The Far Side (26 page)

“Maybe you can just show them your rifle?” Kris offered.

“Yeah, but you have to understand, worse comes to worst, we could be here a long time.  If they can trust us, and if we can trust them, it’ll be far better in the long run.”  He hesitated.  “Melek said that his lieutenant has already sent two runners north.  When a more senior officer comes, they’re going to want us to move north.”

“There is no way you can talk him into letting us stay here?” Andie asked, her eyes bright.

“For a number of reasons, they’ll be burying this place.”

“That can’t happen,” Andie said levelly.

“Trust, Andie, is our only hope.  They know we’re different, and I’ve tried to explain how we got here, but really...  You’d have trouble explaining the physicality of it to someone on Earth.  Sure, you can invoke ‘Star Gate SG-1’ and ‘wormholes’ and a lot of people would understand, sort of.  But not most.”

“Well, I don’t think that it is a wormhole,” Andie told him.  “But, the fact is, I don’t know.  It’s like the blue door is just like any other door -- except one side is here, and the other back home.”

She met his eyes.  “I’m going to write an explanatory note that we’ll have to keep updated, sitting under the air horn.  So that if someone comes for us and we’ve been moved, they’ll know where to look for us.”

“Sure, Andie.  The truth is, Melek and his men aren’t going to come back here unless they have to, and if you’ll police up the extension cord for the light bar, there won’t be a trail of bread crumbs leading to the supplies.

“Melek is sharp and he’ll figure out we’ve got a stash back here, somewhere, but if I ask him, hopefully he won’t nose around very much.  Now, I have to get back.”

He left and Andie went back to work.  Kris debated which would be more boring -- watching Andie scrape and whittle, or listening to incomprehensible words.  She decided the words made more sense and gripped Andie’s shoulder as she stood up.  Andie grinned at her.

“You’re scared,” Andie said quietly.  “I’m scared.  But things aren’t nearly as bad as they could be.”

Kris nodded.  Not so far.

* * *

Melek looked at the young woman as she came back.  There was no doubt that Ezra, as he called himself, was deferential to her.  He forced himself to think.

His trousers were held up by a belt.  Ezra wore a belt, but the two women didn’t, yet their trousers stayed up just fine.  Rationally, if you thought about it, trousers were far more practical in the field than dresses, belts or not.

He let Ezra distract him with another arm shake.  How could he get through to Ezra that the way Ezra shook hands was making the others nervous?  He glanced over to where the others were and smiled to himself.  Of course, this chamber made them nervous even if it was clear that it hadn’t been used as a rookery for hundreds of years, at least.  They were clustered by the entrance, and their attention consisted of occasional nervous glances behind them and far more concern on what might be coming.

Still, that led to a topic that would be worth exploring.  He tapped his bow and told Ezra the word for it.  He held up an arrow and named it as well.  Ezra nodded and mimed drawing a bow, aiming and shooting.  So, the weapon was familiar to him!  Still, that begged the question; why was he weaponless?

He tried to ask, but Ezra shook his head.  Instead, it was like Ezra was changing the subject.  Once again, he wanted to know about geography.  That just wasn’t possible, even if Melek was sure of the man’s honesty.  Not all men were true.

Ezra smiled again and pointed to Melek’s bow, then himself, and shook his head just like Melek had when refusing to answer questions about geography.  For a few moments, Melek was confused.  Was that why they didn’t have any weapons?  How could that be?  Every male of his people old enough to carry a bow had one and practiced as often as possible.

Then it struck him.  Ezra was saying that as Melek couldn’t talk about geography, Ezra couldn’t talk about weapons.

That rocked Melek back on his heels.  If he couldn’t talk about them, did that mean that he didn’t have weapons -- or that he wasn’t permitted to talk about them, as Melek wasn’t permitted to talk about geography with a possible easterner?

So, did Ezra have a weapon?  With sudden cold certainty Melek knew that he did.  Ezra was too confident for him to be unarmed.  Which begged the question -- he had a belt knife, but who didn’t?  If he was armed, what was he armed with?

Melek’s eyes went to the device on Ezra’s shoulder that Melek had initially thought was a bow.  He pointed to it and said, “That?”

The question was understood, if not the word, and Ezra confirmed his guess with a shake of his head.

Melek swallowed.  What was his duty here?  If Ezra and the women had had bows, they’d have been taken from them.  Could he justify not asking for Ezra’s weapon?

Then his eye rested on the smaller object under the shoulder of the taller woman.  The little one had a similar object.  Aiii!  They were all armed!

Ezra reached out and gripped his arm again.  Then he pointed at the two at the rookery entrance that had their bows ready.  Ezra snapped his fingers twice, very fast.  Then he pointed his finger at the others and snapped his fingers repeatedly.

At the sound, the lieutenant had looked, saw the gesture towards them and got up.

“What is it, Sergeant?”

“I think he wants to know if they are prisoners, Lieutenant.”

“Of course they’re prisoners!  Tell him they are prisoners of King Zod!”

Honor, thought Melek.  How do you find honor in something like this?  If he tried to explain to Ezra, he couldn’t be sure if Ezra would attack.  His own, personal, survival wasn’t what he worried about the most.  If Ezra did have weapons, they weren’t at all like his or the lieutenant’s.  Ezra had indicated that he could kill all of them in the time it would take for a man to turn around, before he could so much as pull his bow.

If he tried to do what the lieutenant wished, he could be starting a war.  Worse, if Ezra’s weapons were that much better than theirs, Melek could end up on the losing side.  He doubted if King Zod would approve of that!

He chose his words carefully.  “Sir, they don’t have bows.  This man, Ezra is his name I believe, isn’t a fool.  If we have weapons and he doesn’t, I’m sure he knows his status, a man alone, facing seven with bows.”

As if to make a liar out of him, there was a loud sound from the nursery chamber.  All of the soldiers looked that way.  Even Melek had a moment’s fear.

Then the second woman came walking out, the short one, carrying something in her hand, hanging down.

He tried to figure out what it was, even while the short one was talking to Ezra.  Melek swallowed.  The tall girl had clearly been superior, and now so was this one.  Ezra was a bodyguard to nobles!  That was the only thing that made sense!  Who sent two noblewomen off alone with one male guard?  No one -- at least, not on purpose!

Ezra turned to him and gestured to what the woman carried.  “Bow.”

Melek looked at it again.  A sword blade for a bow stave?  Not!  He shook his head.

Ezra smiled.  “Andie,” he said pointed to her.  “Ezra,” he said, tapping his chest.  “Melek,” he said pointing to Melek, and finally he pointed at the third member of his party.  “Kris.”  Worse, Ezra sketched a bow towards “Kris” and a lesser one towards “Andie.”

Nobles!  It was true!  Everyone knew that if you had to take a noble prisoner, you did it gently, knowing that other nobles were jealous of their privileges, and that denying them was suicide!

Ezra pointed towards the outside.  “Andie.  Bow.  Practice.”

“What’s he saying?” Menim asked.  “I heard bow.”

“The young woman is a noble, Lieutenant.  She wants to practice with her bow, outside.”

“Bow?  That’s not a bow!  I thought you said they didn’t have bows?”

Melek wanted to kick the fool in the leg!  What kind of an officer was it who didn’t realize she was carrying bits and pieces cobbled together from the middens?  There was one thing left to him and really, what choice did he have?

“Lieutenant, if you wish, I will tell her to surrender her bow.  But, Lieutenant, she’s a noble.  I’ll have to make the demand in your name, sir.”

Menim looked at Melek like he’d taken leave of his senses.  “It’s not a bow!  She looks like a man!”

Collum, from a few feet, behind spoke up.  “The man bowed to both of them, Lieutenant.  Sergeant Melek is right.  The women are nobles.”

Or, a further statement that commoners weren’t going to take actions against a noble unless it was in the name of another noble, however minor a noble that he might be.

“Lieutenant,” Melek said confidently, trying to reassure his superior.  “There is one way to find out if it’s a bow.  Let her go outside and shoot.  She is but one, sir.  None of the others have anything that could be a bow.  You can line up the men, and if she looks like a threat...”

Yes, you stupid simpleton.  Contemplate the fact that the only way we’ll shoot is on direct order from you.  And that there was a good chance the men wouldn’t even if you did command it, not wanting to kill someone who looks like a child and is a woman on top of that.

Menim pulled himself up.  “Okay, but I don’t think that’s a bow, and I’m not sure that’s a woman.”

Collum snorted, and there were a few guffaws from the other soldiers.  Maybe the lieutenant didn’t recognize a woman when he saw one, but not so common soldiers.

Worse, Ezra winked at Melek.  Just what did that mean?  Among his people, that meant a practical joke.  A joke would be a really bad choice, just now!

They filed outside.  In spite of Menim’s orders to watch the woman, most of the men kept a wary eye on the sky as well.

The young woman put one end of the device in the dirt and used an iron rod to pull on a flat length of metal.  It didn’t move far, just an inch or two, but it bent the sword blade.  Melek swallowed.  It took a lot to bend a sword blade!

The woman said something to Ezra who looked around.  He pointed at the fake boulder.  The woman nodded, placed an iron rod centered on the blade and lifted the device to her shoulder.  There was a loud “clunk,” quite different than what they’d heard earlier.

The iron rod was a gray streak, shooting across his field of view.  There was an even odder sound as it hit the rock.

Most of the men had missed the flight of the iron rod, but all were looking at the rock.  The young woman, Ezra in tow, went and stood in front of the rock.  Melek came up and swallowed hard again as saw what had happened to the iron rod.

The rod had been perhaps a foot long.  Now, only half a foot was visible, as the rod was sunk into the rock.  The girl touched the rod gently and was, Melek thought, trying to wiggle it.  There was no missing the grin on her face.

She gestured for Melek to touch it and he did.  It was solidly embedded in the rock and didn’t wiggle at all to his touch.

She said one word to Ezra and nodded.  “Melek, two?”

She wanted to do it again?  Lieutenant Menim had arrived and was looking at the rock.  “Sergeant Melek, what is this?”

“Lieutenant, that iron rod -- she used that as an arrow.”

The lieutenant frowned.  The girl laughed and held her hands together and made the same flapping motions as Melek had when he was describing dralka.  Seeing she had his attention, she pulled her hands apart.  One of them swooped and looped in the air, a little like a dralka.  Abruptly, she shoved the index finger of her other hand between the index and middle fingers of the “flying” hand.  She kept her fingers closed, and when Melek was watching, she wiggled the finger between the others.

That was derisory, Melek thought numbly.  Maybe what she had made didn’t look like a bow, but he had to stop and back up to basic concepts.  A bow was a piece of wood that flexed and had a string to flex it.  Pull on the string and the wood bent.  Put an arrow on the center of the string and it flew off very hard.  The wood used in bows was very hard and very difficult to bend.  But compared to a sword blade?

He whistled softly to himself.  Her weapon was one that could kill a dralka, even if you hit it in its armored chest.  He wasn’t stupid.  He knew she had made it out of stuff found in the midden heap.  What kind of a person was one who could do such a thing?

Well, not only wasn’t she stupid, she knew a lot more about weapons than Melek, in fact, much more than anyone he knew.  What kind of young person could do something like that in an afternoon of work, with minimal tools and no help?  And was just second in rank?

He bowed to the girl, then deeper to the other.

Menim of course, took it as a personal insult.  “Sergeant!  I should put you under arrest!  What are you thinking?”

Melek motioned to the other soldiers, back to where the young noblewoman, Andie, Ezra had called her, had fired from before.

Most of them had the wit to understand that the iron rod was impressive -- and that Menim wasn’t.  They followed Melek, Ezra and the young women.

She did what she’d done before to prepare the weapon, and as before there was a “tung” followed almost at once by a “krang” as the bolt hit the rock.