Silent Songs (14 page)

The avians stared at one another, their crowns shrunken and dulled. They didn't know what to think about that.

Tesa wanted to discuss the effect the massive onslaught of raw telepathy might have had on Jib, but felt constrained by her audience. If he did have TSS, it was no one else's business. She would save that talk for later; however, his behavior was another matter. "Well, Jib, you
did
frighten me!

We know
nothing
about these creatures. They could be carnivores. .. ."

"Oh, no," Jib assured her. "They're harmless. They're veg . . . herbivores."

He glanced around to see if K'heera might be watching. Simiu didn't appreciate the human tendency to equate vegetarianism with a pacifistic nature.

78

"Did
they
tell you that?" Bruce asked.

He fugued out for a moment, unsure. "I... just
know
it now."

Tesa nodded, unable to suppress the need to vent her anger.
"Know
this.

That was a damned foolish stunt. You're in the wilderness. Just because this species isn't predatory doesn't mean there isn't a nearby predator capable of killing them."

"I thought it was
our job
to foster new contacts on Trinity," he argued.

"He's got a point there, Tesa," Bruce signed. "You've taken plenty of risks yourself when you thought it would pay off."

She shot the weatherman a venomous look.

Jib scowled, as though trying to recall something. "Still, you've got a point, mate. I felt something in my mind. .. just before we hit Taniwha, the calf, when Bruce and I were in the
Demie.
Something the Singers are terrified of...

I can only call it the Mate Kai... the Great Hunger." He turned to his audience, as though framing what to tell them. "I can't really see a clear picture of it, just that it's huge--bigger than them, with lots of teeth. An eating machine more primitive than a shark."

The Grus watched him curiously, their crowns brightening.

"Perhaps," Frost Moon suggested,
"that
creature is the
evil
River Spirit, and
these
beings are kindly Spirit Singers?"

Jib turned to Tesa for help, but she let him see he was clearly on his own. "I can't answer that. I can't
see
this thing clear enough to know much about it. It was a big fear in Taniwha's mind, but far less distinct to his parents. They consider these waters totally safe ... or
did
until we bumped into their baby.

The predators live in the sea and occasionally follow them into the River, but. .. not recently." He glanced at Tesa wryly. "I'll try to find out more in my next contact. .. ."

"Next
contact?" she signed. "What next contact?" TSS or not, she couldn't run the risk. "Meg will be here soon. . . ."

Jib looked like he'd been slapped. "You're still sending me up to the
Crane?"

He held up his hands, then signed quickly, making sure K'heera couldn't observe him. "I know I was eager to go before, but things have changed. I need to stay and make more contacts with the Singers. I'll be cautious, I promise."

Tesa suddenly found it hard to be objective. This was the kind of thing every StarBridge student dreamed of, to make a First Contact--get to know the people, find out who they were, learn their culture, their language. She remembered the moment Thunder's mother first spoke to her--she'd felt the same euphoria .. . and that had nothing to do with TSS! Yet, she was responsible for

79

Jib's well-being. She had to be cautious. "I know how you feel, but. . . this isn't why you were sent here."

Jib's heavily lashed eyes darkened. "I know, but. . ."

"You're supposed to be doing a pair project," Tesa reminded him. She felt self-conscious having this conversation with everyone hovering around them, but Jib needed to learn this now. The others politely turned their attention elsewhere. "You've stopped working with K'heera. The two of you are now pursuing
different
interests. Is that what you want?"

Jib pondered that for a while. Finally, he signed, "Yes."

Tesa's eyes opened in surprise.

"I think this whole plan of Rob Gable's and Ambassador Dhurrrkk's was a mistake from the beginning," Jib declared. "She didn't want to come, she has no interest in us. . . ."

"You
were supposed to be the counterbalance to K'heera's lacks, but you gave up on her," Tesa reminded him. "It may have been a mistake to send you both here, but I'm not ready to admit that yet. If the Singers are intelligent, it'll be wonderful, Jib, but they'll always be here. K'heera needs to have contact with humans
now,
and you've been letting Bruce do your job."

She glared at the weatherman, daring him to interfere, but he had wisely turned his attention to his shoes.

"And my going to the
Crane
will be the answer?" Jib asked.

"Only in part. You have to work
with
K'heera. You have to make a contact with
her. You
have to make this assignment a success." Tesa recognized his expression--it was the one he made whenever she prodded him to do things he didn't want to, but knew he should.

After a tense moment, he nodded abruptly. "Right. I'll give it a fair go." Then he turned toward the River.

None-So-Pretty stepped up to him, openly curious. "Can you really talk mind-to-mind with the Spirit Singers?" The others seemed just as interested in his answer.

"Not really," Jib admitted. "We'll need to bring in a true telepath for that. But I can
hear
them, and communicate a little. It's sort of like trading
feelings
more than talking."

Flies-Too-Fast peered at Jib with one eye. "Can you
hear
spirits behind those feelings?"

Tesa knew that Jib would have normally been amused by such a

suggestion. While he respected the Grus' beliefs, he had no primal faith of his own. But the look in the avian's eye, and the way he phrased the question, made Jib hesitate. Tesa had recognized an almost spiritual feeling when that alien mind touched hers. For

80

Jib, that would be something he couldn't analyze or explain away. It would be a new experience for him.

She saw him touch the tiki hanging around his neck. "Maybe . . ." he signed,

"but if so, they're friendly spirits."

K'heera ran her fingers over the
Demoiselle's
control panel, enjoying the feel of the well-designed board against her leathery palms. Its design was a variation on a classic Simiu one. It never bothered humans to use the best of other cultures for their own benefit. Her own people were often held back by a stubborn chauvinism, insisting on using only their own products.

Bruce had told her that he still hoped to go after the meteor later today. He asked her if she'd accompany him on the dive, and she agreed. Bruce wanted to be sure K'heera still felt she had some purpose on Trinity.

The young Simiu stared out over the wide river. As much as she tried not to think of it, and as much as Bruce tried to distract her with talk of work, she couldn't deny the fact that the humans had made yet another First Contact right in front of her. What would her family say? Especially when they discovered--and K'heera had no doubt that they would--that she'd nearly slept through the whole thing. She'd tried to ignore the tenuous mental song that finally woke her. But only the Grus seemed to understand the natural aversion she felt to receiving that song. To have someone else's thoughts in your head was as unnatural as seeing someone else wearing your face, K'heera thought.

She glanced sideways at Jib, sitting at the river's edge. His glassy-eyed rapturous look made her flesh crawl.

She had thought that "tomorrow"--now, today--she would begin making amends to Jib ... try to get closer to him. Seeing how easily he had responded to the Singers shattered that hope. It did something else, too--it made her understand why her people would always have problems with First Contacts, and why they frequently had problems dealing with the CLS.

Her people just weren't adaptable enough, they were too ethnocentric. The humans were so malleable, so eager to contact other races. Her people had always viewed it as a worthwhile task, but they didn't have that eagerness to accept an alien as a friend, as an equal, the way so many humans did.

Ambassador Dhurrrkk' did, but he was different from anyone in her family.

K'heera felt despondent. She tried to look forward to diving after the meteor, but basically once you'd captured one chunk of space rock, you'd captured them all.

81

She thought of Ambassador Dhurrrkk' again, and his high hopes for her.

He'd spent a lot of time with her, flattering her, acting the uncle, trying to open her mind to opportunities this task might supposedly give her.

He had helped discover the planet Avernus and its race of intelligent fungi.

Avernus was so small, and Trinity so big . . .

Big enough for the Grus, the Aquila, and now the Singers. K'heera followed Jib's gaze over the water, wondering what the chances were that there might be another intelligent race somewhere on this planet that
she
might contact?

Slim to none
-- as the humans would say. But it would take nothing less than a First Contact to help the Harkk'etts. Without that, K'heera would return to Hurrreeah with even greater dishonor than when she left. The hopelessness of it was as suffocating as water rushing over her head.

Tesa sat cross-legged in the shade of her lean-to, her woven feather shirt in her lap. Holding a comb that Taller had made for her, she used it with a dressing made from the hearts of reeds to preen the shirt's feathers. Four of her cohort--Frost Moon, None-So-Pretty, Snowberry, and Lightning--lay sleeping, tightly bunched around her, their legs folded under them, their necks intertwined. Two had their heads hidden in her lap under her shirt.

Outside the shelter, Thunder perched on the roof, while the rest of the cohort preened, except for Hurricane and Flies-Too-Fast, whose turn it was to guard.

Lunch had been hard-shelled fruits that fell from nearby trees, and a crunchy seaweed that Jib said was one of the Singers' favorites. It
was
tasty, and for once did not cause any recriminations from the Simiu.

The Simiu. Tesa stopped her preening, and stared out over the River. It was sixteen-twenty. Bruce and K'heera had been gone about six hours. She was glad Bruce had taken K'heera to go after the meteor--the tension level had dropped dramatically as soon as they had clambered into the small vessel.

She didn't know what to think about Bruce. She'd been surprised when he'd easily accepted the possibility of the Singers' intelligence. He'd been really solicitous of K'heera, too. It seemed as if he'd really pushed his prejudices aside.

Peripherally, she realized the avians that had been preening stopped when she did, gazing where she gazed. Smiling, she went back to her shirt. It made them uneasy when the
Demoiselle
went below.

82

Her eyes moved to the River's edge. Jib lay wrapped in his blanket in a sandy, sunny spot, catching up on some of the sleep he'd lost last night. This would be a good time to have a private talk with him, before the
Demoiselle
returned.

She folded the shirt Weaver had made for her, put it in a mesh bag, and hung it from the ceiling. All she really needed to wear in the warm tropical sun was her aged, cut-down StarBridge jumpsuit. It was barely more than a camisole now, and even the indestructible logo of the rainbow bridge spanning planets that sat over the breast pocket was cracked and faded.

Gently, Tesa extricated herself from the mass of warm feathers and left the shelter, signaling to the others to stay behind. The spot left vacant by her absence fil ed in quickly, and only Lightning watched her approach the sleeping Jib.

The young man blinked as her shadow crossed his face, then glanced around disoriented, finally turning toward the River. As soon as he did, water spouts sounded in the deepest channel. . . ten . .. twenty--Tesa lost count.

Opening her mind, she felt their music wash over her. It was different from last night, more like conversation. Or maybe she was more accustomed to it.

Where are we going? Are you hungry? This plant is sweet.
It wasn't that simple, but it resembled that kind of exchange.

Jib turned to her, that other-worldly expression on his face. "Can you
hear
them?"

Tesa nodded. It was a special, intimate contact, and she regretted deeply that she had to ask him to give it up.

"I
heard
them even in my sleep," he signed. "It was hard to rest. .. but. .. still, very enjoyable. Like someone putting dreams right into your head."

"Jib.. .." Her signs forced his attention back to her. "We've got to talk.. . ."

His face was innocent of expression, as if he couldn't imagine what she wanted.

"I want to be honest with you," she told him. "I want to be sure you know why I'm sending you to the
Singing Crane."

His expression darkened. "We've already had this talk. . . ."

"Not completely. I didn't want... to discuss this in front of Bruce. I'm worried about you . . . about. . . your health."

Now he only seemed confused.

"Your
mental
health."

"Oh, come on ... not
that
again. . . ." His expression changed. As if something had just occurred to him, he asked, "You're not planning on keeping me there for our whole stay, are you?"

83

She'd hoped he wouldn't ask her that question.

"Tesa, you've got to give me a fair go! It's
my
contact!"

"I know. And I know how disappointed you must feel. But before I can let you continue communicating with the Singers, Jib, I've got to talk to Rob."

"You
know
what he'll say!"

"No, I don't," she insisted. "You said yourself that telepathy with these creatures was different from anything you've experienced. I agree with that.

There may be no effect on a TSSsensitive individual... or the effect may be worse. I can't use you as a guinea pig to test that out. What kind of a ...
friend
would I be if I did?"