Authors: Bernadette Gardner
Icarus Unbound (15 page)
136
Icarus Unbound
by Bernadette Gardner
Hours passed while the storm raged outside the aerie.
Only Lara's small fire kept the increasingly cold winds at bay, but the feeble heat seemed to do little for Odan, who shivered uncontrollably in the throes of a fever.
Lara had given up trying to get Jaran to sip some of the broth she'd made for Odan. There was little chance the injured man would be able to drink any, so it made sense for Jaran to eat and keep his strength up, but he refused. Instead he sat vigil at Odan's bedside, watching each labored breath as Odan struggled to fight the pain of his symbion's injury.
Together they'd attempted to clean the wound, but their ministrations had only brought Odan more discomfort. He'd remained semi-conscious, calling for Jehri and seemingly unaware that Jaran and Lara were with him.
Lara sighed and watched the brothers from the far side of the aerie's main room where she could sit and look out the window at the storm. She found herself wishing it had been Odan's leg or arm that had been broken. At least then he wouldn't be at the mercy of the symbion hormones.
Unfortunately, no matter how long one of the birds spent joined to an Icarian, they still reacted with their animal brain when sick or injured. The symbion, who could no longer see through its own eyes or experience the world through its own senses, was terrified of its own immobility. Its fear was in part responsible for Odan's condition. Without treatment by an experienced Icarian healer, he would very likely die from 137
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shock caused by the stress of the symbion, even if ultimately the injury itself was not as severe as it looked.
Several times Lara had tried her radio and gotten nothing but static as a response. She kept staring at the small device, hoping the air would clear just long enough for her to get a signal through.
"Jaran, you should rest. I'll watch Odan for a while," she offered finally, hoping a turn at the window watching the relentless rain fall might lull her mate to sleep.
He ignored her, and she was just about to rise and physically drag him away from the alor pallet when she noticed a bright spot among the waves. Leaning out the window into the deluge, she strained her tired eyes to focus on what appeared to be a sliver of moonlight hitting the churning water in the distance. Could it be a break in the clouds? Maybe the eye of the swirling storm would give them enough of a clear window to get a transmission to the research station.
Lara tried her radio again, but only static answered her frantic call. She refused to be deterred though and rose quickly to head out the archway.
If Jaran noticed her leave, he gave no sign. Outside, the cold rain lashed her and the wind stole her breath, but in the distance to the west she could now clearly see a break in the clouds through which the light of Icarus's single moon shone.
The hole in the storm grew as she watched, but remained distant. In fact it seemed to be circling away from the aerie.
Desperation sent her into the air. A flight of two or three kilometers would take only minutes on a calm night, but 138
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against the driving wind, it took her half an hour to reach the spot around which the cyclonic winds revolved.
Here the air was calm and the water below sparkled in the cool rays of moonlight. The eye of the storm was small and moving quickly, but Lara managed to keep herself gliding along on the warmer thermals at the center of the open space long enough to try her radio again.
A familiar voice responded, and she almost dropped the device in her excitement. Crying with relief she relayed their approximate position based on the coordinates she remembered from Kiala's maps and told the weather station attendant about Odan's injuries. Her colleague assured her the emergency shuttle would be on its way within the hour and they had only to keep their patient safe and warm until help arrived.
"Thank you! I thought we'd never—"
A sudden gust of cold wind snatched the radio transmitter from Lara's hand and sent it tumbling toward the waves. She would not have gone after it, not now that she'd made contact with a rescue team, but the storm had different ideas.
The eye had shifted rapidly, and its edges seemed to close in on her. The wind caught one of her wings and spun her around, leaving her breathless and disoriented. In an instant the shaft of moonlight which had led her to salvation disappeared, and utter blackness surrounded her. Not only could she no longer see the shimmering waves below, she had no idea in which direction she'd flown from the island.
The warm thermal on which she'd been gliding faded rapidly, 139
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and her body dropped like a stone for several meters until she was able to catch another updraft.
Now, completely turned around, she had no idea how far she was from land or water. She could hear the waves rushing—or was it the sound of the rain as its driving force increased? Panic crept up from her gut when she realized any direction she turned was just as likely to lead her farther out to sea than closer to the island where she'd left Jaran and Odan. She couldn't land and she couldn't stay in the air until the storm cleared and risk exhausting her symbion. Her only choice was to pick a direction and hope for another ray of moonlight to guide her back to safety.
At some point, Odan's breathing changed from quick, labored panting to slow, deep inhalations. Despite the pain, he'd finally fallen asleep. His skin was pale and covered in a layer of clammy sweat, but he'd stopped shivering, and the clenched muscles in his jaw had relaxed.
Jaran allowed himself a deep, cleansing breath and sat back on his haunches. Odan would awake to misery, but at least for now he'd escaped the agony of his broken wing. The storm couldn't last much longer.
Vaguely, Jaran recalled hearing Lara speak to him. She'd likely gone outside the aerie's overhanging stone archway to try to contact the research station. She'd been gone for some time.
It embarrassed Jaran that he couldn't say when Lara had left the aerie. With a glance at his brother, he hoisted his weary body from the ground and headed for the entrance. He should have paid more attention to Lara, but his concern for 140
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Odan had overshadowed everything. He'd blamed his brother for this predicament, and that shamed him as well. All Odan had wanted was to help Lara and Jaran stay together. Only his brother knew the true depth of Jaran's feelings for his mate and how the torment he'd heaped upon her as a child served to insulate him from the fear of losing someone else he loved.
Odan had risked his life to help Jaran retrieve Lara and now they both had to assume responsibility for getting him back safely to a healer. He and his mate could iron out their problems later and decide together how or if they should proceed with this union, but only if Odan could be there to lend his guidance.
Jaran didn't need to call her name to know Lara would not answer. Beyond the steady thrum of the rain, there was no sound outside the stone walls of the old aerie. Nothing moved. She'd left him again ... only this time he knew it wasn't to escape his overbearing insistence that they would make a viable mating pair but to help save Odan.
She'd flown into the storm, maybe in an attempt to reach the research island's tiny weather station where their radio transmissions could not.
When he saw the blinking lights near the horizon, his heart leapt. She'd succeeded! His mate had done more than prove herself to the committee. She'd saved Jaran's only surviving family, and for that he would make certain the committee praised her and permitted her to continue as co-leader.
Despite the shuttle's distance, Jaran found himself waving and shouting for the small craft as it circled the island closer 141
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and closer, careful to avoid jutting rocks in the dangerous winds. When the ship finally set down, he ran to the opening hatchway and greeted the rescue team, which was led by Jehri.
His sister-in-law bounded out of the shuttle and into Jaran's arms. He steadied her and set her on her feet on the slippery ground.
"Where is he?" she asked, all formalities set aside. Jaran didn't care.
"He's inside, resting. We set his wing, but the break was bad."
Jehri nodded and drew herself up straight. Hoisting a medical bag on her shoulder, she headed resolutely toward the aerie with two other research station medics and Lidan, an Icarian healer, following closely at her heels. Jaran ducked his head into the shuttle and found the pilot, a human from the research colony.
"I commend you for attempting a flight in this storm. You saved my brother's life," he said.
The man offered a self-deprecating grin. "My job, sir. This is a balmy spring day where I come from."
"Where is Lara?" Jaran asked when he realized there seemed to be no one else in the shuttle except the human pilot.
"Sorry, sir?"
"Laramee Faulkner. She must have been the one who contacted you. Why isn't she with you?"
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"We thought she was with you, sir. She called in and gave us the coordinates of this island. We assumed she was on the island at the time."
Cold realization wormed its way through Jaran's exhausted body. His next desperate question to the pilot was cut off by the return of Jehri and the medics. The others carried Odan between them, carefully supporting his wing. Jaran stepped out of their way and allowed them space to bring Odan into the shuttle and settle him on a transport stretcher.
"Where is Lara?" he asked Jehri once Odan's stretcher had been secured. Jehri looked up from tending her mate, and her expression broke Jaran's heart. She didn't need to answer him. He knew her response would be the same as the pilot's.
Lara was out in the storm somewhere. Jaran could have stopped her from going, but at what cost to Odan?
"Get inside the shuttle, sir," the pilot shouted over the rising wind. "We're about to take off."
Jaran wanted to decline. His first instinct was to launch himself into the air and begin a search for his mate, but logic won out over panic. He would never find her on his own. The shuttle had a better chance of locating her with its radar and scanning computers. Once Odan was safe, he could ask the pilot to fly him back in a search pattern between here and the research station and he wouldn't stop until he located her.
"Jaran, come on. We have to go." Jehri's hand on his arm spurred him into action, and he pulled himself into the shuttle and took a seat next to her. "They'll find her. I know they will."
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"
I'll
find her," he corrected as the shuttle door closed out the incessant hum of the rain. "Or I'll die trying."
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At daybreak Jaran landed at Alpha Island. He'd been in the air for hours, both inside and outside the patrol shuttle searching for Lara. She hadn't returned to the island from which they had rescued Odan and she hadn't returned to the royal aerie either.
Exhausted, but determined to continue his search after checking on Odan, he joined Jehri in the infirmary.
Odan's mate sat at his side and held his hand as his eyes opened for the first time since Jaran and Lara had dragged his battered body into the abandoned aerie.
"It's been a long night," Odan whispered after surveying the worried faces that hovered over him. "I feel like I've been asleep for weeks."
"You'd better get used to the feeling. You'll be in bed for weeks until your wing heals completely," Jehri told him. "At least you'll be able to fly again."
"What about the mating cycle?" Odan asked with a concerned glance at his mate. "Can I—"
"We know he's feeling better if he's thinking about sex,"
Jaran offered with a half smile. He was too worried about Lara to laugh, but seeing his brother grin made him feel marginally better.
"A broken wing might keep me out of the air, but it won't keep me out of Jehri's bed," Odan said, twining his fingers with his mate's.
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Jehri fluttered her eyelashes and her wing tips in mild embarrassment. "I think the medics have given him too much pain killer. He cannot hold his tongue."
Odan's response was cut off by the arrival of a shuttle pilot, led into the infirmary by Daralei who had flown from the royal aerie to attend her liege.
"Is there word of Lara?" Jaran rose unsteadily, damning the human technology that could create flying ships but not give them the capability of locating his missing mate.
"We've picked up a radio blip, but it's coming from an area of open ocean," the pilot said, his voice steady and professional. "We scanned the area and found no sign of life.
My guess is she dropped her transmitter, and it sank."
Jaran refused to accept any other possibility. "Renew the search from that point outward."
"Already done, sir. We're on a second pass now, but we haven't found anything. Icarian patrols are searching all the aeries on the map you gave us."
"Are they searching the rookeries? Lara might have attempted to land among the nesting symbion because of what happened to her mother."
"We'll check out the rookeries, sir, but a shuttle can't land there."
"If you find her there, tell me and I'll retrieve her," Jaran said. "In the mean time I can't wait here any longer. I'm going to continue the search."
Jehri touched Jaran's arm. "You've been flying all night.
You're exhausted."
"It doesn't matter. Let me go."
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