But he did not find her. She found him.

  She had come upon his own trail, in her roundabout rovings, and recognized it immediately. In less than a day she had caught up.

  Orn looked up from the newly hatched brach he was feeding on, suddenly aware of her presence. Across the open space of the deserted tricer stamping ground they peered at one another. His beak was smeared with the blood of the fleet young rep, his nose suffused with the fresh odors of its open carcass, and in this delicious and romantic moment he viewed the bird who was to be his mate.

  Ornette: she was shorter than he by the width of one dry tailfeather. Her beak was slender, a delicate brown matching the scales of her muscular thighs. Her eyes were large and round, half shuttered by the gray nictitating membranes. The white neck feathers were sleek and bright, merging gracefully into the gray breast area. Her body plumage fluffed out slightly, lighter on the underside, for she had been moving through high brush. Her wings were well-kept and handsome, looking larger than they were because of the unusual, almost regressive length of their primaries. Her tail, too, had sizable retrices, and the coverts displayed the grandeur of the nuptial plumage. Even the claws of her feet glistened with natural oil. From her drifted the perfume of the distaff, at once exciting and maddening to the male. She was beautiful and wholly desirable.

  Then she was away, whirling her shapely sternum about and running from him; and he was running after her with all his strength, his meal forgotten. She disappeared into high palmetto brush, outdistancing him; but it was a chase he was certain to win, for his thews were heavier, his masculine endurance greater. This was the way it was meant to be, and had been, throughout the existence of the species.

  She fled toward the swamp, passing into the territory of the struth, that zealous rep so like Orn himself. That surely meant trouble, but there was nothing Orn could do about it. If he tried to circle to head her off, he would only lose distance, for she was for the moment as fleet as he.

  She dodged around a giant fir, sending green sprigs flying, and sheered away before encountering the struth. She knew! She bore horth, much to his relief, though that was territory he had not scouted. Her pace slowed as the ground became marshy—but so did his own. It would be a long time before he caught her, this way. This, too, was as nature had decreed.

  She ran north for a time, then veered west, toward the mountains. Soon they were ascending, leaving the steamy valley below. Flying aves scattered from their path and grazing young reps scooted away. A wounded adult tricer, come this far to die, looked up startled. Through increasingly leafy trees they went, where mams twittered in the branches, and on into the grassy elevation where arths swarmed in sunlight, but Ornette did not slacken her pace. Up until the air became cool; on until the snows began. But Orn did not feel the cold. Slowly he gained on her.

  She changed course at last, running north along the fringe of white while the sun dropped toward the mountain crest. Then down again, into the valley, into the thickest greenery, spreading her wings to aid control in that precipitous descent. She gained on him again, utilizing those longer feathers, but on the level bottom where the reps roamed he got it back. And up again, almost to the snow, and still Orn gained on her, though he had never run so long without resting.

  The second time they came down at the northern apex of the great valley, beyond the swamp. Here there was a higher plain, too dry and cold for the comfort of most reps though the little mams were plentiful. And here, abruptly, the light of the sun was cut off by the mountain range. It was early dusk.

  Ornette stopped, panting. Orn, hardly two wingspans behind, stopped also. The chase had to halt when the sun dropped, to resume in place when it rose again. The night was for feeding and resting and . . . courtship. Thousands of generations before them had determined this, and the pattern was not to be broken now.

  The swamp spread out below from a comparatively tiny tributary stream here, and there were fish in it and mams in burrows adjacent and arths available for the scratching. They hunted, separately, and fed, separately. Then, as full darkness overtook them, they began the dance.

  Ornette crossed the plain, away from him, until she was a female silence in the distance. Orn stood, beak elevated, waiting. There was a period of stillness.

  Then Orn stepped forward, spreading his wings and holding them there to catch the gentle evening breeze. He gave one piercing, lust-charged call. She answered, demurely; then silence.

  Orn moved toward her, and she toward him, each watching, listening, sniffing for the other. Slowly they came together, until he saw the white of her spread wings. The remiges, the rowing feathers, were slightly phospherescent when exposed in this fashion, slick with the oils of courtship exercise; and so she was a winged outline, lovely. He too, to her.

  In the sight of each other, they strutted, he with the male-gait, she the female. They approached, circled, retreated, their feet striking the ground in unison, wings always spread. Then Orn faced her and closed his wings, becoming invisible, and she performed her solo dance.

  Wings open; wings closed. On and off she flashed, a diffuse firefly, her feet beating the intricate courtship metre, now steady, now irregular, always compelling. Far back into her ancestry the females had done this series for waiting males, taunting them with the nuptial ritual.

  Then her dance halted, and the plain was quiet again. Orn’s turn. He spread, commenced the beat, closed, whirled, jumped, spread, and instinct carried him on irreversibly. Tat-tap-tap against the turf, the flapping of wings measured by that cadence but not matching it. A faster, fiercer dance than hers, domineering, forceful, signifying what male expression in any species signified, but artistically, and not without gentle undertones. Forward, back, around; one wing flashing, then the other, as though he were jumping back and forth. But silent, except for the feet; a pulsing ghost. Finally an accelerated beat, wings and feet together, climbing as though into takeoff—and silence.

  The dance was done. Orn rested, alone in the dark, letting his heart subside. It had been a good effort, following a good chase—but better things awaited the morning. He made his way to the roost he had selected while foraging. Ornette, out of his sight as the ritual dictated, did the same.

  A quick meal at daybreak. Then, as the sun struggled over the eastern pass, the chase resumed. She was fresh again, recovering better than he, and she was familiar with this terrain, and he lost ground. Up the face of the northern range, across a low, hidden pass leading into another rich valley—but she turned back into their own, south. Even to the verge of the swamp she ran, passing briars, moss and fungus that wrenched feathers from him or powdered him with spores as he charged carelessly through. At one point she intersected the spoor of a giant rep predator, and reversed her field hurriedly. It would not do to have trouble of that nature on this romantic occasion!

  Up to the snows again, across a hot stream that melted its own channel through ice, down . . . and before noon Orn was gaining on her again. She was tired; her feathers no longer glistened sleekly, her beak was no longer held high. She made to ascend once more, but he shortened the distance between them so rapidly that she desisted, staying on the contour. They were near the southeast corner of the valley now, separated from his original entry by swamp and bay.

  Orn approached within a wingspan, no longer straining. She was so worn he could keep the pace easily; his season’s travel had conditioned him for this, and he had recovered his strength during his days in the valley. And—he was male. But the time to catch her was not quite yet, and he dallied.

  Aware of her defeat, Ornette stumbled and hardly caught herself in time. In desperation she waded out into the shallow water of the bay, toward a nearby island, but she was so gaunt and tired that this was even worse, and she had to turn back.

  Orn was waiting for her, victorious. As she climbed slowly to the bank he pounced on her and buried his beak amid the tender downfeathers of her neck, but did not bite. She hardly resisted; she had been conquered. She dropped to the ground and lay there at his mercy.

  Orn shook her once, not hard, and let her go. He trotted to a nearby bed of moss. He gathered a succulent beakful and brought it to her as a counter-offering. She sniffed it weakly, looked at him through the nictitating lid, and accepted.

  With these first tokens of submission and of the nest they were to build and share, their courtship was done. They had found each other fitting; soon they would mate and settle, uniting their memories in their offspring.

  Another morning—the first of their new life. They scouted the vicinity and decided to cross to the island Ornette had been unable to reach before. This was thickly wooded with firs, and seemed to represent a suitable haven from most carnivores. The big land-walkers would have difficulty crossing to it, while the sea dwellers would be unlikely to venture among trees of such size, even if they were able to leave the water.

  The two waded in and paddled with their abbreviated wings, entering the water while the chill remained in the air. The sea itself was warm, and they would be vulnerable to submerged predators. But the reps of the surface or shore would still be torpid, and so less dangerous than usual. Morning was the best time to forage when such creatures were near.

  Not a ripple disturbed the sea, apart from those of their own motions. They crossed quickly and safely—but this was not a risk they would take again soon.

  The island ground was spongy but not soggy; the matted fir droppings made an excellent fundament. Though the island was small, it was not flat. The trees ascended a mound in the center. Orn perceived it for what it was: the tip of a submerged mountain. Once it might have stood as tall and cold as the peaks of the ranges enclosing this warm valley, but its understratum had given way and allowed the bay to encroach. Its original formation had been volcanically inspired. None of that animation remained to it now, or Orn would not have stayed.

  Near the water were thick stands of clubmoss, the tops of the plants as high as his head. Once this species had been a giant many times that height, but somehow it had diminished to this innocuous status, and was still shrinking elsewhere on the continent. Horsetail rushes were also abundant, though similarly restricted in size.

  At the fringe of a twisting inlet they discovered the ideal nesting site: a mossy peninsula sheltered within a northern baylet. It was protected from the harsher waves of the ocean, and from the openness of the main island. The bridge to the site was narrow, so that a single bird could defend it, and the bay itself was deep enough to discourage wading. Yet the mouth of the inlet was toothed by jagged rocks, preventing access by most large sea creatures. A stand of several pines served as a breaker against offshore wind, and the main body of the island guarded against the sea wind. The soil was rich with grubs, and small fish teemed in the inlet, and clams in the gravel below it.

  Ornette was pleased, already casting about for the specific spot for the nest. But Orn was more cautious. The experience of his ancestry told him that seemingly ideal locations generally appealed to more than one individual or species. Sometimes a flawed site was actually superior, because of this competitive factor. And he was directly aware of the fate of his parents, who had nested on another apparently ideal island. Orn did not want his own chicks to be orphaned as they hatched.

  The smell of rep was strong here, and there were many droppings. Something used this peninsula regularly, but he was unable to identify the particular creature before actually seeing it.

  Ornette, female, had few such compunctions. Defense of the nest was not her primary responsibility; filling it was. She scratched the earth in several areas and fluttered for his attention. This spot? This? Or nearer the water?

  Unable to subdue her enthusiasm without unreasonable gruffness, Orn approved a site beside the inlet. This was atop a large elevated stone, concave above, that he deemed secure from both flood tide and the intrusion of eggsucking reps and groundbound arths. A wingspan across and half that high, it was large enough for a proper nest yet had a sharply defined perimeter. The eggs would be as safe there as anywhere in the open, and of course they would never be left unattended.

  If only he knew what manner of rep frequented this locale. It might be innocuous.

  All afternoon they worked on the nest, foraging amid the pines for needles and cones, and fetching moss for spongy lining. Ornette wove the long stems of shore plants into a great circular pattern and calked the interstices with the clay Orn scooped up from beneath the water. The nest would have to bake for a day in the sun before the padding was installed, and if it rained they would have to repeat the calking and wait again. Orn hoped that such delay would not happen. The nest had to be complete before mating occurred.

  As the sun touched the bright crest of the mountain wall, shapes appeared in the sky. They were the huge gliding forms of the ptera, largest of the flying reps. Orn recognized the creature now, as the visual trigger activated his memory. The trees, the droppings, the odor—this was a nesting site for the enormous gliders.

  The shapes came in, drifting on the rising currents in the atmosphere but steadily approaching the island. Orn stood in the center of the peninsula beside the stoutest tree and made ready for the confrontation that had to come. Ptera generally did not get along well with true birds.

  Three spiraled toward him. Their wings were monstrous: four times Orn’s own span. Their heads were large, with long toothless beaks and crests of bone that extended back as a counterbalance. A flap of skin stretched from the crest back above the body, serving as a rudder that oriented each creature into the wind. Their bodies had neither hair nor feathers, but scales as fragile as natal down and hardly more protective.

  Orn continued to watch, remembering more. The ptera, like the other larger flyers among the reps, had tiny legs to which the rear of the wings attached. The tail was so small as to be useless. The forelimbs that braced the wings were many times the size of the hind limbs, and the fourth phalange extended half the length of each wing. Ptera, able to glide all day without respite, could not walk on land. There was nothing to fear from this particular species; any individual who tried to attack him in the air would be at a severe disadvantage because Orn could knock it down and kill it while it flopped helplessly on the ground. A ptera could not fly from ground level.

  Orn dropped his fighting stance, though he kept close watch on the visitors. One could never be certain what a rep would do, though the ptera were not notably foolish.

  The three circled overhead, then evidently decided that he was not a threat and swooped at one of the pines leaning over the water. Each passed over a horizontal branch high on the trunk, let down its little legs, caught hold with marvelous accuracy and spun around.

  Then the wings folded and they hung inverted, three suddenly smaller bodies wrapped in folded leather, the downy scales outward. They were well beyond Orn’s reach and he, effectively, was beyond theirs. Friends the two species were not, but coexistence was feasible.

  The mystery of the rep inhabitant had been alleviated. The three ptera combined would mass no more than Orn alone, for they were insubstantial things despite their monstrous wingspan. And if they nighted safely here, so could he.

  Ornette was unconcernedly scooping small fish from the water. She had known it all along.

  They fed together and slept that night beside the half-constructed nest, the head of each tucked under the wing of the other, sharing warmth and love. It rained, forcing them to scramble to shelter the nest with their spread wings; but it was a good night.

  The ptera were not early risers. Long after the birds had foraged for their morning meal, the three reps hung from their branches tightly cloaked. Only when the sun itself touched their bodies did they move, and then stiffly. The scant chill of this valley night was enough to incapacitate these creatures who lacked internal control of their body temperatures. Even the hairy mams were better off than that.

  The nest was baking. For the present, the birds had nothing constructive to do, so they explored the peninsula thoroughly, searching out the best fishing area and the richest infestations of edible arths-r-and watched the reps.

  The three began to stir more actively as the sunlight heated them. Their heads rotated and the small claws at the break of their wings flexed. They began to flutter gently, opening their membranes to the warmth. Those tremendous wings could trap a large expanse of sunlight, heating the entire system.

  Then, one by one, the reps dropped. The first fell almost to the water before leveling out, then swooped perilously close to the surface. Its wings stretched out so thinly that the sunlight made them translucent, the veins showing dark like the webwork of deciduous leaves. The ptera flapped clumsily, its very bones bending in the desperate effort to gain altitude, and Orn felt a surge of longing. Once his own line had flown, and takeoff had resembled this. He knew the rep had to reach an updraft quickly, for its reserve of energy was small and a descent into the cool water would be fatal.

  It found a favorable air current and fought its way to a safe height. The second ptera dropped, following a similar course. But the third, the largest, did not. The wind had shifted, and that particular corridor to the sky was closed. Anxiously it maneuvered from side to side, but remained too low. The tip of one wing as it banked touched a wave, jerking the creature about. It righted itself, but now was too low even to flap without disaster.

  The drama was not over. Carefully the ptera circled, coasting closer and closer to destruction but never quite touching the sea. It came in toward the island, toward Orn’s nest.

  Alarmed, Orn ran to protect their property. But the ptera was only trying to reach land before falling that last bit. It did not succeed. With a sick splash it struck the water, so close to the nest that Orn spread his wings quickly to intercept the flying droplets before they wet the clay and forced a postponement of his nuptial.