Chapter 1

          The reys rested as they glided swiftly down from the high point of the passage, arcing eastward into a sinking wedge of atmosphere bordering the dying storm cluster that had raised them up from the depths. Wave after wave of V-shaped formations swept across the salmon sky, as the winged creatures plunged through the lean and frigid hydrogenous air. Overhead, a mottled cloud cover of lofty ammonia cirrus was weakly illuminated by a partially obscured and distant suol (the local sun), setting rapidly in the west.

          Na Ki-Sha stirred from a brief and restless slumber, abandoning any further effort to sleep. Shivering in the cold dim light, he wistfully watched the darkening hues of swirling infrared, as the tribe sank through a flat cloud layer of ammonium hydrosulfide ice crystals. He could scarcely remember when as a child he had witnessed a clear vision of Coel – the blinding Goddess of Light, one of the most sacred manifestations of the world-spirit Maddee – with his own eyes. It had been at the apex of a towering passage, the highest he could recall. A trio of slender crescent escorts, hanging motionless in an ultra sky, had attended Her.
          An even older memory flickered in Na’s mind. He must have been dreaming of a lofty night summit when he was yet an infant. On that singular occasion Na had beheld Luun, another beloved female aspect of Maddee. Her soft, full face had reached out and touched Na's soul.

          Na reflected how manifestations of Maddee could also be overtly male, or even gender-other or genderless. The most revered was Indura, a male aspect embodied in a mighty storm. Na caught a final glimpse of the vacuous expanse overhead, through an ephemeral break in the clouds, then spotted the silhouette of an impressive cumulonimbus storm tower far back to the west. The tribal elders had chosen to follow a particularly shallow course, and to mount a much smaller, gentler storm during the preceding passage. This had become all too routine. Innumerable cycles (passages) had passed since the tribe had probed deep into the atmosphere and attempted a great storm, which could propel them to the highest cloud tops, and facilitate soaring or riding the currents into a different sector of the regional circulation. The local manna had thinned to anemic levels, and the tribe had grown weak. Few young were being birthed, and those seldom survived a single passage. Lethargy and a sense of futility possessed the tribe. The elders refused to acknowledge that it might even be time to seek out a totally new complex of the mighty rivers of fire. Spawned by gigantic convective plumes that mushroomed up from the depths of their world, these systems dominated the currents on which the reys and other Jopian life depended.

          Why were the elders so timid? Could they not see that their decisions only weakened the tribe further, in a vicious cycle? Trying to forget the cold, Na twisted his gaze toward his lone daughter Ki Que-Na, soaring some distance to the right. So serene, so beautiful he thought paternally. Her soft grey hide nearly shone in the failing light. A proud cerebral hump sloped up from the back of her perfect, flattened conical body, tapered at the rear to form a graceful yet powerful tail. Two great rounded, billowy wings, expertly trimmed and angled even as she slept, extended from either side of her frame. Protected under Ki's wings were the long, furrowed folds of rey female reproductive organs, which Na fantasized would someday renew the tribe, or even spawn a new one. Ki was a survivor, the sole offspring of Na and his one mate, Que. In normal times, to have a single mate and but one child at his age of nearly 1,800 cycles would have been highly unusual. But these were not normal times.

          Chill air blew incessantly across Na's prow. Things cannot continue as they are, he fretted. Could Ki be the one foretold? She will rise down through the eye of the great storm, to spawn a new tribe. Storytellers of previous generations had passed down an ancient prophecy of a queen rey who would emerge when the tribe faced extinction. Na knew that his daughter was the One. Or, he wanted to know. How could he know what was unknowable? In spite of a desperate craving to be certain of something, and contrary to the teachings of the elders, Na knew in his heart that he could be absolutely certain of nothing – not even his own uncertainty. His very life screamed this truth.