Starship Home (33 page)

‘I don’t know all this technical stuff, I’m just a simple surfboard mechanic. But you’re right. I was picked up on Earth and put in this space ship thing. Next I know is I’m in a tiny little space ship. Only a bit bigger than this bed.’

‘Survival pod.’

‘If that’s what they’re called? Yeah.’

‘You want us to believe that you made it all the way home in a survival pod?’

‘I’m here aren’t I? Isn’t that the proof?’

‘Here’s my theory,” said the interrogator, ‘The ship was captured by Ursoid pirates. You’re now working for them and they dropped you in here to spy on us.’

‘No. In the survival pod or whatever you call it, there was a woman’s voice giving instructions and she spoke a weird kind of English. Very old fashioned. She said she’d been hit bad and was trying to send us all home.’ Zachary’s face went from a mask of shiftiness to a mask of sorrow. ‘I guess I’m the only one who made it.’

The Slarn exchanged looks. ‘It’s just possible,’ said the interrogator. ‘And the escape pod coming in through the ionosphere could have triggered the alarm system?’

On the bridge of the starship, Harold and Zoe were applauding, and even Guinevere was smiling. ‘Zachary is the most vile mountebank and liar is he not?’ she said.

But in the skimmer, the interrogator was back on the attack. ‘What happened to the pod?’

‘It blew up after I landed.’

‘And how did you get the staff?’

‘Who said I did?’ Then, seeing the interrogator’s hand move to the controls, ‘It was in the pod! One of your people must’ve left it there! The pod landed, I grabbed it, thought it might come in handy, I got out of the pod and then the pod thing blew up on me!’

‘And you lost the staff how?’

‘I’d hooked up with the people who live in the forest to get salt from a place on the coast. Halfway back we ran into trouble with some barbarians, they call themselves Sullivans. I was running for my life and I dropped it.’ Zachary was feeling very pleased with himself. It was as seamless a set of lies as he had ever told. Now for the finishing touch. ‘Listen, ah … I’d be very happy to work for you guys. Anything you want done, anyone you want eliminated, I could listen to what people are saying and report back to you?’ Silence. ‘I work very cheap?’

The interrogator turned off the green light. ‘Even for a primitive, you’re despicable,’ it said.

‘That’s okay for you to say but you’ve got job security. A little guy like me, he’s got to hustle to make ends meet. ‘

‘Get this piece of slime out of here.’

As the other two marines escorted Zachary to the door, he was still talking. ‘I play guitar, I sing a little, do stand up comedy, weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs …’

‘Get him the hell out before I vomit!’

Two Slarn marines emerged from the skimmer and pushed Zachary out to join the other prisoners. He looked around. The two Forester People were brooding about whatever Forester People brood about when they have been confined, the Sullivan Himself was off near the force field sulking, and Ulf and Maze were playing a complicated game using the knuckle bones of sheep. Zachary strolled over just in time to witness Maze win her tenth game straight. Ulf turned an aggrieved look at Zachary. ‘She always knows how many bones I’m hiding,’ he said.

‘She’s reading your mind, Ulf,’ Zachary informed him, ‘try to think about something else.’

‘Think about two things at once?’ A million years of male evolution dedicated to single-mindedly wielding sharp weapons, climbing out of trenches and fox holes and charging enemy positions had put the concept of multi-tasking beyond Ulf’s comprehension.

‘No, Ulf,’ said Zachary, ‘you think of one thing at once, but not the bones.’

‘But the game is called Guess Bones.’

‘You teaching him to cheat,’ said Maze, glowering at Zachary.

‘Some people would say mind-reading is cheating,’ Zachary replied, and then to Ulf he said, ‘You know how on the first day of the month, the moment you wake up you have to think of white rabbits to get a lucky month?’

‘I never heard this.’

‘That’s why you’ve never had a lucky month.’

Ulf saw the flaw in Zachary’s advice. ‘There are no white rabbits.’

‘Well there used to be.’

‘A white rabbit,’ said Ulf with unassailable logic, ‘would be a sitting target for the next bowman who came along. It would be eaten. So no white rabbits.’ Maze nudged him and pointed to the forcefield. Ulf’s mind was telling him that he could see a large white rabbit sitting just outside.

Zachary knew exactly what Maze was up to. ‘Stop messing with his head while I’m trying to educate him!’

Ulf turned back, puzzled. ‘There was a white rabbit there a moment ago but now it’s gone.’

‘We play again now?’

‘No, we don’t play again now,’ said Zachary. ‘Are you okay? They shine the green light on you, ask you questions?’

‘They want me to go back to village and have many babies.’

‘Yeah, I just bet they do. Breed up a few more witches.’

‘Yabbie-people don’t know I too young to have babies! Yabbie-people stupid!’

‘Not stupid, just bad to the bone.’ Zachary could see the logic in the Slarn wanting Maze to have babies with the Talent, but the idea did not pass the yuck test in his book. In his book, just because they were not human did not mean that they had to be inhuman. He now turned to Ulf. ‘I’ve got a message for you from the Don. He’s very angry with the Slarn and he’s going to get us out of here.’

‘Perhaps there’ll be battle. A chance to die with honor.’

‘No, I don’t think there’s going to be any chance of that,’ Zachary said, and added under his breath, ‘if I have anything to do with it.’

‘We’ll die together my friend!’ And, overcome with emotion at the thought, Ulf wrapped his arms around Zachary. It was, Zachary thought, like being hugged by a bear who bathed in compost pits.

‘You want another game or not?’ said Maze.

Meanwhile, in the clearing outside the starship, four saddled but riderless horses stood cropping grass. A moment later, Meg, Zoe, Harold and Marlowe ran from the starship, mounted and rode away.

As they rode through the forest, Harold vowed that if he survived the day he would never, ever throw his leg over a horse again.
The pain.
The agony
. But Zoe was in her element. She had come to realize that high adventure on horseback was what she had been born for!

Hidden from the Slarn skimmer by the ridge, the Don and his warriors waited by their horses and then Meg, Marlowe, Zoe and Harold rode from the forest toward them. The Don turned to his men. ‘Check blades and mount.’ The warriors’ hands went to their sword hilts, loosening their blades in their scabbards, then they mounted, crossed themselves, and as the starship party drew abreast of them, the Don led the charge, up and over the ridge and then down the further slope toward the Slarn skimmer. As the body of horse swept forward, gathering pace, as the Trolls chanted the ancient cavalry slogan “Walk, Trot, Canter and die!” Marlowe was easing back, letting the others pass him.

Inside the skimmer, the Slarn marines were watching a screen as the cavalry charge developed, and now they grabbed their Slarnstaffs from the rack and ran outside to repel the attack.

All of the captives were now on their feet, watching the charging cavalry approach, and Zachary was horrified. He could see it happening in his mind’s eye, the horses crashing into the forcefield, throwing their riders, breaking limbs, screaming in pain. Some old memory from school floated into his mind: the French general witnessing the Charge of the Light Brigade and saying ‘it is magnificent but it is not war.’ And now he knew he had to act or not be able to live with himself thereafter.

He looked at Ulf, and they both knew what that look entailed, and as one they charged toward the three Slarn marines who had formed a line, Slarnstaffs at the ready, to defend the skimmer from attack. So intent were they on the cavalry charge that they did not notice two lunatics charging at them from behind. Zachary brought one down in a classic rugby tackle, and Ulf, his giant arms wide, nailed the other two. The five of them fell into a desperate struggling pile, and then the Sullivan Himself and Maze and the two Forester men joined in.

And still the horses galloped toward the forcefield.

Zachary emerged from the struggling ruck with a Slarnstaff, but as he pointed it at the forcefield, trying to work out which control would open it, a Slarn marine reared up from the ground and tackled him. The Slarnstaff fired as Zachary fell, and he must have said “white rabbits” on the first day of that month, because by some cosmic accident, against all odds, the forcefield dissolved where the Slarnstaff beam hit it and the horses streamed through into what had been the prisoner enclosure.

The ruck of wrestling figures broke up as the horses came through and now as the Sullivan Himself ran through the gap in the forcefield to freedom, the Slarn marines were on their feet again, Slarnstaffs in hand. The Don was leaning out of his saddle, slashing with his sword, and the eyes of his warhorse were bulging with excitement as a Slarn marine fell to the Don’s blade and then he rode on, and the other two Slarn marines fell beneath his steed’s hooves. As Troll warriors dismounted to disarm them, the two unwounded Slarn marines slapped controls on their right wrists, and dematerialized, leaving the wounded Slarn marine lying on the turf.

Zoe and the Don slid from their horses and approached the fallen enemy, and the Don raised his sword, about to deliver a death thrust through the joint between helmet and breastplate, when Zoe flung herself down across the prostrate figure. ‘No!’ she cried, ‘it’s wounded!’ The Don shrugged. ‘If you want it, it’s yours,’ and strolled on to where Troll warriors were unsuccessfully trying to hack their way into the skimmer, joined now by Marlowe, who, having taken no part in the attack, was now unobtrusively rejoining the victors.

Zoe was crouching over the wounded Slarn marine as Harold, Meg and Zachary came over to her. Blood, red blood, was trickling through a hole in its armor, and Zoe was attempting to remove the helmet. Harold dropped to one knee, examined the helmet, and located a sliding catch fastening helmet to breastplate. Undoing it, they removed the helmet and all gasped at what they saw. The marine was not only human but a young and beautiful woman. Her cropped hair glistened in the sun, and a line of blood ran from one corner of her mouth. There was a deadly pallor in her cheeks, and like some alien Joan of Arc, displaced in time, she lay dying on the grass before them.

Zoe looked up from the wounded Slarn marine and Zachary could read the compassion in her face, and knew he had to resist it. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Zoe, and stop thinking it.’

‘We can’t just leave her to die!’

Harold nodded his agreement. ‘Zoe’s right. If we keep her alive we can use her as a bargaining chip.’

‘That’s not what I meant, you android! I meant she’s human, she’s a long way from home, and Guinevere’s got the technology to heal her!’

Zachary shook his head. ‘The Forester people could look after her, the Troll women and Father John …’

‘Oh great. She’s got a choice between the Iron Age and the Middle Ages. How about we give her to the Looters, they can keep her alive, fatten her up and then eat her!’

‘If we take her to the starship, then she knows there’s a starship, and I just convinced them there wasn’t. And then if she gets loose, everyone knows there’s a starship and where it is.’

‘I don’t care if I have to carry her there single-handed, she’s coming back to Guinevere with us.’

‘You haven’t heard what I’m saying.’

‘I have heard what you’re saying and it’s disgusting.’

Harold nodded. ‘And besides she makes a great hostage.’

‘And that’s even more disgusting!’

Harold looked hurt. ‘What are you attacking me for? I’m on your side!’

‘I’m not going to let this happen,’ said Zachary.

Half an hour later, as Zachary helped Zoe carry the unconscious Slarn marine, now slung in an improvised litter, he was still saying it. ‘This can’t be happening. I’m not this stupid …’ but his ruminations were broken off by his own yell of terror as he saw, coming out of another part of the forest along a converging trail, the Looter band carrying baskets of charcoal.

‘At last,’ said Marlowe and turned to greet the Eldest, whose beady gaze had fallen on the Slarn marine. ‘Give food to Dark One?’ he asked.

‘No!’ snapped Meg.

‘Sure we do,’ said Zachary. ‘Dark One great eater, eh?’

‘Cut out the jokes, Zachary and let’s get her inside,’ Meg said, and then looked around. ‘Where’s Maze got to?’ For the Forester child, who had set out with them, had slipped away and was no longer to be seen. Meg shrugged, knowing that Maze came and went like the wind, and got on with the task at hand. ‘Okay, Zoe, Zachary, let’s do it.’

They moved into the clearing and headed for the starship, whose hatchway opened to welcome them. ‘As long as we all realize that this is a Slarn? One of those wonderful people who gave you the Great Exit? The ones who shipped our nearest and dearest off to the slave planets of the galaxy?’

‘She’s a person,’ Zoe said.

‘And when we’re all slaves on Streptococcus Five, I’ll hold that thought very close to my heart.’ They entered the starship, leaving Marlowe with the Looters, who were now putting down their baskets of charcoal in the clearing. The Eldest waved a hand at the baskets and said, royally, ‘We give charcoal for Dark One belly fire. Dark One give us foods.’

Marlowe looked speculatively at the open hatchway. He needed to know what was going on in there. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he said to the Eldest and ran inside.

On the bridge, Guinevere looked out of her screen, and then the medipod slid out of the wall. ‘Take the armor off her, and get her in there.’ They set the litter down, and as Marlowe entered, Zoe knelt to undo the marine’s body armor.

‘She looks human, Guinevere. How come she looks human?’ Harold asked.

‘Begone Harold. Zachary, Marlowe, begone for this is woman’s work.’

The men retreated, with Harold still asking questions. ‘She looks human, breathes an oxygen-nitrogen mix, has red blood …’

‘Because she
is
human! Now go!’

The men moved off the bridge, and the door slid shut behind them. Harold leant against the cool metal bulkhead. Then the penny dropped. ‘I get it. They capture people like Guinevere was captured. And then they recruit them into their armed forces. Maybe they even recruit scientists?’

Without realizing it he had spoken out loud his greatest temptation, but before he could think about it, Marlowe cut in. ‘She’s pure Slarn,’ he said. ‘The Slarn
are
human. Their ancestors originally came from this planet.’ And without waiting for further questions, he stalked away, heading for the hatchway, saying, ‘I’ll get them moving the charcoal in.’

In Helena’s hut, Our Mother was looking at Maze very hard, as if her gaze could peel back the layers of Maze’s mind to the truth within. ‘With your Talent they let you go?’

Maze was on her knees before Our Mother. ‘They tell me come back, have many babies.’

The suspicion in Helena’s eyes died. ‘Breeding stock. They want you for breeding. Now tell me everything that happened. Every detail. The survival of the Clan may depend upon it.’

Back in the starship, as the medipod with the Slarn marine inside slid back into the bulkhead, the door from the bridge to the corridor slid back, and Harold came in like a questioning tornado, Zachary following at a slower pace. ‘Marlowe just said the Slarn are human, Guinevere, I don’t get it!’ cried Harold.

‘They are human indeed,’ said Guinevere. ‘Many thousands of years ago they hailed from Haardlandes, the ancient name for Atlantis. ‘Slarn’ is but ‘Slaarndes’, which means ‘the people of Atlantis’.’

‘You’re saying they’re Atlanteans? And they discovered space travel? That’s not possible.’

‘And yet it happened. Between Earth’s many ice ages, civilizations rose and fell, and before the last ice age there was a civilization, that of Haardlandes, which discovered how people who possessed the Talent could pilot vessels between the stars. But when their climate changed, and they knew that a new ice age was about to come upon them, they selected the best among them, put them on starships, and sent them out to make colonies in the galaxy. Many were lost in the attempt, but some won through, and met with the Elder Races, who had a use for those they deemed barbarians. And that use was in the wars between the stars. The Slarn sold their swords to the highest bidders, and became the mercenary soldiers of the galaxy and still are to this day.’ She paused, and with a heartfelt sigh, she went on, ‘We fallen humans love and hate too well. ‘tis these two poles within us that make us apt to war.’

‘So the woman in the medipod is an Atlantean marine?’ Meg asked. ‘And they come back from time to time to kidnap people to replenish their forces?’

‘And sell as slaves.’

‘But 90 years ago, they took nearly everyone,’ Harold protested. ‘Why so many?’

‘They had become aware that the people of the Home Planet had taken the first steps to discovering true space travel. The Slarn knew that sooner or later you would burst out of here and become their rivals. And the Slarn brook no rivals.’