Alien Alliance (31 page)

Bert took over. “Kaswa’s lung sounds are
normal, stomach feels normal, bowel sounds are normal. His pulses,
arteries, veins and nerves are all in the right place. All expected
internal organs look to be the same and in the same places but I
couldn’t do an X ray, CT scan or MRI. His skeleton and the movement
of his back and all his limbs is normal. His blood sugar level is
normal, his reflexes are normal and all in the right places. His
reactions are normal, both speed and type. His eyes look and react
normally. Significantly, his teeth are identical including the type
and number. Like us, he now has too many teeth for his mouth. His
wisdom teeth were removed for this reason. His musculature is
normal. He is an omnivore. As he describes it, his
gastro-intestinal tract and excretory system is the same. His feet
and hands are identical except for the hair. His urinalysis is
normal.”

Kelly took over. “I examined Aswin.
Psychologically, his behaviour seems normal, he is curious, his
mannerisms are normal and his own speech pattern has the same
internal logic. He understands metaphors, nouns, pronouns, verbs
and adjectives. Also sarcasm. His voice range is the same. He can
sing and in tune. He’s cheeky and has a sense of humour. He reacts
as I would expect someone to react in this situation. He expressed
moral values. Apart for the fur, which is hair by the way, he
checks out normal. To put it another way, as I told Mathew, there
is nothing to indicate he’s Not human.”

“But what about the fur?” asked someone.

“I have seen people on Earth that look like
them,” answered Kelly. “Although they are very rare and their pelts
are mostly patchy, not good ones like these.” Bert nodded.

“You sure they’re not gorillas?” someone
called out.

“Seriously, do they look like apes? Do they
sound like them? Gorilla eyes are all brown, no white around the
iris. Gorillas are much bigger. Their head shape is different as is
their gait. They can’t walk properly upright. Their teeth are
different as is their musculature. These boys are Human!”

“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck
and quacks like a duck…” said a wag and they all laughed.

“But seriously,” someone called out, “What
about the fur?”

“It’s hair not fur. I keep telling you,
mutations of Humans on Earth are like them. Actually, I think it’s
a throwback not a mutation. Aswin told me their legends say they
were kidnapped off their world and taken to the planet Medala which
is a frozen world. Because they were slaves, they were stripped
naked. Slaves are forbidden to wear clothes. Many of them froze to
death. But eventually a baby was born with a full pelt of hair.
Luckily a boy. He survived. He sired many children. Many of his
children survived unlike other children. This gene must have been
dominant. Almost all his children were like him.

Apparently, most of their race are descended
from this boy and what appears to have been some other throwbacks.
Children like that are born on Earth but most lose their pelt soon
after birth. Maybe this baby Aswin speaks of didn’t lose his pelt
because he was cold. I don’t know. Aswin says they eventually
overthrew their masters and took over this world. They now have two
other worlds since most Races don’t like the cold planets. The
climate control is too costly to run. And few like the cold. I’ll
bet he can’t take the heat that we can. He says people are still
born looking like us, with our distribution of hair, which is why
he immediately assumed Li and Stella were his people. He couldn’t
understand why they couldn’t speak his language. They’re a sensible
bunch, they speak a universal language. Sounds very logical and
civilized to me. Pity we didn’t legislate to have Esperanto as
ours. But the non-Europeans wouldn’t have it.

Their people must have originated on our
world. They know Medala is not their planet of origin and we know
Terra is ours.”

“Could they be the missing link?’ asked
someone.

“No. Because the hairiness developed after
they left our world not before. There are too many co-incidences
here for them not to be Human.”

Sarah summed it up neatly, “Two more for our
side and pilots to boot. These boys are going to be useful.”

*

Mathew immediately re-organised things.
Aswin and Kaswa were delegated to head back into the city to help
scrounge as they knew what was valuable, useful and knew what
things were and where to find them. As Kaswa put it, “All these
city developments follow a fairly standard pattern. You tell us
what you need and we’ll show you where to find it.”

“How about weapons?” asked Mathew.

“Police headquarters,” answered Kaswa but
there probably won’t be many and they may be in a safe. And the
mercenaries probably got there first.”

“The Priskya say that millions of bodies are
being dumped into the oceans,” said Dan. “Is this true?”

“Yes. It’s how they get rid of the evidence.
They’ll be dropping them into the deepest parts so recovery is
impossible and the evidence unobtainable,” said Kaswa.

“But how is that possible? There are
millions on this planet,” said Kelly.

“A million slaves, working flat out. The
biggest population I heard of that got dumped was over a billion.
That was a huge operation. Mostly they target planets a bit more
developed than this one. But to attack a planet is rare. They
mostly target islands, mining operations, asteroids, moons, space
stations, any valuable real estate will do. This one, I think they
thought would be a walkover,” Aswin smiled. “Maybe not so
much.”

Kaswa continued, “We believe there are seven
starships left. These are fighting spaceships with about 100 planes
per ship plus some shuttles. They can carry about 10,000 awake
slaves each or 20,000 in cold sleep. Other troop carriers arrived
and brought more slaves. I don’t know how many slaves there are in
total but at least half a million, probably more.

The troopships got filled up with loot from
the northern cities and have already left. That’s why we were so
worried. Seven starships can’t carry half a million slaves. Not
even crammed in. And we would be a security risk. There were
rumours most of us would be disposed of once the bodies were
dumped.”

“These ships must be enormous,” said Stella
trying to work that out.

“They are.”

“Enough,” said Mathew. “Into the city now
and talk once it’s daylight. We still have several hours of
night.”

Sarah intercepted Kaswa and Aswin before
they left, “Bring back food,” she ordered. “All you can carry. We
have protein, we need vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and fats.”
The boys nodded their understanding and the lack of beeps from
their Translator indicated the message was relayed correctly. Kelly
and Bert had been at her to find a better diet for everyone.

This time in the city they were better
organised. They split into two groups. Aswin took the girls and
Kaswa took the boys. First, they delivered Alan to the Okmes and
hoped the Healing Machine would have enough power left to fix him.
Then they headed into the city where Kaswa first found a
Translator.

Aswin and the girls went to the police
station but the weapons were gone. Aswin was not surprised. He had
expected this but it might have been overlooked.

They headed into the classrooms. At Aswin’s
direction they picked up every Translator they could find and
looked for somewhere to hide them. Li looked up. “Is there a space
between the ceiling and the roof?”

Aswin smiled. “Look around the corners,” he
said. Li saw some slight difference and pointed, “Is this it?”

Aswin boosted her up onto his shoulders. She
lifted up the panel and sat on the supporting beam. Aswin and
Stella then passed all the Translators up and then other technical
equipment.

Several classrooms later Stella said, “Isn’t
this enough?”

Aswin swung a Translator at her, “Do you
know what this is worth?”

“No,” she said.

“A cheap Translator is worth on average a
years wages. A better one is nearly twice that. This one Li gave me
is worth three times that. It probably belonged to the lecturer.
Sixty of those would buy a space ship. Not new, but a good one.
We’ve so far hidden enough to buy two space ships.”

“But how can people afford that?”

“Most can’t. Most Translators are hired. The
people who developed this planet would own them. They are
considered part of the education equipment.”

The girls were impressed. They carried on.
Several hours later though, they had had enough. The girls had
alternated being boosted into the ceiling but Aswin had been
working steadily and not complaining.

“How about we make this do?’ said Stella,
“I’ve had it.”

“Me two,” said Aswin.

“Me three,” added Li.

They headed to the sea via a ‘grocery’
store. It was helpful to have someone who could read the labels!
There was a symbol that indicated food and Kaz explained,

“The colour of the symbol indicates protein,
vegetable matter etc.”

“They’re colour coded!” Exclaimed Stella in
delight.

“Yes, you can eat anything with a yellow,
red, green, white or purple label in the corner.”

“That’s helpful,” said Li wryly, “some of
the packets we scrounged previously didn’t hold food…”

At the sea they found the boys who had had a
great night and were grinning from ear to ear.

“Kaswa taught us how to drive the ground
cars! Little niceties like licences don’t matter now. The controls
are funny, a rigid joystick instead of a steering wheel and you
push it down for speed. They’re equipped to be controlled by two
limbs, not four. They have some resemblance to Terran cars. They
are more square and different sizes, and Kaswa says they’re
different sizes to fit different sized occupants! There are truck
equivalents but they wouldn’t fit into the caves we hid stuff in so
we just used people carriers. Then we had to unload them and move
stuff in. The cars have an anti-theft device built into them which
Kaswa just happened to know how to disable.”

As Kazwa explained, “There are some
advantages to being a slave. You do learn some useful skills.”
Kaswa was a crash hit with the boys but he had been re-named.
Mahmoud kept calling him Kaswin and in frustration had finally
renamed him Kaz. Kaz was quite happy with this arrangement. The
girls had been having a similar problem with Aswin so he promptly
got renamed Az. This was OK with him too.

Kaz explained, “We hid mostly technical
instruments, in a small cave by the Kepis cave. We also left some
of the ground cars there. I chose what to take and Mahmoud and
Donny spent the night learning to drive, then loading up the cars
and delivering the booty. Some cars are electric but these run on
the same fuel cells as the plane. That’s why they are much faster.
It was these cars that we hid.”

“So we spent our night lugging stuff up into
the attic and you had fun! I vote we switch tomorrow night,” said
Li indignantly. The boys smiled even more. So did Kaz.

They headed out to sea. Arriving at the
largest boat, they found Mathew was there waiting for a report. Kaz
and Az gave a professional sounding and detailed report of what
they had scrounged and why. Az added, “I can’t tell you whether or
not they will dump the bodies first then pick up valuable items or
do both together. Mostly, but not always, they first attend to the
bodies, then use the slaves to pick up and pack away all valuable
items, then kill the slaves, then kill all the survivors or anyone
who is hiding. Their aim is to leave no one alive on the planet. No
witnesses.

They should have the bodies cleared away
from here by tomorrow or the next day. Then they should abandon the
city and move to another.”

“Then we’d be safe to re-occupy the city?”
asked Mathew.

“Yes. If they follow their usual pattern,
they won’t deal with you until after the slaves are dumped.”

“So they don’t get the slaves to fight?”

“Not ever! The slaves would promptly turn on
them. About 600,000 or so angry slaves with nothing to lose against
maybe 3,000 mercenaries and about 1000 pilots who mostly are also
trained to fight. Plus how ever many mercenaries were on the troop
ships. Not a chance. The slaves get dumped or sent off world if the
troop ships come back for them. The Keulfyd told us the troop ships
would return. I doubt it. Slaves just aren’t worth as much as this
technical equipment. More significantly, there’s probably not
enough time for them to get where they’re going, unload and return.
Plus, slaves have to be guarded and fed. And they would be a huge
security risk if they escaped. Besides, they can’t sell them to
anyone else so what would they do with them? And they take up much
more room than treasure.”

“OK. Find somewhere to sleep. I think Kelly
said there is a berth for you two here. Sorry, but we’re hot
bunking.” He walked away.

“Li, what’s hot bunking?”

“Ah, sorry. You sleep during the day and
someone else sleeps in the same space at night. Two to a bed but
not together.”

“Oh. Well for us it’s luxury to have a bed.
What’s a bed? A place to sleep?” She nodded. “No problem.” He
yawned as he followed her. What a day. Clothes, somewhere to sleep,
girls, he smiled. Life was getting better. Pity it wouldn’t last
long but he’d take what he could get. He looked around for Kaz and
saw him ahead, following Stella.

It was the morning after the gas attack when
Steve Nilsen again fleetingly wondered if Donny was still alive. He
wondered how long it would be now. He sat in the corner and looked
out the window, waiting to die. He cried softly as he remembered
the moment that he realised Anna had died. He had held his breath
as the gas wafted over them and she had collapsed. He had picked
her up and run to hide behind some shrubs. He cradled her in his
arms but she did not wake up. He was struggling to breathe himself;
he kept forgetting to breathe and feeling dizzy and light headed.
He had the worst headache he had ever known. He wondered if he had
had a stroke; it felt like his brain was swelling. The pressure was
shocking. He thought that if he were to fall asleep, he would
die.