Heritage of Flight

by Susan Shwartz

  To spare them both, she had chosen flight. Had she chosen wrong? He retched dryly; that would change in a moment.

  "Not here, you can't,” Pryor's hand, pushing him away, was gentle. “'Cilla's foot's already septic enough. Get him out of here, Pauli ... Pauli? Move it, Lieutenant! I haven't time for you now."

  Pauli drew her gloves on and led Rafe to the riverbank. He gazed about, studying the ground with frantic care. Then he collapsed the way Lohr had and vomited at the water's edge.

  "Steady now,” Pauli murmured. “Whatever else happened, you got the kids back alive. And you've given ‘Cilla a chance. She's tougher than she looks, you know. Lie back and rest."

  Careful not to brush against Rafe's outer clothes, Pauli removed them. Already the acid from ‘Cilla's foot had begun to eat through the tough synthetic of his trousers, and had made inroads into the leather of his jacket.

  Digging a hole in the soft, easily turned mud of the riverbank, she buried first the contaminated garments, then her own gloves. Covering the spot, she marked it with a large, flat stone. Rafe shivered convulsively, and she stripped off her own jacket and wrapped it about him, then moved to put herself between him and the wind.

  "Let me get you a blanket,” she offered. But he grasped her wrist hard.

  "Don't go, Pauli. You stay and listen. Someone's got to listen to me, Pauli, listen now, so I won't forget, and so I'll know I'm not crazy."

  "You should tell the captain..."

  "The captain's got all he can handle now. Damn it! Girl, just this once, don't play things by the book ... please." Rafe clasped her hands between his. His fingers were clammy and they trembled.

  A second chance, Pauli thought, and chafed his hands.

  "All right, Rafe. Let's hear it."

  "We headed south toward the flats. At noon we stopped to rest. About that time, we saw rock formations in the distance."

  "I didn't pick them up,” she muttered.

  "Scan registered them as about five meters high; you wouldn't have. Curious thing about them too. They were all oriented along this world's magnetic field. Exploration never mentioned them in the preliminary reports on Cynthia."

  "Were they artifacts?” Pauli asked. “A technologically advanced lifeform here—and hostile?"

  "I don't know, I don't know.” Still clutching at hers, his hands rose to hide his face. Pauli stroked his hair back from his forehead.

  ” ‘Cilla was sure Ro would want pictures, samples of the rocks. She got very excited about the possibility that they might even have inscriptions on them. So we headed that way."

  Rafe shook his head. “She had been frisky all morning. Twice already, I had had to order her not to run ahead of the group. So of course she got away again to be the first to take a close look at the rocks. I shouted at her to wait up, then headed out after her. She kicked one of the rocks, and it cracked. Up till then, if it hadn't been for the scanners, I'd have sworn that it was rock, solid."

  "'It's not real rock,’ she yelled.” Rafe squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to blot out memory along with vision. Pauli leaned forward and brushed her lips against his forehead.

  "That was about the time she started to scream. I ordered Lohr and Ayelet back, then grabbed my weapon and motioned the civs to fan out. My God, there must've been sixty..."

  "Sixty what?” Pauli finally succeeded in pushing him down to lie on his back. In the next instant, however, he had risen again.

  "I don't know what you'd call them. Grubs. Maggots. Segmented, with thick black hairs on each segment, and splotchy patterns. Each one of the things must have been a meter long, most of it mandibles. Did you see the marks on ‘Cilla's foot? One of the things grabbed her. I don't know which it was, the bite or the acid, that hurt her so badly."

  Rafe sobbed once. “She was brave, so brave. I knew she wanted me to get her free, but some more of the grubs started coming at us. I burnt a circle around ‘Cilla and me, then blasted the one that was gnawing on her. And she trusted me to do it! God help me, I don't think I did it quickly enough. Once I got her free, I picked her up and jumped the fire. After I got clear, we laid down a barrage and sent all those things, and the rocks, up in flame."

  He rolled closer to Pauli and buried his head against her shoulder. Before she realized what she was doing, her arms went around him. There was an astounding ache in her throat, a tightening in her chest. If they had gotten Rafe too ... ! “You got ‘Cilla out, and you warned us, Rafe. You did your job and did it well. That's all that's important right now,” she told him, and knew that wasn't the truth. He felt right in her arms, as right as the glider had felt that morning.

  Rafe's hands clasped her shoulders tightly, kneading them. “Pauli, what if that wasn't the only infestation?"

  "Then we'll wipe them all out,” she told him. She was only a pilot, a grounded pilot. All she had ever known was how to fight and how to fly and how never to give up until she died.

  But now she knew other things, things like protectiveness and love. They burned in her empty belly like the acid that had crippled ‘Cilla's foot.

  Flying and combat had been easier by far.

  Still, there was no need, though, for Rafe to suffer right now.

  She tried not to tense. “You've done all you can for now,” she soothed him, and pressed his head against her breast. “Rest now. Try not to worry about the eaters."

  "But they remind me ... what..."

  "I said, ‘Never mind!’ We'll manage. Hell, Rafe, any race that can move itself from caves into starships ought to be able to keep some grubs in check. Let it go for now."

  A race that fought planet-breaking wars, against grubs that spat acid and attacked children ... and seemed to be on an interception course with their fragile settlement. They were stranded here; with no fliers to move them, and mountains and a river to cross, they had no choice but to hold their ground.

  The civs are going to love this! Pauli made herself sit motionless, and finally Rafe dozed, his head in her lap, her arms wrapped about him protectively under her jacket. He was warmer now, and the feel of his skin distracted her momentarily. But the afternoon wore on, a faint mist rose from the river and began to thicken about them. Painfully she worked one hand free of Rafe and fumbled her sidearm free of its holster, then balanced it on her knee, carefully so it might not touch the man who had found his way back to her.

  What would become of him now? What would become of all of them? When she cared—or claimed to care—only for flying, her life had been simpler. But she had been lying, and now her punishment was upon her: to wait here while the mist wreathed about her, hiding possible enemies. For the moment, however, she could not fight. Having no other choice while Rafe slept, Pauli sat and contemplated a bleak future until Borodin came to collect them.

  The river mists had blown away, and both moons shone, blurred by the shadows of a few clouds. Captain Borodin stood by the fire, his hand on his sidearm, waiting, as Rafe knelt by the computer, painstakingly working out the questions they had to have answers for. Several hundred of them, in fact. And, in return, he had to be prepared for whatever questions the Cynthians would ask of them.

  Behind them, between the fire and the safety of the domes, waited most of the settlers and those children too restive or too stubborn to let themselves be convinced to rest and let their elders handle things. Their eyes gleamed too brightly, with that preternatural alertness that had made Rafe shudder the first time he met them. Only the knowledge that ‘Cilla would not lose her foot had prevented general hysteria. If they were not to revert to protective savagery, they especially needed answers.

  The night wore on. Though several of their elders yawned and shook themselves reluctantly awake, the children waited, crouching by the fire, occasionally glancing at one another or whispering things that they refused to tell their guardians. Finally, moonlight picked out the familiar whorls and stars of the Cynthians’ wings. Uriel and Ariel hovered above the settlement for a long time before they descend
ed a safe distance from the dying fire.

  "They sense something,” Rafe muttered to Pauli, then bent to call up one of the new symbols he had created: small, segmented, and long fanged.

  Two of the younger Cynthians mantled, then subsided. One actually displayed the poisoned horns that were their chief weapon. Antennae quivered; simultaneously the agitated Cynthians withdrew, and. Rafe's instruments registered transmissions so rapid that they could not decipher them. He flung out his hands reassuringly, gesturing at Borodin to lay aside his weapons. Gradually the rate of transmission slowed, and the blur on his screens coalesced and gradually resolved into identifiable symbols.

  Rafe turned to the captain. “There's a lot of static about this concept. If these creatures were human, I'd say that it's got strong emotional connotations for them. It makes translation difficult. The closest equivalent I can get is ‘those who eat’ ... eaters. I don't think, sir, that I can finetune the resolution any further."

  "Ought to blast them all,” grumbled David ben Yehuda. He had an arm about his daughter; her twin sat on her other side. Both the father and the son kept flamethrowers close at hand. It had taken a direct order—"You're ordering me? I'm not under your command!"—to keep ben Yehuda and his cub from starting out that very night to hunt down creatures such as Rafe's party had blundered into.

  "Rafe, ask what the Cynthians know about these eaters."

  Pauli shook her head at the captain. “They think in analogies, sir. You've got to break your questions down into that form. It may take some time."

  Enemies, Rafe thought. Symbols formed under his fingers: Cynthians/mountain caves; eaters/rocks on the plain. That was the basic situation. Now for possible conflict: a broken-winged Cynthian/on the plain; eaters! devouring Cynthians along with plant life.

  Immediately the screen blurred and filled again with symbols. Cynthians/caves; humans/caves; eaters/plains.

  "It's the same story, sir,” Rafe spread out his hands and shrugged. “The Cynthians flee the eaters. Since they like us, they want us to run too, and suggest evacuating into their caves. I don't think they're equipped to put up much resistance; may be why they run. They're pretty awkward on the ground."

  "But we could fight them!” Pauli cried.

  Borodin watched the pilot carefully. Her commission date had preceded Rafe Adams'; despite her age, she was seasoned and wary. Why had she suggested a fight? That answer came more quickly than replies from the Cynthians: a fight would be one way to remove the strain from Adams. She stood very close to him. That, at least, was something to be grateful for.

  A flicker of color drew the captain's attention. Ariel's wings were drooping, their luminous colors subdued. Borodin felt a moment's sympathy for the Cynthian: older, and presumably stuck with responsibility for the smaller Cynthians such as the ones it had evidently ordered back to the safe hills.

  "What would you suggest, Lieutenant? Besides ben Yehuda's dubious expedient of blasting the lot of them."

  As if Uriel could interpret the emotional tensions among the humans, it fluttered its antennae, swept palpae back and forth, and beat its wings two or three times as Pauli considered her words.

  "I say we push the eaters hard. Given our own limited food supply, we can't retreat to the Cynthians’ caves and expect to be a drain on their resources. Whatever their resources are,” she added. “So I'd suggest that first, we guard the camp by burning a clear zone on the land side. If there's nothing to eat in it, the grubs won't try to cross. But we'll be planting, and our crops will tempt the things. That means we'll have to set up watches. And every time we see eaters, we burn them out. And"—Pauli collected herself and drew a deep breath as she came to the most controversial part of her defense strategy—"I further suggest that we develop a pesticide that will stop the eaters permanently. Sir.” His title came tacked on as an afterthought, and the woman tensed, anticipating his reaction.

  Pauli, I think you just went too far, Borodin commented silently. Not that I disagree, but I think you're going to have to take the consequences of those words. The civilians were muttering again. Bozhe moi, the civilians were always muttering. Sardonically Borodin quoted a proverb from Novaya Moskva, his homeworld: you couldn't make omelets without breaking eggs. His people, even from the time before spaceflight, understood that. Their continued survival could be attributed to a genius for enduring times when large numbers of eggs were broken: accepting the horrors, and the consequences, then hunkering down till the trouble retreated. As it always did. These civilian's might be more humane; they were far less patient. It was a weakness.

  He sighed. After a lifetime in space, he found planetbound life painful; dampness made his back ache; the civs’ tendency to fight him made his head ache. And the injury done the child who was his to protect? They were sentimental on Novaya Moskva; and his heart ached for her.

  "I don't want to hear any talk of poisoning alien life,” Beneatha Angelou stated.

  You can't antagonize the xenobotanist, Pauli girl: we need her too much, Borodin warned his underofficer silently.

  "Would you rather have an eater latch onto your foot?” cried Ari. His father motioned to his son to hush.

  A moment later, everyone still gathered near the fire and the bristling Cynthians had leapt up and seemed to try to make an angry speech at once. Several of the children screamed, high and piercing, drawing Ariel's attention. Two others had curled up almost in fetal positions.

  "Look what you've done!” Borodin snapped. “Someone take those kids inside.” He waited until they were removed. “I hope we didn't do them any damage tonight. Now look, I didn't want to have to say this. I suspect you've all wondered why Marshal Becker assigned me here. It wasn't just because my age and reaction time made me a bad combat risk. If it comes to that, I'm still more than a match for you. That's not the issue. This is. I don't know if all you people realize that Becker and the Alliance are counting on us to be waiting for pickup after the war

  ..."

  "Assuming they live through it..."

  Borodin let that muttered comment pass. That's close to sedition. If I notice things like that, I'll have to declare martial law. Then I can say good-bye to any hope of rapport with these people. Banking on any goodwill that they might have—Rafe or his other officers if not for him—he pressed on quickly.

  "A couple of years from now, if we're not picked up, I don't even want to hear whispers that maybe we lost. It doesn't have to mean that. Think of what else it could mean,” Borodin lowered his voice. “It could mean, for example, that there's nobody in shape to pick us up. No one with spaceflight—or even no one alive.” Darkness and cold, ice and snow covering the steppes, hiding the bodies until the spring that would come as it had come every year for the few who survived.

  "So we're going to have to get used to thinking of ourselves as the human race. For all we know, we may be what's left of it. I say we keep it going; it's worth keeping going. None of you look to me like potential suicides. So I think you'd better consider Pauli's plans for defending this place, unless you have things to add."

  "The xenobotanist rose, hostility making her thin body taut.

  "I'm coming to that. Now, Beneatha Angelou has raised a serious moral and ecological issue: destroying alien life. Rafe, would you say that killing an eater is destroying intelligent beings?"

  "God, no!” Rafe shuddered. “I'd call it pest control. Or getting an animal before it gets you."

  "Please ask the Cynthians how long these incursions last."

  Symbols formed on the screen which blanked, then lit with the answer. “Every two seasons, sir.” That answer came with commendable speed. More symbols came, and Rafe shook his head. unable to understand the jumble of light and pattern. He swayed, then caught himself.

  "Then, as far as I'm concerned, that settles it,” said Borodin. “If they come every other year, you'd be spending half your lives as refugees, or in constant fear of going out one morning and coming back like ‘Cilla. Or not coming ba
ck at all from a very unpleasant death. Which option do you choose?"

  "Your lieutenants were quick enough to adjust the comms to ‘speak’ to the Cynthians,” Beneatha lowered her head, as if planning to attack. “Why can't they adjust it to transmit offworld so we can leave here? Or"—she raised a hand for attention—"you listen to me now! I've listened to you. All right, I understand that we're supposed to be safe here. Can't we move?"

  "We haven't even got a flier,” ben Yehuda replied. “You tell me how I can build transports, and I'll start tonight."

  "You don't really want to risk the Secess’ interpreting the message and finding out our coordinates, do you?” Borodin asked. Was the xenobotanist being difficult on purpose, or were her objections based on arcane civ principles, or just wishful thinking? “Never mind my orders,” he went on, making his voice warm and persuasive. “I think we have an obligation to protect ourselves and the children. It hasn't been much of a life for them so far; one reason we brought them here was to give them a chance at a better one.

  "I hate to say it. But if we can't contain this ... infestation, well, I don't like it either, but the eaters won't be the first extinct species our race has racked up, starting on Earth and moving out into the stars."

  "Perhaps,” suggested Dr. Pryor, “your officers might ask the Cynthians if they have any ideas for helping out.” Borodin inclined his head to her with the courtesy he hadn't used since his last home leave. She was a civilian, and an aristocratic-looking one at that, but he liked her calm resourcefulness. The instant she spoke, the noise level sank noticeably.

  "Try it,” he told Rafe.

  But as the underofficer transmitted the question: Cynthians/eaters ... Cynthians/interrogative? the winged creatures mantled. So much for that good idea. Rafe tried again, but the aliens grew increasingly agitated.

  "Sir, he's ready to pass out,” Pauli hissed at him.

  "Then I'll try,” Borodin said. He might have been born patient and learned tact in space, but standing back and letting other people conduct the negotiations went hard with him. He took over the comm from Rafe, who sat with his head buried in his hands, and tried to assure the Cynthians that they didn't have to fear.