Free Reading the Wind (Silver Ship) by Brenda Cooper

her side. “Paloma is one of them. She wouldn’t hurt me, she loves me. But she doesn’t understand. She can’t. I don’t even know if you can since you’re not Wind Readers. For the first whole day that I can remember, there aren’t a thousand thousand messages screaming at me through the air. I can only feel the perimeter and the ship, and they’re like nothing.”
    We were all in the middle of tough choices. Some kind of hunting bird screeched off to our right, and something small gave a death cry, making me shiver. There had to be a compromise. “Liam?”
    He didn’t stop staring at her. “What?”
    “We can’t make her take us back. Until she does, we’re stuck here. This is a hard place. Kayleen can’t make us happy to be here, and we can’t become happy to be here. Not easily.” I swallowed. I didn’t want to even try to be happy here. “But can we promise to stay for a few days, get some breathing room?”
    He turned and looked at me, his eyes bright and hard in the firelight. “Do you expect me to be happy about that?”
    “No.” I said it softly, holding his eyes with my own.
    Kayleen stood silent, waiting. Firelight played on half her face, touching her dark hair with gold. She licked her lips, then stepped back, giving him space.
    I watched him, his jaw tight, his eyes still on me. I smiled, softly, willing him to see that giving her even a small concession in some way gave us more power. He turned to her. “We’ll find a place to camp tomorrow night. But I’m not giving up on fixing the skimmer, and I want your help.” He looked over at me. The price of backing down shone in his eyes, like a pool of loss that he couldn’t quite cry out. “I don’t want to winter here.”
    I nodded, thanking him silently, mouthing the words, “I love you,” so that only he could see. A slight smile warmed his lips for just a second before he turned back to Kayleen.
    She took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “Thank you.”
    At least she had it in her to see what he gave her. The demon dogsbayed again, still far away. Windy bugled, and Kayleen turned to look at her.
    Liam looked over toward the foothills where the high calls of the dogs came from. “I’m serious. I don’t want to winter here.”
    Kayleen nodded, then turned and walked to Windy, burying her face in the hebra’s neck. I watched her go, wishing she had let me hold her instead of going by herself to Windy.
    Liam enclosed me in his arms, leaning his chin on my head. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he whispered.
    I glanced at Kayleen and Windy. “We’ll do it together.”
    He squeezed me harder. “Might be the only way.”

8   

EXPLORATION
    K ayleen’s voice—singing just outside the open tent door—woke me from dreams of chasing Windy endlessly around the perimeter, never reaching her. Golden dawn light threaded its way in through the shredded tent windows. I pushed myself up, blinking sleepily. Across from me, Liam’s covers lay tumbled into an untidy lump over his empty cot.
    We’d made it through the night without losing a second round of gear. Maybe we had earned enough respect for one night’s peace.
    I crawled outside to a warming morning with clear blue sky directly above us and out toward the north ocean. South, piles of white clouds blanketed the mountaintops.
    Liam walked toward me, lugging a bucket of water he’d filled from the closest stream. He set the bucket down in front of Windy, who plunged her long nose into it and drank noisily.
    Kayleen squatted near the dying fire, cooking goat’s-milk pancakes and singing one of the songs we had loved as children, about a djuri baby lost in the woods, having adventures. I shook my head uncertainly at the signs of fragile domesticity on both of their parts, and walked to the stream to wash. The shallow water ran down from the mountains through a small depression, singing lightly as it tumbled over pebbles. The cold water stung my fingers.
    “Come on!”