Capture (6 page)

They were singing!

Every pellet has a story all its own. Every pellet has a story all its own. With its fur and teeth and bones And one or two stones, Every pellet has a story all its own.

We shall dissect every pellet with glee. Verhaps we'll find a rodent's knee. And never shall we tire In the sacred task that we conspire, Nor do our work less than perfectly And those bright flecks at the core, Which make our hearts soar, Shall forever remain the deepest mystery.

Nothing could have prepared Soren and Gylfie for the shock of what met their eyes as they entered the pelletorium. They had been led into another box canyon, and on slabs of rock ledges hundreds of owls bobbed their heads up and down over thousands of pellets that had been yarped by owls. If either one of these two little owlets had known the meaning of the word "hell," they would have known that this was certainly the deepest and worst part of it. But neither Soren nor Gylfie in their short lives knew of such things as hell or the words that would describe such a place. Until their snatching, they really had only known what might be called heaven. Life high in a lovely tree hollow or cactus lined with the downy fluff of their parents, plump insects delivered several times a day, and then the first juicy mouse morsels. And besides all the delicious meals, there were stories -- stories of flight, of learning to fly, of the feeling that must be deep in their gizzards in order to rise on the wind.

Number 47-2 stepped up to them and, in her weirdly

hollow voice, she began to speak. "I am what is called a third-degree picker. I pick through the pellets for the larger objects -- pebbles, bone, and teeth mostly. Second- degree pickers pick for feathers and fur.

First-degree pickers pick for flecks. This is a fleck." 47-2 pointed with her talon to the tiniest speck that glinted in an open pellet. "It is a kind of metal." She paused. "Or something," she added vaguely. "You need not know what they are. You need only know that flecks are precious, more precious than gold. To become a fleck picker is the highest level of skill in the pelletorium. Tomorrow I shall be advanced one level. I shall be a second-degree picker. Therefore, as the most advanced third-degree picker, it is my task to instruct you." And then the owlet blinked. She began humming the dreadful song.

"It is best when beginning as a picker to use your beak. Your talons can be used to steady the pellet.

Each object you find is to be lined up neatly on the stone ledge -- your work area. Failure to line up objects neatly is a most serious offense. Offenders are severely punished, as shall be demonstrated during our laughter therapy sessions."

Soren and Gylfie had no idea what this owlet was talking about. Laughter therapy? "Do your work diligently and you, too, may be advanced someday." The owlet then stepped up to the ledge, which was covered with pellets,

and bent over one. "Proceed. It is strictly forbidden to use your own pellets in this work." 47-2 glared at Soren. The owlet bent her speckled head and began to pick.

Soren felt a gagging sensation and yarped another pellet.

Soren and Gylfie had no idea how long they had been working. It seemed endless. It was not entirely quiet, however. At certain intervals, a low soft whistle alarm would be sounded from one of the smaller owls who monitored the work from overhead ledges and the sound of another pellet song would begin to rise. The songs were sung in the same hollow tones in which 47-2 had spoken. But Soren felt that they were sung mostly to provide a rhythm for their work. The words, he supposed, like their own non-number names, had become meaningless. In between the songs it was not completely silent. There were, of course, certain commands that had to be given. "New pellets needed in area 10-B." Or "Area 20-c needs to pick up the pace." And then there was some talk among the owls as they worked, but the more carefully Soren and Gylfie listened, the stranger this talk seemed. And then suddenly an owlet working at the same ledge as Soren began to speak. "12-1. I feel perfect this morning. I have just completed my first set of pellets. I am sure you shall feel perfect, too, when you have completed your first set. It is a

feeling of rare contentment to complete a set. I feel this sense of rare contentment every morning at this hour."

Rare? Soren thought. That was a word he knew, for his parents had told them that the family of Barn Owls to which they belonged, the Tyto Alba, had become rare, which meant there were not many of them. So how could this owlet's contentment be rare if it happened every morning at a particular hour?

"I, too, feel perfect." Another owlet now spoke, turning toward Gylfie this time. It was nearly the same speech.

At regular intervals now, the two owls turned alternately to Soren and Gylfie and gave short little reports on their states of contentment. On occasion, these reports became interspersed with comments. "25-2, for an owlet of your exceedingly tiny stature you have a fine posture as you peck."

"Thank you," Gylfie replied, and dipped her head in what she thought was a docile manner.

"You are most welcome, 25-2."

Then the owlet closest to Soren began, "12-1, your beak work is quite advanced. You work with industry and delicacy"

"Thank you," said Soren. And then for some reason he added, "Thank you very much."

"You're welcome. But you need not be excessively polite. It wastes energy. Politeness is its own reward -

- just like flecks."

"What are flecks?" The question slipped out, but many of the pellet songs referred to flecks and Soren could not understand for the life of him what they were. He understood the feathers and bones and teeth being found in the pellets, but what were these mysterious flecks? The two owlets each gave small piercing shrieks that contrasted sharply with their usual tones. "Question alarm! Question alarm!" Two ferocious, darkly feathered owls, their glaring yellow eyes framed above by dark red eye tufts, swooped down and plucked up Soren.

"How could you, Soren?" Gylfie nearly cried out, but luckily the question died on her beak.

Soren felt as if his gizzard were dropping to his talons as the two owls soared with him dangling between them. They were transporting him in a most painful manner. Each one held a wing in his talons and it was as if he were being torn in half! And as they spiraled upward in the pelletorium, Soren felt beneath him not the cushion of captured air of which his father had often spoken, but instead a surge of noisy vibrations that seem to pummel him from below.

"They are laughing at you, 12-1. They laugh so hard the air is tossed with their chuckles!" said one of the owls.

"You, 12-1," the other owl was speaking now. "You are our first object of the day for laughter therapy."

Soren remained mute. No matter how many questions might batter his brain, his imagination, or dance on the tip of his beak, he would never ask them. The two owls had now alighted with him on a very high ledge that was visible to the entire pelletorium below. The laughter of the owlets and the scores of monitors and guards ricocheted off the stone walls. It filled Soren's head with a terrible clatter. He thought he would go yoicks right there and start screaming.

"And now for the best moment of all in laughter therapy!" There was a shrill screech. The air stirred, and Skench, the Ablah General, landed next to Soren. And then Skench's second-in-command, Lieutenant Spoorn, arrived, eyes darting in an amber glee. Oh, great Glaux! thought Soren. What now?

Good Nurse Finny

Oh, 12-1! Oh, my goodness! Look at you." Soren groaned and blinked.

"What happened?" Soren asked. His eyes fluttered open and he felt himself basking in the tender yellow light of Auntie Finny's eyes.

"Now, now, dear. Questions are what got you into trouble in the first place. We'll have to be a little stricter. All you need to know is that you were naughty and now you're back with me in the stone pit and ..." A soft babble of soothing hoots streamed from Auntie's beak. But one question after the next pounded inside Soren's head. He nearly had to clamp his beak shut not to ask them. He must have fainted at some point during the laughter therapy session. He was trying to reconstruct what had happened in his head. There had been the question alarm, the two ferocious beaks, the laughter -- oh, the laughter had been terrible -- but why were his wings hurting so much? This time the question simply withered in his mind, not

because he was too frightened to ask but because he had turned his head and seen his wings. Bare!

"Great Glaux!" he muttered, and promptly fell over once more in a faint.

"Now, now!" Auntie Finny was clicking her beak. "I'm going to take care of that. You'll feel better in no time. You don't need those silly little feathers."

"Don't need my feathers!" It was not a question. Was this owl totally yoicks? "Don't need my feathers,"

he repeated, and was about to ask how he would ever fly, but he clamped his beak shut tight. Auntie was now crushing something in her beak. She gave a yarp-like hiccup and a pulpy wad of soggy moss flew from her beak directly onto Soren's wings. It felt good and Soren sighed. "Nice feeling, yes it is.

Nothing like this stone moss for curing what ails you. Now you can call me Nursey."

"Nursey?" And then Soren corrected himself. "Oh, Nursey!"

"You're learning, dear. You're learning fast. Sometimes we do have to be a little stricter. But I bet you've learned your lesson and you'll never get plucked again."

"Plucked!" Soren gasped. They had actually plucked him? This wasn't an accident? "I know! I know what you're thinking. I really don't

approve. But you know I have very little say. I can only do my best for each and every little owlet in my pit. I try. I try" She almost whimpered.

But Auntie or Nursey didn't know what Soren was thinking, not at all. She looked at him kindly. She asked no questions, of course, but Soren felt compelled to say, "Auntie ... I mean, Nursey." Names seemed awfully important to this old Snowy Owl. Very carefully, he was going to try to explain his thoughts without asking questions -- oh, he had indeed learned his lesson. "I do not understand, Nursey, why you are so nice here in the stone pit and they are so awful, the owls in the glaucidium and the pelletorium. They are mean for no good reason."

"Ah, but there is a reason."

"There is a reason." Soren's words were flat and carried no inflection of a question. This was indeed possible.

"You see," Nursey Finny continued, "it builds character.

"It builds character, " Soren repeated in the same even tone.

"Through carefully meted-out punishment and self- denial, you shall be made hardy." Nursey spoke in a singsong voice as if she had said these same words many times before.

"Destroying wings builds character. I see." Soren tried to sound logical and keep any hint of the incredulous out of his voice.

"Oh, yes, you do see. I am so pleased."

"And to think I always thought flight was a natural part of an owl's character. Silly me." He was getting awfully good at this.

"Oh, you are a bright little thing," Nursey hooted cheerfully. "You're catching on. Yes, flight is to be earned if one is destined for flight at all.

"Yes, yes, of course," Soren said, trying desperately to keep the reasonable tone in his voice. But inside, his gizzard was twitching madly, his heart was beating rapidly, and a dark panic began to fill him.

"Oh, and here comes 12-8. A fine example of a DNF."

Soren stared at her with incomprehension.

"DNF, dear. It means Destined Not to Fly. 12-8 is one. And a nursey in training, too!"

Who was number 12-8? Soren sorted through all the numbers in his mind. The number sounded familiar and then Soren saw the little Spotted Owl named Hortense, who was so happy to receive her number designation because she hated her name. She was hopping about nearby

"Come here, 12-8. Your first nursing lesson," Auntie trilled.

Hortense, or number 12-8, had an even blanker look than ever in her eyes. "Ooh, a patient! A patient!

Show me how to make moss pulp."

Finny began to show the little owl how to beak the moss until it was soft and squishy. Soren had to admit he didn't mind the attention to his wings that indeed were feeling much better. He observed 12-8

carefully as she applied the moss compresses. He wondered why she was not destined for flight. He carefully tried to figure out how to get the answer without asking a question. "I saw you, I think, in the pelletorium this morning."

"Oh, no, no, not me! I'm strictly a broody."

"A broody" Soren repeated. Only silence followed. "A broody," Soren repeated again. Still silence. "It must be nice to be a broody, to work in the broodorium." Soren just made up the word.

"It's not called a broodorium." 12-8 spoke in the perfect hollow tones of the truly moon blinked.

"Oh, it isn't," Soren said flatly. "Yes, how stupid of me. It's that other word. Slips my mind right now."

"No, it doesn't slip your mind. You don't know. No one does." 12-8's voice had turned brittle. "Top secret."

"Top secret."

"Top secret. I've got clearance." The little owl swelled up now with pride.

"Flight clearance."

"Absolutely not! That is stupid. I couldn't have top secret clearance if I had flight clearance." But don't you want to fly? Soren was ready to scream the question. Just then, Finny returned.

"Ah, 12-8, you are doing a splendid job. What a little nurse you'll make."

"My wings do feel a lot better," Soren said sweetly, and marveled how deceptive he was quickly becoming. Oh, yes, his wings did feel better, but Soren had another idea, another question he wanted to throw out under the guise of a statement. "I'll tell you the thing that really always perks me up and makes me feel just fine in the gizzard."

"Oh, that's what we want, my dear," Finny cooed.

"A story. My favorite stories are the legends of Ga'Hoole. Yes, the Ga'Hoolian cycle, I think they are called."

A strange sound halfway between a yarp and the screech of a Screech Owl issued from Auntie Finny's beak, and she crumpled into a dead faint.