Groundlings

Months passed. The day of descent was upon Sequoia. And it dawned like any other day, slow and quiet and utterly unrelenting. Cate had gotten up early, made the last of her personal preparations, and headed out to oversee the operations by the groundguards’ ladder. There were some idle explorers that had gathered already. Most of them stood either by themselves, no doubt lost in final reflections before their lives would change forever, but a few stood grouped together talking quietly.
Doctor Rebecca arrived, her daughter Casey in tow. The girl was twelve years old, carrying a backpack that must’ve weighed at least half as much as she did. Cate could sympathize with that, most of them would spend this trek carrying all they owned on their backs.
There were supply carts, of course. They’d been built specifically for this purpose, one of the many reasons preparation for the journey had taken so long. There were seven large ones that would take two people to pull. Most civilians were signed up for pulling duty here since they had little else to do until they arrived at their destination. The carts, as well as two smaller ones to carry the sick and injured if it came to it, had been carefully lowered to the ground using a convoluted system of platforms, ropes, and pulleys. Groundguards and scouts alike were climbing up and down the ladders, loading the carts with supplies while others still loaded larger items like crates on to the rope elevator.
It was, so far, going far better than Cate had expected. She greeted Rebecca and Casey, exchanging a few hushed words with the former. As more and more people gathered, Cate decided it was time to pull out the roster and start signing people in. She expected some to be late, to arrive during the governor’s speech, and she would not be scrambling to get everyone in line by that point.
No, this was the first expedition of its kind. They had to set the bar, and Cate would be damned if she was forced to drop the bar at her feet in the dust and leave it there. They were making history. They were important. And they were going to behave like it or so help her.
The hours stretched on in a pleasant chaos, the din of people arriving mixed with the calls of the workers handling the rope elevator made for a surprisingly pleasant and invigorating atmosphere. If only it could always be like this.
Cate loved it. She was still swamped with work to do, things to oversee, people to keep track of, but for once she felt truly as if she were part of something big. It was all she had ever wanted out of her life. Pride swelled in her breast as she flipped through the papers on her clipboard, making notes here, checking lists off there. All her hard work thus far was finally paying off, and gloriously so.
It was a little past noon by the time all the preparations were finished. Cate was mentally exhausted and exhausted already, but she had taken her place in the lineup. A small podium had been erected so that the governor could give a speech as the explorers ate their last meal at home.
There were so many people here. Sequoia was home to almost five thousand, all cramped together in their little treehouses. A good fifth of that was gathered here, not including the six hundred explorers. Family and friends that were staying behind constituted a large number of the spectators, but there were some who had no ties to the project at all.
Cate stood half listening to Governor Powell speak, watching the crowd and eating her bird wrap in a proud satisfaction. This was bigger than she had ever thought it could be. She had done her job well, securing supplies that had been beyond her reach. Those sleepless nights at her desk, those early mornings arguing relentlessly with the governor herself, those times where she had despaired and told herself to give up, it was impossible, all paid off now in this one moment.
She had never felt better in her life.
Another half hour and the speech concluded. Goodbyes were said with tears in the eyes of hundreds, and eventually the watching crowd dispersed. It was time to get down to business. Cate herself, being on the organization board for the journey and playing a key role in its operation, was honored with a small wooden medal, then ushered onto the elevator platform. It swung precariously in the air as the rest of the board gathered around her, some holding on to the ropes on the side for balance.
They stood there for a moment in charged silence, then the operators of the lift scurried to their places, signaled, and the platform lurched into movement. Cate’s heart pounded in her chest. She hadn’t thought to grab the ropes like the others had, and the second the platform moved her hand darted out to take hold. Even with that small anchor, the ride down was rough and slow.
But god, what a view. The further down they went, the clearer Cate’s image got. She was able to pick out little rocks in the dirt, footprints from the morning’s work, scattered leaves, twigs, patches of grass. It was incredible. The dirt itself was incredible. She’d touched it before-- the farmers and florists of the top tier in the city needed it to sustain their shops, but seeing so much of it in one place was just… So different. And she was going to stand on it! And walk on it, and sleep on it, and dig into it and get her hands dirty.
It was a dream come true.
Up and to her left, a groundguard’s ladder was being prepared to move people down one by one while the elevator worked in batches. The ladder was not yet occupied, likely to be ceremonial and let the leaders of the trek be the first to land.
The first non-groundguard feet to touch the ground in decades. Cate thought she must be grinning insufferably wide, for her cohorts shot her a few glances. As the elevator lowered steadily and slowly, Rebecca cleared her throat. Cate shot her a glance, as did Anastasia. Clark made a face that acknowledged he’d heard her, but he was too busy staring at the ever-closer forest floor to tear his eyes away.
“I’ve been thinking,” Rebecca said. “Which one of us should be the first to get off the platform?”
“Does it matter?” Anastasia asked.
Rebecca shrugged. “Theoretically not,” she said. “But when will we ever get this kind of honor again? I want it to go to the right person.”
Clark nodded his agreement. “Yeah,” he added.
“I’m guessing you’re already thinking of someone,” Anastasia prodded.
Rebecca smiled. “I sure do,” she said. That was it.
“Well, don’t keep us waiting in suspense,” said Clark, finally allowing himself to concentrate on the conversation.
“Cate,” Rebecca said firmly.
It startled Cate. “What? Me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Rebecca confirmed. “You pulled a lot of strings for all of us.”
Anastasia frowned. “She didn’t pull any strings for me,” she said.
“That’s because you didn’t need any strings pulled,” Cate shot back. Rebecca was right. She’d organized this whole thing. It was her right to take that honored first step. “Much of your equipment is basic stuff people already have. You don’t need a lot of fancy stuff, unlike the medical team.”
Apparently it was chastisement enough, as Anastasia withdrew and nodded her consent.
“Clark?” Rebecca asked.
“I agree. The little lady did a lotta work,” he said slowly.
The ground loomed in front of them.
Cate McCarthy, first Sequoia civilian to set foot on dirt. Her heart raced. What if she tripped? What if she made an ass of herself? No. No time to think about it now. Her grip on the rope was tight and white knuckled. She would do this.
Hell. She would be hailed as a hero for this for generations to come. It hit her like a ton of bricks, and she leaned over, thinking for a moment that she would retch. But she straightened back up and shook her hair out of her face. They wanted a hero? Fine. She’d give them a damn hero.
The lift platform stopped with a gentle thud as it hit the ground. This was it. Cate stepped gingerly up to the edge of the platform and looked back at her companions. Rebecca smiled at her, and Clark nudged her shoulder. She took a deep breath.
And then she stepped off the edge, her feet sinking a fraction of an inch into the spongy dirt below. For a moment she panicked, believing she would sink further. But the stuff held, her weight compressing it enough to stand solid under her foot. She took another step further, and the same thing happened again. Another two steps. Another.
Then Cate turned around facing the others and threw her hands above her head, grinning like a child. She’d done it. The others poured off the platform and surrounded her, Clark calling up the signal that the lift was clear. It lurched back into upwards motion a moment later, leaving them alone with the packed supply carts.
On the soft and deadly ground.
History was happening on this day, and it was only a little past two in the afternoon. They were certainly doing very well on time.