Wings of Creation

by Brenda Cooper

  Tsawo’s first words to her didn’t help me out any, though. “You are very beautiful. I have never seen eyes that color.”

  Alicia blushed. I winced, waited for her to blather something about his wings, but she just said, “Thank you,” and then looked at Marcus and me. “Can Induan come?”

  Marcus shook his head. “Dianne needs her.”

  Alicia pursed her lips in brief disappointment, but when she looked back at Tsawo it was gone. I had a sudden vision of her with her invisibility mod on, so that a set of wings flew by themselves, and had to cover a smile. Maybe Tsawo was in for more than he bargained for.

  “What do I need?” she asked.

  “Just tie your hair back and be comfortable.”

  She nearly floated up the stairs.

  “How will you teach her?” I asked.

  “We have wings designed for regular humans. Within a day or two, we can teach her to use them, and then she’ll be able to fly by herself.”

  I hadn’t seen any of these. Not last night, and not out of the window this morning. You’d think that at least the failed fliers we’d seen at the feast would use them. “What do they look like? Are they safe?” Since you don’t need them, will you be a good teacher, and keep her safe?

  “They don’t look like our wings, of course. They attach to your arms and legs, and across and up and down your back. Don’t worry, it’s almost pleasant.” He grinned. “People come to Lopali from all the worlds. Mostly, they come to fly. Our atmosphere makes this possible. For example, for humans to fly on Silver’s Home takes equipment that is nearly as large as a person, and bulky, or it takes engines. Here, you don’t need either.”

  Liam and Kayleen appeared with the children, each carrying one. “Who let in all the cold air?” Kayleen asked, eyeing the open ceiling.

  “It’s time to get up anyway,” Marcus said.

  Kayleen noticed Tsawo. She gasped briefly and stood still, holding onto Jherrel. They both stared, wide-eyed, before Jherrel smiled.

  Caro, cupped in Liam’s arms, leaned in toward Tsawo. “Pretty. Can I have wings like that? Will you teach me to fly?”

  Tsawo gave her an odd look, and took a step back. “I don’t think we have wings your size.” Didn’t they have normal babies here? Kayleen put Jherrel down. He’d lost his baby fat and his head was above my knees. He took a few steps forward and then stopped, eyeing the flier suspiciously. Tsawo looked equally wary, but both were saved from the other as Alicia reappeared, her heavy black hair tamed into a single thick braid and secured with a violet ribbon that matched her eyes. She started toward the door, but I stopped her and gave her a kiss, whispering, “Good luck. Be careful.”

  She nodded, and returned my kiss absently. Then she stopped and gave Marcus a grateful look. “Thank you.”

  He looked pleased that she’d stopped to acknowledge him, but by then all of her attention had returned to the flier.

  Tsawo gave her simple directions to someplace called Fliers’ Field.

  She took off through the door and he rose out of the open ceiling without saying anything else to us. After he left, Marcus closed the roof.

  I looked around for Sasha, and found her wedged into a corner with her head hunched between her shoulders and the ruff along her back sticking up. Even after I called her, it took her a few tries to get up the courage to come to me. I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You didn’t like him either, did you?”

  “She’ll get used to the fliers,” Marcus said. “They’re just new to her.”

  “Are you sure it was a good idea to send Alicia off with one?” I asked him.

  “She needs a constructive way to stay out of your hair. It’s a skill she needs and wants, and one we’ll probably be able to use. It would be good for us to have a few competent fliers. You and Chelo will get flying lessons a little later.”

  “Can I have a flying lesson, too?” Caro asked.

  Marcus shook his head. “When you’re bigger.”

  Caro gave him her most serious look. “But I want to be big now.”

  He gave her back an equally imposing face. “Of course you do. You can keep growing all day, but it will take more than that.”

  Caro stamped her long feet and glared at Marcus. He looked over at Liam. “You’ll have to watch the children. I need Kayleen, Chelo, and Joseph.”

  Liam groaned. I may have gone from captain to student, but he’d gone from being the heir to the leader of a band of roving scientists to a babysitter. I’d have to talk to Marcus later about how to best use everyone. Surely Liam’s skills as a roamer would help us. Alicia’s, too, for that matter. There must be things that needed observing.

  Like Tsawo.

  10

  ALICIA: FLYING LESSONS

  Following Tsawo’s hurried directions, I threaded through the dawn-dark trees that surrounded the guest houses until I found a wide, flat path. A shadow fell across it: Tsawo showing me where to go. He flew so his shadow led me. At first it was slow, but when I caught his shadow he sped up, and when I caught it again he sped up again. Eventually I ran all-out, almost floating across the ground with the long strides possible on this light world, his wing shadow just too far ahead for me to catch. The morning air, still damp with dew, cooled my skin as blood thrummed through my body and my strides lengthened.

  A flier! A flier with me! And to run without a circle of metal around me, without anyone but Tsawo watching. Maybe Induan was right and I had Space Ship Shock. Whatever it was, I felt fully, gloriously alive for the first time since Induan and I saved the babies from the mercenaries.

  What would Tsawo be like? He was sexy and wild and winged. That excited me, too. Perhaps that’s what I liked—powerful men. Like Joseph. Like Tsawo. I nearly stumbled. Best not to get confused. I added speed, and for a moment I outran the flier’s shadow, and then he caught me and started slowing down, so my own strides shrank to keep me near his shadow.

  The grass beside the path shortened and changed color, as if I’d just run into a park. I noticed three long low buildings to the right of me, and a wider road that ended beside the buildings. Small humped hills scattered across the shorter grass, and here and there round circles had been made with bright green grass. Thin strips of red and yellow flowers created straight lines on the field. Designed to be seen from the air!

  Tsawo put on a burst of energy and changed direction above me, turning me off the path and onto the ground, putting the sun forty-five degrees to my back. Then he came down, his shadow and feet joining as he landed a few meters in front of me, laughing with exertion. The look on his face suggested he knew how polished his landing was, and how it awed me to see him put down so smoothly. I was breathing too hard from the run to say anything, but I gave him a thumbs-up, figuring that was pretty universal.

  He grinned, gasping, too, although not as noisily as me. “You’re fast!”

  I used the back of my hand to wipe sweat from my forehead. “Could you have flown faster?”

  “Only for a while.” He laughed, and I heard a hint of jealousy in his voice.

  “You’d like to run like me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Who wouldn’t? Welcome to Fliers’ Field. We’ll see if you can fly as well as you can run.”

  “I want to fly like you do.”

  He raised an eyebrow, studying me, not responding.

  “Really. I want to have wings. I want to know about the mod.”

  Now he shook his head. “You are clearly made to run like I am made to fly. As well switch a cloud with a river.”

  “A river is water, and so is a cloud.”

  “Perhaps, but the river is too heavy to fly without evaporating first.” Now there was laughter in his voice—not cruel, but not companionable either. Perhaps he thought I was a child.

  “I am willing to try.”

  He started toward one of the long low buildings, gesturing for me to follow. “Most who try what you’re asking evaporate, and never become clouds. I wasn’t hired to change yo
ur form, but just to teach you to fly.”

  I decided to wait and ask him later, after I proved I could fly with fake wings. He opened the door. Inside, row on row of olive and off-white and brown contraptions hung on pegs. He pointed at them. “Your wings await.”

  Oh. “There aren’t any pretty ones?”

  “You can make something better after you pass some tests. We want to spot students from a distance.”

  “Will it take long?”

  “It usually takes years. But maybe if you fly as fast as you run, it won’t be so bad.”

  I would. I’d fly really well. But I’d imagined looking like the fliers, graceful and kissed by sky. Everything about these wings looked awkward.

  “How come there’s no one else here?” I asked.

  “There will be. We’re early.”

  Here and there, fliers touched the sky with color, but no one appeared to be heading our way. “Are you going to teach other people, too?”

  “Right now?”

  I nodded.

  “No. Just you.” A puzzled look crossed his face. “Why?”

  My cheeks heated and I looked away. “I’m just curious. I’m still trying to learn what Lopali is like.”

  He started walking down the row of hanging dead wings, his own ebony wings making them into a mockery. He walked less awkwardly than most fliers, but even for him, the ground wasn’t comfortable. About halfway down he plucked a set from the wall and gestured me close. “Hold out your arm.”

  I did, and the wing he held up was twice as tall as my arm, and slightly longer. “These’ll do.” He plopped them into my arms. I tensed, expecting weight. As big as the wings were, they were as light as my shoes. “What are they made of?”

  “Carbon cloth, coated with temperature-regulating nano.”

  At least they were probably more elegant in design than looks.

  He grabbed a different rig from lower on the wall below the hook he’d plucked the wings from, and started back toward the door. I flipped the lightweight wings up so they rested on my shoulder and followed him, noting that from behind he really looked like nothing more than a pair of wings with a set of long feet below them. He even waddled a little.

  That didn’t stop me from noticing his chest muscles and his long, strong fingers as he fit the wings carefully to my arms. He smelled of air. He smelled of sweat and the oil on his feathers and something musky, like sex but not quite that. Maybe it was just the difference between man smell and flier smell.

  I didn’t want to feel so swayed by his nearness.

  I loved Joseph. I had loved Joseph since I was five.

  But there had been only Joseph and Liam and Bryan, and Bryan and Chelo had been inseparable as children. They should be together today; I saw it in Bryan’s eyes. He loved her, still and desperately. Kayleen had always had a crush on Liam. Since, back then, I only saw Joseph twice a year, I had loved a boy in my own caravan, thought maybe he loved me, but he died. Varay, of the dancing brown eyes and the fast hands and easy laugh. After him, there was just Joseph. Joseph who I loved and who was maybe going to save this world.

  And now there were hundreds of thousands of men with power and grace and beauty, if only a few had as much as my Joseph.

  I forced my focus back to helping Tsawo put the wings on me. Once all the parts were buckled and tightened and fitted to my shoulders and back and arms, and my fingers curled around the grips on the ends, and my legs fastened into fluttering thick-and-light material, I felt like a chicken trussed for dinner. There was nothing light and airy about the wings. Nothing beautiful, nothing comfortable. My shoulder blades itched with dried sweat from my run and there was no way I’d be scratching the itch until I got all of this stuff off.

  I trotted a few steps and raised my wings.

  Behind me, Tsawo laughed. “Not yet.”

  But I wanted to fly.

  “Remember, if you fall out of the air, the ground is hard.”

  Duh.

  “Follow me.” He sounded like Liam talking to Caro. Be patient. Do what I want. Well, I wasn’t a three-year-old, and he was my teacher, and so I followed him. Four steps in, I tripped over my own toes and almost fell, pinwheeling my arms to stay up.

  He smiled. “Come on. It’ll be all right.”

  “Can you help me?” I asked.

  “You’ve got to learn to walk before you can fly.”

  I listened for warmth in his patient voice. I’d heard it when he admired my running, but now his words sounded rote. Like words he used with students every day. Now that I was all dressed up in awkwardness, I was probably less attractive.

  I needed to peel my stupid self away from thinking about how Tsawo affected me. I was here, where I wanted to be. I was on Lopali, with a beautiful flier, learning to fly even before Joseph or Kayleen or Chelo, who were learning how to save the world.

  I waddled forward, keeping my head up, determined not to fall before I reached wherever it was Tsawo was taking me.

  More sweat poured off my face than when I ran to Fliers’ Field. A lighter sheen beaded Tsawo’s angular face and his feathers glittered in the noonday sun. Two other students with another teacher had come, flown off, returned, and left, all while I stood in the sun being corrected, and corrected, and corrected. “Okay,” he barked, sounding like Jenna or Marcus forcing us to exercise on the ships, “Last ground exercise. Bend.”

  I bent my knees so deep they screamed, holding the ever-heavier wings out to the side.

  “Thrust.” I stood up, pulling the wings down gently, feeling a touch of lift at the top of my stand. This time, I managed to stop the downbeat before the wing tips brushed the grass.

  “Very good. Bend.”

  I thought he said one more. I bent. “Thrust.

  Bend.

  “Thrust.”

  And then silence for three breaths while I stood there, thighs and butt clenched for strength, knees slightly bent for balance.

  “Very good.”

  I spoke through teeth clenched with the effort of standing just right. “Can I fly now?”

  “No. Your wings aren’t part of you yet.” He glanced up. “Besides, it’s too hot. Your first flight should be a morning.”

  Which morning? But I held my tongue, since I knew anything I said now would result in a third lecture about how flying could get you killed. I had thought I did well, but the look on his face suggested maybe I didn’t. I didn’t ask. “Can you fly in the heat?”

  He glanced up. “Almost no one flies this time of day. We fly in the morning. In the middle of the day the sun bakes our crops and flowers and the Keepers work and we sleep, and then later on we fly again if we want to.”

  The sky was empty of fliers.

  “So now you sleep,” he said.

  I didn’t want to sleep. But I didn’t think he was going to give me a choice. “So do I go home?” I didn’t relish the trip in this heat, and I didn’t want to be done with Tsawo yet, even though I should.

  “No. There are rooms here. I’ll put you in one.”

  And him in another. I could hear that. I was a chore to him. “And then?”

  “Then Marcus asked me to show you the general layout of the town.”

  He didn’t sound thrilled about it. He sounded patient, like he’d sounded all morning. Hopefully the rooms had some way to clean up so I could get the salt and sweat off my face and neck before we went anywhere public. If I couldn’t fly in them, I wanted the wings off. I slid a hand out of the wing-tip grip and reached it toward the other arm. One wing hit the other, and all my careful balance fled as I struggled to stay upright at all.

  “Do you remember how I said you should get them off?”

  I held them in front of me, and slid just my wrists free, using my right hand to unbuckle the left forearm fastening, and the left, awkwardly, to get the right fastening loose. Now I could bend both arms at the elbows and free my biceps. Except the wings slammed together again and this time I fell on my butt.

  11
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  JOSEPH: THE SCHOOL OF HEAVEN’S FLIGHT

  A full hour after Alicia left with the dark-winged flier, Marcus led me, Chelo, and Kayleen out of the house and back into the city. Fewer fliers graced the air than we’d seen out our window, and nearly everyone aloft seemed bent on specific tasks. I watched for Alicia, or for anyone in a harness and fake wings, but saw neither. But then, surely it would take more than a day to learn how to fly.

  As we passed the boundary that marked the common space of the city, I noticed the name of the town on a wooden arch—SoBright. I almost groaned inwardly—it went with the too-pretty everything else and the lack of anything that looked like predators. An amazing number of the fliers seemed to have nothing to do. They sat about silently, apparently lost in data. I took a few extra steps to catch up to Marcus. “Don’t they work?”

  He laughed. “They are working. Think of this as a great church—part of what the fliers do is internal, and some between and among each other. Besides, they do most of their work in the first few hours of dawn—that’s when they patrol for things to fix in the wilds, and practice long flights. Even here, on a planet designed to support human flight, people can’t fly all day. It’s too hard.”

  “So the silent ones are working with data?” Kayleen asked.

  “You’ll understand more after you’re not shielded.”

  “When is that?” I asked.

  “After you understand Lopali on the physical level.”

  He wouldn’t bend. Besides, Kayleen was new here, and new to these kinds of data streams, and fragile. But not patient. “When will that be?” she pressed.

  “As soon as you learn enough. Data flows are a language themselves, and reflect culture.”

  Kayleen grinned up at him. “Like the difference between Islas and Fremont.”