Tenacious

27

“You did what?” was Captain Drago’s immediate reaction when Kris told him the Wasp now had some new passengers.

“They followed me home,” Kris said, doing her very best to look innocent.

Innocent was not something Longknifes did well. It didn’t fit the legend.

“The last time something ‘followed’ you home, I ended up with three hundred thousand tons of bug-eyed-monster warship for the Wasp’s hood ornament.”

“These are much lighter, only twenty rather underfed natives from the West Continent.”

“Are they filthy?”

“The Marines have rigged showers in the drop bay and everyone down there is going through full decontamination,” Kris said, pulling at her still-wet hair. She’d gone through decontamination in her armor, but since she hadn’t worn a helmet, her face had lost a couple of layers of skin, and her hair was extraclean, too.

“What do you expect to get from this little visit? I assume it’s a visit. Or do you intend to take these people all the way home with you?”

“I don’t know, Captain. I’m making this up as I go along,” Kris admitted.

“Well, let me know when you find out. By the way, should I be expecting guests in the wardroom?”

Kris had the good sense to flinch at that question. The ship’s china, silverware, and linens would, no doubt, suffer greatly from an effort to explain table manners to these hunter-gathers.

“I think we can set up some sort of chow line in the drop bay,” Kris said.

“That sounds like a very good idea. See if you can keep your new best friends out of my hair. I’m not nearly as patient as you’ve been misled to believe.”

“No doubt,” Kris said, and headed for her quarters to change out of her battle gear and into a clean set of khakis. She could have done it in the drop bay, but she wasn’t sure if the natives fully understood that she was female and didn’t want them to make a discovery they weren’t prepared for.

She returned to the drop bay to find that Gunny had arranged something very close to a campfire, at least it threw a cheerful glow and warmth over the immediate area around it. Most of the locals were gathered around it, seated on wool blankets that several of them were still examining.

Jacques was trying to explain how and where you might locate wool, then pull it into thread and weave it into blankets. Kris hoped he wasn’t starting something that would get these folks’ great-to-the-n^th-degree-grandkids lased by the angry Sky Gods.

Then again, by the time those putative grandchildren were born, Kris would either have won her war or lost it . . . and a whole lot of grandkids would not be born.

Kris tried not to scowl at that thought as she walked toward where Jack was standing with the parents and grandparents of the sick boy. A few feet away, the child was still laid out on a bed in a clean surgical bubble under the watchful eye of Dr. Meade and several assisting medical personnel.

“How’s the kid doing?” Kris asked.

Jack didn’t look away from the boy. “The temperature is down a bit, but not broken. Blood pressure is climbing, but still bad. Pulse is improving.”

“So we’re on the right track,” Kris said.

“But we’re not out of the woods,” Doc Meade said, looking up at Kris. “I don’t know how this infection will take to what we’re fighting it with. If the crazy system these folks have adapts and fights back, we could still lose. I’ve got half the chemists and docs in the squadron looking at this. If we can, we’ll beat it. But I won’t take any bets just yet.”

“There has to be some survival benefits to the extra DNA these folks have. It must make some proteins that help them survive,” Kris said.

“Look at that planet,” the doctor said. “Is it overpopulated?”

“No,” Kris admitted.

“Then you tell me what the extra proteins they make are good for. Meanwhile, I’ll need a couple of years to finish our analysis.”

Kris chewed the bottom of her lip. “Maybe it makes them good, obedient slaves.”

“You said it, not me,” the doctor said, and turned back to her patient.

The locals had stood quietly while all this conversation in a strange tongue went on around them. Now they turned to Kris and Jack with questions in their eyes.

~Will my son run to the hunt with me?~ the father asked.

~The hunt for what makes him pale and warm still runs,~ Nelly said for Kris.

The natives seemed too overwhelmed by all the new and strange to react to Kris’s having two voices, one from her mouth, and one from her collarbone. They just nodded dumbly and kept the vigil, waiting to see if the boy would, indeed, go down into the earth.

With Kris back, Jack was relieved to go through decontamination and change out of his battle gear. As he undid the top half if his armor, the old man and the bald woman came over. She knocked on the armor, then touched Jack’s shoulder.

~I told you,~ the man said. ~They are not like the demons of your songs from your grandmother’s time and her grandmother. These ones can take off their thick hide. They are soft inside.~

~The stories sing of the demons who were soft inside, once you stuck a spear in them,~ the woman said.

Jack offered his armor for her totem. She rapped it so that the stone blades hit it. Then she hit it harder. Several stone points shattered.

~There are many different people who walk the stars,~ Kris had Nelly say. ~We are not the ones sung of in your stories.~

~Do you walk the stars?~ the bald woman said, glancing around the drop bay. Kris realized that there were no windows in the longboats. No windows in the Wasp. These people had gone from their own open sky to a series of rooms. Caves, if you would.

KRIS, I MIGHT BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. MIMZY, CAN YOU HELP ME?

YES, MOM.

Kris suddenly found her head very empty. WHAT ARE YOU UP TO? she asked, but got no answer.

A minute later, Penny galloped into the drop bay, spotted Kris, and raced for her.

“What have you got Mimzy up to?”

“Nothing, it’s Nelly’s doing.”

But neither computer answered, so Kris and Penny were left exchanging strange looks.

“Don’t worry,” Sal said from Jack’s collarbone. “It’s gonna be a surprise. I think you’ll like it. Oh, look over there!”

At the end of the drop bay, a hatch suddenly formed.

“That went better than I’d expected,” Nelly said. “Now, if you will kindly take our visitors through that hatch, I think we can end any question about us being Sky Gods, or whatever.”

Jack quickly finished buttoning his khakis and led the way for Kris, Penny, and the two older natives. He opened the hatch. There was a small room inside with another hatch.

“Everybody in,” Nelly said.

“Tell me, Alice, how was it down the rabbit hole?” Penny quipped, leading the way as she stepped across the hatch coaming.

They crowded into the room, the natives a bit less enthusiastic than the spacers. Jack dogged down the first hatch, and Penny opened the next. She took a glance out.

“Oh. My. God,” was likely a real prayer from Penny. “Kris, you’ve got to see this,” she said, and stepped through the hatch.

Kris could already see what lay ahead.

For years, Kris had been in space, but she’d always had a ship securely around her. She’s seen the space ahead of them, and aft, via radar sweeps and cameras projected on screens. She’d never seen space up close and personal.

Now she did.

“Clear Smart Metal, Nelly?” Kris asked.

“Yes, Kris.”

“You said you couldn’t make clear Smart Metal yesterday for the woman in the brig.”

“Yes, Kris. I did. I would have had to risk converting metal all the way through the ship, including the hull. I didn’t do this today. Those two hatches are hull-type Smart Metal. This clear metal is borrowed from inside. There is no risk to the ship.”

“And to us?” Jack asked, now joining the two women.

“There is some risk, but not much more than when you’re in the Forward Lounge, and I start moving walls, tables, and chairs around.”

Kris listened to Nelly with her ears, but her eyes were staring at a sight that made her mouth gape. Here was space at its barest. Tiny dots pierced the black. Kris would have sworn that she could make out the slight difference between pure white and yellow, red, and maybe even brown stars.

Closer in, the other ships of her squadron swung at anchor. The Wasp sprawled out to her right and left, and beyond the Wasp swung the Royal, anchored to her by a long pole. Now the Wasp swung down and Kris got her first overwhelming view of a life-draped planet.

If it were possible, her mouth would have fallen open even more.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I’ve got to see this.”

“Good heavens,” Jack said over and over again.

Behind them, the bearded man slipped his head out the hatch. His eyes narrowed. ~What do I see?~ he demanded gruffly.

~This is what is above the sky,~ Nelly said. ~This is where those who walk the stars live.~

The bald woman stuck her head out, looked, and scowled. Then she shoved the man over and looked off at the other side. The Wasp swung around more, and now the moon was coming up.

This planet, like Old Earth, had one large moon. The woman looked hard at it and gulped. ~The moon shows her face full.~

Now the man followed her gaze, then twisted around to catch a view of the planet beneath them. Puzzlement showed strong on his face.

“Captain Drago,” Kris said.

“More trouble?”

“No, but could you arrange to discharge one of the aft lasers into the ocean next time we’re back to the planet?”

“A demonstration of Sky God fire, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Wait one. Actually, wait fifteen seconds.”

Kris pointed aft as the moon disappeared and the planet came in full view below. They were over the narrow ocean between West and East Continents. There was a jet of reaction mass aft, then one bright laser beam reached through it and down.

Below them, the ocean steamed and roiled. Clouds rose and churned.

~We can burn the water and the earth,~ Kris said. ~We do not.~

~You do not,~ the man repeated several times, total puzzlement on his face.

~Can you sing for us the old songs?~ Kris asked.

~Yes, I can,~ the bald woman said. ~Let me feast my eyes on what I have never seen.~

~I can wait,~ Kris said.

In hushed awe, all of them feasted their eyes on space, and moon, and a blue-green planet. After a long time had passed, Jack reopened the hatch and, one by one, they walked, eyes looking back at the sights they’d seen, into the cave of the Wasp’s drop bay.