The Winds of Altair

by Ben Bova

  Then he'll have to find a territory where there are no other wolfcats. Or establish himself as the head of a family.

  That's easier said than done. A lot easier.

  There wasn't much meat on the little furry thing. Crown was still ravenous when he resumed his march across the rolling grassland.

  A storm began to darken the sky as he paced onward. The sky became black with low clouds, the wind began shrieking in earnest, bringing scents of other wolfcat families to Crown's sensitive nostrils.

  On his hill, when it rained Crown would slink under a rock outcropping or into a cave. In his forest there were plenty of trees and thick bushes to keep off the worst of the storm. But here in the open grasslands there was no shelter. Nothing except a sea of grass, whipped into a frenzy now by the furious wind.

  A streak of lightning broke the sky in half and as its thunderclap exploded overhead the rain began to pour down so thick and heavy that Crown could barely see past his muzzle.

  Lightning again! He had never seen the jagged tongue of lightning so close, so blindingly bright. Down! Lie down or you'll draw the lightning onto yourself. With a muttered snarl of sheer misery, Crown hunkered down into the wet clinging matted grass and mud. The rain pelted him mercilessly.

  It wasn't merely rain. Stinging stones of ice peppered him, rattled off the thick bone of his skull armor, even cut him through his heavy fur. Crown winced and growled as the hailstones stung him like ten thousand needles. He dug his muzzle deeper into the grass, into the ground-turned-mud, trying to get away from the hail.

  It may have been only minutes, but it seemed like hours. At last the hail stopped, and then gradually the rain tapered off and finally ceased altogether. The clouds lingered, though, scudding along dark and menacing, hurrying as if they had somewhere important to go.

  Through the long gray afternoon Crown trekked across the endless grassland, staying out of sight of other wolfcat families, avoiding every other animal, choking down the gnawing hunger that echoed in his stomach. By nightfall he was wearily climbing a range of low, rolling hills. Water gurgled nearby. He scented a good-sized antelope and then saw it—brown and white, with wicked-looking horns and fleet, slim legs—as it edged toward the splashing brook for a drink. Crown dashed at it, chased it when it sprang away, caught it and killed it in one blindingly fast motion.

  He had eaten only a small portion of his kill when the other wolfcats showed up. In the swiftly gathering darkness of twilight he could make out their menacing shapes and heard their growls of warning.

  Crown growled back. I'm hungry! This is my kill.

  They paced slowly toward him. Crown quickly crammed as much of the kill into his craw as he could manage, then splashed across the brook and slinked farther up into the wooded hillside's slopes.

  Still achingly hungry, he slept at the base of a tree. He dreamed of his hilltop, his forest, as soon as he fell asleep.

  "He's really sleeping," Amanda said in a surprised whisper.

  "He's had a very long day," Carbo said. "But we can't leave the animal in those hills for too long. We've got too much invested in him to lose him now."

  Amanda peered through the control room window at Jeff's slumbering body. "You can't expect him to . . . "

  Carbo waved her silent. "We have to do it. We can keep him asleep as long as the animal sleeps. Use the electronic tranquilizer. He'll get more actual rest than he would in his mother's arms. You can feed him intravenously and use the massage units to keep up his muscle tone. He must be here and alert when the animal wakes up." The urgency in his normally soft voice made it sound almost like an angry hissing.

  Amanda made a sour face. "That's no way to treat him!"

  "There's no other way!" Carbo snapped.

  "What if you make him sick? Or kill him? What then?"

  "But we'll take good care of him. For god's sake, Amanda, don't make things more difficult than they already are! There's too much at stake."

  "That's exactly my point," she said.

  For an instant the two of them stood facing each other, the slim black woman and the jowly stubble-bearded man, electricity crackling between them.

  Despite herself, Amanda smiled. "Now don't go getting yourself into a sweat, dottore. I'm on your side. I just don't want us to get so excited about this that we hurt the . . . test subject."

  Carbo broke into a relieved grin. "Okay. Okay. I understand. I knew I could count on you."

  With a shake of her head, Amanda replied, "What you don't know could fill libraries."

  "Eh? What do you mean by that?"

  "Forget it," she said airily. "I was just thinking out loud."

  With a puzzled frown, Carbo said, "Sometimes, Amanda, you worry me."

  "Sometimes I worry myself."

  Carbo stared at her for a long moment. Then, as if shaking himself free from a trance, he said abruptly, "Okay. You make certain that he is well-exercised and well-fed while he sleeps. Another big day coming up tomorrow. The animal ought to get to the camp by midday if nothing goes wrong."

  He headed for the door and Amanda asked, "Where are you going?"

  "For food. We camp here tonight," Carbo pointed toward the window and Jeff, "with him."

  "Oh. Sure."

  "I'll bring you dinner on a tray. What would you like to eat?"

  "Steak," said Amanda, "blood rare."

  She laughed when he grimaced.

  CHAPTER 5

  Crown awoke when the sun came up, brilliant Altair, a sullen smudge of light penetrating the unbroken gray clouds of morning.

  These hills were good, almost like home. He could smell food in among the trees. And the shade from their high leafy branches would ease the heat of midday.

  No. He can't stay. Must get to the camp.

  Slowly, stiffly, Crown got to his feet. His nose twitched and he stared into the still-dark shadowed woods. He rumbled with hunger. But he turned away and started up toward the crest of the hills and then down the other slope, heading out toward the broad rocky desert that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  Overhead a great winged beast soared among the scattered low clouds. Crown watched it as he trotted out from the shelter of the last trees and onto the sparse grass that edged the stones of the desert. He had never seen anything like this flying beast before.

  It was much bigger than the birds of the hills and forest that he had known. It seemed to have only a few feathers, out at the tips of its wings. Its beak was short and powerful, and flashed with teeth. It flew with hardly a flap of its leathery wings, soaring easily on the heat currents that were already rising from the desert wasteland facing Crown.

  Crown stopped at the bottom of the hill, where the grass thinned away and finally ended altogether. There was nothing but bare rock and heat ahead of him. He turned and looked back toward the woods that covered the upper slopes of the hills. The wind that was blowing down from there felt cool and told him of water and food animals living among the shady trees. He growled, tossed his mane—and headed grudgingly out into the desert.

  His control's fantastic! That poor animal must be starving.

  It's more important to get to the camp than to feed it. The animal can go hungry for a day or two.

  And if it dies of hunger?

  It won't.

  Yes, but if it does?

  We'll have to find another one.

  And what happens to Jeff ?

  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

  It was brutally hot. The rocks were broiling, and as Altair climbed higher into the clouded sky the heat from the rocks scorched Crown's paws.

  A lizard-hawk soared high overhead, as if it was waiting with all the calm patience of inevitable death. Crown pressed on, driven by a force he could not understand. Fear was unknown to him, but the hungry wolfcat realized fully that this desert offered no food, no water, only danger and death. Still he padded onward, his six powerful legs working like the pistons of an engine.

  Rocks. Nothi
ng but rocks. Huge boulders, taller than some trees. Tiny pebbles that stuck sharply into Crown's paws. Heat currents danced up from the rocky desert floor, making the whole world swim dizzily. Crown trudged on, slower and slower, forgetting everything, even his hunger, as the fearsome sun climbed higher and higher to blast him with unending pitiless heat.

  The lizard-hawk still circled over him, high above, watching and waiting. Then, in the shimmering heat haze, Crown saw more of them. Four lizard-hawks. A dozen. Many, many more. Circling, circling, off on the far horizon.

  Suddenly he understood what that meant. Crown stopped and watched as the hawks began to descend, swooping down and landing with wide outstretched wings. They were far away, off on the horizon, and he could not see where they were actually touching the ground. But he knew why they were landing. Something in his brain told him what they were doing.

  He turned away from his original path and started toward the congregation of hawks.

  No! He's supposed to go straight to the camp.

  Jeff's still in control, look at the monitors. But he's allowing the animal to turn off.

  Something's gone wrong. We'll have to terminate . . .

  Wait. Wait. Let's see what Jeff wants to do.

  Wearily, baking under the merciless sun, Crown pushed himself toward the place where the hawks were coming down. Something inside his mind told him that, in a desert like this, the hawks could be nothing but scavengers. They landed where there was meat. And since they had started landing only a few minutes ago, the meat must be fresh.

  Boulders bigger than Crown himself shielded the hawks' landing place from his view. He clawed his way across their scorching heat and squeezed between those he could not get around.

  Finally he stood atop a huge, weathered flat rock, blazingly hot, cracked and bleached white by the sun. He no longer noticed the heat or the pain in his paws. He stared hungrily at the scene below.

  Nearly a hundred of the lizard-hawks had gathered around an animal. It was a giant beast, as big as Crown himself. But very different. Its fur was mottled green and brown, and covered with dry, whitish dust. Its head was rather small, but its face showed two good-sized eyeplates mounted side-by-side, for looking straight ahead. Its mouth was armed with strong, sharp teeth, but they were small—not fangs. It had only four legs, and it looked as if only the hind legs were meant to carry the beast. The forelegs were longer, thinner, and ended in paws that had six rudimentary fingers.

  It looks like a bear, an ancient Kodiak bear.

  But those forepaws look more like an ape's than a bear's.

  It was not dead yet. It was down on its back, its hind legs moving feebly on the dusty ground. Its eyeplates looked dull, but it snarled with pain and fear at the hissing, flapping hawks as they awkwardly hopped closer to it. It thrashed its arms whenever a hawk came close. Its stubby fingers ended in sharp hooked claws.

  The hawks circled the dying animal; their toothy beaks seemed to be smiling.

  This is fantastico! Cut in the extra data tapes. No one has seen an animal like this before.

  It hasn't been in any of the reports ?

  None that I've seen. We've discovered a new . . . what's he doing now?

  Oh no!

  Crown bunched his muscles and roared out a challenge to the hawks. Startled, they flapped into the air, making the world crackle with their shrieks and the leathery beating of their wings. Crown roared at them once more as they sped high into the sky.

  Then he turned and leaped for the downed ape's throat.

  Jesu Christo!

  Jeff . . . how could you ?

  The ape was too weak to fight and Crown gorged himself while the hawks hovered overhead, complaining noisily. But they waited for him to leave before they dared to descend and start to fight over the remains.

  With a final roar of triumph, Crown left the bloody carcass behind and resumed his trek across the rocky wasteland.

  It was late in the day when he came to another range of hills. They were steeper and rougher than any hills he had ever seen before. Their bases were solid rock, slashed with narrow ravines cut through them by ages of rain erosion. About halfway up their rugged slopes, grass and brush clung precariously to the rock. Farther up, near the top, there were trees. A thick, beautiful forest hid the top of the ridge line; the branches swayed rhythmically in the breeze and sang sweetly to Crown.

  Crown climbed catlike, more in leaps from rock to rock than step-by-step. As he neared the top of the ridge, his ears perked up. Something strange up there. A dull, booming sound, over and over again. He had never heard anything like it. His fur bristled, his lips pulled back to bare his teeth. A low growl rumbled from the cavern of his chest.

  The slope was gentler up near the top of the ridge. The grass felt deliciously cool to his singed paws. But the strange sound was louder up here, drowning out the gentle voices of the wind and sighing trees. Sss-vroom . . . sss-vrrooommm! And now a strange new scent came to him, wafting in on the steady breeze, a scent Crown had never known before.

  Slinking through the grass and brush, belly almost touching the ground, ears flattened back and teeth showing, Crown crawled through the woody underbrush as silently as a gray shadow and suddenly found himself facing . . .

  Something in his brain broke into laughter. Crown's tensed muscles relaxed. He sat down on his haunches and stared out at the beach that stretched below the crest of the hills and watched the waves build up on the ocean, steepening and steepening until they crashed over on themselves with a long, foaming, mighty sss-vrrroooommm! of surf.

  Crown had never seen an ocean before. Neither had Jeff. He simply sat there next to a thick, gnarled tree trunk and watched the blue-gray water gather its strength and rush in toward the land, a white curl of foam flecking the crest of each wave. Vrrooomm! The waves broke with a thundering, shuddery roar and slid up onto the sandy beach as nothing more dangerous than froth, while the next wave was coming in.

  Finally Crown got up and trotted down the easy slope of the hill and out onto the beach. His paws left deep prints in the sand as he went straight out toward the water. He bent his massive head and lapped at the little slitherings of water that edged up and swirled around his six legs. It tasted much too salty to drink, but now he knew what the strange new scent was.

  The breeze was cool and tangy with the new odor, but there was no food on that wind. Up in the hills, among the trees, Crown knew, was where the food existed. But probably there were other wolfcats up there, too. That could wait. At least, for a while.

  The camp's on this beach, about four kilometers north.

  Crown headed north, loping easily along the sand. Every once in a while he would veer out to splash into the surf, romping playfully like a cub, pawing at the water and sending up huge sheets of spray.

  He's playing!

  It's the first time he's been at the beach.

  Madonna! We have serious work to do and he's playing!

  Don't be a sourpuss.

  Crown finally arrived at the camp. Long before he could see it, he smelled it. Rancid, oily smells. Strange new odors that made him wrinkle his muzzle with distaste.

  It looked even worse. Scattered across a long curving section of beach were hundreds of blocky metal machines. Some had treads and bulldozer scrapers on them, some were wheeled. Others were simply standing there, bulky square shapes that tilted oddly where the sand beneath their dense weight had shifted. Farther up the beach was a huge plastic dome, big enough to house dozens of people. Jagged holes had been smashed through it, and long streaks of soot smeared its once-white flanks.

  Crown padded closer to the machines and sniffed at them. Dead. No food here. The metal was dull and rust-stained.

  That stuff was supposed to be impervious to rust.

  Not in the air down there.

  There was no danger here, Crown decided. He did not realize that the stench from the machines could hide the scent of a snake or even another wolfcat, perhaps. But there was no foo
d here, either, and Crown gazed up toward the trees at the top of the ridge line above the beach. The sun was going down and the shadows of the forest looked dark and inviting.

  He won't be straying very far. Let's terminate. Break contact.

  Amanda Kolwezi stared at the screens and instruments on the control panel before her. Frowning slightly, she touched a series of buttons on the keyboard.

  She swivelled her chair to look out through the control room window at Jeff, who lay quietly on the couch, the silver helmet on his head and the sensor contacts on his wrist and ankle cuffs.

  "What's the matter?" Dr. Carbo asked. He was standing at the far end of the wall-long control board.

  Amanda made a clicking sound with her tongue. "He's not coming out of it. It's almost . . . almost . . ."

  "What?" Carbo made it to her chair in three quick, nervous strides.

  "As if he doesn't want to come out of it." Amanda was watching Jeff's body as she spoke. A smile flickered across his sleeping face.

  "Just disconnect," Carbo snapped. "Power down and go through the regular termination cycle."

  "I know, but he's not helping. The other times he withdrew before we powered down."

  Carbo glanced at the couch. "It won't hurt him. Take the power down slowly. He's been in contact with the animal for more than thirty hours now; withdrawal is bound to be slower."

  "Are you sure . . . ?"

  "It won't hurt him, even if he doesn't cooperate."

  Amanda shook her head, but so slightly that only someone who knew her as well as Carbo did would have caught the gesture at all. "I hope you're right."

  She made the necessary adjustments on the keyboard instruments, then fixed her eyes on the couch. Jeff's body stirred slightly. He let out a long sigh, almost a moan, and Amanda realized that she was holding her own breath.

  Jeff opened his eyes. He saw the curving metal ceiling of the laboratory. No sky. No breeze. No ocean and throbbing surf. Only the hum of electrical equipment and the flat metallic tang of the ship, with the faint odor of clinical antiseptics laid over his own body scent.