Heritage of Flight (30 page)

Settling down before the computer, she tugged her crumpled notes from her pack. So tired, she thought, yawning. And it was warm in here. She should eat something before she started work, she supposed, but it was warm here, out of the wind...

There was no point in trying now. Her eyes were blurring; she might just as easily erase data she needed as enter the facts she had. But she'd be damned if she'd curl up on the Secess’ bed. She tugged another blanket from the pile, wrapped that around her too, and leaned against the rock wall, staring at Lohr's wings.

Should turn down the lights
, she thought drowsily. But the light and warmth were good, so good; and it was quiet here. She caught herself slumping to one side.
Why not? It's not as if I'm going to wake up and see big, black moths hovering over me to bring me to trial.
After all, the Cynthians had wanted the human settlers to climb up to the caves. Uriel and Ariel had invited them. Now she was sheltered, just as they had intended her to be.

Lohr's wings glittered and blurred before her eyes, shifted into a shining haze like the nebulae on the Cynthians’ wings as they danced in the high passes the way she'd seen them the last time she had climbed up here. Seen them, loved them—and been forced to destroy them.

No wonder some of the settlers had seen visions of black moths and death's-heads. If Pauli had eaten the ergot-ridden bread, she'd probably have seen them too—and deserved it.
Please let me make my peace with you
, she asked the silent, watchful caves.

Seeing visions
? she asked herself, chuckled without much humor, then yawned again. God, she was tired.

"Who's there?"

The deep voice woke her. She uncurled, herself and drew her sidearm. Halgerd must have seen the light and been just as reluctant as she to stride into the caves without warning, Now, finally, she heard footsteps on the rock.

"Who is it?” the man called again.

Pauli glanced at her weapon, shook her head, and holstered it. Halgerd had shown himself able to override the pain even of a blaster wound; either she killed him instantly, or not at all. And she had refused to kill him once, when he had been at her mercy. She saw no reason to change her mind.

"It's Yeager,” she replied. Her voice came out very light against the echoes of his words, and she walked quietly into the outer cave, the silvery blankets dropping from her shoulders, her hands carefully idle at her sides.

She had forgotten how tall he was, how the light shone on his hair and the beard he had grown to protect his face from the cold. Despite the beard and the bulk of his worn coverall and jacket, he carried himself like an ambassador, the single time Pauli had seen one. An intimidating sight, especially since Pauli knew how fast he could be, could draw his own weapons if he had to ... until she saw his eyes.

They were blue, as blue and as cool as Alicia Pryor's. But where Pryor's eyes could snap with aggravation or suddenly turn warm with compassion, Thorn's eyes were uncertain, even fearful, as he studied Pauli. She could almost watch the thoughts flicker behind them.
Why is she here? What incomprehensible, human reason has she for coming here?

He was very young, Pauli knew. No more than twenty—and how much of that time had been spent in stass tanks? No doubt this period of exile was the longest interval he had ever remained conscious.

But he met her eyes steadily, as if it were a duty he owed her. Finally, tentatively, he smiled.

"Lonely!” he announced, and his voice came out uncertainly, as if he rarely used it. “Now that there is another person here, now I know that ‘lonely’ describes what I felt. What a wonder, to feel such things and recognize them for the first time."

He swung around slowly, in order not to alarm her. “When I saw your light, I dropped my pack outside. Allow me to go and get it. Then, perhaps, you will tell me what I can do for you."

He vanished into the cold. In what seemed like a remarkably short time, he stamped back inside, an enormous load weighing him down. He swung it from his back with an ease that astonished Pauli, then stripped off his jacket and stood watching her.

"Dr. Pryor hasn't heard from you,” were the absurd first words out of her mouth. “She's been worrying about you."

He smiled as if someone had given him a gift. “I went back to the ruins of my emergency pod,” he said. “To salvage. But I never thought my absence would cause her concern.” Then he looked dismayed. “I still have so much to learn. How terrible if I have harmed her. Is she well?"

Pauli shook her head and stood aside to let him enter the caves he had made his own. “No, but that's not your doing,” she said. “None of it's your doing. But none of us are well. There's sickness, madness, in the camp. Madness?” She sought for a referent that Thorn would understand. “Like losing one of your brothers."

His eyes never left her. Once again she watched the struggle he put up to comprehend the baffling morass of born-human emotions. “This sickness,” he asked. “It is a plague? Or does it come from loneliness, as when one feels the death of a brother?"

Pauli lowered her head. “It comes from food. There was a fungus, a growth on the grain, and it made people sick. Some have even—” It had to be the warmth and her own exhaustion, but her voice was breaking, her eyes were filling in response to the innocent responsiveness in the tall man's eyes.

"Died?” he breathed. “This is too bad! And Dr. Pryor, who could help you, is sick.” He glanced around the cave. “There is food here. I can help you carry it to your camp. But not now. We both have come a long way today, and it is cold. Still, your presence has warmed this place for me.” He smiled, the disarming grin of a child. “How strange to come back to warmth and light! And despite your news, it is very pleasant. We will sit and eat, and I will learn what I can do to help."

His hand was on her shoulder before she could flinch away, and he steered her, as if she were something infinitely fragile, infinitely precious, back into the cave where Lohr's wings hung on the wall. “There!” he said, and opened out another blanket. “Now, we can both be warm. Are you hungry or thirsty?"

Let him play host
. The same intuition that prompted Pauli to test the littlests, or goad Beneatha into a life-giving rage, awoke now, and she nodded, letting the man talk out his astonishment that someone would seek him out—and his fear. Gradually her own alarm in his presence faded too. The hot cup he handed her warmed her hands; its steam soothed her chapped face. As she sipped, she began to speak.

"The computer!” Halgerd exclaimed. “Of course you need the one your people left here. But you tell me you are
asking
me if you may use it? Why should you ask to use what is yours?” He activated the machine, and with a speed and deftness Pauli could not match, began to enter her information.

"Ha! this is a very old thing,” he spoke as much to himself as to her. “I ... Halgerd himself ... knew of it, though, of course, it no longer existed on Freki. But on Earth, it was known for centuries throughout the European region. There is a list here: the Rhine, Paris, Lorraine, Flanders, Spain, even far to the north in Sweden, where my ... where Halgerd's people came from long ago. Thousands of people died. You say a dancing madness? Sleeplessness, visions, feelings of hot and cold, of limbs dropping away. And they prayed to their ... their saints, but no one answered."

He looked up at her. He was actually pale, almost sick with distress. “It is hard, this living on planets,” he murmured. “And your Dr. Pryor is sick too.” He looked up at her with the perceptiveness of a child, or of his father. “What about
your
child?"

There had been a night when he had tried to betray the settlement to his masters, yet had stopped long enough to inquire if she should be out so soon after giving birth. Before she realized, she had laid a hand on his, to reassure and silence him. “Serge is fine. But many of the children are sick. Including Ari, the boy whose life you saved."

Halgerd rose so rapidly he upset his empty cup. “What can I do?” he asked.

"Let me use the machine,” Pauli said. “Let me stay here tonight—no, this is your home now, and I am a guest. In the morning, I will call the settlement and tell them what I have found; and then I will return home."

"But I have food here, supplies, even the computer: things that you need. People should come and get them."

"And what will you do then?” she asked.

"Whatever I am ordered. It has been very long since I have had Orders."

"Thorn,” Pauli leaned back to stare at him. “There's more to this business of being human than just following other humans’ orders. These supplies here—we gave them to you. If you want to share them, I'll accept with thanks. But think, man. What will you do without them? Wait for me to tell you what to do again?"

"There are children down there. True-humans. If they need them..."

"Dammit, don't just transfer your stupid, mindless loyalty from your Republic to us! Think of yourself as ‘true-human,’ the son of a man with one of the finest brains ten star systems have ever seen.
Use
that mind you've got. Use it to figure out what you can do, if you want to help us, and how!"

"All I know,” the pilot said slowly, “is ships. Fighting. Loyalty. And now, the new thing I learned when I first saw you here. That I had been lonely."

"I too know ships and fighting,” Pauli said. “If you come down, you may not be lonely. Other things, yes. But not lonely. Will you try?"

He drew a deep breath and set his cup upright with shaking hands. “Would they..."

"Thorn, right now they'd welcome anything, if it gave them more of a chance! I can't promise that they'll all be glad you've come down. Hell, when you're dealing with people, I can't promise you anything. Except that I'll try. Dr. Pryor will try; and Thorn, she'll be very, very glad."

The tall man sighed and after a long time, he smiled. “She was my father's friend. I will come down."

He glanced up at the wings, then walked into the outer cave from which came the clatter and bustle of someone packing. She turned back to the computer, fed in the rest of her data, and waited for a hard-copy reply, which she tucked into her tunic. Again, the lack of survey data on Cynthia had harmed them. Ergotism usually appeared after a harsh winter, followed by a rainy summer. If they'd only known, they could have taken precautions. They could take them, though, from now on.

The crops would grow, and the settlement could recover. Most of the colonists were young and strong; they would heal, except for the people who had lost limbs, or their sight, or whose wits might wander for years yet. And even for them, surely there was much that could be done. There was hope yet.

Quietly, so that Thorn might not hear and be distressed, Pauli laid her head down beside the computer console, and wept.

"Captain?” came Thorn's voice, careful, respectful of her privacy—in his own quarters, for pity's sake!

Pauli scrubbed at her face and wiped her eyes. “What is it, Thorn?"

"I packed the food first,” Thorn announced. “Perhaps we should sleep before we climb down.” He entered the room and scooped up several blankets before he stopped, studied her carefully, and sat down on them. “You cannot sleep, either,” he said. “We should still rest."

Pauli checked the precious data plaque in its sealed pocket, powered down the computer, and leaned back against the uneven, cold rock. Glancing at her for approval, Thorn turned down the light and smiled.

"Captain?” he asked.

"If you're going to live among us, Thorn, try calling me Pauli. Everyone else does—except maybe Beneatha when she's angry at me. Which is most of the time."

"I remember her,” said Thorn. “She thought I should be executed. Will she still hate me?"

"Can't say, Thorn. I truly can't. Right now, though, I don't think she can hate anyone more than she hates herself. For the rest of it, though; it'll be what you make of it."

Thorn eased himself down comfortably on his blankets. “You know ... Pauli, you cursed me for ‘mindless loyalty.’ I must tell you something, before we join the people..."

"The
rest
of the people,” she corrected. Alicia would have been proud of her for that one.

"Yes. The other people. You know,” he said, drowsily, “when my brothers and I fired on the planets like Wolf IV, I did what I was ordered to do. Orders were all that I had, and I didn't question if they were right or wrong. I didn't know that such a question existed. I wish, now, that I had. I think if I had known that there were people on those worlds, people like the boy Ari, and the other one, who fired at me, then gave me back my breath, I might not have obeyed. Then they would have killed me.

"But I'm alive now, and it hurts worse, even than feeling the deaths of my brothers, who died quickly and cleanly. Now, though ... Pauli, is this hurt a way of making up for the deaths I caused? Can I ever do that?"

Pauli glanced up despite eyelids that weighed her down like a heavy pack. Halgerd's face was haggard, his eyes bright. But he did not weep.
Too young to weep yet
, she thought.
Too young to know how much he has to weep over
.

"I don't know, Thorn. I don't think people ever know.” Her own eyes stung.

"Then what do they do, if they can't know?"

"They work as hard as they can. And when they can work no more, they try to sleep."