50 - Silly Will Let You Know

Dag gently tugged her veils out of the beaks of a dozen chicks.  It was a new hatch and they’d pretty much decided that any dark-eyed chicks or mix-eyed chicks weren’t worth raising the new way, and they went out to the traditional flock.

Silly was completely exhausted from a full day of flying, since it wasn’t just Kyrus and Werfas who were training them.  The boys would be back from the city soon.  She looked upriver though she couldn’t see anything of the moon flight.

The Lin had had a dozen people covering the launch of Mom both for the readers and for the watchers, with the Xanadu boy and the Hippifrei princess and people were by turns horrified or encouraged that everyone seemed capable of working together, toward making their part of the world safe from Prime’s bombardment.

Silly stretched his neck out along the sand, putting his chin down.  His inner eyelids were closed, but popped open in startlement when the day old chicks hopped down from Dag’s lap and staggered over to him.  He was too tired to do more than hiss and when he opened his beak, one of the little ones climbed right in, leaving him frozen with his beak open, eyes wide.  He could have just solved the problem with a snap and a swallow but warbirds were surprisingly good with their own chicks.  He shook his head and that just made the chick cling to his tongue with tiny claws.

“Here, Silly.  I’ll help you.”  Dag reached in and unhooked the chick from his tongue and he actually snorted when he closed his beak.  That was when he realized that the rest of the day olds had burrowed in under his wings.

“Stay there, you silly bird,” she said, and settled against his shoulder, making sure she wasn’t sitting on anyone, and began to scratch his obligingly offered head.  He let his eyes close again, after he fluffed his wings out a bit more over the chicks, and sighed.

“Will you be able to come back to our room tonight?” Yasna stepped into the hatchery, rolling his sleeves down.

“I don’t know if I can leave Silly bird here to look after the babies, and my relief doesn’t get here before the mid-night.”

“Then I shall just have to bring you dinner and stay with you here myself!” He brought a basket from behind his back, smiling.

“You obviously adore me,” she said, smiling at him.

“I do.”  He settled down and opened the basket and began unwrapping parcels.  ‘Maranth crackers and real sheep cheese, bakon bacon fried crisp.  Vinegar greens and chelated root vegetables in honey and honey skewers for after. “Has Kyrus linned you to let you know when he and Werfas will be back?”

Dag looked down at her entwined fingers.  “He… is going to be a few days late.  Just before the moon shot, he and Terence were accosted by his old gang, and attacked.”  Old worries flitted across her face like the ghosts of ravaged age before she smiled.  “He said that everything went all right, and rather than throw the gang boys into the  system he was going to settle things himself.”

“Isn’t that overstepping the law?” Yasna spread a dollup of cheese on a cracker and offered it to her. His voice was mild, as if he were asking the time of day. “I mean… there are Rasheem… but…”

“He tried to get the Rasheem to take the boys off his hands… he said that Mom and Terence helped him… but they just said ‘Kraghanz, your authority trumps the judges.” She removed her veil to eat and Yasna smiled and followed suit.  “He’s dismayed because he didn’t realize he’d be in that position.”  She grinned.  “He wailed that he had too much to do as well as studying all those law books!”

“Hmph.  He said he needed to read the law?”  Yasna looked thoughtful, offered a clump of cheese to a chick that had squeezed out from under Silly’s wings and wobbled over to hop on the edge of the basket.

“Yes.  He says that as far as he’s concerned he has a plan… we might have a handful of new boys here.”

Yasna nodded sagely.  “My abbot says that most social problems that he’s seen, in and out of code, in the cool of the Dark, can be solved with regular employment.”

“So,” Dag put a hand out to stop the basket from slowly tipping under the weight of the chick.  “Your patients here… how are they?”

“Getting better all the time.  It looks like they were shoved into code in their heads, like you were.  Often by family, undiscovered manders and cliners.”

“Oh dear.  Maliciously?” She was obviously thinking of the Hive Lord Nadian.

“No, mostly unconscious, thank Light and Dark.” He smiled and offered her a honey stick.  “Now that the school is testing everyone, we have fewer and fewer people afflicted with code-sickness of all kinds.”

“Thank goodness.”  She leaned over, slowly, and kissed him with honey on her lips.  “I’m glad you’ll have more time for me.”

“What, without chicks crapping on us in our bed?” He kissed her back.  “I think that the locked room here is comfortable and private enough.  If something goes amiss with the chicks, Silly will let you know…”

“All right,” she said and got up, offering him a hand up.