Part 10 (2/2)
They were both silent for a while. Then Nitpicker said, ”All right, Wren. Thanks.”
Their shadows were silhouetted in the skimmer hatch for a moment before they climbed in. Behind them, at the hut, Tsia touched her cheek. She could still feel the burn of the jellies in her nose. She could still feel the tearing surge of the sea in the wrenching ache of her muscles. And she could hear the pilot's voice, like an echo in her mind, accusing as a judge.
Tsia forgot the burn that ate at her nostrils. Forgot about the cougar. Ignoring the storm that slashed her face, she stood for a time in darkness.
When Wren came to get her, it took all of Tsia's will to coax the cub to the skimmer. The shadow of the s.h.i.+p frightened the cat even while it caught his curiosity. The smells, the movements in the lighted cabin -they were too much. Between his fear and distrust, there was no way he was going into the s.h.i.+p.
Letting him go for a moment, Tsia stuck her head in the hatch. The other meres, wet from spray that had blasted in as they waited, stared back coldly. Striker looked from Tsia to the cub that paced out in the gloom. The woman's voice, when she spoke, was derisive. ”That the cat you traded Tucker for?”
From beside her, Wren's quick, birdlike eyes flicked to the woman's closed expression. ”Tucker did his own trading,” he said softly. ”And he did it for the Landing Pact, not for her. Feather did no less than you or I could have done to save him.”
Striker continued to watch Tsia, her black eyes as unreadable as ever. ”Like to hear her speak for herself,” she said.
The wind gusted, and Tsia s.h.i.+vered before she could answer. When she caught herself, she gave the other woman a steady gaze. She was unaware of the glints that gave her icy eyes their wildness. In her head, the cub's fright was hike small hammers pounding at her brain. ”I did my best,” she said flatly. ”I nearly drowned to save him.”
The woman eyed Tsia for a moment, her black gaze unread-able. Finally, she nodded with a curt motion and leaned back in her seat.
Cold, silent waves of blame seemed to flow from each mere, and the line of Tsia's jaw tightened. She knew what she felt could not be real. If they thought she had murdered Tucker through either action or inaction, she would have been left behind on the platform, and no one in the skimmer would have looked back twice. But that knowledge didn't change the guilt she created in herself. Nor did it s.h.i.+ft the shadows she saw in the eyes that stared back at her own.
She hesitated, then said tersely, ”Don't move for the next few minutes. He'll be frightened and wild. He could lash out at anything that s.h.i.+fts. Should settle down in a few minutes.”
Kurvan snorted. ”The way a tornado settles down on a hut?”
”Can it, Kurvan,” Nitpicker snapped from the pilot's chair.
The mere's eyes flickered, and Tsia s.h.i.+vered in the wind. There was a chill in Kurvan's gaze that she had not seen before-a kernel of ice that seemed to coagulate in the hot eagerness of his field. She closed her senses to the meres and turned back to the storm.
Ruka was still having no part of it. He growled and paced back and forth as if Tsia's will were a leash that kept him from backing farther away. His back was arched and his tail twitched; his head swayed side to side. He approached the skimmer, then backed away, then approached the s.h.i.+p again. ”Easy,” Tsia murmured, coaxing and cursing in alternate breaths as she urged the young cat forward. ”This is the only way,” she breathed, ”to get you to the sh.o.r.e.”
Still, the cub balked. She shoved at him through her gate, but he refused to budge. She tried to pull him with her will. It was like trying to move a gla.s.sy, heavy wall toward her, she thought, using only the friction of her fingers against its smooth, vertical surface. ”It is not as if I can just lift you and carry you in,” she snarled under her breath at the cub.
Ruka swung his head and stared at her with unblinking, baleful eyes.
”Come,” she urged. ”Now.” She reached out and edged for-ward until she could, carefully and slowly, touch him behind the ears. Softly, steadily, she began to press. Lightly, she added pressure, as if to draw him forward. Ruka's growl grew. She did not crouch to his level. Neither did she release her pressure on the cub with her hand or her mind. The minutes grew to two, then five.
Finally, in her biogate, she felt a lessening of tension-like a rope that goes slowly slack-and, as if he glided without moving, the cub began to ease forward. She tried to build a picture of a den and project that to his mind, and his paws crept faster across the deck, but still, he moved like a snail in glue.
”Feather,” Wren said in a low voice behind her, ”the winds are growing. We have to take off. Nitpicker's giving you two minutes more. If you can't get the cat through the door by then, we're raising anyway.” Tsia started to protest, but he cut her off. ”When the node comes back on line, we'll send a vetdarter down to anesthetize the cat and take it to sh.o.r.e.”
”No.” Tsia's curt response was immediate and unthinking. ”He's moving on his own. He'll get in by himself.”
”You haven't got much time left.”
”I don't need more. He's coming in now.”
”Not quickly enough to show movement,” Striker muttered.
Kurvan nodded. ”Why waste your time-and ours? You can't expect an animal to follow your directions as calmly as if it were a man.”
Her face tightened with the effort of speaking through her mental projections. ”This one, I can.” She forced the words out.
Kurvan's eyes sharpened. ”Why? Are you linked with the felines?”
Though she kept her voice low, Tsia laughed outright at his question. ”Now, that would be a useful gate.”
Wren's eyes flickered, but he chuckled as well. ”About as useful as a desert digger in the sea,” he added.
Tsia glanced over her shoulder. ”If I were linked with the felines, this cub would be in and seated like a mere in a soft, and I'd be asking him if he wanted a slimchim for a snack while we flew.”
Bowdie eyed her warily. ”Let's just hope he doesn't snack on us if he joins us.”
Tsia forgot that the motion of her nod was more frightening to the cat than her voice, and Ruka spun and leaped away. Instantly, she jammed him to a standstill with a blast of emotion even she could not identify. He froze, crouched to the deck. Tsia felt a backlash of fear and danger turn her bones to stone. She tried to uncurl her hands from her sides-attempted to turn her head and make a sound other than the harsh breathing she choked out through her teeth. Between her mind and the cat's, a cord of emotion stretched. It was as if her brain made a stab at the signals Ruka could understand, and hit for the first time on the combination that worked, like the first time she had imaged the node and it responded. It was as though she somehow understood in a single instant a language she had heard all her life as garbled music.
She became aware of the claws that pierced her mind. No longer did they tear at her thoughts. Instead, the cat paws seemed to pick out pieces from her mind. Like a set of words recognized in a book, those thoughts alone were clear. Ruka clung to those images. In the gloom of the gale, where the light from the cabin flashed in his eyes and blinded him to the meres, while his nose made him choke with their scents, the cougar sought the only safety he could see: Tsia.
”Come,” she commanded. ”Now. With me.”
Blue shadowed eyes stared into gold. Nostrils flared in and out. Ears flicked in the rain. Ruka crouched more tightly to leap forward. And Nitpicker chose that instant to start the skimmer's motors.
Sail slats flared along the sides of the craft. Tsia cursed. Ruka bolted. Tsia lunged after him, caught one of his hind legs, and as the cat jackknifed, twisted and clawed with his forepaws, she slung him through the hatch. The silent howl that shocked her mind was deafening. She rolled to her feet and skidded across the deck, throwing herself after the cat. Wren slammed shut the hatch.
Ruka hit the door like a madman. Wren jerked out of the way. Ruka yowled. He turned and leaped across the cabin, desperate for escape. The meres cowered in their seats. Ruka's paws. .h.i.t the arm of a soft, and the cat recoiled at the strange fabric, striking out so that Doetzier scrambled over the seats to avoid his tearing claws. Caught for a moment against the bulkhead, Wren flinched as the tawny beast hissed and spat at his boots.
”You going to control this thing?” Bowdie yelled, jerked back as the cub's heavy paws landed on his legs and shoved off in a ma.s.sive leap.
”Feather-should I wait?” Nitpicker shouted over the noise.
”No. Go!” Tsia grabbed Ruka's scruff in pa.s.sing, and was dragged two meters on her knees before she slowed him down. Snarling and twisting, he fought her as she forced him toward her seat. Doetzier, caught in Wren's soft, s.h.i.+fted as far to the side as he could. Tsia ignored him. She strained with the cougar's wildly writhing weight. If her lean arms had been thicker-if her body had had more ma.s.s-if she had been Bowdie or Kurvan or even Doetzier, she would have sat on him to hold him.
”Doetzier,” she snarled, ”your blunter. Quickly-” Her voice broke off in a hiss as Ruka raked a claw across her thigh. With a wrench, she shoved him back down.
”Can you hold him-”
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