Yanked (David Brin's Out of Time Book 1)

by Nancy Kress

  “You been cockfighting!” Jason said. “You been making those pigbirds fight so you can get a champion and run gambling games! Haven’t you?”

  Robbie said nothing, but his eyes still glittered.

  Sor said in a quiet, deadly voice, “Who did you think would come to your barbaric games? Who did you think would make bets? None of us want to watch cruelty and death to animals for your sick sport.”

  Robbie said, “You want them Panurish to talk to us, don’t you?”

  Jason gasped. “The Panurish?”

  Robbie held up his burned hand. “The Panurish roasted Robbie’s hand, didn’t they? Looked interested while they did it, too. You didn’t see that, guv’nor, nor did you, Sor. Too busy yelling at Robbie. But I saw. They’re right and proper bloody, them Panurish, and they got the rum-gumption to appreciate a good cockfight. You see if they don’t. They’ll talk to us yet.”

  Jason and Sor stared at Robbie. So did Sharon. She felt sick at the thought of making pigbirds fight to the death for fun. But...what if Robbie was right? What if a cockfight would make the Panurish willing to negotiate?

  Sor said to Robbie, “You are disgusting.”

  Robbie said to Jason, “You up for giving it a try, guv’nor? Wager with the Panurish, winner gets the t-port back so’s we can go home?”

  Jason said, “No. Yes. I don’t know. I need to think about it. We need to talk about it more.’’

  Sor said, “Jason! No good ever came from evil behavior.”

  Jason ran his hand through his tightly curled hair. Sharon had noticed that he did that when he was really stressed out. Jason said again, “I need to think about it.”

  “’Course you do, guv’nor,” Robbie said, at his most cheerful.

  Jofrid said, “All important matters are better for careful weighing.”

  Jason smiled at her gratefully. But all he said was, “You know it, babe.”

  Sharon still sat close to the fire. Jason hadn’t even noticed that she was wet from head to toe. Young Billin dropped on the ground next to her, and she forced herself to pay attention to him. “How was the basketball game?”

  “Awesome!” Billin said. He must have learned the word from Jason. “I made a free throw!”

  “But we won!” Cam said.

  Billin bristled at her. “The game wasn’t over yet! We were interrupted!”

  “But our team was ahead,” Cam said. “Way ahead.”

  Sor, of their century but older by several years, looked troubled. “Surely the point of competition in a game is fun, not boasting over winning.”

  “Yeah, Sor’s right,” Jason said. “You supposed to act cool when you win, Cam. You’re like, ‘You fought a good game, dudes. Better luck next time.’ That’s class.”

  Cam looked puzzled at this, but she nonetheless nodded.

  “Awesome,” Billin said.

  He loped off, followed by all the others except Jofrid. Jofrid squeezed Sharon’s hand. “You’re all right now, my friend, and so is Tara. All is well that ends well. And you outwitted the Panurish robot. You showed what Sor calls grit, Sharon.”

  Sharon thought about it. Was that “grit?” Smearing diaper-rash goo on a robot’s optical sensors and then hiding neck-deep in a pond? It seemed like a strange definition.

  But maybe Jofrid was right. Maybe she had shown grit. She, Sharon Myers.

  She squeezed Jofrid’s hand back. Suddenly she felt much, much better.

  In the middle of the night, Sharon woke up. Something wasn’t right. She didn’t know what, but she sensed it.

  The colony kids had all gone back to their own quarters once they were sure the Panurish had taken everything they wanted and weren’t coming back. The Yanks had chosen rooms and roommates from among all the extra space. Sharon and Jofrid shared, sleeping on two comfortable lower bunks across from each other, with a crib for Tara in the middle. Now Sharon groped for the place on the wall to make it glow with dim light. The light went on, and Sharon looked around.

  Tara was gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  They searched the whole ship. Tara wasn’t on it.

  Jason didn’t want to admit it, but he was scared. How could the Panurish have gotten inside a locked ship and stolen the baby? Did that mean they could get inside any time they wanted?

  “Okay,” he said to Billin and Betta, who were on his search team. The teams were a mess, just thrown together with shouted commands as people woke up. There’d been no time to plan, no time to think. The important thing had been just to get everybody looking for Tara, who wasn’t anywhere.

  “Okay, Billin, Betta. Go find everybody and tell them to meet in the center hall. We need to get organized. Go!”

  The two colony kids scampered off, looking as scared as Jason felt. That stupid baby! Jason had known she’d be trouble! Still, she was only a little baby, and he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. What did the humans really know about the Panurish, anyway? What if they ate babies?

  He better find Sharon. God, he hoped she wasn’t hysterical. A hysterical girl was the last thing Jason needed right now.

  Sharon wasn’t hysterical. She stood in the center hall, between Jofrid and Sor, looking pale as new paper. But she wasn’t screaming or crying or fainting, for which Jason was grateful.

  “Look, Sharon, it’s going to be all right. We’ll find Tara. We’ll...” He had to stop because of all the noise. Sharon might be quiet, but Billin and Betta and Mant went tearing through the hall on their way to the back of the Discovery, screaming, “Jason says come to the hall! JASON SAYS EVERYBODY COME TO THE HALL NOW! JASON SAYS EVERYBODY―”

  In a few minutes, everyone had arrived, dressed in pajamas and day clothes and s-suits, looking uncombed and unwashed and scared. Jason tried to make his voice calm.

  “Okay, people. What we got to do now is―”

  “Robbie isn’t here,” Sor said. His voice sounded weird.

  Jason looked around the hall, counting fast. Eight, nine, ten...eighteen, nineteen. It was true. Everyone was present except Robbie.

  And Tara.

  A cold, awful feeling slid down his spine.

  Still in that same strange voice, flat and furious at the same time, Sor said, “He took her. Robbie took Tara and left the ship.”

  Jason burst out, “Why? That doesn’t make sense!”

  Sharon started to tremble. She gasped, “The P-p-panurish; they t-tried to take Tara―”

  “What?” Jason said. “Sor, what’s she talking about? Jofrid, do you know?”

  Jofrid answered. She was as pale as Sharon. The other kids all crowded around to listen as Jofrid said, “Sharon told us yesterday. Robbie was there. It was by the fire, in the afternoon―”

  “What was?” Jason roared. “Will somebody please tell me what you’re talking about?”

  Jofrid said, “In the afternoon. Sharon went for a walk to see the Panurish, and she took Tara. The Panurish were making a march, but they all stopped walking and looked at Tara. Their robot tried to grab her, but Sharon got away.”

  “Grab Tara?” Deel said intently. “You mean, they actually paid attention to Sharon and Tara?”

  “More than just ‘paid attention,’’” Jofrid said. She told the whole story, ending with, “Sharon told me all about it by the fire, and Robbie heard. He was there because I was bandaging his hand!”

  Jason said, “Why wasn’t I told about all this?”

  Jofrid said, “It was right before your anger about Robbie making the pigbirds fight. Everything was so noisy...” Her voice trailed off, and she put an arm around her friend. Sharon didn’t seem to notice.

  Jason didn’t know a person could look like Sharon did.

  Sor said bitterly, “And so Robbie took Tara to sell to the aliens.”

  Everybody gaped at him.

  Sor continued, “Robbie took the baby to the Panurish camp to sell, or trade, for the communication cube. I would bet my life on it. He knew Tara was the only human thing of any interest t
o the Panurish, and he has no ethics, no morals, no common humanity. He’s trading Tara to them right now.”

  Then Sharon did scream. A small, despairing scream, even worse than if she had gotten hysterical. Her desperate, giving-up cry said she didn’t believe Jason could fix this.

  Well, he was at least going to try!

  “You don’t know Robbie took Tara,” he said swiftly to Sor, “but he might have, so we gotta check it out. Quick. Maybe he’s not even there yet, maybe he just left. Deel and Annit, you’re the fastest. Come with me and see if we can catch him. Sor, you stay here and get everybody else organized to―” To do what? “—to search other places outside the ship Tara might be. Deel, Annit, come on!”

  “I’m coming too,” Sor said. “Wu, you organize the search here.”

  “I’m coming,” Sharon said.

  There was no time to argue. Jason ran for everything he was worth toward the Panurish ship, his long legs outdistancing the others. Five moons were up, flooding the path with enough light to run without tripping. Enough light to see even a weasely runt carrying a baby. Jason was all the way to the Panurish camp before he saw Robbie.

  Alone. Without Tara.

  Robbie took one look at Jason tearing toward him, Deel and Sor and Annit and Wu pounding behind, and Robbie ran. He was fast, but Jason was faster. Jason caught him in a little dell filled with the lemony Jump scent of night-blooming flowers. He grabbed Robbie by the upper arms and almost lifted him off his feet.

  “Where is Tara, you bastard? Where is she?”

  “Now, guv’nor, I just―”

  “You just what? What?!!”

  “Let him answer,” Deel said. “Jason, you’re hurting him!”

  With effort, Jason loosened his grip on Robbie. Sor and Sharon appeared at the top of the nearest hill, running toward them.

  “Okay, Robbie,” Jason said. “Tell me where Tara is. And make it quick.”

  “I forked the baby for the good of everybody,” Robbie whined. “Them Panurish, they liked the baby, and it’s the first thing of ours they did like. So I asked meself, why? ‘Cause they want to learn about us, the answer come to me. So I offered ‘em a trade―keep the baby for a few days, and we keep all the stuff they already looked through and don’t want no more. Maybe in that stuff that there cube-thing―”

  Deel said, “You traded Tara? And the Panurish agreed to the bargain?”

  “Didn’t agree to nothin’,” Robbie said. “Piked on the bean, they did. Took the baby and locked Robbie out!”

  “You―” Jason began, but before he could finish, Sor’s voice came from behind them. Sor’s voice, but different than Jason had ever heard it. Low, deadly. And Sor didn’t look like himself. Gone was the smiling, polite twenty-fourth-century wimp. Sor looked like a man who could kill somebody.

  “You sold a human being. You are a despicable piece of garbage and deserve no mercy.” Before Jason could stop him, Sor seized Robbie around the neck and dragged him from Jason’s grip.

  Robbie started to fight. It was like a rabbit fighting a tiger. Sor was a foot taller, stronger, better nourished, and angrier than Jason had ever seen a person get. He started to beat Robbie with hard, deadly punches.

  “Stop! Stop!” Annit yelled. “You’ll kill him!”

  Jason sprang forward and tried to get Robbie out of Sor’s grasp, but he was unstoppable. Like some great deadly expressionless machine, he kept hitting Robbie no matter how Jason tried to interfere.

  “Sharon!” Deel cried. “Tell Sor to stop! He’ll listen to you!”

  Sharon said nothing. Suddenly Jason was afraid that Sor would kill Robbie. Sor was so outraged at what Robbie had done, so furious and horrified and sickened, that something had snapped in all that polite restraint and Sor...my God, Sor might murder the little runt!

  Jason made one final desperate lunge to pull Robbie away from Sor. It was the worst thing he could possibly have done.

  He got Robbie partially free. Instantly Robbie’s unburned left hand darted down and pulled his knife from his boot.

  “No!” Jason cried, but it was too late to stop Robbie from lunging with the knife. All Jason had time to do was thrust his own body into the space between the flailing Robbie and the deadly Sor.

  He felt the knife slide smoothly into his side.

  The pain was surprising. It started out feeling fiery, a thin burning line in his flesh. All at once, it turned cold.

  “He’s fainting,” somebody said.

  No, I’m not, Jason thought, and then, Yes, I am. The last thing he saw was Sor, standing with his head in his hands, moaning, “What did I do, what did I do?” Then he keeled over, and everything went dark.

  He revived inside the Discovery, under piles of blankets. Jofrid, Cam, and Deel sat beside him.

  “He’s awake,” Cam said.

  Jofrid put a cool hand on his forehead. “How do you feel?”

  It struck Jason as the dumbest question in the entire world. He was just knifed, Tara was stolen, Sor was bonkers, Sharon was like somebody dead, they were marooned on Jump. How should he feel? Give me a break!

  But all he said aloud was, “Okay.”

  “Your wound is slight,” Jofrid went on. “The knife was deflected by a rib. The gods smiled on you.”

  “You fainted from shock,” Deel said.

  Jofrid said, “I have tended far worse when my father’s men returned from going a-viking. You should not pamper yourself.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t planning on no pampering,” Jason said. He sat up. At first he was mad at Jofrid’s lack of sympathy, but then all at once, he was grateful for it. That was the ticket―get on with it, no self-pity. He wasn’t even hurt very bad, she said.

  Jason put his hand to his side. He could feel thick bandages and under them, some cooling salve. Probably another of Jofrid’s plant concoctions. She was a useful person, big time. Imagine one of his New York babes knowing how to treat him if he got cut. Never happen. All they could do was call 911, which sure wasn’t going to work on Jump.

  “Thanks, Jofrid,” Jason said. “You’re all right, babe.”

  Jofrid blushed with pleasure.

  “But now we got to get back to business. Where’s Robbie?”

  “Nobody knows,” Deel said. “He ran off.”

  “Where’s Sor?”

  “With Sharon,” Deel said. “They’re watching the Panurish ship to see if the aliens bring Tara out. Sharon won’t leave.”

  “Where’s da Vinci?”

  “He fell into contemplation last night. Don’t you remember?”

  No, Jason did not remember. The robot had been with him and Sor when they’d found Robbie’s pigbird-fighting setup. After that, Jason had been so furious he hadn’t noticed whether da Vinci even raced back with him to the ship. Apparently, da Vinci hadn’t.

  Jason said, “Why did da Vinci fall into contemplation this time? He’s seen pigbirds before!”

  Deel and Jofrid looked at each other. Deel said, “It was a new alien phenomenon that made da Vinci go contemplative. Robbie.”

  “Robbie? You mean, da Vinci found Robbie so alien he fell into contemplation?”

  “Yes,” Deel said. “The idea that Robbie would deliberately set up fights among animals...it’s too alien to da Vinci. It threw off his logic circuits. Remember, my society programmed him, and it’s alien to us, too.”

  “Great,” Jason muttered. “A robot that not only goes useless because of alien stuff, but because of some human stuff, too. Just what we need. Who can get him working again?”

  “Only Sor,” Deel said. “And he won’t leave Sharon.”

  Jason sighed. “What time is it now?”

  “Seven in the morning,” Deel said.

  “I slept all night?”

  “I gave you something to make you sleep,” Jofrid said calmly. “Something I brought from Iceland in the pockets of my dress.”

  Jason didn’t like the sound of that. She’d knocked him out. What else could she do with the
drugs she brought from Iceland? That was one lethal dress. However, this wasn’t the time to go into it.

  He said to Annit, “Organize some teams to go find Robbie. Tell him nobody will hurt him again, I promise, but I have to talk to him. Okay? I’m going to the Panurish ship. I want you, Jofrid, to go with me. Also Deel and Wu. Can I walk okay?”

  “You are a man,” Jofrid said, which Jason interpreted to mean yes. Or else it meant, Men walk even if they’re injured and can’t. Those Vikings from Jofrid’s time must have been some tough dudes.

  They set off slowly toward the Panurish ship. Wu carried a basket of food for Sor and Sharon. Deel carried fresh water from the spring. Jason’s side hurt, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

  Sor and Sharon sat on the usual watching spot, a hill outside the alien ship, about a hundred yards away. Both of them looked like they’d been through a war.

  Jason thought, I’m the leader. It’s up to me to do whatever I can.

  “Sharon? You all right?” Jason asked her.

  She didn’t answer. He was going to have to do a whole lot better than that.

  Jason sat down on the hill beside her. Wu and Deel put down the food and water, and he waved them away. They withdrew a short distance. Jofrid stayed beside Sharon.

  Jason said, “Look, Sharon, I’m not going to try to snow you. It’s bad that the Panurish have Tara. We don’t know what they’ll do. But try to remember that very thing―we don’t know what they’ll do. That means they might be treating Tara real good. No, don’t look at me like that, it’s true. They might like babies or even worship babies for all we know. Or they might just be taking good care of her so they can...”

  Can what? Jason was running out of ideas. Then inspiration came to him. “They’re probably taking good care of her so they can study how humans grow up.”

  Sharon said, “Why would they want to know that? They haven’t wanted to know anything else about us!”

  “No, Sharon,” Sor said. “Jason might be right. The Panurish want to examine a human, probably. It’s always good to know what the competition is made of. But they might be afraid to let us inside their ship because then we might learn about them. But a baby is perfect. They can observe her, and even if we somehow got her back, she wouldn’t be able to tell us anything about them because she’s too young.”