Wings of Creation

by Brenda Cooper

  She was probably right. A scattering of low-to medium-sized buildings grew in size, and we turned onto a road that circled them. Twice, the vehicle stopped and people clambered off, walking toward the center of the circle. The third time we stopped, Marcus gestured us all off. “We’re here. Follow me.”

  The one common thing about ship’s quarters is they’re small. My body had been cramped into tiny beds forever. As much as I love ships and flying, I felt happy as Marcus led us unerringly to a tall house with big windows and long balconies. Inside, half the building was open air with high ceilings. The walls cupped at least four stories of stepped rooms and hallways and living spaces, like blocks stacked artfully inside a much bigger room. The wide stairs had low handrails. Most floors and doors and window-work looked like wood, with some smoother substance painted on the walls. The gold guest house wasn’t gold, except for the roof. Inside, the ceilings were sky blue, the walls off-white, and the floors brown and tan, all of the colors muted and restful.

  Alicia stopped right behind me in the doorway, blocking Dianne and Ming so they frowned at her. She looked reverent. “It was designed for fliers.”

  Easy to see she was right. “But the furniture will fit regular people.” For example, the kitchen table, which was in front of us, had normal chairs that made no provision for sweeping wings.

  Alicia took a deep breath. “It smells good. Like garden and fresh air and wood.”

  “Go on.” Ming’s voice was edged with irritation. “Don’t block the door all day.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Alicia sounded as distracted as Ming sounded driven.

  I took her by the arm. “Come on, let’s choose a room.”

  “I want a window.”

  “Fine.” And so we ended up with the top room, which would take the longest to get to and from, and be the most awkward for taking Sasha out in the middle of the night. It had a floor-to-ceiling window, twice as tall as we stood. Maybe Alicia would feel more like a bird here. The bedroom had a door that closed, but the sitting room beside it was so open a flier could probably just land in it.

  When we got behind the closed door, I nuzzled the back of Alicia’s neck, but she just made a little mock-moan and started unpacking. So I settled for watching her get dressed in midnight blue leggings with a silver shirt I’d never seen before. It appeared to be shot through with multicolored threads, and I realized they were data receivers like the physical data threads I’d needed earlier in my life. The material felt soft and pliable under my fingers, but strong, so it would take a knife blade to rip.

  “I got it while you were with Marcus.” A slight sadness crept over her face. “The threads are just decorative. They’d work at home, but not here.”

  “It looks good on you.”

  I picked my blue captain’s coat, even though it was a little worse for wear. It would be nice to complement each other.

  An hour later, Marcus led us, now clean and well-dressed, into the late afternoon brightness. We headed through wide streets toward a park in the center of town. Or maybe it was the town. We passed dwellings fit for regular humans or fliers on the way in, and approached a grassy area that had clearly been designed for fliers. Trees like the ones at the edge of the field near the spaceport ringed the area, for defense or privacy or maybe even convenience, since fliers sat on them here and there, deep in conversation. I touched a copper-brown trunk as we passed in under an archway, and found it hard, and oddly warm. Engineered living thing or simply made thing? I couldn’t tell. Because Marcus had asked me to, I kept myself too tightly shielded to read its data signature.

  Through the archway, perches and sculptures designed for fliers to rest on lay scattered about. Even though their bodies were our size, or at most a head or two taller, the fliers took up far more space, needing room above and below for their wings to rest, and at the side to spread them. If this was their home, it was big and open and roomy, but not very private.

  Marcus hadn’t exaggerated their finery. As he led us, weaving toward the center of the gathering place, Alicia and I gaped at the jewels and glittering robes all around us. Green and gold ribbons. Blue ribbons. About half had long hair braided with more ribbon and beads and various charms, and the other half had short hair, probably in both cases to keep it from covering their eyes when they flew. Up close, their wings were even more varied in color and shape than they had appeared when in the air, some nearly translucent and others thick and dark, almost oily looking.

  Apparently the people who designed them experimented regularly. The thought made me stiff with anger, but I hid it as well as I could. Beauty and freedom were not the same thing.

  The air smelled like water and nuts and the thick perfume of flowers, which grew or stood in vases in every direction. The fliers seemed obsessed with flowers.

  Caro raced up to a man with iridescent green wings, and he shook them softly, so that a small feather fell out, just the size of a child’s fingers. He smiled as Caro picked it up and clutched it to her chest. It was thin and fine, fluffy, and certainly nothing like the long pinion Matriana had so reverently handed to Marcus. But all the same, maybe it would bring Caro luck.

  Although a few fliers sat silently, probably linked into data given the vaguely vacant looks on their faces, most were engaged in animated conversations. When we came close, their melodic voices fell and slowed, and they watched us with curious eyes and hopeful faces. I remembered the fliers I’d seen walking free on Silver’s Home. People had flowed around them as if they were rocks, with no real acknowledgement of the stiff-gaited beings with the beautiful faces wearing sour, pained expressions. Seeing those unfortunate beings had in no way prepared me for Lopali.

  Here, in this place they were meant for, the fliers looked more like the joyful statue we’d seen in the memory garden near the spaceport at Li, the day I first met my father. Alicia clutched my hand as we walked, but said little. Her eyes were wide, and I hoped she didn’t already regret her promise. The fliers were so beautiful I understood her desire, but so alien that the idea of transforming from the pale beings we were into fliers seemed unimaginable.

  If it was supposed to be a feast, I didn’t see anyone eating.

  The long string of us, led by Marcus, began to climb up a hill so steep there were occasional steps, five or ten risers at a time, between the flatter parts. The population of fliers was greater here and, if possible, even better decorated. And of course, since this was a genemod world, almost all of them looked young. I glimpsed one flier with gray hair and droopy pale blue wings, but generally we might have been surrounded by a flock of teens.

  There were no children except for ours. There were plenty of wingless humans and surely they had children, but apparently they did not have them with them. Although none of the fliers was quite as obvious as the one who’d dropped the feather for Caro, heads followed the children’s movements.

  The last set of steps stopped at a large flat expanse with circles of evenly placed perches, almost all occupied. Below the perches lay row upon row of tables piled high with trays of food: steaming hot dishes, bowls of vegetables and meats, soups, nuts, plates of bread, and sparkling colored drinks. The brightest green and gold grapes I’d ever seen, practically glowing with juice. Even though most of the tables were tall, with what amounted to raised walkways for the convenience of fliers, there was one at our height, decorated with sprays of blue, violet, and yellow flowers between the dishes.

  Here and there, humans stood near the tables, obviously waiting for something.

  Or for us.

  As soon as we got close, Matriana and a male flier landed on low perches in front of us, wings cocked up a bit to keep the tips from trailing on the ground. She pointed to her fellow flier, who was dark-haired and light-eyed, with skin the color of cream. His wings were pale orange with striking maroon tips. He stood taller than Matriana, taller than any of us, and he reminded me of Marcus—he was comfortable in his skin, and powerful, and he knew it. “This is Daniel.” />
  Marcus nodded formally. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Daniel spoke equally formally, “Welcome, Marcus.”

  He looked at me next. “And this is Joseph.” A statement of fact, not a question.

  I nodded, struggling to return his gaze as calmly as I could. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “And who is Chelo?” Daniel asked.

  Chelo stepped forward. “Me.” She cocked her head at the flier but stood her ground, and I would bet I was the only one in our group who could tell by her stance and voice that she was nervous. Her response was unusually bold. “Why do you want to know? What am I to you?”

  Matriana smiled, and her eyes softened. “If you hadn’t been left behind, and your brother hadn’t rescued you from your father’s war, you all wouldn’t be here today. It is not often an unknown young woman causes such big events. It is a bit of fairy tale, yes?”

  Chelo stiffened and gave the majestic flier an even and slightly disapproving look. “If it is a legend, it is a sad one. Many people died.”

  “We all have pain.” Matriana turned to Marcus. “And who else have you brought to Lopali?”

  As soon as every single person in our party had been painstakingly introduced, and sorted as from Fremont or from Silver’s Home, at least by introduction, Matriana gestured toward the low table. We took plates and filled them, following Marcus past the tables to a ring of mixed seats, short for humans and tall for fliers, with single or double steps they could walk up so they sat with their wing tips above the ground.

  Other humans, built like the fliers but wingless, joined us at the table.

  The human seats were benches fit for three or four at a time, and Marcus gestured for me and Kayleen to sit beside him, for Chelo and Liam and the children to take another bench, and from there Alicia and Induan joined Jenna and Tiala. Dianne and Paloma sat together on their own bench, heads together, talking in low tones. I puzzled over Marcus’s last choice, pairing Bryan and Ming. Bryan had been fascinated with Ming on the way to Fremont, in the Creator, when we first woke her after her stowaway job. We hadn’t trusted her then, and he’d volunteered to watch her anytime. Now, they sat closer to each other than they needed to, heads bent in quiet conversation. He did seem to be watching her, but it wasn’t exactly with suspicion. Other memories surfaced. This wasn’t new; I’d been distracted. Maybe it wasn’t good. I needed to ask Chelo about it.

  Wingless humans stood in a quiet ring around us.

  After years of ship’s food, the variety of smells and textures felt overwhelming. The grapes were as good as their bright, translucent skin promised and the breads melted in my mouth. While we ate, the tall benches around us remained eerily empty. Fliers began to fill them only after the waiting wingless whisked our empty plates away and filled our hands with glasses full of cool amber liquid that smelled of honey. The arriving fliers were given glasses, too.

  Marcus whispered into my ear, since I was still shielded and couldn’t talk silently to him. “This is the Convening Council of Lopali. The primary decision makers. They’ve come from all over the planet.”

  I looked closely at them. Most appeared friendly. One woman waved. A few looked simply appraising, like we were a curiosity. One or two seemed bored.

  A tall blond flier who chose a seat beside Bryan and Ming glared in our direction, her lips a fine, pursed line and her brows drawn together. Because the flier’s eyes were wide-set it was hard to tell if she was specifically looking at us, or if her malevolent gaze was meant for Matriana, who sat close to Marcus. Either way, it made me shiver. I tried to memorize her distinguishing features: long blond braids, blue eyes that matched great round blue circles on her wings, which were otherwise a pale purplish blue. I would recognize her if I saw her again.

  When all of the perches were full, Matriana held up her glass, and the other fliers held up their glasses. I started to raise mine but Marcus hissed, “Watch me.”

  His hand was down.

  Matriana’s voice was amplified by something I couldn’t see, maybe even loud enough to be heard across all the space between here and the ring of perch trees. “We welcome strangers into our midst tonight. Most importantly, we welcome Joseph, Chelo, and Kayleen from Silver’s Home, who are renegade and cast away, and have landed on our shores after a long flight.”

  The fliers answered her back, each softly but together a thicket of voices. “Welcome.”

  All the fliers sipped.

  Matriana continued. “We dream that these three will help us take away the pain in our heart. We dream they will help us fill our emptiness.”

  The actual pain that tinged her voice, the yearning, made me want to help her more than anything.

  The answering chorus sounded bittersweet and hopeful. “May they remove our pain.”

  Kayleen grasped my hand. I noticed Marcus had raised his glass, so we all did, Kayleen and I still holding hands and using our free ones for the toast. Across the circle from us, Bryan and Ming were in the same pose. Marcus’s voice was as amplified as Matriana’s as he spoke. “In the name of peace, we hope our skills will help make you whole.”

  He leaned down and whispered in my ear, and Ming whispered in Bryan’s, and Chelo and Liam simply followed along. “In the name of peace.”

  Chelo smiled broadly. It was a good toast for her.

  Matriana’s voice rang out again. “Once we are free, we will fight in the name of peace.”

  “Once we are free.”

  “We will win peace for us all.”

  “Once we are free.”

  “In the name of peace.”

  We drank. The liquid was thick and sweet, but not alcoholic, missing even the sweet clarity of col.

  Of all the fliers in the circle around us, only the blonde with the blue eyes and blue-eyed feathers looked sour. But one sour face made a difference, and I could almost feel an exhalation of relief when she pushed up off her perch and made a great showy circle above our heads before flying off, her light wings visible like mist for a long time until the dusk sky folded her up inside of it, and we all finally looked back at each other.

  Music sprouted from somewhere over near the tables—drums and wind instruments and a deep hum that seemed to set the inside of my bones vibrating. Small talk started to rush across the circle, and it finally began to feel like a party.

  7

  ALICIA: THE AFTER PARTY

  Induan and I sat side by side on the bench in the circle of fliers. We were both visible, but who would see us in the midst of so much beauty? She slapped me lightly on the arm. “Alicia. Close your mouth or a bug will land in it.”

  I did, but I couldn’t stop watching. The last few fliers who had participated directly in the ceremony rose smoothly from their perches, wings rustling the cooling air. A man with blue wings landed on the grass near us, leaning forward so as to keep the tips of his wings off the ground. A slender pink-winged woman landed on a stone, standing comfortably, talking to a few of the people with no wings. She belonged in a painting or an animation instead of in the real world, and I wanted to touch her to see if she was real. Three others flew away entirely, fast. After all of the perches were clear, I stood and stretched, finally, belatedly, looking for Joseph. I saw his back as he and Marcus walked away, lost in conversation.

  He should have looked for me first. At least to say he had to ignore me for a while longer. There should have been infinite time to be together on space ships, but there hadn’t been. Not once Marcus found us. Some of the joy I’d taken in seeing the fliers leaked out as he walked away.

  “Shake it off,” Induan said. “He has duties. You and me, we’re closer to nobody. That means we’re free to explore.”

  “Yeah.” It’d be nice if she were wrong once in a while. Not that it hurt to have her on my side. She’d told me to dress even more outrageously than Marcus had suggested, and she’d done the same. She wore white leggings and a white lacy blouse with long, belled sleeves, everything so stark her white skin looked
almost normal. She and her outfit took on a bit of a glow in the fading light. We’d both belted on boosters for our invisibility mods, to help them work with our clothes.

  She did not seem as beauty-bit as I felt, so I asked her, “Aren’t they the prettiest people?” I remembered how awkward the first real fliers I saw looked, waddling through the full gravity of Silver’s Home, pain lining their faces. “I mean here, where they belong.”

  Induan’s laugh came out kind. “You’ve got Space Ship Shock.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know. When you’ve been locked up in a big tin can for years and you finally get onto a planet and everything looks big and beautiful?”

  But it was. “Did you feel like that when you got to Fremont?”

  “Until I realized everything had sharp edges.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “That should have taken five minutes.”

  “Two.”

  I looked around. The ground was rolling grass, nano-bot–trimmed like in the parks on Silver’s Home. Purple and yellow flowers held their petals open to catch the last rays of sun, and beside them, a line of white flowers had already closed for the night. Hills rolled away in all directions. We were high enough up to see the humped bellies of the closest ones, all dotted with people and fliers and gardens. “I don’t see edges here. The fliers are beautiful.”

  Induan smiled faintly, then nodded, both unconvincing. “Fliers make strange allies. They’re unpredictable in interworld politics.”

  I shrugged. “Can you blame them? They can’t even walk on some of the worlds.”

  “Don’t underestimate them.”

  Oh no. They must be powerful. But more than power, they had grace. Calm. The first one I’d seen had been a statue, and no dead thing had ever exuded so much calm and peace coupled with action and movement. And here? Live? They were more beautiful than the artist had made the statue. I wanted to be one.

  We snacked on a few of the richly scented grapes that exploded sugar into our mouths. No one bothered us, although from time to time I caught a flier or a wingless looking at us out of the corner of their eye, or offering a small smile. It felt weird to be watched. “Let’s take a walk. See what they’re like in the wild.”