“Landing,” chittered Builder of Joy over the suit comlink. “Traffic control for the hall has indicated this location for our landing.”
“Perfect,” Jane said, standing as the movement of the transport ended and the holo showed them stationary on the landing pad. “Builder, stay here. While I do not expect any danger from these people, I do wish to ensure access to our way off this planet.”
“Understood,” the flying squirrel said, his tone elevated. “Flying through this world’s atmosphere was most enjoyable! I am eager to do more!”
Jane chuckled, her serious expression becoming relaxed. A half smile filled her face as she stood in front of Time Marker. It was good to see her being relaxed after the deadly fight on the Market world. Bill moved quickly to be the first at the transport’s inner airlock hatch. He was security for them all. And no SEAL ever let any teammate enter a danger zone without first checking it out. Behind them came a loud sound.
“Ahhh!” hissed Time Marker.
Bill glanced over his shoulder, looking past Chester and Jane to where their crewmate stood in the aisle. Their buddy had shed the tube suit he’d been wearing. The yellow nimbus that always glowed about him was no longer contained. It had grown outward to a foot deep. He’d always been fascinated by the miniature lightning display that the nimbus created. It was as much a part of the walking snake as breathing was to him and Jane. Clearly their friend had felt constrained by the tube suit, which now lay on the bench he’d been seated on.
Chester grinned. “Captain, do we keep on our suits?”
The blue eyes of Time Marker looked up. “Captain, my world has the same air as does Earth. It is safe to breath it. As I breathed the air on the ship.”
“I’m sure it is safe air,” Jane murmured over the comlink they all shared. “Perhaps we should leave our suits here. Our hosts might think we do not trust them if we wore them inside. And our earbuds can pick up the automatic translation of Slinkeroo speech that Star Traveler is doing for us. The Blue Sky is close enough so we should not hear much delay in speech and the translation we hear. The throat comlink disks we each wear will keep us in link with everyone else.” She touched the front seam of her tube suit, causing it to open.
Standing beside the inner airlock hatch, Bill did the same. He rebelted his Federal Ordnance .45 to his waist, checked to be sure his woodland camo NWU Type III outfit was clean, then checked out Chester and Jane. Like him they each wore green and brown NWUs in the MARPAT pattern. The outfits had been picked up on their return to Earth. Unlike earlier BDUs, these outfits were NIR-compliant fabric. As a result, his and Jane and Chester’s infrared signatures would be the same as any surrounding landscape. While he did not expect any threat from the Slinkeroo people, still, he always prepared for the worst possible outcome. Which was why he carried a red tube laser inside his shirt and against his spine. Just in case. And each of them carried semi-autos on their waist. On a world where people could project disabling electrical charges, he felt they were entitled to carry personal weapons. A fact that had been conveyed during Jane’s talks with the Prime Elder. As the three of them began moving toward him, he turned, touched the Open patch on the side of the hatch, and stepped into the bedroom-size airlock. His companions joined him. He reached out and touched the Operate patch beside the outer hatch. Behind them the inner hatch closed. Upon its hiss-thump, the outer hatch slid to one side. Bright yellow-white sunlight blazed in.
He blinked and wished he had sunglasses. The discomfort was slight. Glancing out he saw the loading ramp had lowered to contact with the landing pad. Near its end stood a four-legged Slinkeroo, its black skin hide showing a line of red tattoos. It looked up.
“Welcome to the Hall of Silver Scales,” hissed the greeter. “I am known as Swift Lightning. The Prime Elder sent me to guide you to the chamber where the Council of Seven awaits you.”
Bill walked slowly down the gray metal ramp, his peripheral vision registering nine flying craft flitting among the tops of the skyscrapers. This place was as big and congested as New York City. Or Hong Kong. A light wind ruffled his short hair. His four day old beard did not insulate his chin from the chilly coldness of the place. Sunny it might be, but it felt like Oslo in the summer, recalling a brief visit there by a few of his Team Seven members. Keeping his hands free, he waved.
“Thank you for your help,” he spoke, then heard his words translated by a shoulder tab into the hissing speech of the Slinkeroo. He reached the end of the rampway. He moved to the left, not wishing to be too close to the greeter, whose own yellow nimbus reached out two feet from its skin.
The critter’s neck fringe of six tentacles stretched out, then curled at their tips. Blue eyes scanned him, then looked beyond to where Jane, Chester and Time Marker were descending the ramp. “So high above the ground are you Humans,” hissed Swift Lightning. “Yes! Our wandering clansman returns home!”
Bill watched as his crewmate rushed up to the greeter and laid his triangular head alongside the greeter’s head. Their electrical nimbuses briefly became one at that point. His crewmate sighed, then stepped away, breaking nimbus contact.
“So good to feel the charge of another Slinkeroo!” Time Marker hissed.
Jane stepped forward. “I am Captain Jane Yamaguchi, leader of our group. I admire the red marks on your skin, Swift Lightning. Do they have a special meaning?”
Their greeter blinked blue eyes, then turned and headed for a triangular door that lay ahead of them, where the landing pad met the spire’s wall. “They do. They indicate my clan, my education level and my work assignment.”
He followed after their crewmate, who had scampered ahead to lead the way, his four-legged gait causing a sideways swaying of his sinuous body. Behind him Jane and Chester followed. Bill looked up at the hundred feet of silvery steel wall that stretched above the pad, noticing the round windows that dotted the wall. Clusters of windows indicated there were at least ten more floors above them. As their greeter neared the closed entry door, a yellow streak of lightning speared out and touched the right side of the entry door. It landed at a spot colored pale red. Clearly the opening control. The metal door hissed to one side. A well-lighted hallway stretched before them. In the distance other Slinkeroo moved along the wide hallway, some of them turning into side hallways. A few stopped before triangular doors, spat out a thin lightning bolt, then entered the room beyond. The air smelled of electricity. Enough to make the hair on the back of his neck rise up.
“Thank you,” Jane said as she moved ahead of Bill to walk along the left side of their greeter. “I look forward to meeting your Council of Seven and its Prime Elder. Uh, did you lose many people to the collector pods sent down by the Collector ship?”
The nimbus about the greeter grew slightly larger. “Eleven people were lost before we received your message. After that, our ground lasers killed every pod that descended. Perhaps that is why the Collector craft departed six hours ago. As reported by the neutrino sensors on our orbital station.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jane said softly. “Be assured, we will search for them as we travel the stars.”
The yellow glow about their greeter grew smaller. “As we know from your contact with us, it is a spacious universe. But you have brought home one of us. Perhaps more will return.”
Bill walked alongside Chester as the two of them followed behind Jane, Swift Lightning and Time Marker. Earlier, on their way in, he’d seen the purple dot of the enemy ship leave orbit well before the Blue Sky arrived. That had been six hours ago. The mention of the neutrino detection of the enemy ship’s fusion reactors was a tribute to the swift engineering done by the Slinkeroo scientists on the station. Once they heard from Time Marker how a Collector ship could be detected, the snake people had built neutrino detectors. They had fired several laser strikes at the orbital track of the enemy ship, causing it to move out toward the world’s moon. The ground-based lasers were carbon dioxide gas lasers like those on his ship and the four other
ships in their fleet. Their range was close to 10,000 miles, the same as his ship lasers. While one of their moon-bound ships had turned back and tried to find the EMF-invisible Collector ship, it had lacked detectors. Even if the Slinkeroo ship had possessed a neutrino detector, the three ships recently launched by the walking snake people lacked any laser weapons. No doubt that would change in view of the arrival of a Collector ship. These people were no tech laggards. While they had not visited the other worlds of their system, Bill’s ship sensors had documented a world with moderate tech and a high level of communications and broadcast energy integration. He felt they would be a fine addition to the NATO of the Stars that was Chester’s presidential assignment.
Their greeter turned right down a wide hallway, then stopped before a tall triangular door that filled the end of the hallway. A narrow lightning bolt shot out and hit a red dot. With barely a whisper the metal entry door slid to one side. Before them stretched a giant room. It looked as large as the UN General Assembly chamber in New York. Like that place, this one held several hundred bench seats, all of them empty. To one side lay a half circle of bench seats. Seven Slinkeroo occupied seven seats. Intense yellow-white light shone down on them, causing the rest of the chamber to look dim. A Slinkeroo at one end of the arc left his bench and moved towards them.
Jane stepped forward, her pace quickening as the two Slinkeroo beside her moved faster. “Hello. I am Jane Yamaguchi, of the human people, from planet Earth. It is an honor to meet this world’s leaders.”
As the hissing of his wife’s translated words ended, he and the others stopped. Before them stood a Slinkeroo whose black skin showed streaks of gray. Some of the other walking snakes who rested atop bench seats also showed gray, though two of them looked nearly as black as Time Marker. The one standing before them spoke.
“My clan knows me as Hungry Learner,” hissed low the standing Slinkeroo. “This council elected me to serve as Prime Elder. Elder Jane Yamaguchi, we thank you for your warning about the captive-taking starship that hovered above our world.” Deep blue eyes blinked slowly. “We tried to destroy the craft but it moved beyond the range of our anti-comet lasers. Perhaps you can share with us information on how to build spacecraft that will protect our world in the future?”
“We will do just that,” Jane said. She gestured to the side, to where Chester had joined her. “This is Chester Richardson, a combat leader on our world and the person appointed by my nation’s leader to negotiate agreements with you and with other star people. We are ready to discuss your needs and share our information on the slave-taking behavior of the Buyer society.” She paused, then gestured behind her to where Bill stood, his nerves tense as he tried to see in every direction. “Behind me stands my husband, my life partner. Bill MacCarthy is also well trained in combat. He has used the weapons of my ship to fight other Collector ships. And he has helped free Captives held on a nearby Market world.”
The yellow glow that framed the Prime Elder grew larger. “We welcome you, your negotiator and your life partner. But especially we welcome the return of Time Marker! Come close to me, young one.”
With a scurrying of his clawed feet, their Engines Chief hurried forward to lay his head alongside the head of the Prime Elder. The yellow electrical glow of each joined together, just as had happened earlier with their greeter. They shared a common glow for long moments. Then the older Slinkeroo stepped to one side with a low sigh.
“Young one, your glow carries the sign you recently made a Death Strike,” he hissed. “How did it happen?”
Time Marker, whose long back was perhaps two feet above the metal floor, hunched down a bit, then straightened his stubby legs. “Yes, I killed recently. It happened when I joined other Humans and a Zipziptoe friend in our effort to enter a compound where these Buyers of thinking people resided. As I preceded my Human friend Bill along an entry hole cut into the building by our transport’s laser, I entered a room the beam had cut into. I saw a single lifeform hanging from the room’s ceiling. It was small and enclosed in a web.” The yellow glow about Time Marker expanded outward to three feet. “I carried a laser weapon, but I called to Bill, thinking the lifeform might be a child. He entered the room. The lifeform shot him with a laser, killing Bill. I instantly sent my Death Strike against the enemy lifeform. It . . . it was necessary.”
Hungry Learner blinked slowly, then looked up at the three of them. Deep blue eyes shone bright with extra moisture. “It seems we Slinkeroo must relearn the deadly violence we once used when clan fought clan, continent struck at another continent, and many died over minor arguments.” The Prime Elder stretched out a neck tentacle to entwine with a tentacle from Time Marker. “We rejoice at the return of one of our own. What must we do to defeat future visits by these terrible Collector ships? And how is it that your Bill is alive before us?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Jane blinked at the last part of the Slinkeroo’s question. It filled her mind with the image of the red laser wounds on Bill as he had been carried to the Med Hall of the Blue Sky and put into a clamshell healer unit. She had sent his combat mates away and taken a seat beside the unit, determined to be there when the healer finished its job. And the lid lifted up. She had prayed to the Goddess that his mind would not be damaged. The healer unit could repair and rebuild most any body part. But it could not replace memories. Or awareness. The hours she had waited, with only the humming voice of Star Traveler as company, had been the worst time of her life. Worse than the divorce from her ex. Worse than the loss of her parents, even. She had enjoyed making love with Bill after their takeover of the Blue Sky from that blasted giant cockroach. She had grown to love him deeply as they returned Captives to their home worlds. Later, after the arrival above Earth, she had joyed at the deep loyalty he’d shown her as she argued with the Joint Chiefs of Staff over her decision to remain in command of Earth’s only starship. Later, when he’d gone down to the enemy ship where Stefano’s team was being attacked, she’d worried his daring nature would bring him a final death. That had not happened. She and he had celebrated their success in capturing the six enemy ships that had attacked Earth. Now, they faced a new attack on Sol. Now, they badly needed allies. Like these walking snakes with their yellow electrical glows. She met the gaze of their leader.
“Hungry Learner, my lifemate Bill was repaired by a clamshell healer unit on my starship Blue Sky. He lives now. For which I am most grateful,” she said, hearing her shoulder tab as it translated her words into the hiss-speech of the Slinkeroo. “As for what your people must do to defeat future visits by these terrible Collector ships, that is the reason we came down here, to meet with you. My friend Chester has been appointed to negotiate with you and other star peoples. Our leader on Earth hopes to create an alliance of star peoples who oppose this slave-taking of thinking people. May I leave him here to discuss these matters while I and Bill join Time Marker in meeting with his clan leader and his parents?”
The Prime Elder let go his tentacle grasp with her Engines Chief. He looked up at her. “Yes, the young one must greatly miss the glow of his clan members. And his progenitors. But before you leave, tell me, how can we fight these creatures who buy living beings for forced labor? And for medical experiments, I recall you saying. What hope is there when their ships are invisible to our sensors?”
She realized this was an issue she must address, rather than leaving it to Chester. “Star Traveler,” she called over her throat disk. “Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” came his humming speech over her ear buds even as her shoulder tab hissed the words in Slinkeroo speech. “All that you have spoken, and all you have seen, has been relayed to me by your transport and by the items you wear. What is your wish?”
Jane noticed how the yellow glow about the Prime Elder had grown. As had the glows about the six other members of the Council of Seven. Clearly a sign of concern. Or worry. Or something. “Hungry Learner, you hear the words of the artificial mind who lives aboard our starship. H
is name is Star Traveler. He is an ancient mind. He helped me and Bill during our takeover of the Blue Sky. And he has convinced many other ship minds on Collector ships to stop cooperating in the capture of intelligent beings.”
“Ahhh,” hissed low the elderly Slinkeroo. “We do not have self-aware devices such as this Star Traveler. Our researchers have long discussed the creation of such entities, but we lack the knowledge to do so. Your . . . artificial friend is welcome here.”
Relief flooded through her body, leaving her heart beating faster. She had not realized how tense she’d become upon their entry into the Hall of Silver Scales. Being on stage like this was something she did not enjoy. Even when she and Bill were being given Navy Crosses by the president, she had hated being in the public eye. This time was similar, but different. These walking snakes seemed like good people. Time to make a command decision.
“Star Traveler, transmit down to this hall all the technical specifications for our ship technology. Send them the specs for our Magfield engine, our Alcubierre stardrive, our gravity plates, our antimatter projector, our plasma batteries, the composition of your hull, send it all down.”
Humming came over her ear buds and from her shoulder tab. “Shall I transmit on the frequency used by the Prime Elder when he spoke with you during our final approach?”
Chester shifted his position, moving forward to stand at her left side. “Yes, use that frequency.” She reached out and grasped Chester’s right shoulder. “Hungry Learner, your first steps in defeating future Collector ship visits are now taken. I have shared our technology with you. I hope you will join our star alliance. Whether you join, or not, you will now be able to build ships like our ships, weapons as deadly as our weapons, and be able to stop any future Collector ship from capturing your people.”
The yellow glows about Prime Elder and the other six senior Slinkeroo shrank to barely a foot out from their black skins. Their leader nodded his head up and down, clearly having learned the body gesture from their holo chats on the way into the system. “Much you share,” he hissed loudly. “We thank you. We will learn from you and create devices to protect our world and our people. Now, let our council discuss with your Chester the meaning and requirements of this star alliance you propose. Already I feel eager to join it.”
Escape 3: Defeat the Aliens Page 3