Darrell Bain Read online

  "Gordon, you're going to have to realize that you can't go around getting angry simply because you disagree with someone, nor can you convert everyone to your way of thinking. It's neither possible nor even desirable."

  "But Mai, astrology? How can any sensible person—"

  He looked pained when I held up a hand to stop his outburst.

  "Yes, I agree. Astrology is ridiculous on the face of it but some people like to believe it has merits, regardless. You have to allow humans their foibles. It's not like she's starving her children or abusing animals or knocking down old ladies on the street. Astrology, as you should know, actually contributed to science way back in our history by instilling an interest in astronomy. And it's harmless. Besides, history will take care of it in the long run. So leave it be, okay?"

  He thought for a moment, then gradually his expression changed. Finally he laughed.

  "All right, Mai. I'm sorry. Hormones."

  And then I laughed. “Uh-huh. Your body is that of a male barely out of his teens. So go think about sex and leave that poor woman to her charts and signs. And damn it, Gordon, you of all people should know how to watch for the influence of genes that code the proteins that coordinate brain wiring with hormonal influences. So watch. Please?"

  "I shall. You're a doll, Mai. One day I'm going to have to figure out how to thank you properly for all you've done.” He winked and I grinned at him. He really had turned into a good human. It made me wonder if perhaps I should have participated physically in his sexual education more than that one time and see what happened. I thought I probably would have, had it not been for Juan getting in the way. I hoped he would find someone permanent soon.

  "No thanks are necessary, Gordon. You're doing fine and I'm glad. But now that you're here, tell me what else you're up to."

  "Oh, this and that.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands over his stomach. “I haven't decided yet on a profession, so mostly I've just been wandering through the ship and meeting people."

  "That's good, so long as they're not real busy."

  "I'm being careful about that. Y’ know, Maddie is an interesting person. I've been talking to her a lot. Once we get back, I may go into astronomy."

  I started to say, “if we get back,” then decided not to. Why be a pessimist? Instead I reminded him of why he was on the ship in the first place.

  "Gordon, I don't want to discourage you, but if we find Cresperia, you're going to be awfully busy for a long time."

  "Umm. You're right about that. Maddie says she thinks there's a chance. We've got better data than the folks on the first ship, and she thinks eventually we'll find it. Maybe not on this trip but one day."

  "That's great, Gordon. But how will you feel about it?"

  He shrugged. “I'll stay human, Mai. You should know that. But it would be nice to see the home planet again. I haven't said much about it before, since chances seemed so slim of ever going home, but if we do make it, you and everyone else may as well prepare for trouble."

  "What!” I leaned forward, scrutinizing his face, and saw that he was serious.

  "Uh-huh. Jeri didn't say much about it, but if me or any other Crispy begins advocating conversion to human on a large scale the older, more conservative Crispies may well begin discouraging it. Forcibly."

  "You're serious, aren't you?"

  "Yes,” he said solemnly.

  "Have you spoken to the captain about it?"

  "I haven't seen the point, not unless we find Cresperia."

  "Gordon, I think we'd better let him know. It's never good to sail under wrong assumptions."

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  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  As the time wound down before our projected arrival at the Swavely system I noticed a change in Juan. He seemed less talkative and kind of withdrawn. He'd never been big on casual conversation like a lot of men are, thinking they have to talk or you'll believe they're missing one of their balls or something like that. But now he was really quiet. One night after we'd made love and I was all snuggled up next to him with my head on his shoulder, I finally asked him about it.

  "I'm not sure, sweetheart,” he finally said after I'd begun to decide he either hadn't heard me or wasn't going to answer. “It's ... I don't like to talk about it, and it's probably nothing."

  "You're worried about something.” I ran my fingers through the thatch of hair in the center of his chest and over the rise of his pectoral muscles. His heart was beating faster than normal, when it should have had time to return to the resting state.

  "I don't know why I should be, but ... I've got a strange feeling about our stop here."

  "Like what? Something bad?"

  He sighed. “Yeah, Cherry, something bad. But hell, it's probably just a case of the heebie-jeebies like you always feel right before combat."

  "You think we'll get into a fight there? That's foolish, Juan. We don't even know yet whether the planet's inhabited or not.” We did know there was a planet of the right size and distance from the primary to support life, but that was about all.

  "I know. Hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't spoil our time together."

  He turned and kissed me and began caressing my breast. His hand was calloused but he had such a gentle touch that they didn't feel rough. Instead, the way he smoothed his hand over and around and then lowered his lips to my nipple made me shiver. A wave of anticipatory pleasure coursed through my body and made me forget all about anything else for a while.

  It was only later that night, after I was there by myself that I remembered how he'd said “our time together” as if it was a limited thing, not meant to last.

  * * * *

  Three days later we arrived in orbit around the planet Swavely. There were only a few portholes on the Galactic and by the time I got a turn to look we'd been there for hours. The planet looked much like Earth did from space, all green and blue and brown. I couldn't make out much detail about the continents other than to see that they weren't the same shape as Earth's. Naturally.

  I knew Zeng Wu was supposed to have left a satellite in orbit around each of the planets they orbited, so it was no surprise when the captain reported that we'd made contact with it. I thought that meant their ship had probably gone on from Swavely and was now searching for Cresperia in earnest. However, no one heard a thing from the captain for hours and hours after that.

  I was in my office having a cup of coffee with Nancy Silveras, another civilian scientist, a biologist and now a rather limited xenobiologist, what with only Crispies to study. That would change as soon as we set foot on the planet. Then she would become a full-fledged xenobiologist.

  "I can hardly wait,” she enthused. “A whole different biology and ecology from Earth! I could spend a lifetime here and not even make a start on all the things there'll be to discover.” She was bubbling over about the prospective landing, making her look so young and happy you hardly noticed the gray in her hair or crow's feet at the corner of her eyes.

  "Same here,” I agreed. “I suspect the genetics will be different, just as the Crispies are. They weren't much of a challenge, though, because Jeri explained it all before we had much of a chance for research."

  "This will be different, I'll bet. I wonder if there's any intelligent life here?"

  "I suspect the captain would make an announcement if Maddie noticed any."

  "She wouldn't have to notice,” Nancy told me. “Captain Becker is probably querying the satellite for all the data the Zeng Wu left us."

  It turned out that she was right. But the data from the satellite wasn't good news at all, because Zeng Wu was still on the planet. It had landed and never taken off again.

  * * * *

  I learned what was going on when Captain Becker called a department head meeting. As Chief Science Officer I was there and I suppose I may as well mention now that a couple of other scientists on board had their noses a little out of joint because of me being named to the position at my young age. Look
ing not much older than a teenager because of what Sira had done for me didn't help matters.

  Smackers was the worst. That young jackass wasn't but two years older than me and he thought he should have had the spot simply because he understood more of the theory of the ship's unreality drive than anyone else on board. Hell, he probably thought he should be captain!

  Captain Jules Becker always looked as if it would cause him physical pain to smile, but now he was really grim. He was sitting at the head of the conference table staring straight ahead, looking at no one in particular, and appeared mad enough to be able to floss his teeth with barbed wire. Not good, I found myself thinking. Not good at all.

  Once everyone was present, he led off and wasted very few words.

  "Gentlemen, ladies, thank you for coming. I have some extremely bad news. Our sister ship, the USSS Zeng Wu, is down on the planet. It has not been damaged too badly and is still quite capable of leaving. However, the planet is inhabited by inimical aliens."

  He paused and looked around the table to make sure we all understood, then continued.

  "Here is a brief rundown on the present situation. At first it appeared as if Swavely was inhabited by intelligent beings with a low population and fairly advanced technology but as yet incapable of space flight. The ship landed near one of the settlements and began contact procedures with the beings according to our diplomatic protocol. I'll show some footage later, but for now, suffice to say that at first they pretended to be friendly.

  "Eventually many of the crew disembarked and were away from the ship doing studies and learning the language. Then the aliens let slip that they were merely a colony of a large interstellar empire. At that point they turned on the crew of the Zeng Wu and attempted to capture the ship. There were heavy casualties but they did not succeed. However, they did manage to take some captives. There is a standoff at present.

  "I'm sorry to report that Captain Bronson died during the hostilities and General Haley has taken command. He is not allowing the ship to lift off while some of the crew is still alive and in their hands. The aliens threatened to kill the captives if he did not surrender but General Haley warned them that he would destroy the planet if they hurt anyone. He can't, of course, but they don't know that. What he is afraid of is that one of their warships will arrive on a visit and he will have to leave the captives in order to prevent the destruction of his ship.

  "That's where the situation stands at present. I shall now open this meeting to discussion but before we begin let me note that I agree completely with General Haley. We will not leave while humans are in custody of those creatures. Therefore the discussion should center on rescue operations."

  Colonel Jones, the marine commander, spoke first. “Is there any reason why the aliens haven't simply bombed the ship?"

  "General Haley believes they do not want to harm the ship but do want very much to capture it. He thinks they believe our technology might be ahead of them is the reason. So far they haven't used any heavy weaponry and again, he thinks it's for fear of harming the ship."

  Jones nodded. “Good so far. Do we know where the hostages are being held?"

  "Yes. We know that much. We've also got satellite images of the area that Commander Graham has made."

  He nodded to Major Eleanora Wisteria, the communications officer and chief electronicist. She brought up the images and waited to explain any points that needed clarifying.

  Commander Prescott, our XO, began pointing out various sites. “Here's the city. Infrared images lead us to believe some of it is underground. Here you can see the ship and over here is where General Haley says the captives are being held. They have moved heavily armed aliens into positions here, here and here. That's in addition to the fact that almost all of them carry some type of hand weapon on their persons."

  "What kind of weapons?” Jones asked without moving his gaze from the images. He was studying them as intently as an undergraduate studied class notes the night before finals.

  "Laser or possibly a type of energy weapon but better than anything we've got. I suspect their space ships might also be armed with them, same as ours but as a corollary, they're probably also more powerful."

  "How many casualties?"

  "Almost half of the crew. And half of the remainder are prisoners,” Becker said stoically.

  Jones winced. So did I, for that matter. I couldn't help but wonder whether Kyle and Jeri had survived. I just couldn't picture two such alive people as them no longer existing. Which didn't mean a thing. The universe doesn't operate on wishes.

  "I suppose we have no idea when the next alien ship is due?” Graham asked.

  "Not a clue. I've put the computer to analyzing everything we know, but it's doubtful it will be much help. What I want is for each of you to take a copy of the recordings Bronson got before he died and go back to your people and study the complete layout down there. Get them to thinking in terms of a rescue mission. You may share this data with anyone since I'll be making an announcement shortly. We'll meet again in three hours. If you come up with anything really important beforehand, pass it on to Colonel Jones. He'll be responsible for the final plan."

  "Sir, do they know we're up here in orbit?"

  "We haven't spotted a satellite so I don't know, but it makes no difference. We're going to try for a rescue.” He got up and left as abruptly as the president ducking a wad of reporters.

  I didn't say so but was willing to bet one reason General Haley refused to leave the captives was that he expected our ship to be along eventually, and so long as it was a stalemate he could afford to wait. I was also willing to be they were getting awfully damned impatient by now.

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  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  No one I talked to had a lot of military background, which figured since I was the head of the civilian science department. That made it a fairly small group. I could have wished it was short one more person. Smackers pretended he was Napoleon reincarnated but it quickly became apparent that he had no more idea of tactics and strategy than a blind pregnant Muslim suicide bomber. His idea of a rescue mission was to land beside the other ship and start shooting.

  "John, the crew of Zeng Wu would already have rescued everyone and leveled that alien community to the ground if shooting off a bunch of ammunition was all it took. I think the captain is looking for at least a modicum of a strategy that doesn't put all of us in the same position as the captives."

  "Goddamn bug-eyed monsters. Why don't we start bombing their cities, then?"

  "First, because we don't have any bombs. And second, according to Captain Bronson's report, they have threatened to kill all the captives if he lifts off. And last because they don't have but one large city. The rest of the population is spread out. Anyone else?"

  Smackers got up and left in a huff. I didn't try to call him back. Good riddance.

  The one married couple in my science department was Eugene and Margie Preconder. Her doctorate was in quantum physics and Eugene was the microbiochemist of the family. He and I worked together a lot.

  "I take it we're looking for a diversion of some sort?” he asked. He had short brown hair and wore glasses. I had never asked why.

  "That would be my thinking,” I said. “I was in the military but not with the sharp end of the stick, so my experience in tactics is limited. I'm open to any kind of idea and so is Captain Becker. That's why we're meeting here.” I might add right here that my respect for Colonel Jones went up by a magnitude when he solicited opinions from everyone instead of simply devising his own plan and carrying it out.

  "Where would be the best place to land the ship, I wonder?” Eugene asked. “Do we have some elevation markers?"

  "Let's see.” I fiddled with the graphics, then had to go back to the first survey and finally got the numbers from there. They were fairly rough. No one had been thinking about a fight at the time. Despite that, it was apparent there was only one high spot that wasn't already encumber
ed with buildings of some sort. It made it look suspicious to my mind and I said so.

  "How about infrared?” Margie asked.

  I pulled up the survey and sure enough, there was a pretty good heat source buried under that little hill.

  "I'll bet a shot of Mai's whisky that there's something under there I wouldn't want us to get in front of,” Eugene said grimly.

  "How'd you know I still have whisky? Never mind, no bet. Might be a good place to land the ship, though. Or maybe not. I'd think if it was a laser cannon emplacement we might set right on top of it where they could open the hatch and blow the ship to bits."

  "Maybe not. Blowback. That close, unless they could step down the power, it'd kill them as well. And besides, seems like they would have used it already if they could."

  "Good point. I'll pass that one on. Now those...” I pointed to a close up of one of the BEMs. It wasn't really bug-eyed and neither was it a monster. It resembled a duck-billed platypus with tentacles as much as anything else. That's if you turned its bill into a beak with teeth and gave it a double tail that provided support when it stood upright and balance when it was running. “...Those things are as tall or taller than a man when standing upright, and notice how the tentacles all end in little graspers for fine work. It's actually a pretty good design except for their meanness."

  "It might not be mean by its lights,” Margie said. Ordinarily she kept her short red hair in order but at the moment it was in disarray from her running her fingers through it.

  "Point. But it is by ours. General Haley says they deliberately tricked them and did their damnedest to capture the ship. When that failed they began threatening to kill the hostages. Fortunately this is their equivalent of a frontier world so they apparently don't have any really heavy weapons on the planet."

  "Right,” Eugene said. “And I take it our job is to figure out how to grab the hostages and get both ships back into space before one of their interstellar ships arrive."