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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 47: Kondor 232
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 172
Kondor stopped staring at the sky and turned to return to the house. Slade stopped him.
“Wait! I think it’s coming back!”
Kondor looked up again, and tried to focus. Taking the binoculars from Zeke, he zeroed in on the approaching craft.
“It’s not coming back,” he said. “It’s being forced down. There’s another craft above it, pushing it toward the ground.”
They stared for another moment, and then Slade said, “I think maybe we’d better move.”
“Yeah,” Kondor replied, and the five of them started running toward a space between the dorms.
Kondor stopped before they reached it, thinking he was probably out of the way, and watched. Indeed, the upper craft was riding the lower one, preventing it from escaping its shallow dive and headed directly for the grass. Then, with few feet to spare, the upper craft slowed abruptly, tilted forward, and apparently fired its repulsor at the bow of the lower, causing it to crash into the ground just as the upper craft skillfully swung upward, looped around, and came to a soft landing a few dozen yards away.
As Kondor started trotting toward the downed craft, he called, “Come on, let’s get on this.” Before he got there, he saw Derek and Vashti exit from the other ship, the one that had landed safely, and start toward him. They met at the downed ship.
“Allow me,” Derek said, as he punched a code into the door controls and it opened. “Officer’s prerogative,” he said. “I figured a lot of my command codes would cover both ships.”
Kondor entered, with Slade behind him. Two aliens--and Derek was right, little green men was a reasonably appropriate description--sat in the pilot and navigation seats of a craft that had been little modified from the design of Derek’s. One was dazed, the other severely injured. He went to the injured one.
Derek entered behind them, and said something in the alien language.
“What was that?” Slade said.
“Oh--language link? I’ve used it with them before, but not so much, but I’ve had some practice with the parakeets.”
“So,” Slade inquired, “what did you say?”
“‘You were warned.’”
Kondor thought Slade nodded. For himself, he was examining the wounds.
The other alien said something, and reached out as if to stop him. Derek answered in the alien language as Slade drew his blaster. The creature withdrew.
“What did you say?” Kondor asked.
“I told him you’re a doctor and if you can save his friend you will. I also told him that they were officially prisoners of war, but they would be treated well as long as they did nothing against us.”
Without looking away from his patient, Kondor nodded and continued his examination. There was a broken limb, which he was going to have to set carefully, but otherwise it was mostly cuts and bruises. Using his medical kit, he did the basic work.
“Ask the other if he needs medical attention,” he said, and Derek apparently translated. The little green alien paused, seemed to feel his body with his fingers, and then said something which Derek again translated.
“He says he thinks he’s all right.”
“In that case,” Slade said, “if we’re all ready, we should lock up our prisoners. Hopefully they didn’t damage the zoo.”
“I think my patient should be carried,” Kondor said.
“I’ve got ‘im,” Zeke answered. “How heavy could a pipsqueak like that be, anyway?”
They paraded out of the craft with their prisoners, and headed toward the zoo.
Soon the houses came into view, and it appeared that the crashing noise they had heard was Joe and Zeke’s home collapsing. Their roof had fallen into the floor, and then that floor into the floor below, and one outer wall had tilted out and crashed flat on the grass. This left three walls standing, sort of.
“At least the plumbing is intact,” Zeke joked grimly. Everyone paused for a moment to look.
“It’s O.K.,” Slade said. “You can bunk with us until things are better and we can repair that. Meanwhile, let’s get these creatures contained.”
They continued to the zoo.
“Check them,” Kondor suggested. “Leave them their clothes, but take any equipment they don’t need. We don’t want them breaking out or contacting help.”
Derek, figuring he was most familiar with the alien tech, began searching the one who was walking. He removed several objects and dropped them on the grass for the moment.
“Also,” Shella said, “we should feed them something.”
“I’ll do that,” Vashti said. “Our robot taught us a few alien recipes, and I think we can figure out what they can eat here.”
Having put the one alien in the cage, Derek gave the other similar treatment. They then locked the cage and gathered the objects they had taken.
As they all turned to head toward their own homes, Slade said, “What now?”
“I think the first thing is to see whether we can still contact the rest of the world,” Kondor suggested, “and see how everyone else fared. Also, Zeke and I should see whether we can salvage any of our furniture, and particularly our beds, to use at your place.”
The dean, recovering from the exhilarating fright of the encounter, said, “I’ll see who we can still reach.” And with that, he left them.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #482: Versers Engage. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
