nutmeats.
While they were eating , several large animal shapes slipped in an d out of the shadows , sharing the trees' bounty with them. There were blue-antlered Leaf- Eaters, some small c an is-form predators , an d the ever -
present avians . Once, a flock of small, gold avi an s erupted from the ground , sta rt ling the two f ri ends, an d they looked up quickly . Deep within the copse of trees, ambling along the nut - strewn ground , was the ominous red an d white ro an Tree Ripper.
"Rippers are n't much for conversation," Tesa remembered Taller
saying as the two stood silently still while the ferocious, temperamental
killer lumbered by, sampling the nuts as she went . The great bearlike
omnivore would ' ve dw ar fed the g re at Kodiak be ar, an d Tesa had sta re d at it in awe and terror, wonde ri ng if even the monstrous cave bears of Earth's past had ever been that big , with claws that long, or
teeth that sharp. The huge p re dator ate her fill , then shambled on.
"Are n't you full yet?" Tesa finally complained, reclining on a mossy
spot free of nuts. She was watching the suns' rays slant through the
tops of the impossibly high t re es , wondering which one held her
study nest . She had a sudden, sharp memo ry of Dr . Rob saying "
maybe you could tame one, like the old falconers did." She laughed .
Wouldn't Taller love that?
Sailor daintily wiped his face on his back. " I'm full now. Maybe we c an
come back in a few days an d have some more."
"Maybe ," Tesa agreed . " Maybe Black Feather will be back 171
then." Maybe next time you'll come by yourself, she thought with a pang. She stood in one smooth motion and hoisted the bags onto the sled, securing
them with a restraining shield. "I could carry one," Sailor assured her.
"Why bother? The sled can hold them."
"Are these all for us?"
"They're for Relaxed, First-One-There, and our friends in the sky shelter."
Sailor had stiffened in response to Thorn's name-sign, jerking his head up,
since he still didn't have an unfeathered crown to display his emotions .
Like Tal er, he was jealous of Thorn.
"Besides," she told him, ignoring his reaction, "if you ate them all, you'd just get sick." She climbed onto the sled and sat cross-legged, knowing the flight
back with a chick stuffed full of food would be a slow, easy one.
As they lifted off, Tesa thought of Thorn--things had never been the same
between them since that last shuttle trip. Whenever he visited her, Sailor
always seemed to be there between them. Tesa had almost been glad of
that, since she was so torn about her suspicions. However, except for that
one vague computer message, Thorn had done nothing to arouse suspicion.
But the damage had been done. Tesa couldn't trust Thorn. Even if there was
no connection between him and the privateers--a concept too horrible for her
to accept--there was still a side to him he kept carefully guarded.
She dismissed her troublesome thoughts. It wasn't smart to get distracted
while flying.
As they leveled off, she looked back at the forest, hoping she might glimpse
her study nest. A dark blot in the north sky caught her attention. She stared,
but the objects were too far away to be clearly seen. Tesa punched up the
long-distance scanner.
The readout chilled her. Six Aquila were steadily closing in on them. She
looked at the screen, sickened. Even if they increased their speed, they'd be
overtaken in minutes.
What the hell are they doing here? Thorn wondered as he peered through
the high-powered binoculars across the wide expanse of river that separated
him from Tesa and Sailor. The two had just landed--probably looking for
Black Feather's flock. Bruce had said that the southern spawning had been
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especially rich this year, but even so, Thorn thought the flock should 've
been back by now.
The touch of a human hand on his shoulder startled him so much that he
rolled and came up on his feet poised defensively. "Easy there, old friend,"
Peter said amiably.
"You scared the shit out of me," Thorn grumbled.
"I've been watching you, peeping Thorn," the dark man said teasingly.
"When are you going to stop spying on that woman? You'd have to grow
feathers to get her attention. Give me those." He focused the field glasses
They're heading west, so they'll be out of sight soon."
The two men moved away from the river's edge until they were hidden within
a copse of dense shrubbery.
"So tell me what's so important," Thorn asked, watching the two leave, "that I had to leave camp at a moment's notice?" Peter looked at him knowingly.
"Couple of things. We just got the word--the Grus have their official status."
Thorn was surprised. "Well, that's great, but won't that be announced to
everyone?"
Peter nodded. "But I wanted to discuss something with you, privately. Earth's
First Contact claim is jeopardized." Thorn's eyes widened in alarm . "How?
Why?"
"The Simiu claim they have proof that all the privateers and all the purchasers of the skins are Terran," Peter explained. "They say Earth has
murdered the Grus for profit, and thus should not get any credit for First
Contact. They also presented evidence that there's been a link between the
crew of the Singing Crane and the privateers since the beginning."
"What kind of evidence?" Thorn asked quietly. "Computer dumps,
transmissions, stuff like that."
Thorn paused, his mind racing. "But how could they get them? Those things
are coded ... classified!"
"You know how. Someone passed them on, to make sure that we'd look as
bad as possible."
Thorn looked at Peter. "So, who's the Judas?" They had been arguing about
this since before Scott had been killed. "You've been working on this for
months, don't you have any answers?"
"Me?" Peter flared angrily. "Who almost blew everything a few months ago on the Crane, right in front of Tesa? Suppose that had been Bruce peering
over your shoulder?" Peter shook
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his head and held up a hand. "Hey, we can't afford this, Thorn. We've got to
work together, figure out what we can do."
The blond man nodded. It was just the two of them, after all.
Thorn had been the special wildlife investigator who had first spotted an
illegal Grus skin during an unusually thorough customs check at the Luna
importing base. Peter, his partner for several years, had broken the code on
its counterfeit data-card erroneously identifying the skin as a genetic
reconstruction. Thorn was a wel -trained biologist and experienced
investigator who recognized that even the best reconstructions didn't have
the look, the feel, of that skin. It had been a satisfying case, but neither of
them had expected it to lead to this job.
While they were being recruited, the two officers had asked why the entire
founding party, Meg, Scott, Lauren, and Bruce, couldn't be replaced, since
there were fears even then that there was a hidden connection between the
original exploration team and the Grus skins. There was no tangible
evidence, they were told, and Jamestown Founders would scream that the
&nbs
p; crew's removal would endanger their claim if the First Contact were denied.
Thorn gazed at their unspoiled surroundings. "When we got here we said,
`Hey, we're up against amateurs. We've got superior technology. We've got
training. We'll clean this up in two months and be home for Christmas.' That
was two years ago, and we haven't even ID'd the conspirator."
"Hey, we've had a pronounced effect on Grus survival," Peter said
defensively. "The attacks had been escalating when we arrived, but things
slowed to a crawl by the time Tesa got here, and no skins have been taken
since then."
"And the attack on the escort flock?" Thorn asked.
Peter shook his head. "I can't find any link between those sorry buzzards
and whoever' s skinning the Grus."
Thorn had been screening transmissions , the strobing, condensed
computer talk the orbiting robots traded with the Singing Crane, trying to find a correlation between those, missing Grus, and Aquila attacks. There was
only the vaguest of patterns. Someone was being very careful.
Peter let out his breath. "And I still can't prove any connection between the
Crane crew and the privateers."
Thorn shook his head. He was convinced there was a traitor, and that it had
to be Bruce. The weatherman's bitterness over
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the potential fortune he'd lost was common knowledge. Thorn knew he was
prejudiced. He didn' t like Bruce , and he couldn't imagine Lauren being
clever enough to maintain a relationship with Peter while hiding
something so monstrous . Dr. Li was too bureaucratic - or was that the perfect cover?
"If there is a Judas," Peter continued, " they've put codes so deep inside the system that their partners can bleed off all our communications
without leaving a trace."
"Well," Thorn asked, irritated, " what do you know? You didn' t call me over here just to hash over old news."
"The pri vateers are holding on to the Grus skins - I think they're
stockpiling them on Trinity. Nothing's passed into or out of Sorrow
Sector in months. Of course, that's just driving up the price. I do know the
privateers here have only got one ship, which makes it easy for them to stay
out of range. Right now they could be doing anything from hiding on the dark
side of a moon to camping out in a rain forest. But my big news is this-
these privateers , who are all Terran, have been totally financed and outfitted by the Simiu-the H ar kk'ett clan."
Thorn recognized the name of that old and politically wellplaced Simiu
family-it was the clan that had been shamed fifteen year s before by the
suicide of a youngster named Khrekk ' du ri ng the First Contact
between the Simiu and the humans. It was hard for Thorn to understand
how, so many years later, that perceived shame could still be so raw to
that clan, but the bitte rn ess of dishonor was, for the Simiu , strong motivation.
"When I found out about the Simiu involvement," Peter said , conce rn ed , "
it gave me a really bad feeling . That family doesn ' t c ar e about those skins, or even about the Grus. They're t ry ing to satisfy some twisted notion of honor , so they'll do whatever it takes to foul Earth up."
"Like what?"
" If humans kill Taller and Sailor , it's all over for us here. The Grus won't allow us to stay."
" Which will leave them totally unprotected ," Thorn said. "And by the time the CLS can send help--"
"There wouldn't be anything left to protect." Peter's face was drawn . "
Besides, the p ri vateers don't give a damn about Simiu honor , they're just in it for the money . They could see this as their last chance to take
every skin they can get their hands on." He stopped , collecting his
thoughts. "I've sent all
175
this information to Earth. I've told them we're still working on it , but ... I 've recommended ... that the CLS intervene now, before it's too late. Of course,
it'll have to go through channels first, and then there's travel time. They can't possibly get here before two months, at the earliest . That's probably going to be too late."
"So what do we do in the meantime ?" Thorn asked.
"I still have a few tricks up my sleeve," Peter said. "Have you got your Mizari voder?"
Thorn pulled it out of his pocket. The advanced instruments had only
arrived two months ago, and by then they were no longer needed to
establish the Grus' intelligence. Thorn and Meg were using them now to
document differences in the translation programs between the Terran and
the Mizari voders. But Thorn and Peter had spent enough time working with
the simple-seeming devices to appreciate their capabilities. Peter said he
was sure someone had deliberately sabotaged the previous delivery, to
keep these sophisticated computers out of the crew's hands.
"I've spent a lot of time working on these babies," Peter told Thorn, staring at his with unconcealed admiration. "Talk about power! You can even
communicate with satellites using them. Pull in transmissions from ships in
the outer atmosphere and get their coordinates."
Thorn looked suitably impressed. "You think we can locate the privateers'
ship with it? Just from their transmissions?"
"I can't find any way to effectively block it, Peter told
him, "however, when you ask it to trace a transmission to its source, you'll tip
your hat to whoever's transmitting."
"Oh, that's a real advantage." Thorn rolled his eyes. "That's like a
telecommunication tap that beeps!"
Peter pulled a tiny memory card from his pocket and waved it at Thorn.
"That's why I created this little work of art. This program allows you to trace a
transmission without tipping your hand." He gave Thorn the card. "It can be
tricky to install , but I can talk you through it. With me listening on the Crane, and you down here, we might be able to pick up dialogue between the
privateers and their contact on the Crane."
Thorn pocketed the program. "Then maybe I can go calling on those
bastards when they aren't expecting me."
Peter shook his head. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be too eager about that if I were
you. They're not hampered by First Contact
176
restrictions the way we are. No doubt they're armed."
Ever since the Desiree incident, when the presence of a single weapon
ruined the delicate political ballet of that First Contact, Terrans were
forbidden, by Earth, to bring weapons onto new planets. They could only
protect themselves with sonar repelling devices and other defensive
equipment.
Peter glanced around the river. "The reason I wanted to talk to you here was
that I thought Black Feather might be back. He moves around so much, I
wanted to try talking to him, see if he's seen anything unusual in his
travels."
"I'll check tomorrow," Thorn said. "He should be back within the next few days." Sailor would probably take off by then , Thorn realized. Meg felt Tesa should go home for her surgery soon after the young avian left. If Peter was
right, Thorn wanted her back on Earth. Then he could stop worrying about
her.
Sailor saw Death behind them and gave an alarm call, but he still had a
child's voice, which wouldn't carry. He was terrified-more terrified even than
that time Good Eyes had lifted his small body to save him. Only predators
lifted you
up-and never to save you.
He was heavy with food, but even if he'd been empty, he couldn't outfly
Death. Good Eyes was clinging to her flying device, her eyes wide with fear.
Could she fly ahead, warn his father, save herself? Maybe, but there
wouldn't be time to save Sailor, so she wouldn't leave him, he knew that.
He couldn't think about Death killing Good Eyes right in front of him, in the
air. All they had to do was damage her device, and she'd fall, unable to save
herself, and with no flock nearby to catch her. And what could he do, to save
the one who'd saved him? He felt his heart breaking from fear and guilt.
Glancing behind him, he saw the terrible red and gold eyes that could
terrorize a victim into making a last, fatal error. Then Good Eyes was signing,
"Head for the forest."
Some of the ancient timbers had suffered from fires over the centuries, and
were hollow inside, though still alive. Those were her favorite trees, and she
loved climbing around inside them. Could one of those save them from
Death?
They'd been following the river, but the forest had traveled
177
SILENT DANCES 177 with them. He followed Good Eyes ' lead as Death
gained on them.
"Whatever happens, keep going," Good Eyes signed. "Get inside a hollow tr ee. They c an' t fly easily in the fo re st." Well, neither could he , but Sailor couldn ' t point that out to her now. And what did she me an, "
whatever happens"? Without wa rn ing , Good Eyes dropped behind , placing her self between him and Death . He was terrified for her , but an g ry , too. He should be protecting her since he was the one who could fly!
Death drew closer an d the group began splitting up. Suddenly an
enormous female was on Sailor ' s left , a male on his ri ght, pulling up as easily as if the young Grus were standing still. He concen tr ated on
the forest.
With a scream that cut through him like ice, the female re ached for his
unprotected back . And then a shadow passed over him , the re was a thud, an d the female tumbled, loose feathers flutte ri ng past him . Good Eyes had actually slammed her device into Death and knocked her
away! Tesa hovered over Sailor and then veered after the male, who
folded his wings and dropped out of sight, wary now of the alien contr
aption.