Read Online Virginia Hamilton by Dustland: The Justice Cycle (Book Two) - Free Book Online

would communicate with another special one by impulses from its skin. The other special one would be in its own kelm and would shudder as the signal hit it. In this way, kelms would come together at a precise, foreknown place.
    Really strange! Justice traced to Dorian.
    Slakers had five extremities—two arms and three legs. The third leg was positioned at the rear of the body. It was a powerful and flexible appendage, used to fling the Slaker off the ground in an extremely high lift.
    The female Slakers above the age of twelve were able to fly. Their arms were forelimbs of paired organs, They had lifting surfaces formed of membranous skin connecting the long, modified digits of their hands.
    The male Slakers could not or would not fly, although they had forelimbs identical to, if not stronger than, the forelimbs of the females. They didn’t use the third limb or leg in the same way as the females, for lift-off. The male third leg was a vicious weapon, used for whacking or kicking a prey. The weapon was unleashed like a fist, with the force of a half-ton weight.
    Pretty awful dudes, traced Justice.
    Yeah, and I’m not sure the women are much better, either, traced Dorian.
    Male Slakers also used the third leg as a place to sit, to rest on, during a long search for food. Females used it this way occasionally. For the males, the membranous skin, unused for flight, served as pouches to store what was left of blood and meat from a kill after they themselves had eaten their fill. They shared the leftover food with the females. They disliked sharing, and they shared only after threats from the females. Sometime in the distant future, males more than likely would not share. Females would then die out; and so, too, the species.
    Maybe the females who learned to fly could learn to do more than threaten. Why don’t they try something else? Justice traced, unsure of what she meant by that.
    There was no reply from Dorian.
    Now they could see the Slaker, the Terrij, who had followed them. It came toward them from the far side of Thomas’ cliff. It came up from behind them. In their sighted way, they could see it come warily on.
    The creature had to feel their presence; yet it was clear that it couldn’t actually see them. It perceived Thomas’ cliff with the fallen rocks and showed a disturbance akin to astonishment. It slowed down, then stopped completely. After a paralyzed pause, in which its breathing was a continuous, churning groan, it came cautiously forward.
    The Slaker moved in an uncertain pattern, with the oddest rhythm Justice had ever seen. It leaned back on its third leg. Without appearing to have moved, it was instantly in a place forward from where it had just been. An incredible change of place.
    I missed something, Justice thought.
    But as the Terrij came on, Justice knew that the sequence, the movement itself, had been left out. The Terrij would be in one place, lean on the leg and would be closer.
    It had come this way before, but had never encountered a cliff. Staring at the rock, its eyes were glittering wild. It moved its legs as if climbing. It raised winged arms to grab hold of the rocks. Its robe fell open. Justice saw that the Terrij was a female; sensed that she would change in the last stage of maturity.
    Nambnua was one of her names. Meaning wifeman stalker. The Terrij was best called Bambnua—Dustwalker—which was both a title and a name.
    Suddenly, everything happened too fast, in flashes before Justice’s and Dorian’s unaccustomed eyes.
    The Bambnua moved in incredible bursts of, being in one place, then in another. She discovered the water pool. She beat her chest, flapping her wings. She drank deeply from the pool. Her skin broke out in welts as she began signaling her kelm.
    She was back at the cliff, trying to climb, and did not uncover Justice and Dorian. Yet she knew something, felt something there. She whirled around and around, trying to find them. She found Levi. She could have been a