Why the Caged Bird Sings

Why the Caged Bird Sings
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With tears of loss clouding her eyes M’jesti crawled deeper into the moist nest and with great tenderness wrapped her arms about her surviving daughter.  “Forgive me,” she whispered, “I was called away…” Hesitating, and then tenderly touching the pulsating cocoon she knew that the second molt would soon be over.

The second molt was painful and having begun while she was absent there was no one to soothe them through the throes of that lengthy process.  Hearing the mewling sounds of their distress I also sensed the presence of a poacher as he entered the nest.  Their cries alerting him to their presence.

Her sisters cried silently.  “Go to them, M’jesti.  Hurry!”  Arriving quickly on swift wings as the poacher emerged from the nest with a squirming incomplete under each arm, she attacked.  Battering him with her powerful wings and shrieking, clawing at his head with her fingernails he merely ducked down, laughing, and disappeared into the dense underbrush beneath the trees. 

She called desperately to L’orjem, a silent summons to everyone, knowing it was too late, that she had seen her struggling daughters for the last time.  Her absence had been unavoidable, a meeting of minds…a call from her sisters or she would never have left them with the time for the second molt near.  The tragedy of her loss made her bold and though she knew it was forbidden, she was determined to remain with this one until the change was complete.

“M’jesti?” He called silently and she answered with a chirp of recognition. At his entrance she clutched his legs, clinging tightly and crying in earnest as he hovered over them, his wings shielding both his wife and the remaining child. 

“A poacher took them, L’orjem.  What shall we do, they were taken during the second molt and now we have only this one…please, may we keep her?”  An involuntary shiver rustled her wings, and with fear in her eyes she knew he would deny her.

“She cannot complete, you know that M’jesti, she is a single, an incomplete triad, an abomination…”  Her anguished face swam before him and dropping to his knees, embracing her, he tried to explain.

“You know the tales, we’ve heard them since we were newly molted.  There is a reason we have never seen a singleton.  She will die as her sisters have or be cast away, unable to speak or hear, or to fly…she will be better off to go with them.”  With the sure knowledge that the other two were dead or dying he sought to soothe his wife with the tender mercies of denial.

He held her, radiating heat and comfort and in the shelter of their joining their daughter stirred.  Fascinated, they watched as the buds of her wings slowly sprouted and the downy chrysalis began to peel away, until crackling softly it lay open, a pearly white shell cradling her slender body. 

He touched the sleeping face gently, tears in his eyes. “M‘jesti, look at her, is she not unusually beautiful.”  She lay slender and pale, fully grown and lovely, her wings damp and crumpled, until, as though touched by a breeze, like sails on ship they unfurled as she woke and came to her feet.  Unutterably beautiful, the glorious wings leapt to life, and lifting her high into the canopy in maiden flight, she swooped and soared in abandon, showering her parents with falling leaves.

L’orjem cried aloud.  “She flies…M’jesti, she flies!!” And the forest was filled with song as he began to sing. She came fluttering down on iridescent wings and circled above them, her melodic chirp a high note to her father’s basso.

The song was heard throughout the forest and soon the slanting light through the canopy was alive with the shimmering flutter of approaching wings.  His stance strongly suggestive of defiance, L’orjem waited as the family joined them, and the glade filled with his brothers and M’jesti’s sisters, their husbands, wives and various broods of triads.  All eyes were on the dazzling single that alighting at their appearance and now huddled in fear within her mother’s arms.

“You’re frightening her, move away.”  Her father’s harshness brought a frown from a brother. 
“Why do you scold, L’orjem?  We mean no harm; it is only that none of us has seen a single until now.  Why is she frightened, surely she knows we mean her no harm?”

Receiving no answer he continued.  “Surely she melds with her kin, or at the very least with you and M’jesti…can she hear you.”  In disbelief he shook his head, “She doesn’t speak or hear you?” 

“I cannot hear her,” L’orjem confessed, “and she does not speak, she is incomplete, my brother. You know that her sisters were stolen.” His voice fell, hesitating to reveal more, and then continued.  “It appears that we were told the truth and that when the triad is compromised the meld is lost, and there is no subliminal communication.  Our daughter is not conscious of our melded minds, although it is obvious that she knows her mother and me.”

“And yet she knew you were singing, she sang with you, L’orjem.”  M’jesti pleaded her eyes bright with tears.  “She hears when you speak aloud so perhaps she can be taught to speak, not across distance as we do, but as the creatures in the enclosure do.”

The resulting uproar drove her to her knees and stunned by their response, her head reeling, she waited for the arrival of the Chosen and judgment to be passed for her daughter’s expulsion. 



Robinson dropped his burden in disgust.  They were obviously dead, and muttering to himself he stuffed them into the deep crevice he had used before.  The crevice was too near the station and it was getting full, and the smell was awful.  He wouldn’t use it next time, if there was a next time; the penalties for stealing native females were severe.  A man could be drummed out of the service or even serve time and he didn’t want that.  This was the cushiest and most lucrative endeavor he had ever been involved in, and his career was long and varied.

“Dammit,” he muttered. “I thought they were ready to go into the last molt and that would have been perfect.”  Cursing his luck he knew he must be the unluckiest ranger in his division, losing them again when a viable, winged female was worth a king’s ransom back home. The best laid plans…he thought, with two he could have sold one and retired on the proceeds, keeping the other delicious little morsel for himself.

Poaching was dangerous but the rewards could set a man up for life.  Ever since landing on this Godforsaken planet and the R’dheshe were discovered every man there had become a poacher.  There was nothing else to do in a very small compound carved from an unending forest on the only land mass, and life got boring pretty fast.

The winged females were the rage among the filthy rich, the people who had more money than brains and men especially fell under their spell. Of course the paparazzi got into the act and there was hell to pay when a slick magazine showed up with photos of the beautiful winged creatures in compromising situations with their owners. 

The R’dheshe females didn’t last long in captivity and they were protected by strict laws, but if a man had enough money he could always manage to buy another one.  What else could a man do with an elaborately gilded cage, it couldn‘t remain empty for the creatures were terribly addictive.  Their plaintive songs were calming to the spirit and when they were gone their master’s went into withdrawal.  The only cure being another R’dheshe.

Leaving the wooded area he took a roundabout way to the fenced compound, and entering from the opposite side he waved nonchalantly to the dozing guard, and passing through the gate he headed for the showers.

He felt better with hot water beating down on his muscled back, those babies were heavy when they got old enough to molt and this was the fifth time he had tried and failed to secure one.  One more time, he promised himself, anymore and he would be pushing his luck. 

He remembered Olsen, the man who told him about the winged females when he first arrived for duty…well, they arrested him, cornering him in the dense forest and he was in bad shape when they found him.  Having run into the forest in an attempt to elude the MP’s he didn’t live to be shipped back to the military prison.
 
They said he caught some local disease, but he doubted that, the poor sod died scratching the flesh from his bones and moaning.  I bet he just went stir-crazy, he thought, that’s what happens when your stint on the stinking planet has only started and you tour lasts ten years.  A supply ship came twice a year but they only stayed for a month, and they only brought ten women.  The unit numbered two hundred men, and it wasn’t difficult to figure the odds of getting much action.  It’s a hell of way for a man to live when the planet is crawling with untouchable females.

Out of the shower and wiping the condensation from his mirror he was surprised to see a trickle of blood oozing from a scratch on his forehead.  Pushing his hair away he could see it wasn’t much, but as he shaved the scratch kept bleeding, not badly, just a trickle and then he remembered how it happened, it was that screeching mother when he snatched her kids.  He hadn’t realized she actually scratched him and finding an adhesive strip he covered it and finished dressing.

Feeling much better he decided a short nap was in order since he didn’t go on duty for a couple more hours.  Even knowing that he should do something about the stench in the crevice, maybe pour something in there to kill the smell of death, he decided to wait for another day.  So closing his eyes he was asleep almost immediately.


The air was filled with the beat of powerful wings and the glade grew deathly quiet.  They settled quietly to the ground, the Chosen R’dheshe, all females, all beautiful and as the assembly stood in awe, one of them stepped forward and breaking the silence, speaking aloud, called to the singleton.

“Come forth, R’dheshe, you are chosen.  Stand before us and you will be given your name so that you might join us.”  It was obvious that she understood, for stepping forward, with a rustle of wings and genuflecting, she fell to her knees and then rising to salute the speaker, she spoke clearly.

“I am ready, may I be worthy of my name.”

“Your name shall be M’ajosti, the huntress.  Bow your head and honor your mother, she is brave… and your father, he is strong… and together their love saved you.  Raise your head M’ajosti, you are melded with us now and it is time to tell them farewell.

Her silent farewell brought tears to her family and as she joined the Chosen in flight she saw her mother in the arms of her father, and made a pledge that the next triad they conceived would complete.  She was the huntress and she would protect them.

Now though, as they reached the open skies above the canopy far below, the steady beat of her powerful wings drove her until she spied their clearing.  Folding her wings she descended at dazzling speed to the enclave of the cruel invaders.  Swooping low and gliding on silent wings, then alighting cautiously she sensed he was sleeping.  Ah, but he reeked with the odor of her mother’s poison and soon he would rise and seek the forest, tearing the flesh from his bones and screaming. 

Satisfied, she took to the skies and joined her sisters, there was work to be done and her fierce heart beat with joy, for now she would allow herself to be taken.  She was M’ajosti, the huntress and her mission would take her to their world and she would be a most cruel and efficient invader.  She would not remain long in her gilded cage, singing…