“Who are the Scions?”
“They rule the citadels of the Inner Prefectures. They are very greedy and devious. Your team should exercise great care around them.”
The rest of the team was settling into seats, recording their observations over steaming mugs of hot chocolate, tea, coffee, cava, and breck. Redfire turned back to the communications panel. “Pegasus, what is the current status of Team Alpha?”
“Most of the team has left the settlement near their landing site and are proceeding northward toward a larger settlement. They are traveling by ground. At last reports, all life signs for all parties were showing normal.”
“Is there a landing team standing by to assist Team Alpha.”
“Affirmative, lieutenant.”
“On hot-ready?”
“Affirmative.”
Redfire nodded. “Very well. Keep me informed.” He turned to Ironhorse. “What is our status? How quickly could we be airborne if we had to be?”
Ironhorse leaned over a workstation. A holographic display of the ship came up. “Heavy icing on the wings and fuselage.” He activated a control, and a blue pulse zipped along the length of the ship. On the outside, ice and frost broke free and avalanched to the ground.
“Clear. We could reach the Alpha team in thirty-five minutes… if we had to.”
Redfire nodded. “Good. Keep the ship on hot stand-by.”
“You show much concern, much caring, for your comrades.”
“We have to watch out for each other.”
“That is what I have been trying to teach the people here.” She sighed. “They do not care to learn. Most of the new arrivals have lost everything and everyone dear to them. Those that have been here for a long time are concerned only with their own survival.”
She yawned and stretched, curling up into a ball on one of the couches. “Forgive me,” she said. “Usually, we try to sleep through the coldest of the cold, as well as the worst of the heat.”
“Would you like to rest? We have an area of the ship set aside or that purpose.’ Redfire yawned, and checked his chronometer. He was nearing his normal rest period as well.
“No,” she said firmly. He dark eyes sought into him, burned down into him. “Not yet. I want to hear more of your world, your ship, your people. I wish to hear everything you can tell me.”
Redfire looked back at her, and he could feel the eyes of the entire crew fixing onto him. He lay that feeling aside and focused on her. She had a magnetic quality that went beyond her obvious intellect, curiosity, and… he could not avoid admitting it… her raw physical attractiveness, a quality he felt drawing him into her.
He gently extracted his hand from between hers. “Where shall I begin?”
Eden – The Dayside
Technician Dallas was wrapped in a stabilization bandage from chest to waist, that would immobilize her while microscopic robot knitters repaired her injuries. She was strapped in turn to a carrying frame, which would be carried on the back of Technician Stonecipher. In Eden’s scant gravity, she weighed little
Her assailant lay on a blanket in the middle of the trail. He had been washed with a sonic scrubber, revealing him to be a fairly ordinary human boy, whose hair, now less-tangled, hung around a face with a strong jawline, high cheekbones, and a buttonish, upturned nose. His rags had been replaced with nondescript blue-gray spare clothing from one of the landing packs. The contents of three emergency nutri-packs had been absorbed into his veins as he lay unconscious. The boy looked almost healthful, or, at least, less-starved.
“He is stable,” reported Medical Technician Skinner.
“He’s lucky I didn’t break any of his bones when I tackled him,” said Marine Specialist Everything.
“Luck!” Skinner huffed dismissively. “He may be thin, but his bones are strong as iron bars, and flexible, too. You also can not discount the fact that the effect of your greater mass was diminished by the Liliputian gravitational field of this worldlet.”
Keeler looked at the boy lying at his feet, and then to the unconscious form of Nellen Dallas. Then, he looked back to the boy, then, back to Dallas. It was as though something was amiss, and he could not decide for himself what it was.
“Strange, strange planet,” he muttered.
“Captain,” Everything asked. “What should we do with the boy?”
Keeler looked down at the child and said quietly “Wake him.”
Marine Specialist Everything gestured with his left hand, releasing the stun field that had dampened the boy’s nervous system.
The boy’s eyes snapped open. Like a startled cat, he leapt into a standing position and then retreated into a crouch as he surveyed the people surrounding him, his eyes darting from Keeler, to Skinner, to Everything, to Honeywell. Everything raised his hands defensively. Before Keeler could wave him down, the boy darted through the gap between him and Skinner and rushed toward the field.
“Don’t pursue him!” Keeler yelled.
The clothing the landing team had provided hung off the boy’s skinny body like sails off the mast of a schooner. As he charged down the rocky slope at the side of the roadway, he stumbled and fell, his legs lost in the huge pants. He scrambled to recover himself, finally pausing at the very edge of the field, where he fixed the party with a hateful stare.
“Now what?” Crowe asked.
Keeler reached into his pack, and took out the boy’s launcher and projectiles. For a tense moment, the boy’s gaze met Keeler’s eye-to-eye. Keeler sent a suggestion, unsure whether it would register. The boy looked down to Keeler’s hands, and saw him holding out his weapons. A quizzical expression crossed his face, just for a moment. He then hissed at the party one last time and disappeared into the field. He ran through the stalks and stands of the strange crop, silent as a whisper, and then was gone.
“Do you want me to pursue him,” asked Everything.
Keeler shook his head. “I think not.” He handed the weapons to Alkema. “Place these in one of the artifact packs. I should like to examine them later.”
“Do you think there are any more like him out there?” Alkema asked.
“Kids with sharp rocks and slingshots?” Keeler answered. “Probably.”
“Why did he attack us, do you think?”
Keeler gazed over the field. “I think he was just protecting the crop. So long as we stay out of the fields, they probably will not harm us.”
Alkema looked toward the field where the boy had disappeared. He raised his arm “He’s stopped, forty-four meters into the field.”
“Protecting his crop,” Keeler repeated. “It is probably his job. I imagine this was a terrifying encounter for him. A party of strangely dressed beings walking down the path, with weird, shiny, pointy weapons. He attacked us out of duty, which says a lot about him.”
Skinner disagreed. “I believe he was simply too terrified to think clearly, that is, if he can think clearly.”
“What do you mean, sir?”Alkema asked.
“Did you look into his eyes, young specialist?” Skinner asked. “I did. I’m not certain he functions on the same level of rationality as we do.”
“You mean… he’s not as intelligent?”
“What I saw in his eyes was not the spark of human intellect, but the primal, deranged fear of a captured animal.”
Keeler mulled over the point. “Maybe it was just the terror of his capture, but if he has been trained to act as a human watchdog, he may function at that level full-time.”
“That’s terrible,” said Everything.
“Indeed. If that’s the case, and if there are others like him, we must be on our guard.”
Keeler sighed, and took a long drink from his canteen. “On the other hand, if there is reason inside him, he may consider the fact that while we had him, disarmed and at our mercy, we did him no harm, and, in fact, cleansed, clothed, and fed him.”
Alkema did not understand. “So, what will he do with that?”
“Most likely, no
thing at all. On the other hand, there is always a chance…”
Alkema waited for Keeler to finish, but he didn’t. “A chance of what?”
“A chance that a guard dog you treat with kindness will turn around and bite you in the ass. If he’s smart, and if there are others like him. They might make our journey a lot more interesting than we would like it to be.”
Eden – The Dayside – Landing Team Gamma
“I am Lieutenant Scientist Magnus Morgan from the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus. We have come to study your world. We come from another star system which, like yours, was settled and populated by humans from the planet Earth, millennia ago.”
Science Lieutenant Morgan was a blandly handsome man in his late twenties, with fine features, soft brown hair, and an unfortunate habit of letting his jaw hang open after he finished speaking. His semi-wife, Kayliegh Driver, found this adorable. He and his crew were addressing an assembly of, perhaps, eighteen or so villagers who inhabited a small settlement on a great plain, cut through by a broad shallow river that emerged from breaks to the southwest. The villagers themselves were uniformly human in appearance, only a few freaks among them. All of them were dressed in rough brown tunics and leggings. They had chosen a larger settlement for their touchdown, above a large and deep faultline that divided the planet longitudinally, stretching from pole-to-pole and under the sea like a great seam. It was chosen as a site of geological interest, the longest, straightest, smoothest fault-line their geologists had ever seen, like the cleft of a peach on a planetary scale. The nearby settlement consisted of a few broad streets dividing a few dozen largish buildings built of stone foundations topped with weathered brown and black wood, some of it planed, but logs for the most part. The landing party was surprised at how little heed anyone had paid to their arrival. In the background, people continued to shop, to haggle, to barter, and work. Village life seemed to be proceeding as normal.
“Is the translation matrix working,” Morgan asked of his Marine specialist, Billy Keen, a blond-haired man with a puggish nose, short and thick-bodied like a wrestler.
“They appear to understand you, lieutenant. They just don’t seem very interested.”
As if in confirmation, a young woman and a girl shrugged and wandered away. For a moment, it appeared the whole crowd might lose interest and simply wander off toward some more interesting distraction. Then, an angry man, middle-aged and wiry, gray of beard and white of hair, came running down the street, shouting out.
“Uh-oh,” said Billy Keen. He gestured for the other specialists to be alert. The villager came at them, shouting gibberish for a second, then the Lingotron kicked in.
“You’re on my beans!” He was shouting. “You killed my bean crop.”
“Excuse me,” said Morgan.
“You done landed on my bean crop!” The villager shrieked at him.
Morgan and the rest of the party, except the Marines, looked down at the tangle of vines at their feet.
“I am so sorry, sir. I am sure we can compensate you for any ...”
“You’re an ass!” the man shouted. The villagers seemed amused, now that something interesting had happened.
“We can replace your crop. The key thing is, we wanted your permission...”
“You’re trampling all over them. Get out of there, you ass! All of you, you’re asses!”
“Namgubed!” came a voice. They looked up the street to see another man approaching, with an entourage of two other men. He was dressed no differently from the others, and there was nothing in his face to differentiate him from the others, a very ordinary man just on the approach to middle age. There was a commanding aspect to his bearing, however, that stood him apart.
The accuser turned and faced him, and his mood seemed to mellow, slightly.
“Those aren’t even your beans,” the man said. Turning to Morgan, he continued. “Hail and well met, visitors. I am Doctor Cuthbertson. I am the headman of this village.” He looked from Morgan to Billy. “Which of you is the headman?”
“I guess I am,” Morgan told him.
With the arrival of this man, interest in the newcomers had increased. There were now nearly sixty people gathered nearby, or watching from a safe distance.
“What brings you to the village of Blackwood?”
“We have come from another star system. Our mission here is scientific. There is an interesting geological structure... a fault... running underneath this village. We also thought this would be a good place for collecting plant and animal samples.”
“You might begin with some of those beans,” the man observed. He was staring at their ships.
“With your consent, of course. If our presence is not welcome, we will leave.”
The man looked stunned for a moment, then broke into a large smile and almost collapsed with laughter. Sensing the cue, the rest of the crowd laughed also. The man noted the look of confusion in Morgan’s eyes and determined he could not understand their amusement. “Obviously, you have the power to do your mission, regardless of our wishes, why not simply proceed.”
“It isn’t our way.”
This was met with another raucous outbreak of hilarity. Morgan smiled awkwardly again.
“If you ask us to leave, we will go.”
“Would you,” the man asked, a slight glint manifesting itself in the corner of his eye. “What if we were to ask some ... boon, of you, in return for our hospitality?”
“A boon?”
“We are a very simple people. These lands lie far away from the wealthy and civilized parts of the planet. We survive by selling them our crops and what goods as we can build. We enjoy a reputation as craftsmen and artisans. I can tell, by looking at your ship, that you have some very good tools that we might study.”
“Our technology may be above your comprehension.”
“Then, I will have struck a poor bargain. However, that is my choice. If you will allow us to examine your instrumentality in close detail, we will extend to you every hospitality.”
Morgan thought it over. They could have asked for much more, for food, for blankets, for medical aid, but all they wanted was to examine technology they could not possibly understand. Still, who was he to argue, he would throw in the blankets and medicine as a bonus. “You have a deal, Doctor Cuthbertson.”
Chapter Nine
Pegasus – Amenities Nexus Alpha
High above Eden, far away from the landing teams, coccooned warmly against the cold night of space and without a single person who wanted to kill them, Matthew Driver and Eliza Jane Change shared a table in one of Pegasus’s Dining Courts. Behind dishes of soup and fresh-baked bread, they listened politely as Eddie recounted his meeting with Executive Commander Lear.
“I can’t slagging believe you sicced Ex. Cmdr. Lear on me,” he wailed at Change. “It’s like throwing a baby into a pack of starving land-sharks.”
“You brought it all on yourself, lack-wit,” she hissed back at him, with surprising vigor.
“Besides, Ex. Cmdr. Lear doesn’t travel in packs.”
They shared a collective shudder at the image of ravenous Ex. Cmdr. Lears charging through the ship’s corridors, mauling everyone they came across, leaving behind neat piles of bones, picked clean and arranged alphabetically.
Eddie continued talking as he chewed his marshmallow bread, which threatened to burst the corners of his jaws with each word. “You just can’t talk to Ex. Cmdr. Lear like she was a regular person you could rationalize and equalize an agreement with. I was all ready to give her my inner self, explain how it would be better off for the ship, in general, if an assol like me, who doesn’t like his work and isn’t that good at it just eases off. I also had a few observations to make about Cisco and how he would never admit it, but he has a great desire to work in effluent monitoring. Before I can even open my mouth she’s all over me like a guild attack cyberdog.”
Eliza raised an eyebrow. She had seen the Guild’s robotic guard dogs, called Trauma Hounds, in a
ction. They were generally two meters tall, armor-plated beasts with stainless titanium claws and teeth and laser-beam eyes. They were primarily used to seek and dig out victims from mining collapses, but they were entirely capable of ripping a person to shreds in less time than it took to say, “rip a person to shreds.” While she knew of no occasion when they had actually been used in that capacity, their mere appearance was enough to reduce a victim to submission. She had never made a mental comparison to Ex. Cmdr. Lear before, but found it metaphorically apt.
Eddie continued. “First she tells me, if I don’t get back to work, she’s gonna let me starve to death. I mean, can you imagine? Or, she’ll put me in slaggin’ deep freeze and shoot me off the launch rails like a slagging Nemesis missile.”
“Harsh,” said Change, dipping a thick piece of spice-bread into a steaming tomato and pumpkin bisque.
“Harsh? I practically have my own reproductive organs spit-roasted and served to me on a slaggin’ hors d’oeuvre tray … and all you can say is harsh?”
“Ex. Cmdr. Lear has a reputation for being severe when she thinks it necessary.” Matthew put in, almost casually.
Eddie looked at him like he had understaed her by a factor of thousands. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said she wanted to slagging send me back to Sapphire in an icebox! ”
“She really said that?” Matthew seemed to be taking this well.
Eddie swore it was true. “May Krishna judge me for a hundred lifetimes.”
“It’s really not so bad.” Eliza Jane broke in. “It’s just like falling asleep. Some people in the Mining Guild go into stasis willingly, sometimes for a hundred years or more. Most of them come out okay.”
“And are they happy to get out and find out their friends and everything they ever knew was gone?”
“Actually, that’s what most of them want when they go into stasis in the first place. I worked with an ice-chipper once who froze himself for seventy-eight years because he couldn’t stand his brother-in-law. So, he put himself in stasis with instructions not to let him out until the other man died. It worked out great. He was thawed out in time for the funeral, went back to work the next day. The only side effect was damage to the muscles in his eyes. He could only stare straight forward for the rest of his life. He had to move his head to track things. It was off-putting, but you got used to it after a while.”
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