Eric Flint: Slow Train to Arcturus

What followed was the most exhausting and thrilling time period of Kretz's life. Transcomp got the names of objects quickly enough. Once they got the idea the aliens had even contrived to show actions and provide words. Kretz wasn't sure how much of the translation was getting through the other way. The aliens called all of them "Zawn." And they appeared willing to help, even if Abret had kept his distance, nervously, most of the time. Another thing had been noting the appearance of small 'bots of alien design which had eventually appeared and begun repairing the damage from Abret's shot. Obviously the alien ship's internal machinery still functioned well, if slowly.

It had been a triumphant and excited group that had returned to the ship.

The aliens were… alien.

And yet, less so than some of the scientists and the general public had expected. If they'd been blobs of slime they might have been more wary. If Transcomp, designed to provide interface between nests from any island or culture on Miran had proved less adaptable and successful, things might have been different too, admitted Kretz.

Everyone had wanted to be part of the next group, but Leader Zawn had taken that cautiously too. "We'll take four people next time. They seem friendly. I'm afraid, Kretz and Abret, I won't be able to take you two, this time."

Abret, in the nervous-moody stage before change, certainly didn't mind. Kretz too hadn't regretted it in the slightest. The systematic examination of the plant sample he'd taken took up most of that time. The others would merely have been part of the second contact. He'd been part of the first, and his monograph on the alien plants would ensure that his fame continued long after he'd mothered his sons and become a vast matriarch, too big to move without help. The structure of the plant had been like looking at a young student's first badly understood research of Miran vegetation. It was… similar in function, but obviously had arrived there from a different direction. The chemists would have fun with some of the long-chain organic molecules too, but they were carbon compounds. Evolution had a myriad possible paths to follow in theory, but perhaps in practice there were certain constraints. Kretz found himself intensely curious as to how these alien plants would taste. He resisted the crazy urge. Miran digestion was robust, but who knew what alien toxins would do to one's livers?

The second expedition came back bubbling with excitement at the friendliness of the aliens. "They want to meet all of us. It… seems they are rather vague on 'outside,' " said Zawn. "We're making huge strides with the language. I've decided: Except for Abret and Derfel, who will be taking the lander to the source of the laser pulses, and Leter and Guun, who will remain onboard the ship, we're all going in after next rest period. It's a veritable treasure house of alien life-forms and equipment, Kretz. And… you know what? We think it was supposed to be a colony ship. A whole series of them, rather. They say their bead was supposed to take them to a new sun. Obviously their astronomy must be far ahead of ours, to predict what suns would have habitable planets."

Kretz had been just as excited about the idea of more material to add to his biological firsts and keen on engineering discovery. He'd quietly taken along the better part of an engineering repairman toolkit.

He was expecting great things.

Internal confidential e-vox. Inward laser transmission.

From: Field Agent P. Firston, deep-space sector 3.

To: Agent Supervisor FJ Lu-Hellens re: Weapons seizure.

Habitat unit 36 (Free Federation of Aryan Survivalists).

Illegal weapons detected with remote sensors in the personal effects of the attached list of embarkees. Will require at least four full enforcement units, and heavy ordnance and armor for confiscation before departure. Permission to schedule raid for 3.30 CMT, 11/1/2153

Internal confidential e-vox. Outward laser transmission.

From: Agent Supervisor FJ Lu-Hellens

To: Field Agent P. Firston, deep-space sector 3. re: Weapons seizure.

Permission denied.

Attached vox: private

From: Fenella Lu-Hellens

To: Paul Firston.

Word from on high, Paul. Ignore it. Ignore anything smaller than tactical nukes. We've been tracking most of the stuff for months. Most of it is twentieth century, obsolete, but better out of the solar system than in it. The boss says: So long as they're taking it outsystem on a one-way trip, who cares? Maybe the stupid bastards will find something to shoot at out there. If not, they can always shoot each other.

Fen

The platter-table was stacked with… things. The scientist part of Kretz wanted to categorize them more precisely but… he really wasn't sure what they were. They steamed. The blackened bits looked… almost animallike. As if someone had dismembered and charred some creature. A large creature, about the size of a small alien. They oozed red liquid. The aliens waved them forward.

"Zawn. What is going on here?" asked Borch.

The archeologist smiled. "I think that we are being invited to a feast. A gesture of hospitality."

"It looks like a burned alien hatchling," said Selna.

"Hush," said Zawn sternly. "They're bound to be offended by that, if their Transcomp picks it up."

"So what do we do?" asked someone. Most of the ship's crew was here now, and several of them were still very wary of the aliens.

Kretz didn't care what Zawn did. He wasn't getting too close to the things first. He noticed that Selna too had thought this out and was at the very back of the Miran crew. The aliens had stepped back to give them a wide berth, a clear passage to the feast.

Zawn turned and smiled. "We go through the motions. Pretend. We can't really eat of course. But it is a primitive gesture of welcome common to most soc-"

Whatever Zawn had been about to say was cut off by the roar of flame, leaping from the nozzle of a device held by two of the aliens. The fiery blast engulfed the Miran party.

The fire died back and Kretz, still stunned with shock, saw how the bare handful of stripe-faced aliens that had welcomed them forward to the feast had somehow multiplied. Now they were a mob, swarming forwards, screaming, teeth exposed, knives and other strange objects brandished. Kretz had little time to think about it, though. The aliens were onto them, attacking, attempting to pull them down.

The suits had withstood the fire easily enough. They were made to survive vacuum and the temperature variations of deep space. The fabric was tough, self-healing. It would take more than some primitive knife to cut it, with one slash. But the aliens were gleeful about giving the Miran a death of a thousand cuts. And there were just so many of them. Even setting fire to their own environment with the flamethrower had not stopped them.

As he struggled with the aliens in this mad place of fire and smoke, Kretz heard Zawn desperately yelling over the radio for help from those still on the ship.

Knocked off his feet, pinned down with an alien stabbing repeatedly at his chest, Kretz hoped they'd come fast.

And then from somewhere closer at hand came other intervention. Selna had not obeyed Zawn's instructions about the laser pistols being left behind. And somehow he'd managed to get it out and pull the trigger.

Selna hadn't been aiming. His laser-bolt burned through several of their attackers-and navigator Borch.

The aliens should have fled. But instead the mob turned on Selna like a pack of blood-crazed feral animals.

Kretz staggered to his feet as the aliens charged at Selna. Selna was still firing as they struck him. The laser pistol discharged most of its charge into the now exposed stanchions as Selna and an alien fought for it, while others pulled him to the ground. Kretz, struggling with the shock, reacted like any Miran male in danger. He tried to run. The best he managed was to retreat into a fallen fold of vegetation-clad wall. He saw that Zawn too was miraculously still on his feet, trying to flee with Pelta clinging to him.