Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12) (16 page)

A Marine medic was charging up the landing, a bag in his hand. Not far behind him was a Sailor from the lander running with an even larger bag over her shoulder.

Kris had no idea how many tens of billions of these people she had killed and done it with full intent and no regrets. Now she found herself in a fight to keep one little one alive.

It was just this kind of fight yesterday that I lost. I will not lose this one today.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jack asked, trying to get himself between the woman with the club and Kris.

“I wanted someone open to change,” she said. “Have you seen anyone more open to change than this old man? He damn near killed a god to get our attention.”

“But what can one guy do?”

“Jack, I don’t honestly know, but at least he’s trying. That’s a whole lot better than a whole lot of nothing.”

Jack didn’t have a comeback to that. Instead, he turned to eye the woman. For a long, silent while, they eyed each other as the child on the furs radiated fever heat and moaned.

When
the two medics arrived and had finished laying out their kit, Kris risked putting her hand on the woman’s club and lifting it away from the child. The four of them, together, backed away from the kid to make room at his side for the medics.

The corpsman did what they could to get vitals from the child and stabilize him. For now, that consisted of getting a saline drip into a very dehydrated little boy.

The needle was almost a showstopper.

Kris took her own glove off and offered the back of her hand for the needle. The young couple still seemed worried, but the old man nodded and the needle went into the child and not Kris.

The old woman stomped around saying things that Nelly said seemed to translate into one long, “It is willed. It will be.”

When she screamed it one too many times at the old man, he pounded his fist on his chest and screamed back, ~I do not will it, woman. I do not will it.~

The green girl with the long spear came forward and encouraged the bald woman to move over to the other side of the overhang.

With many a backward glance, she went. Were some of those glances of anguish?

The Sailor went to the mother and made motions to put the blood pressure cuff around her arm. The woman allowed it, then watched inquisitively as the medic did a pressure check.

“That’s interesting, one twenty over seventy-two. Pulse, seventy-five.” The medic held a thermometer to the woman’s head. “Temp 96.9.”

“I’m getting all this,” came over the net in Doc Meade’s voice.

Now it was the father’s turn. He was a bit higher on the pressure, faster in the pulse, and lower in the temperature. The grandfather stepped forward. His vitals were closer to the man’s.

Now both the green girl and the bald woman wanted to have the magic done to them. By the time the Sailor was finished with them, a line was forming. They quickly developed a database.

The kid was sick. Blood pressure was low. Temperature was high, and the pulse was low and thready.

Then the real excitement started. Kris easily caught the sonic boom of the lander coming in. Its jets were loud enough to be heard as it made its approach. The locals seemed a bit concerned, but none flinched. Two or three made signs with their fingers, no doubt to ward off evil.

The real fun came a few minutes after the shuttle landed. A chopper with the
Wasp
’s markings was clearly visible as it went in to hover over the stream.

Also clearly visible was the doc being lowered on the hoist. There were four more hoist lowerings, but Doc Meade was already being led up the incline to the overhang by Gunny before the last one was done.

“This place is a septic mess,” she said as she put on gloves. “Is there any chance we can move the patient?”

“I don’t think so,” Kris said, eyeing all the sharpened stones around them.

The doc had not taken time to don any battle armor. No doubt she did not wear spider-silk underwear.

“I figured as much, but I had to ask. Let’s see that leg. Ouch,” she said as the Marine corpsman lifted the fur.

“Okay, enough of that. Where’s my first package?”

Two Marines hustled up the incline with an oversize duffel bag between them. Kris and Jack unzipped it.

It came close to having a full surgical suite inside. Even one of Abby’s magical steamer trunks never had this thorough a medical treatment center.

“Get this under the kid,” the doc said, pulling out and unfolding a backboard. Kris and Jack slipped it under the child as Jacques told the parents to remove the rest of the furs.

As they did, Kris discovered that the backboard was more like a table. As Gunny spread the table’s legs out, Kris and Jack took the opportunity to move the child forward, out of the cave and into the light.

Doc Meade got her first good look at the kid.

“That’s not good.”

“Can you help him?” Kris asked.

“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think I could. Where’s my next duffel?”

It arrived as she asked for it.

“Rig that UV field. There’s enough nasties to keep a pharmacy firm busy for a century, but this ought to kill them,” she said, as the two medics rigged what looked like nothing worse than lights at either end of the table.

“Now, everyone, stand back,” she ordered with a sweep of her gloved hand that included everyone. “You, medic, get me a gown from the first box.”

In a moment, the doc looked ready to try her hand at her profession. She rolled the child over on his stomach and set about abrading the wound. “No use trying to kill all the bad stuff if you’ve got more of it waiting in line to dive into your blood stream, now is it, young man?”

Beside Kris, the old man eyed the process. Jacques now stood beside him, trying to put into words what was happening. The bald woman stood on tiptoes behind the old man, watching over his shoulder intently.

“Sky God magic?” Nelly translated for Kris.

~Sky people’s craft. Like a hunter finds food. A maker makes a bow,~ Jacques supplied.

~Craft?~ both the old man and woman said.

~Craft,~ Kris repeated.

They all watched as dried blood and pus were washed from the wound. Kris and Jack both had hands out when the doc cut into flesh to get at more of the infection. They’d been warned when the medic, now gowned, stepped in and applied a general anesthetic to the boy. It looked like he just fell asleep to those watching with untrained eyes.

Kris knew better. And caught the parents and grandparents when they would have ruined all that work.

~Craft. You want the boy to hunt with you again?~

Both parents and grandparents nodded.

The cutting done, the blood and pus suctioned up . . . and yes, the blood was red, Kris noted . . . the doctor cleaned out the infection and started sewing up the wound.

The two local women made sewing motions with their hands and stared hard at first the doctor’s, then their own hands.

Kris nodded.

“Now comes the good part,” Dr. Meade said. “I was studying some blood samples taken yesterday. That was a tragedy, but maybe not a waste as well. Their blood is kind of like ours, only totally different. Don’t laugh. They have something like our T-cells, just different, but there was one thing that I tested on them that had a surprising effect. Something we got from an out-of-the-way place called Pandemonium.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow over a smile suddenly gone pixie. “I understand you were there once, Admiral.”

“For my many sins, yes,” Kris agreed.

“Well, they grow something there that seems to swing both ways. The infection fighters in our bloodstream like it and, if I’m right, so will this little fellow’s. All we can do is try it and see if I’m guessing right.”

The doctor located a long needle, filled it and then started feeling around the heart. Kris and Jack got ready to stop a charge, but the natives seemed mesmerized by the doctor’s skills. They watched as she inserted it, then emptied the hypodermic needle.

Finished, the doctor turned to Kris. “Is there any chance we can remove the patient to the
Wasp
?”

Kris turned to Jacques. “Okay, mouthpiece for Sky Gods, work a miracle.”

“Do you mind taking all these folks up for a show-and-tell?” Jacques asked.

Kris turned to Jack.

“Only if they leave the sharp stuff behind,” he insisted.

“That’s not going to happen with the bald woman,” Jacques said. “I think that’s her totem.”

“And the guy likes his club,” Jack said with a sigh. “Okay. Invite as many as want to come with us. However, Captain Drago is going to demand a bath from all of them.”

“I think we can get them to splash around in the nearest pond,” Jacques said.

“Ah, Doc,” Kris asked. “Do you have some mild sedatives that we could inconspicuously slip them?”

“I have some patches we should be able to get them all to wear for the ride up into the sky,” she allowed.

And so it came to pass that Kris got to talk to a whole lot more of the BEMs than she’d ever expected and got a whole lot more than she’d ever bargained for.

“You
did
what
?” was Captain Drago’s immediate reaction when Kris told him the
Wasp
now had some new passengers.

“They followed me home,” Kris said, doing her very best to look innocent.

Innocent was not something Longknifes did well. It didn’t fit the legend.

“The last time something ‘followed’ you home, I ended up with three hundred thousand tons of bug-eyed-monster warship for the
Wasp
’s hood ornament.”

“These are much lighter, only twenty rather underfed natives from the West Continent.”

“Are they filthy?”

“The Marines have rigged showers in the drop bay and everyone down there is going through full decontamination,” Kris said, pulling at her still-wet hair. She’d gone through decontamination in her armor, but since she hadn’t worn a helmet, her face had lost a couple of layers of skin, and her hair was extraclean, too.

“What do you expect to get from this little visit? I assume it’s a visit. Or do you intend to take these people all the way home with you?”

“I don’t know, Captain. I’m making this up as I go along,” Kris admitted.

“Well, let me know when you find out. By the way, should I be expecting guests in the wardroom?”

Kris had the good sense to flinch at that question. The ship’s china, silverware, and linens would, no doubt, suffer greatly from an effort to explain table manners to these hunter-gathers.

“I think we can set up some sort of chow line in the drop bay,” Kris said.

“That sounds like a very good idea. See if you can keep your new best friends out of my hair. I’m not nearly as patient as you’ve been misled to believe.”

“No doubt,” Kris said, and headed for her quarters to change out of her battle gear and into a clean set of khakis. She could have done it in the drop bay, but she wasn’t sure if the natives fully understood that she was female and didn’t want them to make a discovery they weren’t prepared for.

She returned to the drop bay to find that Gunny had arranged something very close to a campfire, at least it threw a cheerful glow and warmth over the immediate area around it. Most of the locals were gathered around it, seated on wool blankets that several of them were still examining.

Jacques was trying to explain how and where you might locate wool, then pull it into thread and weave it into blankets. Kris hoped he wasn’t starting something that would get these folks’ great-to-the-n
th
-degree-grandkids lased by the angry Sky Gods.

Then again, by the time those putative grandchildren were born, Kris would either have won her war or lost it . . . and a whole lot of grandkids would not be born.

Kris tried not to scowl at that thought as she walked toward where Jack was standing with the parents and grandparents of the sick boy. A few feet away, the child was still laid out on a bed in a clean surgical bubble under the watchful eye of Dr. Meade and several assisting medical personnel.

“How’s the kid doing?” Kris asked.

Jack didn’t look away from the boy. “The temperature is down a bit, but not broken. Blood pressure is climbing, but still bad. Pulse is improving.”

“So we’re on the right track,” Kris said.

“But we’re not out of the woods,” Doc Meade said, looking up at Kris. “I don’t know how this infection will take to what we’re fighting it with. If the crazy system these folks have adapts and fights back, we could still lose. I’ve got half the chemists and docs in the squadron looking at this. If we can, we’ll beat it. But I won’t take any bets just yet.”

“There has to be some survival benefits to the extra DNA these folks have. It must make some proteins that help them survive,” Kris said.

“Look at that planet,” the doctor said. “Is it overpopulated?”

“No,” Kris admitted.

“Then you tell me what the extra proteins they make are good for. Meanwhile, I’ll need a couple of years to finish our analysis.”

Kris chewed the bottom of her lip. “Maybe it makes them good, obedient slaves.”

“You said it, not me,” the doctor said, and turned back to her patient.

The locals had stood quietly while all this conversation in a strange tongue went on around them. Now they turned to Kris and Jack with questions in their eyes.

~Will my son run to the hunt with me?~ the father asked.

~The hunt for what makes him pale and warm still runs,~ Nelly said for Kris.

The natives seemed too overwhelmed by all the new and strange to react to Kris’s having two voices, one from her mouth, and one from her collarbone. They just nodded dumbly and kept the vigil, waiting to see if the boy would, indeed, go down into the earth.

With Kris back, Jack was relieved to go through decontamination and change out of his battle gear. As he undid the top half if his armor, the old man and the bald woman came over. She knocked on the armor, then touched Jack’s shoulder.

~I told you,~ the man said. ~They are not like the demons of your songs from your grandmother’s time and her grandmother. These ones can take off their thick hide. They are soft inside.~

~The stories sing of the demons who were soft inside, once you stuck a spear in them,~ the woman said.

Jack offered his armor for her totem. She rapped it so that the stone blades hit it. Then she hit it harder. Several stone points shattered.

~There are many different people who walk the stars,~ Kris had Nelly say. ~We are not the ones sung of in your stories.~

~Do you walk the stars?~ the bald woman said, glancing around the drop bay. Kris realized that there were no windows in the longboats. No windows in the
Wasp
. These people had gone from their own open sky to a series of rooms. Caves, if you would.

K
RIS,
I
MIGHT BE AB
LE TO DO SOMETHING A
BOUT THIS.
M
IMZY, CAN
YOU HELP ME?

Y
ES,
M
OM
.

Kris suddenly found her head very empty. W
HAT ARE YOU UP TO?
she asked, but got no answer.

A minute later, Penny galloped into the drop bay, spotted Kris, and raced for her.

“What have you got Mimzy up to?”

“Nothing, it’s Nelly’s doing.”

But neither computer answered, so Kris and Penny were left exchanging strange looks.

“Don’t worry,” Sal said from Jack’s collarbone. “It’s gonna be a surprise. I think you’ll like it. Oh, look over there!”

At the end of the drop bay, a hatch suddenly formed.

“That went better than I’d expected,” Nelly said. “Now, if you will kindly take our visitors through that hatch, I think we can end any question about us being Sky Gods, or whatever.”

Jack quickly finished buttoning his khakis and led the way for Kris, Penny, and the two older natives. He opened the hatch. There was a small room inside with another hatch.

“Everybody in,” Nelly said.

“Tell me, Alice, how was it down the rabbit hole?” Penny quipped, leading the way as she stepped across the hatch coaming.

They crowded into the room, the natives a bit less enthusiastic than the spacers. Jack dogged down the first hatch, and Penny opened the next. She took a glance out.

“Oh. My. God,” was likely a real prayer from Penny. “Kris, you’ve got to see this,” she said, and stepped through the hatch.

Kris could already see what lay ahead.

For years, Kris had been in space, but she’d always had a ship securely around her. She’s seen the space ahead of them, and aft, via radar sweeps and cameras projected on screens. She’d never seen space up close and personal.

Now she did.

“Clear Smart Metal, Nelly?” Kris asked.

“Yes, Kris.”

“You said you couldn’t make clear Smart Metal yesterday for the woman in the brig.”

“Yes, Kris. I did. I would have had to risk converting metal all the way through the ship, including the hull. I didn’t do this today. Those two hatches are hull-type Smart Metal. This clear metal is borrowed from inside. There is no risk to the ship.”

“And to us?” Jack asked, now joining the two women.

“There is some risk, but not much more than when you’re in the Forward Lounge, and I start moving walls, tables, and chairs around.”

Kris listened to Nelly with her ears, but her eyes were staring at a sight that made her mouth gape. Here was space at its barest. Tiny dots pierced the black. Kris would have sworn that she could make out the slight difference between pure white and yellow, red, and maybe even brown stars.

Closer in, the other ships of her squadron swung at anchor. The
Wasp
sprawled out to her right and left, and beyond the
Wasp
swung the
Royal
, anchored to her by a long pole. Now the
Wasp
swung down and Kris got her first overwhelming view of a life-draped planet.

If it were possible, her mouth would have fallen open even more.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I’ve got to see this.”

“Good heavens,” Jack said over and over again.

Behind them, the bearded man slipped his head out the hatch. His eyes narrowed. ~What do I see?~ he demanded gruffly.

~This is what is above the sky,~ Nelly said. ~This is where those who walk the stars live.~

The bald woman stuck her head out, looked, and scowled. Then she shoved the man over and looked off at the other side. The
Wasp
swung around more, and now the moon was coming up.

This planet, like Old Earth, had one large moon. The woman looked hard at it and gulped. ~The moon shows her face full.~

Now the man followed her gaze, then twisted around to catch a view of the planet beneath them. Puzzlement showed strong on his face.

“Captain Drago,” Kris said.

“More trouble?”

“No, but could you arrange to discharge one of the aft lasers into the ocean next time we’re back to the planet?”

“A demonstration of Sky God fire, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“Wait one. Actually, wait fifteen seconds.”

Kris pointed aft as the moon disappeared and the planet came in full view below. They were over the narrow ocean between West and East Continents. There was a jet of reaction mass aft, then one bright laser beam reached through it and down.

Below them, the ocean steamed and roiled. Clouds rose and churned.

~We can burn the water and the earth,~ Kris said. ~We do not.~

~You do not,~ the man repeated several times, total puzzlement on his face.

~Can you sing for us the old songs?~ Kris asked.

~Yes, I can,~ the bald woman said. ~Let me feast my eyes on what I have never seen.~

~I can wait,~ Kris said.

In hushed awe, all of them feasted their eyes on space, and moon, and a blue-green planet. After a long time had passed, Jack reopened the hatch and, one by one, they walked, eyes looking back at the sights they’d seen, into the cave of the
Wasp
’s drop bay.