gusts carry her tiny, frail body along like a leaf in the wind, allowing her some rest and forcing her to use her own powers only when she lost altitude. The system was working, yes, but it was a stopgap measure and not one that could be maintained for long periods. It was also taking her westward, although southwest, northwest, or due west she had no way of knowing.
The westward drift almost did her in. Hardly able to see, desperately fighting the elements, she was not prepared when the storm suddenly ceased and a wave of warmth washed over her. The atmosphere was also quite calm and at very low pressure, and she began dropping like a rock before she knew it.
Straining painfully to pull out of the fall, she realized she’d been blown across a sea-hex border. She pulled out just before hitting the waves and managed to maintain a low altitude. That was not enough; a gleaming silver fish that looked to be half teeth leaped from the water to grab at her. In panic, she managed to gain a little more.
Too exhausted to think straight she began to allow sensations of impending doom to penetrate her consciousness. She realized that, if she didn’t find some place to land soon, she would drop into the suddenly placid sea. And wet wings would incapacitate her, leaving her easy and tempting prey for those silvery appetites below.
She had no idea where she was, or how far it might be from one place to another. Hookl, probably, since it was so warm—certainly not Jol, where icebergs abounded.
She’d settle for an iceberg right now, she thought longingly.
She drifted as best she could, certain that any moment now her wings would fall off from sheer overuse, berating herself for being such a fool. There’d be islands, she’d told herself, or other boats to use—but Jol was in no condition for shipping right now, and Nocha had been cold and rough and barren of land and traffic.
And then she saw it. Yes, there it was—a speck near the horizon. In hopeful desperation, she flew toward it with her last available energy.
It
For a moment those growths worried her; she had no idea what sort of creature might live there, nor what it ate—those hungry fish weren’t its prey, that was certain; but anything that could coexist with them had to be a little nastier than they. It didn’t matter, though, she told herself. Her alternative to landing was to become a sure snack for the toothy beasties in the waters.
The island was a bit larger than it had seemed at first, and she could see bird nests tucked among the mossy growths, so she decided to take a chance on it. Not much larger than some of the seabirds herself, she chose a big nest on the cliffside that definitely looked deserted, and settled down into it thankfully.
It was hard and brittle and had a lot of sharp places, but she felt none of them. Within seconds, she was asleep.
It had been a dreamless sleep, hard and overly long. She stirred with difficulty; her head pounded, and her eyes felt as if they had weights on them. She sat up and groaned and opened her eyes that burned like fire, and gave a gasp.
She was not alone on the island.
A creature three times her size stood watching her. The thing clung to the sheer and slippery face of the rock effortlessly, as if it were level.
She uttered a short cry of panic, then rose immediately to her feet.
She had never seen a Yaxa close up before.
The giant creature’s shiny death’s head turned toward her. “Don’t try flying out,” it advised. “I took the precaution of temporarily disabling your wings.”
Immediately she tried to flex them, and they felt like lead. She looked over her shoulder, and saw that small clips had been placed on them, linking them together at their tips. The wings were too fragile to try and work the clips off, and the clips were out of reach of her hands.
The Yaxa was satisfied with her demonstration, and for good reason. Lata were tiny, delicate-looking creatures, but they were also very dangerous to most warm-blooded life forms.
The prisoner looked like a small girl of ten or eleven; it was impossible to judge a Lata’s age, for they looked almost the same from a few years after hatching until they died. Aging was an exclusively internal affair.
But the little-girl image was enhanced by the fact that Lata were less than a meter tall and incredibly slender. Externally humanoid, internally they were more like insects, able to eat and digest literally anything organic. Even their soft, creamy skin was illusion, for it covered a flexible chitinous inner skin. Lata were almost impervious to temperature changes because their metabolism was flexible enough to keep them comfortable under all conditions except extreme cold and extreme heat.
They had tiny pointed ears, and tough, black hair which grew in a rough pageboy cut. Their four pairs of transparent wings kept their light bodies aloft much in the manner of a bee and gave them their exceptional maneuverability.
This particular Lata was a pastel pink. Her stinger—a wicked point of striped red and black descending from the spine down to the floor of the nest, was set on a hinged joint—it could be stiff and straight, its normal position, or bend back, allowing the Lata to sit. Her venom could paralyze or kill organisms many times her size. It was the poison that the Yaxa feared and respected.
“How are you called, Lata?” the Yaxa asked.
“I am Vistaru of the Deer Grove,” she replied, trying not to show her nervousness. Never had she felt so helpless in the face of an enemy.
Yaxa never displayed emotion; they had no way to, and their voices translated hard and icy-brittle. And yet, there seemed to be a note of genuine surprise in the creature’s voice when it responded. “Vistaru? The one who aided Mavra Chang in the wars long past?” She nodded slowly, amazed that her name would even be known after all this time.
The Yaxa seemed hesitant, somehow, as if trying to decide what to do. It was uncharacteristic of the great insects. Its enigmatic eyes studied her closely.
“I should have thought you’d be in the male mode by now,” the Yaxa said.
“I would have,” she told the Yaxa, “but I’ve kept putting that off. To be a male is to have the responsibility for raising a child, and I have not yet been in a position to do that properly.”
The Yaxa remained motionless, impassive, still thinking unknown thoughts. Finally, it said, “Ortega sent you here to help find Mavra Chang.” It was not a question, it was a statement.
Vistaru nodded, but volunteered no additional information: their races were old enemies. As odd as this Yaxa was acting, she still did not expect to survive the encounter.
“Then I was right,” the huge butterfly murmured aloud to itself. “She is missing, not dead.”
“What is that to you?” Vistaru challenged. “If you didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance, it was only because Trelig or someone beat you to it.”
“Brave talk,” the Yaxa noted coldly, but almost approvingly. “Still, I’ll strike a bargain with you. Answer truthfully my questions, which will only make us equal in knowledge, and I shall make certain that you have the opportunity to experience the male mode.”
Vistaru stared hard at the creature in wonder, but could not fathom what he was talking about. Although they were biochemically closer to each other than either was to the humans, mentally the Lata were much closer to humans.
“We’ll see,” Vistaru said cautiously. “Ask your questions.”
“Do you know who smashed the Chang compound?” the Yaxa asked.
That was an easy one. “No. But we think it was a gang hired by Antor Trelig.”
That answer seemed to satisfy the Yaxa. “I can assume that the Ambreza have activated all their antiescape plans and followed every conceivable procedure?” the Yaxa asked.
Vistaru nodded. “She is almost certainly not in Glathriel or Ambreza, nor does she seem to have crossed the border into Ginzin.”
“Then she went by ship, as I suspected,” the Yaxa said. “The question is, willingly or unwillingly.”
“Trelig would have no use for her male companion, Joshi,” Vistaru pointed out. “With hypnos available, one
