Beyond the Stars

Empty Skies

I moved cautiously past shelves stacked with enough linen and baby paraphernalia to feed and clothe the entire population twice over. Any doubts over what I planned to do vanished with the sight.

An open door revealed the hall beyond to be as equally narrow as the space between the shelving, designed without forethought for adult male's wings. A ding from the far end of the hall brought my attention to a couple of elevators. I squeezed through the next door I came to, scraping a wing against the latch in my rush to close it just as the lift doors slid open. I stilled and concentrated on the rapid tip-tap of hurrying female footfalls. I could smell her. Beneath a delicate floral fragrance, her natural musk acted like a beacon, wafting through the crack left by the not-quite-closed door, luring and tempting me to put myself on display. My grip on the door frame tightened.

"G-one to Base. Store room requires clean up. Give Ria a call and see if she can patch the store's East window for the night. Looks like someone left it open and the wind's caught it."

Her melodic tone directly outside my hiding spot startled me. I hadn't heard her return from within the store room and was unprepared for the onslaught of her scent a second time. But, despite becoming almost immune to pain over the years, biting my tongue acted as enough of a distraction to allow her to leave the immediate vicinity.

Thankfully the stairwell proved less claustrophobic, allowing me to relax my wings a little during the long descent to the basement generators. Several floors down, I began to wish I'd picked an entry point closer the ground. The chances of being spotted may have been greater, but at least I wouldn't be exhausted when I reached the tower's power unit. By the time I made it to the lowest level, I had to rest to get my breathing back under control before I crossed the few mecons to the basement door.

Once in front of the vast generators, I had no clue how to stop them. Permanently stop them, I mean. Turning them off at the switch would be noticed the moment the lights went out and could be turned back on just as easily. I studied the switches and blinking lights with words beneath, and a new wave of rage enveloped me. Evidence that yet again, males of our species were treated as insignificant.

Males were not given the option for schooling. From the day we took our first steps we were taught to hunt, our purpose to protect and feed our females. At first, the bartering and trading helped lessen the burden for some, until females in the outer limits became adept at farming, seeing the birth of an assortment of food markets. But that was okay, because it freed more time to patrol our skies and chase off our neighbours, the Ravix scavengers. Over a period of months though, the Ravix stopped coming. Probably a good thing when I think about it, it wasn't too long after that the plague robbed males of their plumage. Of course, it didn't affect females at all. They had no plumage to take.

"Destroy it all. Prevent it from being restarted or repaired," I muttered.

Mind made up, I searched around for rags and soaked them in some oil I found in a dark corner.

Having made a nest around a metal dustpan, I pulled a red wire from the side of the generator, plunging the basement into darkness, and struck the pan with it a few times. Sparks zapped between them, smouldering in the rags but not igniting. I dropped the wire.

"Damn it!" I swore, thinking I'd blew my chance when a cacophony of footsteps in the stairwell grew louder, coming closer.

I saw them then, a discarded pack of Ecrivain smokes with matches tucked within the pack. One strike and flames erupted around my feet. I danced away, laughing in triumph.

Flames followed me. My laughter choked beneath blossoming panic. The exit was blocked by a wall of fire. I turned and ran, looking for another way out of the fiery dungeon.

As my head emerged from a small window, she - the female who wore the floral fragrance to mask her scent - was waiting with an arrow mere centons away from my eyeball.

"Come out slowly," she ordered. "G-one to base, we have him. Is the fire under control?"

I did not hear the response. Another female stabbed me in the shoulder with a thin spike and everything drifted away in a smoky haze.

~*~

I awoke face down, tethered to a soft bed in a bright room. On the bed beside mine, lay a dark skinned, sharp nosed Ravix who appeared to be in worse condition than I was. 

My captor's musical voice drifted in from an open door. "How is he?"

"Alive, Guardian," said another female. "We had to remove his wings, they were too badly burned to save. The good news is, his temperature is slowly returning to normal, so this batch of antidote appears to be working. We'll know for sure in a few days if the quills erupt."

"And if they do?"

"We can start creating the vaccine and injecting the hatchlings. Before you go in, does anyone know what he was doing in the basement? He's been shouting strange things in his sleep."

The guardian's head peeked around the doorframe, her eyes meeting mine. "He's awake now, Medic, why don't we ask him?"

~*~

Many newly hatched females died in the fire before they brought it under control. There were equally as many males survived because of the vaccine they created from my blood. They grew feathers too.

I blamed everything I'd done on hallucinations and claimed to have been out of my mind. They believed me, and after taking a multitude of samples of everything, they let me go back to the mountains to heal.

They took my wings. But as I watch young males sparring around the Spires in the distance, daring one another to jump from high, I do not regret my crimes. The natural balance is restored.