Silent Dances (35 page)

come back in a few days
an
d have some more."

"Maybe
,"
Tesa agreed
. "
Maybe Black Feather will be back
171

then."
Maybe next time you'll come by yourself,
she thought with a pang. She stood
in one
smooth motion and hoisted the bags onto the sled, securing

them with a restraining shield. "I could carry one," Sailor assured her.

"Why bother? The sled can hold them."

"Are these all for us?"

"They're for Relaxed, First-One-There, and our friends in the sky shelter."

Sailor had stiffened in response to Thorn's name-sign, jerking his head up,

since he still didn't have an unfeathered crown to display
his emotions
.

Like Tal er, he was jealous of Thorn.

"Besides," she told him, ignoring his reaction, "if you ate them all, you'd just get sick." She climbed onto the sled and sat cross-legged, knowing the flight

back with a chick stuffed full of food would be a slow, easy one.

As they lifted off, Tesa thought of Thorn--things had never been the same

between them since that last shuttle trip. Whenever he visited her, Sailor

always seemed to be there between them. Tesa had almost been glad of

that, since she was so torn about her suspicions. However, except for that

one vague computer message, Thorn had done nothing to arouse suspicion.

But the damage had been done. Tesa couldn't trust Thorn. Even if there was

no connection between him and the privateers--a concept too horrible for her

to accept--there was still a side to him he kept carefully guarded.

She dismissed her troublesome thoughts. It wasn't smart to get distracted

while flying.

As they leveled off, she looked back at the forest, hoping she might glimpse

her study nest. A dark blot in the north sky caught her attention. She stared,

but the objects were too far away to be clearly seen. Tesa punched up the

long-distance
scanner.

The readout chilled her. Six Aquila were steadily closing in on them. She

looked at the screen, sickened. Even if they increased their speed, they'd be

overtaken in minutes.

What the hell are
they
doing here? Thorn
wondered as he peered through

the high-powered binoculars across the wide expanse of river that separated

him from Tesa and Sailor. The two had just landed--probably looking for

Black Feather's flock. Bruce had said that the southern spawning had been

172

especially rich this year, but even so, Thorn thought the flock
should
've

been back by now.

The touch of a human hand on his shoulder
startled him so much that
he

rolled and came up on his feet poised defensively. "Easy there, old friend,"

Peter said amiably.

"You scared
the shit out
of me," Thorn grumbled.

"I've been watching you, peeping Thorn," the dark man said teasingly.

"When are you going to stop spying on that woman? You'd have to grow

feathers to get her attention. Give me those." He focused the field glasses

across the river. "Well, they're taking off. Let's take cover, just to be safe.

They're heading west, so they'll be out of sight soon."

The two men moved away from the river's edge until they were hidden within

a copse of dense shrubbery.

"So tell me what's so important," Thorn asked, watching the two leave, "that I had to leave camp at a moment's notice?" Peter looked at him knowingly.

"Couple of things. We just got the word--the Grus have their official status."

Thorn was surprised. "Well, that's great, but won't that be announced to

everyone?"

Peter nodded. "But I wanted to discuss something with you, privately. Earth's

First Contact claim is jeopardized." Thorn's eyes widened in
alarm
. "How?

Why?"

"The Simiu claim they have proof that
all
the privateers and
all
the purchasers of the skins are Terran," Peter explained. "They say Earth has

murdered the Grus for profit, and thus should not get
any
credit for First

Contact. They also presented evidence that there's been a link between the

crew of the
Singing Crane
and the privateers since the beginning."

"What kind of evidence?" Thorn asked quietly. "Computer dumps,

transmissions, stuff like that."

Thorn paused, his mind racing. "But how could they get them? Those things

are coded ... classified!"

"You know how. Someone passed them on, to make sure that we'd look as

bad as possible."

Thorn looked at Peter. "So, who's the Judas?" They had been arguing about

this since before Scott had been killed. "You've been working on this for

months, don't you have any answers?"

"Me?" Peter flared angrily. "Who almost blew everything a few months ago on the
Crane,
right in front of Tesa? Suppose that had been Bruce peering

over your shoulder?" Peter shook

173

his head and held up a hand. "Hey, we can't afford this, Thorn. We've got to

work together, figure out what we can do."

The blond man nodded. It was just the two of them, after
all.

Thorn had been the special wildlife investigator who had first spotted an

illegal Grus skin during an unusually thorough customs check at the Luna

importing base. Peter, his partner for several years, had broken the code on

its counterfeit data-card erroneously identifying the skin as a genetic

reconstruction. Thorn was a wel -trained biologist and experienced

investigator who recognized that even the best reconstructions didn't have

the look, the feel, of that skin. It had been a satisfying case, but neither of

them had expected it to lead to this job.

While they were being recruited, the two officers had asked why the entire

founding party, Meg, Scott, Lauren, and Bruce, couldn't be replaced, since

there were fears even then that there was a hidden connection between the

original exploration team and the Grus skins. There was no tangible

evidence, they were told, and Jamestown Founders would scream that the

crew's removal would endanger their claim if the First Contact were denied.

Thorn gazed at their unspoiled surroundings. "When we got here we said,

`Hey, we're
up against
amateurs. We've got superior technology. We've got

training. We'll clean this up in two months and be home for Christmas.' That

was two years ago, and we haven't even ID'd the conspirator."

"Hey, we've had a pronounced effect on Grus survival," Peter said

defensively. "The attacks had been escalating when we arrived, but things

slowed to a crawl by the time Tesa got here, and no skins have been taken

since then."

"And the attack on the escort flock?" Thorn asked.

Peter shook his head. "I can't find any link between those sorry buzzards

and whoever'
s skinning
the Grus."

Thorn had been screening
transmissions
, the strobing, condensed

computer talk the orbiting robots traded with the
Singing Crane,
trying to find a correlation between those, missing Grus, and Aquila attacks. There was

only the vaguest of patterns. Someone was being very careful.

Peter let out his breath. "And I still can't prove any connection between the

Crane
crew and the privateers."

Thorn shook his head. He was convinced there was a traitor, and that it had

to be Bruce. The weatherman's bitterness over

174

the potential fortune he'd lost was common knowledge. Thorn knew he was

prejudiced. He didn'
t like Bruce
,
and he couldn't imagine Lauren being

clever enough to maintain a relationship with Peter while hiding

something so monstrous
.
Dr. Li was too bureaucratic
-
or was that the
perfect cover?

"If there is a Judas," Peter continued, "
they've put codes so deep inside
the system that their partners can bleed off all our communications

without leaving a trace."

"Well," Thorn asked, irritated, "
what
do
you know? You didn'
t call me over
here just to hash over old news."

"The pri
vateers are holding on to the Grus skins
-
I think they're

stockpiling them on Trinity. Nothing's passed into or out of Sorrow

Sector in months. Of course, that's just driving
up the price. I do know the

privateers here have only got one ship, which makes it easy for them to stay

out of range. Right now they could be doing anything from hiding on the dark

side
of a moon to camping out in a rain forest. But my big news is this-

these privateers
,
who
are
all Terran,
have been totally financed and
outfitted by the Simiu-the H
ar
kk'ett clan."

Thorn recognized the name of that old and politically wellplaced Simiu

family-it was the clan that had been shamed fifteen year
s before by the

suicide of a youngster named Khrekk
'
du
ri
ng the First Contact

between the Simiu and the humans. It was
hard for Thorn
to understand

how, so many years later, that perceived shame could still be so raw to

that clan, but the bitte
rn
ess of dishonor was, for the Simiu
,
strong
motivation.

"When I found out about the Simiu involvement,"
Peter said
,
conce
rn
ed
, "

it gave me a really bad feeling
.
That family doesn
'
t c
ar
e about those
skins, or even about the Grus.
They're
t
ry
ing to satisfy some twisted
notion of honor
,
so they'll do whatever it takes to foul Earth up."

"Like what?"

"
If humans kill Taller and Sailor
,
it's all over for us here. The Grus won't
allow us to stay."

"
Which will leave them totally unprotected
," Thorn
said.
"And by
the
time the
CLS can
send help--"

"There wouldn't be anything left to protect."
Peter's face was drawn
. "

Besides, the p
ri
vateers don't give a damn about Simiu honor
,
they're
just in it for the money
.
They could see this as their last chance to take

every skin
they can get their hands on." He stopped
,
collecting his

thoughts. "I've sent all

175

this information
to Earth. I've told them we're still working
on it
,
but ... I
've recommended ...
that the
CLS intervene now, before it's too late. Of course,

it'll have to go through
channels
first, and then there's travel time. They can't possibly
get here
before two months, at the
earliest
. That's probably going to be too late."

"So what do we do in the
meantime
?" Thorn asked.

"I still have a few tricks up my sleeve," Peter said. "Have you got your Mizari voder?"

Thorn pulled
it out
of his pocket. The advanced
instruments
had only

arrived two months ago, and by then they were no longer needed to

establish the Grus' intelligence. Thorn and Meg were using them now to

document differences in the
translation
programs between the Terran and

the Mizari voders. But Thorn and Peter had spent enough time working with

the simple-seeming devices to appreciate their capabilities. Peter said he

was sure someone had deliberately sabotaged the previous delivery, to

keep these sophisticated computers out of the crew's hands.

"I've spent a lot of time working on these babies," Peter told Thorn, staring at his with unconcealed admiration. "Talk about
power!
You can even

communicate with
satellites
using them. Pull in transmissions from ships in

the outer atmosphere and get their coordinates."

Thorn looked suitably impressed. "You think we can locate the privateers'

ship with it? Just from their transmissions?"

"I can't find any way to effectively block it, Peter told

him, "however, when you ask it to trace a transmission to its source, you'll tip

your hat to whoever's transmitting."

"Oh, that's a real advantage." Thorn rolled his eyes. "That's like a

telecommunication tap that beeps!"

Peter pulled a tiny memory card from his pocket and waved it at Thorn.

"That's why I created this little work of art. This program allows you to trace a

transmission without tipping your hand." He gave Thorn the card. "It can be

tricky to
install
, but I can talk you through it. With me listening on the
Crane,
and you down here, we might be able to pick up dialogue between the

privateers and their contact on the
Crane."

Thorn pocketed the program. "Then maybe I can go calling on those

bastards when they aren't expecting me."

Peter shook his head. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be too eager about that if I were

you. They're not hampered by First Contact

176

restrictions the way we are. No doubt they're armed."

Ever since the
Desiree
incident, when the presence of a single weapon