Blood of Denebria (Star Sojourner Book 4) Page 5

  “I tried to talk Al out of the divorce,” I told Joe. “I wanted her and Lisa to come to Syl' Terria.”

  Joe stopped again. “And leave everything she knew for that godforsaken rock?”

  I shrugged.

  “It's done.” He waved, as though brushing aside old memories. “Let's get back to the ship.

  “You know, the only way we're going to find an SPS is—“

  “Going behind BEM lines and locating one of theirs.”

  I nodded as we approached the ship, parked under a towering, green-leafed tree for camouflage from the air. “I've never seen such an earthlike planet,” I commented. “Parallel evolution. But that begs the question, Joe. With their isolationist policy, the Denebrians don't cater to alien menus.” I ripped a leaf off a low branch and studied it as we walked. It was veined and very similar to Earth's deciduous leaves. “Another good reason to get help from Alpha in a quick hurry, as Chancey would say. I'm half starved. The other half of me is vying for thirsty and tired.”

  Joe reached into his pocket. “While Sojourner was making jumps like a kangaroo on steroids, I managed to grab our supply of digestall. Here's one of them.” He pulled out a wrapped package.”

  “Damn, Joseph!” Digestall. We could eat almost anything the Denebrians had to offer.

  “I stored the rest in the ship,” he said. “A good month's supply for the four of us.

  “How about the kit for checking alien poisons?”

  “That, too.”

  I chuckled. The BEMs never thought to search us. I guess when you don't wear clothes, you don't have the concept of pockets.”

  “There's a lot of things they're clueless about. It works in our favor.”

  “You know, Huff has a belly pouch. He stores candy bars in it.”

  “How'd you ever get mixed up with that fur ball?”

  “Long story, Joe,” I said as we climbed onboard the ship. “He's a good-hearted tag. I wish you and Chancey would show him a little more respect.”

  Huff was awake, picking parasites off his fur and eating them.

  Joe threw me a look.

  The four of us went to a local bar and grill for supper. A female Denebrian behind the counter, by the bulges in her coveralls around her chest, silently watched us walk by and toward the booths.

  Mammalian, I thought.

  The bar consisted of a row of liquefied vegetables in different colored bottles that adorned the shelf behind the counter. Names were scrawled in Stelspeak for their new friends, the BEMs. The bartender, a short tag by Denebrian standards, perhaps six feet, with olive green skin, stared at me at eye level, then turned his back and purposely ignored us as he wiped glasses from the dish drainer.

  It was early for supper and only a few patrons sat at booths, their dishes piled with green vegetables and slices of yellow gourds. When you're a vegetarian you have to eat a lot of food to get enough nourishment. They kept their heads down as they ate, and tried to ignore us. Only their children, peeking out from under floppy hats, showed open curiosity.

  “Hey, Shorty!” Chancey tapped the bar with a fist. “Shit! I could've had a V8.” He slapped his forehead.

  The bartender slowly turned. His nose slits flared. The skin between his shaggy brown brows wrinkled.

  I chuckled as we took seats at a booth near the swinging kitchen door to be away from the other customers, and opened menus.

  I sat back, feeling the effects of the past few days. “I don't know if I'm more thirsty, more hungry, or more tired,” I said. “It's a toss-up.”

  “We'll go back to the ship after supper.” Joe opened a menu. “I want you to get a good night's sleep.”

  “Me too.” I gently touched the welts on my left cheek.

  “Do they still hurt?” Joe asked.

  “Not if I leave them alone.” I opened the menu and studied it. The grill served vegetables unliquefied. You could have them deep fried, boiled, sautéed, or rolled in krunci crums. “Dammit,” I muttered, “I could eat a horse.”

  “And I,” Huff announced, “could eat two tailless squigglers, even without salted ice.”

  “Ah feel like I'm back home at Mama's,” Chancey said, thickening his Harlem accent as he studied the menu. 'Eat yo vegetables, child.' We should've grabbed the food stores from Sojourner.” He folded the menu in disgust.

  “There was no time to grab them,” Joe told him. He took out the packet of digestall, opened it and handed us containers of the pills, then dropped four into our empty plates and unzipped the poison-test kit.

  The waiter came by, a young male dressed in the inevitable green coveralls, with a white cap on his plated head, and a tray of dirty dishes. I raised my hand, but he continued by as though our booth was empty, and strode into the kitchen.

  “That tag ignores us one more time,” Chancey said, “an' I'll go fry us up some okra and hominy grits myself.”

  “You can fry hominy grits?” I asked Chancey.

  “How do I know? I hate southern food.”

  I stared out the window where a farmer, dressed in green coveralls, strolled down a stone road, pulling a stretcher without wheels, full of long green plants and yellow gourds.

  “It's a travois,” I said and slipped my bottle of digestall into my jacket pocket.

  “What the hell's a travois?” Chancey asked.

  I nodded toward the passing farmer. “They don't have the concept of wheels.”

  “That's the least of what they don't have,” Chancey said.

  Joe glanced over my shoulder, toward the front door. He spread his hands across his open menu. I saw his shoulders hunch and his jaw tighten.

  “What?” I said.

  Huff sat beside me, running a clawed paw down the menu's list of offerings.

  “Are all your stinglers fully charged?” Joe asked quietly.

  Chancey, sitting beside Joe, glanced up and froze as he stared past me.

  “Don't turn around!” Joe ordered as Huff turned to peer over his shoulder. His lips drew back in a Vegan grimace. “BEMs!” he said aloud.

  “Duck!” Joe yelled.

  I slid under the table and heard the zap of a hot beam flash over my head.

  Joe cried out.

  “Joe!” I yelled and coughed on burning material from the booth's backrest.

  “Joe's hit!” Chancey said. “I don't think it's bad.”

  “Dammit!” I said. “Huff, you OK?”

  “Here is OK,” he whined and crawled beneath the table. “For this now moment.”

  I unholstered my stingler and stuck my head past the booth, on hands and knees. The BEMs were crouched between a booth and the counter. “How many of them?”

  “Five,” Joe rasped out.

  “What the hell are they doing in Korschaff?” I said.

  “You heard Agrari,” Chancey answered, “they're visitors.”

  “Jules friend, keep the floe above your head!” Huff made a grab for my jacket, missed and fell into me. I slid out from under the booth and was flattened to the floor, with Huff on top of me. My stingler bounced across the carpet.

  “Son of a crote!” I yelled as a hot beam burned the carpet just past my hand. “Get off me, Huff!”

  He backed up and dragged me under the table by my pants. I pulled the second stingler from behind my waistband and spun the ring to hot. The four of us were pretty crowded under that table.

  “Wait a minute,” I said to the others. “Let me get my bearings. Maybe I can link and see what they have in mind.”

  “I can tell you what,” Chancey said. “Kill us and take back their ship.”

  “Who's got the comkey?” I asked.

  “I do,” Chancey told me. “They're not getting into the ship without it.”

  “The backup key?” I asked.

  “Under a rock near the ship,” Chancey told me.

  Uh oh, I thought as the BEMs began to systematically burn the backs of the seats on my side of the booth. Small flames flared. I pushed against Joe in an attempt t
o move away from them and smelled burning fur. Huff whined as flames singed his outer coat. I took off my jacket and snuffed out the flares as they sprouted.

  “Like rats in a cage,” Chancey said.

  “Take the jacket.” I shoved it at Huff.

  He hooked it with a claw and studied the backrest for fires.

  “Be quiet now,” I told them all.

  I closed my eyes and blanked out the turmoil around me. A burn like a hot poker was suddenly pressed against my side. For a panicked moment I thought I'd been hit. But no, it was Joe!

  I had no time to comfort his mind or reach into his pain centers. I lowered my mental shields, like grinding plates that submerged into black water. I probed.

  This isn't working, brothers, a BEM sent. The seat material resists fire. We must charge them.

  Some of us will be killed! another sent on a note of panic.

  Yes, the first one responded. But if we return without Older Brother's ship, we will all be fed to Bountiful, a tentacle at a time.

  “They're going to charge!” I whispered. “They mean to kill us and get the key. Get ready. How's Joe?”

  “I'll live,” he squeezed out.

  “OK. Quiet now,” I said. “I'll tell you when they're coming.”

  Wait, a third BEM sent. I could feel the keenness of his focused mind. Three of us will crawl out the front door and go round the building. Then, on my signal, we all fire at once. The booth they occupy will heat up from both sides and it will flush them out.

  Crossfire, I thought.

  What was that? the first BEM sent. I heard crossfire.

  The telepath is linking, the third one told him. No matter, he will still feel the heat and smoke of our beams.

  “Crossfire!” I told my companions and caught my breath. “Three of them are going around to the back of the building.”

  “Chancey.” Joe groaned. “Can you push this seat aside?”

  “Let's see.” Chancey jammed his muscular shoulder against their seat and pushed. I heard a brace beneath it snap. Joe and Chancey fell as the seat slid backward.

  “C'mon,” Joe said. “Chancey, give me a hand.”

  Our seat was still in place, blocking the view from the counter, I grabbed my jacket, tied it around my waist, and followed the others as they crawled past the broken seat and through the kitchen door. The male waiter was gone. The outer metal kitchen door, a massive affair, stood open. I kept my mind a blank as I pointed to a tall, rectangular window.

  “Go, Chancey,” I said. “I'll cover you.”

  I ran to the door, swung it shut and threw the bolt, then ducked behind a crate of rotted vegetables and watched the door as Huff and Chancey got Joe out through the window.

  I was about to run to the window when the door turned bright red and crashed inward. Three BEMs filled the doorway with weapons drawn. Smoke and dust swirled around their thick mantles.

  I breathed quietly and flattened against the wall behind the crate. They hadn't seen me. Their large disc eyes were fixed on the open window. I kept my weapon poised, my mind a blank, and hoped they didn't hear my heart petitioning to be let out.

  They slithered past the crate, their large eyes flashing, and climbed out the window on long tentacles.

  I went to the window and peeked out. Joe was straddled on Huff's back as Huff galloped on all fours, racing for the ship. Chancey turned and fired, then ran flat out beside them.

  Two BEMs rushed out of the restaurant's front door and joined the chase, flopping on tentacles that they stretched out like four-legged creatures. It was a surreal scene, if ever there was one.

  The ship's hatch swung open as Chancey extended the comkey, set for remote. I fired at the BEMs to distract them. One of them rolled and got up holding his side.

  Joe and Chancey and Huff threw themselves through the hatch and swung it shut behind them.

  Oh, no, I thought as the BEMs fired on the hull and the starboard engine glowed red. Take off, Chancey, I sent, but didn't know if he was influenced by my thought.

  The engines came to life. The ship shuddered. Chancey must have had his foot through the floor, in a manner of speaking. The BEMs turned and ran for cover, dragging their wounded companion, as the ship lifted, wavered in the air as it circled them and shot into the darkening cobalt of the Denebrian sky.

  The silence came down on me like thunder. I backed out through the broken doorway as the BEMs turned and slithered toward the restaurant.

  The terrain behind the building was flat, with patches of weeds. Denebrians dragged plant-laden travois into the city, and empty ones back out. Beyond the stone road, a jagged ravine curved past a fenced-in warehouse.

  A few Denebrians hurried out of my path as I ran across the road, my stingler gripped in my hand, and slid into the ravine. I stayed low and sloshed through muddy ankle-deep water and debris, and ran toward the heart of the city, where there would be more hiding places. I kept glancing back, afraid that at any moment I would see domed furred heads rise up above the lip of the ravine with eyes like glowing yellow coals.

  I ran until I was out of breath, then stopped and ventured a look over the top. To my right, crowds of Denebrians strolled a crisscross of stone walks, carrying bags from drab store to store, unaware that not far from them I was fighting for my life. Would they have cared anyway? My darker side said no.

  One glassless window displayed green coveralls in different sizes, and straw hats. I would've liked to grab a pair of coveralls and a hat for disguise, but I dared not venture out of the ravine.

  I leaned against the moist dirt wall, clutching a protruding root to steady myself, my breath trembling in my throat, my knees shaking. The only way my friends would find me is if I stayed in the area where we had parked the ship. The BEMs were a pragmatic bunch, but they weren't stupid. They knew I couldn't go back there.

  I closed my eyes and tried for a tel link with Huff, the easiest of my friends to probe. The hive mind swarmed like bees, stabbing at my mind, trying to disrupt my thought processes.

  Show yourself! The link crashed down in an effort to disrupt my thoughts. Come out and join your brothers. We welcome you, Terran Jules Rammis, like the larvae of our own Bountiful.

  I raised my shields and held them there, against their efforts to break through. I still had that much autonomy.

  He is somewhere in a ditch, I caught as they retreated and broke the link.

  I pushed away from the wall, breathing hard, and staggered along the ravine. If they caught me this time, they would not be after information. Older Brother had given up on that. I would be Bountiful's lunch, turned into nutrients to produce more BEM eggs. Maybe executed in public to warn the timid Denebrians. “Don't even think about resistance, cousins!” The thought of ending up that way chilled me.

  What was that whining sound? A vehicle! It could only be BEMs. I glanced over the wall. An armored car, as alien in design as the BEM ship, and bristling with weapons, clattered along the stone road on metal wheels.

  “Christ and Buddha,” I muttered as the vehicle screeched to a halt not far from where I was hiding. I would never outrun them! I dug at the wall, making an alcove of sorts with fingernails in the moist earth. The stingler would've been faster, but it would also have burned the protruding roots and sent smoke billowing. This is a last-ditch stand! I thought insanely. They would not take me alive.

  Voices above.

  They knew I was armed. And desperate.

  I pressed into my shallow alcove and covered my jacket with loose clods of dirt. Jutting roots pressed into my back. The black turtleneck and pants blended in well with rich, dark soil. The pungent odor reminded me of an open grave. Above my head, the idling vehicle whined. I felt like whining myself. I licked dry lips and wiped my sweaty palms on my pants.

  “Jules!” A BEM called.

  I jumped.

  “We know you're close. Discard your weapon and show yourself. We mean you no harm. Older Brother wants only to converse with you.”

>   Over lunch! I sent.

  “I received that! You have my word as a member of an honorable race of people, you will not be harmed.”

  Go fuck yourself! I sent.

  “You two,” the BEM said to the others, “go into the ditch on that side. We two will enter it from the other side. We will have him between us. It is a good day to die for the the Zwigzayllzyts race.”

  “What of our wounded brother in the vehicle?” one asked. “Shouldn't I, uh, go back and stay with him?”

  “He is beyond our help,” the first one said. “He will assuredly be recycled when we return to the base. Now go that way with your brother!”

  “Yes, valued brother.”

  I leaned my head back against the wall. Willa, my love. Where are you? On which planet?

  I felt tears seep down my face as I unholstered the stingler and checked again that it was set for hot beam. I don't think I was as afraid of death as much as the agony of a searing beam through my chest. Spirit? Star Speaker…Morth? Is anybody out there, I implored my alien friends who could mindlink across the stars. I need help! But only the great voids between the systems surrounded my link.

  Your friends cannot help you, Terran, the BEM sent. Do you wish to surrender peacefully and not be burned alive?

  I wish to take a few of you mother fuckers with me.

  So be it.

  I held the stingler out, braced in both trembling hands, prepared to swing it in either direction, and pressed myself back against the alcove. The slosh of tentacles slapping water came from both directions. A BEM suddenly appeared over the edge of the ravine, opposite me. A ploy I hadn't expected! He aimed before I could lift my stingler. I gasped in a breath. But he screamed as a hot beam flashed through his mantle and out the other side. His glowing eyes dulled to brown as he pitched forward and crashed into the water, convulsing. I ripped the weapon from his spasming tentacles and swung around, my stingler aimed. “What the hell?”