Alien Alliance (38 page)

“How long have you had space flight?”

“Ah, about eight hundred years I think. It’s
so nice to be able to calculate time! How long have you had space
flight?”

“Less than 100 years,” answered Stella, “And
nothing like this,” she sighed.

“Relax,” Kaz said. “We stole it off the race
that enslaved us. It took us a long time to work it out
though.”

“When you say cold, how cold is cold? What’s
the daytime highs and lows winter and summer?’ asked Stella.

“Where I live, summer maximum is five
degrees. Overnight is minus ten, winter lowest is minus 60 daytime
and seventy to ninety at nighttimes if I’ve got my math right. It
depends on the wind. When it’s windy it can be deadly.”

“I can cope with those temperatures. That’s
about the same as where I come from.”

Kaz looked at her in astonishment.

“I would be staying inside. If I went. Which
I wouldn’t,” declared Mahmoud emphatically.

“I could cope with that,” said Miyuki,
“colder than where I come from but I could survive.”

Kaz was thinking hard. Stella said she could
survive on Petislay!

“What about Terra? What’s it like,” he asked
Stella.

“Warmer, crowded, greatly varied, especially
in temperature. Some places can be very hot in summer and very cold
in winter. Where my friend Peta lives in Alberta, Canada, can be 44
degrees in summer down to 40 below zero in winter. We get colder
than that in Vermont where I come from but not as hot in summer. I
hate it that hot. Terra is dangerous in places, peaceful in other
places, lots of animals, all sizes. About eighty percent of it is
water.”

“Eighty percent? Most of it is water?”

“Yes, but we live there too.”

“What? On water? In water? Just how
amphibian are you?”

“Over water in rafts and pole houses and
some houses can float…”

“What are rafts and pole houses?”

There was a pause while Stella and Mahmoud
explained, adding ships and barges and river boats into the
mix.

Kaz shuddered. “Not for me. Who lives on
water? Any of you?” he said looking around. All shook their
heads.

“Karl and Julia had a river boat. They lived
there before they had the children. They come from Holland.”

Stella was watching Kaz. The more she saw of
him the more she was liking him and it was driving Kelly nuts. That
was half the fun. He had such a wicked sense of humour. She had
realized he was teasing Mahmoud. Stella knew she was regarded as
being too serious. But so much of Kelly’s life had been so
difficult which had impacted on Stella. Kelly had been unable to
afford to be a doctor without working full time so she had become
an army medic. That meant Stella had to become an army brat and
they lived on army bases because it was cheaper. The army had
sponsored Kelly’s training at medical school. Then Kelly had to
work off her bond. Kelly reduced this faster by hazardous duties
overseas while Stella went to her grandparents or they came over
and lived with Stella on the bases.

Stella had also been left alone a lot. There
often hadn’t been a lot of fun in her life. She found Kaz fun. And
his feelings for her were intoxicating. And he really did like her
she knew. Stella had had the odd boyfriend but nothing serious. She
saw Kaz looking at her sometimes with such a look of longing. It
made her feel funny. She knew he would do anything for her. She
wanted to exploit that but she didn’t want to hurt him. She felt
like a car with the accelerator going full, then slow, then full
again. Stella had never kissed a boy seriously. Not like they did
in the movies. But Kaz hadn’t tried. She wanted to encourage him
but wasn’t sure how to. Normally, she wouldn’t be considering this
but she might be dead tomorrow. Or he might. It was getting chilly
as evening wore on. Now there’s a thought.

“Brr it’s getting cold,” she said and
snuggled up next to a delighted Kaz who, so invited, promptly put
his arm around her. Kelly glared. Stella laughed and moved his
other arm around her too.

Az awoke next morning with a feeling of
dread. They breakfasted and then went to look at the river.

“Well Az, what do we do?” asked Dan.

“Don’t tie me up. I won’t struggle.”

“You’ll go across? With Helene?”

“Yes.”

“OK. I’ll show you what we want you to do.
If you can. A volunteer please.”

Li went over and she and Dan stripped most
of their clothes off. Az tried not to gape. Yet the others hardly
reacted. Li had more curves than he thought. Some very nice ones. A
child, she definitely was not. He wondered again if she was a
midget but was reluctant to ask. They went into the water and
demonstrated life saving technique with Li floating. Az shuddered.
“I’ll try,” he said.

“If you take most of your clothes off,
you’ll have something dry to put on,” suggested Dan but Az would
have none of it.

Before he had too much time to think about
it, they crossed as before with the others swimming downstream in
case of problems and Karl and Dan pulling Helene across with the
ropes. Despite his promise, Az struggled a bit and succeeded in
going under once or twice. Miyuki and Tue were there in a flash
helping him up as he spluttered and gasped. They reached the other
side and let Az rest.

“Do all Terrans swim?” he asked after a few
minutes.

“No, but Mathew insisted all who came with
you had to be good swimmers.”

“Oh.”

“Az, how did you expect to get across the
rivers?”

Az looked very embarrassed, “I didn’t think
about it Li. If I had planned the route, I would have avoided the
rivers.”

“But that would have added days on our trip
and we have no time to waste.”

“I know. But we would not consider crossing
rivers. You, I suspect, would not consider avoiding them!”

“True. In this temperature certainly. But if
it was very cold, they would be dangerous to us too.”

“How do you mean?”

“Under fifteen degrees would be difficult.
Under five, we couldn’t manage at all.”

“Why not?”

“Too cold. It would drop our body
temperature too much, too fast and we could drown.”

“Drown because of the cold?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. How can cold drown
you?”

“When we get too cold we can’t move. Our
bodies start to shut down. And it happens very fast. We wouldn’t be
able to swim. Then we’d drown.”

“Oh.”

“And too hot is no good either. Over 45
degrees is a problem and over 50 I think would cause burning to our
skin and would exhaust us quickly. So our water temperature range
is much narrower than the air temperature range we can
tolerate.”

Az stood up and started to move off after
the others. “What air temperatures can you tolerate?”

“I’m not really sure. About 50 below zero to
50 above is OK but I think we can do a lot better. I don’t really
know. I’m pretty sure we can go up to about 100 degrees above zero
but not that far below. We do take a few months to adapt completely
though but most of do adapt well. I know most humans can tolerate a
fair range. I once left Shanghai at 3 degrees below zero and it was
38 degrees above when I arrived in Australia. Stella said she once
left Vermont when it was 37 degrees below zero and arrived in
Christchurch at 32 above zero. That took her a few days to get used
to! She said she promptly got sunburned.”

“This above zero and below zero counting
system of yours would be very confusing without the Translator. Why
do you use it?”

“Zero is the temperature water freezes
at.”

“Why is that so significant?”

“Because we’re amphibian!”

“Oh. Yes, I guess that makes sense to you.
Water is very important to you. But that is really confusing to me.
How can we be the same race? We are definitely not amphibian!”

“How would you know?”

“How would I know what?”

“Is all the water on your planet
frozen?”

“No, not all, and more melts in the summers
every year. Why?”

“Well you’d never try to get into water if
the cold of it alone would kill you now would you?”

“I can’t see the relevance of that. I never
heard of any Niseyen getting into water voluntarily. Apart from the
physical stupidity, it would be culturally unacceptable.”

*

On the sixth day they arrived at the
village. To their huge relief the bodies were still there, now so
putrid that Az said he wasn’t sure what Race some of them were.
There was no one alive. Keeping a good lookout, most stayed in the
trees while others searched, returning with food, mostly tinned and
dehydrated. They retreated well back into the woods, and made up a
comfortable camp to wait. Az insisted on the camp being under a
rocky overhang. The power was off. Az was not pleased; no Cleaners.
The village was beside a lake where most of the fish were caught
with what looked like a system of nets.

The next morning, while some kept a lookout,
others bathed. When they were all finished, the girls pounced on
Az, made him sit in the shallow water by the lakes edge and
thoroughly washed him. The boys looked on, highly amused.

“Oh, I don’t believe he’s still struggling.
What bliss! Me next?”

“Wash yourself,” from Miyuki.

“Az, do you know what we’d give to be washed
by three beautiful women?”

Az was disgusted, humiliated and hating it.
He knew he stank but no way would he voluntarily get near water!
Again, Li stayed out of it. But when Az was finally allowed to
escape, like the others, she nearly collapsed with laughter. Az
resembled a very annoyed and disgusted wet tom cat. He smelt better
though.

Over the day, he dried off. It had taken a
huge amount of persuasion, but finally he had consented to remain
just in shorts, so as to dry out. Helene whispered to Li and passed
a hair brush over. Li started to brush his coat. Now this was
acceptable and Az looked almost like he was purring. He refrained
from telling Li that this was a courtship ritual. Normally
performed before or after intimacy, by either participant.
Especially he remained silent on this when Mayling and Joline
decided to join in. He moved carefully to hide the bulge in his
shorts.

“Oh this is so beautiful. Why do you cover
it up? What I’d do for a fur coat like this!” said Joline.

“The boys strip off, why don’t you?” added
Helene, “Why hide this gorgeous fur?”

“Only slaves don’t wear clothes.”

“And Priskya, and Kepis and us,
sometimes.”

But Az couldn’t explain just how ingrained
this was. As soon as he was dry he dressed. Then he was all
business.

“Now, we have a temporary camp but we need
one in a cave or under an overhang where we can excavate. Either
that, or we need to be much further back than we are. They will
scan the village before they land, from space. We will get no
warning and they could do it at any time, but most likely in the
daytime. We also need to plan how to do this,” he added mindful of
Mathew’s instructions.

On the fifth day, Kaz’s Team reached the
city and tied their ship up next to the others assuming one more
would not be noticed. While some searched the city for any living
People and for food, the others went up into the hills above the
city and found some overhangs among the rocks. After two false
starts, one overhang had enough soil underneath it to excavate a
cave for shelter and a good vantage point, shielded from the
scanners. Kaz breathed a sigh of relief when it was finished.

“When the Keulfyd are due to arrive, they
will scan to check that there is no ambush waiting. I didn’t tell
you about the scanners before figuring it was one more worry you
didn’t need. Now we just have to wait, and stay in the cave during
the day when the danger of scanners is more likely.”

“Is it certain that they will scan?” asked
Kelly.

“Yes. That sloppy they are not. They will
scan from space just before they arrive. We will get no warning. We
will not even know when they do it. During daylight hours, we must
stay under rock. So we need to build a toilet.”

“Oh yuk!”

“You mean we have to stay in here?”

“Yes. All the daylight hours! And we had
better hope that not one of is outside when they do scan! One of
the dangers is that if they scanand find us, they might just blast
us from space rather than bother to send the slaves down. Any sign
of trouble and they will do that.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as
everyone absorbed that.

“So why don’t they just do that anyway? Why
remove the bodies?”

“To hide the evidence of what they have
done. Because the new owners want the planet as undamaged and
unpolluted as possible. No one wants to take over a planet filled
with dead and rotting bodies, or a planet of blasted cities. You
don’t destroy something you want. There is a penalty for every city
destroyed.” He sighed. “The Keulfyd are competitive and work on
bonuses. The first one finished, the least real estate destroyed
etc.”

“You mean they won’t help each other?”

“They will, but at a cost!”

“You know the more I listen to him, the more
illogical, stupid, mind-blowingly idiotic our warfare is,” said
Akira softly to Ali.

“Yeah. I think we’ve got it all wrong. I
think we should be outlawing nuclear warfare and allowing
biological. At least with biological, there would be some survivors
and the world itself would survive. With nuclear, we are slowly
destroying all species not just our own.”

“Our world would survive much better without
us,” agreed Akira.

“Do I hear a hint of Greenie there?”

“I guess so,” Akira said softly, wondering
what Kaz would think if he knew just how Terrans waged war. There
were a large amount of cultural and conventional differences
between Niseyen and Terrans despite Helkmid insisting they were the
same species. Take washing. It didn’t matter what Kaz saw the other
guys do nor what they hinted at or asked him to do. He adamantly
refused to wash in water. It was becoming a problem. And Kaz’s
reactions when he saw them washing themselves and their clothes in
water were very funny. He didn’t know where to look. And he didn’t
wash his clothes either. In the end, Stella just quietly took his
clothes and washed them. He didn’t seem happy but he did wear them.
Kaz also had trouble with underwear. It embarrassed him being
washed, on the bushes drying and being worn by both sexes while
they waited for their clothes to dry. It was very funny at times.
He got so embarrassed.