Symphony for Skyfall

Illustration by Vincent Di Fate

Shark!

Ensign stretched his timpani even tighter and listened again. The clouds swirled around his body, obscuring his own wingtips in the mist of opaque orange and pink. Wind-driven ice crystals stung against his taut membranes. The air pressed in on him thick and oppressive. He wished he were above the clouds and out in the clean sunlight with the rest of his pod. Reflexively his body twitched toward a more aerodynamic shape that would let him rise faster. But he forced himself to relax into a listening posture. Trying to out-climb a shark was a fool’s game and a fool would not survive this day.

Dum-Doom.

The shark’s hunting pulse swept over him again as the predator sought him through the clouds. Close, but not too close. With the disturbance caused by the nearby thermocline the hunter would have trouble finding him. Ensign listened so hard his muscles ached from the strain of holding his hearing membranes taut. He knew that if he used his jet the shark could home in on the sound instantly—so he used the slower, quieter, and more drawn-out method of relaxing his buoyancy chambers, letting them inflate silently to float him upward, continuing his painfully slow rise to sunlight and safety.

Dum-Doom Dum-Doom

Two pulses this time! Ensign cursed his luck. The shark had his general direction now and swept back and forth over a narrower sector, moving its beam faster. Soon it would be close enough to switch to high frequency for the final, slashing attack. Ensign sucked the warm, thick atmosphere through his maw, supercharging his system for the action to come. He felt a quiver along his flanks as his remoras sensed his fear and shifted uneasily.

Dum-Doom Dum-Doom

RUN! His instincts screamed. Flatten out, expel his store of hydrogen through rear orifices and shoot for the cloud tops. But his self-control held and he kept his pace. Reason told him he was too deep to get clear of the clouds and even if he did, the shark could take him on a lunge, rending him, slashing open buoyancy cells and feasting at leisure as he fell back helplessly into the clouds.

Yet reason also told him the shark would find him soon. The shark was a creature of the clouds and down here in the dark heat and thick air the advantage lay with the hunter.

Think! There had to be a way. Think!

Dum-Doom Dum-Doom Dum-Doom

“Caught in the clouds with one shark on the way…”

The scrap of song crossed his mind. Yes, that was it! But what was the rest of the song? Caught in the clouds…

It wouldn’t come. He hummed the melody in his head, striving for the next line but it wasn’t there. Nothing.

Gently, softly, Ensign sang out through his earmouths, “Caught in the clouds with one shark on the way…” Come on! Sing me the rest!

He felt motion along his terror-tight skin as one of his remoras eased forward to an earmouth on his back. There was a warm tickling as the symbiote clamped its suction head to the special membrane and then the membrane vibrated as the remora picked up the memorized song.

Of course! There were two sharks. The remora’s song formed the picture clearly in his mind. As soon as he swerved away from the first shark he’d put himself square in the path of the attack of the second. Ensign thought he remembered what came next, but he stilled himself to listen to his companion’s far more accurate rendition.

There was much more. Ensign drank it in as quickly as the remora could sing it to him in six-part harmony.

Dum-Doom Dum-Doom Dum-Doom Dum Dum Dum Dum

The shark had him! Ensign’s whole body quivered as the shark switched to a higher frequency for precise location. Sensing his haste, the remora picked up the tempo, the song becoming a buzzing multifrequency squeak as the little friend tried to jam the information into his mind.

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum

Faster and closer came the sound of the hunting shark. It was rising now, moving into position for a killing surge. No time to review, Ensign had to act.

He willed himself to narrow his hearing to the middle frequencies, concentrating on the shark’s voice, picking up its rhythm.

DumDumDum DumDum Dum-Dum DumDum DumDum DumDum DumDum DumDum Dum

Ensign added his own pulses to the hunting shark’s, matching the predator’s frequency and pulse shape with automatic ease. The shark quickened its call and shifted to a higher frequency, the added pulses making it think he was closer than he was.

DumSumDumSumDumSumDum

SumDumSumDumSumDumSumDum

SumDumSumDumSum

Ensign varied his pulses as the song directed. Still the shark climbed, but Ensign could sense the first edge of uncertainty in its hunting cry. Now the song told him to add a new sound in the middle frequencies.

SumhissDumSumhissDumSumhisss DumSumhisssDumSumhissssDumSum hisssssDumSumhissssss The shark’s beam wavered and lost focus. It dropped in frequency to cover a wider area. Ensign felt the shark moving away to the north. Quietly he eased to the south, increasing his volume to mask his movements. DumSumhissssss*click*DumSumhisss-sss*click *DumSumhissssss*click*Dum Sumhissssss*click*pop*

As the song instructed, Ensign added more noise to the higher frequency to cloak his position and further hide him from the second shark. All along his flanks and back his remoras twitched and shifted nervously under the impact of the unnatural sound.

Frantically the shark began to shift tempo and frequencies, seeking a clear channel even if it were suboptimal. But the song prepared Ensign for that too. Sharks have little musical imagination and the pattern of the shift, first higher and faster, then lower and slower, then jumping suddenly to higher and slower, was foretold in the song. Ensign matched the shark shift for shift, leaving it coursing blindly in the murk. Just to be safe he added a syncopation.

The shark’s signal stuttered, wavered and faded. Still close but out of charging range. Now came the song’s final stanza. Ensign contracted muscles all along his body, sacrificing hearing sensitivity for aerodynamic efficiency. With powerful flaps of his outer wings he began to climb for the cloud tops and safety.

Du…

The shark’s search beam flashed over him almost too quickly to register. But the shark was too far away and headed in the wrong direction. As the clouds lightened around him and began to fade into rainbow-tinted fog, Ensign could picture the hunter slewing frantically, lashing out with his sonar trying to find him again.

Then he was out in the sunlight, floating deep in a canyon formed by two cloud banks. He sucked in air, reveling in the clear, clean sting of ammonia. Ensign expanded in triumph as—

SKREEEEEE

With a blast of hunting sound the second shark hurtled out of the clouds. Ensign barely had a glimpse of the dark torpedo shape as it tore down on him. Instinctively he rolled right and roared out on all frequencies using all his upper timpani to focus sound on his attacker. The shark twitched under the force of the blast and missed by a remora-length as Ensign rolled away and struck out with a wingtip to batter the shark as it dove. Then, without waiting to right himself he expelled hydrogen in a single huge gust that sent him zooming above the cloud tops. His lower eyes gave him a confused vision of the shark twisting away as it shrank back into the murky depths.

Ensign was nearly upside down when he got his tumbling body under control. With a heave and a twist he righted himself and hung in the cloud bank’s updraft, every muscle quivering from exertion and release. One or two remoras who were shaken loose by his violent maneuvering glided in to reattach themselves.

The second shark! It hadn’t stayed low as the song said. While Ensign spoofed its mate the second predator had climbed above him and waited in ambush. Perhaps it had deliberately headed for the nearest rift in the clouds knowing he would instinctively seek the first clear air he could find.

And it had nearly worked. If the shark had held its swoop for just a little longer, or if Ensign had been a little slower to react, he would be a slashed and bleeding wreck sinking into eternal darkness as the sharks tore at him.

He quickly reviewed the newly learned song and confirmed that it didn’t mention the tactic. Another verse to be added, then, taught to the remoras and spread through them to High Folk everywhere. And one more proof that, for all their viciousness, sharks could learn.

“Thanks, little friend,” he vibrated through his earmouth to the remora whose memory had saved them. There was a warm tickling on his earmouth as the remora purred in pleasure.

Ensign scanned for his companions and took stock. He’d vented more hydrogen than was healthy in his jet-driven climb. His buoyancy cells were so low he had to flap occasionally to hold position even in an updraft. He’d have to work to stay up with the pod for the next several days as he rebuilt his hydrogen reserves. But he was alive and that was the important thing.

Ensign expanded as best he could under the influence of a sun too cold for human sensing and almost too dim for human sight. But then no human would ever visit Jupiter’s cloud tops unaided by a mountain of special protective gear.

Nor would any of the High Folk ever visit humanity’s home. In spite of his 120-meter wingspan and powerful muscles, Ensign’s manta body was fundamentally shaped by internal gas pressure in the network of cells, bladders and chambers that made up more than 90 percent of his volume. His nervous system was perhaps more complex than a human’s and his body could stand external pressures from three Earth atmospheres down to less than 1 percent of Earth normal—not to mention temperatures from above freezing point of water down to far below anything ever found on Earth. But for all his complexity, adaptability, and strength, Ensign was basically as fragile as a balloon in a Thanksgiving Day parade.

Off to the east and a couple of thousand wingspans below, Ensign spotted the dark manta shapes of the other members of the Bach Choir working their leisurely way through the field of plankton. With a quick flip of his wings, Ensign glided off the updraft to join them.

“Ensign, what was that all about?” Melody called as soon as he got close. She had slimmed her body out of feeding mode to tighten her timpani so she could talk and hear him before the others.

Ensign paled in embarrassment as he realized the whole pod had seen him after he came up over the cloud bank. “Sharks,” he said quickly. “Two of them, down in the clouds.” Quickly, as only a being who speaks on twenty or more frequencies at once can, he related the encounter, including the shark’s new tactic and his wingtip-breadth escape. The other members of the Bach Choir rearranged themselves so they could hear his tale as they grazed.

“That’s really something,” The Geek said enthusiastically when he finished. “Hey, maybe we can turn it into a performance piece.”

“Yeah,” came a sarcastic retort from above them, “a comedy number.”

Ensign looked over Melody and The Geek and saw Killer had maneuvered in close. The Bach Choir’s lead singer floated above and behind Melody in a position that was so proprietary it verged on insulting. Ensign checked his temper and The Geek made an inarticulate protest.

“You should have seen yourself when you broke out of the clouds,” Killer chortled. “You were doing a half barrel roll and I swear it looked like you stalled out on the top. If you showed a shark moves like that it’s no wonder you confused him.”

“It wasn’t intentional,” Ensign muttered.

“Intentional or not it was one of the best pieces of comedy aerobatics I’ve ever seen. Polish it up and we can use it as an interlude at our next concert. While we get set up for the serious singing.”

There was a brief, strained silence. “Seriously,” Killer went on without missing a beat. “I’m glad you’re safe.” The way he said it left no doubt he was sincere but it didn’t draw the sting. Before Ensign could reply Melody cut in.

“Did you find Teacher? Is he near?”

“Closer than we thought,” Ensign said, not sure whether he felt glad of the distraction or not. “He should be here in a few more day tenths.”

That set the whole choir to muttering and buzzing. Ensign had dropped down to a thermocline to seek out travelers at long range. Sound carried far down there if you limited yourself to lower frequencies and the ability to communicate over long distances made it worth the greater risk of shark attacks.

“There’s more,” Ensign added. “He says he’s bringing someone with him.”

“Who?” asked Yearling, pushing forward in a manner that would have been rude in someone else. In Yearling it was just part of an odd mix of juvenile behavior and towering musical talent that made Yearling Yearling.

Ensign rippled his trailing edge in the High Folk’s equivalent of a shrug. “Didn’t say. Not enough time.”

Yearling’s wingtips drooped in semi-serious disappointment. Low frequencies meant low data rates and the longer you stayed at those depths the more likely you were to attract sharks.

“It would help us to know,” Killer said. “It may be another Master.”

Again, Ensign bit back a retort. His relations with the Bach Choir’s lead singer had become progressively more strained this season and unlike Killer, Ensign didn’t want to do anything to make them worse. As much as he could he ignored the older singer’s needling. But that was getting harder and harder.

“Should we start our welcoming song now?” Melody cut in.

“Good idea,” Killer told her. “We need the practice. Spread out and we’ll run through it. Geek, this time try to hold to the beat. Yearling, watch the high notes. And Ensign, you’re still pretty worn, if you want to rest—”

“I’ll handle my part,” Ensign gritted.

Almost automatically the Bach Choir sorted itself out into a performance formation, line-abreast so their song would reach as far as possible. Since the High Folk sang through their skins rather than their mouths the Bach Choir could keep their fore scoops and belly vents wide to continue sucking in plankton-laden air and straining out the hordes of tiny creatures. But they altered their shapes for best sound production rather than most efficient grazing.

“Come ye weary travelers,” Killer sang out strong and resonant in a narrow band of middle frequencies.

“Come gather and be welcome,” Melody’s voice soared above Killer’s in higher range. Crystal came in over top adding her distinctive trill. Shorty and the three newest singers, Winger, Floater and Fuzzvoice moved into position to add counterpoint to the basic theme.

“Come now and join us,” the rest of the choir picked up.

“Come, come, come, come,” Drummer and Droner sang out the low register, their whole bodies pulsing with the effort. Then all but Drummer and Droner paused for the listening period.

“Join us in the plankton fields,” Killer carried on.

“Come and take the guest’s place,” Melody and Jane trilled.

“Come and be welcome,” the choir continued.

“Come, come, come, come,” the bass section pounded out, running in riffs while holding the basic beat.

Ensign had lost so much hydrogen it was hard for him to sing. In a couple of spots he had to cheat and he knew that Killer noticed. But still he held his place, trying to produce the sounds allotted him as perfectly and clearly as if he had rested for a week.

“We come. We come.” Faintly and far away came the traditional traveler’s response at the pause. As one the Bach Choir turned in the direction of the sound so their song would be an even clearer guide. Off in the distance Ensign could see two tiny dark specks moving against the opalescent clouds. As the song and response continued they resolved themselves into two of the High Folk.

Even as the song continued, Ensign frowned to himself. The larger person must be Teacher, but who was the other one? The shape appeared so small it must be a child. But why would Teacher bring a child on such a journey?

One of the travelers was undoubtedly Teacher. None among the High Folk had such a commanding voice, such pure technique or such a fine inventiveness even on the stereotypical response to the greeting song. It was a voice and technique they all knew well. Nearly all of the Bach Choir had studied under Teacher. Some of them had come from halfway around Jupiter to learn from him. If his voice was no longer as ripe and full as it had been, if his timpani stiffened with age, there was still no question that Teacher was the greatest master of their time.

And his companion? As the pair came closer Ensign could begin to locate the voices more clearly. There was something wrong here! Ensign’s confusion deepened and then suddenly cleared. Teacher was the small one. And his companion was not young, but old. So old he looked puffy with expanded gas cells his aging muscles could no longer slim to a proper traveling shape. An ancient. But who? And why had Teacher brought someone like that?

Without missing a beat, Teacher and his companion glided into the places of honor in the formation moving through the plankton field. As they slid in, Ensign found another problem with the old one. He mumbled. He threw off a constant stream of wheezes, snorts and bits of phrases, apparently without realizing it. Ensign’s skin tightened in distaste and he moved as far away from the oldster as etiquette permitted. Why in the name of all Below and Above had Teacher brought him?

Killer sang the formal greeting and the whole choir chimed in on the chorus, each offering a fragment of his or her own. Teacher responded warmly yet gravely with a carefully controlled invention. The oldster stumbled and muttered through a trite formula of response.

“Well sung, all of you,” Teacher half-said, half-sang as soon as the formalities completed. “Drummer, you and Droner are unusually strong. Melody, Crystal, you carry a lovely harmony. And Killer, your singing is clearly up to your early promise.”

All of them puffed and flushed with pride at their teacher’s praise. Even Killer, who tried to hide it, expanded a little.

“But to business then,” Teacher half-said, half-sang. Almost without thinking the members of the Bach Choir rearranged themselves around their two visitors in classroom formation.

“You’re famous, you know,” Teacher said. “There is not an eclipse, a transit or a convocation held in the whole band without one of your songs.” He swept a searching beam over them all. “You have broken new ground in harmonies and song structure. Quite a remarkable achievement in ones so young.”

The choir members murmured a response. Then they waited. When Teacher started with an updraft there was sure to be a downdraft close behind.

“With your fame comes responsibility, and you have a task before you.”

The choir shifted and muttered in little bursts of sound. Teacher addressed them as if they were still pupils, children, not independent adults with their own pod.

Teacher continued, “My traveling companion is from Newcomb Pod, far to the south. He has come to meet the best of the younger pods and when he asked me, I suggested you.” Teacher wiggled a wingtip in a self-deprecating gesture. “Simon and his pod track the stars and the moons, predicting eclipses so the folk can gather for songs and rituals. With their songs and their watching they can predict a gathering time a thousand days in advance.” Teacher surveyed his class and continued, “One such a prediction has set a task for you.”

“High task. Long task. Task taken… bzzzzhmm…” the old one mumbled.

“A special festival?” Yearling cut in. “A Grand Gathering of moons?”

In spite of his fatigue, Ensign’s soul soared at the prospect. Sometimes the shadows of two or more moons would join together in a Grand Gathering. Those were special times for the High Folk and worthy of very special songs—if the singers had time to prepare them.

“Tell us what you desire of us,” Killer responded formally for the choir.

Instead of answering directly Teacher rocked back on his axis, as if studying the sky with his main eyes. “Soon enough. It lacks something of evening however, so there is time. Do any of you know the Skyfall Song?” Ensign felt utterly bewildered. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see he wasn’t the only one. The whole pod appeared obviously contused. Even Killer seemed uncertain.

“The Skyfall Song?”

“Yes, the one that begins ‘In the east we saw it.’ ”

There was more shifting and shrugging as the members of the choir repeated the request to their remoras. Finally Drummer, The Geek and Crystal eased forward, indicating their remoras knew that song.

“Sing it for the others please,” Teacher asked, as if demanding an impromptu recital in school.

After a moment’s confusion, the trio rearranged themselves close enough so they could communicate at very high frequency to keep together on the unfamiliar song. Then Drummer, the most experienced performer, gave the cue and the three picked up the song.

The beat came raggedly and with only three voices to cover all the parts the performance sounded thin. But Teacher didn’t seem to notice. Nor did he demand they start again when they got slightly out of phase. He only bobbed assent, as if lost in the song.

Something about this tugged at Ensign’s memory. He didn’t know the song, nor was it among the thousands his remoras had memorized. The pattern and the rhythm were old, a chanson style used only for important history songs. He did not know the song, and yet…

It would take volumes to convey the song in any human language and all those books couldn’t begin to approximate the emotional impact of the throbbing subsonics and keening, piercing high notes, of the pressure of all the information crashing in on the senses at once.

On and on the Skyfall Song swept, carrying the Bach Choir with it in its tale of holocaust. Of pods wiped out in an eyeblink, crushed by pressure waves, battered apart by hurricanes, seared by unimaginable heat. Of High Folk burning like torches as they fell into the clouds, of the clouds themselves parted and roiling as the very order of the world was overturned. And above all of loss. The terrible, terrible loss.

“Still today we see it,” sang the three.

“In the south we see it.” Their voices soared together nearly beyond hearing.

“Sweeping round the world we see it, red memory of our doom.”

The Bach Choir remained silent as the last notes died away. Ensign felt his flanks quiver in grief and his breath come hard to stick in his throat. Over on the far side someone—Crystal?—began the Mourning Song. Without thinking, the rest of the choir picked up the ancient, unadorned melody.

Gradually the Mourning Song faded into silence in the deepening twilight.

“It is an old song,” Teacher said at last. “A thing from long ago. But you can still see the result today.”

“The Great Red Spot,” breathed The Geek.

Teacher bobbed assent. “This is the song of how it came to be. Now,” he commanded suddenly. “Look over to the west. There, above Ganymede and to the right.”

As one the Bach choir swung in the indicated direction.

“There’s something there,” Melody said. “A wandering star.”

“No,” The Geek said. “Wanderers follow fixed patterns. This,” he hesitated, “I don’t think this is mentioned in any of the sky songs.”

“It is new. Now, look above and farther right.”

Ensign squinted with effort as he deformed the lenses of his main eyes to bring the area into focus. A human would have needed a telescope, but each of Ensign’s two main eyes was larger than a man was tall and the lenses were backed by several square meters of imaging surface all feeding an image processing system that would put an Earthly eagle or owl to shame. If he looked very hard he could see…

“Another one,” The Geek said. “Just above it.”

“And one above that and another above that,” Teacher told them. “And others yet, if you know where and when to look. We do not think any of them are as big as the one in the Skyfall Song. But they are big enough.”

“What are they?” The Geek demanded.

Teacher rippled a shrug. “Pieces of the sky. We only know they will fall, and soon. As they come closer we will know more, but by then it will be too late.”

“Too late for what?” asked Killer.

“Salvation,” Teacher said quietly.

In spite of himself, Ensign felt his body twitch toward the fleeing shape.

“But you said this one wasn’t big,” Crystal protested.

“Big enough,” wheezed Simon. “Big enough and more than one. Many, many more. Twenty of them at last count.”

Stunned silence. “Twenty to go,” mumbled Simon. “Twenty to come, twenty… sshhhhhisss.”

“We think they will all fall within three or four days,” Teacher said tightly. “Rather than one great storm, we will have many which will be almost as great.”

“Like facing a whole pod of sharks,” Droner said quietly. “Move to avoid one and you are in the path of another.” Teacher bobbed gravely.

“Then there is nothing we can do,” Melody said softly.

“No, there is something we can do.” Teacher looked over the entire Bach Choir. “Something you all must do.

“We do not know exactly where the sky will fall, but we have some idea where it is less likely to fall. North is safer than south. We need to go north as far and as quickly as possible. We need to save the songs that are our past and future—the songs that are us.”

“How do we know where they will fall and where they won’t?” Ensign asked.

“We watch,” Simon wheezed. “We measure. We sing songs of prediction. We make new songs.” The ancient sucked air, as if speaking more than two sentences exhausted him.

Simon seemed to be gathering himself to wheeze out something more when Yearling jumped in. “That means we go traveling again. We’ve already been from both the North to South edges of the South Temperate Zone and tasted the whirlwinds where the clouds slip by each other.”

Teacher dipped his wingtips in a frown. “We will have to cross the edge into the south Temperate Belt, where the air sinks and one must always climb. Then if we can we must cross into the south Tropical Zone.”

Killer became rigid with controlled disagreement. “If you think we’re going anywhere near the Great Red Spot…”

Teacher made a placating gesture, “The Spot is on the other side of the world. We won’t be anywhere near it. But even that Zone will not be safe. For safety we must go even farther north.”

“How far north?” The Geek asked.

“As far as we can,” Teacher said gravely. “Even above the equator if we have time.”

That subdued even Yearling. Few of the High Folk had crossed even one band edge in their lives. Now Teacher told them they would have to make the dangerous crossings several times in a row, and to do it as quickly as they could.

“And there will be new songs to learn,” Teacher added. “Many new songs.”

“Other peoples’ songs,” Killer rumbled out slowly. “We would be singing others’ songs.” Clearly he didn’t like the thought.

“Yours and many others,” Teacher said. “We will carry as much knowledge as possible.”

“And we’re the only ones going?”

“No. Others have been warned. Some are gathering songs and fleeing. But you are unique.”

That was true enough. Most choirs were regular pods, family groups with young and pregnant females to slow them down. The Bach Choir was an artificial creation, all the members about the same age and bound together by their talent and their music. There were no young or pregnant females. Slightly scandalous to be sure, but that reputation suited the Choir’s image of itself. Ensign had never thought of the composition as a survival advantage. He found he didn’t much like the notion, however true it might be.

“Some, but not everyone?” Killer asked sharply.

“No,” Teacher said tiredly, “not everyone.”

“And you say you don’t know where the sky will fall? We might be running into danger instead of away from it?”

“What is your point?”

“My point,” Killer spit with sharp resonating consonants, “is that this is a fool’s errand.” He paused, recognizing that he had gone too far. “I’m sorry, Teacher,” he continued more gently. “I respect you and your knowledge. But this is wrong.”

Killer swung slightly, addressing the group as much as Teacher. “You and Simon say we might die in skyfall if we stay here, but you’re not sure. I’ll tell you what is sure. If we try to travel north across the bands, we will die. It is the wrong season, the edge storms will be bad and we have not fed for the journey. You’re asking us to wager a possible doom against the certain destruction of the Bach Choir. I won’t take that bet.”

Ensign noted that Winger, Floater, and Fuzzvoice edged around the pod to hover behind Killer. Shorty had separated from both groups and hung off to one side, clearly not a part of either.

“Well, I will take the wager,” Melody sang out. “Look at us. We’re what Teacher made us and I can’t believe he’d steer us falsely.”

“Perhaps not deliberately,” Drummer boomed in the lower registers, the force of his reply roiling the plankton ahead of him. “But he can be as wrong as any of the rest of us.”

“Still, I trust him,” Melody said stubbornly.

“That’s illogical,” Killer told her. “Have you ever seen the band edge storms? I have.”

Melody hesitated and before anyone could respond Teacher spoke. “You say we would all die in the crossings?” he asked sharply.

“Perhaps not, but there wouldn’t be enough of us left. One cannot carry all the songs. Not two, not three. Without enough to make up a choir we’d lose the thing that makes us us.”

“And what is it that makes us? Sharks sing, after all.”

Killer ignored the insult. “They don’t sing like we do.”

“Precisely. Sharks don’t pass on their songs. But what if we lose the songs? Will we still be us then? Not just the Bach Choir, but the entire High Folk. We have to save the songs and you are our best chance.

“So which is greater?” Teacher continued. “Your concern for the Bach Choir or concern for all of the High Folk?”

Killer contracted with rage. He puffed up as if to shout, contracted again and settled for snorting on all frequencies. “You can do what you want,” he said quietly. “I am staying.”

“I’m staying too,” Drummer said and behind him, Wringer, Floater and Fuzzvoice bobbed in agreement.

“I cannot force you,” Teacher said gently.

Killer gave another snort, expanded and cut up over the formation in a swoop that brought him close to passing above and behind Teacher. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, so he settled for passing over Ensign so low and close Ensign wanted to reach up and slap his vulnerable underside as he went by. Drummer and the others followed in a loose gaggle.

It’s finally come, Ensign thought numbly. The split they had all dreaded in secret was out in the open. He was surprised to find he was more relieved than anything else. And also obscurely glad he had no part in it.

Simon wheezed something incoherent. A free-swimming remora flapped toward Ensign, then folded its wings tight against his body and settled on one of his earmouths. “Nice folks don’t do things like that!” came Crystal’s easy trill. “Don’t worry about Killer, Ensign. Just let him go off and sulk.”

“Thanks,” Ensign vibrated back to the remora, “I appreciate it.” Then he twitched the remora with the new message off his body to return to the sender.

“If speed is so important won’t the old one slow us down?” The Geek asked to break the tension.

“Perhaps,” Teacher said, “but we will need him.”

He doesn’t seem upset, Ensign thought, watching Teacher closely. Somehow there was more to this than he understood. That bothered him so much he sought out Shorty later. Not only was he several seasons older than the rest of the Bach Choir, he had studied with Teacher longer than any of the others.

“Did you get the feeling Teacher expected the Choir to split when he set his task?” he asked as their grazing brought them close in the plankton fields.

The question seemed to amuse the older male. “Teacher keeps close track of his pupils. There’s probably not a lot that goes on in the Bach Choir he doesn’t know. And what he doesn’t know he can guess.”

“But if he knew it would split us why did he do it?”

Shorty paused and cocked a main eye at Ensign. “Think it through. He doesn’t know where Skyfall will come and he wants the songs to survive. Which has the better chance? One pod or two widely separated ones?”

“But that’s so ruthless!” Among the High Folk splitting a pod in bad feeling was a tragedy.

Shorty moved closer to Ensign, so close it was almost improper. “When it suits his purposes Teacher can be as ruthless as a shark,” he said very softly. “Do you know he’s abandoned remoras just because others came along who could hold more songs?

“I don’t believe it!”

“I was there. We all had full loads and there was no one to take the surplus. So he just dumped them.”

“That’s monstrous!”

“Son, you’ve got a lot to learn about being a pod leader,” Shorty said quietly. “Especially about being as great a leader as Teacher.”

“But he’s so warm, so loving.”

“Oh yes. He genuinely likes all of us. In some ways we’re more his children than the ones he sired. But don’t think that would save any of us if he believed it was necessary to doom us for some higher purpose.”

“And this trip?”

“I think someone convinced him it’s necessary. Probably Simon. And now he’s using what he’s built in the years he taught and nurtured us to get us to go with him.” He rippled his trailing edge in ironic amusement. “All part of a pod leader’s job. You spend your life building up good will and then sometimes you cash that good will in.”

Ensign was shocked to silence. For several minutes they flew side by side without speaking. Finally Shorty broke in on his thoughts.

“Son, one day you’re going to get a chance at the pod leader’s job. Before you take it you’d better think long and hard about what you may have to do in order to do the job right. You just might decide you don’t want that job after all.”

Then with a lift and swoop Shorty moved away, leaving Ensign alone in the lightning-shot dark.

The group spent the night feeding and exchanging remoras with the Choir members who were staying. Unlike most partings, it was a strained, almost ritualistic affair. Both groups kept to themselves and sent the remoras over long distances. That slowed the exchange of information. Worse, many of the Bach Choir’s songs were so complicated that no single remora held all of them. Each group ended up with isolated pieces of some of their most important songs. They would have to try to reconstruct them later.

Already we are losing parts of ourselves, Ensign thought. He wondered how much more they would lose before the journey was over.

The travelers left the next morning, rising up and away from the plankton fields, expanding their bodies to ride the updrafts towards the high, cold sky.

Little enough food in the spaces between the edges, Ensign thought as they floated upward and turned toward the north. Feeding had been fairly good but none of them had much surplus. Plankton was richest and feeding safest in the turbulent areas around the edges of the semi-permanent cyclonic storms that formed in the zones. The upwelling currents sucked up larval plankton, ammonia, water ice and other, more complex compounds from the warmer depths, and the plankton fed and bloomed in the sunlight. When you traveled the relatively calm air between the storms you either didn’t eat or you had to drop down very close to the cloud tops to scavenge what plankton remained. That meant you also became shark bait.

Sharks were creatures of the clouds and lightning-flashed darkness. They didn’t like the sunlight and they couldn’t take the cold and low pressure above the cloud tops as well as the High Folk. But then except for the plankton and remoras, nothing on Ensign’s world could.

Because of Jupiter’s high gravity and thick atmosphere, the pressure gradient went from three Earthly atmospheres at the melting point of water to a fraction of an atmosphere at temperatures well below anything on Earth in a matter of fifty miles. Compounds borne up out of the warmer, thicker, denser layers nourished the life in the cloud layers and the complex ecology down in the dark produced the tiny organisms borne upward to bloom and grow in the sun and feed the High Folk. Danger and food came from the clouds below and the life of the High Folk was a constant balancing act between avoiding the danger and sucking in enough plankton to fuel their huge bodies.

Special problem for me, Ensign thought glumly as he flapped his outer wings to try to hold his position. He had jetted so much hydrogen escaping from the shark that he was less buoyant than the others. Unless the Choir was very lucky at finding updrafts to glide from, he would have to spend more energy to keep up. With little food and the low pressure of high altitudes he wouldn’t be able to build up his hydrogen reserves. Ensign’s knowledge of thermodynamics was intuitive rather than systematic but he knew what that meant for his chances.

Killer was right. Some of us aren’t going to make it. He only hoped that Teacher was as right as Killer.

The updraft topped out before they reached the limits of their altitude endurance and the Choir members peeled off, flattening their mantashaped bodies to glide as far as they could toward the next cloud column that might mark another updraft. Behind them Ensign could see all the way to the milky center of the small cyclonic storm they were leaving.

He ignored the darker plankton fields around the edge and concentrated on the storm’s dark central pool. The more turbulent the air, the richer the feeding, but get too close to the inner edge and you couldn’t fight the wind. If the turbulence didn’t batter you to death, or even if it did, you would eventually be sucked into the eye and hurled into the dark, crushing depths.

It was not an uncommon way for Ensign’s kind to die.

The storm was a baby, only a few thousand kilometers across. In the next zone north was the monster of all storms, the Great Red Spot. They would cross well clear of it, but before they got there they would have to cross the stormy sky between the bands and that was nearly as dangerous. And beyond that there would be another band edge, and beyond that…

He shook himself. There was enough to do today without worrying about tomorrow.

“What are you thinking about?” Melody’s voice cut through his reverie.

Ensign looked ahead at a cloud tower standing gold-tinged against the hazy blue sky. He focused on the pink and saffron clouds swirling below.

“I was just thinking what a fine day it is,” he said.

The haze grew thicker as they glided down toward the cloud tops. Ahead the cloud column towered above them, blocking out more and more of the sky. Unfettered by the need to stay in thermals, the group spread out over several hundred wingspans, staying close enough to speak but with each member instinctively seeking the course that suited him or her best. Ensign let the others lead so he could judge the line of least energy from their glide paths. As pod leader, Teacher steered a fairly conservative course, Melody and Crystal tended to stay high and toward the middle of the pod; Droner was sloppy as usual; Yearling came down so fast and steep he had to drop his trailing edge occasionally to kill speed and keep from rudely getting in front of Teacher.

Ensign watched the youngster’s antics with amusement. Was I ever that young? Ever that full of life? Probably not, he admitted. He was a plodder, steady rather than exuberant like Yearling or flashy like Killer. Still, he could appreciate both of them. He enjoyed watching Yearling, just as he enjoyed sharing The Geek’s insights into all kinds of arcana or even, he admitted, as he had enjoyed Killer’s dash and style back before things started to go wrong.

There was still a lot of admire about Killer, for all his faults. Ensign hadn’t really liked him, but he had admired him. Then why was it that the tension seemed to center on him and me? he wondered.

It came as a new thought and he was still working on it when something else caught his eye. They approached the cloud column now, close enough to read the fine structure of the updrafts and swirling air masses by infrared. Teacher held them well off the cloud tops, but Droner had dropped low, lower even than Yearling at the bottom of his swoops.

That’s not right! He’s too low. For an instant a tendril of mist hid Droner and Ensign focused his tympani to shout. But Droner already saw his error. He angled up sharply, trading speed for height and climbing away from the opaque cloud mass. He broke free into the clear air, hanging for an instant, teetering on the edge of a stall. Then a dark torpedo shape lunged out of the clouds and slashed across Droner’s underside.

Soundlessly, Droner crumpled in on himself. With most of his central gas cells torn he lost lift and rigidity simultaneously and began to flutter down into the clouds.

The sharks were tearing at him before mist closed over them.

“Nooo,” Crystal screamed on all frequencies. Ensign’s body tightened. He wanted to lunge down into the clouds and lash the sharks, blind and deafen them with his voices, to fight and destroy them utterly for what they had done to his friend.

But it was useless, suicidal. There was no hope. Even if the sharks had not been at him so quickly, no one could live with that many gas cells ruptured. Droner, with his warm middle ranges and complicated rhymes, his endless and near-point-less story-songs, was gone.

Without thinking, the pod had pulled itself into a tight defensive formation well clear of the clouds. There were rasps of grief and hums of shock, but no coherent communication. Even Simon had stopped his mumbling.

At last, slowly, painfully, the pod unwound from its box. Melody started the Mourning Song and they all joined in, bawling out their grief and anger to the uncaring clouds and endless, eternal sky.

They were lucky in their choice of a cloud column. The towering mass marked a strong updraft with a minimum of internal turbulence. As soon as the Choir rose smoothly and well clear of the cloud layer, Teacher summoned them into a classroom formation.

“We have songs to learn,” Teacher called in the way he had summoned them to class. “New ones for all of you.”

No one objected. One of them was gone and would be no more. They had mourned him in song and perhaps later they would mourn again in other, more personal, songs. But for the High Folk sudden death remained a constant and life always went on.

“…Bzzhum songs to learn,” Simon breathed, “many, many, many… hisss.” Ensign wished the ancient would either shut up or move away from them, but it would be impolite to say anything, so he tried to block out the sound and concentrate on Teacher.

The Choir began to sort itself by sound range so the similar parts could stay together on a new song. Teacher stopped them with a wing ripple. “That won’t be necessary. There are no parts to these songs.”

“You mean we all sing the same part?” Melody sounded a little put off. She prided herself on the ability to carry a theme through the Choir’s complex harmonies.

“On these, yes. Now, here is the first one.” He hummed a simple rythym.

“—To find the best fields when the Sun’s sinking low…

“That’s not a performance piece,” Yearling protested. “That’s a childrens’ song.”

Teacher stopped and focused his full attention on Yearling. “Do you know it?” he demanded.

“Well, no.”

“Then learn it.” He swept the group with an admonitory sound pulse. “All of you.”

The whole Choir went rigid. “We’re musicians, artists,” Yearling muttered, “not children.”

“And because you are musicians you can carry many more of these songs than most folk,” Teacher countered. “Why do you think we teach these songs to children? Because they help us.”

“Then teach them to children,” Yearling shot back.

“Children are less likely to survive,” Teacher said quietly. “These songs must live on with or without children.”

The only sound was Simon’s mumbling and the whisper of the winds as they rode the updraft. It wasn’t just that the magnitude of what was coming was sinking in, Ensign realized, it was that they had always looked down on adults whose only repertoire was such childish songs. Skilled and talented as they all were, they hadn’t seen them as worth studying.

“He’s right,” The Geek said into the silence. “Songs like this are tool songs. They help us to survive. We will need them and we must learn them.”

“Wait a minute,” Ensign put in. “You have a lot of these, right?”

Teacher bobbed agreement. “More than enough to keep us occupied for the rest of our trip.”

“Well then, why not split it up and make each of us learn just a few of them?”

“No.”

“But—”

“He’s right,” Shorty said quietly. “We all have to learn these songs. The odds are better that way.”

Ensign started to protest, saw Shorty’s point, and shut up.

“Now,” Teacher said as if he had not been interrupted. “Once again.

To find the best fields when the Sun’s sinking low…

They were lucky at finding thermals all that day and they rested for the night, floating well above the dangerous cloud tops. Ensign felt glad for that. While the distant Sun and the inevitable lightning below meant that there wasn’t much difference in how well the High Folk saw at night, the end of the sunlight meant fewer thermals to ride. The fact that Teacher as pod leader and pathfinder was sparing them from the more strenuous night flying told Ensign of what he would expect for the rest of the journey.

The strange lights were still in the sky. Two sparks, one bright and one dim just above the horizon. They looked so inconsequential, he thought. Were they really worth fleeing? He could see that they had moved since the night before.

They followed the same travel pattern the next day and the day after that. Ride thermals, glide as much as possible, and rest during the night, all the while learning more and more simple songs by day and teaching them to the remoras at night. There was no time for feeding and not much to feed on. The rising columns of air didn’t reach far enough down into the atmosphere to bring up nutrients to support plankton.

By the fourth day hunger had become a companion. Ensign’s remoras felt it as well, wiggling and buzzing in protest at their own hunger.

“We’re going to have to eat soon,” Ensign said to Teacher during a brief break in the learning.

“I have been looking for a feeding ground,” Teacher said in his best pod-leader voices. “There is a place up ahead, I think.”

Teacher’s “place” turned out to be a cloud canyon with strong updrafts on both sides. The canyon bottom was darkened by plankton fed from the upwellings.

“Not especially rich, is it?” The Geek transmitted tight-band to Ensign as Teacher led them in.

“Richer than anything else around,” Ensign whispered back. Neither mentioned the shark danger in a feeding ground surrounded by clouds.

Normally Ensign would have avoided a place with this kind of cloud topography. But the whole choir was hungry and he was probably hungrier than the others. There really wasn’t an alternative.

As the pod closed in on the plankton field they instinctively sorted themselves out into feeding formation. Most of the group stayed to the center of the canyon, but the plankton floated thicker at the edges. Ensign weighed the situation and moved closer to the cloud wall, almost under the overhanging mass.

This is dangerous, he thought as he opened his mouth to start scooping plankton. Still, the richer feeding meant more energy and he had burned much more than the others.

The plankton here was thin and poor. It hadn’t been in the sunlight long enough to grow and fill out so it was gritty with unexpanded parts. Ensign knew he wouldn’t get enough nutrition out of this.

Will I make it? he wondered as he scooped in the tiny creatures that lay in his path. Will I be one of the ones who crosses the bands? His flanks pulsed as he forced the planktonladen air through his feeding passage and expelled it through his side and bottom vents. Each pulse brought a little more food to be filtered out and a little more hydrogen to add to his store.

Like all his kind, Ensign remained a realist. He knew that of all the Choir his chances were probably the worst. The low hydrogen supply, the energy he had to expend and now this, feeding next to a cloud bank.

He tried to think positively, but the place oppressed him. Had his brush with the sharks made him more sensitive? No, scanning the pod he could see that everyone appeared nervous. Even Simon had squeezed his body down a little from the tension.

He also realized that everyone else gave the edges a wide berth. Shorty, who was next in on the feeding line, had left an unusually wide space between himself and Ensign, all the better to stay away from the cloud banks.

Just like Shorty, he thought. Always play it safe and cautious. He wondered why someone with that attitude had decided to come on this venture. Especially one who thought Teacher would use them up unhesitatingly in pursuing his goal. Teacher’s power? Was Teacher’s hold on him really strong enough to make Shorty go against his instincts? I guess that’s what he meant when he said Teacher is a great pod leader.

Not that Teacher’s influence had stopped Shorty from being careful and cautious. It was just like him to pick the safest course through the plankton field. He’ll make it, Ensign thought. If anyone makes it, Shorty will.

Ensign probed the clouds with sound. Risky, because sharks could hear those probes. But it was even more risky to feed blind so close to clouds.

The clouds swirled close, glaring white and lemon yellow in the bright sunshine. Ensign found pale echoes from temperature and density discontinuities within them but no sign of anything dangerous. He continued to work his way along the edge, probing, feeding and feeling the tension grow within him until he wanted to scream on every frequency he could reach.

The plankton field was so poor that two passes would exhaust it. The pod reached the end of the cloud valley and banked into a group turn to make their final feeding pass. The formation left Ensign the low man and even more exposed. But it also meant he got a few precious more minutes of feeding time and a tiny amount more food. He held his course until he was almost into the mist.

As they came back on the new course Ensign continued to probe with his sonar. Again he stayed close to the cloud bank and Shorty gave him plenty of room. There was less plankton this time and it was more roiled by the currents of their passage.

The tension grew as they passed the halfway point in the field. Then three-quarters, then seven-eighths. Still nothing in the clouds but returns from discontinuities. There were more of them now, perhaps because the Sun was past its zenith and the clouds were cooling. They shivered and danced under Ensign’s sonar probe, rising up gently or soaring quickly as was their nature.

Soaring? Wait a minute! His body contracted and he blasted out a warning, but already the sharks were on them.

SKREEEE

With a blare of hunting noise three sharks jetted out of the clouds. Not diving from the cloud banks, but charging up from beneath. Ensign roiled away instinctively and was instantly lost in the clouds. He could not see, but he could hear Shorty’s despairing screams.

Without thinking he rolled into the opposite direction out of the terrifying clouds and into the light. The pod was already rising and closing up in a defensive box as one of the sharks pushed over and dove back on them from above. The other two had Shorty, tearing at his wing edges with their mouths full of ripping teeth. There was a huge ragged hole in his inner wing, but Shorty was still screaming as they sank back toward the clouds.

Ensign flattened his body and dove. The sharks had fastened on Shorty with a predator’s intentness and didn’t see him coming until one of them was sent spinning by a blow from his outer wing. The other twisted and snapped at Ensign. The thing missed and Ensign gave it a concentrated blast of sound as he went by. In the background he heard the pulse of sound as the rest of the pod concentrated their voices on the diving shark. And over everything else the screams.

The first shark writhed, obviously hurt, but it flicked out its wings and lunged at Ensign. Its mate left Shorty screaming and joined the attack.

But both sharks had expended their available hydrogen in their jet attack. Now they were slow and vulnerable. The injured shark’s right wing only extended halfway so its attack came as a slow roll. Ensign held position until the last instant and then rolled out of its way. The shark’s teeth caught his trailing edge for an instant and then Ensign’s wingtip counterblow whipped it free and ruptured its main gas cell like a popped balloon. Damaged beyond hope and already dead from the concussion, the shark plummeted into the clouds.

The second shark was slow but Ensign’s preoccupation let it set up its attack. It came in low and from behind only to fly straight into the most massive sound beam Ensign could emit at that angle. Three of his sounding chambers focused on the attacker and even his remoras added their sounds. For an instant the sound drowned out Shorty’s screams.

Blinded, deafened and damaged, the shark blundered past Ensign underneath. It twisted, flicked its tail and started to turn back. Then it seemed to shudder, shrivel and collapse in on itself under a massive blast of sonar energy from the entire Bach Choir. Even out of the beam’s focus, the wave of noise shivered Ensign to his core.

As the remains of the third shark dropped into the clouds, Ensign shook himself and tried to get his hearing back. The nerves in his active hearing chambers had been damaged by the Choir’s blast, but they would heal. Almost without thinking he switched to auxiliary hearing chambers, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Shorty was still screaming, a despairing, high wail that quavered across frequencies and seemed to echo everywhere at once. He was already lost in the dirty yellow murk below them but his screams went on and on.

Without a word Teacher gave the signal for the pod to rise. Still in defensive formation, the Bach Choir climbed toward the now-setting Sun, up and out of the terrible valley in the clouds.

Behind them the screams faded and were lost in the everpresent whisper of the wind.

The curious points of light were brighter in the sky that night, one below the other. Even through the haze down toward the cloud tops Ensign could see them burning malevolently. Almost, he was too worn down to care. He felt numb from Shorty’s death, tired from hard traveling and still hungry. At this rate those things won’t even have to fall to kill us, he thought sourly. The trip will do us in.

He wasn’t the only one. All of the Bach Choir drooped their wingtips and moved listlessly in the night currents. Only Teacher held himself in trim, but Ensign suspected that was more from a sense of pod leader’s duty than a reflection of the way he felt.

Motion flickered below him. Ensign went rigid and then relaxed when he heard the hum of a message remora. The little creature folded its wings and nestled its torpedo-shaped body against a lower earmouth. Ensign felt a tickling as his other remoras rearranged themselves to make room for the newcomer.

The remora vibrated against his earmouth and he heard Crystal’s warm trill. “Ensign, I need to talk to you! Come toward me and speak softly, privately. Please.”

The remora detached and led him toward the outer edge of the pod where Crystal floated alone.

“Ensign?”

He saw her reflected in the soft glow from a lightning discharge far below. “Yes, Crystal. I got your message.”

“Where’s Simon? I can’t find him.”

“Look above you. When it got dark he floated up above the haze to get a better look at the things in the sky.”

“I don’t want to look up,” she vibrated tightly. “I’m scared.”

In spite of himself Ensign rolled slightly to focus his main eyes on the two bright sparks. Then quickly he rolled back to look at Crystal.

He rippled a grimace. “We’re all scared. I guess you just have the courage to say it out loud.” Desperately he hunted for something to add.

Crystal shifted nervously, “But what can we do?”

“We’re doing it. We’re learning the songs and we’re going north.”

“Oh,” she said in a very small voice. “Nothing else?”

There ought to be something I can tell her, Ensign thought desperately. Some song of wisdom to help her face this. But nothing came. He felt tired to his inner core and completely inadequate.

“Nothing else. I’m sorry.”

“I asked Teacher,” Crystal said quietly. “He said the same thing. Only I was hoping you—” She stopped and trilled a nervous little laugh. “Well, never mind. Thanks.”

She drifted away, borne on a gentle current, leaving Ensign puzzling in her wake. Teacher at a loss for words of wisdom and comfort? That was a new thought.

I wonder if he ever feels inadequate? he thought, looking at where Teacher floated, trim and composed. Is it that he always knows what to do or that he knows how to hide his doubts?

The rising Sun tinged the clouds with purple and red when Simon drifted down to join them, humming songs of the sights he had seen. In spite of his night’s work, Simon appeared the freshest and sharpest of them all as they began the last leg of their journey to the Edge.

As they milled about waiting for thermals to form, Ensign moved toward Teacher. In spite of his fatigue there were a lot of things he wanted to ask. But Teacher took Simon off to the side for an animated discussion. Almost like they are arguing, he thought. And that was a new idea too.

From the top of the first thermal Ensign could see the edge of the South Temperate Zone. Later today or tomorrow they would pass through the swirling currents of the edge and into the South Temperate Belt. Unlike the zones, where the air currents generally flowed upward, the winds in the belts were mostly downdrafts. Not heavy downdrafts mostly, just as the updrafts in the belts weren’t heavy, but it meant wing flying all the way. No more thermals to help them along and almost no plankton. Ensign didn’t want to think about what that could mean in his condition. Well, he’d just do the best he could and hope. Looking at the other pod members, Ensign felt they weren’t in much better shape.

He looked ahead to where Teacher and Simon flew almost head-to-head, still deep in conversation. Simon appeared as rigid as he had ever seen the bloated oldster and Teacher seemed to be speaking forcefully. Well, nothing he could do about that, or about what lay ahead. Best to enjoy today and leave tomorrow for tomorrow.

They had good thermals in the roiled air near the edge so they arrived at the outer mixture zone early in the afternoon. Instead of casting about for the best crossing place Teacher called them all together.

“We will rest and feed here for a few days before we cross,” Teacher told them as they assembled in loose pod formation. “Eat as much as you can and gather your strength. This will probably be the last break on our journey.”

“Foolishness,” Simon vibrated half-out-loud from his place next to Teacher. “Skyfall comes. Foolisshneess… buzzzhmmm.”

Ensign didn’t know if Simon meant to be heard or not, but the whole pod had heard.

“A calculated risk,” Teacher said with a ripple of his trailing edge. “We sacrifice distance to gain strength. Dangerous, but less dangerous than trying to cross the belt in our present condition.”

“Skyfall comes,” Simon repeated.

“And when it comes conditions may be too disturbed for good feeding,” Teacher replied. “So we must feed now.” He swept over all of them. “We have had a hard trip, harder than I imagined. Now rest and gain strength.”

“How long will we stay here?” asked The Geek.

Teacher rippled a shrug. “As little time as we can. So feed well.”

For the next three days the members of the Bach Choir grazed in the rich plankton of the mixture zone. The swirling updrafts and downdrafts produced an especially heavy bloom, sharp with strange, rich flavors. There was so much the pod was able to stay well above the cloud tops, away from the lurking sharks. And all day and all night, feeding and resting, they learned more songs.

For three wonderful days they basked in the Sun and gorged themselves on the zone’s bounty. Ensign grew stronger and his hydrogen cells grew tight with fresh gas. The pod’s mood lightened as they left the rigors of the trip behind them and the perils of the trip to come receded into the future.

But Simon mumbled and fretted and fidgeted. Each night they could see the sparks of skyfall-to-come growing larger in the sky. In spite of the rest and food Ensign was glad when Teacher called them into traveling formation at the fourth dawn.

In the glare of full sunrise they headed north again, dodging through the swirling currents where belt met zone. The storms Killer had predicted were absent, but it was tricky going nonetheless.

“It may take us all day to pass through the boundary between this zone and the next belt,” Teacher told them at midday. “We can generally handle the cross-currents but we have to watch out for the downdrafts.”

“And now you’re going to ask for a volunteer to fly ahead,” Yearling interrupted, “the strongest among us.”

Teacher swept Yearling with a disapproving burst of sound. “Each of us will take a turn seeking downdrafts. For no more than a day-tenth at a time. I will take the first turn.” He swiveled toward Yearling, “And you will be next!”

Ensign and the others plodded on in a loose gaggle behind their leader. There was a little plankton in the jumbled eddies of the inner band edge. Without the steady updrafts of the mixture zone the fields were small but a traveler with keen senses could partially replenish himself. He felt a bit smug and toyed with composing a song teaching the technique.

Ensign felt the first tentative gusts and swirls of winds toward the west, and marveled that he was actually about to cross one of the boundaries of his world. Not many of the High Folk ventured across more than one band, but some had and their songs were the stuff of legend. Would he become a legend? For that matter, would he even survive? As a singer Ensign knew the two were not mutually exclusive.

“Your turn, Ensign,” Teacher called out. Ensign pulled ahead of the loose formation as Melody dropped back, wingtips sagging slightly from fatigue.

He barely had time to get in front of the group when he ran head-on into a powerful downdraft and dropped several wing spans before he could even react. He called for the group to detour and started the long, hard climb back to a safe altitude.

It was a sign of things to come. There was nothing but downdraft after downdraft. The songs he had learned in the Zone didn’t help him much in a place where the air currents tended down instead of up. As a result he blundered from one downdraft to another, wishing all the while for one of those despised childrens’ songs to help him.

The first downdraft wasn’t so bad, or the second or the fourth, but by the tenth or twentieth, flying became grueling work and his body ached with the effort. He looked at the Sun and found he’d been leading for only half a day-tenth. He signaled and once again strained upward with lull beats of his wingtips.

Gradually they moved through the turbulent inner mixture region and out into the outer region on the other side. The winds calmed and steadied but the downdrafts came closer and closer together until they seemed never to end. The day blended into a haze of sudden drops and tedious climbs. At the very end of the day, when the Sun had been heating the clouds for the maximum time, he found a weak updraft, one the entire pod could relax in. Almost no plankton, of course, but he was happy for the chance to rest his wings.

They rested for a while until the updraft dissipated in the cooling atmosphere and flew on in the night. No point in traveling only by day in a place where there were no thermals to speak of.

As two moons rose in evening twilight the pod struggled north. The atmosphere calmed considerably away from the band edge and the sudden downdrafts decreased. But the general flow of air was still down, gentle but relentless. They had to keep flying to hold their altitude.

Simon flew close to Ensign as they labored along. “Tomorrow,” the old one mumbled, “Come tomorrow. Never anything like it. MZZZ. Basssssh.”

“Excuse me?”

The ancient observer gestured up in the dim light, “See that? It has a tail!”

Ensign looked at the now-familiar objects in the sky. The smaller one remained a bright dot, bigger than the night before, but the larger, closer one had changed.

Now the brilliant spark appeared surrounded by a hazy circle of cloud, streaming away from the Sun in a wispy line. “What does it mean?” Simon turned to him, “Tomorrow—just before sunrise—the world will change. That,” he bobbed a wingtip skyward, “will hit us.”

Ensign went rigid with alarm. “You mean it will fall on us?”

The oldster gestured sharply. “Not on us. But it will fall. And then the one behind it and the one behind it. One by one they will all fall.”

Ensign flew on to wait for dawn. Occasionally he looked up at the strange glowing object and finally decided it was moving Eastward. Simon was right. It would not fall on them.

At first light, Teacher pulled the Bach Choir close together. “We should be close to the boundary of the South Tropical Zone by nightfall. As we cross we can feed in the updrafts. but we will not stop again. From now we must press on day and night as long as our strength lasts.”

“Are we sure the Red Spot isn’t near?”

Teacher bobbed reassuringly. “It is on the other side of the planet. High Folk have lived in that zone for millennia. They track it carefully.”

“One less thing to worry about, anyway,” The Geek muttered on a low frequency. Ensign didn’t know if he was supposed to hear it or not.

All through the day they pushed on. It was still slow, exhausting work, excruciating for the leader but bad for all of them. Fortunately all of Bach Choir was young and strong. Ensign realized that no regular pod could cross a belt at anything like their speed. He wondered how the Old One could endure.

The Sun wheeled in the sky and set in a mass of fiery clouds. Still the group flew north, seeking the respite and dubious safety of the zone boundary. As the night wore on, Ensign kept looking to the west. He was not the only one.

It was nearly dawn and Ensign had just taken the lead when it happened. Far to the west a thread of blinding light lanced out of the sky. Brighter than lightning and straight as a diving shark, so bright it appeared purple at the edges. Ensign flinched away from the brilliance and screwed his eyes tight shut. Still the image burned in its retinas.

“It has begun,” Teacher said.

“No sound,” Melody said wonderingly. “There wasn’t any sound.”

“Too far,” The Geek told her. “It was so far and yet so bright.” For a moment the only sound was Old One’s mumbling.

“Come,” Teacher called them back from their reveries. “The next one may be nearer. Ensign, you have the lead.”

Wordlessly, Ensign turned north again. They approached the edge now and the air currents became more irregular and harder to avoid. He dodged two downdrafts only to be swallowed up by a third. He fought his way clear with powerful beats of his wings and a few moments later he broke out into strong, clear dawn light. While the others climbed up to him he looked around.

To the east was the normal rolling plain of clouds, purple where still in shadow, shading through rose and flaming crimson to pure clear whites and yellows at the tops fully in the sunlight. But there was something wrong with the sunrise. Off in the west a peculiar white sheet, flat and featureless, was spreading from horizon to horizon. Spreading quickly too, he realized. As he watched, it gobbled up cloud masses and rifts alike, churning them into flat white blankness. There was something about that…

“Um, Teacher?” he called.

Teacher turned to the east and his body went rigid. “Shock wave!” he roared on all frequencies. “Expand your—”

And then the Universe went white.

First came the pain. Pain everywhere. Searing, numbing pain in his timpani, his earmouths, his gas cells, pain everywhere on and in his body. He let the pain wash over him, unable to move or even cry out in his agony.

Next was his breathing. Great sucking gasps of hot, foul-tasting air passing through his body. Again and again, pain shooting through on each one.

Then at last, volition. Deliberately he took conscious control of his nervous system and blotted out the pain signals. He drifted upside down, he realized. Dead and flailing remoras floated nearby. Some of them his, some from the others.

The mist cleared slowly and he saw Teacher nearby. “What…?”

“It has begun.” Teacher’s voice sounded strained and strange. Either Ensign had lost his hearing on half the frequencies, or Teacher had lost half his voices. “The skyfall. Come. We must go on.” Teacher made a wobbly turn toward the North, but his strength and coordination had both failed him.

Ensign looked around. Some of his remoras reattached themselves to him. Others wandered dazed, making mewling seeking cries as they tried to find a host. He looked down at the flat white world below. They flew hundreds of wingspans above the cloudtops, thrown there by the shock wave. Most of the pod members wobbled back to consciousness or moved in tight little circles. Somewhere behind him he heard Yearling moaning in pain.

Down below Ensign saw a dark spot above the whiteness. In spite of the pain he forced himself to focus on it and the spot suddenly resolved into Crystal. She drifted down limply with one wing oddly angled.

“Crystal? Crystal!” But she did not respond. As she fell closer to the shark-filled clouds he called again but she did not stir. When the whiteness began to close around her he flattened himself for a rescue dive.

“Ensign!” Teacher called sharply, “Let her go!”

Ensign ignored him. He angled down and prepared to dive, but Teacher moved in front of him.

“She is already dead,” Teacher said quietly. “Leave her.”

He stared down, trying to track her in the clouds. Suddenly a shark jetted up from the whiteness, ignoring Crystal’s drifting body. At the top of its arc it twitched uncontrollably and fell, flailing back toward the clouds, bent and broken.

Gone, he thought numbly. Just gone. For an instant he wondered what had happened to Killer and Drummer and the others. Had they been far enough away?

Teacher called the pod into a shaky parody of traveling formation. Somewhere on the flanks someone began the song for the dead, distorted by loss of hearing or voices. No fancy figures this time, no subtle harmonies. Just the keening monotonous drone of the Mourning Song, fuzzed and blurred by their injuries. With the damaged song echoing among them, the damaged pod limped north again.

The mist rose far above them, dimming the light and setting sundogs and rainbows around the rising Sun. As the day wore on the Sun’s heat seemed to help sort the world out. The mist began to thin as the roiled atmosphere settled itself. Twice they saw sharks below them, drifting aimlessly. The ones at the deeper levels must have suffered worse because the pressure was higher, he thought dully. But he did not say it. No one spoke. They only sang with mindless intensity, trying to blot out the unabsorbable enormity of what had happened.

The foggy dimness suited Ensign. The pain eased though every part of his body still ached, and the numbness faded to anger. He hated the sharks, the things in the sky, the fates that randomly took his friends, the journey, and half a dozen real and imagined hardships.

The Sun lay on the horizon when Teacher broke the death song. “I think I feel the winds nudging to the east. We’re approaching the South Tropical Zone. Can anybody else feel it?” Ensign said nothing, lost in his own pain and self-pity.

“Things seem to be more normal here,” Teacher continued, as if oblivious to the pod’s mood. “The skyfall’s effects are damped by the boundaries. That’s important, remember it.” Then he turned to Ensign.

“Ensign, you take the lead. It feels like mostly updrafts here.”

The truth was there hadn’t been updrafts or downdrafts since the shock wave, but he grudgingly moved ahead, senses only half alert.

Teacher was half-right, Ensign grudgingly admitted as he flapped through the mist. Things did seem more normal here—or as normal as they got in the confused, swirling air of the boundary zone. The mist had definitely lightened. The air still smelled horrible and there was a slight wind angling down, but it was as if the patterns of swirls and eddies were forming again.

Now the mist seemed a bit thicker. “Climb?” Ensign asked Teacher.

“Not yet,” came the buzzing reply. Then a pause as Teacher and Simon consulted. “Conditions are too unsettled and we probably cannot get above it.”

The mists were definitely getting thicker and in spite of his black mood, Ensign became more alert. With so many of his hearing chambers damaged, his sonar wasn’t functioning well, but he listened intently for sharks. Perhaps the sharks had been hurt worse than the Bach Choir by the shock wave, but flying in clouds still felt wrong.

The angled downdraft became a little stronger now but still nothing like the downdrafts he’d dealt with for days. He ignored it and sounded the mists ahead. The echoes showed suddenly clear air within a wingspan or two. He pressed on, seeing the skies brighten before him as the mist thinned.

Then suddenly he broke through a wall of cloud and into clear light and horror.

Before him the ruddy ocher of the Great Red Spot fell off into unimaginable depths. The gigantic storm swirled from horizon to horizon, yellow shading to orange to dark, evil black at its enormous center vortex.

“Red Spot!” Ensign screamed on all frequencies. He beat his wings frantically trying to break away from the monstrosity. But the wind picked up and already he could feel the air sliding him down the funnel side of the Solar System’s largest hurricane.

“A new Red Spot,” Teacher sang out, “fruit of skyfall!”

In an instant of panic-clear revelation Ensign realized what must have happened. There had been two skyfalls last night, the one to the west and one to the north, just across the boundary in this zone and perhaps a little after the first. The convection currents of the zone had shielded them from the shock wave of the northern strike and all day they had been blindly flying into its jaws, seeking safety.

Ensign stared, fascinated and frozen, into the maw of Death. Then Teacher’s voice broke the spell. “Back into the clouds! This thing swirls to the east. Climb and fly east. Let it carry us around to the other side!”

Ensign winged over and dived back into the whiteness. A dark shape loomed in front of him, almost close enough to touch. He swooped below to avoid a collision. “Fly east!” he shouted as he passed.

It became a nightmare. The pod crabbed into the following wind, letting it bear them around the circle but always trying to fight their way to the outside, away from the deadly center and the ever-increasing winds. Clouds swirled around them, stinging with needle-sharp ice crystals and bitter with the taste of foul compounds sucked up from the depths. They dived to gain speed and used the speed to move away from the center. Then they climbed by flapping since expanding their gas cells gave them a bigger cross section and made them more vulnerable to the ravening winds. Usually they gained nothing to the outside, only holding their own and sometimes losing precious distance. Sometimes they were able to get a few wing spans farther out. Over and over again they repeated the cycle and always the remorseless winds pushed them inwards.

Teacher led them on, seeming to pause by each one in turn, murmuring encouragement to keep the formation together in the gloom. And always east, turning east.

“Shouldn’t we try to climb into clearer air?” Ensign asked when Teacher came near.

“It won’t work,” came the strained reply, “If we climb our velocity vector won’t be outward and we’ll be sucked into the center. We can fly out or we can fly up but we don’t have the strength to do both.” Then he flapped away in the gloom to encourage someone else.

On and on they pushed into the murk, driven by tailwinds and their own flying. Ensign knew they must be making tremendous speed but the roiling clouds gave them no landmarks save the huge turning funnel on their lee. Sometimes he could hear Teacher sounding the clouds before them but his damaged hearing could make little of the returns. Occasionally he would catch a glimpse of another pod member, or hear Simon wheezing along behind him, but most of the time he struggled on alone.

Day may have turned into night and night back into day. In the clouds and darkness it was impossible to tell. All Ensign knew was that the flight seemed eternal.

“Ensign, we are near!” Teacher loomed up out of the dark behind him.

“Near?”

“The band edge! This spot must be turning at a furious rate. We’ve reached the edge much sooner than I expected. If the winds are this high, the turbulence will be much worse.”

Ensign felt he had no strength left at all. “What about sharks in these clouds?”

Teacher managed a chuckle. “Sharks are too smart to be caught in something like this!”

Ensign felt the first tentative cross-winds just as Teacher cried out. A gust nearly tipped him on his side as he heard Teacher shout hoarsely, “Turn right! Dive if you must. Vortex cell…”

As Ensign dropped into a descending turn he heard Teacher moan in pain, then a startled grunt from Simon. The roiled clouds thickened until he could not even see his wingtips. Teacher moaned again, nearby. Ensign saw a dim shape off to the right and was about to call out to Teacher when he recognized Melody, flying strongly. Then to the left and above he saw a struggling form. As Teacher approached, Ensign saw the broken wing which had bent double, the wingtip neatly slicing into vital gas cells. Remoras formed a cloud around him as they abandoned their dying host.

Frantically he gathered Teacher’s remoras to him, trying to save as many as possible. The remoras moved uncertainly, confused by the winds. Ensign saw one sucked away by the storm before it could even spread its wings.

Teacher focused on Ensign and for the first time seemed to realize who was with him. He tightened his skin as if to say something. Then he was whipped away, gone in the howling orange murk.

Survival instinct took over. Ensign climbed and climbed against the winds, laboring under the added load of the remoras.

Somehow, sometime, the awful winds began to steady and die. Eventually he heard the pod call ahead and to his left. Almost automatically he turned toward the sound and struggled out to meet the others.

He was the last to make it. Everyone else had formed a loose box to call in all directions. Everyone but Teacher.

“We were afraid we had lost you,” Melody said as he slid into the formation. Her voice sounded unreal, lacking in the overtones in his damaged timpani. “Teacher?”

Ensign only bobbed negation.

Numbly they began distributing Teacher’s remoras among the other pod members. That done they milled aimlessly for a while. Then, because someone had to do it, Ensign moved to the front and signaled them into flying formation.

Once more they flew north. Lesser gusts flung them farther from the center of the Red Spot and buffeted them repeatedly. Once more they sang the Mourning Song, now thin and ragged in their fatigue and exhaustion.

At last they emerged from the clouds and into still air. It was evening, Ensign noted. They had been caught in that maelstrom for—how long?—one day? Two days? Three? Battered and exhausted, what was left of the Bach Choir tried to rest.

“Look!” Melody said, tilting skyward. There, hanging above them, one below the other, were three malevolently glowing sparks. Already the first two were surrounded by the bright haze that meant they were ready to fall.

“One after the other,” Ensign said dully. “One after the other.”

Before dawn one of the glowing sparks disappeared below the horizon. Ensign decided to turn farther north and was about to call out when the whole southwestern horizon lit up. A second later Io blazed bright enough to cast shadows on the cloud tops below. Instinctively the pod huddled together in a defensive box, as if it were a shark and not some force of nature.

As the eerie light died Simon expanded and floated up, trying to get above the haze to get a better look. Ensign didn’t want a better look. He’d seen all of those things he ever wanted to see and then some. Ensign braced for the brutal shock wave but it never came.

To take his mind off what was overhead Ensign began to sort through his load of remoras, both his and the ones that had been Teacher’s.

It was an odd experience. Some of the remoras had obviously been with Teacher for many seasons. They still felt of his body and moved uneasily on their new host. Feeling them against his skin was as if Teacher remained with him and he was invading his teacher’s most personal feelings.

The remoras’ memories reflected their former host. Most of them had very large memories, crammed with songs. There were some with songs he recognized, some with parts of songs, some with student exercises, and a few with what must have been Teacher’s own works in progress.

He never composed much, Ensign thought sadly. Instead he taught. Somehow that made him feel even more lost.

As he worked his way through the remoras, one wiggled ahead of the others and clamped itself to an earmouth. “Ensign.”

Teacher’s voice! “If you are listening to this it is because something has happened to me.” Even through the buzzing voice of the remora Teacher’s personality shone out. It was as if Teacher hovered protectively above and behind him.

“As pod leader you will have a lot on your mind. But there are some things you must pay special attention to.”

How did he know? Ensign wondered. How did he know I’d take leadership of the pod? He realized he had missed part of the message and he ordered the remora to go back. The little symbiote buzzed irritation but it complied.

“First, you have the leader’s songs to learn. You will need the tools so they are important. But remember the tools are guides, not commands. Compose your own song as you go.”

Like the shark attack, Ensign thought, remembering the time—how long ago?—when the second shark had not behaved the way the song had said.

“One other thing,” the voice of the dead teacher continued. “Listen to Simon. He mumbles but he is a master navigator. And take special care of Simon’s remoras. They hold the songs of prediction of the Newcomb Pod.”

Even through the remora Teacher’s voice sounded as warm and rich as ever. “Goodbye Ensign. And thank you. Go well.”

“Goodbye,” Ensign murmured. “Goodbye and thank you.” The remora nestled on his earmouth buzzed a reply, as if the thanks had been meant for it. Which it was in a way, Ensign realized.

At dawn Ensign gathered the small group and started north again. They slowed when they found a sparse plankton field and all of them fed eagerly. They were still feeding when they felt, more than heard, the low rumble of a shock wave filtered by the wall of the band edge, many day-tenths after the actual impact. Ensign began to believe they would escape the holocaust described in the original Skyfall song.

The Geek floated close to him. “I’ve been thinking,” he began in his geekly way. But he said it in an unusually serious manner.

“What’s the problem?”

“Not a problem yet. But it could become one. If we lose any more members there won’t be any choir.” Ensign forced himself to think about things he had been avoiding. “Then we’d just be remora carriers.”

“Worse than that. Where once we were twelve, now there are only five—Melody and Yearling are strong but we have Simon—not exactly renowned as a voice. Have you taken pod inventory?”

Ensign bobbed negation.

“We’re all just about maxed out now,” The Geek said quietly. “None of us can carry many more remoras and the ones we’ve got are nearly full. If we lose very many of them we won’t have enough memories to form a coherent body of information. All we’ll have will be fragments.”

“No more choir.”

“Maybe no more pod.”

Killer was right, Ensign thought as The Geek floated away. He hated the idea but he knew The Geek told the truth. The reason he hadn’t taken pod inventory, he admitted, was because he’d been afraid of what he would find.

He had barely begun to ponder the implications when Simon descended and moved up beside him.

The Old One appeared in awful shape. He held his body oddly and his mouth worked convulsively. He had never looked healthy and from a distance he didn’t look any worse. But up close the changes were obvious. Ensign flew closer and said privately, “Simon?” The huge ancient didn’t respond. “Simon, are you all right?”

Simon wallowed, almost unable to control his attitude. “A choice,” his voice rasped on Ensign’s damaged hearing. With effort he continued. “I have seen and I have sung the predicting songs.” The oldster quirked his trailing edge in a ghastly attempt at a smile. “The outcome is both good and bad.”

“Start with the good.”

“Skyfall ends. One, two more days no more.”

Ensign relaxed from a fleeing posture he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“But before then you must choose.”

Ensign tensed again.

“The next skyfall will be close, much closer. We can run west and put many more thousands of wing-spans between us and skyfall.”

“The other choice?”

“Run north for the boundary and try to cross before skyfall. The boundary will protect, a little.”

Ensign did a quick estimate. They were fairly close to the band edge and its protection. “What’s wrong with that?”

Again Simon quirked his trailing edge. “Impact between us and the boundary. If we move quickly we reach the boundary before skyfall.” There was no need to ask what would happen if they didn’t.

“Can we compromise? Run north and west?”

Simon snorted. “Worst of both. All downdrafts and no protection from the boundary.”

“Well, what do you recommend?”

“Pod-leader’s choice,” Simon replied. “Not mine… bzzhmmshshhs.”

Ensign left Simon buzzing and mumbling and flew on ahead. In spite of the closeness of his pod mates and his heavy load of remoras the sky became suddenly a very lonely place.

Ask the others, he thought. That was the way Bach Choir had always decided things, by discussion. He remembered warmly those long discussions and the slow forging of consensus. That was one of the things that made the Bach Choir so special. Almost, he turned to call the Choir together. Then he stopped. He also remembered how many day-tenths had been spent in argument and decisionmaking. Even if the process resulted in a better decision they didn’t have time for it now. A fast, not-so-good decision was better than a slow, nearly perfect one. Pod-leader’s choice, he thought sourly. Teacher must have felt like this when he let us stop and feed before the first skyfall.

Hunger played a part in his choice. The zone they crossed was sparse. Going west wouldn’t help that. North through the danger zone at least led to plankton.

“We’re going north,” he told the pod after he called them together and explained. “We’re going to try to beat skyfall.”

He had expected some argument, or at least grumbling, but the others accepted his decision without comment. Things had changed among the members of the pod, Ensign saw. He wasn’t their pod mate any more, he was their leader. He wasn’t sure he liked the change.

Ensign set the pace as fast as he dared. Not fast enough for his liking but he had to consider the others. If they held this speed they would be across the boundary and into the South Equatorial Belt before time of skyfall. Not far enough across to suit Ensign, and Simon could only give a range of times for the next skyfall, but across.

If we hold this speed, he thought as he flapped along in the lead, alert for downdrafts.

That was the problem. They were all tired from their struggle against the new Red Spot and this speed would exhaust them. If the boundary were unusually turbulent they could be in trouble even if they reached it well before skyfall.

No good choices—again. There were the new worries as well. As leader he had to keep the pod together, make sure they traded off pathfinders often enough not to wear down prematurely, encourage stragglers and watch for shark-bait situations. When he could, he reviewed the pod leader’s songs for advice.

But mostly he just forged ahead, wing stroke by laboring wing stroke. Ensign could not see the comet streaking in above them in the light of day but he could imagine it.

They flew day and night, dodging downdrafts when they saw them in time and fighting through them when they did not. The trip became an endless, aching nightmare as they raced north.

As they flew, Simon fell farther and farther behind. Ensign dropped back under the excuse of asking Simon how soon the comet would strike but the doddering old observer could only answer, “Soon!”

Ensign surveyed the oldster critically. He looked even worse than he had when they started their dash. His wings beat slowly and occasionally he lost rhythm. Clearly he approached the end of his strength.

The logical thing to do was to leave him behind to take his chances. Ensign thought. Part of him was shocked at how cold-bloodedly he considered the idea. He remembered what Shorty had said about being a pod leader.

The same part of him cold-bloodedly rejected the idea. They had lost too many pod members and too many remoras already. They couldn’t afford any more losses. So Simon had to be brought along. But that meant risking the whole pod being caught in the next skyfall.

Pod leader’s choice again. Skies Above, he came to hate those!

Ensign called Yearling back to him and met him halfway.

“We’re going to string out,” he told him. “Simon’s having trouble.”

“And you want the strongest flyer among us to shepherd him,” Yearling said calmly.

The youngster had already sized up the situation and accepted it, Ensign saw. He’s growing up, he thought. But he only nodded.

His first instinct was to take the lead, the pod leader’s traditional position. But he remembered Teacher’s admonition and remembered that the pod leader always took the most important post.

“Geek,” he called ahead, “you and Melody trade off in the lead and sing out the soundings. I’ll stay between the groups and relay them back.”

It was a compromise and like all compromises, fundamentally a lousy choice. But like most successful compromises it was the best lousy choice in a lousy situation. He settled in to the exhausting work of flying north.

Gradually a dark line emerged on the distant horizon. It thickened and widened until they could see it was the band edge disturbances. Abstractly he was even glad for the increasing downdrafts and turbulence.

Concretely, the bad air only added to his problems. As the going got rougher Simon and Yearling fell farther and farther behind. Ensign had to drop back to act as a relay until finally both the group ahead and the group behind were just specks that could only be reached by low-frequency sound.

After several day-tenths, Melody reported that they had reached the zone edge and they were searching for a calm place to cross.

“Just cross,” Ensign snapped back, “We’ll meet on the other side.” He looked back at the two distant specks that were Simon and Yearling. Once again he looked upward in vain for the comet. Simon had told him he wouldn’t be able to see it in daylight, but he felt it hanging over him anyway.

As the air became more turbulent the clouds swirled up about them. He lost sight of the following party, first occasionally and then almost all the time. His only contact with them remained low-frequency sound and that became intermittent.

Ensign wanted desperately to turn back to them, to hurry them along and for the simple comfort of being close to others of his kind. But reason, and the pod-leaders songs, told him it would be useless. He could do nothing for them and if all three of them were lost the Bach Choir was utterly destroyed.

Ensign had lost contact with Simon and Yearling and he had just dipped a wingtip to circle around and call for them when the southern horizon blazed up brighter than the Sun.

Skyfall! Half by instinct and half by reason Ensign angled upward and jetted hydrogen, climbing desperately. He broke out of the mists and something seared his back and rear. He kept his rear eyes tight shut but he was nearly blinded by brilliance behind him.

Don’t look back. Whatever you do, don’t look back. And climb. Climb for everything you are worth. Climb for where the air is thinner and the shock wave less intense. Climb, climb and don’t look back.

He was still climbing when the shock wave took him, shaking him in its jaws like the biggest shark ever. Ensign rolled and tumbled mercilessly. He felt his wings strain forward almost past their limits from the pressure and his whole body compressed and resonated from skyfall’s blow.

And then it was over. Most of his hearing was gone, his muscles were torn and sore, but he was alive. A few remoras that had been shaken loose hurried to reattach themselves. Down below the world had been reduced to the now familiar flat white plain. Gingerly, favoring his left side, he turned toward the north and began the pod leader’s call.

It seemed like forever before he heard The Geek’s answering call ahead of him. Ensign didn’t know how long he had been calling. The Geek’s voice sounded tinny and strange in his damaged hearing and he knew he had lost some important frequencies.

He could feel pain in his burned outer membranes as he heaved his wings to rejoin his pod. He could hear The Geek calling to Simon and Yearling. Their voices came closer and closer until he finally broke out into clear air. Off to his right the two flew a wide formation. Melody trilled greeting and The Geek continued his call.

“You’re hurt!” Melody exclaimed as Ensign approached.

Ensign took up formation as leader and replied, “I’ll live.” The Geek kept calling.

Ensign pondered for long wing-beats while they flew an elongated figure-8 over the blank whiteness, listening in vain for Yearling or Simon. Or more correctly, the others called and listened. With his damaged hearing and skin Ensign really wasn’t up to either.

“Do you hear anything?” he finally asked. The Geek rippled negation.

“Give it up then.” Off to the side he saw Melody start, as if in denial. She may have moaned. He couldn’t hear.

“One last call,” The Geek said simply, “—if only to the empty winds.”

Ensign nodded.

The Geek sounded Last Call, focusing down in the lower frequencies and using every bit of energy he could put into his vibrating membranes, so much that a few of his remoras shook loose and flapped around him in a cloud. Even with damaged timpani, Ensign thought, if he kept singing that clearly, he’d become a Master.

Ensign began the wide sweeping turn which would continue their journey north. His lower eyes spotted a dark shape in the mists far below. “Possible shark, low and to the left—pretty far away.”

Melody and The Geek fluted acknowledgement. Ensign probed the swirling clouds and saw it again. It was the largest shark he’d ever seen. Perhaps this band had huge predators. It certainly had the distinctly dark coloration of a shark. It rose out of the clouds Ensign stared, perplexed. Whatever it was had the shape of one of the High Folk and the skin of a shark.

Melody exclaimed, “It’s Yearling! He’s been burned darker than you, Ensign!”

“Bach Choir—to me! Anybody!” Yearling’s call was reedy and thin.

Ensign pulled a wing-over and dove for his pod-mate below. “I’m coming. Turn toward me!”

Yearling’s voice, rasping, floated up, “I’m blind in my upper eyes. Can’t see a thing. Overloaded with remoras.”

“Simon?” The Geek called out. His voice sounded blurred by the wind as he, too, dove to meet Yearling.

Yearling sighed in the lower registers, “He didn’t make it. I got his memories.”

Ensign and the others leveled out even with Yearling, who immediately began shaking off a cloud of remoras. They attached themselves to The Geek, Ensign, and Melody. The three High Folk, burdened with the memories of seven, had to stroke their wings to maintain altitude. Ensign looked at Yearling, battered and scarred, burned to a dark outer shade and said, “You’ve lost all your remoras! Take back the basic ones—you’ll never be able to keep up without them!”

Yearling quirked his trailing edge. “Don’t need ’em where I’m going.”

Melody screamed, “Yearling!..” But Yearling only sighed in the lower frequencies and rolled away, exposing his underside. Instead of a smooth aerodynamic surface it was lumpy with ruptured and burned gas cells. Charred skin hung in tatters where one or two cells had burst to the outside, but most had broken inward causing massive internal damage.

As they watched in horror Yearling inverted into an easy, gliding dive. Then he started to cartwheel and tumbled into the swirling clouds below.

He must have turned belly-to the shock wave, Ensign thought, shifting under the added weight of the new remoras. Accident? Or had he tried to shield Simon with his own body? They would never know.

In silence, they climbed to a safe altitude. Ensign wanted to start the song of mourning but the shock remained too fresh and too deep. The labor of carrying twice the normal compliment of remoras drained him to the inner core of his being. He longed for a quiet updraft filled with plankton.

“Killer was right,” Melody finally said forlornly. “There is no more Bach Choir.”

“We have the remoras with the songs,” Ensign protested weakly.

“More songs than we can ever learn,” she said sadly. “More remoras than we can keep or care for. Don’t you see?” her voices soared into the high registers in fury, “We’ve lost! We would have done better to keep the Choir together. If we’d died in skyfall we would have gone all at once. As it is we’ve died a little at a time and a little at a time, until now there’s nothing left!”

She turned away and fell silent, leaving Ensign grasping for something to say.

“Listen.” The Geek sang out.

With his damaged hearing Ensign had to deliberately shift through the registers to find it. There, down in the lower frequencies he found it.

Come, come, come

And then above it the higher frequencies.

Come ye weary travelers.

“Others made it!” Melody sang out.

“Maybe,” Ensign said. “Or maybe they were here all the time. We can join them.”

“High Folk to share our songs,” Melody trilled even higher in her excitement. For an instant she sounded like Crystal.

“And new songs!” The Geek chirped. “Songs we compose!” He hummed a phrase, tasting it.

“Ten traveled Northward when new stars shone in the sky…”

Yes, thought Ensign. New songs. Songs about their travels and who they had been. Of Teacher and Simon, of Shorty and brave bright Yearling. Of Droner and Crystal. Their songs, their hopes, their dreams, and all that had made up the Bach Choir.

That was the answer, he realized. The reason for everything they had gone through. The Bach Choir would live in those new songs. And they would be alive as long as the High Folk sang them. Meanwhile the tool songs would help others and perhaps the next time the sky fell, Simon’s songs of prediction would allow others to survive.

Melody had caught the mood too, humming tentative little rills based on The Geek’s musical doodling.

“We come. We come,” Ensign rasped out.

With a lift and swell of hydrogen, Ensign winged over and took the pod leader’s place. Still singing the response, The Geek and Melody fell in behind.

In loose formation the last of the Bach Choir and the first of a new choir, yet unnamed, turned east and glided across the cloud tops of Jupiter toward the rising Sun.