Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

To a single Feral.

A lone Feral with the glowbuds on half its body darkened? and a gouge on its neck like that left by the barrels of a Gattler. Karr recognized his enemy from that afternoon, the suspicious Feral who had fought Karr to the point of defeat and then inexplicably left after tasting Karr's blood. That Feral was the leader of the light.

That Feral raged.

Despite half the Feral's glowbuds being blackened out, his rage was a sight to behold. Irresistible.

When he raged, the whole island raged. When he challenged, the whole island challenged with him. His sorrow and anger drove the others on. What Karr had felt in the alien's desolate howl that afternoon now filled Karr's vision, bathing his body in that emotion. It was like the sorrow of centuries lost to loneliness.

It was like the bittersweet splendor of centuries given to Duty in a fugueship.

Karr was frozen in place as, across dark ocean waters, other Ferals on other islands rallied behind other emotion-filled leaders, building radiant arsenals of their own and then unleashing them. Broadsides of light smeared over the waves. Salvoes of radiance exchanged under the night's star-dotted dome.

XIII

It is easy to dodge the teeth of an enemy, but difficult to avoid the claws of a friend.

? Feral aphorism

Arrou clenched his eyes. He must not look.

But he wanted to look, so very much. The lights spoke to him. They called to him, caressed him. They enticed him with memory feelings of warmth and belonging. Feelings from a long time ago, before Jenette, before humans.

No! He must not look. Must not participate. He was on a mission and must stay secret.

But the lights made patterns on his eyes, even when tightly shut. He burrowed his head under fibrous leaves atop the tree. Still the bright light shone through.

Join us, it said. We are the Radiance. Come to the Radiance....

Arrou's breath came in short gulps. The smell of palm flowers in the tree's top smelled sour compared to the sweet glow of the Radiance. Each moment apart from its light was torture. Without realizing it, Arrou's blending colors had gone dark and his back raised up like the bowing Ferals below. He trembled like a leaf before a storm? he must not give in!

But he could not help it.

Be the Radiance. ...

Arrou's eyes opened. He saw the Radiance. Shivers swept along his glowbuds as he lit up, adding his spark to the splendor. And the Radiance saw him too. It brought Arrou to its soft, warm bosom.

And for the first time in his memory, Arrou was home.

The islands battled into alliances of brilliance, attacking and counterattacking, conquering and surrendering. Very bright were the islands arrayed against FI-716, but Karr saw that it would not be beaten. For, no matter the spectacle united against it, Karr's enemy played the light with unstoppable strength of feeling. His enemy's longing enflamed the longing of his radiant allies; his misery consoled their misery and his loss eased their loss. Soon, all the points of light, all the visible ring-islands, were enveloped in a single, synchronous radiance, following that single Feral's will. The radiance throbbed lighter and brighter until it reached a unified peak and held, proclaiming its existence to the heavens.

Pain and pleasure. Sorrow and love. Hope and desolation. These things Karr experienced stronger than he had ever experienced before, stronger than he had ever thought possible. It was just light, after

all, but so strong, so, so ... so much more than just light. Karr found himself wishing that he could light up his blank skin and glow in synchrony with the aliens, no matter how painful the double-edged feelings might be, wanting never to let them go. Never, ever. Jenette felt it, too, as well as the numb void that followed, like a blind man seeing for the first time, and then returning to blindness.

Slowly, the light faded.

"I feel... invisible," said Jenette.

Moving as if in a trance, vision smudged with afterimages, Karr dropped out of the crawler and solemnly began swapping good microfiber relays for bad.

The Ferals on shore began to shift.

Jenette looked for Arrou. He had been in his tree the whole time. She remembered now that he had flashed with all the rest, unable to resist the magic and blessed with the means to respond in kind. His energetic colors had been out of sync, like a human child tooting a kazoo to Mozart. Now that the light show was over, Ferals prowled at the base of his tree. They could have climbed it as easily as Arrou had, but made no aggressive moves. The Ferals did not even look in his direction.

The Khafra opposite the heavy lifter were a different story.

There was no question of their focus on the humans. In arching backs and colors steeped in hatred, Jenette recognized their mood. She looked at the Gattler, wondering if Karr was right, but refused to pick it up. Weapons were the way of her father.

She must follow her own path.

"Just a few more seconds," Karr said. Ferals bunched up on shore, pressing to get closer to the humans as he merged microfibers into the left front thruster control conduit. He snapped the last connector into place. Double-checking the strands, and paying no attention to Jenette, Karr hurried back to the cockpit, flipping switches and pushing buttons to power up. All four engines spun up to a gentle hum.

"Prepare for launch," Karr said with satisfaction.

"No," Jenette said from behind him, the strange tone of her voice staying his hands on the controls.

Karr turned, intending to protest, but fell silent.

Jenette was standing in a precarious position on the lifter's landward sidewalk where any sudden use of the engines would topple her into predator infested waters. She extended her arms, palms outstretched to the Ferals.

"What are you doing?" Karr hissed.

"Rikit-ee-brikhauss," Jenette said, her voice cracking.

"Rickety brick what?" Karr said, confused. "Get down from there. You'll make those things mad!"

The Ferals were just as shocked at Jenette's behavior as Karr was. They stopped in their tracks and tilted their heads in surprise.

"Please get down from there," Karr urged.

Jenette ignored him, counting on her vulnerable position to prevent him from taking off. She repeated

the Khafra words, stronger, "Rikit-ee-brikhauss." Light be upon you.

The Ferals angled their ear pits toward her, straining to hear. Their eyes pressed fully forward from their skulls, as if straining to see in the dark (which could not be right, Jenette knew, since Khafra had extremely good night vision).

Leaving the engines running, Karr darted behind the crawler and retrieved the Gattler.

"Rikit-ee-brikhauss!" Jenette said as loud as she could.

This time several of the aliens responded, bodies flashing with light language, flash, pop, sparkle, pop. "Din-tixss-ymisstash," they vocalized, hesitantly. Shadows away. But they clearly were reacting without thinking. Some even held four-thumbed paws over shocked mouths as the words tumbled out.

Other Khafra rumbled threateningly, distrustful of the human using their language. They, Jenette saw, wanted to kill her more than ever.

But at least she had their attention.

This one brings peace, Jenette said in words she had rehearsed with Arrou many times. This one brings peace from human colony. Who speaks for Khafra?

The Ferals stared at her, uncomprehending. Jenette had said the words right, she knew, but the expected response did not materialize. She struggled to find alternate words. Humans and Khafra must...

stop conflict. Want peace for humans and Khafra. Do Khafra understand?

The Ferals were trying to understand her. They repeated some of her words, as if struggling with a foreign language and not their own, and they flashed at her, pop pop flash crackle, trying to communicate.