much of mankind.” He smiled. Suitably overdone, just what the guys back on Earth would like.

The high foreheads and all of the astrologers had predicted that the Lunar day would be longer than an Earth day, and today the full moon was due to sit visible in the sky for several hours after the Sun poked its nose over the Plane again. All this meant that Jack had extra time to explore, but not enough to waste. He had to take care of his assignment and get back down the beanstalk before it wilted away when the moonlight disappeared.

Resting his dephlogisticator on the ground beside him, Jack reached back into the Aquila and began pulling out supplies. A small backpack with food and medical and foraging supplies came first, followed by a small bag that held his camera distincta and camera activus. He pulled both of these from their bag and took both still and moving images of the surrounding landscape, as well as of the Earth overhead.

Checking the wristband on the outside of his suit, he found that his compass didn’t work; it seemed that the high foreheads and astrologers were right and that the Moon did not have a population of tiny lode-mites to tell the hand which way to point. Jack knew that whatever was behind the fog was most likely his destination, but he would need a method to find his way back to the beanstalk when it was time to descend.

He rummaged through his supply pack for a moment, first pulling out a loaf of bread. That idea was swiftly ruled out by a memory of something that had happened to two of his mother’s cousins when they were children, many years before; he wasn’t sure if there were birds and rodents on the Moon, but he didn’t want to chance it. He finally settled on a bag of brightly-colored clarifying beads, carried with him as trade goods in case there were primitive natives in charge of the gardens. He dropped the first bead to make sure that it would work, watched as a mirror image of himself and his surroundings rose up out of the dust, then from the corner of his eye watched it slowly slink back into the bead as he turned away.

There was only one thing left to do before he started on his way. Reaching back into the Aquila, he pulled from it a small glass tubule, stoppered with a cork. Inside sat a compost of moldy leaves and bits of rancid fat, collected with great care by one of the high foreheads from an abiogenesis facility in a town near the launch site.

Jack carefully slid the tubule into a special slot in his dephlogisticator and sealed it in. Removing the cork took some delicate handiwork after all this, but with the help of some tweezers sewn into the inside of the leather cover, he managed to do so. A turn of a dial increased the flow of air into the tubule, and another dial released a special mixture of alchemical components apparently guaranteed to speed the process of spontaneous generation.

With the chronometer embedded beside the useless compass in Jack’s suit wrist, he counted out the minutes required. When time was up, he slid back the cover and pulled the tubule out of its pocket.

Sure enough, maggots swarmed through the mulch, wriggling madly as they ate their way through the disgusting mixture. Jack knelt down and poured the contents out onto the Lunar dust, watching carefully for adverse reactions from any of the pasty white grubs.

Nothing untoward happened. Indeed, some of the maggots were already covering themselves with a hard white shell, sure sign that they were preparing to give up their spot in the ladder of life to small flies.

Jack turned a third dial, listened as the hiss of incoming air slowly died away. When he could hear nothing but his own breathing, he inhaled deeply and detached his helmet from its locking mechanism. The air was cool, but temperate. A slow breath out, and then he breathed in, cautiously.

Everything was fine. The air tasted and smelled a touch rancid, but certainly no worse than his own body odors.

There was a spare microphone and earpiece in one of his pockets, so he put them on and plugged them in to the slot in the suit just under his left ear. Background noise and chatter still seemed to dominate the choralis, but he thought he could hear the Mission Specialist speaking, something about clouds, he thought. If so, a response was certainly in order.

“I am leaving now for the clouds. The air here is fine to breathe, and I expect to have answers shortly.”

A squeal of more Firmamental interference followed this pronouncement, high-pitched whine and harp music somewhat ludicrously combined, and then a distant voice, yet again, speaking vaguely familiar nonsense: “Ange! N’y va pas! Tu ne pourrais pas survivre là-bas! Je t’en prie, reviens tout de suite à la Strate Omniprésente.”

Turning the receiver volume down to a less-irritating background hiss, Jack unhooked his dephlogisticator and set it inside the Aquila, then strapped his pack over his suit and lifted the camera bag to his shoulder. He peeled off his gloves so that he would be able to handle the clarifying beads with greater dexterity, and then set off in search of what lay behind the clouds.

The Lunar desert he and his vessel had occupied soon gave way to a plain, fields of golden grasses waving in the soft, cool breeze. The grasses were taller than Jack, but fortunately they parted often enough for him to keep an eye on the bank of white clouds that served as cover for his mysterious destination. Jack stopped and took a picture here, making sure he got it from an angle that included the Earth in the sky.

The plain was soon followed by the gardens whose existence the astrologers had predicted. He stood on the crest of a small hill and looked down on row after row after row of vegetation, all recognizable as fruits and vegetables he would know, but all enormous, salads to feed an army; no, a nation. Perhaps they grew such for the same reason he felt less weight. Or perhaps whoever grew and ate them . . . And then the clouds parted for the briefest of instances, and Jack had a glimpse of the secret that stood at the edge of the lake. It was a castle, a giant stone edifice larger than any mighty wizard or high forehead on Earth could ever hope to possess. Jack saw brief details of high, steep stairs leading to a massive, dark keep, of crenellations, turrets, and uncovered parapets, all watched over by a motley collection of weathered, disturbed and angry-looking gargoyles. But then like a curtain being drawn back into place, Jack was no longer looking at the solid, ominous gray of old stone, but rather the unformed wispy slate of fog and cloud.

Dropping another bead, Jack continued on his way, the castle his confirmed destination.





At first he thought perhaps it was a trick of perspective, but as Jack neared the castle and the clouds slowly gave way, he could see what looked to be an old woman standing on one of the many steps and sweeping away great nimbuses of dust. The problem was not the woman, nor was it her fairly mundane task; rather, it was the fact that she seemed so much taller than she possibly could be.

As Jack had neared the castle he thought he had managed to get a grip on perspective by judging the height of the stairs and size of the castle’s large central door by comparing them with plants from the garden, which led all the way to almost the foot of the high stone walls. The stairs appeared to be tall and broad, enough so that he might have to pull himself up like a child new to walking, and if this was accurate, then the door was tall enough for him to walk in with a man on his shoulders, and a man on that man’s shoulders.

Even with this evidence, though, it was hard to credit the size of the old woman. Crookedly stooped over the broom, she still seemed to be nearly twice Jack’s height.

He would need to be careful, and so decided to stop and eat and think about his advance.

Sitting on the ground behind a bush, Jack opened his bag and pulled out his lunch. Bread, cheese, small flask of wine, and some fruit. He ate fairly quickly, but still enjoyed every bite and swallow. When he was done, he set the empty flask on the ground beside him, wrapped the leftover cheese and placed it back in the bag, then stood up, plan in place and ready to go. The direct approach seemed most sensible right now.

The old woman was still on the steps, a little closer to ground level by the time he approached the bottom stair. She noticed him when he was about fifty paces off, and stopped her sweeping to watch his advance. She was, he noticed, perhaps even taller than his first estimate.

Stopping at the bottom stair, Jack tilted his head way back and smiled up at her. “Good morning, Ma’am.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him, nodded her head. “’Morning.” The look on her face told him nothing, aside from that she was likely not enthused about his presence.

“My name is Jack, Ma’am, Jack Armstrong. I have traveled some distance to come and see what lay behind these clouds.” He gestured overhead. From here, nothing above could be seen through the billowing mist.

The old woman leaned forward and spit through a gap in her front teeth, warm saliva splattering onto the steps near Jack like stale dirty water from a wash bucket. “Came far, eh?”

Jack nodded.

“Better come in for some tea, then, I reckon.” She turned and started up the steps, leaving the broom lying where she’d been standing. Jack followed after her, scrambling up the stairs on all fours. But then she stopped suddenly, and he almost bounced off her heel. The old woman turned and glared down at him, shook a long, crooked finger and said, “But mind you stay no longer than a cuppa. My man is out hunting for the day, and you don’t want to be here when he gets back.”

“Why is that, Ma’am?” asked Jack, panting a bit as he raced to keep up with her renewed ascension.

The old woman had reached the landing, and swung open the huge wooden door, its hinges creaking and scraping in protest. She waved him in and then shut the door with a teeth-jarring slam behind them, answering, “Because my man is an ogre who eats boys and men for breakfast, usually broiled and on buttered toast.” She leaned down until she was almost looking Jack in the eye, and hissed, “And he has a ferocious appetite!”

There was a squeal of feedback from Jack’s earpiece just then, and a babble of voices all shouting at once. “Sad je prekasno! Andjeo, ti moraš naci nacin da pobjegneš, ili ceš patiti tamo za cjelu vjecnost.”

He turned the volume right off, blinking at the shock of the onslaught of noise as well as the thought of having entered the castle of an ogre; a carnivorous ogre, at that. He nodded, because the old woman seemed to be expecting some response, and when she grunted with some apparent satisfaction and continued walking, he hurried after her.

His chronometer told him he had just under five hours to go until he had to be back on Aquila and ready for descent. The walk was not a terribly long one, but he preferred to be sure he had an extra-large window. Even without the incentive of being cannibalized, he knew he couldn’t stay long.

Their passage eventually brought them to a large, warm, homey kitchen. The table was tall, enough so that he had to stand on his toes to look over the edge. The old woman pulled a chair from a corner and tapped it with a gnarled finger. “Sit here,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

He pulled himself up onto the enormous wooden chair and watched as she muttered some words over the great wood stove. A blue flame jumped to life, and she placed a kettle full of water on top of it. Reaching into a cupboard to the right of the stove, she pulled out one cup and was about to get a second, hopefully smaller one, when they both heard the door slam, if possible even louder now than it had sounded when Jack had stood right next to it.

The floor began to shake, the chair Jack sitting in shimmying in horrible syncopation to the thumping that was increasing in volume with every second. On the table, Jack watched with horrified fascination as a vast porcelain sugar bowl jumped and fidgeted across the surface, spoon inside clinking against the edge and little white granules of sugar jumping from the bowl in a manner that reminded Jack of rats leaping from a sinking ship.

“It’s my man!” hissed the old woman. “Quick! You must hide, or you’re meat on the table for certain!” Jack jumped from the chair and watched her with increasing panic as she cast about for a suitable hiding place. After a few seconds of turning this way and that, she finally opened the door to the oven and gestured at it. “Inside here, you.”

Jack mutely shook his head, the motion making him feel for all the world like an intransigent child. The burner on the stove was still lit, and all this talk of being eaten didn’t endear him to hiding in there. He quickly looked around the kitchen before pointing to the breadbox, a blue and yellow thing that looked large enough for him to be fairly comfortable. “In there,” he said.

She nodded and lifted him up to the countertop, and he scrambled into the box and sat on his rear, knees drawn up close to his chin and backpack resting against the rear of the breadbox. Beside him lay a few slices of heavy rye bread, flat and dark and pungent. Hopefully the ogre would have no desire for a sandwich.

The lid to the box did not close completely, and by leaning forward just a bit and turning his head one way or the other, Jack could see most of the kitchen. He watched the old woman as she poured the now-hot water into a teapot and then turn to greet her husband the ogre.

He came marching down stairs that came from the back way, feet stamping so hard that everything in the kitchen not bolted down was hopping or shaking. His entrance was even louder, a great flurry of grunts and bellows and snorts, followed by his flinging a huge canvas bag, an axe and a spear into a corner of the room. The bag, Jack noticed, had a dark, blackish-red stain slowly growing along one side and the bottom.

Tearing his eyes away from that grisly sight, Jack turned his attention back to the ogre. He was taller than his wife by a good meter or more, and wore a floppy cap that appeared to have been stitched from the skin of dead humans. The ogre’s clothes seemed relatively benign otherwise, but his features were certainly anything but. His face was fierce and scowling, pockmarked with scabs and boils and furrowed with wrinkles and lines so that his whole visage appeared to be a series of monstrous red and yellow hills and brown and black chasms, interrupted only by a snarling mouth full of sharp, yellow teeth surrounded by thin cracked pink lips, a flat pug nose with wide dark nostrils, and rheumy eyes that looked like they might shine like red-hot coals in a dark room.

“You’re back early, dear,” said the old woman. “Good luck hunting today?” She took a sip of her tea.

The ogre nodded, leering, perhaps at some misshapen memory of death and dismemberment, thought Jack. “Aye,” he said. “Caught three heifers while they was watering down . . .” He paused, sniffed at the air. “Wife, I smell something. Something here in this kitchen!” He broke into a broad, fierce grin, then bellowed out a poem in a voice so loud Jack thought his ears would bleed.

“Fee-fi-fo-faut!

I smell the blood of a Lunanaut!

Be he alive or be he dead,

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!”

At this, Jack, who was leaning one hand on a slice of bread while he watched, quickly pulled his hand away. The ogre in the meantime began to tear about the kitchen, pulling out jars and looking behind anything that he felt could be a hiding place. His wife rushed after him, setting her teacup down off the table so that she could take his hands in hers.

“The only thing you smell, my dear, is scraps from the young boy you ate for supper last night. I took what was left and rendered the flesh and boiled the remaining bones so that you could have a nice soup with your meal later today.” She led him to the stove and opened the lid to a pot on the back, dipping in a ladle and pulling out a spoonful for him to check.

The ogre sniffed at the soup, then tasted it and nodded. “Mmph,” he grunted. “That’s excellent. Nicely captures the flavor of youth, don’t you think?”

The old woman nodded. “I thought you’d like it, my love. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you a bowl-full, perhaps a nice mug of warm ale as well?”

Her husband shuffled over to the table and sat at the chair Jack had occupied only a few moments before. He sniffed the air again and then scratched his head. “Sure smells fresh,” he said, but she put a bowl and mug in front of him, and he promptly dug in, eating and drinking everything in what seemed to be only seconds.

When he was done, he leaned back and patted his belly, then called out to the old woman; “Wife! Fetch me my golden harp!”

“Yes dear,” said the old woman, and disappeared from Jack’s field of view for a few seconds. She came back and set a plain wooden chest down on the table in front of her husband, then kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be out back hanging the wash if you need me,” she said, glancing briefly at the breadbox.

“Aye,” said the ogre. Jack watched the creature wait until his wife left the kitchen, then pull a key from a leather pouch dangling from his belt. He used the key to open a brass padlock, and then opened the chest and reached in.

The harp was indeed golden, adorned in a fashion Jack had never seen before. Its strings shone with a luminosity unmatched by anything in Jack’s experience, and carvings and ornamentations marched along its exterior, each image and relief a separate and stunning work of art.

But the most amazing carving was that of a person, or rather, thought Jack, something like but not quite a person. It stood majestically at the tall end of the harp, image of a beautiful naked woman with long golden tresses, gold spun so fine it looked superior to real hair. It faced out, away from the strings, but three pairs of arms faced backwards, carved in place to look like they were there to pluck the strings.

The carved woman was completed by what looked to be a pair of wings that looked like they could reach high above the harp, although the ogre for some reason had them pinned together in two places with bulky wooden clips. The gold on the wings was so fine that Jack could see shimmering images beyond them, translucence like a distant mirage.

“Sing, harp!” barked the ogre.

With that cue, the harp’s arms moved, began to pluck the strings. Jack blinked in surprise, and then his jaw dropped when the carved woman opened her mouth and started to sing. The melody was gorgeous, the most beautiful thing Jack thought he had ever heard.

Even though Jack was sure he had turned the receiver right down, a torrent of voices from the choralis tore into his ear as the harp hit an especially powerful note. Finally, one voice broke in above the others, clearer now because Jack was holding his hand over his ear to hopefully keep the ogre from hearing the sounds and coming to investigate. “That voice! It must be her! You whose name is Jack, you must do everything you can to save her!”

Jack sat bolt upright at this, almost banging his head against the top of the box. He hadn’t understood anything said before now, and had certainly never heard his name before. The harp was loud enough that he felt safe in whispering, and so he said, “Who are you? And what do you mean?”

“We tried to warn you, but could not find the right tongue in time. But now that you are there, you must help. It is the right thing to do.” By now the voice was fading. “Just save her,” it whispered, and then there was background hiss before the volume tapered off again.

The harp sang for a long time, perhaps two hours or more, although Jack had not thought to check the chronometer when he had first hidden himself. So he sat and waited, frustrated with being stuck in this position, but ecstatic at having a chance to listen. He never understood any of the words the harp sang, but he connected with the emotion; it sang of lost hope, music always seeming ready to soar away into the stratosphere before crashing back with agonizing constriction.

But the ogre appeared unaffected by the music, seemingly enjoying the melodies but not paying attention to the underlying passion. And slowly, Jack watched as the ogre first leaned back in his chair, then leaned forward again, resting his head in his hands, before finally slumping down, asleep. The harp kept playing, albeit quieter than before.

Jack waited for a few minutes, but the sleeping creature did not stir. He opened the lid to the breadbox and tentatively stepped out onto the counter. The harp turned her head and looked at him, surprise showing on her face and voice catching for a brief second, but then she nodded and kept singing.

He quietly pulled the camera activus from his bag and took some images of the kitchen, the harp, and the sleeping ogre, zooming in tight so that the high foreheads back home could see the hideous face and know why he hadn’t made any serious contact. Then he put the camera away and jumped as lightly as possible to the floor and walked quietly to the table.

Standing on his toes he found he could just reach the base of the harp where her feet were located. He grabbed it and pulled it over to the edge, looked up and was greeted with the warmest, most melting smile he had ever witnessed in his life.

Top four hands still playing music, the bottom pair reached out for his own, making it easier for Jack to get her down to the floor. The harp was heavy, although not too bad in the light gravity, and so he managed it all right, only one minor chord being struck in the process, sounding a touch dissonant alongside the music accompanying this rescue.

“I’m Jack,” he whispered when she was standing beside him. “I guess I’m here to save you.” He glanced up at the ogre, but by now the monstrous being was snoring in fits and starts.

The harp stopped playing with a cadenza followed by two simple chords, still smiling. “You’ll have to carry me outside,” she said, “and unpin my wings there. I can not fly in here, and my wings would only get in the way.”

Jack nodded, then bent down and slid his arm around her waist. The harp was a little harder to carry from this angle, awkward enough that he half-dragged her as well. But he managed to stagger his way to the front door without dropping her, then stopped and gently let her down when they reached the door.

The old woman had slammed it shut, and the handle was high above Jack’s head. He stood on his toes, but it was still beyond his reach.

“Bring me to the door,” said the harp. “I can lift you up.”

Jack slid the harp over beside the door, then stepped into her cupped hands. Leaning out a bit, he managed to grab hold of the handle. The door was impossibly heavy, but with a straining grunt he was able to pull it open a bit more than a crack. He jumped back to the floor and leaned into it then, pushing and heaving until it was open wide enough to let the two of them out.

There was a roar then, a great shout from deep in the bowels of the castle. “Who has stolen my harp?” This was followed by a crash, and then again everything started to shake.

The ogre was awake and running towards the door.

Jack grabbed the harp and pulled her out onto the top step. “Unpin me!” she cried, tilting her golden wings down until Jack could reach the clips.

He grabbed the first clip, wrestled it off as quickly as he could, at the same time fearful that he would tear something. All the time the raging ogre was coming closer, and by the time he got the second clip undone loose stone was dropping from high up on the castle walls.

The harp spread her wings with a rapturous cry, then leaned over and gave Jack a hurried kiss. “Thank you,” she whispered, and then with a flurry of wings and a great rush of air she soared high into the sky.

Jack took only a second to watch her fly up, and then he was running pell-mell down the stairs, jarring his knees with each oversized step. He had reached the bottom and was running into the garden when the ogre burst through the door, yelling, “Come back, you vermin! I’ll have your flesh for supper and your bones for my bread, I will!”

Now Jack felt the true advantages of being lighter than he was on Earth. Heart pounding and bowels beginning to constrict with fear, he ran with great leaps and bounds, covering incomprehensible distances in amazing time. But all the time the ogre was after him, the ground shaking in its wake and the air reverberating with its clamor and bellowing.

Every so often as he ran a clarifying bead would come into his line of sight, and a startled image of himself running like a frightened gazelle would pop up for a brief second before disappearing from view again. The third time he saw an image of himself he also caught a glimpse of the ogre far in the background, standing still and swinging wildly at something. He stopped for a brief second to look, and realized the ogre must have unwittingly spied a clarifying bead and was busy trying to fight his own image.

This spurred Jack on even more, and soon he was back at the Aquila. He quickly threw his gear into its compartment, then pulled out the dephlogisticator and plugged it back into his suit, turned it on and then fitted his helmet into place.

He was just climbing in when he heard another roar, and saw the ogre bounding up the hill towards him, dagger as big as the largest human sword in his hand. Jack sealed the cockpit, then turned on the magnets. The high foreheads had told him that if he needed to descend ahead of schedule, the magnets would hopefully pull the Aquila and the beanstalk towards the lode-mites back on Earth.

With a groan, the beanstalk started to twist and shudder and the Aquila started to rise. The vessel was soon speeding back up towards the Earth, but it was shaking horribly at the same time. Jack peered out the side window that faced the Moon, and saw that the ogre had managed to leap up and grab hold of the beanstalk and was climbing towards him.

Jack turned up the choralis again. “Mission Control, we have a problem. Aquila is being pursued by a hostile creature. I may not make it back. Please respond, over.”

There was squealing, and Jack thought he could hear the Mission Specialist whispering in the background. But then another voice came on, saying, “Détacher! Non . . . Detach yourself from the legume. We will bear you back to your home and take care of the beast.”

“Who are you?” asked Jack.

“Look to the front of your craft,” came the reply.

Outside there hovered the harp with several other winged beings, all of different shapes and colors, all beautiful beyond belief, flapping their wings with slow, easy movements. She smiled at him and nodded, and so Jack flipped all three switches, releasing the latches from their grips on the beanstalk. There was a brief lurch as the craft jumped away and towards the Earth, and then he could see that it was being held up by winged beings on all sides.

They spiraled down towards the Earth, and soon the launch center and landing pad came into stark relief. He could see the base of the beanstalk, and saw that several people and even two of the winged beings were hard at work chopping at the base of the stalk with large axes. As he was brought down for a feather-light landing two axes sliced into the last bit of plant, and then the stalk was straining over to one side with a creaking groan that put to mind giant teeth grinding together, loud enough so Jack could hear it through the closed hatch and his suit.

Two techs ran and let him out, then hurried him off to the side. His helmet was removed, and then they all stood in awe and watched as bits of the beanstalk fell to earth, accompanied by what looked to be a flaming comet that roared and cursed angrily the entire way down until it crashed to the ground several hundred meters away. The earth shook with the impact, gulls wheeling into the air and screaming madly, bats pouring from the mouth of some uncharted sinkhole and whirling through the daytime sky with precision confusion, and dust and moisture ventured into the air, forming new clouds before delivering wet, blackened soot in large splotches on the pavement and on their heads.

The ogre was dead.

Jack tilted his head back and with the awed techs watched as the winged beings—he knew now to be angels—ascended into the skies, going back home to their place in the Universal Plane. Melodious music reached down to stroke his ears, this time an orchestra and chorus that was joyous and soaring and free, telling tales of release and ecstasy that did his heart glad.

Jack smiled, and then walked back to the Aquila to retrieve his gear.