Dave Duncan - Wildcatter

The spear-carrier understood the gestures, if not the words, and advanced to the foot of the ladder, others clearing a path for him, or perhaps her—unless they were carrying young, they were as hard to sex as penguins. Seth stepped aside and beckoned for it to enter.

The spear-carrier scurried up the ramp at once, nosey as a monkey. Seth led the way to Meredith.

The centaur uttered what sounded like an alarm cry. It… he… poked her arm with a flipper, stroked her hair, made a strange noise that sounded mostly like a chuckle but could well be a Cacafuegian distress call.

“I need help, you cute little idiot. Summon your friends and relations. I want you to carry her for me. Like this.” Seth tugged the edge of the sheet, to show how that worked. Then he cradled the sample bag in his arms like a baby. “So jump on all six feet, understand?” He pointed an arm in Niagara ’s direction, cradled the bag again.

Seth had found the Albert Einstein of Cacafuego: the apple dropped, understanding dawned. The centaur rushed out into the corridor, where several others had arrived.

Yitter yitter yitter yitter yitter…

One thing they had in common with humans was that they never stopped talking.

But his desperate plan worked. About eight of them crowded into the dormitory. They all kept yittering, but Einstein yittered loudest. Under his direction, they hoisted Meredith shoulder high—their shoulders—which were about thigh-height on Seth. He led the way, down the ramp, and off toward Niagara , aware that Control would be recording this procession and wondering how it was going to play on his plog: history being made, a naked human conscripting a team of hexapod aliens to carry another human to safety. Or perhaps to a barbecue pit? He held the sample bag before him in a strategic location, partly for modesty, but also to protect important locations from the centaur’s busily exploring flippers. They found his legs fascinating.

He dared not stop to rest and he was staggering by the time he reached the shuttle. The door swung down for him, alarming his escort just enough that he managed to be first up the ramp. The two-meter climb was almost beyond his strength.

Overhead, the first bulkhead hatch of the Gut was closed, restricting the entrance to what would normally be the decontamination chamber. The rest of the shuttle would not be infested by centaurs, which might see Niagara as a giant chimney and want to explore it.

There was little enough room for Meredith as well, but Einstein yittered orders, many eager flippers raised her, and Seth somehow managed to haul her in, at the risk of wrecking his back. He arranged her, sitting against the wall, knees up. Then he gently resisted efforts for the whole tribe to join him. One of them was a spear-carrier—probably Einstein, although he still could not tell one Cacafuegian from another. Seth offered to trade a priceless imported curtain rod for a wooden spear armed with a sharp shell point. Einstein caught on at once and yittered loudly as they made the exchange.

ISLA would throw purple fits, of course, but if the centaurs were not already rummaging all through what remained of Mercury , they wouldn’t need long to work out how the doors opened. They would find bedding, clothes, and many other goodies. Seth had broken every rule in GenRegs 002 , the section that dealt with first contact, and would face a charge sheet as long as his arm. He would plead force majeure and sanctity of human life. More important, he was going to be an international hero, so ISLA wouldn’t dare penalize him harshly. Just fine him a million dollars or so. By then he wouldn’t care about small change like that.

“Control, start raising the ramp, but go slowly until the centaurs are all off it.”

The centaurs quickly took the hint, with Einstein scrambling to safety behind his followers. Control slammed the door. Seth sat down beside Meredith, which was a tight fit. He was starting to see double and his head felt like it was about to burst.

“Seth, this is Jordan. You read me?”

“I copy,” he mumbled.

“You can’t survive takeoff in that position.”

“We’ll have to. I can’t climb the ladder myself, let alone do it for two. Wake me when… in orbit. And don’t,” he muttered, “let Control fumigate us with toxic chemicals. Prospector… out.”

Seth had no recollection at all of the next two days, and only spotty memories of the two after that. He gradually became aware that he was aboard Niagara , lying in the prospector’s bunk. Once in a while, someone would come to fuss over him, instead of just leaving him to die in peace as he wanted. When, at last, he could force his eyes to focus, he determined that his tormentor was Reese Platte, still female, and wearing an aseptic suit. She was doing something with heavy web straps.

“Oh, you’re back?” she said cheerily. “How do you feel?”

“Groan .”

“Well, that’s better than nothing, and much better than all the things you’ve been saying lately.”

“Uh?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just delirium. Can’t be held against you. We had to strap you down. You’re not going to erupt again, are you? Convulsions in free fall are not as dangerous as they are in gravity, but you might still damage yourself. I am going to give you a sponge bath. Yes, I certainly am, because at the moment you would qualify as toxic waste under the Oslo Convention.”

He came to his senses fairly rapidly in the hours after that, although physically he was as weak as a newborn. His next visitor was Hanna, wearing ordinary ship gear. She had come to remove his IV feed and give him a bulb of pseudo-chicken soup.

He felt strong enough to ask. “I take it that I am no longer in quarantine?”

“No.” That answer was suspiciously lacking in detail.

“I can rejoin the party, then?”

“Not yet. We’re still depressurizing Meredith, and you have to stay in the shuttle with her unless you want to risk an attack of the bends yourself.”

“How is she?”

“She’s recovering. She had a dozen rampant infections and parasites—all of which we dealt with—but mostly she was suffering from major nitrogen narcosis. No signs of anything unknown, and Control says she’ll live.”

“And me?”

“Unknown pathogen, but you’re recovering too.”

“Where are we going? Home or Armada?

“Home. We decided that as soon as Niagara left Cacafuego. Our life systems will be too close to critical when they must support seven people. Also we’re out of shuttle fuel.”

Seth decided he would go and see Meredith as soon as Hanna left. Instead, he fell asleep.

He learned later that he had not been as helpless as he thought. As soon as the shuttle had reached orbit, he had reacted as if he were conscious. He had floated Meredith along the Gut and strapped her down in the biologist’s bunk, then attached three pressure-driven intravenous feeds, which had been left there in readiness for her. He had even stowed his sample bag in the lab freezer before putting himself to bed, but he had no memory of doing any of those things. Control had docked the shuttle, and Reese had boarded to tend the invalids.

His next visitor was the captain herself, bringing more food and looking haggard. Seth accepted the bag but left it floating within easy reach.