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there were almost more deaths from the riots when the lifers realized that the creative and educated
people were leaving the planet than when they were just concerned about killing mothers and
medicals."
"Daya, Striker." Tsia frowned in spite of herself. "Even you can't say that there were no educated people
among the lifers."
"Depends on what you call education." Striker met Tsia's eyes with a steady gaze, and the lost look
flickered before she stepped away. "Education opens minds," she said flatly, pick-ing up a scanner.
"Indoctrination closes them. Lifers used their bigotry to restrict old Earth to one way of thinking. No
toler-ance. No diversity. No creativity. Only rhetoric and control like puppet masters who put their
nooses around the neck of the world. Education is not about reducing options but increas-ing them.
That's what the Fetal Wars were really ail about."
Tucker sealed his pack and threw it on the sled with a thwump. "Sure, but I bet more people died in the
Fetal Wars than in any war including the Stand since then."
The catspeak was growing louder in Tsia's head as the cou-gars on the sea swept closer, and she said,
more sharply than she intended, "Is the exact number of deaths really so impor-tant, Tucker?"
"You're a guide," he retorted. "You feel animals and plants. You aren't expected to understand the finer
points of intersolar history."
Wren snorted, and Tsia gave the younger mere a dirty look. "You have an interesting view of a guide's
education."
"Oh, come on," he retorted. "Everyone knows that a guide thinks only of her gate. Look at the way you
reacted when we were going skyside. What if you had gotten free? Would you really have jumped from
the hatch, knowing you were kays above the sea?"
"Of course," she said, as if surprised. "Unlike you, I have antigravs on my harness, not just on my pack.
The impact of hitting water would have been painful, but not necessarily fa-tal. It would have been the
pressure changes that killed me, not the impact. And" her eyes glinted "I'd have made sure I had
company to scream with."
Kurvan made a sound suspiciously like a laugh, and Tucker turned sharply.
"Striker, Feather, step it down," Nitpicker cut in. "Kurvan, you and Tucker get out of here and go check
the skimmer. Make sure she's tight and steady. Doetzier, you and Bowdie verify the gear. I want all
antigrav units, e-wraps, and scanners checked before we take off. Striker, take the sled to the ship and
start loading."
"What about the self-contained med gear?"
"The scames? Give two of the three to Jandon. If the guild-ers are moving in, he'll have more need of
them than we will." She hesitated, and something flickered in her eyes, but she turned to Tsia and said,
"As for you, I want another scan of the platform. Take your time. We've got another hour before we lift."
Tsia nodded and turned to the door. Nitpicker caught Wren's eye, and the other mere nodded. Still
chewing his slimchim, he hopped down from his perch, shifted his own weapons harness on his hips, and
made his way to the portal as Tsia's shadow.
The door slammed back to the wall behind him, and he let Jandon shut it. This time, as he left the hut, he
barely staggered in the wind. Tsia was already moving toward the catwalk that led to the platform edge,
and he leaned into the wind to follow. His eyes followed her closely. The lithe movements of her hips and
thighs; the leanness of her body& There was no wasted motion no gracelessness from youth, but
rather a concen-trated energy, trapped inside her muscles. It was something a wildness, perhaps that
he desired to touch and taste.
Reaching forward, as if to grip the wind itself for balance, he watched her with cold and steady eyes.
Sometimes, he thought, he wanted to grab her to still her when she twisted and yowled like a cat.
Sometimes he wanted to squeeze his massive hands so tightly around her body that he wrung that
wildness from her throat and drank it like blood. He chuckled, and the sound was choked to silence by
the wind. He knew he could tell her what he thought, and she'd still not be afraid of him. Odd woman. He
respected that in her. But then and he looked toward her figure poised on the edge of the platform, her
arms out as if she could fly she was not really a woman at all to him. She was, instead, a guide.
5
Tsia moved through the wind like a dancer. She had the feel now of the storm, and it no longer stole her
feet from under her. Her knees bent instinctively, and her arms twisted away from her body for balance.
Behind her, near the ship and hid-den by the gloom and blinding wind, something moved. In-stantly, her
senses sharpened. She turned slowly, half crouched on the narrow walk. She could see Wren, but he
was not what she felt. His biofield was not focused like a hunter.
No, she could almost taste a presence smell the musk scent of a cat in the wet morning air. But there
was nothing in her biogate but the meres. Nothing in her sight but the white wing of the skimmer, the dark
bulk of the vats. She hesitated, then went on.
The spray and hollows of the whitecaps hid the shadow of the weedis as they wallowed in the troughs of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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