Stunned, Eleanor sat in the airship for several minutes, feeling tears in her eyes. She had found the bottom of the bottomless Pit, but she had damaged Charlie's ship's parachute and balloon, and she doubted that she could fly home, even if she found fuel. And she had no idea where to start looking for Minnie, or whether Minnie was even still alive.

After worrying awhile, she checked that none of her bones were broken. Then she unstrapped herself from the pilot's seat and looked out each window to make sure that the lightning hadn't set the flyer on fire. She could smell smoke from the bonfire nearby, along with rotting trash, but her airship seemed to be fine.

Next she lit the lamp and rummaged through the pile of things that Charlie had left on the copilot's seat, looking for a weapon in case there were wild beasts or enemies outside. She found only a lot of food, several bottles of wine, and a box of candles.

She opened the doctor's bag that Zeek had sent with her, and found assorted wrenches, a bottle of rum, a set of scalpels, and a strange shiny cube with buttons on it. Possibly a weapon? She put it back in the bag, having no wish to test it in case it attacked her accidentally.

She ate several of the chocolates for fortitude, added the chocolates and a few cans of soup to Zeek's bag, and climbed out of the airship onto a heap of squishy trash, carrying the bag and the lamp.

She shouted, “Minnie? Are you here?”

There were no echoes, and nobody answered. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and a mechanical humming noise in the distance, beyond the scaffolding tower.

She looked up along the tower and saw a faint light far overhead, which must be the opening to the city above.

Around the tower's base, several wrecked airships were jumbled like children's toys, glinting back the firelight from their cracked windows. All had limp or charred balloons, and none looked like the illustration from the newspaper.

Eleanor's shoes squelched through the slimy trash as she walked to the nearest small airship. The door had been chewed or hacked off; deep gashes scarred the walls. Inside, there was only the empty furnace. The seats and any cargo were gone.

She left that airship and climbed downhill to the next, a larger cabin closer to the bonfire. She stepped inside, but it was also empty.

She heard a scuffing noise outside, and saw several bulky mounds moving past the bonfire.

She realized that her bright lamp made her into an obvious target for whatever was outside, but she was afraid to leave it and run out into the darkness blindly. She turned off the lamp and crouched beside the airship's doorway, ready to attack whatever came through it with Zeek's bag of heavy tools.

The scuffing came closer, and then passed the large airship and headed uphill. Nothing came through the doorway, so she stood up and peeked out a window.

The dark shapes surrounded her flyer. A light flared in her cabin, and a woman's voice called out, “No water here, but there's wine.”

A girl's voice asked, “What's that thing?”

A man said, “It's a pumpkin. We'll have pie tomorrow. Is there any cinnamon?” A human arm emerged from the nearest bulky shape, and took the pumpkin.

Eleanor realized that the mounds were people covered with filthy blankets, like children with sheets over them, pretending to be ghosts. They didn't seem hostile, so she left the empty airship and headed toward the crowd. “Hey! That's my flyer, and my food.”

The man with the pumpkin called out, “Are you a tax collector?”

Eleanor was puzzled by the question, but answered honestly, “No. I flew down here in that airship.”

“If you're not collecting taxes, then what's yours is ours, and what's ours is yours. That's how we all survive.”

“But-”

She was interrupted by a shrill whistle.

A larger man yelled, “Take cover,” and the blanketed people all huddled against her airship.

She ran back to the downhill airship and stepped inside.

Something whumped near her. Uphill, a charred chair hit the trash pile and shattered, wooden pieces bouncing away from the impact. A dresser landed nearby, sinking into the garbage.

Furniture fell for nearly a minute, and then stopped. Two whistles sounded, and the blanketed people hurried away from her flyer, back toward the bonfire, with Eleanor's cans and bottles sticking out of various pockets in their blanket cloaks.

The large man said, “It's safe now, ma'am, but you'd better come with us. The falling field can be deadly.”

Eleanor looked up at the bright circle in the darkness, but saw nothing else falling. She left the airship and trailed after the others, still carrying her dark lamp and Zeek's bag. “Who are you? We haven't been introduced.”

The man with the pumpkin said, “I'm Rich-”

“Hey,” said the woman's voice. “No names until we're sure about her.”

“Oh, come on,” said Rich. “Even the King wouldn't send out a woman alone to collect the taxes.”

“Maybe not,” said the woman, “but names can wait until we're safely home.”

A shorter person fell behind the group, and as Eleanor caught up with her, a girl's voice asked, “Are you really from the sky?”

“I suppose I am. Aren't you?”

“No.” She and Eleanor followed the group past the bonfire and into the darkness. “I was born here. My parents came down years ago, when the hole first opened up. Hardly anybody comes down now.”

Eleanor tripped on a ripped cloth cushion underfoot, but caught herself. “My wife came down last night, I think. Her name's Minnie. Did you see her?”

“I was home working, but Pa said there was a drunk lady saying she would shoot everybody, and yelling about Charlie. She went away east, he told me, toward King Blodger's land. Pa would have warned her not to go, if she'd been nicer.”

Eleanor grinned, relieved. “I'm sure that's her, and I'm glad she's safe. Who is King Blodger?”

Ahead of them, the woman said, “Don't answer that until we're home.”

Eleanor realized that the others were walking silently, listening to them.

The girl was quiet for a bit, and then asked, “Is the sky really full of people?”

“Yes, people everywhere.”

“And there's lots of water? Will it rain soon up there?”

Eleanor tried to remember whether she had seen the morning newspaper's weather prediction, but all she could remember was the article about Minnie. “I don't know. I don't remember seeing clouds when I left.”

“What's a cloud?”

Eleanor was stunned. Everybody knew what clouds were, didn't they? “Fluffy white things, in the sky? Don't you have clouds down here?”

“Do we, Pa?”

Rich said, “No, no clouds. Warm and cold, yes, but no real weather, except the rain and snow that fall through the hole, sometimes.”

The larger man said, “Yeah, ma'am. Three whistles from the Watcher means rain. We'll show you where the barrels and buckets are kept. Everybody collects the rain.” He raised his voice, and called out, “Hey, Arthur, come to Tallhouse when you're done with your Watch. We found a woman, pretty, no broken bones. Stop by and introduce yourself.”

Eleanor felt a sinking feeling, like everything that seemed normal here was suddenly strange, and that she was just one more piece of useful trash that they had found. She whispered to the girl, “What exactly does that mean?”

The girl whispered back, “It means maybe I won't have to marry Arthur when I turn sixteen, if you marry him first. He's old and grouchy.”

Eleanor said aloud, “I am already married.”

The woman ahead said, “You'll be a widow soon enough, if your mate threatens the King with that gun of hers. You need to stay with us. Arthur will be a good husband, and you'll never find a new wife down here. Women are scarce.”

Eleanor saw small, flickering lights ahead of the group, possibly candles in windows. “Then I should be leaving now to find my wife, before something terrible happens to her. Which way is east?”

The larger man said, “Ma'am, east is back toward the sky hole. But you can't go at night, and you shouldn't go at all.”

“But this can't be night already. It was daytime when I flew into the Pit, and it's still bright up there.” She glanced up wistfully at the distant daylight.

Rich said, “Sky day is our night, and vice versa. You'll see. But you can't travel around here by yourself in those fancy clothes, if you want to stay alive. You know nothing about the King or about how to live here. You'll just get blasted by the Greenies, like your ship was. Or worse.”

“The Green Men? They're down here too?”

“They're not here themselves, usually, but their factories are down here, and terribly dangerous. Don't go near them.”

Up ahead, a dog began to bark. The woman yelled, “It's just us.”

The larger man's voice said, “I'll go and hold him until we get her inside.” Something creaked ahead of them.

Eleanor asked, “What do the Green Men make in factories?”

Rich answered. “Fake wood, paper. Tea. More Greenies.”

Eleanor shook her head in the dark. “You can't make people in factories. And we grow our wood from trees.”

The girl asked, “What's a tree?”

Rich said, “I told you about trees last year. We had trees in the sky, sure. But new lady, have you ever seen a tree get cut down?”

Eleanor thought back. “Well, no. Not since the Green Men came. They respect trees.”

“And yet, we had a lot of wood and paper in the sky. It's probably all factory-made. Mind the gate.”

Eleanor bumped into something waist-high, and felt around for what was apparently an opening in some sort of trash fence. “Thanks. But aren't there still big forests in other countries? The War can't have disrupted all the trade.”

The dog barked, further away now.

“You don't understand,” Rich said. “There are no other countries here, because this isn't the original Earth. We have all been kidnapped by aliens.”