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He watched the Angel for nearly an hour. He could hardly do anything else—leaving him to go fossicking was unthinkable, and there were no immediately urgent tasks. How long would this delay him? If the Angel didn’t die—which Dinun sincerely hoped he didn’t—his recovery could take a while. A lot depended on where the other Angels were, and if they could help this one. Oh, well. It wasn’t like he was on a tight schedule or anything.

Finally, Almi groaned herself awake and went to stand. Dinun had to jump in and support the Angel’s head while she lumbered to her feet and wandered off in search of water and feed. As he cast about for something to pillow the Angel’s head against the hard ground, he found himself staring into a pair of enormous, unblinking green eyes.

::Uncertain. Afraid. Curious. Pain::

Dinun jumped a little in surprise. This telepathy thing took a bit of getting used to. It was like having another person in his brain.

“Take it easy. You’re safe.” He scrabbled for his pack and shoved it under the Angel’s neck. The Angel slumped wearily onto it as if the brief exertion of holding his head up for those few seconds had been too much.

::Grateful. Pain::

Dinun suddenly had an image in his mind of a pool of water, then a stream. After he got over the surprise of pictures being so abruptly shoved into his thoughts, he worked out what they meant. The Angel wanted to drink. “You’re thirsty? Of course you are.”

His metal cup confused the creature. He had to resort to pouring water into his cupped hand so the Angel could lap it. He fed most of a canteen to the Angel in this manner, a long process that left the injured creature panting for breath, eyes half-closed. The Angel undoubtedly needed more fluid, but too much and he would only vomit it up.

He let the Angel rest for a little while until he had his breathing under control. Then Dinun fetched the food pail with the cooked dakan and tore off a tender piece of breast meat. He held it out to the Angel and let him sniff. “It’s food. Safe to eat, I promise.”

The Angel nibbled delicately at it and seemed to find it acceptable. Dinun fed him tiny bits of dakan flesh, careful not to give him any piece big enough to choke on. The Angel took each bite between pointed, perfect white teeth, chewing carefully before swallowing. Dinun imagined the creature’s skin recovering a healthy colour with each swallow.

The Angel fell asleep after consuming most of the dakan breast. Since he was apparently in no imminent danger of dying, Dinun thought he could risk attending to some minor chores close to camp, like seeing to the smoked dakan and collecting more firewood. As he picked up fallen branches and twigs for tinder, he spotted the telltale purple shine of a treten vein in the rock wall above him. If and when he finished nursing the Angel, there were rich pickings here. Somehow, with the wonder of an Angel lying by his campfire, he found it hard to be excited about a few bits of admittedly valuable stone.

The Angel slept all morning while Dinun kept watch between his chores. Now he gave some thought as to what to do with him. Likely the creature needed more medical aid than Dinun’s little kit or his basic training could provide. That meant taking him back to Getake, unless he could contact other Angels for help. Would he survive the jolting journey and two days on the road? Would he even allow it? And would the settlement treat the Angel with respect or with fear?

Angels were deemed to be humanoids and protected from persecution by strict laws. The same penalties applied to killing one as would apply to killing Dinun—though Dinun wasn’t treated all that well by many of Getake’s residents. Still, to save the Angel’s life, Dinun would have to risk it, and if the Angel was strong enough to fight him, then he was strong enough to leave on his own two feet—or on his own two wings. Though it would be some time before the Angel could fly again. It was a nasty break.

At noon as Dinun returned from a short foray to collect mushrooms and drain his sap collectors, he found the Angel awake and alert. A picture of the dakan in the food pail flashed into his mind.

::Hungry::

“What, already? Okay.”

The Angel was definitely stronger—and ravenous. Once Dinun helped him to sit up a little, he could feed himself, and in hardly any time at all, had stripped the remaining flesh from the cooked dakan and was looking around for more. Slightly amused by the greediness, Dinun produced the second dakan, wondering if the smoked flavour would deter his patient, but no. After a couple of exploratory sniffs, the Angel tore into it, pausing only to drink some water from Dinun’s cup—again, after some sniffing. The metal clearly bothered him but not enough to stop him drinking a whole flask of water along with the entire second fowl.

Even after all that, Dinun still had a flash of hopeful ::Hungry:: but he wagged his finger. “You’ll explode. Rest for a bit.”

The Angel stared at him as if processing his words or the thoughts behind it. “Yes.”

Dinun blinked. Had the Angel used the word or had Dinun read it into an emotion of assent? “You understand me?”

Another long pause. “Yes. You. Mind. Take. Slow.” ::Tired. Pain::

“That’s incredible. Here, let me.”

The Angel wanted to sit up straighter than Dinun’s pack allowed, so Dinun shifted him back to a boulder, propping him up carefully with the pack to lean on if he wanted.

::Grateful::

“That’s okay. What’s your name? And how were you hurt?”

“Name?” ::Confused::

“What do I call you?” He pointed to himself. “I’m Dinun.”

“Dinun. Meaning?”

“Uh. It doesn’t really have a meaning. It was my grandfather’s name.”

“Parental relative meaning.” ::Confused::

“Our names don’t always mean something. ‘Dinun’ just means ‘me’.”

“Dinun.” Then Dinun received an image of his own face. “Yes.”

Conversations were going to take forever. “Your name?” He pointed at the Angel. He received an image of Quarn’s three moons. “Moon?” But then the image narrowed to the smallest of the satellites. “Heshi?”

“Heshi?” ::Confused::

Dinun realised there was no way that the Angel could know the human name for the object. “Uh, Smallest Moon? Small Moon?”

“Small Moon. Possible. Yes.” And just to reinforce it, the picture of Heshi came up again.

“So you’re Small Moon. Moon for short.” The Angel’s rather inexpressive face actually wrinkled a little as he projected more confusion. “Never mind. I’ll call you ‘Moon’ but think ‘Small Moon’. Who attacked you?” He pointed at the damaged wing. “Someone like me?”

“No.” ::Angry. Sorrowful:: Dinun saw in his mind a face, clearly human and male but at the same time alien, with small, light-coloured eyes, fleshy nose and skin the sickly milky-white of peeled doem flesh. “Take child relative.” ::Raging::

Dinun rocked back on his heels with the force of Moon’s sudden fury. “That’s a full-blood human. He took…” He tried to puzzle out “child relative”. “Your baby?”