The Science Officer (7 page)

Ξ

Djamila kept sharp. The tree–analogs here looked similar and fulfilled the same ecological role. That meant the same propensity for ambush and destruction. She glanced up at Aritza’s hovering spy.

She’d had him pull it in close, barely eight meters over her head, despite his grumbling. The scanning range was greatly diminished, but she wanted the extra edge. The woods were populated by a variety of creatures, from birds, to lizards, to things like impalas, to things like bears.

As they moved, she had her safety off. The rest of her crew were fast and good. She was still better. She demanded that extra split–second in an emergency. It might mean the difference between life and death.

Djamila stopped suddenly and pivoted in place. It was an old trick in terrain like this. The sudden turn to catch movement from a watcher giving himself away. Nothing. Well, nothing but Aritza nearly walking into her before he looked up from his screen.

“Hey,” he looked up, “a little warning?” He looked extremely put out. She chalked it up to working for so long alone. Probably forgot how to be polite around people. Or maybe he was just an asshole, after all.

She considered growling at him, settled for a sickly–sweet smile instead. The muttering under his breath was reward enough. She smiled to herself and set off again.

Ξ

Javier set his system to scanning the database of transports, looking for a baseline model to compare against. These things always got customized the second day after they launched, as captains and engineers tweaked things. It would be useful to know what they were working with here. And Yu would appreciate Javier finding him a bigger Auxiliary Power Reactor, to free up space for the next time he had to crawl into the bio–scrubbers.

He was so engrossed in the screen that he stopped ogling Sykora’s butt as she moved. And walked right into her when she stopped and looked backwards. Fortunately for his day, he avoided bouncing his nose off of her breast.

“Hey,” he looked up, “a little warning?” For a moment, Javier thought she was going to punch him, but she smiled instead. He wasn’t sure that it was an improvement, but she started walking again a moment later.

Javier kept his commentary to himself. Mostly.

The emergency beacon had been a standard affair, required by law on every vessel capable of interstellar flight. In this case, it had been the cheapest model on the market, broadcasting a twenty–four digit alpha–numeric ID from the manufacturer, rather than the more sophisticated models that included vessel particulars. That, at least, eliminated several classes of vessels, say, things big enough to have customized beacons, or military vehicles. Javier dug deeper.

At least Sykora warned him before she stopped, the next time. It was the smug smile when he looked up, up, from his screen. He grumbled anyway.

“Rest break here,” Sykora called to the group. Everyone else relaxed and looked around the area warily. Things were generally just the wrong–enough shade of green to gnaw at someone.

Javier found a dead tree and sat on the trunk. His least–favorite tree returned to shadow his view.

“Aritza, where are the scouts now?”

He looked up at her sourly.

“Please?” she added quietly. Huh. Old dogs and new tricks. That had sounded almost painful. Still, she sounded sincere. It was certainly the first time he’d ever heard her use that word with him.

Javier toggled one of the side gauges into the projector, zoomed, and washed out small animals. Two dots appeared on the map, plus a few others at a considerable distance. It was a good scanner probe. It helped to have Suvi piloting it and refining the data.

“Three hundred meters out and closing, ma’am,” he replied. Teeth were teeth. If she could pull hers and act politely, he could do the same.

She nodded and pulled something from her pocket. She started to put it in her mouth and paused. “Cover your ears, Aritza,” she said.

He blinked, thought about it for a half–second, and set the computer down so he could jam fingers in, just before she blew a whistle shrill enough to wake the dead. Hopefully Suvi had been paying attention to the audio channel before it overloaded. Everyone else jumped. Except the other gun bunny. He had apparently known it was coming.

A second sharp blast followed the first.

Javier sat patiently until he saw her put the damned whistle away. A string of curse words appeared on the diagnostics readout at the bottom of the flat screen. Apparently, Suvi had learned some new ones along the way.

Movement at the very edge of the sensor range caught his attention. Looked like a bear from the size and heat signature, but it was moving away from them at a slow amble, so he figured it was safe. Maybe remind everyone to make enough noise to scare off local critters. Last thing he needed right now was angry momma bear.

The two women pathfinders made absolutely no sound.

One minute nothing. Next, they pop out of the brush and stand right next to him. And he’d been watching them approach on the scanner, the last forty meters. What the hell did these people do that they needed this kind of experts, anyway?

Sykora was in her element. “Status report,” she barked.

The shorter of the two, the brunette with the nice hips, came slightly to attention. The blond with the long legs caught him staring and winked.

Javier considered his chances. Might be worth trying.

“We found the wreck, ma’am,” Pathfinder Brunette said. “Either there were shipwrecked survivors, or there are locals. We found evidence of habitation.”

Javier looked up at the three women. “Bear?”

All three blinked down at him. Apparently they had forgotten he spoke.

“Negative,” the brunette said. “Firepit, hand–made pottery, agriculture, closeable door into a cabin that appears recently used.”

“But no one appeared,” Sykora stated flatly.

“Affirmative, ma’am,” the brunette agreed.

Sykora thought for a second. “Three minute break here, then we’ll push on.” The two women dropped in place and pulled out canteens.

The giant redwood tree turned around and looked down at him. “Aritza, push the drone vertical and do that long range scan trick again. I want to see the wreck.” Pause. “Please.”

The drone took off straight up, but Javier pushed a button on a screen quickly before anyone noticed the discrepancy.

You don’t exist
, he typed.
Don’t anticipate me. These people are smart and dangerous.

Sorry
.

Javier took it up to 200 meters and hovered. One quick rotational scan, and then he focused in on the wreck. This was where Suvi would help.

Hard scan that thing for me. Inventory everything you can. And don’t let anything sneak up on us.

Will do, boss.

He poked the volume button and the screen like he was actually controlling it, but he knew Suvi was flying the remote now. After he escaped these yahoos, he might have to upgrade the remote so she could fly it from whatever ship he poured her into next.

And maybe add a gun.

Let’s see: two bears, a small herd of elk–like critters, and he was pretty sure that was the local equivalent of a bobcat. Hopefully it wasn’t the local version of a wolverine.

Javier looked up at her. “Path’s clear,” he said, “you might warn people that there are a few dangerous creatures in the woods.”

Sykora smiled down at him. “You mean, besides us.”

Javier rolled his eyes in pure reflex.

Ogre–lady trying to be funny might be worse than her as a total hard–ass.

He sighed to himself as he stood up.
Another day, another drachma
.

Ξ

Suvi was torn. On the one hand, it was good to be awake and doing something. On the other hand, she had been weeks off–line. Things had happened, and Javier wasn’t filling in the details.

The tall lady seemed to be in charge. And scary. Suvi really needed her processing core to read the inter–personal dynamics playing out around her. The chip she was on was barely big enough to hold her personality and near–term memory.

As it was, she’d had to off–load some of her consciousness onto the portable. There was certainly space for files, but the processor on that thing was horribly under–powered. She was almost thinking at human speeds. Egads. How did they operate so slow?

She spun the remote in place and pinged. Precious few birds, none of them big enough to threaten her new little flitter–ship. Some fauna large enough to maybe be dangerous, depending on how this planet had evolved.

Over there, some fields had been planted with human–digestible crops, so someone had survived the crash and broken out the emergency seed packet. And it had worked for them, if they’d been here for seventeen years.

Quick pass through the memory files of the remote. The wreck looked kinda like a Kallasky Engineering Mark IX Conestoga. Big, slow, durable. Too many pieces to be sure until she could read some part numbers off the engine, or they found the nameplate.

Suvi counted her humans. Javier, Tall Lady, two “pathfinders” (note: look that term up when connected to better resources. Got no useful dictionary here.), one heavily–armed male, one male and one female without arms, but with toolkits. (note: mark the latter tentatively as engineering crew. Update later. Ask Javier.)

She needed better information. She was missing too much. Javier had said to hide, so she decided to play along. Happy little flying mouse, zooming overhead.

She aimed her microphones down, but Javier grumbling to himself seemed to be the only conversation.

Who were these people?

Ξ

Lemuel watched the wreck from a nearby hilltop. He felt sure he was supposed to be overjoyed by the arrival of people. It would be possible to leave this world and return to civilization.

Did he want to?

The ancients had venerated the ascetics, monks living on the edges of the desert, praying and fasting, living holy lives of contemplation.

He had not intended to crash here. But once it was done, he had put in a great deal of contemplation on the Lord’s message to him. The Harlot was not meant to rule over men. So she had not. The others had not seen it that way. They had joined her. It was the way of things.

And now, he could return to the world.

But would he have to sacrifice holiness? More harlots had come. One seemed to rule them.

She would have to go.

But the others?

He would have to get closer to see how many of them would trod the path of the righteous. Many were incapable of enlightenment.

The silver bird troubled him.

It flew wrong, was shaped wrong, was wrong. Lemuel knew his eyes were old, but he remembered technology. The silver bird was a device, a thing. It had eyes to watch. He could not sneak up on them unaware. He would have to gain their confidence.

Lemuel silently rose to his feet and took a step down the hillside. It was irrational, but he could feel the silver bird’s eyes on him immediately.

So be it. He would be friendly and thankful to his rescuers.

Then he would kill them.

Ξ

Suvi understood the need for silence, but she really wished she could talk to Javier. Text lacked the subtleties. She settled for highlighting a dot on the display.
That’s not a bear
.

She pinged it, hard, once, with every sensor the little flitter–ship had. Yup. Definitely human. Male. Mid–fifties. Pretty good shape if he was a shipwrecked survivor deep into his second decade of local realtime. She displayed his stats.

Javier’s voice on the portable’s audio input. “Sykora,” he said. “Company.”

Suvi watched the two armed humans point rifles in opposite directions immediately. The two pathfinder women drew sidearms as well, squatting down and aiming outward. The two engineers dropped to the ground without a word. Javier just stood there.

Tall Lady spoke. “Where?”

Javier glanced at the screen, turned to his right, and waved with a cheery, “Good morning.”

Tall Lady was aghast. “What are you doing, Aritza?” she queried. A moment later, she called, “Flip.”

Suvi watched her and the armed male change sides of coverage like a ballet, leaving the one called Sykora pointed where Javier was looking and the other covering the “rear.”

The strange human was approaching slowly, quietly. He wore robes made of a rough, homespun cotton, probably locally grown from seedstock, and carried a walking stick.

She bounced the flitter–ship up higher for a better view and scanned everything once, and then dropped down close.

Finally, she might get some answers.

Ξ

Javier considered the dead freighter. Definitely came in too hot. Looks like it tore off a landing skid on that rock, which dropped the bow into the ground at speed, which cracked her spine there and there. Probably one you walked away from, unless your number had come up.

Reactor was definitely on–line, banked to minimum load. Heat and light leaked out of an open hatch and the cooling fins were well above ambient temperature.

Somebody lived here. A field of human crops close to harvest. A small drying shed filled with…stuff. Dunno what else to call it. A path down to the stream below. Homey. Javier could see himself living here and enjoying the place. Clean air. No people. Paradise.

That’s not a bear
.

Good thing Suvi was on the job.

Might as well start the fun. “Sykora,” he said. “Company.”

Javier watched the armed lunatics go into full combat mode. This was why he was a civilian now. That kind of thinking was just bad. Desperately anti–social.

Sykora was the worst. “Where?” She was probably planning a firefight right about now.

Javier really needed some coffee.

He turned to his right, and waved, “Good morning.”

Behind him, he was pretty sure he could hear teeth grind. “What are you doing, Aritza?” Ogre lady snarled at him. A moment later, “Flip.”

Great, now she was standing next to him, hovering over his shoulder, big honking war machine ready to lay the smack–down.

I got out of bed this morning for this?