Nimisha's Ship (17 page)

They were both finishing the last bites of their burgers as they joined her in the gig. Casper licked his fingers clean.

Jon sat in the pilot’s seat that Nimisha had tactfully left for him.

“Letting me do all the work today, huh?” he said, snapping on the harness and switching on the engines.

“You got her in, you get her out,” Nimisha said blandly.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“I’m a ma’am—I’m civilian.”

“Yes, sir,” was Jon’s bantering reply.

Any lightheartedness vanished at the sight of the wrecked ship’s obviously alien design. Circling the wreck showed the deep scores in its hull. One whole side of the aftersection had been pulled open. What looked like a small gig had been jammed against the largest hole. That may have been more luck than planning, but the obstacle would have kept smaller objects, like bodies, from being sucked into space.

“Hope they got their crew out,” Casper said, shaking his head at the damage.

“I’d guess that that was cargo space and they lost whatever they were carrying,” Jon said. “If that is the stern of this vehicle.”

“I’d hazard the guess that they didn’t back into their current position,” Nimisha said with a droll grin at Jon.

“You’re right about that. How could such a crazy shape be spaceworthy?” he remarked, shaking his head.

“Maybe it was never meant to land. Only they had to, with that great rent in their stern,” she said.

Jon kept the gig hovering above the wreck so they could estimate the size of the alien vehicle. It was bigger than the
Poolbeg
and nearly as large as the ancient Diaspora wreck. The prow of the ship had been knocked sideways by the force of its landing, so the pointed shape resembled a bird looking over its shoulder.

“It’s been here a while,” Casper said, pointing to the vegetation growing from dirt on the top of it. “Hold it, Jon, there’s some sort of design or glyphs on the side.”

“I’ve been taping, Cas,” the captain said. “Might be oxygen breathers, or why would they pick the M-type?”

“No choice,” Nimisha suggested, having looked for some evidence of escape from the vessel. “And no tracks leading from it.”

“It’s been down a long time,” Jon said. “Shall we have a look inside?”

“Why not?”

Nimisha was glad that was decided so effortlessly. There was no way she was going to relinquish the chance to see the inside of an alien spaceship.

They got in through one of the gaps in the hull toward the stern of the ship, which was again birdlike, resembling a fantail, bulging slightly on the end to accommodate a solid parabola of odd tubes.

“Funny sort of propulsion units,” Jon said.

“No radiation readings, or Helm would have mentioned it,” Nimisha said, switching on her wrist light and swinging the beam around the aperture.

Athletically, Jon Svangel hiked himself into the opening, then reached down to give Nimisha a helping hand. Casper was beside them in another moment.

“I’d say the aliens are smaller than we are,” Jon remarked, crouching as he made his way forward. They all had to bend to clear the passageway.

“Much smaller,” Casper said, banging his head on a mass of piping. A piece detached itself and dropped with a thud to the deck. A whiff of something acrid floated in the air for a moment before dissipating in the light breeze blowing through the wreck.

They were glad to enter an area where they could stand upright: the central round ball of the ship, which was obviously a command area.

“I feel like a giant,” Nimisha remarked, looking at the small, almost child-size seats and consoles. The worktops were filled with boards of rocker switches, dial knobs, and toggles, surrounding what had to be display screens, and there were large screens on one wall: shattered or crazed, but their original function was still obvious. She twiddled and switched and pulled and nothing happened. “I didn’t expect any reactions,” she murmured.

Jon and Casper were prowling about, looking at broken equipment on the perimeter of the chamber, peering into cabinets that had cracked doors or facades. They could not access the sharp prow where the bridge must have been situated; the passage to it was crushed against the stones of the hillside.

Nimisha noticed the pole and the hole in the deck and called their attention to it. As the size of the opening would not accommodate any of their adult bodies, they could only shine light down it.

“Access to crew quarters, I’d say,” was Casper’s comment. “If we could rig enough lights so he wouldn’t be scared, Timmy would fit,” Jon said.

Casper was shaking his head.

“Not when I’ve mobiles we can send,” Nimisha said. “Helm can control them. There’s no need to ask a six-year-old to go down a hole in the floor.”

Jon regarded her for a moment, then nodded. “Agreed. I have to reframe my thinking to include available resources I haven’t had access to for years.” Then he added, “Do your mobiles have additional lighting?”

Nimisha shook her head. “Self-contained units.”

“What other surprises has the Fiver?” he asked in a wry tone.

“I like to keep something back from you Fleet types,” she said.

“Why didn’t you send them first, to scout the place?”

“Because I like to do my own reconnoitering. Get a feeling for the craft and who or what might have been on it.”

“Whoever, they’re a long time—”

“There is a party of unknown bipeds approaching from the hills, ma’am,” Helm announced suddenly. “They appear to be armed with a variety of primitive weapons.”

Nimisha unclipped her beltcom. “Can you patch through this hull?”

He could and she held up the unit so they all could see the furtive approach of the small bipeds.

“Further orders, ma’am?”

“We don’t know that they are aggressive,” Nimisha said.

“Aggression can come in many sizes,” Jonagren remarked succinctly, and he crouched to return through the low passage to their point of entry.

“The foremost question in my mind,” she said, following him, with Casper behind her, “is are they descendants of the original owners?”

“Great minds,” Jon said.

“I do have a translator on board the Fiver,” Nimisha added. “Helm, can you pick up any sounds?”

“They are not making sounds,” was Helm’s reply.

“They are then attempting to creep up on us undetected,” Nimisha said, amused. “What do we do?”

“Go out and act friendly, of course,” Jon said.

“So they tell me,” Nimisha said, regarding the weapons that were being brought toward them in the possession of small people who might dislike visitors on board their ship. If this was their ship. But who else’s would it be? Unless, for some unknown reason, sentient—possibly even sapient—bipeds were limited to this continent of the nine land masses on Erehwon.

“I wonder how long they have survived here,” Casper said as they reached the fracture through which they had entered.

“They are on the hill above you and the ship hides you from their view,” Helm said.

“Thanks,” Nimisha murmured, turning to the captain. “What do we do?”

“Walk out where they can see us, hands open, palms up.”

“Let’s hope that’s
their
indication of peaceful intent, too,” Nimisha replied. “Helm, on guard!” She switched on her suit’s repeller, knowing that it had been designed to protect her against a variety of more sophisticated weapons than those being carried toward them. Jon and Casper did so, too.

“Forward and to your left,” Helm said. “You’re not yet visible, but they’ve sent two on ahead. You may meet them. You will. Now.”

And they did. Nimisha was never sure exactly what happened, the encounter was over so quickly. Projectiles of some sort came flying at them from the two midget bipeds that reacted faster than any of the humans did. But Helm was faster and his stun beam caught them. The weapons were deflected by the individual repeller shields and fell uselessly to the ground.

“The others are retreating,” Helm said.

Nimisha leaned down to pick up the impotent darts.

“Be careful!” Jon said, holding out his arm to prevent her. “The tip could be poisoned.”

Casper had sprinted to the two supine figures. “Hope Helm didn’t give them too much stun.”

“We’re lucky he could,” Jon said. “At least we know they have some sort of nervous system that can be affected by stunners.”

“I adjusted the beam to a strength sufficient to stop creatures of that size and weight,” Helm said, and Nimisha thought the AI did not appreciate this aspersion to his common sense. “I had projectiles on targets, as well.”

“Well, the translation device is on the Fiver. Let’s take them to it,” Nimisha said as she and Jon joined Casper by the limp bodies.

Jon knelt down and touched the fur-covered throat of the one nearest him.

“A pulse of some sort. Maybe Doc can figure out what they’re composed of besides fur.” He rubbed his fingers together. “Nice feel to it. Wonder how warm it is.”

The two bipeds wore not much more than their weapon belts. Their sex—if they were of different sexes—was not obvious.

Casper bent and picked one up. “Heavier than you’d think,” he remarked.

Jon took the second. Nimisha, craning to regard the head drooping over his arm, wondered at the blank oval face devoid of recognizable orifices.

Aliens! A spurt of triumph raced through her. Nimisha Boynton-Rondymense had met aliens! Sapient aliens, able to make and use tools, and who had once been space-farers. All kinds of questions tumbled about in her head: How long had they been marooned? Had they seen other humans to know that they should be wary of them? Had they regressed to a primitive existence? What stories would they tell about their landing here? Did they know where their home system was?

Then she realized that Jon and Casper were carrying on a conversation dealing with such queries and grinned.

“Helm, let’s get back to the Fiver as quickly as possible.”

“Advisable, ma’am, as there are now a multitude of these creatures advancing in a menacing fashion toward the gig.”

“Lifting,” Nimisha said, having seen the van of a small army appearing on the hilltop. She slipped into the pilot’s seat as the two men were gently depositing the aliens on the deck.

They were up and out of range just as the army charged down the nearside of the hill, making loud hooting noises.

“So they do have voices,” Nimisha said, turning the gig. “The Fiver’s not that far away and they can really move,” she added, making rapid forward progress.

“Let us then remove ourselves from danger while we treat these two,” Jon said. “We could meet the Fiver back at the ocean. I doubt they can follow us that far.”

“Do you doubt my ability to park the gig in Fiver?” Nimisha asked, amused.

“Never,” Jon replied, and Casper gave a snort of laughter. “But why waste time landing?”

“Point.” And so Nimisha suggested a rendezvous to Helm. She had a chance to see how gracefully Fiver lifted from the surface and sighed happily . . . even if no one in her quadrant might ever see it again. Idly she wondered if Caleb Rustin might not have gone on to finish the Mark 5 that had been skeletal when she left on the shakedown cruise. Would Cuiva realize that Caleb should be given the disks she had entrusted to her for safekeeping?

She landed the gig on the beach close to the Fiver. The aliens had not roused from their stun during the short run. Jon and Casper reassured her that they were still breathing and seemed to have a pulse in their short necks. As no facial orifices were visible, they weren’t able to judge what optical or aural arrangements existed in the oval “head.” Each hand had three digits, one opposing.

“If they can launch darts, they’ve tool capacities,” Casper said, subtly pleased. “Sapient. How marvelous!”

“The feet are more flippers than feet, with vestigial toes . . . of a sort,” Jon said, having gently felt down the four limbs of the one he was examining. “They don’t smell bad, either.”

“No, they don’t, but with all that fur, how do they perspire?”

Jon picked up one limb, inspecting the sole. “Callused and bare of fur. Well, fur would’ve rubbed off on rough surfaces if there had been any, wouldn’t it?”

“Let’s see what Doc’s diagnostics can tell us about them,” Nimisha said.

“That’s sensible,” Jon said, kneeling to pick up the alien he had been examining. He stepped out of the gig and the alien bounced out of his arms, sprawling on all fours before it started across the beach in a dash. “Hold yours down, Cas,” Jon cried.

Nimisha, who had been following Jon, started off after the fugitive. She had always been fast on her feet, and with legs twice the length of the alien’s, she was able to catch up with it. Tackling seemed the logical way to halt its progress. It squealed at the sudden impact in the sand and tried to wriggle away.

“I won’t hurt you,” she cried, trying in this awkward position to radiate goodwill and positive feelings. It took Jon’s assistance to subdue the creature. It might be small, but it was strong and writhed so violently that the two humans were afraid of hurting it. A dark band of what seemed to be one long eye centered in the upper third of its face sparkled with angry determination to free itself.

Casper had wisely put a wrap about the feet of the other alien. He was halfway to the Fiver with his still limp captive in his arms. As Nimisha and Jon carried theirs, it hooted in a desperate tone to the other and writhed in their arms, an action that required them to hold it more tightly than they wanted to.

“Really, we are not going to hurt you,” Nimisha repeated in as reassuring tone as she could manage. “I hope its flesh doesn’t bruise, or Doc will have my guts for garters.”

“Your what for what?” Jon asked, startled.

“I’ve a friend . . . oh, do stay still, dear . . . who collects archaic words and phrases. That’s one of them. He’s also got some marvelous . . . ‘Ods blood!” she exclaimed, as their burden writhed violently. “Like that—expressions from bygone days.”

“’Od’s blood?” Jon repeated.

“He didn’t know what it means. Ah, here we are and not above time . . . another phrase Pheltim collected.”

The two now had their captive inside the Fiver and Nimisha palmed the hatch shut.