The Lawyers of Mars: Three Novellas

by Pam Uphoff

  "Do you have any idea how bad it smells inside this hood?" he demanded.

  "No, but I think I'm going to find out," she replied, slipping out to perform a bit of larceny herself.

  As the afternoon advanced, more and more giants took to the streets. Most of them seemed to know where they were headed and paid them no mind. In fact, the giants seemed to be headed south, and curious, they angled a bit that way, to find a high stockade filled with several species of giants, more or less subdivided by size and type. A quick survey showed nothing that looked like a Martian. Most of the attention was on a central area where a few hunters of Loverboy's type togged out in harnesses were trotting around with the little giants sitting on their backs.

  They eased back and headed toward the central hill or rock pile or whatever.

  As they neared the hill, the huts got larger, and even marginally cleaner and less smelly. There was a wide strip of open ground around the hill, and they circled warily. To the north there was a collection of larger buildings, some of them of shaped stone mortared together. They headed that way, sticking to back streets.

  Albe jerked to a stop and waved them after him suddenly. "I spotted a window with bars in it." He hissed. "Let's try getting around back this way . . . "

  He stopped at a corner and peeked around. Xaero scanned the other direction, but no one seemed to be noticing their skulking around.

  L'on took the lead and Xaero brought up the rear as they scuttled over to a rock building with several small barred windows.

  Peeking through the nearest, Xaero could see the room beyond was dug down into the ground a few feet. The far wall was barred and two really ugly animals were locked in. They didn't look dangerous, not much in the way of claws and pathetic teeth in their squashed in, muzzle less faces. She frowned, studying them. They were wearing clothes, pieced and sewn fabric clothes, which however dirty and ripped were miles ahead of the crude leather cape she'd purloined. The large one was hovering protectively over the littler one. Mother and child? Male and female?

  They seemed to be cowering away from a corner of their own cage. She pressed closer to the bars to see . . . a familiar boot.

  "Zila? Aura?" she called, waving an arm to L'on and Albe.

  "Xaero!" Aura yelped, sidling along the wall to keep as far away from the uglies as possible. "Get me out of here! They've taken Zila away, somewhere."

  "There's a crowd out front." The Captain spoke from behind her. "We'll go see what's up. Xaero, the bars are just wood, see what you can do?"

  "Right." She pulled off her backpack and pulled out a serrated metal knife blade. The dry wood was tough, but yielded to the steel. Aura yelped in alarm when the bigger ugly approached and held out its stubby fat unclawed hand. It was half again larger than Aura. After a moment's hesitation Xaero handed it the blade and dug into her pack for another. The ugly was strong and sawed quickly through the bar. By the time she'd finished sawing the top ends of two, it had finished the bottom of all three and started on the third bar's top.

  Xaero stepped away, stowing the blade and looking for the other Martians. They weren't in sight.

  She helped Aura climb through the window, then shrugged back into the backpack and pulled up the hood of her cloak as she trotted up to the front of the building.

  The giants in front of the building were all facing the hill. Looking up the hill, where a trio of giants was climbing up a staircase carved or built into the hill, she saw that the last one was pulling a struggling Zila after him. Xaero was too short to spot Albe or L'on in amongst the giants, but was more than willing to bet they were headed for the hill.

  Looking around for anything that might serve as a weapon, she saw two of the harnessed hunters tied to a post in front of the jail. Xaero noticed particularly that there was no one near them. The crowd was shifting, and a few of the giants were whistling or chirping.

  Where's Trev with his rail gun when you need him? she thought, digging out the tuned stunner. Would it work any better than on Loverboy? The range was extreme . . .

  The head giant stumbled and shook his bald head. She tried the other two, trying to stay high and away from Zila.

  "Oh Sand! What are they doing!" Aura hissed in horror behind her.

  Xaero turned hastily and shoved her back around the corner. "Stay out of sight. The Captain'll get her."

  The uglies were there too. She couldn't read their hideous faces, but their body language was a mix of panic and caution as they stayed mostly out of sight, plastered against the building's side wall. Could they be the makers of the cart? The time travelers? Anything less like the giants was hard to imagine—probably they were space travelers as well. They sure weren't from around here. No tails. They wouldn't have any problems with the seats.

  She crouched down and drew a quick sketch of the boxy cart in the dust. That caught their attention. She pointed toward the west side of town, then drew some crude bushes around the sketched cart. Water help poor Riu if these critters came out of nowhere to reclaim their vehicle, but they needed to escape as much as the Martians did.

  Weird whistling caught her attention, and she peeked around the corner again. The crowd was yelling and dancing and otherwise either excited or upset. She couldn't tell which. The three giants had made it to the flat top of the hill with Zila but two odd caped figures were halfway up the stairs.

  Xaero eased up to the edge of the crowd and fired the stunner point blank into the nearest giant. It staggered, and she grabbed it and pulled it back into the side street. Clubbing it over the head proved to be much more effective than the stunner. "Take the cape." She told Aura, as she headed back to the crowd.

  This time when she steered a woozy giant around the corner the big ugly thing whapped it with a stick—one of the prison bars, she realized. Without a tail it'd make an even less convincing giant than a Martian, but anything that hid that deformed chopped off muzzle was worth the effort. Fortunately it was getting dark fast; unfortunately their assumption that the Giants would sleep all night didn't seem to be panning out.

  At the top of the hill, light blazed up suddenly, flames climbing from a pile of wood. The bonfire silhouetted a struggling Zila held between two giants while the third made a speech, waving a nasty thing that looked like a large jawbone with glittery glass stones imbedded in it. She wondered if the giants used obsidian as a tool. Certainly there were volcanoes close enough for a source. She hoped the speech was a long one, the Captain and Albe still had a way to go and she needed at least one more cape. As she sidled up to her next victim, the speaker noticed the two climbing the hill and whistle-chirped something directly to them while shaking the jaw bone in a definitely threatening manner.

  At least he wasn't using it on Zila. Xaero zapped a big fat giant, and staggered as she hastily steered him around the corner, where he tripped over the previous victims before being clubbed himself. Heavy footsteps gave her a moments warning before two giants rounded the corner, both carrying staffs in a martial manner. Police? Friends of her last victim? She shot them both, then the second one again as the big ugly thing traded stick swipes with the first. A third shot put the second one down and she quickly took aim at the first and knocked him out with a long continuous shot.

  Back around the corner, she saw the situation on the hill had deteriorated as well.

  The Martians had made it to the top and were trading blows with the speaker. The two giants holding Zila dropped her and joined the fray. Xaero saw Zila push herself back to her feet, and lift a stone high enough to hit the closest giant on the head. Apparently a love tap. It spun around, foreclaws out to rake, but she staggered back, dropping the stone. The giant jerked back, and when it followed her again it was limping. One giant was down and Albe had the jaw bone. The second one collapsed for no apparent reason and Xaero remembered that the Captain had the other stunner. The giant chasing Zila spun as it realized it was being chased in turn. It leaped toward Albe, hind feet snapping out with their wicked trio of claws.
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  Albe ducked to the side and swiped at it with the jawbone. The captain was closing in on it and it shook its head and lunged a final time, landing short and collapsing.

  The uproar from the crowd doubled, and it surged forward and up the steep stairs.

  Captain L'on took one look down the steps and headed for the far side of the hill. Were there steps there as well?

  "C'mon," Xaero called Aura, "Let's grab a ride and head for the other side." She walked calmly up to the tethered hunters, then hesitated. "How do they get up there?"

  The littler ugly untied the rope, patted the hunter on the nose and tugged a little. The hunter crouched down and it hopped up onto the pad on the hunter's back. She gestured for Aura to join her. The big ugly was untying the other hunter, and it too obligingly crouched.

  With considerable trepidation, Xaero pulled herself up behind the ugly, and grabbed when the hunter lurched back upright and started trotting down the street.

  She released her grip long enough to reach around to where the ugly could see her hand and gestured that she wanted to circle the hill.

  The ugly nodded and choked out some gluey, gobbling noises. It had apparently gotten the message, though, because the hunter turned the corner neatly and followed the side of the hill. This close, Xaero could see that all the stone in the construction was squared off and deliberately laid, but in one spot the bedrock of a natural hill stuck out. This side didn't have stairs, but as they rounded the next corner, she could see that the third side had stairs again and the trio of Martians was nearly down.

  Xaero called out to them as the Ugly steered the hunter right up to the steps and stopped it. Extra tugging on the guide ropes didn't seem to induce it to crouch. Xaero slid down carefully, holding on until her feet hit the ground and approached the front of the hunter. The ugly handed her the rope and she tugged it. It crouched in time for Zila to scramble up on it. She gobbled something to the Ugly and grabbed its belt without hesitation.

  "Albe, you're the biggest, you get on this one, Xaero and I will try to fit on the other." L'on ordered.

  Xaero tugged down the other hunter and she and the Captain scrambled aboard. Sitting behind someone with a spiny tail turned out to be a rather difficult proposition, even if Martian tails were more flexible than Giant tails.

  The uglies turned the hunters neatly and headed back around the hill as the first of the angry mob reached the ground. Eschewing subtlety, they headed west and apparently by thumping their feet against the hunters' sides induced them to run. All the Martians were well pricked before they reached the edge of the town. The daylight was nearly gone, but the trail out of the village was still visible to their right and they turned that direction, only to find themselves facing a dozen giants. The mob had split, or perhaps these were all new giants. Either way, they were blocking their path.

  Then something trotted up behind the giants. A hunter with no harness or rider. The first giant to glance behind and spot the riderless animal whistled and dodged back into town. The others turned and suddenly seemed to have lost interest in the escapees, scrambling away from the wild hunter.

  The Big Ugly steering their ride looked from the wild hunter ahead to the mob still coming up behind them and turned their mount and urged it into the brush to the side. The hunter refused. The other ugly turned her hunter away from the crowd, took aim at the approaching wild hunter and kicked hard. The creature leaped and started off at a run. Xaero's mount spun and followed. Between the spin, the sudden speed, the naturally bouncy stride and the distance she had been trying to keep between herself and the Captain, Xaero found herself sliding off. L'on reached back to grab, but it was too late.

  She remembered her lessons on how to fall, and it really wasn't that far down, nor was the hunter really going that fast. But the jolt seemed to collapse every joint in her legs, and compress every vertebra in her back as she rolled down and finally thumped flat on her back. It was more than enough to knock the wind out of her as she hit the ground in front of the wild hunter. It stopped dead and flapped its arms at her hopefully.

  She forced herself to take a couple of shallow gasping breaths. "All right. I take back every bad name I've ever called you." Xaero wheezed. She peeled herself off the ground and patted Loverboy's face. Glancing back at the Giants, or rather the sudden lack there of, she started walking up the trail, Loverboy flapping along after her.

  The others had stopped their hunters quickly but she just waved them on. "I'd just as soon walk the rest of the way." The ridge seemed steeper than when she'd walked down it just a few hours ago. Sitting on the hunter had worked some unaccustomed muscles.

  The lead hunter halted abruptly, then Zila called from its back "It's us, don't shoot!"

  Xaero forced herself to climb the last few steps and spotted the reception party. Trev with his rail gun on one side and Beri and Arto with their laser rifles on the other and Trebore with something that looked like it was improvised from the mining equipment on the cart. Riu was at the controls of the cart.

  "Gee, you guys know how to throw a welcoming party." Xaero commented, walking up to the hunters to give them the proper 'crouch down' tugs. Even the Uglies looked happy to get off the creatures, as they eyed the Martians warily.

  "I think these guys are the ones with the box cart," Xaero said.

  L'on muttered unhappily under his breath, and walking up to the big one, pointed over at the boxy vehicle.

  The big ugly gobbled at him, and the little one chimed in, saying something about the hunters apparently, as she waved at them. The big one nodded, and walked around the Martian cart carefully, to approach his own. The little one remained with the hunters, holding the steering ropes and eyeing Loverboy uncertainly.

  Once in his cart, Big Ugly did a lot more talking, with static effects.

  "Oh Sand, a radio wave communicator. He's talking to someone." L'on muttered.

  "Probably the other ones that have besieged the Dzi," Trebore said. "Nyx reports that they're just watching, so far, and haven't made any hostile moves."

  L'on hissed in irritation. "Did Riu fill you in about their time travel capacities?" he asked.

  The others nodded, but Zila and Aura both boggled. "They're . . . umm, time and space traveling too?"

  "We think just time." Riu said, "That cart is strictly a ground vehicle."

  "Yikes!" Aura said. "What a dirty trick for evolution to pull! Why didn't those Giants back in the village get smarter, instead of these horrible things?"

  "They're not that bad!" Zila protested, "And they did help us, in the jail, after they stopped being so afraid of us."

  "That doesn't make them any prettier or less scary." Aura said.

  "The important point," Captain L'on said, "is that we never, ever, tell them where we are from."

  Zila hesitated. "I, um, pointed at the sky while I was trying to talk to them. But I didn't know how to say anything about time."

  L'on closed his eyes in pain. "Well, we might as well head for the Dzi."

  "The sooner the better," Trev said, looking back at the village. "You seem to have incited a mob, complete with flaming torches."

  Xaero frowned. "At least they're all on foot. Mounted ones could be difficult to outrun."

  "Get in the cart." L'on snapped, "Now."

  They crowded in, standing room only and headed down the trail. The Uglies followed in their cart, the little one reluctantly releasing the hunters, but some chase instinct must have been triggered, because all three followed, gradually falling back as Albe pushed the pace.

  L'on spoke constantly on the communicator, and as Jemi followed them on their space tracking radar, they slowed and turned cross country, taking the shortest path. Fortunately it was swamp free and they broke through the last of the brush to see the Dzi sitting in a pool of light in the middle of the open area. The webbing and plants they'd covered the ship with looked strange, with the light inside. They certainly didn't conceal it.

  "Those aren't all our
lights." Trebore growled, "Those ugly critters had better not try anything!"

  Apparently all they had planned was getting their group back together. As the two carts rolled to a stop, the alien lights winked out and as her eyes readjusted to the darkness, Xaero could see four more of the Ugly Aliens converging on the boxy cart. The two former captives jumped out for a mass greeting involving more extensive bodily contact than the spiny Martians could have managed.

  The uglies quieted, and watched them from a small distance, then on the commands of the Big Ugly, they all entered the cart, front and back and it rolled away. As it turned, the light swept across the meadow, showing the three hunters half way across and as the lights passed, the torches of the mob gleamed through the brush.

  "Sand! They're still following." L'on ran up the ramp as it lowered. "Jemi, get the engines fired up, we may need to move."

  "Turn all the lights off, maybe the mob will follow the uglies." Trev suggested. The rest of the lights snapped off.

  Blinking, again, Xaero walked out past the netting with him and looked back. Well, the lump didn't look very natural, but at least it wasn't advertising itself.

  The mob, on the other hand, had made it past the brush and spotted the uglies' box cart. The leaders picked up speed and turned to pursue the cart. As she watched, the cart picked up speed. The loose hunters took off after it, closing in a sprint. It looked like Loverboy was about to pounce on it as a brilliant white light flared around it, and then faded.

  The cart was gone. No sign of Loverboy or the two tamed giants.

  "Whenever they came from, they've gone back." Xaero sighed. "I wish we could have studied them."

  "Don't worry," Nyx's cheerful voice made her start. "I figured out these flat round things are their computer data recording medium. I'll bet I've got everything in their computers' memories."

  Trev snorted. "All you have to do is translate it."

  Nyx shrugged. "So it'll take awhile. After I figure out how to read these disks."