Silent Dances (15 page)

nearby
,
scattering and smashing dozens of a
rt
ifacts in a rain of

destruction.

When Taller had steadied himself,
he folded his wings and fluffed his

feathers out as his crown expanded
,
fla
ri
ng a b
ri
lliant red. Fragments
of feather fluff drifted gently to the floor. A final plume
-
settling shake
re
stored his dignity.

And I thought I was clumsy,
Tesa thought
,
appalled at the devastation
the avian had wrought.
He must be so embarrassed.
"
You surp
ri
sed me,
Good Eyes
,"
Taller signed simply. She nodded and signed back
, "
We
surp
ri
sed each other." He fixed her with a large golden eye. "That is a
most unusual

decoration on your head. Doesn'
t it hu
rt
your neck?"

She'd forgotten all about the turban,
and felt a stab of guilt when she

realized it was no doubt the cause of his alarm. She removed it slowly

and explained its purpose.

Taller tucked his neck in a tight S curv
e, gracefully easing onto his hocks

so that he appeared to be kneeling, only backward
.
He touched the

quilt
. "
Is this yours?"

"Yes," Tesa signed. "
My grandmother made it for me."

"How did she make it?"

"
By piecing together scraps of old cloth
,"
Tesa explained. "She made
this from
old scraps
?"
He gave her one of those piercing stares. "Do
you value this?"

"It was given to me the day I was born. I'
ll be bu
ri
ed in it when I die. It's a
pa
rt
of me."

His head and neck shot up straight,
but then scrunched back into an S
as

he tu
rn
ed his head to view the ceiling with one cautious eye. "This is a
beautiful thing, Good Eyes. When you come to live with us in the

shelter
,
you'll b
ri
ng it?"

"
If I may," Tesa signed.

"Please.
Weaver will love this. I came to ask if you'd see

72

the egg today.
The chick is talking
.
He'll be out soon." Tesa feared that
her mo
rn
ing ritual of coffee and breakfast was probably disrupted

forever, but if she had to don stilts and wade through the marsh without

even a snack she would expire
.
Before she could respond to Taller
'
s
c
ry
ptic request, the avi
an
tu
rn
ed his head toward the front door
.
Meg
had entered
,
but Tesa felt a touch of disappointment that Taller would

break eye contact with her over a sound
,
like any hearing Terran.

"So, can you come?"
he signed
,
even though his head was tu
rn
ed
completely around.

How weird!
Tesa thought,
realizing he could still see her. "I hope you
weren
'
t sta
rt
led by your wake-up caller," Meg signed before Tesa
could answer the avi
an
.

"
No mo
re
than he was," Tesa told her.

Meg glanced at the debri
s-littered floor as Taller casually
re
arranged a

few feathers
. "
So I see. We'll pick it up later. Breakfast is
re
ady, and so
is the coffee."

Tesa wanted to cheer.

Thorn was pouri
ng black, steaming liquid into a mug when the three

stepped outside
. "
Coffee's only decent when it's made outdoors
,"
he
signed.

Tesa nodded,
t
ry
ing not to feel self-conscious as Taller pee
re
d over
her shoulder into the cup Thorn handed her. She gazed at the vividly

colored sky and the lacy clouds that skittered across it. Three Grus

were nearby
,
probing the ground.

"
Take a look at breakfast
," Thorn
suggested.

He ushered her to a mossy spot under an aged tree whose bri
ght yellow

leaves overhung the ground the way weeping willows did. Orange and

red woven mats were heaped with organic matter laid out on the blue

and gray
,
moss-covered ground.

That'
s breakfast
?
Tesa wondered
.
The fruit the Grus called round
-
red
fruit was the
re,
as were other appetizing-looking things, but some

things looked decidedly unappealing. Like the round
,
wet, dark brown

thing the size of a fist, with appendages like
an
anemone
'
s, that beg
an
to slowly roll away.

"Have a seat," Meg signed,
casually moving the brown thing back to

where it
'
d been. "The G
ru
s collected this for us, since you needed a
crash course in foraging. You'll have

73

SILENT DANCES 73 to feed yourself
and
the chick when you live in the

nest shelter."

When Tesa folded her legs, Taller did too, hock-sitting near her. The

anemone thing began to roll away again.
Tesa realized it wasn
'
t just

rolling,
it was moving under its own power-it was
crawling
.
Taller grabbed
it gently with his bill and retu
rn
ed it to its place.

I've seen that thing before,
Tesa thought.
It was in Scott's
notes
...
The
sticker-ball again attempted its futile escape.
"That'
s an edible water
plant
,"
she signed
, "
àtraveling thornfruit
.'
Whenever it's on land, it
migrates toward water."

Taller
snatched the rolling plant and swallowed
it. With
morbid

fascination
,
Tesa watched its outline travel slowly down the length of

his throat.

"I'm so hungry
," she added
, "
it almost looked good to me!"

Meg tossed her a long, yellow tuber. "Try this."

Tesa pulled out her Swiss Army knife, scraped the tuber
clean
,
and bit into

it. Chewing, she signed
, "
This must bèhea
rt-berry root.'
It's sweet and
crunchy and has edible flowers that produce a red ber
ry
with medicinal

prope
rt
ies. But the tuber pa
rt
is best
."
She was grateful that sign
language allowed' her to talk with her mouth full.

Breakfast continued until Tesa had sampled every
thing. The others

helped her demolish a heaping mound of large, shelled bivalves that

were better than oysters.

"I'll never eat again,"
Tesa complained, patting her stomach as she

glanced at the pile of shells and pl
an
t
re
mnants.

"You said that last night,
after dinner," Thorn reminded her.

"I'm disappointed,"
Meg signed
, "
no pearls."

Tesa sat back,
relishing a sense of belonging that had crept over her as

she remembe
re
d the information she'd studied from Scott
'
s notes.

She w
an
ted more than
an
ything to show eve
ry
one, especially Taller
,
that she was
ri
ght for this job.

The three Grus still wan
de
ri
ng around the campsite had found

something and were playing toss with it
.
Tesa decided they must be

young birds, since one still had some cinnamon-colored feathers

around his head. Bouncing on their t
oe
s, they flung the object into the

air
,
then leaped after it, kicking.

Suddenly the battered thing lan
ded in Tesa
'
s lap
an
d she jumped
.
It
was cold and clammy
-
some kind of dead
an
imal,

74

amphibian
maybe.
I've seen this in the notes, too,
Tesa thought.

The young Grus lowered their heads as Taller glared at them.

"It's okay, they didn'
t mean it
," Tesa signed. She turned
the animal
over gingerly, trying to remember what it was. "This is a 'circle-swimmer,'" Tesa

signed, recognizing it, finally. "They're inedible for Terrans, but the Grus can

eat ..." No, that wasn't it. She glanced at Meg and Thorn and suddenly

realized something was wrong. They were staring at the thing, shocked.

Taller peered pointedly at the dead creature, then turned away to rub his

face along his back., Tesa didn't
miss
the significance of his expanding,

glowing crown.

What is it?
Tesa thought frantically, glancing at the pitiful corpse.
Why is
everyone upset?
Finally, she noticed its wound-a deep puncture wound

caused by a curved talon.

Then she remembered. The circle-swimmer was one of the Aquila's favorite

foods, and the only way the damned thing could've gotten here was if the

Aquila she'd seen yesterday had dropped it. Would Meg realize she'd lied?

Tesa glanced at her, but the older woman didn't meet her eyes. Thorn,

however, did.

"Well, the name's right, Tesa," Thorn signed, holding her eyes steadily, "but the circle-swimmer isn't native to this area.
He must
've been dropped by a

passing Night Flyer."

The biologist was trying to bail her out, but Tesa had the uncomfortable

feeling that he had caught her
in her lie.
"You're probably right about the Night Flyer," Meg agreed.

"You said a pair has passed over almost every day ..." Taller stopped

washing his face and fixed Thorn and Meg with a stare, pointedly ignoring

Tesa. All of his feathers slowly stood straight out. "The Night Flyers

occasionally eat waterdwellers," he agreed, "but they prefer warm-blooded

beings like the rousette. Both of you know that." He turned a fierce, one-eyed

stare on Tesa. "Only Death prefers the circle-swimmers."

He looked at Tesa full-faced, but she did not yield to the
impulse
to scoot

away from the point of his bill.

"You will learn," Taller
signed
, "as Puff did, that we never speak of Death.

The truth is that Death will eat
anything
that lives. You'd be foolish to think they'd hesitate to taste the flesh of a human being."

75

Glancing at the submissive posture of the young Grus, Tesa

dro
pped her head
,
copying them
. "
I know you
'
re telling me this to
teach me how to live in your world, Taller
.
I won't forget."

Graciously the Grus settled his feathers,
pulled in his crown, and cast a

covetous eye on the coffee in the bo
tt
om of Tesa's cup. "Could I taste
that
?"
he signed.

Tesa dribbled the cold dregs into a saucer, and the avian scooped some

liquid into his long bill. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head

violently, spraying coffee every
where. "That
'
s hor
ri
ble
!"
Taller signed
,

"
but ... better than yesterday."

"
Taller has a love
/
hate relationship with coffee," Meg told Tesa
,
wiping spatters off. The older woman seemed relieved that the tense

moment had passed
.
Tesa was glad, too, but she found herself

avoiding Th
orn's
intent gaze.

A vee of white flashed low overhead.
Ten members of Taller's flock were

winging through the air, pumping their wings hard
,
calling
.
Tesa felt a
shiver of vibration
.
Taller leaped to his feet and threw his head back.

The force of his call
ro
cked Tesa
,
raising the hairs of her body like
pathetic vestigial feathers. Wincing
, Thorn
touched his ears, adjusting

his nullifiers. The three Grus youngsters took off
,
winging hard to

catch the group climbing into the sky.

Thorn gestured at Meg. "
They must be after the shuttle." Tesa shaded

her eyes and finally saw the
Patuxent's
twin, the
Baraboo
,
high in the
atmosphere
,
banking with graceful ease
.
The Grus spiraled higher
,
until they looked like a handful of snowflakes caught in a whirlwind
.

Tesa was th
ri
lled with the beauty of their flight
,
until she realized they
would intersect the trajecto
ry
of the incoming shuttle. As the
Baraboo
angled in, the Grus veered closer.

Meg and Thorn were shading their eyes,
watching
,
and Taller had his

head cocked
,
one eye pee
ri
ng skyw
ar
d
.
Tesa wonde
re
d uneasily
why the flock would get so close. The flyers began weaving