Read Online The Fleet 01 by David Drake (ed), Bill Fawcett (ed) - Free Book Online
Authors: David Drake (ed), Bill Fawcett (ed)
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area. When humans first landed on the Moon, were there not still Stone Age tribes in New Guinea?
Looking around at the near-desert, she nodded with satisfaction at her own insight.
But—the thought-train rolled on—if a spacecraft had been spotted landing in such a backward area, it would still not have been very long, even in those days, before the Great Powers showed up. So I suppose I’m accidentally an ambassador, aren’t I?
There was, she concluded, nothing more she could do before she had slept. There was no way she could provide shelter for the injured stranger. She dared not carry it into the capsule, where it would be exposed to alien micro-organisms; besides, her food converter was too basic to be adapted, like more advanced models, to cope with the needs of nonhumans ...
In passing, she wondered whether the chemical mix her suit had injected contained a euphoric. It did, but it also included a substance designed to prevent knowledge of the fact from affecting the recipient’s judgment. Accordingly, after a quick check of the vicinity to make sure the alien was still there—and wondering whether it would be in the morning—Yuriko switched her suit to bunk mode and shortly was fast asleep.
Tschweeit had never been so humiliated! To have been effortlessly tossed hind-over-fore by a non-Khalian, that thereupon compounded the insult by not according him an honourable end of the kind demanded by his helplessness in defeat, but instead brought drink and what presumably it took to be food—as though dealing with a miserable plant-eater, as though he were some kind of cattlish or shweep being fattened for a future meal! It was unbearable! And, worst of all, he had been too feeble to refuse!
The air around him reeking with the stink of shame, he strove to crawl away in search of a private place to die. He could not move. Too many of his muscles had been torn by that incredible blow, and he suspected some internal organ had been ruptured as badly as his drink container. If he had had a weapon he could direct against himself …
But there was nothing within reach: nothing sharp, nothing sufficiently poisonous. Would that a tscherpent might chance by and crush him to a pulp and gobble up his body!
No such luck. As the night wore away, his misery gave place to fury. Why should there be, anywhere in the universe, aliens that did not understand concepts of decency and honour? Manifestly there were, and because of that they deserved nothing better than enslavement, conversion into bio-circuitry, or processing for food!
A light drizzle started to fall. That made his anger fiercer, even as his mind drifted into blankness spawned of exhaustion. By dawn, when the rain had passed, the shame-reek had been washed away, and only the traces of his rage remained.
“He must have put up a tremendous fight!” was the verdict of the Khalian officer who approached the alien craft just after sunrise.”He’s obviously badly hurt, but—well, just check that odour! I’d never have believed that a youngling like him could be so angry!”
“And,” added one of his companions in an admiring tone, “instead of making off in search of help he stayed to guard the alien and stop it from escaping.”
“That’s right. We don’t even have to trap it. It’s trapped itself. Of course, there may be active weaponry inside the ship, but its design matches the style of that bigger one we took without the slightest trouble because it was totally unarmed, and certainly no major weapons were used against this—what’s his name? No, cancel that. If he already had an adult name, he wouldn’t be here, would he? What’s his designation?”
From the flyer overhead, whence the operation was being co-ordinated, a message shrilled back: “Correct. He is not yet named save by sex, clan and caste.”
“Which clan?”
The Over-commander uttered: “Tschweeit!” with the requisite additional inflections.
“Really!” The officer wished
Looking around at the near-desert, she nodded with satisfaction at her own insight.
But—the thought-train rolled on—if a spacecraft had been spotted landing in such a backward area, it would still not have been very long, even in those days, before the Great Powers showed up. So I suppose I’m accidentally an ambassador, aren’t I?
There was, she concluded, nothing more she could do before she had slept. There was no way she could provide shelter for the injured stranger. She dared not carry it into the capsule, where it would be exposed to alien micro-organisms; besides, her food converter was too basic to be adapted, like more advanced models, to cope with the needs of nonhumans ...
In passing, she wondered whether the chemical mix her suit had injected contained a euphoric. It did, but it also included a substance designed to prevent knowledge of the fact from affecting the recipient’s judgment. Accordingly, after a quick check of the vicinity to make sure the alien was still there—and wondering whether it would be in the morning—Yuriko switched her suit to bunk mode and shortly was fast asleep.
Tschweeit had never been so humiliated! To have been effortlessly tossed hind-over-fore by a non-Khalian, that thereupon compounded the insult by not according him an honourable end of the kind demanded by his helplessness in defeat, but instead brought drink and what presumably it took to be food—as though dealing with a miserable plant-eater, as though he were some kind of cattlish or shweep being fattened for a future meal! It was unbearable! And, worst of all, he had been too feeble to refuse!
The air around him reeking with the stink of shame, he strove to crawl away in search of a private place to die. He could not move. Too many of his muscles had been torn by that incredible blow, and he suspected some internal organ had been ruptured as badly as his drink container. If he had had a weapon he could direct against himself …
But there was nothing within reach: nothing sharp, nothing sufficiently poisonous. Would that a tscherpent might chance by and crush him to a pulp and gobble up his body!
No such luck. As the night wore away, his misery gave place to fury. Why should there be, anywhere in the universe, aliens that did not understand concepts of decency and honour? Manifestly there were, and because of that they deserved nothing better than enslavement, conversion into bio-circuitry, or processing for food!
A light drizzle started to fall. That made his anger fiercer, even as his mind drifted into blankness spawned of exhaustion. By dawn, when the rain had passed, the shame-reek had been washed away, and only the traces of his rage remained.
“He must have put up a tremendous fight!” was the verdict of the Khalian officer who approached the alien craft just after sunrise.”He’s obviously badly hurt, but—well, just check that odour! I’d never have believed that a youngling like him could be so angry!”
“And,” added one of his companions in an admiring tone, “instead of making off in search of help he stayed to guard the alien and stop it from escaping.”
“That’s right. We don’t even have to trap it. It’s trapped itself. Of course, there may be active weaponry inside the ship, but its design matches the style of that bigger one we took without the slightest trouble because it was totally unarmed, and certainly no major weapons were used against this—what’s his name? No, cancel that. If he already had an adult name, he wouldn’t be here, would he? What’s his designation?”
From the flyer overhead, whence the operation was being co-ordinated, a message shrilled back: “Correct. He is not yet named save by sex, clan and caste.”
“Which clan?”
The Over-commander uttered: “Tschweeit!” with the requisite additional inflections.
“Really!” The officer wished
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