Slow Train to Arcturus Read online

  "I suppose I'd better deal with the new perp," said Lani. "I'd rather sit here and watch Howard, but he might try something with you."

  Amber was intensely grateful not to have to deal with the man. "Just be careful, Lani."

  "Trust me. He's not getting any of that muck into me. I'm just not sure whether I should shoot him or patch him up and keep him as a hostage too. But this one does not come with us to the next place!"

  Amber was in no mood to be merciful either. "See how badly hurt he is."

  From the moment he'd seen the strangers in their strange clothes, Dandanidi-ti-dala-po-rado had known that his life, having been complicated, had got worse beyond his most lurid imaginings. He was a good hunter. By uThani standards, too good. Too good to be unmarried anyway. It was fun being chased by several women, but sometimes the consequences of letting more than one catch you…

  Caught up with you. Especially if your name meant hunter-whose-balls-are-bigger-than-his-brains. So he'd gone off on a hunting trip, a long hunting trip. The longer the better, right now.

  And instead of getting him out of trouble, it had brought him this.

  He'd known what his duty was the moment he'd seen the strangers.

  Kill them.

  So he'd put an arrow in the back of the scary looking one. He did not miss. Not at this sort of range. Not a target in those bright colors.

  The target had winced slightly, and kept right on walking. So Dandani put another arrow in him.

  He still kept on walking.

  Dandani was really, really scared now. One of those arrows had enough vine-poison on to drop a jaguar. He lost his head and shot the big man in front.

  He'd fallen, all right.

  And somehow that woman had shot him. The stories told about those weapons. "Guns," they were called. What they never told you was just how painful it was and how much of shock it gave you. Or how loud and sudden it was.

  He knew that now. And how stupid a hunter could be to choose a hide too thick to run from. He had chosen it with care. The carpincho were very spooky these days. There were too few of them to shoot easily any more.

  Dandani was used to women wanting to hit him. He just wasn't used to one that could do it with such ease. If this was what the women were like, what would the man who could take two doses of poison and still walk do to you?

  She spoke one of tongues of the enemies-of-the-people. He wasn't supposed to know any, but with Nama-ti-spaniti-goro-y-timi as his hunting companion and childhood friend, he'd learned a few words. Enough to know that he was very close to death, even if her tone of voice hadn't told him that.

  Lani didn't explain to Amber that chances were that it wouldn't matter how badly hurt he was. She needed something to hit back at after her fright. And if the new perp moved a muscle wrong it was going to be him that got whacked.

  Her first act was to rip the wicker arrow-quiver off his shoulders. "I'll have that." He was a stocky man, brown-faced and brown-skinned, smaller than Howard-almost anyone was, of course. But slightly bigger than she was. Still, it was fair to say that right now he looked frightened out of his wits, and in shock too.

  His wound wasn't going to kill him… unfortunately. He'd stopped the bleeding with the cloak he had knotted around his neck. She pulled it aside roughly. He'd been lucky. Another few inches left and her instinctive shot would have taken this perp out of this world and into the next without messing around with airlocks.

  She went back to the first-aid kit and hauled out some antiseptic and local anesthetic. Then, by training rather than any sense of kindness, she slapped it on the wound before putting a piece of gauze and a dressing over it.

  He winced as she tightened the bandage. "Stop that. You nearly killed him." She gestured at Howard. "You're just lucky I didn't kill you. And that's 'yet.' If he dies, you are dead meat."

  He answered her with some gabble. All that was recognizable was the hand-gesture. Throwing out your hands is pretty universal.

  Howard groaned. It was a very quiet sound, but audible nevertheless. That seemed to frighten the man even more. He gabbled again.

  "Shut up," said Lani, and handcuffed him. "Sit down."

  He looked blank. She pointed at the ground, and he hastily lay down. Well, that was probably even better. "You," she said to the little runaway male, "go and collect the rest of his kit. He dropped a basket and a sort of big knife up there. Kretz, will you keep watching him?"

  She ran back to Howard. His eyes were open. Well, that was a start. His lips moved faintly. She knelt and listened. He was trying to say something… She hugged him fiercely. "At least you can't push me away right now, you big lunk. You're going to be all right. I promise."

  His lips moved very slightly. He was trying to smile. Would the poison wear off or had it damaged his nerves forever? If jungle boy talked anything but jungle-gabble, she'd have an answer out of him. But by the looks of it, he thought Howard ought to be dead.

  Amber got up and smiled at her. "His heartbeat is reasonably strong, and he's breathing. Now that that's over, can I go and be sick?"

  "You were just wonderful." Lani felt the tears prick in her eyes. "I'd have lost him without you. I'm sorry I moaned about the weight of that stuff. And I'm sorry that I was catty… Jealous, I guess."

  "Honey. I don't do men. I thought you knew that. Everyone else in Diana seems to."

  Lani blushed fiercely. "Uh. I suppose I was the one who didn't." She was a little uncomfortable. Gay-bashing was… sort of force standard. Someone who was a fake man was really a weak sister… She tried hard to remember if she'd made any comments.

  "So now can I go and be sick?" asked Amber, with a slightly impish smile.

  "Hell, no, you can pick up your shotgun and go and see what happened to that little runaway male. You're too tough to be sick," said Lani with a return smile, stroking the big hand she was holding. "The perp had a basket. Maybe it has coffee in it. I'd kill for coffee-anyone but this idiot, that is."

  "I'd kill for a cream donut," Amber said wistfully. "Simply to replace the extra calories I've sweated off in this place, not just because I'm hopelessly addicted to them. Ah. Here he comes."

  "Taking his own sweet time as per usual," scowled Lani. "Let's see what's in the basket, Perp."

  "My name's Bhangella," he said, smiling his best smile. "John."

  He still made her flesh crawl. She grabbed the basket. It had a variety of plant-fruits in it, none of which she recognized, three dead chickens and some mysterious smelly dry stuff. A little bow and a piece of dry punk, several lengths of line, some with bone hooks on the end. All in all, what someone who was out hunting and gathering might have with them. "The knife. Where is it?" she said flatly.

  Sullenly, he dug it out of the back of his tutu top. It must have barely fitted. "I'm the only one who hasn't got a weapon."

  "Good. Let's keep it that way."

  "But there are dangerous things here," he said, not parting with it.

  "You included," she said, snatching it out of his hand.

  "You don't trust me."

  "Nope."

  "I didn't do anything to you," he protested.

  "You were going to. And that's enough for me. You don't have to stay here. You can walk off on your own right now. I won't miss you." That, she thought to herself, was very true.

  He shut up and went and sat down in the shade. Lani went back to the other prisoner. He'd gotten over some of his shock and was now just looking sullen and angry. How the hell could she communicate with him? As far as he knew they were going to kill him or enslave him, whereas, if Howard was going to be all right, she'd just as soon kick his butt, hard, smash his arrows and send him about his business. But she really didn't need him calling all his friends and having all of them shoot at them. Maybe Howard had been right. If they'd stuck with the space suits…

  She had to tell the suspicious-faced prisoner, somehow, that they were just passing through and meant him no harm. She started by giving him the basket.
He blinked uncomprehendingly at it. She had to press it into his hand. He gabbled at her again. And held it out to her. Pointed with his eyes at the cuffs.

  She shook her head. Pointed at Howard.

  He shrugged. Put the basket down. Held out his hands, palms up. And then indicated with a finger drawn across the throat. Eyes closed.

  She shook her head, and as if to confirm what she was saying, Howard groaned again, softly. He stood up and walked toward Howard, plainly incredulous. She stood ready to kill him if he made one false move. He bent over Howard and listened. Slowly, carefully, he took Howard's wrist. Shook his head as felt the pulse. And smiled tentatively at her. Gabble gabble.

  Now it was Lani's turn to throw up her hands in a lack of understanding.

  So he mimed. Lani could follow that. But how in the hell could they carry Howard? She was the strongest of them, and there was no way that she could manage more than a few yards. Howard was just too big.

  He did some more miming. Cutting something? He pointed at some saplings, and she had it. A stretcher. On sudden impulse she handed him his overgrown cheese-cutter and pointed at the saplings. After watching him make two ineffectual strokes she came over to him and, scowling, unlocked the cuffs. She stepped back and stood watching him, one hand on the pistol-butt. She saw that Kretz had taken a flanking position too, and had the automatic shotgun at the ready. But all the new perp did was cut two thick saplings, and trim them into poles. He put the overgrown knife down, untied the cloak from around his neck, and started tying the corners to a pole. She came to join him, tying opposite corners.

  He slowly picked up the knife again when they'd done. Reversed his grip on it, taking it by the blade, and offered it back to her.

  Lani narrowed her eyes. Thought hard. Took it, reversed it, and handed it back to him.

  It was his turn to look thoughtful. He nodded, took it and tucked it into his sash. Parole offered… and accepted.

  They walked back to Howard with the makeshift stretcher. "You let him have that knife," complained Bhangella.

  "Yep. And I'll let him keep it just as long as he behaves himself," she said. If he was faking it, best that he got the message. "He's going to be carrying the stretcher in front of me. If he wants to try his knife against my gun, he'll die. But he might just need it here. Now fetch that basket of his for him while we try to get Howard onto the stretcher. I hope it'll hold him."

  The material creaked and cracked. But it did hold. Still, even the five of them weren't going to be able to carry Howard very far. He was a heavy lump. And Lani wasn't too sure where they were trying to carry him to. But the man she'd winged did have ideas on that, apparently. He pointed with his injured arm. They walked along the stream-path until it widened out. There was the usual small lake… and a four-log raft.

  So that was how they got around here. The local stopped, looked around very carefully and then walked them into the water until they could off-load Howard onto the raft.

  "It's not as good as a scoot, but it beats walking, hands down," said Lani to Kretz, as she sat next to Howard, holding his hand.

  Kretz nodded. "It is better than walking hands up too. When I first came to human habitats, we assumed that it was a greeting. Walking like that is very tiring for a nonarboreal species. Is Howard going to recover?"

  "I wish I knew. I wish I knew where we were going, too," said Lani.

  On the bank, two of the brown-furred creatures they'd seen earlier appeared in a clearing. By mime the local explained that that was what he'd been hunting. "Do you want me to shoot it?" asked Lani… and then played it again in mime. It was hard to tell if he got it, but when she mimicked shooting it with a bow, and pointed at herself, he nodded.

  Skeptically.

  That was enough for her. Besides, it might just give him a message.

  "Lend me the shotgun for a moment, Amber."

  She took careful aim. No point in showing off… and failing.

  Once they'd hauled their local guide back onto the raft, they poled to the edge of the water, and collected the dead creature. The man was all smiles now-and very respectful.

  A little while later, Howard managed to tilt his head over and be sick. Never had someone throwing up looked so good to Lani. He'd moved to do it.

  They rounded a bend and there were huts. Well, roofs. Roofs that went down to the ground without any walls. And a fire. All of Lani's instincts from her training said "Put it out," but the locals didn't seem much worried.

  They were very worried about the strangers, though. There were an awful lot of bowmen hiding behind those odd wall-less dead grass roofs. Their guide's gabble didn't do much to relax them. But an old man came out of one of the huts and spoke a string of slightly different sounding gibberish.

  Lani looked at Amber. They both shrugged. Howard tried to look at the man.

  The old man spoke again. "You are spikking Engrish?"

  "Yes."

  "I am spikker-for-uThani. You sign paper. This is our place for always. You not welcome. Go."

  "We don't want to stay. We want to go." Amber pointed to Howard. "He is hurt and needs help. Help us and then are very happy to go and never come back. We do not want your place."

  The local who had shot Howard gabbled to the old man.

  "What's he saying?"

  "He says not possible. Man dead. Shot with poison for carpincho. Man not dead. Therefore: not man. Demon," explained the old man. He seemed to find demons more acceptable. "Healer come look," he said. "Then you go. Never come back or we kill. Our place."

  Amber wrinkled her nose at him. "Trust me, old boy. I can't wait to get to the airlock, even though I don't know how I will face what lies beyond it. Maybe, I'll just sit there and rot, but at least it'll be clean and dry."

  The strangest thing about all of this, thought Howard, as the chanting and drumming rang in his ears, was that he remembered all of it, perfectly. He could hear Lani talking. He just couldn't answer her. Or move. Things had all gone a little dim, for a while, after he'd been shot.

  "This is just mumbo-jumbo rubbish," said Amber. "A waste of time. Either we take him back to the Matriarchy, and take what they hand out, or we try to find help farther on."

  Howard couldn't tell her how much he agreed with her. This was not just mumbo jumbo, but pagan mumbo jumbo-and he was determined not feel any better because of it. Even if he did.

  "We'll try this first," said Lani, firmly. "It's their damn poison. The woman seemed to have some idea of what was wrong."

  Howard could tell her what was wrong. His muscles didn't want to work. He was used to being strong. Right now he felt like a weak little newborn.

  "He's crying," said Lani. "Have we got anything for pain, Amber?"

  Her distress was so palpable that somehow he made the effort. Bigger muscles were responding a little… He could lift his legs. It was finer movements like smiling and talking that were impossible. He managed to make a noise. He'd tried earlier when he'd been sure he was dying. Telling her then that he did love her seemed the right thing to do, even if she hadn't been able to hear him. She knelt over him, intent, listening. Unfortunately, talking was out. So was smiling reassuringly. He managed to shake his head.

  "What are you trying to say, Howard? Do you need water or something?"

  Now that she mentioned it, he was devilishly thirsty and his mouth tasted vile. He nodded.

  Lani on a mission to get water became the queen of mime. And a few moments later he was lifted and given a trickle of fluid.

  It very nearly killed him. His swallowing reflex was still not right. And the stuff they gave him… burned.

  "It's not water, Lani," said Amber, sniffing the gourd, as Lani patted his back. Howard saw how Amber lifted it to taste it, but the healer-woman pushed it away from her mouth. Pointed at Howard. Not more!

  More. And this time at least none of it went into his lungs. But it, or the poison, was making him feel woozy. Very woozy. With interesting visions…

  *** />
  Amber was doing her best to be soothing. "Med-diagnostics says his pulse has strengthened and slowed. His color is better too, Lani."

  "Yeah. I suppose so, but did they have to feed him that stuff? I thought she was giving him water. It's alcohol and some drug-that crushed-up seed she showed us. From what I can work out it's some kind of hallucinogen."

  She scowled. "It's given him a hell of an erection."

  "Well, that's one muscle that's working, Lani."

  Amber put a hand on her shoulder. Lani fought off an irrational desire to shrug it off. By now she'd come to accept that most of the stories about gay women were ignorant BS, but it took a while to shake the reaction completely. "I don't know how best to say this so I guess I should just say it. We don't know what damage that poison did. He could never recover. Or he could be brain damaged. He stopped breathing."

  Lani felt her nails cutting into her palms. "I know. But I've got to try. Thanks. You've been great and I've been a bitch. A stupid bitch, at that."

  "We both made judgment mistakes, I guess."

  "Yeah. Look, sorry," said Lani, awkwardly.

  The little perp-Bhangella-came into the long, thatched hut. "They're calling us to eat," he said.

  "I can't leave Howard here." She wasn't leaving him unwatched, that was for sure.

  Amber stood up. "I'll get some help to carry him out there with us."

  A few minutes later, Lani was wishing desperately that they'd left Howard where he was and stayed to sit vigil over him. They wouldn't have had to sit here around the fire and eat pieces of not very well charred animal. The cooked roots and vegetables were one thing, but meat that had squealed when she shot it?

  By the looks of her, Amber wasn't any happier about it. "We have to look like we're enjoying it," said Amber, sotto voce.

  "Next time I ask to borrow your shotgun, see that you shove it up

  … Don't give it to me," said Lani, looking warily at the "feast."

  "I can see the appeal of vat-protein again. I never thought I wanted to see another vat," said Amber. She drank some of the stuff in the gourd. "Holy Susan. That's… strong. Enough of that stuff and you won't care that you're eating half raw dead meat. Here, have some."