When We Have Wings

by Claire Corbett

  Someone screamed, ‘They’ve torn out Griffon’s throat!’

  There was a crashing, a terrible high shrieking.

  Peri scrambled to her feet. Her waistband was already strapped to her, and now she grabbed Hugo. Hands fumbling, she snatched up her already-cocked crossbow, belting the quiver to her waist.

  Rafael and Jay were grappling with dark figures. The screeching went on and on. Peri couldn’t think for the horror of that sound rising and falling, like sirens, alarms. Niko circled with his crossbow, trying to get behind Rafael’s assailant for a clear shot.

  Peri couldn’t see Leto. Suddenly Jay twisted free and was down on one knee, raising his crossbow. One of the figures fell, screaming. He raised the bow again. Phoebe and Rafael broke away from their attackers, sprinting out of Jay’s line of fire.

  There was an agonised bellow and an explosion of red sprayed from the chest of another attacker.

  Niko threw fluorescent safety dust over several of the Wild, who, to their increasingly vocal fury, were now spectacularly visible in acid-yellow. Jay fired again and one of the Wild disappeared into the trees.

  Finch was at Peri’s side. ‘That way,’ she urged, pushing Peri down the path away from the river. ‘Stay on the ground,’ she hissed, already turning back towards the overhang. ‘Run. If they corner you and Hugo, use your weapon! Don’t try to fly. They’ll be faster. Go to ground. Hide!’

  Peri ran along the path with Hugo, terrified she would fall and injure him. She didn’t know the path well, having mostly stayed by the river when not flying. This path was no good, too dangerous in the dark. Finch’s warning resounded in her ears; the temptation to get up into the sky and away was agonising. Heart pounding so hard can’t hear anything. Hugo crying, damn him. How could he be so stupid? ‘Shut up!’ she hissed. As if that would work. She felt like shaking him, so frightened, knew it wouldn’t silence him. Her heart was battering so hard she thought she would be sick. Each beat shook her whole body. Seized by the mad impulse she had playing chasings as a child—stand still, show herself, get it over with. Couldn’t bear the suspense. But not now, not with Hugo.

  Peri dashed through a dark tunnel of trees. Too close there was that dreadful cry and the rush of wings. A Wild was flying over them, hunting them from above. She and Hugo were protected only by the thinnest screen of twigs and branches.

  Peri was running and one of the Wild was tracking her. For a moment she thought she’d lost it but it circled back and came above them again. It knew where she was. A lighter patch in the grey ahead showed her she was sprinting towards a break in the trees. She must not run into the open where the Wild could stoop on them like a giant hawk. They had to get off the track, into rougher country. Turning off the path, she scrambled downhill, forcing her way through the prickly bushes. No further sound of pursuit from above.

  Peri was hit by a gust of rancid air, a disgusting smell of old grease and carrion. She swung back frantically, straight into the arms of her pursuer. She screamed and the Wild grappled with her, raking her with its claws. It hit Peri and she went down. The creature grabbed Hugo and ran back uphill towards the gap in the trees.

  Peri got up though she was still winded and fumbled with her crossbow. The creature’s back and wings glowed yellow; it was one of the Wild that Niko had marked. She had to stop it, now, before it took off. She couldn’t risk bringing it down from the sky while it had Hugo.

  The creature pushed its way up towards the clearing. Peri was sprinting and now dropped to one knee. The safety dust made the Wild a dazzling target and its back to her made it less likely she would hit Hugo. She had one chance. Steadying herself, she breathed in, held the breath, raised the bow and fired. The Wild shrieked as the bolt hit it in the lower back. Fuck. If the bolt had gone in just a little higher, it should have killed the thing.

  The Wild took off, downdrafts of foul air washing back from its wings, as Peri raced to the clearing. She was at a disadvantage in the air against the Wild but she had no choice. She could hear Hugo wailing as she took to the air. Oh god. Jay had drilled her in aerial combat but what chance did she have, in this darkness, against that thing with Hugo in its claws?

  As Peri powered herself up after the creature, she realised she might have a chance. She had not spent hours and days training with Jay and watching Shaheen hunt her prey for nothing. Her only hope lay in height. She had to get above it. Perhaps she did have the advantage—she’d wounded it. She was younger, lighter, than the Wild she was hunting. The laws of physics were on her side, for now.

  And she was more desperate. Of that she was sure.

  Up Peri soared; she was crane, eagle, falcon.

  Shaheen, swiftest, help me. Eagle, fiercest, help me.

  Never had she flown so fast; she had not known she had this in her. The Wild was below, hunting her but they were built to look down. The massive flight muscles across chest and back and shoulders did not make for flexibility in looking up when they were in flight. The creature would expect her to follow it, to get as close as she could to snatch Hugo back. It might not understand right away why she was not coming after it.

  Peri looked around her. Were any other Wild coming to join it? Were any Audax fighters in the air? Below her Hugo cried. Proof he was alive. She could see and hear other Wild further to the west, above Heavener, but she and her attacker were alone in this sector of sky. Peri took a deep breath. She’d had one chance and blown it. Here was one more, the very last one. That was all.

  Circling higher, Peri centred her gyre on her luminous target—thank you, Niko—which was disoriented, perhaps by its wound, perhaps by not being sure where she was, for its flight was curving up, slowly, searching.

  Peri altered her angle of attack steeply down, folding her wings into the tight W she’d used while practising her pigeon drop and roll; she was both hunter and prey and she pictured Shaheen, trying to capture the feel and form of the falcon when she stooped.

  Peri plunged through the black air, a wedge of hate, a dark avenging arrow.

  Shaheen, you would be proud. No mere human could learn from you better than I have.

  Murder coursed through Peri’s veins. That was no figure of speech. Through her veins was exactly where this strength born of love and rage was surging. She would kill this loathsome non-human, non-animal no-thing.

  As she struck the Wild with, Peri felt, the force of a meteor, all the speed of her flight and her falling smashing into it, she shrilled, a savage and angry sound she would never have believed she could make. The Wild shuddered from the impact and spun away with a screech.

  Peri plummeted again. The thing had dropped Hugo and Peri powered towards the ground at a speed far beyond anything she knew was safe or even possible. And now she was reaching out for Hugo, a little pale shape tumbling in the air and there, she had him, no, he slid from her grasp and she thrust herself forward again, hardly caring whether she struck the ground, she had to grab Hugo and this time she had him and she beat her wings ferociously, putting every shred of muscle power into the downstroke. Save nothing, hold nothing back, use every bit of strength now.

  The force of Peri’s wingbeats slowed them but still she slammed into the ground feet first and then tumbled, her body curved around Hugo, shielding him. Her shoulder and elbow struck a tree trunk and then she was still. She lay there for a second against the tree, panting. For the first time she knew how good the shock-absorbing slips were that Jay had given her. Her feet and legs stung from the impact but without the slips she would have fractured bones.

  Peri struggled painfully to her feet, soothing Hugo as she strapped him to her. She had only been holding him in her arms when the Wild attacked them; it was why it had been able to get Hugo away from her. Now she tied Hugo tightly to her. They must get away from here. She pushed further down the hill, into thicker cover.

  There was a stream at the bottom
of this hill. An awful thought struck as Peri pushed her way through thick scrub. What if they could track her by smell?

  She waded up the stream. At any other time the sharp stones underfoot would have made her wince, in spite of the slips she was wearing, but her body was singing with rage and fear and relief, even exhilaration, and she did not notice the pain. As she toiled along the stream her own breathing sounded like a hurricane in her ears. Surely if any Wild were around, they could not fail to hear her? Hugo grew quieter, subsided into a whimpering grizzle. She stopped. Silence.

  Carefully, as quietly as possible in the dark, Peri pushed her way into the shelter of a gnarled old tree and settled Hugo, nursing him to sleep. She checked him carefully for injuries, but apart from superficial scratching, he seemed unharmed. The Wild were filthy and she sprayed the scratches with antiseptic new skin.

  Peri set herself to watch, her arm curled around her crossbow. No sleep for her tonight. She was surprised to feel wetness on her face and realised it was tears. The shock of the fight, the terror of snatching Hugo in mid-air, her murderous rage was washing out of her. She sat still, as still as she could except her muscles were trembling from the extremes to which she’d pushed them, and the tears slid silently for a long time.

  When she woke the next morning Peri did not know where she was. Blankly she stared at the dark grey-green branches in front of her. The world was prickly. She felt a weight on one of her wings. A baby, sleeping on ragged, dusty feathers. A baby. Baby Hugo. Oh. Oh no. The memory of the night rushed in on her.

  Gently picking Hugo up, Peri struggled out from under the shelter of the old tree. She looked around her. The bush was featureless. Impossible to say exactly which way she had come, in the dark. Down that slope, yes, but this angle? Or that way? How could she know if it was safe to return to the Audax camp? How had the battle ended? Had Audax driven off the Wild? Had the Wild taken over this territory, Finch and Jay and the others fleeing to the winter roost? She had no clue how to find the winter roost. She’d lost them all.

  Hugo rubbed his eyes and began his hunger cry. Peri sat on a stone and fed him, aware her milk was not enough. She would have to find food for them both, and soon.

  And the worst loss of all, Jay and his promise to fly with her. Her shy hope that he might stay with her looked pathetic now, the brightly coloured longings of a young and stupid girl. For she felt very stupid. Very alone. For a few hours she’d had a future, even a future with Hugo. Jay had no way, now, of finding out what had happened to her, either. Oh god, it’s my own fault. I asked him to take the bracelet off me, the bracelet that would have helped him find me.

  Peri put her head down, lightly, on Hugo’s. No point crying. No-one to listen. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. No-one can tell you. Not now.

  Peri raised her head. First things first. Groom wings or we’re not going anywhere. She gave Hugo a seed pod that amused him and set about straightening and cleaning her feathers with her fingers as best she could. It was hopeless. She needed a proper preening comb and that was back at the camp. Her gaze fell on a small tree with fine, stiff-needled branches. She wrenched off one of the smaller ones. It wasn’t much better than her fingers but after a while she had made progress. Her feathers were smoother, more zipped together. As she worked she crooned rhymes softly to Hugo, trying to convey a calmness she didn’t feel.

  Two little fledglings

  sitting on a wall.

  Fly away, Mary.

  Fly away, Paul.

  Come back, Mary.

  Come back, Paul.

  Fly home now or not at all.

  Peri stood up, shook out her wings, tied Hugo into his sling against her and started up the slope. She had to try to find the camp; she had to know who was there.

  After an exhausting hour Peri was forced to admit defeat. She was no closer to the camp and Hugo was restless, struggling away in the sling. He was not happy there.

  Peri was lost. All her energies had been directed towards perfecting her skills in the air; she knew nothing about the bush, couldn’t read it from the ground. Going up was risky but she had no choice.

  Peri headed further up the slope. Up there was an outcrop of rock she did not recognise but which would serve as a take-off point. She made sure Hugo was secure and launched herself into the air. Hugo shrieked with what sounded like terror. She tried to comfort him and rose quickly, watching for anyone above, coming out of the sun.

  Hugo wailed. He would not shut up. Please, Hugo. This made everything so much harder. She put her arms around him, stroked his hair as she rose higher, seeing nothing. There, she’d been turned around. There was the waterfall, its white thread tangled down the cliff. She circled higher. To find out if anyone remained on Heavener, she’d have to descend. Too dangerous. What if Jay was there? How could she leave, not knowing? And where was Shaheen? No Wild would ever catch her.

  Peri dropped towards the cliff.

  Then, as Peri looked west, she could see three, no four, black dots flying east, still far away but coming towards her. There was something alien about their flying. It was fast and aggressive; had they seen her? Could they hear Hugo, his piercing cry? She realised she knew the flying styles of Jay, Niko, Finch and the others, though she’d never thought about it before. She didn’t recognise the way those coming towards her flew.

  They’ll be faster.

  That’s what Finch said.

  They’ll be faster.

  Now, with no food to fuel her, and carrying Hugo, Peri had to turn away from the Audax camp, away from Heavener, and fly faster than she ever had in her life. She was heading east, flying towards the sea. The nearest towns would be in that direction. She’d have to rely on the Wild not wanting to follow her towards people. How far away were the nearest towns? That night she and Finch had flown over dark country for hours. How close would the Wild dare to get to the towns? Did they want to catch her or drive her off? And why, why, why was Hugo crying? Why wouldn’t he stop? Could he feel her fear now, shivering through her wings?

  Peri climbed to cruising altitude just below cloudbase and set herself to the task of driving hard through the air, wingbeat after wingbeat, not allowing herself to think of what might be gaining on her from behind. It would be a long time before she could dare look. She had to put distance, hours of it, behind her.

  Now there was no-one to help her; she had to carry out her plan on her own. She checked her crossbow. No choice now; she had an appointment with Hugo’s father.

  After an eternity cleaving air, nothing in her head but the rhythm of her speed, power to her wings, the sun began to sink behind her.

  Still she drove on through the sky, into the fast-fading twilight.

  [O]nce people begin to reshape themselves through biological manipulation, the definition of human begins to drift . . . Altering even a small number of the key genes regulating human growth might change human beings into something quite different . . . But asking whether such changes are ‘wise’ or ‘desirable’ misses the essential point that they are largely not a matter of choice; they are the unavoidable product of . . . technological advance . . .

  —Gregory Stock,

  Director of UCLA’s Program on Medicine,

  Technology and Society

  Yuri Gagarin, resplendent in a tailored white uniform so laden with medals it was a wonder he could stand up, was humming The Motherland hears, the Motherland knows / Where her son flies in the sky. Wernher von Braun and Orville Wright were peering at his medals. Von Braun wore a dark suit with white handkerchief in the top pocket, a lapel pin and red tie. Orville, a slight woman in a three-piece suit with a high white collar and fake moustache, exclaimed, ‘Oh, it’s too delicious. Wherever did you get this? It’s a Gold Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor!’

  Next to von Braun stood a cosmonaut sweating in her padded w
hite spacesuit with blue insignia and blue stripes. She was saying to a messenger god wearing a winged helmet and winged boots and little else, ‘Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space, you know. She orbited the earth for nearly three days. By the time she landed she’d logged more time in space than all the American astronauts to that date combined.’

  Hermes yawned. ‘You’ve done your homework,’ he drawled. ‘How amusing.’

  Tereshkova turned to Gagarin and said, ‘This isn’t the correct spacesuit—it’s a later model, the Orlan-M. Tereshkova never got to wear one of these.’ Gagarin took her hand and the two cosmonauts, wings neatly folded over their costumes, tramped over the Botanic Gardens herb beds to the VIP queue.

  Travelling to SkyNation had been more difficult than I’d anticipated, dressed as I was in what I suspected was merely an approx- imation of a World War II pilot’s uniform. The outfit of deep brown leather jacket worn into a pattern of crazed lines like the crackled glaze on a ceramic plate, with its sheepskin cuffs and collar, and the accompanying khaki trousers and mirrored sunglasses, was heavy and hot on this muggy Friday afternoon. After a quick study of my slick, which scrolled up a table of air aces from both World Wars, I decided that I was honouring the memory of Marmaduke Thomas St John ‘Pat’ Pattle, Royal Air Force; it was just too good a name for an air ace to be ignored.

  I’d done well to come up with a costume as good as this. I hadn’t looked at my SkyNation pass properly until the previous Wednesday evening; to my horror I saw the event was a fancy-dress ball titled ‘Farewell History, Welcome the Future’, which summoned an unpleasant echo of Brilliant’s phrase, the human project is over. An image of Cloud City illuminated the pass, which also stated that this SkyNation would celebrate the opening of Peter Chesshyre’s new environment for fliers, the very future itself that this SkyNation was welcoming. Celebrate the future of Flight by honouring the past, the invitation commanded.