Arlene put her glass on the table. “No, thank you. You’ve already been too hospitable.”
Giles could sense the tension in her voice. The Crown didn’t seem to notice.
“Of course,” The Crown cooed. “It’s been my pleasure.”
Arlene stood up to leave, and Giles suddenly realized what was happening. They were leaving. Apparently.
His lips almost on the rim of his glass, he quickly shuffled forward on his chair, took a sip, and set the glass down next to the wine. “Yes, well. I guess we should be going,” he agreed politely. “Thank you for your hospitality, Your Highness,” he said, moving toward The Crown, his hand out to shake.
The Crown did the same maneuver with his arm grip and slap, then did the same to Arlene, who was too tipsy to bother resisting.
“We’ll, er, have a think about your proposition,” Giles concluded. “It’s a tall order, tackling a big problem like this. We don’t normally get involved with the affairs of other civilizations.”
The Crown suddenly seemed very sober and coherent. “And herein lies the problem with most civilizations. While we stand back and don’t get involved with our communities, we allow them to degrade, suffer, and perish.”
Giles bobbed his head, intellectually taking it in and wondering about the hypocrisy of the statement.
The Crown allowed one eye to swivel on Arlene and then back to Giles. “Sometimes as individuals, we can only find meaning by coming together with others. By helping others.” He backed off a little, chuckling without real humor. “I’m sure there’s a degree of satisfaction that comes with questing. The lone ranger, out on his own. Maybe with a companion or two . . . but essentially keeping it just you against the world.”
He wandered back to the glass that he’d left on the table with the decanter. “However, it’s only through allowing the problems of our community to become something we involve ourselves in that we find true satisfaction. True belonging. And real success.” He waved his hand as if to dismiss his own rhetoric. “But what do I know. I’m a washed-up monarch who’s getting too old for this,” he sighed, taking another sip of his drink. “I bid you goodnight, my friends. I hope to see you again very soon.”
Giles couldn’t tell if his last words were prophetic or hopeful. Either way, right now all he wanted to do was get out of there. The room had suddenly become stifling, and they’d left Anne alone for too long.
Arlene made the necessary polite goodbyes, and the pair left the Royal Settlement, unescorted this time.
***
Giles stumbled on into the night, navigating back to The Scamp, using his general sense of direction more than any wits. The wine had been strong, and that green liquid? It reminded him of something he’d had a long time ago when he’d befriended a Queegert on one of their trading posts.
His mind wandered.
“You realize we haven’t got time to get involved in a civil war.” Arlene’s voice cut through his fuzzy numbness and assaulted his brain.
Giles struggled to find a coherent argument to respond. Instead, he slowed for her to catch up a few paces and walk next to him.
“Can we do this is the morning?” he asked, quietly. He noticed they were both slurring their words.
Arlene stumbled up to him and grabbed his arm for balance. “My feet hurt,” she complained. “And I think I left a taser in his restroom . . .”
Giles chuckled dully into the mist. Arlene burst with a snigger, too, stumbling a little and linking his arm for balance and comfort.
“If we do do what he wants us to do . . .” she said slowly, piecing her words together into something of a sentence, “then we do run the risk of . . . ending up in do-do.”
Giles snorted.
Arlene giggled again. She slapped at his forearm that she was hanging off. “I’m serious,” she tried to protest. “We shouldn’t be getting involved in a civil war.”
“It’s not a civil war.”
“It will be. And it’s against the Prime Directive.”
“We don’t have a prime directive.”
“Yes, but Captain Kirk wouldn’t approve.”
Giles snorted again, and this time, hunched over in a giggle. When he’d finally regained himself, he straightened up. “My Lord, what was in that green stuff?”
Arlene chuckled. “I don’t know . . . but I like it. Life is less . . . bristly right now.”
“Bristly?”
“Yes. Like whiskers.” She ran a finger down his cheek.
Giles felt the sound of the day’s growth on his face. “Like whiskers,” he repeated.
“Anyway,” Arlene persisted, “Captain Kirk wouldn’t approve. And neither would the old Dr. Kurns who wrote the defining paper on Modern Interactions with Ancient Civilizations.”
Giles shook his head, “Oooo, it’s been a long time since anyone’s mentioned that.” They kept walking. Or more like stumbling and meandering across the grass. “That takes you back . . .”
“Well, if you won’t believe your own rules on tomb raiding, what about the ones we established for Arc and Anth 101?”
Giles sighed. “That’s about taking things away from a culture’s heritage. This hick culture has nothing to do with the great civilization that came before it.”
Arlene had slowed, so Giles automatically slowed, too, so as not to yank his arm off.
“I don’t see what the problem would be. We help out, do our good deed for the decade, save them years of war . . . liberate the slaves . . . and get the talisman in return,” Giles protested.
Arlene stopped and looked up at him in the darkness. “Ethics are what’s wrong. An anthropologist getting involved with the civilization he’s studying is like . . . a doctor getting involved with his patient. It’s just WRONG!”
Giles smirked at her. “You just can’t be bothered. Admit it. Arlene Bailey, you’ve gotten jaded in your old age.”
She slapped him, and he staggered to one side, off-balance and pretending to be wounded.
“Less of the old, mister! Besides,” she continued, settling down, “that talisman is probably still somewhere in those temples. I don’t think for one minute that jackass and his merry band of halfwits have managed to locate it.”
“You think he’s bluffing?”
“Yeah. Why else with all the civility and alcohol. It’s a play.”
They walked along in silence for a few moments.
“We need that talisman,” Giles insisted. “And if they’ve excavated those temples already, they’ll have found it. I don’t think our answer is in those temples. It’s in there—with that man.” He pointed an arm clumsily back in the direction they’d come from.
“Are you sure this isn’t about something else?” Arlene asked, sobering a little and raising one eyebrow in the darkness.
“Like what?”
Arlene pulled her shoulders to her ears. “Ooooh, I dunno . . . like being all you can be?” Her tone deepened as she put on a pretend voice like a movie announcer. “Or to lead the people for a deeper sense of satisfaction.” She almost had a mocking tone. Whether it was directed at The Crown or at Giles, he couldn’t tell which.
“Come on,” Giles cajoled her. “Let’s get you back to the ship. I’m worried about Anne.”
Arlene huffed lightly, then picked up the pace. They walked the rest of the way to the ship in drunken, pensive silence.
CHAPTER NINE
Aboard the Scamp Princess, outside the Royal Settlement, Mallifrax-8
“Giles, Arlene was wondering when you might plan on getting up. She says, and I quote, ‘Carpe diem, Space boy.’” Scamp’s voice chuckled in his audio implant.
Giles rolled over. His mouth was dry and his head pounded. He tried to speak, but it was just too much effort to get the air through his vocal chords. He contemplated allowing himself to go back to sleep. But then . . . he had a community to save.
His head cleared enough for him to sit up. He hit his holo to check the time and shuffled out of bed to s
lip his feet straight into his boots. No socks. No underwear beneath his sweatsuit pants. And no shirt.
He couldn’t find his glasses, and on account of not actually needing them, he figured he could find them later. Later, as in after he’d given himself a jab of painkillers. Or B12. Or hell, something to make his head stop pounding.
He made his way out into the corridor and headed into the cargo bay, finding the nearest med kit. Scrambling, despite his headache and squinting eyes, he found a couple of capsules and loaded them into a delivery injector.
It’d been so long since he’d needed anything like this, he couldn’t keep up with what needed to go into muscle and what into bloodstream.
He shrugged and whacked the device against his neck and pulled the trigger. “Holy fuck!” he yelped, his voice finding the motivation to no longer be lazy. “Motheeeeeeerr fucker!”
He looked down at the device he’d just assaulted himself with. Jesus . . .
Packing away the kit, he noticed that he started to feel better almost immediately. Underneath the pain and shock.
Scamp piped up again, making him jump. “She’s still asking about you.”
“I’m on my way!”
“Kitchen,” Scamp directed.
“Ok.” Giles pushed the pack back into the plastic casing on the wall by the door and stowed the empty capsules in his pocket.
Shirt, I need a shirt. He grabbed a t-shirt on the way past his sleeping quarters and headed up to the kitchen.
Arlene was there drinking a cup of mocha. It smelled delightful. Like a mixture of peace and sin in a mug. Anne was tucking into some kind of concoction that looked like it had colored sweets in it. He refrained from commenting. It would only destroy his street cred with her.
“Morning!” he said as brightly as he could muster.
Arlene raised an eyebrow. “And how are you feeling this morning?”
Giles thought about hiding the evidence, but then figured it was probably a zero-sum effort. Had Arlene not had bags under her eyes and been looking a little less worse for wear, he might’ve been more tempted.
He pulled the capsules out of his pocket and showed her. “Just had to take meds for the first time since I can remember.”
Arlene didn’t seem surprised. “Yes. I dunno what was in that green stuff, but it seems the Estarian metabolism doesn’t quite know what to do with it either.”
Giles slung the empty cartridges in the trash and poured himself a mocha before sitting down next to her. “Nanocytes seem to have stopped working.”
Arlene shook her head. “I’m sure you’re probably fine. Take a blood sample just to be sure. I did mine a few minutes ago . . . I wish I’d thought to do it before I did my juju thing this morning though.” She took a sip of mocha. “Anyway, Scamp is analyzing mine now, just to be safe.”
Giles leaned his head in his hand, watching Anne’s pudding thing. “You think he was trying to harm us?”
Arlene shook her head. “Doubt it. I mean, what would be the point. He wants our help.”
Giles didn’t answer. He just stared at the breakfast bowl Anne was working on and wondered what on earth it was.
Arlene continued talking. “So this morning, we need a plan. If we’re going to do this, we need intel. Lots of it. I suggest we split up.”
Giles still wasn’t one hundred percent with it but made the right grunting noises to tell her he was paying attention.
She continued, a sound track in the back of his mind as he watched Anne stir the sweets into the mush and leave colored trails. “I suggest you go and talk with the MacKegans. Being a man, I think you may get more out of them.”
Giles nodded, his head still being propped up by his hand.
“I’ll go speak to the Logans and see what’s going on down there. The Crown said something about the settlement and some Shepherd guy who speaks for them. That’s where I’ll start.”
“Sounds good to me,” Giles mumbled, taking another sip of mocha. Only then did it dawn on him, as if the mocha had made him suddenly smarter. “You’ve changed your mind?”
Arlene smiled. “I . . . reconsidered the options.”
Giles tilted his head as if to question why, but Arlene ignored it and got up.
“Ok, daylight’s burning. Let’s get on with this.” And with that, she had disappeared in the direction of the cockpit.
Giles eyed Anne carefully, who looked up for the first time. “What is that?” he asked in whisper.
“I made it myself,” she told him proudly. “Well, Scamp made some suggestions, but I’ve called it Breakfast Mix.”
Giles frowned, sitting up. He leaned forward and tried to sniff it. “Yes, but what’s in it?”
“Stuff,” Anne said simply, taking another spoonful. “It’s good. You want some?”
“Is that candy in it?”
Anne smiled. “Just a sprinkling. But it has all the main food grou—”
She started putting a spoonful up to his lips but stopped when he shook his head.
“I’m, er . . . a little delicate this morning,” he confessed. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
“But tell me, co-conspirator of mine,” he continued, leaning in and whispering even more softly. “Did you see Arlene take any meds this morning?”
Anne shook her head.
“You sure?”
She nodded.
Giles pursed his lips.
“She did do her strange meditation thing though. It looked like some of the stuff she was trying to show me, but the energy felt . . . erm . . . warmer. And greener.”
“Greener?”
“Well, yeah. That’s the best way I can describe it, coz it’s more of a feeling than a color.”
“Right,” Giles agreed as if he understood.
“Carpe diem!” Arlene called through from the other room.
Anne gave him a look as if to say, you better get moving.
Giles chuckled. That child is so precious, he thought.
“Coming!” He called to Arlene, standing up and taking a last swig of mocha before he went to get properly dressed.
The MacKegans were probably not the kind of folks you try and negotiate with in sweatpants with no underwear.
He glanced down and tutted at himself before disappearing from the kitchen back to his quarters.
Mining Settlement, Mallifrax-8
It had been a long hike down the side of the valley to the mine. It was times like this when Arlene wished she could teleport like in the stories her grandmother had told her when she was a kid.
Either that, or she could’ve thought to bring a frikkin’ pod from Gaitune.
Enough cursing your lack of foresight, she told herself firmly. We are where we are. Besides, the exercise will do your thighs and bum some good.
If she’d been really honest with herself, she would’ve already admitted that her thighs and knees were burning from the effort of traveling downhill and that her bum would probably end up aching for days after she climbed back up.
As she half stumbled, half skipped her way down the last stretch towards the mine, she could make out Queegerts pushing wheelbarrows and moving equipment and ore around. The mine seemed to be off to her left, deeper in the end of the valley. The settlement was a circle of little more than wooden huts a little way off. Maybe a few score of them.
Between the huts and the mine there was a primitive train track which seemed to have carts that ran along it.
She approached the settlement, carefully slipping her thigh gun into her waistband behind her back. No point in spooking the locals, she told herself.
Eventually, she arrived at the circle of huts. One Queegert noticed her and alerted a few of the others, who were now gathering around to see what this stranger was doing in their land.
Arlene raised her hands. “I come in peace,” she announced as soon as she was in ear shot. “The Crown sent me to help you.”
There were mutterings and rumblings amongst the small cr
owd that was forming. A few moments later, one of the Queegerts stepped forward.
Arlene kept approaching until she was a few paces from the leader. “My name is Arlene Bailey. I’m here to help . . . if I can.” She made eye contact with two lower eyes of the Queegert in front of her. “Are you . . .” she stifled a chuckle, remembering giving Giles shit for his ‘take me to your leader’ line.
She tried again. “Are you their leader?” She smiled, chuckling only internally.
The Queegert bowed slightly. “Yes. They call me The Shepherd,” he told her piously.
“Great!” She grinned. “How about we have a chat?”
She strode up to him and turned him about with a gentle hand on his back. “Which one of these huts would allow us to talk privately?”
He motioned to the one across the circle from where they stood, and bewildered, allowed her to lead him to it.
The crowd muttered and then started to slowly disperse, with only a couple of the Logans following The Shepherd as pseudo guards.
“I must insist you tell me what this is about,” The Shepherd protested as he allowed Arlene to enter the hut ahead of him.
It was a small room with a few tables and a cooking area set up. Off to the right it looked as though there were beds and blankets. It was warm but very basic.
Arlene scanned her eyes around the room, checking for threats before sitting down at the table. “It’s about the situation your Logans have found themselves in,” she explained. “When The Crown explained your predicament, I was horrified. I’m here to help, however I can.”
The Queegert looked taken aback. He stuttered and bumbled, fiddling his tendrils together. “I . . . well. That is most gracious,” he said. “We have a meeting tomorrow night to help . . .”
Arlene closed her eyes and held up her hand. The Queegert stopped talking.
“I’m not here for meetings. I’m talking about what you need to do to break out of the situation. As in, what needs to change?”
The Shepherd looked stunned. Arlene narrowed her eyes. “Surely, you’ve been thinking about the situation and thinking . . . ooo, if I just had this, or if I could persuade the MacKegans of that . . .”
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