Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Forty-Eight

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Can Blunt resist pulling his weapon?

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Chapter Forty-Eight – Weapons

Three of them looked down at the pistols on their thighs, then Steel looked at Blunt’s hand on the grip of his. He said, “Easy, Blunt.” Then he turned to the little creature by the door and said, “Yes, they are. It’s just a precaution, given the, uh, situation.”

“I understand,” said their host. “It’s all right. You can keep them, but please don’t use them.”

They could see now that it wasn’t actually speaking the words. At least, the sounds they were hearing weren’t matching the movements its mouth was making. There must be some kind of translating device around. Steel said, “We don’t intend to use them, but we will keep them, thank you. We don’t intend you any harm.”

“It’s not myself I’m worried about,” it said. “The Prime doesn’t like weapons and it reacts badly to their use.”

“The Prime?”

“This vessel. That’s what we called it when we first discovered it.” It made a sound that they took to be laughter. “That turned out to be a joke on us.”

“Discovered? You didn’t build it? You discovered it here?”

“No. We discovered it in our own solar system, after …” It waved its hands to brush it away. “That’s a long story and can wait for later. Right now is the time for meeting, and introductions. My name is –” It made a sound that the translator interpreted for them as “Archie.” It went on, “Like your species, we have two sexes. I’m male, as are three of you.” He addressed Steel directly. “You must be Supervisor Steel.”

“Yes,” said Steel, surprised. “How did you know that? The radio transmissions from Mission Control?”

“Yes,” said Archie. “That, and the message pods. What you call the gliders.”

“The gliders?” said Steel. “Are you saying you sent the gliders down to listen to us? To gather intelligence?”

“Yes, sort of …”

Blunt interjected loudly, “You sent them to spy on us!” His hand wandered toward his pistol again.

“Not exactly,” said Archie. He put his hands up as if to hold things back. “There is obviously much we need to talk about, but let us finish the introductions first.”

“Of course,” said Steel, formally. “As you already said, I’m Supervisor Steel. On my left is Mission Specialist Blunt, whom you have already kind of met. On my right is Mission Specialist Wayfarer. And finally, farther to the right, Mission Generalist Tallgrass.”

“I am pleased to meet you all,” said Archie. “Very pleased at last, after all this time.” He looked directly at Tallgrass. “So, you are Tallgrass of Sage. It is an honor to meet you in person. Your mother’s trek impressed us all here. We’re only sorry for the part our message pod, or glider, played in her banishment.”

“Thank you,” said Tallgrass. Then he stopped, his mind spinning with questions he wanted to ask. The silence dragged on uncomfortably, so he picked one at random and asked, “How much can the gliders, the message pods, hear?”

“Quite a bit,” said Archie. “Depending on conditions, background noise and so on, they can pick up normal conversation at anything up to two meters. As your mother discovered in the Professor’s laboratory.”

“But, she …” began Tallgrass. “Ah! The vibrations. Her experiments showed that they vibrated when someone spoke within two meters of them.” His eyes widened. “Did the vibrations have something to do with it? Maybe that was them transmitting.”

“Almost,” said Archie. “They can actually transmit silently. We put the vibrations in deliberately to pique your interest.”

“Oh,” said Tallgrass. “Then that means that you … that you sent the messengers down not just to gather information.” He was getting excited, and he unconsciously moved forward. Then he caught himself and looked at Steel. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You go ahead.”

“Not at all,” said Steel. “You’re doing so well that I think I’ll just appoint you to speak for us now. For us and for Grasswind.”

“What?” Blunt burst out. “You’re going to let the Runny speak for us?”

“Yes,” said Steel, “and remember what I told you. You either use his name, or the Runner if you must. Is that clear?”

“Yes, it’s clear,” said Blunt. “It doesn’t mean I agree with you appointing him, though.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to agree. If you don’t like it, you can wait outside.” Steel turned to Archie. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”

“Thank you,” said Archie. “I believe Tallgrass was just about to discover the real reason we sent the messengers down to your planets.”

They all looked at Tallgrass and he got flustered. He put his hand up to rub his nose, but it bounced off his helmet, which made things worse.

“Oh my goodness,” said Archie. “Where are my manners? Standing here talking before making my guests comfortable.” He spread his hands. “You can take off your pressure suits. The air here is quite breathable for you.”

They looked at each other, uncertain, then Tallgrass said, “Permission to remove my helmet, sir.”

Steel looked at him without really looking at him, obviously thinking, then said, “Permission granted.”

Tallgrass started working on his helmet, and Wayfarer came over to help. They broke the seal and lifted the helmet free.

As they worked, Archie said, “Tallgrass is right. It’s true that we sent the, uh, gliders down for more than just information gathering. Although that part was important, too. It’s how we learned enough about your language to prepare the translator, for instance.”

Tallgrass had his helmet off and under his arm. “But you sent them for us to find, too, didn’t you?” he said.

“That’s right. To find. To wonder about. To encourage you to look up again.”

“But there’s only a handful of them. How many did you send?”

“Hundreds,” said Archie. “Hundreds to each planet. On your planet, Grasswind, we aimed for the coast and the prairie. But we don’t have great control over the accuracy, what with winds and so on. We consider it a success if it lands within a ten kilometer radius.”

“So it was just luck that one landed near my mother’s village.”

“Yes. I’m sorry once again that it got her in trouble. We had no idea that there would be such a strong taboo against them.”

“That’s okay,” said Tallgrass. “I’ll pass that on. I’m wondering about something, though.”

“Go ahead.”

“Earlier you said the vibrations were to pique our curiosity, right?”

“Right.”

“Then, what about the harmonics?”

“The what?” Archie tilted his head.

“The harmonics. When you get two gliders together, their vibrations produce interesting harmonics. Were they to pique our interest, too?”

“Harmonics,” said Archie. “I remember now. Your mother and the Professor found them.”

“Yes. And a student.”

“That’s interesting, but it wasn’t us.”

“You didn’t put them there?”

“No,” said Archie, laughing. “We didn’t know. It’s just a case of unintended consequences, I guess.”

“Hmph,” said Tallgrass. “I’ll have to tell my mom.”

In the lull, Steel asked, “How are you feeling, Tallgrass?”

“Fine,” said Tallgrass. He sniffed, his nostrils flaring. “It smells a bit different, but I think the oxygen level must be about the same as ours.” He noticed Steel’s penetrating look, and added, “I don’t feel my body reacting to anything, like toxins or pathogens.”

Steel nodded, and Archie said, “There aren’t any. We wouldn’t try to poison you, and we’ve studied your microbes.”

“How?” said Tallgrass. “Have you been to the surface?”

“No,” said Archie. “The gliders again. They were able to sample a lot of your environment and send the results up to us. We think it’s safe to say that we won’t be harmed by each other’s microbes.”

Steel nodded, but made no move to open his suit. Neither did Blunt. But Wayfarer said, “Permission to remove my helmet, sir.”

He looked sharply at her, but said, “Permission granted.”

Tallgrass helped her, giving her his mass to work against while they removed her helmet. They had nothing to brace against, and no gravity to stick their feet to the floor, so it wasn’t as easy as it could have been. As Wayfarer tucked her helmet under her arm, and Tallgrass plucked his out of the air where he’d parked it, he once again noticed how Archie’s feet seemed to stick to the floor quite firmly. He remembered the odd sticking and peeling gait he’d used to walk, so he asked, “How do you do that? How do you get your feet to stick like that?”

Archie looked down. He wiggled his toes, five appendages projecting forward from his feet. They looked tender and vulnerable to Tallgrass, unlike his hard, solid hooves. In fact, they looked a lot like the hands on the upper limbs, which also had five appendages. But the hands had evolved for grasping, while the feet had obviously evolved for walking. Archie looked up from his feet and said, “Setae. Of course! Wait here. I have something for you.”

He spun and spread his wings, jumped and flew out the big door. It was abrupt and startling and even Steel’s hand moved toward his gun. Blunt was gripping his, and when Archie rushed back in, wings flapping, something in his hands, the weapon came out of its holster.

There was a loud cracking noise, Blunt cried out and his gun floated harmlessly away from him.