Wings of Creation

by Brenda Cooper

  We were ready an hour before we could fly. Induan engaged Marcus in a berry-harvesting project, leaving me and Kayleen alone to watch our wings. She looked beautiful and exotic in her braids. Older. I felt . . . awkward. She must have felt the same way since she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Can you still shield easily?” I asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Flying like you do must feel pretty good.”

  Her long fingers twisted one of her neat braids so loose strands poked out here and there. “I love it.” She switched hands to worry another of Induan’s masterpieces. “But I don’t fly like you do. I mean, not ships. I’m always nervous there. They seem so big. Flying just me seems easier—I’m much smaller. Maybe after you’ve been flying for a while more you’ll get the hang of letting go.” Her hands fell to her lap and twisted. “The way you tell me with ship’s data. Relax into it.”

  Like I wasn’t already trying that. “You look better. I mean, back home, you were more . . . worried . . . than you seem now.” I didn’t want to use the word I meant: crazy.

  I think she understood it, anyway, by her reply. “There’s something soothing about the data here. So when I get lost, when I can’t tell for sure what’s me and what’s the data, at least it feels like a safe place.”

  “You know it probably isn’t.”

  She looked directly at me. Her brows were drawn together and her words trailed off, as if the whole thing puzzled her. “I know. But I’m not scared moment by moment anymore. I don’t want to lose control, ever. You weren’t there, but back home I thought I might kill some people once.”

  She hadn’t killed anyone, but I had. I’d flown a skimmer full of people into the sea. I said, “I know,” and left it at that. I mean, if I got crazed with power once, I could do it again, and I never wanted to.

  Induan and Marcus returned and shared some small blue berries with us. By the time we finished, the sky had begun the long, slow fade into late afternoon. We donned our wings and gave each other thumbs-up signs.

  It felt good to finally be moving, wings rising and falling through sultry air and the ground beginning to flow beneath me as I gained some sense of rhythm. I understood why Chelo chose her children over me, but I still felt her absence.

  Matriana and Daniel met us just outside of town. We followed them, swinging north, away from Oshai. A circle? A ruse? I went with it for a while, but by the time SoBright disappeared over my shoulder I dipped my wings to signal for company. Kayleen responded, plummeting down from high above and slowing perfectly so she flew close. “What?” she mouthed.

  “This is the wrong direction! We’re not headed for Oshai.”

  “I’ll ask.” And she was gone, the ends of the long braids in her hair fluttering audibly against her wing-fabric. Except she didn’t actually fly up to anyone—she just got far enough ahead of me to have some room in case she bobbled. In addition to flying better than me by an order of magnitude, she could fly without her shields. Marcus insisted I didn’t have enough control yet, so I labored with no data feed to stabilize me. A short time later, Kayleen soared for a few breaths while I flapped hard to catch her. Even though I got pretty close, the wind thinned her voice. “We’re going to Hidden Beach.”

  “Huh?”

  “Marcus didn’t tell any of us. He didn’t want the others to know. In case they get caught.”

  Now I really wished Chelo was with us. And that the kids could fly. “Even Jenna?”

  She shook her head so her braids swung back and forth.

  “So are they going where we think they are?”

  “I hope so.”

  Wow. Were we really in that much danger? Oshai was south, The Integrator’s Dream was across the planet, a little northeast, and we were going northwest. We were going to end up far from each other.

  I liked the idea even less as time wore on and my breath came louder and keeping up became harder. I tried to honor Kayleen’s advice about letting go. It did help, a little, since I managed three or four wing beats without worrying or thinking hard about them. We intersected a major road and turned up it, now heading more directly north. With no access to data, I didn’t have a map in my head, and no idea of how far we were from anything.

  Two new fliers joined us, and Matriana and Daniel peeled away. I was so far below them I couldn’t be sure, but one of them looked like Angeline. The other was dark, but I couldn’t see his or her face well. The dark-winged flier had almost faded into the sky when we finally landed. My world had shrunk to the size of my aching lower back and shoulders, and my breath sounded like the breath of nearly spent prey, ragged and hard. As soon as I got enough control to look past the patch of grass between my feet, I let it register that it was, in fact, Angeline and Tsawo. They clearly knew each other, and for a moment, I wondered if Tsawo was Paula’s mysterious father. Except he’d told Chelo to be careful, right? I mean, he wasn’t happy about us being here, right?

  I hated being clueless.

  Kayleen’s braids were all loose now, and one had come halfway unraveled. Maybe nothing could keep her neat.

  We were someplace like Chance’s house—not physically, but in character. A big house surrounded by neat fields, and trees, and Keeper’s cabins. Colors were hard to make out in the fading light, but it seemed like a deep brown designed to blend into the native dirt. Inside, we found Chance, Mari, and Paula. “A friend’s place,” Chance explained as he helped us strip and stow our wings.

  Marcus sighed with pleasure as he hung his fake braid from the edge of his wings. Induan faded to invisibility then winked back into full existence in her true colors as a pale-skinned blonde. Paula blinked at her and licked her lips, but just like we didn’t ask about the friend who owned this place, Paula didn’t ask Induan about her strange abilities.

  Mari led us all to the kitchen and feasted us on salad and fruit and, best of all, great loaves of bread with butter and sweet jam. My eyelids felt like stones had been set on them, and with a full belly I caught myself swaying and grabbed the edge of the counter.

  Marcus came up beside me and shook my sore shoulder hard. He clearly didn’t quite get how I felt. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

  Paula blushed. “I’m not sure he’s up to it.”

  “Mmm . . . sure I am.”

  Marcus handed me a cup of col. “Follow me.”

  This time there was no laboratory, but there was a grand library—a room full of perches and seats and desks and display walls, all the colors a muted blue darker than the banding on Angeline’s wings, with accents in black and brilliant pink. At least it would be hard to fall asleep with the pink.

  There was, of course, no Joseph Chair. And no Chelo. Kayleen rubbed some of Paloma’s ointment on my shoulders, her fingers doing circles on my stiff muscles, grounding me enough that I fell into Paula’s data streams in spite of Tsawo sitting quietly in the back of the room, watching me with a skeptical look on his face.

  Marcus drilled me, this time more about what I would change. My answers felt slow and thick, but he made a lot of encouraging noises. The last thing I remember of that night is Paula’s voice saying, “Let him stop and sleep.”

  I did, right there on the couch I’d been sitting on.

  When I woke the next morning, my head was pillowed on a couch cushion and a red blanket had been tucked around me. My stomach had turned into a cave and my shoulders into stiff boards. Light stabbed in the high windows, and Marcus’s voice boomed through the kitchen. “Five minutes!” And then, “Joseph! Time to go.”

  What? No breakfast? I stood up and made great big circles with my arms, groaning as the muscles popped. We might be built for strength and recovery, but even manufactured men had limits.

  When I stumbled into the kitchen, Marcus shoved a full loaf of bread at me. He led me toward the little room off the side of the house where we’d stored our wings. “What?” I asked. “Why the hurry?”

  “We think someone found us.”

  “From Si
lver’s Home? The guys from the ship?” I stuffed a big bite of bread in my mouth.

  “Maybe. Dianne sent me a coded message that means they’ve been found, but not caught yet.”

  Jenna was with them. Marcus would hate that. “They’re in Oshai?”

  He nodded. The others were already here, mostly in their wings, stretching. Kayleen gave me a wan smile.

  “Is Chelo safe?”

  Marcus reached for my wings. “As far as I know.”

  “Are we going to help Jenna and the others?”

  He held out my wings, one at a time, and I slid them on, shoving another bite of bread into my mouth and thrusting the rest into my pocket. Impossible to get your hand to your mouth and fly all at once. I envied the true fliers, who had arms that didn’t have to double as wings. I swallowed, and mumbled. “When did Dianne tell you?”

  “Early this morning. But I wanted you to sleep as long as you could. You’re tuckered.”

  That didn’t mean I wanted to sleep through important things! “I need to know when any of us is in danger.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We have to protect you, most of all.”

  I bit back the retort I wanted to make, and tried one wing and then the other, testing the way my palms and fingers gripped the end pieces. “We have to protect everyone. And sometimes I’m going to be the protector.”

  He laughed. “I know. But you’re still an exhausted kid.”

  So did everybody over fifty think everybody under thirty was a kid? Not that I wanted the answer to that. We streamed up into the morning sky in a line, Angeline and Tsawo still with us. Tsawo took the rear, which meant he was close to me. After a while I decided that no matter what else he was, he taught well. He encouraged me. “A slightly longer stroke will give you more lift.” It did. “Don’t grip so hard with your fingers. Relax.” That helped. “Get distance with strong, long strokes. Don’t flutter.”

  I tried not to be too annoyed since I started flying better. And why hadn’t Alicia learned better if he was her teacher? When he flew in front of me to give me advice, I still felt a drab beside his grace. The fake wings strapped to my aching appendages paled beside his brilliant ones. His face was pretty, too; angular, dark, with wide-set dark eyes.

  We passed a few other groups of fliers, mostly true fliers, but in one case there were three humans under the clear tutelage of three winged ones. Eventually, Tsawo and Angeline peeled away, leaving the four of us alone.

  Just as my arms began to threaten mutiny (which didn’t take nearly as long as the day before), Kayleen asked for a rest. I was pretty sure she was asking for it for me, and I flashed her a grateful smile as soon as we landed in an empty field. We stripped off our wings and hid them under a tree, and sat down outside of it. Marcus and Induan went off to find water.

  It was a relief to be able to talk instead of yell, not to mention to be on the ground. I really hated flying this way. I dug the slightly squashed bread out of my pocket and handed her half.

  She looked at it dubiously but took a small bite anyway, and then finished it. After she licked her lips, I asked her, “So did you learn anything else? Who is it that found the Gang of Girls? Did Marcus hear from Chelo?”

  “Marcus won’t say so, but I think that’s worse.”

  Probably. I picked up a stone and threw it, sending pain ripping through my shoulder. “Do you have any more salve?”

  She dug into her pocket.

  “Ten minutes!” Marcus called out.

  She grimaced. “I’ll hurry.” Her hands were warm, and just the smell of Paloma’s mixture made me feel better.

  “I’m worried,” I said. “I don’t like running. Maybe Bryan was right and we should have hunted the bounty hunters.”

  She let out a heavy sigh. “We have children. How could we risk the babies? But yes, I’m worried sick. Marcus told me to stay shielded this morning, too, so I think he’s pretty sure we’re being watched.”

  “So are we still going to Hidden Beach?” I liked the name, anyway.

  “I don’t know. I want my kids.”

  “Too bad they couldn’t fly.” Our lives were circles. We’d been children who couldn’t thrive in cold sleep, so our parents left us on Fremont all those years ago. Kayleen and I helped each other get strapped back in. “But don’t be scared. We’ve been separated before and we got back together.”

  “That frightened me, too.” She glanced at Marcus, who paced, stopped and bounced on his toes, and paced again. “He’s scared, I think. He never looks nervous.”

  I agreed, but I didn’t want to say so. I pointed up at the cloudless sky, where two humans flew side by side, heading almost directly toward us. “Do you recognize them?”

  She squinted. “I think it’s Chance and Mari.”

  If so, Chance was flying with different wings. “I hope so.”

  Kayleen was right. They landed fast and Chance blurted out, “There’re pictures of you going around on two of the nets. Can you fly low, and follow me? We’re changing destinations.”

  My arms screamed so hard I barely made the turn. Chance flew so fast it hurt to try to keep up. No one else looked like they were having as much trouble as me, so I just kept going.

  We flew over long fallow fields, two kinds of orchard, the stubble of prickly plants that had just been harvested, then a big square of pale green shoots too young to identify. Next, vineyards with ripening grapes hanging on tall trellises three times my height. The odd farming of a man-made moon with perpetual summer.

  The vineyards went on and on, only occasionally punctuated with a shed, a road, or a house. Perhaps the vineyards, too, had Keepers. Like Seeyan. I wondered if there were more Keepers than fliers.

  The day warmed. Sweat poured down my face with each wing beat. Flying itself was not too hard, but flying and flying and flying and flying some more was tough. I should have been out exercising with the others instead of studying with Marcus.

  I started to fall behind, and Marcus and Kayleen both whipped around and yelled at me encouragingly, which made me wish for Alicia’s invisibility mod. Embarrassment kept me up for a hundred more wing beats, the others getting farther away from me. Then I couldn’t do it anymore. If I tried, I’d just fall out of the sky.

  I leaned back just so and gave the powerful wing beat needed to change direction down. My timing was off enough that I landed running and hopping, and finally tumbled end-over-end along a thick path between the tall trellises.

  I stood up, ruefully looking at one damaged wing. This was the second time I’d grounded myself; I couldn’t recall anyone else missing landings so badly. My pants had a hole in the knee and my knuckles were bleeding. The ribbon of blue above my head and between the trellises was thin and empty. I half-closed my eyes and let the data flows overwhelm me. Potential harvest dates, planting years, soil pH, temperature. All of it twined together, smooth, soothing my hurt feelings.

  I slid out of my useless wings and glanced up again. Surely Kayleen and Marcus and the others were looking for me. The grapes were ripening, some ready to pick. Unfortunately, they all hung above my head, and I couldn’t pick any even now that I had my hands free. The sun painted them gold and delicious, tempting. Even an hour of flying made my belly scream hunger, and we’d been out all morning. In fact, it was so hot we shouldn’t be flying.

  The trellises were fairly far apart. There’d be room for takeoffs and landings. But they were tall enough to make seeing any distance tough.

  I reached out for Kayleen and found her, the concern and worry in her energy like a knife blade cutting the serenity of the vineyard. I’m okay, I sent back to her. Then a picture, best as I could make it, of where I stood.

  No, show me from above.

  I tried to remember. I’d been so tired. Had I even been looking down? I can’t. But I think I’m near the end of the trellises. Not near enough to see the end.

  Can you fly up so we can see you?

  I broke a wing.

  I flinched as she curs
ed, even though she didn’t form any specific words for it. Then silence, probably as she told the others. We’ll find you. Watch the sky.

  The vines on either side of me made a riot of deep and pale green, brilliant against the reddish black trellises. My feet crunched softly on the path. I tucked the long wings under my arm, amazed all over again at how light they were when I wasn’t holding myself up with them. Maybe if I walked a little bit I’d find some ripe grapes low enough to pick.

  Fifty steps later I spotted a bunch just over my head, and dropped my wings. Surely the trellis was no harder to climb than pongaberry trees back home.

  It wasn’t.

  After three tries, I reached the grapes and spotted a better bunch just above. Once I had those in my mouth and had started down, the rustle of wings behind me drew my attention. Marcus stood a meter below me. I brushed a wide leaf aside to get a better view of him.

  He used his most-mild speaking voice. “Did you think pasting yourself to the side of a trellis would make it easier to find you?”

  “Uh . . . no.” I shimmied down and offered him a grape. “I’m hungry.”

  “Maybe we should feed you more often. What happened?”

  I looked down at the ground. “I just . . . my strength. I couldn’t go anymore.”

  He grinned. “On second thought, maybe we need to feed you less. Maybe you’re too heavy.”

  I looked him up and down. He was thinner than me, although not much. He still stood a head taller than me. “I’m no heavier than you are.”

  He shrugged. “So it’s practice. I sent the others on so Chance can get the girls someplace safe. We’re going to walk.”

  Great. Laying down and sleeping for six or seven hours would be better.

  “Eat your grapes.”

  I did, sharing them with him, while he watched me, and maybe talked to Kayleen. Hard to tell. The grapes helped. I picked up my scattered wings and started walking. He followed. “It’s about two-hours’ walk. We should get where we’re going before dark.”