That which was descending passed the disc, and light blazed off the gold-bronze pinions of a six-meter wingspan. Air whistled and thundered. Fraina cried out. Mikkal poised his javelin. “Don’t!” Ivar shouted. “Ya-lawa! He’s Ythrian!”
“O-o-oh, ye-e-es,” Mikkal said softly. He lowered the spear though he kept it ready. Fraina gripped Ivar’s arm and leaned hard against him.
The being landed. Ivar had met Ythrians before, at the University and elsewhere. But his astonishment at this arrival was such that he gaped as if he were seeing one for the first time.
Grounded, the newcomer used those tremendous wings, folded downward, for legs, claws at the bend of them spreading out to serve as feet, the long rear-directed bones lending extra support when at rest. That brought his height to some 135 centimeters, mid-breast on Ivar, farther up on the tinerans; for his mass was a good 25 kilos. Beneath a prowlike keelbone were lean yellow-skinned arms whose hands, evolved from talons, each bore three sharp-clawed fingers flanked by two thumbs, and a dewclaw on the inner wrist. Above were a strong neck and a large head proudly held. The skull bulged backward to contain the brain, for there was scant brow, the face curving down in a ridged muzzle to a mouth whose sensitive lips contrasted curiously with the carnivore fangs behind. A stiff feather-crest rose over head and neck, white edged with black like the fan-shaped tail. Otherwise, apart from feet, arms, and huge eyes which burned gold and never seemed to waver or blink, the body was covered with plumage of lustrous brown.
He wore an apron whose pockets, loops, and straps supported what little equipment he needed. Knife, canteen, and pistol were the only conspicuous items. He could live off the country better than any human.
Mikkal inhaled smoke, relaxed, smiled, lifted and dipped his weapon in salute. “Hay-ah, wayfarer,” he said formally, “be welcome among us in the Peace of Water, where none are enemies. We’re Mikkal of Redtop and my sister Fraina of Jubilee, from the Waybreak Train; and our companyo is Rolf Mariner, varsiteer.”
The Anglic which replied was sufficiently fluent that one couldn’t be sure how much of the humming accent and sibilant overtones were due to Ythrian vocal organs, how much simply to this being an offplanet dialect the speaker had learned. “Thanks, greetings, and fair winds wished for you. I hight Erannath, of the Stormgate choth upon Avalon. Let me quench thirst and we can talk if you desire.”
As awkward on the ground as he was graceful aloft, he stumped to the pool. When he bent over to drink, Ivar glimpsed the gill-like antlibranchs, three on either side of his body. They were closed now, but in flight the muscles would work them like bellows, forcing extra oxygen into the bloodstream to power the lifting of the great weight. That meant high fuel consumption too, he remembered. No wonder Erannath traveled alone, if he had no vehicle. This land couldn’t support two of him inside a practical radius of operations.
“He’s gorgeous,” Fraina whispered to Ivar. “What did you call him?”
“Ythrian,” the Firstling replied. “You mean you don’t know?”
“I guess I have heard, vaguely, but I’m an ignorant wanderfoot, Rolf. Will you tell me later?”
Ha! Won’t I?
Mikkal settled himself back in the shade where he had been. “Might I ask what brings you, stranger?”
“Circumstances,” Erannath replied. His race tended to be curt. A large part of their own communication lay in nuances indicated by the play of marvelously controllable quills.
Mikkal laughed. “In other words, yes, I might ask, but no, I might not get an answer. Wouldn’t you like to palaver a while anyhow? Yo, Fraina, Rolf, join the party.”
They did. Erannath’s gaze lingered on the Firstling. “I have not hitherto observed your breed fare thus,” he said.
“I—wanted a change—” Ivar faltered.
“He hasn’t told exactly why, and no need for you to, either,” Mikkal declared. “But see here, Aeronaut, your remark implies you have been observing, and pretty extensively too. Unless you’re given to reckless generalization, which I don’t believe your kind is.”
Expressions they could not read rippled across the feathers. “Yes,” the Ythrian said after a moment, “I am interested in this planet. As an Avalonian, I am naturally familiar with humans, but of a rather special sort. Being on Aeneas, I am taking the opportunity to become acquainted, however superficially, with a few more.”
“U-u-uh-huh.” Mikkal lounged crosslegged, smoking, idly watching the sky, while he drawled. “Somehow I doubt they’ve heard of you in Nova Roma. The occupation authorities have planted their heaviest buttocks on space traffic, in and out. Want to show me your official permit to flit around? As skittery as the guiders of our Terran destinies are nowadays, would they give a visitor from our esteemed rival empire the freedom of a key near-the-border world? I’m only fantasizing, but it goes in the direction of you being stranded here. You came in during the revolt, let’s suppose, when that was easy to do unbeknownst, and you’re biding your time till conditions ease up enough for you to get home.”
Ivar’s fingers clenched on his gunstock. But Erannath sat imperturbable. “Fantasize as you wish,” he said dryly, “if you grant me the same right.” Again his eyes smote the Firstling.
“Well, our territory doesn’t come near Nova Roma,” Mikkal continued. “We’d make you welcome, if you care to roll with us as you’ve probably done already in two or three other Trains. Your songs and stories should be uncommon entertaining. And … maybe when we reach the green and start giving shows, we can work you into an act.”
Fraina gasped. Ivar smiled at her. “Yes,” he whispered, “without that weed in him—unless he was in camp—Mikkal wouldn’t have nerve to proposition those claws and dignity, would he?” Her hair tickled his face. She squeezed his hand.
“My thanks,” Erannath said. “I will be honored to guest you, for a few days at least. Thereafter we can discuss further.”
He went high above them, hovering, soaring, wheeling in splendor, while they rode back across the tilted land.
“What is he?” Fraina asked. Hoofbeats clopped beneath her voice. A breeze bore smoky orders of starkwood. They recalled the smell of the Ythrian, as if his forefathers once flew too near their sun.
“A sophont,” Mikkal said redundantly. He proceeded: “More bright and tough than most. Maybe more than us. Could be we’re stronger, we humans, simply because we outnumber them, and that simply because of having gotten the jump on them in space travel and, hm, needing less room per person to live in.”
“A bird?”
“No,” Ivar told her. “They’re feathered, yes, warmblooded, two sexes. However, you noticed he doesn’t have a beak, and females give live birth. No lactation—no milk, I mean; the lips’re for getting the blood out of prey.”
“You bespoke an empire, Mikkal,” she said, “and, ye-ih, I do remember mentions aforetime. Talk on, will you?”
“Let Rolf do that,” the man suggested. “He’s schooled. Besides, if he has to keep still much longer, he’ll make an awful mess when he explodes.”
Ivar’s ears burned. True, he thought. But Fraina gave him such eager attention that he plunged happily forward.
“Ythri’s planet rather like Aeneas, except for havin’ cooler sun,” he said. “It’s about a hundred light-years from here, roughly in direction of Beta Centauri.”
“That’s the Angel’s Eye,” Mikkal interpolated.
Don’t tinerans use our constellations? Ivar wondered. Well, we don’t use Terra’s; our sky is different. “After humans made contact, Ythrians rapidly acquired modem technology,” he went on. “Altogether variant civilization, of course, if you can call it civilization, they never havin’ had cities. Nonetheless, it lent itself to spacefarin’, same as Technic culture, and in tune Ythrians began to trade and colonize, on smaller scale than humans. When League fell apart and Troubles followed, they suffered too. Men restored order at last by establishin’ Terran Empire, Ythrians by their Domain. It isn’t really an empire, Mikkal. Loose alliance of worlds.