Tenacious

25

Kris’s barge came in for a long, slow landing glide on a grassy, windswept prairie. It rolled to a stop a short distance from the edge of a lush woodland beside Longboat 1. Jack immediately deployed his platoon of Marines to secure the area.

Kris tried to be an obedient wife and patient admiral.

She tried, but not very hard. She was moving out of the barge as soon as Jacques finished pulling on the spider-silk underwear but before Jack signaled her forward.

“Would you please wear the damn helmet until we make contact,” he said, handing her the aforementioned cover.

“You mean until I have a knife at my throat?” she said, shoving it back at him.

He handed her helmet off to a private with orders to stay close and give her the damn thing if matters went to hell. The young Marine accepted it with the look of one who had just seen his general fail to get his admiral to follow his instructions, so how was a lowly private going to do better?

Kris marched to the spot where a worried lance corporal was staring into the trees.

“What happened?” she said.

“The scientists were driving their mobile research station back to where the longboat could pick them up. It doesn’t look like it, but it’s pretty clear under the forest’s high canopy. Anyway, they reported a problem with something and said they were getting out to look at it. We didn’t hear from them for a long while, so the senior Marine present led most of the detachment into the woods to see what the problem was.”

The lance corporal turned to look both his admiral and general in the eye. “Those little monkeys are damn good in the woods, Admiral. The few Marines that managed to make it back said they were all over them before they even knew they were there.”

“Didn’t you have sensor support?” Kris demanded.

“No, Kris,” Jack said, with more pain in his words than Kris was used to hearing. “This unit did not have tech support. We only had enough sensor techs to cover half the teams we were retrieving. Unless you want to be here for six days, we needed to send half the teams down with no high tech beyond their eyeballs.”

“Have we had any problems at the other pickup sites?”

“Not problem one.”

“So, of course, our one problem site is single-threaded,” Kris said. “Thank God there are two kinds of luck ’cause without bad luck, some of us wouldn’t have any.”

Jack just nodded.

Kris headed cautiously for the trees.

Jack put a restraining hand on her shoulder.

She scowled at him, but he did have tech support at his elbow. He glanced at the corporal’s board, then stooped, picked up a rock, and tossed it at a bush.

A native stood. He was short and wiry. His skin showed a deep brown from the sun. In his hands was a short bow, nocked but undrawn. He had a big grin on his face but wore nothing but a breechcloth and a lot of blue-and-black tattoos.

“I think you embarrassed him,” Kris said.

“Better him embarrassed than you skewered.”

“I don’t think that bow could have dented my armor.”

“Assuming he aimed for your armor.”

Jack picked up another rock and, after examining the sensor readout, tossed it. He didn’t hit the young woman with green something smeared over most of her body and a very long spear with a wicked stone point. Still, she dropped down from the limb of the tree where she’d been hiding. She kept the spear pointed up, but she didn’t smile.

“Jacques, how do you say, ‘Ollie, ollie oxen free’?”

Jacques raised his hands, palms out. Kris did the same. As more barely clad or not-clad-at-all natives dropped from trees or stood out from behind bushes, Jack raised his own hands, palms out.

“Marines, take a knee.”

For a long minute, the Marines knelt, their weapons aimed down.

“Is that all of them?” Jack softly asked his tech support through gritted teeth.

“There are more ahead. I’ve got IFF on some. They’re our people. Everyone with an IFF has a beating heart, sir.”

“Nice to know we don’t have any casualties,” Kris said.

“Yet,” Jack added.

The first guy they met, the one with the bow, handed it off to the green girl and came forward. About three meters from Kris, he paused, did something like a bow, and waved her to follow him.

“Jack, Jacques, you’re with me. Jack, please bring the sensor tech and a couple of calm and reliable Marines.”

“You heard the woman,” and they fell in line behind her.

Kris had to agree, the people of the wood were uniformly short, thin to the point of gaunt, and tough to make out in the dim shade. Still, she expected Gunny would be ripping some new ones for a whole lot of people. Too bad she wouldn’t be around to hear the dressing-downs. She might learn a thing or three.

Or not.

There, in a bit of a clearing, stood Gunny Brown with a short fellow holding an obsidian blade at his throat just as black as Gunny’s own skin. His pearly white teeth now showed in a wide, embarrassed grin.

“Sorry, General. Admiral. I don’t know how these little . . . ah . . . people got the drop on us, but General, if you’d let me recruit a few of them, I’d be mighty glad to add them to our roster. I think they could teach those Alwans in the deep woods a trick or two.”

“I suspect so,” Jack admitted. “Where are the scientists?”

“Up ahead, sir, ma’am. We didn’t make it to them before we kind of got, I don’t know, caught?”

“Someone set a very good trap,” Kris said. “I wonder what they want. I’m sure a few words with me can’t count for all that much in this place.”

Their guide led them deeper into the woods. The fellow with the blade at Gunny’s neck seemed satisfied and stepped aside. Gunny trailed along behind them with two more Marines, one of them a medic.

The mobile research center had been driving down a wide, mostly dry, streambed. A recently fallen tree had gotten wedged between two of its four wheels on the left side. The six scientists now stood around, looking just as embarrassed as the Marines.

Except for one.

A tall beanpole of a man with bright red hair stood with a stone knife pressed up beside his Adam’s apple.

The man holding it was taller than most of those around him but still shorter than most of the Marines. His gray beard was long and divided in two with leather ties. His hair was in two tightly wound pigtails that hung nearly to his waist. Other than hair and blue paint or tattoos, he wore nothing but a necklace of wicked-looking claws.

In the hand not holding a chipped flint knife on the scientist was an evil-looking war club that was just the thing to bash a man’s brains out with one swipe.

Without removing the knife from the scientist’s throat, he spoke.

“Are you the Chief of the Sky Gods?” Nelly translated for Kris.

Kris didn’t know much of the local language, but yes was among her meager supply. ~Yes.~

“Why have you not fired lightning from the sky to burn the earth?” Nelly said.

YOU WANT HELP? Jacques offered on Nelly Net.

LET ME TRY THIS, Kris said. ~I am that Sky God. Not.~

~Not. Yes. Not,~ the native said. ~That one not. And that one not.~ He pointed at Gunny, then again at one of the scientists who had come aboard at Musashi.

HAVE WE IDENTIFIED ANY PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT RACES AMONG THE LOCALS? Kris asked.

NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT, NO, Jacques replied.

THAT’S A STRONG ARGUMENT THAT SOMEONE DID GENETIC MANIPULATION ON THESE PEOPLE A WHILE BACK, Kris thought.

THERE’S ENOUGH SEASONAL VARIATION ON THIS PLANET, THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AMOUNT OF SUN THEY GOT, Jacques answered.

WE CAN DRAW NO CONCLUSIONS FROM THE ONE FAMILY IN THE PYRAMID, Nelly said, BUT THEY MIGHT HAVE ELIMINATED ALL THE GENETIC DIVERSITY ON THEIR OWN PLANET BEFORE THEY ARRIVED HERE.

The local was waiting for a reply, and while the knife was no longer at the scientist’s throat, it wasn’t far from it, and the poor guy looked like he was desperately trying to grow another foot to get some distance between him and that stone blade.

~Yes,~ Kris said. ~I not that Sky God. I can shoot lightning. I not shoot lightning.~

~I told you they were false Sky Gods,~ came from a woman who now hopped from the stream bank to stomp through the water waving her stick. It had no spear points at either end but did have stone flakes edged into it around the top.

Jack would not want me to get beaned with that. Not at all.

The woman was quite a sight. Old and bald, she wore a necklace of wicked-looking teeth and a brown fur.

Before Kris could think much about it, Jacques was talking. ~Not false,~ he got in quickly. ~Good, like water. Food. Not bad like trees on fire.~

~Good?~ the gray-haired man asked.

~Good,~ Kris repeated.

~Come,~ he said, and slipping the knife into a belt, the only thing he wore, he set off up the stream.

“Let’s go,” Kris said.

“Gunny, stay with me,” Jack ordered. “Lance Corporal, get this research station mobile again and get it the hell out of here.”

Kris must really be pushing Jack; he was cussing mad.

It was nice to know how much he cared for her, considering what a pain she’d been lately.

They came to a water hole. The leader splashed through it, then turned left into a game trail and headed into the woods. Kris followed, and the parade followed her, but the woman with the wicked club was at Kris’s elbow.

~He already goes down into the earth. You cannot stop this. It is willed.~

~Willed?~ Kris said. Who willed what?

~Willed,~ the woman repeated.

JACQUES?

I THINK SOMEONE IS ABOUT TO DIE, GO DOWN INTO THE EARTH. IF I WERE A BETTING MAN, I’D SAY THIS WOMAN IS THE CLOSEST THING THEY HAVE TO A DOCTOR, AND SHE CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. THUS, “IT IS WILLED.”

BUT BY WHOM, JACQUES?

A GOOD QUESTION, KRIS. WE’VE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THEIR PANTHEON, BUT SO FAR WE’VE GOT THE SKY GODS THAT SPIT FIRE FOR NO GOOD REASON; AND THEN THERE IS THIS WILL THING.

~I will see with my eyes,~ was all Kris said.

That seemed to settle the woman down a little. She scampered ahead, taking two steps for every one Kris did, and caught up with the man.

WHAT’S SHE SAYING? Kris asked on net.

PRETTY MUCH WHAT I THOUGHT. OH, I THINK THE OLD MAN IS THE FATHER, OR MAYBE GRANDFATHER OF THE CHILD. A SON. YES, THERE’S A LOT GOING ON HERE, Jacques answered.

They came to a tall yellow rock. There was, however, an overhang. The only easy approach to it was up a narrow incline off to the left. The man and woman, however, scampered up the face of the rock as quickly and easily as monkeys.

Kris took the long way around.

Deep in the cave, behind the overhang, a child of eight or ten lay wrapped in furs. He looked feverish.

“Medic. Get me a medic up here fast,” Kris shouted, then changed directions. “Nelly, get me Captain Drago.

“Here.”

“I’ve got a sick kid here. Who’s the best doctor on board?”

“For humans, Doc Meade. For aliens, who knows?”

“Pass me through.

“Doc Meade,” came in a woman’s warm, professional voice.

“Doc, we’ve got a sick native. Male. Eight to ten years old. He looks feverish. But we have no instruments yet to check out any vitals.”

“What does he present with?”

“Let me see.”

Kris stepped off the distance to where the boy lay. She smiled at the worried woman, who could only be the mother. There was a man about her age, so if she had guessed right, it was the grandfather who had talked the entire tribe into going out and taking a Sky God hostage to see if they could do something besides burn things down.

You wanted someone who was open to change, didn’t you, girl?

Kris folded her hands in a sign of blessing or petition which she hoped was universal to the human form . . . and cautiously reached for the skins.

The bald woman brought her stick down, points wickedly close to Kris’s armored arm.

The gray-haired grandfather stepped forward and slipped his war club under the woman’s stick.

Wonder if they’re married. Or were married. Is this kid grandchild to both of them?

Kris lifted the blanket. The stench was bad.

“I see a raw wound crossing the lower back of the leg below the knee. There is a smell, and there are ugly red runners coming up the leg.”

“How far?”

“Past midthigh.”

“We’ve got a major problem, and we don’t even know which protocols will help and which will kill. Any chance you can just walk away?”

“It would be real nice, Doc, if we won this one. We might win a lot more than just one kid’s life.”

“So I get the call. I’m headed down with a full emergency-intervention team. Give me vitals on the child and see if you can get me some vitals from any other folks standing around. It would be nice to know what normal is.”

A Marine medic was charging up the landing, a bag in his hand. Not far behind him was a Sailor from the lander running with an even larger bag over her shoulder.

Kris had no idea how many tens of billions of these people she had killed and done it with full intent and no regrets. Now she found herself in a fight to keep one little one alive.

It was just this kind of fight yesterday that I lost. I will not lose this one today.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jack asked, trying to get himself between the woman with the club and Kris.

“I wanted someone open to change,” she said. “Have you seen anyone more open to change than this old man? He damn near killed a god to get our attention.”

“But what can one guy do?”

“Jack, I don’t honestly know, but at least he’s trying. That’s a whole lot better than a whole lot of nothing.”

Jack didn’t have a comeback to that. Instead, he turned to eye the woman. For a long, silent while, they eyed each other as the child on the furs radiated fever heat and moaned.