Dav shrugged. Heʼd be wasting his time trying to get anything out of the Tecran. Borji could give him the lens feed. Give them an idea what they would find on Harmon.
He walked out of the holding area, taking a deep breath of clean air when he and Appal were on the other side of the closed door, although now that the air filtration was working again, the smell was not as bad as it had been.
That, or heʼd gotten used to it.
“He didnʼt know the explorer craft had left the ship.” Appal almost whispered the words.
“No. We might have to consider this was a rescue and revenge mission.”
“Someone rescued the prisoners, punished their captors?” Appal looked at the dead Tecran littering the passageway. Whistled. “Some punishment. What were they holding in there? If Borji is right, whoever they are they hijacked a Class 5ʼs internal systems and used it against itself.”
“Whoever or whatever they are, I donʼt think the Tecran realized they were quite so powerful. Or perhaps they simply have powerful friends.” Dav frowned. While the animal in the launch bay looked fierce, in fact sent a primal chill down his spine, he had the sense it wasnʼt an advanced sentient. But one of the prisoners definitely had been.
“Weʼre going to Harmon?” Appal asked, and there was a keen edge to her words.
“Weʼre going to Harmon.”
5
Harmon was superficially like Earth, although with more blue than green. Rose couldnʼt tell whether it was the same size, she had no idea how to gauge the size of an object in space, and with the massive gas planet looming beside it, throwing out her sense of perspective, she had no chance. But sheʼd watched her share of science documentaries, and she guessed it must be pretty close to Earth-size, or it wouldnʼt have water and an atmosphere.
A Goldilocks planet. Not too big, not too small, not too hot, not too cold. Or, in this case, a Goldilocks moon.
She could see a vast sea below, with the green of land dotted through it, like paint flicked onto a blue canvas.
“Tiny islands? Is that all this place has?”
There was a sound behind her, and she turned from the view port to see a screen rising out of the console.
“There is one large land mass, the rest of the moon is made up of small islands. Although obviously theyʼre bigger than they appear from our current elevation.”
“How big?” Sheʼd told Sazo what her height was in meters and centimeters, so he could work out distances that were meaningful to her, and it seemed the Grihʼs standard measurement was very close to the metric system.
Heʼd promised her heʼd chosen the Grih to be part of this elaborate plan because of their physical resemblance to her, their similarity of culture and their good record with dealing with alien life.
They were strong advocates of the Sentient Beings Agreement.
Sheʼd learned all about the SBA. Had read the whole agreement, thanks to Sazo, before sheʼd agreed to steal him from the lock-safe where the Tecran had kept him and start this whole ball rolling.
“The smallest island is around four kilometers long, the largest is sixty kilometers. The animals will have more variety of vegetation if we land on the main continent.”
He brought up a map of their destination, and she stepped closer to look at it. Sazo planned to put them down in a valley beside a large river, with a low hill behind them.
It looked pristine. There was no advanced species on this moon. And the Grih had obviously not colonized it.
“I hope my animals donʼt destroy the local environment. Although they wonʼt be here long, with the Grih coming down after us.”
“The local environment would be in trouble if any of the animals had parasites or diseases, but the Tecran got rid of those, and there are no mated pairs, so they will simply live out their lives and then die. Or be eaten.”
“Whatʼs out there that can eat them? And me?” Funny, sheʼd been so keen to get away from the Tecran, she hadnʼt thought what might be waiting for her down on Harmon. And couldnʼt find it in her to care all that much now.
She was free. There was a deep sense of satisfaction in that. Bring it on, whatever was waiting for her down there. Anyway, Sazo needed her too much to send her to her death.
For the moment, anyway.
“There are a few species similar to the lion, but smaller than him. Very fierce, though.”
“How much smaller?”
“Up to your knees. Theyʼre nocturnal. Some of the smaller mammals and the birds are probably in danger from them. The largest life-form is the gryak. It is perhaps a little bigger than a lion, and can go up on its hind legs for short periods. It lives underground. There wasnʼt much information on them in the Tecran systems. Itʼs omnivorous, so it is a danger to you.”
“Sounds a bit like a bear.” She still didnʼt feel any worry about it. Her capacity for stress and nerves had reached its limit.
Three months of thinking she was going to die any day had put a lot of things into perspective.
She peered out the view port again, but they were still too high up to see any details.
Sazo solved that for her by switching the map on the screen to an image of what was directly below them, and zooming in. There were trees. Nothing that looked familiar, but then, that would surely have been more surprising. At least they were identifiably trees.
She worried her lip. Maybe she should keep the animals and birds in the transport until the Grih arrived. That would keep them from harm, but she didnʼt have any food for them, and she could hardly stand to think about them in there. The sheep literally shaking at the proximity of the coyote, the birds fluttering behind the bars of their cages.
The Grih were super-advanced. They had the technology to jump through space at faster-than-light speed, just like the Tecran——light jumps, Sazo called them——they were able to almost put an end to death through disease or injury, they had harnessed their sun, and other star-light, for infinite power, and had responsibly colonized three planets other than their own, only taking those that had no advanced sentience present. They should be able to round up six unknown life-forms.
She would let them out of their cages.
“You need to buckle in.” Sazo sounded . . . excited, and she guessed he would be. His plan had gone off with only a lion-sized hitch.
They were free. They were on Harmon, where they could survive, if the worst came to the worst, and best of all, the Tecran were the Grihʼs problem now.
She slipped the harness over her head, and engaged the button, so it tightened to her body shape and held her safe while turbulence bounced them around and they shuddered and shimmied to a gentle, airy landing.
As soon as they came to rest, she hit the button again and shrugged the harness off, stepping toward the door, but it didnʼt open as she expected it to.
“Donʼt forget to take me with you.” Sazo spoke through the speakers on the craft, and Rose realized sheʼd forgotten he wasnʼt around her neck.
She grabbed him off the counter where sheʼd put him before her shower, and slipped him over her head, stuck the tiny earpiece in her ear. This time, when she approached the door, it opened soundlessly.
Another gentle reminder. Nothing happened without Sazoʼs say-so.
Her heart gave a hard thump at the thought.
The sound of a river tumbling over rocks a little way in the distance and the wind in the tree tops stopped her short on the gangplank.
Her eyes misted over and she blinked the tears away.
Sheʼd been in a windowless room for three months and sheʼd thought sheʼd never see something like this again. Thought the only things in her life were a cell or death, and she couldnʼt believe she was standing here, breathing in the air.
She drew in a deep gulp, and then started to cough.
“What——?”
“I believe your lungs arenʼt used to this much oxygen after your time with the Tecran,” Sazo told her, his unaffected tone helping calm her panic, although
he would probably sound unaffected even if she were rolling on the ground, having a fit.
She blew out a breath, took another, more cautious one, and stood still, a little light-headed, until the feeling subsided. She started down the gang-plank, tripped and fell, and landed in a heap at the bottom.
“Your body is used to the slightly heavier gravity of Earth. Youʼll be able to jump a little higher, but it will seem as if youʼre moving a little slower.” At least Sazo wasnʼt laughing at her, but then, she didnʼt think he had much of a sense of humor.
She pulled herself to her feet and gave an experimental jump. She went high enough to have her grinning. And yes, it did feel like it took her a fraction longer to come down.
Next to them, the second transport had already landed, and Sazo opened the gang-plank. The animals were quiet, and she walked over, feeling a little like she was on a sailing ship or a sprung floor, the ground too bouncy to be normal.
She took the birds out first. She could actually carry their cages, and Sazo did whatever it was he did to disengage the magnetic locks on the doors.
She opened the falconʼs cage first, and it shrieked at her before flapping a little, testing its wings. It hadnʼt had a good fly in three months, and she wondered how it had survived.
It hopped a few times, and then lifted off, winging away faster than she thought normal. The weaker gravity, she realized. Just as she could jump higher, it probably took less effort for the falcon to fly.
She let the raven out next. It flew up clumsily onto its cage and looked around, but at last it flew away, wings fluttering.
“Ostrich next,” she said to Sazo, and waited outside for him to open the cage. She didnʼt want to be kicked by a terrified ostrich if she could help it.
It came out hesitantly, feathers ruffled, and picked its way through the bushes until it had disappeared. She released the deer and the sheep and waited until she could no longer see them. Only the coyote was left.
For that, she moved up onto the gang-plank of her own ship, and made sure Sazo could close it in time if he needed to, then watched as it came out, sniffing the air, clumsy on its feet in the lighter atmosphere. It turned and looked at her when it got to the bottom of the gang-plank, a long look without any aggression, and then ran off into the bush.
She wondered what the lion would have done. Sheʼd have had to lock herself into the ship for that release. Or made Sazo drop the lion off in another location, before landing here.
She felt a shudder, a rumbling under her feet, and frowned. “What is that——?”
The ground beneath them collapsed. She fell backwards into the ship, and the gang-plank retracted and the door shut before she even hit the floor.
She came up painfully against one of the two seats, her shoulder and head hitting metal.
The ship slammed to a stop, more or less the right way up, and Rose waited another moment to make sure there werenʼt anymore surprises before she pulled herself to her feet.
Sazo was quiet, and she went to the console, read the Tecran symbols and pushed some buttons to bring up the display from the outside lenses.
They were in a kind of cave, which now had no ceiling. Both craft had fallen through, and Rose hoped all the animals had gotten far enough away before the ground gave way.
She could hear water, and remembered theyʼd been near a river. Suddenly alarmed, she swung the lenses around, and saw the water she heard was an underground river. The chamber wasnʼt about to be flooded from above.
“Is it safe to leave the craft?” she asked.
“Yes. Iʼm sorry. I feel . . . uncomfortable. I donʼt like it.”
“Probably embarrassment, although thereʼs no need.” Rose walked to the entrance and the door opened. “You couldnʼt know there were caves just under the surface. It looks like they were carved out by the underground river. The combined weight of the two craft was probably too much. It fell in.”
“I could have used the scanners, but I didnʼt think to.”
“Have you ever been on the surface of a moon or planet before?” She wondered, not for the first time, how long the Tecran had had him.
“No. Itʼs been deep space, since the moment the Tecran woke me.”
She shrugged. “Well, then. You donʼt know much about physical land masses. No harm done.”
“There could have been harm.” He sounded bemused.
“There could have been a lot of harm. There wasnʼt.” She stood on the top of the gang-plank again, her eyes trying to adjust between the bright light streaming in from above and the dark shadows where the roof hadnʼt caved in. “I do know something about actual planets, so Iʼll call for scans if I think we need them in future.”
“I can only use the scanners on the craft, and their reach is only three kilometers. If we move further away than that from the ship, Iʼm more or less useless.”
And he wasnʼt used to that. She could hear that, loud and clear.
“Sounds to me like it would be better to stick with the craft anyway, if weʼre hoping the Grih are going to pick us up.”
She reached the end of the gang-plank and crouched down. The cavern theyʼd fallen into was large, the rock beneath her hand smooth and cold, similar to granite. A river ran in front of her, the sound of it echoing in the chamber and drowning out any other noise.
She walked forward, stepping at last out of the strong light and into the shadows, right to the underground riverʼs edge. The roar of it was explained when she saw it dropped over a steep edge, falling into an even larger chamber below them, barely lit by the sunlight filtering in, and she realized if the craft had slid over the edge and plummeted down, she would most likely be dead.
“Rose.” There was something in his tone.
“What?”
“The scanners are picking up a life form in this cave system.”
Her heart rate kicked up. “What type?”
“A big type. Twice your height, at least.”
“How many and where?” She edged back toward the craft.
“Only one, and itʼs a kilometer away, in the tunnels on the other side of the river. But itʼs moving this way. It is almost certainly a gryak.”
“Heard the commotion, probably.” She was back on the gang-plank, now, and felt a little better. “Can we fly out of here?”
“No. There was some major damage to the craft when it fell. Iʼll need time to fix it.” He paused. “But that may not be necessary. The Grih just entered Harmonʼs atmosphere.”
“That was quick.” They were only a little over two hours behind her. She would have thought it would have taken them a lot longer than that to secure the Tecran ship. There were literally hundreds of Tecrans on board, and disabled or not, she couldnʼt imagine they would have simply given in without a fight.
“Remember our agreement,” Sazo said.
“Donʼt worry, my lips are zipped.” Rose tucked the slender crystal under her shirt and looked up at the sky, even though she knew she wouldnʼt see them yet.
She was about to meet the people Sazo assured her would take her in and give her a new life.
She hoped they liked each other.
6
“Theyʼve scattered.” Kila was so intent on the screen, Dav wondered if she even realized she was scowling at it. “Only one orange is still near the craft. The others have gone in all directions.”
Dav thought back to the creature dead on the floor in the Class 5 launch bay, and wished Borji had been able to find the lens feed from the holding cells. Inexplicably, it wasnʼt in the correct file group, so they had no idea what creatures were down here.
“Well, stay armed at all times and be cautious. Although,” he turned to Jia Appal and her hand-picked squad of fifteen soldiers, “I want them all alive. Stun only, and light stun as first option, only going heavier if there is no choice and immediate danger.”
“Captain, I have the first one up on screen.” Kila tried to keep her voice even and failed. “There you are!”
&nb
sp; Dav turned as Kila flicked the image to the large screen. The lens zoomed in and he stared at the strange creature in astonishment. It had two long, powerful legs, a rounded body of fluffy feathers, a long, strangely bare neck, and a squat head with a beak.
It heard their craft, looking toward them with big eyes surrounded by long lashes, and then began to run.
It zig-zagged as it went, but everyone relaxed a little.
“Not an advanced sentient.” Kila seemed only slightly disappointed. “But extremely interesting, nevertheless.”
The camera picked up two more of the oranges as they flew toward the craft. A slim four-legged creature that looked not unlike something from Grih itself, long-eared, long snout. It bared its teeth at them, and the sharp incisors were familiar, too. The other was a strange creature with a chestnut coat, and it raised its head from foraging on long grass, twitched its ears, and went back to eating.
“They took a range of sample specimens.” Kila said what Dav was thinking. “Some may be dangerous, like that creature back on the Class 5, but the chances are, only a few are. It could even have been random, a quick foray as they passed the planet these things are from.”
“But theyʼre showing up orange. Which means the planetʼs nowhere thatʼs recorded by the United Council.” Dav tried to put aside the unease heʼd felt since heʼd seen the thing lying dead in the launch bay, seen the cells. How many worlds had the Tecran stumbled across with their powerful Class 5s, and hadnʼt bothered to share with the United Council? Nothing he could do to investigate that mystery right now, so he had to put it away for the time being.
He had something else to puzzle over, anyway. The three beings theyʼd seen so far, unless they were far from what they seemed, had not broken into a Class 5 system, disabled the power and air, arranged two escape craft and killed over four hundred Tecran.
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