Wings of Creation (22 page)

I pulled her hand away from her eyes. She squinted more tightly. “Mommy . . . it hurts.”

“Shield like Uncle Joseph taught you.”

“I’m trying,” she said.

Liam shook himself and reached down and folded her in a hug. “Does that help?”

She buried her head in his chest with one eye peeking out at me. “Yes, Daddy.”

Now I worried about both of them.

Seeyan pointed toward a set of rolling grassy hills with perches, benches, and small gardens arranged in squares and circles and triangles. “Those are the Temple Hills. Most casual tourists end up there. It’s kind of the first stop for people finding peace within themselves.” She sounded almost in awe of the place. “You can barely tell from driving by, especially since a lot of them are away from the road, but some of the best gardens in Oshai are there.”

“The gardens you want to work in?”

She turned her gaze away from the Temple Hills and back to the controls in front of her. “I will die long before I could become accepted to keep those gardens. I’m not . . . calm enough.”

She could have fooled me. “I’d like to see the gardens.”

“You will.”

“Good.” And I was looking forward to it. After a long silence, I added, “I appreciate what you’re doing now.”

“It’s nothing.” She pointed to the other side of the road. “See the flags up ahead?”

“Sure.” Yellow, red, blue, and purple flags snapped in a light wind, surrounding small houses and open booths and wide walkways thronged with people. Metal and wood sculptures spilled out of the place with the most flags; surely the entrance. Above it all, fliers brightened the sky.

“That’s the first of three summer fairs. There’re so many people there you can get lost. Anybody could. So if you get in trouble of any kind here, and you want to hide, hide in the summer fair.”

“What’s at the fair?” Alicia asked.

Seeyan jumped, as if she’d forgotten Alicia was there. “Art, mostly. Some poetry and personal services and the like. You’d like it.”

“That sounds like fun.” I didn’t know if she knew the five women were going there, so I didn’t say anything. We traveled slowly enough that I could pick out details like a clothing booth and food stalls.

Seeyan continued. “If you need help, buy some bright blue clothes and find a tall man that tells tourists’ fortunes and sells feathers. His name is Juss. Juss can reach me.”

She looked so serious. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I whispered.

“Me, too. Can you tell it back to me?”

I obliged her, making sure that Liam and Bryan were paying attention. When I was done, I said, “Alicia?”

I still couldn’t see her, but a small relieved breath escaped me as she answered, “Wear blue. Find Juss who sells feathers and fortunes.”

As we came closer to the fair, it was easy to see a crowd mingling and talking, dressed in clothing from all of the other four worlds. Caro sat up straight and opened her eyes, looking much more like her usual curious self.

“How come there’re not many human fliers here?” Bryan asked. “You know, like us?”

Seeyan laughed. “The skies here are too busy for students. You won’t be able to fly here, either.”

Alicia’s voice floated forward from the backseat. “Could Chance?”

“Probably,” Seeyan said. “You can ask him.”

“Why don’t you fly?” Jherrel asked her.

I grimaced at the intimacy of the question. Children’s mouths said the strangest things. But Seeyan didn’t miss a beat. “I had real wings once. I don’t want to forget what that was like.”

Caro stirred. “It’s better here, Mommy.”

“I’m glad.” Maybe because we’d passed the fair, or because of the Temple Hills, which still rose and fell on our right?

The transport turned, heading even farther in toward the center of Oshai. We turned right again, down a smaller track between rolling hills. From the crest of a hill just past the turn, a flier with pastel purple wings and bright blue eyes on her wings pushed into the sky and flew away. The blonde from our greeting feast? Were we being watched?

Caro clambered across my lap and stuck her face next to Jherrel’s, looking out the window. “I want to go outside, Mommy.”

“I know.”

We pulled up beside a long, low building, more like a line in the side of a hill with windows and doors in it and a walkway along the front. Earth mounded on top of it, and grass, and I could imagine picnickers on the far side not knowing they sat on a hollow hill. Were all of the Temple Hills fake like this?

Seeyan smiled as she slowed the vehicle. “Now you’ll believe me. You’ll meet some of the Keepers who tend the Temple Hills Gardens.”

“Why are we going here?” Alicia asked from the back.

“You’re pretending to be rich tourists. It’s the only disguise that makes sense for the kids. The ultra-rich do what they want.”

“Who’s paying for it?” Bryan asked.

“The Keepers are donating rooms for you. Trade’s down anyway, since the war is closer. You’ll be taking the spots of a tourist family, since the ship they booked passage on went to war.”

Liam glanced up at Seeyan, always interested in war news. “To fight?”

She shrugged. “I hear interplanetary ships are getting conscripted.”

I had a lot more questions for her, including why the Keepers would help hide us, and why the government here didn’t just outright refuse to give us up instead of hiding us. It made me uneasy that I couldn’t quite tell who was supporting us and why.

Someone had been watching for us. A man—wingless and hairless—walked out of the closest door. He nearly glided to the side of the vehicle, and stood, hands in front of him, head slightly bowed, the very picture of patience. In a few moments, a younger-looking man and woman joined him just as silently. What training or mod made them move so elegantly?

After we all got out, the two latecomers unloaded the transport and carried our duffels and bags into the hill. I watched them go. Here we were. Wherever that was. Somehow I doubted it was going to be a new home, at least not for long.

T
he rest of us stood under a grouping of three trees as Seeyan drove off with Chelo, Bryan, Liam, Alicia, and the kids. I couldn’t see my sister or my sweetheart as Seeyan drove them away in a slow, overgrown version of our roamers’ wagons, only made of metal and rubber with glass windows and powered by light and air. It creaked as they left us—as they left me. Kayleen stood so close I could smell the children’s last hug on her, but we didn’t touch. When they were out of sight, a soft moan escaped her lips, and I brought her into my arms, remembering that we were both losing all of our family except each other. “It will be okay,” I whispered, not sure if I lied.

She gave me a hard squeeze and pushed away gently, walking over to the edge of the little meadow farthest from the road. She leaned against a tall evergreen tree with soft gray-green needles, she looked away from me.

A few moments later, Jenna kissed Marcus good-bye, and Tiala and Paloma hugged him good-bye, and then Paloma hugged me good-bye for good measure, looked up in my eyes and said, “Take care.” They were the next to leave: Jenna, Tiala, Dianne, Ming, and Paloma. Induan had dubbed them the “Gang of Girls.” I didn’t know their ages, but I was willing to bet the youngest among them was over fifty years old. They walked away, none of them looking back at us even once.

The Gang of Girls had an elaborate plan. Unlike sleepy SoBright, Oshai had a lot more humans who weren’t also Keepers. Since they needed to earn livings, the women had chosen jobs to ply at some
kind of fair. Dianne had been preparing the way for them in the nets, building histories and professions. Not that it was too tough: everything in Oshai dealt with the tourists and seekers. Paloma had become, of course, a healer. Ming taught dance therapy. Jenna and Tiala had worked up a comical routine as good-gal/bad-gal physical trainers. Dianne swore she had developed an ability to lead people through guided meditations. Given her nonexistent sense of humor, I already felt a little sorry for her patients.

Of course, since I could barely fly at all, I ended up in the group scheduled to fly out of here.

The skies above us were clear, the air hot, and if we went up into them we would be the only fliers there. We had hours to kill. After a long walk, burdened with gear, we arrived at another meadow Seeyan had pointed out as belonging to a friendly Keeper. There, we waited the sun out in a shady spot halfway around the circle of SoBright from the guest house we’d just abandoned. Induan showed off her planning and logistics skills. She pulled a bag out of her pocket with blue bands the color of Kayleen’s eyes, blue buttons, blue shells, and silver beads. In moments, she had a third of Kayleen’s hair in her hands, I had a third, and Marcus had a third. “Now,” she grinned, “each of you make two braids so she has six when she’s done, and decorate them while you’re at it.”

“Wow.” Okay. Except I’d never braided a girl’s hair and after two tries Induan reduced me to handing her silver and blue baubles to string onto blue ribbon as she spun Kayleen’s unruly hair into a single, smooth braid. Marcus did all right, although Induan finished four braids in the time he did two.

Next, Induan pulled out a pair of scissors. She looked at me, the same evil grin quirking her mouth again. I shook my head until she pulled a long fake braid out of her other pocket. So maybe being the one to get my hair cut wasn’t so bad after all; Marcus kept pawing at the extra hair that ran down his back, adjusting the fit and readjusting it.

We watched Induan fiddle with her wings. She seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. But hey, it made perfect sense for someone who liked to be watched to get an invisibility mod, right?

She’d figured out how to jury-rig her mod so she looked like a
failed flier. Too bad she couldn’t get all the way to looking like a flier. But at its core, her mod was meant to reflect her surroundings and make her invisible rather than to change her appearance, and it took some clever use of mirrors to get as much as she managed to out of it.

We were ready an hour before we could fly. Induan engaged Marcus in a berry-harvesting project, leaving me and Kayleen alone to watch our wings. She looked beautiful and exotic in her braids. Older. I felt . . . awkward. She must have felt the same way since she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Can you still shield easily?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“Flying like you do must feel pretty good.”

Her long fingers twisted one of her neat braids so loose strands poked out here and there. “I love it.” She switched hands to worry another of Induan’s masterpieces. “But I don’t fly like you do. I mean, not ships. I’m always nervous there. They seem so big. Flying just me seems easier—I’m much smaller. Maybe after you’ve been flying for a while more you’ll get the hang of letting go.” Her hands fell to her lap and twisted. “The way you tell me with ship’s data. Relax into it.”

Like I wasn’t already trying that. “You look better. I mean, back home, you were more . . . worried . . . than you seem now.” I didn’t want to use the word I meant: crazy.

I think she understood it, anyway, by her reply. “There’s something soothing about the data here. So when I get lost, when I can’t tell for sure what’s me and what’s the data, at least it feels like a safe place.”

“You know it probably isn’t.”

She looked directly at me. Her brows were drawn together and her words trailed off, as if the whole thing puzzled her. “I know. But I’m not scared moment by moment anymore. I don’t want to lose control, ever. You weren’t there, but back home I thought I might kill some people once.”

She hadn’t killed anyone, but I had. I’d flown a skimmer full of people into the sea. I said, “I know,” and left it at that. I mean, if I got crazed with power once, I could do it again, and I never wanted to.

Induan and Marcus returned and shared some small blue berries
with us. By the time we finished, the sky had begun the long, slow fade into late afternoon. We donned our wings and gave each other thumbs-up signs.

It felt good to finally be moving, wings rising and falling through sultry air and the ground beginning to flow beneath me as I gained some sense of rhythm. I understood why Chelo chose her children over me, but I still felt her absence.

Matriana and Daniel met us just outside of town. We followed them, swinging north, away from Oshai. A circle? A ruse? I went with it for a while, but by the time SoBright disappeared over my shoulder I dipped my wings to signal for company. Kayleen responded, plummeting down from high above and slowing perfectly so she flew close. “What?” she mouthed.

“This is the wrong direction! We’re not headed for Oshai.”

“I’ll ask.” And she was gone, the ends of the long braids in her hair fluttering audibly against her wing-fabric. Except she didn’t actually fly up to anyone—she just got far enough ahead of me to have some room in case she bobbled. In addition to flying better than me by an order of magnitude, she could fly without her shields. Marcus insisted I didn’t have enough control yet, so I labored with no data feed to stabilize me. A short time later, Kayleen soared for a few breaths while I flapped hard to catch her. Even though I got pretty close, the wind thinned her voice. “We’re going to Hidden Beach.”

“Huh?”

“Marcus didn’t tell any of us. He didn’t want the others to know. In case they get caught.”

Now I really wished Chelo was with us. And that the kids could fly. “Even Jenna?”

She shook her head so her braids swung back and forth.

“So are they going where we think they are?”

“I hope so.”

Wow. Were we really in that much danger? Oshai was south,
The Integrator’s Dream
was across the planet, a little northeast, and we were going northwest. We were going to end up far from each other.

I liked the idea even less as time wore on and my breath came louder and keeping up became harder. I tried to honor Kayleen’s advice about letting go. It did help, a little, since I managed three or
four wing beats without worrying or thinking hard about them. We intersected a major road and turned up it, now heading more directly north. With no access to data, I didn’t have a map in my head, and no idea of how far we were from anything.