by Nathan Long
After a while my brain unlocked a little, and let me notice more than just the scenery. First off, I was naked. I looked around for my clothes. Not there. But I found something else. Right behind me, sunk into the center of the stone disk, was a platter-sized, lemonade-colored gem, big brother to the one in the clock thing in the cave.
Well, I can put two and two together. I’d touched the green gem on the clock and poof, I landed here. Maybe the thing was a teleporter, like in Star Trek. Was it going to be that easy? I reached down for it, then stopped. Did I really want to go back to that cave with the cops and the dogs? If the alternative was staying... wherever the fuck this was? Hell yes! I slapped the gem and waited to get yanked back to earth.
Another fly zipped past my ear. The too-big sun kept toasting my shoulders. I was still here, wherever here was. I took a closer look at the gem, cupping my hands around my eyes to block out the sun. It didn’t glow. Not even a little. It was dead.
I haven’t cried since my first week in boot-camp. My friends call me Iron Jane because nothing gets to me, not death, not loss, not old movies, but as I looked around at that big, empty prairie and it sunk in how alone I was and how far from home, I ain’t ashamed to say that I curled up with my cheek on the smooth face of that gem and bawled like a baby.
***
I must have cried myself to sleep, ’cause I woke up to a ground-shaking rumble that was getting louder by the second. I snapped my head up and looked around, blinking the sleep out of my eyes and scanning for what was making the racket.
A big dust cloud was racing my way, filled with—I didn’t know what. I could see what looked like ostriches with giant parrot beaks, people with funny-shaped heads and right arms twice as big as their left ones, a chunky thing on wheels, splotches of red and purple, and bright flashes of steel. And it was all coming right at me.
I hopped up—and nearly had a coronary. My leap lifted me nearly six feet in the air! I face-planted in the tall grass beside the stone disk and lay there, heart jackhammering. What the fuck? No one could jump that high! Not without a running start and special sneakers!
I didn’t have time to think about it. The crowd of whatever-they-were was so close I could smell ’em; a weird mix of man sweat and birdcage funk. I peeked over the edge of the disk in time to see the whole circus roar past not ten feet from my hiding place. They weren’t coming for me after all. They were too busy fighting each other.
Now I could sort all the parts out. It was a bunch of purple guys swinging swords and riding big, two-legged birds. Sure, why not. Happens every day.
Except for being purple, the guys weren’t quite as weird as I’d first thought. Their funny-shaped heads turned out to be funny hair-cuts: sumo top-knots, mohawks, braids and fancy shave-jobs. What I’d thought were giant, mutated right arms were actually thick sleeves of scaly, bronze-looking armor that covered their sword arms. Besides that they were nearly naked. Just the sleeve and a few other scraps of armor covering their groins, shins and knees, all held in place by leather harnesses like something out of an SM club. Capes of red or gold flapped around their shoulders, and they waved around long thin swords with lots of curly metal bits protecting the grip. Most of the swords were red with blood.
Their mounts were like emus on steroids, shaggy monsters with gray and black feathers, and powerful legs that ended in heavy claws big enough to close around my chest. They had useless little wings almost hidden under their saddles, and mean-eyed, turtle-beaked heads as big as air conditioners. And to make them look even more like a cross between a T-rex and an ostrich, they had shrunken little arms dangling from their chests like broken doll parts, as weak and pointless as their wings.
Men and birds were kicking the crap out of each other, claws slashing, beaks snapping, swords clashing. It took me a second to make a guess at what was happening, and by then it was almost over.
The guys in the red cloaks were protecting a fancy coach drawn by four of the massive birds. The guys in the gold cloaks were trying to stop the coach, and were handing the red-cloaks their collective asses. There were more of the gold-cloaks, and they knew their stuff, turning their big birds on a dime and tagging the poor red-cloaks at will. I looked back the way they’d come. Dead red-cloaks all the way to the horizon. No gold.
I turned back in time to catch the big finish. The coach’s four harnessed birds, panicking in the middle of the brawl, turned too sharply. The coach heeled over on a big rock and slammed to the ground on its side. The wooden tang holding the birds to it snapped and, still harnessed together, they ripped free and sprinted for the horizon.
After that it was a slaughter. The gold-cloaks weren’t going to let the red-cloaks off with just a whipping. They rode down every last one of those poor bastards and chopped them to pieces. It turned my stomach. They might have been purple aliens, but their screams were plenty human.
While his riders finished mopping up, the leader of the gold-cloaks, a square-jawed superhero with a pencil-thin moustache, a flopped-over mohawk, and two pigtails hanging down in front of his ears like a yeshiva boy, climbed onto the coach. You could tell he was the leader. One, ’cause his guys ducked their heads whenever he gave an order, and two, ’cause his shit was flashier: zigzag designs on his cloak, gold sleeve armor instead of bronze, jewels all over his sword.
When he got to the top of the coach—which was the side, if you see what I’m saying—he wrenched open the door. A little long-haired purple guy in white popped up like a jack-in-the-box and flailed around with a dagger. Square-Jaw hardly blinked; a casual backhand with his sword and Long-Hair dropped back into the coach with a thump.
Square-Jaw grinned. His teeth were as white and straight as a row of sugar cubes. He reached down into the coach and lifted somebody out by the wrist. For a second I thought it was Long-Hair again, ’cause this one had long hair too, but when square-jaw lifted her a little higher I saw there were one or two differences.
She was your standard-issue hot babe, except in purple. Not exactly my type. When I go for gals, which ain’t that often—I’d been gay-for-the-stay in a couple of young women’s correctionals in my youth—I tend to go for big-ass, baby’s-got-back chicks. This gal was a mite too delicate for me, but it wasn’t hard to figure why Square-Jaw had the hots for her. Even screaming and trying to kick his teeth in, I could see she had the goods: pin-up body in a tiny yellow bikini-top and loin-cloth outfit, long black hair, pouty lips. The whole package in a handy, carry-out size.
Square-Jaw laughed off her attacks and threw her over his shoulder. He looked down into the coach again, like he was making sure Long-Hair was dead, then shot a glance around at the empty prairie. He shrugged. I read him like he was Marcel Marceau: “Why bother, he’s a dead man anyway.” He hopped back on his mount, signaled his gang, and off they rode, back the way they’d come.
Maybe you’re wondering why I didn’t leap into the fray and rescue the damsel in distress. Well, I’ll tell you. I’m not an idiot, that’s why. I’ve never minded a scrap, but naked and unarmed against the Ginsu clan wasn’t my idea of good odds, and besides, it was all coming over the plate a bit fast, new planet, new gravity, giant birds, guys out of an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. And anyway, I hardly had a chance to react. It was over in less than a minute.
The part I don’t have an excuse for is why I didn’t try to help the dying red-cloaks as soon as Square-Jaw and his posse had giddi-upped off back the way they came. I could hear the poor guys moaning and sobbing, but I just stayed where I was, crouched behind the stone disk with my jaw hanging open.
Maybe I’d seen too many movies where the hero thinks the monster’s dead and then something rips out of its stomach and eats the guy’s face off. Whatever. I was chicken, and some of those guys probably died because of it. By the time I finally got myself moving, clouds of alien flies were settling over them for a mid-day blood binge.
Getting to the guys was like trying to walk on a trampoline. I kept springing up twice as high
as I expected, and crashing on every part of my anatomy except my feet. At least I fell down as lightly as I stepped, so I didn’t get more than a few cuts and scratches. By the time I’d reached the killing ground, I’d adjusted my walk to a wobbly glide.
I was way too late. The one guy who was still breathing when I found him died by the time I found anything to bind the gushing wound in his leg with. I felt like a fucking idiot.
Up close the dead guys looked pretty damn human. Too human. Back in the rangers I’d had to help clean up a helicopter crash after a training exercise went wrong. A lot of these guys were just as young as those kids had been, and they’d died just as scared. I decided I didn’t like Square-Jaw too much.
What made it worse was that they looked like kids I knew. Hell, back in my punk-rock run-away days most of my friends had haircuts just like these guys. Except for the purple skin and pointed ears, I wouldn’t have given any of them a second look walking down Hollywood Boulevard. Their eyes were a little longer, their canines a little sharper, and they were a tad shorter than the average American guy, but they had hair where we have hair, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot, and everything else where you’d expect to find it.
This nearly freaked me out more than all the rest of it. Weren’t aliens supposed to be more, uh, alien? They always were in the movies. Shows you how much I know about the universe.
I looked at the coach. There was one guy left to check on. Long-Hair. What was I supposed to do if he was still alive? Help him out? He probably still had that dagger on him. I didn’t want him stabbing first and asking questions later. On the other hand, if I was stuck here, I’d have to meet the natives sooner or later, and one-on-one with some wounded sap with a dagger was probably better odds then alone against a healthy, well-armed posse. I snatched up one of the fancy swords and hopped up onto the overturned coach.
Or at least I tried to. My leap overshot it and I hit the ground on the far side. At least I was getting better at landing. I tried again with a more controlled leap and dropped softly beside the open coach door.
I looked down inside. Overstuffed red leather benches, scads of throw pillows in rich fabrics, candleholders on the side panels. Of course everything was topsy turvy; the pillows thrown against the opposite wall and smeared with food from a bronze tray that had been dented in the wreck.
Lying in the middle of all this high-class debris, with a bloody hand to his wounded head like one of the tortured saints from the stained-glass windows back at Saint Sebastian’s, was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.
His mane of black hair was spread out like a halo around the face of some Roman emperor’s boy-toy; high cheekbones, straight nose, and lips like Elvis at nineteen. His body continued the beauty parade. He was built like a ballet dancer, with flawless skin a shade darker than the chick Square-Jaw had dragged off, and he covered it only a little more than she did. He wore a flimsy white, ankle-length, sleeveless vest thing, open in front, and a tiny white silk loincloth that made it pretty clear that these guys were human all the way down to the important parts. And how!
He wasn’t my usual type anymore than the gal was. I tend to like a guy who can make me feel delicate. Big Don had been six four and about a yard and a half wide, and when I was in his arms I’d felt protected from the whole rotten world. But I’ve got what you might call varied tastes. I like to sample the whole buffet, and sometimes I want to be the one who wraps her arms around some poor little boy and tells him everything’s going to be alright.
And then screw his brains out.
The kid moaned. His long lashes fluttered and a pair of pale violet eyes looked up at me. That gaze was like an electric shock. It made my mouth dry. It made my skin prickle. It made my... well I’ll spare you the gory details. Let’s just say that any worries I’d had about making friends with the natives went right out the window.
I gave a little wave, just to show I was friendly. “You okay?”
He frowned like he didn’t understand. “Who are you?” His voice was soft and clear, like a choir boy’s. “Come you to aid me or to kill me?”
Well, of course he didn’t understand. The odds of him speaking English were... But wait a minute. I’d just understood him. It wasn’t English, but I knew what he was saying.
Suddenly I realized that I had a whole new language in my head just waiting for me to take it out of the box and plug it in. Where the hell did that come from? Then I remembered the babble of voices that went rushing through my mind after I’d touched the jewel in the cave. That gizmo wasn’t just a transporter, it was a translator too, a goddamn tourist’s dream! Instant travel, and you speak the language perfectly when you get there. Who the hell thought this stuff up? It sure wasn’t these sword swinging refugees from a Conan movie. What was up with this place?
Long-Hair started groping around for his dagger without taking his eyes off me. “Speak, sir. You alarm me with your silence.”
I snapped out of it, “Uh, aid. I mean I’m here to aid you.” That jabber tumbled out of my lips like I’d been born speaking it. It was like that sensation when you realize you no longer have to think about all the steps of shifting gears, you’re just doing it automatically.
I dropped into the coach and knelt beside him. It was dark in there. It took me a second to adjust. I squinted at his eyes first. A concussion would have been the icing on the cake. He looked okay. Both pupils were the same size.
I could see why Square-Jaw had left him for dead though. He was as bloody as a pro wrestler at the end of a steel cage match—head wounds always look like a splatter movie—but the cut didn’t go all the way to the bone and he’d slowed the bleeding by keeping his hand pressed over it. He was seeping, not gushing. That was a good thing.
I breathed again. “How you feelin’? Any other wounds?”
“I...” Suddenly he jerked like somebody’d zapped him with a cattle prod. He tried to sit up. “Wen-Jhai! Beloved! Where—”
I pushed him back down. “Sorry, brother. She’s gone. The big guy with the teeth took her.”
He struggled against my hand. “But then we must—”
“You ain’t doin’ nothin’. You’re too hurt and... and your pals...” I didn’t know how to say it.
He did. “Dead?”
I nodded. He closed his eyes in pain. “The butcher.”
“The quicker we get you patched up, the quicker you can go after him. Now, you hurt anywhere else?” I almost laughed, listening to myself. All of a sudden I was coming on like some super para-med, like I knew what I was doing. Stupid, I know, but the minute I started to take care of this guy I calmed down. Works every time, doesn’t it? As soon as you’ve got somebody else worse off than you, you start trying to solve all their problems and forget about your own. Probably why so many fucked-up people become guidance counselors and psychiatrists.
He sighed. “You are kind, sir.” He raised a feeble hand. “Only my arm. I seem to have fallen on it...” He stopped, staring at my boobs. “Sir! You are a woman! And... unclothed.”
“Uh-huh. Good eyes.”
“But...but... My apologies, mistress. My wound must have disturbed my sight. I thought...”
“It ain’t the first time, pal. Don’t worry about it.”
“No no, forgive me for mistaking you. ’Tis unpardonable. And you are in distress. Did those ruffians...?” He turned his head so he wouldn’t have to look at me. “Please mistress, help yourself to a garment.”
“Hey, I ain’t freezin’. We gotta fix you up first.”
He bumped his arm and turned several shades lighter than his girlfriend. He gasped. “Very well. Is there a man in your party who might assist me?”
What was I, chopped liver? “You don’t want my help?”
“I’m afraid I require more than tender words and gentle ministrations, mistress. With my head and this arm, I may not be able to climb out of the coach on my own.”
“Pal, I could probably fold you up and put you
in my pocket, if I had a pocket. I’m the only one here, so maybe you should let me have a look at you.” I reached across him to pull his matted hair away from his wound. He jumped again, this time looking at my arm.
“By the Seven, are you a woman?”
So my arms were bigger than his. My arms are bigger than a lot of guys’. Hitting the iron relaxes me. “Brother, what planet are you from?”
Well, duh. Now that I thought about it, I was the one from another planet, and if all the chicks around here looked like Miss Teeny-Bikini, I guess I could see why he was a trifle confused. I sighed. “Sorry. Don’t freak out. I’m not from around here, but I am a woman, and I’m here to help you. You got a needle and thread?”
“In my lady’s baggage, perhaps, but you don’t mean to...”
“Relax pal, I used to sew leather wallets in juvie crafts class. This ain’t much different.”
I jumped back out of the coach and searched through the jumble of luggage that had fallen from the roof-rack during the crash. There were big wooden trunks wrapped with iron bands, and fancier chests made of polished woods and decorated with six-sided symbols. Most had smashed, and all kinds of rich fabrics and fine china were spilling out. I dug through clothes, jewelry, funny-shaped crockery. Finally I found a little gold sewing kit in the shape of some cute animal I’d never seen before.
Back in the coach I cleaned Long-Hair’s cut with water from a cracked clay jug, doused my needle and thread in some liquor that smelled like cranberries and Everclear, and sewed him up, then tore his gauzy kaftan into wide strips and tied it around his head. It made an ugly turban that unfortunately hid a lot of that beautiful hair. I made the splint by smashing up a fancy wooden make-up box and binding two long slats to his arm.
He was pretty brave under my “tender ministrations,” only flinching and whimpering a little, and never complaining. He reminded me of a kid too proud to let on how scared he was, though he thinks his life’s blood is spilling out of him—which in his case it was.