Reading the Wind (Silver Ship)

by Brenda Cooper

  We had to make Kayleen take us home. Or not. I swallowed hard and struggled to feel positive. Wasn’t I the one who had the genemods to see the best possible outcome in every situation?

  Kayleen fed and watered Windy, who did exactly what any animal would eventually do, and eliminated right where she stood. The pungent odor filled the tiny space, the stink doing a fair job of representing my mood. It sparked something in the ship and an unseen fan turned on, increasing the flow of fresh air. It barely helped.

  The first sign of Islandia was a dark smudge of smoke from Blaze turning a windblown wedge of the blue sky a dirty gray-brown. A hump of land rose on the line between sea and sky. It filled in, details resolving into a long, narrow continent painted with soft greens and golds, punctuated with violent reds of lava.

  A jagged mountain range—Islandia’s Teeth—marched the long length of the sea. At both ends—east and west—islands that looked like the tops of volcanoes poked from the water. Blaze spilled lava continually, cutting Islandia in two with the molten Fire River that came wide and bright from Blaze’s mouth, narrowing to a thin brick-and-black trickle where it touched the far sea. The conversation between saltwater and molten rock threw a great gout of steam into the air.

  The land around Blaze looked sere and empty. Jagged black stone gave way on both sides to dead, brown plains. Two or three peaks away, on either side, the continent greened into lush forests. Glaciers topped the highest peaks, and below them were lakes and the thin blue snakes of rivers running to the sea.

  Liam also watched closely, leaning in, chewing on his fingernails. He twisted to look at Kayleen, who sat in the seat in front of Windy, idly scratching the hebra’s ears. Kayleen’s fingers had combed the neatness from her own hair so it stood out from her head in a hundred separate long dark curly strands. Her blue eyes focused inward, giving her a vacant look. Liam regarded her silently for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Where do you plan to land?”

  Kayleen’s eyes focused and she shook her head. She stood, walking unsteadily to the screen in front of us. She pointed to the long rounded tip of land farthest to the right from Blaze. “The mountains here are the oldest—Islandia was born from them. It’s hotter than Artistos, and wetter, so there’s plenty of water, and forest. There’s probably game.” The picture zoomed in, showing a wide valley with a river running through it, cupped by dense forest that marched to the top of mountains. “I decided this is our best bet.”

  “Can you reach Artistos through the nets?” I asked. “Do they know we’re all right?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t communicate from here.”

  Liam’s voice regained its edge. “Did you tell them you kidnapped us?”

  Kayleen’s chin went up. “Before we got too far away, I told them all three of us are all right.”

  “What did you tell them?” he pushed.

  “That all three of us are together and that we’re all right,” she repeated, emphasizing her words as if Liam were a child.

  “That’s all?” I asked quietly.

  She raised her eyebrows, then giggled. “That’s right, isn’t it? We’re okay, and by the time we get back, we won’t be fighting. We’ll all get along just fine.”

  Right.

  Liam leaned over and whispered in my ear. “She’s crazy.”

  I ignored him. “Maybe, Kayleen. Maybe. But I wish Akashi and Mayah knew for sure that we didn’t mean to leave. Can you tell them that after we land?”

  She laughed. “I don’t think so.” The glaze fell over her eyes again and she mumbled, “I need to pay attention. I’ve only landed on the ground once, with Joseph, the night before he left. The cave has something that catches me when I come into it.”

  We flew over a dark peak whitened by ice near its top, with three waterfalls feeding a lake, which in turn fed the river below. It looked bigger than Little Lace Lake above Artistos, and that took three days to ride around. Beyond the lake, a small ridge stuck up just above the water line, and then the mountain fell steeply away again. It was hard to make out size from the sky, but the trees looked huge, and even though I spotted twintrees, I was sure most were trees we’d never seen.

  The skimmer slowed as we crossed the lake, then circled over the valley. From this close, it didn’t look as empty or as flat as it had from higher above. Small trees and bushes dotted the land below us. Rocks poked up and streams glittered in the sun, feeding into the river that ran down the center of the valley. I pointed at the screen, talking to Liam. “I don’t see a good spot to land.”

  He squeezed my hand. “The skimmer doesn’t need much—remember where Kayleen landed it before, in the trees above the plains?”

  I nodded. Still, Joseph and Jenna had been with Kayleen then. She’d had help.

  We circled a second time, lower. I closed my eyes and wished for us all to be safe.

  We leveled out, lower again, heading for a long stretch of green. It looked flatter than the rest of the valley, although here and there rocks reared up in sharp jumbles. In two places, steam vented, white swirls misting the sky. The skimmer slowed, its engines whining.

  Windy bugled, a high frightened noise that bounced around in the small cabin. I looked behind me. Kayleen had slumped down, her eyes closed, her arms tight across her belly.

  I twisted back, needing to see, bracing my hands on the seat.

  The nose wheel pounded the ground, bouncing up. Sky filled the camera for a moment then the view changed to a jolting jumble of greens and browns.

  I slammed into Liam as the Burning Void slewed sideways. Grabbing the seat-arm, I dug my fingernails into the soft surface. Windy whined. Kayleen moaned, then screamed. The skimmer jerked again. Liam grabbed me around the waist, pulling me to him. He smelled of fear.

  We tilted, then the machine jerked the other way and stopped, off-center, the floor canted sharply toward the nose.

  Kayleen groaned and slumped forward. Windy nosed her, and she reached a single shaking hand up, touching the hebra’s front leg.

  Liam pushed himself to his feet, his face white. He extended a hand to help me up and pulled me close, murmuring, “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “You?”

  Kayleen’s voice, soft. “Sorry for the rough landing.”

  I turned. She stood, her face buried in Windy’s neck. She was talking to the hebra, not us. Damn her. I shook my head, pulled away from Liam, and walked back toward Kayleen. He followed. Kayleen looked up at us, wiping the hair from her face with one hand while the other hand clutched Windy’s halter.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  Her voice was a hoarse croak. “Thirsty.”

  A nearly full water bottle lay in the seat beside me. I handed it to her, watching her drink greedily. I searched for signs of the Kayleen I knew, but the girl in front of me had wild, cold eyes.

  Liam cleared his throat. “We’d better go outside and see if the skimmer is okay.”

  A shiver ran up my spine. If it wasn’t, we’d never get home.

  Kayleen laughed, high and shaky. “I can feel the ship inside me.” She laughed again. “It’s in my bones, in my nervous system. When I fly, I am the Burning Void. I felt it when we landed hard, but most of her systems report fine.”

  Most of them?

  Liam watched her warily, shaking his head. “Will the door open?”

  She frowned. “I think the hold ramp will work.” She unclipped one of the two leads attached to Windy’s collar and took the other loosely in her hand. The hold door opened at her silent command, and the back ramp, the wider one used for cargo, began to hum and click as it extended.

  I looked at Liam and shrugged, and we followed Kayleen and Windy, keeping a little distance from the hebra’s baby-short white tail and sharp cloven hooves. We made our way down a walkway just big enough for Windy, threading between containers strapped to the walls.

  Kayleen must have been gathering and storing for months. I recognized a few boxes: root vegetables like potatoes,
dried meat, and fruit from Artistos. Even a small greenhouse, tucked neatly in sections behind a row of boxes. Five ships-skin-silver containers had clearly come from the Cave of Power. Unlabeled, they sat carefully stacked on the bottom row.

  The hot breeze coming in from outside blew a slightly rotten smell into the hold. Liam, behind me, said, “It smells like Rage Mountain.” He raised his voice, as if to make sure Kayleen would hear him. “Be careful. I’d leave the hebra in here until we can scout a little.”

  Of all of us, Liam was the only one who had been near an active volcano. The West Band was going there now, but we’d spent the past two years in the Ice Mountains.

  The ramp stopped as soon as it hit ground, lengthened by our tilt. I blessed whoever built the Burning Void that it opened at all. The ramp bent slightly, so that the end was still essentially flat on the ground even though the upward tilt of the back of the skimmer meant it didn’t start out straight.

  Kayleen went first, leading Windy, pointedly ignoring Liam’s advice. I followed behind her. Behind me, Liam bent down, looking over the edge of the ramp at the bottom of the skimmer, and groaned. I knelt close to him, my knee touching his. A small comfort.

  The skimmer had come to rest with its front right wheel in a crevice and almost all of its weight on its nose wheel. Nothing looked broken, or even scratched, but we weren’t going anywhere unless we figured out how to free the wheel and get the Burning Void onto flat ground. “How are we going to move it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “We have to find a way.”

  The ground was strewn with lumpy reddish and black rocks full of holes. Here and there, scraggly green and yellow grasses and tiny purple flowers poked up from the rocks. Some kind of evergreen tree, with a more twisted trunk and longer needles than I’d ever seen, grew in small patches, none over my height. Farther away, the ground must be less rocky; more varied forest surrounded us in three directions. The mountain we’d flown over loomed above us, blocking a good portion of sky. I could make out two other mountaintops clearly, one to the east and one to the west. Blaze was invisible from here, and its smoke had been going the other way. But I knew it was there, dominating Islandia.

  Tiny white clouds hazed the late-afternoon sky above us. It would be dark in a few hours. A cool wind touched my cheek.

  Liam grunted next to me. “Maybe we can right her if we build some kind of lever. But we’ll need to make a path to take off from, too.” He didn’t sound too sure of himself.

  Kayleen turned, grinning as if her dreams had come true. “We need to figure out where to live, first.” She turned her head, surveying the area, as if trying to find just the right spot.

  I wanted to go home. I wanted to take Kayleen and shake her, make her take us home.

  Windy pranced on the ramp and butted Kayleen, nearly knocking her off. Kayleen laughed, a soft happy laugh this time. She took a few slow running steps and jumped, her feet crunching on the rocky ground.

  Windy followed, without the jump. She stamped at the unfamiliar footing. She kept her head up, swiveling it around, her nostrils extended and her ears pricked. A rising wind blew the fine hairs on her neck and face backward and ruffled the tufts of white around her ears.

  A high-pitched wail, then a full deep baying call, wafted eerily down the valley, followed by another one, and then another. A pack of something unfamiliar, calling back and forth to each other.

  Liam stiffened next to me. “Don’t go far from the skimmer,” he called to Kayleen.

  Kayleen looked up at us. “I brought a perimeter.”

  Liam sighed, but managed to keep his voice even. “Kayleen. It’s late. Why bother setting up a perimeter now? We should sleep in the skimmer tonight, and try to right her tomorrow.” More calls from the foothills added sense to his suggestion.

  She looked at Windy. “I don’t think she’ll sleep inside. Besides, the floor’s tilted. I brought tools to cut wood for a barn.”

  I shook my head, a sense of the surreal settling in my bones. Was she kidding? “We can’t build a barn tonight.” The idea of sleeping in the stinky, oddly slanted cabin didn’t make me feel much better. Maybe we could clear the hold, but Windy would just stink that up, too. I grimaced. “All of the big wood is in the forest, and it’s too far away. Let’s set up the perimeter bells and camp at the foot of the ramp.” I closed my eyes, briefly dizzy and powerless. “Windy will be safer if we can bring her in here if any predators come.”

  Kayleen apparently figured out we weren’t going to go help her set up a house and barn at that exact moment. Her shoulders slumped. She buried her head in Windy’s neck. When she looked back up she smiled at us. “Okay. If it will help keep Windy safe.”

  Liam leaned in close to me and muttered, “It’ll keep you safe so you can fly us home.”

  Kayleen cocked her head, her voice slightly teasing now. “Still talking behind my back?”

  I separated from Liam and walked down the ramp toward Kayleen. I held my hand out for Windy’s lead. “I’ll hold onto her. Liam can help you unpack the perimeter and get it set up.” Only Kayleen could tune the perimeter, at least unless she had brought the type of tools Paloma and Gianna and the other members of the science guild used. I doubted it.

  The two of them disappeared into the hold. I held my hand out flat and let Windy sniff it. She leaned her head down, acknowledging me, but only for a moment, going right back to testing the unfamiliar smells and keeping her ears pricked. Her skin rippled with unease and she danced lightly on her feet whenever a bird called or the beasts in the hills bayed. Windy was prey. I felt as vulnerable as she in this strange place full of unknown dangers.

  I was alone for now except for the young, frightened hebra.

  We’d find a way to get back. There wasn’t any other choice.

  Tears splashed down onto my hands, warm and wet. I let go, my losses spilling into Islandia’s rough rocky soil with my tears.

  By the time the sun danced on the horizon, we had a passable perimeter set up. Wireless devices hung on metal poles giving us a hundred square meters of warning space.

  The Burning Void’s hold disgorged three cots, one large tent, and kitchen camp gear. The cots came from Artistos, the tent and shimmery silver lightweight sleeping blankets came from the cave. We might be using the same tools our genetic parents had camped with outside Artistos, both before and during the war. The idea offered little comfort.

  Liam sunk a pole in the ground and tied Windy to it. She munched on some of last summer’s harvest from the Grass Plains, still looking up regularly, but apparently feeling a bit better since we’d set up signs of civilization.

  Kayleen pulled food from a large cooler. She sat on a stone, cutting up fresh djuri and some of last summer’s root stock to make a stew. I squatted down next to her. “Can I help?”

  She grunted, not looking at me. “No, this is my feast for you. I hoped you’d come of your own accord, and this would be a celebration.” She continued slicing through long dried purple-roots and setting them in water to soften, still avoiding my eyes.

  A celebration feast? I glanced over my shoulder at Liam, arching an eyebrow. “You never gave us a chance to come willingly.”

  “You wouldn’t have taken it anyway.”

  I grimaced at the back of her head. “Liam and I need to talk. We’re going to take a walk.”

  She shook her head, not exactly a yes or a no, but she reached for another root. I stood and walked off, Liam catching up in a few long strides. As we got far enough away to talk, he said, “She’s crazy.”

  I took his hand, aware that Kayleen would see, and not really caring. “Maybe she has been for a while. But we left her, and what do we know about her experiences? We aren’t Wind Readers, and we haven’t been in Artistos. We don’t know what it’s been like for her.”

  He swallowed and looked out toward the mountains, painted brilliant gold on one side by the setting sun, dark and foreboding on the other side. “There is no excuse.”

/>   I watched the mountains with him, the high clouds above them now brilliant orange edged with bright gold. One of the small muscles in his neck jumped silently, repeatedly.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  I chewed on my lip. I had become used to following his direction in the band; he knew the people and the routines, the dangers and the rituals. But only I knew both Kayleen and him well, if I really knew Kayleen anymore. I spoke softly, trying to reach past his anger. “I guess we’re going to go back and eat her feast. The only way to get home is to try and reach her, to make her want to take us back.” I squeezed his hand and leaned into him, looking sideways to where Kayleen sat, still huddled over her preparations. “Her mood has shifted a hundred times today. Remember when we were little, and she and I and Joseph always made sure we found you on Trading Day?” I turned my face up to his. “Maybe it’s our turn to find her.”

  We stood face to face, hands still clasped, and he looked into my eyes. I looked back at him, feeling a wave of tenderness. We’d set out this morning hoping to find time to make love in the cave.

  He spoke, his voice as soft as mine had been. “Are you saying you forgive her?”

  I shook my head. “I’m saying I love her. I’m saying she’s our family.”

  Water gleamed in the edges of his eyes. I’d had my cry, but he hadn’t, and I knew he wouldn’t do it yet. He cleared his throat. “My family is back on Jini.” He held a hand out and brushed a stray lock of hair from my face. “And you. You’re my family.” He glanced toward Kayleen. “She’s not. She’s someone I see twice a year, and I don’t understand her. I don’t trust her. I don’t see how you can.”

  “I spent almost every day of my life with her before I went with the band. I’ve always been the oldest, always been the one who had to keep us together, at least until the last few years. That matters to me.”

  He blew out a long, slow breath, looking away. “I’ll eat her feast for you. But I can’t do it for her. That will have to be enough.”