Slow Train to Arcturus Page 11

  If it was a divine message, it was not a kindly one. It read:

  WARNING. 10 MINUTES OF RESERVE.

  And his alien companion was standing still, and leaning gently with the spin, his eyes closed.

  The end of his ordeal was just so achingly close. And if he understood the message right he had very little air left. Well. He had no choice really. He could not just abandon the alien here. But carrying him, upside down like this, was going to be difficult. He went back. It took all the strength and courage he had, but there was enough. He pulled one of Kretz's feet away from the surface, and then the other… and then realized he should have held on to him… The alien was floating away. But they were tethered together. And towing him had to be easier than trying to carry him.

  It worked. But the red text now said WARNING. 6 MINUTES OF RESERVE. Howard tried to keep calm, keep walking. It was a long way, towing his companion behind him. Was Kretz dead? He could never do that crossing back home without the alien. His blind faith in Kretz's knowledge and ability had carried them this far. But he was sure that it wouldn't carry him back. And the red text was ticking away the minutes of reserve air. It was reading seconds only when they got to the railing of the catwalk. He had to walk along the outside until he found a corner they could fit through. Howard squeezed between the bars, and hauled Kretz in and through. Now, the right way up again, Howard resolutely ignored the red text and picked up Kretz and began walking to the airlock. Breathing was difficult.

  He knew how to open the airlock after having watched the last time

  … and he knew how to close it for repressurization… But he was not sure that he could manage the helmet, before he died here. He needed to breathe, his body shrieked. He forced himself to keep calm, to wait, as they had when Kretz had taken him out twice before. The "pressurization complete" light did not seem to be coming.

  When it did, he was almost too weak to do the catch.

  He sucked air. It smelled just like the air of New Eden. This airlock, however, had no old bones in it.

  Kretz opened his eyes, feeling something patting his face. Vaguely he remembered beginning the walk to the habitat airlock. And then nothing, except for the alien prizing his feet off the metal of the habitat. Yet, plainly, he'd got here. He opened his eyes. The alien Howard was staring down at him, with the wrinkled expression he'd learned meant worry. Howard wore it a lot.

  "Are you all right?" asked the alien.

  A good question. He was feeling extremely exhausted, actually. But that was not surprising considering the physical exercise and the fact that he'd barely recovered from his last set of injuries. Also the human food hadn't killed him, yet, but his diet was probably short of a fair number of things. Miran were broadly omnivorous, and historically had adapted to living on everything from an almost pure vegetable diet to one which had been made up almost entirely of deep-water invertebrate creatures, but never alien food, even if some of it was very appetizing. "I think so." he said, moving his limbs experimentally. "What happened?"

  Howard sat back and exhaled. "I thought you might have died. Or run out of air like I did."

  "You did?" It had not occurred to Kretz that that was a possibility. His own suit rebreather system was good for at least another trek across the surface. He had of course no real idea what the oxygen requirement of these aliens was. Perhaps their metabolisms were much faster than a Miran's metabolism. Perhaps their rebreathers were less efficient. "So how did you get here? How did I get here?"

  "I carried you," explained Howard.

  Well. The metabolic requirement for that sort of load-carrying would have been high, no matter how fast the alien metabolism was. "Thank you."

  It seemed that statement was as important to aliens as it was to Miran. The big human flushed. "It was nothing. I expect you'd have done the same for me."

  Kretz had to feel somewhat guilty. Actually, what he had done was to risk the human's life for his own benefit. True, he had intended-if reasonably possible, to return Howard to his habitat-well, if he could. But he'd wanted a human escort to protect him against humans. And he'd wanted a human escort to enable him to get back to his people and warn them that it was no probe coming through their system but a habitat full of settlers. Vicious, cruel, Miran-killing settlers. A plague that would have to be destroyed first before it killed Miranese. In that first habitat they had abused him and the other Miran explorers. It dawned on him now that he had in turn abused the hospitality and kindness of the New Eden "Brethren." True, they were primitive and their habitat was going to break down further as the technical support systems-which they plainly no longer understood-broke down. They needed help. And what had he done: take one of their people as a human shield. He suspected-by the speed that Howard had understood and adapted-that he had taken one of their best. One of those that offered some kind of hope of survival. It was still something of a wild guess as to how long this string of habitats had been streaming through space at one-third lightspeed, but it must have been a long time. Perhaps the habitat that he and the others had been ambushed in had once been peaceful and the occupants as hospitable as these "brethren" before their society collapsed. His own people had been quite savage in the distant past. Nowadays they were peaceful-but now-with shrinking populations and plentiful resources they could afford to be.

  "Shall we see what this new habitat holds?" he asked, unlocking the switches to convert his pressure suit into something he could wear with more comfort.

  "I should like to change first," said Howard stiffly.

  Kretz had been somewhat puzzled by the the clothing taboos of the humans of New Eden. It probably came of having two distinct birth-to-death sexes. Every Miran knew after all that they were going to have intimate knowledge of male and female bodies sooner or later. There seemed to be a great deal of conflict and misunderstanding between the human sexes. It seemed to make for all sorts of behavioral and societal problems. He'd love to study it, if he had time. "I still have the sling," he said, handing it to Howard.

  Howard didn't understand Kretz's feeling on clothing. Or on sexes for that matter. He just knew that he wasn't comfortable in the space suit, and longed for the familiarity of his own clothes.

  Alas, he was poorly prepared for the effects of deep space on natural fabrics.

  His woolen homespun trousers were shredded. He held them up in horror. "What happened!"

  Kretz put his hand to his face. "I'm sorry, Howard. I think there must have been moisture in the fabric. Of course it froze out in the cold of space. And with the movement it must have needed to bend. Bent frozen fabrics crack."

  Howard shook his head, looking at the tatters. "But what am I to wear?" he asked desperately. "I can't go out there naked! I… I'll have to stay in this clumsy thing. The people here can't see me undressed!"

  "Then you will just have to remain in it," said Kretz. "Let us go on, Howard."

  They walked to inner lock. It opened before they touched it, and Howard saw a startled looking local staring in at them-and Howard realized that they might not see him undressed… but he was going to see them in that state.

  It seemed that Brother Galsson was right after all. This was one of the cities of the plain. Gomorrah, at a guess.

  14

  Transcript of Justice Adriaan Vosloo's reply to Inspector Mohataman Dhal of Sysgov Human Rights Inspectorate on his application for an injunction against the sysnet advertisements of the Women's Matriarchal Movement for men to accompany their outsystem journey.

  "No, Inspector, what they're planning on doing is neither illegal nor a violation of human rights. It would be, if they stayed insystem. But out beyond Opik-Oort limit they're also out beyond your and my jurisdiction. And I may tell you that even by the time they get to the Kuiper belt, they're effectively on their own. The Kuiper colonists like to think they're independent and they're only a year's fast travel from the House of Assembly. What are you going to do when this lot are light-minutes beyond that? The men going along on
this trip are all adults. We drew the line at children. In a whole system you're bound to have enough men with nudist dominatrix fantasies. They probably won't like it much when the reality gets home to them, but then it'll be their problem and they'll have to sort themselves out."

  Lani LaGarda was irritated. And when Lani was irritated wise people stayed out of her way. It didn't seem that Station-Commander Juno Morgane had got that message. "It was plainly some kind of malfunction, Juno," she snapped. "I have better things to do with my time than trot off to look at a closed airlock for several hours."

  "I'm not asking you, Lani. I'm telling you. According to the records, we haven't had a peep out of that alarm system for four hundred and three years. The system says that there are two warm bodies in there. It's probably runaway men. Go down there, and haul 'em out. And try not beat them too badly. I haven't forgotten last time."

  Lani scowled at the communicator. "He got up my nose and itched."

  "And he lived. Which is why you're still at liberty, Lani," said the matriarch's station-commander, grimly. "Now get your ass down to that airlock, open it up and haul them out of there, put them into the cells until someone claims them. In one piece. Get on with it. I've got enough problems on my hands with the elevators having stuck again."

  "Again?"

  "Except that this is bank three. They haven't got bank five working yet. At this rate people will have to walk up from skinside to the upper regions."

  "That's going to be really popular."

  "Tell me about it," said Juno sourly. "So I've got problems enough without you getting shirty with me. Get moving."

  So Lani got. She took her scoot and headed down the ramps to the airlock. She was one of the nearest officers, fair enough. And catching a couple of runaways before they vented themselves into space would be fun. There might even be bounty, enough to make a down payment on a first for her harem. The thought was an interesting one, enough to spur her on.

  She parked the scoot, illegally, but then who was going to come down here anyway, and, even if they did, who was going to give a captain a ticket?

  She stepped up to the airlock and put in the opening sequence to the coding panel. How had they ever found that out? Well, there was a manual override…

  The door swung open.

  And Lani, the toughest graduate of Officer's academy of 395 AD, nearly screamed and ran.

  But there was more steel to her than that.

  "Okay. Very funny. Very clever. Now get out of them," she snapped.

  The two of them just stared at her, their mouths open with surprise at being caught. "I said get those clothes off," she said, her temper flaring at having been given such a fright. "MOVE. And the mask! Pervert!"

  "Painted Jezebel!" said the taller one. He was very tall, taller by half again than any man she'd ever seen. "Have you no shame! Cover your nakedness, woman!"

  Despite what Juno had said to her, she took a swing at him. He didn't go down. He just stood there rubbing his cheek. "Have you no respect as well as no decency?" he demanded.

  She really had no memory of how the nightstick came into her hand.

  Howard saw the woman who had just hit him pull a long black club from the belt she was wearing. The belt that was all she was wearing, besides a layer of paint, and sandals. Her face was contorted with fury as she lifted her arm to hit him again. He couldn't actually bring himself to lay a hand on her, but the stick was another matter. He caught it. She was quite strong-for a woman-thought Howard, holding on to it as she struggled to pull it away from him. She swung a kick at him, screeching like a banshee. Fortunately, the suit was well padded and thick, because she didn't aim for his shins. Well, with a woman dressed, or rather undressed, like that what did you expect? Her eyes opened wide and she grabbed her stick with both hands, kicked both her heels into his stomach and wrenched.

  It was enough to knock some breath out of Howard. But certainly not enough to make him let go. Before this he'd simply held the stick and held it and her out at full arm's length. It was an effort, but no worse than tossing a two-hundredweight bag of pignuts into the loft, which he'd done often enough. Now he shook her stick, and her.

  "Put me down!" she screamed.

  So he did. She landed hard enough-on her well-padded behind-to knock the breath out of her instead. She still clung weakly to the stick. He twitched it away from her.

  "Huu… 'ive 't back," she gasped, fighting for breath. For the first time in her life Lani had encountered something that frightened her. She worked out for two hours every day. She was used to being stronger than any woman, let alone male. Still, she wasn't about to let the experience stop her.

  "Not until I am sure you are not going to try to hit me with it again," said the big male crossly.

  The other male came forward, and… extended a hand. She was about to use it to throw him, when she focused on the shape of it. It had three long fingers, and a thumb… in the middle of the wrist. "Let me help you up," he said, or at least a mechanical voice said. "We mean you no harm. We are just passing through."

  Lani spidered backwards, knocking her illegally parked scoot over. She hit the com button of the prone two-wheeler as they walked towards her. "Mayday. This is Delta 95 at the South airlock. Mayday. I say again. Mayday. This is Delta 95 at the South Airlock. Am under attack."

  The big one looked at his monstrous companion. "Maybe we should just go back out of the airlock and return to New Eden. Or climb the equatorial ridge."

  The monster shook his head "I think we should proceed as rapidly as we can, Howard," he said. "She has called for help, by some form of electronic communicator, at a guess. They are not as primitive here as either the first habitat or your one."

  He looked down at Lani. "You didn't injure her, did you? If so we must render assistance."

  The big man shook his head. "No. We do not believe in physical violence except for gentle chastisement of children. I just stopped her from hitting me again, and took the weapon away from her. Although," he said, looking down at her with a curl of lip, "This wanton harlot deserves to whipped on the cart's tail. Let's go then, Kretz. If this is what you encountered before you came to us, I'm not surprised that you were so wary."

  "But this is not the same species as you, surely," said the monster as they began to walk off, leaving her. "The patterning is very different. You have only small spots of darker skin below your eyes, very slight. This is more like the patterning on the striped faced ones, except theirs was in dull and drab colors."

  "It's just paint," said the man before they disappeared around the next corner, walking away from the airlock. The disgust in his voice was almost palpable.

  Lani sat up, eventually realizing that she was still pressing the send button on the scoot's communicator. She took her finger off. ". .. espond Delta 95. Lani, come in! Delta 95 are you receiving us? Respond…"

  She pressed the send button. "Delta 95 receiving you. They're heading up corridor 9. Over."

  "Lani! Are you all right! Uh, over."

  Lani felt her bruised derriere. It wasn't as badly damaged as her ego. "I'm okay," she admitted gruffly. "Have you got someone going to the 9 H3 intersection? You should be able to stop them there. Over."

  Another voice cut in. "Captain LaGarda. Give us details. How many and who are they? Over."

  Lani felt her face start to redden. "Um. Two. One man and one.. . something else." She cringed. "The man is quite large and strong." Damn. Of course all of this would be recorded. She could just see them playing it back to her next time she was in the station. And the next. And the next. But he was exceptionally strong. She had to tell them. "Look, you'd better be careful. I think they came from outside. Outside the airlock. Over."

  There was a moment's silence. "Captain, are you sure? Over."

  "One of them is not human, ma'am. And they're wearing clothes. One of them has a pressure suit. The non-human has clothes in orange, lime green and purple. Over."

  "How are they armed? Over
."

  Now the blush was positively fiery. They'd never let her forget this. "The man has my nightstick. Over."

  There was a pause. "What other weapons, Officer?"

  Oh, so she wasn't 'captain' any more. "None visible," she said hoping that sounded truly dispassionate and professional. Then she realized that she'd forgotten to say "over."

  Someone had obviously guessed, however. "All right. Just stay there. Medical and back-up are on their way to you. Over."

  Like she was a casualty. "Send a team here to watch that they don't double back," she said irritably. "I'm going after them. I don't think the scoot is damaged. Over and out."

  "Captain LaGarda! You are not to attempt to engage them on your own again! That is an order. Do you understand me? Reply!"

  "Yes," she said, lifting the scoot with the other hand. "I hear you. I won't. I'll keep back, and try to just keep in sight. I'll maintain communicator contact. They're on foot and I'm on a scoot. Over and out."

  "Do that, Captain. Don't do anything stupid. Over and out."

  Reluctantly, as she put her bruised butt onto the saddle, Lani had to admit to herself that it was a bit late for that instruction. She set off after the two of them, wondering whether she should just have stayed and pretended to be injured. But her pride was too deep for that. She'd like a second crack at them, and besides it just wasn't in her to lie, even if the truth had made her look pretty feeble. She was going to take her nightstick back from that big ape and shove it up his ass. Then she heard voices ahead, and slowed the scoot down. She wasn't quite in that much of a hurry, after all.

  "I think we ought to take a cross-passage. Soon," said Howard. "I think I heard something behind us. I don't want to meet up with that painted Jezebel again." Well, that was what his mouth said. To his horror part of his mind disagreed. It wanted to take a closer look. He banished the thought, but it did keep creeping back as they walked. They took a branching corridor, which both impressed and irritated Howard. Their micro-irrigation was so much better. Their pruning-a sure sign of a good hard working farmer-was mediocre. A lot of pruning was a judgment call, and that seemed to be lacking.