Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [44]
Thelia watched over him, mopping water and eyecleansing fluid from his face. Lake water was still dribbling out of him. When he was finally able, with great effort, to sit up, his undamaged uniform front, no longer connected to a back, peeled forward off his undamaged chest and the front of his arms.
His movement did not go unnoticed. One of the raptors still circled above them, determined not to be cheated of its prize. Sighthawks, he recalled, were often intrigued by shiny objects. The glitter of his exposed metal attracted it.
His software, Data realized, seemed to have come through unharmed. But his hardware was not cooperating. He tried to say, “Cover me with your cloak” to Thelia, but could not get it out before the bird dived for him.
Thelia was on her feet, sling in hand. She flung a stone, and the bird missed its mark and slanted upward.
Thelia squatted beside Data, saying grimly, “I need something besides a sling, Data. The gring was no real menace, but I cannot fight this creature with just rocks.”
“Cov—” he tried again, but Thelia was on her feet, flinging another stone at the oncoming raptor.
It struck the bird’s breast, but did not stop it.
Claws raked across Thelia’s shoulders as she ducked barely in time to escape death. The back of her shirt was shredded.
The raptor whirled and dived again, too fast for Thelia to impose herself between it and Data. “No!” she shouted. “No-you won’t hurt him again!” The claws came straight at Data, the cruel beak ready to strike. The best he could do was fall back; he could not even roll aside. Not two meters above Data, the raptor gave a sudden shriek, feathers floating behind ichor as the bird rose, shrieking and flying in wobbly circles.
Thelia had managed to hit the creature in the eye. Fortunately, the giant bird chose safety over revenge, winging off into the distance as Thelia bent over Data once more.
But there had been two of them. “Where… is the other… bird?” Data managed to whisper.
“You didn’t see?” Thelia asked. “When it fell into the lake with you, and the fire came out of you-it seemed to have a fit, and then it sank. It must have drowned.”
Electrocuted, Data realized, but there was no use trying to explain that to Thelia. Had it been organic, then? Probably it had been programmed to react like an organic being. They were apparently safe from the raptors for the moment, but he was not sure what good that would do them if he could not move.
However, some of his function was returning. He sat up again, his arms obeying better than before.
Cautiously, he pulled his feet under him, and tried to stand.
“Don’t!” Thelia ordered, while instinctively trying to support him. Data sat back down slowly. “My … self-repair units … are functioning,” he explained. “Rerouting commands through … undamaged circuits.”
“Then stay still until you are healed,” Thelia told him. “There is no time limit to the Quest.”
It took almost an hour before his diagnostics informed him that all possible self-repairs had been completed. He was able to stand and walk, but the main connectors to the flexors that served him in lieu of muscles were inoperative. With only the auxiliaries working, he could not exercise android strength for lifting, shoving, or leaping. He hoped there would be no more chasms to jump.
As he tested his limbs, Thelia smiled in relief. Then she chuckled. “You look like a scarecrow.” At least that is what his translator circuits made of what she said.
Data was sure whatever birdlike creatures Elysians tried to frighten from their fields were not called crows, but the concept of placing some model of a person amid the newly-planted fields was ubiquitous in agricultural