The Sinners of Erspia

“Why, she's a fairy!” Histrina exclaimed. “Only bigger."

“Yes, I'm a fairy,” answered the flying girl innocently. “But what are you?"

They stared at her. She was small and slim, hardly bigger than a child of ten or eleven. A loose, silky garment partly concealed her body, caught at the waist by a braided cord. Her golden hair fell loosely to her shoulders. Her features were delicate.

Her gauzy iridescent wings were attached somewhere near her shoulder blades. There were only two of them—Laedo would have expected four, like a dragonfly's—and they were oval in shape. When not in use they came together behind her like the wings of a butterfly, though they did not touch.

“I am Gauzewing,” the self-confessed fairy said.

Laedo smiled at the name. “I am Laedo. And this is Histrina."

Gauzewing pointed to the sky. “You are not from... ?"

Laedo glanced at the overhead landscape. “No, we are not from there. We are from a different world altogether."

She frowned, having difficulty with the concept. Then she indicated the fairy militia in the treetops.

“My friends think you are our enemies the gnomes."

She hesitated, then spoke again. “What happened to your wings?"

Now more of the strange inhabitants of this land were quitting the treetops and alighting beside Gauzewing, making Laedo uneasy. He noted that Histrina showed no fear. She was gleefully eyeing the winged men, though her glance went periodically back to Gauzewing.

“You see, they aren't gnomes,” Gauzewing announced.

The first of the newcomers to land had placed a proprietorial hand on Gauzewing's arm. He made a perfect match for her, with his poetic features and a bow slung over his shoulder.

“Perhaps the gnomes have cut off their wings,” he suggested.

“They do that, sometimes."

Watching the troop flutter down from the trees, one mystery was solved for Laedo. The fairies were the reason why Erspia-3's gravity was so low. It was to enable them to fly. Their moderately sized membrane wings would have been useless for carrying normal human body weight. Even then, the fairies were all small and light-boned. The tallest among them did not exceed five feet in height.

Klystar—if there was a Klystar—had designed the planetoid with the human fairies in mind. At the same time, he must have had the ability to redesign the human stock at his disposal genetically. Laedo did not see how the fairies’ wings could have evolved naturally.

Glancing up, he saw yet more armed fairies arriving. Evidently the appearance of the station in this idyllic setting was cause for great alarm.

A spear-bearing individual, a leader of some sort by his bearing, pushed his way through to confront Laedo.

“Do you come from the gnome world?"

“You mean up there?” Laedo pointed. “No. We come from a different world altogether."

“There are only two worlds,” the other said doubtfully. Then he shrugged. “Still, you are clearly not gnomes, and you do not belong to our race either. You are too tall."

He let his gaze rove over the towering space station. “Neither have I known the gnomes to make anything like this. How does it move through the air? There was no parachute."

“It's hard to explain.” Nervously Laedo watched as Histrina moved close to one of the men fairies and began stroking his arm. He considered inviting one or two leading fairies into the station, then thought better of it. They might interpret it as an attempted capture. Besides, he did not know how to adjust the internal gravity, or even know if that was possible at all. The fairies would barely be able to stand up once they got inside.

“Histrina!” he said sharply. “Come over here."

With a sulky pout she obeyed him.

“My name is Laedo,” he said to the spear-carrying fairy. “And this my companion is Histrina. What shall I call you?"

“I am called Highbreeze,” the other replied, “and I am an air marshal of the defence militia. This one, who so bravely came down to meet you, though with reckless disregard for her own safety, is Gauzewing.

And this is her companion Flit."

An ever-thickening flock of fairies was circling overhead. Laedo decided on a pacificatory gesture. “Let us talk,” he said, and sat cross-legged on the grass, dragging Histrina down beside him, preferring to have her where she could get up to no mischief.

“You are wrong when you think there are only two worlds,” he told Highbreeze, once he and half a dozen other fairies had followed his example. “There are other worlds far off, too far away for you to see. We come from one of those, in the ... moving house you see behind me."

“Were you not actually here, that would be almost impossible to believe,” Highbreeze commented. “Do you intend to stay with us long?"

“That depends."

Laedo pondered. “So you have a militia. You fight. There are wars between you?"