stomach drop at the thought of that beautiful young girl in Carlisle’s clutches, or worse. He handed the picture to his wife who was gesturing for it. Felicity looked at it as Donna leant over to study it also. Ninah got up and went over to sit by her mother so she could see it too.
“She’s absolutely adorable,” Felicity said with all the passion of a mother. She shook her head, no doubt feeling as Ed did.
“We named her Kira,” Jennifer said smiling, “And you’ve already met Kyato. We named them after that Japanese comic strip, you know?”
They nodded absently, not knowing at all. Donna looked at the photo and her heart sank. Kira, as she was called, was the female equivalent of her mate, beautiful in every respect, from her perfect face and figure to the graceful white wings that adorned her slender shoulders. “Her wings have no color in them, is that because she’s not mature yet?” she asked.
“No, we think it’s the same as in terrestrial birds and it’s to do with attracting a mate,” Marko said.
‘Well, it worked,’ Donna thought to herself, her heart breaking in two.
“Mommy, is she another angel?” Ninah asked.
“I guess you could say that, sweetheart,” Felicity answered absently. She handed the picture to Jennifer. “While he was here, he always seemed distracted and edgy, and now I guess I can understand why. Did he kill those men while trying to protect her?”
“Yes that’s right,” Marko said.
Felicity bit her lip, “I don’t agree with killing, but I hate the thought of that poor little thing in the hands of those men. I guess they got what they deserved.”
“That they did, Mrs. Blair,” Marko replied softly.
There was a short silence before Jennifer broke it. “While he was with you, did Kyato try to communicate Kira’s existence to you, say draw her or imply through gestures?” she asked.
Both Ed and Felicity looked to Ninah who shook her head. “No, but he can do puzzles really fast.” Both of the scientists looked surprised.
Ed smiled. “Ninah taught him to do the Rubik’s cube, among other things. Strangely, he seemed to relate to her far more so than us, or even Donna,” Ed said. Jennifer and Marko exchanged a knowing look. “You don’t look overly surprised at that,” Ed continued.
“No, I guess you could say we’re not really,” Jennifer said.
“Why?” Felicity asked.
“Well, it’s like…look, how about we start from the beginning. I’ll tell you how all this came about and at the same time we’ll show you a video, a compilation of films and images from during the time we studied them. It’s not finished yet, we still have to edit and record a narration but you’ll get the idea, and Marko and I will explain what’s happening as we go.” She turned to Marko. “Have you got a copy here or is it in the car?”
“Got it right here,” he said, reaching into his case.
Abruptly Jennifer turned to the Blairs. “I’m sorry, I tend to get carried away. Do you mind, I mean, would you like to see the tape?”
“Of course, please,” Felicity said, indicating the video player.
“Here, I’ll handle it,” Ed said, getting up and taking the tape from Marko. He slipped it into the machine and handed the remote control to Jennifer.
“Thanks, I think you’ll find this interesting.” She hit the play button and turned to the group as the TV screen lit up with the scene of a wide rocky canyon viewed from high up on one of its walls. “As I said earlier, we discovered Kyato and Kira’s presence by accident. We were actually studying the habits of a mated pair of eagles that nest in this canyon about a year ago, when this particular camera picked this up.” She indicated the screen. They waited a few seconds before suddenly, something swooped past very quickly. “When we slowed it down and improved the resolution, this is what we got.” The tape played on showing the same thing in slow motion. One of the angels, clearly Kyato, soared majestically past, twenty meters from the camera, his wings spread wide.
Jennifer paused the tape. “That quick fly by might not seem so surprising to you, having now had a week to get used to the idea of his existence, but you can imagine our reaction when we first saw it, the sheer excitement it caused. At the time we were with the Berkley ecology department and the director, our boss, believed it was an incredibly well perpetrated hoax. So did most of the department but Marko, myself and several others decided to check it out. We combed that canyon and the surrounding terrain for four weeks with no luck at all, not even a single sighting. Our allotted time limit was only one paid-week plus three weeks holiday so we had to return to Berkley, and the snide remarks of our coworkers, empty handed.” Jennifer shrugged.
“We still worked at it though, while doing our normal research. We kept checking the cameras in the other hides, and plotting out other viable locations where our feathered friend might roost. We also went out again on several weekends to continue the search in the surrounding canyons and secluded areas. Two months later, on one of these trips, we hit jackpot.” Jennifer smiled and Marko quickly took up the tale.
“We’d pulled into this roadside service station and diner to get some lunch on the Saturday. On our way back to the car Jenny had to visit the ladies so I wandered over to this dusty little stall where a young Indian boy was selling homemade wares and knick knacks, and among them were some large strange feathers. Some were plain white; some were white with gold and blue around the edges. The boy said they were spirits’ feathers and he really shouldn’t be selling something so precious but his family needed the money. He only wanted three dollars each for the white ones and five for the colored. I was so excited I bought them all. You see, I recognized them from the tape, and when Jenny came over she almost flipped out.” Marko was so engrossed in his story he was grinning ear to ear, which made them all chuckle at him.
Jennifer took over again. “We then offered the boy three hundred dollars, which was all the cash we had on us at the time, if he’d show us where he found the feathers. To his credit he was very reluctant and only did so after making us promise we meant the spirits no harm.
We took our four-wheel drive off road for miles and miles to the mouth of another canyon. It was well over fifty miles from the hide that originally heralded their existence. We had to leave the vehicle there and trek another three miles on foot up the canyon floor until we reached a rock pool and the boy indicated we were there. We asked the boy if he’d seen them and he nodded and told us to sit over in this little rocky alcove made by several boulders and be very still and quiet and they would come. This is what we saw.”
Jennifer started up the tape again and the scene changed showing a different canyon. The camera panned around showing a series of large rock pools, the biggest of which was twenty meters across by twice that in length and had a sandy little beach on its far side. A small stream connected the pools, gurgling contentedly away to itself. “This is when we first arrived,” Marko said.
The camera panned up to take in the cliff walls over a hundred meters high on each side. The canyon itself was perhaps fifty meters at its widest, its rocks all shades of ochre and red. It really was a beautiful spot. The screen blinked and changed again, remaining fixed on the little beach on the other side of the rock pool. The light had changed; this was obviously much later in the afternoon. “This is later, in the little alcove where the Indian boy told us to wait. He’d already left hours ago; he said that if the spirits saw us, he didn’t want to be around or they’d know it was him who led us to them and he would be cursed,” Marko said.
They watched the screen for a few seconds with nothing happening, then all of a sudden the female, Kira, came in to land on the little beach with an elegant flap of her wings. She looked around, almost curiously, before stepping into the water and wading in up to her mid-calf. She proceeded to cup water into her hands and bathe herself, wings included. Occasionally she’d flutter and fluff them up before splashing more water on them.
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sp; “This is when you took the still photo, then?” Ed asked, fascinated by what he was seeing.
“Same place, different time. Kira came to the pool at around that time every day,” Marko said.
“She’s adorable,” Felicity sighed as Kira stretched her wings out, up and back, studying her own reflection in the now still water. Just then Kyato arrived, landing confidently on a rock above and behind Kira. He looked around carefully, head cocked to one side as he listened, before jumping agilely down to the sand and approaching his mate. Kira looked at him with a shy, mischievous smile. When he reached the water’s edge and knelt to drink, powerful wings splayed up behind him, she splashed him with water. Kira laughed at his expression then, preempting her mate’s moves, took off into the air in a furious flapping of wings as he pounced at her, then immediately soared up after her. Jennifer paused the tape, smiling.
“He didn’t hurt her, did he?” Ninah asked.
“No honey, not at all. They were just playing, that’s all,” Jennifer said reassuringly.
“It may not seem like much now, but it was awesome at the time,” Marko said.
“We just couldn’t believe it! We wired Berkley and got our team out there the next day, basically the people who’d given the original tape some credence, six apart from Marko and