Ancient Birthright (27 page)

“Okay Cindy, you can close the bay doors. We’ve disposed of the explosives we found,” Beldon told her.

Beldon could feel the vibrations of the door actuators through the stanchion he gripped. The bay doors had only closed a few inches when a silent flash in the direction Striker had thrown the bag of explosives momentarily erupted.

Beldon touched helmets with Striker. “With an explosion that big, they definitely meant to destroy us.”

“Rishly, kill all telemetry and outbound emissions. Let’s let them think they got us. If there are more devices hidden on
Endeavour
, it may give us a chance to find them before they’re activated.”

Chapter-30

Nauka 7
: Transjump plus 5 years, 199 days:

“Anika, Anika...wake up,” Katya shook Anika again, as violently as she could in zero gee. “Anika! Wake up. I hear a tapping noise. I think it might be the aft section breaking away.”

Anika’s eyes flew open as she struggled to orient herself. Something was holding her hands and arms down. “Let me go. Let go of my arms, I don’t like to be held down,” she shouted.

“Anika wake up!”

Anika’s eyes slowly focused on Katya. “Katya, what’s going on? Where am I?”

“You’re in your sleeping bag. That’s why you can’t move your arms. Are you awake now?” asked Katya.

“Yeah, what’s going on?”

“I hear an intermittent tapping noise. I think the aft section is breaking lose.”

Anika peeled open the hook-and-loop strip to free her body, and pushed off to float to the rear bulkhead. She grabbed a strong light and started examining the damaged section. “I don’t see anything and if you heard a tapping noise, it’s gone now.”

The tapping started again. “That’s not coming from back here. It’s up by the airlock area.”

Anika and Katya pushed toward the airlock built into the nose of the capsule.

“The tapping is coming from inside,” Katya said.

“The gauge shows there is pressure inside, go ahead and open it,” ordered Anika.

Katya unlatched the heavy locking handle and twisted it counter-clock-wise, then pried the door open. Both girls jumped back when a fourteen-inch tall space-suited figure floated out.

“Someone orders pizza?” a muffled voice said in English, as the diminutive figure parked a container in the air and reached to unlatch its helmet. With the helmet removed, Anika was astounded to see a small multi-hued head shaped somewhat like a narrower version of the gecko in the dumb American insurance commercials. However, this one had standup ears and brilliant violet fur starting at the forehead and going up and over the head.

“That will be eighteen twenty-five plus tips,” Dantee said in her best impersonation of a character from an Earth story her mother had read to the three before they launched.

“Did someone say we got a pizza delivery,” asked a sleepy voice from behind Katya.

Nadya floated up beside Anika. “What the fu…?”

“Me is Dantee Garuu—Saigg’s daughter—from the
Universe Explorer
.”

“How did you get here so soon? We weren’t expecting you for days,” Anika said.

“Yeah, my brother Reedn gets on nerves, so I kicked it in the asses to get here soonerest as Instructor Pilot Jannz is said.”

“There are more of you?” asked Nadya.

“Sure, Tuuan cousin and Reedn brother came along to keep me from crazy. That what dad told mom.” Dantee tried to make her voice deeper and fuller to mimic her father’s voice. “He say, ‘at her stage of development it wouldn’t be good for someone that young to be by self without other luzzons for stimulation.’ Dad and Mom wouldn’t let us come until Geepapa G tells them we gets to go for all of
Universe Explorer
souls.”

“How old are you?” Katya asked.

“We get to six on trip here.”

“Six-years-old,” Katya said in surprise.

“No silly, six thirty-cycle or months as you say. Luzzon close to four feet tall if six-years. I am little for luzzon. Me signal others it okay to come. Fab-fabrication put dock ring to ship. They use Beldon drawing for dock ring.” Dantee pushed off and floated back into the airlock where she pulled a small wrench from her pocket and tapped a code on the outer door of the
Nauka 7
airlock. She then swapped ends and launched back into the crew compartment. “You close door, it so heavy for me. We call Explorer tell them we safe. Our radio is poopy days before we come here.”

Katya swung the airlock shut and locked it while Anika made the call to the
Universe Explorer
.

“You doctor?” Dantee asked Nadya.

“As much of a doctor as we have.” Nadya spread her hands wide before wrapping them tightly around her waist.

Dantee gave the container she’d brought in a push in Nadya’s direction. “Doctors send stuff. Papers in box. They’re English, we don’t have Russruns yet. My Geepapa Fee is learn soon.”

”How did you learn to speak English?” asked Katya.

“Beldon helped dad and mom with English speaking. Five and a part years before time. Lots of crew learn some. During days training before launch, half time to fly a PTO and other to learning English. I warn you, Reedn and Tuuan are not so good to English. But, they is bigger.”

A tap sounded on the airlock door. Katya opened it and took several containers from the two space suited figures floating in the airlock. They were almost double Dantee’s size.

Dantee cautioned Katya, “Sealant, careful where you put it, sticks to anything, and no get off. You get on hands, you be stick. We can get off suits?”

“Sure, make yourselves comfortable,” Katya told the trio.

Tuuan twisted off her helmet. “ Peeuuuu, is stinky here.”

Dantee pulled the closer on her suit down and stepped out, and then helped Tuuan and Reedn get out of their pressure suits. “Shhhhh, no nice call stinky to human souls.”

“Tuuan is right. It does stink in here. We’ve been living with the smell so long we don’t even notice it anymore. Most of the smell is coming from Iosif. He’s gotten an infection that’s causing boils on his skin. He’s only conscious part of the time and even when he is conscious, I don’t think he remembers where he is,” Nadya told them as she floated to Iosif with the container of medicine. She studied the directions and description of each treatment, then selected a vial containing an antibiotic. The paper said it was a standard treatment for infection in all the various mammals on the
Explorer’s
crew. Nadya extracted five ml into an eye dropper and squeezed it into Iosif’s mouth. She followed it with a pouch of water administered through a straw.

Dantee looped her tail around a handhold and studied the injured man. “He furry face? You furry face, too?”

“No, just the males of our species normally have hair on their jaws and around the mouth,” Nadya told her. “How are your males and females different?”

“Boys have pokey backs.” Dantee called Reedn over and spoke a few words to him in
UE
Common. Reedn latched on to the handhold next to Dantee, extended his dorsal spines, and put on a rather spectacular show of coloration changes. Dantee touched the tip of one of the spines. “Ouueee,” then put her finger to her mouth as if sucking it. “Boys bigger size and big lunk heads,” Dantee said shoving Reedn hard enough to dislodge him from his tail hold. She burst out laughing as Reedn tried to swim to a solid surface. After a few minutes of futile gyrations, Reedn made himself comfortable and went to sleep.

“Where is Tuuan?” Anika asked as she watched the siblings roughhouse.

“She find leaks,” Dantee told her.

Tuuan poked her head out from beneath an instrument console and waved a short section of stick. To Anika that was what it looked like, a piece of tree branch. “What is she doing with that piece of wood?”

“Sealant,” Dantee said as she sailed to the container and extracted another piece of branch. “Me show.” She headed for the rear bulkhead with its obvious damage. When she landed by the patched line of rivets, she patted the plastic sheet taped over the crack. Katya pulled the plastic and its tape off the bulkhead. Dantee studied the crack then spit on the end of the stick. Thick amber goo began to ooze from the wet end. She slowly applied the sap to the crack in a continuous bead, spitting on the end after every two to three inches. She patted the plastic sheet Katya held and drew a line on it to indicate she wanted a strip of the plastic about two inches wide and a little longer than the crack. Dantee took the plastic and pressed it carefully along the line of sap. She worked the plastic until the sap almost reached the edges, waited a couple of truebeats then said, “Try to take off.”

Katya could rip the plastic near the edge where it didn’t touch the sap, but it was impossible to pull it free.

“Good for about this,” Dantee held her hands a little over twelve inches apart. “Grow more if empty. Put in pee.”

“So if we run out of these, all we have to do is put it in a bag full of urine?” Katya asked.

Dantee nodded yes. “About a day. Then dry, will last much years.”

Tuuan floated out from behind the equipment racks and returned her partially used stick to the container. “Need top,” she said pointing to the plastic.

Katya said, “How big?” using her fingers as indicators to make a square. When she got to something approximating an inch Tuuan nodded and held up six fingers. Katya cut the plastic and went with Tuuan to place them.

Dantee pointed to the patch. “Vacuum makes hard, stronger.”

“Could someone get me some water?”

The group spun around and looked at Iosif. These were the first coherent words he’d spoken in days. Nadya grabbed a water pouch from the refrigeration unit and held the straw to his lips.

“I must be dying or at least hallucinating. I could swear I’m seeing a multi-colored gecko with fur and spines sleeping in our cabin,” he said staring at the sleeping Reedn.

“Not gecko, luzzon. Gecko is like skink, little lizard. Dumb but fun to chase,” Dantee told Iosif as she floated up to wrap her tail around a handhold in the ceiling.

“There’s another one, and it’s talking to me. Give it to me straight. How long have I got?” He blinked as if to clear his vision of the lilac toned critter with bright violet hair on its back.

“Two hours ago I would have said a day or two, but now that the
Universe Explorer
crew has arrived, I don’t have a clue. How are you feeling, other than the visions you’re having?” Nadya asked.

“Hungry, thirsty and my joints don’t hurt as much as they did the last time I was awake.”

“Your boils look a lot better. The redness is gone, and a lot of them are smaller,” Nadya observed.

“Medicine in box for others,” Dantee said.

Nadya read more of the instruction in the medicine box then took out a stoppered bottle with a thick liquid trapped in it. She got out a cotton tipped swab, touched it to the liquid, and then dabbed it on the tip of the largest of four boils then the other three.

“Need bag and soak up stuff,” shouted Dantee.

Anika handed Nadya a zip top bag and a wad of cotton balls.

“Open bag, and stuff soak up stuff in, then put over boils. Oh...oh, messy time.”

Nadya had the bag positioned over the first boil she’d treated when it split, and the core squirted out. She wasn’t fast enough to move the bag to the second or third boil. She got it over the fourth in time as Anika and Katya scrambled to capture the blobs of escaped pus in plastic bags partially filled with cotton balls before they fouled the equipment.

“I guess you’re supposed to put it on one at a time,” Nadya said as she cleaned the now empty boils with antiseptic.

“Done,” called Tuuan as she extracted her body from under a storage locker.

“There’s another one coming out of the wall,” cried Iosif.

“No, that’s just Dantee’s cousin Tuuan,” explained Nadya.

Tuuan saw Reedn floating in the center of the room and gently pushed off in his direction. When she neared his sleeping form, Dantee pushed off from her ceiling position and met Tuuan next to Reedn’s body to cancel their combined forward motion. The two girls snuggled together and pulled Reedn in for a group nap.

“Just like puppies or kittens, when it’s time for a nap nothing stands in the way,” observed Katya with a big yawn.

“Could you try to eat something?” Nadya asked Iosif.

“Anything. I haven’t been this hungry since survival training in Siberia.”

She passed him a couple of pouches of food. “This will be a very interesting few weeks until the Endeavor gets here,” she said looking at the jumble of sleeping luzzons.

Anika pulled through the hatch from the cockpit and stopped next to Nadya. “Comrade, you’re looking much better.”

“This is the best I’ve felt since the collision. My head’s clear and other than being hungry, thirsty and having a continual throbbing pain in my hip; all things considered, I’m not too bad.”

“That’s good, because now you get to give us answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“This mission and what its true intention is,” Anika answered Iosif as she studied the twenty-nine-year-old member of the crew. He was the only one who was a seasoned, professional astronaut.

“Cut the
chush’ sobach’ya
, Iosif. The three of us,” she said indicating the three girls, “were not told of another spaceship or that it had intelligent life aboard. That leaves you as the reason we are out here in this situation. You have a mission, and we were chosen to act as your disposable life support team. We don’t like being disposable. So talk.”

“I have my orders, and they don’t include telling you three, anything,” Iosif said with a weak chopping motion of his right hand.

“I don’t think you understand the situation. We truly are your life support. We’ve worked for months to keep you alive. The only reason we
need
you alive is for the information you have. If you won’t share it with us, there is no longer a reason for you to continue consuming our dwindling supplies. This craft is broken, and it would explode if we tried to use the engines. Without outside assistance, we will all be dead in a very short time. Do you understand what I am telling you?” Anika’s jaw muscles clenched.