That old defense felt shaky. This was not some supervisor, for whom a shaky old woman was just a nuisance, who could get his questions answered elsewhere, or any time. She was the only person available; she had to think clearly, or . . . or she was not sure what, only that it would be worse. How worse, or what kind of worse, she didn’t know.
She had not wanted more responsibility. She had not wanted more tasks. But the world, her mother had often said, does not shape itself to your wish, any more than dough mixes itself when you’re hungry. That was truth; she had never found it otherwise. Unlike the more hopeful things she had read, in school and the literature of Sims Bancorp Colony Division, her mother’s bleaker statements had always matched reality as she lived it. So now to mix the dough, and hope—she could not be sure—the bread would be edible. Sighing, she got up and went in search of Bluecloak.
She found the creatures where she expected, in the center’s hall. Bluecloak bowed to her; Ofelia bobbed her head in return. It pointed to the door of the control room. Ofelia shook her head—her creatures had learned to understand that meant no, and she now believed they’d told Bluecloak everything about her. Ofelia went instead to one of the doors she had not opened since the colonists left. This had been the primary schoolroom, and she thought some of the teaching models might be left.
Bluecloak followed, as she expected. So did one of the others. Ofelia searched the cabinets along the walls, and found the model she had hoped for. If you turned the little crank, part of it rotated on a shaft, and in some way that Ofelia had never quite understood provided a weak current that would light a tiny bulb. If the bulb still worked. She knew the names of all the parts; she knew how to fix it when it went out of adjustment, but she had never understood why spinning little magnets past bundles of wire called brushes made a current in the wire connected to the bulb. She could recite what the training tapes had said, but it didn’t make sense.
Still, it was the best she could do. Ofelia pulled out the model, and removed its dust cover. It was difficult to dust; she remembered that well enough, and if it was too dusty it didn’t work right. She pushed at the crank. It didn’t move; it had always taken a strong arm to turn it at the speed required. She pushed harder, and the shaft moved grudgingly, with a gritty noise.
It hadn’t always been this hard. Was she really so weak she couldn’t turn a child’s toy? Ofelia peered at it, and suddenly remembered the safety lock. Where was the release? There. She prodded it, and finally got it free. Now the shaft turned, faster and faster, as she cranked. Once it had made a tiny, characteristic noise, but she couldn’t hear that now. She kept her eye on the bulb . . . was that a weak glow?
“Turn the light off,” she said to Bluecloak, as if it could understand. It reached out to the switch and the room light flicked off. Now they could both see the little orange glow. Ofelia pushed harder, and it brightened to a weak yellow.
“Aaaks lllahtss,” Bluecloak said. It touched her hand with its talons, and Ofelia let go the crank. Before it had slowed, Bluecloak was pushing, faster and harder than Ofelia had managed. Had it used a crank before? Usually little children had trouble learning how to make that round and round motion, rather than the back-and-forth that came so naturally. The light brightened, orange to yellow to almost-white. By that light, Ofelia could see Bluecloak’s other hand, held near the dynamo, moving closer and back as he had in the powerplant. He could get a nasty shock . . . but he didn’t try to touch it. It was as if he felt his way along a surface she could not see.
Ofelia decided it was time for more light on the subject. She walked over and turned the room lights back on. Bluecloak’s great eyes seemed to flash gold as its pupils contracted. It released the crank, and the shaft slowed, the light dimming until it could not be seen in the room’s lights. Both hands now hovered about the dynamo, fluttering in and out. Curious, Ofelia came and put her own hand beside Bluecloak’s. She felt nothing. Of course not; there was nothing to feel.
Nest guardian, the singer-to-strangers had said at once. Wearing the holy symbols, the eyes of the body and the eyes of the spirit, this is the one who births the minds of the nestlings.
I hope you have showed respect, the singer-to-strangers added after a pause. No one had interrupted; no one would interrupt a singer engaged in the ticklish matter of bringing harmony between strangers. Only the nest guardians were more sacred. The singer waited, until the impatience of the youngling near nesting burst out in a flutter of toes that produced a soothing answering rhythm from the group.
Of course we showed respect. Of course we knew . . .
Not from the beginning.
I knew. That discourtesy passed unremarked; younglings approaching a first nesting were expected to be hasty and abrupt. The singer-to-strangers throbbed a rhythm more complex than the others, and the youngling settled back, mouth slightly open. Yes . . . it would not be long, and then this one would feel better.
A nest guardian, the singer sang. And where are the nestlings?
Gone away, one of the hunters ventured. The monster—the nest guardian—moved that way. The hunter moved in imitation of the old woman’s gestures, the sweeping arm that indicated the village, the walking fingers that must mean others of like kind, then the upflung arm and pointing finger.
It has a winged hunter far above, another said. A winged hunter with good eyes, that tells it how the world looks—it tells of storms coming from far away.
It can walk the air without wings?
We have not seen it do so. But the flying monsters we did see, near the nestmass . . . and the little monsters were swallowed within.
Its people travel far, the singer mused. And when they return, heavy for nesting, they will know of us. The singer shivered, and gave a single resonant throb. The others shivered as well. Those who returned with the singer had told of the longer and more sober discussions that followed the successful elimination of the nestmass marauders. It had been less skill than luck, the leaders had decided; the monsters of the sky had not expected trouble, and that by itself suggested a measure of their power.
We are juicy leapers too far from the burrow, one of the hunters said. Known, visible, no place to hide. Hunted by those who could see from far above, even with no hills near; hunted by those who could scar the very sky with the speed and power of their passage. Leapers have teeth, one reminded.
But fall to the knife anyway, another said. As teeth to the knife are our knives to the weapons such sky-monsters might carry.
The nest guardian’s people will return, the singer said. If they are the same people as the ones we killed, then . . . it will be difficult to drum harmony.
A long way, and no travel camps between, one of the youngest said. It had been a hard journey both ways, and this one had had a thorn in the left foot, making most steps painful even after it was out. Perhaps they are not the same beings at all.
They are the same in some things, the singer said. No one argued with this. The singers, along with the surviving nest guardians, had examined the dead monsters carefully; the singer would have noted details that escaped a hunter in the battle. The difference, the singer went on, is mostly age, and the garments of the nest guardian. These creatures change with age, as all do. The long grass of their heads bleaches like grass in the coming of cold; the skin dapples and loosens. If they are like us, they become slower of movement.
This one’s skin is so hot, one of the hunters said.
I do not know about the others; they were all dead. But certainly this is a hotblooded creature, more like us than like the flaked skins. Has anyone seen it swim?