by Darrell Bain
Without waiting for consensus or other opinions until the two able members of her sextant returned, she grabbed the tunic of one of the newcomers. When she had his attention, she pointed down at one of the wounded, then pointed to their ship again. She had to reach down and touch the horrible burn on one of the members and repeat the pantomime but that seemed to do it, just as the other two times had. They were intelligent enough, it seemed.
* * * *
“They want to get their wounded inside their ship, Top, and some of them want to go inside, too,” the private soldier said to Gomez. “One of ‘em has already been inside with one of the guys with two of the worst ones.”
The first sergeant looked around for Lieutenant Freeman but couldn't see him anywhere. He made the decision himself.
“Round up a squad to help carry them inside then stay with them. Peel off a couple of your men and see if they can find anything that looks like a control room. If so, don't let any of them inside but don't hurt them if at all possible.”
“Got it, Top,” he said and trotted off.
To another nearby trooper, Gomez said, “Go to the tender and find Wu, the linguist. Bring her to me immediately and find the lieutenant. He needs to be in on this.”
A few minutes later, with the linguist and lieutenant conferring, he scanned his surroundings and saw everything was under control. It was time to get the captain outside and let him and the lieutenant take charge. He had his men to see to and a few of his boys would be going back in body bags. He was damn sure taking them, though. He wasn't about to see them buried here with those fucking cons they'd killed. And he sincerely hoped the captain hung them all before they left and provided some more bodies.
* * * *
“The tender, Captain! The thrusters have a warming light!”
“Take out the canopy,” Travis said without a quiver. It had to be done even if it lost them the use of it forever.
He watched and seconds later a searing beam of coherent light reached out and punched through the upper portion of the canopy. He had a brief glimpse of figures inside but then they were out of sight in the glare of destruction. He had no idea whether they were dead or not but the warming light of the thrusters blinked out.
“Hold it, Sandy,” he said, not wanting to do any more damage than necessary. Maybe it could be repaired.
* * * *
Esmeralda watched helplessly as Fondez stood over her and the wounded Sarah with a weapon pointed down at her. She sighed inwardly. To have come so far and to die now was going to be hard but there was no way she intended to be a pilot for that son of a bitch. She tensed her muscles for a leap at him that she knew would probably mean her death. As suddenly as a stroke of lightning, Fondez no longer had a head. A second later she felt the stifling, boiling heat from where the upper part of the canopy used to be. She began choking on the heavy toxic fumes of volatized composite materials and held her breath. She started to crawl away then heard Sarah moan. She stopped and reached back for the wounded woman. She grabbed hold of the top of Sarah's jacket and began pulling her away from the heated vapors. Clouds of smoke enveloped her. She didn't think she was going to be able to get them both away from the heavy noxious fumes but she refused to let go.
Just as she thought she could stand it no longer, another hand was beside hers and helping her pull. A few minutes later, they were back among the seats and out of the worst of it. She took in a breath of relatively fresh air and tried to see who had aided her. She had to look through the furious watering of her irritated eyes and couldn't tell for sure.
“Hurry up, let's get out of here,” she heard the figure say. It was like a voice from out of the past, the rough raspy sound of the heavy weapons corporal from her old platoon. She blinked her eyes again and again, trying to clear them.
“Simpson?”
“Yeah, it's me, Sarge. Let's move before this thing blows up or Sandy decides it needs another shot,” he said.
“I've got a badly wounded woman here,” she said.
“No you don't, Sarge. She's gone.”
Esmeralda gasped and looked down. Sarah's eyes were open but dead, looking at nothing. She stood up. “Okay, let's go. And thanks. Goddamn, but am I glad to see you!”
“We're glad, too, Sarge. Sorry we took so long.”
Esmeralda was too, but she would never, ever say so, not to anyone.
* * * *
“It's all over, Captain. Come on out,” Lieutenant Freeman said and beckoned.
“Great. How many casualties?”
“Four of our people dead, a few others wounded. A couple of those are pretty bad. We've got people working on them, though.”
“I'm sorry to hear that, but at least it wasn't too many. How about the aliens?”
“Bad, sir. I'm hearing a lot of them were killed yesterday, then a couple of cons went wild when we arrived and fired into them. They can't be very happy with us.”
“No, I expect they aren't. Have you recovered all our people?”
“Still working on that one, sir. I did see Sissy. She's fine.”
Travis breathed a huge sigh of relief. She had been the first one he'd thought of but hadn't wanted to ask about her right off, not when so many of the young men and women had risked their lives on the mission.
“Thanks, Lieutenant. Let's go, then.”
He was no sooner on the ground than he saw Sissy running toward him. He gathered her into his arms in a great hug that was returned with such vigor he feared for his ribs.
“Travis, oh my God, I'm so glad to see you! Oh, those poor women in the army, I can hardly stand to think of what the convicts did to them!” She was gushing, not even knowing what she was saying.
He separated her from his embrace and held her by the shoulders. “Are you okay?” he whispered in a choked whisper. Then regaining his voice, asked “What happened after they took you and the others?”
“N-Nothing, b-but they were going to...” She collapsed into his arms again with her head on his chest.
He held her while she wept and vowed to see that their prisoners didn't enjoy that status long. In the meantime, he had other duties. He gently disentangled Sissy from her hold on him.
“Sissy, sweetheart, I have things I must do. I'd have the surgeon look at you but he and his people have their hands more than full. Why don't you go back to the tender and try to relax until we begin shipping people back?”
“No.” She straightened her shoulders just as he thought she would. “No, I'll see what I can do to help. I worked as a nurse's aide while I was in school. I can still do some things that need taking care of.”
“Be careful. I think we've got all the convicts but I can't be sure until we do a count.”
“I will. You do the same.”
Travis watched as she hurried off toward where a temporary emergency treatment center had been set up under a canopy but it was already mostly empty. The most serious cases were already being moved into the tender where more supplies and more sanitary conditions were available. The lieutenant told him the most seriously wounded aliens had been taken into their own ship. He nodded and followed Sissy with his gaze until she entered the alien ship helping to carry one of them, then turned his eyes away and went with the lieutenant.
The scene of the battle was being rapidly cleared up. The bodies of the troopers who had died were being loaded into the bay of the tender while those of the convicts lay beside a single hole in the ground that was being rapidly enlarged by a team of soldiers with shovels. Their young muscled bodies moved with effortless ease or so it seemed to him.
“Make it bigger than what you need for those bodies, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Sergeant Gomez has already anticipated that, sir.”
“Good. I think the first thing I'll do tomorrow is proceed with the trials. I'd like to get those and the necessary executions out of the way. I'd have it done today but there are too many other things that are more important. Does that meet with your approva
l?”
“Yes, Captain. Mass trial or singly?”
“Let's do them all together. If any of them deserve mercy, we'll know from the witnesses.”
“Fine. If you'll excuse me, I'll start checking on witnesses and help with the aliens, the ferrets.”
“Is that what you named them? Fits, I guess. Call me when you're ready but before that, can you tell me whether or not we've been able to identify a leader of the aliens?”
“Uh, I think the term ‘Ferrets’ has already caught on, Captain.”
“They do resemble ferrets, don't they? Well, how about their leader?”
“You'd better talk to Ms. Wu, sir. She plunged right in but I believe she may be having problems.”
“I'll go see her in a moment. Where is she?”
“Inside the ship, sir. They're pretty smart. They caught on right away that she wanted to learn their language or vice versa but they couldn't seem to make up their minds which of them should be the one to work with her.”
“Maybe the convicts killed their leaders?” And wouldn't that be a real calamity?
He shrugged “Could be, I suppose.”
“I'll go see her now.”
* * * *
It seemed impossible after all the horrible deaths of intelligent beings but Siessina was actually conversing with the aliens. It had finally become obvious that the humans, as they called themselves, encompassed nothing resembling sextants or any other closely knit group. They were all individualists, strange as it seemed for an intelligent species. Nevertheless it was true. After the initial period of confusion, all the sextants had ultimately agreed that the best thing to do was deal with the humans in a way they were comfortable with. Since it was Siessina's sextant that had initially advanced the theory that humans were single-minded entities, and which was the acknowledged leader, her group had been proposed as the one to deal initially with the humans according to hurriedly revised protocols. Once they all agreed with that proposal, Siessina and her two able members also approved, of course.
The humans in turn had sent three members of their species but they were not of a related group. Only one was anything of a linguist and it took her only a short time to realize the human software was inferior to that of the sextants'. Within a day, the linguist named Geraldine Wu admitted the Freemtini were better linguists as well. She still attempted to learn the Freemtini language but Siessina and the other two members of her sextant began speaking English much quicker.
Once the initial difficulties were settled progress was swift so far as learning the language went. Understanding the humans became increasingly difficult, though. She suggested that everything they learned be sent to their males and it was approved, but even they had no explanation for the human violence toward intelligent beings, both Freemtini and their own.
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* * *
Chapter Seventeen
One of Travis’ first orders after leaving the tender was that the aliens not busy with the linguist be left alone unless they initiated contact. They were a ways off and had been standing in little groups by their dead, not seeming to be doing much other than occasionally chittering back and forth. After awhile he saw they were occupied with something different and many of his people stopped what they were doing to watch.
They began separating the dead into groups and heaping them atop one another. It looked as if most piles had two or three bodies but one had five or six and several had only one. When they were finished, there were fourteen separate piles of dead.
After that chore was completed, they again stood in their little clusters. They appeared to be waiting on something and they were all looking toward their ship. Presently Geraldine Wu appeared in company with three of the aliens. She walked with them to where the others were waiting by their dead. As soon as they stopped, she called to a nearby soldier who was also watching to her. He couldn't understand what she was saying from so far away but obviously it concerned someone near him for she pointed in their direction, then clapped the soldier on the shoulder and sent him running toward where he had been busy with Lieutenant Freeman coordinating the first tender flight back to the ship.
He waited to see what Wu wanted with him.
“Sir,” the soldier said, “Ms. Wu wanted me to tell you that the ferrets want to take their dead back into their ship and bury, that is, dispose of them inside. She says it's what they do and thinks we ought to let them.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant Freeman. I'd better take care of this. Go ahead with what we talked about and when the satellite is in a favorable position, com the ship and see if they have the parts to repair the damaged tender.”
“Will do.” Freeman touched his forehead with a finger.
Travis strode quickly over toward the ferrets.
“Hi, Geraldine. You wanted me?”
“Yes, sir. I believe I've gotten the idea through to them that you're our honcho so I think it might be a good idea for you to attend the ceremony for their dead if they allow it. In any case, I believe they all want to return to the ship with the bodies.”
“There are still some troops in their control room, aren't there?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Then I'll be glad to go along if they want me or allow me to. And yes, let them take their dead inside if that's what they do.” He hesitated a moment and added, “As long as you're certain they aren't going to try taking off.”
“I can't be certain, but I doubt it. And I suppose this is the perfect time to tell you that we didn't need our first contact protocols. They have some damn good ones themselves and I believe they are better linguists than I am.”
“Then they'd have to really be great according to all your accomplishments,” he answered as he walked with her toward the ferret ship. When they arrived, he stopped just outside one of the big hatches and came to attention. As the first ferrets bearing their dead prepared to enter the ship, he brought his hand up in a salute. He wasn't certain if it was proper diplomatic procedure but he didn't think it could hurt.
After most of them had passed, Geraldine said, “Here come the three who escorted me out. They're also the ones I've been working with, I think. It's hard to tell because they look so much alike. Also, from what few observations I've managed so far, I think they do things by groups rather than individually. In fact, I believe they operate in groups of six.”
“How do you figure?”
“Simple. The live ones who paused by the piles of dead always were in numbers so the total of live and dead equaled six. Simple, huh?”
“Hmm.” He thought back over the groupings he'd seen on the field and decided she was probably right. “What do you think it means?”
“Haven't a clue, yet. Give me a break, Captain. I'm just getting started and we only a limited vocabulary so far. To be optimistic though, what we've learned came much faster than I would have believed possible with an entirely alien species. Hey, come on. They're waiting on us.”
He followed them into the ship; the first time he had been inside. There was an odor to it, somewhat musky but not terribly unpleasant. And we probably smell odd to them, too, he said to himself. The cavernous interior had fewer hallways and more large rooms with opened doors than a human ship would have. The apparatuses he saw were so odd-looking that he couldn't tell what most of them were designed for. The colors were also wildly different, not in the various shades possible but in the way they were mingled. The ceilings were lower than on human ships, too. He was two inches over six feet but didn't have to stoop—barely. Which he thought reasonable considering the ferrets appeared to be slightly shorter than the average human, although with the heavier legs they probably weighed the same.
What bothered him somewhere at a deep level of consciousness was that according to accounts, the ferrets had trooped outside their ship on first meeting humans with no weapons at all and that none had been seen in the ship. It didn't make sense considering they almost had to be an explora
tory party and have some method of repelling dangerous animals on strange planets. For the time being, he couldn't think about it though, because their version of a funeral had begun.
Each group of six, with the living carrying the dead, approached a chamber in a large bay of the ship. There they paused, chattered briefly then thrust their dead inside the chamber and closed a transparent door. Seconds later a burst of light glared from inside. It flared brightly for a moment then died and where it had been no bodies remained.
“A matter converter,” he said softly to Geraldine. “Much more powerful than anything we have, too.”
“I see,” she returned.
The only variation in the procedure came when two of the groups of six had only one or two living members. In each case, others stepped forward briefly to help bring forth and arrange the bodies then stepped back out of the way and allowed the living to offer their dead to the converter.
“I see what you mean about groups of six,” Travis said, making his voice sound purposely solemn. He doubted they would understand the nuances now but they might later.
Wu nodded but said nothing.
Once the funeral—there was no other word for it—was over, most of them trooped back outside.
“Go ahead, Captain. I need to keep working.”
“Do you have to stay inside?”
“I'm not sure. They insisted on one break and went outside when I did. I needed a bathroom break badly, but I believe they simply wanted to pass on what they'd learned to the others unless I'm getting a wrong take on the way they're organized.”
“How so?”
“Like a hive in a way. Not exactly, but ... those groups of six, or what would have been six if some of them hadn't been dead, are highly intermeshed. I watched each of the ones I've been working with go toward a separate cluster of the ones outside and talk to them. It's like there are a lot of small hives, but I don't think it's anything like telepathy. Ask me again later.”