Alien Alliance (15 page)

“Can you translate that?”

Sally laughed, “I thought I did. Well, so
far none look fatally ill, none would be in intensive care at home,
about 20 might be in hospital, at least they are sick enough, but
to be truthful, on Earth, most would nurse themselves at home.
Three, including Alan, are sick enough to be of concern. They were
seriously dehydrated and that we fixed. Alan’s stomach is bleeding
and so is Tasha’s…hey don’t panic,” she said looking at Sarah’s
face. “That also is treatable and not as bad as it sounds. We get a
lot of this and it’s on the increase. A frequent cause is things
like all the “Ready to drink” mixed alcohol drinks the kids like,
that are full of additives and preservatives. Those kids go home
with stripped stomach linings and should take something like
omeprazole for a month. Most recover without any treatment anyway.
Some do develop stomach ulcers. We are just treating the symptoms
here. In blunt reality, we don’t know if this is the fish but it is
a logical assumption.”

“What else could it be?”

“Anything! The cities’ climate control
included other little things like pest control, air filters and
some kind of sanitiser. All things we don’t have outside. I don’t
think it’s the water though. Most of the children have swallowed a
few mouthfuls or more for days and none seem to have been affected.
But it could be cumulative or it could be a combination. We just
don’t know.”

“So how do you decide on a course of
treatment? What are you treating?”

“We just treat the symptoms. Mostly the body
does a good job of fixing itself but it does tend to over-react a
bit. That seems connected with the potential seriousness but not
always.”

“What do you mean about finding out about
the rest later?”

“Some will be ill and won’t have turned up
here and we don’t know if there will be any complications
later.”

Sarah decided not to ask any more questions.
So far 20% or so were sick. It was a bit frightening, especially
considering this was their first night away from the city and its
protection. The protection Sarah had taken for granted.

The next morning everyone was rounded up and
there was a full scale investigation. Someone had organized a
questionnaire and people had photographed most of the species
eaten. Everyone was ordered to take part. Bert, Ludmilla and Kelly
designated people into groups.

“Two to three people would have died last
night without treatment. It is as important to find out who didn’t
get sick as to find out who did,” said Kelly.

“All those who got sick go over there.” Bert
pointed. “The rest over here. Although there might have been
individual allergic reactions, from now on we will avoid all the
marine creatures that made people ill and cook only the safe
varieties.”

Everyone had to show (if it was
photographed), or describe, what they eaten, cooked or raw, how
much of each variety, if they had been sick, how badly and how they
felt now. Sarah and Dan were among the well, and appointed
themselves to looking after those who were still sick and needed
help, and questioning those too sick to move. Later on that
morning, Sarah went up into the privacy of a tree house to sleep.
She felt beyond exhaustion. Uncharacteristically, she cried herself
to sleep frightened at the implications, how much she didn’t know
and the thought of losing Alan which affected her more than she had
thought. If Alan had been 20 years younger she would be very
interested…

Recovery was varied, but within four days,
all were up, the children recovering fast. Alan looked older and
had lost a lot of weight. His clothes were loose. Sally had given
him a lecture and he had taken it to heart. He wasn’t the only one
who apparently didn’t seem able to accept literally what Donny had
said regarding the Healing Machines. It just didn’t seem possible.
He was still the same. He had had about two hours treatment in all
but Donny had told him many of the lights on the Healer, indicating
serious problems, were still red but two were now pink indicating
that that problem was lessening. Donny also repeated what Helkmid
had told him which was that the Healers fixed the most serious,
life threatening problems first. Alan hoped there would be some
improvement. He didn’t want to die yet; life was getting too
interesting.

*

By this time some of the Races in the city
knew about the Terrans and their predicament. A few were looking
forward to buying them, some were sympathetic, most were
indifferent.

But Paswalda had had the Terrans watched by
one of his crew who came back one day and said, “The Priskya have
reclassified the Terrans as amphibian! Most of them have moved out
of the Terrestrial accommodation and into free housing.”

Paswalda was furious. “Oh no! The
classification of amphibian lowers their value, gives them free
living conditions and stops their debt growing. Blast them, they
caught on too quickly. They aren’t in nearly enough debt yet and
are now in a position to start reducing it!”

Paswalda had also been visited by a very
annoyed legal counsel. “You will get no ten percent for these
People. We have been suspicious of you before. One of the Terrans
has made allegations against you for fraud and false
representation. They say they paid for their transportation here,
and can describe the trade goods they paid with. If this is so,
more charges are likely to follow.”

The legal counsel was a Ridianit, one of the
race that had developed this world. “We are not pleased about the
activities of slavers like you. It brings discredit and crime to a
planet to have this type of thing happening. The Okme Helkmid has
laid a complaint as well on behalf of the Terrans.”

Paswalda, perturbed, watched as the Ridianit
stalked off and wondered what this had to do with the Okme and why
they were involved. But clearly it was upsetting them, and no one
wanted upset Okme on a legal matter.

Reluctantly, Paswalda decided he had better
not sell the Terran trade goods he had taken in payment for the
fares here. He had buyers lined up too, especially for the seeds.
If he were caught selling these goods he would have to explain
where he got them. If the Terrans claimed they were fare paid in
kind, he would be in a lot of trouble. Especially since the Terrans
would claim it was supposed to be a return trip.

Paswalda ordered his exec, “Contact the crew
and inform them that we will be leaving Torroxell in five days.
Most will have to be recalled now.” He said glumly, “It will take
us several days to buy more trade goods, fill up with supplies and
find a contract and some passengers.” He knew the legal system
well. All successful law breakers do.

His exec agreed. “The Ridianit will not want
the cost of legal action. If we leave in a few days, they will drop
the charges. Their legal system is slow. Processing will normally
take weeks, if not months. We should get away with this but our
profit will be much reduced on what we had anticipated.”

“And the Ridianit will not allow us to come
back to this planet,” said Paswala. “Scrub yet another planet off
our list! Many of the trade goods to be sold here have not yet been
sold and we have not had enough time to arrange this.” He was very
unhappy.

The ship’s majority owner, Lijfomid, watched
with great satisfaction as Tyrid manoeuvred the huge starship into
position. The other six starships followed, arranging themselves
behind the largest moon. Tyrid and Lijfomid sat down to discuss the
operation.

Lijfomid was delighted. “I had been told
there was no defense system and only rudimentary air-traffic
control. No outer defenses. As usual my Intel appears to be
correct. We appear to have not been detected. No challenges and no
alarms. This is good.”

Tyrid checked. “No sign of detection, very
few satellites, no mines, nothing in the way of offensive or
defensive weaponry. Very little in the way of communication as
well. Primitive, in fact.”

Lijfomid’s ship, nicknamed a Flying
Fortress, contained one hundred or so planes and 500-1000
hunter/killer/communication satellites as did the other ships. As
their name suggests, the task of the satellites was to jam
communications and destroy any ship, plane, satellite or any other
large non-organic object which was not squawking the correct
signal. This allowed the Flying Fortresses to get on with the job
of subduing the population without the pesky worry of the thousands
of air and space craft, in the air around the planet, plus the
incoming and outgoing spaceships.

As the starships reached their designated
positions, Lijfomid looked over to his First Officer Tyrid, and
said,

“Maintain communication silence, level two.
Check location of those troop ships. Maintain position,” and left
the bridge, heading for the Mess. He knew Tyrid would not interrupt
him unless an emergency occurred. Tyrid knew better.

That was very true. Tyrid watched, fuming,
as the owner left the bridge, infuriated to be given superfluous
and meaningless orders. Just who ran this ship? Not the
pontificating, insufferable idiot who had just left. Lijfomid, as
the majority part owner of the ship, could call himself a Captain.
He could call himself anything he wanted and there were a few
things Tyrid would like to call him. But he wasn’t the Captain.
Tyrid was, in reality if not name, the Captain and Tyrid hated
honorary, unearned titles. Especially ones that interfered with the
running of what was his ship in practical terms.

Lijfomid seemed to roll his formidable bulk
through the corridor, ship crew scattering at his approach. Keulfyd
often gain considerable bulk in their middle to older years and
Lijfomid was a sterling example. He was so vast his four legs could
barely be seen and he had not been able to cross his arms for
decades. He was very satisfied as he watched his crew. Although
there was no more work to be done by the crew at this stage, they
pretended to be busy doing it. They thought they were fooling him
but they weren’t. Lijfomid was much more astute than Tyrid and the
crew were aware and he loved stirring Tyrid up. It was so easy to
do. Tyrid had such a miniscule sense of humour. He also didn’t
notice that Lijfomid knew when he could safely interfere and when,
like now, to get off the bridge. The next few hours should go
smoothly but if anything unexpected happened and the ship had to
fight, Lijfomid knew he was best out of it.

He looked around the mess for other Keulfyd
as he had little tolerance or interest in other Races. He sat by
the medical staff and declared, “Well, that’s my work on the
planning done so my part is probably over. It will now be a boring
month or two until we leave the planet. The work of the crew is
done for now too. It’s up to the satellites, pilots, medics and
mercenaries for the next stage. No shore leave on these jobs, of
course. The bonus will be worth it, though.” He pretended not to
notice the dirty looks the tired, stressed and harassed medical
staff gave him. They were flat out and would remain so while he
languished and, they thought), probably counted his money.

They got that one right. He was counting his
anticipated money. Lijfomid’s bonus this time was to be in
spaceships. He was to be allotted a portion of the huge numbers of
spaceships that would be on the ground and he had carefully chosen
the pilots who would be flying them back for him. There should be
enough pilots to crew about 20 given that they only had to stock
them up and then fly them, following the Flying Fortress. The
spaceships would, of course, be stuffed with booty. That was
expected. And he would let the crew grab some booty for themselves.
Mustn’t be greedy, he reminded himself—potentially rich pilots
would be happy and co-operative ones.

He was relaxed. He leisurely enjoyed his
food and looked around. He loved this part. He loved watching
others carrying out his plans. The crew were various Races but most
of the senior crew were Keulfyd, all carefully hand picked, many
from established criminal families or organisations, or military,
all held to secrecy by the inevitability of a quick death should
they talk and all very used to being careful with their tongues. A
born trait so to speak, or not speak in this case. This job had
taken many years in the planning. He had been involved for two
years and it was looking to be a winner. Like many of the super
rich, Lijfomid was obsessed with adding to his wealth. He
continually compared his total worth with others of his ilk. This
would put him up a few notches.

*

In the medical facility, Slirtmif, and
several medical staff, all Keulfyd, checked the medical records on
the pilots and the mercenaries. He knew by this time all would be
out of cold sleep and it was those ones he was most concerned
about. “What’s the readiness of the mercenaries and, especially,
the pilots?”

“The usual,” answered a doctor. “Some have
been in deep sleep for up to nine months and some for only four.”
They all knew what that meant.

Slirtmif muttered, “All different races with
their own leaders and their own languages. Never enough Translators
to go around. That slows orders down.” He looked down the list.
“Relogs; they’re hard to control at the best of times. At least
there’s a fair smattering of decent races.”

The doctor agreed. “We netted quite a lot
from the end of that little tiff between the Nashi and the Zeobani.
That’ll help. Mercenaries and pilots mostly, plus the uncooperative
as slaves. They will come in handy and they’re fresh, alert and
fit. The opposite of these cold-sleep ones. This trip, the majority
are fresh.”

Slirtmif was counting up. “Not pilots,
though. More than half of them are from cold sleep.” Morosely, he
said, “I’m somehow supposed to coordinate this chaotic mess. Gets
to me, you know. I’m not the official Military Commander; I’m the
one who does the actual work and makes most of the decisions
pretending to be acting on orders from Welkidlifim, my politically
savvy but militarily mediocre boss, who has the good sense to
delegate. I guess I’m lucky in a way. Unlike many with expanded
egos, he is aware of his strengths and weaknesses. My family has no
political clout, so this is as far as I can get in this politically
dominated military machine.”