Read Ebook: Cultural Exchange by Bone Jesse F Jesse Franklin

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Ebook has 68 lines and 5624 words, and 2 pages

This tree was nothing but a mousetrap, and we were the mice! Why hadn't one of us carried the discussion a bit further? Any idiot should know that biological agents were fully as deadly as physical ones. And these people were self-admittedly predatory. Contempt at my stupidity was the only emotion that filled my mind--that we would be trapped like a flock of brainless sheep and led bleating happily to slaughter. Raw anger surged through me, smothering my fear in a red blanket of rage.

K'wan shook his head. "Your reaction works against you. It's primitive--and, I think, dangerous. We cannot risk associating with a race that cannot control themselves. You have developed too fast--too soon. We are an old race and a slow race, and our warlike days are far behind us. The council was right. Something must be done about you or there will be more of your kind on Lyrane--hard, driving, uncontrolled, violent." He sighed--a very human sigh--half regret, half resignation.

"And you promised no harm would come to us if we came with you," I thought bitterly.

"I said you would come to no harm, nor will you. You'll just be changed a little."

"Like Alex?"

"Yes."

"What did you do to him?"

He grinned, exposing his long tusks. "You'll find out," he said. He sounded just like a villain in a cheap melodrama.

He took the menticom circlet off my head and all communication stopped. Two other Lyranians stepped through the wall, lifted me and carried me out like a shanghaied drunk from a spaceport bar. I wasn't particularly surprised at the laboratory that lay behind the wall. After all, an observation cage had to have its laboratory facilities.

These were good--very good indeed. Even though I knew hardly anything about biological laboratories, there was no doubt that here were the products of an advanced technology. I hated to admit it, but it looked as though we had run into what we had always feared but had never found--a civilization superior to ours. From the windowless appearance of the place, it was probably underground, and K'wan's look and nod seemed to confirm my guess.

They laid me out on a table, took blood and tissue samples and proceeded to forget me while they ran tests and analyses. I kept trying to move, but it wasn't any use.

A group of about a dozen oldsters came in, looked at me and went away. The council, I guessed.

In a surprisingly short time K'wan came back, distinguishable by the menticom circlet. He was holding something that looked like a jet hypo in his hand. The barrel was full of a cloudy red liquid that swirled sluggishly behind the confining glass.

"This won't hurt," he said, his thoughts amplified by the circlet.

He lifted my arm, examined it and nodded. There was a high-pitched, sibilant hiss as he touched the trigger of the syringe and I felt a brief sting near my elbow.

"There--that's that!" he said. "Now we'll take you back and get the others."

I swore at him coldly and viciously.

He smiled.

Alex helped lay me back on my bed in the tree house. He looked down at me and grinned. It wasn't a pleasant grin. It reminded me of a crocodile.

He came at me from a hollow in the sandy ground, a huge, furry Lyranian--bigger than any I had seen. His white tusks glittered in the sunlight as he leaped at me.

Twisting, I avoided him and turned to run. To fight that mountain of fanged flesh was futile. He could rip me apart with one hand. But I moved with viscid slowness, stumbling through the shifting sands.

In a moment he was upon me, clutching with his huge hands, snapping at my throat with his tusked mouth. Fear pumped adrenalin into my system and I fought as I had never fought before, breaking his holds, throwing jarring punches into his fanged face as he clawed and bit at me.

With a violent effort I broke away and ran again toward the safety of the distant ship. For a moment I left him behind as he scrambled to regain his feet and came running after me. He was on me again, hands reaching for my throat. I couldn't get away. And again we fought, battering and clawing at each other, using fists, feet and teeth, biting and gouging. His strength was terrible and his hot, fetid breath was rank in my nostrils. With a grunt of triumph he tripped me and I fell on my back on the blazing sand. I screamed as my back struck the searing surface, but he held me helpless and immovable, pinned beneath his massive, crushing weight.

And then he began to eat me!

I felt his sharp fangs sink into my shoulder muscles and meet in my flesh. With a rush of frantic strength I threw him off again and again, ran stumbling across the plain. Once more he caught me and again we fought.

It went on endlessly--the fight, the temporary breakaway, the flight, the pursuit, and the recapture. I wondered dully why no one on the ship had seen us. Perhaps they were looking in the wrong direction, or perhaps they weren't even looking. If I survived this and found that they hadn't been on watch--I snarled and slammed my fist into the Lyranian's face.

Both of us were covered with blood, but he was visibly weaker. It was no longer a fight; we were too exhausted for that. We pawed at each other feebly, and I could detect something oddly like fear in him now. He couldn't hold me--but neither could I finish him.

I gathered my last remaining strength into one last blow. My torn fist smashed into his bloody face. He toppled to the ground and I fell beside him, too spent to move. I lay there panting, watching him.

He rose to his hands and knees and came crawling toward me, trembling with weakness. I felt his smothering weight pinning me as he fell across me. He twisted slowly, his fanged mouth gaping to bite again. His jaws closed on my arm. I was done--beaten--too weary and bruised to care. He had won. But his teeth couldn't break my skin. Like me, he was finished.

Somehow I had reached the ship and safety!

I awoke. I was bathed with sweat. My muscles were aching and my head was a ball of fire. I looked around. Everything seemed normal. My menticom was on my head and I was lying on the bed in the tree house. Painfully I rose to my feet and staggered into the main room.

"My God! Skipper, you look awful!" Allardyce's voice was sharp with concern. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," I muttered. "My head's splitting."

"Here, sit down. Let me take a look at you." Allardyce produced a thermometer and stuck it in my mouth. "Mmmm," he said worriedly. "You've got fever."

"I feel like I've been through the mill," I said.

"We'd better get back to the ship. Doc should have a look at you."

I wanted nothing more than the familiar safety of the ship, away from these odd natives and exotic diseases that struck despite omnivaccination. And we should get back before the others fell sick.

"All right, Pat," I said. "Contact Dan. Have him send the big 'copter. We'll leave at once." I discounted the experience of last night as delirium, but just to make sure, I checked with Allardyce and Barger when they came in.

"Obviously fever," Barger said. "Nothing happened to me like you describe."

"Nor to me," Allardyce said.

We made our excuses to K'wan as the 'copter fluttered down into a nearby clearing.

"I'm sorry about this," K'wan said apologetically, "but I never thought of the possibility of diseases. We are all immune. We do have some biological skill, as you've surely guessed, but our engineering technology is far inferior to yours. We thought it would be better not to let you know about us until we had a chance to observe you. But you undoubtedly have seen enough to deduce our culture." He grinned--a ferocious grimace that exposed his long tusks. "I suppose we are rather bad liars. But then we're not accustomed to deception."

"I understand," I said. "You had no way of knowing what we were really like. We could have been the advance guard of a conquering space armada. You showed great courage to open relations with us."

"Not as great as yours. We had the opportunity of examining your man Alex. You had only his untried opinions to go by."

The 'copter came down with a flutter of rotor blades, and I shook hands with K'wan. For a moment I was tempted to call Dan and tell him to turn our hostages loose, but on second thought decided that could wait. I slipped my menticom off. There was no point in broadcasting my thoughts, and without the gadget K'wan couldn't intercept them unless they were directed. After all, we were a minority on this world and Earth didn't even know where we were yet. A ship can cross hyper-space far more easily and quickly than the most powerful transmitter can broadcast across normal space. It would be a thousand years before Earth could hear from us by radio, even if they could distinguish our messages from stellar interference. While I felt oddly friendly, there was no reason to take chances, especially if there was any truth in that dream.

"You will be leaving soon?" K'wan asked. "You and the ship?"

"Yes," I said. "We have done all we can do here."

"Remember what you are to do; the others will help," K'wan said.

The Lyranian was supposed to wreck the ship.

He waved farewell as I turned to enter the 'copter. "Our thoughts go with you for your success," he said.

"Dan," I said as we went into orbit, "did Alex come aboard?"

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