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Chapter Twelve

"Of course you can," RJ said obviously agitated, although Topaz couldn't be sure whether she was mad at him, or if she was mad because she couldn't find something she was looking for on the ship. "It should be easy. Simply take the hands off the robot and put them on the boy."

The others were outside sitting around the campfire roasting yet another lizard. RJ and Topaz had gone into the ship to look for tools with which he might work the magic she was demanding he do.

"Gee! It does sound easy. Whatever was I worried about?" Topaz said rolling his eyes and throwing his hands around in huge arcs. "We simply take the robotic hands that run with hydraulics, fiber optics and a power pack, and hook them up on a human who has blood and veins and a heart for power. Why anyone can see that they are completely compatible, and . . ."

"I wasn't thinking cybernetics, Smart Ass. I was thinking you could make them into a robotic prosthesis. Hook them up so that they open and close by movement command. You know, like the hands open and close when he moves his elbow. Fix them to some sort of harness that could go under his clothing," RJ said.

"Oh . . . Well, that does make sense," Topaz mumbled then screamed, "but it won't be easy! Not on a primitive planet with very few tools . . ."

"Blah, blah blah," RJ said with a crooked grin. "Stop talking, Old Man, and just do it. Poley and Haldeed will help you." RJ sat down at the instrument panel of the skiff and started working at the ship's computer, apparently giving up her search for whatever she'd been previously looking for.

"And just what the hell will you be doing while I'm building hands?" Topaz asked.

"I noticed something while I was looking around in here earlier today. I was trying to get a bead on any Reliance ship that might come into our air space. I was checking different channels, trying to intercept communications between the surface and the station . . ."

"Were there any?" Topaz asked.

"I'm sure there were; I just never keyed into the right sequence. And of course there is always that damned magnetic pulse. However I picked up something else . . . Listen to this," RJ ordered. She pulled up the audio, and a loud high-pitched whine filled the air for a few seconds and stopped.

Topaz covered his ears. "What the hell is that?"

"I think it's a distress beacon. It sends out a signal every three hours unless interrupted by a magnetic pulse. But it's not Reliance. It's like nothing I've ever heard. Come here," she ordered. Topaz moved to stand behind her looking over her shoulder at the screen as a topographical map created by bouncing sound waves off surfaces came up on the monitor. RJ pointed to a spot on the map. "I've traced the sound to this small mountain range here. Now the skiff's power cells have powered up enough to move us to about here." She made a circle with her finger on the screen and it stayed on the map. "That should move you far enough away from here to keep the Reliance from landing on top of you, and it would put us about fifteen miles from the site – a good one day hike even with the added weight that gravity puts on us."

"All right, but why? I've never known you to give into curiosity," Topaz said.

"It's some sort of ship, Topaz," RJ said in a disbelieving tone.

"So?" Topaz shrugged.

"Are you taking dullness lessons from David?" RJ snapped. "If there's a ship, it might have a viable power supply. It obviously has some sort of power or it couldn't send out a distress beacon. We need a power supply. Go to ship. Get power supply. Bring back. Ugh."

"What about your plan to wait for a Reliance ship to find us and then kill them and take their ship? That sounded like a pretty sound plan to me," Topaz said.

"It was and is, except that a ship should have come by now. Which means one of two things. Either Mickey's message to the ship has led them to the obvious conclusion that there are New Alliance rebels on the planet's surface and they are proceeding with caution. In which case we might have a well armed Elite assault team complete with a squadron of GSH come through the brush at us at any time. Or, we completely destroyed their station in our attack, and there are no ships to come down here."

"Or worse yet – some wildcard has thrown the whole deck off, in which case there is no preparing for what might happen?" Topaz suggested.

"Exactly," RJ said nodding.

* * *

Captain Briggs paced the command deck with both his hands buried in his thinning hair. Everything was going to hell in a hand basket. First there was the missing ship. Then the attack on the transport bay. Then the message from the "President" of the New Alliance claiming responsibility for the attack. He sent an away team comprised of people he despised and considered expendable to the surface to find out what had gone wrong, and while he hardly cared what had happened to them, he really did need the information. He needed to know just exactly what had gone wrong on the planet and why. He had rounded up every single person on the ship who he had suspected of espionage and executed six of them. But apparently he hadn't corralled all the rebels on board, because as he was executing the last of the six someone had released all the others and riots had started all over the ship. He had spent four hours hiding in his quarters until the Elite guard had put an end to the riots and rounded up all those responsible.

The man who had replaced Bradley in overseeing the very real problem of the hole that had been blown in the side of the station had been one of the first arrested in the riots. With no real supervisor and with the rest of the maintenance staff making up roughly half of those also responsible and subsequently imprisoned for the riots, work to repair the damage done in the explosion had been slowed to a crawl. As if that weren't bad enough, the maintenance staff had sabotaged still other areas of the station so that absolutely nothing was running as it should be. Toilets were backing up and water was running down the halls. The garbage disposal had stopped working and garbage was building up in the halls as well. Vending machines weren't vending. In short, everything was a mess.

Now the crew from Stashes that had been brought in to fix the breach in the hull was orbiting the station refusing to dock or to consider even unloading necessary materials until Briggs could prove to them that the station was completely under his control, and that there was no chance of yet another riot. Which of course he couldn't actually do because that little freak from the New Alliance was taking over his screens every hour on the hour, giving his personnel a message to revolt. Crew moral since he had ordered the execution of the "spies" was at an all time low, and it was obvious that many of his crew would rather take their chances fighting the system than just letting it kill them.

He stopped pacing and went back to his command chair. He removed his hands from his hair and tried to straighten it. He took a deep breath, let it out and sat down. Ready, he nodded to his communications officer, implying that he was ready to try to talk to the idiot from Stashes again. The communications officer just stood there scratching his balls, apparently oblivious to the unspoken command.

Briggs could feel himself starting to lose control, so he took another deep cleansing breath. "Hail the Kryptonite . . ."

"Sir, I've got a message from Lieutenant Stratton!" he yelled out excitedly.

"Well, don't just stand there like a moron. Patch her through . . ." This could be just what he needed to convince those moron Stashes maintenance men that he was back in control.

"Stratton calling Pam Station. Come in Pam Station," the Lieutenant's voice was breaking up pretty badly, but was still recognizable.

"Transmission is bad, but we read."

"Thank God!" Stratton said. "Entry did something to our ship's communications system. Bradley has been working on it most of the day. Between the damage and the pulses we've been unable to make contact." The transmission was starting to get clearer.

"Have you been able to find anything out?" Briggs asked.

"The King claimed to know nothing about what had happened. Not too hard to believe since the incident took place several hundred miles from the Capital. He gave us his permission to investigate the matter thoroughly. We are currently stationed just outside the village where the sabotage occurred. We are planning to go in under cover of night and do a reconnaissance mission. If the natives are fully responsible I think it would be foolhardy to trip in there and expect them to just give us the information we need. All that would do is get us killed. Since so far our data shows no signs of a second ship, I have to assume that it was the natives with the help of one or more of our people who came down to do the mission that sabotaged the transporter. No matter how they brag about it, there is no sign that it was the New Alliance. From what we have observed these natives are very fast learners. I imagine we are looking at a simple case of some disgruntled personnel somehow convincing the primitives to help them to sabotage the transporter."

"Great," Briggs said breathing a sigh of relief. "Get back to me as soon as you know for sure. Leave half your people at the ship and call immediately if you think you may need reinforcements. We'll hit that village with everything we've got."

"We're right on it, Captain. Over," Stratton said.

"Keep up the good work, Stratton. There's a promotion in this for you. Over and out."

Briggs leaned his head back so that his neck was resting on the back of his chair and laughed. "All right. Now hail that glorified toilet cleaner in the Kryptonite for me."

* * *

They were dawning night camouflage. "Is there really no trace of a second ship? No lingering ozone trail?" Bradley asked, zipping up the front of the coveralls.

"Who knows? On this planet none of our locating or communications equipment operates at 100 percent," Stratton said. "Frankly I doubt it. I imagine what I told Briggs is more or less the truth."

"It's hard to believe that someone from the station would attack it," Bradley said thoughtfully.

"I agree," Jackson said from where he sat watching Decker. "An attack like that could have taken out the whole station if any of the safety systems had failed. Such a person would have to have no one they cared about on the station. They'd have to be a fanatic."

"I think there must be a second ship here. That spies told the New Alliance what was going on, and that they are here in their own ship," Bradley speculated.

"Well, on this planet, even with all this fancy equipment, there is only one way that we're going to know whether there is another ship here or not," Stratton said.

"How's that," Jackson asked.

"See it," Stratton answered.

* * *

All geared up, Stratton, Bradley and Jessit left for the village. Jackson would stay behind to guard the ship and watch Decker.

The brush was thick here, and the mud was deep. Recent rains had left a small stream running through the middle of what might have at one time been a trail.

Their plan was a simple one. Jessit had told them that most of the people would be asleep. He would go to the Temple claiming to be a traveling priest and find out all that he could about the attack. Bradley and Stratton would search the village, paying particular attention to the area where the transmat station had been located and look for evidence of another ship. If they found evidence of a ship they would know what kind of ship by the landing pattern it would have left in the dirt.

At the edge of the city Jessit turned towards the Temple while Bradley and Stratton headed for the coordinates where the transmat station had been. They used buildings and small clumps of bushes and trees as cover as they moved silently through the village. It wasn't quite dark enough for them to feel like they were actually able to use "cover of darkness." In a few minutes they had found the location of the transmat station and the burnt almost unrecognizable wreckage of the skiff that had transported it there. Not too long after that they found the landing place of another ship.

"It's one of ours, a skiff, just like the one we're using," Stratton said. The scanner in her hand displayed an infrared picture of the area and clearly identified the marks of a second ship. "There was another ship."

"How can you be so sure?" Bradley asked. "It could have just been from where that ship landed," he said pointing at the wreckage.

"That ship was taken out by a plasma cannon. One like the one that is mounted on our skiffs. It sure as hell didn't shoot itself," she said. "Someone must have hijacked the Avonlea and used a skiff to come to the surface, but what did they do with the ship? Where did they hide it? Even with the pulses, we would have found a ship in orbit around the planet by now." She was talking more to herself than Bradley. As she spoke, she started scanning the surface around the landing site.

"Maybe they let the skiff off and then moved the ship out of range of our detectors," Bradley said.

"Maybe." Stratton suddenly took a deep breath.

"What?" Bradley asked.

"Well, look at the boot prints. The natives wear a soft padded leather shoe. So everything with a heel has to be either Reliance personnel or whoever was in that other ship. Now this . . ." she made a boot print next to one the scanner clearly showed in the sand, "is an Elite boot print, and so is that one. Yet there were no Elites sent on this assignment. It's not my own print because it's considerably larger than mine. Which means that one of the people who came out of that ship was wearing Elite boots."

"So?" Bradley shrugged not understanding the significance of her statement.

"So . . . I've only ever heard of one rebel elite," Stratton said.

"Don't be ridiculous! Anyone can get boots, and if you're a rebel you hardly care whether or not you're breaking the dress code." Bradley laughed. "Come on, let's go back to the rendezvous and wait for Jessit. With any luck he'll be able to tell us exactly what happened."

* * *

They waited in the wet brush at the edge of town for so long that they were beginning to think Jessit had abandoned them. They sat mostly in silence, both of them having things on their mind.

"I wonder . . . did one of our messages get through?" Stratton mumbled, temporarily forgetting that she wasn't alone.

"Who . . . what are you talking about, Stratton?" Bradley asked. He'd been thinking about Harker and was glad to have a diversion, any diversion.

"Nothing," Stratton said nervously. "Talking to myself is all."

Bradley quickly tried to remember exactly what she had said. "No! What the hell were you talking about? Who were you trying to contact?" He jumped to his feet and turned to face her. She was silent looking at the ground, and he knew. "You!" he said through clenched teeth. "You!" He reached down, grabbed her by her collar and started shaking her. "It was you? You were the freaking spy, and you let Harker die for it. You let them space Harker knowing that it was you all along that leaked the information to the Rebels."

Stratton let her tears fall as she pushed away from him. "I didn't know they were going to space him! Besides, I didn't think any of our transmissions went through." She laughed then, though obviously not because she was amused. She wiped her face on the back of her sleeve. "We were trying to get you over to our side. You idiot! You were so sure Harker wasn't involved. Harker started the rebellion on the station, Bradley! He recruited me, not the other way around. He was baiting you, baiting everyone, trying to see where their loyalties lie. Between he and I we have half the maintenance staff and one third of the combat units on the station ready to revolt. But it wasn't enough to ensure success. To do that we would have had to infiltrate the entire station, and that was going to take time we didn't have, so we started trying to reach the New Alliance. But we didn't think we were having any luck – and then the transport bay was sabotaged. Everything happened so quick after that. Harker was arrested, Briggs sent us planet side." She cried harder then. "I didn't even know they'd arrested Harker until you told me. I didn't even get to say good bye." She sat back down on the ground and buried her face in her hands. Bradley sat down beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.

"I'm sorry . . . I should have known. Just this morning . . . Oh, God! Was that only this morning? Harker was saying very insubordinate, damn near treasonous things. So was I for that matter. I just can't believe . . . Harker -- a rebel leader! I mean it just doesn't compute! He just never seemed to have that much ambition. Why wouldn't he just tell me what he was doing? I would have helped. At least now I'd like to think I would have. Maybe not, though. I've always been happy to just do my job and stay out of harm's way. Maybe Harker knew me better than I knew myself. But I do know this – I wouldn't have ratted him out."

"Maybe not on purpose, but once you know something . . . The Reliance has ways of making people talk. You can swear you'd never talk no matter how badly you were tortured, but the truth is you never know what you'll do when you've got a blade to your privates." Stratton sniffed and wiped her face on her hands and then on her pants.

Bradley nodded and took a deep breath. In less than a day his whole life – his whole way of looking at things had changed. Absently he picked up some dirt in his hand and marveled at the fact that as much as it had apparently rained the ground was not mud. There was mud in the low spots, but any place with even moderate drainage was already starting to dry out. It was a testament to how poor the soil was and how long it had been since the last time it had rained.

"I've hardly ever been planet side," Bradley said conversationally. "I was born and raised on Frank Station, you know."

"No I didn't," she said knowing how unusual it was for a maintenance unit to have been raised on a space station.

"Yes, my parents were both air corps. I was supposed to grow up to be air corps, but the test showed I lacked the intelligence and fortitude to be anything but maintenance class. So at nine they sent me away from my parents to maintenance school. Since I had lived so long in a space station it was decided that I would be trained to maintain stations and star ships so my early education wouldn't be wasted. I remember my mother cried as I boarded, but my father couldn't even look at me. He was that ashamed of me because I was going to be in maintenance. I never told anyone this before, but for years I cried myself to sleep every night because I wanted to fly so much.

"One day, years later, we were being trained in the hanger and I overheard one of the pilots bitching about his fighter – how it was losing speed whenever he punched it. For the first time since my father had looked away from me with shame in his eyes I felt good about myself, because you see I was a green-assed seventeen year old kid, and I knew what was wrong with his fighter – and he didn't. He could fly it, but I could fix it. I realized that – no offense – a trained rat could fly a fighter, but it took some real smarts to know how to fix them.

"I realized that day that those tests they had given us didn't show that I was too stupid to be a pilot, they showed I was too smart to be wasted on jockeying a ship, even too smart to be in combat. See, everyone looks down on us because we're 'just' maintenance, but the truth is that without us ships don't fly, toilets don't flush, and people are swimming in their own filth. The thing they don't want you to know – the real secret that the Reliance is hiding from everyone – is that the higher up you go, the stupider people get. Briggs is Captain because he's too stupid to be trusted to do anything that really matters."

Stratton nodded silently.

Bradley changed the subject. "So, do you think Jessit cut and ran on us?"

"I don't know, but maybe we should go look for him," Stratton said.

"Beats sitting here getting our butts wetter." Bradley stood up and then reached down and helped Stratton to her feet. He just stood there for a second. "So, were you and Harker.."

"Yes," she said with a choking sound in her voice.

"Then I'm really sorry," he said.

"I'll do better if I just don't think about it. Let's go look for that native."

"Who me?" Jessit said.

They jumped about a foot in the air then turned to glare at him. He just shrugged.

"Where the hell have you been?" Bradley demanded.

"You didn't think I was likely to get a straight answer from a bunch of priests, did you? One had to tell the story of the explosion while pontificating on the deep religious meanings of the events, and then all the others had to disagree with him about it. I'm lucky I got out of there when I did." He started walking in the direction of the skiff, and Bradley and Stratton followed.

"So what happened?" Bradley demanded.

"Would you like the plain, the metaphysical, or the deeply religious version?" Jessit asked turning to look at them and smiling. He seemed to walk backwards in the dark with as much ease as he walked forward in the light.

"Just the simple truth, please," Stratton said smiling back.

Jessit imparted all that he had learned. They were almost to the skiff before he finished.

" . . . She apparently knew the gold metal was making them sick, and she sent it and the dead bodies and some devise away with the box. Then she and her friends left."

"What did she look like?" Stratton asked suspiciously.

"The air must be too thin here. You aren't thinking clearly. It's not her. It couldn't be her," Bradley said with a laugh.

"They said she was like no person they had ever seen before. Her hair was as white as star light . . ."

"It's her. It's got to be her," Stratton said a trembling in her voice

"Is she a god then?" Jessit asked no doubt confused by the sudden fear that had entered her voice.

"It's not her," Bradley assured Stratton. "Why would she be here? Here in the middle of space on a third class planet."

"Where else would she be? If our message got through to the New Alliance. If she learned what the Reliance was doing, and we know that the New Alliance knows because they sent a message to the station. Where else would she be? It would be just what she would do."

Jessit stopped and they almost ran into him. He reached into his loins cloth, and they both just stared at him in amazement. He pulled a folded piece of parchment from his pants and opened it slowly. "Maybe this will help. I pinched it from one of the priests."

He held it out to them, but neither was in any hurry to take it considering where it had been. Finally Bradley took it and held it at the corner between his forefinger and his thumb, with his light on it so that they could better see it. It was a beautifully sketched, well-crafted drawing. Bradley and Stratton looked at the drawing and then at each other.

"It's her," Bradley said. "Right down to the chain with the bent coins. My God it is the platinum bitch of Alsterase. It's RJ."
"Who is this RJ?" Jessit asked. "And, why do you sound so afraid?"

"Because she is a god," Bradley answered.

* * *

"Tell me you're freaking kidding," Jackson said looking at the picture he held in his hands.

"The part about it being in his pants, or that it's RJ?" Stratton asked with a smile, having regained at least part of her sense of humor.

Jackson sat down in one of the seats with a thud and just looked at the picture. "Freaking RJ! Here on this planet. With us."

"I am confused," Jessit said from where he sat cross-legged on the floor of the ship. "You say that you are against the Reliance, and it is obvious that she, too, is against the Reliance."

"True," Bradley said.

"If you are on the same side, then why do you fear her?" Jessit asked.

"Because . . ." Bradley didn't really have an answer; it was a damned good question. "She might not believe that we are also fighting the Reliance, and she might kill us . . ."

"That's bullshit," Stratton said. "She's one of them. She would know we were telling the truth. That's why we're afraid of her, Jessit. Because she's something that shouldn't exist, the product of some mad scientist's experiment. A being that can sense our very emotions, can run faster, and jump higher than we can. She is also stronger than we are. This gravity that has worn us down wouldn't even faze her. The spear that has almost killed Decker wouldn't have even nicked her skin. She needs very little sleep, and very little food. She is like a machine except that she feels all the same emotions that we feel. She believes utterly in her cause and will execute any plan to stop the Reliance ruthlessly. She cannot be stopped."

"She sounds like the sort of being you would want on your side," Jessit said, still not understanding their fear.

Bradley laughed nervously. "Well, you sure as hell wouldn't want her against you. It's just . . . " Bradley shrugged, he didn't know how to explain it.

Jessit jumped up as sudden understanding filled him. He looked at Bradley and clapped his hands together in excitement. "It is like my people. They believe in our gods and praise them, but they don't really want to see them, they are afraid of them."

"Exactly," Bradley said. "That's exactly what it's like. But, scared or not, I think we all know that it's in our best interest to find RJ and pool our efforts."

"Damn, I was afraid you were going to say that," Jackson said burying his face in his hands. "RJ, man, freaking RJ! How do you know she won't just kill us out-right?"

"We make damn sure she knows we aren't a threat to her," Bradley said.

"Hell, she already knows that. She could kill us all and never even work up a sweat," Jackson moaned.

"You know what he means," Stratton said. "Between us we know everything about the station, and Jessit knows everything about this planet. We could be valuable to her. RJ isn't stupid, and if we hook up with her we'll have a hell of a lot better chance of making it when Briggs finds out what we've been up to here."

"It won't be easy to find her," Bradley said.

"Easier than you think," Stratton said. "They fired their cannon at least twice, and that means they're low on fuel. They couldn't have gotten very far, and we know which direction they went in when they left here. We simply fly in that direction and look around till we find them."

Behind them on the stretcher Decker started to cough. They all turned quickly. His eyes opened, and Jackson went to his side.

"Well I'll be!" Jackson turned around holding the lizard by the tail as it twitched. Jessit quickly walked over and took the lizard from Jackson. He looked at Jackson, and Jackson didn't have to ask what he wanted. "All right, all right, I'm sorry, Man." He laughed as Jessit smiled smugly and walked out of the ship talking to the lizard. Jackson shook Decker gently. "Hey, bud! Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," he crocked out. "Man, what happened to me?"

"A native hit you in the chest with a spear, and a witch doctor saved your life," Bradley said.

"Great . . ." Decker forced a smile, and then made a face. "I've got the damnedest taste in my mouth."

* * *

Levits stood beside RJ in the first light of dawn and looked up at the mountain ahead of them.

"You didn't tell us it was a fifteen mile hike straight up," Levits said shaking his head. His back still hurt from the rather rough, powerless landing he had made just a few hours ago because RJ insisted on pushing the power cells as far as she pushed everything else.

"It's not straight up. More on an angle like this," RJ said holding her hand at about forty-degrees.

"Gee! And I thought Poley was supposed to be learning from you, not the other way round," Levits hissed. He glared at David who was laughing. "What are you doing, Shit Boy? Trying to make points by laughing at her lame-ass attempt at humor?"

David shrugged. "It was funny."

"You can both stay here if you'd rather," RJ said. "Bringing the power supply down the mountain, if it's compatible, shouldn't be that hard. I could probably do it myself."

"Oh, no you don't," Topaz said walking out of the ship with the droid and some tools. "I have enough on my plate without having to baby sit David and Levits as they pout and fight and just basically make everyone around them as miserable as they make each other. No! You take them with you. You can leave Janad if you like. She's pleasant company, and easy on the eyes, but you take the testosterone twins with you."

"We're all going, Old Man, so don't get your shorts in a wad," Levits spat back.

David looked through the binoculars at the spot where RJ assured him the ship was. "I don't see any ship."

"I believe it crashed so long ago that it is now buried in the mountain," RJ explained.

"I believe we are climbing up the side of a barren freaking mountain for no good reason," Levits mumbled.

RJ took his hand and kissed his cheek. "It will help you adjust to the planet's gravitational pull quicker."

"Oh, joy!" Levits said, but he managed a smile. "All right let's get climbing. I'd like to have a good chunk of it done before it gets hot this afternoon."

RJ and Janad loaded packs on their backs, and they started up the mountain.

Levits looked fleetingly at David. "So, do you suppose they're bringing us along just because we're pretty?"

David laughed, and then he looked at Levits in shock. "Do you realize that you just said something to me that wasn't hateful?"

"Yeah, well, don't expect it to happen again anytime soon." Levits rushed to catch up with RJ, leaving David to bring up the rear. Which wasn't a bad place to be considering that being in the rear gave him the perfect vantage point from which to watch Janad's ass – which was looking more attractive with every passing day.

* * *

Taleed and Haldeed watched with great interest as Topaz and Poley worked on constructing the mechanical hands. "I am going to have hands. Haldeed. I'm going to be able to pick things up on my own. Do all the things that normal men do," Taleed said.

Haldeed nodded.

"I only wish there was some way to give you back your tongue."

Haldeed made hand signals.

"Oh, my brother, you are indeed the most gracious of men."

"What did he say?" Topaz asked curiously.

"That he doesn't need his tongue . . ."

"Obviously he and I haven't dated the same women," Topaz said. Poley looked at him curiously. "Don't ask, Tin Pants, just pass me the lazar cutter."

"He says that speech is not as important to him as hands are to me," Taleed finished, completely ignoring Topaz's interruption.

Topaz started cutting the hands and metal arms from the body of the droid. Without looking up from his work he asked, "So you have lizards and small marsupials. Nothing bigger than a small goat. In fact there is nothing more complicated than some small mammals, and then we have man. Now your people have human origins; we know that. We also know how your human ancestors got here, or at least I'm fairly sure. However there was something else in your DNA – or at least in the sample I took from Janad. Something very different, and yet familiar. Obviously there was another humanoid on this planet already when the humans arrived. But where, oh where, is the missing link? Huh? Can you tell me that?"

"I don't even know what you're talking about," Taleed said with a sad shrug.

"I, too, have noticed the lack of suitable animals from which humanoids could evolve. Another race must have crashed on this planet hundreds of years before humans did," Poley said.

"Why hundreds of years before?" Topaz asked.

"Because otherwise they would not have given in to the whims of the humans. The other race would have had to be here long enough to have forgotten about the technology that brought them here. They must have become primitive first, otherwise they wouldn't have allowed the deranged, brown, handless Frenchman to take over," Poley said.

"I was just going to say that," Topaz said angrily.

"I don't think that you were. Any more than you have deduced that the ship my sister now goes to check out is probably the same ship that brought the first people to this planet," Poley said.

"Ah, now! Ya did that on purpose," Topaz said, slinging the tool he'd been working with into the dirt. "If you had given me half a minute more I would have come to that conclusion myself."

* * *

They had stopped to rest on a rock outcrop that made a good seat.

"Ah! I can feel. . . myself adapting. . . to the gravi. . . tational pull. . . with each step," Levits said trying to catch his breath. He glared at RJ who sat beside him. "Could you at least pretend to be winded?"

"I thought I only had to do that during sex," RJ said with a smile.

David laughed, and Levits glared at him. David just shrugged.

"How much further?" David asked. He felt like he had blisters on all his blisters.

"We aren't half way yet," RJ said.

"I hope whatever we find is worth this freaking climb," Levits complained.

"I hope whatever it is, it's worth listening to you bitch for a whole day," RJ said standing up. She put down her hand, and he allowed her to help him up.

"If he didn't bitch she'd be asking what was wrong with him," David whispered to Janad as they both stood up. Janad laughed and nodded.

"I think it is the way they communicate their love for one another," Janad whispered back.

"That and screwing all the time," David laughed out. Levits turned around and glared at David as if knowing that he was the brunt of some joke. Then he turned right back around and started arguing with RJ again as they started to climb.

"Topaz told us everything that happened," Janad said. "About the war. What you did. It wasn't your fault. I mean . . . It was, but it wasn't. You did something stupid. We have all done something stupid in battle that has caused someone else's death. You cannot expect them to forgive you, but you have to forgive yourself."

How could he explain to her that not everyone had fought in a battle much less been responsible for the death of another? Hers was a culture that lived at war.

"I have tried to forgive myself, and for most things I can. But for the pride . . . No. I let my own pride get in the way of the truth. I let it make me believe that I was more than I really was. I thought that I knew better than RJ. Worse than that I wanted to prove her wrong. I can blame Kirsty for tricking me, and Jessica Kirk and the Reliance for the actual death of my troops and the destruction of Alsterase. But they couldn't have done that except for my own faults. Except for the flaws in my own personality that allowed me to be blind to reality. You're right about the things that I did that were stupid, but the things that I did because of my pride, my ego, my need to be in control. . . I can't forgive myself that because if I do . . . If I forgive myself for the things I did because I wanted to be better than RJ, then there is a chance that I might repeat that behavior. I just can't take that chance. I don't ever want to be that person again."

"Who do you want to be then, David Grant?" Janad asked carefully.

It was a very good question. He sure as hell didn't like who he was now. "I . . . I want to be the man I was before. Not the man I was when I first meet RJ. Then I was just a green kid who didn't understand anything. No, I think I want to be the man I was before RJ and Topaz turned me into the mouthpiece for the Rebellion and I began to get full of my own power. I want to return to the me I was when I truly only cared about making my world a better place and freeing my people." David smiled. "I was happy then, and they were all happy with me."

"Then be him," Janad said. "Be that man."

"How? Too much has happened . . ."
"Just remember what it was that you liked about him and imitate it. Before you know it, you'll be your old self again, but you'll know all that you know now."

* * *

RJ had overestimated the resilience of her human counterparts, and when Levits' bitching reached a crescendo, and even Janad started to stumble in her stride, she knew they had to stop and make camp. They had just come to one of the many shelves they had encountered during their climb, and RJ decided this was as good a place as any to put down.

"That's it!" Levits flopped to the ground like a rag doll. "I'm not going to take another step. Leave me here for the lizards to eat; I just don't give a damn anymore. I am sick to death of . . ."

"All right. This is as good a place as any," RJ said deciding to let Levits think he had won the argument they weren't actually having. She took off her pack, and saw Janad gratefully drop hers to the ground.

"Freaking mountain climbing! I'd rather stay on this damn planet forever than climb one more inch. In fact, I would have just as soon we all stayed on Earth in the first place," Levits said continuing his angry prattle. "But, oh, nooo! Let's all fly across the vastness of space to try and make the Argys our allies. Oh! But no! Wait a minute! Let's stop and make a side trip to a third class planet where we can eat all the lizard we want and go freaking mountain climbing!"

RJ moved and flopped on the ground beside him laughing.

"Now what's so damned funny?" Levits asked hotly.

"I said we'd stay here. You already won," she said turning to look at him.

Levits smiled back then. "I know, but you can't just cut a man off in the middle of his bitch like that. It could do irreversible damage."

"I don't know why you're bitching in the first place," David said flopping to the ground. "This climb is every bit as bad for me as it is for you. It's not like we're having to use ropes and picks. You make it sound like we're clinging to the side of a rock face hanging on by a thread."

"Bite me, David," Levits said. "Look me in the eye and tell me you could have taken one step more."

"I didn't say that I could. I'm just saying that I wasn't bitching about it and everything else," David said. "The way I understand it the gravitational pull of this planet adds about twenty-five pounds to you and me. I hate to be the one to point it out, but Janad is carrying more than that in her pack, so except for RJ we're all basically in the same boat. While I admittedly did my fair share of bitching, I didn't hear Janad complain even once."

"Perhaps I should give you a gold star," RJ said to Janad.

"What does that even mean?" Levits asked pulling a face.

RJ looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know exactly. It's something I've heard Topaz say. In the context in which he uses it, it means you've done very well."

"Thank you," Janad said.

"How about a little praise for me?" Levits asked lightly.

"She could give you a gold star for bitching." David laughed out.

"And give you one for being a shit slinging moron," Levits snapped back.

RJ took Levits' chin in her hand and forced him to look at her. "I could think of something I could give you a gold star for," she said huskily then she kissed him. Within seconds they were rolling around in the dust, Levites apparently forgetting how tired he was.

"Chain, RJ, chain," Levits said, and unbelievably the thing went flying through the air like a discarded piece of clothing.

David got up and dusted his hands off. He looked at Janad, "Ah, maybe we should go get some fire wood now."

"Huh?" Janad asked, her eyes riveted on the couple ripping at each other's clothing. David walked by her and with a laugh grabbed her by the shoulder, hauled her to her feet, and started pulling her along after him.

"Come on, you perve," he said. He didn't feel like walking another foot, but he didn't feel like sitting there and watching Levits and RJ screw either. It was enough to know they were doing it without actually having to watch.

Janad was dragging on his arm, turned as she was to watch RJ and Levits till the end.

"Would you come on, Janad?" David said. "I can't believe him! He bitches all day about being so tired he's going to die, and now he's . . . Well, you know what he's doing."

Janad sighed and started to walk to match his stride. "Why does it bother you so much to see them together?"

"Because . . . It isn't our custom to watch other people having sex," David said.

Janad laughed. "It isn't our custom, either. That doesn't mean it isn't entertaining."

David laughed then. "Yeah, I would imagine that RJ and Levits can put on quite a show." David stopped laughing then, remembering another time and place, and another friend who wanted to watch RJ do it. "People shouldn't intrude into affairs between two people. It should be private."

"Then they should go someplace private to do it," Janad said with a shrug bending down to pick the top out of a plant that she started sucking on.

"True enough," David said with a laugh. "Still, RJ has an Argy's libido, and when she gets turned on . . . Well, I think she just sort of forgets where she is or what she's doing."

"What about your . . . libido?" Janad stumbled a little over the word, it apparently being new to her Reliance vocabulary. She picked one of the plants and handed it to him.

"It's healthy enough," David said. He sucked on the end of the plant as Janad had done, and a sweet liquid covered his tongue. He smiled approvingly and continued. "I've sort of had to put it in dry dock if you know what I mean." From the look on her face she didn't.

"You know . . . When I first met you, and I punched you in the nose . . . I thought all Reliance people were repulsive looking. With your pale, fish belly skin you looked disgusting to me. But now . . . Well now I find that I have an appreciation for you. I find you to be . . . very beautiful," Janad said nervously.

He wouldn't have put it exactly that way, but he'd had the same feeling. When he'd first seen her all dark and wild looking, he had thought her completely alien and her appearance horrid and even frightening. Now seeing past his initial fears he saw a dark, beautiful creature whose intellect was far from inferior to his own, and who had a far superior grasp on who she was in relation to the universe than he ever had or probably ever would have.

"I think you're beautiful, too," David said.

Janad moved to stand with her chest pressed against his, blocking his way. She looked up at him expectantly, and he kissed her. She kissed him back, and they kissed for a long time. When their lips separated they looked at each other for a long moment then David grabbed her hand and started pulling her towards a wooded area. She followed him laughing.

* * *

RJ stirred the coals under the spitted lizard. She looked up at David and smiled as he walked back into camp with Janad close behind him.

He sat down across the fire from her. Whatever energy he'd had after their climb he had just spent. Janad knelt down behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

RJ smiled broadly. "I thought you were going to get fire wood?" RJ said.

"We had sex instead," Janad said bluntly.

"Yes, I had figured that out," RJ said grinning at David.

"What?" David said feeling suddenly very vulnerable and exposed.

"Nothing," RJ said with a shrug.

Levits walked back into camp zipping up his fly. He looked at Janad and David with a smug, all-knowing smile that made David want to slap him more than he normally did.

David untangled himself from Janad, jumped up walked over and grabbed RJ by the arm. "Come on. I need to talk to you."

RJ shrugged, got up and followed him a little way away from the camp. "What's wrong? I figured after you got your winky taken care of . . ."

"My what?"

"Your winky. That's what Whitey used to call his . . . I would have thought you would be in a better mood than this," RJ said. "Was the girl not any good?"

"Too good," David said. He lowered his voice. "Remember how when I was with Kirsty you told me that I had to have known it was different. That I should have known she wasn't human."

"Yeah, but we already know that this girl is some sort of hybrid . . ."

"Yes, but I've been with Kirsty, now, and I know why she was different. And . . . that girl . . . it's the same . . . her . . . well, you know. . . If I didn't know better, RJ, I'd swear that girl was an Argy hybrid."

RJ looked thoughtful and started pacing. "Now that makes a certain amount of sense. We know that the Argys and humans evolved at about the same pace, the Argy being only slightly ahead of the humans. A couple of hundred years at best, but that would be enough."

David snapped his fingers. "Damn! In the infirmary Topaz said that there was something familiar about Janad's DNA. That must be why . . ."

"Because, except for the obvious trappings of my genetic engineering, my DNA and Janad's are the same," RJ said thoughtfully. Then she added, "And we know that this planet wouldn't get around to making humanoid life on its own for another billion years, if ever . . ."

"How do we know that?" David asked.

"Because this is a class three planet," RJ said, the words dumb ass being implied by the tone in her voice. "The flora and fauna are very primitive, and there is nothing here that could have evolved into anything remotely humanoid. If the ship we find . . ."

"If there is a ship," David said skeptically. He had been looking through the binoculars all day, and while he could clearly see their ship in the valley below, he could make out not even a lump that looked ship-like on the mountain above them.

"Oh, there's a ship all right. Whether we can get to it is another story," RJ said. "But if it is an Argy ship, that would explain everything – including Janad's Argy-like vagina . . ."

"Damn it, RJ! Do you have to be so uncouth?" David said making a face.

RJ laughed. "If I live to be a thousand – and in all likelihood I will – I will never understand men. You can stick your winky in it, but you can't talk about it, at least not to a woman who has all the parts you apparently find so embarrassing." RJ smiled then. "So . . . Did you enjoy her?"
"Don't be stupid," David said with a stupid grin. "I said she was like an Argy woman. Of course I enjoyed her." He looked thoughtful then. "RJ . . ." He decided to let it go.

"What?"

"Nothing," David said quickly.

"Nothing me no nothings. What!" RJ demanded.

"You . . . What about the big picture, RJ? I mean what the hell are we doing here? Are we still trying to get to Argy? It's not like you to flip from one plan to another. It's not like you to be so . . ."

"Relaxed?" RJ supplied for him. "Screwing in the middle of camp and all. Going off on what is basically an archeological expedition and will probably yield nothing of value, when we are on a strange world far from Earth and far from our intended destination. Giving an alien prince robotic hands when I don't really know how I'm going to use him yet. You figure that it's not like me to do anything without a damn good reason, so you figure that as usual I have figured out everything and I'm just keeping everyone else in the dark."

"Well, yeah," David said.

"Want to hear something really scary?" RJ whispered.

"Not necessarily," David answered honestly.

"Well, too bad, because here's the truth. The truth is that my mind doesn't work as well as it used to, and calculations I used to make easily have become difficult. At this point in time I don't really have a game plan," she said plainly. "We haven't been able to make contact with Marge or Mickey since the first day we got to the surface of this planet. I haven't been able to tap into the Reliance's communication systems back on the station or pick up any of their transmissions to this planet if there have even been any. So I have no idea what the Reliance is up to. This planet has no communications more sophisticated than village runners. I can guess at what the Reliance is doing. I can guess at what the locals are doing, but I can't really know. So taking all those things into consideration, I'm not looking at the big picture right now. I'm playing things out as they are thrown at me and hoping for the best."

RJ without a plan. It was quite possibly the most frightening thing David had ever heard in his life.

 

 

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