J McKenna - Slave Planet

Spike woke up when he heard the women talking. He unlocked the chain and let Beth tend to Greta. She wetted the cloth and daubed the commander’s head around the bandage.

“Oh, don’t fuss over me any more, doc. I’m fine. My memory’s coming back too.”

“Good. I was worried about you. If we’re going to sneak away, you’ll have to be well enough to move under your own power. How’s your knee?”

“It’s better. I think I could walk a bit in a pinch.”

“We may have to wait until you can run.”

“We can’t wait too long. We have to get back to that pod before the villagers trash it. First, we have to find where they’ve taken Smith and Egerton.”

“I was hoping Spike here could help us,” Beth said.

“Really? How so?”

“That depends on how well we can communicate with him.”

“You think the Ute’s ready?”

“I hope so. I wish Spike talked more. It’s like pulling teeth to get him to say a few words.”

“Sounds like my ex-husband. Where is it?”

“He has it. I think he still suspects it’s some kind of trick. I know he’s never seen anything like it.”

“Can you ask him to check it?”

Beth nodded. “Let me get him something to eat first, put him in a good mood.”

She went to the kitchen and cut a slice of bread, then slathered it with some preserves from a covered bowl on the counter. Spike, who had gone outside to pee, came in and smiled to see Beth being so obedient. She waited until he wolfed down his bread before signaling to him about the U.T. He nodded and pulled it out of his pouch.

The light glowed yellow.

“Commander! It’s working! At least partially.”

“Great. Tell him, um, tell him we’re free women. No, that’ll just make him mad. Tell him he has to let us go.”

“Let’s start with something small, hmm?” Beth wanted to build a relationship, not anger the man. Besides, the U.T. wasn’t ready for any difficult words.

She mimed being allowed to hold the device. Spike reluctantly handed it over, ready to grab it back if she tried anything. Beth held it to her face and spoke into it. “My name is Beth Reyes. What is your name?”

The Ute repeated her words in the man’s language with the characteristic pauses that indicated the computer was trying to fill in the blanks. His eyes widened and he stepped back. He said something the Ute couldn’t translate. Beth was afraid it might be something like “Sorcery!”

“No, it’s all right,” she said, speaking carefully. She remembered her training with the U.T.s. You have to speak slowly and clearly and you can’t use slang or idioms. “This machine lets me talk to you.”

He nodded when the Ute translated. “I am Niktus, …[unknown] for the … [unknown].”

“What, um, tribe are you?”

“We are the Baktu. And you?”

Beth wasn’t sure how much she dared tell him. “We come from a place called Earth.”

“Yurth? Not heard of … [country-state].” Whenever it stuttered like that, Beth knew the machine was having a little trouble with some translations, so it gave two or three possibilities in rapid succession. She’d have to give it a little more time.

“It’s far away from here. We were exploring when we were captured.”

He nodded. “Why are women … [traveling-wandering] alone?”

“It is our custom. We are a free people.”

The machine stuttered. “What is freerl people?”

Don’t they have a word for free here? Or was the machine just slow on the learning curve?

“Here, men are free. They do what they want. Women are not free. They do what the men tell them to do.”

“Ah. That is our way. Our women are … [cared-protected-loved].”

Beth thought of a dozen different arguments. She didn’t want to get into philosophical discussion right now. Instead, she asked, “Why don’t women wear clothes?”

“ Clorthes ? What clorthes ?”

She pointed to his loincloth. “Clothes, like what you wear.”

He laughed. “Not clothes. This is to keep penis from …[unknown] during work, causing pain.”

“Don’t women need to protect breasts during work?”

“No. Women don’t work like men. Women need to show breasts, to attract [protector-master].”

“So women are, um, for sex only?”

Niktus shook his head. “ Serx ? What is serx ?”

Great, the machine couldn’t translate that yet, which meant she’d have to play charades. “Sex is what we you and I did—your penis and my vagina.”

“Ahh, nerhanka. Not just sex. They work in house. Cook. Have [children-babies.] Help man.”

Greta, listening to the exchange, groaned. “We’ve stumbled into a nightmare world, doc. We’ve gone back in time to when women were chattel. God help us—we’ve got to get out of here.”

Beth quickly thumbed the Ute so it wouldn’t translate her outburst. “Shh! It’s not up to us to judge. This really isn’t all that much different from our own 16 thcentury, you know. Didn’t you study your history?”

She snorted. “Anything before women got the right to vote and my eyes glazed over.”

“Well, times were plenty tough on women back in our Middle Ages. Give the Baktu some time, they’ll come around. Now, hang on while I sweet-talk this guy.”

Beth thumbed the switch. “We don’t belong here. We must return to our own people. Can you help us?”

Niktus shook his head. “Cannot undo sale. Can only sell again.”

Beth flashed on a glimmer of an idea. “Can we buy ourselves back?”

“No. Only men have …[unknown] to buy, sell.”

Greta couldn’t help but speak up again. “Great. Just what Hunter had been warning about—if we’d taken a man along on this trip, maybe they would’ve let him buy us back.”

“We’d never live that down,” Beth retorted. To Niktus, she said, “We need to find our friends. We can help them talk to their new masters.”

He nodded slowly. “Magic box helps.”

“Do you know everyone who bought women of my tribe?”

“Yes.”

“Can you take me to them?”

Niktus pursed his lips, thinking. “They will want box too.”

“That man has them. The one who brought us in. Gorshun?”

“Gorshun. Yes. He will want much coin for box when he know what it do.” He smiled. “I buy first.”

Beth couldn’t help but smile as well. Niktus was a true capitalist. Wait until he found out what the medical kit could do.

Kate walked the last two klicks without a drop of water. The heat bore down until she felt like an ant under a magnifying glass. She could see the trees ahead, yet they shimmered and danced away each time she thought she was close. Kate carried only the small backpack containing the scanner, her phaser, Ute, the explosives, food, and the empty canteen. Her coveralls had been left somewhere back—she hadn’t had the energy to bury them. Some native will start wearing those and be crowned king, she thought, almost giddy. More meddling in their affairs. It mattered little now.

Her legs were on autopilot, one sliding in front of the other, knees wobbling. To stop would mean failure and that one thought drove Kate onward above all others. She wasn’t going to leave her crew trapped on this planet. Everyone’s going back , she kept telling herself. Everyone’s going back.

The trees swayed in front of her. She was used to their tricks by now. Any minute now the optical illusion would shatter and she’d be faced with another kilometer of open plain, the heat sapping the fluids from her exhausted body. Kate tripped and sprawled down. She lay there, crying softly without any tears, trying to find the energy to get up again.