Heritage of Flight

by Susan Shwartz

  "Halgerd here again. I've located the children. Yes, they're fine. Tired, I think, but in good order. Sorry. Yes, they spotted me. Lohr shook his fist at me. But Cap ... Pauli? I didn't see the little girl. Or your baby."

  ” ‘Cilla and Serge aren't with them,” Pauli told Alicia Pryor, who lay propped up to help her breathe. I'm not dying, she had told the medcrew—and anyone else who came within range of her tongue, which was still scalpel-sharp, though her voice couldn't rise higher than a whisper. “Thorn will go in with the nearest search party."

  "That's wise,” Pryor said. “The kids will respond best to people they trust."

  "Do they trust any of us now?"

  "Pauli...” Pryor's blue-veined hand covered the younger woman's where it rested, clasped in Rafe's, on her blankets. “Of course they trust you! Why else punish you by running away?"

  "Perhaps because they had enough of adult ‘protection,'” said Rafe, his voice so bitter that Pauli soothed him with a gentle touch.

  "Perhaps. But even if they run, they want to be found, assured they're loved, and brought back to safety."

  "But ‘Cilla,” Pauli whispered.

  "I couldn't quite believe that she could make it into those hills,” Pryor mused, then began to cough.

  "Lohr would never leave her behind. He adores her."

  "And she adores him,” said Pryor. “You remember when we evacuated everyone to the hills, she knew she had to stay behind. My guess is that this time she knew she couldn't march with the children.

  "What a dilemma for a frightened little girl! If she stays with her brother, she risks slowing down every child, perhaps risking their lives. But if she remains ... the camp is full of madness; and there is a baby whom she feels she should protect."

  Pauli gasped. “Lohr may have suspected something. That's why he asked Ayelet to look after her."

  Rafe unfolded himself from his chair. “Let's get Ayelet in here for a chat,” he remarked too quietly.

  One of Beneatha's techs (whom Pauli had last seen with her belly flaunted in the green and gold splendor of a long robe) stuck her head in through the door. “We're ready to burn the grain,” she informed everyone.

  "No!" cried Pryor. “Don't you dare! At least not yet!” She broke into spasms of coughing that made her sink back against her pillows. Gently Pauli wiped her lips.

  "That's it! We were idiots. Pauli, help me get up. Now!"

  The woman still had an aristocrat's haughtiness, Pauli thought. It was instinct to obey her, to ease her from her bed to stand on uncertain feet, then aid her to sit and to dress.

  "You can't let them burn that grain now. It's ‘Cilla,” Pryor whispered shallowly, to avoid coughing again. “What if she's gone to ground there?"

  "Be sensible, Alicia! The grain is contaminated. ‘Cilla knows that."

  "That child knows too damned much! She knows that we'll leave the grain alone. She also knows she cannot jeopardize the life of every child in the settlement by holding them back—and that her brother will insist that she do just that. But she is clever, with that innocent face of hers; she sits among adults day after day, and because she is quiet and she paints, they let her pass by unnoticed."

  Pauli leapt to her feet, heedless of the tears streaking down her face. “And where she is..."

  The life-sciences tech had sat down so quickly that Pryor reached for ammoniac spirits. “For God's sake, don't pass out on us!” the physician ordered acidly.

  "Those domes are ice-cold,” whispered the tech. “When the computer failed, we powered down the outlying storage areas. It's freezing cold there."

  "We have to get there, before they torch the grain!” Pauli cried. She ran out of the clinic, her bootheels hammering first on the floor, then on the icy snow. She slipped and fell to one knee, recovering herself with an angry, impatient oath, then was up and racing toward the storage areas.

  Beneatha and some of the life-sciences and bio techs approached. Each of them held a lit torch.

  "There may be children in there!” screamed Pauli. “Hold off!"

  Beneatha's unhealthy, jaundiced color shifted to an even grayer tone despite her umber skin. She hurled the torch to the ground, and ran for one of the domes.

  'Cilla and Serge, God help them both, Pauli thought as Rafe came up and tried to ease Beneatha onto a bench, were hiding somewhere in those storage areas. She probably would not come out, not for any voice less loving than her brother's.

  But they had to try.

  For what felt like hours, they shouted and called, trying to keep the terror out of their voices as they approached. ("Get thermal blankets,” Pryor whispered. “We've got hypothermia here ... I hope.")

  Pauli reached to strip the seal from the door, but Beneatha pushed her hand away. “I have to do it,” she said.

  "Flyer incoming!” someone shouted behind them.

  Thorn Halgerd swooped down, banking and diving at angles that Pauli would not have dared to try. Even as he touched down, he braced himself, then leapt forward, running for the dome where he saw the most people gathered.

  Dr. Pryor walked out to greet him, her hands going, out, then dropping in the moment before he understood she wanted to touch him. Though his face was reddened with cold, and tense from the effort of hours aloft, he managed a smile that fit even his eyes, which had always been unaccustomed to smiling.

  "We think that the little girl fled into one of the storage domes with the baby Serge,” Pryor said; and that was all the greeting she gave him.

  Thorn nodded, then pushed past Pauli, his wings clattering and falling from his back in long, orderly folds. Rafe moved as if to bar his way.

  "No,” said the pilot simply, “you shouldn't go in there, and the captain certainly should not. In case the news is bad, the ... the parents should be spared at least having to see it first. Please let me do this for you."

  As the door irised slowly, unevenly, he edged inside. His feet scuffed on the dry floor. Then they heard grain sacks thud against the floor as he began a search that was as arduous as it was thorough until that sound, and then all other sounds, died away; and they remained outside the dome in silence.

  A baby's cry rang out, like rain after a long drought. Pauli shivered with relief. Tears ran over Rafe's face.

  But Halgerd's eyes were dry as he emerged from the storage area. He had two children in his arms, one a fiercely squalling Serge, hungry, dirty, furious—and totally beautiful. Pauli ran forward, laughing and crying, to seize her baby...

  And stopped, even as she exulted at the weight of her son, grubby and smelly as he was, in her arms, at the way his arms clung and his head rubbed against her, seeking her warmth. Warmth, Pauli thought. The sunlight gleaming on Thorn's bright hair and forgotten harness suddenly broke into rainbows as tears welled in her eyes once more. For Thorn also held ‘Cilla. Her skin was waxen, her eyes shut beneath heavy lids and her long, long eyelashes. She did not shiver, and she barely breathed.

  "I was afraid of this,” Dr. Pryor murmured. “Her body heat kept the baby warm until her temperature dropped...” She touched the child's wrist and shook her head. With a dreadful tenderness, she wrapped ‘Cilla in blankets, then gestured at Thorn Halgerd to lift her once more and carry her toward the clinic where he had been restored to life.

  He set off with those long strides, but stopped abruptly. Pauli ran forward. ‘Cilla's blue eyes opened and she looked up at Thorn, with his hair the color of grain, and the silver of his flying harness and wings glistening where they folded and quivered over his back.

  "I found you,” she sighed. “Where did you and Mother go? We looked all over for you, Lohr and I. We were so"—she yawned deeply, then choked once—"not cold now, not scared."

  "No, never again,” said Thorn, his voice as hoarse as Pryor's.

  The child gasped once again, and Thorn pressed her head against his shoulder with one big hand, then covered her from head to toe in the gleaming blankets like a blighted chrysalis.

  "Swee
t God, here comes the search party,” whispered the physician. “And they've got the kids with them. Keep Lohr away!” Her voice broke, then failed altogether.

  "That won't work,” Thorn said. “When I lost my brothers ... he too must feel the death for him to know that it's real.” He handed ‘Cilla over to Rafe, then walked slowly toward Lohr, unstrapping the flying harness as he approached the taut, grimy-faced boy.

  Lohr gazed over at the tiny wrapped bundle with a kind of frenzied control, then looked at Thorn Halgerd, who held out the glider on the palms of both hands. “Here are the wings you lent me,” he told the boy. “I wish I could give you back your sister too."

  Man and boy stared at one another, the wings gleaming between them. Neither looked away, or wept. Neither, Pauli thought, was old enough to weep, really. The last time they had met, Lohr had saved Thorn's life, and had wept from relief and confusion. This time, Lohr was no longer a child, to cry freely, nor a man to weep (as Rafe was doing) for sorrow.

  For that matter, neither was Thorn.

  Finally, Lohr held out his hands, touched the wings lightly, then pushed them back. “You keep them."

  "I lost five brothers,” said Halgerd. “I still don't know which hurt worse, feeling nothing, or feeling the deaths."

  Lohr nodded.

  "I have supplies up in the caves. We'll need them down here,” Thorn said, “to help make this place run smoothly again. Perhaps when the weather is warmer, you might come with me to help carry the things down. My own things, too. Would you?"

  Lohr nodded, a mere jerk of his head.

  "Then take back your wings,” said Halgerd.

  "I don't know if I ever want to fly again,” Lohr whispered, looking down at his feet.

  "You will,” said Thorn. “I did."

  He held out his hands again, so that the light could shimmer enticingly on the wings’ struts and metallic cloth and this time Lohr's hands closed over them.

  Ben Yehuda and his twins approached him at a run, but seeing the utter dignity of the boy, they slowed, then stopped, waiting for him to speak.

  "You would have taken care of ‘Cilla,” he told them. “I know that.” He walked over to Pauli as she stood, clutching her child, and gazed into its flushed face, wizened from screaming. “You must be my brother now, since my sister's dead,” he told Thorn, then walked away from the children he had led. Thorn Halgerd followed. Man and boy headed toward the clinic. After several paces, they fell into step.

  PART IV

  Nemesis (ten years after Planetfall)

  Because I do not hope to turn again

  Let these words answer

  For what is done, not to be done again

  May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

  Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

  But merely vanes to beat the air

  The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

  Smaller and dryer than the will

  Teach us to care and not to care

  Teach us to sit still.

  —T.S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday"

  20

  Ayelet sat nursing her aching back and the comms again. It was boring, but comm duty was for the convalescent, the crippled, or—as Dr. Pryor had decreed—the pregnant, if she had any doubts at all about their health.

  "Nothing's the matter with me!” Ayelet had argued. “I feel fine, except early in the morning, or when my back hurts. Nothing's wrong with me."

  "Your age is against you,” stated the doctor, whose own age was showing badly. The skin had fined back from the elegant lean bones of eyesockets and brows, had sagged in delicate folds on her slender neck. “Let alone the fact that you were malnourished during puberty. And besides, what do we know of Lohr's heredity? So you're at risk in this pregnancy. That means that you'll do light work, Ayelet, or so help me—"

  So help her, Pryor was likely to have Ayelet tied down, or, weak as she herself was, tie the girl down herself unless Ayelet obeyed; and Ayelet, Lohr, and all their friends knew it. What was worse, Ayelet thought they'd probably help.

  "When her mother was your age, she was in school,” Ayelet's father had backed up the physician. “We hadn't even met. But when Ayelet and Ari ... well, when she was pregnant, all the medics said how young she was."

  Ayelet had seethed inside. Her mother (whom she remembered as a quick kiss on the hair and a breath of fragrance) was university-bred, much like Dr. Pryor; like her father, she had grown up with her eyes glued to a screen. Students bred, born, and trained like that tended to put off marriage, let alone childbearing. It was different, instinctively she knew it, it was totally different in a place like Cynthia and among people like those who had become brothers, sisters, yes, and a husband to her, people who had scrambled to early maturity while glancing over their shoulders lest a mortal enemy come up behind them. The urge to have something, someone, of your own or to leave some mark behind you—she had tried to explain that to her father before she and Lohr married. Tried and failed. Unlike her father, she hadn't the education to be clever with words.

  Now, once again faced down by that superior, frustrating eloquence, she flushed. At least, when she was angry, she didn't feel like vomiting.

  "Dave!” Ayelet cried angrily. “You all make me feel like a weakling or a fool."

  "Never mind your ‘Daves,'” her father had told her. “Just take care of yourself. You're not a weakling, but if you endanger yourself or my first grandson, you will be a fool."

  Grandson? Ayelet thought with a quiet, secret smile. Her first child, hers and Lohr's, would be a girl. It had to be a girl they could name ‘Cilla, after the little sister Lohr still woke in the night to call for and cry over.

  "What sort of a name for a ben Yehuda is ‘Cilia?” Washington had teased her once. Ari, who should have known better, joined in.

  "We name after the dead,” she had reminded him.

  "You would never be permitted to name her that—if it's a girl, and I'm not saying it is!—on Ararat."

  Ayelet had snorted. Ararat, her father's birthworld, was the second planet of which she had strong memories. Very strong. Pungent, even. Her father had married while studying off-planet; Ayelet and her brother had grown up in the cosmopolitan environment of a university world (if not as rarefied a place as Pryor's Santayana, New Trieste still was a child's wonderland). Not like Ararat, which she remembered chiefly for loud voices and unpleasant scenes.

  Her mother had lasted a year or so there, then fled back to New Trieste. “What do you mean?” she remembered her father shouting at a voice that belonged to an old man who lacked the courtesy even to show his face on the comms. “My kids aren't dirty; they don't need to be purified.

  "Never mind!” ben Yehuda had shouted. “I'm not letting them be subjected to that stuff, not at school, and not from you. I'll take them off world. Yes, I know it's exile. But we've usually been exiles, haven't we? Until, of course, we landed here and promptly became the oppressors we fled other places to avoid. Well, no thank you. My kids are tough, and I'm tough too. We'll manage just fine."

  And so they had. Managed. Not lived, Ayelet thought. At first, she had missed her mother and her home. Later on, though, she and Ari had understood their own homelessness. Being children, they had had to be content to follow their father—their affable, splendidly competent father—from world to world. And then had come the war, years of enduring and wandering.

  Until they came to Cynthia. This was her home now, hers and Ari's, even her father's. He was older now, heavier than he had ever been, oddly breathless and tired at times. Cynthia had taught them all a kind of patience. Lohr had taught her and Ari more: to fight, occasionally to rebel, and to use the rage she often felt but rarely dared express as a weapon in the struggle to endure the terrible days of Ari's sickness and the lean days thereafter, when Lohr stalked the camp as if his sanity had been buried along with his sister; and haunted Thorn Halgerd as if they had been born at one birth.

  Those had been har
d times for Halgerd too. Like the rest of them, he had grown very lean. Starving himself, Lohr shouted once, enraged at the man. Playing martyr.

  "Are you trying to finish off the deaths, join your brothers?” he had snarled.

  To Ayelet's horror, Halgerd's pale skin had flushed, his lean fists knotting. Halgerd wasn't just a clone; he had been augmented for speed and strength. If he struck Lohr, he might crush his teeth or his jaw. If he was angry enough, just one blow might snap Lohr's spine; and Ayelet had already known she loved him.

  But Thorn had unclenched his fists and turned away.

  "That's the first time you've been angry at any of us,” Lohr taunted him.

  "The second. Your captain saw me the first time,” Thorn had said, then turned away. Ayelet knew he had walked about the camp rashly, a willing target for anyone who wanted a scapegoat to strike down.

  He and Lohr had been close those months, so close—"Don't you worry, I'm not one of his stupid brothers!” Lohr had snapped at her once with real venom. That friendship remained, even after Lohr and Ayelet married, and Ayelet conceived Lohr's child. Gradually she accepted the idea of Halgerd as a friend. She had always been patient: Halgerd was quiet, a gentle man who occupied much of his time teaching the littlests to fly, and the rest of it on designing the ultralights Beneatha called a risk to life and limb and a stupid waste of resources. (As Lohr said, She would!)

  Why had Thorn never married? Ro Economus stared after him whenever he passed by. He was handsome and considerate, even shy, a combination that many women considered irresistible. Perhaps he had been alone too long. Perhaps the bond with his brothers had wrecked him for any other intimate ties. Besides, Lohr told her, Halgerd was still little older in actual waketime than they themselves.

  Wake up! Ayelet ordered herself. She stretched laboriously, as did the child she bore. She patted her belly, exulting in the strength of her child's kicks. Patiently she rearranged herself in a chair that felt like it had grown even harder in the past five minutes and adjusted a cushion to support the small of her back.