Silent Dances (32 page)

Tesa considere
d asking Lauren to page Thorn as well, but thought be
tt

er of it
.
He'd just have to find out later.

"
What
'
s going on
?"
Szu-yi asked when she ente
re
d. "Have a seat
,"

Meg said
,
taking the instrument
. "
You might get to see something inte
re
sting."

Meg handed Bruce the light,
then gestured at Lauren to darken the room.

As soon as the lights dimmed
,
Tesa felt cut off, since she could no

longer see if
an
yone was speaking. Suddenly Bruce pushed the lamp

into her hand, indicating she should be the one to shine it on the cloak
.

She took the small device and thumbed its switch
,
flooding the cloak

with a dark, purple light
.
She could just make out the surrounding c
re

w's interested exp
re
ssions.

"
Oh, shit
,"
Tesa breathed
,
making the others laugh.

The cloak lit up with bri
ght orange markings that formed stylized
,

pictographic designs, formed by weaving feathers so that the chemical

markers made specific patte
rn
s
.
How many cloaks are on Earth
?

Tesa wondered
.
What secret literature has been back there all along
,
under their noses?

Tesa turn
ed the light onto her shi
rt.
The feathers of Water Dancer
'
s
skin had their own colorful pattern
,
while the patchwork weaving

showed family images-a nest shelter,
an
egg, a chick, each diffe
re
nt
,
yet with a definite theme
.
The shi
rt
was more like a quilt than Tesa had
ever realized.

Peter'
s repairs showed up garishly
,
the UV markers placed eve
ry

which way, totally haphazard
.
They had seemed almost invisible under

white light.

Lauren lit the room again,
dimly enough so the designs could be seen
.

Eve
ry
one was talking
,
but Tesa igno
re
d her voder. She w
an
ted to fly
down to T
ri
nity
,
to splash through the marsh

156

and tell Taller
that she could see now
, she could
really
see.
She felt
someone staring at
her and looked up
to meet Bruce's
eyes. There'
d be
no cities
on Trinity now, his eyes said.
I want to be glad,
his eyes said,
I
want to be ...

Somewhere
inside him, Bruce was still arguing with
the spirit of Scott

Hedford. Tesa found that comforting. Where she came from, spirits usually

won.

Meg touched her shoulder. "We need to document all this, Tesa, but if we

don't start for Trinity
soon
, Taller will be banging on the airlock door.

Thorn's downloading data in the control room. Go tell him what we've

learned-I'm sure he'd rather hear it from you-then ask him to get the shuttle

ready. You can keep that lamp, Szu-yi has others."

Tesa nodded numbly and limped out of the room.

By the time Tesa reached the computer room, she wanted to run. Excitedly,

she imagined the look on Thorn's face.
We've done it, Thorn!
she told him in

her mind.
This'll prove the Grus are intelligent beyond a shadow of a doubt!

She saw herself hugging him ... she imagined them kissing. She limped

faster.

The computer-room door opened at her touch. Thorn was at a console by a

terminal, his back to her, looking down at a hand-held screen, while the

large holo-display flashed, strobelike. Tesa glanced down at her voder. It

was flashing as it had that night in the shelter with classic downloading

images. She touched the voder to turn it off when a message line abruptly

trailed across the bottom of its screen.

"We'll go over it again later, Peter. In the meantime, check sectors twelve

and fourteen along Black Feather's flock's migratory route. Both areas are

extremely isolated, and favorite roosting grounds for that flock. Next to Taller,

his eldest son carries the most diplomatic weight. If we're careful, we might

get lucky. It'll be harder from now on, with Tesa around, but the right plan

could really pay off."

Something twisted inside Tesa when she read that, something sick and

frightening. It was one thing for Thorn to lie about cameras and Aquila but

this sounded like a conspiracy.

Thorn started, suddenly aware of her presence. She hit the "save, off"

sequence on her voder, so he'd see only a blank screen if he looked.

Casually he shut the computer down as though he were done with his work.

"How long have you been there?" he asked, obviously

157

surp
ri
sed
.
He was so ra
tt
led that he
'
d forgotten to sign.

"
Does it matter?" she asked.

"No," he said, "
of course not ..." Clumsily he beg
an
to sign
. "
You're a
pre
tt
y quiet person."

"Did I scare you?"

He shook his head,
amiably
-
hiding his real feelings.

"I always think hearing people can hear
every
thing
-
I
never expect to surpri
se them."

"Did Meg send you after me?" He glan
ced at the time on one of the

computers
. "
I guess we've got to get back." His eyes stole a quick gl
an
ce at her voder
. "
I was just leaving some notes for Peter on a

program he's working on. Taller's eldest son is the leader of a nearby

migrato
ry
flock
an
d we'
re
t
ry
ing to keep track of his travels, you
know, just for insurance. If anything happens to Taller
,
he might be

another contact for
us.

Tesa nodded
,
struggling not to let her suspicions show. Thorn

suddenly took a long look at her. "Peter did some

job on that garment ... and by the looks of things,
Doc did a good job on

you. Those small shiners won't take long to fade." Tesa modeled the

tunic
an
d her relatively wound
-
free body.

"Almost good as new-
both of us
."
Her hea
rt
wasn
'
t in the light banter
,
though
. Thorn
seemed to be studying her as though he were t
ry
ing to
see through her brain
.
No wonder he has trouble with
"
the look
,"
she
thought bitterly.

Tesa smoothed the feathers of her shirt
, as a nearby ventilator draft made

them wave gently
.
The repairs
,
garish under the UV light
,
had
disappeared again
.
Just like some people,
she thought,
who appear to be
one thing in your presence, and something
different
when alone.

Thorn gestured to get her attention. "
You're upset with me. Is it about
...

what happened before
?
I mean between me
an
d Bruce? I can tell

something
'
s wrong, Tesa."

She shook her head.
To distract him, she pulled the small UV lamp off

her belt
an
d shined it onto her shi
rt
, explaining

b
ri
efly how they
'
d made the discove
ry
.

He seemed genuinely stunned. "
This will change eve
ry
thing!"

"Once the documentation is done,"
Tesa answered, "the First Contact

confirmation will just be a technicality
.
My place in Taller
'
s family is
established
,
so our diplomatic mission

158

looks prett
y successful
.
I can
'
t see what could go wrong after this."

His brow furrowed pensively.

Why isn'
t he happy
?
she thought
.
Unless he didn't want their

intelligence
confirmed. "You don'
t seem pleased," she signed. Thorn
regarded her thoughtfully. "When this First Contact
is confirmed
,
they

might decide your work is finished
.
as soon
as Sailor goes on his

flyaway. They could send you home, then." He smiled wistfully. "That might

break my heart, Good Eyes."

He was looking at her so appealingly that it almost broke
her
heart-
but
not her resolve
.
She'd study that message again.
What
could
she do if Thorn--and
Peter?--were
involved with the murders of the Grus?

"Let's not talk about my being sent to Earth," Tesa signed. "We've got to get the ship ready, and I want to go home." Instead of bristling at the reminder

that Tesa wanted to be with the Grus, Thorn seemed to relax. Acting like his

old self, he offered his arm and she made herself take it. As they strolled to

the docking bay, the weight of the small Mizari voder seemed
to increase

with every step.

159

Tesa watched Trinity through the shuttle's small viewport and tried to think

only of Sailor. But somewhere there were killers on Trinity, killers who would

strip the skin off his back. Was there a connection between those murderers

and a man she found so desirable? She didn't want to believe that.

Trinity wouldn't be the first planet where privateers had come in before

contact was firmly established. Those planets and their native peoples bore

the brunt of suffering, victims of bureaucracies that were too far away to give

adequate protection. Someday, StarBridge graduates might be able to end

such senseless exploitation-but that was years away yet.

It still took time to properly establish First Contacts. Even with the new

information about the cloaks, Sailor would, no doubt, be fully grown before

the CLS board would finalize the Grus' First Contact. How many skins could

the killers collect in that time ... especially if they had
allies
on the Singing Crane?

Tesa shoved those thoughts away. She didn't want to think about that ... or

about Thorn, sitting with Meg in the pilot's

section
,
his back to the passenger seats. She chewed her lip,

159

160

160 A.C
.
Crispin and Kathleen
O'Malley
re
membe
ri
ng his last remark
-

would they send her back to Earth
as
soon as Sailor left on his

flyaway
?
That was only six months away! She
'
d have to find some

reason to stay.

They hit atmosphere, an
d Tesa
'
s hea
rt
quickened
,
eager to be home
again
,
eager to see Sailor
.
But her eyes kept retu
rn
ing to the Mizari
voder on her w
ri
st, and its secret information. Assu
ri
ng herself that
Thorn and Meg were absorbed in flying the
Patuxent
,
Tesa tapped into
the voder
, an
d it began strobing.

She suddenly felt cold all over as she added another code and the strobing

slowed,
showing a collection of biological data
,
notes,
an
d maps.

Thorn hadn
'
t lied about one thing--this information was about Taller
'
s
son Black Feather and his flock
.
There were satellite maps of the

various routes this elder Grus took in his w
an
de
ri
ngs. They knew a
lot
about this flock.

Thorn'
s message to Peter beg
an
to trail across the bottom of the

screen. Tesa froze it. There were older notes w
ri
tten above the trailing

message that had gone by too fast to read before.

"These are two of Black Feather's favori
te stopping points on the retu
rn
t
ri
p," the note read
. "
It's also a good spot for Aquila to pick off sub-adults separated from their families." That
re
ference only wor
ri
ed
Tesa mo
re
. The earliest skins had all had Aquila marks on them
. "

When Taller
'
s chick matures," the note continued
, "
he may sta
rt
his
flyaway jou
rn
ey with Black Feather
'
s flock at this location."

The mention of Sailor's future disturbed Tesa,
and she looked away
,
t
ry
ing to so
rt
through conflicting emotions. Then, suddenly
,
a flash of
white outside the window caught her by surp
ri
se
.
She strained to see
what it was she
'
d glimpsed.