Pete had joined George at the lock, waiting for her to open up. She took the cutter out of her vest, showed it to George, and looked meaningfully at him. Last chance. His eyes slid away from her.
She tried to edge past him, but he squared his shoulders and blocked the way. “I think the men should be the first ones out.”
They were all watching the creature with a mixture of admiration and disquiet. If I can keep them in here a little longer, she thought, they might change their minds and back away.
But George had lost all patience, or maybe he wanted to get it over with. She opened the lock and looked out.
“He’s beautiful,” said Alyx.
He was indeed. Features neither entirely human nor avian, but an exotic blend of both. Golden eyes and tawny feathers and lean muscular limbs. And an enormous wingspread. Hutch was reminded of Petraska’s famous portrait of St. Michael.
His eyes were placed somewhat back, almost along the sides of the skull. He looked at them with curiosity, found her, and fastened his attention on her. She saw curiosity in that gaze, and intelligence. And something wild. Alyx was right: He was beautiful. But in the manner of a leopard.
His skull was slightly narrower than a human’s. He tilted his head in the way that parrots do when they’re trying to catch one’s attention. His lips parted in a half smile, and she thought she caught the glint of fangs. She fought down a chill—Don’t jump to conclusions—but pushed the stud on the cutter and felt power begin flowing through the instrument.
Alyx’s voice came from behind her. “Are we sure we want to do this, George?”
“Yes! My God, child, are you serious?”
A second angel swept in, another male, and the landing brought him half-running toward the lander. But he stopped and held out his hands, the way one might to indicate he is not carrying a weapon. Alyx had moved in directly behind Hutch. “He’s gorgeous,” she said. “They both are.”
She wondered if Alyx had seen the incisors.
Despite the wings they were clearly mammalian. They wore vests that revealed most of the upper body, and leggings that fell to the shins. But their lower limbs ended in claws, not feet.
Not quite so angelic, after all.
Hutch looked past George, who was shifting his weight, getting ready to leave the airlock. The ground was covered with soft, green grass. “I just noticed something,” she said.
“What?” asked Pete, as he joined her. He was holding a necklace in his left hand. A gift.
“There are no birds here anywhere.”
George climbed ponderously down. Pete and Hutch followed, moving out on either side. The gravity was probably only about 80 percent of a standard gee, but after the light one-quarter they’d been living in, it was a burden. George smiled and waved. The female swept past, arced back, and floated down, wings spread wide.
“I don’t think,” said George, “I understand what you’re trying to say.”
“Where are the birds?”
He sighed. “How would I know?” And then, to the angels: “Hello. Greetings from Earth.”
We come in peace.
Michael took a tentative step forward. He was only a few centimeters taller than she, a creature of impossible grace. The wind whispered across his wings. He was studying her again, his eyes connecting with hers, then traveling down her body and coming to rest at last on the cutter.
His lips parted, and she saw the beginning of an accusation in his glance. But then it dissolved into a smile. If the rest of them were like this bunch, she suspected, and if they were really friendly, interspecies relationships couldn’t be far off.
“They don’t seem at all scared of us,” said Tor, over the common channel.
Bill told them to be careful.
George stepped forward, past Hutch, and offered his hand. Michael raised a wing partway and let it settle again.
The second angel had dark blue feathers and dark eyes that one could almost have described as melancholy. His wings displayed a complex red-and-white pattern. Gabriel, possibly.
Pete held out the bracelet. It was cheap, silver-plated. But if you didn’t know better…
“Pete,” Hutch told him, “you’re getting too far from the lander.”
Herman stood in the open hatch, hesitating. Then he stepped down.
Still no birds. Maybe this world didn’t have birds. Was that possible? They’d been everywhere else, in one form or another, wherever large land animals had evolved.
Two more of the creatures landed, one male, one female.
The bracelet sparkled in the sunlight.
Gabriel’s eyes traveled from Pete to the bracelet to Hutch. Back to the bracelet. Hutch thought she detected contempt.
The angels spread out a few paces to either side.
Alyx was preparing to jump down from the lock. Tor, with his easel, was behind her.
“Stay put,” said Hutch, privately.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Gabriel took the bracelet. He turned and held it out for one of the females. She came forward, accepted it, frowned at it. What was it for?
Despite everything, despite the nobility of their appearance, despite the complete lack of any threatening gesture, despite the fact that she had begun entertaining lascivious ideas about both Michael and Gabriel, Hutch knew, absolutely knew, something was wrong.
Two more appeared over the river, circled the lander, and started down. They were starting to draw a substantial crowd.
“Give me wings like that,” Alyx said, “and no male would be safe on the streets at night.”
Touchingly modest, thought Hutch. The woman hardly needed wings.
Michael raised his right hand, palm out, and spoke. A few words, delivered in a rich baritone. She could almost understand the words. Thank you. Or Hello. Welcome to Paradise.
One of the females was edging around, trying to get an angle on the open hatch.
“Hutch,” demanded Alyx, “what’s going on?”
“I don’t know yet. Just stay in the lander.”
The female advanced a few paces, covering about half the ground between the lander and Pete, who had taken Gabriel’s hand and was shaking it. Old friends, well met. Pete was considerably bigger than the angel.
Herman must have sensed it too. He moved up and stood beside Hutch.
All of the angels seemed unobtrusively to be closing in. Hutch noticed that Pete was cut off from the airlock. She retreated a step to get her back to the lander. “Heads up, Pete,” she said.
He actually turned and smiled pleasantly at her. Don’t worry. Everything’s under control. These are friends. It was as far as he got.
Gabriel’s smile widened and Hutch saw the incisors again. They sank into Pete’s throat while one of the females jumped him from behind. Michael went for George, who, in the time-honored tradition of amateur adventurers, froze. Herman trundled past her and threw himself into the struggle.
The female that had gotten between Hutch and the airlock showed her a set of claws, smiled, and flew at her. Hutch went down as another one glided past, trying to get at the airlock.
It all happened with blazing speed. The angels had acted simultaneously, as if some signal had passed among them, much the way birds seem to leave a stand of trees at the same moment. Hutch’s cutter blinked on and she drove the beam into her attacker’s midsection as the creature tried to claw her. It screamed and went down in a fury of feathers and shrieks.
Hutch rolled it away, got a quick glimpse of more fangs, jabbed upward and missed. It was Gabriel, and it gasped and swiped at her with long talons. She got lucky: they hit the hard shell that covered her face, and she swung the laser with everything she had. It took off parts of wing and shoulder and bit into its neck. A dark brown liquid spurted out. It screamed and leaped into the air.