The Sky People

by S. M. Stirling

  The new-made gunman hooted with delight as his fellows cowered. Then he made an imperious gesture, and four of them scuttled forward to lift the pilot in the air. He screamed once as the broken knee-joint twisted, and then fainted.

  His last thought was a deep wish that he never wake again.

  Venus, Gagarin Continent—south of Jamestown Extraterritorial Zone

  Marc woke a little past the middle of the night. What a dream! he thought.

  A face with slanted blue eyes and wheat-colored hair framing a high-cheeked, snub-nosed countenance. A diadem of shimmering silvery metal about her brow, and a chill wind from a glowing nexus of light behind her.

  "Whoa!" he exclaimed, sitting erect.

  He'd thrown back the top of the bedroll while he slept. No wonder I made un-transport just now, he thought. Who could stay still with a dream like that?

  Perhaps the sudden drop in the air temperature had prompted it, just before it woke him. Or maybe it's all those books I read as a kid, he thought with an inner smile.

  He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and then blinked at the fire, dazzling in the darkness even though it had died to a bed of low coals that reflected in red-orange flickers from the rock overhang above. The Terran looked out into the dark; it was near-impenetrable, with no moon and even starlight a rare treat. His internal clock told him it was very late, that he'd been asleep six or seven hours; it was accurate again now that he'd adjusted to this planet's thirty-hour cycle. Like most people, he'd simply taken to adding a few hours each to his waking and sleeping.

  Call it four hours to dawn.

  But looking south towards the mountains, Marc caught a faint flash of light. And noise, more felt through the air than heard, under the constant splashing of the spring into its pool.

  It was Zhown's watch, the elder of the two tribals. He was squatting well away from the fire, wrapped in a blanket with a short spear ready to hand, more useful than his cherished new bow in the inky darkness. Marc had slept in his clothes, but he walked barefoot into the dark.

  "You walk quietly, for one of the Sky People," the guide said softly.

  Marc could sense the grin in Zhown's voice. They spoke in a mixture of English, Kartahownian, and the hunter's native language. Marc wouldn't like to try discussing philosophy in the garbled pidgin, but it did well enough for practical things.

  "The sky woke me," he said. "What do you smell? I hear thunder, maybe."

  There were only a few real differences that they'd found so far between Venusians and Terrans. Two were that the locals had a distinctly superior sense of smell and somewhat better night-sight; not dog-sensitive noses, but several times better than Marc's equipment, and a slight but distinct advantage in darkness. And the Earthlings had keener hearing. All that made sense, given the thicker atmosphere and the lack of a moon or much starlight in the hazy nights.

  "Hard to say with all this water close," Zhown said. "I think a storm passes from the sea southward, though. Rain there before daybreak, maybe already-now in the mountains."

  Marc grunted, which was a polite acknowledgment in Zhown's language and an insult in Kartahownian. You had to keep in mind that a world the size of Earth or Venus was a big place…

  "No sense in waking the others," Marc said at last. "I wouldn't like to try the slope in the dark, not with churn"

  Zhown grunted in turn, which was reassuring. The native wouldn't have kept quiet if he disagreed; he thought the Terrans were among Those Others—spirits, quasi-elves, the specialists weren't quite sure what the term meant yet, except that it was associated with the supernatural. But he didn't have all that much awe of them just because they were supernatural, either. Apparently Those Others turned up all the time in his people's stories, and he was perfectly ready to argue with the Sky People in his own area of expertise. In fact, he thought most of them were klutzes away from their town and machines; Marc was quite flattered to be classed as a promising amateur at bushcraft.

  He got his rifle and put on his boots, after carefully checking them for scorpions and similar manky nuisances. Then he took a position not far from Zhown and waited, squatting easily. The night was full of sounds once you quieted your mind and really listened: clicks and buzzes and rustlings, once a huge hooo-hooo in the distance like a Brobdingnagian owl, occasional howls and screeches. A little like the bayou country—once there was something like a bull gator calling his territory to the night.

  But not much like, and Marc grinned to himself in the darkness. This was exactly what a younger Marc Vitrac had wanted as he read lurid pulp adventure stories with a flashlight beneath the covers back in the family house on the Bayou Teche. His grandfather had built that home, hand-shaping the cypress joists, and his father had trapped nutria from it in between spells as an oil-platform roustabout. Neither of them had had much understanding of the dreams that shaped Marc's generation.

  The news from the first probes, still more the pictures from the second wave, had made all the old classics new again, inspired an ever-swelling stream of imitators, and set every boy and most girls on Earth to dreaming those particular dreams. Most of them had to content themselves with books all their lives, and bad movies, and documentaries.

  But I made it, he thought.

  Marc chuckled aloud. His own picture was probably on the bedroom walls of millions of hero-worshipping kids, and he was undoubtedly the thinly disguised hero of countless trashy novels and bad TV shows by now—and the illustrated heartthrob of countless girls. If he were somehow returned to Earth, he could write his own ticket and have hot and cold running starlets as long as he wanted.

  Not that it mattered; barring some unlikely chance, he'd leave his bones here. You didn't ship people between worlds casually, not at fifty million a ticket each way.

  But no leaving the bones just yet, he reminded himself, as a rumble of thunder came from the south, definite now, not an if-maybe.

  That woke Corlin. Zhown chaffed him in their own language, and the younger guide stoked up the fire. Marc put a clay field oven full of balls of biscuit dough in it, using a green stick through the handle to lift it in, and set a potful of water to boil for zulk-tea. By the time the smell of scorched frying pan and antelope-breadnut-and-onion hash was wafting across the campsite, the gray light of a chilly overcast morning was as well, and the other two Terrans were up. Marc threw a double handful of crumbled zulk-leaves into the water, and a rich nutty scent was added to the smells of rock and water, vegetation, churr, and imperfectly clean human.

  "God, that smells good," Cynthia said, as he passed her a cup. She sipped. "God, it tastes awful."

  Marc poured shamboo-sugar into his own and stirred it with a twig. "Not that bad," he said, sipping. "Sort of like chicory."

  Christopher Blair wasn't a morning person. "Chicory," he said, with a wealth of loathing in his voice. "God, never to taste a decent Darjeeling again, or even Blue Mountain coffee…"

  His back was to Marc as he spoke, looking out over the breadth of the sinkhole. The river and pools grew visibly as they ate. By the time the pots were scrubbed out with sand, a three-foot surge had crossed the width of the sinkhole, lapping at the foot of the rock knee they'd camped on and boiling white across at the northern exit. Water filled the canyon they'd traveled to get here six feet deep, a deep rushing and gurning that toned in the rock beneath their feet. Fresh debris washed in by the minute, including whole logs with their root-boles exposed, and one great, turtlelike shape with a spiked dome of armor over a back the size of a family sedan. A desperate-eyed bony head reared above the surface, and it gave a mournful hoot like a terrified steam locomotive as the current swept it whirling into the canyon: probably the dinosaurian equivalent of ooooohhhshiiiiittt!

  "Perhaps we might have risen a bit earlier," the Englishman said, as the rain started.

  Marc shrugged and pointed. Just beyond the overhang, the cliff-face had collapsed long ago; the rocky slope was about forty degrees, and climbable by agile humans. Th
e clawed, padded feet of churr could usually follow where men could go.

  "Didn't want to try that in the dark," he said. "And we might as well have a hot breakfast. It may be a cold camp tonight if the rain keeps up."

  "What's that?" Cynthia said, cutting off Blair's possible reply.

  That was a balk of timber, most of a tree trunk, with leaves still fluttering from some of the boughs. The main north-south path across the sinkhole was a plunging, swirling cataract by now, but the balk of timber spun out of the current towards them, traveling more slowly for a little before it was sucked back into the torrent. A length of sodden black fur was caught in the branches—

  "Greatwolf bitch," Marc said, shielding his eyes from the increasing rain. "Probably got caught underwater when the trunk rolled over."

  He could just see the long yellow-white fangs, caught in a final snarl, but the animal lacked a male's massive shoulders and mane.

  Though if you want to get technical, it's a canid or caninoid and most closely resembles the Miocene predator Epicyon haydeni rather than the any type of wolf in the strict sense, he thought with an inner grin; a lot of Doc Feldman had rubbed off on him. But we call them greatwolves because they're doggie-looking pack hunters and the native names are all hard to pronounce.

  Then, aloud: "Hey, that's a pup!"

  "Poor thing!" Cynthia said. "She must have carried it up the tree, to try and get it out of the water!"

  Something whined and struggled feebly amid the tattered leaves. Decision came quickly; it wasn't too far away, no more than twenty or thirty feet, but it wouldn't stay there more than a few seconds.

  "Get a rope ready," Marc said, stripping off clothes.

  "I say, old boy, that's not such a good idea," Blair began, speaking mildly for once.

  By then Marc was down to his boxers. He hit the water in a flat running dive and immediately wondered if Blair wasn't right. It wasn't all that deep right here, barely six feet, but Marc could feel the strong rip currents tugging and dragging at him as the floodwater surged over hidden boulders.

  In for a penny, he thought, and struck out.

  Foam slapped him in the face and tried to fill his lungs. The water was cold, too, as cold as any he'd felt since survival training on the Big Sur coast back Earthside, sucking at the strength of his muscles. But he'd been raised amphibious, long before diving became a favored sport, even longer before Aerospace Force training. You didn't fight the water; you eeled through it, rode it, sleeked along to make it take you where you wanted to go…

  Still, he clung and panted a moment when he grabbed the trunk, blinking and feeling a few spots where things had grazed him. There wasn't much time to rest, though, not if he was going to get back to the others before this thing was sucked into the vortex at the canyon-mouth; as more and more water poured into the sinkhole it was ponding back from the single narrow exit, turning that into churning rapids. Hand-over-hand he pulled himself along the tree trunk until he came to the corpse of the greatwolf. It was about as long as he was, and probably weighed as much, a great shaggy-black mass with fangs the length of his little finger. The pup was a male and probably just weaned, from the state of the mother's dugs, which meant he weighed fifteen or twenty pounds. Luckily, he was half-drowned, trapped among the alder's branches in a position that made him scrabble and strain to keep his nose above the churning water. That left him too feeble to struggle when Marc grabbed him.

  "Sorry, little feller," Marc grunted, tracing the branches with his hands and visualizing. "Okay, hold your breath."

  The cub rolled his eyes and snapped valiantly at Marc. He took a deep breath of his own and bobbed down, letting the current pin him against the wood. The greatwolf pup had to be pulled straight down to get him out of the cage of broken wood that held him; there was a nasty instant when Marc thought two branches had scissored around his own leg, and then he pulled free and broke the surface again. At his side the cub kicked feebly, his disproportionately large paws scrabbling over Marc's abused skin; he shifted his grip to the back of the pup's neck, which had the added advantage of making him go limp, as he would have when an adult's mouth seized him there for carrying. Then Marc switched to a sidestroke, pumping his legs against the grip of the water. That was the only practical way to travel, with the weight of the cub hampering him, but he was uneasily conscious that he couldn't see anything ahead through the increasing cross-chop of the flood and the rain that hissed into it, and even more that the water was full of things that could hurt him, and hurt him with no warning at all. A solid knock on one ankle sent a warning shaft of fire up his right leg, but he couldn't slow down and live.

  He was starting to really worry when a braided lariat fell out of the air into the water before him. A frantic grab caught it, and he poured his will into the muscle and tendon of his right arm and hand. Then the wet leather snapped out of the water, pulled so hard that moisture squirted out of it under the tension, and he was dragged forward with a jolt that nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. That gave him warning enough that he had his feet under him when he came to the shallows and avoided being dragged over rock. As he'd expected, Zhown had the other end snubbed to the saddle horn of his churr, and had walked the beast away from the water to drag Marc out.

  Blair tried to say something, but Marc ignored him as he staggered out of the water and under the overhang; the rising flood was lapping at the edge of the rock platform and would be over it in a few minutes. In the meantime, he'd risked his life for the sodden bundle of fur in his arms, and he wasn't going to waste it. The pup made a wet splat sound as Marc laid him on the stone and began rhythmically pressing on his chest. He coughed, sneezed, retched water, and nipped painfully at Marc's half-numb hand as soon as his eyes opened. A full-grown greatwolf could be five feet at the shoulder and outweigh a grown man, higher at the shoulders than the rump and with a head like a split barrel lined with fangs.

  And this little critter is already sharp-toothed and has feet the size of dinner plates, Marc thought, as he shook off drops of blood and wrapped the shivering form in a blanket to keep him quiet and keep him warm. He's going to be a big 'un, him.

  "Hold still, you little son of a bitch," Marc said, as he stuffed the wiggling bundle into a burlap sack and hung it from one of the packsaddles.

  The churr shied a bit—they were among the greatwolves' natural prey, though that wasn't much of an honor, since a pack would kill and eat anything from rabbits to the smaller types of dinosaur. Once the job was done, Marc began to struggle back into his sopping clothes—not much of a comfort in the cold rain, but better than standing and letting it run down his naked skin. That gave him a little leisure to pay attention to the rest of his party.

  Zhown and the other guide just looked at him as if he was strange; they probably thought he had some impenetrable spirit reason for doing what he'd done. Cynthia, a bit to his surprise and annoyance, was giving him the sort of glance a rambunctious four-year-old brother might expect. Blair was simple pinched disapproval.

  "I must formally protest, Lieutenant," he said. "You have endangered the mission, and as your superior officer—"

  Marc finished pulling on his waterproof poncho. "I'm not in your chain of command, Wing Commander," he said. "And on this expedition, I'm in charge of the non-scientific aspects."

  That shut the Englishman up at the price of a look of white-lipped fury. Marc felt a bit guilty; it had been a damnfool stunt, and he'd be in some trouble back at Jamestown if the man made an official complaint about it. Marc was grateful when everyone quietly pitched in to the task of getting the churr up the talus slope, slippery as it was with rain. They carried the gear up to the top, then rigged ropes anchored there. Each secured a safety line through the thick metal ring on the horn of a saddle; then they kept someone ahead of each beast with the cord snubbed around a convenient rock as the churr made the climb. When the last left the campsite, it was ankle-deep. Marc followed it up, helping with a shoulder against its backside at a dif
ficult spot, as it snorted and squealed and scrabbled its big blunt claws against the rain-slick rock. When they'd heaved the creature up another dozen feet to where the rope was snubbed, Marc and Zhown took a breather.

  "I am glad you came un-harmed from the water," the native said.

  "With the help of my oath-sworn friends," Marc replied.

  "With my help," Zhown replied. "And Corlin and Night Face," which was what the locals called Cynthia. "Sun Hair did little but stand and shout loudly and move about."

  "You say so?" Marc said, shocked, and got a brisk nod that sent drops flying from the edge of the straw coolie hat.

  He knew the native guide didn't like Blair—significant in itself—but he also knew Zhown wasn't in the habit of slandering men, either. But he's no less inclined to see what he expects than other men, Marc thought. And so am I, and I've never liked the de'pouille, and hope to beat him out with a woman, which is still more reason to think badly of him. Marc put the matter from his mind.

  "Let's get this whore where she belongs," he said instead.

  Hours later, when they were camped in a shallow cave on a hillside several miles northward, he let the thoughts trickle back. The problem was that he still didn't have any evidence, except for Zhown thinking that the Englishman hadn't been very enthusiastic about rescuing Marc—and all he could really say was that Blair had tried to stop him taking the risk in the first place and criticized him for doing it afterward. Who could say if there had been room for another pair of hands in the effort of getting a rope out to him while he struggled in the flood? If there hadn't, then trying to pitch in would simply have hindered the first comers. And Blair had an excellent record; he'd been crucial in repairing the Carson's damaged reactor, from the reports.

  Leave it, Marc thought. Just keep an eye on him.

  There was enough work to keep them all busy. The cave was a thumb-shaped indentation in a steep hillside, extending upward like a crack in the rock, with an overhang in front where their hobbled remuda could get some shelter from the weather. Soon they had a comfortable blaze going, always easier on Venus than Earth. Nothing carnivorous was likely to try to take shelter here from the rain, because even the biggest 'saurs were afraid of fire; given the higher proportion of oxygen in the air, wildfire was a terrible menace here. That was about the only thing they did fear, that and the predators whose shape evolution had hardwired into their pigeon-sized brains. Fortunately, they were a thousand feet higher here than Jamestown, and the season was further along. The coldblooded giants and the big meat eaters that preyed on them avoided these coolish heights in fall and wintertime.