Slow Train to Arcturus

by Eric Flint

  That was accurate enough, thought Amber, and not based on imagined problems-unlike Lani's attempt to always put herself between Amber and Howard. That came from living in a society where wealth and position had major pulling power, Amber supposed. She must find a way to reassure her soon, although Howard seemed oblivious to the matter.

  "We'd better find a place we can wait out the darkness then," said Kretz. "Or do you think we should travel on in the dark? Perhaps these creatures sleep then."

  Amber shrugged tiredly. "Not according to the encyclopedia," she said. "We need to beware of vampire bats and jaguars and…"

  "And find a spot, soon, where we can fort up for the night," interrupted Howard. "I do not wish to have one of those drop on me during the night. Nor do I think that a black cayman is a pleasant thing to meet in the dark, let alone all these other horrors. We need a place that is high enough for us to fend them off and which has no trees overhead. We need to find it before the lights go off."

  The spot was not ideal, Howard admitted to himself. Still, as the light had faded far more quickly than at home, they were lucky to have found something this good. They had a patch of interstitial wall that had no trees against it, and where the ground was a little higher. The little mound was covered in grass.

  "Something's been cutting this vegetation," said Lani suspiciously.

  Howard looked. "I think it is some kind of grazing animal. Like those ones that fled from us two levels down, perhaps."

  She sighed tiredly. "Well, we'd better look for something else then."

  "Grazers would be food for caymans and jaguars. If they come here it's probably fairly safe," said Amber. "Besides, I don't think I can go on."

  "At least there are no trees for that serpent thing," said little John, sitting down on the grass. "Do we have any food?"

  Amber scowled at him. "Freeze-dried protein for Kretz. Analysis says it wouldn't be good for us to eat."

  "You brought me here to starve," whined the little man.

  "Oh, for Holy Susan's sake!" snapped Lani. "We didn't bring you here at all. You brought yourself and you're welcome to leave as soon as possible. In fact I think you should go now."

  John looked into the gathering gloom. "With those serpent things? No way."

  "Then stop complaining. I'm hungry and thirsty too. I might even have to drink some dripping-water at this rate."

  Howard sought to pour some oil on the water. He was, to some extent, responsible for keeping Kretz alive-which had dragged all of them into this. "I believe that is a pumpkin climbing up the edge of that bit of underbrush," he said, pointing. "The fruit is not quite the same as the ones at home, but the leaves are right, and so are the flowers. You can eat the young leaves and the flowers too. And I am sure there is other food here."

  "Is that what a pumpkin looks like in the raw? It had to be my least favorite vegetable, didn't it?" said Lani, eyeing it. "Well, it's better than nothing, I guess. So how do we nuke it?"

  Howard picked the large knobbled fruit, thinking about this and the other problems of provisioning the party. The water system in New Eden had been a bucket that you let down into an arterial canal. The faucets of Diana seemed like a recipe for things to wear out and get broken, to Howard. They were convenient, true. Right now he'd be glad of a bucket to haul clean New Eden water for Lani. She still hadn't brought herself to drink. Mind you, then he might as well wish for a sparker, and a nice flow of methane from the slurry-digesters to cook the pumpkin on. What was it going to be like raw? He'd heard you could grate it, raw, to make a salad out of it… Well, they didn't have a grater. They'd have to find out what it was like just chewed. He picked flowers, some leaf-tips and two immature fruit for good measure.

  "We need to cut this thing." The skin was thick and hard.

  "I could shoot it, I suppose," volunteered Lani. "We should have brought that snake. Snake steak."

  The idea made Howard shudder. Raw snake! How could she be so casual about a creature like that and yet worry about chickens or drinking the water? The thing was, he supposed, that the snake was just so alien to her that it had no meaning. He tried dropping the pumpkin, hard. It cracked.

  There are better things than raw pumpkin. Raw pumpkin seeds for instance-they ate those when they'd finished with the pumpkin. But at least it was food. It was sweetish, and provided a good, long chew. The cracked seeds were delicious, but took a lot of cracking for very little meat. Lani eventually braved drinking the water, too.

  She sat down next to him, and started laughing.

  "What is so funny?" asked Amber. Howard hadn't dared ask.

  "I was just thinking," said Lani. "We went through all of this to escape from the Diana police force. And right now a nice clean cell sounds pretty safe and pretty good."

  "And they feed prisoners," said Amber.

  "Yeah," agreed Lani. "I was just thinking if the force turned up here, now, I'd be pretty hard-pressed not to kiss them."

  Howard didn't think this place was that bad. But he kept his opinion to himself. "I wonder how they would do with the cayman and the serpent?"

  "Oh, hell, they'd all be back in the airlock, any that were still alive," said Lani. "This place is not what we trained for, but it was a fun thought. And I guess I don't really want to be in a cell. I wouldn't say 'no' to a hot bath and a cup of coffee, though."

  "I'd like a strong drink," said Amber. "Strong enough to knock me out."

  Then there was just the darkness to wait out. They sat together, listening to the noises that came out of the dark. Howard had to admit that "Silent Night" was not something you would ever sing here. There were croaks and whistles and odd hollow calls, and strange deep grunts out in the darkness. Instinctively, they huddled closer together. No one slept. They just sat there, waiting for the light. Gradually, things got quieter. Little snores came from at least two members of the group. Howard was tired himself, but he felt that sleep might be the last thing that they did. He'd sleep when they could see. Lani nodded against his shoulder. Snuggled into him. He sighed. It was all a heavy cross to bear.

  Sitting in the darkness John Bhangella pondered his next move. This place frightened him. It was too strange and too alien. He wasn't planning to go off on his own either, especially not unarmed. The scientist woman was a better target than the cop. He could snatch that semi-automatic shotgun out of her hands before she knew what he was doing…

  And then? He wasn't going to run off into this darkness. He might have been tempted, before the snake incident. But he also wanted to keep at least one woman. He wasn't too sure, yet, where this place actually was. The whole experience hadn't made a lot of sense to him. His mind still struggled with what he'd seen out there in that funny suit. It didn't make a clear, understandable picture. What was clear was that the others regarded this place as beyond the reach of the cops. If he could bring the other Men's Liberation Army members here, they could raid, loot and capture women-and never be followed. That had appeal.

  26

  e-vox to: Sarah Printemps

  From: H. Obisando

  Subject: uThani

  Sarah, their language doesn't even have words for any number above four. That bitch is sending them out there to get killed. I've given you the tapes. Can't you stop it?

  Henry e-vox to: H. Obisando

  From: Sarah Printemps

  Subject: uThani

  Van Pensdorm is history, Henry. But we can't stop them going. This came as a bit of shock to me too, but they're as keen to see the back of us as she was to see the back of them. We flooded their valley, and they haven't forgiven us. They're not stupid. A deal is a deal, and just because they're a primitive Pacaraima culture, doesn't mean we can break the law. Besides, there are some real heavyweights in SysGov social psychology branch sitting on this one. I don't know why, but they want the uThani to go. Look, they'll have the best of everything, and the place will be stocked with livestock and plants from the area that they came from. There are only two hundred and thirt
y-nine of them. Yes, they have a unique language. Yes, they have been cut off from most of the rest of the human race for several hundred years. At low population densities… well, the habitat will be about twenty times as big as their valley. Maybe they'll evolve a civilization. Learn to count. With the repair bots and low pop. density, they'll have a thousand years (at least) to do it in.

  Sarah

  It was a long night, in which nothing happened. Nothing… other than buzzing things biting them, and, at least in Howard's case, not much sleep. The noises-from the slightest splash of water or crack of twigs, to echoing, yarring cries-fed the imagination. The truth was that the things they probably needed to be afraid of, they wouldn't hear. But that didn't stop Howard straining his ears. Before the lights began to warm up again, Howard had had a lot of time to think as well as time to worry. He thought about home. About his confused feelings for the woman next to him. About the vastness of space.

  He had to acknowledge that Kretz's sudden arrival in their midst had changed his perspective somewhat. Perhaps Lani had been right. What he needed was a world of his own, where they took the good out of New Eden, and added it to the good in her world, had a place like this to develop, and where "outside" was not a place to fear, but to go out into, to explore.

  Lani stirred against his shoulder. He patted her arm, awkwardly. She woke. He felt her tense against him. "Is everything all right?" she whispered.

  "Fine. I'm sorry if I disturbed you," he said quietly.

  "It's okay. I didn't mean to go to sleep. Did I sleep for long?"

  "A century, I think."

  She snorted. "Doesn't feel like it. Must have been one of the short centuries. Have you slept at all?"

  "No," he said. "I thought someone had better stay awake."

  "Yeah. Right. True. Well, I will now. It's time you slept. You can't do without any rest at all either," she said gruffly.

  "I will try," said Howard. "But have you had enough sleep to stay awake?"

  She chuckled. "I need the bathroom badly enough to keep me awake. And no, I will not go out there in the dark. You close those eyes. I'll shoot and scream if anything comes too close."

  "Thank you," said Howard. Tiredness washed over him in a huge wave, with handing his responsibility over to someone else. Lani might be a woman, but she was more dangerous-and probably more reliable-than any of the male Brethren he could think of.

  As he was drifting off, in that zone where he was between sleep and wakefulness, when the guard on his tongue and mind are less than alert, He said: "Lani… do you think this place could actually be made into a world of our own? It's good farmland."

  If she answered, it was in his dreams.

  Lani sat in the dark, thinking about that last sleepy statement. It had… interesting implications, not least about how he saw her.

  The place did change your perspective. True, it was pretty vile right now. But you had to start thinking about what it could be, rather than what it was. Diana was having trouble with food production. A few tons of these pumpkins, say, and there was the possibility of trading for some of life's little essentials, like a scoot and a fitted bathroom and a food-nuke. True, there were some minor problems, like some difficulties with Diana's law. And a gulf of space to transport the stuff across. She knew a few other girls who were fairly peeved with life at the bottom of the ladder. And if Howard knew a few other New Eden farmers…

  It was a pleasant daydream, anyway. They still had to survive at least until morning, but there was a faint glow in the lights. Dawn was always a lovely time of day. The breeze that picked up from the air recirculation system was always gentle then. Someone had once explained it that it was a question of temperature differential. It was hotter during the light-period and by dawn the differential between air temperature and the cooling and moisture scrubbing loops was less. That took the magic out of it somehow.

  The different chickens of this place had started their calling. That was quite magical too. She almost woke Howard to listen to it, but he was sleeping so peacefully. She was getting hungry enough to think of those chickens with some interest.

  Unfortunately, breakfast was more pumpkin, washed down with more of this free-running water. It was all very well for Amber to point out that the dilution factor for the goat and any other animal dropping was huge. It was still there, which eroded her desire to look at this place positively down to a nub. There had to be a way around that aspect!

  They moved on, upwards, skirting water, avoiding a small herd of animals and later another group with coarse short hair that squeaked at them before plunging into the water. None of this seemed to give Howard pause. "It's in bad repair, but it can be fixed," he'd said at least half a dozen times that morning.

  And then on a small spit of sand, they came to something that did halt him in his tracks.

  Ashes. A few bits of burned twigs. One still smoldered.

  "There are people here." Howard's voice was full of the death of his hopes.

  "But there is room for us, surely? I mean, we haven't even seen them," said Lani.

  "Maybe. But this is their place, and will always be their place."

  The big guy looked absolutely shattered by that spot of ash. Johnny Bhangella didn't see it the same way. It did away with one of his worst worries. Food. The Men's Liberation Army had always survived by eating food gathered from the plants of the upper corridors, by stealing from the women, and, principally, from "donations" from sympathizers. If they didn't give willingly, they would under pressure. He was within reach of two automatic shotguns, and a pistol. Power beyond the dreams of the MLA. If there were people here, well, their men could be pressured the same way. This place was wild enough to lose an army in.

  To Howard and Lani, the fire seemed to spell disappointment. Kretz puzzled over that, especially the young female's reaction. Then it came to him. She was looking for a mating territory!

  He decided that Miran were much more sensitive to behavioral cues than humans. He'd noticed the way she was looking at Howard, even if Howard hadn't. Her posture changed subtly when she addressed him, and, if Kretz was any judge, her tone. The food Amber had made for him-a little odd to think of eating a cell culture of himself-was plainly helping his own metabolism. He was thinking about sex again. That was more like a normal Miranese male. Females only thought about it-and nothing else-when they were in heat. Popular belief held that that was how they managed to get work done… unlike most males, who had half their brain otherwise occupied all the time. The other popular theory was that they'd gotten it out of their systems by the time they changed.

  Kretz found himself now thinking about sex with aliens, even though the fire ash spelled danger to him. To Miran a relationship with another male was perfectly normal. One way or the other, it was an exploration of a possible future, and recreational too. Kretz wondered how the little male would feel if he told him he looked appealing? Judging by Howard, male humans did not make these approaches. It was all very confusing and frustrating. He must ask Howard what the polite way to seduce a human was.

  That distracted him from studying the undergrowth.

  And that would possibly have saved Howard from a little arrow in his shoulder.

  Lani shot in the direction of the trees. Maybe she'd seen something. She was rewarded by a scream. She didn't follow it up, as Kretz and then Amber did. The young female caught the swaying Howard and did her best to stop him falling. As a result the two crashed down together into a patch of creepers.

  Amber had never fired a weapon before, and nothing had prepared her for the reality of it. Her shots were not of much use, unless you counted blowing the top off a tree. Kretz might have been more accurate, but she didn't wait to see. Lani was yelling for help. Howard lay loglike. Lani held a little arrow in her hand.

  "It barely cut him! He can't be dead."

  If he wasn't already, he was going to be pretty soon, if Amber was any judge. She opened the pack he'd fashioned from her spacebag, spread out
the medical kit, and gave the anti-shock-cortico steroid injection with shaking hands. Then she put the little med-diagnostics unit onto his arm. It was useful for viruses and bacteria, running blood analysis. She didn't know if it would be in the least useful for this kind of injury.

  "It must be poisoned. Just keep away from it," she said, pointing to the arrow.

  "I'll kill the son of a bitch. I hit him." Lani turned and stood up in one fluid movement, and ran into the brush. She emerged moments later, dragging a bleeding man. She hauled him up to Howard, grabbed the arrow and held to his face. "I need an antidote, asshole, or I'll shove this down your throat."

  The plainly terrified man said something incomprehensible. Lani slapped him. "Speak English, you son of a bitch."

  "It's possible that he can't," said Amber, staring at the small readout screen on the med-diagnostics unit. "Induces paralysis of heart muscle, and stops nerve function. Heart massage time, Lani. The med-diagnostics is administering countertreatment. It says standby for CPR now. His heart hasn't stopped yet."

  "Kretz," snapped Lani, taking up position. "Shoot this bastard if he tries to run."

  For the next ten minutes they worked on Howard. Amber watched the med-diagnostic anxiously.

  It bleeped suddenly.

  "Dear Holy Susan," said Amber. "Stop, Lani."

  "He's not dead! I won't let him die!" said Lani desperately. "We go on, damn you!"

  Amber patted her shoulder. "He's breathing and his heart is beating on its own, Lani."

  Amber almost needed the service of the little med-diagnostics unit herself. The hug nearly cracked her ribs. Tears were streaming down the young woman's face. "He's too big and dumb to die," she said gruffly.

  "Yep. The heartbeat's strengthening slowly. But I don't know what other damage may have been done, Lani. Fortunately-by what the diagnostic unit is saying-the poison must be something like what is used for surgical operations. Med-diagnostics thinks we must have botched the dose! It's giving us a stern warning!" The laughter was like heady wine.