by Jean Kilczer
“Great God above.” Weed turned in his chair and held Ferngren's hand. Her skin had mottled. Tears leaked from her eyes. Her hands trembled. She turned suddenly and fled, with a hand outstretched to steady herself as she stumbled into a hallway.”
“Her son was taken,” Weed said.
“Oh, Great Mind. I'm sorry.”
He stood up. “Not as sorry as the BEMs will be. I have been in communication with General Roothe of Korschaff. Neither of us will sleep until every last BEM lies rotting in the desert sun!”
“Wait a minute!” I lifted myself higher on the cot. “We freed a bunch of Denebrian people from the killing field. They ran into the desert.”
“Did you find them?”
“Our mission is here in the village, Weed. If we're successful, it will save thousands, maybe millions of your people.” I looked around. “Where's this hideout located? Are we still in the village?”
He took out a comlink, got up, and paced the floor as he jabbed a button. I wondered if it were my link. “Put me through to the general. Quickly,” he said into it. He paused as he waited. “Those motors you hear are generators. We're under the BEM garrison.”
“Under it?” I asked. Oh my God. We were too close. The BEMs could pick up my thoughts.
He furrowed his bushy brows. “Yes. Under it! Why do you keep repeating my words? General!” he said into the unit. “It's Lieutenant R. C. Weed.”
I stopped listening as Weed told the general about the BEM escapees. Any stray thoughts. Any unintentional probe of a mind by me, could alert the BEMs and they would come crashing in on our location.
* * *
“They've been waiting to talk to you,” Weed said.
My knees were still shaky as he helped me walk through a dirt tunnel to a large, bare room, lit by a circle of lanterns, where about twenty Denebrian men and women sat at a long, crude, wooden table and watched me approach. I had spent the last two days practicing the fine art of quelling strong thoughts as they arose, shields up, my tel power tucked under the petals of the flower that was my essence, and carefully projecting toward the garrison.
The aroma of brewing coffee mixed with the natural spice smell of the Denebs, probably a result of their diet. I wondered how I smelled to them. By now, much like cornbread and pumpkin, I imagined. The muffled throb of BEM generators was more distinct here. Weed had told me that DABs tapped into the power lines and used them to pump in fresh air and water. They even stole a small camping stove from the BEMs. A blackened coffee pot perked on its jet.
As I walked to the table, the people rose and touched their right hands to their chests. I recognized General Roothe among them.
“General,” I said and nodded. “What's protocol for me, Weed?”
“Just touch your chest. They pay you homage.”
“For freeing the Denebrian slaves?”
He nodded and led me to the empty chair next to the general. “Now any one of them would lay down his life for you.”
I touched my chest and sat down heavily. “There were six others involved in that raid,” I told Weed.
The Denebs took their chairs. Three children ran around the table in a game of tag. An older woman came into the room and hurriedly led them out through a tunnel. I watched a young male pour a mug of coffee. He stirred in sweetener and cream, and smiled, stretching his round mouth, as he brought it to me.
“Thanks,” I said.
He touched his chest, turned and left the room.
I sipped the hot, tasty brew.
“That child is Stam, the son of Ferngren,” Weed told me. “We found him wandering in the desert with others after you freed the slaves, trying to make their way back to the village.”
“That's great, Weed. I was afraid the BEMs had rounded them all up.”
“Not all,” he said with a catch in his throat.
“How do you feel, Jules?” General Roothe asked me tightly.
“Stronger,” I said. “Thanks. But not up to par. Not yet.”
He glanced around me at Weed. “Par?”
Weed raised a hand. “I've given up, General. I no longer ask.”
“Never mind.” Roothe clasped his hands on the table.
The others waited silently.
“General?” I said. “My team. Did they all make it out of the village?”
“Yes. All. We met them by a cliff after we rounded up the escapees and were bringing them here.”
I let out a long breath.
Considering that I had escaped the general's confinement, and the team had stolen seven of his best horses and scattered the rest across the desert, and destroyed his own plan to free the Deneb slaves, he might not feel grateful that we freed his people in the killing field and on the slave caravan, with the resultant loss of life.
“General, Bountiful was already – “ I began.
“We might have saved all of them!” He slammed a fist on the table. “Had you waited for us to approach the BEM HQ as a merchant caravan…”
I lowered my head. “I don't think so, General.”
“And what leads you to that conclusion?”
I bit my lip, there in the tense silence. “Bountiful the Profuse was already…she was feeding when my team got to the BEM HQ.” I glanced quickly around the table. Most of the Denebs turned to stare at each other and mumble in their native tongue. I heard them draw in breaths. A young woman jumped out of her chair and fled through a tunnel with her hand over her mouth.
The general lowered his head to his hand and I saw his shoulders shake.
“We saved as many as we could,” I said quietly. “We also freed the slaves in the Denebrian caravan headed to the BEM compound.”
He nodded, his head still in his hand.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “We did our best.”
The general wiped his eyes. “Did you locate the Star Positioning System?”
“We did. But it wasn't at their HQ. It's – “
“Then where in perdition's flames is it?”
“It's here, sir.” I glanced up. “In the garrison.”
The general stood up and threw his chair aside. His people stood and waited. “Then we will dismantle their stronghold. I will not sleep until every last one of them spouts his black blood into the sand and lies with his bones bleaching in the sun!' He slammed the table.
I heard a child cry from down the hall.
“Will you help us, Terran? Will you take up the call to avenge my murdered comrades? Will you?”
“I'll do whatever it takes, General Roothe, to locate the SPS, and to contact planet Alpha on the BEMs' intention to invade Denebria.”
“Is there no place in your plan for vengeance?”
“General, you'll have your vengeance when the BEMs are driven off your world and their invasion is foiled.”
He grasped my shoulder and squeezed a little too hard. “I will have it before that, my cousin.”
“All right.” I bit my lip and nodded.
* * *
Jules!” A tall Denebrian dressed in a uniform of green, tan, and brown splotches strode into the room with a black bag and sat on the chair next to my cot. His skin was olive, with reedy brown in the creases. He looked familiar. Weed followed him and stood by the cot.
“Hi,” I said and tried to place him.
“I know.” He chortled. “We all look alike. Doc, from Korschaff.”
“Oh. Of course. Doc.”
He sat down beside my cot. “You look well, Jules. Your color is good. I mean, for a human. But then, you Terrans come in such a variety of colors. For instance, your friend Chancey. His skin is black.”
“Oh yeah. He's black.”
“That's what I just said.”
“I mean…forget it.”
He opened his bag and took out a bulging, plastic packet. “Is there prejudice between the different Terran shades?”
“Yeah. Still is.”
“That's unfortunate. I met your friends on my way to the village. The big Ve
gan, Huff? You know, the one who took apart our ER?” He raised his brows.
“Yeah, yeah.” I nodded.
“He was very concerned about you. I told him that we had been in contact with the village and that you were alive and recovering from a bad wound.”
“Thanks, Doc. He worries.”
He looked up. “He fainted.”
“Oh, shit. Poor Huff.”
Doc unwrapped the packet and I realized it was a bag of IV fluid. “Bat gave me this for you and showed me how to use it. With burn wounds, fluids are very important.” He tapped the packet. “This contains an antibiotic to prevent infection. Another problem with burn wounds.”
I have always had an aversion to shots. “Get that thing away from me,” I said softly as he pulled the sheath off the needle. “I'm doing fine.”
“Now don't be silly.” He pushed up the left sleeve on my sweater.
I pushed it back down. “I'm not being silly. I don't like shots!”
“Shots?” His bushy brows furrowed. “This is an injection.”
“Call it whatever you want, but get it away from me.”
He sat back. “Are you serious?”
I stared at him.
He shook his head. “Is this the Terran who will lead our troops in an attack on the BEM garrison? Is this the Terran who will locate the Star Positioning System and contact Alpha, and prevent a war?”
“The same.”
“Jules. Be reasonable. With this medication you'll heal faster. There are a lot of people waiting for you to be back on your feet. We're counting on you and your tel powers.”
“Count slower.”
He looked at Weed.
Weed turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
“Where's he going?” I asked.
Doc shrugged. “Let me change the gauze pads. Is that all right, or do you also have an aversion to fresh gauze pads?”
“No. Go ahead.”
He did. Well, now, the wounds look good.”
“I told you.”
Weed returned with two male Denebs.
Uh oh, I thought. I pushed up my left sleeve, gritted my teeth, and closed my eyes.
I felt Doc tap my vein. “Oh, here it is. It's blue!”
“Hurry up,” I told him between teeth, “before I puke!”
“Before he what?” Doc asked Weed.
“I don't know,” Weed said. “I don't even ask anymore.”
I didn't feel the needle slide in. It must've been coated with a numbing agent.
“There now,” Doc said. “You want a lollipop?”
I slid him a look. “Everybody's a comedian.”
He chuckled. “Oh, your friend Reika sent a present for you.” He reached into his bag with two hands and took out a dish covered tightly with a dark plastic wrap.
Weed dragged a chair close to the cot and Doc put the dish on it.
I began to drool. I sat up as Doc opened the cover. Mock chicken! Mashed potatoes dripping with butter. A crisp salad. A slice of mud pie.
“She said you would like this better than cornbread and pumpkin, although I don't know why.” Doc unwrapped utensils from a napkin.
“Gimme that!” I grabbed them from his hand.
* * *
The healing medication worked wonders. Maybe Reika's meal, too. After three days, and three bags of antibiotics, I was on my feet and feeling pretty fit, although I will never again eat cornbread or pumpkin. And as for maple syrup. Let the trees keep it.
“Where do these tunnels lead?” I asked Weed as we strolled though one.
“To various escape routes. The longest one exits past the village.”
“Has General Roothe been asking about me?”
He nodded. “His plan is in place. But he waits for Doctor Pinebole to tell him when you are ready for it.”
“Doctor Pinebole?”
“Are you going to start that again?”
“Has the general been in touch with my friends?”
“No. he says your friends refuse to be part of his plan.”
“I'd like to talk to General Roothe about his plan.”
“I doubt that he'll grant you an audience. He shares his plans only with his top officers.”
“Is his war office here in the underground?”
“War office? I suppose that's what a Terran would call it. We like to think of ourselves as freedom fighters.”
“OK, Weed. His Freedom Fighter office.”
He glanced at me with a tightened mouth. “It's on a lower level where BEM missiles, should we be discovered, will not damage it.”
“Good thinking.”
“Actually, your team leader, Joseph of Earth, suggested it to General Roothe.”
I restrained a smirk.
“I'd like to meet with my team, Weed. Where are they?”
“Still camped by the cliffs. It's a good hiding place, with caves, and a fresh stream.”
I nodded.
Joe had been an experienced counter-terrorist captain before he retired. He was well versed in the art of war, especially guerrilla warfare, while Roothe was a novice from a race of novices in the ways of combat.
“Can I borrow a ground car…or a horse?”
Weed paused and turned to look at me. “General Roothe warned us that you might want to return to your friends. He needs you here, Jules, to implement his plan.”
“To locate the SPS?”
He shrugged. “That too. But primarily to keep us informed on the enemies' movements and tactics.”
There was no use arguing. Again, we were at odds. The general's first priority was his obsessive quest to kill every BEM on the planet, while my team's mission was the SPS and contact with Alpha.” I picked up a twig and twirled it. All through Terran history, there had been dictatorial leaders, obsessed with their own quest for power, or revenge on other countries, who had sent their troops on suicidal missions. Roothe was not much different, except for his total lack of experience.
“OK,” I said casually and continued walking. “Is it day or night?”
“It's night, Jules.” He stopped again. “I cannot allow you to leave to meet with your team. Haven't you wondered why I am always with you?”
I kicked dirt. “I figured we were friends, Weed.”
“I think you're smarter than that. Come. Let's go out the tunnel for some fresh air, if that's what you want. I am supposed to keep you content. This tunnel leads to an abandoned shed by the farmhouse, and the barn where we found you.” He shrugged. A gesture he'd picked up from me. “Anyway, I don't think you'd leave without your stingler.”
“You got that right,” I said.
We came to the tunnel's entrance. To our left was the farmhouse and the barn. To our right, the lights of the village. I took a deep breath. “I've forgotten the smell of fresh air and the feel of a breeze on my face,” I said, and mentally marked the location of the tunnel entrance.
“Oh, it hasn't been that long, now has it?”
“Maybe it just feels that way.” I walked ahead.
“Jules.”
I turned. “Yeah?”
“Suppose we stay by the tunnel's entrance. It's safer here.” He rested a hand on his holstered stingler. It would be set for stun, I knew.
“Oh. OK.” I walked back and gripped his shoulder. “You know, Weed, I've agreed to help your people because of what you've all done for me. I might've been dead…or worse yet, captured by the BEMs if you hadn't helped me.” I shook his shoulder and smiled.
He smiled back. “You're our cousin now, Jules.”
“Yeah.” I hit him hard across the jaw.
He collapsed in a heap and lay motionless. I rubbed my sore knuckles. “Glass jaw, Cous.” I took his stingler and strapped it on. Then I dragged him into the tunnel, far enough back so he wouldn't be seen by anyone from outside. I ripped some vines out of the dirt wall and tied his hands and feet. “Really sorry about this, Weed,” I said and meant it.
I jogged back through the
tunnel and found the slope leading to the lower level.
Roothe's office was empty and locked. One kick and the wooden door splintered and swung open. Great security, I thought. Freedom fighters, my ass!
I searched the room and found three rolled and tied parchments. I lit a lantern, untied one and spread it out. Dammit! It was written in Denebrian. I should have guessed that. At the bottom of the document were crude drawings of the BEM garrison with some surrounding Deneb village houses, and their HQ in the desert. If the General had any written plans, these parchments had to be it. I folded them and stuffed them into inner pockets of my jacket. Now all I needed was a willing Deneb to translate the words. Easier said than done, I thought as I trotted back up to the tunnel and to Weed, who was awake.
“What did you do?” he croaked.
“Sorry, cous. Only what I had to. I untied his legs and dragged him to his feet. I even brushed him off. “There! You should be able to make it back OK.”
“You ungrateful… You – “
“Try crotefucker,” I suggested, then turned and jogged to the barn.
“Crotefucker!” he screamed after me.
Of the four horses, I chose a young bay stallion with the deep-chested body of his ancestral Arab stock. I made friends with him by stroking his neck, and an offered handful of grain I'd scooped out of a bin, then saddled him, took a canteen and filled it, tied it to the saddle horn and led him out of the barn.
Weed staggered out of the tunnel exit, using a wall for support.
I mounted and trotted up to him. “Get back inside, cous, the BEMs can probably see just as well in the dark.
He peered up at me. “Do you know just how much hot trouble I will be in with the general? I will be cooking!”
“Want to come with me? I can use an interpreter.” I leaned over the saddle. “In the end, Cous, we have the same goal, except my captain knows how to achieve it.” I shrugged. “While your general is a babe in a very dangerous woods. What say?”
He glanced back at the tunnel entrance. “I will be ostracized for allowing you to escape.”
“Help us, Weed. Dammit. We're here on Denebria to save your people.”
He glanced back once into the tunnel, then turned and nodded.
I swung off the horse and stared him in the eyes. “Do I have your word of honor as a Denebrian freedom fighter?”