~I told you they were false Sky Gods,~ came from a woman who now hopped from the stream bank to stomp through the water waving her stick. It had no spear points at either end but did have stone flakes edged into it around the top.
Jack would not want me to get beaned with that. Not at all.
The woman was quite a sight. Old and bald, she wore a necklace of wicked-looking teeth and a brown fur.
Before Kris could think much about it, Jacques was talking. ~Not false,~ he got in quickly. ~Good, like water. Food. Not bad like trees on fire.~
~Good?~ the gray-haired man asked.
~Good,~ Kris repeated.
~Come,~ he said, and slipping the knife into a belt, the only thing he wore, he set off up the stream.
“Let’s go,” Kris said.
“Gunny, stay with me,” Jack ordered. “Lance Corporal, get this research station mobile again and get it the hell out of here.”
Kris must really be pushing Jack; he was cussing mad.
It was nice to know how much he cared for her, considering what a pain she’d been lately.
They came to a water hole. The leader splashed through it, then turned left into a game trail and headed into the woods. Kris followed, and the parade followed her, but the woman with the wicked club was at Kris’s elbow.
~He already goes down into the earth. You cannot stop this. It is willed.~
~Willed?~ Kris said. Who willed what?
~Willed,~ the woman repeated.
JACQUES?
I THINK SOMEONE IS ABOUT TO DIE, GO DOWN INTO THE EARTH. IF I WERE A BETTING MAN, I’D SAY THIS WOMAN IS THE CLOSEST THING THEY HAVE TO A DOCTOR, AND SHE CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. THUS, “IT IS WILLED.”
BUT BY WHOM, JACQUES?
A GOOD QUESTION, KRIS. WE’VE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THEIR PANTHEON, BUT SO FAR WE’VE GOT THE SKY GODS THAT SPIT FIRE FOR NO GOOD REASON; AND THEN THERE IS THIS WILL THING.
~I will see with my eyes,~ was all Kris said.
That seemed to settle the woman down a little. She scampered ahead, taking two steps for every one Kris did, and caught up with the man.
WHAT’S SHE SAYING? Kris asked on net.
PRETTY MUCH WHAT I THOUGHT. OH, I THINK THE OLD MAN IS THE FATHER, OR MAYBE GRANDFATHER OF THE CHILD. A SON. YES, THERE’S A LOT GOING ON HERE, Jacques answered.
They came to a tall yellow rock. There was, however, an overhang. The only easy approach to it was up a narrow incline off to the left. The man and woman, however, scampered up the face of the rock as quickly and easily as monkeys.
Kris took the long way around.
Deep in the cave, behind the overhang, a child of eight or ten lay wrapped in furs. He looked feverish.
“Medic. Get me a medic up here fast,” Kris shouted, then changed directions. “Nelly, get me Captain Drago.
“Here.”
“I’ve got a sick kid here. Who’s the best doctor on board?”
“For humans, Doc Meade. For aliens, who knows?”
“Pass me through.
“Doc Meade,” came in a woman’s warm, professional voice.
“Doc, we’ve got a sick native. Male. Eight to ten years old. He looks feverish. But we have no instruments yet to check out any vitals.”
“What does he present with?”
“Let me see.”
Kris stepped off the distance to where the boy lay. She smiled at the worried woman, who could only be the mother. There was a man about her age, so if she had guessed right, it was the grandfather who had talked the entire tribe into going out and taking a Sky God hostage to see if they could do something besides burn things down.
You wanted someone who was open to change, didn’t you, girl?
Kris folded her hands in a sign of blessing or petition which she hoped was universal to the human form . . . and cautiously reached for the skins.
The bald woman brought her stick down, points wickedly close to Kris’s armored arm.
The gray-haired grandfather stepped forward and slipped his war club under the woman’s stick.
Wonder if they’re married. Or were married. Is this kid grandchild to both of them?
Kris lifted the blanket. The stench was bad.
“I see a raw wound crossing the lower back of the leg below the knee. There is a smell, and there are ugly red runners coming up the leg.”
“How far?”
“Past midthigh.”
“We’ve got a major problem, and we don’t even know which protocols will help and which will kill. Any chance you can just walk away?”
“It would be real nice, Doc, if we won this one. We might win a lot more than just one kid’s life.”
“So I get the call. I’m headed down with a full emergency-intervention team. Give me vitals on the child and see if you can get me some vitals from any other folks standing around. It would be nice to know what normal is.”
A Marine medic was charging up the landing, a bag in his hand. Not far behind him was a Sailor from the lander running with an even larger bag over her shoulder.
Kris had no idea how many tens of billions of these people she had killed and done it with full intent and no regrets. Now she found herself in a fight to keep one little one alive.
It was just this kind of fight yesterday that I lost. I will not lose this one today.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jack asked, trying to get himself between the woman with the club and Kris.
“I wanted someone open to change,” she said. “Have you seen anyone more open to change than this old man? He damn near killed a god to get our attention.”
“But what can one guy do?”
“Jack, I don’t honestly know, but at least he’s trying. That’s a whole lot better than a whole lot of nothing.”
Jack didn’t have a comeback to that. Instead, he turned to eye the woman. For a long, silent while, they eyed each other as the child on the furs radiated fever heat and moaned.
26
When the two medics arrived and had finished laying out their kit, Kris risked putting her hand on the woman’s club and lifting it away from the child. The four of them, together, backed away from the kid to make room at his side for the medics.
The corpsman did what they could to get vitals from the child and stabilize him. For now, that consisted of getting a saline drip into a very dehydrated little boy.
The needle was almost a showstopper.
Kris took her own glove off and offered the back of her hand for the needle. The young couple still seemed worried, but the old man nodded and the needle went into the child and not Kris.
The old woman stomped around saying things that Nelly said seemed to translate into one long, “It is willed. It will be.”
When she screamed it one too many times at the old man, he pounded his fist on his chest and screamed back, ~I do not will it, woman. I do not will it.~
The green girl with the long spear came forward and encouraged the bald woman to move over to the other side of the overhang.
With many a backward glance, she went. Were some of those glances of anguish?
The Sailor went to the mother and made motions to put the blood pressure cuff around her arm. The woman allowed it, then watched inquisitively as the medic did a pressure check.
“That’s interesting, one twenty over seventy-two. Pulse, seventy-five.” The medic held a thermometer to the woman’s head. “Temp 96.9.”
“I’m getting all this,” came over the net in Doc Meade’s voice.
Now it was the father’s turn. He was a bit higher on the pressure, faster in the pulse, and lower in the temperature. The grandfather stepped forward. His vitals were closer to the man’s.
Now both the green girl and the bald woman wanted to have the magic done to them. By the time the Sailor was finished with them, a line was forming. They quickly developed a database.