Eric Flint: Slow Train to Arcturus

"Us, I imagine," said Howard quietly, at her shoulder.

Lani smiled. "If it is us, they're going the wrong way."

"Lucky that," said one of the uThani with a flash of teeth in the darkness. "We would never get through all of this lot. Not without a whole tribe."

"Many. Lot of beads and trinkets to sell," said the other with a chuckle.

They moved out, a little later, down deserted passages, until they came to an ornate, heavily carved door… with two dead men beside it.

Ji and Abret had proceeded down the empty corridors to the guarded double door. The guards blinked at Abret, one stopping in mid-salute. Ji kept walking and then, just as the guard on the left started to raise his weapon, lashed out.

To Abret it seemed impossible. You could not kick one man in the throat and knock the weapon from the other's hand that fast. And the blow that Ji followed that up with-an upward strike with the heel of his hand at the man's nose, dropped him. Ji leapt on the fallen throat-kick victim. The gasping man gave a half strangled shriek.

Abret tugged at the door handle, and the huge doors swung open. He and Ji bundled inside.

But they had not been quick or quiet enough.

Derfel was on the far side of the room. He held a terrified looking little human in front of him, his arm around her throat. He held a laser-pistol in the other hand. "You! How did you get here?" he demanded. "My guards will be here any moment."

The small human squirmed, "Papa?" Her voice was full of fear… and hope.

"Yes, little flower. It is me," said Ji. "Let her go, foreign devil."

"Come any closer and I'll shoot her."

The door pushed open. "Just in time," said Derfel.

"Actually," said the black-faced entrant, in Miran: "a little late."

Others came in behind him. Humans. Black from head to toe, except that one carried a bronze head under his arm. A head that Derfel had so boldly severed.

"Kretz?" said Abret, incredulously.

The blackened face smiled. "Nice to see Miran faces, even if it is not good to see you pointing weapons at each other. I've come to take you back to our spacecraft. Selna is getting a little anxious to go home."

Kretz took in the scene, and read the situation as best as he could. Derfel could still kill them. By the look in his eyes he was definitely off the edge of sanity.

He stepped forward as confidently as he could.

"Keep back or I'll shoot!" said Derfel. "I mean it."

Kretz looked at Derfel. Then at the wide-eyed little human female he held and the other humans. "He is threatening to kill."

"Can he?" asked Howard.

For an answer Kretz said: "Spread out."

"Stand still!" snarled Derfel-in Miranese, which no one but Abret and Kretz understood.

"I mean you no harm," said Kretz, as calmly as he could, while slowly raising the barrel of the automatic shotgun. "If you don't want to go, we'll just take Abret."

"And the human you're holding, and my suit," said Abret.

Derfel showed no sign of moving or cooperation. "My people will be here soon. You are right in the middle of my kingdom. You can't get away."

"I sent them away. They thought I was you," said Abret. "Now, let that little human go, Derfel. She's done you no harm."

The man who had been there with Abret said something in a foreign language.

Derfel looked at him and answered in the same tongue.

"What did he say?" asked Kretz, warily, wondering if he should be covering this man as well.

"Ji told him to let his child go. Derfel said he'd let the child go if Ji dealt with us," said Abret.

While Derfel's attention had been on the black-clad Ji, Nama-ti had been sidling farther around the room. He was very close to Derfel and the girl now. He said, very quietly in uThani, "Distract him, Dandani. I'll get the girl-child."

Kretz found it an odd way for learning their language to pay dividends. A quick glance showed him the scar-faced uThani had an arrow on the string and was nearly at the opposite flank. "Hey, you with ugly face," said Dandani loudly-in English-"why you no come fight me, one-one? You have face like Carpincho's ass." It was a huge pity that Derfel's translator couldn't do English, thought Kretz.

As Derfel turned, Nama-ti dived, grabbing the girl and wrenching her down. Forewarned, Kretz fired first. He barely beat Lani.

An arrow… A flung bronze head, and a screaming man called Ji.

It happened fast.

But not fast enough for Nama-ti. The brief dying convulsion of Derfel's hand sent a lightbolt to strike his forearm. The uThani's hand was half severed. He screamed.

One of the flyboys, slow to react to the violence, was quick enough now. He had a tourniquet on Nama-ti's arm, and a syringe in his hand, while the others were still almost stock still.

Ji held his daughter. The child stared not at him, but at the bronze head. She kept saying something over and over.

Lani was the first to come to terms with the situation. They were all a bit shocked. Amber looked as if she'd faint any moment and that flygirl of hers was not looking much better. Someone had to take charge.

"We need to move out," she said. "I can hear them coming."

"No," said Kretz, decisively. "We need to buy more time. Hide. Pull the bodies in from outside too. There is a room in there. Cover Derfel with that bedding." He turned to the other Miran and said something in a foreign language.

The other alien gaped at him.

Abret was shocked by the suddenness, by the violence. By Kretz. Mild mannered Kretz, what he'd done and what he now said. "Abret, you will meet them at the door and tell them to leave you alone. I hope that your Transcomp has that much of the language."

"Me?" Abret knew that was a stupid thing to say. But right now, with aliens pulling dead bodies past him in the aftermath of the killing, he felt stupid.

Kretz shook him. Hard. "Others thought that you were him earlier. To them we probably all look alike," said Kretz, hauling bedclothes over the dead Miran. "I found humans hard to tell apart at first. You owe them, Abret. They've risked their lives to rescue you."

Ji had sat up, still holding his daughter to his chest. She was still saying over and over again that the ancestor himself had come to save her. "What is happening?" he asked. "Who are these people?"

"These are friends who have come to rescue me. I am going to pretend to be the Great Leader." Without knowing why he did so, Abret patted the man on his shoulder. "We will get you and your daughter away too, if we can."

Ji nodded, spoke in the rapid-fire local language to the girl child, and gave her the bronze head. "Lie down, child. The ancestor is with you. Hide him under the bedclothes too." He turned to Abret. "She must be here. Tell them they interrupt your pleasure. Tell them to go back to the first perimeter."

The palatial bathroom was big but it had never been intended for this many people. Nama-ti was in the huge empty bath itself, having his partially severed hand attended to. He was not really conscious, after whatever it was that they'd injected him with. Amber had her head between her knees and was being patted by her flygirl. Lani stood with the others, including the grim-faced local, at the door. Waiting.

Then she heard the sound of the doors being opened. The other alien said something. The girl said something that sounded hysterical. The alien kept repeating himself.

There was the sound of the door closing.

The local man, Ji, was first out. It was just as well, because the girl was trying to brain Kretz's alien friend with the bronze head, and screaming at him.

Ji managed to take it from her and hold her. "Have you guys got a tranquilizer?" asked Lani, looking at the remaining flyboy with his as yet unused burp-gun.

He nodded. "Better check it out with the local man first though. He's scary."