by Eric Flint
He departed in a similar fashion, with a broad smile.
"First time I've seen him smile in about a month. He's been battling… anyway this should give us top marks for innovation, even if it doesn't work that well. That's worth a cool fifty points by itself."
"I think we need to start pointing your design team at the wonderful world of chickens," said Howard, who had wandered up to them, with his new extra-huge wings. "Chickens like to spend their time on the ground. They only fly if they're very frightened. I think I am ready to try."
"I don't know about chickens, but you do need to look at birds."
"I'm beginning to understand the expression: 'this is for the birds,' " said Howard. He stood on the cliff edge and positioned his arms carefully. Then he kicked off with his big powerful legs.
And did not fall.
He didn't hang in the air the way their instructor did either, but sort of glided off at a gentle angle. Zoe took one look and leapt into flight after him. She caught one wingtip with her feet, and turned him. He landed, running.
"The point," his instructor said, going back to her hover-place, "is to learn to respond to your neural inputs, not to go gliding. Still, I'm impressed. I didn't think a big thing like you could do anything but fall. How-or rather, why-did you do that?"
"I watched. And it seems that the place where you hung was farther out than where the others were getting to. I got the wing angle wrong, didn't I?"
"You did. And you spotted by observation what I have been trying to get people to learn by feel. I'm sorry, most of this is simply unknown to us. Everybody here knows how to fly. Mothers take their babies out in tandem rigs. Even the injured, relearning to fly with disabilities, have done it before. Instructing at this level is… different."
"Boring, you mean?" said Howard, smiling.
"Actually, very funny. I don't think I'd find it that day after day, but the novelty has charm. Next. Try getting yourself a bit farther out and if you start to glide alter the pitch of your wing. It's very difficult to do, but once you can do it you have the exact difference between 'fly' and 'stall.' After that it's easy. Come on. I've got another hour before bed. I want you all onto the first glide slope by then."
30
Why doesn't the asshole get himself a life instead of messing around with mine? He doesn't know jack-shit about the gain you get from sticking your neck out. Screw him.
–
Jean-Marie Signy, World Champion 2544, distance paragliding, in reply to Senator Selbourne's comments on the new legislation on danger-sports.
The wing folded and crumpled behind Amber. And her feet… were not the last thing that passed through her mind, after all.
"I did it. I lived!" Her knees buckled a little.
Zoe had landed, featherlike, next to her, supporting her with an arm around her.
It took Amber some time to realize that the kiss had moved from a sisterly congratulations to something else entirely. And that she hadn't thought about responding, just did it. And that if lycra wasn't as good as being naked, it wasn't that far off.
"Uh. I think everyone is watching," she said, when they paused for breath.
"Let them," said Zoe.
"Jealousy makes them nasty." The placement of her hand showed that Amber had every intention of making them jealous.
Zoe licked her upper lip. "Later, huh?"
"Yes. But not much later… please."
"A-okay," said her instructor, with a gleam in her eyes. "I think class is nearly over for today."
Zoe shrugged. "It's not easy to form real relationships, being the champion. About half the girls out there would have sex with me, just because I am the champion. I'm not a person, Amber. I'm… I'm a position. A trophy scalp or maybe some special, private training. Not a person."
"I think I understand. My first girlfriend wasn't even gay. I was just a stepping stone."
"Yeah. Exactly… I mean, experimentally, it was fun for a bit, but, well, anyway…" she sighed. "The only people you can really get close to are other top-rank fliers, and only the very top… otherwise they're using you again."
"And heaven help the relationship if one's career takes off and the other one's doesn't," said Amber, smiling in wry reminiscence.
Zoe looked sideways at her. "Been there, have we?"
Amber nodded. "Been there. So have you, I suppose. You do know I'll never be a champion flier, don't you?"
Zoe kissed her. "You started too late in life. I mean most kids start serious flying about when they start to walk."
"I loved doing it. I mean, space… space scared me silly. But this wasn't half so bad, there was a roof… I won't hold you back, will I? I couldn't bear that."
"No. Anyway, the truth is I won't be able to hold onto the title for too much longer. I'm getting a little old for high-G turns." She smiled wryly. "I don't know what it'll be like to see someone else take the gold feather."
"Like Lani and her Howard, I think we need a world of our own," said Amber, sighing a little.
"They're a very odd couple."
"Honey, you don't know how odd. He's from some religious pacifist group and she's… our Lani tends to hit first and think later. She's got some brains behind it, but she's got a Diana cop mentality to fight through first. He's from a patriarchal society that doesn't believe in sex outside of marriage. She's climbing walls. I think he is too, but it is sort of his fault."
"It sounds doomed," said Zoe, amused.
"Not really. I think they may be what each partner actually needs. He thinks and she acts. But they have a real problem as to a future. Lani sure as hell won't fit into his habitat, and neither of them can go back to Diana. They were getting starry-eyed about farming on uThani-until we met the owners."
"Those uThani are a pair of rogues. That guy with a scar on his cheek has propositioned just about every female flier in Osprey airspace already. He does it with such a smile on his face that he'll probably get lucky too. He even tried me."
"They were kissing. And they were holding hands when they left!" said Howard, shocked and obviously troubled.
Lani nodded. "I'm very happy for her, if it works out."
Howard gaped at her. "But… they are both women. It's unnatural."
"So is riding a scoot, and eating cooked food," said Lani. "Look, you got to know Amber. Did you like her? Did you trust her?"
"Yes, but not-"
Lani interrupted. "And you like Zoe, don't you?"
"Yes. But it's not-"
"Are they any different because they don't want to sleep with you ? Any less likable as people, not because of their sexual preferences? Wouldn't you trust them now?"
Howard smiled reluctantly. "You've got a point, I suppose. It's just among the Brethren-"
"The universe is a bigger place than 'among the Brethren,' Howard," said Lani, putting her arm around him. "It's bigger than Diana too. I've started to come to terms with that. Can you? Or is all just about God and she only looks at and approves of the way things are in New Eden."
He stiffened up. "God sees everything. And it's God the Father, not the Mother," he said.
Lani looked at him with that challenging smile she'd been practicing. "You told me only God knew everything. So, how do you know? I thought you said God was everything. That would make him… her too. And being omni-cognizant would mean that he or she would know all about both sides." She fluttered her eyelashes at his serious face. She thought that was a valuable addition to a theological debate.
"I hadn't thought of it like that," he admitted with a rueful grin. "You'll have me labeled as a heretic, yet."
"I guess that's another decision humans ought to be taking. Anyway, Howard, all I'm saying is I've decided Amber saved your life, and I'm damned if I'm going to criticize the way she lives hers. And I'm not really prepared to let you do it either."
He sighed. "It's a lot to get used to."
"Yeah. But you'll cope," she said, smiling at him. "It shocked me too, at first, by the
way. But I thought about it, and decided that what I wanted was for her to be happy. I think she is."
Howard nodded reluctantly. "And who am I to cast the first stone?" he said, taking her hand.
Lying on the big bed, a leg over Zoe, Amber found herself getting philosophical. It made a change from being physical. "Something is becoming quite plain to me. First, the population in each bead-even at high density like Diana and here-is just too low to sustain a broad technological base. You guys-with the aerodynamics to spur you on-are fairly good engineers-on the computer design side especially. Biologically and even biochemically speaking, on the other hand, you've lost the skills. From what Lani said, Howard's people are very good at straight 'hands-on' doing things. They're good artisans. And I get the feeling the uThani are probably better people manipulators than all of us."
Zoe laughed. "They overdo the 'we primitives' stuff. They know a computer screen when they see one. And they don't shock easily enough."
"Yet, they really are primitive in some ways. Clever and quick to catch on, though."
"But everyone should know what a harvester looks like."
"Maybe not, Zoe. You should see their habitat-it's uncultivated. And in Howard's habitat they do all of it by hand. The uThani have some computer access-their computer, damn the thing, pillaged my files, but wouldn't let me access it. They must have a computer net second to none."
Zoe grinned. "Don't you guys know about that? The microbots all data-feed to central computing."
"Which explains how I was able to read such quality information about the warm bodies in Diana," said Amber thoughtfully.
"Yep. Centcomp is compiling a digest of recorded information about everything. Huge files of the stuff. It's stored in the probe-units on the surface."
"You mean everything?" Amber said uneasily.
"Yep. Even the noises you make in bed," said Zoe, sticking her tongue out.
Despite knowing that microbots would be invisible to the naked eye, Amber couldn't help looking around. "Holy Susan. Haven't they any respect for privacy?"
Zoe tickled her.
Amber didn't respond as she would have a few moments earlier. "I don't feel quite comfortable knowing that I'm being watched."
"It's impossible to access onboard," said Zoe. "Believe me, some hackers tried. And why should we care about what some Terran sociologist two hundred light-years away-four hundred years from now, at least-thinks of us? We'll be long, long dead before they even see the stuff. And there are terabytes of it. It'll have to be machine analyzed."
That gave Amber pause. She thought about it with increasingly unholy amusement. "True. Shall we give them a show that'll burn their circuits out?"
"Ooh, sounds good to me."
Dandani picked his teeth thoughtfully. "Do you know there isn't one single bit of game in this place? The chief would be delighted if we expanded the hunting grounds here. No fish in the water either. Man, this place is in a terrible state."
"You seemed to find a bit of game."
"Yeah, but she's hardly worth pulling the feathers off, really. And she made me wash. Now I stink." Dandani wrinkled his nose.
"She said you did before," said Nama-ti.
"Maybe to her. But now every animal will smell me."
"There are no animals here. Just a lot of people. And I suppose if you're going to hunt them you've got make sure your smell doesn't make them run away."
"I suppose so. So what do we do now, Nama-ti?"
"They make good stuff with iron," said the translator, thoughtfully.
"Yeah. Not practical, though. Haven't seen one good machete or knife. And like the flying, I don't think it would work at home."
Nama-ti grinned evilly at him. "But those fake feathers they wear are not worth having. We don't want their place, but… we have something to barter."
"Knives and arrowheads? Isn't this like what comp said about the beads, whiskey and cheap junk they traded?"
"Except this time it's us trading the throw-away junk for things that have value to us, yes."
"They're not bad people, Nama-ti. We don't have to cheat them."
"We have to keep in practice. Besides, if they want feathers, it's what it is worth to the buyer, not us."
"You might have said that about the beads too," said Dandani.
Nama-ti grinned. "I won't, if you don't. Have you figured that our hosts lied to us?"
"About the flying? Yes. But I don't know that they meant to. They don't think of those ambulance balloons as anything except for sick people. I think they just assume people fly, like we assume they use canoes. It took a day-and then it was me, by accident-to find the strangers, in spite of the fact that Pili-cha-taaka spotted them not fifty yards from the airlock, because they were crazy enough to walk everywhere."
"You're going soft, Dandani," said Nama-ti with a grin. "I think they wanted to frighten the shit out of us."
"Nearly worked too, by the way you screamed," said Dandani, yawning. "Me, I think it was some kind of initiation. I think it would have been very hard if we'd said that we didn't want to fly. If we said it was too dangerous."
"You could be right," agreed Nama-ti. "They don't think much of people who don't fly."
"So what do we do now? Go on with outsiders? Stay here? Or try to go back home alone?"
The translator sat down. "It's a tricky question, Dandani."
"That's why I asked you. You are tricky."
"It's still not easy to answer. I think we go on. For one, we may find more hunting grounds. I don't think so, but maybe. For seconds, we are hunters. Hunters always like to see a new place."
"Besides that, Howard leaves me feeling like maybe I should," said Dandani grumpily. "Now go away. That little bird has left me exhausted."
"You shouldn't have chased her so hard."
"It wasn't the chasing part that tired me out."
The human artificer looked at Kretz's rebreather system and frowned. "The truth is, we can do it. Probably. But it's quite an engineering challenge. We need to make sure that we don't wreck the mechanism in the process. It could take us a few days."
Kretz didn't know if he had a few extra days. He bit his paw-hand nervously.
"I have another idea," said Howard, tentatively. "We could go on without you."
Kretz shook his head. "I don't think you can fly a Miranese craft."
"I'm sure we couldn't," said Howard. "But could we fetch another unit back for you? Surely there must be spares on your ship."
Kretz nodded. He was naturally reluctant to contemplate the idea of letting them into the lifecraft without him. But Howard was as trustable a human as you could find.
It was a lot to ask, though. Still, coming this far had been a lot to ask too.
"Please," he said, humbly. "But I cannot ask you to take such a risk. To undertake this for me."
Howard smiled. Kretz found the big human's smiles reassuring by now, even if he sometimes showed teeth. "It is my idea, Kretz. It'll be easier than worrying about you running out of air out there."
"One other thing," said Kretz diffidently. "We used a radio system from the museum on Diana to enable me to talk to my spacecraft and to Abret-who is trapped in the next habitat. Unfortunately, it was obviously discovered and switched off quite soon. I have been able to pick up transmissions from the spacecraft, but I am uncertain as to whether they have received me. Do you also have such relics?"
The artificer grinned. Kretz had got used to its social meaning by now. "No," he said. "But we've got new ones in stock for colonization. And we've assembled a high-gain antenna to be put outside when the habitat arrives in the Signy system. If everything goes according to plan, we'll be a satellite retransmission system for many years. Even without external installation it would be worth running it as a relay station. We'd get to test it and you'd get to talk."
Within the cell, Abret paced. There wasn't much else to do except to look at the bizarre alien preparations out in the square. Pacing was a more c
heerful exercise. Pacing and hoping for radio comms that weren't just Selna sounding off. Derfel had placed repeater stations. Obviously the madman wanted to be able to hear what she was doing. It occurred to Abret, belatedly, that meant that he had also received news of Kretz's progress. Pinging his source had told him that the biologist-engineer had made progress. Whether he could get here was another matter, but that hope was all that kept him sane.
When Kretz's voice came over the ether it was sweeter than a mating cry. It was loud and clear too.
"Receiving," Abret said. "Are you transmitting from the lifecraft?"
"No. I am still one bead away. But we have secured alien help. They've been more than kind."
"They're evil murdering monsters, Kretz. Listen. Everyone can hear you. I think you must go back to Selna. Just like you did when Zawn chose us to explore the alien airlock."
He just hoped Kretz understood what he wasn't saying. He hoped mad Derfel didn't understand.
Selna cut in. "You must come back, Kretz."
Abret chewed his lip. She wasn't too stable yet. And the word of a female carried more weight. Would he be abandoned here?
"I'll do what I can," said Kretz, tactfully. "I am dependent on help from the various aliens. They have kept me alive and helped me."
Was there a hidden message there?
A little later Abret knew that Derfel had been listening in. And that the little hope he'd had was dead.
Derfel came to see him with his human guards. "I've moved the lander," he said. "It is at the engine-ward airlock. And I have ensured that the tail-direction airlock won't open, in a manner these superstitious natives won't interfere with. The equatorial ridge will prevent Kretz from ever getting there, I would think. My guards will be waiting if he does come, and now you will get out of that suit. You have behaved with treachery to my great leadership."
It took a fight, but Abret was no match for that number of human guards. Now he was sans radio, and also without a suit to leave the airlock, even if rescue should ever come.