London Wild (102 page)

‘I want my best two men present as witnesses to the proceeding
s; I’m pretty sure that that’s you and Major Williams. The war we’re fighting against the Herbaht is long overdue, but technically it is the Eschiff’s war now, and we are little more than mercenaries fighting it for them in return for tidbits of technology. If the Eschiff want to get personally involved in the war, I will not stop them. Let them die trying to fight an enemy that can’t be seen most of the time.’

‘You can rely on me, sir,’ Charles told him
, ‘so long as we’re not giving them control of the country.’

The Prime Minster laughed, ‘
Over my dead body.’

Back On Board

Somehow things didn’t seem to be as bad as they could be. February had been placed in this cell about two hours ago with Kitty to keep her company. That was good for a start
; the aliens could easily have separated the two, but for some reason they left them together where they could keep each other company and maybe comfort each other as to whatever was likely to befall them next.

At no more than ten feet by eight feet,
the cell was small and yet quite comfortable. It was almost certainly more comfortable than the cell that would have been waiting for them on Earth had they been sent to the Cattery instead of handed over to the Eschiff. The cell seemed to have more amenities than February felt she had a right to expect from a race that was actively trying to wipe her species out.

Another thing that had caught February’s attention was the constant use of wood. Was wood so plentiful on their planet that they could make anything they wanted from it? Perhaps it was something else that looked and felt like wood,
but either way there was a lot of it about, even in the small cell. For a start, there was a large wardrobe, not that either she or Kitty had anything to hang in it, but perhaps if they were going to stay for a few days, the Eschiff would supply them with some changes of clothing. The herd, of course, would have them wearing the same thing until their demise as if they were no better than animals. The herd would also have taken the clothing they were wearing and given them some nasty looking and uncomfortable prison rags, which if anything seemed to hold onto the stink of an unwashed body even more. There was also a table, made out of wood with four wooden legs, again synchronous with tables found on Earth. There was a chess set on the table, no doubt something they had picked up from Earth which they had put here to help pass the time. It was interesting that the pieces on both sides of the board also seemed to have been made from some sort of wood. It was a shame that neither she nor Kitty actually knew how to play the game. There were also two wooden chairs that had been positioned on either side of the table so that she and Kitty could sit and face each other, but the chairs weren’t fixed in place and could be moved easily to other positions in the cell and possibly even used as weapons, though the Eschiff must’ve considered that possibility and thought the threat minimal. In fact, everything about the cell suggested that despite their hatred of the Herbaht, the Eschiff respected them.

Overhead was a large fluorescent light strip buried just beneath the surface of the ceiling so that it was plush with the metal. The light put out a great deal of luminescence, but there was a small switch inside the cell which with a wave of the hand in front of
it would turn the light on or off, giving the inmates of the cell effective control over when they were awake and when they should sleep.

Even when the overhead light was out
, though, there was enough light to see clearly by. Light flooded in from the corridor through a small glass window in the thick metal door of the cell. It was a big enough window to look out of and see the corridor beyond their cell, but should they somehow have been able to break the glass, it was far too small a space to try and climb through.

February still wondered at just how civil the Eschiff had been to her and Kitty
; even now as she looked out of the glass window in the door, she could see an Earth type clock hanging on the wall opposite and set to moon time. It was by this that she knew they had been here for about two hours. She wondered for a moment why they hadn’t just put the clock in the cell with them, but no doubt they had their reasons.

Kitty was on the topmost of the two hammocks they had been given for sleeping on
; she was either resting or fretting. February was worried enough herself and didn’t like to pry. 

There were two hammocks
, and they were set at a height on the wall so that they wouldn’t get in the way too much if someone wanted to sit underneath them. February remembered how apologetic the Eschiff had seemed when they had brought those in. ‘We’re sorry about the sleeping arrangements,’ one of them had said through one of the translation box things. ‘We only have a limited amount of storage on the ship, and hammocks take up a lot less room than normal sleeping arrangements.’ There had simply been no enmity in the speaker’s voice or face or in the faces of those who had accompanied him. Yet those who had stood behind him had been toting some very nasty looking rifles. It was almost as if they were saying, ‘We want to wipe out your entire race, but there’s no reason why you and I as individuals shouldn’t get along.’

They had even been kind enough to fix her foot for her. It was in some sort of plaster now and still hurt a little when she put any pressure on it
, but it wasn’t anything as bad as she had expected. She remembered vaguely that the guy who had shot her—Slim, Kitty said his name was—had mentioned something about amputation. She was glad he was wrong.

From what she could see through the glass window, it was clear that the cell they were in was itself in some sort of cell block on board the alien space craft and looked to have been designed primarily for Eschiff inmates, which might go some way to explaining why the place seemed to be so comfortable. Not that she needed to look out of the window to know that. She well remembered the journey from the airlock that connected the ship to the moon base
, a journey that took her and Kitty past many interesting rooms which the aliens were now making no attempt to hide. For example, a room where the aliens listened in to virtually everything broadcast on every Earth channel, with computer-like machines monitoring the channels that the Eschiff themselves were unable to cover. There was a short visit to something very similar to an operating theater, where both she and Kitty assumed they were going to be disposed of but all they had actually done was patch up her foot. Then she remembered stepping through the main entrance to the cell block. There were five cells on either side of a fairly narrow corridor, and for some reason they had been thrown into the fourth cell on the left hand side, despite the fact that all the other cells seemed to be empty. 

February looked up at her friend and shrugged her shoulders
. ‘I’m surprised we’re still alive. That will probably change before we’ve been here too much longer. You’re the clever one; maybe you can tell me what they’re up to.’

‘I’m just glad to be alive,’ Kitty replied
. Her voice shook quite a bit; she had probably been pondering her future too much, but at least she was coherent. ‘So far they have been more than gentle in their treatment of us. But I can’t believe that our health is their number one concern. They have to have some other reason why they want to keep us alive. It must be something that benefits them enough that they’re willing to risk keeping us alive. I have considered the idea that they might want emissaries so they can deal directly with the leaders of our race through us, but somehow that just doesn’t ring true. There’s also the possibility that we’re hostages, but how would that work? No, there has to be something else; it’s as if we’re missing part of the equation to the problem.’

February moved away from the door and sat next to the table, resting her elbows on the table and her head on her arms, positioned so that she could still see anything that happened in the corridor through the glass. From her seat she couldn’t actually see the clock, but that didn’t bother her
; time would pass regardless.

With no real means to judge time
, she didn’t know how long she had been there when the face appeared at the window with a big smile on it. Indeed, at first she wondered if she was actually dreaming, but then she saw the Eschiff ears flickering back and forth beyond the glass panel as their owner seemed to be trying to force the door open. 

Then suddenly the cell door did open and the Eschiff stepped across the threshold of the cell, a pen weapon in its hand. But
it seemed to be far more concerned about what might be behind it and beyond the cell block than it was about the two in the cell.

February didn’t stir. She found it hard to believe they would repair her foot just to kill her later that day, but she had to remember that for all their familiar traits
, they were alien. If she hadn’t been so worried about what the creature intended, she might have found it mildly amusing that she couldn’t tell whether the Eschiff was male or female. Both sexes sported those silly-looking moustaches that looked vaguely like the whiskers of a housecat.

When the Eschiff spoke
, though, it was clear from the voice that she was female. She spoke to them through the same type of translation box that they had seen many of the others wearing. ‘Quick, I don’t have much time before I’ll be missed from my post. I’m here to get you out of here.’

‘Who are you?’ February asked stubbornly.

‘There’s really no time,’ the Eschiff responded. ‘Please, even if I’m not missed soon, the guard I had to kill to get in here will be. I want to get you clear before then.’

‘No,’ said February obstinately
. Something didn’t fit right; this had to be a trap of some sort. ‘First tell me who you are.’

‘My name is Hansiobetti,’ she replied with an almost humanlike sigh. ‘You may call me Betti, and I’m here to free you from the cell and get you home.’

Kitty swung down from the hammock and approached Betti cautiously. ‘Why are you willing to do this? Your race has declared war on ours. Why should we trust you?’

‘You’re in a cell on a space craft that is owned by a race that wants to commit genocide. There is very little doubt that you have both already been earmarked for death. Why are you giving me a hard time over this?’

‘She has a point,’ February uttered.

‘I just want to know what’s in it for her,’ Kitty replied plainly.

‘I thought that was obvious,’ Betti explained with another sigh. ‘You are children of Gods and Goddesses. You might even be Goddesses in your own right. It is not right for any Eschiff to question your actions; it is our lot in life to follow and obey. If a God or Goddess wills something, then that is how it should be.’

‘Sounds very dictatorial,’ February commented.

‘My planet is divided into many different lands, in much the same way that yours is. A thousand years or so ago every city in every country was under the rule of a God or a Goddess. Life under these deities was serene. There were no wars due to religion because we all followed the same religion. If one land had a shortage, the God or Goddess would contact other Gods and Goddesses to gain their help to bridge the shortfall. It was a utopian lifestyle with just one exception.’

‘
Your brothers and sisters don’t seem to agree with you,’ Kitty commented. 

‘They aren’t my brothers and sisters,’ Betti hissed
. She looked about herself nervously, obviously expecting to be caught at any moment. ‘In every country the people rose up against their holy leaders and threw them down. They stole the knowledge that the Herbaht had and used it for their own ends. The Golden age died and the age of the true dictators started. Armies clashed against armies as the new kingdoms fought to establish themselves. New alliances were forged and broken as easily and as quickly as signing a name on a piece of paper. My world had entered a dark age, but some of us stayed loyal to the original religion. At first we fought to defend the Gods and Goddesses, but were greatly outnumbered, and when the last Goddess fell, our movement moved underground for fear of persecution. They fear us even now, because although there are few of us, if we can prove the Gods and Goddesses still exist, many will join us. They hate you because they fear you and what you might mean.’

‘Nice story,’ February replied.

‘When our leader heard that a space craft had arrived from another planet and was dealing with Sanspar, well, at first she thought nothing of it. But when word reached her that the home planet of those aboard the craft was harboring real live Herbaht, she knew those Herbaht had to be refugees from the great fall. She knew Sanspar would send a mission with the intent of destroying them. It would be a thing of personal pride to them; the bodies of the Goddesses of two of the cities in Sanspar were supposedly never recovered. Our leader made arrangements to smuggle three of the righteous on board to do what we could to foil their mission. If it’s at all possible, we’re to contact the current leaders of the Herbaht on Earth. Rumor has it they might even be the same missing Goddesses.’

‘
They are immortal?’ February replied, more than a little surprised. Somehow she strongly doubted the possibility.

‘So we are led to believe,’ Betti replied. ‘Now please
, we haven’t much time. One of my countrymen has already opened a gateway back to your home planet. We just need to get moving before I’m discovered.’