Eric Flint: Slow Train to Arcturus

He called them. For a moment, it looked as if the guilty parties might bolt. But the brethren did raise children to be obedient to their elders, even if their hair was still dripping and the elder was someone like Howard. They came, fearful at first and then wide-eyed when they saw his limp burden. He pointed with his head to the smaller of the two boys. "I need you to run to Elder Rooson's home. Tell him I have some… thing which is hurt. I need his counsel. And you-"

He fixed the freckle-faced larger boy with his stare. "You will go to the healer. To Sister Thirsdaughter. As fast as your legs can carry you."

The fault with early slowship concepts was simple: When you get there, the place may not be habitable. It may not even be terraformable. Maybe there won't even be a planet: And then one has to start the journey over. Even probes can let you down-arrive on the one habitable spot, or at the only habitable season. With space habitats, the equation changes. Man stops colonizing planets. He colonizes space around suns. There is a life zone and everything he will need from m-asteroids to ice around every star.

From: Slowtrain: The Stars Within Our Grasp,

Conquist, A., Mordaunt

Scientific Press, NY. 2090.

Howard looked at the creature on his bed, and then covered it gently with an angora-wool blanket. The… person was still breathing, anyway. It didn't seem right to call it a creature. It wore clothes and had the trappings of an intelligent being. Howard looked at it again, a troubled man. He looked at the large Bible open on the stand. He'd searched, and yet found no pleasantly direct, clear advice about what one should do with a clothed creature you found unconscious among your tomato plants.

There was a knock at his door. He walked across and opened it. He was not really surprised to find not just Elder Rooson, but Brother Galsson, and Sister Thirsdaughter too. It was inevitable that the Elder would bring at least one of his senior councilors with him. It was just as inevitable, now, that the news should spread through all of New Eden like wildfire. Brother Galsson could not have left his home without telling his wife, and Goodwife Galsson was the worst gossip in the entire universe. She could hardly be expected to keep something like this quiet.

And she could get any story chaotically wrong, too. Look at the affair with Goodwife Sanderson's twins! Somehow she'd turned that event-the greatest excitement in New Eden since the two-headed calf-into "an unnatural child, a visitation of Satan." The midwife had told her the birth was "something special," but refused to say more and of course Goody Galsson had embroidered the snippet of information in the wrong direction entirely.

"Peace be with you, brothers and sister." Howard greeted the Elder and the councilors with a heavy heart. He was in enough trouble without this. He was still under probation after the last incident. But what could he have done? Left it? The… being had plainly been in distress. And those had been recognizable English words. "Help," and most importantly, "Peace." To have ignored them would have been contrary to his faith and his nature.

"And with you, Brother Dansson," said the old man, with a wry smile, his palm dry against Howard's sweaty hand.

Elder Rooson wasn't the worst. Howard shuddered to think what life in New Eden might be like under an Elder like Galsson. Everything would be forbidden, on principle.

"What strange thing have you brought upon us this time?" The Elder said, with gentle irony, indicating that he certainly hadn't forgotten the last time.

"A… stranger, Elder. As I said in my message. I found it-him-in my tomatoes."

Sister Thirsdaughter was amused. "Have you been experimenting on those too, young Howard? Is it a strange fruit-or a real man?"

She was all right. She'd never married. Maybe that was why. Or maybe her practice of medicine and midwifery needed a more pragmatic approach. "No, sister. Not a man. I undressed the being-"

Galsson interrupted. "You undressed a woman!" he said in righteous horror.

Inwardly, Howard restrained himself. "It's not a woman, brother." He kept his doubts on this to himself. He'd never actually seen a naked woman, but he didn't think that it was a woman. But it wasn't a man either, not in the sense that Galsson would have interpreted it, in the sense of being human. "I had to remove its garments to staunch its blood. It asked for help. What else could I do?"

"Let us see this… being," said the Elder, calmly, a raised hand silencing Galsson's incipient tirade.

So Howard led them through his front room, hoping they'd be too distracted to notice much there-his drawings were still on the table-and into his small bedroom.

They stood in silence looking at the occupant of Howard's bed. Even the face, all they could see above the bedclothes, did not look human.

Galsson was the first to react. "A demon!" he choked, backing off, his soft hands held up in a warding gesture.

The strange being's eyes opened. The eyes had no white in them at all. They were almost violet in color and the pupil was a double crescent, like a cat's eyes. The strange pupils flared and contracted as if trying to focus.

"Hush. It is trying to say something," said Sister Thirsdaughter.

In the sudden silence they all heard it, clearly. "Peace." The voice was oddly metallic and artificial sounding. But there was no doubt he'd said it. Howard saw his lips move.

"Peace be with you too, stranger," said Elder Rooson, his voice quavering slightly.

The only reply was an indistinct muttering. The vivid purple-blue eyes closed again.

"It's a demon, trying to entrap us," whispered Galsson, still backing fearfully towards the door.

"What is the extent of its injuries?" asked Sister Thirsdaughter, ignoring him. She came forward to peer at the golden face with its crestlike peak of golden hair.

"Various cuts. A bad one on the shoulder," said Howard, grateful for the calm matter-of-fact tone of the healer. "A hole that seems to be festering. There might be something in it. I also think that one arm is broken. I've splinted it as best I can. If you could have a look, sister?"

She nodded and stepped forward.

Galsson grabbed her arm. "On the peril of your soul, sister. Demons are masters of deception!"

She shook off his hand impatiently. "At this stage, it could be a demon or even an injured angel. And surely the hand of God is over anyone who treats an injured being, be they devil or angel."

He tried to get in front of her. "Sister, I implore you, do not touch it! It may be diseased. Or the contact may cause evil communications!"

She pushed him aside firmly, stepping up to the bed. "Then that has happened to Brother Dansson already, and we have touched him in greeting. It appears to be wearing his nightshirt, and he can hardly have put that on it without touching it." She seemed quite calm and imperturbable. "Howard, I will require boiled but cooled water, and some boiled cotton cloths."

Howard nodded. "I have the water cooling. And the bandage-cloths have been boiled. I sent a message to you, sister. So I prepared."

She smiled. "I was treating the Elder's hands when the boy brought your message to him." She looked him up and down, quizzically. "Are my wants that predictable, or is it just that you were the child who always had to be bandaged, splinted or sewed up?"

Howard flushed. He had indeed spent a disproportionate amount of his life being patched up. "The latter, sister," he admitted, feeling sheepish. "I'll go and get the cloths and bowls for you."

"Do that." She was already unrolling a neat little cloth package of instruments. "And some boiling water too. I'd better re-sterilize these."

Howard noticed that Elder Rooson had said nothing. But the old man's normally tranquil face wore a troubled expression. He looked a lot more like Brother Galsson than his usual tranquil self.