Silent Songs (33 page)

understand. "I don't know what you're saying," she said through her tears, thinking it might bring him back to reality.

He immediately struck her across the face with the blaster. Jane's tooth shattered, and her mouth filled with blood. He raised the weapon again and she braced herself, thinking that he would probably pistol-whip her to death in his rage. She hoped, vainly, that would satisfy him, that he would let the others live.

Then, another song rang out through the bridge, and every soldier stopped.

In spite of her pain, Jane turned toward the doors. There stood another invader, but this one seemed different. It wasn't just his color--he was red and blue, like some others-- but the way he held himself. Stepp knew this had to be Dacris' commander. She knew, too, that he was furious.

The soldiers moved, making a path for him, then squatted on the floor.

Dacris, however, did not squat. But he did stand stock-still,

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his eyes locked on the big red-and-blue. Calmly, the leader walked to where the dead lay. He stared at the bodies, at the carnage on
the
bridge, then at Stepp's ravaged face. Finally, he turned to Dacris.

He held out his hand and sang a few notes. For a moment, Dacris hesitated, but final y he placed the bloodied blaster in his leader's hand. Then Dacris left the bridge.

The leader turned to Stepp and she tried to stand up straight. As he sang, the translator on his wrist spoke for him. "I am Atle, the First-in-Conquest. I regret that you were injured. Your wounds will be attended to by a physician of your own species. I mourn with you for this terrible loss of life. We consider killing the most heinous waste, especially in warfare. Apparently, we may have to reconsider this attitude."

He paused, as though that last thought was the most repulsive he could imagine. "When you are feeling better, we will meet. There is much about your ship we need to know before we can take it back to our Home."

"And you think I'm going to tell you?" Stepp asked wearily, surprised that there was any defiance left in her.

"You will tell me," he said simply. "You can be persuaded."

Jane Stepp looked over the bodies of her friends and passengers, and thought bitterly that he was undoubtedly right.

"Tesa, don't do this," Jib begged.

The two humans stood on a dry, russet-colored plain north of the River of Fear as the evening breeze blew warm and humid around them. The rains had stopped, and the Wind people foraged, taking advantage of the swarming insects. The sight of more than a thousand Grus flocking together, eating and dancing, would've normally filled Tesa's heart with joy. She would've walked among them, caught insects for their young, maybe even danced.

But now she wondered if she'd ever dance on Trinity again. Around her Taller, Lightning, Flies-Too-Fast, and the rest of her cohort clustered like a squadron. Without a sled, she was land- bound until this was over--if it was ever over.

Clutching her lance until her knuckles were pale, the Interrelator tried to subdue her anger. " 'Don't do this.' 'Wait.' That's all you can say, Jib?
Don't
save my
people? Wait
for their deaths? I can't do that! That's not why I was sent here."

"You weren't sent here to become a warrior chief, either," he reminded her.

"You were sent here--"

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"To speak for the Grus. Well, there they are!" Her sweeping gesture encompassed all the avian leaders she'd just met with minutes ago. "The White Winds. The Gray Winds. The Plains Winds. The Snow Winds. .. .

They've told me what they want. They want the invaders off their World!

They
don't want to
wait!"

Taller had told the other leaders of the danger to the World, how his people had been forced from their territory, then Tesa had outlined her plan. It would be dangerous, and perhaps cost lives, but the only other option was to flee.

The Grus were unwilling to sit idly by while their enemy forced them off their own World.

"You were sent here to speak for them, sure," Jib agreed, "but you were also sent to
safeguard
their culture! What you're planning will change them forever, will teach them things they would never have needed to know. It could affect all their traditional interactions. And it will be
your
doing! Don't do it, I beg you. Take them out of here. Go west, away from the invaders'

settlement until the CLS--"

"The Grus don't
want
to wait for the CLS!" Tesa insisted, but doubt crawled across her mind. She had suggested taking the flock away, even though she feared the CLS would arrive so late, the invaders would be too entrenched to uproot. Had Taller read her doubts in her body language? He'd argued against relying on any outside force. She'd thought it was his own need to free Weaver immediately .. . but now she wasn't sure.

She changed the topic. "And the
Singers
can't wait for the CLS. I'm not just here to speak for the Grus, but for
all
intelligent beings on Trinity. I'm
obliged
to help the Singers."

The Maori seemed resentful, as if he suspected she had used that argument to convince him. Every day he grew more withdrawn, and they grew further and further apart. Now, when Tesa needed him, needed the only human friend she had for comfort, for advice, all they did was disagree. She tried to blame it on the TSS, but she didn't know anymore. The Indian woman feared he would end up being a hazard to her, to her plans--plans she was afraid to discuss with him. She felt a stab of guilt, then ignored it. She had no time for guilt, no time for hesitation.

"This is a mistake," he predicted.

A wing curled protectively around her, and she realized her cohort had clustered around her tightly. Taller held her as though to ward off Jib's signs.

Tesa dropped her lance to return his embrace. The young man turned away, then finally walked off, settling himself on the ground to stare off toward the River.

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"I don't understand him," Snowberry signed peevishly. "If he'd lost
his
parents,
his
home ..."

"Isn't he our friend anymore?" None-So-Pretty asked.

"Of course, he's our friend," Tesa assured the young female. But Lightning, Thunder, and Flies-Too-Fast seemed uncomfortable, as if they felt sorry that Tesa didn't realize the truth about Jib. "He argues with me.. . because he's afraid for your safety."

The youngsters gazed back and forth between the two humans, then finally foraged discreetly, allowing Tesa to be "alone" with Taller. "He really does care," she insisted to her partner.

"We don't need him to care about us," Taller signed gently. "We can care about ourselves.
You
need his caring more. And he can't give it to you. Do you understand why?"

In Jib's mind, her plans with the Grus leaders weren't the kind Interrelators were supposed to make. Interrelators were supposed to help different people interact
peacefully.
But Bruce was gone. So was Meg, Szu-yi, K'heera, her grandparents. She might never know what had happened to the
Brolga.
And Weaver. And without Weaver, Taller had no heart. And without Taller, what did Tesa have, but a job... just a job....

She moved closer to the huge white avian, feeling his heat, the softness of his feathers. Taller and Weaver were her partners. Their pain was hers. She didn't think Jib could understand that. She didn't know if any human could.

"Good Eyes," Taller explained patiently, "Jib can't help you because the River Spirits have taken his soul. He
hears
them all day, he calls to them in his sleep, he turns in their direction like a plant toward the Sun Family. You tell us that the Spirits are benign ... but they have taken his soul. He can't share his heart with you because his heart is in the River.. . and always will be. I'm sorry, Good Eyes. I know you love him."

Tesa watched Jib as he faced the River and realized her partner was right.

Why did this have to happen to him? Why did the Singers have to be telepaths? Why did the Anurans have to find
this
World? Why weren't there any other solutions for her and the Grus? Her head pounded as the endless questions chased themselves around her brain.

As two of the three Suns hovered over the horizon, Tesa gently extricated herself from Taller's embrace, then held her hands out in prayer.
Another
answer,
she beseeched the Wakan Tanka of the World,
there must be
another answer.
But there was nothing else written on the wind for her.

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She could not know when, or if, help might come from the Cooperative League of Systems. So, she would start tomorrow.

For millennia, the Grus had never fought anyone but each other, one on one, in small territorial squabbles. Tomorrow, they would learn to work together, they would learn sabotage and deception. The Grus, who enjoyed perfect harmony with their World, would learn to destroy, even kill. Tomorrow, Tesa would start teaching the Wind people of Trinity the guerrilla warfare techniques her own people had used in centuries of combat.

She picked up her lance, holding it out to the Suns.
In a sacred manner, we
pray,
she told the Wakan Tanka.
With clean hands, we pray. Show me the
way. Please . . . show me the way.

Beside her, Taller lifted his head and called to the Suns, sending his own prayer aloft with hers. The cohort picked up the cry and sent it on through the flock until a thousand voices joined her silent one, the vibrations of their call raising goose bumps on her skin.

Tesa swallowed as she remembered an old Lakota war song, and as the Grus sent their boisterous prayers to the heavens, she signed to the Suns as her ancestors had done long ago.

"This World is
ours.
They cannot harm us. They cannot harm one who has dreamed a dream like mine."

K'heera took the cover off the purifier and peered into the machine. Its efficiency had dropped to sixty percent, and she had to find the problem. A few more hours here at the hatchery's water treatment facility and she'd leave with Arvis for his home, where she'd assist in light housekeeping or appliance repair, be fed, and sleep in a pleasant environment. Her days had taken on a reliable sameness that she found comforting. Her hair was growing in, and she'd convinced Arvis, through the crude sign language she'd taught him, not to have it depilated again even though the short, bristly fur itched constantly. The constant pain from her teeth was something she'd learned to live with.

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At least her diet had improved. She couldn't have lasted much longer on the highly seasoned animal products they had been feeding her. Arvis provided her vegetable foods once he learned she needed them. K'heera knew her status was somewhere between a pet and a slave, but she didn't care much.

All that mattered now was doing her job well enough to avoid punishment.

She'd even found an odd comfort from her deafness--it kept her from being constantly assaulted by the twittering alien voices. Yet, K'heera still heard them in her dreams, where shift after shift of hairless amphibians brutalized her like an insensate slab of laboratory muscle.

Pulling out the filters, she found the malfunctioning one, using a diagnostic tool to analyze the problem. Some tenacious water mold had adapted itself to the filter's organic filaments, slowly breaking it down. The filter would need further repair, so she replaced it with a new one.

Moving around the large, featureless work area, she slid the malfunctioning filter into a more sophisticated analyzer and initiated its repair program. In spite of the press of aliens, she ignored the other workers. They had no way to communicate, and they were all dull-witted, even more so than Arvis. Most of them did repetitive tasks, while K'heera did complicated tasks. She didn't think less of them, she was simply indifferent. She feared, in time, that she would become just like them, terrified of the supervisors and too vapid to have an original thought.

Halfway through her repair, the Simiu youngster felt a tap. She turned to see the female alien who had been her trainer. And beside her stood Bruce.

They stared at each other wordlessly, stunned by each other's altered appearance. K'heera was shocked to see how thin and haggard he'd become. The trainer spoke to him and then, to the Simiu's surprise, Bruce signed to her in Grus.

"They're assigning me to work with you," he told her. "They want you to train me on these filtration systems. They're aware we know each other. They want me to be your translator, since you . .. can't hear their translating voders."

She noticed the nullifiers around Bruce's neck. The aliens had learned their lesson since she'd been deafened.

The trainer spoke to Bruce again.

"She's reminding us," he signed, "that we can also act as each other's persuaders, if our work is not acceptable."

The trainer showed them the rod, and K'heera squatted and signed rapidly,

"I understand, I understand," a simple gesture the

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aliens now recognized. It was a fitting way for an honorless person to end up, she thought, groveling before some nameless creature, wanting only to be fed, given employment, and kept free of pain. Bruce stared at her, his complexion sallow.

The trainer left them and K'heera turned back to her filters, to begin Bruce's training.

"K'heera," he signed, his hands trembling slightly, "it's so good to see you!

I've been so worried about you."

The Simiu stared at him in open amazement. He was
happy
to see her?

She'd thought he would hold her in total contempt for her submission. After all, wasn't it her capture that had alerted the aliens that there were other sentient beings on Trinity they could enslave?

"I'm so sorry about your hearing," he apologized. "Don't worry. When we get out of this, Terran doctors can fix that."

K'heera blinked slowly.
When we get out of this?
That kind of talk could get
her
punished. Didn't he understand that?