Chains of Redemption (19 page)

In fact, they were a very attractive people. She smiled when she realized their skin was almost the same color as hers, that golden tanned look that wasn't really a tan at all. They were big and small and every size in between. They were young and old, weak and strong. More like humans than the Argy, in fact. Which meant they probably had no paranormal abilities. They were different because their emotions and thoughts were hidden from each other, and therefore their difference was in how they attracted a mate, made friends, and developed personal connections. Beings with telepathic and empathic powers almost always wound up looking more or less the same, because their needs, wants, and desires, the things that made them different, were obvious.

"Now what?" Poley asked in a whisper.

"We wait, watch and learn."

Poley nodded. He knew what she meant, because he was doing the same thing. Learning parts of their language by watching what words were associated with what objects and actions. Since neither of them was capable of forgetting, they would quickly learn the language.

The dim "night" began to fall, and some of the other natives started building up a big fire in a central pit. It wasn't really necessary for light, though, because reflected light from the planet's surface hit the moon at nightfall and almost always kept at least this side of the moon from falling into complete darkness. The only exception was when the planet eclipsed the sun, which happened about once every seventy-eight hours and lasted for about four hours.

The natives put the packs and their contents aside after very neatly repacking them, and started to prepare what she assumed was the evening meal. Big pots were hung over the fire and everyone, young and old, male and female started to chop up the native plant life and a couple of small animals and put equal measures into each pot. In a few minutes the contents of the pots were boiling and RJ's mouth started to water. It was the best food she'd smelled since they'd roasted water snails over a fire on Beta 4.

The vessels they used to cook and to eat from had obviously been gleaned from the dead civilization from which they had come. She wondered just how far this attachment to the past went, how much knowledge had been handed down. Did they know they were the same people whose dead cities they hunted in, or did they believe they were a different race? Did they know those cities had been built by their ancestors or did they believe they had been built by gods?

That they had lost the ability to create many of the things they used was obvious. They had spears and slingshot-like contraptions, and they had what appeared to be very old projectile firing type weapons, but she had to wonder if they actually still worked or were just for show.

Their dress was simple. Robes and pants made of cloth, no doubt made of plant fiber. More than likely one of these plants had been engineered for the sole purpose of making clothing. The cloth was in shades of green and brown. She thought at first it was its natural color, and then realized with a smile that it was camouflage. Their common everyday dress, from the youngest to the oldest, was camouflage. They were hunters, hunters with minimalist weapons, so they had to be stealthy, unseen. They were accustomed to hiding in plain sight. This is why they hadn't seen them. They were a careful people, but why?

Their demeanor seemed to imply that they were also hunted, yet RJ had seen no such predator, the ship's computers had detected no such animal. No doubt there were others who had survived, other little pockets of civilization that had made it through the holocaust. Maybe they had become tribal and fought over hunting and foraging land.

It seemed altogether absurd, considering that everything on the planet seemed to be edible and the planet was nothing but jungle. These beings did not look underfed.

But beings did weird, illogical things. They made up some stupid religion, then you had to believe what they said or you had to go. According to Topaz and all that she'd read, this was what had caused most of the wars on pre-Reliance Earth.

Ultimately, the Reliance had used religious wars to take over control of the world. They used religion to bring the world to its knees, and then they abolished it—since it was obviously so detrimental—and made the Reliance the people's god.

And the whole "my gods are better than your gods" hadn't just caused numerous wars on Earth, but had caused them with a dozen other races on as many planets that she could think of. People wanted answers to things that couldn't really be answered, and so they made up things they could believe in that answered their questions. Since people seemed to be incapable of just agreeing to disagree, they always wound up fighting over something that none of them could prove. Few worlds had managed to avoid this.

There were other things people fought over as well: food, sports teams, borderlines, and freedom.

Whatever the cause, RJ was now sure that these people were at war with someone. This was no doubt the reason for their hope. They were hoping that RJ and her crew would have weapons with which they could defeat their enemy. They were hoping for some sort of alliance.

She frowned. How could she choose sides? She'd fought before without reason or purpose but simply because she was ordered to do so. She didn't want to do that again. How did she know these guys weren't the bad guys? She didn't want to fight over food on a planet covered with food, or over whose god was better.

Suddenly she heard an electronic sound off in the distance. She took out her earpiece to be sure it wasn't just feedback. "Poley . . ."

"I hear it."

"I thought you said there were no active machines on this planet."

"There weren't. I monitored the planet for twenty-seven months and found nothing."

RJ put her earpiece back in, and started to com Levits to see if he had detected anything, but she didn't have to—he was yelling in her ear.

"RJ do you read? Get the fuck out of there. Dammit are you listening?"

"Yes, and you can stop screaming, any time now," RJ said. "What the hell is that? I can hear something coming this way though it's still distant."

"I don't know what the hell it is, but there are three of them, they are huge, they are moving very fast, and they seemed to just walk up out of the ocean."

"Well that would explain why we didn't detect them. The water must have blocked the mechanical activity." Poley said.

"Shoddy-assed Reliance equipment, next time lets steal something better," RJ said with a smile.

"The computer image I'm getting makes them look like . . . Well, like huge spiders. Now get your ass back to the ship this minute." Levits ordered.

"Ah, alright," RJ said, not moving a muscle.

"Oh dammit! You aren't coming back, are you?"

"And you're surprised because I normally do everything you say? I want to see what it is," RJ replied.

"I was afraid you were going to fucking say that," Levits said. Then he was gone, and she could hear the locals again. They were obviously shouting warnings and probably obscenities at each other. Then they were throwing their food aside, and running and arming themselves with the projectile weapons, so RJ assumed they did actually still work. She doubted their hearing was as good as hers, so they hadn't heard them coming, they had felt them. She had noticed a slight trembling of the ground, and these beings seemed to have a heightened sense of touch. No doubt another reason they were able to move with such stealth.

"RJ," Poley said calmly at her side. "I think we should go. There are three of them, they are large, and they have some sort of plasma type weapon."

"You aren't afraid are you, Tin Pants?"

"Well I am less than thrilled at the prospect of you and me taking on three very large, armed robots."

"Robots?"

"Well, they move like robots," Poley explained.

RJ looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"I'm hardly a simple robot," he said, proving it by the fact that he had been able to read her body language.

RJ smiled, then nodded silently. After a few moments of screaming and what looked a whole lot like drawing straws, most of the natives had fled. Only a few holding the projectile weapons stayed. They were staying so that the others could make their getaway. Theirs was obviously a suicide mission, and she could tell by their body language that there was a very good chance that they were all going to take off running when whatever was coming got there.

"Come on," RJ said to Poley and she got up. He followed her right into the middle of the natives' camp. The ten natives left there turned and looked at them, startled and obviously wanting to run and hide from the strangers. Since they were here to die anyway, there was only a second when they thought about running from RJ and Poley. Then their duty to protect their people from the beasts that were rushing towards them won over fear of the strangers. However, they did aim their weapons at them.

RJ held her hands up quickly and Poley followed suit. She carefully used the words she had already learned and sign language to tell them what she interpreted as, "We want to help you kill the enemy." She must have gotten it right because the one she assumed was the leader looked at her and spit out a word she took to mean "OK", and the weapons turned away from her and Poley.

They were getting closer now. The noise rose in tempo, and the ground shook more. Then the trees parted, and there stood three twenty-foot tall six-legged metal "spiders." Each was topped with a glass dome and inside RJ could just make out three one-eyed alien creatures obviously controlling the machines.

"Well, this ought to make Topaz's day. He's going to get his monster and get compatible females, too," RJ mumbled.

The natives opened fire on the glass domes with the projectile weapons, and RJ knew instantly this must be their weak spot. Then the cowardly little bastards ran into the jungle, leaving her and Poley to fight the monsters themselves.

So they had either just stayed there to slow the things down, or they had decided to leave RJ and Poley to fight
their
suicide mission.

Blaster fire erupted from the machines, taking out one of the natives who hadn't been fast enough. RJ grabbed her blaster with one hand and whipped her chain off her waist with the other. She slung the end of her chain towards one of the legs of the closest metal-clad monster just as it lifted off the ground. She snagged it the first try and yanked with all her force. The monster faltered, almost falling. RJ leapt on top of the globe as blaster fire struck the ground where she had been standing only a moment before.

She crashed down on the clear dome with her fist but nothing happened, except a resounding ringing sound that was louder than even the blaster fire. She kept tension on the chain, keeping the leg up and throwing the machine off its normal gait. She could feel the terror of the creature inside the machine. He wasn't used to being in danger, he was at the top of the food chain. Around her she could see that the natives had come back, and while they weren't getting in close they were firing their weapons at the beasts. The projectiles were doing little more than bouncing off the clear domes, and annoying the hell out of her. In fact, one of them ricocheted into her arm, and she almost lost her grip on the chain.

She could see Poley running in a zigzag pattern at a high rate of speed, in and out of the legs of the metal-clad monsters, confounding their fire and movement. He stopped at a point under one, looked up and fired his laser. Sparks and red liquid rained down on Poley for his trouble, but the monster immediately started to lurch around spastically. He had targeted the machine's hydraulic system. Damn! She wished she'd thought of that. Still, she couldn't let her metal brother get the better of her. She shot the dome with her laser, holding a steady stream on it till it cracked. Then she smacked it again with her fist, full force. This time the dome busted and she found herself sitting on the slimy head of the alien inside—which she now knew had been covered by seawater. Exposed to air, the creature immediately started to die and his machine, which was apparently attached to him, started to lurch around wildly. RJ found herself flying through the air. She landed on her ass on the ground, her chain falling in a neat pile in her lap. She looked up to see the remaining fully mobile machine bearing down on her, its gun aimed right at her head. She rolled and it missed.

She was in the process of jumping to her feet when the entire machine blew up, covering her in a sludge of monster guts, seawater and hydraulic fluid. She wasn't vain enough to believe that it had gotten so scared it simply blew itself up rather than face her. She turned around to see one of the ship's skiffs hovering in the air above them.

"You're welcome," Levits said in her earpiece.

"I would have killed it," RJ said insistently, as she rose to her feet, dusting herself off.

"Would it absolutely kill you to say thank you, RJ?"

"It might, why risk it?" RJ answered with a grin. She wiped the goo off her face with her hand. It had the same consistency as the cryo-chamber goo, and a nose hair-singeing stench.

"You want me to blow that one?" Levits asked of the damaged one that was still lurching around.