“With wings he’s almost as large as a small major kethel,” Vendoin said. He couldn’t read her expression but she seemed more awed than agitated.
“It was amazing,” Kalam said, turning to Moon. “The predator was all around us, reaching for us, and he leapt up, and changed, and tore it right from the ship—”
Vendoin persisted, “The rest of you, can you do that?”
“No, it’s because he’s so old,” Moon told her. “Our other forms get larger as we get older. No one else here is anywhere near as old as he is. Delin knows all about it.”
“Ah.” Vendoin seemed unsatisfied with the explanation. She hesitated, but someone shouted for Kalam, and Moon took the opportunity to escape, following him down the deck and heading over to where Jade and Stone waited near the rail.
Looking down, Moon spotted the remnants of the predator, scattered on the tall grasses of the wetlands they were passing over. There was a broad river visible through the trees some small distance away, and the flying boat’s course paralleled it. He didn’t see any groundling bodies, so hopefully Kalam was right and no one had been flung overboard. “Do we know what that was?” he asked them.
Stone shrugged. “There was a small shallow lake bed below us, a little too round, no streams feeding it. I think that was its burrow.”
“It must have felt the boat’s shadow pass over it.” Jade’s spines and tail still moved restlessly. “Callumkal said he’d tell them to fly higher until we get past this area.” Her voice lower, she added, “And from now on I’m going to have the warriors fly the offal away from the boat before they drop it.”
Moon admitted it was probably a good idea.
Chime moved to the railing beside Moon and peered down. “I’m glad I missed that.”
Jade sent Song and River up to the top of the boat to keep watch, and Moon and the others stayed out on deck, waiting for the flying boat to clear this stretch of country and move over the sparse forests closer to the river.
Soon, Callumkal came out on deck to tell Jade, “I wish to thank you. No one aboard was killed or badly injured and this is solely due to your intervention.”
Jade clearly hadn’t expected such fervent gratitude. Moon figured she was probably still thinking about the offal and the possibility that it had attracted the creature’s attention. She managed, “I’m glad none of you were badly hurt.”
Callumkal turned to Moon. “Rorra told me what you did for Magrim. He would have been torn to pieces without your help.”
It was Moon’s turn to feel uncomfortable, but Callumkal had already turned to stride off down the deck.
Over the next few days, things grew steadily better between the Raksura and the crew. Moon and the others kept careful watch and spotted a couple more possible nesting sites for large ground predators, and directed the boat to steer wide of them. They were also able to help when it came time to refill the boat’s large water tanks. Bramble and Stone managed to have conversations with various Kishan, and Rorra and the recovering Magrim spoke easily to them. And, oddly, Kalam, who seemed too shy to talk much himself, made sure to invite the Raksura to sit in the common room or to share meals with them or to see how various parts of the flying boat worked. He even demonstrated the flying packs for them, which were powered by the same moss that provided the lift for the boat.
There were no more horrified or fearful looks, and Moon noticed there was no more reluctance to get close when he passed crew members in a corridor. Moon felt the Kishan had at least gone from thinking of them as “those Raksura” to “our Raksura.”
The fourth day after the attack, Moon was lying out on the stern deck with Stone. Song, Root, and Chime were back against the nearest cabin wall, napping, and Jade and the others were inside. The terrain below was flattening out as they neared the coast, grassy plains with the occasional lake or stream or rocky outcrop, and a few stretches of low forest.
Moon heard steps through the soft material of the deck and sat up and stretched, thinking it was Jade. But it was Bramble, with Kalam, Magrim, and the other navigator, Esankel, who was one of the Janderi.
“Won’t we be bothering them?” Esankel was asking Bramble cautiously.
“Oh no, it’s fine, come and sit down.” Bramble plopped down on the deck next to Moon.
Kalam hesitated a little, then leaned on the railing nearby. Magrim, who still had a wrap around his cracked ribs, settled down on the deck with Esankel’s help, and she sat next to him.
“Are you going to be a scholar too?” Bramble asked Kalam, apparently continuing a conversation. “Is that why you’re here with your father?”
“I don’t know.” Kalam looked out into the distance. “I’ve been studying the foundation builders, and the water builders, and some of the others, since I was very young, and it’s interesting.”
Moon thought that was the least enthusiastic response possible. That opinion seemed to be shared, because Bramble asked, “What about your mother?”
“Jandera only have one primary parent,” Kalam explained. “I have several secondary parents, and they’re all scholars too.”
Esankel said, “You could be a navigator. You’re good with the maps.”
“Or an explorer, like Scholar Delin,” Magrim added.
“I could,” Kalam agreed, clearly being polite. He asked Bramble, “Was your job decided for you by your parent?”
His eyes still closed, Stone snorted. “Bramble does what she wants.”
“I do not.” Bramble nudged his ankle. She told Kalam, “It’s not really like that with us. When you have a clutch, you’re very happy about it, and you’re close to them, of course. But the teachers raise them, and you don’t tell them what to do once they’re out of the nurseries. The queens do that.”
Kalam took all this in like it wasn’t a way of living that he had ever considered. Esankel and Magrim were listening closely as well. Kalam asked, “Then how do you decide what role to play in your society?”
“If you’re an Arbora, you just decide.” Bramble shrugged. “You can try being a teacher or a hunter or a soldier, and change your mind if you don’t like it. For Arbora, the only caste you have to be born into is mentor, like Merit. And you don’t have to be a mentor if you really don’t want to, though I think it’s pretty rare for someone to not want to be one.”
Kalam turned to Moon. “Is it like that with you?”
“No, not for consorts, or queens. Or warriors,” Moon told him.
“If you could be anything you wanted, what would you be?” Kalam asked.
Moon thought it over for a moment, watching a flock of brightly colored birds swerve away from the flying boat. “A hunter.” All of the Arbora hunters but Bramble were home with their clutches, and not traveling on flying boats having to make hard decisions.
Bramble gave him a sympathetic nudge. Stone muttered, “Ingrate.”
Ignoring that, Moon asked Kalam, “What do you want to be?”
Kalam hesitated again, then smiled down at Moon. “I would like to stay in Kedmar and build places for people to live. Finding new ways to use the shape-moss, and maybe ways to build out onto the old water platforms in Kedmar bay.”
“That’s a good job,” Magrim said, wincing a little as he stretched. “Surely your father would approve.”
“I’d have to ask him first,” Kalam said, but it sounded noncommittal, as if he was hoping everyone dropped the subject as fast as possible.
Moon did, and was glad when the conversation wandered into a comparison of various Kishan family structures, and Bramble trying to explain how she was related to Jade via a long list of clutchmates and half-clutchmates and cross-clutchmates.