by Paul Lucas
“What we need more than anything else are allies. You may be small in number and may not have the sophisticated tools that we do yet, but you possess a quality that we have found to be incredibly rare in the Outlands: you’re willing to be our friends.
"You see, what we need more than anything else is help. Remember my first words to you that day we first landed? That's as true today as it ever was then.
“So the decision about the base is up to you. I just hope you can sleep at night, knowing what we need it for.”
SIXTEEN
All victories are hollow so long as one despairs, and all defeats are temporary so long as one hopes.
--from Myotan oral traditions
* * *
Of course we decided to let the humans build their base at our Tower. After Lerner’s revelations, how could we not? Only Azure and a handful of others dissented when Flier put the decision to a general vote. Surprisingly, Cloud was among the large majority of those who voted in its favor.
The actual construction of the base would not start for half a decade yet. The logistics of such a feat, especially since much of the equipment had to be transported from the KN via helistat over a hundred thousand kilometers of distance, were enormous. Everything had to be planned out meticulously in advance. Until then, helistat traffic through our area would slowly increase, as the crews now knew with assurance that they had a friendly port they could fall back on if they needed to.
Lerner’s news of our world’s peril and the only small chance the KN had to reverse it did cause some problems in our community. There were fights and arguments about it for months afterward. But somehow, even though this mostly went unspoken, we were comforted that the humans were doing something about it. Or, perhaps more importantly, that we would become part of the solution. Very few doubted that we would remain on the sidelines for long. Some of the younger of us, Brightwind especially, talked about becoming explorers and joining the humans on their great quest.
Lerner assured us that we would be treated as equals. After talking to several helistat captains, and trading heavily with them, he set up a small library of sorts in one of the larger empty Tower rooms near our community. He swore he would expand it as more books became available to him from future helistats. At his insistence, the full spectrum of human knowledge would now be available to us, for good or ill. It would be up to us how we put that knowledge to work.
A week after Lerner’s revelations he and I finally were honored by a feast celebrating our Mating. Both of our injuries and the stress of the day we received them had prevented us from properly consummating the bonding of our spirits. Windrider had insisted that we hold off on sex until we got our strength back, so we would not inadvertently hurt each other during intimacy. Such frank talk made my new husband squirm in embarrassment, but he reluctantly complied. We slept in separate apartments so we would not be tempted to disobey our Shaman. The days passed with agonizing slowness.
Finally, Windrider publicly declared us fit for mating, much to Lerner’s dismay at her announcing it to the assembled community at large during our bathing time in the orchard streams.
It was not until the celebration died down and we walked, hand-in-hand, to our new apartment that the enormity of what we had done fully struck me. Lerner began pulling the curtain to our new apartment aside when I stopped. “Wait.”
Lerner looked at me. “What is it?”
“We are Mates. Sweet Spirits, I have a husband. Is all of this for real? Did it all really happen?”
Lerner stepped up to me, hand stroking my wing. “Goss, are you okay?”
“I do not know. I just suddenly realized that everything has changed.” I turned away, tool-fingers on my forehead. “Spirits, I am so sorry, Lerner. I am spoiling this for you.”
“It’s okay. It’s natural to be a little jittery.”
“But I was looking forward to pleasing you tonight. I do not know why I am so nervous now. I mean, I still want to, but I am suddenly scared.”
“So am I,” he said.
“You are?”
“It’s funny. Even when Cloud shot me, I didn’t feel as nervous as I do right now. Becoming Mates was a huge decision for both of us, and made on the fly besides. Of course I’m scared. Tonight we make our Mating--our marriage--real, and there’s no turning back.”
I put my hands on his hips, unconsciously trying to comfort him. “That is it exactly, Lerner. Do we really want to go through with this? A regular Mating is difficult enough. But we are separate species. How are we ever going to make this work?”
He stroked my cheeks lightly with his fingertips in his human way. “Tell you what. Let’s just be husband and wife first. We'll fly through whatever storms may come when they get here. Now, please, Goss, I think I'd really like to show my wife how much I love her.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but instead I just leaned on his proffered arm and let him help me hobble into our new quarters. The rest of the night was spent truly becoming Mates in every sense of the word.
* * *
Afterwards, I lay beside him on our broad sleeping mat, face to face, my wing unfurled and draped over him. He snored softly in slumber. On a whim, I leaned over and lick-kissed him on his stubbly human cheek. “I love you,” I whispered.
He stirred, smiling in his sleep.
I murred contentedly, snuggling into his warmth until I joined him in slumber.
PART TWO
UNDERWORLD
SEVENTEEN
Courage is the personal trait most admired by strangers and most loathed by family.
--From the Myotan oral traditions.
* * *
Three years passed.
Shadows and sunlight strobed over me as I ran through the forest, my heart hammering wildly. The game trail I followed was narrow, winding and treacherous. A fallen tree loomed out of the shadows. I leapt over it, only to land on a coiling patch of exposed roots just beyond. I tripped and tottered forward, wings snapping wide as I fought desperately to regain my balance.
A distant screech tore through the forest behind me. The Xique had my scent. It was only a matter of time before they ran me down and tore me to shreds.
I prayed to the Sky-Spirit to at least grant me the mercy of knowing what had happened to my husband before I died.
Lerner, spirit-heart, where were you?
I slowed and hefted the heavy human-made rifle in my tool-fingers. It was conceivable, though unlikely, that I could evade my hunters just long enough to reach the safety of the Tower.
But I could not do that. Lerner was out here, somewhere. I could not just flee and leave him to the Xique, wherever he may be.
Besides, I was foolish for trying to run from my pursuers; a Myotan, designed as a flying creature, had no hope of outrunning a Xique and its pack, who had been engineered to run down multi-ton herbivores.
The gun would help in the coming confrontation, but I dare not rely on it exclusively. It was a modest-caliber single-action weapon designed for felling small prey, not defending against a three-meter tall killing machine like a full Xique. Shooting such a creature, especially with my inexpert aim, would only serve to make it madder. If I was lucky, I could maybe use it to kill one the smaller crèche-mates that made up the Xique hunting pack before I was overwhelmed.
I could hear crashing through the forest behind me. They were closing, and fast.
I had one chance.
I turned to fully face my pursuers, letting the gun hang slack in my hand as I unfocused my vision and cleared my thoughts. The world blurred gently around me as I reached into myself to bring the clarity of mind needed to summon a spell. I chanted softly to call the spirits to me.
The crashing grew louder.
Steady the breathing. Clear the mind. Reach in, order the thoughts precisely.
Do not wrestle with the spirits, Windrider always told me. Do not be their master. Be their vessel. Let the thoughts needed to call the spirits flow through you, like wi
nd through trees.
A small, furry shape burst out of the underbrush, its sleek hind legs pumping madly at it dashed at me. It was a Xique crèche-mate, barely a meter tall. Its wiry forearms were spread wide, its curved claws framing the needle-like teeth bared in its angular head. A three-meter tall, similarly-shaped shadow loomed just behind it. The full Xique, the master of the pack.
The thoughts in my mind converged all at once, thundering into a single moment of absolute crystal clarity.
The spirits--the Nanotech Matrix--responded.
The tree immediately behind the full Xique exploded in a ball of fire, the burning shrapnel of its bark flying everywhere. The Xique screamed in shock and agony as its skin bubbled and its fur immolated. It staggered forward a few steps, its upper body a torch of burning, blackened flesh. It slumped to the ground a heartbeat later, lifeless.
Something landed at my feet with a dull thump. The lead crèche-mate had been blown forward by the blast. Its fur smoldering and skin bubbling, it snapped futily at me as it painfully tried to struggle to its feet. I brought the rifle up to its head and squeezed the trigger. The recoil reverberated up into my shoulder.
My husband had once told me that Xique had been uplifted from an old Earth animal called a kangaroo. He had even showed me a picture of one, in a copy of a book from the Known Nation’s Great Library. When humanity had ruled that strange, round little world, the kangaroo had been a benign, silly looking herbivore. But the Builders, in one of their many epochs of experimental genetic tinkering, had changed the animal into one of the most vicious and efficient killing machines the MegaShard had ever known.
In any particular birth litter, one Xique will eventually become dominant over his or her siblings. This Xique produces a surge of hormones that allows it to grow into its species’ ultimate form, three meters tall and fully sentient, while its siblings barely reach one-third that size and are little smarter than dogs. These crèche-mates become the full Xique's personal hunting pack, fanatically loyal to their master and the success of the hunt on which their existence depended.
I turned and ran. The full Xique was either dead or nearly so, and its other crèche-mates would not leave its side. But boom of the fire spirit being birthed and the report of the human gun would attract the others of its kind infesting the forest. And the Xique's choking screams as it slowly died were not helping.
If I could only get some distance, I could resume the search for my husband and just maybe survive until nightfall.
It was so like Lerner, taking off on his own, thinking he could solve the whole Xique crisis himself. He was a human, he had argued. The Xique would not connect him with my people, whom they had mysteriously singled out for elimination. Four days ago a hunting party and some foragers were attacked, killing an older hunter named Firelight and badly wounding a few others. But the Xique were not content to stop with them. They sporadically attacked the Tower alone or in pairs, attempting to force themselves into our very homes. They fought fanatically and fell upon their victims without mercy or prejudice. Old, young, male, female, it did not matter to them. Apparently they would not be satisfied until all my people were wiped out, for reasons they never even bothered to try to explain to us.
They attacked any of my people who ventured forth from the Tower for any reason. Many were hurt trying to gather food or tools left outside. The Tower had five cubic kilometers of room and we had stored food and supplies which could last us months, but these could not last forever. We had human guns, and the hunters wanted to launch an all-out assault on our tormentors, but our chieftain Flier feared of the lives such a tactic would cost us. The one dead and eight wounded already weighed heavily on our small community of three hundred thirty.
It was then that my husband suggested that he go out and try to parley with the Xique. He said he would just walk boldly out, unarmed, to the forest edge a kilometer away and hope they refrained from slaughtering him long enough for him to work out some sort of agreement. He was trained as a sophontologist, and he felt confident that he knew enough of Xique mentality that he could avoid being harmed. Never mind that all his knowledge was gained second hand by other human explorers who had encountered other Xique groups tens of thousands of kilometers away.
My gut knotted and pulled taut as soon I heard his plan. Why in the name of all the Spirits did males of any species insist on being heroic when their females would be just as happy to have them stay at the hearth and be sensible cowards?
I screamed at him. In our three years of marriage, he and I had only a handful of truly heated arguments, but that night I yelled at him until my throat was raw and my tool-fingers trembled with rage. How could he be so foolish? He would die if he went out there alone! My husband, the technological human, the rational scientist, acting like a foolish, adventure-drunk hunter!
But he was adamant, and Flier could think of no other tactic. The situation looked that grim. The morning he left Lerner hugged me tightly, as if our vehement shouting match of the night before had never happened. I was still so angry with him but, Spirits help me, I hugged him back just as fiercely, breathing deeply of his comforting scent.
We reluctantly pulled away and minutes later he disappeared into the vast forest surrounding our Tower. That night I slept with his clothes gathered around me like a nest, his smell the only thing that could calm my steadily fraying nerves.
The first two days, we were able to stay in contact with him by radio. He said he had established contact with the Xique, talking to them through his translator-box, but they had no interest in anything he had to say. They also kept him from returning to the Tower, not wanting him to interfere with whatever they were trying to accomplish. Then we had no radio contact with him for three days straight. Everyone began fearing for the worst.
I could not stand waiting any longer. Especially thinking of how I had treated him the night before he left. What if he was truly gone, and his spirit now flew above the Shards? Why could I not have made our last night together one of passion and joy, instead of one filled with scorn and selfishness?
I had to know what had happened to him. I had to. I could not wait any longer. Just before dawn I snuck out of the Tower, having rubbed myself down with crushed bitterroot oils to hide my scent. A Xique's eyesight is not that keen, so I was able to find my way deep into the part of the forest where Lerner had disappeared as the sun appeared from behind its nightly disk of darkness. As stealthily as I could, I began searching. No matter what, I would find my husband and bring him home. It was only until shortly after midday, when my bitterroot smell began wearing off, that the Xique slowly became aware of my presence.
Sounds behind me. I did not dare turn to look, for fear of slowing down, but I recognized the distinctive, rapid beating of claws on soil. I quickly worked the bolt of the gun and fired blindly behind me, hoping the blasts would buy me some time.
After a few heartbeats, after I entered a broad clearing in the forest, I turned to look. The human-made gun had indeed made the Xique and its crèche-mates hesitate. They hung back several hundred paces, eyeing me warily. The Xiques' first and only attempt to assault the Tower openly had taught them to respect guns.
The creature was far enough away that I could easily summon another fire-spirit before it could possibly reach me. It would be one less Xique-pack to worry about.
Normally, the thought of killing another thinking being would have repulsed me. But that was before these creatures had attacked my people and endangered my Mate.
I began clearing my mind for the spell.
Agony and hot needles ripped through my thigh. I screamed and staggered back, seeing my own blood spurt high into the air.
I looked down to see one of the crèche-mates latching his teeth onto my limb. It must have broken off from the others, snuck around behind me. The pain was indescribable as it worked my flesh with vicious jerks of its jaw. White spots danced before my vision.
On sheer instinct I brought the rifle down and sh
ot its head off. I was lucky I did not take half my leg with it, shaky as my aim was. Blood gushed from my thigh as the creature slid off, soaking my leggings completely through.
A growl exploded nearby. I looked up to see the full Xique bearing down at me at top speed, its knife-like foreclaws extended from the two fingers on its forelimbs. The crèche-mate had been a distraction, to give his master the opening it needed to take me. I had barely two heartbeats before it would tear into me. My slack fingers could not make the gun work.
My life was over. Lerner...
The Xique's head suddenly snapped back, followed a half-heartbeat later by a clap of thunder. It crashed to the ground, tumbling over and over until its tremendous momentum was finally expended. The two surviving crèche-mates caught up and began sniffing and wailing at their dead master. Two more thunderous cracks blew them back nearly two meters each, their body cavities blown open.
A new sound, high above and behind me. A continuous, staccato whirring. I twirled as best I could with my leg, expecting another Xique assault.
A human helistat rose into view over the canopy of the forest. A small one, as such things go, measuring only fifty meters or so along its major beam. Out of the undercarriage leaned a large humanoid figure with a rifle. She was waving frantically at me.
I waved back, white fuzzing my vision, and despite everything I suddenly started laughing. I do not know what I thought was so funny, but I could not stop. The helistat lowered a long ladder, and someone, very far away, called my name.
Lerner?
My legs turned to water and I crashed into a deep, deep abyss of darkness.
