Fire in the Sky

5

Aslan leaned from the flikit and looked down as Marrin Ola brought it round a half circle over Dumel Alsekum. The tractor and the trailer with their gear was crawling away along the road, Duncan Shears just visible inside the cab. She sighed and straightened. “As any kind of scholarly study, this is a disaster.” She wriggled in the chair until she was settled more comfortably. “Yes, yes, I know. It was set up to be. And we’ve done with admirable efficiency what we were brought in to do.”

In the distance two Eolt floated like golden glass bells, heading on one of their enigmatic errands. She watched them as Marrin flew above the road, following its twists and turns. “I wonder about them, you know. We look at them and enjoy their beauty and listen to their song speech, but what are their stories? What are their lives like?”

“Likely we’ll learn more in Chuta Meredel. You want me to keep on along this road? We know she was all right until they left Dumel Olterau. There’s this big bend coming up, if I cut across it we’ll save about an hour.”

“Go ahead. I’ve got a bad feeling about this so the sooner we catch up with her the better.”

Aslan watched the wide flat riverplain change to small rocky hills with lots of brush, the neat lush farms become ranches with grazing, browsing herds of cabhisha which from above looked like powder puffs with black heads, herds of bladlan, lean leathery beasts with short stubby antlers that were bony imitations of lichen webs.

As the river curved back toward them, she saw a riverbarge gliding with the current, only enough sail to provide steerage way. Bright crimson jib, emerald main reefed to a small triangle. She unclipped the Ridaar, flaked the image, dictated a description along with her own reactions to the colored sails, the broken glitter off the river, the more muted colors on land, then tucked the Ridaar away. “It’s a beautiful world, this.”

“I’ve never been to Picabral or had occasion to study it. Anything like this?”

He shrugged. “Could have been. Picabral is harsher world, colder, a little heavier, and almost as isolated. It was settled in the Fifth Wave by a band of game-players with illusions of bringing back royalty, nobility and a rigid caste structure to support them. And rich enough to set up the physical analog to their fantasy world. You could tell me the story, Scholar, it’s that common.”

“Isolated, hm. You broke away.”

“It was easy enough.” The air being steady enough for him to let the autopik handle the flight, he leaned back in the seat, hands laced behind his head, his eyes on the clouds hovering above the mountain peaks. “Enforced ignorance is a splendid way of controlling the peasants, but the rulers can’t afford an equal nescience.” A flicker of a smile on his lean face. “Those among the male heirs who show a certain aptitude are sent to University for their schooling. I simply stayed.” He was silent a moment. “They lose a certain number of us every generation, but I think that’s as calculated as the rest. They weed out the rebels that way, the ones who might cause trouble.”

“That’s not an especially good idea if you want to have a viable society.”

“My adult cousins don’t tend to think that far ahead. Besides, holding onto power is more important and immediate than some illusory thing called society.”

“Yet I think you miss it sometimes.”

“Ah, it’s home. Nothing’s ever home like the place where you were a child.”

“Hm, for you, perhaps. For me, University is home and it has been from the moment I touched ground there.”

The land unreeled beneath them as the flikit covered ground it had taken Shadith days to cross on ponyback. Marrin slowed as Olterau slid toward them, a busy place with ore trains from the mountains creaking along twin tracks, pulled by huge lumbering beasts that looked like animated haystacks. Wains from the cabhisha runs shook and swayed along a road paved with granite setts, loaded with canvas wrapped bales of sheared fleece. Now and then Meloach or Fior children drove small herds of bladlan-two, three, five beasts at most-or flocks of ground walking birds toward the Dumel. The streets in the town itself were filled with sailors off the six barges tied up at wharves on both sides of the river, with men, women and Denchok moving in and out of shops, stopping in taverns, milling in clusters-all of them stopping to stare as the flikit passed by overhead. At the western edge of the Dumel a shift was changing at the fiber mill, workers pouring out into the yard with slips of paper in their hands, the next shift waiting for them to clear off so they could get work-these, too, paused to stare.

As the road turned north, the trees began growing more thickly, turning from scattered groves to forest, with the dark spikes of conifers showing up for the first time. The sky ahead was thickening with cloud and the winds were picking up. Now and then a splatter of rain hit the top and side of the flikit. As the light dimmed before the coming storm, Marrin took the flikit off autopik and flew it as low as he could, holding it just above the treetops so Aslan could scan the road with the all-wave binoculars and pick up any signs of trouble.

Aslan used her eyes as well as the more narrowly focused instrument and kept a tight watch on the road. About half an hour into the forest she spotted the remnants of a caцpa, mostly scattered bones and patches of hair. “Marrin, I’ve got something. One. Two. Mark. Right. Circle back and land at Mark.”

They found the mostly consumed bodies of five caцpas by the side of the road or a little way into the shadow under the trees. They also found three bodies stripped mostly to bone. A touch from Aslan’s medkit told her they were male and Fior at that. Not Shadith. Maybe not the two Ard who rode with her.

Another brief search found signs of a camp, rope ends, charred wood, scattered piles of caцpa dung. And a bloody pad that had blown up and caught in a crotch of one of the smaller trees, protected from the rain by the nest of some bird or other. She tested the blood and relaxed. Fior.

Marrin came back into the small clearing. “Found more caцpa sign back that way. Looks to me like they were attacked, most of the caцpas were killed, one or both of the men were wounded. Either Shadith or one of the men killed the attackers. And that’s probably when the handcom got bust.”

Aslan dropped the bit of cloth. “No doubt.” She shivered. “I don’t like this. Let’s get going.”

When they reached Dumel Minach, the storm had blown the Eolt away. As soon as he saw the place, Marrin turned to Aslan. “Scholar, you want to stop here? If one of them was injured, they probably lay up here for a while. The people down there would know what happened.”

She shook her head. “No. Let’s keep going. If we don’t see sign of them and they haven’t reached Chuta Meredel yet, we can always come back.”

“Not all that much daylight left.”

“If you’re tired, we can trade places.”

“You’ve got the better eye, Scholar. But I don’t feel good about setting down in the dark, not after what we saw.”

“Hm. You’re probably right. Depends on what we find. Let’s move.”

The moon rose shortly after sundown, a gibbous blur behind the clouds, the road narrowed, then disappeared beneath the canopy, and only the bridges over the innumerable creeks kept them on track; it was like the game children played, connecting the dots.

Marrin was flying half-speed now and had the telltales turned on. Animals kept away from the road, so the soft bongs were rare enough for him to send the flikit swooping through the canopy to check them out. They never saw anything, not even one of the mountain ruminants. Aslan kept the binoculars scanning the trees, but it was frustrating. Should Shadith and the two Fior be dead, they could have flown over bodies anywhere and they wouldn’t even know it.

As she searched, Aslan worried. It was the right decision, going ahead. They’d find Shadith if she was still alive and if she was dead, a little delay wouldn’t matter a whole lot. Knowing that didn’t help a whole lot.

“Cutter.” Swearing in Picabralth, Marrin hit the speed slide and sent the flikit curving away from the road in a long sweep.

Aslan pulled the binoculars off her head, smoothed her hair as she scowled at the dark ahead, winced as a line of light cut through the night, the sideflare illuminating what looked to be a tower of some kind; it cut off suddenly and the telltale flared. “Ah! Stunner. Guess who, hm. Take us into the clouds, Marrin. I want to see how many there are out there. With cutters I’d rather not have surprises.”

He nodded and took the flikit higher.