A week later Dowornobb held the helmet in his hands, fascinated with its miniature size. How could a being with a brain so small travel between the stars? Maybe its brain was not held in its skull. Maybe it had two heads. After all there were two helmets, and only one pack.
"Ironic," Et Avian said, holding the other helmet as if it were a holy relic. "We fly across the continent to examine debris that tells us nothing, while the best clues wash up on our front door."
"No, Your Excellency," H'Aare interjected. His enthusiasm for the search had steadily developed, escalating his personal emotions to almost a fervor. "We learned much from the wreckage."
"And we are better prepared for next year," Mirrtis added with surprising enthusiasm. Mirrtis had suffered more than most from the harsh elements.
"What His Excellency means is we found no clues to the aliens—no writings, no pictures, no tools," Kateos said, her voice firm. Dowornobb felt a strange pride in the female's assertion.
"Yes, Mistress Kateos," Et Avian added. "We now have a clue to their appearance. But we also know two facts that are even more important: one, they are on Genellan. And two, we can narrow the search to the river valley."
"That remains a large search area," Scientist Lollee said. "We cannot search any more before the cold season. They will probably die in the winter, if they are not dead already. Only dumb brutes can live through a Genellan winter."
Dowornobb glanced at Et Avian, who stared resolutely at the equipment. The Genellan winters, incomprehensibly vicious, were beyond hope. Dowornobb shifted his attention and noticed Corporal Longo standing silently in the corner.
Young Brappa was selected for the autumn salt expedition, a warrior's rite of passage. When Kuudor informed Braan of his son's selection, the hunter leader's paternal instincts filled him with foreboding: many sentries never returned. But Braan quickly dispelled his paternal anxieties. Salt missions were fraught with problems; he would not be distracted by selfish worry. The size of the expedition was Braan' s concern. The elders had proclaimed the salt requirement, and the pronouncement tore at Braan' s heart—one hundred full bags. Braan sighed and swallowed his protests; there would be many hunter abodes to visit. As their leader, it was his responsibility to notify the warriors of their obligations to volunteer, and since hunters never refused duty, Braan' s visits were received with grim respect.
Delicate chimes heralded the eve of the salt mission; young sentries with thin silver bars dangling about their necks glided along the cliffsides, the clear tinkling sounds too cheerful for the intended purpose. Braan and his lieutenants followed the chimes, attending to their calls. Their mission done, the golden skies of evening darkened to night, and hunter families celebrated with somber thanksgiving. The selected warriors and sentries slept well, secure in their courage and proud of their responsibility. Braan' s slumber was less serene.
At dawn all hunters, young and old, dressed for battle and ascended the cliffs, their straggling multitudes clogging the pathways and tunnels of the colony. By midmorning thousands of warriors crowded the cliff rim, a sea of black eyes and leather wings. Pikes and bows prickled above the horde, a field of pointed blades. In the center of the massed hunters, arrayed in precise ranks, a hundred battle-armored sentries stood proudly, graduating sentries, awaiting their final test. At their head was ancient Kuudor, captain-of-sentries. Five second-year sentries maintained a ceremonial tattoo, beating granite rocks with tuned metal bars, while all other sentries posted vigilant guard along the cliff rim. At Craag' s signal the beaters became still.
As always the winds freshened with the rising sun. Braan stood alone and silent atop the rocky rise overlooking the common. Pivoting with dignity, the leader-of-hunters raised his wings to embrace the four winds. As Braan turned, he screamed ancient chants, powerfully, beautifully. Hot blood rushed through the veins of every hunter; the fur on their spines bristled with emotional electricity, with anticipation and apprehension. They joined fervently in Braan' s harmonics, creating a resonant vibration. The strings of their shortbows vibrated, and dust elevated from the ground—an ecstasy of hope and fear.
The prayer completed, Braan screeched fiercely and thrust his black pike, pointing at Kuudor. The captain-of-sentries marched to the front of his arrayed charges, halted, and ceremoniously whistled the names of fifty sentries, including Brappa, son-of-Braan. The drummers initiated a marching beat. The named sentries hopped forward, picked up a dark bag, and fell into formation facing the edge of the cliff, expressions stoic and movements precise. The massed warriors chirped raucously to the marching beat, acknowledging the suppressed fears of the young sentries, reminiscing over their own first times. Braan signaled, and the beaters halted with a flourish. Clicking in unison, the sentries not called closed ranks smartly, looking simultaneously relieved and disappointed.
Braan brandished his pike and pointed sternly, this time at Craag-the-warrior. With grave authority Craag sang out more names—the names of sixty warriors. One by one the sixty stepped forward, most grabbing salt bags. The first ten, master warriors, including Tinn'a and Bott'a of clan Botto, shouldered only their weapons. As scouts and guards, they formed the first rank. The next fifty warriors were experienced but less seasoned. Each would associate himself as an instructor to a novice, responsible for the sentry's survival and training. They formed ranks with the sentries.
The sentry common roiled with nervous movement and sound. Braan raised his arms. Silence fell; the gurgling noises of the nearby stream drifted across the redoubt. Braan screeched lustily,demanding praise, and the cliffside was drowned in ritual bedlam. With explosive volume the assembled hunters screeched the death song. All sang for death, a death of honor, a passage to final peace: the hunter's plaintive acknowledgment that life was over, that he had fought to the limits of his strength—that he was ready to die.
The hideous screaming built level upon level, to pitches and frequencies known only to dumb brutes and cliff dwellers. In the continuing din, Braan raised his pike and the drummers initiated a rhythmic marching tempo. The hunter leader glided from the hilltop and joined Craag at the formation head. The two hunters marched over the edge, cracking their wings with explosive power. The formation followed, one rank at a time, to the whistling cheers of the multitude. As the salt mission rose on fresh updrafts, their formation altered, the ranks sliding outwards and joining until a large vee formed, giving each hunter undisturbed air. The whistles and screams from those left behind increased in intensity and volume. Thousands of hunters followed the salt expedition into the air, leaping out over the river and rising vertically on convection currents heaving upwards against the face of the plateau. A billowing horde of black bodies soared majestically and noisily upwards, as the wavering vee of the salt mission faded to a faint line on the northern horizon.
"Look!" MacArthur shouted. He pointed ahead, toward the plateau's edge. A thin black cloud drifted skyward. Buccari lifted binoculars to her eyes while MacArthur and the other patrol members—O'Toole, Chastain, and Jones—stared at the ascending column.
"Our friends," Buccari said, taking the glasses down. "Thousands of them." She handed the binoculars to MacArthur. The humans took turns watching the wheeling mass. Gradually the clouds of animals thinned and spread, dissipating, individual motes gliding down the cliff face.
"What that's all about?" MacArthur asked.
Buccari glanced at the corporal and shrugged.
"Maybe they're waiting for your letter, Lieutenant," he persisted.
"It would be nice," Buccari replied. She was impatient to drop off the next batch of pictographs. Nothing had been received from the cliff dwellers since the initial tease. She scanned the skies to the north and west. The weather was changing. Her patrol was headed for MacArthur' s valley, a last foray before the snows of winter. Buccari stifled her frustration. She had wanted the entire crew moved to the valley before winter struck. According to MacArthur, in the valley tundra gave way to topsoil, temperatures were warmer, wildlife abundant, and the forests thicker and more diverse.
Yet Quinn had elected to winter on the plateau. Buccari worried about the commander's decision-making abilities, concerned that his emotional distress was infecting his judgment. He spent long hours alone and made decisions only when pressed. On most issues he seemed indifferent or distracted, but for some reason, he had taken a strong stance on not leaving the plateau. Two sturdy A-frame log structures and a solid meat house had been constructed downhill from the cave; a magnificent woodpile for the winter's heating and cooking requirements had been accumulated. And there was the cave. The cave provided an element of permanency and an essence of security. The crew was emotionally attached to their first campsite. Quinn, seconded by Sergeant Shannon, proclaimed they were prepared for winter.
The arrival of winter was mysteriously uncertain. There was already a bite in the wind, and the air smelled different, but Buccari had insisted on one last patrol before winter snowed them in, tugging at Quinn's mantle of leadership, cajoling and badgering. Quinn conceded, if only to stop her harping. Buccari organized the patrol and set out immediately. She was going to be prepared for the spring, and learning more about the valley was imperative to those preparations.
"We got some cold weather coming," she said now.
"It's damned cold now," Jones said.
"What's the matter, Boats?" O'Toole asked. "I thought you liked playing Marine."
"Yeah, Boats," MacArthur said. "Act like a man. Right Lieutenant?"
"Yeah, Boats," Buccari said. "Act like a man. Move out, Corporal!"
"Aye, Cap'n," MacArthur replied, stepping out toward the horizon.
Braan glided along, measuring altitude by the pressure in his ears. The thermals were unseasonably strong, and the autumnal southwesterlies pushed the hunters rapidly over the plains. An auspicious start.
Hours passed. Thermals lifted them high, yet Braan' s initial well-being was tempered by the changing elements. An innocent parade of puffy cumulus had exploded into a threatening line of towering nimbus. Concentrations of billowing turbulence blossomed upward, fluffy white tops curling ever higher, their bottoms black and heavy with rain—thunderstorms. Braan veered west, hoping to slide behind the rain giants. Hours of soaring remained, but flying into the crazed craw of a thunderstorm would not get them to the salt flats. Ominous booming of thunder rattled sensitive nerves in Braan' s sonar receptors, and searing blue streaks of lightning arced between the roiling mountains of moisture. The hunters pressed forward, skirting the bruised clouds, but the course ahead grew solid with storm. The hunter leader set a sinuous detour, descending slowly through a dark valley of rumbling behemoths. Braan screamed a command along each wing of the echelon, and Craag, leading half the hunters, descended, falling behind and forming a separate vee. Wispy vapors and occasional raindrops sailed through the formation, and high overhead, dark clouds cut off the last bright rays of the sun. The hunters accelerated their descent, fighting increasing turbulence and decreasing visibility.
Sonar pulses of frightened hunters discharged randomly, their locating organs firing off sonic feelers. Braan in the lead, with nothing to guide him except eyes and instincts, remained quiet. Turbulence rocked him. A pelting rain started. And then hail. Braan screamed: every hunter for himself. A nimbus cell had swallowed them. There was no telling which way the powerful and turbulent drafts would throw them. Braan held his glide straight ahead, increasing his rate of descent, hoping the formation would stay with him. His hopes evaporated. He felt powerful updrafts. The longer the hunters remained in the air the more scattered they would become. Braan repeatedly screamed the dive command and pulled in his membrane wings, bunching them behind his back. The elevator updraft pressed him but could not hold him; the lead hunter pointed his nose downward and knifed through upwelling winds.
He fell through the bottom of the clouds, black grayness suddenly brightening to the midnight green of rain-soaked plains, rising to meet him. Braan flattened his body and allowed his membranes to ease into the rushing slipstream, bleeding off vertical velocity. Halting his descent, he struggled to keep his wet body in the sky, beating the air with powerful strokes. He circled relentlessly downward in driving rain, screaming for rendezvous. Answering cries came from all around, and as he drifted to the hail-strewn tundra, other hunters hopped and glided to his location, marshaling to his cries. Miraculously, after a half hour of whistling searches, everyone was on the ground, regrouped and without serious injury. Their adventure had started.
The line of thunderstorms passed, harbingers of a fast-moving front. The flint-edged wind shifted to a firm northerly, and temperatures dropped sharply; hail stones crunched underfoot, and bright gashes of cold blue sky sailed overhead. The hunters would have to march; the cold, wet air would not lift their weight. His warriors formed in two columns, ten spans apart, Braan deployed experienced pickets on each flank, and ordered Tinn'a to take two warriors forward as advance guard. Craag dropped back with the remaining experienced warriors; growlers usually attacked from the rear. The vast number of plains carnivores were to the east, where the great herds were beginning their migrations, but straggling buffalo remained in the area, and even small herds had packs of four-legged death stalking them. Braan screeched and the hunters hopped forward. The hunters' short steps moved the columns doggedly across the wet tundra. Braan proudly watched his son waddle by.
Cast-iron squalls swept the rolling plains, unloading gray sheets of icy rain on the hunters' bent backs. A deluge had just passed when Tinn' a's warning cry drifted to his ears. Braan halted the columns and moved forward. Tinn'a was on the point, crouched on a low ridge, slightly below the crest. As Braan approached, a great eagle gliding easily in ground effect lifted above the low elevation of the ridge. Braan screamed for Tinn'a and his scouts to retreat, for they were too few to thwart the monstrous killer. He was not worried about the hunter columns to his rear; their firepower would discourage a dozen eagles.
Tinn'a's scouts retreated, converging from either flank. Tinn'a silently unfurled his wings and pushed mightily down a shallow slope. Braan noted with alarm the quick turn of the eagle's head as it registered Tinn'a' s movement. The eagle pounded the airand rose higher. It wheeled and, with the wind at its back, closed the distance with alarming speed. Braan had no choice; the hunter leader screamed again, but this time the order to attack. Braan leapt into the air, thunderously deploying his wings. He pushed forward, laboring to gain speed and altitude, brandishing his shortsword.
The intrepid scouts responded to Braan's command. Their wings cracked unfurled, and they bravely rushed to intercept the eagle, skimming across the damp downs. Tinn'a swung hard around to join the assault, his wingtip shooting up a rooster tail of water and hail stones from the sodden ground. Braan' s forward velocity and Tinn'a's momentum to the rear caused them to pass in opposite flight, separating the warriors more than good tactics would dictate, but action was joined, and they could not delay. The hunters screamed the death cry and closed on their great rival for the skies.
The eagle's glare was fixed on Tinn'a. Yet as the hunters narrowed the distance, Braan detected a shift in the predator's attention. Undaunted, Braan bore straight ahead, aiming his sword thrust at the eagle's malevolent yellow eye. The eagle, disconcerted with the directness of the small creature's assault, maneuvered, but Braan sharply adjusted and met the eagle head-on, striking a vicious blow. The collision knocked the hunter into a tumbling spin. Braan flared his wings and cushioned his splashing jolt onto the soft ground. The indomitable cliff dweller somersaulted and leapt back into the air, struggling for altitude.
Screaming horribly, its momentum carrying it high, the enraged eagle regained contact with the hapless Tinn'a. Now half-blind and furious with pain, the eagle dove at the trailing hunter, obsessed with ripping the small winged creature to pieces. Tinn'a, far below the eagle's altitude, could not attack, but neither could he run. Tinn'a bravely held his glide, and just before the eagle impaled him with its grasping talons, the crafty hunter dipped sharply, trying to evade the overwhelming attack. Too late. One of the crazed eagle's talons struck Tinn'a a murderous blow across his back, and the hunter was hurled like a stone into the ground.
The two scouts converged on the eagle and wheeled with it, trying desperately to keep up with the faster and more proficient flyer. Braan, thrashing air to gain altitude, watched the three flyers head back in his direction. Tinn'a' s inert form lay on the ground. The huge eagle descended toward the stricken hunter, talons spread wide. Braan, much closer, folded his wings and plummeted, landing heavily beside the immobile warrior. The hunter leader's hands moved with blurring speed; Braan unsheathed his shortbow, drew an arrow, nocked it, and bent his bow to the target. The eagle, sightless in one eye, canted his cruel beak to the side, the better to view his prey as he dove. Braan loosed the arrow; its iron-tipped shaft sliced the air and dug deeply into the glaring evil orb, finding the great brute's small brain and shutting out the creature's last light. With a tortured screech the eagle feathered its massive wings, halting its dive. It collapsed from the sky, blinded, and mortally wounded.
The scouts landed on either side of the shuddering bird, bows taut, ready to shoot. Braan nocked another arrow. The hunters, lungs heaving against rib cages, warily circled the fallen raptor. The eagle trembled in its final death throe and was still.
"Let us—" Braan gasped, "see to our comrade." The warrior lay in a twisted heap, still alive, his breathing quick and shallow. Braan carefully arranged the injured hunter's limbs, trying in vain to make Tinn'a comfortable. The warrior's back was broken. Tinn'a's eyes fluttered opened.
"I was not quick enough, Braan-our-leader," the hunter whispered.
Braan said nothing; a most difficult duty lay upon him. Braan looked to the skies and began the death song, but with subdued volume and measured pace. His keening wail spread over the downs with mournful slowness and softness. Tinn'a's scouts added their voices, and even Tinn'a, given the honor of singing his own death, joined in feebly. The hunters wept without shame. When it was right, Braan knelt on Tinn'a's chest and carefully, affectionately, grabbed hold of the injured hunter's head and twisted it fast and hard, breaking his neck and snapping the spinal cord.
They dug a shallow grave and covered it with a rock cairn. Tinn'a, clan of Botto, a warrior in life, was buried holding the eagle's head—a glorious warrior in death.
The smell of cooking meat and the clatter of implements brought Buccari awake. Reluctantly leaving the warmth of her sleeping bag, she crawled painfully from the tent. The morning was frigid; a layer of hoarfrost coated the landscape, and a few lonely wisps of steam flowed upwards past the cliff's edge. Beyond the timid mists the hard line of the eastern horizon promised a new day,the first rays of sunlight spilling over the unrelenting margin of earth and sky. A single high cloud glowing salmon-pink against the neon-blue sky testified to the impending brilliance of the unrisen sun. MacArthur and Chastain hunched over a small fire. MacArthur looked up.
"Morning, Lieutenant," he said too cheerfully. "Got lucky and caught a marmot in our trapline. We can save the dried fish for dinner."
Buccari swallowed hard and exhaled. More greasy meat.
"You okay, Lieutenant?" MacArthur asked with genuine concern.
"I'm fine, Corporal," she replied, correcting her facial signals. "Just a bit stiff."
"You aren't the only one. Had to kick O'Toole out of the rack this morning, to get him up for his watch. He could barely move. It's that soft camp life."
She looked up to see O'Toole breasting the rise, returning from the stream.
"Where's Bosun Jones?" she asked.
MacArthur pointed to the tent with his thumb, just as Jones groaned loudly, the sound of a large man in agony. The tent flap moved aside and Jones's wide face and burly shoulders emerged into the chilly morning, his head and back covered with a blanket.
"She-it! It's cold!" Jones shivered, his eyes barely opened. "Excuse me, Lieutenant," he quickly amended, seeing Buccari. "I meant to say that it was right pleasant out. Refreshing even." He slowly straightened his back and stretched mightily. His liquid brown eyes blinked slowly, and then he took notice of the cooking marmot.
"My, that smells good!" he drooled. "But I hope you got more than just one of them rock rats for us to eat."
"You going to eat the whole thing, Boats?" O'Toole asked as he walked into the camp. "Just like you hog the whole tent. I feel like we're married. You sure you're not Irish?"
Jones smiled. "It was cold. Best time to make friends," he mumbled.
"Speaking of friends, Lieutenant," O'Toole continued. "Your notebook disappeared sometime after I came on watch. I checked it first thing, and it was there, but it wasn't about an hour ago, and there were tracks in the frost. They headed over the cliff."
"Finally," she sighed. "Did they leave anything in return?" "Not a thing, sir."
By the time the sun rose above the distant eastern horizon, the salt expedition had trekked many spans. The dusky odor of musk-buffalo drifted into their awareness. Scouts sighted a herd to the east. The hunters chewed thickweed and altered course to stay clear. Predators of all types, rapacious and long inured to the stink, doggedly stalked the great herds, worrying the fringes, attacking and killing the old and sick. Braan veered further west, hoping to avoid the inevitable growlers. They were nearing the salt lakes.
Braan moved forward to join the scouts, the terrain lowering sharply to flat desolation; to the north were the white-tinged lake beds. Herds of musk buffalo ranged to the east, and constant activity dotted the plains in that direction. Brown dust filtered into crystalline skies, tumbling up from the pounding hooves of the plains animals. A scout signaled, and Braan' s attention was jerked forward, not by the scout's alarm but by a shrill, banshee ululation wafting over the downs—buffalo dragon. Striding into view across the rolling tundra were two of the ferocious beasts. One monster halted abruptly and whirled to glare menacingly at the hunter columns. Its powerful fluted neck stretched upwards, lifting its terrible head above a thick-plated dorsal. Canting its head, the reptile sniffed at the air, spiked tail twitching nervously. As suddenly as it had stopped, the creature pivoted and ran after its mate. Braan sighed with relief.
It was unusual for dragons to be about in daylight. The splendid animals were efficient killers, but for reasons unknown to Braan, the dragons avoided the hunters, as if they were cognizant of the cliff dwellers' potential for retribution. Braan was thankful for this mystery, for he respected the terrible beasts. He had seen dragons bring down charging musk-buffalo with an indescribable power and ferocity.
"Braan-our-leader!" twittered a scout, pointing. "Growlers!"
Upwind, well clear of the hunters and posing no threat, a large pack of growlers moved at a trot, warily following the dragons. Their gray manes and silver pelts already turning, in two months they would have thick, white coats. Instinctively Braan turned in the opposite direction. He saw more growlers coming at that flank. A scout screamed the alarm. There were only six, but they cantered directly at the hunter columns, skinny tails flailing the air like nervous whips.
The downwind scout rose into the air and slanted for the oncoming danger, circling slowly away from the cliff dweller columns. The experienced scout hit the ground awkwardly, only strides from the startled scavengers. The burly beasts leapt abruptly sideways and reared onto their hind legs, baring yellow fangs and efficiently hooked claws. A ferocious rattling, grumbling explosion of their displeasure rent the air, a preternatural harmony of growls and howls.
The wily hunter stumbled and hopped three or four times before flapping noisily into the air. The growlers, tails erect, recovered from their surprise and lunged to the chase. The scout landed frequently, shaking the fatigue from his wings, but always jumping into the air just as the growlers pounced, staying tantalizingly out of reach. Braan watched with approval, and the column veered further west, moving rapidly behind the chase. When the growlers were clear, the exhausted scout worked into the air and glided to the rear of the column, leaving the scavengers directionless and frustrated.