Icarus Rising

by Bernadette Gardner

  mating cycle. They do this to their children for God's sake.

  Ten year olds accept symbions and they stand up and fly

  away, perfectly sane, perfectly happy. All my research tells

  me it should be no different for a human."

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  Zara wanted to argue. She wanted to blame Danson for

  this tragedy, but how could she dispute a decade of research?

  "I'm sorry, Ray. I didn't mean—"

  A commotion filled the end of the corridor outside Danson's

  lab and Zara abandoned her apology to lean out of the

  doorway for a look. A number of human staff members had

  crowded around Jidar's broad form as the Icarian leader made

  his way in from the beach. Without further thought for

  Danson, Zara launched herself down the corridor and came to

  a skidding halt on the damp tile floor in front of Jidar.

  She'd never addressed the leader directly before, but now,

  all her self-consciousness faded away. In this moment she no

  longer harbored an irrational fear of the winged giant, only

  what he had to say frightened her. "Did you find him?"

  Jidar hung his head. Up until now, the proud Icarian had

  never admitted defeat in anything. It curdled Zara's stomach

  to see his massive shoulders slump. "There are dozens of us

  in the sky. No one has spotted him."

  "Could he have drowned?" someone asked.

  "The symbion would float with its wings spread on top of

  the water for some time. We would have seen him if he'd

  gone down on the water. He's probably found an aerie to hide

  in."

  Cold despair crept up Zara's spine, and when the sensation

  reached her jaw she shivered. Icarus's ocean was huge. It

  covered more than eighty-five percent of the planet's surface

  and was freckled with millions of tiny columnar islands upon

  which the Icarians built their aeries. Even calculating the

  farthest distance a newly joined adult symbion could fly in a

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  few hours, that left hundreds of square kilometers to search,

  encompassing dozens of islands and the treacherous volcanic

  rocks that surrounded them.

  "What if we activate our emergency beacon? Our supply

  ship from Sierra Station could be here in a day and they could

  do a global scan from space."

  All eyes turned to Zara. Mark Walden, the research

  station's supply chief, shook his head. "This isn't a colony-

  wide emergency."

  "Yes it is." Zara didn't want to argue with Mark or anyone

  else. She just wanted Caleb back safely, and if the Icarians

  couldn't find him with an aerial search, they had to widen

  their parameters. After all, the flight from Sierra Station,

  which orbited between Icarus and its sister world Daedalus,

  wasn't that long.

  Behind Jidar, Namara strolled into the station, ocean water

  dripping from her wing tips and her eyelashes. She put a

  hand on her husband's shoulder for support. "I'm sorry. Our

  search to the south has turned up nothing. Word has gone

  out to the islands in that sector and another search party will

  take off shortly."

  Zara backed up until her heels touched the corridor wall.

  She leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to draw strength

  from the building the same way Namara seemed to draw

  strength from Jidar. "What else can we do?"

  "A beacon..." Jidar contemplated her suggestion.

  Mark spoke up immediately. "With respect, emergency

  protocol states we cannot—"

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  Jidar cut the chief's protest off with a wave of his hand.

  "Not to summon a ship. The light beacon at the eastern end

  of your island ... turn it on. It may attract Caleb when night

  falls. It will give him a point of reference."

  "I'll do it." Zara pushed her way through the assembled

  crowd and burst into the rapidly cooling evening air. The sun

  would set within the hour. If the tiny fog light installed by the

  first human colonists on Icarus could help Caleb get home

  safely, she'd stand guard all night to keep it shining for him.

  She'd do anything, anything at all but stand around and wait

  for his broken body to wash ashore on alien wings.

  The rush of air beneath his wings reminded him of his first

  attempt at skydiving. He'd been terrified by the prospect of

  launching himself out of an atmospheric shuttle on Juno, but

  he'd heard his friends rave about the amazing view while

  falling through that planet's multi-colored cloud layers.

  That had been falling, he recalled. The uncontrolled decent

  from such a great height had left him breathless and

  exhilarated, unable to form a coherent thought.

  This was different. This was flying. Higher and higher his

  sentient wings had dragged him through Icarus's humid air

  until the heat of the sun began to burn his naked back.

  Don't melt. Don't melt. He'd thought of the ancient myth of

  the man who flew too close to the sun on wings made of wax

  and wondered if he would die of fright on the way down if his

  symbion suddenly decided to abandon him.

  It spoke to him then. For the first time a structured

  thought formed in his head, and he knew it was not his own.

  "We are one."

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  "We are I."

  Another surge of adrenaline washed through his already

  pounding heart at the prospect of actual communication with

  the alien that now shared his body. The chemical wave made

  the wound at the back of his neck explode in fiery pain, and

  again he screamed.

  "Whghh—" He couldn't form words with the air buffeting

  his face and rushing down his throat. Every time he opened

  his mouth, he choked on the relentless wind.

  "Something is missing from us."

  Missing? What could be missing? "Are youghhhgh—"

  Damn. Keep your mouth shut, Caleb. "Are you injured?"

  "No. You are."

  Realization made him shudder. Now he knew exactly what

  had gone wrong.

  It was his own fault. This was the chance he'd taken when

  he'd agreed to the experiment.

  "Can you fix it?"

  "Time will heal." The symbion's thought soothed him.

  That's what he'd been banking on when he applied for the

  bonding. It was a gamble he'd had no right to take, but now

  that the initial terror had begun to wear off, he could believe

  it might have actually worked.

  "Higher!"

  "Noghghg!" He couldn't control the damn thing. It really

  did have a mind of its own, and it wanted to soar, to roll and

  dip and revel in this freedom. Pain lanced through his wings,

  and for one heart-stopping, gut-churning moment, he

  plummeted like a stone toward the ocean. "Whaghghhh—"He

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  tried to scream then rational thought took over for a split


  second. Annoyed with himself, he clamped his lips shut and

  aimed a thought at his symbion. "What's wrong with us?"

  "Assimilating."

  His wings shot out and forward, pushing a great wave of

  air beneath his body, and together they climbed.

  "Doghhhg—" When would he learn not to talk while flying?

  "Don't do that again!"

  "How far away are we?" The research station seemed like

  a distant dream, barely real. His entire world right now was

  the wind and the sky and the water so very far below.

  "How high are we?"

  At first he thought the symbion was ignoring him, then he

  understood. The creature had no frame of reference. It lived

  in the air and on the water, but it had no need to measure

  height or distance. Wherever it was at any given moment was

  its home, therefore it didn't concern itself with how to get

  "back" to anywhere. That was something he would have to

  teach it. But how?

  He tried mind control. After all, he was the dominant

  species in this relationship. Jidar had explained that while the

  symbions were willful at first, over time they became so

  attuned to their host's needs and desires, they simply obeyed

  all mental commands without question.

  "Land." He concentrated on the word. " I want to land."

  Almost immediately, the symbion wings flattened out

  behind him, sending him into another terrifying nose dive.

  "Not here! Not here!" There was nothing but water below

  them, not even an island in sight. "Langhhh." Again he had to

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  force himself to concentrate on the psychic link with his

  symbion. "On land! On the ground."

  Up they went again. Caleb's stomach flip flopped. His legs

  flailed, and he realized his balls ached like mad.

  "My God, I think my dick froze off." Tropical climate be

  damned, at this altitude, it was cold. His fingers were numb,

  toes too. He was afraid when he finally landed, he'd find his

  gonads had fallen off.

  "I'm cold."

  The symbion seemed annoyed by his complaining but

  began a more leisurely descent toward the water.

  "No, no. We need to find an island. I want to go back to

  the research station."

  Up they went. Again. Caleb cursed, but then an image

  formed in his brain.

  The barrier island on which the research station sat came

  into view in his mind's eye. He knew instinctively how far he'd

  flown—an incredible distance. He also knew how long it would

  take to get back. He'd be exhausted when he arrived, but it

  didn't matter. He had to go back and deal with his

  transformation.

  He had to let Zara know he was all right.

  "Fly faster," he told his symbion, and despite its own

  fatigue, the creature flapped its wings harder and set a course

  for what would become its new home.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  30

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  Chapter Four

  Sunset had turned the gently lapping ocean silver and

  black and left only a faint, quickly fading smudge of pink at

  the western horizon. As the last blush of daylight left the star-

  filled sky, Zara's hope that Caleb would be found alive

  disappeared with it.

  She sat on the windswept jetty of volcanic stone, hugging

  her bent knees and shivering with anxiety rather than the

  cold. Ten meters above her, the brilliant halogen beacon of

  the light station glowed, casting a ray of icy white light out

  across the waves.

  She clutched the remote control box for the beacon in her

  stiff fingers. Every fifteen minutes for hours now she'd

  changed the light's direction and intensity, sweeping it across

  each quadrant of the horizon in hopes she'd point it in the

  right place at the right time for Caleb to see it and make his

  way home. She was prepared to stay here, glued to the chilly,

  uneven rock on which she sat forever if need be.

  The familiar snap of giant wings startled her, and she

  almost dropped the beacon remote. Clasping the controller in

  damp fingers, she scrambled to her feet. "Caleb?"

  A shadowy figure had come to rest a few feet away on the

  jetty. Immediately, Zara recognized the slim, graceful figure

  of Namara, even before the Icarian matriarch spoke.

  "Doctor Abbott, are you all right?"

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  "Have you found Dr. Faulkner?" Zara hated sounding rude,

  but she had only one concern at the moment. Pleasantries

  could wait.

  Namara bowed her head, and her curtain of pale hair

  momentarily obscured her face. "I'm afraid not yet. I'm sorry

  I don't have better news."

  Zara's shoulders slumped. How far could one winged man

  have gotten in a day that dozens of able-bodied searchers

  couldn't locate him? "Are they still looking?"

  Namara stepped closer, moving with perfect confidence

  across the slippery planes of basaltic rock. She pulled open

  the carrying pouch she wore slung across her naked chest

  and rummaged in it for a moment. "Jidar has ordered the

  search to continue to the north. He suspects Dr. Faulkner is

  no longer in the air. His symbion could not have—"

  "They're searching the water then, looking for his body?"

  "I'm sorry. Yes." From her pouch Namara produced a

  protein bar and a small pod of water, which she held out to

  Zara, a feeble substitute for Caleb's safe return but a kind

  gesture nevertheless. "Dr. Danson hopes you will come back

  to the station and rest, but I told him it was unlikely you

  would abandon your vigil."

  "You're right." Zara tried to smile. She accepted Namara's

  offering, realizing for the first time that her lips were dry and

  stinging from the salt air. She broke the seal on the water

  and sipped, cringing when the cold liquid hit the back of her

  throat. "Thank you."

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  Namara nodded. "Jidar has assigned me a search route,

  but I can find a replacement if you would like me to stay with

  you."

  The starlight was bright enough that Zara could see the

  concern in Namara's eyes. Jidar's mate was perhaps the only

  person who fully understood Zara's devotion to her task.

  She'd guessed Zara harbored more than platonic feelings

  for Caleb some time ago, and though she'd only mentioned it

  once, Zara knew Namara sympathized with her fear that once

  transformed, Caleb would be found eligible to receive an

  Icarian mate.

  "I'm all right, Namara. Go and search. I'd feel better

  knowing as many people were looking for him as possible."

  "A symbion is dedicated to protecting its host. It will do its

  best to keep him from injury."

  "If it can function. You saw him, Namara. Something went

  wrong with the joining. What if the symbion died or

  disengaged from him? We might neve
r..." Zara clamped her

  mouth shut and looked away. She knew voicing her darkest

  fears would only give them more power over her raw

  emotions. Speculating aloud on every terrible scenario would

  not make her feel any better, especially if the Icarian female

  confirmed they might be plausible.

  Silent now, she transferred her attention to the beacon

  remote. "It's time for me to turn the light. Thank you for

  bringing me these. If you go back to the station, please tell

  Dr. Danson that I'm fine. I'll return at first light after I shut

  the beacon down."

  "The nights on Icarus are long."

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  Zara sketched a weak smile. It hurt her face. "I've got the

  light to keep me company. I'll be fine."

  Namara's majestic wings began to unfold behind her,

  giving her the appearance of a beautiful, avenging angel. "If

  you do not return to the station in the morning, I will come

  back for you."

  "I'll be there. I promise."

  With a rush of wind, Namara leapt off the rock. Her wings

  flapped, pulling her into the dark sky. In a moment she was

  gone, leaving Zara alone again in her misery.

  How could she drag herself back to the station in the

  morning, knowing the most she could hope to find was that

  Caleb's battered body had been retrieved during the night?

  With a sigh, she sat back down and placed the water and

  the protein bar on the rock beside her. A few simple

  commands entered into the keypad on the remote had the

  beacon shifting once again toward the north. Maybe the light

  would guide Caleb toward the search area and make it easier

  for the airborne Icarians to find him.

  Exhausted by her vigil, Zara stared out to sea, praying

  dawn would never come. At least if the night went on forever,

  she wouldn't have to face her first day without Caleb.

  A brilliant star shown on the horizon, and Caleb focused his

  waning vision on the heavenly light.

  "There." He tried to force his heavy eyelids to stay open

  and concentrated on the distant light. "Go toward that."

  His symbion seemed to have abandoned conscious

  thought. It hadn't communicated with him in what seemed

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  like days. With almost robotic cadence, it flapped its wings,