Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

Some time later Jenette removed Karr's dressing. Both his burns and her burns were healed to the point where the skin looked healthy, if a little tender, and would continue to heal on its own. Karr stripped out of the kilnsuit. Then he powered the lifter back up and flew away from the burning horizon.

It was with a lump in her throat that Jenette realized the direction Karr had chosen: northeast. Back toward the Enclave. When Karr wasn't looking, Jenette sealed a hermetic bag, where she had put his burned skin for later disposal, and stuffed it into a pocket.

Hours later, with the column of flame still visible even though its base had sunk far below the horizon, Karr and Jenette were treated to a second Clash of Radiance. It was even more impressive than the first, because there were more islands grouped on the water below and many more points of Feral light. There were even Ferals on the ocean in small craft. The patterns danced from island to island like wildfire.

From their high vantage, Karr and Jenette saw designs radiate from competing bright spots in curling fractal patterns. It seemed to the humans that those patterns were different from the previous night, as if influenced in some way by the column of flame and its forest fire glow. Rainbow Shockwaves enveloped all the points of light on the horizon and, as the rite drew to a close, those waves centered around a single angry spot of light on the water.

Despite the beauty of the display, Jenette felt a chill. What did it all mean?

Karr kept flying after it was over, wanting to keep moving, but after another hour his head began to nod from fatigue.

"I've got to stop," Karr decided, his head snapping erect.

"Good idea," Jenette agreed. It was the third time Karr had momentarily lost consciousness.

The ideal spot to land for the night would have been on a ring-island, but they didn't dare risk another encounter with Ferals, so Karr flew until they found a wide expanse of open ocean and put the heavy lifter down.

"Someone better keep watch," Karr said, heaving himself out of the cockpit. "If the Ferals spot us...."

"I'll go first," Jenette volunteered. "I slept last night."

Karr pushed a couple of empty storage crates together for a bed, spread the survival blanket on them, and wadded up the remains of his old ghimpsuit for a pillow, but before he lay down, he detached an object from his kilnsuit and unwrapped it. "Here," he yawned, offering the object to Jenette. "This is for you."

"What is it?" she asked, looking at, but not taking the lumpy sphere.

"It's a starlure," Karr explained. "It might help with your communication problem."

Before Jenette could say anything more, Karr connected the starlure to a powerpak and tapped its colored studs. The sphere lit up like a galaxy of stars, spraying the lifter with fairy-like ballroom lights.

"Try?" Karr asked, reoffering it to her.

Jenette took the globe, tentatively tapping the studs with her small hands. It repeated whatever sequence she made, long pulses, short flashes, rapid patterns, sparkling strobes, and in any color of the rainbow. "Din-tixss-ymisstash," she whispered, tapping.

Flash, pop, sparkle, pop, went the starlure.

Jenette's mouth hung open.

Karr smiled wearily. "I thought you might like it."

Jenette cradled the precious sphere. "This is worth all the metal on New Ascension. I can talk to Ferals with this. But... I thought you didn't approve of my attempt to talk to Ferals?"

Karr shook his head. "I didn't understand. I was in error." He plumped his makeshift pillow and lay down. "It's a noble cause and I'll do whatever I can to help."

"You will?"

"After I save my ship." Karr curled up and pulled the blanket over himself. "Wake me in a few hours."

It wasn't long before his breath came slow and deep, the lullaby motion of rollers sweeping across the ocean and the lapping of water against the hull rocking him fast asleep. Jenette resisted the urge to play with the starlure for fear of attracting unwanted Feral attention, but she held it close.

Hours passed. Jenette kept watch sitting on the crawler or standing quietly with Karr in view. There was little noise other than the wind and wave, not even the sounds of hoppers or violin bugs, which filled any night on a ring-island. Between periodic scans of the lonely horizon, Jenette found her attention drifting to Karr. His arrival was already affecting the course of New Ascension history. For better or for worse, she could not predict which. Although the burning ocean was certainly not for better? but the starlure was a promising sign.

Time flowed.

She found more and more of her attention focused on Karr. Sleep, she noticed, softened the perpetually dour expression on his face. Why did that inconsequential observation seem so important to her? She couldn't say. But Pilot Lindal Karr was different, and not just because he was a grown man, although that was alluring. No, Karr was also fresh. Karr was new. He was mysterious and a bit dangerous. And that was somehow exciting, which appealed to the woman-child who wrote naïve erotic prose in a little black book. And he was honorable. That was clear in the actions he took to save his ship, however doomed those actions might be.

All of this Jenette felt rather than thought. Her thoughts were scarier, because looking at a man in such a way was a sure sign of the changes taking place in her body. The hormone inhibitors had failed her. She was turning into a woman? and little girls on New Ascension did not live happily ever after when they turned into women.

At least Arrou would live.

The night glowed red.

Jenette had no clear memory of when she first heard the whine building behind the shshsh-shshsh of the elements, but at some point her trance was broken by the recognition of a sound: man-made skimmers. How many she could not tell.

What were skimmers doing so far beyond the defensive perimeter? The answer popped into Jenette's head: they were looking for her; that was the only reason skimmers would venture so deep into Feral territory. With that answer came personal responsibility and concern. It could be Toliver or Skutch or Grubb in the skimmers, and they were headed toward the area that she and Karr had just overflown, where the water was thick with Ferals. Remembering Halifax's warnings that Ferals had recently brought down a skimmer, Jenette stepped over to the crawler and pulled a flare pistol from the cab.

She had to warn them.

Jenette broke the pistol open, plugged a flare into its breach and flipped the safety off. Pistol outstretched at the sky, finger wrapping around the trigger, she scanned the ocean. Where were they?

Crimson light glinted off a sleek shape. A rooster tail crept across the water far to the south, like a shimmering veil, a single skimmer jumping into sharp delineation as it passed in front of the red horizon.

A single skimmer.

Jenette's blood ran cold. Her finger hesitated on the trigger. Only one man had the arrogance to fly a lone skimmer outside the Enclave's perimeter and risk such a valuable machine. Halifax would not allow

it. He would send several skimmers armed to the teeth. And only one man had the power to override Colonel Halifax in such a matter.

Jenette's father.

An ugly little thought slithered into her mind. If she did nothing, the Ferals would bring the skimmer down and all her problems would be over. She didn't have to do anything, just hesitate. No one would know. Karr was asleep. And even if the Enclave somehow found out, she could say the flare didn't work. It was old, just like everything else from offworld. Her hand wavered. Put it back in the crawler,

the ugly thought teased. With her father gone, life would be so much easier.