Bowl of Heaven

Plants had evolved those as warding-off signals. He hoped Beth hadn’t taken risks to discover all the menu’s contents. Then —

“Wait,” he said to Aybe. “I’ll bet they got that data straight from the aliens.”

“So they’re still in captivity. Um.”

“Maybe. The important thing is, we’re back in contact.”

“Sort of.” He sighed. “I lost SunSeeker’s signal again.”

“They’re moving, in orbit. Not easy to stay within range, even with these narrowband phones.”

“Good thing they were designed to work at long range.” Aybe chuckled ruefully. “Nobody thought they’d have to work over interplanetary distance, though.”

Hearing from Beth brought up a subject he hadn’t wanted to confront: that one quick moment of passion with Irma.

Sadly he remembered an old joke: A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

* * *

By the time Irma returned, Aybe could tell her which of the plants she had gathered she could toss and which to keep. Howard and Terry brought in an odd-looking two-legged thing like a badger, which was edible. They skinned and roasted it and felt joyous.

Then they sailed away into the desert, to get space between them and the magcar Birds. Half an hour of skimming slowly over the fine-grained sand got them into a region of rocky ridges. None they couldn’t avoid, but it slowed them considerably. Howard was scanning the horizon for a better route when he called, “Something big coming.”

It was a dot in the distance that steadily swelled. “We’re more exposed out here,” Aybe said. “If that’s — ”

“A magcar,” Irma said. She had binocs and counted out, “Two, no, three Birds in it.”

“No point in trying to run,” Terry said. “Those are fast.”

“But do we fight?” Howard asked.

Irma said slowly, “We don’t know for sure they’re hostile.”

Aybe said slowly, “Angling for a mangling, we are.”

Cliff silently cursed himself for not thinking how exposed they would be. “We can’t run or hide, so let’s do a reverse. Wave, hail them if they get close.”

They all looked at him as if he were crazy. “Keep your weapons concealed. If things turn sour, we shoot. But first I’d like to get up into that magcar.”

Howard said, “It’ll all be in the timing. If we have to shoot, I’ll take the one on the right. Terry, you get the left one. Irma, the third, wherever it’ll be.”

Irma followed the growing dot with her binocs and called, “Still coming, going left — ah! — they just turned toward us. We’re spotted.”

“Okay, now we look as though we want to be found,” Cliff said.

“And keep our lasers out of sight,” Howard added.

They spread out around the sailer as the dot grew rapidly. They started whooping and waving arms, dancing around. The magcar slowed, lowered until it was two meters off the ground. Three heads bobbed in the passenger area, and they still reminded Cliff of ostriches. As the magcar neared with a thin whining sound, he could see they wore harnesses that held odd-shaped tools. One was piloting, and all wore helmets.

The car stopped above the sailcraft, and he could hear a steady thrumming from it. He wondered how magnetic pressure could support such a mass so far from the conducting surface, which had to be meters below the soil. The Birds spoke to one another in high, chittering voices. Their heads jerked around, feathers danced in complex patterns. Is that part of their speech? The magcar rose to three meters.

This seemed ominous to Cliff. He backed away from the car and said to Irma, “If they produce weapons, we’d better shoot first.”

“Yes,” she said, “you call it.”

He called to the others, “If I say ‘start,’ then shoot them.”

Terry said, “I don’t think that’s necessary — ”

“Let’s show them we’re peaceful,” Howard said, spreading his arms with hands held open.

Seconds crawled by. Cliff’s hand poised, tense, ready to go for his laser.

Two of the Birds stood up, and the magcar shifted a bit. It tracked a bit to the left, so the humans were bunched on one side now.

“Let’s try harder,” Aybe said, and called up to them, “We are peaceful.” He spread his hands.

Terry echoed him, showing bare hands. “Speak mildly,” he said. “Let them know — ”

A net flew out of the magcar so fast, Cliff could not tell how it was flung. Quickly it wrapped across both Terry and Aybe — ssssssp. Somehow the net’s perimeter slithered around them and jerked hard — ssssip-klick — closing them in.

There was a snaky, thick ropy line at its peak, leading back into the magcar. It snapped taut. The net swept them off their feet. The line began hoisting them up.

Cliff was so shocked, it took him several seconds to realize that he was supposed to be in charge. “I — Start!”

He looked up. Three laser shots hit the Birds. One was hit in the head and toppled back. The other two shrieked and reached for something in their harnesses. Four shots threw them back and down, out of sight.

Cliff had fired one shot — and missed. He stuffed his laser away and sprang at the net. He snagged hands in the webbing and went up it fast. His boots hit Terry, who cried “Ow!” Cliff surged using Terry’s back. He grabbed the line and hauled himself up. The Birds were milling around on the magcar floor, shrieking.

Over the lip of the magcar, tumbling, he fell on a Bird body. Feathers made it soft; then he struck the hard body beneath. He struggled up, breathing in the thick, sultry smell of the aliens.

The bodies were bleeding red. Two didn’t move. One was twitching, but its eyes were closed. As he stood, he slipped on the blood, recovered, shook his head in the adrenaline haze — and looked down at a surprisingly simple control board.

Terry and Aybe were shouting, but he ignored them as he studied the board. To the right was what seemed to be a simple lever and release. Everything else looked like press plates and displays. The lever, then.

He tried it, and the line started to draw up into a receiver with a rasping noise. Cliff reversed the lever, and the line played out. He tried the release, thumbed it hard looking over the side, and the net dumped the men.

“Ow!” Terry hit the ground with Aybe on top of him.

“Wow,” Aybe said, standing up. They all gaped at one another, amazed at what they had done.

Irma said, “That was so fast.…”

“Good shooting!” Terry said.

Cliff called down, “Let’s grab this. Shinny up here, bring all our gear.”

Terry said, “Think it’s safe?”

Cliff considered for several seconds. “I can’t tell if they sent any alarm. Seems unlikely, though.”

Aybe said, “I never thought we could — it was so fast!”

Irma said, “That magcar is better than this damn sailer. Let’s go.”

Terry started, “I wonder — ”

“Think later,” Cliff said. “Act now.”

They all looked up at him from below, faces scared and joyous at the same time. Seconds passed. Then, as if some unspoken agreement had been reached, they scattered to their tasks.

Howard came climbing up, and the two of them inspected the bodies. Their lasers had punched holes in vital organs, bringing shock, and then the aliens had bled out. Together they tried to detect signs of life. No pulse, and certainly there would have to be a heart. No reactions, no breathing, eyes blank and staring.

“Turd-ugly, aren’t they?” Terry said, and kicked a body. “Solid, too.”

There were many facets of these aliens Cliff wanted to explore, but there wasn’t time. They got the harnesses off the bulky bodies before he and Howard pitched two Birds overboard. Cliff kept the one less damaged.