Silent Dances (48 page)

The Aquila was between them before he'd re
alized it had moved
;
fu
ri

ously it sc
re
amed at him. The human took a hasty step back as Tesa

signed something to it
.
It pulled in its wings
an
d closed its beak
,
but
never took its baleful eyes off Thorn. He'd never felt so confused.

"
What are you doing here
?"
Tesa asked bluntly.

Thorn glanced at his voder and showed her the data on its screen. "
Tracing

you
,
apparently
.
I thought I
was hot on the trail of the pri
vateers."

"You'd think they'
d make themselves more
accessible,"
she signed

sarcastically
. "
How'd you find us?"

"I'm telling the truth! You turned on your voder at dusk, an
d my tracer

program ale
rt
ed me. I followed the coordinates, but what I expected to

find was a Simiu ship and a nest of p
ri
vateers
--
not a woman I've been
needlessly mou
rn
ing." He hardly cared about her skepticism
.
It was
just more proof that this was really her
,
not some ph
an
tom illusion.

"Sounds like you had pretty urgent business with these people," Tesa

signed.

That'
s one way of putting it, Thorn
thought. Calmly he related the chain of events that had brought him to this place. His assignment from Eart
h
,
his

successes and failures,
an
d Peter
'
s involvement and death.

But as he re
lated these events, especially as he talked of Peter, Tesa's

exp
re
ssion g
re
w even g
ri
mmer
,
her eyes narrowing nearly to slits
.

Even Sailor seemed to be reacting, his

235

SILENT DANCES 235
feathers fluffing out until the avian seemed to be

puffed up
with air.

"You've got some damned nerve bringing Peter up," Tesa signed. "The

people of the World have named you his murderer!"

"Wait a minute! Look, I just got the crap beat out of me, and then I had to

cope with facing someone ... important to me ... who I'd thought was dead.

Now
you're accusing me of
murder?"

Sailor stepped in, relating the information the Travellers had given him

weeks ago in Black Feather's territory.

"Sure, Peter and I were there," Thorn admitted. "And we were upset, but not at each other. That's when he gave me this
program
.
It was the last time I

saw him alive."

"But the Blue Cloud people saw you kill the Collector,"
Sailor insisted
.

"They described your
skin and hair and
beard."

"Sailor," Thorn signed patiently, "do you know how many humans have skin and hair like mine? Did they say whether or not that human was taller than

Peter or shorter?"

Sailor pulled his head up, with a look that told Thorn that
hadn
'
t been pa
rt
of the conversation.

"Don't try to confuse him," Tesa warned.

"I'm not!
" Thorn
protested
. "
I'm telling the truth!"

"Besides,"
Tesa
signed
, "
someone on the
Baraboo
destroyed trees with a powerful weapon. They killed Thunder's father, and nearly killed her.
They

named you as their conspirator." She pulled up her voder and tapped in a

sequence. "Deny this."

Thorn looked at her voder. He noted the date and time of the recording. It

read, "Destroy the camera. I'll get Albaugh to pick it up later." His face grew grim.

"Cute. They wanted to be very sure I was the one who'd
find your
...

remains. I admit I knew that camera was there.
You
knew about' it, too.

But, someone else did
,
also." He
regarded her squarely. "The day after I found Peter's body, Bruce told me there was a damaged camera in the

forest. He caught me flat-footed, since I'd told him months before that none of

those cameras was functional. He practically
insisted
that I go get it. So I

agreed to go, to see if anything had happened to the Aquila nest. I found the

camera, and ... your
quilt."

236

"Sailor pulled me out of the lodge before the limb hit," she explained. "
But
your sto
ry'
s a little elaborate
.
Peter and Scott were Bruce
'
s close
friends."

"They were
my
fri
ends, too," Thorn reminded her. "Listen, I can
prove
my story!
I've got c
re
dentials, for c
ry
ing out loud!"

Tesa lifted an eyebrow. "
Going to show us your badge?"

"It's in my collar
," Thorn
assured her. "It's a program card with my
credentials, my assignment responsibilities, and other classified

information
.
You can plug it
ri
ght into your voder
."
She still had that
disbelieving exp
re
ssion. "It's facto
ry
sealed
!
Read
-
only!
I couldn
'
t
have manufactured it here." He fumbled with a seam in his collar,
acutely

aware of the sudden tension in the Aquila
'
s body. Finally, he held out

the tiny c
ar
d.

Sailor took it, eyeing it curi
ously before handing it to Tesa. "I must say,

Good Eyes
,
I see no lie in his eyes."

Tesa only plugged the car
d into her voder.

"See." Thorn showed her his translator.
Both their voders displayed

Thorn
'
s credentials as his machine
"
read" hers. "Peter
'
s program
tells me what you're doing
,
but
without
notifying you. This is one of the best programs he ..." Thorn
glanced at both voders
,
then looked again. A
terse message trailed along the bo
tt
om of the two screens, followed by

an answer
.
Thorn
'
s voder highlighted coordinates above the

dialogue
.
The sender was at the scientists
'
camp
.
The
re
ceiver--the p
ri
vateers
'
ship
--
was dangerously close.

Tesa was staring at her voder,
reading the b
ri
ef conversation passing

between the p
ri
vateers
'
ship and someone at the camp shelter
.
She
looked at him
,
her eyes softening.

"Apologize later," he told her. "I'
ve got to find that ship, it's ne
ar."
He
moved to leave and the Aquila followed. He froze
. "
Come on, Tesa
,
call off your dog. This is se
ri
ous."

"
You're
not going without us," she signed flatly.

He was too outraged to respond.

"If you're
killed
,
then no one will have learned anything," she signed
coolly
., "
We've got to exonerate Ea
rt
h. We'll stay out of your way, but
we
'
re coming."

Thorn sighed.
How did you argue with someone who'd just come back

from the dead
? "Okay,
you can come, but you've got to do as I say
.
If
you give us away, we could all be killed." Tesa responded stiffly
. "
I
know how to be quiet!"

237

"Obviously. I never heard you
until
you stuck that thing in my face. You've got your sled?"

"It's parked over there." She turned to the Aquila_ and signed something.

The predator's body relaxed, but its cold eyes continued to appraise Thorn

as if he were a walking sirloin.

"Is that thing trustworthy?" he asked Tesa nervously. "I
mean
, how well trained is it?"

For the first time, Tesa gave him a real smile. "She's not
trained, Thorn
," she signed casually. "She's
intelligent."

238

Tesa crouched low in a deep, dry steambed that was bridged by a

crosshatched stack of trees blown over years before. They had crept through

the dry bed to reach this vantage point where they could peer through the

untidy logs at the privateers' vessel. Thorn explained that it was really a

Simiu ship, even though it had been designed to look just like the
Baraboo.

Now that Tesa was close to it, she could see it was much larger than the

Singing Crane's
shuttle.

It was barely dawn, but the ship's lights made it seem brighter. They'd been

spying for hours, eyeing the well-armed guards who kept watch as the rest of

the ship's crew slept.

At first, Tesa and Thorn had peppered each other with questions about the

past weeks, but as the suns rose, they concentrated on watching the

increased activity around the ship. The crew was up and working; Thorn had

counted eight of them. They departed in shifts, taking large a-grav sleds into

the woods, always along the same path. The sleds were nothing like Tesa's

sleek flyer, but were heavy-duty machines for moving freight. They were

slow, but efficient, with strong shields to protect precious cargo.

238

239

The crew returned with their sleds piled high with spaceproof containers,

which they then loaded onto the ship.

Tesa glanced
at Sailor
, making himself small, his head up like a periscope

on a stalk, as he peered at the ship. She knew
the avian
was thoroughly

confused. His people competed for
mates
, leadership, and territory, but no

one tried to keep more territory than he could defend, or wished to have two

mates. And no one wanted to lead too big a flock, because things would only

get out of hand.

Tesa had explained
that some humans
felt driven to have so much territory

that even their own planet couldn't contain them. Sailor couldn'
t imagine

such a drive, but he'd believed what Tesa had told him.

Thunder, exhausted, was dozing, as though sleeping
under
trees were the

most
natural thing
in the World.

Tesa turned back to the ship. A tall man strode around the side of the vessel,

scanning
the treetops with binoculars. He was a tall Caucasian--Tesa's

height
, at least
--with a blond beard and hair. Tesa's eyes widened. "Thorn!

That's Jim Maltese! I recognize him from that holo Meg has ... only he didn't

have a beard then ..."

The biologist smiled grimly. "I guess to the Blue Cloud people, Terrans all

look alike." Then his face darkened as he regarded the most likely suspect

for Peter's murder.
"Ve
ry
interesting
. We've kept tabs on the whole crew who originally found Trinity, and according to Jamestown Founders, Mr.

Maltese is currently aboard an exploratory ship in deep space. He's still on

their payroll."

"That means ..." Tesa's eyes widened.

"...that the Founders have to be involved. I doubt if we'll be able to prove it,

but the negative publicity alone will discredit them"-he grinned boyishly--if

we ever get to tell anyone." He peered at Maltese
again
. "Bruce used to call him `the Falcon.' They were best friends once."

Tesa stared at Thorn. "You think Bruce ...?"

"I've thought it for a long time. A lot of things fit."

That depressed Tesa-but would she feel any better if their betrayer was

anyone else? A slim, elegant black woman approached Maltese. Tesa

recognized the woman Meg had called Deborah, another Founder

employee. When Meg had spoken of her she'd gotten misty-eyed, but Tesa

couldn't believe that Meg was any part of this.

240

"Peter
said
they were stockpiling
skins," Thorn
signed. "They must have cached them near here."

Tesa shifted, trying to recognize anyone else from Jamestown Founders, but

the rest of the crew were strangers. Suddenly Maltese waved
his arms at

the others, and they all turned. He was giving orders by the look of his

gestures. Tesa knew they were too far away for either Thorn or their voders

to be able to hear their conversation.

"Looks like they're getting ready to leave," Thorn decided. His eyes gleamed

excitedly. "I might be able to take out
two
guards ... I've
got
to get into that ship, disable it. If they get into metaspace, their next stop will be Sorrow

Sector, and we'll never catch them."

Tesa was suddenly distracted as Thunder began swiveling her head,

staring at
the sky.

"What's the matter with her?" Thorn asked, alarmed. "My people!" the raptor signed, looking into the air. "I can hear them. They're coming!"

Then Tesa could see them,
in singles
and in pairs,
massing like starlings

before migration. Worried that the Aquilas' powerful eyesight might reveal