myself. Luckily the departmental director didn’t need any persuasion to keep it completely hush hush. You can imagine the mass descent on that canyon if word had got out. We felt we needed to learn more about them before we told the world what we’d found,” Jennifer finished.
“We made camp at the mouth of the canyon and set up a hide in the alcove, where we got reams of digital image, all pretty much what you just saw,” Marko said.
“Surely they must have known you were there and flown away?” Ed asked.
“Oh, they knew we were there alright. They flew over our camp high up several times that first day but they didn’t leave. From what we’ve come to learn about them, they’re naturally curious and until recently, didn’t fully appreciate the threat that humans represented. In any case they didn’t consider our intrusion into their territory enough of a concern to leave,” Marko said.
“I believe you when you say they’re curious. The male, Kyato, went through the whole encyclopedia, looking at all the pictures,” Ed mused.
Both scientists smiled. “Believe it or not but Kira is a lot more curious, far bolder and much more playful than her mate,” Jennifer said. “This may have something to do with the fact that she’s female and a little freer of concerns while Kyato, being male, has the job of protecting her and that naturally made him more cautious. Without another pair to study we can only surmise, but at any rate she wasn’t as shy and we saw a lot more of her than him, and that’s another reason we’re so interested in what he did while he was here.”
The video resumed and they watched several more scenes of Kira at the rock pool, bathing herself or just playing while her mate watched protectively over her. Occasionally he would join in her games. As with humans of both sexes, the pair differed in some ways. While Kira’s baths were slow and meticulous and obviously greatly enjoyed, Kyato’s routine by contrast consisted of a plunge into the pool’s middle and three minutes of vigorous rubbing and thrashing before getting out to dry on a rock in the sun. Once, upon leaving the water, he shook his wings off a little too close to his mate and she smacked him, making the Blairs and their two guests laugh.
“She’s spirited alright,” Marko said. “Sometimes I’d be checking the camera in one of the hides and she’d land twenty meters away and watch me. If it was up high on a cliff wall, she’d kind of hover and flutter around and if I smiled at her she smiled back, it was great!”
“Kyato used to do that as well, he’d mimic a lot of the things we did,” Donna said, it felt strange saying his real name. It somehow made it more personal, and therefore more painful.
The screen blanked and Jennifer Hatfield paused it again. “We hadn’t realized just how daring Kira was until she started visiting our campsite early in the mornings,” she said. “She never disturbed anything and was always quiet so we don’t know how long she’d been coming before Marko accidentally caught her out.”
Marko explained. “It was just on dawn and I woke, hearing a rustling from outside my tent. This would be about two months since we’d arrived at the canyon. Anyway, I threw back the tent flap, expecting to see a coyote or a desert hare. Instead I saw these wide blue eyes staring back at me in total surprise. She was crouching only a meter away, a pencil in one hand and one of those small black film containers in the other. It was incredible because none of us had been that close to them before that. I must have scared the hell out of her because she dropped our stuff and was out of there with two quick beats of her wings. We didn’t see her anywhere for two full days after that.”
“Then what happened?” Felicity asked, eager to hear more.
“Watch and see,” Jennifer said, restarting the video. “It only took her a week to get her courage back but by then we were prepared and set up a camera with a motion sensor at the camp.” They watched as the campsite appeared on the screen, obviously early in the morning. First nothing happened. Then Kira, in a wary half crouch, stepped delicately into view, eyes darting this way and that. She looked around, studying various pieces of equipment and gradually relaxing as no one appeared to challenge her. She picked up several things; books, knives, cups; and looked at them curiously before replacing them exactly as they were. Then she picked up something small on the edge of the table. Whatever it was, it had her intrigued.
“What’s she doing?” Ed asked softly.
“I figured from her last visit that maybe she liked to collect things, so I left a coin on the table to see what she’d do,” Marko explained, still watching the screen.
Kira, after careful study, put the coin back where she’d found it and moved on.
“Obviously not,” Ed said.
“No, I was right,” Marko said, “I just underestimated her level of morality. The next time I left the coin on the ground just outside the camp and that time she took it.”
“You mean to say she didn’t take anything if it was within the campsite?” Felicity asked, amazed.
“No, just so long as it was small and on the ground. We lost a lens cap, a pair of dividers and about twenty pens and pencils through them falling off the table unnoticed. Kira always found them, and if they were on the ground, they were hers.” Jennifer smiled. “At first it was perplexing, as we just didn’t know where our pens were going and had to drive into town twice to get more. Once we realized, we didn’t care, we even left things for her - beads, ribbons, little things like that.”
On the screen Kira finished looking around and flew off, and then the screen flickered and returned to the same scene.
“This is four days later,” Jennifer said. The Blairs watched as once again, Kira returned to the camp to look around. This time however, after several minutes, Kyato appeared also. They could all see he looked very edgy and alert, tense by comparison to Kira’s unconcerned movements.
“Up until this, we don’t think he knew where she’d been going on her early morning flights,” Jennifer said. “As you can see, he’s not happy about it.”
Standing at the camp's edge, Kyato gestured for Kira to leave. Kira shook her head. Seemingly biting back his temper, Kyato approached and gently took her hand, intending to lead her away. Kira just as gently removed it and then went back to studying a tripod mounted telescope that had caught her attention. Kyato looked nervously around then took her arm, still gently, but a little more insistently this time. Kira snatched her arm back and glared angrily at him for a second before walking quickly away from him to nonchalantly look at something else, the portable gas cooker in this case.
With a look of patient exasperation that made everyone in the Blairs’ living room chuckle, Kyato followed after her. Irritated, Kira backed away from him but this time her wing brushed the gas lantern sitting on the table, knocking it over. That was enough for Kyato; in the instant it took for the lamp to fall, he’d grabbed his uncooperative young mate by the hand and in a flap of wings that raised a large cloud of dust, he’d dragged her into the air.
“He’s very protective towards her isn’t he?” Felicity commented.
“Incredibly so, and her actions seem to exasperate him sometimes, but they’re both very young. We believe Kira has only just reached sexual maturity and this could attribute to her behavior.”
“It seems late for her to be entering puberty, she looks as though she’s sixteen or so,” Felicity said.
“Mrs. Blair, even though they resemble us, from the study we’ve done we believe their physiology is far different,” Jennifer said. “We think their lives are much more accelerated than our own, like say that of a dog or cat. We’re fairly sure Kira is no more than four of our years old, Kyato, maybe a year older than that.”
“You’re kidding!” Ed exclaimed.
Both scientists shook their heads. “The lab work we’ve done on the feathers along with some other factors all seem to point that way. It also goes a long way toward explaining their vastly accelerated learning ability and their child-like manner despite their obvious intelligence. You said ea
rlier that Kyato seemed to relate to Ninah easier than to the rest of you. Well, that’s because in terms of actual age and experience, he’s younger than she is. Unfortunately along with this we figure their life span is very short compared to our own, say twenty to twenty five years.”
“My goodness, that’s terrible!” Felicity gasped.
“You’re sure of this?” Ed asked.
“No, it’s all just theory but we’re pretty sure it bears out,” Marko answered. The Blairs looked as though they’d all been kicked in the stomach.
“Is the angel going to die soon?” Ninah asked softly.
“No, not for a long time sweetheart,” her mother soothed.
This latest bit of information brought home to Donna somewhat just how different she and the object of her affection were. Five years old! God, talk about cradle snatching. And only living for twenty years; if it was her, she’d be dead in another two and a half. Donna shook her head, the pain in her heart turning from that of personal loss and regret to that of all out despair. Despair that the universe could be so unjust as to produce something so beautiful, only to snuff it out so soon. As if that wasn’t enough, it was worse for Kyato, now that his mate had been taken from him. Life could be so cruel.
“Did Kira return to your camp again?” Donna asked, wanting
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