Silent Dances

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Silent Dances Page 27

by A. C. Crispin

"It's more horrible than that, Taller," First-One added. "It implicates Relaxed in the slaughter of your son's flock. It would mean he was working with the

  Teran privateers who want to disrupt our alliance with your people."

  "You have worked with this man for years. Could Relaxed be responsible for

  that?" Taller could see that this was a new thought for her. "The Blue Cloud

  people who gave me this news gave it to Sailor as well . If he told Good

  Eyes, we c an 't know what decisions she may have made because of it."

  "Do you believe Good Eyes is alive?" First-One asked. There was a sudden light of hope in her eyes.

  "I believe she's alive," he assured her, "and with Sailor." First-One-There looked at him with her watery blue eyes. "I dreamed of Puff last night, Taller.

  He kept telling me everything would be all right, as soon as Good Eyes

  comes back."

  "As long as the skin of Water Dancer is on the World," Taller signed, "his spirit keeps her safe. That's what Weaver believes, and I agree with her. But

  I don't believe Relaxed killed his friend. That's the way it is with news from

  the World. Some of it's accurate, and some of it isn't. Please, don't share this

  information , for your safety and for Good Eyes'. They'll return from their

  flyaway when they've learned something special. I believe that."

  The older woman paused, then added, "Good Eyes' parents are coming to

  Trinity to retrieve her remains. The company they work for is donating a-

  grav units powerful enough to

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  levitate the tree. I only found this out today, or I would've asked your

  permission earlier ..."

  "Who could deny a parent's right to grieve?" Taller signed graciously. "I only wish that I could welcome these people to the World for a joyous reason."

  Meg watched Taller step off the cliff edge, her mind full of turmoil and guilt.

  He confided in you, she castigated herself, you could've done the same. But what should she have said?

  Since we've failed in our diplomatic mission, Taller, strangers will be taking

  our place. I know you weren't asked...

  She could see him growing taller, his crown flaming red. Taller had been

  very cooperative with the humans, even friendly. But he believed it was his

  choice as to who and how many humans visited the World. He would not

  like this, not one bit.

  All Meg's work, and Scott's, would be for nothing if the First Contact were

  denied, but now that decision seemed inevitable. The massacre of Black

  Feather's flock, and Peter's death-both obviously the work of humans-had

  insured it. Meg ran a hand over the name of her partner burned into the

  hardwood slab. Perhaps she had not told Taller because she could not let

  herself believe that Scott's death could be so pointless. With a sigh, she let

  herself back into the shelter.

  It's just like a pair project , Tesa re minded herself, swallowing her frustration , as Sailor dropped a huge, flopping fish at her feet , then stalked out of the cave . Except that the pair hates each other. She dispatched the fish quickly with her stone knife, then sliced meaty strips from it.

  The small group had been at this for two weeks , with little prog re ss .

  Thunder shrieked, Sailor sulked , and Tesa worked. Sailor had willingly accompanied her here, but soon after they' d arrived he'd begun having

  second thoughts . To his people the Aquila were Death, pure and simple .

  He was, as he constantly reminded Tesa, too young to be a pare nt . He'd finally agreed to stay to "protect " Tesa, so that the monster would not kill her , but he reminded her frequently of her promise to slay the

  creatu re when the " expe ri ment " failed.

  Tesa endure d this, since she was convinced that once Thunder started

  signing fluently , eve ry thing would ch an ge . She kept 211

  telling herself this as the long days st re tched on, an d the cold nights grew lonely. Since he was being a father , Sailor insisted, he would

  behave as one . He slept on one leg in the cold waters of the lake eve ry night , leaving Tesa alone with Thunder.

  As for the Aquila, she was an ything but cooperative. Her sharp p re

  dator ' s bill w as fo re ver open in endless screams. She was either sta rv ing or full, there was no middle ground. And in spite of all Tesa ' s

  effo rt s, Thunder seemed capable of learning only the most rudimenta

  ry signs. If the voder hadn ' t shored up Tesa ' s belief in the Aquila ' s intelligence, she would've given up long ago.

  When Tesa discovered pink and brown streaks in the cave's wall that

  indicated raw iro n ore, she wonde re d if the re we re enough to block transmissions . Ne rv ously tu rn ing her voder on, she found she could not tr an smit anything from inside the cave.

  If 1 can' t transmit , she knew , they can ' t read me. It was safe to use the voder in the cave.

  She wanted Sailor to learn Thunder ' s language, but he balked . "

  Spoken language has no value ," he informed her matter - of-factly.

  "Besides , if your device can understand it"he pointed to Thunder -" why should I bother?"

  " Not it , her!" Tesa insisted. "This device makes mistakes. Only people can real y understand languages. I can ' t hear her, so I'm depending on you .

  You've got to t ry ."

  He had simply turn ed away and preened.

  That was a week ago, Tesa thought, and what have I accomplished since

  then? Maybe my parents are right . If i could hear , I could learn the language, maybe even speak it ...

  She showed a strip of raw fish to the Aquila chick who was glaring from her

  makeshift nest at the back of the cave. "This is fish," Tesa signed. "Fish is food . Are you hung ry?" Total language immersion , she thought with w ry amusement. Best way to lea rn a l an guage was to have to depend

  completely on it. Too bad her student didn ' t app re ciate that. "Tell me what this is," Tesa bargained , " and you c an have it ." If you don't, you royal pain in the ass, she thought, you can damn well starve.

  The chick lunged for the fish, but Tesa pulled it out of re ach. I won ' t get away with this much longer . Soon she'll be chasing me for it . I'll have to bring in a perch for her soon , she thought absently.

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  "Thunder, what is this food? Is it fish? You tell me." Tesa glanced at her

  voder.

  "I'm starving!" the chick was screaming. "The hunted are killing me! Mother!

  Mother, save me!"

  Tesa's attempts to get Thunder to use name-signs was another effort in

  futility. To the Aquila you were either "the people, "themselves-or "the hunted"--everyone else. Hell of a philosophy, Tesa decided.

  "You a re food!" the Aquila chick insisted, staring at Tesa. "You and that other! MY food! Mine and my mother's! Mine and my father's! The hunted are

  food! The hunted are ..."

  How can she continue to punctuate everything with exclamation points?

  Tesa wondered tiredly. Do these people ever use declarative sentences?

  Sailor said the cave walls muffled most of the chick's sounds. The last thing

  they needed was a curious Aquila coming to investigate Thunder's cries for

  help.

  "Your father is dead," she signed patiently. "I'm sorry about that. I don't know about your mother. I'm your mother now, me, Good Eyes. Sailor is your

  father. We feed you. We keep you warm. Here's some fish. " It was red with its own blood, something the Aquila could not resist.

  "I'M STARVING! I'M STARVING! I'M STARVING-The monotonous litany

  trailed across the screen.

  Now we're making progress, Tesa thought with an almost sadistic pleasure.


  "Tell me what this is." She waved the fish. "Fish," signed the chick with a short, begrudging motion. "What do we do with fish?" Tesa asked.

  The chick pulled her short neck deep into her hunched shoulders. "Eat," she

  signed to the walls.

  "Good," Tesa signed with false cheerfulness. She had signed with primates

  that had showed more finesse than this irritable baby. She held out the

  chick's reward.

  Thunder's head flashed forward, the black-tipped beak burying itself in

  Tesa's palm. In spite of the pain, Tesa grabbed the chick's head,

  immobilizing it before Thunder could pull out a chunk of her flesh. The

  piercing sensation shot up Tesa's arm, but she bit her lip, not wanting to cry

  out and alert Sailor. She removed the sharp bill tip and stepped back,

  releasing the chick's head at the same time.

  Contemptuously the young Aquila signed, "You. Food. You. Food. You."

  Yielding to her anger, Tesa threw the entire fish into the

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  SILENT DANCES 213 nest, and it slapped the chick hard. Thunder pounced

  on it, tearing it apart, swallowing it scales, fins, bones, and all.

  Choking back angry tears, the human wrapped her bloody hand. Wanting to

  distance herself from the chick before she yielded to the temptation to wring

  the fledgling's neck, Tesa ignored her throbbing palm and picked up the

  leister she'd made . The three-pronged spear of the Northwest Coast Indians

  enabled Tesa to fish almost as efficiently as Sailor did. She'd catch

  something for dinner, poaching it over one of the steam vents with grain

  she'd stolen from the gleaners' storehouses.

  The rabbit-sized mammals, which looked like overgrown voles, were

  compulsive gatherers. When she raided their burrows, Tesa always left

  something else so that it seemed more like trading. But even though she

  could make snares and traps, she couldn't bring herself to regard the

  gleaners as prey. Suppose they could communicate? Suppose they were

  intelligent? She tried not to think about the water-dwellers they were

  consuming. If she stayed on Trinity, she'd have to become a vegetarian just

  to be safe. What could she say to Dr. Rob if a creature that had once been

  one of her food staples eventually received CLS status?

  Tesa looked back at the cave. You're either the people, or the hunted. Yeah.

  Just like a pair project.

  Thorn wasn't sure what else could go wrong on a project that had already hit

  big-time disaster, but he knew he was watching a problem in the making

  now. He stood by with Meg as Bruce and Lauren unloaded the shuttle, while

  Dr. Li kept inventory.

  This is a big mistake, Thorn thought, but kept it to himself. He and Bruce

  were locked into a quick-draw situation, waiting for each other to blink. Bruce

  did not believe Thorn's story of how he'd discovered Peter and Tesa. Thorn

  believed Bruce's attitude was just a smoke screen for the meteorologist's

  own involvement.

  Lauren had been grief-stricken after Peter's and Tesa's deaths, almost

  incoherent. Now she seemed numb, unnaturally calm. Thorn worried about

  post-traumatic stress syndrome, but then, weren't they all suffering from the

  same pain? Even Dr. Li's cool, detached manner had crumbled in the wake

  of the double tragedy. Meg had told him that the doctor couldn't sleep

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  at night , an d that Bruce was keeping tabs on her use of selfp re sc ri bed mood ch an gers.

  "This is a big mistake," Meg surreptitiously signed to Thorn . Her choice of signs jar re d him.

  " What do you me an ?" he asked.

  " All of us living down here, no one m an ning the Crane. It's a mistake, I c an feel it." Her jaw was set in an expression of disapproval he knew too well.

  "The Crane is fully automated, it doesn't ... "I know that!" her signs we re sharp with an noyance. "I'm

  worri ed about us . We've all ch an ged . It started with Sco tt 's death , an d it's just kept going wrong since then."

  "Have you talked this over with Bruce? Maybe..."

  The older woman 's eyes flashed in an ger . " Talk with Bruce? He never asked me how I felt about this, he just told me he was doing it. He even bullied Szu- yi into going along with him. He says you and I a re n't safe

  he re. And no mo re of your lone explorato ry trips, in case you haven ' t heard . Two of us have to be together at all times." Meg let out an

  exasperated b re ath.

  Is that so? thought Thorn.

  "And I' ll tell you something else," Meg signed . " Taller's ang ry. Bruce didn ' t ask him , either . Then , when I said something to Bruce about that , he just sno rt ed at me! I apologized to Taller , but that doesn ' t solve anything."

  Thorn felt a headache coming on, one he suspected would be around for

  quite some time. If Bruce had no respect for Taller ' s feelings , Thorn

  could be sure the meteorologist would have even less for his . But the

  biologist had to have time to go out alone. Peter ' s program could trace the transmissions em an ating from the p ri vateers ' ship, but Thorn needed harder evidence, he needed to find them, see their ship.

  The last time Thorn had followed the pri vateers' trail, the coordinates of

  their transmissions had ... led him to the fo re st that held Tesa ' s massive tomb . A ship had been the re , transmitting du ri ng the storm , but most of the tr an smission was garbled because of weather interfe

  re nce . Thorn didn't know why they ' d been there, and the ship had left long befo re he'd arrived . But he had found the limb, and Tesa ' s quilt.

  Any thought of her brought that moment back so clearly, that instan t when

  he ' d realized what that fragment of quilt signified . He could still feel the rough bark of the killer limb

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  ... and the sc re am of rage and sorrow ripping out of his throat. He

  swallowed . And whenever he thought of her , he sensed a thought -- or was it a feeling ?-- She can't die, Thorn. Not on Trini ty . He knew that was just because he hadn' t seen her, the way he ' d seen Peter.

  Bruce or no, he'd have to go out and take his ch an ces, just as Peter

  had . He had to find them. Part of him said, find them and kill them , and lately he hadn ' t argued with that side . Now, with Bruce ' s restrictions , it would be harder to get away from the shelter . Thorn was confident he

  could slip out without being caught, but he ' d only be able to do it

  once , so it would have to be the ri ght time . If he t ri ed to re tu rn, Bruce would make sure Thorn would never get to tell an yone what he'd lea rn

  ed.

  It had been a long time since Sailor had watched Good Eyes t ry to

  compare what they were going through to some exercise taught in the

  place called " StarB ri dge ." As the human stood beside him in the f ri gid water of the caldera ' s blue lake, he wonde re d whatever had made him agree , even for a moment, that teaching Death ' s child to sign

  might be a good thing to do.

  An entire moon phase had passed while they had worked like hive

  insects to keep her fed, to keep her well , and for what?

  Only seven days ago, she had caught some food herself, some venomous,

  slow-moving re ptile , but eating it had made her ill . Good Eyes had tested plants an d molds from the meadows with a device--a cell an

  alyzer -- on her re d knife, then steeped a collection of them in hot water.

  She'd forced massive amounts of this water into the weakening chick .

  Later , she had pounded the organs of fish with c ry sta
llized nectar

  she'd dug up out of a ground hive an d forced that into the beast . Sailor still wondered how she ' d managed to extract the nectar without ge tt

  ing stung . Even more amazing, Good Eyes then built a fire--what

  creature on the World would want a fire?--and heated rocks in it, then

  brought them into the cave to warm the air.

  Poor Good Eyes had worked so hard that when she'd collapsed that night,

  dozing fitfully , Sailor had had to come in an d cover her with a cloak.

  He'd taken a long look at Death' s child, then . At that

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  moment, while the raggedy chick slept beneath his mother ' s cloak,

  Sailor had felt a touch of conce rn for the c re ature he ' d resented so much these last weeks.

  Suppose she dies tonight? Sailor had thought, watching her b re ath .

  The place on his head where his crown would one day be shrank with

  alarm . It'll break Good Eyes' heart, he'd thought. He had felt something then for the life he was nurt u ri ng that he did not w an t to examine too closely . He was too young to be a parent . It was ri diculous to think he could develop a parent ' s hea rt, a parent ' s jealous love of a child.

  Good Eyes had cared for the chick for three days and nights, and when the

  creature recovere d , was she grateful?

  Not likely. She'd just sat the re, sullen and reproachful, befouling the

  walls of the cave, now plastered white with her disgusting body wastes

  that she ejected like venom in a stream . It was mo re than any decent person should have to tolerate.

  And her " l an guage "? It was such simple gibbe ri sh he'd come to understand mo re of it than he wanted to admit. Unlike his own

  language , with its graceful compound phrases and elegant poet ry of h an dshapes and motion , the raucous sounds that erupted from Death '

  s throat did little but threaten an d dem an d . And Sailor was ve ry tired of being referred to as a walking meal.

  Now, the evil fledgling stood at the shoreline, her fully feathered wings

  stretched out, her legs strong enough to bear her weight. She marched

  up and down , demanding food.

  It was said that as the child of Death att ained its full size, its parents grew

  to fear it, dropping food into the nest from great heights . The appetite

  of the child , as it tu rn ed food into feathers , was so voracious that it would devour its own parents if they we re foolish enough to come too

 

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