Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (36 page)

“We landed without the government’s approval.” Ell shrugged. “I don’t think we’ve done any harm, a track record not shared by many governments in the past. Though,” she tilted her head, “I’d hope that our modern government would do better than the ones did in the past. The Teecees would be pretty hard to exploit anyway. I think… but I’m not sure yet. My personal preference would be to keep this secret a while longer with the thought that, if we thought they
could
be exploited somehow, we could keep them a secret forever.” She raised an eyebrow, “Or try anyway.” She looked around and was pleased to see
nodding to indicate
that the group seemed to agree.

Back in her office
Ell found that Emma had followed her there. “Hey, Em’ what’s up?”

“Roger took me out to dinner last night.”

Ell threw her arms around Emma, happy for her but again finding her own heart sinking. “Good for you!” She whispered in Emma’s ear, afraid her voice would break if she said it out loud.

Emma hugged her tight
,
then leaned back seeing Ell’s eyes glistening, “You’re upset!”

“Yeah.” She choked out, “Silly me. My ‘friendly boy’ is growing up and moving on. Even though I’m
pushing
him out of the nest, it still hurts.”

Emma’s eyes brightened, “I could push him back your way, he
was
yours first.”

“No, no. You love him a lot more than I ever did. I don’t know what’s wrong wi
th me. I’m happy for you guys. Really, v
ery happy, but still
,
I’m sad too.”

“Well, he’s torn up about it too. Worried that he did wrong, taking me out without talking to you about it first.”

“OK, I’ll try to say something positive to him about it.”

“Thanks!” Emma said, giving Ell another hug.

After Emma left Ell sank into her chair moping.
Allan said, “‘Raquel’ has a call from
Shan
Kinrais
.”

Ell’s heart leapt a little. She wasn’t
even
sure whether
Shan
was “friendly boy” material yet. But with all her other semi romantic interests defunct she was happy to hear from him.
“
Put
him on. Hi
Shan
, how’s the B-ball going?”

He laughed, “OK, though I kinda miss havin’ you playin’ on our team.”

“Well anytime you need me to bail you out again, just let me know.”

“Hah!
Ryan still thinks our win was entirely due to his
bein’
‘
on fire
’ that day.”

“He
was
on fire!” Ell said, suddenly worried that she hadn’t been subtle enough with her abilities that day.

“He was. But h
e doesn’t give enough credit to
the
teammate who fed him all those passes though.”

“We made some nice passes didn’t we?”

Shan
thought back to the several times now that he’d watched the video from those games. He’d come to realize her passes weren’t just “nice” they were
excellent
, often pulling Ryan away from his defender and positioning him perfectly
to cut
for
his
shot. Maybe it
had
all been luck, but he had a feeling
,
maybe
not
. “Well
,
enough basketball talk. Velos is going to be playing at Vic’s
, that bar
where we met. How’d you like to go
out
for dinner and
then
dancing?
I’ve got tickets.
”

For a moment Ell panicked at the thought that
Shan
knew
he was talking to Ell Donsaii, a known Velos fan. “Uh sure, that’d be fun
. Can we ‘clog’ to Velos’ music?
”

“Hah, you can clog to
anything
if you want to.  But
you do remember
I
can
dance other styles?”

“When is it?” Ell asked
,
though she knew very well.

“Saturday night
,
two weeks.
Donsaii likes Velos so y
ou have to promise me that if
she
shows up you’ll introduce me.”

“Uh sure.” Ell said, bemused to
find herself
irritated
at being
asked to introduce him to herself.
My life is entirely too confusing,
she thought.

***

Dex climbed up
the bank to the meadow. When
hies
head got high enough to see out into the big meadow
hie
stopped and called back down, urgently but not loudly, “Syrdian! The zornits are back!”
Hie
scrambled
excitedly
back down to the cave
.

“Where?”

“In the meadow!”

“I figured that! What part of the meadow?”

“Oh. Near the bottom end, about half way to the other side.”

Syrdian
turned and picked up
Dex
’s
two best spears. “Good! You can fly in over the trees so they won’t see you until the last moment.”

Dex’s head rose, “Do you think the zornits will be afraid of dalin?”

“They’re probably afraid of talors
. If they see a flyer coming their way they may start to run.”

“I could still catch them!”

“Not if they run into the trees.”

Dex shrugged hies wings. “OK, you’re right. I’ll circle out and come at them just over the tops of the trees.”

“
I’ll
be right behind you.”

Dex stopped and stared at Syrdian. Syrdian had picked up two more flint tipped spears.
Dex
didn’t want Syrdian to get hurt but felt uncomfortable saying it. “Are you sure you’re ready for that kind of flying?
”

Syrdian shrugged hies wings. “No, but I’ll only attack if you’ve wounded
a zornit
and we need to finish it off. I’ve been flying pretty far the past hands of days
,
you know. I haven’t
just
been flying with you.”

“OK. But I’ve been practicing sticking spears into that mound from the air. It isn’t as easy as you might think.”

Syrdian grinned and beat a wingful of air at Dex. “I’ve practiced too. Days when you were gone for a long time.”

Dex beat a wingful back at himr, grinning. “OK, let’s try it then!” Hie turned and beat into the air over the stream, coasting down the mountain then up into the air over a recently burned
section of the forest. Like other dark areas on the ground it usually
had a
n
ice
updraft.
Hies back eyes showed Syrdian
back-low
-left
from
himr.

They circled a few times gaining altitude then turned out, swinging back over the forest and back
“
up mountain
”
toward the big meadow. From
this
altitude hie could see the zornits peacefully grazing near the low end of the meadow. At the left end of the little herd
,
hie
saw a smaller one and hie marked its location just over a slightly taller tree.

Dex dove, dropping out of sight of the zornits and gaining speed…

Hi
e shot out over the tree line.

T
here was
hies
small zornit.

With a flick of hind wings
Dex
stooped
on it…

It obviously saw
himr
with its back eyes. It
hunched
a little and then began running, turning
to the
right
in the direction of
the rest of the herd. The entire herd began running and turning hard
right
. They were
turning
to go into the trees!

Dex dropped hies right wing
,
turning
hard with the zornit
. At the angle hie was diving hies speed rocketed up
. Hie dropped
hies
right wing further to turn with it and drew back the spear…

Then hie flared wings to avoid crashing into the panicked zornit…

With all hies strength Dex slammed the spear into the zornit just ahead of its right high shoulder. Heart lung and brain were all there in that forepart of the body…

The spear sunk deep as Dex flashed over
,
wheeling up and turning right to see what had happened…

Syrdian flared
over the zornit
…

With
mighty thrust Syrdian’s spear sank into the zornit as well, they both beat wing to follow the zornit
as it continued to ru
n, now directly toward the forest. Was it going to get away? With two spears
deep
in its forequarter?!

It stumbled
!

It stumbled again
!

I
ts front legs collapsed and it crashed into the grass just short of the verge.

Dex dropped to the ground beside the zornit,
amazed, yet wondering if it could really be true. Had they really killed a zornit?

Syrdian dropped beside himr with a
n
ululation
of joy. Dex turned to himr and opened hies arms. Syrdian threw arms and wings around Dex and Dex did the same to Syrdian.
They hopped up and down, wings involuntarily
luffing
with each
leap
.

Dex’s
hearts filled with ecstasy—to be
holding Syrdian
on
such a joyous occasion.

Syrdian
thrilled at the feel of
the firm musculature underneath Dex’s soft
fur.
Admiration for Dex, beautiful, ha
ndsome Dex. Dex the inventive. I
f only Dex could love himr
…

Dex, clasping Syrdian to himrself
,
cursed hies own low status that meant Syrdian could never be hies
…

Syrdian’s
neck touched h
ies
…

Tentatively
Dex
curved
hies
neck slightly around Syrdian’s.

With joy hie felt Syrdian’
s neck wrapping around hies own. Tighter and tighter their necks wrapped,
squeezing, a feeling
Dex
had never experienced but which felt so right, so wonderful…

They
rose
straighter and straighter, more and more of their bodies coming into contact
.

Dex felt hies wings ripple in pleasure around Syrdian as
their bodies came together. W
aves of delight rolled over himr
—
hie realized
this was what mating felt like
!

Without thinking that it might happen. Without expecting that Syrdian might consider himr a suitable mate. Without discussing it. Without parental permission. Without the pseudo-mating that young dalin often engaged in.

They were mated—
and Dex’s hearts sang
.

A niggling doubt surfaced. Had hie somehow forced Syrdian into this? Taken advantage of Syrdian’s dependence on himr? Coerced Syrdian into a mating far below hies station? Slowly they disengaged and Dex drew hies head back to look into Syrdian’s eyes.

Dex’s hearts lifted. Syrdian
smiled
!
“Are you OK?”
Dex
whispered
.

“Oh, yes. Yes! I’ve been hoping… wondering why you haven’t… uh…”

“I never dreamed that you might accept me, my sta
tus is..
.
is
so
low…
”

Syrdian laughed, “Dex! Y
ou just killed a zornit from the air! Your status should be… exalted!” Syrdian paused, then in a whisper said, “In my eyes your status is higher than anyone I’ve ever
known
. You killed a Talor and repaired
my
wing!
No one else has ever done these things!
You stayed with me when
Qes declared me
dyatso.” Hie whispered
in a juddery voice
, “You
rescued me. You…
worked
out how to stay alive here in the summer and how to live high on the mountain.”