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Eight
“I’m unarmed!” I shouted in a voice just as hoarse as that of my unseen attacker. “I’m reaching for the sky—don’t shoot!” Was that voice somehow familiar? Dare I risk a look? I was trying to make my mind up when Bolivar made it up for me. He popped open the robot and stuck his head out.
“Hi, James,” he called cheerily. “What’s wrong with your throat? And don’t shoot that ugly alien because your very own dad is inside.”
I risked a look now to see James lurking behind a piece of furniture, jaw and blaster hanging limply with astonishment. Angelina, tastefully garbed in a fur bikini, stepped in from the other room holstering her own gun.
“Crawl out of that thing at once,” she ordered, and I struggled free of its plastic embrace and into her decidedly superior one. “Yum,” she yummed after a long and passionate kiss was terminated only by lack of oxygen. “It has been light years since I’ve seen you.”
“Likewise. I see you got my message.”
“When that creature mentioned that name on the news broadcast I knew you were involved somehow. I had no way of knowing you were inside, which was why we came with the guns.”
“Well, you are here now and that is what counts, and I love your outfit,” I looked at James’s fur shorts, “and James’s as well. I see you go to the same tailor.”
“They took all our clothes away,” James said, in the same rough voice. I looked at him more closely. “Does that scar on your throat have anything to do with the way you talk?” I asked. “You bet. I got it when we escaped. But the alien that gave it to me, that’s where we got the fur we’re wearing.”
“That’s my boy. Bolivar, crack a bottle of champagne out of our survival kit, if you please. We shall celebrate this reunion while your mother explains just what has happened since we saw her last.”
“Quite simple,” she said, wrinkling her nose delightfully at the bubbles. “We were engulfed by one of their battleships I’m sure you saw that happen.”
“One of the worst moments of my life!” I moaned.
“Poor darling. As you can imagine we felt about the same way. We fired all the guns but the chamber is lined with collapsium and it did no good. Then we held our fire to get the aliens when they came to get us, but that was no good either. The ceiling of the chamber came down and crushed the ship and we had to get out. That was when they disarmed us. They thought. I remembered that little business you did on Burada with the poisoned fingernails and we did the same here. Even our toe nails, so when they took our boots away it helped us. So we fought until our guns were empty, were grabbed, taken to a prison or a torture chamber—we didn’t stay long enough to find out—then we polished off our captors and got away.”
“Wonderful! But that was endless days ago. How have you managed since?”
“Very well, thank you, with the aid of Cill Airne here.”
She waved her hand as she said this and five men jumped in from the other room and waved their weapons at me. It was disconcerting yet I stood firm seeing that Angelina was unmoved by the display. They had pallid skins and long black hair. Their clothing, if it could be called that, was made of bits and pieces of alien skin held together by scraps of wire. Their axes and swords looked crude—but serviceable and sharp.
“Estas granda plezuro renkonti vin,” I said, but they were unmoved. “If they don’t speak Esperanto what do they talk?” I asked Angelina.
“Their own language of which I have learned a few words. Dogheobhair gan dearmad taisce gach seoid,” she added. They nodded in agreement at this, clattered their weapons and emitted shrill war cries.
“You made quite a hit with them,” I said.
“I told them that you were my husband, the leader of our tribe, and you had come here to destroy the enemy and lead them to victory.”
“True, true,” I said, clasping my hands and shaking them over my head while they cheered again. “Bolivar, break out the cheap booze for our allies while your mom tells me just what the hell is going on here.”
Angelina sipped at her champagne and frowned delicately. “I’m not sure of all the details,” she said. “The language barrier and all that. But the Cill Airne appear to be the original inhabitants of this planet, or rather settlers. They’re human enough, undoubtedly a colony cut off during the Breakdown. How or why they came this far from the other settled worlds we may never know. Anyway, they had a good thing going here until the aliens arrived. It was hatred at first sight. The aliens invaded and they fought back, and are apparently still fighting back. The aliens did everything they could to wipe them out, destroying the surface of this planet and covering it, bit by bit, with metal. It didn’t work. The humans penetrated the alien buildings and have lived ever since hidden in the walls and foundations.”
“Stainless steel rats!” I cried. “My sympathy goes out to them.”
“I thought it might. So after James and I escaped and were ru
“You know where they are?”
“Of course. And not too far away from here.”
“Then we need a plan. And I need a good night’s rest. Why don’t we sleep on it and do battle in the morn?”
“Because there is no time like the present and besides, I know what you have on your mind. Into battle!”
I sighed. “Agreed. What do we do next?’
That was decided when the door burst open and my paramour Gar-Baj came charging in. He must have had love on his mind, if the pink nighty he was wearing meant anything, so he was a little off his guard.
“Jeem, my sweet—why do you stand there unmoving with your neck open? Awwrrk!”
He added this last when the first sword got him in the hams. There was a brief battle, which he lost quite quickly, though not quickly enough. He was not completely in the room when the fight started and when his tail was cut off the last bit, equipped undoubtedly with a rudimentary brain of its own, went slithering back down the corridor and out of sight.
“We had better make tracks,” I said.
“To the escape tu
“Is it big enough for my alien disguise?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then hold all activity for a few moments while I think,” I said, then thought. Quickly. “I have it. Angelina—do you know your way around this monsters’ maze?”
“I do indeed.”
“Wonderful. Bolivar, it’s your chance to walk. Out of the robot and let your mother get in. Brief her on the controls and then go with the others. We’ll meet you at whatever place it is you have been staying.”
“How considerate,” Angelina beamed. “My feet were getting tired. James, show your brother the way and we’ll join you later. Better take along some chops from this creature you have just butchered since we have a few more coming to di
“Meaning?” I asked.
“The admirals. We can free them with all this weaponry you have imported and I will lead them to safety in the subterranean ways.”
There was instant agreement on the plan. In the diGriz family we are used to making up our minds rather quickly, while the Cill Airne had learned to do the same in their constant war against the enemy. Some moldering floor coverings were thrown back to reveal a trapdoor that was levered up. I was begi