Chapter 5

"No." As soon as V-Naia saw the familiar blue Gomphid in the company of a dancer she didn't recognize, she launched herself from her perch to protest in Epepreo Tribal.

"Oh yes," replied M-Nev, calmly shifting her wings in Tribal Alighted. "He is an accomplished sentry in his own right, and he will get you past the border."

"But we captured him. I personally fought with him. Now you ask me to ally myself with D-Proi of the Gomphid?"

"It's not a request, V-Naia, and it is not up for debate."

D-Proi tried to interpret the unfamiliar dialect, but not being a linguistic scholar, failed miserably. So he interrupted, pulling away from his escort, and inserting himself between V-Naia and and the Elder. "I have answered your summons," he signaled stiffly in Common Flight. "What is it you wish of me, Elder?"

"Sentry, you are to join a squadron in need of a member. Together you will venture into your old tribal land."

"Need I remind you that I can refuse this?"

"You may, but surely you have a mate you've been longing to see?"

D-Proi backed away a distance, and rose a bit. "I do miss my mate, but I can't betray my people."

"He has a point," offered V-Naia.

"Not a good one," countered M-Nev, not leaving her perch. "His people are dying. He loses nothing by taking rank."

"No, just his dignity."

"Your people are sending nurturers to the front lines, D-Proi." M-Nev turned her attentions back to the Gomphid. "Nurturers, keepers, dancers… You could lose your mate tomorrow. You may have lost her already. Can you live with the not knowing?"

D-Proi lurched, but retained his poise. "Well, that is war, isn't it?"

"Oh, by Fate," G-Siol swan dove into the center of the triangle of debaters. "Gomphid, you join the Blindsiders for this one mission. M-Nev, you allow him to leave if he chooses, once that mission's done, and stay with his tribe, much good that will do him. And V-Naia, be a captain and deal with it. Fair?"

"Fair enough, G-Siol. I agree to that." M-Nev's wings twitched in amusement. "D-Proi, do you agree?"

"I suppose I don't have much influence in the matter. Yes, I will agree to that. One mission only."

"Agreed, then." V-Naia surrendered her hover to an air current for a moment, allowing the atmosphere to sigh for her. "D-Proi will take N-Centh's rank. Fourth officer. We will have our goodbyes and then reassemble by N-Centh's pool. G-Siol, you will be D-Proi's escort until further notice. Are we clear?"

"We are," the present Blindsiders replied, almost in unison.

"Good. Until dusk at the Pool Fed by Falling Water. We'll depart from there. Oh, and sharpen your spears," V-Naia relayed her final orders of the day.

"Fate be with you," M-Nev signaled the squadron, launching herself from her leaf. She had more responsibilities to tend to, after all.

"And also with you," replied V-Naia. And the Blindsiders dispersed.

--

They had once been modest kettles, carved by glaciers only extant in some distant ancestral memory, danced out like slithering ghosts in tribal lore. Since that long ago age, Phaneros had drifted into warmth, and the kettles had tested their banks, growing their own lobes, reaching through soluble minerals for greater depths. Their territory had grown accordingly. Like giant amoebas, they covered perhaps five to ten acres of surface area each. They maintained themselves with the gentle, scattered but reliable rains, and sometimes pulled additional fluid from hidden underground springs. They lived.

The Pool Where Trees Cradle the West Moon was the northernmost of the Epepreo pools. Spring and rain-fed both, it was the largest of the three productive waters. Its three primary outlets converged into a stream that casually meandered south through soil and stone, gathering discharge as it went. The surface was almost unmarred by eddies, and the crystal waters revealed a pebbled surface that leapt and rolled with rhythm and method.

It was all the more surprising, then, when the stream made its plunge. By the time it met the precipice, it was about three meters wide. The scarp itself was at least twice that in height, its strata looming over white, bubbling water. The daily rains, who had reduced themselves to halfhearted mists, met the spray at the knickpoint.

Sunlight usually shown through the water just so, hinting at the overhanging rock behind the shimmer. Today, however, the light leapt through the mists just so, unfolding into an astonishing array of color. V-Naia perched opposite the waterfall, her wings completely still. Radiant ultraviolet gave way to blues and greens, ultimately fading into dull near infrared. Ph-Lyre shared a leaf with his mate. She was mesmorized by the radiant arc, but he was not so calm.

"Do you think it's an omen?" he twitched, in broad exaggerated strokes, trying to catch her attention.

"An omen? Of what?" she finally replied.

"Of... of anything, V-Naia. Good or bad."

"I don't read omens. Ask a dancer."

"Look at me, V-Naia."

"Ph-Lyre?"

"This may be the last time we see each other. You're leaving tomorrow?"

"We are, yes." V-Naia broke away from the falls, finally turning her attention to her mate. Ph-Lyre glimmered with minute water droplets that resembled clear jewels on amber. "But we'll return. You'll see."

"When?"

V-Naia could only guess. Instead, she began a standard prayer, her wings brushing against Ph-Lyre's as they moved. "We have given of ourselves unto the water."

He offered the response. "The water has given unto us the sky."

"We have given of ourselves unto the sky."

"The sky has given unto us the light."

"We have given of ourselves unto the light."

"The light has given unto us vision."

"And sighted we ride Fate as wind," she concluded.

They fell again into stillness, not comforted but filled with acceptance. Her duties dictated that she go, and his that he remain home. They had chosen their life courses and would not change them in midstream.

The sun set. The rainbow faded. The sentry and the nurturer had been blind to everything but each other and the falls. That blindness faded, too, in time for V-Naia to see her squadron approaching in the distance.

"So, it's time?" asked Ph-Lyre, again restless.

"It is. Take care of our nymphs, Ph-Lyre."

"I will. Keep them safe, V-Naia.'

"I will. Fate be with you."

"Fate return you to me."

"It will. Trust it." Her wings touched his one last time, and then she arose from the frond, tightly clutching her spear and her hopes.

Prologue

Great domes of deep red earth, speckled with dead, paper-like foliage, loomed above the grassy fields of Phaneros. Three scouts wove among them, examining their structure (full of small entry and exit holes), and the pale crimson terrain below. The inhabitants of the domes were elsewhere, for the most part, presumably on reconnaissance missions of their own, but there was still a bit of traffic in and out of the structures, and a low hum emanating from within them.

This was a deliberate incursion into enemy airspace, but the scouts found themselves too preoccupied with gathering intelligence to notice they'd been discovered.

Looking like the East Moon following the rising Phanerosian sun, the captain of an Epepreo squadron appeared in front of the invader. She held a long wooden spear expertly in her right foreclaws. The Gomphid leader noted that it was considerably longer -- and sharper -- than those issued to a standard scout.

The captain flew a field signal to her two lieutenants, who moved to shadow the remaining scouts. Her four officers covered the scouts' potential exits, above and below, left and right. V-Naia approved. Her squadron was responsive, and made talented use of "blind" spots which, for a race blessed with near 360 degree vision, were few and far between.

Switching from Tribal to Common Flight, she demanded, "Who comes forward?"

"D-Proi of the Gomphid, Double Moon Pool," he replied, keeping some attention on the spear she held at its length, hovering at ready.

"Your mission?"

"It is not for me to say to you."

A warm, water-heavy breeze blew between red and blue as V-Naia considered. With no indication of diplomacy, her options were in fact few.

"Then I cannot offer. Forward or back?"

"Back."

"So be it." The air became a blur as the Gomphid attempted retreat, and the Epepreo met the challenge. V-Naia took the leader alone, as was proper, but her six took on the two. Spear met spear, and spear met exoskeleton, and almost as soon as it had begun it ended, no hemolymph drawn.

"Forward or back?" V-Naia asked again, her abdomen heaving.

"Forward," conceded the equally fatigued scout.

V-Naia bowed, giving up altitude, then retaking it. "To Elder Council," she signaled to her team in Tribal. And forty long wings beat forward, twelve of them in custody.

---

Ph-Lyre rested on a fern, and watched the deep pool before him as it churned with nymphs first hatched, near-adult, and every molting in between. He also watched his mate as she told her story. His wings quivered with the subtleties of Common Alighted. "Is that all?" he asked.

"No. It was a routine mission. We easily apprehended the Gomphid. But Ph-Lyre," she replied, still aerial, "this is no less than the fifth mission of its kind for us in as many days."

"What do they need?"

"The vespin. According to the elders, the vespin of the Gomphid are dying, and nobody knows why."

"And with the vespin, the pools."

"Yes," she replied, finally landing on a broad leaf beside Ph-Lyre.

"Can we spare?" he asked, after a moment.

"No, we can't spare, especially if the death may spread."

"And what of the Gomphid?"

"They will keep scouting for territory. It will come to more than three at a time."

"The Gomphid you captured."

"Oh, those," her wings twitched. "Two we sent forward and away. The one, the leader, we kept on. His information may be valuable and besides, new blood."

"Of course. Which are ours, do you suppose?" he wondered, abruptly changing the subject.

"Who?"

"Of the nymphs. Which are ours?"

"All of them are of the Epepreo."

"No. Ours."

Now she knew what he meant. It was not a thing V-Naia often thought about, but as a nurturer (resting at the moment), she supposed Ph-Lyre considered it rather often. Which nymphs had been given to the Epepreo by them, by their circling above the pool for those moments.

They would never know. She couldn't find it in herself to express the obvious.

A small swarm of vespin flew by, from one flower to another. A breeze rustled the leaves shading the pool, and Ph-Lyre arose from rest to assist an older nymph who had ventured from the benthos to the surface, after a wriggling dipter larva.

Meditating on the glimmering, falling water that fed the pool, she wondered if that nymph was hers. And why the vespin were dying.