Stanek shook his head, his eyes downcast. “It's real...the moons an' all,” he said. “What the Elderlies say is mostly true. If there's ever a break in the cover on the right sorta day, you c'n see clear through to the stuff above th' sky. Little lights, if it's at night...maybe a moon. Maybe both.” He shrugged. “But I don't know anybody's ever saw both moons at once.” Stanek was born during such a break: a rare day when the perpetual clouds thinned and broke into wind-shredded tatters. Such days were a rarity, and because Stanek had been born during a break, local wisdom held that he'd been touched by the strangest of whispers: the bad things from up there that got through: electromagnetic things...waves and the perpetual sleet of radiation always absorbed by the clouds before touching ground. It was what the Elderlies always taught, how they kept control by instilling a fear of the sky, a fear of the bad things up there. There are reasons for the perpetual clouds, reasons why a ship-load of men came to this place. With the clouds, there's safety...no one can see what we do here, no one can see that we live wher'n men ought'nt not be, and are shielded from the radiations that reshape and warp our kin on other worlds... The Elderlies had their stories. But when Stanek shook his head, not meeting Remy's inquisitive gaze, the world shifted—subtly at first, and then more radically, when Stanek—with what looked like fever in his eyes—came to Remy late on another night with a bottle of distilled spirits. Custom held that a bottle opened must be emptied between friends. Remy and Stanek were more than friends, and as the bottle emptied, one set of shots at a time, Stanek loosened, and spoke—furtively, like the whispered rustle of a cat's whiskers on rare, dry wood. “I know where the clouds come from, I know how they're made.” And within a week, Remy stood at Stanek's side, whole kilometers from home, staring at the squat, conical bulk of a cloud factory belching plumes of heated condensation into the haze-choked air. A week after that, he'd shown Remy the balloon. “The Elderlies don't know about it,” Stanek said. “It's mostly forgotten, but maybe a cloud-tender or two may use it. We can take it up and get it back before any of the 'tenders take a notice of the absence.” --Which was how they acquired the balloon and its helium fuel, how Stanek taught Remy to read the pressure gauges and atmosphere feed ratios meant to sustain up to three humans in the enclosed, pressurized cabin...how Remy learned every detail of the cylindrical cabin, slung beneath tough, balloon skin on anchor cables as thick as a finger. It was how (and why) they'd scavenged rations for their journey. “The cabin has to be pressurized,” Stanek explained. “Because we'll go far up, way up over the clouds, where the sky stops and another sky begins.” “We'll see the moons?” Remy asked, anxiously. “Dunno...depends on cycles, depends on where they are...depends on more'n I can say now.” But Stanek said enough. Though the Elderlies—with their stories—kept curiosity out of the community mind, some of the older (and apocryphal) stories maintained that one who sees clear sky will have wishes granted. Remy didn't know if he truly believed this, but he saw some benefit in the fulfillment of wishes: the ones he didn't speak of. And on the day that Stanek broke the ground tethers and set the balloon on it's slow, silent rise, Remy watched—for hours, and hours more—as ground features diminished and lost themselves beneath clouds and haze. And then, gradually, and at the speed of their ascent, murky light faded to eye searing brilliance. The moons—both of them—loomed above, while below, the ubiquitous clouds—bathed in sunlight—loomed like troubled, restless mountains. *** As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting.