Tenacious

52

Next morning, after breakfast, Kris connected with Jacques and did make it down to where they now housed the alien natives. Their quarters were more spacious and much more to their liking.

They had what appeared to be three caves coming off a rock overhang. Below was a sandy area and what looked like a stream. When Kris crossed it, she found herself splashing.

Apparently, a certain amount of the Wasp’s reaction mass was in use as a creek for them.

They had their own fire and were roasting something that had, no doubt, until recently been alive on Sasquan. They seemed content.

~You chased off the other star walkers,~ the gray-bearded man said, no doubt in his voice.

~They will not walk among the stars again,~ Kris answered.

~Will you take more heads?~ the bald woman asked.

~We will either take their heads or they will take ours,~ Kris said.

The bald woman shook her head. Nelly reminded Kris that this meant agreement among these people.

~Why do you have to take their head? Why do they want to take your head?~ piped up a thin voice.

Kris turned to see the young fellow whose leg injury had started all this. Now he was up and hobbling toward them, a young-girl playmate following him like a shadow.

~They have land,~ the graybeard said. ~If you go in someone’s land, you either run away from them or fight them. If you win, it is your land.~

That explanation seemed to satisfy all the adults listening.

It didn’t satisfy the young fellow. ~But look up in the sky at night. Not this one, but the real sky. There is a lot of land. Every one of those dots of light is a star with land. Why fight?~

~You will know when you are older,~ the bald woman said.

That answer didn’t seem any more acceptable to him than it had to Kris when she was his age.

~Can I go with you, Uncle Jacques?~

The anthropologist stepped forward. ~You can go with me if your father’s father or your father’s mother says you can,~ the anthropologist said. The “if” was in Standard.

~Can we,~ came in two-part harmony from both the boy and girl.

~Go,~ the grandfather said. ~Leave your betters in some quiet. And you be sure to feed them, Jacques. When they walk off with you to pester you with questions, they miss their meat here and come home whining for meat that is already eaten.~

~I will feed them,~ Jacques assured their elders.

The four of them crossed the stream, opened the door painted to blend in with the forest motif, and stepped outside.

~Can I have my “reader”?~ both kids begged.

Jacques produced a pair of readers and gave them to the kids. In a moment, they were lost to a basic primer on letters and numbers, the kind of thing Kris had been given when she was three.

“You’re teaching them to read?” Kris asked.

“Their elders can’t grasp the concept of symbols meaning anything. They aren’t dumb. Drop them in the woods, and they’ll track a gnat that we can’t even see when it’s biting us on the ass, but try to get across to them the idea of three or four? Nope. Not possible. Me, mine. One, two, many. Big many to some, but just many to most.”

“But these kids?” Kris said, waving at the two, then grabbing one and pulling them out of the way of a hurrying Sailor.

Kris had almost walked into enough poles, walls, ditches, whatever, as a kid lost in her games to smile as she rescued this girl from a similar fate.

“We caught them just before their brains locked down. They’re learning. Their brains are also sprouting synapses like a house afire. Just like one of our kids in their age range.”

“They’re learning to speak Standard?” Kris said, eyeing what the kids were reading.

“And they’re picking it up like a dry sponge does water. They’re also learning our vocabulary, a full, modern vocabulary.”

“They’ll be like the others, only open to talking,” Kris said.

“Yep. Doc Meade wants them back in the lab this afternoon. I don’t think she’ll mind if I bring them in early. She’s studying them, matching them against the cadavers we have and the baselines we have from their folks. These kids’ brains are so different from those of the elders we’ve got.”

Kris chewed that over.

Jacques kept talking. “So, in answer to the question you’re not asking me, yes, it was worthwhile picking them up. But the very act of bringing them into our conversation is making them different. Different from their own tribe. Different from the bloodthirsty killers among the stars. I have no idea where all this is heading, but it’s opening up what was pretty locked down beforehand.”

“I’m going to judge this as good,” Kris said.

“Kris, Captain Drago wants to talk to you.”

“Why?” Kris asked.

“There’s a problem up ahead. Maybe it’s nothing, but he’d like you to know about it sooner rather than later.

Jacques raised an inquiring eyebrow.

Kris shrugged. “You take the kids to the doctor, and I’ll see what’s worrying the captain.”

And she walked off. Quickly. Admirals never run. That might scare the average Sailor and really scare their officers.

But admirals can walk very, very quickly.