Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

Traffic?

Immediately Hoki put on the brakes. “What do you mean by that?”

Two birds have recently passed our way , the blindworm said. One of them was caught by the pouakai .

Hoki tried to still her thudding heart. “Is she still alive?”

Who knows? The pouakai herself has harvested our skies and taken some of our brothers to feed her chicks. The eggs have already hatched .

“Oh no,” Hoki answered. “I’d better get my skates on.”

She went absolutely vertical, hurtling downward through the blackness. What was a little vertigo when there was a matter of life or death to deal with? It seemed a thousand years went past before she emerged again into the light. But this time she knew she had made it.

“I’m here! I have reached the paepae o te Rangi,” she said. “I am at the edge of our universe.”

Before her eyes she saw the magnificence of the Earth’s planetary system, a place centred by a radiant sun and circled by familiar planets. She recognised Venus, Vega, Antares, Canopus and Orion’s Belt. Third planet out she saw the Earth, a beautiful green and blue orb with a circling moon. As the Earth revolved, she saw the sparkling corona called the Southern Cross.

Heart beating fast, Hoki dived for the Southern Cross. She was going so fast that she looked like a comet streaking through the stratosphere. When she arrived she stilled, staring squarely and intently deep into space. She was at the right coordinates, in the right quadrant.

“But have I come too late?” she agonised.

No. There was a rumble. A roar. From out of the menacing sea of the universe, where things go bump in the night, the volcanic island appeared, making its regular rotation from the dark side of the sun.

“Here we go.” Hoki beat her wings faster and faster. They blurred as she reached the same speed as the rotational circling of the volcanic island. As the island passed by, she hitched a ride. The centrifugal forces did the rest, pulling her in and then spitting her out.

Right below her was the pouakai’s nest. Three chicks were in it.

But where was the mother pouakai? There, at the base of the nest. It was trying to get at a tiny bird huddled in a small crack in the rocks. Hoki widened her irises and her long-range vision clicked in. The tiny bird was fighting back.

Skylark.

Hoki didn’t even take time to think. She opened her mouth and a tremendous screeching cry came from it.

“I am the Hokioi —”

Skylark had almost given up when the screeching cry split the heavens apart. Surprised, the pouakai, pulled her beak away.

Flying down through space, coming straight at her was a strange bird. The pouakai had never seen anything like it. But as soon as Skylark spotted the way the bird trailed its legs, as if it was lame, she knew it was Hoki. “Oh Hoki —”

Hoki flew around the pouakai’s head, trying to entice it away. But the pouakai was undeterred — it had the raptor’s advantage of size and strength, after all, so it bent again to rooting out its prey.

“Are you deaf?” Hoki screamed. “Did you not hear my name? I am the Spirit Messenger of the Gods.”

The pouakai roared in response.

Then go about delivering your messages. You have no business here.

“Oh no?” Hoki answered. “Watch this space.”

She flew up to the pouakai’s nest and disappeared over the rim. When she reappeared, she had one of the squawking chicks in her claws. Furious, the pouakai half scrambled, half flew towards her. Calmly, Hoki reversed out of the way. She and the pouakai eyeballed each other. The pouakai rattled and hissed.

Don’t even think of harming my child.

“You took one of mine,” Hoki said, “so I am taking one of yours. Don’t like it do you?” She indicated Skylark. “You wanna do a trade? Then back up. Back up, I say!”

The pouakai understood the deal and nodded.

Hoki turned to Skylark. “What are you like at the sprints, the hundred-yard dash?”

“Hopeless. Me and school sports never worked out.”

“Well, hitch up your skirts, girl,” Hoki said, “because I’m going to persuade the pouakai to follow me. I’ll use her chick to lure her as far away as I can from you. While I’m doing this, I want you to to fly as fast as you can to the place where the sky hangs down to the horizon. That is where the ripped sky is, at the paepae o te Rangi. We’re going out the way the seabirds came in.”

The plan confirmed, Hoki continued her reversing movement, the pouakai’s chick in her claws. The pouakai followed her. Across the sky they went, feinting, attacking, fending like boxers. The pouakai roared and hissed with anger, but Hoki kept her cool. From the corner of her left eye she saw a black hole forming. It began to swell, then widened below her, an inverted cone leading into infinity.

“Go, Skylark!” Weak and exhausted, Skylark crawled out of the crack in the volcano and began to fly in the direction of the ripped sky. Seeing this, the pouakai could not retain her rage.

We had an arrangement. Honour it now.

“Okay,” Hoki shrugged. She dropped the chick into the black hole. Screaming, the pouakai went after it, trying to save it before it disappeared forever.

My baby .

“That’ll keep her busy,” Hoki said. She tensed, wheeled and used a turbo-boost of speed to catch up with Skylark.

“I’d almost given up hope,” Skylark wept. She had crossed almost halfway to the ripped sky.

“You didn’t think I’d leave you out here all alone in the dark, did you? Hush, Skylark dear, don’t you cry. Switch your booster rockets on and let’s high tail it out of here.”

All of a sudden, Hoki heard a distant roar. The mother pouakai had rescued her chick and was placing it back into the nest.

“Don’t worry about her,” Hoki said. “She won’t be able to catch us up now.”

Oh yeah?

The pouakai had an ace up her sleeve. She did a curious thing. As the volcanic island revolved, she revolved with it, like a satellite orbiting the Earth.

“The pouakai is using the speed of the revolving island as a slingshot,” Hoki said, alarmed. “Once she reaches escape velocity, she’ll be able to catch us up.”

Sure enough, there was a series of loud reports as the pouakai broke free of the island and began to accelerate after them. So fast was her flight that she closed in very quickly on Skylark and Hoki. Her talons were braced for deadly duty.

Coming ready or not .

“Just keep on my left wing, Skylark,” Hoki yelled. “Conserve your strength. Glide along in my wake. Cruise in my slipstream. We’re almost there.”

Skylark was whimpering. Ahead was the vertical wind shaft leading to the ripped sky, so tantalisingly near. But the pouakai was crashing through the stars, roaring through meteor showers like a train, getting closer and closer.

Hoki took a gamble. Calibrated the distance. Stalled and sideslipped.

“What are you doing?” Skylark shouted as Hoki fell behind.

“Don’t worry about me. It’s you the pouakai’s after!”

Hoki was right. The pouakai wasn’t about to hunt another supernatural bird. It went for the easier catch. Ignoring Hoki, it grabbed for Skylark. Extended its neck. Snapped its jaws. Missed. Roared with rage as its quarry made it up the wind shaft.

I’m coming to get you .

That’s when Hoki made her move. “Not if I have anything to do with it,” she said. She knew she was no body match for the heavier bird, but as the pouakai went past her she threw all her strength into a powerful side thrust. “Yeeargh!” Body-slammed the bugger. Saw the pouakai’s look as it was pushed off course. Went for the slam dunk.