The Voyage of the White Cloud by M. Darusha Wehm

Author:M. Darusha Wehm
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780995104822
Publisher: in potentia press

When Neils arrived at the aviary, he was a little early. “I’ve still got one bird to examine,” Celine said when he walked in the door. “You can come back if you want.”

“It’s okay,” Neils said. “I’ve got a few things to do around here.” He began tidying up the lab, his mind on his conversation with Kiew. Zie just enjoyed arguing, usually the more far-fetched the better. Though zie was right about one thing—there wasn’t any conclusive proof about a lot of the things they’d been told about their journey. And so much of what came out of the leadership and the Academy was so obviously mythological garbage, that it did make him wonder what you could believe.

He looked over at Celine, who was carefully handling a now-awake but groggy starling. He’d had his differences with her over the years, certainly, but there was no doubt that she cared about the animals as much as he did. Of course, her idea of concern was to capture them, inject them with drugs and make sure they developed properly. Neils was no biologist, but he thought the birds would be happier left alone, hidden in the trees.

“All done,” Celine said, as the last bird began to feebly flutter its wings. She put it back into the wire cage with its fellows and took off her gloves. “They’re doing great,” she said. “I’ll have to analyze the samples I took to know more, but all in all I’d say that we can all be really proud of the avian project.” She stepped back and smiled broadly at Neils. “This is a great contribution to the mission. It feels good to be making history, don’t you think.”

“Sure,” Neils said, picking up the cage. “I’m going to get these guys back where they belong now.”

“All right.” Celine’s smile faded. “Thanks for your help.” Neils nodded and left.

He opened the first door to the forest as the birds regained their voices. They obviously didn’t like the tranquilizers, and were always loud once the drugs wore off. He waited for the outer door to close, then opened the inner door. Once it had closed, he gave it a little tug to be sure before opening the cage. He was careful to keep away from the hatch as the birds fought to escape. They flew off into the trees and it took only seconds before Neils couldn’t see them anymore. He could still hear them, though.

He went through the careful double door procedure to make sure none of the forest creatures got out, then walked back to the lab with the empty cage. He thought about the birds.

They didn’t need stories about how they were the most heroic starlings ever, living carriers of precious DNA across the years of space and time. They didn’t need to believe that they came from a forest of unimaginable beauty and fragility, that they had allowed it to be destroyed, and their penance was to be trapped in a cage for generations until they finally reached a new tree full of possibility and promise.

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