Search Image by Julie E. Czerneda

Author:Julie E. Czerneda
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2018-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

20: Field Afternoon

PAUL’S office had become a porch, open to the fields beyond, and he wasn’t here.

I ran within the strong plume of his scent, and Lionel’s, and STRANGERS’—outside to where all vanished within the reek of metal and machine, then lifted my head and HOWLED in grief.

He wasn’t here!

Heedless of anything else, I released my hold on this form, thinning my web-self over the ground, assimilating every bit of living tissue I touched into more web-mass until instinct, form-memory, told me I’d enough.

I cycled again. Drove forward on powerful legs, wings outstretched. Five steps, ten—if not for the steep slope to the creek, it would have been more and too many and I’d have slammed into the waiting train—

Air caught, resisted the essential amount. My first mighty beat broke feather tips against the ground, but the second thrust me high in the air and over the train.

Find him!

I met rising air, a gift of the afternoon’s unsettled weather, and soared upward. Even as I gained altitude, I searched, tilting my head to bring this form’s remarkable eyes to bear, scanning for my quarry.

There! A glint, artificial, fleeing.

Skyfolk, as this species was known, couldn’t outfly an aircar. I didn’t need to—

I remained where I was, as I was, long enough to be sure of the kidnappers’ course, then snapped my wings closed and plummeted to the ground.

Wind screamed past me. I screamed with it, for I knew where they were going. To the landing field.

If they got Paul and Lionel offworld—

That, I warned the universe, wasn’t going to happen.

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