Kris looked up at the sky, obscured by a huge dark black hole out there that was a lot like their own planet. As the sun had been coming up the morning before, the planet had a tinge of blue and white on the edge facing the sun.
She was still thinking about the dark hole and the “City of Light” she’d seen the other day when she fell asleep.
* * *
When Melek woke, there was a solid tinge of light in the sky to the east, with the last crescent of the Big Moon fading into the morning sky.
He started to get up to stretch when he saw the dark face of a man not far away, his weapon held high, the end running in circles over Melek and his men, as if trying to decide who to shoot first.
There was a very faint sound, and Melek saw Collum had made the noise. Collum was lying on his back, a blanket over him. For a second, Melek had no idea why anyone would have needed a blanket on such a mild night, but then he realized the truth of it. Collum had the crossbow under the blanket, and unlike a bow, he could fire it very quickly but simply kicking the blanket away.
Melek looked around and didn’t see Ezra and his two young women.
There were four of the dark-skinned men, standing in a small wedge, looking over Melek and his men with a look of contempt on their faces. The one raised his thunder rod again and aimed it at Melek and said something that Melek didn’t understand.
“I don’t understand,” Melek said in his own tongue.
Chaba spoke softly to Rari, and Rari spoke louder. “They say to stand with our hands empty, or die on the ground.”
Chaba lifted her voice a bit, speaking placatingly. As soon as the one dark man in the lead heard her voice, he turned, pointing his thunder rod at Chaba. He was intent, Melek was sure, on shooting Chaba.
There was a blur next to him as Collum threw off the blanket, and the quarrel took the leader in the chest. It had so much power that the quarrel came out the man’s back and nearly hit the man behind the leader, causing him to flinch.
From off to one side there were a series of sounds that were louder and longer than before from Ezra’s weapon. The three remaining soldiers of their ancient enemies died before Melek could finish one breath. What had he once wondered? Whether or not Ezra could kill all of his men as fast as he could snap his fingers? No man could snap fingers as fast as Ezra could kill!
Men boiled up from the ground, taking cover and stringing their bows and getting arrows nocked.
Collum looked at Melek and shook his head. “I was congratulating myself on how fast I killed the man, and was prepared to roll and come up with my own bow and start shooting. I didn’t even have time to put down Andie’s bow -- and it was over.”
“Do you think this was all of them?” Melek asked Collum.
Collum laughed. “If there were more of them they would either just be starting a panic-stricken run or they would be shouting imprecations at us. Since I don’t see anyone fleeing, and can’t hear anyone yelling at us, this was all of them.”
“You understand, Melek that I have to command now?”
“Of course, Sachem! I never thought otherwise!”
“Good.” Collum raised his voice. “Corporal Kissom, draw your bow and stand up!”
Kissom had been the nay-sayer the night before. There was no immediate reaction, and Collum stood up, drawing the bow that Andie had made, and doing the thing that drew the wire back. When he was done, Collum looked over at where Kissom was still on the ground. “Odd, isn’t it, how I stand, and you lie, eh?”
He pointed to another of the soldiers. “Private Cellon, if you would. Go to the man I shot, remove his thunder rod and bring it to me. Return to him and find the iron arrow I used to kill him and return that to me. Then get the thunder rods from the three that Ezra killed and bring them to me, as well.”
Kissom spat on the ground. “They should go to Ezra, as is our custom!”
Collum laughed at him. “If you had his weapon, would you trade it for one of ours?”
Everyone else laughed at that, except Collum and Kissom. Cellon, however, might have been laughing, but he wasn’t going to argue with someone who appeared very much like a Sachem.
It wasn’t until the weapons were at Collum’s feet that Ezra and his two charges appeared. Ezra had his weapon in his hands while the other two simply looked alert, their eyes going every which way.
Melek had to admire the way Ezra did it. Really, if you were totally ignorant, would you assume the two small devices that the girls carried were like the larger one Ezra carried? Of course not! But Melek had seen the damage done to the dralka by Ezra’s weapon, and he’d seen the damage done to the Tengri officer after Kris had killed him. The weapons themselves might not look that much alike, but the effects were the same.
He stopped thinking as Collum lifted the crossbow and fired. Ezra turned and looked and fired his weapon as well. A dralka, about twenty feet off the ground and about a hundred feet away, tumbled wildly and slammed into the rocks well short of the camp. The second, further back, veered and was gaining altitude, trying to escape. Ezra took some time, fired once, and the second dralka folded and crashed.
“Busy morning, eh, Sergeant?” Collum asked Melek cheerfully.
Melek could see the dawning realization among the men. It wasn’t as though either Collum or Ezra had been in their faces, but the fact was that in the span of a half hour, they had come under attack twice. Collum had killed one of their enemies and startled another, while Ezra had slain three. The rest of the men had stood with their mouths agape, Melek included. And now Collum and Ezra had each killed a dralka and again Melek and the others had been bystanders.
“Busy enough, Sachem.”
Ezra said something and Melek forced himself to listen and understand. “Sachem, Ezra says it would be best to have breakfast in an hour, far from here.”
“Ezra is no fool. Tell everyone we go in ten minutes. If anyone isn’t ready on time, they’ll be on point.”
Sure, odds were, they had just killed the two dralka they’d seen before. Odds were also that whoever was on the point would find any more dralka first. It wasn’t a duty you wanted if you could avoid it.
They moved about six miles before they stopped again. Everyone was weary, and not a little stiff from the night’s interrupted rest.
Melek went to Collum. “Sachem, I did not see to the watch as I should have last night.”
“You slept, eh?”
“Yes, Sachem.”
“Well, I was going to be on watch because I’m tougher than any three youngsters like you. I was asleep. Ezra... he is a stark warrior, and I think he was at least mildly surprised at falling asleep as well. But you did notice that he was camped away from the rest of us?”
“Yes, Sachem.”
“Remember that in the future. Tell your guards where to reach you in an emergency; and then go off in the dark by yourself. It is a risk, of course, but the ability to survive an attack like this one... that’s priceless knowledge.”
“We all survived,” Melek tried to temporize.
Collum jerked his thumb at Ezra and the two young women. “Surely you’ve noticed who is always up first, eh?”
It was Kris, most of the time and Andie now and then. So, the odds were that Kris had alerted Ezra. How could a warrior suffer that kind of shame?
Collum laughed, reading his expression. “The surviving sort of warrior, Melek. That’s what battle is all about, really. You live, they die. It doesn’t really matter who ‘they’ are, so long as they die.”
“Yes, Sachem.”
Shortly they were back on the trail, none of them taking more than a moment or two before they were ready to go. They didn’t go far and they certainly didn’t go very fast. They came to a much smaller lake, and Melek decreed a stop there for the night.
Instead of having different men on watch, he ordered the same schedule as the night before. None had wanted to be the one to admit he was the first to fall asleep, and Melek didn’t want to punish ev
eryone for a transgression he was guilty of as well. But everyone not on duty knew how close it was that they’d come to getting killed.
Melek was sure that those three men weren’t likely to fall asleep this night!
After that, they saw no more Tengri and they saw no more dralka. The pace slowed after a second day that Collum saw that there weren’t any Tengri behind them, and after four days, Melek called a halt for an entire day to rest and to mend equipment.
This time, the halt was next to a stream that a man could step across without getting his feet wet. They hadn’t really faced any angry torrents, but some of the streams had been broad and fast. Collum told Melek on the day he ordered the halt, that the next day, he was going to scout along the old road.
They’d seen enough of the road to know that it had been virtually destroyed by the storm, that at every watercourse the runoff had cut it, and the road was going to require at least weeks to make emergency repairs and more months of heavy work to restore.
It was on their ninth day of traveling north that Collum came as the light was fading at midday with a report that he could see a body of men marching south, along the old road, although they were still some ways off.
It was too late to do anything about it; the next day would be soon enough. He told Ezra who simply nodded and showed no expression. Andie showed even less; only Kris shrugged, but her face too showed no sign of anything else. Melek and Collum spent most of the afternoon a distance from the camp, discussing how they wanted to meet the party from Arvala.
The evening was filled, as it usually was, by Chaba telling tales of her life with the Tengri through Rari. The girl didn’t know much of military value, but there was no doubt at all that her words had an impact on all of them, even Kissom.
* * *
It didn’t take long before a limo pulled up and Jack Schaeffer gave the bemused bystander ten hundred dollar bills, while the others got in the limo. The exception was Oliver. “We can’t go without Helen and Linda.”
“Oliver, I’m sending someone in to ask about them now. He will tell the police, no matter what they tell him, that he will remain available should they be released at some later time. He will also report to me anything that is said. We can’t stay here, Oliver. Kurt is right. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that as soon as we try to leave they’ll try to kill us.”
He waved at the limo. “Except I bought this at a DEA auction -- it’s an armored limo prepared for a former drug kingpin who should have spent more time making sure his tax forms were in order. If Helen or the other woman comes out, they will have someone here in one minute, I swear.
“If they are unwilling to hurt us, Oliver, they are going to make doubly sure the women aren’t hurt either.”
“Then where are they?”
“Oliver, you know the answer to that as well as I do: I have no idea. We can do far more from a secure location.”
Olive Boyle let himself be pulled away, however reluctantly.
Jack spent his time on a cell phone and simply refused to lend it to any of the others.
They arrived at the building his law offices were in and they went up in a single elevator, and his assistants prevented anyone else from getting on.
In a few minutes they were in a conference room. Jack Schaeffer stood at the head of the table. “In front of you is a notepad. Please note shirt, pants and shoe sizes. We’ll get some clothes for you.”
“I’d just as soon go home,” Shorty told him.
Jack Schaeffer sighed. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but those of us who were guests of the government are now eligible to be called ‘homeless.’”
“They’ve confiscated my home?” Oliver asked.
“Worse. They’ve burned them to the ground. Also, Oliver, the sound stages where you filmed your last project, and David, I’m sorry to say, six of your sound stages as well.”
“What?” David Solomon’s jaw dropped.
“The contention is that Kristine and Andrea may have introduced alien pathogens to Earth -- they’ve been ‘cleansed with fire.’”
He met Oliver’s eye. “Oliver, you and I have been friends and have had a professional relationship for two decades. I tell you true two important things that you are going to need to remember going forward. First, the average person on the street thinks they should stand the girls against a wall and shoot them for endangering their lives. Second, as much as I’d like to find a way to advocate for the girls -- and you -- I have to say that I’m not sure that the government isn’t right.”
Oliver looked at him. “Jack, two three-word phrases. ‘Apollo Moon Landings’ and ‘Mars Sample Mission.’
“Jack, sure, another planets might have living organisms and those organisms, some of them, may resemble life on Earth. There are billions of species on our own planet and just a few hundred are pathogens -- and they’ve had a very long time to take aim at us. I read someplace that if mankind were to go extinct tomorrow the only animals that would accompany us to Valhalla would be the human louse and some intestinal bacteria. Others would cry, but they don’t need us.”
Jack held up his hand. “Oliver, once I told you how tired I was fighting pygmies. Just because I find myself contesting with Titans, doesn’t mean I’m going to quit. But you have to know that Kris and Andie have taken a lot of risks.”
“And Columbus brought back VD from the New World,” Oliver told him. “He also brought back new vegetables, all sorts of things -- not to mention new peoples. We don’t know what’s out there, and we can’t turn our back on it because someone might catch a new kind of clap.”
“True, but we could be more proactive about the risks.”
“Jack, Andie told you what she was doing, right?”
“Yes, she did.”
“You knew she was going to other planets?” Oliver pressed.
“Yes, I knew.”
“And of course you immediately raised the risk of pathogens with her?”
“No. I didn’t think of it. But for something this big, she should have.”
“Yeah, and Columbus should have had his crew keep their pants zipped. He didn’t know -- and if he’d listened to the nay-sayers, and there were plenty, I’m sure -- he’d have stayed in port. Armstrong -- he had to know he could catch moon clap. Do you think it slowed him down?”
Jack laughed. “Oliver! Please! I’m just telling you that this isn’t going to be a slam dunk! That even reasonable people -- including me if I was just Joe Schmoe on the street -- are going to be fighting us.
“I’m pretty sure I know what AUSA Baldwin’s message was. Andie is a young woman you wouldn’t want to play poker with, Oliver. She’s fond of maxing her raises. She’s calling it her ‘F-Bomb.’”
“F-Bomb?” Oliver asked warily, knowing Andie’s favorite word.
“Fusor or Fusion bomb. About two hours ago all sorts of people, all around the world, started receiving plans for the fusor she built, plus the little extra gizmo that lets you go wherever it is you go. The government tried to suppress it, but she put it on a server in the Ukraine. They’re not stupid -- this is energy independence for them, and evidently a whole lot of people have told them that this is golden.
“In the two hours since it went public, there have been maybe two million hits to the web site. The number is increasing by the fifth power, I’m told. To put it mildly, the cat is out of the bag.”
Kurt Sandusky spoke up, “And Richards? And that asshole Foster?”
“Kurt, I hope you will be able to contain yourself,” Jack Schaeffer told him. “You don’t want to probe too deeply into Foster. On the fourth day the Feds were supposed to take him to a meeting. Instead, they found him in his apartment, dead by electrocution, ostensibly an accident. There were no obvious signs of foul play, but it’s certainly an odd coincidence.
“Since then, Richards has been in a secure location.” Jack laughed nastily. “Actually, I’m told it’s the fourth secure location he’s been in, every d
ay or so, someone fires a round into the room he’s in.”
“So where do we stand?” Oliver asked.
Jack tapped his ear where he had an earpiece. “Helen is safe now, as is the young woman. Helen sends her love, but they weren’t going to release the other young woman and Helen refused to leave without her. The young woman is off to the hospital, and Helen is going to stay with her.”
Jack looked around. “I have some broken teeth and I desperately want to visit my dentist. Oliver, you’re cradling your left wrist. Kurt, you have a coal miner’s tattoo on one cheek and God knows what else. I have a couple of doctors and two dentists en route.”
“Jack, one thing,” Oliver interjected. “Well, two things. What are you doing to get them to go after Kris and Andie? And just what the fuck are we going to do about what has happened to us?”
“The last is going to take some study. The first -- Oliver, I just don’t know. Now that we know the possible risks of off-world travel we would be liable if a plague did break out. It is going to take a lot of study -- because no one, at least now, is willing to risk the entire planet for two teenagers who took risks with everyone’s lives.”
“I have never made a sci-fi movie, ever,” Oliver told him. “But that’s because I’m not fond of the cheesy special effects most of them have. I think I’m being honest here, when I tell you that if it was someone else’s child, male or female, I’d be in favor of rescuing them. Sure, quarantine -- weren’t the Apollo astronauts quarantined? I’m betting NASA plans on quarantining the first Mars expedition, right?”
“Oliver, we’re just going to have to take it step by step. I’m as aware of deadlines and all of that as anyone. But right now I’m told that public opinion has been poisoned by the scare stories Richards has told the public since we went into the slammer.”
The Far Side Page 30