Silent Dances (9 page)

space with no nearby sun. With nothing to hide their b
ri
lliance
,
the
stars arched overhead in a stunning profusion of color. Blue, red,

yellow
-
even mauve and indigo. In Tesa's loneliest moments
,
when

she didn't think she could bear being away from Ea
rt
h any longer
,

she'd come here to send her spi
ri
t through her eyes to dance among

those colorful stars.

Tesa carried
Doctor Blanket to the middle of the obse
rv
ation dome and

sat on the floor
,
tailor fashion
. The Avernian was
featureless
,
about the
size of a baby blanket
,
almost flat, and covered with sho
rt
cilia on one
side and small pseudopodlike appendages on the other
.
The being

slid off her shoulders, as the cilia undulated like a miniature grainfield

in a stiff breeze. Tesa sat in the darkness
,
with the alien
'
s

phosphorescent form opposite her, and sta
re
d up at the heavens,

knowing the eyeless alien could
"
see" them through her eyes.

The first time Tesa had met Doctor Blanket, she'd been struck with the sense

of the cre
atu
re'
s incredible age. When she'd felt the being's telepathic

touch
,
she'd discovered that this person had a depth of wisdom no

human could plumb. She realized this was someone who could

understand her spi
ri
tually as well as mentally. Tesa had come to love

the Avernian, who seemed more like a spi
ri
t being than an alien.

Doctor Blanket was, in reality, an
intelligent fungus, incredibly old, who,

someday
,
would reproduce through spores. But no one who
'd ever

experienced
the alien's gentle wisdom and humor could ever refer to the

Ave
rn
ian as an "it." Instead, eve
ry
one used the Mizari neuter pronoun

"
seloz."

Finally,
Tesa opened the parfleche she'd brought and removed a small
,

red stone and a bundle of sweet grass. Placing the stone between

them
,
she pulled a pinch of sweet grass from the bundle
,
crumbling it
onto the stone. She used the parfleche as a screen, so the fire she

needed to ignite the sweet grass would not harm the Avemian with its b

ri
ghtness
.
Slim curls of smoke wafted around them
,
climbing to the

ceiling.

41

SILENT DANCES 41 Speaking telepathically, Doctor Blanket told her how

much seloz enjoyed the scent of the burning sweet grass.

"I do, too," Tesa signed in Plains Indian Sign Language. Doctor Blanket

encouraged students to use their own languages when communicating with

seloz. "There are so many memories in that smoke, so many ghosts ..." She

stopped. "You know I'm leaving."

The Blanket knew.

"It's so hard to say good-bye ...

Even with Doctor Blanket she avoided the subjects that had kept her tossing

in bed--her confusion, her dreams. The dreams, especially, were a subject

she feared to touch. If she discussed them, she might remember them.

Besides,
she argued with herself,
how serious is a dream dreamt on this

asteroid, that had to be towed to where it is, and can't even support life, left to
its own devices?

Doctor Blanket drew up on end and stood erect. The pearllike sheen of

seloz' cilia reminded Tesa of the Grus' woven cloak.

such a love/hate relationship with their dreams.> The Blanket's thoughts

tickled Tesa's mind with gentle amusement. She didn't experience seloz'

thoughts as words, but as ideas-she thought of them as
feelings
directed to

her.

the Avernian "said,"

These dreams are like the "stories" my people invent for entertainment. Yet

most humans either ignore their dreams or turn them into ominous warnings

from the dark sides of their natures. Few humans ever see the beauty of their

dreams or look on them as a visionary side of their minds.>

They'd talked of this on other nights, but then it had just been philosophy.

the Blanket continued,

couldn't understand my interest in seeing new worlds, or communicating

with different beings. No doubt they attributed my interest in adventure to my

youth.>

The idea of Doctor Blanket being young startled Tesa so
much she couldn

'
t respond.

42

your
standards
I'm incredibly old,> the being replied, amused. "Are you

saying you have no answers for me?" Tesa asked. is in such

turmoil
, I wouldn't know where to begin. Tell me first why you are trying to

change your own feelings about your hearing. That confuses me.>

Too weary to
put into signs
all her
conflicting
feelings, Tesa opened her mind. She thought of her choices and the bitterness she felt at having to

make them at all. When she finally began to wind down, she felt emptied of

anger and sorrow.
But the
terrible
indecision
was still there.

humans?
> the Avernian asked.

"Maybe not
hearing
itself as much as the perception of being normal. I want to be Deaf, but that makes me feel
selfish,
as though I'm depriving my

parents of the one thing they've always wanted. Or I feel scared-afraid I

haven't got what it takes to function
in the hea
ri
ng
world as a hearing person."

't feel that in you,> the Avernian replied. <
I sense
only a reluctance to change something you are not unhappy with, and a desire for the people

you love
to understand that.
There'
s nothing
wrong with that, Tesa.>

"You make
it sound
so simple, Doctor Blanket." Tesa looked down,
feeling
heavyhearted.

the people of your
culture
prided themselves on their

individuality?>

Tesa nodded. "
But it's hard to maintain
culture
in an homogenized
world.

Even in the
living museum we
have the
same media
,
the same

obligations and opportunities as the rest
of the world.
In our most
remote lands, you can't watch a
sunset without seeing contrails
overhead.

Culture becomes
something
you save for vacation."

leaving
for Trinity?>

She looked
up at the
flickering stars. "Yes,
I want to go ...
but what if I screw up?"

this is
not like you,
this conflict and doubt
. You're
hiding
something
from yourself.>

She faced the Avernian squarely. "Doctor Blanket, it's my
dreams. Even

mentioning them makes me ne
rv
ous
. My people
believe dreams
carry messages ...
sometimes wa
rn
ings. Dreams shouldn
't be ignored. When

they
are, harm can come to the dreamer
... or those close to her. We

believe
that spi
ri
ts send their
power to Earth
through dreams, that the
dreamer

43

must use this
power by acting out the dream."

Tesa nodded. "Before every big event, I've always dreamt about eagles ...

but I could never remember enough of the dreams to find out what I was

supposed to do. My grandfather told me that if the Wakinyan wanted

something of me, he would let me know. But, whoever dreams of the

Wakinyan ...

< ... becomes a contrary, a sacred clown.>

The Blanket's thought was like a blast of cold air over an exposed nerve.

Suddenly she saw clearly the old
heyoka
that came to summer camp. He

was decrepit with age but as spry as a boy, since he had been touched by

the Thunder Beings when he was young. Everywhere he went, he walked

on his hands.
In summer
he wore furs, and in winter, everyone said, he

sweated like a race horse and wore nothing but a breechclout. He was the

finest rider in the camp-he had to be, since he always rode backward. He

said no when he meant yes, bathed in dust to get clean, and jumped in water

to dry off. Wherever he went, he made the people laugh and as her

grandfather often told her, laughter was very sacred, very powerful. In the

years when the people had suffered from disease, starvation, and

persecution, the ability to laugh was sometimes all they had to keep them

going. The
heyoka's
medicine was always powerful.

But Tesa had never laughed at the old man. Instead, she always felt an

ominous dread whenever he came near. Anyone could become
a heyoka

just by having the right dream. When Tesa was young and believed in

magic, she was terrified that someday the Thunder Beings would touch her

and turn her life upside down forever, as they had that sacred old man.

"No one
wants
to dream of the Thunder Beings," she signed.

Tesa looked at the Avernian for a long moment. "I can't
remember.
I see a wingtip, as though I'm the Wakinyan looking over my own shoulder. I see the

sky. I see lighting. And I feel afraid. Then, when I saw the Aquila. . .

somewhere before...>

Tesa nodded. "Deja vu. I wish that's all it was. Everyone talks about the

heyoka's
power, but no one wants to walk his path. Lately, I've
been
nothing but a contrary. People make me angry, and I act pleasant. I don't want to

have ear surgery,

44

but I say I'll have it done in a year. I see the Aquila and feel ... no,
I know
that they are intelligent, when they are among the most hated, savage creatures

on the whole planet. If that's not contrary, I don't know what is."

the alien offered. Tesa had suspected that Doctor Blanket could release her subconscious

memories, but it wasn't something she had actually expected seloz to offer.

She shook her head. "You're the elder. I'm supposed to tell
you
the dream

and you're supposed to interpret it for me. If these eagle dreams are

significant, I should remember them myself."

course you're afraid to make the wrong move. >

Even before her scheduled tapping with the Ashu, Tesa had felt a vague

apprehension, a sense of impending
something.
If she'd been at home she

would've prayed for a vision.

She closed her eyes and thought of Trinity. There was the marshland,

becoming savannah, then forest, and before she knew what had happened,

she was seeing again the glint of sun on a bronze wingtip. Gliding beside

her was another Aquila, its red eyes staring
into
her own. The image was so

powerful, she could feel the rush of air against her arms/wings, against her

face/beak. She opened her eyes to find she was standing,
arms

outstretched, poised as though performing the Eagle Dance. She looked at

the Avernian, lowering her arms.

"Couldn't the Aquila be intelligent?" she asked. "If they are, couldn't they change, couldn't they stop killing the Grus?" Doctor Blanket replied.

pa
re
nts.>

On Trinity, she could live the way
a human was meant to
live, with sky

overhead, on land teeming with life.

nagi,>
Doctor Blanket "said" cryptically.

In spite of the fact that her problems still loomed ahead unresolved, she felt

better. Impulsively, Tesa snatched up the light form of Doctor Blanket and

tried to hug seloz.

Undulating rapidly, the alien managed to convey that fierce hugging was not

good for a being with seloz' anatomy. Apologizing, Tesa made it easy for the

creature to again drape about

45

SILENT DANCES 45 her shoulders. Gently she touched her cheek to the

waving
cilia
.
Good-bye, Doctor
Blanket
, she thought.
And ... thank you.

It was almost time to board the shuttle that would take Tesa and Meg to

StarBridge Station, where they'd board the S.V. transport
Norton.
Jib was

double-checking her luggage.

He glanced at the pile. "What a mess of stuff!"

"That's all StarBridge issue," Tesa complained. "Stuff they think you can't live without. This is all I wanted to bring." She showed him her bow and