Prologue: Monica

And how distressed the womb-born are
when they must fly! As if scared
by themselves, they jerk across the air, as a crack
goes through a cup; so the bat's track
through the porcelain of twilight.

from "Eighth Duino Elegy" by Rainer Maria Rilke

as translated by Ursula K. LeGuin

"I didn't think it was alive," Monica pleaded, while two pairs of eyes--one hazel, one deep brown--regarded her with disbelief. "Come on, Jill. Everybody takes home souvenirs from Senior Survival. It was all by itself. At first I thought it was some kind of a rock."

"Everybody?" T'Kama asked, her thin, slanted eyebrows drawing together in what would have been a frown on anybody but a Vulcan. Jill remained silent, her gaze moving from Monica's face to the elliptical "rock" on Monica's standard-issue Academy bureau. She moved closer, touched the egg with a fingertip, and withdrew as though she had been burned.

"What were you doing, slumming?" she snapped. "Survival groups on Beta Canaris 12 aren't authorized to go anywhere near the Dacs' roosting areas."

"We stumbled on one by accident. We knew we were near a cliff top, but we didn't know they were there until we saw them roosting down below."

"There is such a thing as a tricorder, Monny." Jill sighed and shook her head. "What were you trying to prove this time?"

"That we could find our way back to base camp without a tricorder," Monica mumbled. Maybe it had been a mistake to wait until T'Nar went to be programmed for her graduation gown and then confess about the egg to the two across the hall instead of to her own roommate. But after four years at Starfleet Academy, T'Nar was still a hard-nosed Vulcan. Some of Jill's humanity had rubbed off on T'Kama, and Monica had hoped that they might not judge her too harshly. She had also counted on their figuring a way out of this for her. If they couldn't, nobody could, and she would be in deep trouble. Their Graduation was only three days away. "It wasn't cracked then," she added, and then realized how dumb she sounded.

"When did you first hear the tapping?" Jill asked, frowning at the egg but not touching it.

"Last night. You can only hear it at night, when everything's quiet."

T'Kama approached the egg and bent to listen, her sleek dark head only millimeters from the pale ovoid about the size of a goose egg. Nothing could possibly be in there, Monica told herself. Mature Dacs had a wing span of almost eight meters. No one had ever seen their young, but nothing that size could possibly....

T'Kama straighted up. Her gaze sought Jill's, and she nodded once.

"God, Jill," Monica whispered. "What am I going to do?"

"Take it in to HQ," Jill answered without hesitation. Her gaze moved briefly from the egg, and she smiled. "I'll go with you," she said, and Monica felt a bit better. Jill's smile could do that for you, even when you were in trouble. They had been friends since PREPDIV, and had been through more than one scrape together. "What did you put it in when you brought it here?"

"Just a box. It's in the top drawer." Jill stepped back and Monica approached the bureau. Jill was right. Get it over with--

The egg cracked open and something black began to fan out of the crack.

Tissue paper, Monica thought, unable to move or make a sound. Wet, slimy black tissue paper with threads in it, unfolding and unfolding. Needle and thread....

"Your EYES!" Jill shouted.

And Monica thought Needle. It was the last thought she ever had.

The creature hung upside down in the window, spreading its membranous wings to dry, its toothless arrow-like beak open in what looked like a soundless scream. Jill stood in the center of the room looking up at it; through the window that faced the ocean, the rays of Sol-setting turned her hair to reddish gold. Monica lay crumpled near Jill's feet, blood running onto the floor from her punctured brain, through the place where her eye had been. T'Kama crouched behind a chair, one hand raised to shield her eyes should that become necessary, aware that her limbs were shaking but unable to concentrate on controlling them. Death is to be mourned only if the life was wasted, her mind repeated. Death is to be mourned only if the life was wasted.

"Jill--" Standing there looking up. Had she gone mad?

"Be quiet." Jill took one step and then another, moving slowly toward where the creature hung, bat-like, from the curtain rod. "Come here, Monica," she whispered, and T'Kama drew in her breath in uncontrolled horror. But Jill stepped over the body as though it were not there and continued toward the window. "Come here, Monica," she repeated, louder now.

"Protect your eyes," T'Kama hissed. "Are you mad?"

"She won't hurt me." Jill's voice was shaking now, but grew louder each time she spoke. "Don't move, T'Kama. Stay there." She was at the window now, still looking up. "Come here, Monica." And she raised her arm, bent horizontally at the elbow, offering it as a roosting place to the silently screaming creature above her.

"Why are you calling her that?" T'Kama heard the human-like terror in her own voice.

"They take the name of their first kill. She told me." Jill's voice still shook. "Can you control soon?"

"I ask forgiveness." T'Kama concentrated, her pulse slowed, and her trembling stopped. "How can I help you?"

"You just did." Watching from behind, T'Kama saw Jill's body relax slightly. "Thanks." She took a deep breath. "Monica, let go and come here. You know I won't hurt you." Her voice no longer shook. Gentle now. Soothing. "I'll take care of you. I'll take you home. Just let go--"

The creature spread her wings, let go and glided downward, attaching herself to Jill's extended arm. She hung there upside down, the tip of her beak only centimeters from Jill's right eye, the span of her wings equal to the width of Jill's shoulders, her talons encircling the arm but not breaking the skin. In appearance she was a virtually identical miniature of a fossil image of Pteranodon, the Cretaceous "winged finger." A flying reptile. But she was not flying now. She hung there, spreading her wings in the light of an alien world. The sun of that world shone through them and turned them briefly to translucent silver.

"How did she know Monica's name?" T'Kama asked, certain that she already knew the answer and awed by its implications.

Jill turned then, slowly so as not to startle the roosting reptile on her arm. Her face was streaked with tears and had lost all color. Humans had no mantra for death, T'Kama knew. Jill's friend was gone forever, and the manner of her going had been violent. So pale, my friend, T'Kama thought. When will I see you smile again? Not today, I think. Perhaps not tomorrow. And yet there was something shining, something exultant in Jill's voice as she answered.

"I told her."