Wings of Creation

by Brenda Cooper

Two fliers held the lid and watched me.

  The moment felt heavy.

  I leaned down and kissed his cold forehead, and then stepped aside for Induan. She did the same. I said, “We love you, Brother. Thank you for all you were.”

  The crowd still watched me, silent and reverent. They needed more. I raised my voice. “Thank you for helping us help the fliers.”

  I glanced at Induan. She shook her head. So she didn’t have any more words, either. I looked closely at her, noticing how still her features were, how hollow her cheeks looked. I leaned over and took her briefly in my arms. The feel of her, solid and yet shaking ever so lightly, made me think I should worry about other people more often.

  After I let her go, I gestured for the fliers to put the lid on, and I went to stand by Tsawo. “Why so much ceremony for him?” I mean, it wasn’t like Joseph or Chelo or Kayleen had died.

  Amalo answered. “Because he is one of you six, and a hero. We will build a statue to him over the grave, and it will be a solemn place, good for contemplation.”

  Bryan would probably prefer to be forgotten, but there was no point in saying that. “Is that why you want me to become a flier? Because I’m a child of Fremont?”

  The gray flier looked at the box that held Bryan. “That’s part of it.” He smiled sadly. “Maybe you’ll bring us good luck.”

  Fat chance. I hadn’t brought Bryan any.

  Other people—fliers and wingless, Keepers and seekers—began to gather, too many for me to count them all. Some carried flowers.

  After the hole had been dug, checked, widened, and then pronounced done, the box was lowered into the ground and the Keepers efficiently covered it with dirt, and then with the grass square, which they unrolled very precisely. When they finished, it was hard to tell where we’d dug.

  One by one, people who carried flowers set them on the grass above Bryan, until the air was sickly sweet with the scents of them.

  A strange, eerie chant started up, and fliers from the back began to rise up into the air, and then more, and then more. Amalo and Tsawo and Marti rose up last, forming the center of a circle of wheeling fliers, all chanting. There were no words, just sounds. More complex than the uu chant at morning ceremony, more melodic.

  It might have been the saddest thing I ever heard.

  Even with all the fliers in the air, a crowd of wingless still surrounded me. Someone put an arm around me lightly, and I looked over to find the blue-eyed interface merchant, Amile, swaying beside me in time to the chant of the fliers.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” he replied.

  “I know.”

  He turned to face me. “Let me know when you need more help.”

  He hadn’t said if. Wow. “I will.”

  And then he was gone. I looked for him later, but he had disappeared into the crowd.

  Tsawo landed and came up to me. “I have to leave. I’ll see you in a few days. Stay safe.”

  I nodded, pleased he’d thought to tell me that much, and curious about where he was going. I glanced up in the sky. Amalo was clearly my primary host, and his wings still spread over Bryan’s resting place.

  Induan and I found each other near the end, after the fliers had started landing, one by one, or had taken off back toward Oshai or Charmed or SoBright. “So why did you stay? I had time to think about it, and clearly you stayed on purpose. Why stay here with me, and not go with the others?”

  I swear I saw real caring flash across her eyes, something genuine and unfettered. She grinned, impish like the Induan I met on Silver’s Home years ago. “There’re going to be a lot of people telling their stories. Somebody needs to tell yours.”

  44

  JOSEPH: THE LAST WORK

  As Marcus, Kayleen, Sasha, and I sat in the command room of the cargo transport Water Girl, I realized I’d been on so many space ships I could no longer count them on one hand. We’d reached orbit, one of tens of cargo ships circling Lopali, heading for space stations that also circled, or simply waited. From time to time, small silver ships streaked across one or another of the four screens surrounding us. Flier space skimmers.

  The two beautiful ships from Charmed had gone up shortly after us, piloted by Keepers, manned by Keepers and fliers. They’d disgorged the fine, small ships that flew a protective net around us. Not only was I grateful for their presence, but they were so fast, so agile, that I wanted to try one.

  “Is that fliers or Keepers in the little ships?” Kayleen asked.

  Marcus grinned. “Probably both.” He stopped for a moment, clearly listening to someone besides us. Marcus was working on finding another ship to transfer us to, and I’d become used to ignoring his side conversations.

  He signaled for our attention. “She’s coming. Paula is on the way up.”

  “How long?” I asked. I wasn’t ready. It was all too fresh: leaving Alicia, losing Bryan. Leaving Lopali.

  “An hour or two.”

  “Okay. I’m going to take a walk.”

  He looked closely at me. “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t know. But I didn’t want to tell him that; he needed me to be strong. “I just want to walk around.”

  I apparently failed at brushing aside his worry. He frowned at me. “Can I come find you after I find us another ship?”

  “Sure.” I left as quickly as I could, leaving Kayleen with him. Unlike a space-going ship, the Water Girl didn’t have much human- or flier-friendly space. She did have corridors long enough for a good pacing walk back and forth. So that’s what I did. For a while I just listened to my steps echo in the empty space.

  Worry kept me pacing, shivering in spite of the sweat on my forehead. From time to time I passed people, but I generally said nothing, and after one look at my face, they said the same thing. Sasha remained as quiet as I was, padding behind me, clearly aware of my mood.

  I’d given up on finding Alicia or Induan aboard, and Bryan’s loss had made a hole in my chest as well. The only unexpected brightness was Sasha appearing at the last moment. At least I hadn’t lost her, too.

  At one end of the corridor, there was a small video porthole meant to mimic a real window. Lopali floated right in the middle of it. It might have been an artist’s rendering of a world, all the colors perfect even from here, land and water tamed and harmonious. Circles of land floating on a circle of water. A sweet poison of a planet.

  I hated it for what it took from me.

  Sasha whined, warning me Marcus had begun pacing us. He came up alongside, his expression impossible to read, but his steps smoother and less angry than mine. We walked a full circle, almost a half an hour, before he said anything. “They’re waiting.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “No.”

  We walked another full circle. I let the ship come into me. Its heartbeat was steady, steadier by far than anything biological. Steadier than the planet below me. “Why did they attack us?” I asked Marcus.

  “Because we might succeed, and their lives will change.”

  Something the man beside me had fought for. “Did you know so many of them were so scared?”

  “No.”

  We walked again. I could feel the time passing. It passed in the ship’s instruments and in the blood coursing through my body and with each step I took. It passed through me, and through me, and finally I was empty enough of the anger and pain to say, “I’m ready.”

  “Good, because she’s here.” Even though there was enough gravity to walk, he used the wall-pulls to hurry himself along the corridors, and I slowly caught his energy and started to hurry.

  Might as well do the real work, and finally know one way or the other if we’d succeeded, if we would stop the war.

  Marcus took me to a room in the middle forward part of the ship. Entertainment screens lined the walls, and the floor was half couches and chairs, everything arranged artfully for conversation and games, and well-used for the same. Red chairs with th
e ends of the arms worn to the underlying silver of their bones. Couches with indents from spacers sitting in them for long hours and grease spots on the floor from spills. Even the ceiling was dented and scratched in a few places. Tickets from restaurants and bars on various space stations and from the spaceports of Lopali had been stuck to the wall willy-nilly. Clearly the crew’s off-hours lounge.

  In one corner, Kayleen, Chance, and Paula waited for me on a tattered brown sofa with no back.

  The real test. Would we be able to make the change Bryan had died for in a real girl?

  Kayleen stood and came over to me, taking my hand in hers. Her blue eyes looked deep and a little shell-shocked, and I leaned down and whispered, “Are you okay?”

  “Are you?” she countered. The same question Marcus had asked.

  “Yeah.” I glanced at Paula, who sat quietly beside Chance, her face as pale as Kayleen’s. I knew what my pacing walk had let me do. “I had to forgive the fliers before I could do this. They were just scared. They didn’t mean to fight us, and they didn’t mean to kill Bryan.”

  Marcus watched us. The whole room watched us, listening to the exchange. “And do you?” asked Paula, her voice soft. “Do you really forgive us?”

  “Yeah.” I swallowed, and looked at Kayleen. “I had to forgive Alicia, too.” I hadn’t expected those words. “She was never as much one of us as the rest of us. Never even as much as Bryan.” Surely everyone heard the sadness in my voice, but I couldn’t hide it. I felt sad when I thought of Alicia. “She never even wanted to be one of us as much. She just . . . wanted to be loved. That’s all she ever wanted. And her freedom. But she went back for Chelo, and she stuck with me. She loved us back.”

  “I know,” Kayleen said.

  “Maybe she’ll be happy here.”

  Kayleen smiled softly. “Maybe.”

  “We all need forgiveness.” I was done talking about it. I looked at Paula. “Are you ready?”

  She looked more scared than ready, but she said, “Yes,” in a clear, steady voice. She had been born and trained for this.

  So had I.

  I took a few breaths, remembering how my attitude mattered, centering myself, preparing to let go. “I’m ready.”

  Chance smiled encouragingly. “The sim is beautiful. You’re ready.”

  I glanced at Paula. Her eyes were closed and she sat so still it took me a moment to verify that she breathed. “The woman is even more beautiful. We’re ready.”

  Kayleen squeezed my hand.

  Marcus led us, starting with a tour of the ship’s data. You need to know what might surprise you.

  He meant how the ship might warn us if something like Star Mercenaries got too close. But I didn’t think they would. Not now. We had time, we were fine. I could sense the bated breath of Lopali waiting to see what we made up here.

  We checked the Paula sim again. It had lived and lived and lived. Its babies had had babies. In some ways, everything the real Paula needed existed there already, waiting for Chance to pluck directions from it. But still, we needed to touch the biology, the breath, the real heartbeat with all its uncertainties and fears. That was the proof, and it would save years and years of slower work.

  It was what we’d promised.

  In spite of our practice at Chance’s and during the long flight to the cave, the physical Paula was more difficult to get into than the simulated Paula. She was awake, though calm. At first we synchronized our breaths to each other, and then Marcus added, synchronize with her.

  His advice helped. I remembered how slowly Kayleen had breathed when we almost lost her; Paula’s meditative breathing was just a bit slower. With that memory, my body knew it could manage.

  Water Girl didn’t have as much available bandwidth as the war room in the cave. Nor so much distraction. Still, I needed all I could get. All three of us filled Water Girl’s dataspace, slowly, finding every available unused channel and bit of bandwidth. Where possible, we shared.

  We turned to Paula. Our work began to feel familiar. She had moved on from the moment the sim had been taken: lost half a pound, cut her fingernails, stubbed her toe. But the time slices of her life were close enough that we fell easily there, her own internal nano sending signals we were used to from the sim, only slower.

  Someone watched us.

  I startled. What?

  Kayleen saw it, too, but she just watched, serene.

  It’s okay, Marcus soothed. It’s Paula herself. You had to see that before you could work.

  Okay, I can do this. Changing Paula became something we had done and succeeded at. Familiar. Doable.

  This time, I did more of the work. Kayleen fed the two of us more support. Her energy stayed strong and sweet, steady. Marcus directed, keeping as much attention on Kayleen as he kept on me. Like the last time with the sim, we expanded and grew and shrank all at once in way I have no words for, becoming Paula and yet being ourselves, becoming the dream we were building inside of this brave young woman.

  It took a long time, and we forgot we were in the Water Girl, forgot we were far above Lopali, protected by fliers in little silver ships. We forgot everything but blood, and bone, and brain. Vein and organ and skin. Breath and heartbeat.

  Paula.

  When we finished and floated back up to the surface, Kayleen collected in with the two of us, sweat drenched my forehead. I could barely lift my head. But I did, and the three of us shared a smile, everyone as sweaty as me. Chance, watching us, smiled, too.

  Paula blinked. She was still somewhere far away, carried on the waves of her training and her deep focus. It struck me that she knew at least as much as Seeyan had, that Paula’s purpose ran deep and clear.

  She blinked again, and then her eyes focused, alert and aware. Aware of everything. She smiled.

  Before we left her with Chance, we each gave her a deep hug. When it was my turn, I marveled at how touch enhanced my connection to her, even though being in our physical bodies made far more separation than reading and programming the nanomeds and cellular structures that controlled her very being. I looked into her eyes, and the whole of her was so much more than all of the tiny parts. I whispered in her ear. “Good luck.”

  Her smile dazzled. “Thank you.”

  Marcus’s hand on my arm pulled me into the corridor, and Kayleen took my hand, and we went to a room with couches and blankets. Tiala and Jenna offered water. I drank and lay down, and Marcus himself came and covered me. He knelt down beside me. “You are truly a powerful creator now. If you were my own true son, I could not be more proud of you.”

  His words played in my head at least three times over before I passed out, exhausted and strangely happy.

  Marcus shook my shoulder. I blinked and yawned, trying to assess how long I might have slept. Not enough. A week wouldn’t be enough. Maybe a month. But my belly and bladder and dry mouth demanded movement, so I moved. Still, I grumbled, “Why’d you wake me up?”

  “There’s a delegation from Lopali docking with us. We have about twenty minutes to get ready.”

  Great. Or not so great. “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  But then I surged with hope. “Did they bring Alicia?”

  He looked as tired as I felt, even though surely we’d slept at least a few hours. “I don’t think so. Meet me in the command room in ten minutes. I’ll get the others.”

  Even though we were the only ones on the ship, the command room was way too small to hold all of us and any other kind of delegation. About half of it was table, and the rest was sink and art and video screens and open space. One of the myriad symbols for the Five Worlds took up the one wall that wasn’t screens, a single elliptical orbit with all five planets strung across it as if they were the same size, all represented in three-dimensional relief with color. I noticed that Islas and Silver’s Home were completely across the circle from each other.

  Marcus, Chelo, Jenna, Kayleen, and I took chairs around the table, leaving room for three or four fliers t
o perch on stools Tiala had found in a storeroom. We piped camera feed to the others in the crew room we’d used to work on Paula.

  We finished in time to wait.

  I examined Marcus’s face across the table from me. He looked positive, and more rested. It turned out we had slept six hours. Not enough. But now that I’d moved around I felt at least slightly alert. “We did it, right? We fixed the fliers and they’ll join us and the war won’t have to happen. Right?”

  Marcus smiled, his face saying it was so, but his words were, “Don’t count on anything until it’s done.” But he was excited; his eyes almost glowed.

  Kayleen brushed at her glorious dark hair. “But Paula’s okay, right? She’s alive and well? She’s . . . fixed.”

  He nodded. “Chance has already taken her home.”

  Surely we’d succeeded. It had all felt right and complete. Working on Paula herself had felt better than working on the successful sim. Paula had practically glowed when we were done, so much that I felt sure she was healthier. After all our work to prepare, after we finally settled in, it had almost been easy.

  Almost. Not too easy.

  And Kayleen had stayed with us. Not as strong as Marcus or I, but almost. And this time, finally, I had Chelo by my side again. In spite of Bryan and Alicia, it was going to be all right.

  The ship docked with ours.

  I expected Matriana or Daniel or both. A single flier came through the airlock, wearing a suit that looked more like a bubble than anything I’d ever seen in space. Made of hard triangles with thin, flexible material between them, it slumped neatly down into a ring under the black-winged flier’s feet.

  Tsawo. Tsawo?

  The only sign of surprise that Marcus gave was a narrowing of his eyes.

  Our strategists didn’t like this at all: Chelo drew her breath in. Jenna stiffened.

  Kayleen piped up. “Hi Tsawo. How are you? How was the trip? Have you seen Alicia? Did you see Paula? Doesn’t she look great?”

  Maybe she hadn’t changed that much. I had to suppress a smile as Tsawo reeled a bit under her fusillade of questions.

  Jenna stood up and held out her hand. “We’re pleased to host you. Will there be anyone else joining you?”