Slow Train to Arcturus

by Eric Flint

  "He talks like this from time to time," said Lani, giving Kretz's opposite shoulder a squeeze. "I don't understand him either, Kretz. I think I'm in love with an alien too."

  At least she sounded very happy about it.

  "I think I do understand him… at least in part, Lani," said Kretz. "And I did promise that I would return Howard to his home habitat. I should be able to do that, easily, if you want me to?"

  "We hadn't really decided," admitted Howard. "I… wish to stay with Lani. To marry her. Marriage in the eyes of the church is important to me."

  "We're staying together," said Lani firmly, "it's just a matter of where. We can't go back to the Matriarchy, even if we wanted to. We can't go to the uThani's habitat, really. They don't want us. And Howard is too heavy to ever really be a flier, so that leaves New Eden."

  "Which would not be kind to Lani," admitted Howard. "And I do not know how they would deal with a man who had used a weapon to commit the sin of Cain."

  "You had to shoot him, Howard," said Lani.

  "I could live with not being able to fly," said Howard, smiling.

  "Well, the truth is, we don't know if we are welcome here. Amber, uh… is. But what do we do here? Everyone works, everyone trains from very young to be something. They don't really have much use for an ex-cop and farmer. So… we're still thinking. I think it'll have to be New Eden for us two. And the uThani obviously want to go home."

  Amber came over to them, hand in hand with her partner. "There is food ready. What are you lot plotting? How to get Kretz's other companion out of the next habitat? I've been giving that some thought."

  "Uh, no. Howard and I were talking about… where we would live, after we got Kretz to his spacecraft," said Lani.

  "Forgive me, Brother Kretz," said Howard. "I had forgotten about your companion."

  He'd been with them for long enough to know the signs that Kretz was discomforted too. "I… do not see how we can rescue him."

  "We cannot just abandon him," said Howard. "He is alone and desperate, as you were, Kretz."

  Kretz nodded slowly. "But there is Selna too. I am torn. And… well, I have learned in traveling through these habitats that humans are quite capable of stopping me, even if I were armed with more than this automatic shotgun. I don't think I can rescue him. I do not see how."

  "It's a good thing that I do, then," said Amber. She tapped her portable. "I think I can log into their computer system. The uThani's system did me a favor with their data-theft. They left some signs, and talking with the computer geeks here, we've got a very good idea of the access codes for the basic programming level. I think we should be able to get access to theirs. We should be able to work out routes to get there in secret. We might even be able to get in, in secret."

  "She's too clever for her own good," said Zoe, smugly.

  Amber blushed. "I got tired of the idea of Earth's computer systems spying on us," she said. "Now come and eat. It's lovely fresh vat protein." She grinned. "The uThani are even less flattering about it than you were, Howard."

  Howard made a face. "That is impossible."

  "Oh, yeah? They say it tastes likes something a bird sicked up to feed to its chicks. They're talking serious export opportunity from their habitat. And they've burned some birds that they call parrots that they had with them."

  Howard brightened perceptibly. "Those funny chickens! I wonder if they have any left. I would love to taste real food again."

  "Meals are going to be interesting in this relationship," said Lani wryly.

  33

  When the enemy believes himself utterly invincible, then he is at his most vulnerable.

  – uThani proverb, attributed to Chief Abasaque-do-rinti, the leader of the tribe when they left Earth.

  Who did he think he was kidding?

  – Dandani

  "The first step will be to get Kretz to his lifecraft," said Lani. She didn't know how she'd ended up organizing and leading this operation, except that her police experience was the nearest thing any one had to a military background. "Would you be able to disable any booby traps from inside, Kretz?"

  He nodded. "I hope so."

  "Right. At this point you will radio your spacecraft. Tell them that you have a few technical problems, but that you will be returning very shortly. Then you hop back and fetch Amber. It'll save her a walk in space."

  "And me," said Zoe, "Although I rather fancy the walk. I never thought I'd say I fancied a walk."

  "Fine," said Lani cheerfully. "Anything to avoid domestic problems. You take these two to the airlock I… um… secured. Once inside the airlock you probably make contact with the computer system of the habitat. At this point Kretz says that he is returning to the main spacecraft. If the perp inside is listening he assumes that his only threat has gone, at least for now. If Amber is correct we can establish where the enemy, um, the people inside are. Then we take the plan from there. Okay?"

  "So who is going on this expedition?" asked Howard. "I volunteer, of course."

  "I'll have to go. Nobody else drives a computer system well enough," said Amber.

  "We go," said Nama-ti. "Food here terrible. Go look for game and new hunting grounds. Besides, want to see new place."

  "People may try to kill us."

  Uppity gabbled something.

  His companion broke into laughter. "Dandani he say: is just like home. All women here give trouble. Need to get away."

  "Yeah, but he understood what I was saying without you translating it, Perp-One."

  Nama-ti grinned. "He understand more than he tell. But too shy to speak."

  "Shy. Him?" Lani raised her eyebrows. "You're a sneaky bunch of rogues."

  Nama-ti beamed. "Thank you for compliment. We small tribe. Stay alive. Stay tribe by being sneaky. Chief Abasaque-do-rinti say that. He say lots of clever things, like never argue with woman, she talk long after head sore."

  "I appreciate this, brothers," said Howard. "But it will be dangerous. We have no right to ask this."

  They looked at each other. "Without danger, what for is life?" said Dandani, venturing on his first English.

  Zoe shook her head. "With that attitude you'll have half of Icarus going along. We have more in common than I realized."

  "If I've learned one thing on this journey," said Howard quietly, "It is that men and women of goodwill have far more in common than I had realized."

  Dandani looked at Nama-ti. Said something. Nama-ti shook his head, laughed.

  "What's he saying?" asked Lani, suspicious because they definitely looked at her.

  "He say: This 'In common,' does mean Howard no get cross when Dandani run off with strong woman?"

  She raised an eyebrow at him. "You'd be so lucky. The one you have to worry about getting cross is me, Uppity," she said, shaking a fist at him. She had to smile at the two of them. And then again, she had to be glad that they wanted to come along. Those bows of theirs were silent and lethal. And the two of them could move like ghosts when they wanted to. Hunting had honed them into being very deadly. She wondered, suddenly, if it was this deadliness that made them so confident, if that had been what she'd been seeking with weapons and martial arts training? She also noticed that Howard was looking just a little protective. That was… very satisfying too.

  "We might as well save oxygen. Taking Kretz across is not exactly a dangerous and stressful thing," said the flyboy. "And it gives us an excuse to do it again," he said with an impish grin. "We'll do it. Let your lot rest."

  It made sense. But Lani discovered afresh just how much she hated anxious waiting.

  Kretz slipped back down in through the emergency exit of the lifecraft and into a familiar world. The light-a slightly different color to that of the alien light-system-was almost like the familiar caress of an old lover. He walked through to the control room and sank into a chair that had actually been designed to fit Miran form, and started powering up, running system diagnostics at the same time. It took him a few moments to find the
little preventative measures that Derfel had set up. The comforting thing was that they all seemed designed to disable rather than to actually destroy. Derfel obviously had plans for the lander. He was not the engineer Kretz was, and it was easy to disable the internal traps, even the one attached to the debarkation ramp. Next came the crucial phase. He hoped that the two humans had moved back to the walkways as instructed, because he took the lifecraft straight up, in a four G take off. Anything that went wrong or exploded would either be harmless on the surface, or at least have the lifecraft well clear of the habitat if it was destroyed.

  He breathed again… he was still here. He began to set the craft down despite a voice in his head screaming "go back to the spacecraft now." And then he realized that it was not just his desire to be back there… but Selna's voice in his ears.

  "I can't just yet, Selna. I have to set down and remove a few booby traps and clear up some damage," Kretz said. "But I will, shortly. I am afraid there is no way to rescue Abret."

  "Don't delay," she said crossly. "I can't wait much longer. There is nothing that Derfel could do that you couldn't undo very fast. But I don't suppose you'll listen to me. You never do."

  Kretz set the craft down again awash with guilt. What she wanted was self-centered. He knew that he'd done all he could… but had he really? Could he have been more effective? Should he take the further risks that had to be involved in trying to free Abret? Deep instinct said no. The females of the species had to be preserved. There were always more males, but to have survived to sex-change age, you were a rarer being. Instinct, and the culture built on it, still said this… even if male mortality was no longer the huge proportion it had been during Miran evolution. Logic had a hard time winning, over this. It had been a different matter before he'd had a real way of returning to her.

  "But he could be anyone," Abret said to the guard, the only one that seemed to want to talk to him.

  "He Great Leader," replied that individual, scratching. "Give much food. And also fulfill prophecy: Foreign devils come to free us."

  "And are you free?" asked Abret.

  The jailor thought about this one. Jangled a bunch of keys. "Me free. You prisoner."

  Abret sat on the middle of the floor. "Has Derfel made anything better? Really better?"

  "Killed president-for-life's guard. That good thing. They murder many."

  " I killed them. And, I tell you, truly I did not mean to."

  "Great leader say he kill with holy force."

  "Ask someone who was there," said Abret.

  The jailor looked thoughtful. Nodded. "I will."

  Apparently he did, during his off-time, because he came back a very troubled man. "Is true. Why are you in jail?"

  Abret sighed. "Because I want to go home. And Derfel enjoys being important here. He likes being your Great Leader."

  "But we need a Great Leader," said the jailor.

  "Why?"

  "Because… someone must lead. We ordinary people are too stupid," said the jailor, with the air of someone who has been told this often enough to assume that it is true.

  "I can promise you this: Derfel-the Miranese that you now call your Great Leader-is not very clever. At least he is clever enough, just not very sensible. Within the next few years he will go completely mad, when he becomes female."

  The jailor blinked. "Foreign devils change sex?"

  That might make the rule of Derfel a little more awkward. "Yes," said Abret. "He will become a she. Just like you."

  "But now he is male?"

  Abret nodded. The jailor said nothing, just got up and walked away.

  A little later he came back with another human. One whose mouth was set in a thin, hard line. "This is my brother, Ji. The Great Leader he take his daughter."

  "We are logged in," said Amber. "I'm initiating the search." She raised her eyebrows. "Can you please tell that guy on your radio to shut up."

  "That is Selna. I'm afraid our main spacecraft detected the movement, and now she is insisting I return, immediately, to the ship."

  "Oh. I suppose the voice being deeper makes sense with females being bigger," said Amber, adding parameters to the search.

  "Yes. It confused me with your species at first," said Kretz. "The idea that the gender which would have to have the physiological strain of child-bearing would be smaller seems entirely bizarre to us."

  "Hmm. I can see the argument, but different selective pressures got our males bigger than our females. And now please go and tell that female to shut up. So far I'm not having a lot of joy here. I'll need to think. Your body temperatures are higher than ours, right?"

  So Kretz hit the transmit button on his suit radio. He couldn't tell her to shut up, since such rudeness to a female was just not to be considered. But he'd try reason. Otherwise he would just have to do without comms. "Selna. I have problems here."

  "You have problems!" she shouted. "It is always about you, isn't it? Well, I have problems too. I'm working through the manuals. If you don't hurry I'll launch anyway."

  "I promise I am doing my best, Selna. I will be back at the ship very soon. At the moment I need to recalibrate some instruments that Derfel sabotaged. If I tried right now I might fail to reach you. It's very complicated." He gambled on the fact that Selna was not particularly good with instrumentation, and fairly ignorant about it as a result.

  "You've got sixteen TU's," snarled Selna. "Or I'll either leave you behind or come and fetch you."

  And that was the best Kretz could do. Translating Miran time to human time, Kretz calculated Selna had decided on about eleven hours. He hoped that he had that calculated right. This base ten of the aliens was awkward.

  He walked back to where Amber was calmly prying deeper into the computer system of the habitat. "There is a high population density," she said. "I've got to warm body scan. Our problem is not so much that we can't see where they are, but that they're everywhere. Especially here, watching this airlock. I think I have found your Miran. I'm hoping that we can get live vid images. In the meanwhile if any of you have any ideas-beyond just loud noise-how we get through this airlock, I'd like to hear it."

  Kretz was hardly surprised when Howard asked diffidently. "You locked airlocks with the computer on Diana. Can you do things like that here?"

  She nodded. "I have done so. This lock is shut until we decide to open it."

  "Could you establish how the other lock is being prevented from sealing?"

  "If I get vid-feed… Ah."

  Images began appearing on the small screen. Most of them seemed to have people working on crops. Then they showed the other airlock.

  The door was held ajar by a simple orb of metal.

  "That won't damage seals," said Zoe.

  "Ah, but it lacks the elegance of a pair of panties," said Andy, grinning.

  "It is a pity we can't force the door and move it," said Howard. "I would have suggested that if it was an obstruction of the tiniest size. There are people there too, but at least they would not be prepared for us."

  "Maybe we can get a maintenance 'bot to do it," said Amber, thoughtfully. "Let's see. In the meanwhile… here are your Miran." The screen split and produced two images, in circumstances of contrast. In one the individual was sitting in a stark cage, sitting on the floor, naked, arms wrapped around himself. Plainly he was cold as his body was covered in soft rippling cilia. He was speaking to someone.

  "Abret."

  The other Miran was also naked-but probably by choice. The human in the vast bed with him looked terrified, to Kretz's now accustomed eyes. "Well, at least he's not paying much attention to us," said Lani. "Although that picture makes it easier to understand where the Matriarchy of Diana came from."

  "It is an abomination," said Howard stiffly.

  "I don't have any trouble agreeing with you, for once," said Lani. "She looks in more need of rescue than your Abret, Kretz."

  It left Kretz with feelings of guilt. Would they have regarded his own encounter of mutual
curiosity with the same disgust? The flier-girl had said it made her feel a bit like a zoophilist, which, if Transcomp interpreted it rightly, had rather echoed his own feelings. It had been… interesting. Most male Miran would take any sort of willing partner. But one such as Derfel had trouble finding those. Now, it appeared, he was finding satisfaction among the humans of this habitat. It didn't look like he provided much of it.

  Amber flicked off the scene, and showed a small 'bot crawling down off the roof, to move the doorstop of metal aside. As it rolled they could see that it was a human head, cast in bronze.

  The little 'bot pushed the door, which clicked shut. Amber hastily typed something into her portable. "Airlock secure," she said. "Now let's see if we can map a route that will get us to the Miran from there instead."

  It was rapidly apparent that it was not going to be that easy.

  "It's very heavily populated. Much more so than New Eden or Diana or Icarus," said Lani looking at the corridors of diggers and careful pruners.

  "Much more than uThani too," said Nama-ti in a melancholy tone. "Is even worse hunting grounds."

  To Howard it was frighteningly crowded, yet painfully nostalgic. These were farmers. Hard-working farmers too, to eke a living out of such tiny, precise little fields. To live off so little land you had to make each inch count.

  "They plainly have no birth control," said Zoe.

  It was a delicate subject that Howard had not seen open discussion of. Among the Brethren the limit of two children was something most families insured by passive means. Howard's father had blushingly explained days of abstinence to him. Occasionally a family had an extra babe-but that was well countered by occasional accidental deaths, and those who failed to have children at all. He'd never thought about the effects of an absence of limits on this in a closed environment before. It was a terrifying one, reflected in the slight build and thin faces of the populace.