Reading the Wind (Silver Ship) (32 page)

I held Kayleen’s hand as we walked home, soothing its trembling.

We rigged a tarp over part of Windy’s paddock, using the new rock as one of the anchor points. Liam and I brought the hebra food and water and we stayed with her under the tarp, making a meal of stored nuts, dried fruit, and grazer jerky.

Liam sat between Kayleen and me. He gave me a tender smile, then leaned over to her, whispering, “Turn around.”

She did, and he gently massaged her stiff shoulders. She leaned back against him, making small sounds of relief.

As night fell, the wind stopped. Ash still floated down in a thin curtain, like white feathers coating everything in fine dust.

Windy folded her long legs under her and lay down. Kayleen rose and stroked her head, brushing out thick clumps of ash. She dunked a corner of her shirt into Windy’s water, using the damp rag to wipe the hebra’s eyes and nostrils.

“We should go in,” Liam said.

Kayleen glanced at Windy, who sat placidly enough under the makeshift tent. Apparently reassured, she nodded.

In the cabin, we stripped out of our ashy clothes, leaving a pile on the floor. Liam laughed. “Look at yourselves.”

“And you.” I blushed. Our skin had whitened with the winter, contrasting with white-gray ash stuck in every place that had been exposed, including our breasts and torsos, bare since we’d used our shirts to breathe though. Kayleen’s dark hair looked gray. I grabbed a drying skin. “Last one to the pool has to make breakfast tomorrow!”

It wasn’t me. I made it in first, jumping deep into the shivery-cold snow-melt water at the edge, immersing my hair and releasing great clumps of sticky ash from it underwater. Two well-timed splashes told me Kayleen and Liam would both be making breakfast.

We emerged together, coughing and spluttering from the cold water. A slight breeze blew warm air over my skin. We stood a little apart from each other, naked and small and still slightly ashy. I picked up my skin and began drying Liam’s legs. Kayleen stood, watching us. She picked up her own skin and worked on his back. I glanced up at him to see how he felt, noticing a small smile. He looked carefully at me, a question in his eyes.

I nodded, and then looked away, briefly unsure. The skin made soft shushing sounds against his calves and then his thighs, and the same sounds where Kayleen worked on his shoulders. Liam’s breath grew faster.

When we had finished drying him, his voice sounded thick as he suggested, “Kayleen next. She’s shivering.”

So I was last. The movement of their hands and the soft skins
against my body felt like fire. By the time the two of them had finished rubbing me dry, my insides were warmer than I expected.

Ash still fell from time to time. I looked over at Liam. “We’d best go in before we have to get clean all over again.”

He smiled. His voice shook slightly. “That might not be too bad.”

My voice sounded small in return. “Surely we don’t need to set a watch tonight. The perimeter works, and even the dogs won’t be out in this.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose we do.”

Walking back, we each took one of Kayleen’s hands.

I had been right. The dogs left us alone and the perimeter remained silent all night as ash fell silently outside the cabin windows.

We barely noticed it.

O
ur fire licked at the wood, rising two meters into the sky, warning predators away from our kills. The carcasses of two young grazers lay behind me, gutted and cut up to pack onto Windy in the morning. Another year had passed on Islandia, with one more eruption, somewhere on the side of the island we couldn’t reach because of the Fire River, two meteor showers, and one storm so severe it had washed part of the cliff down onto our house, staving in a wall.

We were trying to finish hunting early this season. Kayleen’s swelling belly proclaimed that her baby would be born soon, sometime midsummer, and my own would be a few months behind, at best.

My baby kicked, a tiny flutter that I had just begun to feel from time to time. I held my hand over my stomach, barely bigger than normal yet. We hadn’t been sure if we could breed, given how little we actually knew about our own genetic modifications. Perhaps we would end up with a colony here, after all.

Even if we could get back, Artistos leaders had warned us against having children. The babies were clear evidence of our three-way relationship, which wouldn’t be any more welcome at home than our progeny.

The thought made me miss home. The sharp pain of loss at all those we might never see again poked at me, and I stood, tending the fire, struggling to feel hope. If only we had gone with Joseph.

I waited until the sky turned pale with dawn to wake the others. The Fire River had again been taken back by the daylight, its red glow
unable to compete with the bright sunlight. We had just finished packing camp when Windy’s ears flattened against her head and she stopped dead in her tracks.

Nothing seemed out of place.

There was no nearby cover to hide big predators.

Liam looked up, and then I heard it too, up and across the river. All three of us all pointed at once. A noisy speck in the sky, growing bigger.

Windy bugled and stamped. Kayleen whispered to her, calming. I didn’t look—I couldn’t take my eyes from the ship.

For that was what we saw. A spaceship.

Perhaps it was Joseph, returning. My heart caught in my throat, then fell again as the speck grew big enough for me to see that it was both wider and squatter than the New Making. Certainly, it wasn’t from Artistos. Maybe Joseph had come back in a different ship?

It flew over our heads, heading toward Golden Cat Valley, and certainly past it, low enough that it must be looking for a landing site. It disappeared from view. We stood together, struck even dumber by the sight of the spaceship than by the lava river the night before. “It could be Joseph,” I said.

“Maybe,” Liam said, his voice doubtful. “We can’t know.” He looked down into my eyes. “Don’t hope too much. It wasn’t the New Making.”

I bit my lip, nodding.

No need for discussion. We settled into a fast jog that we could keep up for hours, even pregnant.

We kept to the shore, staying in the open and avoiding the more dangerous forest because of the meat we carried. At one point, we crossed a wooden bridge we’d built over the river Kayleen and I had fallen into the previous summer. At the wide opening where Golden Cat Valley emptied into the grasslands, we stopped at the obvious turn, eyeing the path to West Home.

“We have to go home,” Liam said. “Windy’s tired, and I don’t want to come up on strangers in the dark.”

I sighed, noting wryly to myself that the hebra actually looked fresher than any of us. “I so want to know if it’s Joseph.”

Liam put an arm around me. “Why would he land here? Why not on Artistos? The ship came from very high, from space. So it meant to land here. Joseph would surely have gone home.”

I leaned into him. “Why would any ship come here? We’ve seen the satellite shots—we’ve left plenty of mark on Jini. Artistos and the spaceport are clearly visible. So the ship must be avoiding Artistos, or looking for us.”

Liam licked his lips and stared off in the direction the strange ship had gone. “If it’s not Joseph, I’m not sure we’ll be happy to find out who it is.”

Kayleen and I glanced at each other. She looked shaky as she said, “The last ship that came here brought our parents, and a war.”

He nodded. “Whatever this ship brought, we can find out tomorrow.”

We climbed up the rocky entrance to West Home just before dark filled our small valley. It looked just like we had left it. The noisy waterfall caught the last bits of light in its spray.

We had fallen out of the habit of setting watches all night, every night. It hadn’t seemed necessary after Kayleen tuned the perimeter.

But that night we did two strange things. We again set up watches, and we didn’t light a fire.

I
always chose last watch for love of the peaceful, pregnant moment of the crack between day and night. This morning, I fidgeted, wanting daylight to come early. I searched the shadows around the corral. Nothing seemed unusual or out of place.

Except that the whole world had changed. Was this ship from Deerfly, like Traveler, or from Silver’s Home, or from somewhere else? Why were they here?

What did this mean for our babies?

The last ships had brought war and death and pain and confusion.

Did people fight everywhere, or were there planets where everyone got along? We had enough history databases that I knew the former was more likely than the latter, but surely, somewhere, a planet spun peacefully around a gentle sun and no one fought.

Light crept down-cliff, painting the sharp rocks and soft green vines with gold.

Liam came blinking out the door, stretching before he walked over to me. He smelled of sleep and sweat and, a little, of Kayleen as he folded me in his arms. “I love you,” he whispered.

As always, the words tore tenderness from me. And swelling up through my thick throat, the return words, “I love you.”

He kissed my forehead and pulled away. “You and Kayleen and Windy should stay here. It’s hidden. I can sneak out and take a look.”

I shook my head. “I want to stay together. We have no idea who these people are. What if…what if something happens and you get caught? What if you get killed, and we never know?”

He glanced toward the house where Kayleen still rested under the covers, her dark hair visible through the window. “We need to decide together.”

“I know.” Silence fell for long moments between us, like a pause before a wind storm.

The door opened. Kayleen called out, “Good morning,” the words sounding like a question.

I smiled. “Good morning. We were just deciding what to do.”

She came to us, her hair mussed from sleep, one hand covering her belly. We brought her into our hug. The light had come up far enough to see fear touching the corners of her mouth and filling her eyes. “What should we do?” I asked.

Windy wandered over, butting Kayleen softly with her head, wanting her share. Kayleen reached toward her, but pulled away, squeezing her eyes shut.

Her voice cracked the still peace, high and intense. “There’s something in Golden Cat Valley.” When she opened her eyes, all softness had been replaced by the alertness of a wild animal. “I need to go see what it is.”

I stiffened. “Animal?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not a cat, not the tall-beasts, not the demon dogs. I don’t know.”

Liam and I glanced at each other. “We should all go,” he said.

Kayleen picked up Windy’s lead.

I swallowed my comment that she should just leave Windy. If anything happened to us, the hebra would be trapped in a corral. I closed my eyes. “Please let it be Joseph,” I murmured.

Kayleen left Windy at the base of the rocks. We climbed up, standing on the highest of the tumbled stones, gazing out into the long, narrow valley. It looked empty, except for three big brown birds riding thermals in lazy circles. I glanced at Kayleen. Her eyes had lost focus, her body stilled. “Five of them. People. They’re coming this way.” She pointed. Following the direction of her fingertip, I made out a
small group walking near the edge of the river trees as if trying to stay inconspicuous. They moved unerringly toward us.

So they knew we were here. “What should we do?” I asked.

“Meet them and pretend there are more of us than there are,” Liam said. “They can’t know.”

Kayleen shook her head. “They know. They can read our data.”

Of course. “With machines or by themselves?” I asked.

Her eyes had narrowed down to small slits. “By themselves. There’s at least two Wind Readers in the group.”

Altered.
Like us. And from Silver’s Home or someplace like it. “Is Joseph with them?”

“No.”

“How can you tell?” Liam asked.

“These people aren’t like Joseph at all. Joseph and I always knew whenever the other had been in the nets. Especially if we were both in them at once. I’d know if he was here.”

A deep sigh of disappointment escaped me. Would he ever come back? Did he live?

She closed her eyes. “They’ve been in the valley net. Not at home yet—they haven’t seen the connection, haven’t pushed hard. But they know there are people here. They seem a little confused, maybe because these are different than their nets.” She ran her fingers through her hair and grimaced. “I wouldn’t bet they can’t figure it out.” She put a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t put up any good protections. We were alone.” She sank down, her back against a rock, her head tipped slightly backward on its hard contours. She closed her eyes and fell into herself and away from us.

Liam and I exchanged worried glances. “Is she okay?” he whispered.

I swallowed, glancing at Windy, who stood watching Kayleen, looking curious but unconcerned. “Windy thinks so.”

He nodded. “I don’t think we can hide.”

“I know.”

“Should we hide Kayleen and Windy? Split up?”

“If she felt them in the nets, they probably felt her. They’ll know we aren’t Wind Readers.” I bit my lip. “I guess. Maybe not. Maybe it will make a difference that these are Artistos’s nets.” I looked back out over the valley. The people were closer. They were all bigger than we
were, and two were wider as well. Like Bryan, only fully grown. Kayleen was right. Joseph wasn’t there. I would have recognized his walk anywhere. “We can’t run away.”

“I know.” Liam squeezed my hand, glancing down at Kayleen again. “We have to go talk to them.” He called down. “Kayleen?”

She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. A sign to leave her alone.

They were only a hundred meters from us now. Two of them were women—one of the bigger two, and the one walking in the lead. They stopped, pointing at Kayleen’s and Windy’s running trail. No way they’d miss us now. “We should go,” I breathed out softly, as if they were close enough to hear. “Before they get any closer. Keep them out of the valley.”