Free Cuckoo's Egg by C. J. Cherryh

one of them might have brought a gun.
    But they had called the magistrate and turned themselves in. In fear, he thought bitterly, of more general retribution. In responsibility, late arrived.
    Sixteen years they had waited, in the hope of Sheon's land.
    (So it's yours. Enjoy it. And be damned.)
    He was ashamed of the thought. He had come here for virtue and took away—
    —took away this shadow at his side. And the cold stares of those who had seen a hatani bend his vows. Who had lived for sixteen years in fear of what happened on the mountain they coveted.
    Well, well. It was not a mistake, perhaps. Duun looked toward the copter, exchanged perfunctory courtesy with the guard-captain, snagged Thorn with a gentle clawtip on his inner arm. "Come on," Duun said looking at the captain. (Be done with it. Don't draw it out. Get us out of here.) Thorn walked by him, lifted his head towonder at the blades— Duun hit him in the back. "Fool, keep your head low beneath these things!" Thorn ducked and went; but the rotor was only lazily turning now. Not even enough for wind.
    Up the steps then, to a metal world, to plastic seats, the smell of oil and fuel. Duun settled Thorn— "There, that's the buckle. Push, that's right.

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    That lets it loose. That tightens it. Keep it on." He looked Thorn in the eyes, which no one else would meet, and saw stark terror there. Duun frowned and worked his way past Thorn to his own seat to buckle in.
    The crew took places. The guards climbed aboard aft, making the craft rock on its runners. The pilot brought the engines up— whup, whup, whup! Thorn looked toward the side window, looked ahead, looked his way. Duun reached over the shared armrest and gripped his arm, once, sharply, with the claws all the way out. (Behave!) Thorn settled then. And the whup-whup-whup grew louder, the aircraft tilting as it lifted, tilted and swung its tail about as the countryfolk ran in the dust the blades kicked up.
    Wh-wh-wh—! Sky in one view, ground in the other. He gave a look at Thorn, saw the cords in Thorn's neck stand out as he braced himself.
    Another grip of claws. Thorn visibly relaxed. Turned his face to Duun's with studied serenity.
    So. Duun slipped his finger down Thorn's arm, to the place on Thorn's wrist where veins lay next the surface. The pulse throbbedbeneath his finger-pad as if the heart that drove it was going to burst.
    "Keep your eyes on the horizon," Duun said into Thorn's ear. "Helps your stomach."
    "I'm not scared," Thorn shouted back. But the copter turned off for the west then, sharply, and Thorn's fingers clenched on his armrest.
    The great flat, more hills, an hour and more of trees and roads and herds that raced beneath them in a brown tide. Suddenly the great sheet of a bay spread itself beyond a brown rim of trees, water shining silver in the sun and going on forever to the south. Thorn forgot his terror and pointed—
    "What's that?"
    "Djohin Bay," Duun shouted back. "That's the sea out there, minnow!
    That's the great wide sea!"
    Land came up eastward beyond that shining surface: outthrusts of the city, a stain against the sky. "What's there?" Thorn yelled into the rotor noise.

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    "That's Pekenan," Duun said. "That's the port town. The city's coming up.
    There— that's the shuttle-port, see that gray ribbon there."
    "What's a shuttle-port?" Thorn asked. "What's a port town?" His skin was white in the sunlight that streamed through the copter's side windows. He sweated. It was too soon to have traveled. Sights and strangeness multiplied. (Don't faint on me, minnow, not here, not now. There's more.)
    "Here." Duun fished out an inhaler from the kit at his feet. He had brought it with their gear. "Put that in your mouth— Breathe in hard." He pushed the spray and Thorn choked, coughed. Fell back against the seat with a shocked offended look. But he lost the waxen taint. His pupils dilated.
    "There, Want more?"
    "No, Duun," Thorn said earnestly. He