The women were embarrassed to be naked in front of the crowd, regardless that it may be the custom for the women of this world. They were directed to stand before thick wooden posts and their hands were untied, then retied around them. They could barely move. They hung their heads in shame.
Lumpy walked the platform, speaking to the crowd, gesturing to the captives. The crowd appeared to be impressed by them. He said something and the crowd reacted, almost derisively, Beth thought. The man’s face darkened and he said something to his partner. Skinny approached Ally and untied her, bringing her forward.
When she stood next to Lumpy, he said something to her and pointed at the crowd. Ally, embarrassed at being put on display, didn’t understand what he was trying to say. He gestured again, growing angry. Ally just shook her head, tears falling from her eyes. Her heart pounded. She wished she could understand him.
He grabbed her jaw and waggled it. Oh! He wanted her to speak, to show they weren’t from around here, she realized. Duh. That should already be obvious. “My name is Allyson Egerton,” she said in a firm voice. “I am commander of a space ship. We come from Earth. We mean you no harm, but we would like to be released so that we may return to our ship.”
Her words electrified the audience. They stared, open-mouthed, then began talking anew amongst themselves.
Ally knew they couldn’t understand her, but it made her feel better to stand up and speak for the people of Earth. She turned to Lumpy. “If you would get our translators out of the bag, we could begin to talk to each other.” The man just stared at her. Ally pointed as best she could with her hands behind her back toward the cart parked below. “The bag, you big galoot, the bag.”
The man cocked his head, then said something to Skinny. Ally was relieved to see the man return to the cart and retrieve the bag. These beings were highly intelligent! He returned to hand the bag to his partner. Lumpy began pawing through it. He pulled out a phaser and held it up to the crowd. There was more murmuring. He held it clumsily, finally fitting his fingers around the grip. The gun was small in his hands. By luck, his finger touched the trigger, but, of course, he was locked out. To him, the object would be useless. He dropped the gun into the bag and pulled out a U.T.
“Yes!” Ally shouted. Behind her, Beth and Jorja shouted as well. Curious, the man held it closer to his face, trying to understand its significance. “Turn the switch on the side,” she said, desperate for him to understand. “It’s going to take awhile to work, but let’s get started, OK?”
He wasn’t getting it. Frustrated, Ally indicated to the partner that he could cut her ropes. She gestured again and again. Words were exchanged between the two men. The big man shook his head. He didn’t trust the pilot who blasted him twice.
Ally watched as the man slipped the Ute into a pouch hanging from his belt. Her heart fell as she was dragged back to the post and retied. “Noooo! Listen to me! We can talk to each other!”
The partner pinched Ally’s nipple, hard, and she squealed, then shut up. She didn’t say anything when he reached down and stroked her bare pussy. Ally was beyond embarrassment at this point. The other captives watched dejectedly. Greta just hung from her bindings, her eyes closed.
The big man again spoke to the crowd. Some responded excitedly.
“You know what’s happening, don’t you?” Beth said to Ally, who was fastened to the adjacent post.
“I think so, but I’m afraid to believe it.”
“I’m afraid it’s true. We’re being auctioned off.”
“How could they? Would we do that to E.T.?”
“They don’t think of us as alien—just as foreigners, like we came from another continent. We probably look exotic to them, like Swedes might look to the Spanish or vis versa. You know, this culture is not all that dissimilar from ours, once upon a time.”
Ally looked over at the anthropologist. “This isn’t helping, doc. I want to hear how we’re going to tell them otherwise, without the Ute.”
Beth looked back at the big man talking up the crowd. “Maybe we’ll have to learn their language the old-fashioned way.”
Chapter 16
Kate studied the latest photos with a magnifying glass. She wanted to memorize the layout of the town, especially the town square. When the most recent photo fell out of the digital processor, she turned white with fear—and fury—as she held it up to the light. Unless she was mistaken, her four crew women were all being held on some sort of platform, bound to stakes. They appeared to be naked, just like all the other women in town.
“Dammit, Ally, how could you let them take you?” Kate knew she was missing something. Somehow these sixteenth century beings managed to overpower an intelligent, alert woman armed with a late-21st century weapon. What had happened?
She would have to be very careful.
Taking one last look, she climbed down the ladder into the escape pod. Kate paused before she slipped inside, looking around her ship. It may be the last time she would see it. But she had no choice. She was going to rescue her crew or die trying.
Kate glanced at her chronometer as she strapped herself in. Nearly an hour and a half had passed since she radioed Earth. It had taken some time to reposition the ship to give her the best aim at landing near the second pod. The pod would travel nearly all the way around the planet as it made its way through the atmosphere. Once it was in the upper atmosphere, she’d have to hope that her calculations about the prevailing winds were accurate. Otherwise, she might end up two hundred kilometers away.
She decided to launch before guilt made her wait for NASA’s response. She had no doubt that Hunter would be sending one, probably to tell her “under no circumstances” should she leave the ship. Screw him. She bolted the door and fastened her restraints.
“Hey, it was a nice career,” she said out loud and pulled the launch handle.
The escape pod was designed to rocket away from the bay door, in the event the ship was about to explode. She hung on grimly as the G-forces pressed her back in her seat. Kate let the computer aim the pod at the right angle to pierce the atmosphere.
Within minutes, she felt the craft being buffeted. Red streaks and sparks flew past the two oval windows. Her heart pounded and she wasn’t sure if the bumpy ride was responsible, or her overwhelming knowledge that she was the crew’s last hope.
Kate read the instruments, using her training to calm her down. When she hit ninety thousand feet, the heat began to dissipate. At eighty thousand, blue skies returned to the two portholes. She waited several long seconds, then saw the panel flash green. She held on until her position matched the best guess of the computer. She pulled a lever. A moment later, she felt the reassuring lift from the parachute. Leaning down, she could look up through one of the portholes to see it open above the pod.
Thank god! That’s one worry gone. Now if I can just land close!
The winds were strong. Kate watched the screen that showed the blips from where the second pod had landed and where the crew was being held. They were still in the village, grouped together near the center. Kate watched, dismayed, as the winds carried her rapidly toward the second pod. She glanced at the altimeter: forty thousand feet. Dammit! She was going to overshoot it by several kilometers. She began firing the forward thrusters to slow down her rate of drift.
The second pod slipped by underneath as she passed eighteen thousand feet. A mountain ridge appeared in her windows. She calculated her rate of descent and the approaching mountain and thought she just might get down before she was dashed to death on its cliff face. “Come on! Come on!” Kate fired the thrusters again. The pod rocked, then leaped forward again. She couldn’t fight the wind for long.