Free Heritage of Flight by Susan Shwartz

know about it.” To Pauli's astonishment, Lohr spoke up. Concealing his surprise, Captain Borodin ruffled the boy's hair approvingly. Dr. Pryor smiled at him the way Rafe smiled at the Cynthians.
    "Do you know why you're right?” Borodin asked the boy.
    Lohr flushed at so much adult approval and shook his head. He started whispering at ‘Cilia, who was scribbling again. Her shoulders were hunched, but in concentration rather than fear.
    "I'll tell him,” Rafe offered. “Relatively speaking, in our own brains, the synapses—the links by which impulses are transferred—are distant from one another. Move them closer together, pack them in the way you've been packed into the docking bay, make the other modifications that I suggested, and presto!” The children laughed delightedly at his imitation of a magician. Even the aliens’ wings swayed in the breeze, sending sparkles of color glittering above their blue and crimson surfaces.
    "That's how you might get one large, light, and presumably intelligent creature. Such as the ones we have here."
    One large, light, and winged creature. Since gravity was .8 of Earth-normal here, such a being would have less need of long runway space or a high takeoff speed. Probably, given the updrafts in the mountains and the wind currents that made passage across the seas perilous on this world (if they had a ship to attempt it), such creatures could fall languidly into flight and soar for hours.
    They had to come from the mountains. Desire slashed through Pauli to take one of the gliders that Captain Borodin planned to build and fly into the mountains to see the Cynthians dancing in the gusts and downdrafts of the high passes.
    "Perhaps we should move clear of the fire,” she suggested. “If you recall, on Earth, there were creatures that used to dive straight into flame. Wishful thinking aside, we don't know for certain that these beings are really intelligent."
    "You think there might be a similar tropism?” Rafe looked up from his adjustments to the communicators’ frequency. “They haven't dived at the flames yet. In fact, I'd say that they had been rather careful to stay out of range, which makes me think that they've at least got a well-developed survival instinct. But your point's good, Pauli. Maybe we should move away from the fire, away from the camp itself. They didn't come out during the day, or when the ship was still here. Perhaps they're shy and nocturnal."
    He looked around eagerly, almost unable to wait to lure the creatures into landing.
    "Lohr, please get me the spray canisters we stacked in the supply dome,” he said.
    The boy ran off. When he reemerged with the canisters, Rafe examined them, then nodded. He sprayed the first one. Sweet. The second was more pungent, under-laid with a sort of green fragrance, doubly welcome after weeks of a ship's recycled air. With a mutter of satisfaction, Rafe tucked the canisters under his arms and moved out of the fire-lit circle.
    There was a story, Pauli remembered, an ancient one from the days before spaceflight, about humans who conversed with alien sailors by means of scents and powders. Was that what Rafe was going to try? Let orange stand for pi, or vinegar represent Avogadro's number, or the square of the hypotenuse, or something? Assuming, of course, that these creatures would even have mathematics.
    Attracted by the scents, the Cynthians circled in. Pauli tested the speed with which her sidearm would pull free of its holster, then helped Ro to carry the comms out where Rafe waited in the darkness. Then she gestured the anthropologist back. In a settlement like this, Ro Economus was far less expendable than a grounded pilot.
    "I wonder how long it'll take the microcomp to break their language patterns,” she muttered.
    "Now who's overly optimistic?” asked Rafe. “We'll be lucky to convince them to meet with us again and try to communicate."
    "Get the tapers. We'll record all of this,” Pauli told Lohr. Then she