Eric Flint - Slow Train to Arcturus

It didn't have the desired effect. "I told you to come here. Not to risk yourself. Get here now. Once final sequence checks begin, I can't interrupt them."

"Stop them now, Selna. You must interrupt them. We're coming. We just can't get there yet. We have some… debts we have to pay."

"Debts?" she asked.

"Aliens that helped us survive and get free. They need to be returned to their habitats. We've got them on board."

She screamed. Loud enough to make Kretz and Abret tear the earpieces away from their ears. "Get the filth off the lifecraft! Get here now! I've got to get back. Get here before the launch sequence is done. Get here. Get here! Get here! Or stay with those filth forever. I've had your excuses. You lied about checks so you could rescue Abret. You have less than a third of a TU or you can stay there with him."

Abret looked at Kretz. Selna had been his lover, and those relationships often re-established after changeover.

Kretz looked back at him. Spoke into the radio unit again. "Please wait, Selna. It won't take us more than a TU. And we're not even in the optimum launch window yet."

"You have less than a third of TU," she said again.

Abret took a deep breath. "I'll fly. You keep talking to her."

Kretz nodded. "We deliver these. Pick up Howard. And then we run straight for the spacecraft. We should do it easily. She'll stop when we get there. You can embark and I'll get Howard and the others back. That way…"

"It is my debt of honor too, friend. You could have left me there, when you got to the lifecraft. We need to get to her, hopefully get her sedated into trance-sleep."

"It may not work," said Kretz grimly. "There have been no trials on females. There are a lot of physiological changes."

"What else can we do?" said Abret. "First stop, next habitat?"

"Yes. And then the one beyond that."

"We have to rush," said Kretz to them, "Please disembark as quickly as possible." And then he turned to Dandani and spoke to him in his language.

The uThani's mouth fell open. And then he laughed.

Dandani turned to Amber. "He is good enough sneaky to make uThani too."

Amber wished she could speak Miran. Because she'd love to know what it was that made the sudden rush necessary. The best launch window for a return to their homeworld-not due for the last bead for nearly six months-was definitely some time off.

Still, she was willing enough to scramble off the ship and be helped toward the airlock. It was odd to think that they'd never see each other again. Sad. Kretz was alien… but very human too.

Howard greeted Kretz with a smile and a ready, roped-together group of space-suits in various sizes. "We must run," said Kretz. "Abret is ready for a hot lift."

Abret had managed to set down right next to the airlock, tricky though that must have been.

Dandani was still aboard. "Why?" asked Howard.

"He could not do the space-walk alone. And we did not have time."

Abret was already lifting, not even waiting for them to find seats.

Howard had spent too much time with Kretz not to read his expressions. "What's wrong," he asked calmly.

The tone seemed to help Kretz.

"Selna. The other Miran survivor. She is back on the spacecraft threatening to launch without us. We cannot get home if she does that. This craft is far too small and far too slow. It has no trance-equipment or drugs. And we have insufficient supplies."

"Surely she won't do that to you?"

"It… is possible, yes," said Kretz reluctantly. "She's changed sex. She needs her nesting territory. Miran always return to the area of their birth to breed, Howard. And, well, Amber was telling me you humans have something called PMS."

Howard had not the vaguest idea what Kretz was talking about. But Lani obviously did. She nodded. "Yeah. Um. You'll get used to it, Howard. Do you aliens have this problem?"

Kretz nodded. "Only at changeover. There are huge physiological and hormonal changes. On Miran… we stay a long way from someone during changeover. Once it is over-Miran females are territorial, never move out of their nesting territory again. But they are everything else we males are not. Sensible. Conservative. But Selna. .."

"Is having a whole life-time's PMS. Can't get to her nesting territory," said Lani, pulling a face.

Kretz nodded. "So we are going to the last habitat first. Abret will alight, try and calm her and stop the launch sequence. Then we, or rather I, will fly you back to your habitats."

"Kretz!" yelled Abret. The rest of what he said was a gabble of alien, but Kretz left at a run, shouting: "Get them into seats and strapped in."

Howard set about doing so with Lani.

Then they strapped in.

He was glad of it.

Without hope, without dreams, we have no future.

– Abraham Lee. Colonist.

"The side-boosters are flaring," said Abret, as Kretz dived into his seat. "Tell her we're nearly there! She's got to stop the sequence. Abort! Abort! ABORT!"

And then as Abret flung the ship into a skidding landing on the end surface of the last habitat…

It was too late.

Their hopes of ever returning home were a shrinking speck.

Howard was the first to get out of his seat. The two aliens were keening gently. He looked out of the forward windows. All he could see were some mounds of white stuff and a gaping opening where the airlock should be. Some of the metal walkways were also hanging-as if torn aside by some tremendous force. There was no sign of anything that could be an alien spaceship.

"What happened here?" said Lani coming up behind him.

"Their ship must have gone without them," he said quietly.

"And there?" Lani pointed at the ruined lock.

"It appears that the last habitat… is not a habitat any more."

"What do you think happened?" she asked.

"I don't know," Howard admitted. "Could anyone survive that?"

"I doubt it. They probably died fast, anyway. Well, Kretz doesn't need to worry about invasion any more."

Howard was silenced by it. How many humans, no matter how evil, had died there? "Do you think she did it on purpose?"

Lani shrugged. "I would have."

It was a horrific thought. Howard wondered what decision he would have made. His species against a single act of genocide?

Kretz stood up. "Go back to your seats, please," he said in a curiously flat voice. "We must take you back to your homes."

"But what are you going to do, Kretz?" asked Lani, taking his arm and ignoring the request to return to her seat.

Kretz shrugged. It was a very human gesture, and a very sad one.

"What can we do? Abret and I have not enough hormone supplements, food, or a ship that could reach our home. I suppose we will complete such research as we can and see if we can launch the lifecraft toward Miran." He pointed at the distant double star. "I think then we will choose a quick death," he said.

Howard had come to stand between the two aliens. He put an arm around Kretz's shoulders, and a hand onto Abret.

"You will always have a place with us," he said quietly.

"We'll even cope with super-PMS," said Lani. "And at least there are two of you."

Kretz shook his head. "Brother Howard. I did not know what brother meant, in the deeper sense of the word, when I was in your habitat. I know now. But it cannot work. Miran must go home to breed. It was that, rather than anything else that drove Selna to this desperate, doomed, illogical step. I thank you-because we are brothers across the species line, across space, across evolution. But it cannot be."

Howard squeezed his shoulder. "Then we'll have to send you home. We don't abandon our brothers either."

Kretz smiled. It was a slight, tragic smile, as Howard judged these things. "I do not believe that even the people of Icarus could build us another ship."