Eric Flint - Slow Train to Arcturus

Half an hour later, Ji brought a frightened looking woman and three children to the door of the arterial. With him came Abret's former jailor with his own wife and child. The woman saw the tranquilized girl, and gave an inarticulate cry and ran to hug her. She turned from her child to look at all of them, the tears streaming down her beaming face and said something that needed no translation.

Ji said something and pointed to Howard. She bowed reverentially to him. Howard wondered just what was being said, and just quite how he was going to explain all of this to the Council of Elders. Then he looked at the tranquilized sleeping girl and decided that the council would just have to get used to it. He hoped the Miran lifecraft could cope with this load, or, if it couldn't, that they could ferry them to-and-fro.

Abret and Kretz were wrestling with the logistics too. "We'll have to do several trips, Kretz."

"We can hardly do anything else. We owe them. We are honor-bound to pay them back," said Kretz.

Abret nodded. It was such a psychologically soothing thing to be back with another Miran, a sane and pleasant one. "Yes. It's a concept they seem to understand too-and expect of us. It is strange how similar, in that aspect, the cultures are."

"Not really," said Kretz. "Thinking about it as an animal behavioralist, I suppose understanding an obligation is the cornerstone of any intelligent species' ability to act as a social unit. There isn't really any way out of it, if you want your social unit to function."

"There are always a few that try," said Abret, thinking of a few individuals.

"Inevitably," agreed Kretz. "I bet humans have them too, and like them just as little as we do."

"There are always a few who want to turn space into some kind of reserve. 'Preserved eternally unpolluted, pristine and unchanging. Like the rainforest ought to be.' Well, life is a pollutant. Twenty-five percent of particulate pollution alone is biological. Lichens eat rock. Plants spew chemicals. Animals respire, animals fart. And without that pollution, there is no rainforest. And the only eternal thing in the universe is change."

Transcript of the testimony of

Dr. Michael Da Silva, Chair of Zoology, to Senate Select Committee on Space exploration, 1/4/2037.

"We're going have to do this in two trips," explained Kretz, when they arrived at the airlock. "Abret and I have decided that we'll take the people needing to go to Icarus habitat first, then the uThani. It's a lot safer for both of us to pilot the lifecraft."

Howard knew that the time had come-and he was no nearer to a decision himself about where to go. All he was sure about was that he was going to stay with Lani. She was plainly thinking about the same thing. She squeezed his hand.

"Nama-ti needs to come with us for surgery and rehab first," said Zoe. "And we'd like Mister Ji and his daughter for a while for some psychological counseling."

Dandani grunted. He'd been very silent on the trip back. "Nama-ti go die," he said. "Even if no die, hand gone. He no pull a bow again. Better dead than no hunt."

"Believe me, we can fix, at least partly. One thing about a danger-sport culture, we're good at orthopedics and prosthetics."

Dandani looked incredulously at her. "Fix?"

Zoe nodded. "So that he at least has some use again." She turned to one of the other two fliers. "What do you think, Isaac?"

The flier nodded. "Forty percent use at least. He'll keep the index finger and thumb anyway."

Dandani was smiling again. "You fix, I bring pile of feathers, high as you." He looked at Lani and winked. "You know, healer woman even better wife than strong woman."

"He's back to normal," said Lani shaking her head. "Look, take them and move them out of here. We-Howard and I and the locals-will get into the airlock as soon as you've cycled it. We'll get everyone suited up and ready to go."

Howard nodded, and looked thoughtful. "That translator device you took off the other Miran body: would it work for English to Ji's language?"

Kretz looked at Abret. "It could be set to do that, yes," said Abret.

"Could you leave it with us? Then I can explain what they have to do."

So Howard was left with Derfel's Transcomp, and the Miran and fliers, and the uThani set out. Farewells were brief-time and danger pressed.

"Be happy together," said Howard, awkwardly, to Amber and Zoe. It was… unnatural, he still felt. Not as much as he had at first, though. You grew accustomed to it and realized that they were still the same likeable people. They weren't hurting anyone. If they were so plainly transparently joyful together, was it wrong? It was a bit too complex for Howard. God was better fitted to understand and judge than he was. He seemed to have blessed the relationship with a degree of bliss, and that was enough for Howard.

Dandani made things more complicated. "I speak for you with chief. Place in uThani for you. Brother." He winked at Lani. "Or you can leave him behind and come with me." He ducked and laughed.

And they went into the airlock, and closed the door.

With his fingers twined with Lani's, Howard watched until the red airlock light turned green. Then he cleared his throat and turned to the watching locals. "It is time for us to go. Don't worry. There is a better world out there. It is different, but you will be looked after."

The woman holding her children, with a small cloth bundle as their sole possessions, nodded. "Yes, he-who-brings-the-ancestor. We are ready."

They'd have to learn to call him something else. "Good. Let's go. Once we're in there and suited up, you're safe."

Inside the airlock he showed them where the suits were kept. He and Lani helped to fit the children and bemused adults into them.

When they were sorted it was their turn.

At the end of suiting up, Howard had done his thinking and reached his decisions. He turned to her. "Lani, New Eden would be your idea of hell. You might love me now, but you'd come to hate me, I think. You would be miserable."

She looked coolly at him. "Are you giving me the push, Howard? Are you telling me to go back to Diana and get out of your life?"

He shook his head and took her gauntleted hand. "No. I don't, at this stage, see any place except New Eden for these people. I can't send them back there alone. I want you now and always to be my wife. My partner. Call it what you like. I love you, and I want you beside me. I can't change that. So I am asking you to come back to New Eden with me, and help me change it."

"You already belong to me," she said gruffly. "And I'm a cop. If you go without me, I'll have to follow you, and keep you in safe custody." She put her arms around him. "Like this." She looked up at him. "It's not everyone who has someone offer to change the world for her. I don't think I could have refused that, even if you didn't already belong to me. Now kiss me, before I put this helmet on." Her eyes were very moist.

He did. For a long time. When he came up for air he touched her cheek and said, "With you beside me, I could change any number of worlds."

Abret looked at the lifecraft almost unbelievingly. Not long ago it had seemed improbable that he would ever see it again. Now… he would be heading toward the spacecraft. One more stepping stone towards that long journey home. To a place that smelled right to nest.

They got in through the airlocks, settled their passengers. Took their seats, and began the wonderful familiar mantra of pre-flight checks. Kretz clicked on the radio.

"This is the lifecraft to the spacecraft. Selna, are you receiving us?"

There was a silence.

And then Selna's voice. Cold. Angry. "Kretz. I've started the pre-lift sequences. I won't interrupt them for you."

"We're on our way, Selna," said Kretz, soothingly. "I have rescued Abret from the alien habitat."