He carefully went over everything that RJ had just said twice and still had to admit that he didn't really know what she meant.
Topaz was gushing about the sunrise, the plants, the bugs, the lizards and some small fur-bearing creature he had caught a glimpse of running through the brush.
"Don't you have any birds?" Topaz asked the three natives.
"Birds," Taleed said the strange word and shook his head. "I don't know that word."
The other two shrugged.
"Animals covered in feathers that fly in the air like a
. . .
a space ship," Topaz explained.
"We have lizards that have feathers," Janad said and rubbed her stomach. "Very good to eat."
"You have flying animals on your world?" Taleed asked in excitement.
"Yes, many. And there used to be many more," Topaz said. "Over hunting, pollution and pesticides
. . .
"
"OK. I hate to interrupt Grandpa's story hour," Levits started, "but what's next? Are we just going to sit here camping until the Reliance finds us, or do you actually have a plan, RJ?"
"Sitting here till the Reliance finds us
was
my plan," RJ said leaning forward from where she was sitting on a rock and tearing off a hunk of the not-quite-done lizard. She sat back down munching on the piece of meat. "I figure they have to come looking for us sooner or later. To do that, they are going to have to come down here. To get down here, they are going to have to bring a ship. They come after us, we kill them and take their ship."
"Good plan," Levits said approvingly.
"Unless they kill us," Taleed said, not understanding their cavalier attitude. They were not simple minded like his people. They knew that the Reliance had weapons that were every bit as powerful as their own. They knew they weren't gods and therefore could be killed. "Surely you don't expect the seven of us to stand up to the might of the Reliance."
To his surprise the four aliens just laughed at him. The older one looked at him, and said as way of explanation said, "Fighting windmills is what we do best."
"What is a windmill?" Taleed asked him.
"A huge monster with four rotating arms, beady eyes and sharp pointy teeth," Topaz said.
"You have those on your planet?" Taleed asked, his eyes wide.
"Oh, yes, thousands of them," Topaz assured him.
RJ rose to her feet and stretched. "Consider us giant killers. We have fought the Reliance before many times, and we have only really lost once. The Reliance isn't likely to throw anything at us that we can't handle. Their downfall is their size; the Reliance is too big and too well organized to think on their feet. Besides, I said I wasn't a god. I
never
said I was
human
." She turned and walked off into the brush without another word, as if some destiny awaited her just beyond the line of their sight.
"What does she mean?" Taleed asked Topaz.
"Concerning what?" Levits asked almost under his breath. "All the double talk about the Reliance's impotence, or the fact that she isn't human."
Taleed looked from Topaz to Levits and back again indicating that he actually wanted both questions answered.
"Poley, RJ and I are all the result of different scientific experiments," Topaz answered. No doubt feeling that further explanation would be wasted on Taleed. "When you have only a few people to run things, they sit around and talk and get things done easily. The fewer people you have the more quickly decisions can be made. The Reliance, however, has a huge chain of command. RJ obviously believes that this means
. . .
"
"Why don't you just admit that you have no idea what the hell she was talking about?" Levits said with a laugh. He turned to look at Taleed. "Listen, Kid
. . .
Do yourself a favor. Just believe what she says, and do what she tells you. She knows exactly what she's doing, and I've rarely known her to be wrong. Those who don't listen to her damage themselves and everyone else." He shot a look full of hate at David, then got up and walked in the same direction the woman had gone.
When he had gone Janad looked at David. "Why does he hate you so much?"
David took in a deep breath and let it roll out slowly before he answered. "Because I betrayed RJ and the New Alliance and caused the death of the woman he loved."
Janad didn't understand. Neither for that matter did Taleed.
"I thought
she
was the woman he loved," Taleed said in confusion.
"She is now," David said.
"I don't understand," Janad said shaking her head. "If what you say is true, why are you here with them now? Why did they not kill you?"
"Truly
. . .
I don't know." David stood up and walked away in the opposite direction from the way the others had gone.
"What did he do?" Taleed asked Topaz.
Topaz of course who lived to tell people what he knew told the whole story from the beginning of the New Alliance to their decent to this planet. The three child/adults listened intently, hardly even interrupting him with questions. It was only when the four of them had finished eating the entire lizard and Topaz had finished his story that he realized that it had been at least an hour, and the others hadn't returned.
"Poley, where are RJ, Levits and David?" he asked.
Poley pointed in the direction RJ and Levits had gone. "My sister and Levits are about half a mile away and have been engaging in sexual activities. They are quiet now, so I'm assuming they're done. "David," he pointed in the direction he had gone, "is about a quarter of a mile away, and is apparently chunking rocks into the river."
Taleed got up and walked over to Poley. He walked around him looking at his neck. "I still do not understand
. . .
How can a man have his head severed from his body and go on living?"
Poley made a face and rubbed at his neck.
"I told you
. . .
Stewart made Poley
. . .
"
"And RJ. I think I understand what RJ is, but
. . .
What is he? I don't understand."
"He's a machine," Topaz said, "an artificial intelligence, a robot."
"He can't be," Taleed said shaking his head. "He is a man. I see no difference between him and you or your friends."
"I didn't say Stewart didn't do a damn good job on the boy," Topaz said.
Taleed looked at Poley's hands. "You mean
. . .
you made him? Even his hands?"
Topaz had noticed that there was something wrong with the boy's hands. For one thing he didn't take his gloves off even when it was hot. For another the other boy had to feed him, which meant his hands must be extremely crippled.
"I didn't make him, Stewart did," Topaz answered.
"But if you repaired him when he was broken
. . .
You could build him?" Taleed asked excitedly.
"Well of course," Topaz said egotistically, although in truth he wasn't sure that he could.
"Then you could make hands for me?" Taleed said raising his hands in the air.
"That's bionics son, a whole different science," Topaz said. "One that is tricky at best and not really proven. You'd have to cut off your hands, and the hands you'd replace them with probably wouldn't do as much as the hands you have now."
"He doesn't have hands," RJ said, startling them all both with her sudden presence and her statement.
Taleed turned and glared at her, and Janad, realizing what this meant, suddenly dropped to the ground and prostrated herself before Taleed. RJ walked the rest of the way into camp, reached down and grabbed Janad by the belt of her loin-cloth and hauled her to her feet.
"Get up girl, he's no god. Just some poor boy who's been maimed in the name of tradition," RJ said. "Isn't that true, Your Highness?"
Taleed glared angrily at her and spat out, "If you knew all along, why did you wait till now to expose me?"
"How would that have served me?" she asked.
"How does it serve you now?" Taleed asked hotly.
"Because you have something I want, and now I know I have something you want."
"What?"
RJ walked into the ship and appeared a few minutes later carrying one of the service droids. Its metal hands were dragging in the dirt. She threw it at the young prince's feet.
"I have hands. Topaz has the skill. Want to talk about a deal?"
Stratton stared at the clock on the instrument panel of the flyer. Bradley and Jackson had been gone a long time. "I wonder what's taking them so long?" Stratton yelled back at Decker where he stood at the top of the ramp just outside the open hatch.
"I don't know, but this doesn't look good," Decker said.
From the windshield she could see what he meant. The "curious villagers" were carrying more and more weapons and beginning to appear less like a welcoming committee and more like an angry mob. Suddenly a huge scream came from them as a whole assembly.
"Get in the ship! Get back in the ship!" Stratton activating the switch that would close the hatch.
Decker jumped in, barely escaping the spear that rattled to the floor beside him where he landed on his butt.
"Shit!" Decker screamed as spears and rocks starting hitting the outside of the ship making it almost impossible to hear. He got to his feet and ran to where Stratton sat at the consol trying to get through to Bradley and Jackson.
"Bradley, this is Stratton. We are under attack! Do you read? What the hell's going on? Damn it! If you can hear me, answer." There was nothing. "God damned magnetic pulses!
"It may not be the pulses," Decker said looking at the hail of rocks and spears thumping ineffectively on the windscreen and swallowing a lump in his throat. "He may not be in a position to answer us."
Stratton nodded. If Bradley had met with a similar welcoming party on the inside of the Palace, he and Jackson, were probably already dead. She made a quick decision and started powering up the ship.
"What the hell are you doing?" Decker screamed. "They may still be alive. We can't just leave them here."
"And they may already be dead. If we stay here, we'll be killed as well," Stratton told him. She got back on the com-link. "Bradley, we can't wait. We're lifting off. We'll come back for you."
"This thing was made to take re-entry and meteor showers. Rocks and spears aren't likely to hurt it!" Decker screamed. "We can wait."
"How long do you think it's going to take them to figure out that rocks and spears aren't going to damage us and go after tools? They have time and man power on their side. If Bradley and Jackson are still alive, we will come back for them. For now we're going to run and hide," Stratton assured him.
"Fire the forward cannons
. . .
"
"If I use the armaments we won't have enough power left to make escape velocity. The armaments on a skiff are for emergency use only!" Stratton said.
"And this isn't an emergency!" Decker screamed.
"Not yet," Stratton answered calmly.
"Call Briggs. Report what's happening and send for reinforcements," Decker pleaded.
"Oh, yes
. . .
That's exactly what we all want to do – escalate the problems down here. You know how the Reliance deals with primitive uprisings. They send bombers in to hammer the place level whether we – or Bradley and Jackson are here or not." She lifted off as the natives scattered.
"Then fire the cannons. If we aren't planning to go back to the Station anyway, what does it matter?" Decker asked.
"I'm not going to cut our options. I'm not willing to burn out bridges we may need." She lifted off. "If we shoot them, how are we going to prove that we want to help them? If we wind up being stuck on this planet, we had damn well better find a way to get along with the natives. The last thing we want to do is make them more hostile than they already are." She flew the skiff away from the palace and the capital city.
"In case you didn't understand, when we decided to defect, you were no longer in command," Decker said. "You left Jackson and Bradley down there to die."
"Right now I'm in command of this skiff because I'm sitting in this chair and the only way you're going to get me out of this chair is to burn a hole in me like the one you burned in Hank. If they had it in their heads to kill Bradley and Jackson, they have already done so. If they are still alive, we will go back and get them. But we obviously aren't going to be able to sneak past anyone in this ship."
Decker nodded his head in reluctant agreement.
"Now buckle up. I'm setting this thing down," Stratton ordered.
Bradley looked at the ring of guards that had closed in around he and Jackson and then back at the King.