Thus they might well have missed the newcomers, gone by entirely, had Caitlin not been on the alert. She cried out – sang out – and pounded their backs while her other hand pointed, tuned screens to magnification, pointed afresh. Rueda whistled. “Marvelous,” he said. “Make for them, Stefan.”
Dozsa scowled. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “Under these conditions, to break our holding pattern-”
“Down, you amadan!” Caitlin shouted. “I swear they are what we came here for!”
“How can you tell?” the mate demanded.
“Do you mean to say you cannot?”
“Well . . . well – all right. I suppose if we don’t investigate, we’ll have had our trouble for nothing.”
Caitlin rumpled his sweat-gummed hair. “Now you talk the way Dan would be wanting.”
Between buoyancy and updrafts, stalling speed for Williwaw was low.
Downward bound, Dozsa slowed her as much as he dared, or maybe a little more.
The sight before her sprang into clarity, and dazzled.
By the woman’s count, nineteen forms, traveling by twos and threes, had risen from the clouds beneath to converge well ahead of the vessel, a kilometer lower but precisely on its projected track. They were the size of sperm whales and had the same basic torpedo shape, the same blunt snouts – in which the mouths (?) were set foremost, circular, closable by sphincters – and flukes at Side 120
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The the alter end – though these were fourfold, both horizontal and vertical, and seemed to be flexible control surfaces rather than propellers. Short tendrils and long antennae encircling their muzzles doubtless held, or were, sense organs. From their middles bulged a pair of intricate muscular structures, out of which sprang smooth, narrow wings that exceeded the body in length. Forward of these were two arms (or trunks, since they appeared to be boneless) ending in what humans could only call hands.
The coloring was exquisite: royal blue on backs shaded to sapphire beneath, while the wings were ashimmer like diffraction jewels, each movement of their pliant surfaces an interplay of chromatic waves. Glory exploded when the creatures began to dance for the spacecraft. They swooped, they soared, they planed, they turned, they glided within centimeters of each other, they arced off across kilometers, a wheeling, weaving, fountaining measure which seized the mind and drew it into itself as great art ever does, or love.
“They have music for that,” Caitlin foreknew. “Cabs, can you be tuning in their music?”
Rueda tore loose from his own rapture and worked with the sonic receiver. Presently he had eliminated the boom of the boat’s passage, damped the wind-sounds, and brought in the song. From sea-deep basses to ice-clear sopranos, and below and above those pitches humans can hear, tones filled the cabin. They were on no scale known to children of Earth; if they gave the men any clear first impression, it was of unshakeable power; but Caitlin said while tears stood in her eyes, “Oh, the joy in them, the joy! You cannot hear it? Then look how they frolic.”
“I’d better concentrate on keeping us aloft,” Dozsa said. Despite his gaze straying to the half stately, half genial harmony of movements around him, he swung Williwaw through a tight curve.
“It’s welcoming us they are,” Caitlfn said. “If they are in truth the Others, och, I always knew those must be happy folk.”
“Eh, wait, my dear,” Rueda cautioned. “It’s a superb spectacle, but you’re jumping to conclusions. Those could simply be curious and playful animals, like dolphins cavorting around a watercraft.”
“With hands? They use their hands better than hula dancers.”
“Where are clothes, ornaments, tools, any sign of artifacts?”
“They need none right now. Hush. I think I may be in the way of starting to understand that music.”
“You’d better hurry,” Dozsa warned. “I can’t safely continue this maneuver. I’ll have to go back to a larger radius pretty soon. The trouble is, our stalling speed seems to be more than the top they can manage.”
“As one would expect,” Rueda said. “Nature designed them for Danu. Man did not design this boat for it. Besides, she’s nuclear-powered, while they run on chemistry-I’m sorry, Caitlin, you wanted quiet.”