Silent Dances (33 page)

The escort
flock spiraled about the
Patuxent
as it descended, now

thousands of feet above Tri
nity
'
s surface
.
Tesa happily recognized
Taller in the lead. There was a long, dark line down his neck
,
but his

wounds didn
'
t slow him.

Elated,
Tesa recognized Flies-Too-Fast, fou
rt
h in line from the leader
.

His pa
rt
ner on the other side of the vee was Taller's daughter
,
Shimme
ri
ng
.
Tesa felt her hea
rt
lifting.

Movement at the edge of Tesa'
s vision drew her eyes from the disappea

ri
ng Grus. There was something on the weste
rn
ho
ri
zon, like a str
an
ge
,
dark cloud
.
She squinted
,
leaning

161

against the window. Then her forgotten voder began flashing, pulling her

attention back.

"EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! SECURE SAFETY HARNESS!" the voder

blinked rapidly, in red. She sat back immediately and strapped in, peering

around the seats at Thorn and Meg, who were moving their hands rapidly

over their control panels. They must've sent the warning to her voder. She

looked at it again and saw a message trailing across the bottom as the voder

overheard the two pilots. "Can we outmaneuver them?" Meg was asking.

"We're going to get caught up here with the escort like sitting ducks!" Thorn complained.

"Don't you think I know that?" Meg retorted. "We can only go down so fast ..."

Oh, no,
Tesa thought, her confusion clearing. She pressed her face to the

viewport. The dark cloud was now a score of red- and gold-eyed Aquila.

The Grus were coming into sight again. Glancing at the voder, Tesa read

Meg's words. "I'm broadcasting an alarm call."

"Level out," Thorn was saying, "we can use the ship to block them!" Then the voder addressed her, quoting Thorn. "Are you strapped in, Tesa? Wave,

if you're reading your voder." She stuck up her hand, and rechecked her

safety harness.

Tesa felt an agony of helplessness as the dark forms drew closer to the

escort. The ship leveled, and the Grus evened off with it. The avians were

calling, answering Meg's recording.

The flock dipped under the belly of the ship as the Aquila surrounded them,

the wind ruffling the feathers on their massive wings, the suns glinting off

their bodies, their gold, curved beaks, their lethal talons. They flew brazenly,

as if they owned the skies. Could any of these predators be the ones she'd

watched innocently building their nest?

Thorn and Meg must have shut off the ship's Automatic Protection System,

because the Aquila came so close, the APS should have already been

triggered. Remembering that the shuttle was built for research scanning,

Tesa pulled up a screen from a table in front of her seat for a more complete

view.

The Grus clustered closely beneath the shuttle, temporarily

162

protected,
as the Aquila negotiated around the ship. Then, without wa
rn

ing
,
the Grus dropped into a sharp spiral
,
losing
altitude fast. As they did, the letters "APS ENGAGED" flashed on the screen, and suddenly the

Aquila were hurled from the ship in a tumble of wings and loose feathers, as

they were struck by the invisible force shield.

That blow bought the G
ru
s valuable time as they continued
their

descent, but several predators had already pulled out of
their tumble and

were rocketing after their prey.

Without warn
ing
,
the ship tu
rn
ed on a wing and fell, leaving
Tesa's stomach a hundred feet up. Meg and Thorn were coming right up the tail

feathers of a large female Aquila who was zeroing in on Taller. Tesa

stopped looking out the
window whe
re
the world insisted on tu
rn
ing

upside down around her
,
and stared instead at the inst
ru
ment

readings on the screen.

Using the APS in a focused beam, Meg aimed it like a re
pulsor ray and hit

the big raptor square
,
knocking her away. The avian fell, but grabbed

enough air to parachute into water.

Taller veered out of the spiral, the escort leveling out behind
him, and again

the shuttle swooped to follow. This time Tesa couldn
'
t ignore her

nausea
.
She th
re
w up all over the seat beside her, the bi
tt
er acid
biting at her throat.

Taller was heading toward a young forest,
drawing the
Aquila far from his

territory. The predators
closed in again.
A male reached for Flies-Too-Fast,

but before the curved

talons could grab the young Grus, a brilliant blue and red wave flowed

between them, disorienting the killer. Like an airborne tide, the mass of color

engulfed the Aquila.

The escort swerved away from the woods as the air around the ship colored

with thousands of small jewellike birds. Taller had lured the Aquila to a

communal nesting site where predators would not be tolerated and the

Aquila were swarmed, pecked, and pursued for encroaching on the small

birds' territory.

The bronze predators struggled for altitude and began splitting up

haphazardly, fleeing the army of tiny but tenacious attackers. The shuttle

was also under attack and the viewport was alternately covered, then

cleared of the valiant little birds. The two pilots had turned the APS off to

prevent damaging
the avians while the
Patuxent
maneuvered through the

flock.

By the time the ship settled onto the landing pad, Tesa felt

163

as though she'd come through a combat mission
.
The viewpo
rt
was st

re
aked with bird droppings and the odor from the seat beside her was

terrible
.
She unstrapped her safety ha
rn
ess and rubbed her aching

stomach
.
Meg came back and looked sympathetic.

"Poor kid,"
she signed
,
consolingly
. "
You got airsick?" Besides some
tension in her face and shoulders
,
she revealed little of the turmoil

she'd just been through.

Tesa nodded. "
That first drop was a religious expe
ri
ence."

"I'll bet
.
Well, the robot ste
ri
lizer will take care of it. Taller's here to take
you home
...
I got the feeling he d
oe
sn
'
t quite trust us to let you go.

You can take your sled if you think you're ready for another flight." She

smiled tiredly.

Tesa eased out of the seat. Meg adjusted her nullifiers, reminding Tesa that

she didn'
t need her voder now
.
Moving to tu
rn
it off, she remembered
her file. The pilots had tu
rn
ed off the red ale
rt
once they were out of
danger, but Tesa hadn't been paying attention to the voder then
.
Now

her screen was blank, as though waiting for a new command
.
She tried

to b
ri
ng up the file she'd captured on the
Crane
but it wasn't there.

Meg must'
ve noticed her sta
rt
led expression. "Were you working on

anything when we engaged the red ale
rt
?" she asked.

Tesa nodded,
noncommittally.

"The emergency override'
s pretty strong
.
If your file was open
,
it
probably overwrote it. Hope it wasn't impo
rt
ant." Tesa shrugged
. "
No,
it wasn
'
t impo
rt
ant
."
She checked the
directory
to be sure
.
It was
gone
.
Tu
rn
ing the voder off, she masked her annoyance.

"
Bumpy
ri
de
,
huh?" Thorn asked, coming alongside them. She
nodded again
. "
None of the Grus were hu
rt
, were they?"

"
Eve
ry
one made it home safe
,"
Meg assu
re
d her.

Thorn cracked open the
Patuxent'
s
door and the light of Tri
nity's setting
suns flooded the ship
.
Stiffly Tesa eased down the ramp
.
Once she

had her feet back on T
ri
nity
'
s soil, the delightful buoyancy eased her
aches and lightened her hea
rt
.

The escort
flock surrounded them as soon as the three humans moved

clear of the ship
.
Flies-Too
-
Fast stood proudly beside Shimme
ri
ng
,
his head scant inches above the tall female's.

164

Taller moved forward, looking tired,
one wing drooping.
"
It's been a long
day, hasn
'
t it, Good Eyes?" he signed. In spite of eve
ry
thing
,
Tesa g
ri
nned as he came over and
enveloped her under his wing. Thorn
moved

away, but this time with no outward show of resentment.

Taller directed an
adult to escort the flock to the marsh, and after they

bounded off the cliff
,
he addressed Meg and Thorn. "Th
an
k you for
retu
rn
ing our f
ri
end to our family."

The sign he used for "fri
end
,"
Tesa noticed
,
was similar to the one she'd
seen Weaver use, which delighted her.

"I than
k you also," Taller continued
, "
for your help against Death
.
It
was courageous flying. We'll never forget it."

"It's what any f
ri
end would do, Taller
,"
Meg assured him. "Let me get
your sled, Tesa
," Thorn
signed
,
and headed for the camp shelter.

"Tomorrow,"
Taller signed
,
as he, Tesa
,
and Meg strolled easily after the
man
, "
we will thank the Blue Cloud people. It's been a long time since
we
'
ve needed their help."

"
You mean the small blue and
re
d avians
?"
Meg asked. "Yes. My
father negotiated a compromise with them before I was an egg
,
and

occasionally
,
it comes in handy."

Tesa and Meg gave each other a look. "How does someone of your stature,"

Tesa asked diplomatically
, "
negotiate with such a tiny creature?"

"I wasn't there,"
Taller admitted, "but the Blue Cloud people are so

numerous
,
and so inclined to overpopulation, my father got them to

agree not to overrun our feeding grounds. In exchange
,
we stopped

eating them
."
With that
,
the avian casually drew up one foot to
delicately scratch an itch behind his eye.

"I see," signed Meg, though her expression was so dismayed,
Tesa nearly

burst out with ne
rv
ous laughter.

Taller turn
ed to Tesa
. "
Sailor has been difficult to feed all day,
an
d
keeps watching for your
re
tu
rn
. I suspect he won't sleep until he sees
you safely settled in your
bed.
"

Thorn arrived with the sled, setting it to hover,
so Tesa could comfo
rt
ably
pull herself up on the diamond
-
shaped flier.

The Indian woman exchanged good-
bye hugs with Meg and Thorn
,
then

eased herself onto the sled
,
adjusting the controls. It was usually

better to lie flat on your stomach for long t
ri
ps, but for sho
rt
, easy
flight she preferred to sit. The hand g
ri
ps that permitted manual

maneuvers were still easy

165

SILENT DANCES 165
to
re
ach, and the
re
straining field held you

snugly on
,
either way. It was possible to lower the
force-
field, so your
upper
body was free, but Tesa didn't need to have the wind in her
hair right

now.

Taller waited until she signaled she was ready, then moved toward the cliff

edge. She signed to the sled to follow.

As they lifted away from the cliff, Tesa was thrilled to realize that she was

really
flying
with Taller. Her heart raced.

Taller kept a careful eye on her, she noted, as they spiraled slowly over the

marsh. They passed over groups of yearlings, and pairs near nesting

shelters who lifted their heads and called. Tesa felt Taller's answering cry

tingle over her arms. Finally, they circled their own nest shelter, and she was

surprised by how calm and peaceful everything seemed. Nothing remained