Laura Jo Phillips by Berta's Choice Page B

any moment, he was sure.  While they waited, Tor unzipped his protective pocket and removed his hand terminal.
    “Squilik shit!” he exclaimed.  “Berta’s transponder has been activated.”
    “What?” Merrick asked, stunned.  “When?”
    “Thirty minutes ago,” Tor replied as he rapidly pressed buttons on the device.  “The signal’s coming from the north, about eight miles away, on ranch property.”  Tor shoved the terminal back in his pocket and shifted a moment behind Jerri and Merrick.  He raced forward until he was in the lead since he was the one who knew where they were going.  The entire time he flew he berated himself ceaselessly for not checking the hand terminal while they were in Granite Falls.
    “It wouldn’t have mattered,” Merrick said, obviously catching some of Tor’s stray thoughts.  “I doubt that the signal would have transmitted beyond the ranch barrier.”
    “Whether it would have or not is not the point,” Tor replied .  “I should have checked anyway.  If anything happens to Berta, I will never forgive myself.”
    “Then lets get there before anything happens to her,” Merrick replied.
    ***
    Berta looked into the Xanti’s eyes, eyes that were a mirror image of her own, and felt her new, young body fail her.  She slumped to her knees on the grass, thinking of the Falcorans and the future she might have had if she hadn’t waited so long to summon them from Berria.  She lost her balance and fell sideways, her eyes still on the Xanti, and forced herself to think.  There had to be a way out of this.  There just had to be.  She had lived through everything else, she would live through this.  Somehow.
    The Xanti looked down at her, then dismissed her.  It turned instead to face Sergio and cocked its head.  “I think I shall break your neck,” it said.  “That way there will be less suspicion about your death.  I’ll put your body into the ground-car, and run it into a tree.  Yes, that should work fine.”
    As the Xanti spoke, Berta felt a strange tickling sensation in her mind and her eyes widened in surprise.  They’re coming , she thought.  She tried to speak, wanting to tell Sergio to run, hoping to make the Xanti hesitate for just a moment with the news that help was on the way, but she found that she couldn’t speak.  She couldn’t even open her mouth. 
    She watched helplessly as the Xanti wearing a Berta suit stalked Sergio.  Finally Sergio began to realize he either had to move or accept death, and he began backing away.  The Xanti laughed, a gay, lighthearted, cold sound that she was certain had never come from her own throat, no matter how much it sounded like her. It was a sound that made Berta’s flesh pebble. 
    The tickling sensation grew stronger, and she thought she heard a soft whooshing sound, as though the wind had picked up.  And then, suddenly, wonderfully, happily, three gigantic black falcorans landed between herself and the Xanti that looked like her. 
    ***
    Merrick, Tor and Jerri circled high over the small copse of trees, their sharp falcoran eyes and ears having no trouble seeing or hearing the figures far below them.  Jerri opened his beak wide and tilted it toward the sky as he flew, screaming silently with fear and fury at the sight below them. 
    “We will save her, Jerri,” Merrick said when the echoes of Jerri’s silent scream faded from his mind.  He wanted to scream his fury to the heavens too, but he was holding onto his control by a thread as it was.  Giving vent to his anger might very well push him over the edge into a full blood-rage and if that happened, Berta would surely die.  She was their Arima, and she needed them.  Her needs came first.
    “Berta is the one lying on the ground,” Tor said.
    “You are sure?” Merrick asked.  They could all see that the two Berta figures looked identical to one another, but they were too far away to scent them.  They knew that one of the figures was a Xanti,