The Getaway Special

35

When they could hear one another again, Tippet said, “Are you sure you are unharmed? You received several blows that would have killed a being of your size from my planet.”

“I’m fine,” Judy replied. “I’m more worried about the water I swallowed when I went under.” She set the bucket down on the ground at the top of the steep incline, then took a couple of steps away and shook like a dog. Allen’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head when she did that, and she realized that her shirt was clinging to her body. She shook again just to taunt him, but she certainly didn’t feel sexy at the moment. In fact, the thought of alien microorganisms swimming around in her stomach made her feel like throwing up, but years of astronaut training had given her a steady stomach. She could probably make herself do it if she had to, but she already felt miserable enough as it was, and she didn’t imagine it would do much good anyway. Liquids didn’t stay in the stomach long; if she’d swallowed anything dangerous, it was already spreading through her intestines.

“Do you know anything about what lives in the water?” she asked Tippet.

“I have tested samples of it for lifeforms,” he said. “There are several different types of single- and multi-celled organisms, none of which are inimical to my health, but I don’t know what their effect will be on you.”

“Inimical? Is that a word?”

“I believe so. Did I not use it correctly?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard it before.”

“The dictionary defines it as ‘injurious or harmful in effect.’ It seemed the most appropriate word for the situation.

“It probably is,” Judy said. “I just never learned that one.” She felt a little embarrassed to admit it. An alien who’d only learned the language an hour ago had a better vocabulary than a native speaker. He had no idea which words were common and which were obscure, but he knew every shade of meaning available. And what more did he know from reading between the lines?

She couldn’t shake her unease at his mental capacity, especially now that she stood before him dripping wet after a stupid mistake that could have gotten her killed. A mistake that could kill her yet if the alien bacteria proved deadly. His impression of the human race couldn’t be good, and she wasn’t doing anything to help it out.

She checked the pistol, still tucked in her waistband. It was as wet as everything else, but she bet it would still fire if she needed it. It had the look of something that could take a lot of abuse and still work.

Hah. Their weapons technology was probably the one thing humanity possessed that would impress Tippet’s people, and that was exactly the wrong kind of impression to give them.

She lifted the bucket again. Gah. Forty pounds. Maybe a little less here, but in a mile it would feel like eighty. If they had a pole to run through the handle, she and Allen could carry it on their shoulders, but she had seen no dead branches in the entire forest, and the live ones acted more like rubber hoses than branches. Besides which, she didn’t know how to tell a mobile tree from a regular one—assuming any of them were normal trees. Cutting off a branch could be like amputating an arm.

Neither she nor Allen could carry the bucket far alone, though. She set it down again and said, “Let’s try both grabbing the handle. Maybe we can carry it between us.” She took the stuff sack from him, leaving him with the computer in his left hand and his right hand free to help carry the water.

It was awkward at first, but they soon discovered that it worked better if they leaned outward and walked in step on alternate feet. When they did that, they fell into a smooth gait that let the bucket glide along between them without jostling or even swinging much.

They had to sidle around clumps of bushes at first, but within a few minutes they had cleared the thicket around the river and had smooth sailing back home. Tippet called out directions, not even flying up above the trees to get his bearings as Judy would have expected, but doing it either by dead reckoning or by using some internal navigation equipment.

She felt her stomach rumble within the first quarter mile, but she didn’t suggest stopping to fix lunch. If that rumble wasn’t just hunger, she wanted to be as close to the Getaway as possible before she got sick. And the less time they left the hyperdrive unattended, the better she would feel.

For the first time since this whole business had started, she understood why the governments of every nation on Earth had reacted the way they did. They might be glad to have the secret for themselves, but they were afraid, just as she was, that others couldn’t be trusted with it. Her definition of “other” was a little more broad than theirs, but it all came down to the same thing: fear. She didn’t like what it said about her, or about humanity in general.

She wondered if Allen was having the same doubts. He had wanted to give his discovery to everyone on Earth, but did that generosity and trust extend to aliens, too? Should it? Judy could argue both sides of that question, but she knew the safe answer.

Tippet undoubtedly did, too, but he was either too polite or too circumspect to mention it. He chattered on like a child about his explorations since he had arrived here—only a few days before Judy and Allen, it turned out—and he asked endless questions about human society and life on Earth, but he steered clear of the hyperdrive.

They made it a mile or so back the way they had come before Allen called a halt, saying, “I’ve got to drink something or I’m going to fall over.”

He hadn’t had the inadvertent mouthful of water Judy had gotten in the river. That and her anxiety over leaving the Getaway unguarded had kept her going, but he was operating on a single apple for breakfast.

“Time for a break,” she admitted.

They set the bucket down and got a beer out of the stuff sack. Allen popped the top and drank half of it in one go, then handed it to Judy, who took a more cautious sip and handed it back. She dug out the cheese and tore off a hunk for each of them, then said to Tippet, “What about you? Can you eat or drink any of this?”

He had been riding on Allen’s right shoulder while they walked. For a moment Allen thought she was talking to him, and he said, “Of course I—oh,” just as Tippet said, “I have my own food supply, but thank you for the offer.”

“How long can you go in that environment suit before you have to resupply?”

“That depends on my exertion level. With you carrying me, I can last two days before dipping into emergency reserves. Otherwise I must return to my lander every night.”

“Oh. You, uh, want to spend the night with us, then?”

“If you are amenable to that, yes. It would allow us more time to get to know one another. And perhaps I will see the mobile tree you discovered last night.”

Judy laughed. “It discovered us, and I’m not sure if I want it to come back, but you’re welcome to hang out with us and see if it does.”

“You haven’t seen any of them move before?” Allen asked.

“No,” Tippet replied. “I have not seen any ambulatory lifeforms since I got here, other than you.”

They must not be all that common, then, Judy thought. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Mobile plants were definitely the sort of exotic life she’d wanted to find, but a full-sized tree could be dangerous to someone her size even if it wasn’t hostile.

She glanced over at Tippet, still riding on Allen’s shoulder. Was that how he felt about her? Or did the existence of the hive mind reduce his individual fear of mortality? She couldn’t think of a delicate way to ask him. Are you afraid of me? Not good. The only thing worse would be to ask, So, what’s it like to be so small?

She and Allen finished their beer and cheese and picked up the water bucket again. It seemed to have doubled in weight just sitting there, but after a few hundred steps it was no worse than before. If nothing else, exploring was going to keep her and Allen in good shape.

They were puffing too hard to talk much, but Tippet regaled them with more stories of his exploits, describing the land to the south of the river and the vegetation he had found near his landing site there. He was telling them about the different kinds of bushes he had found in the drier badlands to the east when he suddenly stopped speaking.

“Tippet?” Allen asked. Judy looked down at the walkie-talkie on his hip, thinking maybe the battery had suddenly died, but the power light was still glowing red.

“Wait,” Tippet said. “Something… happen… in space.”

Allen stopped walking. Judy took another step before she realized he wasn’t keeping up with her, and nearly wrenched her arm before she could let go of the bucket. It hit the ground with a thump and tipped sideways, but the lid held. A handful of water glugged out of the holes in the lid, but Allen righted it and turned his attention to Tippet, “What’s the matter?”

“Wait. Not sure. Mind… busy now.”

Judy immediately imagined some kind of onboard disaster going on overhead. A fire, or a blowout, or a leaking fuel tank; in space, there were a million dangers just waiting to happen at any moment. Whatever it was, it was apparently demanding enough of the hive mind’s attention that there wasn’t any to spare for its members on the ground.

Tippet’s wings quivered, and Judy realized she was shivering as well. Some of that was from her clothing, which was still damp even now, but not all of it.

“Can we do anything?” she asked, but she already knew the answer. They were still at least a mile from the Getaway. By the time they could get there and get into orbit, whatever was happening on board Tippet’s ship would be over.

“Wait,” Tippet said again. “Wait. Linking… again. Oh.”

“What? What’s happening?”

“Another spaceship has suddenly appeared in orbit.”