Heritage of Flight

by Susan Shwartz

  No wonder some of the settlers had seen visions of black moths and death's-heads. If Pauli had eaten the ergot-ridden bread, she'd probably have seen them too—and deserved it. Please let me make my peace with you, she asked the silent, watchful caves.

  Seeing visions? she asked herself, chuckled without much humor, then yawned again. God, she was tired.

  "Who's there?"

  The deep voice woke her. She uncurled, herself and drew her sidearm. Halgerd must have seen the light and been just as reluctant as she to stride into the caves without warning, Now, finally, she heard footsteps on the rock.

  "Who is it?” the man called again.

  Pauli glanced at her weapon, shook her head, and holstered it. Halgerd had shown himself able to override the pain even of a blaster wound; either she killed him instantly, or not at all. And she had refused to kill him once, when he had been at her mercy. She saw no reason to change her mind.

  "It's Yeager,” she replied. Her voice came out very light against the echoes of his words, and she walked quietly into the outer cave, the silvery blankets dropping from her shoulders, her hands carefully idle at her sides.

  She had forgotten how tall he was, how the light shone on his hair and the beard he had grown to protect his face from the cold. Despite the beard and the bulk of his worn coverall and jacket, he carried himself like an ambassador, the single time Pauli had seen one. An intimidating sight, especially since Pauli knew how fast he could be, could draw his own weapons if he had to ... until she saw his eyes.

  They were blue, as blue and as cool as Alicia Pryor's. But where Pryor's eyes could snap with aggravation or suddenly turn warm with compassion, Thorn's eyes were uncertain, even fearful, as he studied Pauli. She could almost watch the thoughts flicker behind them. Why is she here? What incomprehensible, human reason has she for coming here?

  He was very young, Pauli knew. No more than twenty—and how much of that time had been spent in stass tanks? No doubt this period of exile was the longest interval he had ever remained conscious.

  But he met her eyes steadily, as if it were a duty he owed her. Finally, tentatively, he smiled.

  "Lonely!” he announced, and his voice came out uncertainly, as if he rarely used it. “Now that there is another person here, now I know that ‘lonely’ describes what I felt. What a wonder, to feel such things and recognize them for the first time."

  He swung around slowly, in order not to alarm her. “When I saw your light, I dropped my pack outside. Allow me to go and get it. Then, perhaps, you will tell me what I can do for you."

  He vanished into the cold. In what seemed like a remarkably short time, he stamped back inside, an enormous load weighing him down. He swung it from his back with an ease that astonished Pauli, then stripped off his jacket and stood watching her.

  "Dr. Pryor hasn't heard from you,” were the absurd first words out of her mouth. “She's been worrying about you."

  He smiled as if someone had given him a gift. “I went back to the ruins of my emergency pod,” he said. “To salvage. But I never thought my absence would cause her concern.” Then he looked dismayed. “I still have so much to learn. How terrible if I have harmed her. Is she well?"

  Pauli shook her head and stood aside to let him enter the caves he had made his own. “No, but that's not your doing,” she said. “None of it's your doing. But none of us are well. There's sickness, madness, in the camp. Madness?” She sought for a referent that Thorn would understand. “Like losing one of your brothers."

  His eyes never left her. Once again she watched the struggle he put up to comprehend the baffling morass of born-human emotions. “This sickness,” he asked. “It is a plague? Or does it come from loneliness, as when one feels the death of a brother?"

  Pauli lowered her head. “It comes from food. There was a fungus, a growth on the grain, and it made people sick. Some have even—” It had to be the warmth and her own exhaustion, but her voice was breaking, her eyes were filling in response to the innocent responsiveness in the tall man's eyes.

  "Died?” he breathed. “This is too bad! And Dr. Pryor, who could help you, is sick.” He glanced around the cave. “There is food here. I can help you carry it to your camp. But not now. We both have come a long way today, and it is cold. Still, your presence has warmed this place for me.” He smiled, the disarming grin of a child. “How strange to come back to warmth and light! And despite your news, it is very pleasant. We will sit and eat, and I will learn what I can do to help."

  His hand was on her shoulder before she could flinch away, and he steered her, as if she were something infinitely fragile, infinitely precious, back into the cave where Lohr's wings hung on the wall. “There!” he said, and opened out another blanket. “Now, we can both be warm. Are you hungry or thirsty?"

  Let him play host. The same intuition that prompted Pauli to test the littlests, or goad Beneatha into a life-giving rage, awoke now, and she nodded, letting the man talk out his astonishment that someone would seek him out—and his fear. Gradually her own alarm in his presence faded too. The hot cup he handed her warmed her hands; its steam soothed her chapped face. As she sipped, she began to speak.

  "The computer!” Halgerd exclaimed. “Of course you need the one your people left here. But you tell me you are asking me if you may use it? Why should you ask to use what is yours?” He activated the machine, and with a speed and deftness Pauli could not match, began to enter her information.

  "Ha! this is a very old thing,” he spoke as much to himself as to her. “I ... Halgerd himself ... knew of it, though, of course, it no longer existed on Freki. But on Earth, it was known for centuries throughout the European region. There is a list here: the Rhine, Paris, Lorraine, Flanders, Spain, even far to the north in Sweden, where my ... where Halgerd's people came from long ago. Thousands of people died. You say a dancing madness? Sleeplessness, visions, feelings of hot and cold, of limbs dropping away. And they prayed to their ... their saints, but no one answered."

  He looked up at her. He was actually pale, almost sick with distress. “It is hard, this living on planets,” he murmured. “And your Dr. Pryor is sick too.” He looked up at her with the perceptiveness of a child, or of his father. “What about your child?"

  There had been a night when he had tried to betray the settlement to his masters, yet had stopped long enough to inquire if she should be out so soon after giving birth. Before she realized, she had laid a hand on his, to reassure and silence him. “Serge is fine. But many of the children are sick. Including Ari, the boy whose life you saved."

  Halgerd rose so rapidly he upset his empty cup. “What can I do?” he asked.

  "Let me use the machine,” Pauli said. “Let me stay here tonight—no, this is your home now, and I am a guest. In the morning, I will call the settlement and tell them what I have found; and then I will return home."

  "But I have food here, supplies, even the computer: things that you need. People should come and get them."

  "And what will you do then?” she asked.

  "Whatever I am ordered. It has been very long since I have had Orders."

  "Thorn,” Pauli leaned back to stare at him. “There's more to this business of being human than just following other humans’ orders. These supplies here—we gave them to you. If you want to share them, I'll accept with thanks. But think, man. What will you do without them? Wait for me to tell you what to do again?"

  "There are children down there. True-humans. If they need them..."

  "Dammit, don't just transfer your stupid, mindless loyalty from your Republic to us! Think of yourself as ‘true-human,’ the son of a man with one of the finest brains ten star systems have ever seen. Use that mind you've got. Use it to figure out what you can do, if you want to help us, and how!"

  "All I know,” the pilot said slowly, “is ships. Fighting. Loyalty. And now, the new thing I learned when I first saw you here. That I had been lonely."

  "I too know ships and fighting,” Pauli said. “If
you come down, you may not be lonely. Other things, yes. But not lonely. Will you try?"

  He drew a deep breath and set his cup upright with shaking hands. “Would they..."

  "Thorn, right now they'd welcome anything, if it gave them more of a chance! I can't promise that they'll all be glad you've come down. Hell, when you're dealing with people, I can't promise you anything. Except that I'll try. Dr. Pryor will try; and Thorn, she'll be very, very glad."

  The tall man sighed and after a long time, he smiled. “She was my father's friend. I will come down."

  He glanced up at the wings, then walked into the outer cave from which came the clatter and bustle of someone packing. She turned back to the computer, fed in the rest of her data, and waited for a hard-copy reply, which she tucked into her tunic. Again, the lack of survey data on Cynthia had harmed them. Ergotism usually appeared after a harsh winter, followed by a rainy summer. If they'd only known, they could have taken precautions. They could take them, though, from now on.

  The crops would grow, and the settlement could recover. Most of the colonists were young and strong; they would heal, except for the people who had lost limbs, or their sight, or whose wits might wander for years yet. And even for them, surely there was much that could be done. There was hope yet.

  Quietly, so that Thorn might not hear and be distressed, Pauli laid her head down beside the computer console, and wept.

  "Captain?” came Thorn's voice, careful, respectful of her privacy—in his own quarters, for pity's sake!

  Pauli scrubbed at her face and wiped her eyes. “What is it, Thorn?"

  "I packed the food first,” Thorn announced. “Perhaps we should sleep before we climb down.” He entered the room and scooped up several blankets before he stopped, studied her carefully, and sat down on them. “You cannot sleep, either,” he said. “We should still rest."

  Pauli checked the precious data plaque in its sealed pocket, powered down the computer, and leaned back against the uneven, cold rock. Glancing at her for approval, Thorn turned down the light and smiled.

  "Captain?” he asked.

  "If you're going to live among us, Thorn, try calling me Pauli. Everyone else does—except maybe Beneatha when she's angry at me. Which is most of the time."

  "I remember her,” said Thorn. “She thought I should be executed. Will she still hate me?"

  "Can't say, Thorn. I truly can't. Right now, though, I don't think she can hate anyone more than she hates herself. For the rest of it, though; it'll be what you make of it."

  Thorn eased himself down comfortably on his blankets. “You know ... Pauli, you cursed me for ‘mindless loyalty.’ I must tell you something, before we join the people..."

  "The rest of the people,” she corrected. Alicia would have been proud of her for that one.

  "Yes. The other people. You know,” he said, drowsily, “when my brothers and I fired on the planets like Wolf IV, I did what I was ordered to do. Orders were all that I had, and I didn't question if they were right or wrong. I didn't know that such a question existed. I wish, now, that I had. I think if I had known that there were people on those worlds, people like the boy Ari, and the other one, who fired at me, then gave me back my breath, I might not have obeyed. Then they would have killed me.

  "But I'm alive now, and it hurts worse, even than feeling the deaths of my brothers, who died quickly and cleanly. Now, though ... Pauli, is this hurt a way of making up for the deaths I caused? Can I ever do that?"

  Pauli glanced up despite eyelids that weighed her down like a heavy pack. Halgerd's face was haggard, his eyes bright. But he did not weep. Too young to weep yet, she thought. Too young to know how much he has to weep over.

  "I don't know, Thorn. I don't think people ever know.” Her own eyes stung.

  "Then what do they do, if they can't know?"

  "They work as hard as they can. And when they can work no more, they try to sleep."

  A change in the light woke Pauli, and she shifted under her blankets, She could not remember having wrapped so many of them about herself. Nearby sat Halgerd, who looked as if he had not moved since the night before. Had he watched over her all night? Half-embarrassed, half-touched, she sprang up and went to the cave's mouth. The day had dawned crisp and cold. “Good flying weather!” Thorn approved, and Pauli returned his grin.

  "I think I can probably get through to the settlement now,” she said, and activated the powerful transmitter they had left in the caves but which Thorn, thinking no one would care to hear from him, had never used.

  For an eternity, static crackled, and then—"Pauli, is that you?"

  "Rafe!” Abruptly the signal waned, then rose, disintegrating into howls and spatters of static.

  "—emergency generator going! Yes, I'm here."

  "Rafe, I've got the material we need. It's weather patterns! A cold winter, a wet summer, and you've got conditions under which you have to watch out for ergot. But the life-sciences people ought to be able to spray, and to select out an ergot-resistant strain! I'm coming down!"

  Rafe's voice cut through her exultation. “That's fine, Pauli."

  Over the static and the hum of transmission, Pauli heard other voices, sharp and dismayed. But she only heard sounds, not words, almost as if Rafe kept the speaker pressed against himself to drown out the messages.

  "Not now,” she heard him hiss.

  "Rafe, what's wrong?” she demanded. “Have there been any more deaths?"

  "Two miscarriages.” She practically had to pull each word from him.

  "It's not Dr. Pryor, is it? Rafe, damn you, if I'm worrying, how can I get back down there safely?"

  "All right, Pauli. I'll tell you. Last night, there was a theft from the storage domes: food, heatcubes, blankets, and tools. Sometime in the night, the kids—all but the ones still actively sick and Dave's twins—sneaked out of the camp. I think Lohr decided that they'd have a better chance on their own, so he's taken them and gone to ground."

  The pause dragged on so long that she almost didn't have to ask the next question. “Serge too?” she asked. In a moment more she would collapse, would draw herself into an aching knot and keen her loss. But not now. Not now, dammit!

  "'Cilla's disappeared,” Rafe said. “And you know how attached to Serge she is."

  "I'm coming,” Pauli forced the words out. “I'll fly down to you. Rafe, have you told me everything?"

  The comm was silent for so long that Pauli was sure he had broken transmission.

  "No,” he said, his voice leaden. “When people discovered that the littlests had vanished, there was a riot. Somebody painted those black winged things all over the life-sciences’ domes. Worse yet, in the confusion, one of the quiet crazies got loose again and wrecked some of our repairs. All the grain storage domes are without power now. Freezing cold. We've abandoned them for now."

  "I'm on my way,” Pauli ended transmission and stood up.

  "The children are gone?” Thorn asked.

  Pauli shook her head sorrowfully. “All of them. They couldn't trust us to take care of them. They couldn't even trust me to care for my own son!” It was Lohr, she knew. Lohr with his talents and his strength, his fears, his angers—and the trust the adults had betrayed: they had promised him protection, but been unable to protect those he protected from themselves.

  "How far could they go without being spotted?” he demanded. All his earlier hesitancy and deference had vanished in what Pauli realized was his overwhelming relief that there was something he could do.

  "Pauli, you fly back to the settlement. I'll take my wings—Lohr's wings—out and start a search pattern. One good thing about living up here alone. I probably know the land better than any survey map. Once you get the riot under control, you come fly patterns with me, or send someone else. Someone who can work with me and not see a murdering nonhuman bastard,” he added.

  "And if you see the children?"

  "I'll signal you, then land and try to convince them to let me bring them b
ack."

  The words stuck in her throat. “If I know Lohr, they're armed. They've lived wild, Thorn, and they've killed before."

  Thorn lifted Pauli's wings from her pack and began deftly to assemble the struts and the harness.

  He looked up with a faint, bleak smile. “I don't think they'll kill me,” he said. “For one thing, I'm faster than they. For another—look what a mess Lohr made of it the last time! When he's afraid, he turns angry. But he's lived among adults for too long. I think he'll be glad to hand over the responsibility for the other children—if not to me, then to someone he trusts. Someone he ... loves."

  He held out the wings to her, and she turned her back, allowing him to adjust them, before she fastened the harness. “Just fly straight,” he told her. “I'll check in later."

  How had she ever thought of him as young and vulnerable? What an ally he was going to be!

  Pauli stepped to the edge of the cliff. The sky was pale, with a drift of cirrus clouds, more fragile and lovely than any wings. She waited, choosing her moment, her gust of wind the way surfers chose their waves. There it came!—cold, fresh, swooping down to take her with it—

  Pauli Yeager stepped off the cliff, extended her wings, and soared into long-awaited, exultant flight. The sun glinted off her wings, and she cried out a welcome.

  19

  A tech's hand shook Rafe from a waking nightmare that somehow had turned into restless sleep. He leapt forward, his instincts screaming fight, then, as his eyes focused, he sank back. God, how his back ached! Once again, he had lain sprawled over his desk, his head buried in his arms among the clutter of notes he had scrawled longhand until he thought he never again would be able to uncurl his fingers. They still ached. His neck and back shifted and ground like tectonic plates, and when he spoke, only a rasp came out.

  "Now what?” he muttered, and the tech bent confidentially close. The last time they'd waked him, it was to tell him that Beneatha Angelou had wandered away from the settlement with a relapse of her hallucinations. She had fallen, she told the medics, and when she recovered consciousness, she had staggered back home. He'd yawned. If that was what she wanted him to believe, well enough; better yet that she was still alive.