But what was that dark spot that crept forward so slowly?
All but forgetting Br’sei, T’sha dropped down for a better look. From the taste of the air, she knew Br’sei followed her flight.
As she descended, the speck resolved into one of the New People’s transports crouched on the crust directly below her. She was about to rise again, automatically, to avoid detection when the transport flashed a bright light.
Startled, T’sha fanned her wings. The transport crawled a little northward, then stopped.
“What are they doing in there?” Without waiting for an answer, T’sha dropped down a little closer, even though the pressure became uncomfortable this near to the crust.
The transport crawled away a little further and stopped.
T’sha stretched her wings and flew until she was almost directly over the transport again.
It crawled out from under her, and T’sha flew after it. It kept going.
“They want us to follow.” Br’sei’s words startled her with their light touch.
He was right. They were trying to reach out. They wanted her to come with them, somewhere. A thrill of fear and eagerness ran through her. The New People were trying to talk to her. Was her particular person in there? The one who had stood so still, watching her during the rescue? Was this her doing?
“Br’sei.” She turned to him, now knowing what he could do to help, although it was a long way from what she’d initially believed she would say. “I need you to go back to base. Don’t tell anyone what you’ve seen here.”
“Why not?” he asked mildly.
T’sha looked back over her wing at him. “Because it is possible there will be some objection to what I am going to do next, and I don’t want to be stopped.”
Br’sei held himself still. “What are you going to do?”
“Find out what the New People want.” T’sha did not wait to see if he moved or not. She gave her will up to the wind and let it propel her. The transport saw her movement and began creeping forward again.
T’sha flew directly over the transport, working hard to keep herself from getting ahead of it. They moved so slowly, these New People, creeping across the folds and ripples of the crust. What was that like to feel the crust constantly under your hands? To know its composition and texture as intimately as any of the People knew the winds?
Curiosity spurred her forward, accompanied by a childlike fear that someone would see her and stop her game.
One of the living highlands approached, thickening the air with its scents, making T’sha’s skin quiver reflexively with the anticipation of rich life, although there was none to absorb. The transport underneath her skirted the highland carefully as if afraid to get too close. Maybe they were. Frozen as cold as they were, who knew what the heat of a highland meant to them?
Beyond the highland, the crust was a tapestry of trenches and ragged valleys. In a small, irregular cup cut by some ancient lava pool waited another transport. The transport she’d been following pulled up beside its twin and stopped.
T’sha stayed where she was, and so did they. Immobile. Waiting. For what?
“Camera, descend and report,” she said in the command language.
The camera extricated itself from her posthand and closed its umbrella. It dropped down until T’sha lost sight of it against the blacks and grays of the old lava flows. She banked in a slow circle, forcing herself to be patient.
At long last, the camera, its umbrella open, began to rise again. Abandoning caution, T’sha dropped to meet it. She grasped it in both forehands, turning it over until its replay eye faced her.
“Show me,” she ordered.
In the bowed reflection of the eye, she saw the transports, standing still and patient. She saw a clear box, very like an isolation box, sitting on the crust. It was connected by tubes and wires to one of the transports. A low, perfectly straight, silver tunnel also connected it to a slight rise in the crust.
As she looked closer, she saw that inside the box was a sphere, and inside the sphere…was a New Person, rendered in shades of red.
It wasn’t the bulky, shelled creature she’d seen walking around, but those had been protective coverings of some kind. No, this was a New Person, stripped to their essence, or nearly so.
It was a biped. Its torso was not so angular as the protective covering made it look. Its skin was soft, and it looked to be wearing some gentle skins or cloths. It had hands, a head, and, unmistakably, eyes. They were small, almost alarmingly so in that flat face, but those were indisputably eyes, looking out at her. It had one forehand raised up. In greeting? Perhaps. Why not?
Underneath the New Person’s feet were more images, also all in red. Why red? Could they see no other color? T’sha ordered the camera to concentrate on the lower images. The surroundings vanished as the camera recalled what she needed.