Silent Songs (9 page)

Jib nodded. The fish floated right against the portals, touching the clear barriers with their mouths and their fins, undulating their colors so brightly it reflected on the walls of the small vessel like strobe lights.

Time passed quickly, so after a while, Jib glanced at the chrono. Humans had divided Trinity's long day into twenty-eight and a half Terran hours. It was now just past twenty hundred, which made it near dusk at this time of year. A hunger pang reminded Jib of one forgotten priority--dinner. Watching Bruce manipulate the controls, he asked, "We headed back?"

The weatherman nodded.

The fish followed the ship right into the river, along a deep crevasse. Bruce had no trouble navigating by instruments. "They'll return to the sea when the fresh water bothers them," the weatherman said. "We're gettin' really good film."

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Jib could include a clip in the letter he'd record tonight for Anzi, and wondered--if she were here--if she'd be able to read anything mentally from such simple animals.

Then, without warning, the Maori was struck by a powerful wave of vertigo.

He lurched forward, nauseated and unbalanced.

"Jib, what's the matter?" Bruce asked, grabbing his arm, steadying him. "You all right, son?"

He thought at first it was a reaction from the flashing fish, some obscure epilepsy. Dimly, he realized he was distracting Bruce from the instruments.

Jib broke out in a cold sweat, suddenly terrified, convinced they were headed for disaster. Outside, the fish swam lazily and unconcerned, kissing the portals, bumping gently along the hull. Blinking, he tried to speak, but couldn't. He saw the APS registering something large, something close, but its force-field had been turned off. Time crawled, but the chrono only registered fractions of a second.

In his mind, Jib saw his imminent death, no, something worse than death. He felt a wave of fear like nothing he'd ever known. They were being pursued by something so primitive, so terrifying, it had no name, no shape. He could only think of it as the Mate Kai, the Great Hunger. He had to tell Bruce, make him turn the APS back on. His mouth gaped helplessly.

"Hang on, buddy," Bruce said, his face full of concern. "We'll be at camp in no time." Then he turned back to the instruments and saw the rapidly changing readings. "Oh,
shit!"

Bruce reacted quickly. They were still in the crevasse, high walls on each side, surrounded by fish. Alarms sounded wildly as the instruments went crazy. The computers displayed a form, something as big as the
Demoiselle,
coming up fast beneath them. Bruce glanced at the school. If he turned on the APS now, they'd be stunned, maybe die. Jib knew the scientist in him would balk at that. He hesitated less than a second.

Something hit them like an underwater bomb.

The
Demoiselle
spun like a toy--but worse than that for Jib was his inner terror. He could
see
endless rows of teeth swallowing the ship like the heat of a watery breath. They were being consumed alive, devoured, but still there would be Hunger. He clutched his tiki as the thing struck again.

"Dammit!" Bruce shouted, fighting the bucking ship.

The ship shuddered, then suddenly Jib gasped, forgetting all about the Mate Kai. Pain bloomed in his back. There was one last tumble, and a sickening crunch as the left wing hit something hard and unyielding. Abruptly the fear and pain left Jib as he sagged

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back in his seat, weak and exhausted. Slowly, Bruce righted the
Demoiselle.

"Whatever hit us shoved us into the wall of the crevasse," Bruce said. "The wing's ruined, but we're watertight."

The ship broke the surface suddenly, startling the cohort, making them leap into flight, bleating their harsh alarm calls. On the shore, Tesa and Thunder turned to watch.

Jib never thought he'd be so happy to see land. Descended from computer specialists, he was no traditionalist and had little interest in his people's "old ways." But right now Jib was questioning all his modern pragmatism right down to his soul. As the
Demoiselle
limped to shore, he found himself clutching his tiki so hard its twisted image imprinted his pale palm. Its luck had stayed with him all the way to another planet--it was the only explanation he had for why he and Bruce were alive.

The ship's tripod feet settled in the sand, and Tesa and K'heera ran toward it, as Thunder flew over, landing lightly on the battered wing. The Grus clustered nearby, their huge, round eyes staring. Moist, balmy air gushed in as Bruce opened his door. The meteorologist was talking nonstop, but Jib understood nothing. All he could do was remember the terrible Hunger and the monstrous gray shadow that tumbled the ship like a toy.

".. . My fault. .. ." Jib suddenly realized Bruce was saying. "Szu-yi'll shoot me if she finds out. It's all my fault. Damn, what a mess! We're lucky to be alive, that's all. I should've never turned off the APS. I'm really sorry, son ... son?

Jib? You okay? You're not hurt, are you?"

Jib came out of his trance at the mention of his name, and not a moment too soon. K'heera had just pulled up beside him and in a rare show of concern was about to open his door.
Can't let her see me like this,
he thought, ungluing his hand from his pendant.
She'll never have an ounce of respect
for me if she sees this look on my face.
He almost started giggling.
But,
K'heera, will you respect me in the morning?
He gave himself a mental shake, then clambered out of the ship, forcing his weak-kneed legs to stand steady.
Do Simiu feel fear during near-fatal accidents? Do they see their life
flash before them?
Jib's own short one had gone by so fast he wanted to ask for a replay.

"Are you hurt?" the Simiu asked, for once, in English. She blinked slowly, examining him as though for injuries.

"I'm okay," he assured her. "It was a close call."

"It's very honorable," she said, "to suffer such an accident and remain calm."

Suddenly the wind shifted and her sensitive nose

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twitched. Before Jib could admit to an honest terror, she smelled it on him.

Her crest lifted, and she turned away.

Giving up, Jib went to the bow as Bruce explained things.

"I'm totally responsible," he told Tesa, finishing the story. "'By the time we came out of the tumble, the
creature,
and the school, were gone." He ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. "Really, the wing looks worse than it is. I mean, it was damned scary being spun around" like a tub toy, but she held up! She can still dive, we'll just have to go slow. And she can a-grav around like a sled, but we're not flying anywhere."

His face was drawn. "You know, Tesa, Rob Gable once sent us copies of his antique films and one of them was this real silly thing about a shark. When we watched it, I thought, How could anyone have been scared by something so phony-looking? But when that thing came up under us just now . . . that film was all I could think of. Frankly, when it happened, I was scared shitless."

Jib glanced at K'heera, seeing her shock as she reacted to Bruce's admission.
Maybe that's an advantage of age,
Jib thought.
Maybe you stop
caring about what other people think of you.
He looked again at Bruce, and realized the older man had already shaken off the effects of the accident.

Why couldn't he?

Tesa peered at the young Maori. "You okay?"

He nodded, then signed it for the cohorts who were staring in wide-eyed amazement. He knew what they were thinking. "It was just an animal," he told them. "It was big . .. and solid, but just another animal. Taller told us there were big animals here."

"Good Eyes' Brother Jib," Lightning signed formally, "you don't look like someone who's only seen an
animal."

"You've lost your
color,"
Scorched signed.

He swallowed and took a deep breath. "It.. . was a surprise."

The White Winds only glanced at one another and huddled closer together, their crowns shrunken and dulled.

The Maori jumped when Thunder threw her head back and gave her

raucous, high-pitched call. "I caught food in that river!" she signed with a flourish. "I didn't see any big animals."

"Even if it
was
a River Spirit," Flies-Too-Fast decided, naming the enemy,

"the Fisher and Good Eyes' Brother Jib are alive. Their machine protected them. That's good to know."

The heavy-bodied Hurricane stared suspiciously at Jib with one eye. "You
are
all right, aren't you?"

The young man suddenly felt overwhelmed; he shuddered and had to suppress the urge to weep. He lied when he signed, "Yeah,

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I'm okay. I'm fine." He wanted to say, I
still have my soul,
but couldn't make his hands form the signs.

"That's the only thing that matters," Tesa assured them, interrupting the cohort's questioning. "Ships can be repaired."

"Maybe," Bruce signed, "but this thing's our
ambulance.
Let's call Meg. She can go to the
Crane
and make us spare parts. Meanwhile, we'll fix what we can. K'heera?" He turned to the young Simiu. "Will you help me? I could use your dexterity."

The Simiu's small crest rose to its full height. "I am honored to be of assistance."

Jib could tell she really meant that, but Bruce only smiled crookedly. "Yeah, okay, let's get started. Jib, you call Meg. And uh . . . listen . . . underplay it, will you?"

"Let's get out of their way," Tesa signed to him. "Come to my shelter. You look like you could use a drink."

He nodded, following her. The cohort trailed them so closely, they nearly stepped on him, but Thunder stayed behind to watch the mechanics. Inside Tesa's small wickiup, Jib took a container from her and swigged its liquid back, his hands trembling. Swal owing hard, he grimaced. "This is
water."

"Of course, it's water," she signed. "Jib, what happened down there? You looked like you'd seen death ... or worse."

He wanted to tell her about his premonition, about the Mate Kai, the surprise of the goliath shadow beneath them, the feeling of helplessness as the
Demoiselle
tumbled head over heels--but as he moved his hands the memory of that raw terror just drained away. Suddenly ... the whole thing didn't seem so bad. The print of the tiki on his palm itched and distracted him.

"Jib, talk!" Tesa demanded, waving her hands at his face.

He shrugged. "I
was
bloody well rattled, but I guess I'm over it. Bruce told you everything. I just overreacted."

She seemed unconvinced, but didn't push him. "Look, I'm sorry about all this, Jib."

"Sorry for what? You couldn't.. ."

"I'm sorry you're stuck in the wilderness when it's not what you or K'heera enjoy. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that not everyone finds digging their own privy hole fun. And
this
place is enough to give anyone the willies. After we pull that meteor up, I'll get Bruce to take you both to the
Crane.
We'ye got plenty to do there, and I think you'll be happier."

He grinned unabashedly. "Fair dinkum? That'd be bloody fine! Hey, I'd better call Meg. Sooner we get the
Demie
back in shape, sooner I can catch that R

and R." He tapped a sequence on his

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voder, then waited for a response. There was a long pause. Finally, the screen said, "No satellite available."

"Here, mate, look at this." He showed it to Tesa. "It must be there." She checked the schedule. "Try again." Jib shook his head. "Same thing. No satellite available." "It must've failed. The next one comes around in four hours, at twenty-four twenty-two. We'll get through then, but we'd better tell Bruce about this one now. When we do reach Meg, he'll probably want her to go get the dead satellite before she goes to the
Crane.
They can repair it before she brings us those parts. Good thing we found out before we needed it for something really important."

K'heera pulled off a cluster of turquoise berries and popped them into her mouth, savoring the bitter taste. Four White Winds moved edgily around her, alternatingly eating and guarding. No one had gone fishing since the accident with the
Demoiselle.
But they could talk of nothing else.

"You saw the way he looked," Frost Moon signed knowingly, his cinnamon feathers turned gold by the distant firelight. "The River Spirits
touched
him.

He
heard
their song."

Politely, no one pointed out that this voice of authority on River Spirits was the youngest member of the group.

"If he'd been of the World, like Good Eyes, would he have gone to them?"

the gray-tailed Scorched asked. She kept watching for predators and so far hadn't eaten a thing.

"Of course," Frost Moon signed. "He'd have
lost his soul."

"But he didn't," Winter Bloom reminded them, calmly eating. She stopped to quickly preen a misplaced feather. "The machine saved them. We'll all be safe with the humans."

"The Fisher says it was just an animal," Lightning reminded them, "and I believe him."

The White Winds turned at the same time to observe the open fire, the rest of the cohort, and the humans. K'heera could see it in their body language, the way they slowly lifted and settled their feathers. They didn't trust the humans the same way Lightning did. They hadn't been raised with them.

"That was interesting how you and the Fisher fixed that machine," Lightning signed to K'heera, in a plain attempt to change the subject. "Did you learn to do that on your World?"

"Yes," K'heera signed, offering some fat berries to Scorched. It distracted her and she ate them quickly. "Would you like to learn mechanical work, Lightning? You're well equipped for it."

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The tall young Grus stopped eating and stared with one eye.

"I was joking, honored friend," K'heera told him, her eyes twinkling. "But it's customary among my people to share knowledge. It's one of the ways we make honor-bonds."

"Is that why the Fisher asked you to work with him?"