Heritage of Flight

by Susan Shwartz

  Some of the dust from the Cynthian's scales seemed to cling to the slide along with the fluid she had dabbed from the protective horn along its mandible. Even as she watched, frowning with an absurd sense of guilt, of having trespassed upon another creature, the horn went flaccid, the fluid it had secreted evaporating.

  When she gave Rafe the slide for analysis, he stopped glaring at her long enough to process it. “Strong neural toxin,” he announced. “Must be their major weapon. Their mandibles are imperfect; it's a wonder that they can eat at all. I'd say that their backup defenses are the barbs on their wings and those forearms. My guess is that they'd use them to grasp an enemy long enough to bring it close, then shred its wings or brush it with their poison."

  A Cynthian battle ... horns glistening, winged Cynthians darting, dodging, reaching out with those hooks and claws ... what a beautiful, lethal sight such a battle must be.

  Pauli hoped she never saw one.

  5

  Rafe Adams stared at his printouts. Human/Cynthian equivalences ... this world's Rosetta Stone. Behind him murmured voices. Sparks from the nightly fire crackled. That fire had turned into a ritual that comforted the entire settlement and drew it closer together. Pauli too—they were working together now, almost as they had planned. Only she was still reserved around him—except when she should be, he thought.

  Damn the woman! Who had told her to leap at one of the Cynthians like that, armed only with a slide, determined to protect him from the consequences of his own research? Was she so unhappy here that she courted death? God, he wished she would court him instead, then grimaced at the absurdity of the image. She had to be crazy to think he liked being stranded here either, or to imagine his delight at her presence here with him caused him anything but guilt. Perhaps she would come around.

  Pauli ... alive! he thought, guilty in his relief. Once he had watched ships die; now he watched her. All too often, since planetfall, her face had been leaden, lifeless; the moment's risk, the moment's protectiveness, made her face lose the masklike resignation that had hurt him, even as he sought to break through it.

  After all, things could have been much worse. The settlement was beginning to pull itself together, to cope with Cynthia's turbulent climate and to develop some type of local economy.

  And, as important, the children at the tiny settlement's heart were beginning to live again. Today Ayelet had been a brat, the real variety, even down to the selfishness and sullenness of a child never balked of a toy or a sweet. So, on Borodin's orders, Ayelet had been sent into a dome to go to bed early. Rafe was delighted: Ayelet had acted like a child. Well enough—she had a father and brother alive.

  But ‘Cilla—frail, tiny ‘Cilla—had snapped at her brother Lohr for spilling her paints. They were important to her; she had turned out to have real talent, and was quickly becoming the group's artist. Lohr, however, had snapped back loudly, instead of with the watchful quiet that made Pauli go cold around him and check the position of her sidearm. Dr. Pryor could scarcely conceal her exultation. After all, it was remarkable that children who had been brutalized as badly as these could make a fresh start. Autism was far more likely.

  Each day the refugee children, especially the ones whom the larger children called “the littlests,” were laughing more, losing the preternatural control and jumpiness that still made some people nervous when they had to be around them.

  With a great show of studying his screen (and a more subtle scrutiny of the children, as well as the winged Cynthians), Rafe decided that much of the children's adjustment was due to Pauli and the captain. Probably because they knew no other way of acting, they treated the children like cadets. Perform well, and they handed out rewards, chief among them work with the gliders. Shirk, and there were punishments, like early bedtimes, no gliders, and no sight of the Cynthians, who fascinated the children, unlike human strangers, who made them hide, growl, or reach for the nearest rocks.

  But what child would not have been fascinated by the Cynthians? Rafe thought of the younger brothers he had. Had was the operative word; his family had lived on a station when the Secessionists struck it. And he had better not think of that again now. Or ever, unless he wanted to submit to Dr. Pryor's attempts at therapy.

  Ben Yehuda sauntered over toward him and grinned, undisturbed at Ayelet's punishment. Rafe tossed more wood on the fire and coiled himself down beside a pile of logs to wait. Pauli stationed herself at the comm. If habit were any indication, soon the Cynthians would begin to arrive.

  Two in particular turned up almost every evening. Some odd whimsy of Pauli's had made her dub them Uriel and Ariel; he wouldn't have assumed that she even knew those names—and he would have wagered on her not knowing what they meant.

  "I'm a pilot,” she had always told him, half-boastful, half-apologetic, whenever he had tried to draw her away from talk of them or of the day-to-day into visions of art and peace. “Specialized. How would I know anything about that?"

  And then she would smile at him, and he would lose his train of thought. She had dissembled, he knew. Pauli was better educated than her boasts.

  So, she had named the Cynthians, and the names had stuck. Uriel and Ariel were among the largest of the Cynthians and, assuming that the pallor of their fluorescent wings indicated age, they were probably among the eldest. Rafe chuckled, thinking of Uriel and Ariel as having to keep order among the younger, more brilliant Cynthians—you raced one another despite wind shear, so no visit to those wingless freaks by the river tonight! (The possibilities for Cynthians'-eye humor made him suppress laughter.) They might have many of the same problems as Captain Borodin.

  But now as Rafe looked up, he saw a gleam of wings descending from the foothills.

  "They're coming,” he murmured.

  "Good. Can you ask them if there's a cold season and, if there is, how they manage to survive?"

  "I can try,” said Rafe. The Cynthians circled and landed, dipping wings in a gesture Rafe had concluded was a form of compliment to the humans. Rafe tried to imitate the gesture with his arms and shoulders, but, as always, failed gracelessly. After an exchange of ritual phrases, Rafe repeated the captain's question to the Cynthians. The sound of his words went into the common-coder and appeared on the readout as symbols: cold/visualization of a Cynthian/interrogative.

  Antennae quivered. The screen blanked, then lit with the symbols of the Cynthians’ reply: mountains/ hollowed-out caverns/Cynthians, wings folded, within.

  "Nice work,” hissed Borodin.

  At least human eyes perceived some of the same wavelengths as Cynthians! Rafe thought. Otherwise communication would have been impossibly hard, instead of just arduous. Studying the signs on his screen, Rafe concluded that the Cynthians were not just primarily nocturnal. They hibernated too.

  But wait. Now new symbols were forming, replacing the previous analogy. Cold. The screen split into two displays, preparing for the analogical constructs that seemed to be such a major characteristic of Cynthian thought or “speech.” Cynthians/mountains; humans/ domes. Assuming the unattractive stick figures were humankind, that was plain enough. Cynthians lived in the mountains; humans lived on the alluvial plain.

  The screens lit again. Humans/mountains.

  "They're asking us to move,” Rafe said.

  "We can't!” Beneatha, the xenobotanist, argued. “For one thing, how do you expect us to pack up the hydro tank into those hills?"

  Rafe sighed, as he usually did whenever Beneatha opened her mouth, wishing, as always, that Beneatha were less hostile toward the military members of the settlement. He'd have liked to study the Cynthian diet, for example, and he had asked for Beneatha's help. But the one time he had approached her, she had barely been civil. Even to him, whom Pauli had accused of being three-quarters civilian himself. Perhaps if he had not been—if Pauli's preoccupations with flying, with the traditions of the service, had meant half as much to him as she did herself ... Rafe shook his head. There was no time now to waste in regret
s.

  He glanced over at the woman who was the source of most of such regrets for him. She had hoped, he knew, to command a ship like the Amherst herself. Once they had made plans together for such a ship. That and service in exploration might have meant a life together of discovering and surveying planets such as this one. But now, with the Secessionists grabbing and fortifying undefended planets, Pauli could only hope for advanced pilot training which would qualify her for the type of combat duty that was more suicide than combat.

  Oddly enough, she resented being deprived of that. But at least she was alive. Rafe was glad of that. There had to be something wrong with a system that condemned its bravest, brightest young people to early deaths, something even more wrong when those people themselves acceded to their death sentences—and you didn't have to be three-quarters civilian to think that.

  Rafe became aware that he had been silent too long. People were staring at him. So, for that matter, were the Cynthians. One of the smaller, more garish creatures mantled its wings, then settled back as Uriel half turned toward it.

  He brought himself back to the present. “I'll tell the Cynthians we can't join them in their mountain caves for the winter."

  He selected his symbols carefully. Domes/plants in rows. River/humans. That ought to be clear enough, even if you left out Beneatha's protests about the hydroponics. The humans had to stay near the river in order to find food, water, and shelter.

  Ariel's antennae quivered and stiffened. The poison horns on its head extruded themselves, gleamed wetly, then withdrew quickly. Wings flapped and scattered spangles of violet and silver across the night sky as it rose and vanished in the direction of the foothills. Why had Ariel fled the human camp?

  "That wasn't a retreat, that was a withdrawal,” Pauli commented. “What did you tell it?"

  "That we had to stay where our home was."

  Uriel, ink-blue body with pale-green and silver mottlings, wrapped its upper wings firmly about its body, indications of fear and distress. The screen filled with the elder's message: humans: caves ... humans: caves ... humans: caves...

  "Insistent, isn't it? And we have months until winter, too?"

  Before Rafe could respond to either, Uriel also lifted away from the camp, followed, more reluctantly (or so it seemed), by the other smaller Cynthians. Powder from their wings sprinkled down upon the watching humans.

  Why would they want the humans to move up to their eyries? You'd think that the Cynthians would be territorial ... , unless winged creatures were not as turf conscious as landbound ones. If that were so, it would be the first case of nonterritoriality that Rafe had ever studied.

  I'd like to get into those hills, he thought.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. Borodin's hand.

  "If you're thinking what I think you are, Lieutenant, forget it till we learn more about this planet. I'm not about to risk you."

  "I'm getting a little tired of being too valuable to risk,” Rafe pointed out. “How about ground recon? That's usually in my job description. Since you don't want me heading for the mountains, why not let me take a team into the river plain?"

  Borodin chewed his lip, unable to see a reason to refuse. “Fine. When would you want to leave?"

  "I doubt that after tonight's little talk that the Cynthians will be back tomorrow. I could leave at dawn."

  Borodin nodded. Rafe's gaze slid involuntarily over to Pauli. Come with me? Please? But she was staring after the Cynthians, then looking down at the gleaming dust on the hand she had raised to her lips as the younger ones had risen, a concerted splendor of wings.

  Rafe sighed, knowing that nothing he could offer would ever replace her dream of flight.

  Then he shrugged, and went to choose those civilians and children who would accompany him. Dawn came early on Cynthia.

  Carefully Pauli stored her glider and started toward the dome they had designated as the settlement's dining hall. Great flying weather, she thought in satisfaction. Even the experimental, short glider flights she had tried in order to test them had given her a dizzying sense of freedom. She loved the way that the wind rushed against her eyes and forced tears into them, turning the patchwork land below a green-blue. Risky, the civs clucked. Sure: but a one-man ship was riskier, and that was the ship she had wanted.

  Were any of her friends at New Pax or on board Amherst still alive? Involuntarily she glanced toward the plain in the direction that Rafe and his scout team had taken. If the wind had been right, she might have flown after them.

  Maybe the war would end soon, and that Becker would return with the Amherst, and new orders for them all. Or maybe, a more cynical voice whispered to the darkness behind her eyes, maybe the war would only end when no one was left with the strength to fight it, or even to endure it any longer.

  Well, for her, the war was definitely over.

  "I expected Lohr to join us today in testing the gliders,” Captain Borodin commented as he entered and hung away his own glider. “He's been panting to test out his wings."

  "Lieutenant Adams convinced Dr. Pryor that his recon was a field trip, and thus took priority over joy riding,” Pauli said. Her voice was harsh. “Frankly, what I think was that ‘Cilla wanted to see the plain, so Lohr went along to watch out for her. You know, lately she's shown a tendency to break away from the crowd and run on ahead. Besides, Ayelet was going with Rafe, and Lohr likes her."

  "That'll be useful to know in a couple of years when the children all start pairing off,” Borodin said. Then, after too long a meaningful pause, “Adams is doing fine work, don't you think?"

  Speaking of pairing off, are you, Captain? If the captain wanted to praise Rafe, let him put a commendation into the computer log.

  As they came out of the dome, someone ran into Pauli, sobbing hysterically.

  Ayelet! Several of the civs ran to soothe her. Was Rafe's expedition aborted so soon? Where was the rest of the party? Where was Rafe himself?

  Pauli forced herself to meet Borodin's eyes. What if Rafe was dead?

  "There he is!” The captain pointed at a tiny figure that seemed to stagger as it hurried toward them.

  She hurried to the arms locker, then headed out to meet him. Rafe was carrying ‘Cilla, and weaving as he ran. The little girl's face was gray and slack. Spittle glistened in the corners of her half-opened mouth, and she shivered convulsively.

  "Dr. Pryor! We've got casualties!” Borodin was shouting. Pauli glanced behind her. The captain was helping the children, now staggering in one by one, to sit with their heads between their knees. One or two retched from the long run and the terror. Lohr bent forward in the long grass and tried to be sick from exhaustion. But he was too controlled. Borodin patted his shoulders.

  "Don't let the kids come any closer to ‘Cilla,” Rafe gasped at Pauli.

  She bent forward to examine the child herself. ‘Cilla's right boot was gone, except for a few shreds of curling leather that clung to her shin. Four deep punctures showed blue on her ankle. The entire foot looked as if acid had spilled on it.

  "What did this?” Pauli demanded.

  Rafe shook his head. “Another lifeform that survey didn't turn up. Damn them! Damn them all!"

  6

  Pauli thinned her lips as she bent over the unconscious child ... that time during basic training in lab ... Leslie was trying to concoct archaic liquid fuels ... washed out of flight training on disability pension ... no funds or time for regrowth ... and besides, you needed two good hands to fly...

  Had ‘Cilla survived the slagging of Wolf IV only to endure this? What would her injury mean to the rest of the children, who must know now that the adults could not protect them against enemies even on this refuge world? Would they be able to survive at all?

  For the colony to survive, they might have to call on the gutter-bred survival abilities of the children whose memories and lives they had hoped to ease.

  Alicia Pryor seemed to materialize, yet she did not look as breathless as Pauli felt. She knelt
beside ‘Cilla.

  "Will she lose the foot?” Pauli asked.

  "Depends,” said the medical officer. “She's deep in shock. Unless she wakes, I won't risk sedation or painkiller. No, Rafe—don't touch her! Whatever acid she stumbled into, if I don't neutralize it fast, it's going to dissolve her foot!"

  "Not acid ... a bite ... I saw..."

  "First I work on ‘Cilla. Meanwhile, you bury everything—starting with the clothes you're wearing—that may have come in contact with this acid. Then you can tell me what you think you saw."

  Rafe tried to protest.

  "All right, then: what you know you saw. I can use all the help I can get. For example, from the way the flesh is torn here, it looks like some sort of lizard; but, given a bite of this size and a child no bigger than ‘Cilla, if that were venom, probably a nerve poison, she'd have died before she hit ground."

  Pauli shuddered. The dash and detachment about death with which pilots tried to armor themselves were nothing, she thought, compared with Pryor's particularly chilling brand of scientific objectivity. Yet, at the thought of her death or, right now, of ‘Cilla's, Rafe had cracked.

  Now he groaned. “Not a lizard. Horrible things, like grubs or maggots, and a meter long ... God, I have to...” he gagged, then swallowed convulsively, restraining himself.

  Another world ... another life ... but Rafe had been similarly red-eyed. Beads of sweat had stood out on gray skin, matted the springing hair. "I won't wait to know if your ship blew, or if you'll be flying back, Pauli," he'd sworn the night after a pilot from his home station had been blasted by Secess', working in that precise, hellish unanimity of theirs. "You choose, Pauli. Flying or ... our future."

  Unless she and all of the other pilots like her flew, what future could anyone have? It had not been a fair demand; Rafe had been too afraid, too anguished, for fairness, which was, Pauli sometimes thought, a peacetime luxury, in any case.