Starlight's Edge (12 page)

She watched him walk away.

What the heck was eagling?

 

CHAPTER NINE

EAGLING

“Eagling?” David echoed the next evening. It was the first question Zee asked when he got back from Tokyo. Then the confusion vanished and his face broke into a wide grin. “Oh, Paul must have gotten the reservations! Fantastic!”

“So we're going?”

“Of course we're going. Why wouldn't we? It's Paul's mission party, a big tradition when someone heads out, especially if the mission is dangerous. He throws a big party—sort of a gallows-humor thing. If he dies, Time Fleet coughs up the Emus for the party, and he never has to pay the bill. If he has to pay the bill, it means he got back alive. Sort of a win-win.”

“Or a lose-lose, depending on how you look at it. So, are you going to tell me what eagling is?”

“I'll
show
you,” he said, suddenly seizing her and drawing her to him, his hand firm around her waist. “Close your eyes and stretch your arms out.”

She did and felt herself being lifted into the air. Holding her tight, he spun with her in his arms. By the time he put her down, she was laughing.

“That's eagling?”

“Well, sort of. Only with a wingchute. High-powered wings that let you glide and fly. Like an eagle.”

“And just when am I going to learn to do this? It hasn't shown up in any of my training courses yet.”

“There's not much to learn. The movements are intuitive, and there are lots of safety features. Basically, all you have to do is enjoy the ride. Tell you what,” he added when he saw the doubtful look on her face, “we'll go to Dover this weekend and do a practice glide. You'll love it. I promise.”

She did love it. There'd been a moment of nerves when she stood at the top of the high, chalk-faced cliff and extended her arms. The gloves she wore had sensors in them, and when she moved her arms, the sensors sent signals to the powerpack.

“Slap your palms together hard when you're ready to take off. When you're out and aloft, just pretend you're a bird, and you'll be fine,” David said. “The only thing to remember is don't fly too close to anything else, especially another eagler. You can get all tangled up and go down together.”

Zee clapped her hands and felt the powerpack lift her high off the cliff and carry her out over the sea. Just as she thought she was going to soar upward forever, her wingchute opened with a comforting jerk. The power that had been carrying her upward automatically throttled back, and suddenly she was gliding. Above her she could see David, who'd waited to jump until she was safely away. He'd told her the wingchute was programmed to find dry land to come down on and would make a gradual, safe descent, even if she did nothing at all, but moving her arms to flap the wings would prolong the descent. She knew David was taking it slow to keep pace with her, but suddenly she grinned back at him and shot forward with a pump of her arms. He caught up, then flew ahead of her and glided until she took the lead again.

They played tag with each other all the way down, and by the time they landed, Zee was breathless and exhilarated.

“Wow,” David said, beaming. “I'd say you've got the hang of it. You took to that like you're part bird.”

Excited, Zee tried to explain to him the feeling as she'd glided, the roller-coaster mixture of awe, exhilaration, and total peace, but no matter what words she tried, none of them quite captured it.

“I know,” David said, laughing. “Indescribable, right?”

“I want to do it again.”

“We will,” David promised. “Not today, though. The chutes have to be laid out and repacked a certain way. Not enough flat ground to do that here. But Paul's party isn't that far off.”

They rolled the chutes into loose bundles and sat for a long time looking out at the sea. It was vast, and there was a place at the horizon where the sky and the water dissolved into each other. Zee couldn't stop thinking about how, for a few minutes, she'd been as much a part of it as the gulls that circled above them.

When the sun's warmth began to fade and a stiff wind made them shiver, they hiked into Dover to catch the vactrain home.

“You know what this reminds me of?” David asked, linking his arm around her. Dusk had settled in the narrow streets of the old town, and candlelight glowed from restaurant windows. “It reminds me of our first date. The time we went to Brighton.”

Zee didn't look at him but leaned her head against his shoulder. She didn't want him to see her flushed face. That was the day she'd been jealous of Mia and the night she'd wanted to go back to his apartment with him. She still felt embarrassed when she thought about it, how little she'd known him and how gently he'd turned her down.

“That was a special day,” he said, not guessing her thoughts. “But this is better.”

“It is,” she agreed, turning her face up to accept his kiss. “Better.”

*   *   *

Everything, she thought, was better. Eagling at Dover, keeping up with Piper and Meli and the Lost Arts crowd, and working with Major Dawson. Her afternoons with him made life exciting again, even though his new divining techniques made her feel like she was flying without her wingchute on. “The meteors,” the major had explained, “lasted for years. The strikes came randomly, sometimes several years apart, long enough to let us think we were safe at last. Each time they came, they destroyed much of what we'd rebuilt, especially the energy and communication nets. For several years, we lived in a world lit only by fire, powered only by muscle. I learned to ride a horse. Human networks fell apart as well—governments toppled, there were roving gangs and constant battles. But I never gave up. If our technology was down, we needed diviners more than ever, a way of knowing and communicating that was independent of technology. My training toys were long gone. No more box with the little holograms inside. I had to develop a whole range of new techniques.”

“It must have taken years,” Zee said.

“Indeed it did. I've lost track of how many. But in the end, it was worth it. It was what saved divining. Without technology and all the gadgets, people gradually reestablished connections, with themselves and with each other. I was able to train many people, and many of them in turn trained others. And it's a good thing, now that I've vanished from that world. I wonder what they'll think became of me.” He chuckled, his old eyes bright as a bird's. “Well, shall we get started?”

Zee nodded, and Major Dawson explained how, over those long and difficult years, he'd learned that the most successful diviners were those who were able to merge their energy with the energy of the universe. As an empath, Zee had learned how to divest herself of her day-to-day concerns in order to send healing energy to patients. But this went far beyond that. This required tamping down that energy, sending out nothing and making herself into a receptor.

“I don't know if I can do that,” she said.

“But you already have, without thinking about it. The time with the tsunami, and then at Blackfriars Bridge. You slipped into that state without thinking about it, as gifted diviners do. Instead of asking you to focus on a certain scene or situation, I should have followed you, urged you to let the universe come to you with its knowledge. I was on the wrong path. But now—”

Zee leaned forward, aware that her heart had begun to beat faster, that she wanted to feel again the certainty of knowing. “Now?”

“Now I can help you get there.” The major slipped a cube out of his pocket and set it on the table. “For a long time, all I had to work with was a toy xylophone that had belonged to one of my children. One octave. Thirteen notes. But it was all I needed. I discovered that certain combinations of notes affect people in certain ways. When someone finds the right combination, there's a connection. As the years went on, I collected tones from everywhere. Different cultures, different sequences of notes.” He tapped the cube and pushed it a few centimeters toward her. “They're all here. Take them, listen, come back when you identify yours, and we'll get to work.”

“But how will I know which one is right? For me, I mean.”

Major Dawson smiled. “You'll know.”

That was day one. The next afternoon, she returned to Major Dawson with the tone she'd recognized was right the minute she heard it. In the three weeks that followed, she worked on his techniques with the kind of intensity she'd known only once before, during her training as an empath. And that, she often thought, was much easier than this. When she had trained as an empath, there had been specific things to do, exercises and practice sessions and working with patients. This was working by not consciously working. It was holding your mind and your spirit open, like a picture frame, without allowing anything inside. It was exhausting. She would often tumble into bed before David, and doze lightly until his weight settled beside her and she felt his arms wind around her. Then she would fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

*   *   *

The night before Paul's eagling party, Zee found David in the bedroom shoving things into a duffel bag.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing,” he answered, and her heart sank. She'd been looking forward to going eagling again and had no desire to go to Paul's party without David.

“Don't tell me you have to go somewhere to make another presentation.”

“What? No. It's for Paul's party. Look, I've left plenty of room for your stuff.”

“Why are we packing to go to Dover?”

David looked confused. “Dover? Nah, Paul and I have been to Dover dozens of times. It's too close to be a big deal. We're going to Australia. Paul must have mentioned it when he told you about the reservations.”

“No, he didn't. He just said he'd gotten reservations.”

“I guess it slipped his mind. He's really focused on Pompeii.”

Zee felt a moment of apprehension. Focused on Pompeii or not, Paul struck her as someone who planned every move. She must have frowned, because David stopped packing and came over to her.

“You're not mad, are you? That we're going to Australia?”

Looking into his face and seeing the slight shadow that had come into his eyes brought her back to him. She didn't want to disappoint him and told herself to stop being so paranoid.

“No.” She shook her head and put her arms around him with sudden enthusiasm. “It'll be fantastic.”

*   *   *

There were eight of them altogether, all Time Fleeters. Zee and David, two friends of Paul's named Jake and Rowan, and Mia with a guy named Ketil, who wasn't especially good-looking but so strong he could carry three huge duffel bags with ease. Paul had brought a girl named Emerald, who said she had come as a friend to make sure Paul didn't do anything so wild or dangerous it got his mission scrubbed.

As arranged, they all headed out separately and met up at the ground-level coffee bar in the Melbourne ghost station. Somehow, in the clamor of everyone ordering, pushing tables together, and grabbing a seat, Zee ended up sitting between Rowan and Jake.

“Is this your first time eagling?” Rowan asked, and looked almost disappointed when she said it wasn't. “I'll keep an eye on you anyway,” he said at last.

“Stand down.” Emerald laughed, giving him a light punch on the arm. “She's with David.”

They all seemed to know one another, but not in a way that made Zee feel like an outsider.

“You have to watch this one,” Emerald said, leaning around Rowan and catching Zee's eye. “He looks like a lost puppy dog, but that's just to get your sympathy.”

“What?” Rowan asked. “I'm
not
a lost puppy dog?”

At the other end of the table, Mia seemed to have dumped Ketil and was flirting with Paul. Her head was tipped to one side so that her long hair fell like black silk.

Finally, everyone gathered up their trash, tossed it into the instacycler, and shouldered their bags.

“Where do we catch the vactrain?” Jake asked.

According to Paul's plans, they would eagle off the cliffs west of Melbourne, do a little exploring, then get a vactrain back to Melbourne and hit a few dance clubs before collapsing in their hotel rooms for the return trip to London the next morning. Only now Paul was looking at them with a wide grin and rubbing his hands together.

“I have a little surprise for everyone,” he said. “Which bag, Mia?” With an easy motion, Ketil tossed one of the duffel bags to Paul with a force that almost knocked him over. Paul dropped the bag, bent to unzip it, and handed each of them a large, firm, heavy pack. “High-altitude wingchutes, a gift from me to you. Forget the vactrain. I chartered a plane.”

Zee felt a clutch of fear. Taking off from a cliff was one thing. Jumping out of a plane seemed like something else completely.

“Zee's never done high altitude before,” David said.

“What's the difference?” Paul asked. “It's just as safe.”

“Zee and I will go from the cliffs and meet up with you guys later,” David said loyally, but Zee knew he'd rather be on the plane with everyone else. Suddenly, she realized they were all looking at her.

“Actually, I'm fine with it,” she said.

David looked skeptical. “Really?”

“If it's as safe as Paul says it is. Really. It'll be fun. I can't wait.”

But her stomach churned all the way to the airport and kept churning as they boarded the plane Paul had chartered. She tried to tell herself the bad feeling she had was nerves and an overactive imagination, but every time she closed her eyes, she felt like she was already in free-fall.

In the end, it was what she feared most that made her calm—the altitude itself. They swooped over Adelaide and continued west until they were halfway along the coastline of the curving open bay of the Great Australian Bight. Looking down over the massive cliffs and the sweep of sapphire blue ocean filled her with a certain kind of faith in the world's strength and her right to be part of it.