Heritage of Flight

by Susan Shwartz

  The stobors’ fields would. As always, Pauli winced at the name. But she supposed it probably had been inevitable. She rubbed the small of her back. Sturdy and weathered after these seasons downworld, she had been slowed only in the last month by the pregnancy that made bending down a penance and prohibited her from joining the scout parties that once again were travelling across the plains and into the foothills and the mountains beyond. I'm doubly grounded now, she thought, but contentment had eased some of the old hurt. Something else to rejoice for: Pryor had assured her that if she hadn't aborted spontaneously in her first trimester of pregnancy, the child would probably be undamaged by any radiation she had absorbed.

  These days, her back ached constantly. So did her feet despite Dr. Pryor's constant attempts to keep her off them. But she had to inspect the fields that were replacing their hydro tanks, and the defenses that protected the fields against stobor.

  She sighed. The stobor had first turned up that spring, another one of the little surprises that survey had failed to warn them of before they'd been landed here. Her husband called them one part lemming, one part platypus, and the rest God-knows-what. Including electric eels, because stobor seemed to come equipped with their own electrostatic fields. Touching one stobor earned you a nasty shock. Stumbling into two or three paralyzed you. After they'd almost lost one man who'd done just that, and who was saved only by David ben Yehuda's rough CPR (which cost his victim a couple of broken ribs), Pauli had ordered everyone in the camp to learn the emergency procedures, down to every child strong enough to manage them.

  Contact with more than three would probably stop your heart permanently, not that anyone had felt like experimenting. And of course, the damned things had to travel in packs, herbivores drawn irresistibly to the crops vital to the settlement's survival.

  Well, what else could they expect? Ordinarily, the ground would have been scoured by the eaters; and the stobor would have sought elsewhere for forage. But with the eaters gone, and fields sprouting more appetizing crops than the ground scrub, the stobor turned up right on cue. At least they'd figured out how to turn the stobor's natural defenses against them without having to wipe out the entire species. And that definitely was something to rejoice about, even if it was impossible to consider the stobor sapient beings.

  Brushing grainstalks aside, several of the refugee children accompanied Rafe into the fields. He grinned at them, then had a lazy smile just for her and the baby-to-be before he walked over to the nearest cluster of civilians who, even now, Pauli tended to regard as a foreign species. He's half a civ himself, Pauli thought, but she tempered the words with a smile. When she had been a pilot (with a life expectancy you could measure in months) she had kept him at a distance. But now, if she had one reason to go on living, it was Rafe's faith in her.

  'Cilla, who had become devoted to Pauli, God only knew why, limped over and took her hand. “How's the baby?” she asked.

  Pauli laid ‘Cilla's hand on her stomach so she could feel the tiny, emphatic kicks.

  The child laughed delightedly. Pauli expected her to limp away, but instead ‘Cilla stayed by her side, clutching her hand. The limp, Pryor had assured them, would not get much better; but at least they hadn't had to amputate the foot bitten and seared by the eaters.

  Suddenly the hard little hand jerked. “Shooting star!” ‘Cilla cried.

  A streak of cold fire blazed down the night sky and struck the horizon soundlessly.

  "You have to make a wish,” the child commanded eagerly.

  Pauli gestured at two former crewmembers. Take all the children inside, she ordered, her lips moving soundlessly.

  I'll make a wish, all right, she thought. I'll hope it is just a meteorite.

  "Impact coordinates recorded.” Another crewmember passed her his macrobinoculars. Pauli activated them, then hissed in aggravation. The haze from the shields, the domes’ yellow nightlights, even the spray of light from the beamers carried by some of the settlers, blocked her vision.

  "Recon team?” Rafe asked.

  Quickly Pauli ran over the list of people she called her reliables. There was no way that medic Pryor would let her lead a team, not with her pregnancy this far advanced. Pryor herself was both too old and too valuable to be allowed to lead a team, even if she had wanted to. Rafe? No way around it; he was the logical choice, and she wanted bearish, quick-minded David ben Yehuda along to back him.

  "You'll lead, Rafe,” she said. “Take care."

  Quickly they passed the word for the team to assemble.

  "You'll maintain silence on the communicators, just in case..."

  "The hills will block communications. I'll need a messenger,” Rafe cut in before Pauli could voice her concerns in front of casual passersby. It was always that way with them now: often they found themselves finishing one another's thoughts, anticipating one another's wishes. It meant that Cynthia colony had, in effect, two commanders.

  "So I'll want a messenger,” Rafe continued. “Sorry about that."

  Pauli shut her eyes. Of the few settlers who had had time to master the fliers (little more than old-fashioned gliders), the most skillful was Lohr, age twelve; and they both knew it. He was quick, smart, but if he had a chance to attack a Secess’ pilot, the survivor of an emergency landing, could she trust him?

  "Look who's coming,” Rafe pointed. “So help me, that boy smells trouble."

  Lohr skidded to a stop beside them. “If you're sending out a team, you need a messenger. I'm the best with the fliers...” his eager babble of speech ran down under Pauli's and Rafe's somber expressions.

  Pauli looked him over. “And if I said that Rafe and David were just going out to check on stobor?"

  "Lieutenant,” Lohr burst out indignantly, “not even the littlests believe stobor come down from the hills They're amphibians!” He brought out the word with pride. “You're sending a team out to check on the meteorite. If it's a meteorite and not a—"

  "One more word out of you, Lohr, and you're confined to quarters,” Pauli interrupted, thanking God that none of the “littlests” were around to be terrified by Lohr accuracy. “And if I find you've been babbling to ‘Cilla or any of the other littlests ... no, I guess you won't frighten them. Get your gear, then, and tell Ari ben Yehuda that he's going along to keep an eye on you."

  Rafe laid an arm across Pauli's shoulders. She wrapped hers about his waist, and they walked toward the dome where the team was assembling. Briefing was quick; farewells quicker yet.

  "You come back,” Pauli whispered fiercely, her face buried against Rafe's shoulder. “Don't take any risks You just come back!"

  No one knew better than an Alliance pilot just how deadly the Secess’ were. Compared to them, the native predators—or even the winged Cynthians they had had to eradicate—were games for the littlests.

  By dawn, Rafe and his people were well up into the foothills, but the site where the meteorite hit—he gave it the name he hoped it would keep—lay far beyond, in the mountains themselves, past the high caves which he'd visited once as a thief. Rafe swore and reached for his macrobinoculars. Beside him, Lohr crouched, his pupils contracting to pinpoints. His lips were skinned back, and he all but growled.

  "See anything up there?"

  "A few sparks,” Rafe grunted. “Could be anything."

  Lohr hunted through his pack and pulled out struts of metal and a gleaming length of mesh into which the struts slipped until long, flexible wings took shape.

  "You won't get any help from thermals this close to dawn,” Rafe warned Lohr. “So it's a good thing you're light. Look: I hate to use you like this, but the sooner we all know whether or not there might be Secess’ around, the better I'll like it. You won't be afraid?"

  "Can I have a blaster?” Cunning aged Lohr's face so that he looked far older than his age. He held out his hand as if he expected Rafe to hand over his sidearm. Stunner, explosive bolts, or laser—they were all blasters to Lohr; and he had wanted one for as long as Rafe knew hi
m.

  "Lohr, you know what Pauli told you about weapons,” Rafe sighed. “First, you're better off flying light. Second, if you've only got a knife, you'll probably have the sense to run from a fight you can't win. No matter how much you want revenge."

  Lohr sized him up, and Rafe held his breath. Finally the boy shrugged, resigning himself—but only for the moment—to reality, such as Rafe's superior height and weight, and the fact that the others on the team would certainly back him.

  He strapped the wings to his back and shook himself to settle them.

  "One thing more.” Though Rafe kept his voice down, it seemed to boom against the overhanging rocks. “Tell Pauli I recommend evacuation."

  The settlers universally hated the caves into which they'd practiced evacuating most of the colony—everyone but the ones like Pauli, whose pregnancy made climbing impossible right now, or those people disabled by age or injury ... plus those few ablebodied who had to remain behind as decoys. The caves smelled of Cynthians. Living in them was like murdering a man, then sleeping in his bed. Rafe hated it too. Of the two options, searching for a downed Secess’ ship, or evacuating into the caves, he knew he had the easier task.

  Lohr grimaced, then raised his head, testing the air like a wild animal.

  Rafe flashed “thumbs up” at the boy, and heard a shaky laugh before Lohr stepped off the rock, dropped for a hideous moment, and then soared. The last of the moonlight gleamed on his wings.

  "Damn! I hate sending out a kid while I'm stuck here,” he groused at ben Yehuda and his son. “Now we just sit here until he gets back. Dave, am I right that scanners could pick us up if we move?"

  "There should be enough rock between us and that object to protect us. But assuming it's a ship, not a meteorite, even a quick flyby might have picked us out."

  "What if it's not a ship, but just an escape pod?” Rafe asked. Pods were fitted with automatic distress signals and programmed to land as softly as possible. In that case, too, they'd be facing a live enemy.

  David tinkered with the comms. “I'm not picking up anything ... not yet. Too much static."

  "You know Lohr's going to want to check out that landing, don't you? What are you going to do about him?” asked ben Yehuda's son.

  "First, I'm going to pray real hard that it's a meteorite. But if it's not, you're going to sit on Lohr so he doesn't get himself killed."

  What if it is a downed pilot, and not one of ours? Rafe worried. Pauli had passed on pilot rumors: that the characteristic Secess’ five-ship formations flew so fast and close that the pilots had to be hard-wired into their ships, and that the whole damnable cyborg was configured to a mammoth computer run by some sort of sadist. Highly colorful rumors, he had remarked at the time.

  Secess’ raiders blew the power core on my own home station, Rafe thought, as he did too often for his own comfort. At least my folks died fast ... I hope they did. Rafe shuddered as he always did when he thought of fading lifesupport, of the air growing foul and thin and cold before the lights went dead. He'd had nights where he'd waked gasping and shaking, dreaming of being trapped in such a place. The cold sweat of panic began to trickle and itch down his spine at the thought of meeting the sort of man who'd taken out his family's home.

  "You've got our coordinates for the landing site?” Pauli asked Lohr again. The winds teased up a gust of cinnamon from the fields, their greens highlighted by the eerie shimmer of the electric shields.

  She glanced enviously at Lohr's wings, then examined the boy more closely. There were deep circles beneath his eyes. Perhaps, after all, someone else should report back to the recon team.

  Alicia Pryor strode up. “The first group to evacuate will leave for the caves in about ten minutes, right?"

  Pauli nodded. “I'll be there to see them off."

  "Afterward, we've planned for them to be followed by five-person units about every half hour."

  "What about you?” Pauli asked. She had wanted their most experienced medic to join the evacuees. Even though practice had turned evacuation into a routine, she hated the thought of subjecting the children to it.

  "Well, what about you?" Pryor retorted. “Lohr, get moving before Yeager here tries to pull rank on you, and I have to declare her medically unfit."

  "Head up,” Pauli whispered as Lohr headed for the cliffs, passing the first group of fugitives with ease despite how tired he must be.

  "The rest of you, back to camp. Let's make the place look lived in. Come on,” she called, turning on her heel. “On the double."

  Their defenses now seemed very feeble, their communications link even more so. “I ought to be there—” she told Pryor.

  "Forget it! If I thought you wouldn't miscarry, I'd get you up into those caves so fast—"

  "They can manage without me.” Pauli spoke without bitterness. “Someone else would lead."

  "Like Rafe? Or me? No, thank you very much. Look, I wish you'd get it through your head that while you've got opponents here, you don't have enemies. Think it through, Pauli. These are civilians! They're not used to orders, let alone to someone making those orders stick."

  Pauli whirled to face the other woman.

  "Even after..."

  "Even after what we've all been through here. You didn't make the decision to wipe out the Cynthians on your own, despite the fact that you're trying to take responsibility for it. But now that the place looks safe, they want to sit down and try to argue things out again. Except for the littlest ones."

  "Do you think,” Pauli brought up a familiar, poignant topic as they trudged back toward the domes, “that they will ever trust again?"

  "They trust you,” Pryor said firmly. “Which is one reason why I'm staying down here. To look after you."

  "What's the real reason?"

  To Pauli's astonishment, Alicia Pryor's pale skin flushed, and the older woman stared off toward the distant hills.

  "I'm sick of talk all the time. And besides, by staying here, I free up a spot for someone younger. How old do you think I am, Pauli?"

  The shorter woman shrugged. “Forty-five, perhaps?” If she shielded her eyes, she could just see Lohr poised high overhead, waiting for the right current ... there! Sunlight danced on unfurled metallic wings as Lohr banked in salute before veering back up into the hills.

  "Add twenty years,” Pryor chuckled dryly. “Balliol II had plenty of anti-agathics for senior faculty at Santayana."

  "You're trying to distract me, right? Otherwise, if you haven't spilled your guts before this, why do it now?"

  "Precisely,” the medic agreed. “As I said, I got sick of being safe, and of talk, talk, talk. Probably because I listened too hard to one person. Pauli, have you ever heard of Halgerd of Freki?"

  Pauli allowed Dr. Pryor to steer her back to her quarters (so heartlessly bare without Rafe's gear) and ease her down onto a mat.

  "Halgerd of Freki? Sure.” At one time or another, most educated people for six systems around had heard of Halgerd of Freki, laureate in genetics, who'd curtailed a brilliant research career when the war broke out, resigned his professorship on the safe haven of Balliol II, to return to his homeworld. His Secessionist homeworld.

  "I wonder what sort of uses the Secess’ would put a brain like his to,” Pauli mused.

  "It's likelier that he's using them. Or that he's dead.” Pryor's voice was muffled as she bent to activate the self-heat tabs on two food packs. “Halgerd's no martyr. He left Balliol for Freki only after his research group was ordered to disband.” She paused. “Freki's one of the throwback worlds. Did you know, it even used to be a military oligarchy?"

  "Group Two headed out, Pauli.” That was Beneatha, shoulders hunched under the weight of a pack.

  "Get Three ready to move."

  "Right."

  "Was your Professor Halgerd one of the oligarchs?” Pauli raised eyebrows as if delicately gauging Alicia Pryor's sympathy for her old colleague. A geneticist with military interests. God.

  "Something like
that. He never got over his aristocratic background. Yes, you can smile; but I'm allowed to say that. I'm also allowed to feel guilty for collaborating with him for as long as I did. There were a number of us, dazzled by him at first. Later—let's say he left before we could dump his computer. We never got around to it, but I wanted to. Some of his work on cloning—I thought it ought to be suppressed for the duration of the war."

  "I thought Santayana never suppressed research."

  "That's right, we don't.” Involuntarily, and with a sort of bleak pride, the “we” slipped out. For an instant, the Alicia Pryor of the settlement disappeared, and a younger, more arrogant woman sat opposite Pauli, sharing emergency rations with the fastidious manners more appropriate to a banquet. “But it didn't mean I didn't want to. That was another reason I resigned. I not only had lost my objectivity, I didn't believe it was worth the having in the first place. So now the Secessionists have all Halgerd's experiments. And him along with them. Part of that work is mine, Pauli. That means that part of the blame's mine too."

  "If you're looking for absolution, I frankly don't envy the people hiding out in the caves. And God knows, you've come to the wrong person."

  "That isn't it. For once, I don't want to be exempt because of my age, or my profession, or status, or some damned liability.” Pryor's lips thinned. “God, I sound like Halgerd did before he left. It got to be you couldn't be in the same room with him without hearing a lecture on the evils of noninterference. In the end, he convinced me. But not,” her voice was soft, sad, “as he hoped."

  Pauli shook her head and smiled in a way she hoped was sympathetic. It was hard to imagine the medic as a privileged, sheltered member of Santayana University's dazzling faculty—or was it? But she had heard of the throwbacks. There were a few other such worlds like Freki, mostly settled by one racial or ethnic group, Freki and Tokugawa on the Secess’ side, and on their own, Abendstern and Ararat (come to think of it, Dave ben Yehuda had ties there). Usually driven by a dream of former glory to reanimate old languages and older customs, settlers of the throwbacks were generally too tough to be dismissed as eccentrics.