Eric Flint - Slow Train to Arcturus

"You have problems!" she shouted. "It is always about you, isn't it? Well, I have problems too. I'm working through the manuals. If you don't hurry I'll launch anyway."

"I promise I am doing my best, Selna. I will be back at the ship very soon. At the moment I need to recalibrate some instruments that Derfel sabotaged. If I tried right now I might fail to reach you. It's very complicated." He gambled on the fact that Selna was not particularly good with instrumentation, and fairly ignorant about it as a result.

"You've got sixteen TU's," snarled Selna. "Or I'll either leave you behind or come and fetch you."

And that was the best Kretz could do. Translating Miran time to human time, Kretz calculated Selna had decided on about eleven hours. He hoped that he had that calculated right. This base ten of the aliens was awkward.

He walked back to where Amber was calmly prying deeper into the computer system of the habitat. "There is a high population density," she said. "I've got to warm body scan. Our problem is not so much that we can't see where they are, but that they're everywhere. Especially here, watching this airlock. I think I have found your Miran. I'm hoping that we can get live vid images. In the meanwhile if any of you have any ideas-beyond just loud noise-how we get through this airlock, I'd like to hear it."

Kretz was hardly surprised when Howard asked diffidently. "You locked airlocks with the computer on Diana. Can you do things like that here?"

She nodded. "I have done so. This lock is shut until we decide to open it."

"Could you establish how the other lock is being prevented from sealing?"

"If I get vid-feed… Ah."

Images began appearing on the small screen. Most of them seemed to have people working on crops. Then they showed the other airlock.

The door was held ajar by a simple orb of metal.

"That won't damage seals," said Zoe.

"Ah, but it lacks the elegance of a pair of panties," said Andy, grinning.

"It is a pity we can't force the door and move it," said Howard. "I would have suggested that if it was an obstruction of the tiniest size. There are people there too, but at least they would not be prepared for us."

"Maybe we can get a maintenance 'bot to do it," said Amber, thoughtfully. "Let's see. In the meanwhile… here are your Miran." The screen split and produced two images, in circumstances of contrast. In one the individual was sitting in a stark cage, sitting on the floor, naked, arms wrapped around himself. Plainly he was cold as his body was covered in soft rippling cilia. He was speaking to someone.

"Abret."

The other Miran was also naked-but probably by choice. The human in the vast bed with him looked terrified, to Kretz's now accustomed eyes. "Well, at least he's not paying much attention to us," said Lani. "Although that picture makes it easier to understand where the Matriarchy of Diana came from."

"It is an abomination," said Howard stiffly.

"I don't have any trouble agreeing with you, for once," said Lani. "She looks in more need of rescue than your Abret, Kretz."

It left Kretz with feelings of guilt. Would they have regarded his own encounter of mutual curiosity with the same disgust? The flier-girl had said it made her feel a bit like a zoophilist, which, if Transcomp interpreted it rightly, had rather echoed his own feelings. It had been… interesting. Most male Miran would take any sort of willing partner. But one such as Derfel had trouble finding those. Now, it appeared, he was finding satisfaction among the humans of this habitat. It didn't look like he provided much of it.

Amber flicked off the scene, and showed a small 'bot crawling down off the roof, to move the doorstop of metal aside. As it rolled they could see that it was a human head, cast in bronze.

The little 'bot pushed the door, which clicked shut. Amber hastily typed something into her portable. "Airlock secure," she said. "Now let's see if we can map a route that will get us to the Miran from there instead."

It was rapidly apparent that it was not going to be that easy.

"It's very heavily populated. Much more so than New Eden or Diana or Icarus," said Lani looking at the corridors of diggers and careful pruners.

"Much more than uThani too," said Nama-ti in a melancholy tone. "Is even worse hunting grounds."

To Howard it was frighteningly crowded, yet painfully nostalgic. These were farmers. Hard-working farmers too, to eke a living out of such tiny, precise little fields. To live off so little land you had to make each inch count.

"They plainly have no birth control," said Zoe.

It was a delicate subject that Howard had not seen open discussion of. Among the Brethren the limit of two children was something most families insured by passive means. Howard's father had blushingly explained days of abstinence to him. Occasionally a family had an extra babe-but that was well countered by occasional accidental deaths, and those who failed to have children at all. He'd never thought about the effects of an absence of limits on this in a closed environment before. It was a terrifying one, reflected in the slight build and thin faces of the populace.

"They're never going to make the hundred or more years until they get to their sun. And it doesn't look as if, when they get there, they'll have the technological ability to build the habitats they need," said Amber, grimly. "They're worse off than anyone else, so far."

Howard shook his head. "The amazing part is that they've survived this long without famine."

"They may not have. There are states in the history of old Earth that had serial famines," said Amber. "I wish I hadn't remembered that."

"Our priority now is to rescue Kretz's imprisoned companion," said Howard, "but I cannot just leave these people in such wretchedness. When that is done we need to do something for them."

"Yeah, well, how do you intend to get to that first priority?"

Howard shrugged. "They are farmers. They work hard. Tonight they will sleep. It is not like your automated civilizations. People are tired. While they sleep we can walk through their midst."

The thinkers of high strategy blinked at him.

"It's so simple that it could just work," said Lani.

"Just like me," said Howard with a quiet smile.

"Huh," she said tucking her arm in his. "Dead simple."

"And how will we find our way in the dark?"

"We could take a shuttered lantern," said Howard, doubtfully.

"Or better still, use the gear we used for night-traps for perps," said Lani. "If the flyboys have anything like that. Infrared and special goggles."

"We do have some portable emergency lights," said Kretz. "Hand-held lights."

"What about programming your computer to guide us like… you know… one of those games? Beep if we go off track," said Lani.

"That's… within the realms of possibility," said Amber.

"Could you not just have a maintenance 'bot guide us? Or carry us, as the wild men in Diana had them do?" asked Howard.

"Yes!" said Amber, brightening. "And that way I don't have to walk. Let's see if there are any water arterials."

There were. A short walk would take them to one that led right through the grounds of the huge complex that housed both the prisoner and the alien who had-according to Kretz-gone mad. The exits might be secured, but Kretz had found a tool in the ship that he said had dealt with the other human electronic locks. It had dealt with the one on the hollow central cable, anyway. Now all they had to do was prepare and wait. It was never easy. Not even when Lani offered to distract him with further lessons in this "making out."

When the lights were dimmed in the habitat, they were ready. Despite not having master-flier status, they all had black lycra-even Kretz had an outsize set pulled over his suit, and they had all blackened their faces.