Slow Train to Arcturus

by Eric Flint

  Ji managed to take it from her and hold her. "Have you guys got a tranquilizer?" asked Lani, looking at the remaining flyboy with his as yet unused burp-gun.

  He nodded. "Better check it out with the local man first though. He's scary."

  Lani turned to Kretz. "Get your buddy to sling the language for us, Kretz. We've got something to tranquilize the kid. We can't have her screaming while we're getting away. Although her screams probably convinced the guards."

  Kretz routed the message through Abret, and to the black-clad local.

  Abret couldn't blame the little alien for her attack. If he had grasped it right she was an adolescent human female. Whatever else was different between the two species, the concept of adolescence was similar. He would cheerfully have killed Derfel for that alone. Ji still apologized to him. "She is distraught, foreign devil."

  Abret pointed to Kretz. "My friend say they have something to help. Like the thing they give to wounded man. Can they give?"

  Ji nodded. "I would be glad. So would she, if she was herself. She does not seem too rational, telling the guards that the ancestor would come and save her." He pointed at the head. "It is an object of great reverence here."

  "Good. I will tell them to give it to her. Then we can see about escaping."

  Ji sighed. "I do not think that is possible. There is nowhere in the Workers Paradise to hide. But I have done what I needed to do. Thank you. You are a creature of honor, even if you are a foreign devil."

  As the young human was injected, Abret conveyed the gist of this to Kretz. "He got me out of jail. And… I feel a debt, Kretz. A debt of honor. One of us did this to his daughter. He says nowhere here is safe for them. Is there anywhere else we can take them?"

  Kretz nodded. "I'll ask Howard. He is a good human. The people of his habitat are odd, but they were very kind to a stranger in their midst."

  Kretz turned to the huge human and spoke.

  Howard nodded, and replied.

  Kretz turned to Abret. "He says yes. He has quoted his holy book at me. They take the belief in a noncorporeal being quite seriously."

  Abret nodded thankfully. "I gather around here they would become noncorporeal beings quite quickly, if they stayed. The only problem is that we have still have is just how to get out of there."

  "Leave it to them. Especially the big human and the one with the reddish head filaments… oh, they're black right now. That one." He pointed. "They are even more ingenious than Miran, Abret. And I know you were badly frightened and treated by these aliens, but some of them have been very good to me. They have kept me alive and helped me to reach you, at great risk and hardship to themselves."

  Abret nodded. "I'm beginning to accept that it depends on which one you meet, Kretz."

  Kretz looked thoughtful. "In these microcosms things are more concentrated, but maybe that applies to Miran too," he said. "I mean, look at Derfel. Anyway, I'd better do a Transcomp transfer of their language to your unit. I warn you, the language is quite bizarre."

  "This one is too. I suppose," Abret said, his face working with distaste, "we should see if Derfel's unit is intact. He did one thing right. He started to learn the language and immerse himself in their culture right away."

  "And we'd better look for your suit," said Kretz. "Or you'll stay immersed in it forever. And you need some Miran food, soon, by the looks of you."

  "And hormone supplements. But there are some packs on the lifecraft."

  "The best I think we can do, is to leave quietly and neatly and take the body with us," said Lani.

  Amber shuddered. "Why, Lani?"

  "Remember what happened when Howard disappeared?" said Lani.

  Amber nodded.

  "If I read this lot right, they're going to get very upset when they find a dead 'Great Leader.' One of these brown uniforms will call himself boss and kill a fair number of people. But if the Great Leader just disappears… Well, he might come back. I think that will slow them down in their response, if nothing else."

  "There is quite a bit of blood and damage, Lani," said Zoe.

  Lani smiled. This was her element. "For a forensic team, yes. For this lot-nothing we can't deal with. Turn that mattress over. We'll wrap the body in the sheet."

  "It seems a crazy lot of hard work to me," said Amber. "And you'll have to deal with the other bodies too."

  "I think we should do it. It won't be our problem, but why should we leave a purge behind us?"

  "You're getting a bit more sensitive about this sort of thing than you used to be," said Amber with a smile.

  Lani shrugged. "A side effect of living with Howard."

  Amber grimaced. "I can believe that. He was on at me about the morality of vat-protein which we vivisect and never allow the joy of a full life and the respect of a quick merciful death. Look, why don't we ask the local boy?" She jerked a thumb at Ji, who was sitting with arm around his child. "We can get Kretz and his friend to translate."

  As it turned out Kretz was by now capable of doing the translation alone. And the austere-faced Ji smiled. Pointed at the head.

  "He says it is very good idea. And if you do it right, with that thing, then everyone will be too frightened to do anything. His daughter was screaming to the ancestor to save her from the foreign devil-and people here believe in the ancestors. He says that the people believe the foreign devils will come to free them. Yet they also believe that the ancestor will protect them from foreign devils. On their holiday-the Great Leader's birthday-the Ancestor would speak, and urge them to greater endeavor to build the workers' paradise."

  Amber looked at the head. There were a couple of severed wires hanging out of the neck. She pulled on them and produced a speaker.

  Zoe plainly recognized the device too. "I'll be damned…"

  "No. They have been," said Amber grimly.

  Kretz continued. "He also wants to know: How can we get out of the palace of the Great Leader? He says Abret must give orders."

  "I think we can just leave by hitching a ride on the pipe-checkers on the main arterial. Hell. Tell him there is a secret passage." She pointed at the screen. "Here."

  Ji listened-and replied.

  "He says we must go quickly before the changing of the guard at midnight. And he says can we let him out of the passage to collect his family, once he is beyond the walls?"

  "His family?" asked Lani, puzzled.

  "Howard has promised them sanctuary," explained Kretz. "They'd want to ask him and his daughter questions, if they just suddenly reappeared."

  Amber nodded. "Besides, I think that she needs counseling. I think I probably do too! But isn't it going to be a bit obvious if they just disappear? Isn't someone going to give the alarm if they hear anything? This lot must live in crowded quarters."

  Kretz translated. Ji shook his head and replied. "People disappear. At night always. No one will say anything or look in case they are taken too."

  Amber pulled a face. "I thought Diana was in trouble, politically."

  Zoe said quietly. "Yes. We're going to have to intervene, somehow. Or do we just leave them to starve and kill each other? It goes against Icaran philosophy to have anyone 'nanny' anyone else, but without some help these guys are…" She shook her head. "We need to point them in the right direction at least, not rule their lives."

  "I would say that it was their accepting that someone could rule their lives that got them into this trouble in the first place," said Lani grimly. "Come on. Let's do a quick and dirty clean up and move out. We can leave them that piece of brass as a souvenir." She pointed at the head.

  "How about putting it on that throne that we saw on the vid? It's on our way."

  "Sure. And I've a pretty evil idea. We'll put a radio unit in it. They're used to listening to the talking head…"

  The head and its radio unit were left on the golden throne.

  Howard had enough to carry, what with Nama-ti on his back, and one end of the bed-clothes shroud that had three bodies in it.

&nb
sp; Half an hour later, Ji brought a frightened looking woman and three children to the door of the arterial. With him came Abret's former jailor with his own wife and child. The woman saw the tranquilized girl, and gave an inarticulate cry and ran to hug her. She turned from her child to look at all of them, the tears streaming down her beaming face and said something that needed no translation.

  Ji said something and pointed to Howard. She bowed reverentially to him. Howard wondered just what was being said, and just quite how he was going to explain all of this to the Council of Elders. Then he looked at the tranquilized sleeping girl and decided that the council would just have to get used to it. He hoped the Miran lifecraft could cope with this load, or, if it couldn't, that they could ferry them to-and-fro.

  Abret and Kretz were wrestling with the logistics too. "We'll have to do several trips, Kretz."

  "We can hardly do anything else. We owe them. We are honor-bound to pay them back," said Kretz.

  Abret nodded. It was such a psychologically soothing thing to be back with another Miran, a sane and pleasant one. "Yes. It's a concept they seem to understand too-and expect of us. It is strange how similar, in that aspect, the cultures are."

  "Not really," said Kretz. "Thinking about it as an animal behavioralist, I suppose understanding an obligation is the cornerstone of any intelligent species' ability to act as a social unit. There isn't really any way out of it, if you want your social unit to function."

  "There are always a few that try," said Abret, thinking of a few individuals.

  "Inevitably," agreed Kretz. "I bet humans have them too, and like them just as little as we do."

  35

  "There are always a few who want to turn space into some kind of reserve. 'Preserved eternally unpolluted, pristine and unchanging. Like the rainforest ought to be.' Well, life is a pollutant. Twenty-five percent of particulate pollution alone is biological. Lichens eat rock. Plants spew chemicals. Animals respire, animals fart. And without that pollution, there is no rainforest. And the only eternal thing in the universe is change."

  Transcript of the testimony of

  Dr. Michael Da Silva, Chair of Zoology, to Senate Select Committee on Space exploration, 1/4/2037.

  "We're going have to do this in two trips," explained Kretz, when they arrived at the airlock. "Abret and I have decided that we'll take the people needing to go to Icarus habitat first, then the uThani. It's a lot safer for both of us to pilot the lifecraft."

  Howard knew that the time had come-and he was no nearer to a decision himself about where to go. All he was sure about was that he was going to stay with Lani. She was plainly thinking about the same thing. She squeezed his hand.

  "Nama-ti needs to come with us for surgery and rehab first," said Zoe. "And we'd like Mister Ji and his daughter for a while for some psychological counseling."

  Dandani grunted. He'd been very silent on the trip back. "Nama-ti go die," he said. "Even if no die, hand gone. He no pull a bow again. Better dead than no hunt."

  "Believe me, we can fix, at least partly. One thing about a danger-sport culture, we're good at orthopedics and prosthetics."

  Dandani looked incredulously at her. "Fix?"

  Zoe nodded. "So that he at least has some use again." She turned to one of the other two fliers. "What do you think, Isaac?"

  The flier nodded. "Forty percent use at least. He'll keep the index finger and thumb anyway."

  Dandani was smiling again. "You fix, I bring pile of feathers, high as you." He looked at Lani and winked. "You know, healer woman even better wife than strong woman."

  "He's back to normal," said Lani shaking her head. "Look, take them and move them out of here. We-Howard and I and the locals-will get into the airlock as soon as you've cycled it. We'll get everyone suited up and ready to go."

  Howard nodded, and looked thoughtful. "That translator device you took off the other Miran body: would it work for English to Ji's language?"

  Kretz looked at Abret. "It could be set to do that, yes," said Abret.

  "Could you leave it with us? Then I can explain what they have to do."

  So Howard was left with Derfel's Transcomp, and the Miran and fliers, and the uThani set out. Farewells were brief-time and danger pressed.

  "Be happy together," said Howard, awkwardly, to Amber and Zoe. It was… unnatural, he still felt. Not as much as he had at first, though. You grew accustomed to it and realized that they were still the same likeable people. They weren't hurting anyone. If they were so plainly transparently joyful together, was it wrong? It was a bit too complex for Howard. God was better fitted to understand and judge than he was. He seemed to have blessed the relationship with a degree of bliss, and that was enough for Howard.

  Dandani made things more complicated. "I speak for you with chief. Place in uThani for you. Brother." He winked at Lani. "Or you can leave him behind and come with me." He ducked and laughed.

  And they went into the airlock, and closed the door.

  With his fingers twined with Lani's, Howard watched until the red airlock light turned green. Then he cleared his throat and turned to the watching locals. "It is time for us to go. Don't worry. There is a better world out there. It is different, but you will be looked after."

  The woman holding her children, with a small cloth bundle as their sole possessions, nodded. "Yes, he-who-brings-the-ancestor. We are ready."

  They'd have to learn to call him something else. "Good. Let's go. Once we're in there and suited up, you're safe."

  Inside the airlock he showed them where the suits were kept. He and Lani helped to fit the children and bemused adults into them.

  When they were sorted it was their turn.

  At the end of suiting up, Howard had done his thinking and reached his decisions. He turned to her. "Lani, New Eden would be your idea of hell. You might love me now, but you'd come to hate me, I think. You would be miserable."

  She looked coolly at him. "Are you giving me the push, Howard? Are you telling me to go back to Diana and get out of your life?"

  He shook his head and took her gauntleted hand. "No. I don't, at this stage, see any place except New Eden for these people. I can't send them back there alone. I want you now and always to be my wife. My partner. Call it what you like. I love you, and I want you beside me. I can't change that. So I am asking you to come back to New Eden with me, and help me change it."

  "You already belong to me," she said gruffly. "And I'm a cop. If you go without me, I'll have to follow you, and keep you in safe custody." She put her arms around him. "Like this." She looked up at him. "It's not everyone who has someone offer to change the world for her. I don't think I could have refused that, even if you didn't already belong to me. Now kiss me, before I put this helmet on." Her eyes were very moist.

  He did. For a long time. When he came up for air he touched her cheek and said, "With you beside me, I could change any number of worlds."

  Abret looked at the lifecraft almost unbelievingly. Not long ago it had seemed improbable that he would ever see it again. Now… he would be heading toward the spacecraft. One more stepping stone towards that long journey home. To a place that smelled right to nest.

  They got in through the airlocks, settled their passengers. Took their seats, and began the wonderful familiar mantra of pre-flight checks. Kretz clicked on the radio.

  "This is the lifecraft to the spacecraft. Selna, are you receiving us?"

  There was a silence.

  And then Selna's voice. Cold. Angry. "Kretz. I've started the pre-lift sequences. I won't interrupt them for you."

  "We're on our way, Selna," said Kretz, soothingly. "I have rescued Abret from the alien habitat."

  It didn't have the desired effect. "I told you to come here. Not to risk yourself. Get here now. Once final sequence checks begin, I can't interrupt them."

  "Stop them now, Selna. You must interrupt them. We're coming. We just can't get there yet. We have some… debts we have to pay."

  "Debts?" she as
ked.

  "Aliens that helped us survive and get free. They need to be returned to their habitats. We've got them on board."

  She screamed. Loud enough to make Kretz and Abret tear the earpieces away from their ears. "Get the filth off the lifecraft! Get here now! I've got to get back. Get here before the launch sequence is done. Get here. Get here! Get here! Or stay with those filth forever. I've had your excuses. You lied about checks so you could rescue Abret. You have less than a third of a TU or you can stay there with him."

  Abret looked at Kretz. Selna had been his lover, and those relationships often re-established after changeover.

  Kretz looked back at him. Spoke into the radio unit again. "Please wait, Selna. It won't take us more than a TU. And we're not even in the optimum launch window yet."

  "You have less than a third of TU," she said again.

  Abret took a deep breath. "I'll fly. You keep talking to her."

  Kretz nodded. "We deliver these. Pick up Howard. And then we run straight for the spacecraft. We should do it easily. She'll stop when we get there. You can embark and I'll get Howard and the others back. That way…"

  "It is my debt of honor too, friend. You could have left me there, when you got to the lifecraft. We need to get to her, hopefully get her sedated into trance-sleep."

  "It may not work," said Kretz grimly. "There have been no trials on females. There are a lot of physiological changes."

  "What else can we do?" said Abret. "First stop, next habitat?"

  "Yes. And then the one beyond that."

  "We have to rush," said Kretz to them, "Please disembark as quickly as possible." And then he turned to Dandani and spoke to him in his language.

  The uThani's mouth fell open. And then he laughed.

  Dandani turned to Amber. "He is good enough sneaky to make uThani too."

  Amber wished she could speak Miran. Because she'd love to know what it was that made the sudden rush necessary. The best launch window for a return to their homeworld-not due for the last bead for nearly six months-was definitely some time off.

  Still, she was willing enough to scramble off the ship and be helped toward the airlock. It was odd to think that they'd never see each other again. Sad. Kretz was alien… but very human too.