Silent Dances by A. C. Crispin, Kathleen O'Malley Page B

foolish parents that
    had ever been caught by the hunters-but things were different now.
    Taller gazed out the windows at the slanting rays of polarized light that led
    him to the Sun Family and asked as he had every day since his son's death-
    Why does Death take us as though we were nothing more than simple water
    dwellers?--but he had stopped getting answers to his prayers long ago.
    Once you lost the Sun Family's favor, your people's loyalty would be next.
    He'd seen their signs. Since Dancer's death, the worst of it was he could no
    longer deny it in his heart.
    Things had changed when the humans came. Some blamed everything on
    that. They disturbed the atmosphere and changed the weather, they upset
    the Moon Family and changed the tides, they angered the Sun Family and
    changed the sunsets.
    Taller had seen more than seventy seasons of weather, tides, and sunsets,
    and knew that was nonsense. Except for Death. That he could not deny.
    How was it the humans had come just as Death decided the White Wind
    people were easier prey than a spawning?
    Some days, Taller wondered if he hadn't lived too long. Fluffing his feathers,
    he pulled his crown up tight, dimming its color, and moved on through the
    shelter.
    The floor' s unnatural surface was slick; his sharp claws rattled uselessly
    against it . He was plagued by an itch between his right eye and his bill, but
    he didn't dare lift a foot to scratch
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    it, for fear his other would slide out from under him. He blinked his third
    eyelid . He was looking for Good Eyes.
    Taller snaked his head around some obstacles--"furn iture" Puff named
    them . He could hear the sound of a muffled waterfall . He listened .
    Something - or someone-was moving in the water. That would have to
    be Good Eyes . Relaxed and First - One-There were outside , supe rv ising the food collection.
    He moved closer to the water sounds. Could the humans make a waterfall in
    their building? Well, they could fly without wings in a ship that could travel so high that one night Taller had watched it become a star.
    Puff said the ship took them to a bigger building where humans could live
    even though there was no air outside it. The day Puff told him that, Taller
    knew he'd done the ri ght thing in bef ri ending these aliens. There
    would be no way to drive people like this away, people who set up
    house next door to the Moon Family . To su rv ive , the White Wind people would have to lea rn to live with them and whatever changes
    they would b ri ng.
    But a waterfall in a building? That would be something to see. And if Good Eyes were there, he could talk to her at the same time . Though why the
    humans need a waterfall in he re when all the water of the World was
    just outside, he could not guess.
    This area was crowded, and he walked cautiously around the things the
    humans collected from the World. Taller sometimes helped them collect
    objects, but he never understood why they wanted them . Maybe they
    were like the ro usettes, always hoarding things they couldn ' t eat , and not knowing why.
    Here was a row of beautiful stones, there a mound of b ri ght leaves. The
    humans " prese rv ed" them so they would always look alive, even though they had died . Puff had explained that. On their world , eve ry thing had to be "p re se rv ed " to ward off famine . It broke Taller's hea rt to watch the human beings eat "prese rv ed " food , some of it years old, so he had showed them the f re sh food his World offered , and
    watched them grow healthy on it.
    Taller turn ed , nearly upending a pair of blue antlers, shed by a Leaf -
    Eater . Next to that was a row of bleached skulls--a Leaf - Eater ' s, a Digger ' s, and a T re e Ripper ' s. The humans
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    must need to consume bone-building minerals, Taller thought, or perhaps
    they needed to gnaw and file back their teeth. People with teeth had
    different requi re ments than his own who had the supe ri or edge with their bills. Teeth , after all, fell out.
    He'd