She thanked Kestejoo for his concern, then murmured, “May the ancestors watch over you” and moved rapidly into the howling swirl of snow. When Chilaili glanced back, the akule was leaning against the tree, watching her go. The colored bands of heat that pulsed the length of his long frame shuddered in the jerky patterns of fright and cold against the darkness of the cliff. There was something profoundly pathetic about him, huddled against the tree, watching her go—perhaps to her death—believing as gospel truth everything the Oracle said. Perhaps after Zaltana’s death, he’d had nothing else to believe in?
Moving in grim silence, Chilaili stalked away into the darkness, pausing to slip off her ceremonial cloak at the bottom of the path leading up to the wind-blasted forest. She folded the cloak carefully and stuffed it into her hunting pack. Now that it had served its purpose, hiding her weapons belt—which she would not have needed merely to conduct a holy ritual—she could not afford to hamper her movements. As soon as it was safely stowed, Chilaili climbed up the narrow trail and moved cautiously out through the driven snow.
The way to Tiponi Weyman’s nest lay in the direction the wind was blowing, at least, so the worst of the blizzard would be at her back. If she’d had to struggle into the teeth of the storm, she might not have set out at all. One other factor gave her hope of success. Their winter nest lay less than a full day’s walk from the humans’ nest. With luck and caution, she might make it.
She refused to dwell on the whisper at the back of her mind that the humans now believed all Tersae to be their deadly enemies. That did not matter, could not be allowed to matter. Chilaili must warn Tiponi Weyman of the coming attack, would plead with the human to return to the safety of the stars before it was too late. Chilaili’s life-debt would be repaid.
One way or another.
Chapter Four
Eight days into the first howling blizzard of the winter season, Bessany Weyman was convinced the Thule Research Expedition—of which she was a charter member—had made a dreadful mistake. As the wind shook Eisenbrucke Station’s solid plascrete walls, Bessany glared across the rec-room table at Ed Parker, resident meteorologist.
“Tell me again, Ed. Why did we pick this horrible spot to build a research station?”
Mutters of agreement from the other scientists and technicians riding out the blizzard met Bessany’s dour question, but Ed Parker just grinned. “Ain’t it great?” Parker enthused, waving an expansive hand toward the ceiling. “The weather in this place is amazing. Simply amazing!”
Down the table, Elin Olsson glared at him. “That’s not the word I’d have chosen.” The petite blonde who served as the team’s geologist was only three quarters the size of the burly meteorologist, but what she lacked in mass she made up for in sheer force of will. Bessany had seen Elin Olsson face down surly stevedores in backwater spaceports and leave them mumbling apologies. Ed Parker, however, was apparently immune to any forces of nature other than those related to wind speed and cloud formation.
“Mmm . . .” Parker smiled, “who was it said this spot was a geological treasure trove? Volcanic mountains to the south, an upthrust-fault mountain range to the north, complete with resident glacier that’s got most of Thule’s geologic history trapped in its ice layers? And a fissured basalt flow right next door, covering an ancient limestone seabed?”
Elin waved a dismissive hand. “I never said it wasn’t a good research spot, Ed. The geological processes are fascinating. But I would not call that” —she jabbed a finger toward the ceiling— “amazing weather. Homicidal, maybe.”
Parker chuckled. “Weather can’t be homicidal, Elin, it’s not sentient.”
“Are you sure?” the geologist muttered.
Chuckles ran through the rec room, mingling with the clink of coffee cups and forks against plates. Bessany toyed with the last few crumbs of pie on her own plate, blessing whatever guiding angel had induced their provisions clerk to include a generous supply of desserts with the more prosaic rations usual in a facility like this one. Comfort foods became astonishingly important when a blizzard kept everyone confined to quarters day after monotonous day.
Elin sipped her coffee. “Anyway, I’m starting to agree with Bessany about this site. The planetary scouts who recommended it ought to have their licenses revoked.”
Herve Sinclair, the expedition’s project director, dunked a cookie into his hot chocolate and said mildly, “Winter’s bad everywhere on Thule. Even the equatorial belt turns cold enough to cause a general dieback of the rainforest. Where should we have built? Underground? With as much seismic activity as Thule generates in an average month?”
One of the equipment mechanics muttered, “Aboveground or belowground, Thule’s gonna getcha, ain’t it? At least we got the aircars into the hangar before that blizzard hit. If we hadn’t, our only transport would be thin smears of metal on the far canyon wall. Not that they’re doing anybody a helluva lot of good. Not with the Tersae shooting down everything that tries to take off.”
Bessany shivered. The Eisenbrucke Research Station—officially named just a few weeks previously, when the waterfalls pouring off the glacier had frozen into a solid bridge of ice—had been spared from attack, for now, but everyone knew only too well their reprieve wouldn’t last past the end of the bad weather.
Herve spoke firmly, before already low spirits could plunge through the bedrock under the plascrete floors. “We’ve been lucky, very lucky, with this storm. Seta Point, too. I can’t imagine anything alive moving through that kind of wind and snow, which means we should be safe until the weather clears. And that will give the promised military help time to arrive. At least,” he frowned slightly, “I hope the Tersae can’t travel through this kind of weather.”
All eyes turned to Bessany. As resident xeno-ecologist—and the only human on Thule who’d actually talked to a Tersae—the ball was squarely in her court. She folded her hands in front of her to keep them from shaking. “Let’s just say I’d be very surprised if they could travel through that blizzard. Not in any great numbers,” she said cautiously. “The native species are remarkably well adapted to the vagaries of the Thulian ecosystems, so God alone knows what temperatures or weather conditions the Tersae may be able to stand. Seismic activity notwithstanding, I suspect the Tersae build sheltered winter nests in natural cavern systems. They’d have to, because their young couldn’t survive a storm like this one without shelter and they don’t build villages or towns on the surface. And I’m afraid I agree with Elin. We shouldn’t have built on the surface, either. None of us should have, mining colonies included.”
“How do you know their young don’t mature in one season, same as most animals?”
The question came from Billy Dolinski, a genius with computer equipment, whose understanding of ecological sciences remained as vague as Bessany’s comprehension of psychotronic matrix programming.
Bessany shook her head. “They can’t. Sooleawa is fifteen summers old, but she isn’t anywhere near her full adult growth yet. Chilaili is only an inch shy of eight feet, but Sooleawa is no taller than I am, and I know she’s still growing, because I asked.”
“Oh.”
Herve Sinclair rubbed the side of his nose absently. “What about their wild ancestral stock? What do they do to survive winter?”
Bessany lifted her hands in a timeless “who knows?” gesture. “I didn’t see any signs of migration before the blizzard hit. So unless this is a freakishly early storm—and I suspect it is, since Chilaili gave me no hint that she expected bad weather soon—they must overwinter in the same ranges they use in summer and autumn. But I won’t know for certain until the weather clears and I can get out to check my data recorders. If,” she added darkly, “I ever get the chance.”
Bleak silence met her assessment.
Bessany massaged her neck and rotated her head slightly, trying to ease muscle tension. “Anyway, my best guess is the Tersae will be holed up in their winter nests for the duration of the storm, at the very least. The sustained winds on the plateau above this gorge are over a hundred kilometers per hour, with gusts clocked at one fifty. I can’t imagine anything without roots—deep ones—not being torn away in that kind of wind.” She pursed her lips for a moment and glanced at the burly meteorologist. “Any prediction on how long until this blizzard blows itself out?”
Ed Parker shook his head. “Not a very precise one, no. If we had good satellite feed, it would be a snap. Trouble is, all our satellites have gone dead. The ones put in place by the original planetary scouts died right after we got here and the ones our own transport ships left in orbit have gone dead, too. That’s hardly surprising, considering how much junk is whirling through this star system.”