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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 67: Brown 261
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 230
The door opened to reveal one of the aliens. Even by Derek’s five foot height they were all short. This one was engaged in some kind of hand-held input/output device, and so was looking down at a screen. It looked up, and stared right past the six-and-a-half foot tall armored warrior with the drawn swords directly in its way, and straight at Derek.
Wow, I really must learn that spell, he thought.
It started to turn, to open its mouth presumably to yell, but all that came out was a grunt as the sword of the warrior it had not seen pierced its chest, and the corresponding dagger slit its throat. Skillfully, and without dropping either weapon, Slade guided the falling body into the elevator.
“Why did you bring that in here?” Shella demanded as she pushed one of the buttons and the door closed.
“Don’t want to leave too obvious a trail,” Slade responded. “They know we’re here, but they don’t know where we’re going.”
“That insignificancy spell really works well,” Derek said. “I guess you don’t have time to teach it to me.”
Shella’s face scrunched. “Maybe? You have to do this with one hand--either hand works.”
Derek copied the movement, and Shella nodded as if it were not great but satisfactory, and continued. She told him the words he would need to say, and they weren’t in any language he knew, but he managed to pronounce them. She had him do this a few times before she was satisfied.
He realized he didn’t have time to teach it to Vashti, and it wouldn’t help that much for only one of them to use it. But the situation might arise in which it would be a good choice.
They rode in silence for several minutes. Even at the high speeds the elevators used, with the gravity controls to prevent inertia, twenty miles was a long ride.
The elevator doors suddenly opened.
“I believe this is your stop,” Slade said, and Derek nodded and took his bicycle, his robot, his rifle, and his wife out into the hallway.
“Have fun,” Derek said, as a joke.
“Oh, I intend to,” the warrior replied.
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 #487: A World in Space. 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:
