Vonda McIntyre - Fireflood

Behind her the humans shouted, as their detectors went off so loudly even Dark could hear them, and as the humans saw Dark for themselves, some for the first time.

They were very close. They had almost worked their way through the jammed treetrunks, and once they reached solid ground again they could overtake her. She scrambled on, feeling the weight of her armor as she never did underground. Its edges dragged along the basalt, gouging it deeply.

Two flyers landed as softly as wind, as milkweed floss, as pollen grains. Dark heard only the rustle of their wings, and when she looked up from the fissured gray rock, they stood before her, barring her way.

She was nearly safe: she was just on the boundary, and once she was over it the humans could not follow. The delicate flyers could not stand up against her if she chose to proceed, but they did not move to let her pass. She stopped.

Like her, the flyers had huge eyes, to extend the spectrum of their vision. Armored brow ridges and transparent shields protected Dark's eyes and almost hid them. The flyers' eyes were protected, too, but with thick black lashes that veiled and revealed them.

"What do you want, little one?" one of the flyers said. Its voice was deep and soft, and it wrapped its body in iridescent black wings.

"Your help," Dark said. "Sanctuary." Behind her, the humans stopped too. She did not know if they still had the legal right to take her. Their steel net scraped along the ground, and they moved hesitantly closer. The black flyer glared, and the human noises ceased. Dark inched forward, but the flyers did not retreat at all.

"Why have you come?" The black flyer's voice withheld all emotion, warmth, or welcome.

"To talk to you," Dark said. "My people need your help." The raven-winged flyer did not move, except to blink its luminous eyes. But its blue-feathered companion peered at Dark closely, moved a step one way, a step the other, and ruffled the plumage of its wings. The blue flyer's movements were as quick and sharp as those of a bird itself.

"We have no help to offer you," the black flyer said.

"Let me in, let me talk to you." Her claws ground against stone as she moved nervously. She could not flee, and she did not want to fight. She could crush the humans or the flyers, but she had not been chosen for her capacity for violence. Her pursuers knew that perfectly well.

Again the nets scraped behind her as the humans moved forward.

"We've only come for her," one of them said. "She's a fugitive-- we don't want to involve you in any unpleasantness." The powerful searchlight he carried swept over Dark's back, transfixing the flyers, who turned their faces away. The harsh white illumination washed Out the iridescent highlights of the black feathers but brightened the other's wings to the brilliant color of a Stellar's jay.

"Turn out your lights," the jay said, in a voice as brash and demanding as any real bluejay's. "It's dawn-- you can see well enough."

The human hesitated, swung the light away, and turned it off. He motioned to the helicopter and its lights faded. As the jay had said, it was dawn, misty and gray and eerie. The flyers faced Dark's adversaries again.

"We have no more resources than you," the raven flyer said. "How do you expect us to help you? We have ourselves. We have our land. You have the same."

"Land!" Dark said bitterly. "Have you ever seen my land? It's nothing but piles of rotting stone and pits full of rusty water-- " She stopped; she had not meant to lose her temper. But she was hunched on the border of captivity, straining toward sanctuary and about to be refused.

"Send her out so we can take her without violating your boundaries. Don't let her cause you a lot of trouble."

"A little late for such caution," Jay said. "Redwing, if we bow to their threats now, what will they do next time? We should let her in."

"So the diggers can do to our refuge what they did to their own? Pits, and rusting water-- "

"It was like that when we came!" Dark cried, shocked and hurt. "We make tunnels, yes, but we don't destroy! Please hear what I've got to say. Then, if you ask me to go... I'll obey." She made the promise reluctantly, for she knew that once she had lived near the volcano, she would need great will to leave. "I give you my word." Her voice quivered with strain. The humans muttered behind her; a few steps inside the boundary, a few moments inside and then out-- who, besides Dark, would accuse them of entering the flyers' territory at all?

Jay and Redwing glared at each other, but suddenly Jay laughed sharply and turned away. He stepped back and swept one wingtip along the ground, waving Dark into his land. "Come in, little one," he said.

Hesitantly, afraid he would change his mind, Dark moved forward. Then, in a single moment, after her long journey, she was safe.

"We have no reason to trust it!" Redwing said.

"Nor any reason not to, since we could just as well be mashed flat between stone and armor. We do have reason not to help the humans."

"You'll have to send her back," the leader of the humans said. He was angry; he stood glowering at the very edge of the border, perhaps a bit over. "Laws will take her, if we don't now. It will just cost you a lot more in trouble."

"Take your threats and your noisy machine and get out of here," Jay said.

"You will be sorry, flyer," the humans' leader said.

Dark did not really believe they would go until the last one boarded the helicopter and its roar increased, it climbed into the air, and it clattered off into the brightening gray morning.

"Thank you," Dark said.

"I had ulterior motives," Jay said.

Redwing stood back, looking at Jay but not at Dark. "We'll have to call a council."

"I know. You go ahead. I'll talk to her and meet you when we convene."

"I think we will regret this," Redwing said. "I think we are closer to the humans than to the diggers."

The black flyer leaped into the air, wings outspread to reveal their brilliant scarlet underside, and soared away.

Jay laid his soft hand on Dark's shoulder plate to lead her from the lava to volcanic soil. His skin felt frail, and very warm: Dark's metabolism was slower than it had been, while the flyers' chemistry had been considerably speeded up. Dark was ugly and clumsy next to him. She thought of digging down and vanishing but that would be ill-mannered. Besides, she had never been near a flyer before. Curiosity overcame her. Glancing surreptitiously sideways, beneath the edge of her armor, she saw that he was peeking at her, too. Their gazes met; they looked away, both embarrassed. Then Dark stopped and faced him. She settled back to regard him directly.

"This is what I look like," she said. "My name is Dark and I know I'm ugly, but I could do the job I was made for, if they'd let me."

"I think your strength compensates for your appearance," the flyer said. "I'm Jay." Dark was unreasonably pleased that she had guessed right about his name.

"You never answered Redwing's question," Jay said. "Why come here ? The strip mines-- "

"What could you know of strip mines?"

"Other people lived near them before they were given over to you."

"So you think we should stay there!"

Jay replied to her abrupt anger in a gentle tone. "I was going to say, this place is nicer than the strip mines, true, but a lot of places nicer than the strip mines are more isolated than we are. You could have found a hidden place to live."

"I'm sorry," Dark said. "I thought-- "

"I know. Never mind."

"No one else like me got this far, did they?"

Jay shook his head.

"Six of us escaped," Dark said. "We hoped more than one would reach you. Perhaps I'm just the first, though."

"That could be."

"I came to ask you to join us," Dark said.