The Cliffs

If you quizzed any foreigner or world traveler on Cape Suzette, chances are good that their immediate response will not be about the great commercial and cultural metropolis it is; rather, their first recollection — and by far the impression that is strongest anywhere — tends to be the famous cliffs of Cape Suzette harbor.

Contemporary scholars consider the Cape Suzette cliffs a natural wonder of the world. Their pronouncement is hardly overstated; no other discovered land formation outmatches the titantic rock walls in scale, mass, and sheer grandeur. Sailors and pilots spot the cliffs across the ocean while they are yet miles away, guided at night toward the harbor by searchlight beams peeking over the cliff's edge. The same immense walls that guide voyagers and awe onlookers also bode trouble for Air Pirates, who face the fury of anti-pirate artillery — the Cape Suzette cliff guns — mounted atop a solid stone curtain that shields the seaport from plunderers.

From either side, the Cape Suzette cliffs are postcard-perfect, set in stunning relief by light and shadow. The picture changes hourly as the sun plays across cracks, crevices, and outcroppings in the textured surface. Sunlight drastically alters the cliffs' color also; depending on season, weather, and time of day, the rock face may appear to be a bright, mid-morning pale or a dull, storm-cloud gray, tinged with pinks and purples at sunrise, deepening to orange hue at afternoon and sunset. Various artistic renderings of the cliff range exaggerate this phenomenon, usually to excess.

Not to be overlooked among the cliffs' qualities are its benefits to the seaport community of Cape Suzette. By blocking ocean currents, tidal changes, and strong winds, Cape Suzette's cliffs preserve the conditions in the bay that are ideal for sheltering ships. Pleasantly warm waters in the bay nurture an abundance of fish and underwater creatures, separated from large predators by a tremendous net across the channel's mouth.

Since the harbor's discovery and Cape Suzette's founding, the city has grown so that the cliffs have been deemed a habitable region. Originally it was the sole province of seabirds and bearded goats — now these animals share the cliffs with folks who make their homes here, far from the mainland. The allure of experiencing Cape Suzette from a reverse vantage point has led many to live in the agrarian village belt atop the cliffs, or in shacks and bungalows perched on the precipices of its side walls. This lifestyle was first taken up by the crewmen of the Cape Suzette cannons, who gradually introduced elevators, phone service, and other conveniences to a place where they would be least expected.

Right: A bizarre sight on a cliff ledge.

For more than 50 years, Cape Suzette's guns have stood watch over the harbor city from posts on the cliffside. Military strategists foresaw that foreign powers and pirate bands, enticed by the goods flowing into and out of the growing port, might go after commercial shipping in the vicinity or invade the town itself. There was no better place for naval cannons than the Cape Suzette cliffs, where guns could be brought to bear on targets in open water miles from shore. The Great War precipitated the switch to anti-aircraft artillery, necessary to drive off airborne attackers that would surely threaten Usland's largest seaport. Today's gunners command the respect of their fellow citizens and dash the hopes of frustrated Air Pirates.

(For more details, please see Defenses in the "Cape Suzette" main section.)

DELIVERY RAMP

The pecularities of life on the cliffside, for the Cape Suzette gun crews, provoke imaginative solutions to the most basic problems — such as how gunners on the outer face get resupplied. What decades ago was a torturous process of schlepping supplies by elevator and rope basket can now be accomplished, in under a minute, by a pilot with nerves of steel and a sturdy airplane.

With the apparent complicity of the Aviation Board, industrious cliff gun operators have put together a twisting, bumpy rollercoaster ride of a delivery ramp on the sidewall facing the sea. Some amazing piloting can get an aircraft to the end of this slapdash runway (with minimal damage) to drop off lunch at daily "feeding times." City authorities take bids for this work from catering companies; hungry crewmen receive lunch baskets, some of which they catapult across the cliff opening to their comrades on the opposite side.

Pilots had better buckle up; they are in for a jarring ride on this wild runway. After making their deliveries, flyers wheel their planes onto a steep exit ramp for fast departure.