Cloud Permutations by Lavie Tidhar Page A

listen to the thunder rumble to
    Infinity like the sound of an alien surf.
     
    That was the sound Kal heard that night, in what he thought of, perhaps, as the opening chapter of his final journey to the tower: the sound of an alien surf, crashing against an alien shore—though of course, his entire life had been the journey to the tower, and the world was not, to him, alien, but merely home.
    Heven was a world of islands and sea. The settlers had planted coconuts, peanuts, yam, pineapple, coffee. They put fish of their own (only slightly modified for local conditions) into the sea, including whitebait, tuna, cod, even the type they call in Bislama tiklip, or thick-lips, for the rather surprised expression on its face when caught (and, of course, for its lips). They put lobster and prawns, or solwota and freswota Naura , respectively into the sea and rivers. Having found an Earth-like world, they had no need to terraform it, but every need to domesticate it, which is the same thing as cutting down the bush that chokes the shore in order to build a house.
    But the bush is always there. The line that separates house from bush is the line between what we once called civilization, and that which is primal, and regards humanity as merely a transitory and self-deluded—though rather pretty—butterfly, and for which civilization is simply an intrusion and an interlude.
    But Kal wasn’t thinking of any of this. Kal, at this, the third or fourth night (the ship’s log we have is incomplete) of his final journey to the tower, was lying on the beach, and all he heard was the surf, and the wind picking at the trees like a satisfied diner, and to be honest his thoughts were occupied less with philosophical musings and more with the smell of frying fish that was coming from a small fire burning, rather cheerfully, a little further up the beach.
    The island was called Hiu. It was a small island at the end of the horseshoe-shaped group they called the Tusk. The frying fish was a Papillion, of good Earth-stock, and the person frying it was Bani.
    Kal was listening to the surf. The skies above were clear, for once, of clouds. The sun was setting on the horizon, behind the small ship named after the act.
    The Sanigodaon rocked smoothly in the small bay. The sea was smooth, the colour of liquid silver: a mirror without reflection. Captain Desmon’s head was just visible over its side: he was lying in a hammock, apparently asleep.
    Kal reached for the coconut that sat beside him on the sand. He pulled out his knife and punched a hole in the soft area in the pinnacle. A small geyser of slightly-warm drink spouted out, and he lifted the shell to his mouth.
    As always when he did (for he was not used to alcohol) Kal sputtered for a moment as the drink went down. A long time before, back on the islands of old Earth, the people of Vanuatu made a drink they called dry-palm , which is the Bislama word for yeast. They took out the contents of coconuts and fermented them, with sugar and yeast, and produced a potent, sometimes lethal, drink. Later—perhaps in their time in the asteroid belt, perhaps on the Hilda Lini as it threaded its silent way between the stars—perhaps even on Heven itself, for there is no record of the exact people who first did it—the genetic recipe of the coconut tree was modified, edited, and combined. The result was—
    ‘This stuff tastes like shit!’ Kal yelled, turning his head towards the fire. Bani, standing there with tongs and a grin, nodded his head. ‘Potent stuff,’ he said approvingly. ‘But it gets you high.’
    The alien Other had taken them to the edge of the bubble of strange sea that he lived in. They had emerged from the hatch into water, blue and cold and hard, the kind you couldn’t breathe, and swam to the surface, watching the other sea just below them, its light dimming and growing as if subject to a different kind of tide.
    When they had broken surface and drew in gulps of air they found