She opened a channel now to report her position to Blue City Tower and realized two problems: one, she was too far from any Triadic receiver to report on the power she had left; second, a faint emergency sequence disrupted the regular channel configuration, She tuned as finely as she could but the sequence remained faint, not with the irregularity of distance but lack of power. Swiftly she cut in the locator and her concern deepened. The distress call emanated from a point not far to her right on the large island. She swung the speedster towards it, locking into the thread of sound and approaching as fast as she dared once she was over the island’s forested and rough terrain.
She skipped over the rocky bastion, down into the valley it protected from the sea. A sun-struck dazzle caught her eye on the northeastern end, Then she observed the swath cut from the treetops and climbing vines though rapid growth had removed the seared vegetation. She slowed forward motion as she reached the valley’s far side. Then she saw the crashed vehicle. It was of obsolete design and she wondered how it had remained airborne at all. It had skidded across the first low ridge, losing its guidance vanes, and had dropped into a gully beyond the ridge, its nose half buried in the inland rim of the island’s bastion ring. Caissa wondered that anyone could have survived such a crash but the emergency signal, faint though it was, argued that someone had.
This might be an island in the interdicted Oriolis group, but no one refused to answer a distress call.
Slowly she circled the ridge and gully and found, not far from the crash, a narrow ledge which would accommodate her speedster. Nothing could come at it from the bare rock on the island side and there was no cover at all on the cliff looming above.
She tapped out a contingency code for her speedster in case she encountered difficulties. The craft, once its batteries were charged in the morning, was programmed with her precise location and would return to Blue Triad on automatic if she did not reset it.
Caissa donned a tough coverall, prepared herself with hand and thigh weapons, emergency medical and food supplies, survival kit and pack.
Before she could close the canopy behind her, the sky above her head erupted into a flight of rainbows, spinning rather than flying. Round rainbows that sang a liquid and lovely welcome for she couldn’t construe that glorious sound into menace of any kind. Standing motionless, she whistled back at them, trying to reproduce several of the notes of the thousands sung at her. An hilarious response, delighted laughter, greeted her poor effort and she laughed back in pure joy. Whatever the darting creatures were, they meant her no harm. They wheeled and veered and, Caissa thought, seemed to be urging her towards the eastern side of the ridge, away from the crash.
She felt compelled to follow them, their happy exultation overwhelming her original purpose in landing. They led her quickly to an unexpected break in the island’s palisade. A section of the basalt had fallen from the escarpment, creating a steep slope down to the edge of a little lagoon where the larger boulders formed an uneven horn into the water. The sea was burnished bronze, with the palette of the setting sun marking out jutting tips of other basaltic debris beyond the sheltered beach.
The rainbow creatures deserted her abruptly. Then she saw them congregate by the edge of the lagoon, by the black boulders. To her astonishment she saw a man rise from the water and stare in her direction. She waved to reassure him, mildly astonished that he did not exhibit more enthusiasm at her arrival, however long overdue his rescue might be. She made additional broad gestures of friendship and aid that could not be misunderstood.
In doing so, she lost her footing on the slithery gap, slid unceremoniously and bruisingly down the slope to the beach. The rescuer rescued? She had regained her feet and her composure when the man made his own way out of the water. He might not have seen her ignominious descent. Only then did she notice that his right arm was crooked and he dragged his right leg.
She was momentarily stunned for physical injuries were quickly corrected and deformities simply unknown. She sternly reminded herself that he had been in a crash, had had no surgical treatment to mend injuries sustained weeks before and she must be discreet and tolerant.
Then the man whistled in an incredibly complex glissando. The voluble round aerial creatures smothered him in iridescent strands. In a matter of seconds, they flitted away and he was clad in the most gorgeous raiment she had ever seen, his unsightly injuries masked.
“Coelura, a passive ovoid indigenous life form.” That hard-won data flashed through Caissa’s mind. Coelura! The only thing that distinguished Demeathorn! Fashion was of major importance to the High Lady Cinna. She would have prized as invaluable the garment the man now wore.
Coelura, spinning iridescent garments, had been the product of the Yellow Triad City. And was coelura the reason the Oriolis had been expelled from the Triadic Cities? Why? Snippets of information began to mesh. She had assumed that coelura were no longer available. Could this island flock be all that remained? Was her sire’s mission to rediscover coelura? With bitter certainty, Caissa knew that a coelura garment would satisfy that unfulfilled clause in Baythan’s heir-contract with the High Lady Cinna
Caissa was seized suddenly with an anguish so cruel and a rage so deep that she nearly burst into tears. Baythan had sounded so positive of success. If he knew of coelura, how could he put such joyous creatures in jeopardy to the fashion-hunger of the galaxy?
Coelura trilled her a reassurance which eased that stabbing, unfilial accusation. They swirled ecstatically about the man they had clothed in splendor. In splendor, and more, for now he was close enough for her to distinguish that other difference about him. Crippled he might be, walking slowly to disguise a halting stride, but in his face, handsome in feature, was a serenity, a self-awareness that she had never before observed in any of her acquaintance.
Some heretofore unexperienced compulsion caused her to extend her arms forward, palms up, in respectful greeting. She smiled, a smile as warm and genuine as his, totally unprompted by propriety or protocol.
“You survived that dreadful crash!” she said, wondering how anyone in his present state could be as happy as he.
“Barely,” he replied, indicating by a slight nod of his head the damaged side of his body.
“Your signal was so very faint that I despaired of finding anyone alive.”
“The signal, my lady, has been on for so long I had despaired of its being heard at all.”
He clasped her hands as equal to equal as naturally as if they had met under formal conditions. The faintest squeeze of his-strong left hand emphasized the irony of his words.
“You didn’t expect to be rescued at all?” Inadvertently her eyes went to his throat which the highnecked gown covered.
“I am now found.”
Her ear caught the note in his voice that augured ill for those who had not searched until they found him. Or perhaps he was not, as she had assumed by his manner, a body-heir.
“I have been considering the construction of a boat to take me back to the mainland. My absence might precipitate matters. Would your vehicle possibly carry two?”
“Of course… but not now.”
“Oh?”
Caissa cleared her throat, aware of his amusement at her hesitation.
“I neglected to check my fuel tanks before leaving Blue City…” and, when he smiled kindly at such a lapse, she went on purposefully. “My own fault but I had not intended to come so far and then heard your distress signal.”
“How far will the remainder of your fuel take you?” His expression became concerned and the flowing blue-green of his robe turned grey.