Edmund Cooper - Transit

Tom was vastly amused. ‘There you are, old sport. Fraternization just isn’t popular.’

But Avery was determined not to be beaten. ‘I think she’s only got one shot left.’

‘You hope. Personally, I’m not taking any more chances. It isn’t worth it.’

Avery waited for a minute or two, then very slowly raised his head to grass-top level. The woman was still sitting there with her foot trapped and her cross-bow ready. She and Avery stared intently at each other across a distance cf some thirty or forty yards. He saw that her breast was heaving, and she didn’t look any too happy. So far as he could see, she didn’t have any more arrows —but that, of course, might be a simple trick.

‘Don’t shoot,’ he called. ‘We want to help you.’ Even as he shouted to her he was conscious of the ridiculousness of hoping to communicate in English. But at least she might disentangle a bit of the sense from the sound.

She made no move, but continued to glare at him apprehensively. He decided to take a chance and stand up. But no sooner were his head and shoulders visible than he noticed a slight movement of her hand. He hurled himself to one side as the arrow came, rolled over once, then stood upright.

‘Idiot!’ shouted Tom, who was still flat.

But the woman did not have any more arrows left. She flung the cross-bow down and, with low moans of pain, tried feverishly to free her trapped foot.

Avery began to walk towards her. Seeing that his gloomy predictions were not fulfilled, Tom also stood up and advanced. When they were about ten yards away, the woman stopped her futile endeavours and sat waiting for them, her fists clenched, her eyes sullen and afraid.

Avery came up close to her, crouched down and smiled. He gestured towards her trapped foot and the thick roots. ‘We,’ he said, pointing to Tom and himself, ‘want… to… help… you.'' He pointed at her, then at the foot.

She flinched, but appeared to understand. Keeping his movements slow so that she would not be alarmed, Avery leaned forward and put out his hands towards the roots. At that moment the woman unclenched one of her hands, and, using her arm almost like a short spear, jabbed the extended and rigid fingers unerringly into his solar plexus. Avery gave a painful grunt, then writhed on the ground. Before Tom could stop her, the woman delivered a chopping blow with her forearm to Avery’s exposed throat.

It was a long time since he felt such pain. There was a drumming in his ears, trying to breathe was itself an agony of frustration, and a woolly mist seemed briefly to be closing in on him from all sides. Through it, he saw Tom’s silhouette—and a raised tomahawk.

‘Bitch!’ yelled Tom. ‘Try the play-back for size.’ The tomahawk came down with a dull thud.

Wincing, groaning, Avery forced himself to sit up. The woman’s body lay almost touching him. ‘Bloody clown! ’ he croaked. ‘What did you kill her for?’

Tom shook his head. ‘Being soft-hearted, I didn’t give her the edge, only the flat,’ he said drily. ‘A spot of sleep treatment seemed to be indicated…. She made a real mess of you in no time at all.’

Avery massaged his throat gently. It felt as if he had just swallowed a number of sharp stones. He coughed experimentally, and the pain made him wince; but at least the ache in his stomach was fading. The golden woman certainly packed a hell of a punch.

He looked down at her. The long, luxurious golden hair was spread like a ragged fan over the grass. Her eyes were closed, but she seemed to be breathing normally. In repose, her face was beautiful but—somehow not human. He tried to define its non-human quality, and couldn’t. Evidently, he decided, it was the sum of many of the little peculiarities that occur in ordinary human beings—but not all at the same time.

Her ears were well formed, but they did not have any lobes, and simply joined the side of the face in a smooth downward sweep; her nostrils were wide, almost negroid, but the top of her nose was faintly Grecian, without any bridge; her Ups were fuU, but the mouth seemed small in proportion to the rest of her face; her chin was firm, perhaps a shade emphatic, and her cheek bones were large and finely moulded, transforming the Une from cheek to chin into an odd but attractive parabola.

Her body, apart from the blue band of fabric stretched between her legs, was naked, golden and quite superb. Altogether, she was a magnificent specimen. Avery judged that she must be at least four inches taller than either him or Tom—and probably a couple of stone heavier. And she was tough, as he knew from personal experience.

‘Big tits,’ observed Tom crudely, ‘just as in my late collection. It makes you think, doesn’t it? Maybe these birds were the original inventors of pornography.’

‘And maybe they don’t even know what it means,’ retorted Avery acidly. He stood up. ‘I hope you haven’t cracked her skuU.’

Tom grinned. ‘For Christ’s sake don’t start feeUng sorry for the bitch. She was trying to kill us—remember? Besides, I only clocked her fairly lightly. Supertypes like that are bound to have super-hard skulls.’

‘Well, we’d better make use of the anaesthetic and get her foot out while she’s still under.’

Tom bent down to examine the trapped leg. ‘She’s made quite a mess of it,’ he said with some satisfaction. ‘Serves her right for being bloody superior.’

The skin round the ankle, where it was caught between the thick bird-cage roots was tom and bleeding. The leg itself had swollen considerably and had developed a purplish hue.

Avery said: ‘What do we do? Chop our way through the roots?’

Tom shook his head. ‘I don’t think she’d like that. The vibrations wouldn’t improve her at all. Besides the hatchet might glance off and take a piece out of her. These things are like spring steel…. No, we’d better try and lever her out.’

They tried using one of the tomahawk handles as a lever, but the bird-cage roots wouldn’t move. Avery finally solved the problem by forcing one of the bird-cage fruit that the woman had already collected between the roots, about a yard above her anlde. Then, using it as a wedge, he hammered it slowly down towards the ankle, and forced the roots apart.

Tom just managed to ease her foot through the gap before the increase in pressure and the battering it had taken suddenly became too much for the bird-cage fruit. Its shell collapsed inwards, and the roots resumed their original position.

‘Ah, the proverbial nick of time,’ said Tom.

Avery began to feel the bones in her foot. He didn’t know much about anatomy—especially alien anatomy— but nothing seemed to be broken. The woman stirred and groaned. She tried to sit up, and fell back.

‘It’s as well she stayed out for the operation,’ said Avery. ‘You did her a good turn…. I think.’

He put the foot down gently, then raised the woman’s head. She opened her eyes, closed them again, then shuddered. She gave another moan. Avery felt the bump where Tom had hit her. It was not as bad as he had expected. The hair had cushioned the blow.

‘Now she’s O.K., we can push off,’ said Tom.

‘We can’t leave her like this.’

‘Hell, it’s more than she deserves! ’

The woman managed to raise herself so that she was half sitting, half leaning against Avery. She saw that her foot was free and gave a sigh of relief. She looked it Avery and treated him to a somewhat doubtful smile. ‘Let’s try to get her on her feet,’ suggested Tom.

‘All right, but demonstrate on me first. Then she won’t get ary odd ideas.’

Tom solemnly lifted Avery to his feet, then pointed at the woman and made the same motion. She nodded.