A Dæmon's Heart
Chapter Two
Twisting and Bending
It was the second day after the Phantoms had been eliminated. Two days that were a kaleidoscope of emotion for those stranded at the edge of the abyss that was the Leonid impact site. What remained of the world was safe, but at the cost of life and broken hearts.
So the second evening came. The knowledge that life would go on reinforced itself as speculation was made fact. Aki busied herself, trying to fix what she knew how in the innards of the Black Boa. It did little to help the desolation caused by Gray's death, but little was something.
Not that it was doing any good for the ship. What was broken was either irreparable or insignificant. Maybe with the proper knowledge and tools, or schematics and instructions or… something.
She pulled her head out of the floor and replaced the panel. After four hours, it was time for a break. There she knelt for some time, motionless and lost in thought. In the artificial light of the storage compartment, she pondered what she could have done differently. Anything that would have prevented New York or….
In a retrospective, she knew what went wrong.
We shouldn't have allowed them to get involved. We should have done it on our own. Whether or not it was possible didn't matter; all that did was how it had happened. Chisic, don't ever let me make that mistake again.
The dæmon next to her trilled, and Aki held out her arm. He climbed up to her shoulder, and nestled close against her head.
---
"Anything?" It was a question not for the worth of asking, but for the worth of sound.
"A lot of things," Sid scratched his chin, watching as Chisic fluttered to the back of the now-vacant flight chair. "Ah!" the elderly scientist reached out to stop Aki from sitting down. With an apologetic smile, he motioned to the seat.
Aki leaned slightly to better see the rabbit dæmon huddled there, and asked, "What's wrong with her?" Chisic hopped, from backing to armrest, to seat, and nudged the ailing creature with a curled talon.
"I thought she was fading at first. But now I don't know," The old man shrugged, "She… looks sick." Which was impossible. Dæmons didn't get sick. Although neither could they live without their human. And a human couldn't live without his dæmon.
And ever since the Phantoms had come, all knowledge of life had changed in some way.
The dæmon wormed away from Chisic to fall to the floor with a painfully audible thud. The rabbit crawled away, her hind legs dragging as though she was paralyzed. Aki stood, reluctant to call the doe back because of the simple and understandable, yet suddenly embarrassing fact that she didn't know the name; and she felt bad because she didn't try.
For some reason, she believed that she should have. Aki remembered the man; and the surprise that he had a dæmon after all, so well hidden was she when first they met.
"Did you fix anything?"
Her dæmon relinquished his place, and Aki found the willpower to sit down. "Nothing useful." Aki squinted at the display over the computerized panel, "What's that?"
"This?" Sid smiled that old, sagacious smile he always did, "Oh, this is nothing…." His smile grew as Aki's eyes moved rapidly as she took in as much of the information as moved over the holographic filaments. Even with all the studies that had been done – on nature, on bioethric energy, or anything else – it was difficult to tell whether the readouts and scans were normal or not. This was the first and only tangible record they had on Gaia; and it included the interaction with the Phantoms.
"But I would like to get it to a lab, wouldn't you?" Not that the 'Boa's labs wouldn't work fine… if they were working properly to begin with. And they would probably not be given the chance to see such chronicled reactions again if the computers, in a fit of failure, decided to erase the account.
Aki mumbled her answer. Research… study, was something that could keep her mind busy as well as the hands. But for the blood in those hands…. She toyed with the edge of her shirt where it crossed her neck. She still wore the metal plate that held the 'wave data, just because there was nowhere safer to keep it.
"What about…?" She couldn't accept that just yet, either, "How would we get access?" Chisic hopped from the armrest on their chair to the armrest on Sid's to scrutinize the strings of information that poured forth across the display. The old man moved slightly to avoid jostling the dæmon by accident.
"We were discussing that earlier," Sid said, and Kvasir trilled.
"We thought maybe… New York's generators are probably still running; at least better than this ship is right now."
"It wasn't quite our idea," Sid admitted at Aki's hesitant demeanor, "But we thought we could pick up some data there from the labs, possibly some ovo cells and go to Nevada; and stay there for a while."
Chisic jumped across to Aki again, and she held the osprey-dæmon close.
"We could…. It has also been suggested that," i.e., 'also not my idea' "If we can't get airborne again with this ship, that we… borrow, another."
The woman leaned slightly, peering into darkened area of the cabin. She couldn't help feeling some strange amusement in the idea, even if there was a slight guilt there as well.
"And where would we get another?" she wondered aloud, an acerbic touch at the back of her throat. This was a fun game….
"Well," the old man laughed, "It was, well, it was put forth that we…" he sighed; the plan was indeed dangerous, "Could call them to us, and if they come…. Presuming you can fly such a craft, we obtain the use of their transport."
"What if I couldn't?"
"Then… we have a lot to account for ourselves," Sid shrugged, "And a little extra."
Sure, she could have taken it all as a joke. Yes, she could have thought it through. Yeah, she could have done the sane thing and tried everything and anything else first. But something had become broken, and was far from healing anytime soon.
---
The man fidgeted uncomfortably. His dæmon, a Canadian goose, echoed the sentiment by stepping lightly from foot to foot. They weren't in any danger, but being left to guard the Corel transport was not his idea of fun. Besides, if it was so safe, then why did that stupid officer need such a heavy guard? Because he's stupid, came the not quite thought out response.
While his dæmon shuddered and ruffled her feathers, the man studied at the more massive craft. It was larger than the one he currently guarded; sleeker, with a curve here instead of there… but along a similar design. It has a familiar feeling to it as though he should have known something about it. His companions were out of sight, he noticed, and there hadn't been any trouble yet. His mind wandered, and he stood as tall as he could to see the edge of the Phantom crater. It seemed more jagged than he thought it should be; and there were no Phantoms.
Everyone was wary of that.
His dæmon shambled to the end of her tether, peering around the ramp. She bristled again as she turned around, and shrieked in surprise as something heavy landed her flat.
The man bit his tongue, quite hard, to avoid shouting out. The suddenness of the pain shocked his breath from him, and he scrambled for his dæmon…. Through his display he saw that the blur of her was being held away from him, not by Phantoms, as he had feared; but by a slightly bigger blue blur; and he couldn't get through her terror to see straight from her eyes. He tore off his helmet as fast as it would come, while securely keeping his end of the tether in one hand. That which held him growled, and he raised his head to meet the green-gold gaze of a very angry lynx-dæmon.
Had he been of a quicker individual's reasoning, he might have screamed. Or perhaps he would have recovered the weapon he'd so negligently dropped, or tried to talk or reason with the creature.
Instead, he squeaked an indiscernible syllable somewhat related to, 'o.'
Another sound caught his attention, and he struggled to move and see the woman behind him; the one quite aptly aiming his own rifle at his unprotected head. He twisted his neck a little further to see the indifferent aged man staring at him in a merciless way.
He squeaked again, quite callow to such an experience. And he might have cried for help, had the comm. unit been closer at hand than in his discarded helmet.
---
Dr. Sid admitted to himself the sheer fear of the younger man, but judged that this was the sensible course of action. If allowed to go find his command, he would no doubt damage their escape. Or, the way he was acting, stand there perfectly paralyzed while he was incinerated in the wake of their take off. No, this was probably best of the man's choices.
While Aki familiarized herself with the aircraft, Sid secured the younger man in the passenger hold. He cut the dæmon's tether; and used one half to bind the stranger to a railing, and the other half to hang his dæmon by her harness on another just out of reach across the compartment. He didn't feel good about it, but it was a mild guarantee to the safety of all concerned.
---
Aki was glad for a clean landing. The differences between this aircraft and her ship were just enough to be irritating, if only that. And, of course they couldn't use a real landing platform – oh, no… there were already people there, and she couldn't be bothered to deal with anyone as she was…. Besides, they were closer to the lab here than they would have been there.
It made sense to her.
She ran through the ship, Chisic flying along behind. She ignored the stranger, who stared at her with bugged eyes; and his dæmon, who dangled helplessly from the rail to which she was tied.
The rabbit-dæmon bounded after Aki and Sid as they disembarked, and stopped behind them as they did abruptly. The lynx-dæmon walked to the foot of the ramp, and lingered there. His ears twitched slightly, but not as noticeable as the doe's.
She stood high, ears up and twisted in the direction of the nigh inaudible sound. The bird-dæmons heard it too, as well as the scientists.
The lagomorph dæmon was the first to identify it as something familiar.
"That's Takotia!" the shock of recognition didn't last long, as the little being dashed across the abandoned promenade, heedless of the new ruins of the recently collapsed city.
Aki might have followed, out of concern rather than recognition; save that, some yards into the chase, she nearly fell when something grabbed onto her leg.
The woman, a stranger, held fast to Aki's ankle, her brown eyes silently pleading for something. Aki recoiled; the woman had no dæmon, and she wanted to know, "Where is he?"
