It had been years since anyone kissed her in
that way. The last time it had been one of those laughing playmates
on Belta, a boy with silver hair and soft gray eyes, and he was
long dead, gone with all the others the Cetans had killed ten years
ago, and no man had kissed her since. That had been largely her own
doing. She wanted it that way. A tear rolled down her cheek. Tarik
wiped it away with one long finger.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. `’I didn’t mean
to make you cry.”
‘I wasn’t weeping,” Narisa snapped at him in
sudden irritation. “I never cry. Tears are a sign of weakness. It’s
the sunlight. I’m not used to it after so long on a spaceship. It’s
so terribly bright.”
Tarik looked hard at her, opened his mouth to
speak, but what he would have said she never knew, for suddenly one
of the birds was there. It was the blue one this time, and it
glided along the stream, its great wings barely missing the trees
and bushes on either side.
Tarik jumped up and stood on the rock in his
bare, wet feet, watching it. The bird flew past them, heading
downstream to disappear around a bend. There was complete silence
after it had gone, as though the very forest held its breath. Then
they heard it far above their heads, the beat of its wings followed
by the call Narisa had heard the day before.
`’Chon. Chon-chon. Chon.”
It approached again from upstream, flying
along the same route as before, until it was hidden from sight at
the bend of the stream. A third time the bird repeated its
performance, and by then Tarik had his boots and jacket on, and was
urging Narisa to hurry with her own boots.
“We’ve been going in the right direction,” he
said excitedly. “Come on, Narisa.” He grabbed one of her hands,
pulling her to her feet and dragging her after him.
They reached the bend in the stream. There
was no sign of the bird, but they kept going, and Tarik saw to it
that they moved faster, as though he knew something important lay
ahead.
Where they now found themselves, the forest
grew ever thicker with no clearings at all. Underbrush constantly
blocked their way, and Tarik and Narisa had to frequently hold back
branches, or sometimes large bushes, so they could force their way
through. Above them huge vines hung from tree to tree. Several
times Narisa thought she saw movement among them, or between the
bushes or trees, but she could not stop to investigate. She did not
want to lose sight of Tarik.
The forest was so dense that there were long
stretches when they could not see the stream, but had to listen for
it so they could follow its direction. In spite of all the
obstacles, Tarik pressed on. After an hour or so of the rapid pace
he had set, Narisa was gasping for breath.
“Could we stop?” she panted. “Just for a
little while, please. You should rest yourself, or you will be sick
again.”
“No, I won’t. I’m perfectly healthy now. I
feel wonderful. We might eat something, though.”
He brought out the wafers of compressed food,
and they sat between two bushes in a space so small their knees
were touching. They ate quickly, then drank a little water.
“I’ll leave you for a few minutes.” Tarik
rose.
“Wait.” She wanted to say,
don’t leave
me,
but could not bring herself to admit she was afraid of the
forest, which now pressed closely upon them. And she, too, wanted a
few minutes alone to attend to personal needs. “I’ll go to the
stream. I’d like to put some cool water on my face. I’ll stay
there, right by the stream, until you come, so we won’t lose each
other.”
Tarik nodded and moved off into the thick
greenery. Narisa headed toward the stream. It was a short time
later when, on the narrow, muddy verge, she bent to wash her hands
and then her face, that she became aware the bird was flying along
the stream once more. She watched it, thinking this was no special
guidance for herself and Tarik, but only the bird’s daily habit. It
was probably looking for food. Perhaps it ate the fish Tarik had
shown her earlier. She knew little about birds, but it seemed to
her this one’s long, toothed beak would be well suited to catching
fish. She wondered how they tasted, and whether she and Tarik might
catch and eat them when their wafers were all gone.
She watched the bird as it disappeared
downstream, then glanced around to see if Tarik had appeared yet.
She saw that one of the thick green vines had dropped off a nearby
tree and had begun crawling toward the stream. Narisa stared at it.
She stood in its way, and even as she heard Tarik’s tense voice,
she recognized it for what it was.
“Snake,” Tarik said from some distance behind
her. “A poisonous one, I think. Stay where you are. It may pass by
you if you don’t startle it.”
Narisa could not have moved if she had wanted
to. There was no place to go in that tiny area between dense
undergrowth and stream, and she was too frightened to do anything
at all. The snake was large, with black spots along its green body,
and she thought it was looking directly at her. It was big enough
to strike well above her protective boots. She stood frozen,
waiting.
“Don’t move,” Tarik said.
“No.” Her own voice sounded surprisingly
calm. “No, I won’t.”
From high overhead she heard the beat of
wings. She could not look up. Her eyes were fixed with hypnotic
intensity upon the snake. There was a flurry of blue feathers, and
the bird stood perched precariously upon a rock in midstream. The
snake slithered closer to Narisa.
The bird surged off the rock and pecked at
the snake. The snake twitched, turning toward the bird, its path
diverted from Narisa. The bird pecked again, drawing blood this
time, and the snake reared upward to strike its attacker. The bird
was now standing in the shallow water at the edge of the stream,
and as Narisa watched in horror, it stepped to one side, spreading
its wings. The snake struck with lightning speed. The bird, equally
as fast, took the blow on the edge of one extended wing. The snake
fell back and the bird pounced upon it with beak and outstretched
talons. In an instant the snake was dead. The bird dropped it, but
continued to stand over its prey.
Narisa felt Tarik’s arms around her as she
slumped backward against his chest.
“Don’t faint,” he warned her wryly. ‘There’s
no place to lay you down except in the stream.”
“I’m not going to!” Terror was replaced by
anger at his suggestion that she was weak and liable to faint. She
pulled away from him, but staggered as dizziness overcame her.
Tarik swept her off her feet and held her. “Put me down,” she
ordered.
At that he gathered her more closely to
himself and pressed his rough-bearded cheek against hers, holding
her captive in a warm embrace.
“If you weren’t frightened,” he said, “I
was.”
She felt her anger evaporating at his words,
and raised her arms to circle his neck, finding safety and comfort
in his strength.
The bird stood at the water’s edge, watching
them. Tarik loosened his grip on Narisa.
“Look at it.” He set her down slowly, his
eyes and mind now on the bird. “It saved you. That was a deliberate
act, Narisa. You can’t deny there is intelligence of some kind at
work here.”
Narisa was too grateful to be alive, and too
touched by his open concern for her, to argue with him. She steeled
herself and stepped forward. She did not want to go anywhere near
the dead snake, but there was something she must do. She had
recognized the bird by the jagged scar on its beak. It was time to
say thank you, and to help if she could.
She put out both hands, reaching toward the
wing the snake had hit. It was spread a little awkwardly, as though
the bird was deliberately holding it away from its body, but Narisa
could see no sign of blood or other damage. The three clawed
fingers at the last joint of the wing were curled slightly and
looked relaxed rather than tense with pain. Narisa should have been
afraid of the bird’s dangerous talons and beak, but she was not.
She put both hands on the wing at the spot where the snake had sunk
its fangs. Behind her she heard Tarik gasp.
There was no sign of injury. The feathers
were smooth and stiff to the touch, their radiant blue color
glowing against her own pale skin. Narisa stroked downward gently,
then lifted her fingers and stroked again. The bird cocked its
head, watching her closely, but did not move away. Narisa wanted to
stroke its chest feathers, too, and wondered if she would be
permitted. She lifted one hand. The bird side-stepped her, turned
toward the stream, and, opening its wings, took off, flying
straight downstream as it had done before.
Tarik was staring at her in amazement.
“What made you do that?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I simply had to do it. I don’t
think the wing was hurt at all. You saw how easily the bird
flew.”
“The snake may have struck the outer edge of
the feathers instead of flesh. Are you all right, Narisa? Can you
go on?”
“Certainly I can. I’d like to get away from
that snake at once.” Her voice was crisp, as if she were in
complete control of herself, though inwardly she was intensely
moved by what had happened, and confused by her own reactions. Deep
in her mind she was now certain Tarik was right about the birds;
they were intelligent, and they did communicate in some way. She
had known the bird wanted her to touch it, and she had not wanted
to resist. Accepting these factors meant going against all her
training, and against Jurisdiction laws. This strange planet,
combined with Tarik’s dangerously subversive ideas, were changing
her thought patterns, and it was most unsettling.
They resumed their journey downstream, Narisa
keeping a wary eye on the overhead vines as well as looking for
unfriendly beasts on the ground, but they saw nothing, nor did the
bird return.
The sun had set into a lavender and orange
dusk when the forest ended abruptly and they found themselves at
the edge of an immense lake. In the far distance a purple mountain
rose, crowned in white. To their left the stream they had been
following turned into a low waterfall, then wended its way through
a brief stretch of grasses and blossoming water plants, and at last
emptied itself into the lake. Beyond the stream the land rose in
rocky tiers until tall cliffs loomed over the lake. To the right of
where they stood, the land was flat and heavily forested, edged all
along the shore by clean white sand. Narisa thought there was an
island in the lake, but it was growing too dark to see well. All
was still. Not even a breeze stirred the placid water of the lake.
There was no sign of life.
Narisa turned toward Tank, looking at him
through the deepening dusk. “What do we do now?”
What they did was sit upon the soft white
sand and eat one wafer each out of their dwindling supply of
compressed food, washing down the inadequate meal with water from
the stream.
“Half rations,” Tarik said, measuring each
bite of his meal carefully to make it last as long as possible. “We
will continue in this way, one wafer at every meal for each of us
tomorrow, and again the next day until evening, when we divide the
last wafer in half and try to sleep hungry. In the meantime, we
will look for something edible.”
“How will we know what is safe to eat?”
Narisa wondered. “We have no equipment to test possible food
sources.”
“We couldn’t test the water, either, but that
hasn’t harmed us so far. We’ll just have to take our chances with
the food, too.”
“Perhaps,” Narisa began, scooping sand into a
mound to serve as a pillow, “just possibly, what the birds eat
might be safe for us, too. If we could discover what they eat.”
“Why, Narisa, are you becoming flexible about
regulations?” he teased.
“I see no reason to starve to death if there
is food nearby,” she replied stiffly. “Will you take the first
watch, or shall I?”
“There’s little point in standing watch,” he
said. “We are defenseless. But on the chance that danger might
come, I’ll stay awake first.”
Narisa lay down on the sand, and Tarik moved
to sit beside her, his knees drawn up with his arms resting on
them. He was so close to her that she could feel the warmth of his
body. She repressed the desire to touch him. There was no need for
physical assurance, she told herself. She could be quite certain he
would remain exactly where he was until it was time for him to
waken her so he could sleep. Tarik had always been a dependable
first officer.
“It’s not so very dark,” she murmured,
letting her mind drift toward slumber. “There are two moons. That’s
what the computer said back on the pod. Two moons around this
planet.”
“How romantic.” There was lazy humor in
Tarik’s voice. “But there are very few stars. Have you noticed?
‘The night has a thousand stars, and the day but one.’ From where
we are, that appears to be precisely the case. Only a
thousand.”
“Clouds of hydrogen gas blocking the light
from the others.” Narisa heard his low laugh mocking her
matter-of-fact response just before she gave herself up completely
to sleep….
She was on Belta, and the silver river, edged
with gently drooping trees, flowed before her, just as she
remembered it. The sun was warm, the breeze soft, and she could
hear her parents talking. Her little sister was laughing, playing
at some childish game. She could not see any of them. There was
only the river and the trees and the sound of their beloved
voices.
The silver-gold Beltan sun disappeared behind
a cloud, and suddenly there were other voices, loud Cetan words
destroying the peaceful day. Then came the screams, over and over
again. The very air grew darker, and thunder rumbled across the
sky. Narisa knew she had to find her parents and her sister, had to
help them. She could not,
could not,
let the Cetans kill
them again. Not again. She almost found them this time. She was so
close. She heard a last loud shriek.