The youth was in her room. "Shall we fly?"
She hunched in the corner near the window. "There is no reason to fly."
"What's happened?" The youth crouched beside her.
"Thou must leave me and forget me. I will be gone by morning."
"But I'm coming."
She took the youth's hand, extending her silver claws against the patterned black and tan fur. "No one else is landing. Thou wouldst be left alone."
The youth understood her plans. "Stay on the ship." The tone was beyond pleading.
"It doesn't matter what I do. If I stay, I will die, and thou wilt feel grief. If I leave, thou wilt feel the same grief. But if I allow thee to come, I will steal thy life."
"It's my life."
"Ah," she said sadly, "thou art so young."
The old one brought out a flask of warm red wine. As the sky spun and tumbled beside them, she and the youth shared the thick, salty liquid, forgetting their sorrows as the intoxicant went to their heads. The youth stroked the old one's cheek and throat and body. "Will you do one thing for me before you leave?"
"What dost thou wish?"
"Lie with me. Help me make the change."
With the wine, she found herself half amused by the youth's persistence and naivete. "That is something thou shouldst do with thy mate."
"I have to change soon, and there's no one else I want to court."
"Thou dost seek loneliness."
"Will you help me?"
"I told thee my decision when thou asked to stay."
The youth seemed about to protest again, but remained silent. The old one considered the easy capitulation, but the strangeness slipped from her as she drank more wine. Stroking her silver claws against her companion's patterned temple, she allowed her vision to unfocus among the swirls of tan, but she did not sleep.
* * *
When she had set herself for her journey, she slipped away. She felt some regret when the youth did not stir, but she did not want another argument; she did not want to be cruel again. As she neared the craft bay, excitement overcame disappointment; this was her first adventure in many years.
She saw no one, for the bay was on the same level as her room. She entered a small power craft, sealed it, and gave orders to the bay. The machinery worked smoothly, despite lack of use or care. The old one could understand the young people's implicit trust in the ship; her generation had built seldom, but very well. The air gone, she opened the hatch. The craft fell out into space.
Her feeling for the workings of the power craft returned. Without numbers or formulae she set its course; her vision was not so bad that she could not navigate in harbors.
Following gravity, she soon could feel the difference between this world and the home planet; not, she thought, too much. She crossed the terminator into daylight, where swirls of cloud swept by beneath her. She anticipated rain, cool on her face and wings, pushed in rivulets down her body by the speed of her flight. Without the old one's conscious direction, her wing fingers opened slightly, closed, opened.
She watched the stars as her motion made them rise. Refraction gave her the approximate density of the air: not, she thought, too low.
The ship dipped into the outer atmosphere. Its stubby wings slowed it; decelerating, it approached the planet's surface, fighting the differences of this world, which yielded, finally, to the old one's determination. She looked for a place to land.
The world seemed very young; for a long while she saw only thick jungles and marshes. Finally, between mountain ranges that blocked the clouds, she found a desert. It was alien in color and form, but the sand glittered with mica like the sand of home. She landed the ship among high dunes.
The possibility had always existed that the air, the life, the very elements would be lethal. She broke the door's seal; air hissed sharply. She breathed fresh air for the first time in two generations. It was thin, but it had more oxygen than she was used to, and made her light-headed. The smells teased her to identify them. She climbed to the warm sand, and slowly, slowly, spread her wings to the gentle wind.
Though the land pulled at her, she felt she could overcome it. Extending her wings to their limits, she ran against the breeze. She lifted, but not enough; her feet brushed the ground, and she was forced to stop.
The wind blew brown sand and mica flakes against her feet and drooping wingtips. "Be patient to bury me," she said. "You owe me more than a grave."
She started up the steep face of a nearby dune. The sand tumbled grain over grain in tiny avalanches from her footsteps. She was used to feeling lighter as she rose; here, she only grew more tired. She approached the knife-edged crest, where sunlight sparkled from each sand crystal. The delicate construct collapsed past her, pouring sand into her face. She had to stop and blink until her eyes were clear of grit, but she had kept her footing. She stood at the broken summit of the dune, with the sail-like crests that remained stretched up and out to either side. Far above the desert floor, the wind blew stronger. She looked down, laughed, spread her wings, and leaped.
The thin air dropped her; she struggled; her feet brushed the sand, but her straining wings held her and she angled toward the sky, less steeply than of old, but upward. She caught an updraft and followed it, spiraling in a wide arc, soaring past the shadowed hills of sand. This flight was less secure than those of her memories; she felt intoxicated by more than the air. She tried a shallow dive and almost lost control,
but pulled herself back into the sky. She was not quite ready to give life up. She no longer felt old, but ageless.
Motion below caught her attention. She banked and glided over the tiny figure. It scuttled away when her shadow touched it, but it seemed incapable of enough speed to make a chase exhilarating. Swooping with some caution, she skimmed the ground, snatched up the animal in her hand-fingers, and soared again. Thrashing, the scaly beast cried out gutturally. The old one inspected it. It had a sharp but not unpleasant odor, one of the mysterious scents of the air. She was not hungry, but she considered killing and eating the creature. It smelled like something built of familiar components of life, though along a completely alien pattern. She was curious to know if her system could tolerate it, and she wondered what color its blood was, but her people's tradition and instinct was to kill lower animals only for food. She released the cold beast where she had found it and she soared away.
The old one climbed into the air for one final flight. She felt deep sorrow that the young ones would not stop here.
At first, she thought she was imagining the soft, keening whine, but it grew louder, higher, until she recognized the shriek of a power craft. It came into view, flying very fast, too fast-- but it struggled, slowed, leveled, and it was safe. It circled toward the old one's craft. She followed.
From the air, she watched the youth step out into the sand. She landed nearby.
"Why didst thou come? I will not go back."
The youth showed her ankle bands and multicolored funeral veils. "Let me attend your death. At least let me do that."
"That is a great deal."
"Will you allow it?"
"Thou hast exposed thyself to great danger. Canst thou get back?"
"If I want to."
"Thou must. There is nothing here for thee."
"Let me decide that!" The youth's outburst faltered. "Why... why do you pretend to care so much about me?"
"I-- " she had no answer. Her concern was no pretense, but she realized that her actions and her words had been contradictory. She had changed, perhaps as much as the young ones, keeping the old disregard for death to herself, applying the new conservation of life to others. "I do care," she said. "I do care about you."