Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (2 page)

But
the talor rolled its entire body to the right,
threatening
to crush
Dex
under
neath
it
self
. A few swift beats lifted
Dex
off the talor and back
-up-left
.
I
n despair h
i
e realized that
hie’d lost hies protected position
behind
the talor. H
i
e would be facing its beak and the crushing impacts of its wing
wrists when it attacked him
r
again.
Dex
fluttered back-right away, hoping to
draw the talor
away from the lifeless appearing Syrdian
. The talor rolled all the way over and back to its feet but
to Dex’s astonishment
began coughing
almost continuously
.
It
b
acked a
way
from
him
.
Blood poured down the front of the talor
’s
neck
and evidently into
the
in
take
breathing orifice at the base of its neck
, causing the now paroxysmal coughing.

Dex turned to Syrdian who lay sprawled
,
unmoving
,
in the position that the talor had pinned himr.
Three huge tears rent Syrdian’s right wing and
,
with
dismay Dex
realized h
i
e
couldn’t hear
Syrdian’s
breath moving
. With an agonized moan Dex leaned an earhole down next to Syrdian to listen more carefully.
Yes! Breath
did hiss
in
to
Syrdian’s
intake
and out
hies
vent
.
Low volume
s
but, still alive! Suddenly remembering the talor
,
Dex
brought hi
e
s head
up
to check its threat level
—
h
i
e saw
the talor
quite a ways away,
sagg
ing
, wings and neck droop
ed
,
its
breathing labored. It didn’t appear to be a
danger
to anyone
.
Dex crouched by Syrdian to study the holes torn in those
gorgeous
silver yellow wings.
Small wounds in wings
often repaired themselves,
but
these were huge. They might heal a little if Syrdian lived, but hie would never fly again. Dex tugged the edges of the biggest tear together.
The edges e
asily reapproximated, especially with the wing relaxed. But they wouldn’t stay together. Dex felt hi
e
s wings tremble. “Syrdian…” h
i
e gasped.

Dex picked up hi
e
s knives from where
hie’ dropped them
in the dirt and wiped them. The left one slipped back into its sheath
. T
he right one caught and wouldn’t go back into its place. Dex looked down and saw that the opening in the sheath had been
crumpled
shut in hi
e
s fight with the talor. H
i
e put a claw into the sheath and pulled the opening back apart, sliding the knife in
.

Dex stared at the stitching that
hie
had
used to form
the folded piece of leather into a sheath for hi
e
s knife. The stitching that held the sheath to hi
e
s harness. The stitching that held the harness together.
The fine stitching that Dex was known for, trading hi
e
s leather work for
different
goods from others. That’s how h
i
e’d obtained these fine flint knives.
Hies eyes drifted back to the tears in Syrdian’s wings.
Could stitching repair a wing?
Dex wondered. Best done now while Syrdian lay unconscious, puncturing the holes would be
very
painful if Syrdian were awake.

Dex’s hand fumbled in hi
e
s pouch
,
pulling out the stick h
i
e kept wrapped in
fiberlin
.
Fiberlin
useful
for
binding flint blades to handles
and for
setting snares.
And for l
eather work.

Dex took hi
e
s more
finely
pointed left knife and made a tiny puncture in Syrdian’s wing
next to one of the large tears. Syrdian didn’t respond so h
i
e made a puncture across from it and fed a bit of fine
fiberlin
through it
with a claw
, tying it just tightly enough to press the gap shut there. Hie tilted hies head and examined it. It may not last, but it seemed better than leaving the beautiful Syrdian with huge
rents
in
those
lovely wings
.

Crouching down
,
Dex made tiny punctures all along the edges of each of the wounds. Then came the interminable
passing
of
fiberlin
through
the
holes,
pushing
it
through
with
the tip of
a claw and then pulling
the stitches
just tight enough to close the hole without
causing
ragged overlap.
When hie got to the end
he went back and loosened
s
ome
loops
where they were too tight and
further
tightened
others
. Syrdian began to moan and move slightly. This both raised Dex’s spirits and made the suturing more difficult. At last Dex tied the
last
fiberlin
at the end of the third hole
and leaned back to examine hi
e
s work. There were small gaps at two locations. Thoughtfully Dex pulled out
hi
e
s knife and made a puncture in preparation to
putting a supplemental suture across
the first
of the two little
gap
s
. Syrdian’s eyes flew open and hies wing ripped out of Dex’s grasp.

Eyes wide Syrdian pushed
himrself
to hies feet, “What! What happened? Dex, what are you doing here?”

“You were attacked by a talor.”

“Get out! Why am I still here?
Ow!
” Syrdian said
,
pull
ing
hies wing around to inspect it, “What happened to my wing? What are these little strings?” Hie reached a finger to pluck at the wound, “Ow!”

Dex ducked hi
e
s head, “I, uh, attacked the talor and it backed off.”

Seemingly not hearing Dex, Syrdian suddenly looked panicked, “No! Qes was here. Where is hie?! Did the talor
kill Qes
?”
Syrdian’s wide eyes focused on Dex.

“Qes escaped.”

“Where is hie?” Syrdian looked frantically about.

“Qes flew front-down
-left
into the trees there,” Dex said, pointing with a wingtip.

“Qes wouldn’t leave me!” Syrdian turned to look suspiciously at Dex, “Where’s this
‘
talor
’
you
‘
chased away?
’
” Hies eyes narrowed,
“
Did
you
do this to me?!”

Dex looked around, the talor was nowhere to be seen. Hie stepped closer to
Syrdian, “No! No, I would never do anything to you! I… I…” Dex couldn’t bring
himrself
to say, “love
you
.”

Syrdian backed away in the direction Dex had indicated Qes had gone, “
Stay away!
Leave me alone!”

Wings sagging in despair Dex watched Syrdian shuffle through the meadow grasses toward the woods Qes had disappeared into.
Syrdian flicked hi
e
s wings
once
but the right one appeared to seize in place with a quiver, holding a stationary position while Syrdian’s head turned to look at it, then it slowly folded behind hi
e
s back.
It must hurt
pretty bad
,
Dex thought.

Syrdian resumed walking but then suddenly stopped, looking front-
low-right
.

Dex could see nothing. H
i
e rose to hi
e
s tiptoes, still seeing nothing
. He
beat a few strokes up into the air. Syrdian was
staring
at the talor, slumped into the grass, a large puddle of blood
soaking into the ground
around it. Dex nosed over and coasted a glide down to the talor, landing just short.

Syrdian had taken a few steps closer and said, “There
was
a talor.”

Dex
dipped
hi
e
s head in agreement
.

Raleigh, NC—
Velos’ “Concert at the End of the World,” a recording made when Velos played a concert at D5R on March 1
st
has
,
almost overnight,
become the biggest music video sensation in the world. Played against a backdrop of thousands of
shooting stars
from the broken comet and featuring an
astonishing
dance by Ell Donsaii, it has attracted over
one billion
viewers. Velos’ leader Gordon Speight spoke of his gratitude to Donsaii for…

President
Flood
turned to his Chief of Staff, “We need to give that Donsaii girl some kind of award. What’s the highest award we can give a civilian?”

“The highest is the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She
already
has one.”

“What? What did she get it for?”

“Uh, she was instrumental in stopping the invasion of
Taiwan
by the PRC.
The whole thing was pretty hush-
hush so her award wasn’t publicized.”

Flood’s eyes widened, “What awards hasn’t she won? I know she’s got the Medal of Honor and the Nobel!”

The Chief of Staff raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Well
,
she hasn’t gotten any little awards. Seems kind of silly to give her those after she’s won the big ones doesn’t it?”

Flood leaned back in his chair and sighed, “What
can
we do? We need to recognize her somehow for what she did to stop that comet.”

“We could gi
ve her another Medal of Freedom;
this one publicly.”
He shrugged, it didn’t seem like much for what she’d done…

***

Professor Norris felt embarrassed as he looked out over his class on Planetary Science. “I’d like to begin class today by apologizing for my absence from this class last week. Like many of you, I became caught up in the worldwide panic over the impending impact of Comet Hearth-Daster. I, like
many of
you and
many
others in the University community, could not conceive that there would be any means available to deflect the comet. Therefore, I also concluded that the end of our world as we know it was at hand…”

Norris found a frog in his throat and with a shaking voice said, “I hope that someday I can express my gratitude to the fine people at NASA who launched the nuclear weapons that deflected the major fragments and to the people right here in the Triangle at D5R that deflected the smaller fragments…
”

He cleared his throat, “
That said we have some course work to catch up on, so, let us begin…”