Silent Songs (23 page)

The gentle touch of stubby fingers along Taniwha's back made him look up as his father swam over them. Mother waved a flipper and the male gestured lazily back at her.

The youngster suddenly felt his mother cast her mind, touch a stranger's, then retreat. She'd spied the lone White Wind, perched on one long leg on the River's bank, head tucked, sleeping. Even in his sleep, the herd could sense the troubled thoughts of the young avian. He'd lost his friend, the Simiu.

The herd swam on. Taniwha thought about sending a picture of the sleeping White Wind to Jib. How funny they looked, the calf

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thought, with their weed-thin legs and feathered bodies standing up in the air. But Jib was asleep, too. Land beings craved sleep, Mother had explained, because they had to endure their terrible weight without the benefit of water to buoy them up. It exhausted them so much they had to sleep the night through, and could actually die if they didn't get enough of the deathlike torpor, she'd told him. Remembering that, Taniwha decided to wait until they'd found the Hunter and the Simiu.

The herd pushed on through the dark night waters as the Moons climbed high, two of them full, and the smallest half-dark. In the Moons' cycle of the Parents and Their Calf, the calf was now half-grown, just like Taniwha.

When the smallest Moon grew full it would pull away from its parents, just as he would in another year. Over the Moons shone the Calf star, and the four orbs dappled the water silver.

Eventually, the herd came to a wide bend where there was a broad open beach and an adjoining marsh. The herd had not been here since spring, and weren't prepared for the surprising changes they saw. Strange, unnatural objects perched up high on odd-looking legs had grown out of the River mud, some of them growing over the River itself. The Singers swam closer, having never seen anything like this on the World before.

Taniwha's father sniffed the air, tasting the new scents floating there. When an upright, two-legged being emerged from one of the things and began observing them, the herd realized the objects had to be some kind of shelter.

This must be another settlement of un-Worldly beings, Father decided, like Jib's, and the herd agreed. Creatures on brightly lit flying things, not unlike the one Jib had used, roamed the beaches, marsh, and River even at this late hour. Several of the beings flew lower, as though to greet the herd, so the Singers threw water into the air as a welcoming gesture. Soon, there were more hovering aliens than the herd could count. Father wondered why Jib's group was so small and this one so vast, but Taniwha didn't know. He'd never seen anything in Jib's mind that had indicated this group even existed.

The aliens warbled and pointed at the Singers, their sounds

different from those made by Jib and his friends. But Mother explained that creatures that vocalized depended on air to carry their messages, and air distorted sound.

[ Suddenly a being leaned over its flyer, waving a multicolored device.

Taniwha wanted to touch the un-Worldly being's mind, so Mother joined him to soften the connection and probe unobtrusively.

But this being was nothing like Jib, whose thoughts were

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warm and always curious. This being's mind was fragmented, its thoughts cold and calculating, as if its brain held nothing but appetite and need.

Mother grew perplexed and probed further, following the trail of neurons.

Bored, Taniwha cast about for a mind that he might understand.

Finally, he found someone he knew. It was an avian, dozing fitfully in the highest tree. He stroked the mind the way Mother had taught him, cautiously, so as not to wake the creature.

It was the missing Hunter, he realized delightedly. Could the Simiu be near?

Even in sleep, the Hunter's mind was filled with concern for that four-legged alien. Taniwha began searching for K'heera. Finally, he located her unWorldly mind song deep inside one of the odd shelters.

Thinking she, too, must be asleep, he moved cautiously around the outskirts of her thoughts. Curious as to what the inside of the shelter was like, Taniwha searched for the Simiu's vision center. It didn't occur to him that K'heera might sleep with her eyes closed, as he did. Finding the proper pathways, he peered through her opened eyes. Small, cool suns blazed brightly, while vividly colored beings scurried around. There were two aliens nearby, but like the creatures around him, their minds were too fragmented for him to understand.

Taniwha wanted to know why K'heera was here when Jib was back at the other camp, worried about her. He wondered, too, why she was not resisting his mind-touch, as she'd done before. The Simiu disliked the Singer's music, and Taniwha had found it difficult to sing with her. Her lack of response now could only be due to her sleeping. He considered leaving. Having found her should be enough, but he knew Jib would want to know more.

The calf searched through her eyes again, so he could show Jib later.

Everything was bright, the strange creatures bustling around busily, tending alien machines, and .. . Taniwha stopped, sensing wrongness. Something. ..

was happening .... The aliens. .. were
doing
things to K'heera. Something was happening to her teeth and to her fur. Another creature was doing something to an arm .... Taniwha was baffled. Just then an alien dripped a liquid into K'heera's open eyes. It stung furiously.

Confused, the calf cautiously ventured into the Simiu's consciousness, prepared to leap out as soon as he sensed her rejection.
But
instead of a harmless, random sleep pattern like Jib's, he
found
himself
plunging
into
an
abyss of pain and terror, a sickening morass of helplessness
and
agony.

Instantly, Taniwha
understood everything that had happened and was
happening
to

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K'heera. She was
not
asleep--she was paralyzed, but totally conscious and aware. Terrified, the calf absorbed her meeting with these aliens, her poisoning and capture, and the cruel treatment she'd suffered for hours now.

Taniwha understood the significance of their experiments because K'heera understood them. They were pulling blood from her body, while pumping a variety of substances into her to discover her reactions to them. The things she'd been through had exhausted her, yet her captors cared nothing for her need for sleep or respite from pain. Instead, they patiently analyzed her endurance. Anytime she lapsed into sleep, a device strapped to her forehead delivered an excruciating shock. Fal ing asleep had become so painful that K'heera now feared it with hysterical terror. The substances the aliens inflicted on her were sometimes painful, occasional y pleasant, and often mind-numbing, a thing she'd once feared. Now, though, she longed for the mind-numbing drug, even pleaded for it in her mind. If they'd only give it to her again, she'd be ... so grateful.

While the experiments continued, her captors efficiently depilated her fur, leaving all her skin glistening and bare. But worse than that was what was happening to her mouth.

Her large canine teeth, the fangs her people bared in honorable challenge, were being ground down to short, harmless, squared- off stumps. The Simiu had been given nothing to dull the pain, and the huge nerves in her canines screamed. K'heera could glimpse monitors she thought were measuring her brain activity, and helplessly watched them register every new sensation.

The Simiu's mind sang a song of terror unlike anything Taniwha had ever known. Suddenly a new substance coursed through her, dulling her sleep-fogged mind, and she dozed involuntarily. The device strapped to her head shocked her unmercifully--and the sensation flooded Taniwha's mind as well. The calf sang out from the pain, and K'heera
heard
him. Instead of the rage and rejection he'd expected, the Simiu's consciousness grabbed at him with an insane urgency.

HELP! SAVE ME! THEY'RE KILLING ME, OH, PLEASE, DON'T LEAVE ME

HERE, DON'T LEAVE

Taniwha was so shaken by the frightening onslaught, he forgot to come up for air. Then Father was under him, pushing him up until his nostrils broke the surface and opened automatically. Coming back to himself, to his own body floating pain-free in sweet, warm water, Taniwha realized the entire herd had
heard
K'heera's frantic pleas as they flowed through him. The herd 133

grew frightened. What kind of beings could so blandly torture another creature? None, since the Great Hunger.

Taniwha reached for his parents, but their thoughts were not reassuring.

Mother could not sing to these aliens, so she decided they were insane, it was the only explanation for their split minds and their sickening cruelty. She urged the herd to leave, to return to the sea.

Father agreed. As the herd's senior bull, he swam near the rear and pushed the herd eastward, urging them to swim swiftly, to ignore their hunger, their exhaustion. As unified as schooled fish, the Singers turned toward the sea.

The aliens followed, whistling their bizarre songs. They flew ahead of the herd, lining up across a narrow place in the River. Suddenly a jolt of white power erupted from the flyers, striking the water like lightning, making it boil.

Painful shivers trembled through the Singers. Another jolt fell and another, until they became a curtain of energy and pain. The bolts solidified underwater, meshing together like plant roots, weaving tighter and tighter.

Water flowed through the web of power, but the openings in the shining mesh began to shrink.

A young bull near Taniwha panicked, imagining the Great Hunger, seeing its terrible face, its bloody, tearing teeth. He turned from the power web, away from the sea, and everyone near followed, his panic overwhelming Father's calm urgency. Taniwha felt the power of his parents' mind guiding him, urging him toward the web, but a crush of massive bodies twisting and turning suddenly surrounded him. He was pushed back, away from the sea, away from his mother, and found himself swimming west with the others.

The herd's cohesiveness evaporated as the fear of the Great Hunger engulfed mind after mind.

Then the calf
heard
his father sing reassuringly. There was no Great Hunger.

There were only these aliens and their unWorldly things. The old male ordered the herd to find openings through the shrinking web and swim through. His song was strong, but the younger males were afraid to pass through the tightening mesh.

Then his mother touched Taniwha's mind, and he realized she was on the other side of the web. She'd been pushed through when they'd been separated, and now she called for him frantically, urging him to come to her so they could swim to the sea.

The calf hesitated. His father was on this side with him, his mother on the other. When he finally surged toward the grid, there were so many squeezing through the tightening mesh, he was pushed aside. The web's power stunned whoever swam through

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it, and every painful shock caused more panic in the herd.

When the last portal became too small for even the youngest calf, Taniwha and his father were only two of many trapped on the wrong side of the web.

Father ordered those who had escaped to swim for the sea.

Still, they paused. All of them had loved ones behind the web. The old male's mind was strong, though, and he projected confidence that they would defeat these aliens as they had once conquered the Great Hunger. As the free Singers moved away from the web, they maintained contact with their friends, ready to lend their power to destroy this alien force.

Taniwha's father appeared beside him and together, they swam westward, away from the web, only to face another grid pinning them into a small section of the River. After a few moments, they realized that the grids were moving, corraling the herd into a smaller area. Taniwha felt his father reach deep into his own mind and call up power his people hadn't used for generations. The entire herd linked with him.

Taniwha listened as his father reached for the mind of the nearest alien and probed, searching its brain for its knowledge, its motives. His son and the combined herdmind followed him, even as aliens surrounded them,

heedless of their mental assault. Father sang as hard as he could, using the fear Taniwha had taken from K'heera as a weapon. The creature shook its head slightly, then ignored the onslaught of the powerful telepath. Leaning over its sled, the alien touched Father with a small device.

A terrible fire coursed through the great bull's body; as his flippers went limp, his body grew rigid. At the same time, the aliens struck another male, then a female. The helplessness coursing through the afflicted ones shattered the Singers' tenuous unity. They panicked, swimming wildly around and around the shrinking corral, pulling Taniwha helplessly along.

A few elders stayed with the paralyzed ones, pushing them up to the air so they wouldn't drown. The rest of the herd surged wildly between the two power grids, their massive bodies slamming against the alien lightning webs, shocking themselves again and again. Taniwha
heard
his mother fighting to get in, to come to the aid of her calf and her mate.

Even in his helplessness, Father tried to calm the herd, but it was too late.

When the aliens attached devices to the three Singers and lifted them out of the water, even as Taniwha had once been lifted off the sandbar, the captive herd felt their friends'

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raw fear. The helpless Singers were beached in low water, where the World's terrible gravity crushed them.

An alien tended each of the helpless creatures, struggling to keep their massive heads in the air, even as Jib had once helped Taniwha. But the one handling Father was careless and allowed the old bull to inhale water.

Taniwha and his mother both agonized as his father coughed painfully.

Aliens swarmed out of their shelters and surrounded the beached Singers, chittering excitedly and waving alien devices.

Mother tried to force Taniwha to find an opening in the grid, in spite of the herd's confusion and the fear she felt for her mate. But the mesh was too small, and Taniwha too afraid. Desperately, he cast his mind. Despite the agony he knew she'd still be in, he touched K'heera again.