“Not quite like that. Oh, they are beautiful creatures. Quick, Bonnard, on the third terrace to the left, get that lot?”
The giffs, one after the other, dropped off the ledge, wings spreading and lifting, soaring, turning over, as if letting each part of their bodies bathe in the sunlight. It was a slow aerial dance that held the observers spellbound.
“They've got their eyes closed,” Bonnard said, peering through the focusing lens of the recorder. “Hope they know where they're going.”
“They probably have some sort of radar perception,” said Varian. She increased her face-mask's magnification to observe more closely. “I wonder . . . are their eyes closed for some mystical reason? Or simply because the sun is strong?”
“Carotene is good for your eyes,” said Bonnard
Varian tried to recall if she'd ever seen a fang-face or one of the herbivores squint or close their eyes completely during sunshine. She couldn't remember. Full sunlight was a rare enough occasion so that all human eyes were invariably on the sun. She'd check the tapes out when she got back to the camp.
“Now, look Varian, only some of 'em are doing the flying act,” said Bonnard. He had swung around, recorder still operating, and focused on the juvenile giffs scratching about on the fish summit.
One of them let out a squawk, tried to back away from something and, overbalancing, fell back. Its companions regarded it for a long moment as it lay, flapping helplessly.
Without thinking, Varian began to climb towards the summit to assist the creature. She had put her hand over the top, when an adult giff, with a cry shrill enough to be a command, landed on the summit, awkwardly turning towards Varian. When she judiciously halted her climbing, the giff deftly flipped the juvenile to its feet with the wing claws. The wing remained a protective envelope above the young giff.
“Okay, I get the message, loud and clear,” said Varian.
A second grating sound issued from the adult giff whose eyes never left Varian.
“Varian!” Kai's call was warning and command.
“I'm all right. I've just been told to keep my distance.”
“Make it more distance, Varian. I'm covering you.”
“It would have attacked me if it was going to, Kai. Don't show the stunner.”
“How would they know what a stunner is?” asked Bonnard.
“Point! I'm going to offer the grass.” And slowly Varian took the rift grasses from her leg pouch and with great care held up the sheaf for the giff to see.
The creature's eyes did not leave hers but Varian sensed that the grass had been noticed. She moved her hand slowly, to place the sheaf on the top of the summit. The giff made another grating noise, softer, less aggressive in tone
“You're very welcome,” said Varian, and heard Bannard's snort of disgust. “Courtesy is never wasted, Bonnard. Tone conveys its own message. So does gesture. This creature understands a certain amount from both what I'm doing and what I'm saying.”
She had begun to descend to the sled's terrace level now, moving deliberately and never taking her eyes from the giff. As soon as she was back, standing with Kai and Bonnard, the adult giff waddled forward, took up the grass and then, returning to the sea-edge, dropped off. Once it had sufficient wing room, it soared up again and out of sight among the other fliers.
“That was fascinating,” said Kai on the end of a long held sigh.
Bonnard was regarding Varian with open respect.
“Wow! One poke of that beak and you'd've been sent over the edge.”
“There was no menace in the giff's action.”
“Varian,” said Kai, laying a hand on her arm, “do be careful.”
"Kai, this isn't my first contact." Then she saw the worry in his eyes. "I am always careful. Or I wouldn't be here now. Making friends with alien creatures is my business. But how I'm ever to find out how mature their young are if they're this protective . . ." She stopped, whistled her surprise. I know. The giff was protective because it's used to protecting the juveniles. So, they're not equipped to protect themselves at birth, or for some time thereafter. Still," and she sighed her disappointment, "I would have liked to get inside one of their caves . . ."
“Look, Varian,” said Bonnard in a whisper and indicated the direction with the barest movement of his forefinger.
Slowly, Varian turned to see a row of juvenile giffs watching from the summit, wings in a closed position, tilted up beyond their backs, wing claws acting as additional supports to their sitting. Varian began to laugh, shaking her head and muttering about the observer observed.
“So we're fair peek,” said Kai, leaning against the edge of the sled and folding his arms. “Now what do we do in your programme? Be observed in our daily morning habits?”
“You can, if you wish. Be interesting to see how long their attention span is, but there's a great deal going on up there.” She pointed skywards where the giffs were circling, but some groups spun off in various directions, with purposeful sweeps of their wings. “We don't seem to have hit a day of rest,” she said, flashing a smile at Kai. “Bonnard, if I give you a leg up on the sled's canopy, I think you can see the summit. Can you tell me what the juveniles were squawking about? Or what overbalanced the one I wanted to rescue?”
“Sure.”
“Just don't dance about too much. Your boots'll scar the plascreen. And no, you can't take 'em off,” Kai added as Bonnard began to speak.
They hoisted him up and, moving with great care, Bonnard positioned himself where he could see the summit.
“There's dead fringes up here, Varian, and some slimy looking seaweed. Aw, would you look at that?”
The juveniles, attracted by his new position, had abandoned that section of the summit and waddled over to stand directly in Bannard's line of sight. Disgusted, he, propped both hands against his hips and glared, actions which set them all to squawking and shifting away from the edge. Kai and Varian chuckled over the two sets of young.
“Hey, recorder man, you missed a dilly of a sequence!”
“Don't I just know it?”
“C'mon down,” Varian told him, having learned what she needed to know.
She wandered over to the sea edge of the terrace, lay down, peering further over the drop.
“I'm not allowed up. Am I allowed down? There appears to be a cave over to the left, about twenty metres, Kai. If I use a bell-harness, you could probably swing me to it.”
Kai was not completely in favour of such gymnastics but the belt-harness, winched safely to the sled's exterior attachments, could hold a heavy-worlder securely. He was glad not to be at the end of the pendulum swing as she was to reach her objective.
“Are they watching, Bonnard?” Varian asked over the comunit.
“The young ones are, Varian, and yes, one of the airborne fliers is watching.”
“Let's see if they have any prohibitive spots . . .”
“Varian . . .” Kai grew apprehensive as he, too, saw the adult giff fly in for a close look at Varian's swinging body.
“It's only looking, Kai. I expect that. One more swing now and . . . I got it.” She had grabbed and caught a stony protrusion at the cave entrance and agilely scrambled in.
“Rakers! It's abandoned. It's gigantic. Goes so far back I can't see the end.” Her voice over the comunit sounded muffled and then hollow.
“No, wait. Just what I wanted. An egg. An egg? And they let me in. Oh, it rattles. Dead egg. Small, too. Well, only circumstantial evidence that their young are born immature. Hmmm. There're grasses here, sort of forming a nest. Too scattered at this point to be sure. They can't have abandoned a cave because there's an infertile egg? No fish bones, or scales. They must devour whole. Good digestions then.”
Bonnard and Kai exchanged glances over her monologue and the assorted sounds of her investigations, broadcast from the comunit.