Chapter Seven
Counter-grav!
Anders fumbled for the control, then pushed the weight-control slide to make himself lighter. For a moment, he thought the sheer mass of the avians on top of him would hold him down, but although the mob of ravens was dense, it couldn’t contain him. He peeled up and out, floating toward the sky with increasing speed once the obstructions had been pushed aside. Quickly, he leveled off, then brought himself lower once more.
The shrieks of the rock ravens had shifted to something that sounded suspiciously triumphant, and Anders craned around to see how much damage they done to his glider. Thankfully, Bradford Whitaker’s usual tendency to skimp on anything other than anthropology hadn’t won out when he’d been choosing his son’s glider. The high-tech fabrics were dimpled but largely intact.
“Wow!” Toby’s voice was the first to register on Anders’ recovering ears. “That was amazing.”
“Good thing you got out of there so fast,” Chet said. “You think well on your feet—and off them, too, now that I think about it.”
His warm chuckle startled Anders, until he realized that what had been to him a horrible ordeal had probably lasted no more than a few seconds. The peacock cries of the rock ravens had distorted more than his sense of balance.
“You okay, Anders?” Jessica’s voice held deep concern. “They didn’t get your eyes or anything?”
“I had my flying goggles on,” Anders replied, “and I’m really glad. They definitely were going for my eyes. Clever little monsters.”
“Land at base,” Christine said firmly. “We better make sure you and your glider didn’t take any real damage.”
Anders thought about arguing. With the counter-grav unit on it wasn’t like he could fall or anything, even if his glider was damaged, but he knew that tone. If he argued, Christine would simply get Chet to help her grab him and tow him in. Chet would probably think it was really funny.
When they landed, the girls made a fuss over the peck marks on his face. When Anders got a look at himself in Christine’s pocket mirror, he couldn’t argue. He looked pretty bad, with blood and streaks of what he thought was probably bird shit all over his face. The shit wasn’t restricted to his face, either. Neither were the feathers…Bits of down and longer wing feathers stuck to him, giving evidence of how violent the rock ravens had been in protecting their territory.
Anders plucked off one of the larger feathers and tilted it back and forth, noting how the colors shifted in the light through blues into browns.
“Well, I guess something good came out of this,” he said. “We can collect samples for the SFS biologists. Anyone got a small bag?”
Jessica said, “I’ll borrow from Valiant’s stash.”
On Sphinx, even kids knew how to plan in advance for emergencies. There was a first aid kit in Chet’s truck and another in Jessica’s car. Fresh water wasn’t a problem, either. Within a relatively short time, Anders was scrubbed off and had been deemed fit for action once more.
“Well,” Toby said philosophically, “at least now we know rock ravens will fight back. I wonder if that’s what Karl meant when he said we should keep clear of them?”
“Now you remember?” Anders retorted sarcastically.
“Hey,” Toby said with an eloquent shrug of his supple shoulders. “I thought he was just worried about the birds. You know how he and Stephanie are. Nature first.”
“You’ve got a point,” Anders agreed. “Now, how do I get that thing? Obviously, it’s not going to be as easy as just grabbing it. For some reason those idiot ravens have decided they want to keep it.”
“I wonder,” Jessica said, “if it’s the color. Stephanie picked it because it was close to the shade of those hexaflies you two saw here. I wonder if the rock ravens think that that’s the biggest stash of hexaflies they’ve ever seen and you want to swipe it.”
Anders laughed. “I bet you’re right. If they’re sight hunters, the color would mean more to them than the fact that Stephanie’s package is the wrong size and smell and all.”
“Hey, don’t be too hard on them,” Christine said. “After all, there were a lot of hexaflies here not long ago. They’ve got a lot of reason to hope.”
Chet nodded. “Color might be our answer. What if we waited until after dark? If the rock ravens are sight hunters, then it’s likely they bed down or roost or whatever it is birds do it at night.”
“That’s a good idea,” Anders said. “Do you think we need to tell the Harringtons? I mean, I’m not sure they’d like the idea of us cliff-diving after dark.”
“I wouldn’t bug them,” Jessica said. “Stephanie always says it’s better to not say anything if you think someone won’t like the truth. We’re pretty far from where they have their house. If we don’t show a light, we should be fine. We’ll wait until the rock ravens get quiet, then send someone—”
“Me!” Anders insisted when Toby looked all too ready to volunteer. “This is still my quest. Anyhow, I’ll just use the counter-grav to lower myself. No problem.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Toby grumbled, but he didn’t protest further.
* * *
This time the plan worked. The rock ravens even cooperated by retreating into neat little holes in the rock as soon as the light began to lose its brilliance. They peeped a bit as Anders drifted by, but seemed to feel no inclination to go after him.
Maybe they think I’m a condor owl or something, Anders thought. They know how to pick their battles. That’s really not a bad lesson to take away from this. Not a bad one at all.
* * *
“Wow, that’s amazing what happened with the rock ravens,” Stephanie told the pickup as she recorded her latest message to Anders. “I had no idea they’d react that way. Jess wrote me about what happened, and it sounds as if you were great—and not nearly as out-of-control as you made it sound when you messaged me last night.
“I’m really glad you and Jessica both like my idea about her serving as liaison. Jess said that she actually got the impression Chief Ranger Shelton was relieved when she—I mean Jess—volunteered to be interviewed and to let the xeno-anthropologists meet Valiant. You know how protective Irina is of Scott’s free time, but Chief Ranger Shelton isn’t the sort to assume that just because Jess is only fifteen she’s automatically available. And she and her family can sure use the stipend. I think it was a good move on your dad’s part to offer it.”
Stephanie sighed, thinking about how much she wished she didn’t have to delegate that particular job. She was glad Jessica would be able to supplement her family’s income, of course, but still….
“The coursework is just as intensive as we were warned. We weren’t even on planet two hours before a bunch of material for us to review was downloaded onto our uni-links.”
She went on to describe some of the material, which ranged from social customs to elementary forensics, with a lot of botany and zoology in the middle.
“—so then we got the full tour.” Stephanie giggled. “Poor Karl found out it’s even hotter here in Landing then he thought it’d be. I thought he was gonna melt right down in front of me, but even the air-conditioning’s set a lot higher here than it is back home! It’s rough on Lionheart, too, but I think dad’s right about how the ’cat shedding mechanism works. Lionheart’s been shedding like crazy ever since we got here, and it has to’ve been kicked off by the rise in temperature. My dorm room looks like a permanent blizzard from all the hair he’s lost! But the labs are nice, and the HD set up is a lot better than I thought it would be. I like my dorm room, too, even if I wish it was a little bigger. With all this space here on campus, you’d think they could give me more than one room! But I guess it’s really all Lionheart and I need.”