Drifter's War (25 page)

Cap turned and walked toward the middle of the plaza. The Il Ronnians spotted him almost immediately. One helicopter hovered, its weapons sweeping the area, while the other came in for a landing. The human was a prize and the aliens had orders to take him alive.

Without knowing that he had done it, without intending to do so, Cap made it possible for most of the villagers to escape. The Il Ronnians were so intent on his capture that they paid scant attention to the fleeing constructs.

A pair of Sand Sept troopers grabbed Cap by both arms and practically carried him to their chopper. They were big, ugly-looking beings swathed in flat-black body armor and heavy with weapons.

The Il Ronnians paused next to the helicopter just long enough to search him. It took them only seconds to find the handgun and the knife. Sorenson had forgotten all about them.

Then, eager to take their prisoner and leave, the troopers boosted him into the chopper. The geeks were getting better all the time, and every second spent in an unsecured LZ was a second too long.

Cap found himself strapped into a jump seat as the helicopter took off, able to move his head, but little else. The doors were off. Cap saw the village disappear downward, sideslip out of sight, and then vanish altogether.

Fields appeared. Constructs could be seen, streaming away from the village, unsure of where to go. The door gunners watched but didn't fire. Their orders were clear: no more unprovoked violence. Especially in backwater areas like this one. All it did was stiffen geek resistance.

Air slapped Sorenson's face like a hundred soft hands. The alcohol-induced buzz started to fade. Cap began to worry.

Would Melissa be all right? Where would they take him? Would they use torture? The thought made his hands start to tremble.

The flight lasted for more than two hours. In spite of the fact that each trooper wore a translator around his neck none of them said a word. They just stared at him, eyes gleaming from darkened sockets, tails twitching now and again. Did they hate him? Wonder about him? Or just not care? It made the human sweat and he was glad when the chopper touched down.

This LZ was located at the center of a triangle-shaped fire base. It was heavily fortified, or had been anyway. Sorenson saw destruction everywhere. There were burned-out air cars, a com mast that pointed accusingly outward, and a lot of half-burned buildings.

Sand Sept troopers were everywhere, repairing damage, strengthening defenses, and guarding sullen constructs. The heavies were hard at work building a berm.

Cap felt a transitory sense of elation. That would teach the bastards! Screw with humans would they? Not without paying the piper they wouldn't!

But the sense of elation was short-lived. It seemed to melt away as Cap was removed from the helicopter, frog marched across the landing pad, and helped into a reentry-scarred shuttle. They were taking him off-planet! Why?

Sorenson struggled but it did little good. They hustled him through the lock and into a cramped passenger compartment. The acceleration couch felt a little too large and was unusually hard.

A weapons tech appeared. He was huge and wore a nasty-looking side arm. It would be useless to resist so Cap didn't. Moments later he was strapped down and completely immobilized.

The shuttle shivered and lifted off the ground as the pilot applied power to the repellors. Sorenson felt gravity push against his chest, disappear for a moment as the main drive cut in, then double as the ship climbed upward.

Cap allowed himself to relax a little. Space was his element. Something he understood and felt comfortable in. Comfortable except for the heat.

What had started out as a rather pleasurable warmth had become distinctly uncomfortable. Sorenson started to sweat. The Il Ronnians had originated on a desert world, everyone knew that, which made the heat understandable if not pleasant.

But how hot would it get? Hot enough to pass out from heat prostration? Yes, that's how it felt anyway. Sorenson tried to speak, tried to ask for water, but produced little more than a croak instead.

Time passed. Darkness did its best to pull him down. And finally, tired of fighting, Cap gave in. It felt good to enter the same soft nothingness where alcohol had taken him so many times before.

Then Sorenson felt himself pulled upward toward the light. There was heat all around him, but coolness bathed his forehead, and rough sandpaperlike hands touched his skin.

Someone lifted his head. A container was pressed to his lips. Cool liquid trickled down his throat. It went the wrong way and he coughed. The voice was gruff and somewhat distorted by the translator.

"Fools! You almost killed him!"

A sticky gluelike substance tried to weld Cap's eyelids shut. He forced them open and blinked in the harsh light. The passenger compartment was gone, replaced by something much more spacious. It had a harsh medicinal smell. A sick bay, and a large one, too large for a shuttle.

The moment the coughing spell was over they lowered him to the table.

An Il Ronnian bent over him. He wore a vest. It had a multiplicity of pockets. Each pocket was transparent and contained an electronic instrument. They blinked red, yellow, blue, and green. The tip of an arrow-shaped tail appeared to shadow Cap from the overhead lights.

"Turn the lights down! It is too bright for human eyes."

The human sensed movement off to the left and saw the light level drop.

The doctor, at least that's what Sorenson assumed that the Il Ronnian was, removed an instrument from his vest and pressed it against the inside of his wrist. The human jumped as something sharp bit into his arm.

The alien made a motion with his tail. "My apologies. I need a blood sample. The device was designed to penetrate Il Ronnian skin, which is somewhat thicker than yours."

Cap's voice was little more than a croak. "Our physiologies are different. What good is a blood sample?"

"More than you might think," the doctor answered matter-of-factly as he removed the first machine and placed a second over the wound.

"We know quite a bit about humans and the way they are put together. 'Know your enemy.' A human saying, is it not? I took a course in xeno-anatomy. We dissected a variety of human corpses. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating."

The Il Ronnian removed the second machine from Sorenson's wrist, checked to make sure that the small puncture wound was properly sealed, and left the human to his own devices.

Cap felt frightened. The fact that Il Ronnian medical students had access to a plentiful supply of human bodies was more than a little disturbing.

Sorenson imagined himself dead, laid out on a cold metal table, while aliens probed his insides. It sent a shiver down his spine. Cap tried to sit but a burly attendant pushed him down. His lips felt dry. It occurred to him that a drink would taste very, very good.

Ceeq had positioned himself so that planet NBHJ-43301-G hung over his left shoulder. Reflected light made a halo around the back of his head. Teex had scored a coup by capturing the human. Bad, but far from fatal. Another point in an extended game. He forced a smile.

Teex stood off to one side with his hands clasped behind his back. He rocked back and forth on his hooves and tried not to smile. It was hard to do.

Half Sept Commander Heek sat at the table, sipping malp, and watching through half-hooded eyes. It was an inscrutable expression, copied from his mentor, Sept Commander Reet, and quite effective for situations like this one. It conveyed the impression that Heek knew what would happen next, and was simply waiting for his subordinates to confirm it. The truth was that Ceeq had treated them to an enormous meal and he was extremely sleepy.

The doctor, who was actually the ship's senior intelligence officer, stood at quivering attention. His tail was locked into the attentive-subordinate position and his eyes stared straight ahead.

"So, Deez," Ceeq said lazily, "be so good as to give us your impressions."

The intelligence officer swallowed to moisten his throat with holy fluid, and delivered his report in the short terse sentences favored by command schools everywhere.

"The human is of late middle age, in moderate to poor health, and addicted to alcohol. When I examined him the early signs of withdrawal were already evident.

"An examination of his hands reveals none of the epidermal thickening associated with heavy tool use. Based on that, his failure to offer meaningful resistance, and his reactions to the shuttle ride, we may conclude that he serves as a shipboard technician of some sort."

A technician would be less valuable than an officer. Ceeq glanced at Heek, assured himself that the senior officer was still awake, and drove the point home. "The human is not an officer?"

It was a stupid question. The human could be Admiral of the Fleet for all Deez knew. Intelligence is part science and part art for rock's sake. Still, senior officers being what they are, a show of doubt could start a verbal feeding frenzy. He took a chance.

"No, sir. Based on his lack of preparedness, failure to fight, and chemical addiction, it seems safe to assume that the human functions in some sort of subordinate capacity."

The officers signaled agreement with their tails. They knew very little about chemical addiction due to the fact that it was virtually unknown among the members of their race. Still, it seemed safe to assume that not even humans were stupid enough to put an addict in command of a spaceship.

Teex cleared his throat. Ceeq had scored a point with the technician thing but he could afford to ignore it.

"So, what would you recommend?"

Deez knew what the Sand Sept officer meant and had his answer ready. "Due to the fact that the subject is addicted to alcohol, and is more likely to be forthcoming while under the influence of that substance, I suggest that we give him what he wants."

"Excellent," Teex responded, adding emphasis with his tail. "And I would like to observe."

"And I," Ceeq added smoothly. "Would you care to join us, Half Sept Commander Heek?"

All eyes went to Heek but he was asleep.

19

Lando taped the last of the satellite photos onto the storeroom wall. He looked around. It had taken hours to sort through the stuff but it was worth it. Or would be as soon as they figured out what it meant.

Della brushed his side. The fresh, clean smell of her filled his nostrils. Lando put an arm around her shoulders. "Well, there it is."

The bounty hunter scanned the walls. "Yeah, there it is. Now what?"

Lando looked at her in surprise. "'Now what?' You were a marine. Take a look at this stuff and tell us what it means."

Della shook her head. "I was a grunt… and an enlisted grunt at that. Officers took care of the salad forks, party etiquette, and recon photos."

Lando frowned. "Okay, let's think our way through this. The resistance movement has been catch-as-catch-can up until now. Recruit fighters, manufacture weapons, pull some raids."

"Classic guerrilla warfare."

"Right. But where are we headed?" Lando walked over to touch a photo. "Look at this. Taken from space, right? And that's the problem. In a few more days or weeks our forces will be strong enough to kick their butts right off the surface of this planet. Then what? The Il Ronnians sit in orbit, call for reinforcements, and cream us whenever they want."

Della raised an eyebrow. "So?"

The smuggler shrugged. "So, I don't know."

"Well, I do," Wexel-l5 said. "It's time to eat!"

The humans turned to find that the construct had entered the room with a heavily laden tray of food. Lando helped him place it on the table.

Then Dru-21 arrived with a tray full of drinks.

"We'll make a heavy of you yet," Wexel-15 joked as the other construct put the tray down. "Assuming you gain some weight, that is."

Dru-21 made a show of examining Wexel-15's rather extensive waistline. "Not that much, I hope!"

Wexel-15 laughed heartily and slapped Dru-21 on the back. The light staggered slightly, smiled, and sat down. The stool that he chose was right next to Wexel-15's.

Lando was impressed. The constructs had come a long way in a short time. If they could do it, the rest could too. Not overnight, not without problems, but so what? It could be done. That was the important thing.

After the food was shared out Lando found that he was hungry. The constructs were vegetarians, so there was no meat, but the smuggler didn't miss it. His sandwich consisted of a half loaf of fresh bread, hollowed out, and stuffed with an extremely tasty mixture of stir-fried vegetables. The vegetables had been cooked in a sauce that soaked the inside of the bread and tasted wonderful.

There was comparative silence at first, broken only by the sounds of eating, and the occasional request to pass the whatever. Lando found himself ripping off huge bites of sandwich, chasing them with gulps of fruit juice, and scanning the walls. It came to him again. The feeling that he'd missed something, something big, something important.

Then, suddenly, he had it! Of course! It made perfect sense! And it had been there all the time, sitting right in front of his nose, staring him in the face.

"Pik, what's wrong?"

All of a sudden Lando became aware that he had crossed the room and stood inches away from the satellite photos. He put his finger on a city and moved it from place to place. "Look at this, and this, and this!"

The constructs looked at Della and she shrugged. "They're cities. So what's the big deal?"

"Yes, they're cities," Lando replied impatiently, "but what else? Look carefully. Look at the way individual buildings were placed, at how the streets were laid out, at the roads that connect cities together. What does it look like?"

Della stood and crossed the room. She frowned. It
did
look like something, but what? Then it came and she felt as dumbfounded as Lando looked. A circuit board! Or, to be more accurate, a gigantic spread-out-all-over-the-place series of linked circuit boards!

"What?" Dru-21 asked anxiously. "What is it?"

"God," Lando answered simply. "We found God."