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John Weltman smiled and shook his head in disbelief, than lobbed the grapefruit-sized acorn back to Bob, who caught it expertly in his beak and tossed it to Nod. Somehow today's language lesson had stumbled onto the subject of games. As it turned out, 'playing catch' was one the few games that were common to both humans and birds. So here he was, playing catch with a couple of giant jays. Unbelievable!
He had to admit that once he had gotten used to them, these jays were OK. Of course, the fact that they had saved Kate and him was a huge factor, but beyond that he had to admit he was beginning to actually like them. They were playful and clever, with tremendous curiosity and intelligence. Their hearing and eyesight were uncanny, allowing them to find his downed aircraft almost immediately, halfway up in the forest canopy. As shown by their ability to untangle it from its resting place and carry it down to the ground gently, their strength was superhuman. Each of these jays must have been ten times as strong as he was.
Not that the demolished aircraft did him much good. He retrieved food and drugs, but the COM gear was smashed. The rest was a hopeless tangle of bent, broken, and torn parts. He had the big birds place it in a small clearing however, where perhaps satellites could identify it from above, greatly increasing the probability of rescue. If they were watching now, the Corporation satellite team would also be able to see him playing catch with two jays. What would they make of that?
“Your friend Blue seems to be very intelligent,” he remarked.
“Yes, yes,” nodded Nod.
“Has he always been your leader?”
“No. Only for a few days, by Freedom of Flight. It is a great quest he is on. Jays, all songbirds, have great need now, but none have greater need for our help than him. Blue Dawn is a great leader in great need. We chose to help him by Freedom of Flight.”
“He’s only been your leader for a few days?”
“Yes.”
“But you knew him before that, right?”
“No. Blue Dawn was a stranger jay.”
“Stranger?”
“Stranger to our flock, our forest. We met him for the first time a few days ago.”
“Yet you trust him?”
“Trust him? He is jay.”
“And jays tell the truth?”
“Yes. Sometimes jays are wrong, but always they try to sing what is true. That is Law. Except when joking in play, to not sing what is true is not possible for a jay.”
Bob chirped for a moment, than both birds squawked shrilly, a sound that by now Weltman recognized as laughter. Nod, her jaws convulsing uncontrollably, dropped the acorn they had been playing with to the ground.
“What’s so funny?” the intrigued human asked.
“Sorry,” said Bob. “You worry for Kate. You like Kate, we think.”
Weltman took a deep breath. He might as well admit to himself that he more than 'liked' her. He hadn't been consciously looking for that, but now he couldn't escape it. “Yes, I do. Very much.” And yet he had let her go off on a dangerous quest with a jay and raptors!
“You don’t trust Blue?”
“I worry about Kate.”
“But you humans have been close to blackbirds for more than two season-cycles, and trust blackbirds.”
“Yes, it seems that way.”
The two jays laughed again.
“Is that funny?”
“Yes,” said Nod, throwing the acorn to the human. “You trust blackbirds! Is funny! Humans are very funny.” She laughed.
Bob explained. “It is an old song, all songbirds learn as chicks, that the bird who trusts blackbirds will be soon blackbird food!” Bob laughed, and even Weltman laughed briefly. Personally he had never trusted blackbirds. Now his concerns were verified by jays that he had long feared more than any other birds. He could appreciate the irony. He didn't like the implications though. If the blackbirds were such nasty pieces of work, why were they helping humans?
"It is good," declared Nod, "that humans can laugh."
“Humans be poor singers, but good laughers,” teased Bob.
Suddenly, both jays became silent and attentively looked up into the patch of blue sky over the tiny clearing they were in.
“What is it?” asked Weltman. “Blackbirds?”
“Kreeeeee!” The entire patch of open sky above them was abruptly filled with the biggest golden eagle John had ever seen, screaming as it dropped talons-first at him with startling speed.
“Yellow Claw,” exclaimed Bob, as he and his mate hopped towards Weltman. They were at his side in moments, but Yellow Claw was there before them.
“You were there,” screamed the Eagle, as one set of its great talon-tipped toes wrapped around the startled Sheriff and lifted him off the ground. Weltman pushed and squirmed, to absolutely no effect. The claws held him firmly, yet did not crush him. Instead the bird bent it’s wickedly beaked head down to stare at her tiny human captive with cup-sized eyes and to scream some more in plain language. “You were one of the Old Ones that killed my son. To fulfill my bargain with them the blackbirds told me where to look for you. I wish you could understand why you will die now!”
Bob and Nod, also screaming, launched themselves at the towering Eagle but the immense creature effortlessly swept them away with one of its huge wings.
“No,” squeaked a tiny voice in plain language, “John be friend to birds!” Brownie fluttered in front of the eagle’s face. Yellow Claw struck out at him with her deadly beak, and the little bird barely managed to dodge out of reach.
“So, tiny one, the blackbirds were right,” said the Eagle in plain language to Brownie. “You escaped them also. They told me to search here for this human and his small flying machine so that I may gain my revenge as they had promised me, but I did not expect to find you with him. If it is true that you can sing with Old Ones, tell this one I hold why I will kill him now.” The tiny bird flew down to where Weltman was held and pecked at the eagle’s talons with its sharp beak, but the eagle appeared not to even notice.
“Tell him yourself,” sang Nod. “We could teach you to speak his language, then you could insult and tease him before you kill him. You waited this long; wouldn’t it be worth waiting a little longer so that your enemy knows that your cause is just before you kill him? Only then would your revenge be complete.”
“We learned their song quickly, you can learn it too, great one,” added Bob. “Unless perhaps you are not as smart as jays?”
“Mock me no more jays, if you would have this Old One live long enough to hear me sing to it, or yourselves live long enough to teach me its song. Sing its song to me now.”
From the moment he saw the huge raptor dropping down from the sky at him, Sheriff John Weltman knew that he was a dead man. This gigantic monster was the most powerful predator on Aves, as powerful as half a dozen Earth T-rex dinosaurs. Within moments he would be crushed, torn apart, and in this monster’s belly, being mashed to mush by the rocks in its gizzard.
The jays came to his aid. At first he had hoped that the jays would distract it and cause it to drop him, but then he saw them fail and quickly give up their attack.
He couldn’t blame them. This dinosaur-sized raptor was far too powerful for them. Yellow Claw, they had called it. So, this was the rogue eagle that had betrayed Blue and Brownie to the blackbirds. Now it had him, and he would die. Then what would happen to Kate? Of course what would happen to Kate was out of his hands anyway. He had failed her, himself, and everyone else. What a fool he had been to have the aircraft placed in a clearing, where sharp blackbird or raptor eyes could see it!
He was still alive, though. Why? The birds were talking to each other, he realized, the jays and the Eagle. What could it mean? Then he heard the jays speak human language. He thought at first that they had to be talking to him, but he couldn’t understand what they were trying to say. Human words, then bird talk, then human words again, and again, and again, at incredible speed. It sounded like high-speed gibberish.
>
Suddenly he realized that Bob and Nod were teaching human speech to the eagle! “Tell the eagle she’s squeezing me too hard,” he gasped. “I can’t breathe.”
The jays never paused their jabbering to the eagle, but the giant bird loosened its grip on him slightly, such that he could breathe more freely.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” John muttered. Then he tried to figure out what he would tell this eagle, if he got the chance. Whatever it was, it had better be good.