by C. Litka
04
Sightseeing was soon brought to an end. The deck crew was sent out to rig a canvas tarp over the afterdeck, and then, build a platform at the bow of the ship on which was spread brightly colored trinkets and general trade goods under a light netting, to keep them from drifting off. While this work was underway, the Captain shifted the Lora Lakes to one of the brighter spots along the shore - in a broad shaft of light from above - and anchored her between two vine encrusted points. And we settled in to await developments. If nothing happened in a round or two, ValDare said he'd send out the launches to begin a photographic survey of the Shadow Sea and what we could see of the native society from a distance.
We waited. During the first round, the red feathered figures could be seen flying amongst the crags and through the jungles on the far shores, but they stayed clear of us. With no overt show of hostility by the second round, nor apparent interest in the trade goods, and with DeArjen's assurances that they were largely indifferent to his ship when it was wrecked on the island, ValDare allowed BinCar and the restless hunters to take their boats out to survey and film what they saw. As DeArjen predicted, they met no resistance - the feathered bird-men kept their distances even when the boats flew over their village-in-the-trees beyond a tall, fang shaped peak at the far end of the sea. They could hang several hundred meters over the jungle-village, filming, without drawing any overt action. ValDare was happily optimistic that we'd soon be able to make face-to-face contact.
By the third round the natives, though still shy, had become bold enough to fly within a hundred meters of the Lora Lakes, so we had a chance to observe them close at hand. They were clearly a separate species - human-like in many aspects, but their heads were too different shaped to be a very near relative of even the feathered people of the Pela. They flew like birds in this free fall environment, using their long arms like wings. Their arms had a ridge of feathers running down them that made them into narrow wings, and without having to provide lift, they worked well as wings - a flicker of their arms to turn, a few quick strokes and they'd be shooting off. They slung their bows with quivers, on their backs over their tightfitting tunics of lizard scales that shimmered in the pale twilight. Like the natives of the Saraime, their chests were crisscrossed by belts of woven wire-like vines, holding the unstrung bow, quiver, a pouch and a long knife.
By the fourth round, several of the braver or more curious of them had landed on the trade platform. They silently observed, but did not touch. The assistant photographer filmed them from the bridge's wing balcony, since BinCar was off in the launch filming the village.
By this time, we'd caught up on most of the engine maintenance work, and so we, or at least I, had more time to brood. The crew was rather subdued as well. For some, it might've been their unfamiliarity with darkness. The margin peoples did not, as a rule, run off to the wide-sky, and few bright side people migrated to the shadows, so this brooding green twilight was out of the ordinary in and of itself. But I think there was more to it than the darkness, or even the somewhat claustrophobic sense of being trapped in this sea of shadows. It was the response of the natives, or rather their non-response that made us uneasy. It did not seem to be a natural reaction, and was even eerie, in their seeming lack of curiosity and unwillingness to assert any territorial claims at all. Being ignored was certainly better than fighting off hordes of savages, but there was little relief in not having to fight them off. Yet. It seemed as if a clock had "ticked", and we were awaiting the "tock", uncertain of what it would bring. I spent my time refurbishing a pump to keep from brooding too darkly.
As we all suspected, it couldn't last, and it didn't.