Heritage of Flight (45 page)

Rafe sealed his breast pocket and strode over toward her. “Are you truly that determined to die?” he asked.
"They
think it may make a difference.” He gestured at the towers. “Pauli, for the love of God..."

"Getting another signal."

Rafe drew Pauli with him as he went to study it.

Five human figures/ship; interrogative/many ships.

"Yes,” Rafe muttered. “There will be more ships, more people...” His fingers flew on the keyboard and the screen filled:
many humans/many ships.

Clearly the Cynthians wanted something of the people who had placed themselves in their power.

Cynthians/interrogative, many humans/many ships.

"What happens to you when those humans come?"

That was quite a question. It was only a matter of time, months perhaps, until Neave's report drew the homeless or the adventurous to Cynthia to settle there. He was a man of Earth; he knew his world's history, one in which technologically sophisticated cultures drove out and destroyed less advanced ones.

Neave stepped forward. This was definitely something he could understand. “We hang together, or we all hang separately,” he muttered. “You tell them, Rafe. You tell them that when those humans come, they will be protected."

Pauli grimaced at him. “Like the Indians or the Tasmanians? We went through those rationalizations years ago."

Neave smiled. For the first time since he had touched down on this planet, he knew his course. “But we've got two things that the Indians and the Tasmanians never had."

"What?"

"First, the determination never to allow that to happen again. I know, we've heard that before. But now, we have you and your descendants, to make certain that no one tries it. To stop anyone who dares."

Rafe blinked hard. When they returned to the settlement, he would destroy the poisoned needle. He shook and drew Pauli close to him. They would have years yet. They would not be easy years; he foresaw a day when settlers would outgrow the west, and demand to explore this continent, to strip it of its resources, and drive its inhabitants off their home. Not while he lived, they wouldn't. And not while his children lived either.

"You know,” Neave told the two of them, “some, people used to think that the worst punishment for a genocide was to be forced to live in the midst of people he had tried to kill. You ... you can never forget, you know. And you must pass the knowledge on to your children. You will be truly set apart, for all time."

"Signal again!"

This time the screen showed
Tower, falling on its side/larvae; humans/ship.

"The hatcheries are beginning to break up!” Rafe pointed. In a few moments the ground would swarm with eaters. Already the adult Cynthians had all taken to the air.

Neave turned toward the Cynthian elder and nodded with real respect. “We've been warned,” he said. “So long as we leave them in peace, they want nothing more: no punishment, no vengeance."

"I told you how gentle they were,” Pauli said. “There was only one time when they fought; and that was to protect their young."

"Speaking of which—"

Collecting their equipment, they raced for the boarding ramp as a crash from behind them warned that the first of the hatching towers had fallen. The stink of acid grew strong in the clear, cool air of the dying afternoon.

"Take off as soon as you can. We don't want to catch any of the larvae in our backwash,” Neave said.

Rafe strapped in quickly, averting his face. Let them get off the ground quickly! He didn't think he could see one Cynthian larva, let alone a crater full of them, without wanting to burn them out of existence. But he had the rest of his life to conceal that feeling and to insure that his children grew up without it. There were Cynthians to guard. There would always be—thank God—Cynthians to guard.

"Each generation,” Pauli muttered as acceleration pinned them into their seats. “Each generation will have to decide all over again not to kill, not to exploit."

"But there will be caretakers to remind them of the price to them as well as their intended victims,” Rafe said. “Us, and our children."

The ship arced up through the clouds and into the stillness of the night sky, sprinkled with stars in whorls more wonderful than the patterns on a Cynthian's wings. Above them were the stars that they would never reach again, though their children or grandchildren might, if all went well, soar among them once again. Before them lay the atonement that would encompass their entire lives. It might not be—was not—enough; but it was all that they had to give. Behind them lay the memory of a splendor of wings.