Zenn Scarlett Part 15

"So, have you heard anything lately about the Indra problem? About the s.h.i.+ps that have disappeared?"

"The takings?" He frowned, one hand going to the feathers in his hair. "We have heard little, for there is little to know. The taken s.h.i.+ps send no distress signals. And there is no debris field afterwards. It is curious. And it seems to be worsening. The grooms' union has a.s.sembled their own commission of investigation. But they have found nothing to report. Why do you ask?"

"The Indra s.h.i.+ps are really important to us here. The s.h.i.+ps bring our client's animals to Mars from the rest of the Accord. And of course we treat the s.h.i.+ps' Indras, too. At least we did when the s.h.i.+ps still came regularly. If things keep going the way they have beena"

"I see. The takings have affected your livelihood. As they will affect many more if the truth of the matter is not found."

"Does it worry you? To be a sacrist on an Indra s.h.i.+p? I mean, you never know. Your s.h.i.+p could be next."

"Wea do not think of this," he said, but his hesitation said otherwise. After a short pause, he went on, "I should clarify one thing. Areth is, in truth, sacrist aboard the Helen of Troy. I am under-sacrist."

"Oh, I see."

"But I have expectations. Of promotion. To full sacrist. And very soon, Ghost Shepherds willing."

"So, you're a novice, like me." His expression told her he wasn't familiar with the word. "Right now, I'm a Novice, Second Order. When I pa.s.s my end of term tests, I'll be a Novice, First Order, for the next half-year term. Then, more cla.s.ses, more testing, and I'll move up to Acolyte. What I mean is, right now, we're both just beginners."

"A beginner? No," he almost snorted at her. "That would not be true. I have almost a full year on the Helen. I have proven myself capable. When I am made sacrist, I will be allowed to choose the s.h.i.+p I serve on. No beginner underling would be allowed such an honor. Never."

Sorry I asked.

"And you," he said, scuffing his dirty boot in the sand to clean it. "What are your expectations, here on your world?"

Zenn looked up at the trailer, hoping he'd take the hint. He didn't.

"I want to become a fully licensed exovet."

"This is a long procedure?"

"Sort of. But I've had a head start. Living here in the cloister. So I'll be able to get through my basic courses here in just a couple of years. Then I'll do a year-long apprentices.h.i.+p, take the final board exams and get my license. Unless I decide to go on to do a residency program in some specialty area. Like neurology or in-soma surgery or something."

"But it is a long procedure. To do what you want. To endure all those years of study."

"It's what I've always wanted to do. So, no, it doesn't seem so long. Not really."

"I would not be willing to wait such a period," he said. "To delay doing what I wanted."

"That's just how long it takes," she said, beginning to resent his curt att.i.tude. "Learning the science behind the treatments, the biochemistry, the anatomy of all the different animals and the conditions they live in. You don't pick that up in a few months."

"Yes, but my kind come to know their Stonehorses without being shut into a room with a book," the boy said, waving one hand in the air, dismissing her argument. "We know these things by doing them. We learn from our closeness to the Stonehorse, and the miracle of tunneling. To do this requires no anatomies or book words. It is granted to us by the tuning of our senses, by opening our soul's-eye to the mystery of the Stonehorse."

"Right. I'm sure you know a lot about your Indra. But that's different." Zenn said, impatience growing inside her. For some unknown reason, she suddenly found herself comparing this arrogant off-worlder to Liam. She realized to her surprise that she'd much rather be talking to Liam Tucker, smirking, joking and all, rather than arguing the obvious with this superst.i.tious young Procyon. At least Liam seemed to have some capacity to adjust his views when exposed to incontestable facts.

"Different? Yes," he scoffed at her. "The difference is I have journeyed among the stars, and you have read words on paper."

"The difference is you don't know how it works! Like how your Indra uses dark matter, the physics and biology of it, or the things that can make an Indra sick."

"Heh. We know all of these things, in here." He thumped once on his chest. "We know by living in the blessed aura of the Indra all our lives."

"Yes, but you're here on Mars now, aren't you?" she said triumphantly. "You're here at our cloister to get the whalehound. We're the only ones who could house it, take care of it. Or if your Indra, your stonehorse, gets sick, you'll bring it here to cure it, won't you? And the reason we can do that is the science we learn, all the studying, the training that exovets go through. All those years."

The boy glared at her, but had no ready response.

"So," he said then, looking at the trailer and sounding for all the world like he hadn't just lost an argument. "Do you wish to see what is inside, or not?"

Finally!

She nodded, and he climbed up on the side of the trailer where there was a small, moveable metal panel. She climbed up beside him, and he slid the panel open.

She looked inside, but it was too dark to see anything. Then, slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Something moved, too close to make out its shape, just the sense of a large ma.s.s, alive, breathing. It s.h.i.+fted position, but despite the thing's huge size, the trailer didn't sway or bounce. Now it moved away from her, and she could make out parts of a huge body, an expanse of tawny skin stretched over the sharp keel of a breast-bone, great wings folded in, a head, dark, oblong a" no, two huge, dark heads, on two long, sinuous necks attached toa It couldn't be, could it? Yes. That would explain it. The trailer wouldn't react to the movement of an animala if that animal was floating. Zenn's eyes widened, she pushed her face against the cold metal to see better. Yes, yes! This could only be one thing, only one creature in all the universe. And now it was here. On Mars. At their cloister. Solsolis a.s.sa.s.sina magnus. A Greater Kiran sunkiller.

Several hours later, after they'd made the switch and finished loading the whalehound into the recently emptied container-trailer, Zenn still couldn't believe what was, at that very moment, housed in their infirmary. A sunkiller. A living, breathing sunkiller. This one was young, just a fledgling; a fraction the size of a full-grown adult. But it was still any exovet's wildest dream. It was, after all, an animal so revered, so sacrosanct, few non-Leukkans had ever even seen one up close, let alone been allowed to touch or, in this case, to treat. Zenn's face was actually beginning to ache from smiling.

"My groom aboard s.h.i.+p will see to the transfer of funds concerning the whalehound, if that suits," Areth said to Otha, brandis.h.i.+ng the v-film invoice he held in one hand before tucking it into his tunic.

"Suits fine," Otha told him. "Let us know if you have any trouble transporting him up to the s.h.i.+p. And don't be afraid to give him more of the ambicet." Otha gestured at the box of sedative biscuits Areth carried. "They're low-dosage and he likes the flavor."

"We will have no trouble with the hound," Areth said confidently, walking past Zenn toward the truck. As he pa.s.sed, he wrinkled his nose and looked off toward the animal pens, frowning. Zenn took a step away from him.

"Thank you again," he said to Otha.

"Our pleasure. And please remember what I said, about thanking the princeling, for trusting us with his sunkiller. We're well aware of the honor."

"The princeling simply appreciates the Ciscan reputation," Areth said. "I'm sure you will bear out his trust by repairing what ails the beast." He nodded then at the younger boy, who immediately jumped up from where he sat on the ground and went to climb into the truck's pa.s.senger seat.

Otha started out in the direction of the infirmary.

"We'll see you in a few days, then," he said, lifting one hand in the air without looking back. Zenn was eager to follow him, to be in the same room with the sunkiller again. But she shouldn't just go, she told herself. She should see the Procyons off first. It was the polite thing to do, after all.

"So," Zenn said to the older boy. "Where do you go next? On the Helen?"

"Once your director-abbot has repaired the sunkiller, we will retrieve it and return to the princeling's home port, on Kire Secunda." Walking to the driver's side of the truck, he jerked open the door.

She let her gaze wander to the younger boy.

"Nice meeting youa both."

"And you," Areth said, climbing into the seat and shutting the door.

"So. I guess we'll see you again when the sunkiller is ready." She could think of nothing else.

"Shepherds willing," Areth said, and he started the truck.

"Yes," Fane Reth Fanesson called to her, turning to the truck window to give Zenn his bright smile. "And take care you do not upset your yote. Heh."

Before Zenn could respond, the truck pulled out of the drive and into the road, then s.h.i.+fted gears before roaring west toward Pavonis, a long rooster tail of rosy, sun-struck dust chasing along behind.

TWENTY-ONE.

"What a specimen!" Otha declared as Zenn entered the infirmary. He was standing on the catwalk that ran around the interior walls, hands on hips, gazing up at the animal floating near the ceiling of the cavernous main room. The sunkiller's fully extended wings almost brushed the opposite walls of the building. Suspended beneath its body on a webbing of thick ropes and woven padding mats that ran up around its back was the gondola, a narrow structure that resembled an ornate, oversized sort of canoe built of interlaced reeds and bones, the stern and bow rising up to points at either end. The gondola, in turn, was firmly attached to the floor by four braided wire cables hooked to ma.s.sive anchor bolts sunk into concrete footings.

"Only twelve years old, but look at that wingspan. Must be sixty, seventy feet already."

"Why did the Leukkans send it to us?" Zenn climbed the metal stairs to join him. "I mean, what's wrong with hera with them?" She was unsure of how to describe a single creature that bore two heads. Each of the ma.s.sive skulls was eight or nine feet long, with blunt noses, large, toothless jaws equipped with baleen-like filters, a pair of deep-set hooded eyes and boney skull crests that arced backward from where the heads joined the necks. The overall effect was something like a double-headed pterodactyl crossed with a colossal manta ray.

"It's her methane plexus," Otha said. "She's not getting the right mix of gases to her wings. See how the bladders are stretched tight?" He pointed to the hundreds of small, gas-filled skin bubbles covering the underside of the creature's wings. "She's producing excess methane. Makes her too buoyant. The Kirans saved her life, kept her tethered since she was born. If they hadn't, she'd just have floated up until the atmosphere got so thin she'd suffocate."

"So, what's causing the problem?"

"A birth defect. I suspect it's a malformed valve in the plexus, but we won't know for sure till we do a scan."

Beneath the broad, legless body, curving down to almost touch the hanging gondola, was a scorpion-like tail that ended in a single, immense boney hook. The sunkiller used this when it wanted to anchor itself to the ground, which wasn't often. The buff-colored skin had no feathers or scales, but was leathery and dimpled, with darker coloration at the wingtips and intricate patterns of spots radiating up the dual necks onto the heads. The two necks, long and thick as giant pythons, twined and arched in the air as they bore the heads this way and that, the animal seeming to taste the air in this strange, new place.

Giving birth aloft in the upper atmosphere of Kire Secunda, sunkillers lived to be over five hundred years old, and spent almost all of that time drifting on the air currents, feeding on huge shoals of airborne strato-plankton. The only time they approached the ground was during the planet's ferocious, annual wind storms. Then they would descend, anchor themselves to mountaintops with their tail-hooks, and ride out the tempest.

"Otha," she said. A thought had suddenly occurred to her, and she decided on the spur of the moment to go ahead and voice it. Nothing ventured, nothing gaineda. "Would you let me do it? The procedure?"

"On the sunkiller's plexus?" He was clearly startled. "You think you're ready for that?"

"I think so. Yes. I'm sure I can do it."

He considered, but only briefly, chewing at his cheek.

"No," he said then. "The operation is highly complex, Zenn. And the creature is just tooa important. To the Kirans. And the Kirans' business is too important to the cloister. You know that."

"But Otha," she complained, unwilling to accept his evaluation of her skill level. "I am ready. I've a.s.sisted on three or four procedures that are almost identical to a plexus bypa.s.s."

"Oh? Looking over my shoulder as an a.s.sisting Novice Second Order has made you a Master-Surgeon? And a sunkiller specialist to boot? Well, that's good news. We can just skip you right over the next three or four years of training you seem to think you no longer require."

Her uncle was joking with her, but Zenn wasn't in the mood.

"I can do it, Otha. I could show you, if you'd let me do more than watch you, more than just put in a st.i.tch here and there or mop up the b.l.o.o.d.y floors when you're done."

"So it's my fault now? I'm the one holding you back?" He actually laughed at her, shaking his head.

"Otha, how can I make any real progress if you won't let me try? Half the time you treat me like I'm still a little girl, playing exovet with my stuffed animals."

"Zenn, the fact of it is you are not an exovet. Not yet." He lowered his eyebrows, holding her gaze. "That's what being a novice is about. You go step by step. You don't over-reach. So, no, I'm sorry, but you won't be operating on the royal family's sunkiller. Save that for your surgical apprentices.h.i.+p. Save it for when you're ready."

Another thought returned to Zenn now. And she was just angry enough to let it out.

"Actually, I've been thinking about that. My apprentices.h.i.+p."

"Oh? Have you?" He turned his back on her and went to check the cables that secured the sunkiller's gondola to the infirmary floor.

"Hild says the Ciscan hospitaliers at the cloister on Bhranthis have put out a notice. They're accepting acolytes for their pre-surgical program next year."

This had the desired effect. Otha stopped and turned back to her.

"Bhranthis? That's halfway across the Accord. We've always a.s.sumed you'd be doing your acolyte year here on Mars. With us."

Yes. Exactly. You a.s.sume I'll always be here. Always be a stable girl on the bottom rung of the ladder. Maybe the Procyoni boy was right about being shut in a room with books.

Zenn wasn't sure she was serious about Bhranthis. The truth was, until recently, she too had always seen herself staying on Mars for her acolyte year, and possibly beyond. But if Otha was going to treat her like a child, she was going to rebel like one and let him stew.

"Wella" Otha looked as if he wasn't quite sure himself if she was having him on. "Maybe we'll let you do a bit more than a.s.sist on the sunkiller's plexus. But, just a bit. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here."

"Fine," she said, feeling she'd just achieved a surprising victory. "I guess I'll settle for a bit."

"And we'lla keep an open mind about where you'll do your acolyte year, eh?"

Zenn let him worry for a few seconds more.

"Yes, alright," she said. She couldn't resist adding: "But the Sister says the Bhranthis pre-surgical practic.u.m is the best program she's ever seen."

"Hmph," Otha snorted. "She says that, does she?"

Zenn heard the infirmary door open behind her. It was Hamish.

"This is an impressive variety of beast," the coleopt said, stopping at the base of the steps. "Do I have approval to ascend the steps and observe it more closely?"

Zenn sighed. "Hamish, what did we talk about? About approvals?"

"Ah, that I am not to ask another's approval every single time. That I am to think for myself, and take action based on my thoughts. Correct?"

"Yesa and soa?"

"I see. This is one of those times. Very well. I willa come up the stairs? Yes. I am coming up. So," he said when he was next to her, "the Sister tells me this flying-life-form is young. How big will it grow when old?"

"Very big," Otha said, going past Hamish to descend the stairs. "Zenn, I'll let you introduce the s.e.xton to our new arrival. I'm going to warm up the Q-scanner, get it calibrated for a solsolis. Hamish, stick around. We'll need your help positioning the scan sensors."

"Yes, director-abbot," Hamish said, not taking his eyes off the creature. "I will remain here. Novice Scarletta how big will this creature become?"

"A full-grown adult will reach fifteen-hundred feet, measured across the wings."

"That large? It's difficult to envisage such a thing."

"They blot out a pretty big piece of sky when they fly over. That's why the Leukkans first called them sunkillers."

"It is so still, resting in the air." It was true. The sunkiller, despite taking up most of the infirmary, was almost silent, the two heads emitting only a quiet thrum of barely audible vocalizations. "The wings do not flap. How does it fly?"

"See the bladders?" She pointed to the underside of the wings. "All those little bubbles are filled with a mix of gases. The sunkillers produce hydrogen, methane and some other gases as natural by-products. The gases are lighter than air, so that's how they stay up. They mix in oxygen, too, which is heavier and helps them control their alt.i.tude. This one has a problem with its methane plexus. That's the organ that routes the right gases to the right places. It's up on top of her back, running along her backbone, a big, sack-like sort of thing with tubes running out of it down to the bladders under the wings."