Silent Dances (42 page)

205

uselessly
,
both feet curled around small pieces of wood, but even so
,

the young talons were sharp
.
His down was a soft gray
-
white, but

dark feathers were starting to push their way out.

Cautiously Tesa re
moved the sock hood
.
The avian's eyes we
re
still

brown
,
as they'd been when the c
re
atu
re
hatched, but now flecks of
re
d showed th
ro
ugh, like slivers of rubies.

A female,
Tesa thought
,
pleased
.
The females were the dominant sex
among the Aquila and we
re
larger than the males. Then Sailor asked

the question that jarred Tesa out of her p
ri
vate
re
ve
ri
e
: "
A
re
you
going to kill it now?"

Tesa looked at him darkly,
t
ry
ing unsuccessfully to bank her anger
.
If
she loved the Grus, if she conside
re
d herself one of them
,
killing the
Aquila was only logical
.
Eve
ry
one that lived to adulthood would

someday take a Grus
'
life in order to sustain its own
.
But she was
a
heyoka
now.
She would never again do what was expected of her.

"No," she signed, "
I'm
not
going to kill her!"

Sailor seemed to deflate a litt
le then, and signed
, "Oh, good.
I've had my
fill of pain and death
.
What
will
you do?" Good question.
She'd never find
the mother
,
and Tesa was
afraid to re
tu
rn
to the humans
'
base. She
didn
'
t know who she could trust
.
The p
ri
vateers or their
Crane
conspirators might kill her before she could tell what she knew.
Her quilt

and her shi
rt
pinned under the t
re
e would convince the others she'd
been crushed in her sweat lodge when the limb fell
. They'd
think the

sled had been destroyed with her, since she'd promised to keep it

nearby
.
Pretending to be dead
,
she thought with grim irony
,
had to be
one of the g
re
atest contra
ry
acts of all time.

She looked at the cumbersome,
half-grown Aquila chick sitting

awkwardly on the ground
,
staring app
re
hensively at her two strange

captors
.
Tesa clearly
re
membe
re
d her dream whe
re
Sailor had
shown her a bundle of feathered cloth and signed, "This is the

answer
."
Inside the bundle had been an ang
ry
Wakinyan-a

thunderbird.

Are you the answer?
she asked the chick in her mind. "You've got
expe
ri
ence with raptors
,"
Dr. Rob had said. "You could tame one, like the old
falconers did."

She turn
ed to Sailor
,
a being she had sworn to love and protect
.
Then
she looked at the Aquila she could not bear to see die
.
She wondered

if, when the chick opened her beak, she was c
ry
ing for her parents.

206

I still can't hear you, little thunderbird, Tesa thought,
... but I could if you used
sign language.

A great calm suddenly settled over her. "We're leaving here," she told Sailor matter-of-factly.

"Will you put that garment back on its head before we leave?" he asked

curiously.

"We're
leaving," she repeated. "Thunder is coming with us.

Sailor's feathers stood straight out. "Thunder? Death's child? Are you

joking?"

"I'm not. You're on your flyaway. You have to learn things to help yourself

and your people. You and I are going to learn to communicate with your old

enemy. If we can talk with her, we can negotiate a compromise, just as your

grandfather did with the Blue Cloud people. What would your people think, if

you could convince Death to stop eating them?"

Sailor said nothing, so Tesa began loading sticks from the nest onto the

sled. The chick needed to cling to them to help shape her feet until her soft

bones stopped growing. The Travellers would tell them a route west, where

a good hiding place lay-far from here, where they could raise Thunder.

After hooding the chick again, Tesa carefully lifted the avian onto the sled,

placing her in the miniature nest. The chick was shivering, so she took a

feather cloak from the back of the sled and covered her with it. Her dream

image came back strongly. This was right.

Finally, when she was ready to go, Sailor signed, "What will you do if we

fail?"

"You mean, if we can't teach her sign language?"

"Yes. If my people are right, and Death is nothing but a conscienceless

predator, what wil you do?"

Tesa looked at him steadily, so he could test her if he wanted. "If we fail, I

promise you, I'll kill her myself."

"Fair enough," the Grus youngster agreed.

Tesa settled herself on the sled, and the strange trio lifted off the ground,

flying through the dark cover of forest to find refuge somewhere on the

World.

207

it'll be just like a pair project,
Tesa told herself, thinking of the team-work exercise developed at StarBridge.
Except there'll be three of us.

They were four days into their journey, and a thousand miles from home

when they found the old volcano the Travellers had told them about. It had

blown its top ten thousand years before and collapsed, creating a bowl-

shaped caldera. They crested its rim, stopping to catch their breath in the

high altitude, and looked into the enclosed ecosystem that was about to

become their home.

The walls of the volcano towered thousands of feet over the shores of its

crystalline blue lake. The Travellers assured them they had stocked it well.

Stands of stately autumn-colored conifers formed dense patches of aged

forest that climbed the inner walls. Old woodland was bordered by shrubby

areas that opened into lush meadowland.

Near the lake, the wal s were pockmarked with old Tree Ripper dwel ings,

caves they'd carved in the hardened lava, but hardly any of the great beasts

wintered here now. If a cave had no smell, they were told, it was safe to use.

208

In the center of the beautiful lake was a small, conical island whose plume of

steam attested to the volcano'
s linge
ri
ng life. There
'
d be plenty of hot
water there.

When Tesa had first seen the volcano in the distance, it had looked to her

like a giant tipi with an open smoke hole. Now, with a surge of happiness,

she descended into the caldera.

Taller stood outside the door of the humans
'
shelter and noted that

slab of wood bea
ri
ng Puff
'
s human name was beginning to split. The
pain of his human f
ri
end's loss had just begun to lessen
,
and now

there were new deaths to suffer through.

First-
One-There appeared at the door and seemed sta
rt
led to find him
.

Her fleshy face was drawn
,
gray
.
She did not look well, but then
,
wasn

'
t his own crown shrunken and pale these days?

"Taller,"
she signed
, "
I didn
'
t know you we
re
here."

"I need to speak with you alone," he signed.

The human woman stepped outside. "
We are alone
.
Relaxed is out

working with the others."

The two old fri
ends strolled toward the cliff edge
. "
How is Relaxed
?"

the Grus leader asked.

"These last two weeks have been hard on him," First-One signed. "
He still
blames himself
,
probably because he found both of them
.
He thinks

that if he had been he
re
, he could've stopped Good Eyes from going

away
.
He feels
re
sponsible for the Collector's death as well, but I don
'

t know why."

"Relaxed is no more to blame for that than I am for Black Feather'
s death. If

I hadn
'
t introduced him to humans, he might
'
ve been more

cautious
...
Yet, the pain is raw."

"I think it'
s ... Good Eyes
'
death that is causing him the most trouble
.

She was so young
..."
First-One's chin trembled.

"We all loved her,"
Taller signed comfo
rt
ingly
.
When the human could
not
re
spond
,
he draped his wing over her momenta
ri
ly
. "
That
'
s why
I wanted to speak with you. I
'
ve heard things lately
.
Some things I
ignored
,
some I paid attention to. I'd like to tell you what I know
,
but I
must ask you not to share it with the
others."

"
Why?" First
-
One asked.

"Because this information may lift hopes needlessly."

"Lift hopes?
What do you know
?
What have you heard?"

209

"I have heard that Good Eyes is alive," Taller signed. "I
have heard she is
with Sailor on his
flyaway."

First-One's shoulders sagged. "I can't believe that. If she
were alive
,
she
would contact us. We had to tell her
parents
that she was dead. We had to tell them we couldn't retrieve
her body until we got be
tt
er equipment. It

just about killed them
. Good Eyes' friends and her adviser on StarBridge

took her death very hard. And what about the pain it caused us? She would

never have let us suffer like that if she were alive."

"Perhaps she felt she had no choice."

First-One stared at him. "You know something else."

"I've also
heard
that Relaxed killed the Collector."

"That's crazy! That
makes less sense
than ..."

"I agree," Taller signed. "Relaxed came to me himself with that bitter news.

His feelings about the Collector and Black
Feather seemed too genuine to

doubt."

"It's more horrible than that, Taller," First-One added. "It implicates Relaxed in the slaughter of your son's flock. It would mean he was working with the

Teran privateers who want to
disrupt our alliance with your people."

"You have worked with this man for years. Could Relaxed be responsible for

that?" Taller could see that this was a new thought for her. "The Blue Cloud

people who gave me this
news gave it to Sailor as well
.
If he told Good

Eyes, we c
an
't
know what decisions she may have made because of it."

"Do
you
believe Good Eyes is alive?" First-One asked. There was a sudden light of hope in her eyes.

"I believe she's alive," he assured her, "and with Sailor." First-One-There looked at him with her watery blue eyes. "I dreamed of Puff last night, Taller.

He kept telling me everything would be all right, as soon as Good Eyes

comes back."

"As long as the skin of Water Dancer is on the World," Taller signed, "his spirit keeps her safe. That's what Weaver believes, and I agree with her. But

I don't believe Relaxed killed his friend. That's the way it is with news from

the World. Some of it's accurate, and some of it isn't. Please, don't share
this

information
, for your safety and for Good Eyes'. They'll return from their

flyaway when they've learned something special. I believe that."

The older woman paused, then added, "Good Eyes' parents are coming to

Trinity to retrieve her remains. The company
they work for is donating a-

grav units powerful enough to

210

levitate the tree. I only found this out today, or I would've asked your

permission earlier ..."

"Who could deny a parent's right to grieve?" Taller signed graciously. "I only wish that I could welcome these people to the World for a joyous reason."

Meg watched Taller step off the cliff edge, her mind full of turmoil and guilt.

He confided in you,
she castigated herself,
you could've done the same.
But what should she have said?

Since we've failed in our diplomatic mission, Taller, strangers will be taking

our place. I know you weren't asked...

She could see him growing taller, his crown flaming red. Taller had been

very cooperative with the humans, even friendly. But he believed it was his

choice as to who and how many humans visited the World. He would not

like this, not one bit.

All Meg's work, and Scott's, would be for nothing if the First Contact were