Starship Home (34 page)

The Slarn skimmer remained where it was, the only sign of what had happened being the hoof-trampled grass around it. Then three Slarn marines materialized, Slarnstaffs at the ready, watching each other’s backs. They spread out, searching the area within the now restored forcefield and then moved to the skimmer itself, pressed a concealed pad, and when the hatch slid open they moved in warily, as if expecting an ambush. Once inside, they checked every part of the skimmer for concealed hostiles, and then one of them moved to the communications console and hit a button. A Slarn face appeared on the screen above.

In Helena’s hut, Maze had been reporting, and Helena was dismayed. ‘They took a Slarn prisoner?’

‘A woman like us. The Slarn are like us,’ Maze replied, as if still coming to terms with this new information. Then she stared at Our Mother. ‘In your head you think of Uncle Marlowe, and another man who looks like him.’

‘Yes I do,’ said Helena with a certain sadness, ‘I think of my son Marlowe, and of Marlowe’s father.’ She paused, and then added: ‘I loved him much.’

On the bridge of the starship, Marlowe sat, deep in thought, alone, brooding, the eternal outsider. The Wyzen, her empathy aroused, climbed into the acceleration couch with him, and he stroked her head absent-mindedly, possessed by his own dreams. Meanwhile, Harold was discussing the menu with Guinevere. ‘So what you need next is calcium?’ ‘And much, much water,’ she replied.

Roused from his thoughts, Marlowe stood, and said, ‘I’ll talk to the Eldest.’ And, as was his wont, he moved swiftly toward the door, clicking his tongue to the Wyzen who, always curious as to what her human companions were up to, followed him. As Marlowe passed the clock which marked the countdown to Guinevere’s programmed self-destruction, he gave it a glance and what he saw made him speed his pace. Harold saw the moment, and crossed the bridge to look at the clock. What he saw filled him with horror. ‘Guinevere!’ he said, ‘that’s now saying nine days! Nine day to self-destruct!’

‘Aye,’ she replied, ‘I told thee. The Zyglan sped the clock and but for the iron which slowed it we would all be ashes by now.’

In the hall of Trollcastle, the Don sat at the high table flanked by Ulf, Father John and Rocky. Troll warriors stood in the body of the hall, surrounding two Slarn marines, holding Slarnstaffs and facing the high table. Using his Slarnstaff, one of the marines projected onto the wall an image of Zachary lying on the interrogation couch in the skimmer. ‘Have you seen this man?’ the marine said in the flat metallic tones of the translator system.

‘Never seen him before in my life,’ said the Don.

‘This is a planet of liars,’ the marine said, and flicked off the projected image.

The Don rose to his feet at the insult. ‘You say?’ His hand was on the hilt of his sword.

‘I say you delivered him to our skimmer once before and that you will do so again. That way you will remain Don of this region and we will forget your attack on us.’ And then the two marines slapped the button on their wrists, and dematerialized.

‘Weak!’ came a voice from the assembled Troll warriors.

The Don turned fast, expecting that whoever had spoken the traitorous word would back down, but instead a Troll warrior stepped out of the group. ‘You brother would not have taken that,’ he said and walked to the draped portrait of Don Spider III, the Don’s elder brother, and ripped the covering off it. What was revealed was the portrait of a man who stood with the grace of a swordsman or horseman, hand on the hilt of his sword as if about to draw it. Facially the man in the portrait resembled the Don. But there was a cruel twist to the mouth, a nasty glitter in the eyes, half hidden by drooping eyelids, that threatened danger. The fact that he was portrayed standing on a heap of dead enemies did nothing to soften the message.

‘Don Spider would’ve had their heads.’

‘My nameless brother would’ve had this castle down around his ears. Stupid!’

The rebellious warrior turned to Rocky. ‘You agree with that, Rocky? That your father’s stupid?’

Before the boy could reply, the Don strolled toward the Troll warrior. ‘Don’t make trouble between me and my adopted son. If you want trouble, you can have it from me. Ask yourself if that kind of trouble is what you want?’

‘I want you to fight them. Not to run after unveiled women. Not to be shamed by sky devils here in your own hall! I want you to act like a Don!’

‘In the past, you have served me well, and I don’t want to have to kill you.’

‘Your brother would have.’

‘I know that. But I am not my brother. Now cover the portrait and let this be forgotten.’ The warrior hesitated. ‘Or die.’

The silence between them lengthened, and then the warrior picked up the cloth from the floor, and tossed it over the portrait. The first flicker of rebellion had been quenched for the moment but the Don knew he had publicly shamed the warrior, and no good could come of that.

On the bridge of the starship, Zachary was staring intently at the screen which showed the clearing outside the starship. Where once the Looters had squatted there was now only their fire, smouldering down to ashes. ‘The Looters are gone!’ he said, and Harold looked up from his calculations about Guinevere’s menu. ‘Marlowe went to talk to them about getting calcium and water,’ he began, and then Zoe broke in. ‘Where’s the Wyzen?’ she said. ‘She left the bridge at the same time as Marlowe,’ Meg said. ‘He clicked his tongue at her and she followed him out.’ They were all beginning to get a very bad feeling.

On the floor of Slarn Base 35, Marlowe’s lair, the Wyzen lay bound and gagged, her hurt, liquid eyes fixed on Marlowe. In her entire lifetime she had known only kindness and never encountered cruelty of this order.
Where was her mistress? Where was her starship?
Marlowe was packed to leave, his big journals bound together with cord and stacked neatly by the doorway and he was seated at the communications console, his eyes fixed on the screen. He had seen this message hundreds of times, it had been his support through some very bad times, but now that, as he believed, the time was soon coming when his dreams of leaving the planet and joining the Slarn would be fulfilled, he was watching it one last time. For this was a message from his Slarn father, Moorlow, a man in his middle years, just as Marlowe was now. Father and son looked remarkably alike, except for the metal eye, and the fact that Moorlow wore his hair cropped short in Slarn shipboard fashion. He was speaking with the singing lilt of Slarn-accented English, and what he was saying was this: ‘My dear son Marlowe, this is my last message to you. As you now must already know, you are born of two races. I, your father, was born on a planet far away from here, and your mother, Helena, is a native of this planet which we, the Slarn, first sprang from. The task which I have laid on you is to continue my work, studying the people of this world. For remember, this strange planet on which you were fated to be born, is the fabled Home World of the Slarn. The more we understand it and the human stock from which we come, the more we will understand ourselves.’

Meanwhile, Harold, Zoe, Meg and Zachary were running along a forest trail in the direction of Marlowe’s lair. ‘Are you sure this is where he’ll be?’ shouted Zachary, and Harold was as sure of it as anything he had ever believed. ‘He won’t leave without those books!’ he answered. They were getting close.

Marlowe was standing as his father’s message came toward its end. ‘My dear son,’ the image of Moorlow was saying, ‘there will come a day when the importance of our research will be understood, and you will be able to return with honor to your rightful place among our people. Until that day, I, your most loving father, urge you to continue to seek wisdom wherever it may be found, and commit it to permanent form, to await your day of returning home.’ The image of Moorlow saluted, striking his heart with his clenched right fist. Marlow responded with the same salute and then turned and moved to the door. ‘Ha-bra-ka-dah,’ he said and the door slid wide. Casting a glance at the bound Wyzen, Marlowe began to take his corded bundles of books out of the Slarnbase.

Across the dusty plain, heading for the tents of the Sullivan encampment galloped a Troll warrior, the same Troll warrior who had challenged and been shamed by the Don. Sullivan scouts rode out to meet him and escorted him to the tent where the Sullivan Himself sat, surrounded by his leading henchmen. The Troll warrior dismounted, and knelt before the Sullivan Himself. ‘I challenged him,’ he reported.

Then why are you still alive?’ asked the Sullivan Himself with a smile.

The warrior dropped his head in embarrassment. ‘There are those who would welcome the return of his eldest brother, the Don Spider.’

As if he had been waiting for these words, a figure emerged from the tent. He was recognisably the same man as the one in the portrait in the hall at Trollcastle, but during his years of exile he had allowed his hair to grow long, and it now cascaded in greasy ringlets from under his broad-brimmed felt hat. He wore leathers and a broadsword in a scabbard strapped to his back, the sword’s hilt protruding above one shoulder. In addition he was armed with two knives, their scabbards strapped one to each thigh, spiked gloves, spiked greaves and spiked boots. A freshly picked wildflower adorned his button hole. Here was a dandy with death in his gaze, mayhem going somewhere to happen. ‘They want my return?’ said Spider, the former Don. ‘It pleases me to hear that.’

The Sullivan Himself looked at Spider. You can take your brother in challenge?’

Spider yawned, displaying steel teeth which had been filed to points. ‘Give me a slave you don’t need.’

The Sullivan Himself gestured and two of his henchmen entered the tent and came out again dragging a lame slave. Spider beckoned and they dragged the lame slave to him. The speed was blinding. Spider had drawn a knife, nicked the slave’s arm and then sheathed the knife again. A moment’s pause, and the slave tottered on his feet and then crashed unconscious to the ground. The Sullivan Himself rose, went to the prostrate slave and examined the nick on his arm and then looked questioningly at Spider, who drew the knife he had used and demonstrated, pressing a button in the hilt. A drop of acid yellow liquid instantly dripped from a tiny hole in the knife’s point. ‘Your slave will sleep, and without an antidote, within two days he will die.’

‘And after you have become Don?’ the Sullivan Himself asked.

‘You’ll have slaving privileges within my duchy,’ Spider replied.

Harold, Zoe, Zachary and Meg were even now slipping and sliding down the slope which led to the entrance to Marlowe’s lair in Slarnbase 35. Reaching the bottom, they ran into the cave and to the doorway where Harold shouted ‘Ha-bra-ka-dah!’ The door slid back and immediately they heard someone speaking. It was not Marlowe’s voice, but some other, the voice of someone with a lilting accent speaking English as a second language. ‘Until that day, I, your most loving father, urge you to continue to seek knowledge wherever it may be found, to commit it to permanent form, to await your day of going home.’

They were staring at the screen, at the image of the cropped-haired man who so resembled Marlowe. The man saluted, closed right fist to the left-hand side of his chest, and then the screen faded to black. A moment later, the message began again. ‘My dear son Marlowe, my last message to you. You who are born of two races: your father, I, a Slarn from beyond the stars, your mother Helena from this planet that the Slarn first sprang from …’

‘It’s Marlowe’s father,’ gasped Harold.

‘It means he’s half-Slarn!’ exclaimed Meg.

‘And he’s gone to betray us!’ Zachary turned and ran for the door, followed by the others as Moorlow’s last message to his son continued.

The Slarn skimmer lay within the shimmer of its forcefield, and toward it walked Marlowe, leading his horse which was burdened by the combined weight of Marlowe’s journals and the bound and gagged Wyzen. As Marlowe neared the forcefield, Harold, Zoe, Zachary and Meg came over the ridge overlooking the field, and saw what was happening. Zoe was horrified. ‘He’s got the Wyzen!’

‘Marlowe! Stop!’ yelled Zachary, and Marlowe looked back, saw them running toward him, and broke into a run dragging the horse after him. They were closing on him but it was still too far, and now he reached the forcefield and shouted, ‘I can give you the tattooed man! Your missing comrade! The lost starship Guinevere!’ For a moment nothing happened, and the starship people were gaining on him, but then the forcefield opened, Marlowe led the horse through, and the forcefield closed again behind them.

Zoe and the others came to a halt, drooping in defeat. ‘Game set and match,’ said Zachary. ‘If he tells them where Guinevere is, they’ll take her back into space.’

‘No!’ cried Zoe. ‘They can’t have Guinevere! They can’t have the Wyzen! Maybe he won’t tell them right away, maybe he’ll have to bargain, maybe we’ve still got time, maybe …’

‘And maybe it’s all over!’ said Zachary, sick to the stomach.

‘All we need is calcium and water,’ she said, stubbornly, ‘just those two things, then she’ll be well, she’ll be mobile, she can take off and stop the self-destruct count-down. The Forester People will help us, the Don will help us …’

‘No one will help us!’ Zachary yelled. ‘No one!

‘Got to go to the castle! Got to try!’ sad Zoe and turned and ran, and after a moment the others, not knowing what else to do, ran after her.

They had travelled only a couple of hundred yards when Zachary realized they were going off half-planned. ‘Hang on!’ he yelled, and when they had all come to a halt (although Zoe, unwilling to stop running altogether, continued to jog on the spot), he said ‘We need to cover both bases. Zoe, you and Meg go to Trollcastle and Harold and I’ll check out the starship.’

‘And if the Slarn are already there?’ Meg asked.

‘Then Harold and I will run away like the true heroes we are,’ Zachary said, and Harold grinned and nodded agreement.

So they now set off again, Zoe and Meg heading for Trollcastle and Harold and Zachary for the starship.

Back at the Slarn skimmer, Marlowe and his laden horse waited in the airlock, with two marines covering him with their Slarnstaffs. He was attempting to address them in Galactic Slarn, the common language used on all Slarn-colonized planets, but his use of it was rusty after all the years since he had learned it as a child. ‘Im yettes tarnlik,’ he said, which was Slarn for ‘I come in peace’, and the Slarn marines exchanged a look but did not reply. ‘Im slen yaportunbrek,’ he went on, indicating that he had information.

‘It speaks a bit of human,’ said one of the marines.

‘Im yettes tarnlik, Im slen yaportunbrek,’ he repeated.

‘Speak your native yabber! The translator can’t handle bad Slarn!’

Anger flared within Marlowe, but there was too much at stake for him to antagonize these marines. They were the keepers of the gate leading to his homecoming, so he meekly repeated in English, ‘I come in peace. I have information for you. About the man with the slave tattoo, about the wounded marine, about the missing starship.’

They looked at him for a long moment and then one asked, ‘Who said there’s a starship missing?’

Marlowe now played his trump card, and gestured at the Wyzen. ‘That’s a Wyzen. You must know what one is. And who has a Wyzen as a companion but a starship?’

‘You’d better come inside,’ one of the marines said.

Marlowe’s spirits rose. The first door had opened for him.

On the bridge of the starship, nothing stirred, and then slowly the medipod slid open. Inside it lay the wounded marine, dressed in fresh Slarn longjohns, and now conscious. She lay still for a while, getting her bearings. The last conscious memory she had was of being outside the skimmer, defending it from barbarian tribespeople riding large animals. One had slashed down at her with his sword and she remembered no more, but she had woken in a standard ship’s medipod, so she reasoned that she must now be safe among her own people. She sat up, and was instantly aware of the tightness of her wound and on examination found a freshly healed scar. The medipod had done its work well. Now she swung her legs off the medipod and tried to stand and found, though weak, she was not in danger of collapsing. Then she looked around and was disgusted at what she was seeing. The bridge of this starship was a shambles! There was washing hanging on a line, and signs of food preparation, and a basket containing what could only be garbage! It was obscene! Trying to ascertain where the starship was, whether in space or on the planet where she had been wounded, she looked at the screens above the command console. One of them displayed an image of a clearing in a forest, and yet another the image of a woman in strange robes. The woman spoke. ‘How feel’st thou?’

The marine did not understand, and Guinevere told her in Slarn to put on the translator mask from her helmet, now lying on one of the acceleration couches with the rest of her armor. She donned the translator mask, and then Guinevere explained. ‘I’ll not speak in thy tongue. ‘tis the language of my slavery.’

‘What starship is this?’

‘I am the ship Guinevere.’

‘And so the man with the slave tattoo?’

‘Abideth here with me.’

The marine was trying to take it all in. She had heard whispered tales of ships escaping and going feral. Could this be such a one? ‘You’ve gone feral?’ she asked.

‘The folk who are with me have shewn me much kindness. In a month more kindness than the Slarn have shewn me these many centuries.’

‘But a starship is above questions of kindness or unkindness.’

‘I am but a machine?’

‘No, it’s not like that, but …’

‘Wilt thou betray my people?’

‘Ship, I’m just a simple marine. I don’t make decisions like that. But I do know that you should give yourself up.’

Guinevere ignored that, for her heart was going out to the young marine’s plight. ‘And you, young woman, if I do, what will become of you?’

‘You know what will become of me. I was taken prisoner. That means disgrace. Already they’ll have read the burial service for me, and erased my number from the records. As far as the service is concerned, I no longer exist. I’m doomed to live out my life on this planet, one of the lost ones.’

The screen showing the clearing now zoomed in on a patch of the undergrowth surrounding it. The undergrowth moved slight, and then very cautiously Zachary and Harold emerged and approached the ship. ‘Come in, all’s well,’ Guinevere said through her external speakers, and lowered her hatch to admit them. Moments later they entered the bridge, and were facing the marine, who was poised to fight if need be. Zachary, wanting to defuse the tension, grinned his most charming grin and said ‘Hi. Feeling better?’ and then flopped down on an acceleration couch. ‘I’m Zachary, and this here’s Harold, who’s the brains of the team. And you are?’

‘Confederacy marine 4728567.’

‘Marine’s a pretty name,’ Zachary said, ‘can we just call you that?’ and then, ‘Harold, take the weight off your feet so the lady can relax.’

Harold got the message and he too sat on an acceleration couch, and Marine, as they would henceforth call her, visibly relaxed. ‘You are the primitives who have been kind to this starship?’

‘She’s our friend, she was hurt getting us home, we’ve been trying to help her heal. If that’s kindness, then we qualify.’

‘The act has merit,’ Marine said. ‘But where are the others?’

The others, Meg and Zoe, were now approaching Trollcastle and as they reached the main gate, they found there a riderless horse with a Sullivan-made saddle and harness. ‘Fine horse,’ said Meg, admiring the steed’s lines. ‘Sullivan saddle,’ said Zoe, with a slight apprehension. ‘I wonder what one of them’s doing here.’

But in the hall, it was not a Sullivan facing the Don, but his elder brother Spider. ‘My dear brother,’ Spider began but the Don cut in. ‘You are not my brother. You are not a Troll. You have no name.’

Spider’s look was full of pathos. ‘I come in peace. A poor wanderer.’

‘You come to challenge me.’

‘I come to see my son,’ and now he turned his sad, stricken eyes on Rocky.

‘Rocco is my son, by adoption,’ said the Don.

Spider dropped to one knee before his brother, the Don. ‘If you cannot forgive me, grant me this boon: to spend one night beneath the roof of my ancestors, to talk to my son, and then be gone forever.’

Meg and Zoe now entered by the main door of the hall, and the Don’s eyes went to them and then back to Spider. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I grant you this boon but tomorrow you must leave and never return.’ And then he turned to Meg and Zoe as they approached. ‘My Lady Henderson, Zoe. What brings you here?’

‘Marlowe’s betrayed us,’ Meg said, ‘he’s gone to the Slarn.’ A movement of Spider’s drew her attention, and he smiled his steel-fanged smile, a smile to chill the blood, and licked his lips and murmured, ‘Pretty lady.’ Meg turned away from him and spoke to the Don. ‘We need help to get water and calcium for Guinevere.’

‘But if he’s already betrayed you? ‘

‘He may not yet have told them where Guinevere is. Please. Help us.’

In one fluid movement, Spider stood, and when he spoke his voice was pitched so that all the Troll warriors in the hall could hear him. ‘Does a Don deal with an unveiled woman? Does he?’ The Don turned on him, and the Troll warriors waited for his response. Then Spider was smiling again. ‘Your pardon, Don. I’ve no name, and should not speak in council. I was just … concerned. For your honor.’

On the bridge of the starship, Harold, Zachary and Marine were watching one of the screens which showed Marlowe lying on the interrogation couch in the Slarn skimmer, undergoing the interrogation which Guinevere was intercepting even as it was beamed to the mother starship in stationary orbit. ‘You say you’re half Slarn,’ the interrogator was saying.

‘Your tests prove it.’

‘You claim that those primitive writings on the sheets of unhygienic vegetable matter in those objects you call “books” are for the Confederacy Anthropological Survey?’

‘They’ve only to read them to assess their worth,’ Marlowe replied.

‘And you claim to know where a missing starship is hiding.’

‘The Starship Guinevere.’

‘But you will tell us where she is only if we grant you Confederacy citizenship.’

‘That’s the deal,’ said Marlowe, like a man nearing a long-sought goal.

‘I am empowered by my superiors to offer you another deal. It is this. You tell us where the starship is, or we will kill you.’

Zachary, watching the screen, grimaced. ‘This is normally where people start talking like there’s no tomorrow. I think we should be getting out of here like now!’

But Marlowe did not share Zachary’s philosophy. ‘If I can’t have Confederacy citizenship, I’d prefer to die. Kill me and you’ll be doing me a favor.’

The interrogator frowned and looked at the tell-tales on the interrogation console. ‘You seem to be speaking the truth.’

Marlowe simply smiled at him. On the bridge of the starship, Zachary looked on with grudging admiration. ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘that’s a very strong negotiating position.’

In the interrogation room of the skimmer, one of the marines was consulting with a superior officer in the mother starship. Now he turned back to Marlowe. ‘My superiors wish to know the name of the starship your father served aboard.’

‘Starship Sanjuro Tsubaki,’ Marlowe replied. ‘A 17
^th
century samurai turned Buddhist monk. He was a student of Miyamoto Musashi whom he fought alongside in the battle of Sekighara. He was taken by the Slarn from his hermitage in Earth Year 1623.’ He was about to go on, when the interrogator snapped ‘Enough!’ and turned back to the console and said, ‘Sanjuro Tsubaki.’ He listened and then moved back to Marlowe. ‘They want you and your filth-encrusted old books upstairs,’ he said, touched some controls, and Marlowe dematerialized and was gone.

In space, hanging in stationary orbit, looking like an unharmed version of Guinevere, was the Starship Charles de Josselin and in a white walled cell in the Charles de Josselin were two couches similar to the interrogation couch on the skimmer. For a moment the cell was empty, and then, with a shimmer, Marlowe materialised on one of the couches. He shook his head as he tried to re-orient himself, and then finding he could move he got off the couch and began exploring the room. He rapidly found there was nothing to explore. The walls were smooth white surfaces, and there were lines incised in them which suggested the presence of hatches, but all was too smooth to provide a grip. In the bare, shining white room, devoid of anything but the couches in its centre, Marlowe stood and contemplated the results so far of what he assumed was his first journey into space.