Silent Dances (3 page)

10

understand? They think it's
their
fault I'm deaf."

Tesa's parents, both hearing, worked in space, building sta
tions
. When

Tesa and her brother and sister were little, her parents had commuted from

the living museum to Australia and worked Earthside. As the children grew,

their grandpar ents, aunts, and uncles had filled in as the two engineers took

on short jobs around Earth and the Moon. Now they were working on a

station only two weeks' metaspace journey away from StarBridge, close

enough to afford monthly calls.

Even though doctors had tried to reassure them, Tesa's parents felt as

though they must have been exposed to something. Her younger brother

and sister were both hearing, and genetic screening had ruled out damaged

chromosomes, but, Rob mused, it was the lot of parents to find themselves

lacking. He thought of his own eleven-year-old daughter, Claire, the

problems he had relating to her during their infrequent visits, and sighed.

"I had
to call them," Rob insisted, sitting on his heels on the floor, a sloppy mound of flimsies before him. "There's more going on than just the surgery,

and your parents had to know."

Tesa
sat tailor
fashion across from him. "What,
more?"
Rob nodded. "Have you heard of Trinity?"

Tesa's eyes widened. She hadn't really paid attention the first time he'd

spelled it, but every Terran at StarBridge had heard of it. "What about

Trinity?" she asked, her eyes bright.

"It was discovered by a Terran
colonizing
company Jamestown Founders,"

Rob told her as they resumed their seats. "It's at an evolutionary stage

similar to Terra's Pleis tocene-virgin wilderness,
gi
an
t
an
imals
, mammoth trees, rich mineral deposits, and even fossil fuels. A planet to make an

investor's dreams come
true
. But there'
s a snag
. This world is inhabited by a species of intelligent avians we're calling the Grus."

His intercom called
his attention
. "Excuse me, Tesa."

"Rob," said Kkintha ch'
aait
, the school's Chhhh-kk-tu administrator. "Meg Tretiak
is on line in
my office."

"Uh, Tesa's here."

"Sorry, but this can't wait. Meg's got to catch a shuttle."

"Be right there." He turned back to Tesa. "Wait here.
please
. We haven't finished our talk."

11

"But what about Trinity?" Tesa complained.

"I've got films you can watch," Rob signed, going to his closet. Pushing a

door aside, he rummaged through a box, finally pulling out two cassettes.

"You know how to operate the viewer. It's raw footage, no
Intergalactic

Geographic
stuff. I'll be back shortly," he promised, and jogged out of the office.

Tesa turned the unlabeled cassettes over in her hands as she
entered the

sequence to activate Rob's big wall holo. Could he be thinking of sending

her
to Trinity? Or was she jumping to
conclusions
because of her eagle

dream last night? She always
had eagle dreams
before some big event-it

was just her sub'
conscious
playing games with her.

Movement
near the open office door caught her eye. Her roommate, Jib,

was waving to get her attention. Two years her j
unior and no taller than

Rob, the brown-skinned Maori had become Tesa's surrogate sibling.

"Come on in," she signed, "it's okay." She should've known he'd be lurking around, dying to find out the news. He'd looked more upset
than
she had

when she hadn't been tapped.

"Tesa, what happened?" he signed, his doe-eyed, good-looking face full of

concern. "Why weren't you tapped?"

"Dr. Rob canceled it because of some medical breakthrough," she

explained. She set the hologram for captioning and inserted a cassette.

"Some doctor wants to give me he
aring."

Jib's big brown eyes opened wide. "Really? You'll
hear? W
ow!" He grabbed her in a jubilant hug. "You must be so thrilled!"

She pushed him away, feeling as betrayed as if he'd slapped
her.
Dammit
, I thought at least Jib
would understand!
"You're
not
glad," Jib stated, finally realizing. "I'm sorry, T
esa, I
should've realized how you'd feel, but ..." he hesitated. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes ..." she signed, but without her earlier strength of conviction. Jib was her brother, and even he didn't understand. M
aybe I need to think this

through more,
Tesa thought, feeling her resolve wavering. What had been so

clear to her just moments ago now seemed muddy and gray. She wished

fiercely that she were back at Gallaudet where people understood her.

Frowning, she popped one of the cassettes into the machine.

12

The holo-vid came to life, presenting
a title
, "A New Technique for Nerve

Relay Reconstruction in Auditory Repair."

"Damn!" she yelled, ripping the cassette from the slot and flinging it
against
the wall. It bounced off wildly, hitting her sharply on the forehead before Jib

caught it. "Damn!" She

rubbed her head, feeling choked with anger and confusion. "Hey, come on,

Tesa, it's okay," Jib tried to soothe her. She scowled. He was probably afraid

she would start hollering expletives
, since cussing
was the only thing Tesa

had gotten out of speech therapy that she liked.

"Don't do it if you don't want to," he continued hastily. "It doesn't matter what
anybody
thinks. It's your decision ..." Her eyes flashed
, filling against
her will. "Rob told my

parents
. They
'll be calling he
re an
y moment."

Jib sagged. "Oh, shit
," he signed, making Tesa giggle in spite of herself
.

That helped her get a g
ri
p on her feelings.

When Jib handed the cassette to her she waved it away. "I

don't w
an
t that
.
Rob said there we
re
films
of Trinity ...
"That new pl
an
et
they'
ve discove
re
d
?
How come?"

"He got called away befo
re
he could tell me." She slipped
in the second unmarked cassette. "But I've got a hunch that they want to send me there."

"Before your pair project?" He looked skeptical.

The holo flickered to life again. There were no preliminary titles, just an open

panorama of undisturbed wetlands, hills and virgin forest awash in the

brilliance of autumn shades.

A small caption appeared. "No narrative," it read.

Jib leaned over and raised the volume. "No sound, yet."

Now, why
should that be?
Tesa wondered.

Suddenly a group of white birds soared into view, flying in a slow, effortless

manner
.
Are those the Grus?
Tesa wondered.

One by one they backwinged and, stretching their thin, black legs earthward,

landed gently. Their long, white wings ended in black primary feathers, and

they had elegant black head and facial markings. A small, brilliant red crown

capped their skulls with a
stunning
shock of color. Round, golden eyes

made them seem ever alert, and when, as a group, they threw back their

heads and arched those graceful necks to call to the sky, goose bumps

raced up and down Tesa's arms.

"What does that sound like?" she asked Jib. He shrugged. "There's still no sound."

Another scene shift showed a group gathered on a raised

13

platform of dried grass and reeds, white bodies against a jumble of reds and

yellows and blazing orange. Sitting on their hocks like any Terran wading

bird, they were making grooming motions with their long, black bills, while

their wings, drawn in front of them, fluttered over something.

There was an abrupt close-up of the wingtips, showing that the black

primaries were not feathers at all, but elegant, tapered fingers moving in

rhythm with their wings and bills.

"They're weaving," Tesa signed. "They're plucking their down and feathers and weaving them with grass fibers into cloth."

She reversed the film, then played it back, slower and enlarged. "Look"--

Tesa pointed--"they're using sign language!" She looked for repetitive

handshapes, the position of the hands to the body, and the use of the body

itself. She had no idea what they were saying, but while weaving, they

chatted.

Abruptly the image dissolved into static. "Internal cassette error," the

holographic caption read.

"But that would mean these creatures are
intelligent,"
Jib realized. "It'd mean that Earth's made a First Contact ..."
His signs
trailed off as Tesa smiled at him, her eyes glittering.

"Is that why you think they want you?" he asked, skeptical. "'Cause you
think
these creatures use sign language?"

"Oh, they're using it all right," Tesa assured him. "Dr.
Rob said
he had
two
films-maybe he pulled out that medical cassette by accident. I'm going to

look for another one."

Jib nodded, then ran the weaving scene again.

Rob Gable's antique films were meticulously organized, but
educational

material was often casually tossed in an open box in his closet. Tesa

rummaged through it for anything unlabeled.

She found one, buried at the bottom.
This has got to be it,
she thought, and

tossed it to Jib, bumping into the other closet door and causing it to open

partially. As she reached to pull it Out,
a glimmer
of whiteness caught her

eye. Among an assortment of Rob's classy
suits
, something shimmered.

Just then Jib waved at her, and she turned her eyes back to the holovid.

Another weaving scene began to unfold, this time with an elderly human

woman kneeling beside the weavers.

"Is she a midget?" Jib signed in surprise.

No more than your people were to the Moa,
Tesa thought. This was the first

chance she'd had to see the avians in scale. The

14

Grus were huge, dwarfing the human woman. Suddenly the entire group,

human included, stood, and one of the avians handed the old woman the

result of their weaving. "They're at least ten feet tall!" she signed to Jib. What must their wingspan be like to get those bodies off the ground?

"Can you give me that in meters?" the New Zealander asked.

"See? They're using sign language!" Tesa looked smug. Jib nodded. "Why

do you keep looking at that closet?" he finally asked. "Did Dr. Rob buy

another
old movie poster?"

Tesa pushed the door open and let the light hit the white material that had

been sparkling at her from the dark. As she'd suspected, it was a Grus

weaving, identical to the one in the film. Gleaming with tiny shimmering

rainbows as the light played over it, it seemed woven of gems.
Feathers and

grass,
Tesa thought.
This is made from feathers and
grass? Tentatively she touched it, then examined the reverse.

Jib joined her. "There's two of them," he signed, reaching into the closet. As soon as he touched it, he stiffened. "Oh, God, Tesa-tell me that's not what I

think it is."

Slowly the young man turned the fabric wrong side out, and Tesa ran her

fingers lightly over it. The softly tanned leather of the Grus
skin
slid beneath her hand.

They dropped the skin, and Jib hurriedly shut the door as they edged away

from the ugly artifact.
Staring again at the
marsh people who continued to

chat and weave and fly, Tesa wondered, Which
of you lost your life to make

that
skin?

"You must be wrong, Tesa," Jib signed. "Dr. Rob would never have the skin of an intelligent being in his closet!" But as the friends glanced back at the

holo, the graceful beings interacting with each other put the lie to Jib's

words.

"I'm
not
wrong!" Tesa insisted. "They're signing!"

Just then Rob touched them on their shoulders, making them both jump and

gasp.

"Didn't you hear him come in?" Tesa asked Jib peevishly. "He was
quiet!"

the boy retorted, clutching his chest.

"I figured you'd be here," Rob signed to Jib, then looked at the holo. "So, Tesa, what do you think of Trinity?"

Tesa smiled weakly, watching the scene. An impossibly tall avian walked

beside a small human woman and Tesa ached to walk in her place. Tonight,

instead
of eagles, she'd dream of beautiful white-winged people and feel

herself
run ac
ro
ss rust

15

colored grass to lift off into the sky with them. She w
an
ted to lea
rn

their signs
,
as she had lea
rn
ed the signs of the Ashu, and live with a
people who could share with her a common language.

But ... what about that ...
that
thing
in Rob'
s closet? Jib was gaping
,
waiting for her to ask Rob about it.

Her mind suddenly envisioned the edge of a bronze wingtip, a background

of blue sky,
as though she we
re
the Wakinyan, the mystic thunderbird,

gliding the thermals
an
d looking past her own outst
re
tched wing
.
Part
of last
night
'
s eagle dream coming back
,
she realized
.
Tesa
'
s fingers
tingled with the memo
ry
of a feathered cloth and a silken skin.