Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Forty-Nine

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

Blunt gets medical treatment and they get a tour of the big thing.

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Chapter Forty-Nine – The Square

“Once again, I’m sorry,” said Archie. They were standing around an unmoving Blunt, the excitement wearing off and introspection setting in.

When Archie came through the door carrying a big sack, Blunt had drawn his weapon in a frightened, defensive reflex. Just as reflexively, the great ship’s defense system engaged to eliminate the threat. The result was startling and effective, and now Blunt was unconscious, lying on a bed with his arm in something Archie called a healing sleeve.

After the cracking noise, Blunt was immobilized, his mouth open wide in a soundless scream. It was as if his arm had been struck by an invisible bolt of lightning. There was minimal visible damage to his suit, but they could tell there must be severe damage to his arm inside it.

Archie had dropped the sack and rushed forward. Seeing where Steel’s hand was, he said, “Please don’t draw your weapon. I warned you. I told you the Prime doesn’t like weapons.” He got close enough to see the damage to Blunt’s arm. Blunt cringed away from him, protecting his injury. Archie said to him, “We can fix this. We have the facilities to repair the damage to your arm. To stop the pain.”

Blunt’s conflict was clear in his face and body. He desperately wanted to stop the pain and heal his arm, but he was suspicious and afraid. He looked at Steel, pleading.

Steel made it easy for him. He said, “You have no choice, Specialist Blunt. I need you whole and healthy to complete the mission. I’m ordering you to allow these people to treat you.”

Blunt slumped with gratitude and, with a great show of reluctance, submitted. They got him out of his suit, fortunately after an application of analgesia, and carried him out of the airlock to a small room with a bed. There he was sedated and the healing sleeve wrapped itself around his badly burned arm. Archie apologized yet again and they all looked down on Blunt’s inert form for a few minutes before leaving the room and heading back to the airlock.

There they removed their pressure suits and stowed them in the Emissary, along with their guns. Blunt’s suit they kept out because Archie told them they could repair it. Then he finally picked up the sack again. He said, “As I was about to show you, we have setae on our hands and feet which allow us to grip things. The ones on our feet allow us to stick to the floor and walk, after a fashion.” He pulled something out of the sack. “We made these for your feet, to allow you to do the same,” he said, showing them some booties that would slip over their hooves.

Tallgrass volunteered, raising a hoof, and Archie bent and slipped a bootie over it. It fitted itself, snugging itself down and sealing. Archie handed him three more and gave four each to Steel and Wayfarer. The sack held four more for Blunt, when he was ready.

Tallgrass reached down and pressed a hoof to the floor, then tugged. He was surprised when it pulled his body down, and he threw his other three feet down to stop himself. Now all four feet were stuck and he couldn’t pull them loose. He looked at Archie.

“If you give a little tug laterally, it breaks the seal, and you can lift your foot. See?”

Tallgrass tried it, and it worked. He showed his mates and the three of them spent the next few minutes awkwardly sticking and peeling their way around the airlock. Watching each other, they began to laugh, helplessly before long.

Archie had another treat for them. He took them out of the airlock again and down a long passageway, past Blunt’s room and on for what they estimated to be a kilometer, at least. In his mind’s eye, Tallgrass visualized them moving inward, traversing about a thirtieth of the width of the great ship.

“We keep the living quarters well inboard,” said their guide. “We like to keep lots of mass between ourselves and the hazards out there.”

“Hazards?” said Tallgrass. “Like asteroids?”

“Yes,” said Archie. “You saw them stuck to the outside, didn’t you? We tried avoiding and diverting them at first, but soon realized that we could solve the problem for good by catching them. There’s hardly anything floating loose any more, and nothing bigger than a meter.”

“So you’re safe now,” said Tallgrass.

“Yes, except for random bolides passing through, and of course, cosmic rays. We need to be shielded against them, too.”

They were almost at their destination when they passed a robot going the other way. It had four legs and four arms attached to a caterpillar-like body that was horizontal for the legs, and curved up to vertical for the arms and a rudimentary face. The face had a diagonal stripe of damage across it, and the rounded dome of the head had a deep, vee-shaped dent, slightly off-center.

“Hello Scarface,” said Archie. “These are our guests.” He introduced them, while the robot looked on blankly, saying nothing. When he dismissed it the robot continued on down the passage, reaching far in front of itself with one pair of legs, and pulling itself along surprisingly rapidly. They watched its diminishing form, then turned to carry on.

“Scarface?” asked Tallgrass.

Archie chuckled. “It’s a long story,” he said. “There were about eight hundred of those on board when we found the Prime. He was the first one we met. They’re built on the body plan of the Makers, the ones who sent the Visitor.”

“The Visitor? The Makers?”

Archie grimaced. “Like I said, a long story. There will be plenty of time for that later. For now, though, we’re here.”

They were standing in the entrance of a vast space. The passage they were leaving was five meters across. They were looking into a cube that had to be a hundred meters on a side. They saw motion, and looked to see more of the winged creatures flying across the big room. They spotted the newcomers and swooped down to land in front of them. To Tallgrass, they looked like twins of Archie.

That changed by the time the introductions were over. Up close he could see that the one called Coracle had lighter colored eyes, while Magellan’s covering was darker and covered more of his forehead. They were both bigger than Archie, too. Coracle turned out to be a female.

“Archie,” said Tallgrass, “I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“I hope this isn’t too rude,” said Tallgrass. “Your covering. It’s not clothing, is it? It’s something like our scales, right?”

“Of course it’s not too rude,” said Archie. “Our customs are obviously going to differ greatly, so the concept of rude doesn’t apply yet. As for the covering, yes, it’s like your scales. We call it fur, or hair.”

“I thought so,” said Tallgrass.

“On our world,” Archie said, “we had different kinds of coverings. We had fur, like this. Some animals had scales, something like yours. Others had what we called feathers. They were all different, but they all served the same purpose.”

“To protect the skin,” said Tallgrass. “We don’t have anything like fur or feathers. We just have scales. All animals have scales.”

“To be fair,” said Archie, “your flying animals have scales that are something like feathers. Bigger. Lighter. More mobile.”

Coracle and Magellan were staring. There was no other word for it. Coracle’s hand kept creeping out, wanting to touch, but she kept snatching it back. Wayfarer noticed and peeled and stuck her way over. There, she held out her arm for Coracle to touch. Then Coracle held out her arm. “It’s soft,” said Wayfarer. “And thick.” She looked at the wing tops visible over the shoulders, and Coracle turned and extended one. Stretched out, it was about a meter long. Leathery skin covered long, light bones. The fur was thinner than body fur, especially on the underside. She let Coracle stroke the scales on her back.

Wayfarer said, “What a coincidence that we both have six limbs.”

“Not really,” said Archie. “We induced the wings genetically. The fur too, to thicken it. They’re both suitable for living on comets.”

“Comets?” said Tallgrass.

Archie chuckled again. “Another long story for later. For now, I want to show you the window.”

“Window?” said Tallgrass. “A kilometer from the hull?”

“That’s just what we call it. It’s actually how we communicate with the comets, and the rest of our people.”

“But,” objected Tallgrass, “am I correct in assuming that they are at other stars?”

“Yes, and some between stars.”

“Light years away?”

“Yes, but don’t worry. It’s instantaneous.”

“But …” Tallgrass shrugged and let it go. If he got hung up on every thing he learned, they’d never get anywhere.

The window was on the wall to the left, about halfway down, and five meters off the floor. It was ten meters wide and three meters high, and just looked like a black hole in the wall. They floated there, Archie anchored to the wall by one setaed hand, and the Grasswindians using a bootied foot. Tallgrass was relieved. He couldn’t believe how tired his legs could get in microgravity. All that unaccustomed locomotion, he presumed.

Archie did something and the window lighted up, all thirty square meters of it. They were looking into a space at least twice as big as the one they were in. On the opposite wall there were big green columns marking entrances, and the same to the right in red, and the left in yellow. They could see more furry creatures flying around, but more interesting were the ones right on the other side of the window. Tallgrass pulled himself close and put his hand on it. One of the people on the other side, one with golden eyes and golden-brown fur, put its hand up against his. Unless this was a trick, he thought, we’re reaching across light years of space and time.