But, God and Mother Creation, they were beautiful.
One of the People drifted forward from the others, until its (his? her?) muzzle floated a bare centimeter from the thick layer of quartz that separated the humans from the outside.
“Isn’t he one of T’sha’s engineers?” Josh traced the air with his finger, indicating the interlocking circle pattern on the underside of its wings. The tattoos stayed black, despite the surrounding light. The effect was startling.
Vee nodded. They never told us the engineers’ names. Why? But he did look familiar. She stepped forward, leaning between Adrian and Sheila, and looked straight into his eyes.
Do you see me? Do you know me?
Outside, Semi-Familiar swayed from side to side, as if he were taking the measure of the window. Adrian seemed torn between working the controls to keep them steady and staring at the People to try to guess what Semi-Familiar might do. Semi-Familiar circled the scarab. He flew above and underneath. He peered into the rear hatch window. He hovered a long time beside the treads.
“What’s he doing?” demanded Sheila all of a sudden.
“He’s an engineer,” Josh smiled. “He’s saying, look, here’s a cool new machine. How’s it fit together?”
Vee managed to stifle her laugh. But Josh was right. That would be the first thing an engineer would do.
At last, Semi-Familiar returned to the main window, and he stayed there for a long moment, doing nothing but looking in at them, not quite touching the window while his fellows talked—maybe argued—behind him.
Finally, he backed away, drawing almost level with his companions. He said something, and they responded by lifting their muzzles, and deflating and reinflating. Agitatedly? Approvingly? She could tell nothing from their eyes.
Semi-Familiar flew off to the northeast a little and then darted back. He repeated the move several times.
“I think he wants us to follow him,” said Vee.
Adrian’s hands clenched the wheel and then released it. “Okay,” he dragged the word out like a sigh.
“I am officially protesting this,” said Sheila. “I end up like Heathe, I’m coming back and haunting the hell out of you, Makepeace.”
“You end up like Heathe and I’ll deserve it.” Adrian adjusted his controls and eased the stick forward. The scarab flew gently after the Person they thought they recognized.
Their passage did not go unnoticed. The People swarmed around them, thrusting their glowing muzzles toward their windows, and peering inside the scarab with their silver eyes.
“Keep out of the damn way,” breathed Sheila, but it was more like a prayer than a curse.
They did, barely sometimes, but they did. They were born knowing what was needed for flight, and they did not interfere with the scarab’s wing or block the forward path. They did swoop in wide circles all the way around the transport and hover alongside, keeping pace with the machine easily.
“I swam with the dolphins once, in Hawaii,” said Josh. “That was like this, only, this is more…”
Vee nodded, understanding perfectly. She remembered the time her mother took her and her brothers and sisters to a butterfly atrium in St. Louis. She’d stood still in the middle of the garden, sweat and humidity soaking her clothes, while butterflies fluttered all around. The little blurs of color appeared here and there, holding still for a moment before taking off or landing, according to their needs of the moment. She’d felt herself to be in the center of a whole new world, one that belonged to butterflies instead of people.
That feeling came back to her now, impossibly magnified.
Now the portal spread underneath them. Vee hadn’t been prepared for how big it would be. It must have been at least a kilometer across. More. It stretched out until the darkness hid the far edge in her sight. The support struts hunched up like mountain ridges.
The air at the portal’s center trembled, and the scarab vibrated in response. Adrian gritted his teeth and eased the scarab backwards and up. He glanced at Vee as if he wanted to tell her they were leaving now, but he didn’t say anything, and Vee silently thanked him.
Outside, Semi-Familiar stopped, fanning his wings to keep his place. Another Person rocketed up from the portal’s edge. This one had a blue-and-white striped crest that Vee definitely recognized.
“Ambassador D’seun,” she said. Josh nodded once.
D’seun swelled up in front of Semi-Familiar, and whatever he was saying, he was saying it fast and there was a lot of it. Up until then, Vee would have bet nothing could make her take her eyes off the People, but, beneath them, the center of the portal began to glow.
A net woven of strands of pure, white light formed in the massive portal. The strands thickened and strengthened until they became a sheet of light that twisted and folded, and Sheila and Adrian were shouting at each other, and the scarab was backing away and the world clenched itself up for a minute and a whole flock of shining golden bodies shot out of the center of the portal like a living fountain.