Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (10 page)

“Wait!” Syrdian plaintively called
behind himr but Dex ignored
the cry
, reaching height and coasting to the verge
,
beating gently with hies hind wings while carefully examining the verge for large splotches of infrared.

***

Norris
stared in awe at the creature. I
t appeared to be staring
back
at him out of the screen. Actually he
had an impression of
its eyes
moving up and down and around as if it were examining the entire rocket. He assumed they were eyes anyway. Shiny
,
smooth
and
yellow with a black pupil
, mounted in a pair on the head.
A head that was too small to hold much of a brain,
even though
the creature’s approach and harness suggested intelligence.
He wondered briefly if their nervous tissue was more efficient than Earth animals, allowing intelligence
even
with a smaller brain?
The eyes seemed to be closer to the bottom of the head than the top and it looked like there
might be
a cleft above the eyes, as if there was a mouth
located
above
the eyes. No nostrils though, only the cleft and the eyes.
Covered with fine golden brown fur, or something like fur,
the creature
looked… pretty
, graceful,
and… dangerous
. He thought it stood about twice as tall as the three foot rocket.

Another creature, apparently the same type as the first one, but walking not flying, approached from behind the one examining the rocket
. Its coloration seemed more silvery yellow as opposed to the golden brown of the first one
. Friendly? Or coming up from behind to attack? Norris saw that the second one also had a harness, though it
s leatherwork
appeared to be
much
simpler
than the harness on the first one
.

The golden one’s head turned to look at the silvery one. When its head turned Norris was astonished to see more eyes on the back of the head. Smaller and wider set
, the posterior eyes looked somehow less important than the main ones. He realized they
must
be either nonfunctional or
have
less
acuity
or
the golden
alien
wouldn’t have turned its head to look at
the silver one
with
its
frontal eyes.
Behind the
front
eyes
and in front of the back eyes were little
trumpet shaped
holes
,
the front ones facing forward
and
the back ones backwards.
He immediately thought
of them as ears though he was trying to resist the temptation to assign
familiar
functions that belonged to earth organisms.

Norris looked at the others who were all gawping at the screens
as well
.

Emma said, “Do you get the impression they’re communicating with each other?”

Norris said, “Yeah, they keep looking at one another then back at the rocket.”

The creature moved closer to the rocket again. Roger said, “How are they communicating?
Their mouths aren’t moving and they aren’t making any sound.
”

Ell laughed, “We didn’t p
ut a microphone in the rocket. T
hey
could
be speaking English for all we know.”

Roger snorted, “Duh. You’re right. Well
,
we should be able to use reflections off the laser window to pick up acoustic vibrations like the spies do.”

“Good idea, any ideas on where we’d go to pick one up?

Emma said, “Hey, I’m the instrument lady, remember? I’ll get one ordered in a minute, just let me watch a little longer.”

Norris said, “Don’t forget they might communicate with something other than audio?”

Ell said, “The
y don’t seem to be making signs.
I don’t see any visual changes in their surfaces, they aren’t emitting light. I’m not sure what other physical methods they might communicate with? You aren’t thinking telepathy
,
are you?”

“Radio? PGR?”

Ell chortled, “Hah!
PGR—i
n my face! Though it’s hard to imagine using PGR for organism to organism communication since it would only hook you up with one other organism.”

Norris smiled at her, “Maybe they all come from a queen creature that has entangled PGR communication to each of her subsidiary units?”

Ell grinned, “Hah! In my face
again
. OK
,
I’ll grant your point but I’m betting on plain old audio received through those holes between the front and back eyes.”

Norris grinned back, “
And
I’m betting with you, but I just don’t want us to anthropomorphize and miss something
important
.”

The g
olden
one
, wh
ich
had moved closer, reached out and touched the rocket, causing their view to vibrate and tilt a little. Its eyes approached, presumably for a closer inspection.
Then it turned its head back toward
the silver one
a moment. Then its wings extended and with a few beats it was airborne, taking their rocket with it! Ell
snorted
, “I was just wondering whether we’d be able to have the rocket follow this creature when it left
the area
. Not an issue, eh?”

The group laughed with her. Emma said, “We’ve got to give them names to tell them apart when we’re talking about them. I’m suggesting ‘Goldy’ for this one and ‘Silver’ for the other one?”

“OK, where are
they, or ‘we’
going?”

They all watched in fascination as
Goldy, carrying their rocket and their point of view
,
flared
in to
a
land
ing
at the forest verge.

***

A
t the verge, Dex
puffed hi
e
s lips
for the scent of predator while pulling
a pair of hi
e
s
carrying straps off hies harness.

When h
i
e felt
fairly certain
it was safe h
i
e set the meteorite down and cut a small branch off a limb. The end of it fit into one of the holes in the meteorite and Dex tied it to the carrying strap, then around the shaft of the meteorite. Hie did the same thing at the other end, then tied the two straps to hies harness so that the meteorite laid
along the
right
side of hies chest. One of t
he l
egs at the bottom dug into hies abdomen. H
i
e tugged at
the leg
wondering how to keep it from irritating him
r
. To hi
e
s amazement
all the legs
suddenly retracted
down against
the meteorite! H
i
e moved
around
, it felt fine now.

“What are you doing with the meteorite?” Syrdian asked
coming up behind-left himr
.

“Taking it with me. I’ve always liked meteorites.”

“Why?”

Dex shrugged hi
e
s wings and stepped through the verge into the forest.
Hies
backeyes showed Syrdian following.
In a few paces the underbrush thinned out for lack of light
because of
the
thick
canopy high overhead. Dex stopped and looked
around
once again for any large infrared
objects that might be predators. Hie puffed hies lips
to smell
as well. It seemed clear and so hie led the way uneasily up the mountain. Hie didn’t like being in a situation where hie couldn’t fly to safety.

“What are we going to eat?” Syrdian asked.

Irritably Dex said, “I hope you’re working on figuring that out.
”

“Figuring it out? How?”

“How do you think anything ever gets figured out? Somebody thinks about it and tries to come up with a solution.
You ha
ve been hunting and gathering haven’t you?”

“Elders have always shown me how to do things Dex” Syrdian said quietly. “I
have
been hunting and gathering, yes, but never without flying.”

“Well it’s not as bad as it could be, I can fly
.
B
ut
I
might not be able to
catch
enough
food
for both of us
. I can scout. I can catch some of it. But what if something happens to me?”

“Like you decide not to stay with me?” Syrdian almost whispered.

Dex stopped and turned. “No! W
e’re
walking
through the
forest.
I could be attacked and killed.”
Hie
took a deep breath, “I’m planning to stay with you Syrdian, but
you
know
everyone else in
the tribe would leave you rather than risk their own lives by not migrating
. They wouldn’t even walk
through the forest with you.”

Syrdian hung hies head, “I know. I know and I’m scared.
I
wouldn’t have stayed with
you
and I’m ash
amed.” Hie raised hies head, “I’m grateful
, I really am. I
hope that someday I can repay you
somehow
.”

Despite hies recent recognition of Syrdian’s selfishness,
Dex
had to resist
the urge to wrap arms and wings around
the still beautiful
Syrdian
. “Well for now, try being quiet so we’ll have a chance of hearing predators. And keep watch for large infrared objects and
puff
for predator’s scent.
”

Obediently Syrdian pursed lips to pull air into hies mouth over the
olfa
ctory patches inside hies lips, turning hies head to look around.

Dex stepped out
again
, heading uphill and wondering how hie’d let himrself promise Syrdian that hie’d stay.

Dex had wearied of the long walk uphill through the unending dimness
of the forest
.
The constant flittering about of the small forest fliers irritated himr. A couple of small territorial flitters had attacked himr and one had attacked Syrdian. They couldn’t do a lot of harm but trying to bat them away frustrated
himr
. Hie mused on how h
ard it was to walk up this hill compared to the easy glide
down
over it
yester
day. Suddenly Syrdian
hissed
, “Dex!
I smell a predator
!”

Dex
looked
around
and saw a large infrared spot
to hies right
. Hie strained to see something besides the ill-defined infrared blob. Reaching back
hie
whispered back, “Give me two of the
staves
.”

S
yrdian handed two of the
staves with their
fire hardened
points
over and held the
points of the
other two
staves
toward the animal
himrself
. They stood waiting and wondering. After a few minutes
the infrared blob
moved closer, passing near a small shaft of sunlight. Dex thought it
looked like
a zornic, a
medium sized forest omnivore. It was bigger than hie and Syrdian together and
doubtless
would eat them if it could, but maybe… Dex raised himrself to full height and spread hies wings, whispering to Syrdian, “
Lift your wings, m
ake yourself big!”

The zornic stopped, then slowly backed away.