Wings of Creation

by Brenda Cooper

  We made it two thirds of the way to the building before the guards, on another round, seemed too close to us for safety. I stopped, keeping my breathing down. Induan’s breath was barely audible, but her hand on my arm was warm and reassuring. Two other people walked by, too close for comfort, and I was glad we’d stopped. After the way seemed clear again, and the building we were headed for was between us and the guards, I started us forward again.

  As we got closer, building details resolved. The outside was a dark color, blue or blue-gray, and it had small windows that looked like they might also be covered. Light leaked from the bottom of the windows, and from under a plain door. It was shaped slightly more like a house than a warehouse, but still one story and low-slung. The thickness of the roof on the side toward us indicated it was probably still wide open to the stars, and fliers. Flower beds butted up to the walls, most of the plants low and controlled, except along one side, where wide-leafed plants with tall-stemmed slender bells of flowers crept up trellises, scenting the air with something too-sweet that threatened to make me sneeze.

  A rush of wings behind us made me turn and look around. The guards stepped around the side of the building and the two people who had passed us earlier now flanked us, too. We were inside a circle.

  Uh-oh.

  Our would-be captors stared at each other, except for one of the fliers, who looked right at me and Induan. He had gray eyes that clearly saw us. Or since they didn’t meet my gaze, saw where we were. How?

  He pointed at us, and the wingless walked slowly nearer, surrounding us, their eyes wary.

  Induan’s hand slid off my arm.

  She didn’t need to tell me. Go in different directions.

  But where? The four were close enough to leave little opening. I’d been trapped before. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  The other flier had bloodred wings trimmed in gold. She was short for a flier, with cropped red hair to match her wings and gold pupils in her eyes. The gold in her wings sparkled even in the artificial light, and probably reflected sunshine almost blindingly when she flew. She watched the gray flier, admiration clear on her face. The guards and the others all looked at us, at where he pointed, and even though their slightly off gazes told me they couldn’t see me, I felt naked under their eyes. Prey. But she wasn’t even looking for us. So I charged her.

  She didn’t move, didn’t feel me coming.

  Head down, I rammed into her chest. She felt lighter than I expected, but not brittle. She gave with my rush, nearly falling. I reached for a wing and tugged, trying to pull her sideways so I could pass her and run for the wall.

  Her hands came around me, clutching for balance. We danced a moment, holding each other.

  I had been caught after all.

  Our feet tangled and she tipped back, the center of her weight higher than mine because of her wings. I pulled away, backward, wanting to help her fall forward so she wouldn’t break a wing. I whispered, “Sorry, so sorry.”

  She reached toward me, her face twisting, surprise and a cry for help clear in her features. She raked fingernails along the top of my right forearm. I pulled away, gently but still fast, not minding that she hurt me, but desperate to get free.

  She landed on her hands and knees, with a cry of pain. I’d hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt a flier. I didn’t want to ever hurt a flier.

  I’d hit a flier.

  What was wrong with me? I backed carefully away from her, looking for another opening. A long red feather, from midwing, lay between my feet. I must have damaged her wing in the struggle. Without really thinking, I reached for it, scooping it with my left hand, and turning immediately right, ducking to do what I should have done—knock the wind out of a wingless.

  The gray-eyed flier called out. “Alicia! Stop. You can’t get out anyway.”

  32

  JOSEPH: A FRIEND IN NEED

  Along damp tongue scraped against my cheeks and nose, and I put my hand up over my face, pushing Sasha gently away. Too bad the artificial light of the cave never really turned off. It would be so nice to open my eyes to darkness, pet the dog, and then roll back over and sleep. My eyes were crusty, and my mouth tasted like sand. I remembered falling onto and then off the table, and then crawling over to the side of the cave against the wall, Marcus’s voice egging me on, and someone else—Stark?

  Something soft pillowed my head. I turned, feeling a shoulder bone. Kayleen? I couldn’t quite brave the cruel brightness yet to tell for sure, but it must be her. My pillow gave a soft little snore, and I smiled. Yep. Kayleen. I was still so tired. Surely we’d only slept a few minutes. Maybe an hour?

  Something must be wrong.

  I sat up, wiping at my eyes with one hand and pulling Sasha to me with the other. Once I could actually see, I found Stark next to me with a glass of water. I took it, and it tasted as good as the first water after being frozen on one of the ships. Like every cell had a deep thirst, and the water saved them, one by one, from death.

  I reached my hand out for more, but Stark said, “Slow down. Let your body take that much. I’ve got col here, too. Wake the others, first.”

  I wanted more water. I looked back and found Kayleen had rolled away from me. Her long hair, which she’d combed meticulously after her shower, had already started to tangle again. It obscured most of her face. She moaned and put a hand up to her cheek, scratching at her ear. Beyond her, Marcus slept unmoving, looking as unperturbed as usual, except he still had less color than he should. Sasha looked at them, too, as if contemplating whether or not she should lick their faces. I knew it drove Kayleen nuts, so I put a hand on Sasha’s head and said, “No.” I turned back to Stark. “They look like they should sleep more.” I put my hand out for more water.

  He filled it, narrowing his eyes. “You’ve slept through a whole night.”

  Really?

  “Marcus’ll want to check on the sim, and you’ve only got a day or a day and a half until you’ve got to go.”

  That’s right. Star Mercenaries. Lushia again? Someone else? I was still too tired to get amped about it. Or anything else. But he was right about the Paula sim. I wanted to know. I glanced back at Marcus to check and see if he was still asleep. “Where are we going?”

  He shook his head. “If Marcus didn’t tell you, I won’t.”

  “He was just tired.”

  Stark’s laugh was gentle but firm. “So wake him up.”

  A loyal soul. I drank the water, buying the others each a few more breaths of sleep.

  Kayleen rolled again, to me this time, wrapping an arm around my calf. I shook her gently, whispering, “Wake up.”

  She mumbled something. I leaned down to hear her. It sounded like “Liam.” Well, she must miss him. Her arm tightened around my calf, and I picked it up and moved it carefully. “Kayleen—wake up.”

  It took three more tries before she looked like herself when she opened her eyes. As Stark handed her water, I woke Marcus, which took one easy nudge. Once we were all sitting up with col in our hands, Marcus closed his eyes. I knew he was building a secure tunnel and diving through it to check on our work.

  And when he opened his eyes, I knew we’d failed. Whatever energy the water and col had given me faded in disappointment. Kayleen was watching him, too. “What happened?” she asked.

  He looked crushed. “She lived almost all night. The sim managed the pregnancy all right, but she died delivering.”

  “So we got a lot further than we had before.”

  He nodded. “We almost did it. We have to go back.”

  Stark grunted. “You’ve got about thirty hours. And you might need to sleep some more.”

  “We’ll sleep on the ship.”

  Ship? Not without Chelo.

  Kayleen had a deep frown. “Did the baby die?”

  Marcus nodded.

  I needed to keep my head clear enough to think. “So we really didn’t get as far as Chance did just using what he had? I mean, Angeline had Paula, right?”
<
br />   Marcus stood up and stretched. “But Angeline didn’t bear her. Mari did.”

  Kayleen said, “But Paula was okay, and this baby wasn’t. This one died. Doesn’t that mean we failed worse? It makes us as bad as Silver’s Home. Maybe.”

  “The baby was okay until the birth process strangled him.”

  I stood up next to Marcus. “We can analyze all this later. We need to get Chelo.” Kayleen rewarded my words with a smile and held out her hand. I helped her up. “Now. We need to get her now.”

  “No.” Marcus sipped his col and looked many times calmer than I felt. “Chelo’s safe. We know where she is.” He looked at me. “Alicia’s the only one of yours that’s missing.”

  “And Bryan.” Why did people always forget Bryan? “Has anyone heard anything?”

  “And Bryan,” Marcus acknowledged.

  “And my mom,” Kayleen added.

  Marcus closed his eyes for a moment, and I wished we were already on a ship, where I’d always had all the data access I wanted, any time I wanted it. I knew better than to dip in here—it wasn’t Marcus not trusting me, it was that we were hunted. Besides, it was all too sweet for my taste.

  When he opened his eyes again, Marcus said, “Nothing, except Alicia was in a fight, she and Bryan. They got away, and no one has seen either of them since.”

  That only meant there was nothing I could do. I didn’t wait for him to tell me what came next. “How much work do we have to do to get one more try on the sim?”

  He gave a pleased, surprised smile. “Same as last time. Why don’t you two freshen up and take the dog out, and then meet me back here in half an hour?”

  When we finished with this one last try, I was going to go find Alicia and Bryan and Chelo and Liam and the babies and everyone else, and I wasn’t going to get on a ship until I did. And if Marcus didn’t already know that, he should. So I didn’t bother to tell him.

  Ten minutes later, Kayleen and I were outside with Sasha. As soon as we found a quiet place to sit, she started talking in her old Kayleen-babble. “What could be happening? Why do they want you so bad? And Chelo—is that just to get to you? I bet we haven’t heard from Alicia because she’s invisible, but I haven’t seen Induan or Seeyan, and they should have come back, unless they came back already and we didn’t wake up. And I had bad dreams. I dreamed about the sim, and in some of my dreams she was Paula and she was sweet like Paula, but in some of them she wasn’t, she was like the mercenaries, all mean and full of technology. . . .” She put her head in her hands. “And I wanted Liam, and Chelo, and they were going farther and farther away from me in my dreams, they were getting small. . . .”

  So much for me being worried. I took her in my arms and held her. She started crying. Sasha came up, curious, and laid her black-and-white nose on Kayleen’s thigh and didn’t whine or bark, or even move. The flower-sweetened outside air gave me strength, and I willed my skin and my body to drink of it, to drink in the sun. I might not have another fifteen minutes of sunshine for a long time.

  Kayleen’s hair felt soft under my hand and I watched the curve of her cheek against my shoulder. Back on Fremont, she’d always been one of the happiest of us, but she’d also always been more fragile than Chelo—who never broke—or Alicia, who broke violently, but had been strong enough to survive being beaten and locked up. Even though she’d been loved, Kayleen had always reminded me of excited fog rising from a morning river, fast and pretty, yet insubstantial. I leaned down and kissed her gently on the top of her head. She nuzzled her head into my lips, but didn’t turn her face to me. I lifted my head back up.

  Surely that was a friend’s kiss. My body wanted to offer her more, but she wasn’t mine to offer myself to. I wasn’t free, and I didn’t want to be free. So I let her cry, and managed not to kiss her again. Instead, I drew pictures of Alicia’s face in my head, and remembered her hot, hungry kisses and the feel of her body. Hopefully she was okay. Surely she was okay. Alicia could survive anything.

  Only Sasha was simple. If not for her, I would have felt incredibly alone out there soaking in the sun and my friend’s tears.

  Kayleen cried so long we were late getting back.

  We found Marcus pacing where we were supposed to meet him. He had one of his intense thinking looks on, the one where he drew his eyebrows in and picked at the thin line of his lips. To his credit, he didn’t ask what kept us. He had three plates of fruit and cheese and bread and nuts piled up for us, and a bowl of bread soaked in milk for Sasha. I would have far preferred a big slab of djuri steak, but the bird people didn’t eat much meat. I was sure Sasha would have preferred to hunt, but she had known I needed her. I gave her a pet and whispered, “Thanks,” in her ear.

  We went back to the small dark room and lay back down, uncomfortably, on the big dark chairs, and fell away from our bodies into the same larger river of data we’d had before. And like we’d seen on multiple tries now, Paula dangled in the air exactly like she’d been when scanned up into the computer, a canvas waiting for us to paint health and fecundity across. I pictured her alive and walking around, fat with a baby, laughing. She was pretty anyway—more than pretty. But pregnant? I made her glow. I wanted to go in with the final picture in mind. Ah. I added her with a baby. Better.

  It might have been the sleep, or the col, or the knowledge that this was the last time we’d see her in this state in this place. Maybe it was sheer desperation. But we fell deeper and further, and I pulled Kayleen after me, the two of us feeling more connected after her long cry on my shoulder.

  Marcus pointed out what he thought we’d missed, and we changed it, and we changed more. The sim felt . . . even more right than last time. Maybe the process of creation went on infinitely, but for now, she felt just right. Strong enough. Healthy enough.

  In that moment, we three were together, nearly blended with each other and with the Paula sim, breathing aligned. Kayleen had followed us almost all the way, holding more data than I’d ever seen her hold, expanding with me into the numenous silver light feeling of being full with data, completely sated, and yet still knowing there was more if we needed it. More data, more information, more places to grow and expand. More becoming.

  We were all we could be. Makers. The three of us—for a golden moment—as one, with our creation perfect.

  Marcus called us out.

  Leaving all that power meant shedding it, letting things that had been parts of me blow into the wind of data, losing layer on layer until I came closer to my essence. Success happened when my heart beat in my ears and my blood flowed through the tips of my fingers. When I felt my own breath.

  The pronoun inside me had changed to I.

  It felt like falling off a cliff.

  I couldn’t feel Kayleen.

  At least the lights in here were dim, so I could open my eyes and turn to her. She was still. Scary still.

  I put a hand on her chest.

  She breathed. Barely. I couldn’t feel her essence at all. Even in the dim light she looked pale, and her eyes danced under closed lids.

  I went back under, diving fast and deep.

  She wasn’t there, either. Not in the data. Not close. I was sure she’d been with me. Right? She had been up until we turned, but after? Had she known we were leaving or had we stranded her with too little of herself to follow back?

  I had years of training on her.

  I’d trained her myself.

  Had I failed?

  I came back up, snapping my eyes open, momentarily disoriented by the speed of returning to my body.

  She still lay there, not moving, not changing.

  “Marcus!”

  “Huh?”

  “Is she okay? What happened?”

  33

  CHELO: CARO’S LINK

  Blue butterflies landed on gold flowers, and Jherrel laughed and clasped his hands together in a cup, trying to catch one. He was nearly fast enough. The butterfly headed up into the sun, then dived down again a safe distance away. The ma
ndala garden was open every afternoon, and since Caro was off with Jill, Liam and I had decided to keep our exercise discipline and take Jherrel out into the garden.

  The little imp rewarded us by leading us on a long chase through spiral paths, finally settling on a small lawn surrounded by butterfly flowers and benches. Ever watchful and silent, Samuel followed us around the garden.

  A whole day and a night and part of another day had passed with no word from anyone. Even Seeyan didn’t come. Tsawo didn’t fly down like a dark tide of feathers. The morning ceremony had gone well. At breakfast, three women poets started and finished each other’s works while the crowd hummed softly.

  Even now the movements of others who were nameless seemed linked to mine as they went about their service for the day: planting, culling, cooking, laundry. All the myriad chores and ways of being busy felt like a connected dance. The evidence was slight, just a way of feeling, but I liked to imagine it similar to how Joseph and Marcus and Kayleen felt being able to talk amongst each other through thin air. It helped keep my worries down.

  Between one breath and another, something felt slightly wrong. A ripple in all the connections. I stood up and looked out over the garden. The sun beat down, warm enough to draw beads of sweat on my forehead. Nanobees buzzed through the flowers, the gold dust of pollen on their little metal feet barely visible. Keepers kept: trimming and feeding flowers, raking dirt. As peaceful as it looked, something was wrong.

  Then I heard my name. “Chelo!” Kala’s voice, too loud for this place, too loud for any time. Edged.

  The last time Kala screamed, we’d found Samuel tied up.

  I raced toward her, worries crowded in my head. Joseph. Kayleen. Alicia. Seeyan. Marcus. Paloma!

  I heard Kala’s labored breath from a distance. Her face had reddened with exertion, and her immaculate robe had dirt streaks along the bottom of it. “Come. Caro.” She was gasping for breath. “Jill says come.”

  Oh. No. It took a moment to sink in. Caro should be safe with Jill, learning elementary skills about Reading the Wind. “Caro? Did someone hurt her?”