Free Heritage of Flight by Susan Shwartz Page A

went back to watching the Cynthians, circling lazily in the sky. They seemed to come in two sizes, one about a third larger than the other; and both types were descending. “Move it fast!” she hissed at the boy and wished, when he scurried off, that she had at least been gentler.
    "They're going to stay,” Rafe murmured. “Maybe those smells intrigue them. Or maybe we do."
    Lohr and ‘Cilla ran to Pauli with the recording equipment. The firelight cast gigantic rippling shadows of their running figures on the ground cover and dancing high on the curved walls of the domes.
    Sudden static snarled out of the computer's voder. Two of the larger Cynthians detached themselves from the main formation and dived near the children. Their antennae quivered so fast that Pauli could barely see them. Iridescent heads lowered. Between the violet compound eyes, horns stiffened and grew bright with drops of some viscous fluid.
    "Move very slowly,” Pauli told the children, thanking God that her voice stayed low and calm. “Get back ... right now..."
    In an instant more, she'd have range enough to draw...
    "No!" Rafe shouted, and leapt forward. “We're friends!” The lights on the comm danced a frantic pattern, while sounds squealed up painfully until they were too high-pitched for human ears.
    Pauli rested her hands on the children's shoulders and walked them back to the fire where Dr. Pryor received them protectively.
    "Pauli, get back here. They're going to land!” Rafe cried. No thought of danger, of where she might be needed, but “get back here!” he ordered, and she still dropped everything to be near him.
    This time Pauli drew her weapon, ignoring various civilian scowls, before she left the fire. Borodin, she was glad to see, also drew. The significance of those horns, and their gleaming tips, hadn't escaped him. That had to be some natural defense.
    "Look at that!” murmured the botanist, who had put up such a fight at any military personnel being allowed—allowed!—to remain on Cynthia. “Why must they automatically assume that these ... flying things are hostile?"
    Pauli wanted to snarl at her. But it was more important to get out there in the dark and help Rafe. He was hooking the commgear to the ports of the readout display. From time to time, squeals and screeches and flutters of dazzling wings showed that he was making some progress.
    Finally he stood, weariness apparent in his stooped shoulders. The sky was beginning to pale; and the fire had burned down. The Cynthians took off and circled about the camp once before they headed back toward the mountains.
    "We can't just let them go!” Ro whispered, her voice hoarse.
    "We won't,” Rafe said. “They'll be back. They're just as curious as we are.” He rubbed an aching spot on his back, stretched, then shook himself. “I managed to intrigue them ... I swear I did. That should give us the time we need to learn to talk with them."
    He turned to walk back toward his own quarters, and never once spared Pauli a glance.
    Why not talk with these creatures? she thought with a return of that morning's bitterness. After all, what else do we have to do?
    It took weeks even to work out a simple code, long frustrating evenings in which no one could tell whether the Cynthians would even appear or not, or whether the settlers were too weary to do more than stare at the winged creatures and tap out a few desultory experiments on the computers. The planet was hospitable, after a fashion: after its own fashion, which was to demand work of those who hoped to live there.
    A day of storms, of struggle even to move from dome to dome, and the Cynthians could be counted on not to appear. On such days, clouds would hide the mountains that served, effectively, to isolate them on a broad, fertile plain. Many times, Pauli wished to explore, to take the flier she no longer had, or even the gliders that Borodin had spoken of, and soar over the plain, up into the foothills—but usually,