Soaring? Wait a minute! His body contracted and he blasted out a warning, but already the sharks were on them.
SKREEEE
With a blare of hunting noise three sharks jetted out of the clouds. Not diving from the cloud banks, but charging up from beneath. Ensign roiled away instinctively and was instantly lost in the clouds. He could not see, but he could hear Shorty’s despairing screams.
Without thinking he rolled into the opposite direction out of the terrifying clouds and into the light. The pod was already rising and closing up in a defensive box as one of the sharks pushed over and dove back on them from above. The other two had Shorty, tearing at his wing edges with their mouths full of ripping teeth. There was a huge ragged hole in his inner wing, but Shorty was still screaming as they sank back toward the clouds.
Ensign flattened his body and dove. The sharks had fastened on Shorty with a predator’s intentness and didn’t see him coming until one of them was sent spinning by a blow from his outer wing. The other twisted and snapped at Ensign. The thing missed and Ensign gave it a concentrated blast of sound as he went by. In the background he heard the pulse of sound as the rest of the pod concentrated their voices on the diving shark. And over everything else the screams.
The first shark writhed, obviously hurt, but it flicked out its wings and lunged at Ensign. Its mate left Shorty screaming and joined the attack.
But both sharks had expended their available hydrogen in their jet attack. Now they were slow and vulnerable. The injured shark’s right wing only extended halfway so its attack came as a slow roll. Ensign held position until the last instant and then rolled out of its way. The shark’s teeth caught his trailing edge for an instant and then Ensign’s wingtip counterblow whipped it free and ruptured its main gas cell like a popped balloon. Damaged beyond hope and already dead from the concussion, the shark plummeted into the clouds.
The second shark was slow but Ensign’s preoccupation let it set up its attack. It came in low and from behind only to fly straight into the most massive sound beam Ensign could emit at that angle. Three of his sounding chambers focused on the attacker and even his remoras added their sounds. For an instant the sound drowned out Shorty’s screams.
Blinded, deafened and damaged, the shark blundered past Ensign underneath. It twisted, flicked its tail and started to turn back. Then it seemed to shudder, shrivel and collapse in on itself under a massive blast of sonar energy from the entire Bach Choir. Even out of the beam’s focus, the wave of noise shivered Ensign to his core.
As the remains of the third shark dropped into the clouds, Ensign shook himself and tried to get his hearing back. The nerves in his active hearing chambers had been damaged by the Choir’s blast, but they would heal. Almost without thinking he switched to auxiliary hearing chambers, and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Shorty was still screaming, a despairing, high wail that quavered across frequencies and seemed to echo everywhere at once. He was already lost in the dirty yellow murk below them but his screams went on and on.
Without a word Teacher gave the signal for the pod to rise. Still in defensive formation, the Bach Choir climbed toward the now-setting Sun, up and out of the terrible valley in the clouds.
Behind them the screams faded and were lost in the everpresent whisper of the wind.
The curious points of light were brighter in the sky that night, one below the other. Even through the haze down toward the cloud tops Ensign could see them burning malevolently. Almost, he was too worn down to care. He felt numb from Shorty’s death, tired from hard traveling and still hungry. At this rate those things won’t even have to fall to kill us, he thought sourly. The trip will do us in.
He wasn’t the only one. All of the Bach Choir drooped their wingtips and moved listlessly in the night currents. Only Teacher held himself in trim, but Ensign suspected that was more from a sense of pod leader’s duty than a reflection of the way he felt.
Motion flickered below him. Ensign went rigid and then relaxed when he heard the hum of a message remora. The little creature folded its wings and nestled its torpedo-shaped body against a lower earmouth. Ensign felt a tickling as his other remoras rearranged themselves to make room for the newcomer.
The remora vibrated against his earmouth and he heard Crystal’s warm trill. “Ensign, I need to talk to you! Come toward me and speak softly, privately. Please.”
The remora detached and led him toward the outer edge of the pod where Crystal floated alone.
“Ensign?”
He saw her reflected in the soft glow from a lightning discharge far below. “Yes, Crystal. I got your message.”
“Where’s Simon? I can’t find him.”
“Look above you. When it got dark he floated up above the haze to get a better look at the things in the sky.”
“I don’t want to look up,” she vibrated tightly. “I’m scared.”
In spite of himself Ensign rolled slightly to focus his main eyes on the two bright sparks. Then quickly he rolled back to look at Crystal.
He rippled a grimace. “We’re all scared. I guess you just have the courage to say it out loud.” Desperately he hunted for something to add.
Crystal shifted nervously, “But what can we do?”
“We’re doing it. We’re learning the songs and we’re going north.”
“Oh,” she said in a very small voice. “Nothing else?”
There ought to be something I can tell her, Ensign thought desperately. Some song of wisdom to help her face this. But nothing came. He felt tired to his inner core and completely inadequate.
“Nothing else. I’m sorry.”
“I asked Teacher,” Crystal said quietly. “He said the same thing. Only I was hoping you—” She stopped and trilled a nervous little laugh. “Well, never mind. Thanks.”
She drifted away, borne on a gentle current, leaving Ensign puzzling in her wake. Teacher at a loss for words of wisdom and comfort? That was a new thought.
I wonder if he ever feels inadequate? he thought, looking at where Teacher floated, trim and composed. Is it that he always knows what to do or that he knows how to hide his doubts?
The rising Sun tinged the clouds with purple and red when Simon drifted down to join them, humming songs of the sights he had seen. In spite of his night’s work, Simon appeared the freshest and sharpest of them all as they began the last leg of their journey to the Edge.
As they milled about waiting for thermals to form, Ensign moved toward Teacher. In spite of his fatigue there were a lot of things he wanted to ask. But Teacher took Simon off to the side for an animated discussion. Almost like they are arguing, he thought. And that was a new idea too.
From the top of the first thermal Ensign could see the edge of the South Temperate Zone. Later today or tomorrow they would pass through the swirling currents of the edge and into the South Temperate Belt. Unlike the zones, where the air currents generally flowed upward, the winds in the belts were mostly downdrafts. Not heavy downdrafts mostly, just as the updrafts in the belts weren’t heavy, but it meant wing flying all the way. No more thermals to help them along and almost no plankton. Ensign didn’t want to think about what that could mean in his condition. Well, he’d just do the best he could and hope. Looking at the other pod members, Ensign felt they weren’t in much better shape.
He looked ahead to where Teacher and Simon flew almost head-to-head, still deep in conversation. Simon appeared as rigid as he had ever seen the bloated oldster and Teacher seemed to be speaking forcefully. Well, nothing he could do about that, or about what lay ahead. Best to enjoy today and leave tomorrow for tomorrow.