“Nobody would see you, and you'd be far away before anybody got free and could even start chasing you.” Bain liked that idea. “Should I wait until you have everything set up?”
“If there are alarms, yes.”
The waiting took forever. Bain crept through the dark pools and bars of shadows until he could curl up directly under the hatch for the first shuttle. He watched the camp, looking for signs of movement. Three times, he thought the men sitting guard by the campfire were about to stand up and walk toward the cluster of tents. Had they seen or heard something?
Bain could see nothing of his three companions. Not a bit of movement, not a sound. He felt totally alone there in the shadows of the shuttle, waiting for the signal to climb into the cockpit and do his job.
While he waited and watched, he tried to remember every lesson Lin had given him on the circuitry and controls of ships. Some things were basic, the designs universal so repairs could be made and replacement parts installed with minimum of trouble. What was the use of having a fancy, special starship if it took forever to get replacement parts? A ship was built of parts that could be found and bought and installed anywhere, on any colony world in the Commonwealth and even in the Conclave.
That meant, a boy just starting his apprenticeship as a Spacer could open up a panel inside a pirates’ shuttlecraft and pull out crystal connectors and circuit boards and make the shuttle worthless. In theory.
Bain tried to remember what different connector panels looked like. Each job had a different panel, to make them easier to identify and replace. Bain tried to decide which panels were the most important. Should he take out the navigation board first, or the sensors? Either one would make it hard for the pirates to chase Sunsinger and hurt her. If he took out the engine control panels, or the launch function controls, the pirates wouldn't even be able to get into the air. They would know something was wrong with their shuttles sooner, though. Did he want that?
The darkness under the shuttle grew thicker and deeper and colder. Bain hunched his shoulders and shivered and wished he had brought an extra coat. He was hungry. Marco said they could eat when they finished this job and returned to the cave. He said if they ate, they would start to get sleepy. Bain wondered how they could do their work without any food in their stomachs.
“Bain?” Alyss whispered. She signaled from their first hiding place, back in among the rocks. “We're set.”
Mattias stood up from behind her and waved, then ducked back down into hiding. Bain wondered for a moment where Marco was. Then he realized that someone had to be there to pull the rope and knock the tents over if he set off the alarm at the shuttles.
“Please, Fi'in, help me do well,” Bain whispered. He stood up and reached for the door control for the shuttle.
His whole body ached from the tension, waiting for an alarm to go off.
The hatch slid open without hesitation, making no more sound than a soft hissing. Dim blue light spilled out into the darkness. Bain scurried up the two short steps and hurried to close the hatch.
Inside, the shuttle didn't look much different from the shuttle he had lived in with his parents. Bain swallowed hard against an odd, sick-to-his-stomach feeling. This wasn't his parents’ shuttle. There was no one on the other side of that door into the passenger/cargo compartment. He turned his back on the door and studied the square, pale gray cockpit.
Two seats, for pilot and co-pilot, a wide viewport across the front of the compartment, and a long strip of lights and screens, switches and dials and buttons to control the shuttlecraft. Nothing unusual. Nothing that would show this craft belonged to pirates instead of people who ran a transport business.
The crystal connector panels and circuit boards were in tilt-out drawers directly under the pilot's control panel. Bain got on his knees and slid his fingers into the indentation. Everything in the drawer was neat and clean and looked almost new. Bain hesitated only a moment. He pulled out every board and panel in the first two rows. For good measure, he tore the wires out of their terminals. Even if the pirates had replacements, it would take time to put them into place. He jammed the boards inside his shirt and into his pockets, and closed the drawer.
Bain looked out through the narrow window next to the hatch, to see if anyone was coming close to the shuttle. He didn't see any movement. His hands shook, though, when he pressed the button to open the hatch again.
After that, getting across the five meters to the other shuttle and climbing inside felt almost easy. Bain did the same thing to the controls for the second shuttlecraft. He rattled a little when he walked, with all the boards and panels stuffed inside his shirt and pockets. It would have been easier to leave the parts in the shuttle—but what if someone found them before Sunsinger arrived?
When he returned to the hiding place among the rocks, Mattias grinned at him and ran into the darkness again.
“Where is he going?” Bain whispered. His throat hurt from trying to stay quiet.
“To get Marco.” Alyss reached out for his hand. “Come on.”
“Shouldn't we wait?” He let her lead him into the darkness of the passage into the canyon.
“Not if they get caught and they have to run.” She giggled a little. “Bain, you sound like a utility cart.”
“I have all the parts I took.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Bury them or break them or something, just so the pirates don't get them.”
“Good idea.”
They were silent for the rest of the way through the canyon. Just at the foot of the path up to the cave, Bain heard running footsteps coming from behind him. He held tighter to Alyss's hand. He didn't like the idea of having to run in the darkness. The thought of running up that sloping trail made him feel sick.
“It's okay,” Marco said as he reached them. His face was a pale blob in the starlight. He grinned.
“Did you knock over their tents?” Alyss asked.
“Nope. Why wake them up?”
“They'll knock over their tents in the morning when they start getting up,” Mattias said with a nasty chuckle. He pushed ahead of Bain and Alyss and started up the slope. “We set up some good booby-traps.”
“Good,” Alyss said.
Dinner, when they reached the cave, was mostly sweet roots cooked over the fire, fresh fish, and a handful of berries from the candy bush. Bain liked that part the best. He wondered if Lin would like the berries. They weren't as good as chocolate, of course, but they would be a nice treat.
Most of the other children were already asleep when they returned to the cave, but Bain sat up talking with the older ones for another hour after they made and ate dinner. They asked him all about Sunsinger and learning to be a Spacer, and about the Rangers and the Mashrami. Mattias even sounded a little jealous when he asked Bain about free-fall and going through Knaught Points and not needing drugs or stasis chairs during launch. Bain told them everything they wanted to know.
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* * *
Chapter Eighteen
In the morning, Alyss took him to a crevice running through the back of the canyon, and Bain tossed the circuit boards and crystal connectors into the deep hole. They stood and listened for nearly five minutes, and didn't hear anything hit the bottom.
Then, with Marco in the lead and Mattias watching the rear of the line, they climbed to the top of the canyon and the ‘back way’ out. The trail up was mostly sloping ledges or natural stairways. Twice they went into a cave and climbed up a natural chimney in the rock to the level above. It was nearly noon before they reached the top and level ground. Bain walked the five meters to the lip of the canyon and looked down. He was very glad they hadn't tried to climb during the night.
It was strange, he decided, that being up in space with nothing around him but the ship didn't bother him at all. But standing here at the lip of the canyon looking hundreds of meters down onto sharp rocks and slippery slopes and little streams and po
ols made him feel dizzy and afraid. Maybe the only difference was gravity, but Bain didn't think so.
“Do you think it's okay to stay here and wait for your ship?” Marco asked Bain when he rejoined the group.
Everyone else had settled down on the sandy, relatively flat ground. It was warm here with the sunshine beating off the mostly rocky surface. The smaller children curled up against the older ones and closed their eyes and most were nearly asleep. Bain remembered the littles on that first voyage aboard Sunsinger, especially Kisa. He wondered if they were happy in their new home.
“I think so. Even if the pirates realized what happened and where we were hiding, they couldn't follow us all the way up here.” Bain grinned at the thought of the pirates’ camp falling into a huge mess when all the tents started falling down on each other.
“Nope, they couldn't follow us even if they had tracking dogs or trail birds,” the older boy said, and laughed. “Let's make lunch. I'm starving.”
They let the ones who were asleep stay asleep, and sent out everyone else to find firewood or anything else that could be burned to cook their lunch. Mattias had caught more fish before they left, and carried it in his backpack wrapped in moss and leaves to keep the raw food cool and fresh. They had to eat it soon before it went bad.
Bain went with Alyss to look for plants whose seeds could be used for seasoning on the fish, and whose leaves were good raw. They weren't as good as berries from the candy bush, she admitted with a chuckle, but they were still good.
“Alyss! Lookee!” a little girl shouted. She came running from around a jumble of rock slabs and nearly ran into them.
“What is it?” Alyss caught the little blonde girl by the scruff of her dirty blue shirt and held her up when she would have fallen.
“New thing!” The child wriggled free and darted back around the rock pile.
“That's one of our big rules. If you see something you don't recognize, get somebody older to look at it. Don't touch it, don't do anything to it, don't even breathe too close to it,” Alyss said. “Everything is new to the littles, but it pays to be careful all the time.” She and Bain hurried around the pile of rocks and stopped short.
“What is it?” Bain muttered.
“I've never seen anything like it before,” the older girl admitted.
Three children sat on the ground three meters back from the pile of rock slabs. In the minimal shade from the pile sat an olive-drab ‘blob’ nearly a meter wide. Bain stared at it, trying to decide if it was an animal or a plant or a rock.
“It's breathing!” a little boy squealed. He turned to look at Bain and Alyss and grinned at them. “Is it a—a—Alyss, it's amimally?”
“No.” Alyss smiled and shook her head. “I don't think it's an animal.”
“Does a plant breathe?” Bain asked. He took a few steps closer and narrowed his eyes. There was no wind, so that soft rippling movement through the middle of the rounded blob had to be breathing. Or was he just imagining it?
“Lots of weird things on Dogray nobody has seen yet.”
“Lin says things follow patterns.” Bain tried to remember some of his science lessons. “She says if something is too strange, maybe it doesn't really belong.”
“I've never seen anything like this anywhere around here, and I've been exploring the canyon for years,” Alyss admitted.
There was something odd about the blob. Bain felt a shiver run down his back when he realized the oddness was familiar. Had he seen this blob before? Maybe he had seen something like it?
Maybe not so round, but longer. Maybe a different color? Something with the same bumpy warts. He had seen something like it, but not sitting by rocks. The shade needed to be darker.
“Sting yam,” Bain muttered.
“What?”
“It looks like a really short, round sting yam.”
“What's that?”
“It's a plant on Lenga. If you touch it with your bare hands, you get stung by all the poison warts. You have to wear really thick gloves, and boil it, and peel all the skin off before you can eat what's inside.”
“Is it any good?”
“I always thought it was awful. It tastes worse than glue and mud mixed together.”
“Why do they make you eat it?”
“Because it's supposed to be good for us,” Bain said with a sigh.
The three children next to him giggled. Bain looked over at them and grinned. Then he looked at the blob and wondered why it reminded him of a sting yam. Except for the warts down one side, it didn't look at all like a sting yam. Maybe it reminded him of something that reminded him of a sting yam.
“Mashrami,” Bain whispered.
“What about them?” Alyss asked.
“A Mashrami ship looks like a sting yam.”
“You've seen one?” she nearly shrieked.
“We have to get out of here.” He started backing away from the blob.
“Why?” the little boy asked.
“Just do it.” Alyss reached down and grabbed two of the children by their hands and half-dragged them back away from the rocks and the blob.
Bain grabbed the little boy's hand and led him away, following Alyss. The littles whined and tried to ask questions, but Alyss told them to be quiet and hurry. They were halfway back to their campsite and the other children before they said anything more. Everyone was out of breath.
“You think that was a Mashrami?” Alyss asked.
“Mashrami?” Marco stood up from the pile of wood and moss he was trying to start on fire. “Where?”
“Not a Mashrami.” Bain coughed, unable to get his breath back. “Maybe it came from them, though.”
“What are you talking about?”
Alyss explained quickly. By the time she finished, the rest of the children had gathered around.
“What do you think it is?” Marco asked Bain.
“Dr. Anyon and Master Valgo both said the Mashrami don't really build things like ships and houses and—and maybe the plague bombs. They said the Mashrami grow things. That's why they attack farms and agriculture centers before they attack factories and spaceports. Maybe that thing back there by the rocks is a plague bomb.” Bain wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. He hadn't really felt afraid until now. Trying to figure out what that blob by the rocks was had kept him too busy to be afraid.
“What do we do?” Mattias asked.
“Bain, do you hear me?” Ganfer said in the silence.
Everyone, including Bain, jumped at the sound of the ship-brain's voice coming from the collar link.
“Bain, I read your presence and approximately twenty more people within a ten meter radius from you.”
“We're all here,” Bain said, touching the collar link to open his end of the connection.
“Sensors show a large, stable area where Sunsinger can land. Do you confirm?”
“Lots of flat, hard rock.”
“We'll be down in approximately twenty minutes. You should be able to see us shortly.”
A cheer went up from the children. Bain grinned and sat down and didn't care if his legs were wobbly or not. Lin and Ganfer would be there soon. They could handle the problem of the blob thing.
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* * *
Chapter Nineteen
Sunsinger landed twenty meters from where the children had set up camp. Bain dropped his piece of half-cooked fish and ran. The cargo hatch opened, and the ramp swung down. Lin came running down to meet him. She hugged him once, hard, then stepped back and held his shoulders in her hands and looked him over.
“Well, you don't look like you broke anything.” She laughed. “What's that look for?”
“Ah—uh—” Bain didn't know what to say. He had never thought Lin liked him so much she would hug him. Had she been worried? “Lin, I think we found something Mashrami.”
The Ranger doctor appeared at the top of the ramp that very moment.
“Mashrami?” The doctor nearly dropp
ed a box of vaccine bottles he held. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. Well—” Bain looked at Lin, wondering if he had said the wrong thing or started too soon telling her what had happened.
“How do you know it's from the Mashrami?” the doctor asked after he settled the box more securely in his grip.
“Bain, this is Doctor Shaker. He's going to make sure everyone has their shots before we launch.” Lin slid an arm around his shoulder. “What did you find?”
“Well, I didn't find it. One of the littles did. But, Lin, it has warty bumpy things on it, like that Mashrami ship we saw. Like a sting yam, remember?” Bain hurried to add.
“I remember.”
“Alyss says she's never seen anything like it around here, and she's been exploring the canyon for years. I figured, if it didn't belong—”
“It's an intruder of some kind,” she said, nodding. “Well, doctor?”
“If you found anything made by the Mashrami, you're the hero of the day,” Dr. Shaker said. He winked at Bain. “Maybe of the year. It could be a big help.”
“Do you think it's a plague bomb?” Bain asked.
“If it is, then something went wrong. Usually they explode and shoot their plague spores like a puffer fungus and then disintegrate into an ooze our scientists can't analyze.”
“That's good, huh?”
“Very good.” He nodded. “Now, why don't you get all the children lined up for their shots? We'll get them loaded into the ship, and then we three will go take a look at this plague bomb of yours.”
* * * *
Dr. Shaker and Lin were both very quiet and serious when Bain took them around the pile of rocks to look at the blob. Lin had Ganfer scan the blob, and Dr. Shaker used his medical scanners on it. Neither adult moved any closer to it than Bain and the children had come when they first found it.
During the ride to the spaceport, Bain spent most of his time in the hold with the children. He showed the littles how to curl up inside the net bunks and close the openings so they wouldn't fall out. He showed them how the stasis seats worked, and how to use the sanitary cabinets. All the children were impressed with shipboard food, when Bain brought hot sandwich packets down from the galley in the bridge.
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