A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [197]
As the Dobro brush fires swept across the hilltops and down into sheltered glens, the battered and soot-stained work crews spread out, stretching themselves thinner. Humans and Ildirans fought with every tool at hand, but the blazes continued to spread.
Nira had long since stopped feeling pain or exhaustion as the effort consumed her. In her imagination, she thought she could hear the plants, the grasses, the trees, all screaming at the approach of the flames—and she couldn’t do enough to help. With her shovel-ended chopping implement, she hacked at dry underbrush, clearing the ground.
The approaching fire roared like thunder across the rattling grasses. Winds whipped up, whispering in her ear and shouting across the skies, carrying sparks and ash. It was a language of despair. But Nira called to the other humans around her, suggesting how they could best combat the flames. She knew many of them, especially those who hesitantly believed her stories about the outside, and they listened to her now. The fire was an enemy they could fight, all of them.
Nira’s lungs burned from inhaling soot and smoke. Her eyes streamed with dirty tears that left streaks of green skin showing through the grime on her cheeks. Ildiran crew leaders bellowed for the firefighters to work faster and harder, though many had already collapsed from the heat and the labor. But Nira continued to find reserves of unexpected strength deep inside her.
Flying craft dumped flame retardants and loads of water onto vulnerable hillsides, drenching fresh grass in the path of the conflagration. With extraordinary effort, the fireships and combat crews managed to protect one side of the hills, forcing the frustrated blaze to go around barricades and sweep back into the valleys away from the breeding camp.
And toward more of the stunted trees.
Nira fought her way farther out into the thick grasses. Her green skin was already scratched, burned, and blistered. She saw sparks jumping like malicious imps from plant to plant. Flames surged from clumps of weeds, to an island of dry grasses, to a twisted thorny bush struggling to survive in a low hollow.
Deep in her heart, she felt visceral terror. Dobro itself was not a lovely world, although during the rainy season the weeds, grasses, and scrubby trees offered a faded reminder of majestic Theron forests. It hurt her very soul to see the flames destroying the sparse, pleasant vegetation.
Nira struggled harder, smashing at the smoldering underbrush, gasping as she lost ground, bit by bit. But she refused to give up.
A spit of greasy flames sent tendrils toward the thorny scrub trees. But the Ildiran crews were not concerned about the warped forest. All they cared about was protecting the town, the breeder camp, and the experimental facilities. The Ildirans would see to it that the captives were safe enough from the fire, if the blaze became life-threatening.
But the trees would all die. The trees! Nira could feel it.
Coughing, she stared with wide eyes and a painfully silent mind. The knotted brushwood seemed to call out to her like a desperate mute. With an intensity greater than ever before, Nira ached for the joy of communing with the worldforest. Her mind had been quiet for so long without the conversation of priests, and without the interconnected knowledge of the sentient forest.
Droning water-laden fliers dumped their splashing cargoes in a plume of steam. The Ildiran work supervisors were some distance away, preoccupied with the emergency. The smoke in the air made it hard to see anything clearly.
No one was watching her. Suddenly she saw her chance.
Nira dropped her heavy tool and began to run.
Ducking low, she sprinted through the whispering, accusing grass as fast as she had ever run through the worldforest. She raced toward the thicket of alien scrub trees as if they could protect her or transport her from this awful place. She had to believe in what she could do.
Before she had gone more than