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Read Ebook: Cultural Exchange by Bone Jesse F Jesse Franklin
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Ebook has 68 lines and 5624 words, and 2 pages
"Dan," I said as we went into orbit, "did Alex come aboard?"
"Of course."
"Where is he?"
"Down in the engine room, I suppose, or in his bunk. It's not his watch."
"Maybe you'd better check. But before you do--"
He waited for me to continue, and finally I was able to.
"Put Allardyce, Barger, and myself in the brig," I said. "Set a guard over us with instructions to shoot if we try to make a break. Then get Alex, if he's aboard. Frankly, I don't think you'll find him. They didn't need a ship's commander, a sociologist or a biologist, but they did need an engineer. Now get going. This is an order!"
Warren stiffened. "Yes, sir--sorry, sir!"
Inside my skull, the Lyranian came to life--struggled briefly--and then quit. Barger, Allardyce and I spent the rest of the trip home in the air-conditioned, radiation-resistant, germproof, dustproof, escape-resistant brig. Alex, of course, wasn't aboard. There aren't many places on a starship where a man can hide, and the crew searched them all.
Even so, I kept worrying about the ship's safety all the way back. It was a miserable trip. I suppose it was just as miserable for the Lyranians in my two companions who kept worrying about how to destroy us. It didn't do them any good either. They never got a chance, and ultimately we reached Decontamination.
Barger and Allardyce are up there now. The medics think they can erase the Lyranians with insulin shock, but it'll take time. Mine, being a nice, tame one, was considered to be more valuable in me than out. We're going to have to know a lot about Lyrane in a hurry if we're going to do anything about those people, and my Lyranian can tell us plenty.
But I'll bet we'll find things different on Lyrane when we go back. They'll have at least ten years, and with the brains they've got--and Alex's brain to pick--they'll do just fine from an engineering point of view. I'll bet they'll even have spaceships.
From what I can gather from my alter ego, they checked Alex's brain and didn't like what they saw. That's the trouble with romantics. They always remember the wars and the fighting, never the stodgy, peaceful interims. But you simply don't spring that sort of stuff on a culture like Lyrane's. And I suppose my anger didn't help things any, but if not for that anger and my primitive bull-headedness, we might not be here.
Capt. Halsey hurriedly downed the rum. "Skippers are picked because they're tough-minded and authoritarian. In space you need it occasionally. Fortunately I lived up to specifications. A peaceful sort like my Lyranian just couldn't take it--fortunately."
"Fortunately?" I asked.
"Wrong?" I prompted the skipper.
Halsey chuckled. "Yes, that's what I said--wrong ideas," he said in that remote second voice. "Just because you've forgotten self-defense doesn't mean that other peaceful civilizations don't remember it."
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