Chains of Destruction
Page 24
"We're all going, Old Man, so don't get your shorts in a wad," Levits spat back.
David looked through the binoculars at the spot where RJ assured him the ship was. "I don't see any ship."
"I believe it crashed so long ago that it is now buried in the mountain," RJ explained.
"I believe we are climbing up the side of a barren freaking mountain for no good reason," Levits mumbled.
RJ took his hand and kissed his cheek. "It will help you adjust to the planet's gravitational pull quicker."
"Oh, joy!" Levits said, but he managed a smile. "All right let's get climbing. I'd like to have a good chunk of it done before it gets hot this afternoon."
RJ and Janad loaded packs on their backs, and they started up the mountain.
Levits looked fleetingly at David. "So, do you suppose they're bringing us along just because we're pretty?"
David laughed, and then he looked at Levits in shock. "Do you realize that you just said something to me that wasn't hateful?"
"Yeah, well, don't expect it to happen again anytime soon." Levits rushed to catch up with RJ, leaving David to bring up the rear. Which wasn't a bad place to be considering that being in the rear gave him the perfect vantage point from which to watch Janad's ass – which was looking more attractive with every passing day.
* * *
Taleed and Haldeed watched with great interest as Topaz and Poley worked on constructing the mechanical hands. "I am going to have hands. Haldeed. I'm going to be able to pick things up on my own. Do all the things that normal men do," Taleed said.
Haldeed nodded.
"I only wish there was some way to give you back your tongue."
Haldeed made hand signals.
"Oh, my brother, you are indeed the most gracious of men."
"What did he say?" Topaz asked curiously.
"That he doesn't need his tongue . . ."
"Obviously he and I haven't dated the same women," Topaz said. Poley looked at him curiously. "Don't ask, Tin Pants, just pass me the lazar cutter."
"He says that speech is not as important to him as hands are to me," Taleed finished, completely ignoring Topaz's interruption.
Topaz started cutting the hands and metal arms from the body of the droid. Without looking up from his work he asked, "So you have lizards and small marsupials. Nothing bigger than a small goat. In fact there is nothing more complicated than some small mammals, and then we have man. Now your people have human origins; we know that. We also know how your human ancestors got here, or at least I'm fairly sure. However there was something else in your DNA – or at least in the sample I took from Janad. Something very different, and yet familiar. Obviously there was another humanoid on this planet already when the humans arrived. But where, oh where, is the missing link? Huh? Can you tell me that?"
"I don't even know what you're talking about," Taleed said with a sad shrug.
"I, too, have noticed the lack of suitable animals from which humanoids could evolve. Another race must have crashed on this planet hundreds of years before humans did," Poley said.
"Why hundreds of years before?" Topaz asked.
"Because otherwise they would not have given in to the whims of the humans. The other race would have had to be here long enough to have forgotten about the technology that brought them here. They must have become primitive first, otherwise they wouldn't have allowed the deranged, brown, handless Frenchman to take over," Poley said.
"I was just going to say that," Topaz said angrily.
"I don't think that you were. Any more than you have deduced that the ship my sister now goes to check out is probably the same ship that brought the first people to this planet," Poley said.
"Ah, now! Ya did that on purpose," Topaz said, slinging the tool he'd been working with into the dirt. "If you had given me half a minute more I would have come to that conclusion myself."
* * *
They had stopped to rest on a rock outcrop that made a good seat.
"Ah! I can feel. . . myself adapting. . . to the gravi. . . tational pull. . . with each step," Levits said trying to catch his breath. He glared at RJ who sat beside him. "Could you at least pretend to be winded?"
"I thought I only had to do that during sex," RJ said with a smile.
David laughed, and Levits glared at him. David just shrugged.
"How much further?" David asked. He felt like he had blisters on all his blisters.
"We aren't half way yet," RJ said.
"I hope whatever we find is worth this freaking climb," Levits complained.
"I hope whatever it is, it's worth listening to you bitch for a whole day," RJ said standing up. She put down her hand, and he allowed her to help him up.
"If he didn't bitch she'd be asking what was wrong with him," David whispered to Janad as they both stood up. Janad laughed and nodded.
"I think it is the way they communicate their love for one another," Janad whispered back.
"That and screwing all the time," David laughed out. Levits turned around and glared at David as if knowing that he was the brunt of some joke. Then he turned right back around and started arguing with RJ again as they started to climb.
"Topaz told us everything that happened," Janad said. "About the war. What you did. It wasn't your fault. I mean . . . It was, but it wasn't. You did something stupid. We have all done something stupid in battle that has caused someone else's death. You cannot expect them to forgive you, but you have to forgive yourself."
How could he explain to her that not everyone had fought in a battle much less been responsible for the death of another? Hers was a culture that lived at war.
"I have tried to forgive myself, and for most things I can. But for the pride . . . No. I let my own pride get in the way of the truth. I let it make me believe that I was more than I really was. I thought that I knew better than RJ. Worse than that I wanted to prove her wrong. I can blame Kirsty for tricking me, and Jessica Kirk and the Reliance for the actual death of my troops and the destruction of Alsterase. But they couldn't have done that except for my own faults. Except for the flaws in my own personality that allowed me to be blind to reality. You're right about the things that I did that were stupid, but the things that I did because of my pride, my ego, my need to be in control. . . I can't forgive myself that because if I do . . . If I forgive myself for the things I did because I wanted to be better than RJ, then there is a chance that I might repeat that behavior. I just can't take that chance. I don't ever want to be that person again."
"Who do you want to be then, David Grant?" Janad asked carefully.
It was a very good question. He sure as hell didn't like who he was now. "I . . . I want to be the man I was before. Not the man I was when I first meet RJ. Then I was just a green kid who didn't understand anything. No, I think I want to be the man I was before RJ and Topaz turned me into the mouthpiece for the Rebellion and I began to get full of my own power. I want to return to the me I was when I truly only cared about making my world a better place and freeing my people." David smiled. "I was happy then, and they were all happy with me."
"Then be him," Janad said. "Be that man."
"How? Too much has happened . . ."
"Just remember what it was that you liked about him and imitate it. Before you know it, you'll be your old self again, but you'll know all that you know now."
* * *
RJ had overestimated the resilience of her human counterparts, and when Levits' bitching reached a crescendo, and even Janad started to stumble in her stride, she knew they had to stop and make camp. They had just come to one of the many shelves they had encountered during their climb, and RJ decided this was as good a place as any to put down.
"That's it!" Levits flopped to the ground like a rag doll. "I'm not going to take another step. Leave me here for the lizards to eat; I just don't give a damn anymore. I am sick to death of . . ."
"All right. This is as good a place as any," RJ said deciding to let Levits think he had w
on the argument they weren't actually having. She took off her pack, and saw Janad gratefully drop hers to the ground.
"Freaking mountain climbing! I'd rather stay on this damn planet forever than climb one more inch. In fact, I would have just as soon we all stayed on Earth in the first place," Levits said continuing his angry prattle. "But, oh, nooo! Let's all fly across the vastness of space to try and make the Argys our allies. Oh! But no! Wait a minute! Let's stop and make a side trip to a third class planet where we can eat all the lizard we want and go freaking mountain climbing!"
RJ moved and flopped on the ground beside him laughing.
"Now what's so damned funny?" Levits asked hotly.
"I said we'd stay here. You already won," she said turning to look at him.
Levits smiled back then. "I know, but you can't just cut a man off in the middle of his bitch like that. It could do irreversible damage."
"I don't know why you're bitching in the first place," David said flopping to the ground. "This climb is every bit as bad for me as it is for you. It's not like we're having to use ropes and picks. You make it sound like we're clinging to the side of a rock face hanging on by a thread."
"Bite me, David," Levits said. "Look me in the eye and tell me you could have taken one step more."
"I didn't say that I could. I'm just saying that I wasn't bitching about it and everything else," David said. "The way I understand it the gravitational pull of this planet adds about twenty-five pounds to you and me. I hate to be the one to point it out, but Janad is carrying more than that in her pack, so except for RJ we're all basically in the same boat. While I admittedly did my fair share of bitching, I didn't hear Janad complain even once."
"Perhaps I should give you a gold star," RJ said to Janad.
"What does that even mean?" Levits asked pulling a face.
RJ looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know exactly. It's something I've heard Topaz say. In the context in which he uses it, it means you've done very well."
"Thank you," Janad said.
"How about a little praise for me?" Levits asked lightly.
"She could give you a gold star for bitching." David laughed out.
"And give you one for being a shit slinging moron," Levits snapped back.
RJ took Levits' chin in her hand and forced him to look at her. "I could think of something I could give you a gold star for," she said huskily then she kissed him. Within seconds they were rolling around in the dust, Levites apparently forgetting how tired he was.
"Chain, RJ, chain," Levits said, and unbelievably the thing went flying through the air like a discarded piece of clothing.
David got up and dusted his hands off. He looked at Janad, "Ah, maybe we should go get some fire wood now."
"Huh?" Janad asked, her eyes riveted on the couple ripping at each other's clothing. David walked by her and with a laugh grabbed her by the shoulder, hauled her to her feet, and started pulling her along after him.
"Come on, you perve," he said. He didn't feel like walking another foot, but he didn't feel like sitting there and watching Levits and RJ screw either. It was enough to know they were doing it without actually having to watch.
Janad was dragging on his arm, turned as she was to watch RJ and Levits till the end.
"Would you come on, Janad?" David said. "I can't believe him! He bitches all day about being so tired he's going to die, and now he's . . . Well, you know what he's doing."
Janad sighed and started to walk to match his stride. "Why does it bother you so much to see them together?"
"Because . . . It isn't our custom to watch other people having sex," David said.
Janad laughed. "It isn't our custom, either. That doesn't mean it isn't entertaining."
David laughed then. "Yeah, I would imagine that RJ and Levits can put on quite a show." David stopped laughing then, remembering another time and place, and another friend who wanted to watch RJ do it. "People shouldn't intrude into affairs between two people. It should be private."
"Then they should go someplace private to do it," Janad said with a shrug bending down to pick the top out of a plant that she started sucking on.
"True enough," David said with a laugh. "Still, RJ has an Argy's libido, and when she gets turned on . . . Well, I think she just sort of forgets where she is or what she's doing."
"What about your . . . libido?" Janad stumbled a little over the word, it apparently being new to her Reliance vocabulary. She picked one of the plants and handed it to him.
"It's healthy enough," David said. He sucked on the end of the plant as Janad had done, and a sweet liquid covered his tongue. He smiled approvingly and continued. "I've sort of had to put it in dry dock if you know what I mean." From the look on her face she didn't.
"You know . . . When I first met you, and I punched you in the nose . . . I thought all Reliance people were repulsive looking. With your pale, fish belly skin you looked disgusting to me. But now . . . Well now I find that I have an appreciation for you. I find you to be . . . very beautiful," Janad said nervously.
He wouldn't have put it exactly that way, but he'd had the same feeling. When he'd first seen her all dark and wild looking, he had thought her completely alien and her appearance horrid and even frightening. Now seeing past his initial fears he saw a dark, beautiful creature whose intellect was far from inferior to his own, and who had a far superior grasp on who she was in relation to the universe than he ever had or probably ever would have.
"I think you're beautiful, too," David said.
Janad moved to stand with her chest pressed against his, blocking his way. She looked up at him expectantly, and he kissed her. She kissed him back, and they kissed for a long time. When their lips separated they looked at each other for a long moment then David grabbed her hand and started pulling her towards a wooded area. She followed him laughing.
* * *
RJ stirred the coals under the spitted lizard. She looked up at David and smiled as he walked back into camp with Janad close behind him.
He sat down across the fire from her. Whatever energy he'd had after their climb he had just spent. Janad knelt down behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
RJ smiled broadly. "I thought you were going to get fire wood?" RJ said.
"We had sex instead," Janad said bluntly.
"Yes, I had figured that out," RJ said grinning at David.
"What?" David said feeling suddenly very vulnerable and exposed.
"Nothing," RJ said with a shrug.
Levits walked back into camp zipping up his fly. He looked at Janad and David with a smug, all-knowing smile that made David want to slap him more than he normally did.
David untangled himself from Janad, jumped up walked over and grabbed RJ by the arm. "Come on. I need to talk to you."
RJ shrugged, got up and followed him a little way away from the camp. "What's wrong? I figured after you got your winky taken care of . . ."
"My what?"
"Your winky. That's what Whitey used to call his . . . I would have thought you would be in a better mood than this," RJ said. "Was the girl not any good?"
"Too good," David said. He lowered his voice. "Remember how when I was with Kirsty you told me that I had to have known it was different. That I should have known she wasn't human."
"Yeah, but we already know that this girl is some sort of hybrid . . ."
"Yes, but I've been with Kirsty, now, and I know why she was different. And . . . that girl . . . it's the same . . . her . . . well, you know. . . If I didn't know better, RJ, I'd swear that girl was an Argy hybrid."
RJ looked thoughtful and started pacing. "Now that makes a certain amount of sense. We know that the Argys and humans evolved at about the same pace, the Argy being only slightly ahead of the humans. A couple of hundred years at best, but that would be enough."
David snapped his fingers. "Damn! In the infirmary Topaz said that there was something familiar about Janad's DNA. That must be why . . ."
"How do we know that?" David asked.
"Because this is a class three planet," RJ said, the words dumb ass being implied by the tone in her voice. "The flora and fauna are very primitive, and there is nothing here that could have evolved into anything remotely humanoid. If the ship we find . . ."
"If there is a ship," David said skeptically. He had been looking through the binoculars all day, and while he could clearly see their ship in the valley below, he could make out not even a lump that looked ship-like on the mountain above them.