Alien Alliance (25 page)

“So do we,” commented Karl.

“This reclassification of you Terrans to
amphibian has profound implications. We are very contemptuous of
the snobbery of the Terrestrial Races.”

“Among us, Mathew and his ilk seemed to be
the only ones it really matters to. The rest of us Terrans are
relieved. At least it solves so many problems.” Karl said.

“We Kepi don’t wear clothes. We think
clothes are ridiculous and frivolous particularly when ours are
built in so to speak.” But Trlin explained, “These differences in
attitudes set both our Races apart from the mainstream Terrestrial
Races. The main reasoning around clothing seems to be that slaves
have to wear no clothes in order that others know they are slaves.
Refusing to wear clothes, we upset this rule. Many Races, a little
more humanitarian in their thinking, think slaves should be able to
wear clothes especially in cold climates and that slaves would be
better off wearing maybe a uniform.”

All were intrigued when they discovered they
shared a sense of humour as well as a sense of the ridiculous and
this tendency to be non-conformist.

At one point Julia closed her eyes and
continued to listen to a conversation while her mind wandered,
worrying about their future. She then returned to the conversation
in time to comment on a point Karl was making and then realized to
her shock that for a moment she had forgotten she was talking to
Aliens.

On the problem with the Trader, the Kepis
agreed that, “The course Sarah is taking seems to be the best.
There is little we can do at the moment but once our own problem is
sorted, we should be able to help. Maybe buy some of your seeds.
That would interest us. But another concern we have is that we
wanted to meet the Priskya and have been unable to do so because no
Race will bring one to us. In fact most Races won’t even talk to
us.”

Ali and Rani had joined the group by this
time and Rani said, “We promise to try to bring one up. We should
be able to hire a ground car if we could hire a driver and then do
the rest on foot and wheels so to speak. Unfortunately, a driver’s
license is required to hire the cars. I’m sure I could persuade a
Priskya to come. We like the Priskya. We find them amiable and
flexible. They also have a sense of humour. And they won’t wear
clothes. They say it is ridiculous and the wrong environment.
Clothes might look good if the current is going the right way but
it is impractical for them and can be dangerous.”

“Bringing a Priskya ought to be worth a
transport fee which would help with your debt. And we can pay for a
driver now the power is on.”

Finally, it was time to depart. They were
still in the process of rounding up the children when the lights
flickered and a group of Kepi who were listening to a communicator
came over. For Julia, it was as if this was happening to someone
else. She had a sense of unreality as the Kepis explained,

“An attack has begun on Torroxell and
seconds after the warning was broadcast, power and communication
went out. We are back on our internal system again. We have a local
communication system. The big cities don’t use this system but
isolated settlements do. It isn’t connected to the main power grid.
People are reporting the satellites have all been blown up and the
explosions were visible in both hemispheres. This radio source is
still going and other Kepis can access it. With it, we are talking
to other Kepi in the Northern Hemisphere. They say a gas attack on
the capital city is killing everything it touches. We know what
this gas is. It seems to be deadly to all life.” Trlin was
explaining, “You will have to stay here because it isn’t safe
outside and…”

Karl screamed and started to run towards the
entrance. Julia snapped out of it and ran after him. Since he was
panicking, he was stumbling and uncoordinated so she quickly caught
up with him and dived on his legs bringing him crashing down. Her
best ewe catching technique. Ali pounced on him also saying,

“What’s up with him?”

“Claustrophobia. He’s pretty bloody stubborn
and fights it. But sometimes he has a panic attack, like now.
Probably because he thought he was going to be trapped here.”

“So how did he manage the spaceship?”

“Tranquillisers. But he didn’t think he’d
need them today I guess. I didn’t think he’d come in. I don’t think
he meant to but he hates it when he gets left out of things because
of it. He’s really ashamed of it.” Rani came running up to help
too.

Julia turned to Trlin who had come up also,
“Is it safe to take him up to the entrance? He’s terrified of being
trapped underground.”

“I don’t know.”

Julia decided to risk it. She turned Karl
over. His eyes were staring, his breathing rapid and his skin slick
with perspiration. “Karl, get up slowly. Do your breathing
exercises. We’re going to take you to the entrance to see if it’s
safe. OK?”

Rani bent down to help and the three of them
lifted him up and walked him towards the entrance. Carefully, Julia
went ahead and looked out. All was quiet. Trlin followed along with
the now frightened children and some of the Kepis. Ali and Rani had
a good grip on Karl but he started to calm down as he saw the
entrance. Julia signalled to the others to stay put and walked
slowly out. She looked and sniffed but couldn’t see or smell
anything. She moved further out. She motioned for the others to
come forward. Karl collapsed just past the entrance and sat facing
the sun, gasping for breath. The others followed except for the
Kepis who stayed in the shadow.

“Here, give me a boost up,” said Harsha
standing by a tree. Julia did then followed her thinking this was a
good idea. Luckily she was wearing jeans. She was always good at
climbing trees. Pretty soon the two were thirty or so feet up with
a good view.

Julia called down, “There’s a sort of white
mist over the city. Is that it?”

Rani called up, “It’s supposed to be a gas
according to the Kepis.”

Harsha and Julia heard a noise and looked
down. Ilse and Bea were coming up too. All four looked carefully
around.

“There’s no balloons in the sky,” said
Ilse.

“There’s one up there,” Bea pointed up into
the hills.

“But there’s none over the city. They’re
usually all over the city. Ilse, go down and tell the Kepis we can
see a white mist all over the city and no balloons there. Is that
the gas?”

Ilse went down then climbed back up saying,
“They don’t know but it sounds like it. Apparently whoever does
this, doesn’t leave witnesses so they don’t know. But they think
that sounds like it. They say it kills anything it touches. Oh and
we’ve really upset them but I don’t know why. You should have seen
their reaction when they saw you climbing up the tree.”

They all continued to look at the city but
nothing changed. All was quiet. Minutes passed. Julia thought
carefully. “We should keep a lookout. Bea and Harsha, can you two
stay up here and keep a lookout please while we try to find out
what’s going on. Look for any aircraft coming anywhere near us.
Make sure you look behind you as well. If you need to report
anything, one of you come down and the other stay watching. OK?
I’ll send someone up to relieve you in about an hour or so.”

She carefully climbed down with Ilse. Karl
was looking better and very embarrassed. Rani had stayed with him
while Ali was rounding up the children and questioning the Kepis.
Ali quickly brought Julia up to date.

“This isn’t all that unexpected. Torroxell
is an unaligned planet and so a favourite type of target. Having
only one planet makes it worse. There’s a real pecking order here
based on lots of things but also how many planets you have and if
you can fight. Superpower status is around five planets depending
also on money, allaiances, development and population. That gets
you some kind of protection but I didn’t understand all the reasons
why.

Apparently these attacks have a system. An
attacking force destroys all the sentient beings on a planet. Once
it’s cleared, it’s counted as abandoned. Apparently, if the Priskya
could fight and win, it would their planet again but they can’t
fight. And due to their Treaty and the fact that they are fish and
in the ocean which Terrestrials don’t want anyway, they might be
alright. Trlin says he knows of no weapon which could kill them
without causing great harm to the planet which the attackers will
want to avoid as it would reduce the value of the planet. Unless
they use Biological Warfare specific to fish or the Prikya
themselves. Whatever happens, the Priskya will lose all control of
Torroxell though. Whichever Race takes over can do anything they
like. The Priskya will have no rights at all. The Kepis said only a
Defence System would have helped Torroxell. It would have made the
planet safe. It’s a system of a satellite defence network and is
manned. It’s prohibitively expensive to buy but no planet with one
has been attacked in a long time.

Anyway, the usual method is to destroy all
the communication satellites and the power grid. It’s awful but the
Kepis say even if the Priskya had got a message out, no one would
come to help, but they might come to see who these Planet Attackers
are because no one knows who they are. The Kepis think a Race will
be jacked up to take over Torroxell simply by offering to pay off
all the creditors and the bank financing Torroxell. They will have
paid the Attackers for it too. But that can’t be proved.”

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Julia said.
“What is this so called civilization? This is unethical. How can it
be legal? How can it be possible that no one knows who’s attacking?
There must be many spaceships arriving and departing daily. What
happens to them?”

“The Kepis think they are warned off
somehow. Or shot down. They say they had to pay for their return
fare in advance. If the ship decides not to come they can make any
excuse they like. If the Kepis survive, they can ask for their fare
back. If not, there’s no one to say what happened. No one left
alive. Apparently all warned off ships shut up. They make up
excuses for not honouring their contracts. The Kepis think their
ship was warned off and just said they were late but are probably
light years away by now. They are convinced there is nothing they
can do and are just waiting to die.”

“I don’t believe People don’t know who these
planet Attackers are,” Julia repeated.

“No,” Ali said slowly, “I don’t think I do
either. What’s the bet it’s a powerful Race no one wants to
challenge?”

Trlin ambled over. Julia talked to him but
to no avail. He said it was pointless to resist. They were helpless
and would die. Better sooner than later. Julia looked at him in
frustration, “Well I’m not going to roll over and die!” and she
headed off to Karl. “Get up,” she said, “We’re all in deep shit
here.”

“I can’t go back down there. I can’t be
trapped. I can’t!”

“Fine. You stay at the cave entrance and be
a lookout. Or we can get the Hell out of here and head for the
hills. Will whoever is attacking know you are here?” she asked
Trlin.

“Yes. They have scanners. They find
everyone. They’ll come after us. It’s hopeless. No one ever
survives.”

“Can the scanners detect you under
rock?”

“Yes.”

“Can they see us?” asked Yogabala. “They
don’t know what we are.”

There was a lot of discussion between the
Kepis. Finally Trlin said, “We don’t know what kind of scanners
they have or how good they are. If the scanners don’t know your
People then you may appear as large animals. If they are good
scanners, they will see you as unknown sapients if they detect any
evidence of sapience.”

“Like what?”

“Electronic equipment, weapons, metal,
plastics, those Translators. It depends. We don’t know.”

A lot of discussion followed. Karl was
adamant, “I can’t go back into the caves. I did take tranquillisers
to cope with the trip out here. I’ve got enough for the return
journey. I didn’t expect to be so confined on the ship. I expected
portholes! To be able to see out! I didn’t think it would be that
bad but I had come prepared, just in case. Just as well.”

Ali and Rani felt they shouldn’t leave the
Kepis because they were helpless. They were going to give up and
had no knowledge of war. Ali had had military training. He wanted
to at least try to hide them.

But all the discussion stopped as Harsha
came rapidly down the tree yelling that a ship was coming. In
seconds, all was decided. The de Jonge family left at a run with
Rani and Yogabala and the others went into the caves. There was a
water and air tight door which had been designed to keep out
flooding. The Kepi slammed and locked it. Ali was relieved to see
that they at least did that. As he quickly followed them down into
the cave he was starting to plan what he could do. The first thing
to do tomorrow was to get close enough to the city to confirm what
had happened. He needed urgently to see if there was another exit
from these caves. Were there airtight areas? What kind of supplies
did they have? There was water. Could they survive a siege and if
so for how long? Did they have any weapons or anything that could
be made into weapons? Ali’s mind was buzzing with plans as he
followed the Kepi but the first priority tomorrow was to get near
enough to the city to see what had happened to the others.

*

The Keulfyd ship flew overhead and then
circled. The observer turned the scanner to the symbol meaning
Kepi. “The scanners confirm the Kepis are still there. Damn. We’ll
have to clear them out later. The Kepis are self-sufficient and
cannot be starved out in time. We had been told this group would be
gone. Now we have two populations of Kepis to clear out. This is a
problem. Mercenaries will not go in after them. We will have to gas
them out.” She slammed her paw down angrily. “This will cause a
delay. And I will have to explain it!”