Silent Songs (12 page)

Something out here is telepathic ... and now it's hurt. I woke up from a horrible dream, in pain, terrified of drowning. Then I felt... I
heard
the music ...

it's in trouble."

"The Gray Winds say that's how the River Spirits lure their victims,"

Lightning warned, "by singing their saddest songs. They want you, Good Eyes! Please, leave with us!"

"Someone's in danger, but it's the singer of that song, not us," Tesa insisted.

Jib nodded thinking back to the accident and how it had affected him. Now that he was open to it, it felt right. The River Spirit... the Singer. .. whatever or whoever originated that song, was crying for help. He opened his mind, wanting to receive the message, the way Doctor Blanket and the Shadgui had taught him. But this was so different. . . there was none of the friendly familiarity he'd had with those beings, and it was certainly nothing like what he'd shared with Anzi. But the sadness that filled him, the heartbreaking music .. . The Singer ... it... no,
he
. . . was trapped, hurt. . . frightened. The alien emotions conveyed in the song washed over him.

"Don't be afraid," Tesa signed to the cohort, but she was too distracted to be very convincing. She continued wading along the sandbar, while the others tried to hold her back. Thunder wheeled overhead, screaming in frustration.

Suddenly a spout of water geysered through the air, startling them. Tesa broke into a jog, the others chasing her.

Lightning and Flies-Too-Fast took to wing, coming down in front of her, frantic with concern. "Good Eyes, wait!" Lightning begged. "We can't let you go to the River Spirit's embrace. .. ."

"No time!" she answered, impatiently darting around them.

Jib agreed. Now that he'd stopped thinking of the song as something he could really hear, its sorrow and desperation touched him even more. He mentally searched for the notes, using them to trace the mind behind them.

Tesa stared so intently at the sounding spot that she discovered the being by tripping over him, falling facefirst into the shallow water. The feathered hands of a half-dozen Grus lifted her so quickly, she seemed to have levitated. "I'm okay," she signed rapidly. "Everyone watch your step!"

Another blast of water fountained so close to them, they all

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jumped, even K'heera. A huge, submerged, spade-shaped fluke rose from the dark waves and slapped the water, causing most of the cohort to leap into the air. Lightning and Flies-Too-Fast grabbed Tesa roughly and, fanning their powerful wings, started towing her backward. She fought, yanking away from them.

Then K'heera flooded the area with light from her sled. Hundreds of indistinct water creatures scurried from the blast of unexpected brightness. There, lying helpless in the shallow water, lay the massive bulk of the only creature Jib had seen on Trinity that wasn't brightly colored.

"My god," Bruce whispered, "that's the thing we hit!"

As the searchlight outlined the large oblong creature, Jib was overwhelmed with by the same powerful vertigo he'd felt on the
Demoiselle.
He swayed, ready to pitch forward.

Hurricane was suddenly beside him. "But.. . you are not-of-the-World!" the big avian protested as he steadied the young man.

That's why I was so scared on the Demie,
Jib thought dizzily. I
wasn't
dealing with my fear. . . I was receiving his.
He felt immediate empathy for the now-helpless being.

Tesa, seemingly unaffected, sloshed her way toward the head of the creature as Bruce hurried to her side.

Is he wounded? Will he die because we hit him?
Jib wondered, concentrating on the powerful, raw emotions swamping his mind. He'd thought he was used to telepathic thought, but this wasn't anything like what he'd experienced at StarBridge. There were no words or pictures attached to these chaotic messages, no way to organize the tornado of feelings.

As the group drew closer to the creature, Jib felt... no,
heard
the song change somewhere inside his mind. Before, it was mostly sadness, but now there was real terror, more intense than when the ship had struck him. For all this animal knew, the aliens surrounding him were voracious predators ready to feast. For a flickering moment, Jib saw again the terrible vision of the Mate Kai, and then it was gone.

Jib pulled away from Hurricane and walked alongside the six-meter, oblong-shaped animal that resembled an odd cross between a walrus and a whale.

Besides the powerful, spade- shaped fluke, his only other appendages were two flat flippers that ended in stumpier fingers. The barrel-like shoulders, round with fleshy folds, nearly hid the neckless, oblong head.

Moving closer, the young man stared at the dark bruises on the drab gray back that marked the being's contact with the

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Demoiselle.
Gouges in the sand testified to his futile attempts to rock off the entrapping sandbar.

"See, it's just an animal," Tesa signed to the cohort as they clustered around the creature. "It's not a spirit at all, just a helpless, frightened animal."

A terrible scream rent the air and before Tesa could stop her, Thunder attempted to attack the wounded back that lay inches below the water.

Instantly, a blast of mental energy struck Jib like a hammer between the eyes. He fell, but Hurricane and Winter Bloom caught him. Thunder, however, was not so lucky. She shrieked and wobbled, then plummeted helplessly into the river.

"Oh,
shit! Ji
b heard Tesa yell.

"I've got her!" Bruce yelled back, forgetting in his excitement that Tesa couldn't hear him.

Jib shook his head, trying to clear it, then saw Tesa and Bruce lifting a dazed and saturated Thunder onto the back of K'heera's sled. The Maori groaned and clutched his head.

The Grus had seen enough, and started forcibly pulling Jib away. No one had to tell them that this animal wasn't helpless. Lightning, Flies-Too-Fast, and the rest of the cohort enveloped Tesa and attempted to lift her out of the water, blaring out alarm calls. The frightening cacophony was terrible and Jib would've given anything for his sound nullifiers.

"Stop it!" Tesa demanded, pulling out of her friends' hands. "We're just scaring him! He needs help." Suddenly her eyes met Jib's and it was as if someone pulled her plug. He didn't need telepathy to realize she'd just recalled Rob Gable's warnings. "Oh, Jib! You ... shouldn't even
be
here! Are you all right?"

He wanted to reassure her, tell her he was fine, but that last transmission had rattled him. He felt like all the blood had left his brain, leaving him giddy and high. He wished he could focus better. Tesa's expression was strained.

"I'm okay," he finally managed. "Look.. . why don't I try to make contact, try to cut through his fear, so we can help him. We can't stay out here all night fightin' this bloke. He outweighs all of us!"

Tesa set her jaw. She clearly wanted to say no, wanted to send him .. .

where? Back to StarBridge? Confused feelings raced across her face, as he damned Rob Gable for telling her about that TSS crock.

"Tesa... let me try. It's the only thing that makes sense." Without waiting for her answer, he moved to the being's head.

"Is that wise?" K'heera suddenly barked in Simiu. He turned 69

toward her, surprised, while Bruce and Tesa glanced at their voders. "Are you sure its thoughts are honest? Couldn't the Grus' concern be sound? It could be a trap to lure you closer."

Jib would've been touched by K'heera's concern if he hadn't known how most Simiu felt about telepathy. They viewed it with a deep suspicion, disagreeing with the generally held notion that telepathic beings were inherently more honest than nontelepaths.

"I'm willing to take the risk," Jib decided.

As he edged closer, the creature lifted his muzzle and sounded, gulping air, spraying water all over him. His watery breath smelled like hay and crushed flowers and reminded the New Zealander, oddly, of a lamb's breath. Circular nostrils sitting atop a rounded, fleshy, bewhiskered muzzle opened wide to admit air, then closed tightly as the head sank beneath the waves. Two tiny, dark eyes were the only bright feature in that dour face. Pendulous, prehensile lips completed his odd, homely look. Not only did this creature lack color, he was burdened with being the only thing Jib had seen on Trinity that wasn't beautiful.

Wanting to reassure the being, Jib projected comforting images. Knowing nothing about his biology, he pictured the only thing he thought the animal might crave. He envisioned the huge creature swimming free through the river, then, impulsively, pictured himself swimming alongside.

So, you're the taniwha, the big water monster, eh, mate"]
he thought, kneeling down and gently slipping his hands under the massive head. He lent it enough support so that the nostrils were lifted above the waterline, and the creature could breathe without effort. The skin was surprisingly smooth and sleek.

The animal suddenly stopped struggling and gazed at Jib. As the young man continued the visualization, the mournful background "music" stopped.

Jib smiled, thinking he was finally getting through to his new friend.
"E hoa,
what's your name?"

Without warning, a mental surge invaded Jib's mind, shoving into it clumsily, causing the low throb of his headache to flare into blinding pain. The mental contact was forced, heavy, too powerful for the human's limited receptive abilities. Jib grunted, his head snapping back as if struck, as he desperately tried to cope with the torrent of information.

Suddenly he knew everything and everyone, the entire herd that the taniwha called family, they who sang, the Singers. He sampled the smells and the tastes of the River, the sweetness of its food, the richness of his mother's milk, the safety of his father's protection, the happiness of his life. So simple and good was that life that Jib

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absorbed those memories, making them his own. What more did anyone need but the buoyancy and warmth of the great River? Jib felt euphoric, intoxicated. He groaned softly. Then, as suddenly as it started, the contact ended.

His headache was gone. Blinking, he glanced around dazedly, finally focusing on the tiny, sad eyes staring at him from just beneath the water's surface.

Tesa and Bruce were beside him, surrounded by a curtain of white feathers.

"What happened?" Tesa asked worriedly. "The music stopped suddenly, and you acted like you'd been gut- punched. Are you okay?"

He wanted to nod, but thought better of it. "Give us a minute, mate," he signed. Jib could
hear
the mental tones that stood for the being's name, but there was no translation. That was all right-- Taniwha couldn't understand Jib's name either. The young man peered at the bulky animal differently now, completely forgetting his immediate reaction to the homely features and the colorless hide. He knew now this was a complex, beautiful being, a member of a race so unusual, Jib still didn't know if they were animals or intelligent people.

"He's just a baby," Jib signed to the others. "He's no older than Lightning, and only about half-grown." Every member of the cohort expanded their already brilliant crowns.

"Half-grown!"
Bruce protested. "Is he
talking
to you?"

"I can't call it language," Jib signed.

"Is he intelligent?" Tesa asked.

"I don't know," Jib answered honestly. "It might take a trained telepath to determine that."

"We should err on the side of caution," Bruce signed, and Tesa turned to the meteorologist warily. "We need to document this," he continued. "It
could
be another intelligent species!"

The Indian woman stared at the weatherman as though amazed that he would come to that conclusion. "Actually, I hadn't thought that far ahead."

Then she looked back at Jib. He could see her reluctance to have him deliberately continue his contact with the creature. "I think ... we need to solve this being's
problem,
and worry about everything else, later. Do you know what's wrong with him, Jib? Why he's even here?"

He nodded, pulling up the memories as though they were his own. "Yeah,
he's
what we ran into before bouncing off the crevasse. Banged up his shoulders. He'd snuck away from his herd, so after he was hurt... he wouldn't call his
mum .. .
afraid she'd be cheesed off!" Jib grinned at that. "He decided to rest in

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the shallows till he felt better, but waited too long and got hung up on this sandbar when the tide went out. So, now he's hurt, hungry, and scared . . ."

he squinted, not wanting to recall this particular memory, "afraid that he'll fall prey to ... the Mate Kai... some animal? He thinks of it as the Great Hunger.

When we showed up, he thought he was about to die." Jib turned, saw something, and pointed. In the deepest channel of the River they could see two sounding spouts. "That's them! His parents!"

"Why can't we
hear
them?" Tesa asked.

"They're adults and have more control over their minds. Probably the same reason the Gray Winds only
hear
the Singers when they try to take up residence here. Projecting their thoughts to protect their territory is their only defense." Jib ran a hand over the water creature. The wet, sleek skin felt smooth and taut. "He'll die when the tide goes completely out. His own weight will suffocate him." Even now, Jib's chest tightened every time the creature gulped for air.

"We can handle that," Bruce announced. "K'heera, go back to camp, please, and take the a-grav units off the other two sleds,
and
the
Demoiselle.
They'll lift him off the bar."

"Bring us the medi-kit, too, please," Tesa asked. "He looks mammalian. We may be able to repair some of that tissue damage."

Without a word, K'heera returned to the camp, Thunder still clinging, wet and miserable, to the front of her sled, her wings outstretched as if she were some bizarre figurehead.

The cohort milled nervously around until Tesa convinced them that they should fish for breakfast, that when this was over the humans would very much need whatever food they could provide. The responsibility helped them focus on something besides their own fears and they prowled the sandbar for fish or bivalves.