Her face was still wistful as Storm approached. He slowed. She seemed to be in a half-dream and somehow he didn't want to disturb her. She looked so sad, as if something were missing that she had lost a long time ago. She had lost as much as he had. And she was Terran, young, afraid of losing more. She was of his kind twice over and he'd only reacted angrily to her. The small sad face moved him strongly.
Impulsively he stepped forward and drew her into a gentle hug. He too had been influenced by the tactile habits of the Nitra. Amongst them warriors hugged; touched, stroked arms in friendship. Storm had found he did not mind it.
With his team he had always been affectionate. Brad rarely touched. Logan was different. From their first meeting had come an acknowledgment that half-brothers they might be in blood, they were full brothers in feeling. After that Logan had casually laid an arm often over Storm's shoulders. Or thumped him gently in rough affection. Now, seeing the wistful memories in Tani's gaze, he did as Logan or any of the Nitra would have done.
Tani had been hugged so often since she arrived in the camp that she reacted automatically, hugging back. For a moment it filled her heart. There was no desire in the warmth, simply kinship and understanding. In her long loneliness she could momentarily accept the solace. Then she realized who it was. As he released her she leapt away. Her eyes were startled and wary. For a moment she stood poised for flight, looking at him. Then she was gone running toward the shelter of Jumps High, where his mate would be preparing food. She slowed after twenty paces. There was nothing that said danger.
Ahead Mandy perched on her branch, studying the girl. She looked at her friend, then very slowly revolved her head until she was surveying the girl from upside down. Tani giggled. It was a silly trick but Mandy knew it always made her feel better.
"You're a daft bird and now I want you to find Aunt Kady. Give her a message." Her voice shifted as she linked, impressing the words. "I'm fine and Storm is here with the clan, too. We'll be back in a few more days, I think. Don't worry about us. I love you both." She eyed the paraowl. "Repeat!" Mandy did so flawlessly. "Good, now fly carefully."
The paraowl lifted off into the warm air. In direct flight she'd be to the ranch and back before Tani slept. She'd fly the return in the dark, but that wouldn't bother Mandy. She was an owl with an owl's night vision when it was required. Tani looked after the fading speck.
She could still feel Storm's arms around her. It had felt odd, and what was annoying her was that it had also felt right. She snorted and shook her head like the filly, to clear it. One hug didn't make him a friend. He was still a Beast Master, one who wasted the lives of his team to save himself. But he did seem to love his team. Tani was confused by that. He had Hing with him in the camp and Tani had found the small beast charming. She'd also realized both that Storm's team loved and trusted him, and that Hing was lonely without Ho, her longtime mate who'd been killed.
Brion Carraldo had looked over the Arzoran ecology reports and agreed that meerkats could fill the place left by the rinces. Tani had spent a good amount of her time soon after arrival on building embryos for that purpose. It had been her way of doing it that had caused the problems with Jarro on the ship. By now, and with forced growth, many of those would already have been born. As well, she'd created a clone from the male adult meerkat they had in the stasis tanks. More of the meerkats could be added to the tiny population here once the scientists had made further studies. Indeed, by the time Tani returned to the Ark, that first batch should be old enough to join Hing's offspring. The older male would be perfect for Hing herself. Tani decided to mention the meerkats to Storm. Her dislike of him had melted at the hug and in a hitherto unrecognized knowledge that perhaps Storm was as lonely as Tani was herself, at times. He wasn't as welcome here as she was. The meerkats would give him something pleasant to think about. She ate with her clan friends, then departed again in search of the only other human here. It was almost dusk.
Storm met her with the bland, smooth face of one who was embarrassed at his own actions. Tani didn't notice. She was too pleased with the good news she was bringing. She burst out with it as soon as she saw Hing was there, too, cradled gently in Storm's arms as he scratched her paler stomach fur, his mouth curving in a small half-smile as the meerkat churred her pleasure.
"I don't know if Uncle Brion told you, but Hing will love it. I built a bunch more meerkats from the material in the Ark and if nothing went wrong there should be six at the half-grown stage. They're in incubators and they should be ready to join Hing and her family in a couple of weeks. The Ark's staying longer than that so I can see that they all get on together. One of them is in the forced-growth tank so Hing can have a full adult mate once we get back to the ranch. Maybe I can even do a couple more to widen the genetic pool. I had to tell you so you didn't keep on worrying about Hing."
For the first couple of sentences Storm hadn't understood, but then the message penetrated. He looked down at the meerkat where she lay happily in his arms.
"Seven," he said, softly marveling. "She'll have a whole clan, too." "Yes. With her and her four kits there'll be twelve." Tani reached over to stroke Hing. "Of course she'll breed. That will help teach the young ones how to look after kits. Once they are old enough the clan will probably split into two groups. You should look for a suitable burrow far enough away so they don't feel one group threatens the other."
Storm sat down on a log. He'd seen the sudden sadness in the girl's eyes when she'd assured him that Hing would have a clan again. He lifted the drowsy meerkat.
"You hold her for a while. She likes her stomach stroked." The corners of his mouth turned up again in a slight grin as Tani obeyed. Then he looked at her.
"Your uncle said that your father was Cheyenne, and a Beast Master. I met him once. Tell me about him."
Tani eyed him a little shyly. "Why?"
"I liked him. He was a good man. A good fighter too. He had a dune cat on his team, like Surra, only male. The time we met we talked of letting them mate once the war was over. Did your mother ever tell you how he died?"
"She never wanted to talk about it. I'd like to hear."
Storm sighed. "About halfway through the war the Xiks invaded Trastor. Trastor's only been settled two generations and the population then was no more than fifty thousand, scattered all over the main continent. But it's a rich world and they had warehouses dotted around, holding valuables for off-world shipment. Your father was caught on-planet by their destruction of the space port. He tried to send his team to safety out of the port area, but they wouldn't leave him. The Xiks had a number of hostages they were torturing for information, so Bright Sky went in to free them. He succeeded, but after that the Xiks had him targeted. He set up groups of people to raid Xik supply depots. He made contact with off-planet command finally and when they attacked, he led his guerrillas to attack the Xiks on-planet, near the port.
"He was killed trying to get one of his group to safety after she'd been badly injured. His team went berserk. They died still killing the enemy. With Bright Sky gone no one could call them back." He glanced at her as she mechanically stroked Hing. "Understand. He tried to save his team. Their loyalty to him wouldn't let him send them away. And Command didn't make him fight the way he did. Your father was Cheyenne. In the end he saw that all humans were his clan and Xiks were their enemy.
"The people on Trastor buried him and his team together. I was on the planet the year after. They'd covered the grave with plascrete and engraved it as a memorial."
Tani looked up, her eyes filled with tears. "What does it say?"
"There was his name and then the names of the team. And underneath the names there were two lines." Storm fell silent a moment as he remembered. He'd stood there reading the words and wishing that one day he'd merit such a tribute.
"They say, 'Nothing is won without sacrifice.' Then under that it says, 'Their deaths bought Trastor's freedom.' I talked to one of their people. She said that it was true. The original Xik
attack had been so unexpected that they'd taken many of the Trastor Command prisoner. Bright Sky freed them. Then he taught farmers and miners guerrilla tactics and coordinated counterattacks against the Xiks. He brought hope to people devastated by what had happened. He showed them they could fight back—and they did, with his example to lead them. Bright Sky and his team are greatly honored there."
Tani sat in silence. This was not the picture her mother had painted. Alisha had claimed Bright Sky's life had been thrown away almost casually by the Terran High Command. Now Storm was saying that this wasn't the way things had happened. She didn't want to believe her mother had lied, but Storm's tale fitted with too many other things she'd heard. Aunt Kady hadn't tried to belittle her sister-in-law, but she'd told Tani more than once not to believe all Alisha had said in her grief.
But if Alisha had been so wrong about that, if she had twisted what she knew and told her daughter, what of her other teachings? Tani remembered her mother talking about Beast Masters. Saying they threw away the lives of their teams to preserve themselves. Over and over Alisha had pointed to Beast Masters returning to add new trained animals to depleted teams. After her father's death Tani had grown up believing that others of his kind spent team lives as if they had no value. Over the past few days, though, she'd seen how much Storm cared about his beasts.
She'd opened her mouth to tell him of her confusion when there was an outcry in the camp. Natives were running toward the place. From where they converged Minou was yapping for her to come swiftly. Tani bolted to her feet and ran. Storm passed her as they reached the edge of the crowd and she followed in his wake as he forged past the agitated clan. There was a yoris. It was the season for mating and the big male would have full poison sacs. He must have strayed near the camp and found himself cornered by several of the playing children.
Four had fled past him to freedom. The fifth, barely past being a toddler, was trapped, shivering in fear where he crouched on top of a small rock. He was still within reach of the big lizard who was making aggressive gestures toward the child, showing its poison fangs in openmouthed anger. To interfere and anger the lizard further was to risk an attack by the yoris on the child. The lizards weren't bright. If enraged they often tended to attack whatever already held their attention. Storm almost tossed Hing to Jumps High and gave the rallying cry for the team.
Tani had slipped from his side and circled the yoris. Minou and Ferarre had joined her. They knew this game. From Tani's mind they understood that it was serious, they must hold the lizard's attention. It must not turn back to the child. They struck, first one, then the other, sliding, flickering shadows in the soft dusk. Each slash of sharp teeth opened another smarting scratch in the yoris's softer under-hide. The upper hide was steel tough. But they played the yoris, one coyote teasing it to stretch out its neck, turning its head far around toward the irritating creature as it tried to bite, the other coyote slipping in unnoticed from the opposite side to slash at the lower belly or chest, where the hide was thinner.
Surra arrived and Storm signaled her to wait. The coyotes were holding the lizards attention well. He whistled again. Baku disliked flying at night but she would obey. She answered him from above: she was ready. The Nitra had brought torches. Many of the warriors now held these aloft so that all could see. The light danced and shifted but it was sufficient. Storm reached Tani in swift strides.
"Be ready. When I tell you, call your team back." He saw her quick sidelong glance. "It's all right. Baku is waiting to strike. We've done this before." She nodded understanding and agreement. "Good."
His will spun out, reaching the eagle where she soared. "Now!" She dropped wing over and stooped, her claws out to strike. She was plummeting downward. His hands closed over the girl's shoulders. "Be ready . . . ready . . . call them back now!"
Tani did so. Minou and Ferarre slipped back, one to either side of the furious lizard. They bounced and yapped as they withdrew, keeping the lizards eyes fixed on them. They halted just out of reach and from above, from out of the dark the terrible strike of a raptor came. Baku had dropped two hundred feet at full speed. Her wings snapped out to lift her again as she reached nearly to the earth. At the lowest point her claws made contact with the yoris's head. It staggered. Big as it was the impact of the strike left it half stunned. Then it flung its head back in rage, reaching for the thing that had hurt it even as Baku soared up again.
Storm had been waiting for that second. His stunner was out and he fired once, discharging the entire clip in that burst. It took the lizard in the throat. The yoris fell sideways, twitched convulsively, then straightened out in death. From beside Storm, Surra padded over to check the body. Then she turned away. She had no interest in dead lizards, which smelled bad and tasted worse. A woman ran past Storm to lift the child from the rock. She hugged him and was joined by others of her family, all hugging the rescued one.
Storm backed quietly out of the rejoicing. He didn't like crowds and had a feeling he could be the center of this one shortly. His mouth quirked into a half-smile as he saw Tani doing the same thing.
"Your team fights well."
Tani reddened a little. "So does yours. Baku was wonderful."
Storm grinned more openly. He whistled and braced as the eagle dropped from the sky to his shoulder. "She's a hunter. She enjoys that sort of work. So does Surra. She's quite annoyed with me that I didn't let her join in."
"Why didn't you?"
"There was no need. Your team had the yoris under control." The coyotes came out of the night to look up at him. "Yes, we're talking about you two. Nice teamwork." Their mouths opened, showing tongues in identical grins. Storm laughed, turning to smile at Tani. "If Mandy had been here and you'd had a stunner, you could have done the whole job yourselves. You can next time now that you've seen how it's done."
She dug a toe into the earth. "I guess I could." Her mother had disapproved of killing. But then, if Storm hadn't killed the yoris there would have been a small boy dead. The yoris had been a clean kill. The child would have spent fifteen agony-filled minutes before he died. She looked up at the stars, brilliant in the sky. Somewhere out there were the ruins of Earth. The humanoid Xiks had killed and killed. For love of killing as much as to win a war they'd begun.
She'd always wondered about the start of that war. Had it been that both races liked the same sort of world to colonize? Had it been that being so similar, they'd each expected the other to be more understanding and struck out when that belief failed? No one seemed to know. Already books were starting to appear: long analyses of the root causes of the war, memoirs, and fictional novels of occupied planets. None of the serious works agreed on much, and the fiction was still less helpful.
Why had they destroyed Earth and Ishan? It was believed that the flamed planets had been destroyed to break Terran wills. A sort of look what we can do. We'll do it to other worlds if you don't surrender. It hadn't worked. Instead humans had fought with a greater ferocity, and in the end the Xiks had been driven from all worlds but their own home world. Knowing how the Xiks appeared to think, it was quite possible that if they built up their strength again, they would start another war one day. Rumors continued about their holdout groups, and talk was that their Xik command had never truly surrendered. This war was over but nothing could replace what so many had lost. Tani had lost her parents, her world, and the feeling of belonging.
Her gaze ranged over the sky, recognizing some of the stars. Something was blotting out a portion of the sky. Without thinking she clenched her fists. If that was the enemy, she'd fight. Her father had died fighting, she would do no less. A soft call made her relax. Mandy was returning from the Quade ranch after delivering her message. Tani called the paraowl in. Then she stood stroking the soft mottled feathers as she considered everything she was learning.
Her mind shifted, moved, and settled into a decision. Alisha had felt that all fighting was wrong, only saving people was right. Her mother had lost half of her life when Brig
ht Sky died. Because of that she'd damned everything that had conspired to take him. She'd been wrong. There were times when you had to fight. The trick was to know when that time was. To have allowed the Xiks free rein to do whatever they wanted wouldn't have been right. She remembered something she had read once. That for evil to triumph it was only necessary for good people to do nothing.
Beside her Storm had sensed the turmoil of her thoughts. He remained, standing in silence, waiting until she should be ready to either talk or leave him alone. Her thoughts had taken only moments, now a movement from the girl indicated she had decided. Tani cleared her throat.
"You wanted to hear about my father?"
He moved toward the log. "I'd like to. Why don't you sit down and tell me."
He waited. Tani slowly took a step toward the log, then another step, until she could sit. She wasn't sure where to begin, but Alisha hadn't wanted to talk about Bright Sky much after he'd been killed. Tani had tried. Alisha had finally told her daughter that talking of the man she'd loved deeply hurt her too much. They would never forget him, but it wasn't necessary to remember him in words all the time. Tani hadn't felt that way, but she'd been not quite six. She had obeyed.
Now Storm wanted to hear and she couldn't find the words to begin. She remembered how her father had shared his team with her. How proud he'd been when Tani had started school. She'd made him a tiny dream catcher for his last birthday. Not the pretty commercial things that appeared in the shops and were worn by everyone. This had been a real one. She'd taken a willow withe, bound it in the teardrop shape and netted it with fine strands of her hair that she'd plaited into cords.
One of the little hawks in the breeding center had provided two small feathers to hang below the willow loop on a short length of hair cord. After that the child had a problem. Only the best was good enough for her father. The stone in the center of the web must be the best she could find. She had found it at last. Not turquoise but an amethyst. A good one, dumped in a bowl of small junk and broken discarded jewelry. She'd added it in triumph.
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