Fur and Feathers

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The previous night’s storm had restored water to the stream bed in what had previously been a shallow dry gully. The width of it suggested that that at some time during the year it carried a considerable volume, but its flow was variable and even now it was only deep in a few scattered pools. When the landing party came to the lip of the gully they saw the sun twinkling off the surface where all the runoff that the thirsty land had not absorbed was now washing down towards the sea. It was evidently a valuable source of moisture in that broad plain; the low land at either side of it was host to a narrow belt of woodland that had taken advantage of the more sheltered conditions.

It did not take long to find a route down off the higher ground. The three of them scrambled down a short slope of broken earth without any difficulty and found themselves among the hip-length fronds of fern that clotted the open spaces where the tree canopy let light through.

“I do not require a wash at present,” announced T'Pol, studying her scanner. “Some of these plants appear to have an unusual cellular structure. I shall examine them more closely while you visit the stream.”

“Well, if you’re gonna be walkin’ around in all this you should have the pistol.” Tucker held his hand out for the weapon, which McKenna surrendered to him. “Just in case there might be somethin’ real unfriendly hidin’ in there.”

“There are no vital signs of any creatures of any significant size. I do not envisage there being the slightest danger. We will not be out of eyeshot of one another at any time. It would be extremely foolish to do otherwise.”

“Humor me.” He proffered the pistol. “Just this once. Please.”

Her dark eyes held his blue ones for a long moment. He read refusal in them. Was he ever going to get on good terms with her about anything? “Please,” he repeated more gently. “Long grass and everythin’. I’ll feel a darn sight better if you have this than if we do.”

She took the pistol without a word and slid it into her pocket. It clashed against the communicator there, so he took that in exchange as a temporary measure.

“Thanks. Now, Mr McKenna, I suggest we go wash off the worst of this damn pollen real quick, and we can all get back up and finish the job we came down here for. If we don’t get that hyrellanium installed before tomorrow evenin’ I’ve got a sneaky feeling the Cap’n’ll have our hides for his Ready Room carpet.”

After watching T'Pol pick her way carefully towards the nearest clearing among the trees, he led the way across to the broad stream bed. The course of the gully floor was littered with broken rock. Well before they reached the water it became necessary to tread carefully, testing their footing each time. As they reached the damp areas the noise of their arrival startled a number of tiny, hard-shelled invertebrates; these had apparently been scavenging along the margins of the water and scurried across the rocks in a panic-stricken crowd before diving into cover under the larger stones. Ensign McKenna watched them, smiling. “Wouldn’t they remind you of little crabs, Commander?” he said. “Just like in the rock pools back home.”

“Sure would.” Trip had reached a pool large enough for his purposes. He reached down, scooped up a double handful of the delightfully cool, clear water and dashed it into his face. Heavenly. Just in time he remembered to keep his eyes and mouth tightly closed, to minimise the chances of catching any nasties; they’d most likely have to spend a while in decon anyway after this, but at that moment he couldn’t have cared less.

It seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Not having towels or any means of drying themselves from a more thorough soaking, it wouldn’t be sensible to strip off to his underwear. Nevertheless, the thought of that delectable sensation on his upper body at least was irresistible – and if some of it trickled down to lower regions and rinsed the sweat off them too, that would be a bonus. It might not be too comfortable afterwards, but he’d put up with that. At least as the water evaporated he’d benefit from the cooling action. Carefully ensuring that his pockets were zipped up – just in case of further encounters he’d brought the universal translator along as well as his and T'Pol’s communicators – he unfastened his coveralls as far as his waist and stripped the top half down. He tied the arms up to stop the cuffs dropping into the pool accidentally and squatted down to begin dashing handful after handful of water over his head and shoulders. “You should try this too, Ensign,” he said, looking up with a grin.

McKenna, however, had straightened up after his first splash and was now looking at the far bank. “I think we may have company, Commander,” he said. His hand moved automatically to where the phase pistol should have been, but closed only on empty air.

Trip straightened up and followed the junior officer’s gaze towards the far bank. The noise of the stream babbling over the rocks had helped to disguise the sound of hooves approaching through the woodland opposite. Now a number of stags appeared among the trees, and for a moment they appeared to be just strays from the herds moving on the plains above; but shafts of sunlight through the leaves above splintered on armored riders.

“Damnation,” said Tucker, hurriedly jerking the arms of his suit free and pulling it back on. “Let’s get outta here!”

But it was too late. A shout told them that they had been seen. The stags turned in one concerted movement and plunged towards the bank. As ill luck would have it, on that side a shelf of rock projected far out into the watercourse. Half of the stream glissaded across it in a smooth sheet, and five of the ten riders spurred their beasts on to it, needing to take almost no care over their footing. The Humans, on the other hand, were far out on treacherous ground. They took a couple of risky strides in retreat.

“We won’t make it, Commander!” shouted McKenna, gauging without difficulty that the newcomers would overtake them with ease long before they could reach their side of the watercourse, and that even if they didn’t there would be little chance of escape in that narrow woodland from mounted riders. “We’ll have to try to talk to them!”

“I sure hope they’re as friendly as the lion lady!” Realising that his companion was right, Trip halted. He unzipped the large utility pocket that held the translator, thanking fate that he’d thought to bring it again.

He had it in his hands when the stags were pulled up a couple of meters away, just where the shelf ended. The riders dismounted. They were horrifyingly tall – the shortest topped the Humans by half a head at least – and so strongly built that they were like walking fortresses in their bronze armor. Worst of all, their helmeted heads were those of birds – hawks, with hooked beaks and hostile orange eyes. The tallest walked forward, drawing his sword. He stared first at Trip, then at McKenna, who was slightly closer to him.

Heart beating furiously, Trip thumbed the settings. It was still set to the language that Shiránnor had used – with any luck, at least if these people didn’t speak the tongue fluently, they’d at least recognise it; perhaps one of them had some basic grasp that could enable them to communicate somehow –

McKenna looked around to ask him something. Maybe the sheer size of the alien up close made him take a step backwards as he did so. At any rate his attention was distracted for the instant the soldier needed. The hapless officer didn’t see the move quickly enough to dodge it. The blade sliced into the side of his chest, the force of the blow spinning him around.

“No!” screamed Trip. McKenna didn’t make any sound other than a faint gurgle of shock as he crumpled on to the stones. His attacker kicked him aside before staring back again at Trip with the same mesmerising menace.

“You didn’t have to do that, you son of a bitch! He – !” Trip was incoherent with horror and rage as he stared down at the armory officer sprawled in the shallows; one of the man’s hands tried for a few seconds to put pressure on the wound, but consciousness slid away from him and his head dropped heavily on to the wet rock beneath him. The water was washing steadily across the ensign’s ribcage, its bright babble still incongruously cheerful as it drew out a long, ominous scarlet pennant from underneath him. “He was trying to talk!”

The orange eyes glared back at him. The blade was still raised, its razor edge wet with blood. McKenna’s blood.

For an instant he was conscious of a sick sense of relief, because it could so easily have been Malcolm lying there – dying, if not already dead. Then he was ashamed of thinking that, because although he hadn’t known the ensign at all well, the man doubtless had friends as well as his family back on Earth, and he shouldn’t have had to die in this stupid, pointless way on this godforsaken planet so backward they still thought the stars were stuck on a goddamn sphere!

“You put that thing near me and so help me I’ll shove it all the way up your ass!” he yelled. It was an empty threat and he knew it; the soldier had used the weapon with the practised grace of a born swordsman. He hoped T'Pol was still safe among the trees. Surely she must have seen what had happened. Surely she would overcome her reluctance to reveal extraterrestrial technology when she could use the phase pistol to defend him. Even if she wouldn’t fire it at the aliens themselves, she could take out a couple of their stag-horses and put the fear of God into them. Hell, if she didn’t want to kill the animals she could set it on stun, and that would do something! He waited for what seemed endless seconds for the blast of phase fire before realising that it wasn’t going to come at all.

For all the fact that so often their relationship had been cranky and sometimes downright difficult, not even in that dreadful moment did he believe that T'Pol had deliberately failed him. For some reason she couldn’t help, he was on his own. Even if the UT wasn’t working or they didn’t speak the same language, his outburst would almost have translated itself. He had an instant’s blackly humorous mental image of the Vulcan making her report to a stunned and devastated Archer afterwards with the words His behaviour was extremely illogical, Captain. He brought it on himself. Maybe that wasn’t the best epitaph for his career. He’d have preferred something to do with designing the first successful Warp Six engine if he’d had the choice.

The smallest alien on the far bank called out suddenly, sharply. The soldier instantly checked his forward stride and lowered the sword, it seemed reluctantly. However, two others immediately began advancing in what was unmistakably a pincer movement. They intended to take him prisoner instead. Almost without conscious thought he turned to run, but the stones underfoot betrayed him; he’d hardly taken two strides before one turned under his boot, throwing him headlong. The translator flew out of his hand and splashed into a pool a meter away. He tried to struggle up again but his left ankle gave way with a wash of sickening pain that suggested he might have broken it. His vision darkened momentarily. There was a buzzing in his ears. Don’t faint now, you idiot. Just get away. Phlox can fix this...

Scaled and armored legs surrounded him. He couldn’t think past the agony clearly enough to muster up effective resistance. They hauled him upright, and he almost fell again when he tried to put weight on his left leg; he did his best to choke back the cry that involuntarily tore from him, but they had seen him fall and seemed to understand that he was injured. The soldier on his left side took his arm roughly and drew it across his shoulder and neck, putting his own arm around Trip’s back to support him. The disparity in their height meant that as he straightened up the Human was dragged almost up on to tiptoe: once again the bright world dipped and darkened around him. The side of the breastplate dug into his ribs, the vambrace ground against his spine. “Bastards,” he groaned, trying to struggle. The grip around his wrist was hard and painful; the soldiers’ hands were scaled and clawed, with long fingers that were stronger than they looked.

Leaving his companion’s body where it had fallen, they partly helped and partly carried him back towards the far bank where the remaining five riders were waiting, collecting their stags on the way. Stubbornly he kept his teeth clamped together, fighting down the urge to call for help. If T'Pol hadn’t already been captured, he wasn’t going to let on that he had any other companions. She had no means of calling the ship, but if she was still safe she could make her way back to the shuttle and use the com-link there. If she wasn’t, their crewmates on board Enterprise would notice pretty soon that they hadn’t reported in and, if attempts to contact them using them using the communicators failed, a second shuttle would be sent down in short order. If they could find T'Pol, hopefully she’d be able to tell them what had happened. Unless some chance offered for him to get hold of the communicators himself, that was the best chance there was.

They reached the other stags, which had been drawn up in a row to observe events. As he stumbled to the top of the shallow slope he was released and shoved unceremoniously to his knees, but he saved himself from falling headlong and pushed himself defiantly upright. Now he had time to notice that the middle three of the riding-beasts looked different from the outermost two. They lacked the great spread of sharpened antlers, but had the same small recurved horns as the animal Shiránnor had killed. Looking past the broad heads with their ornate, silver-mounted bridles he realised that the riders were different, too. They were far slighter in build, and had no armor; also they were seated side-saddle. They too had the heads of birds, but theirs were narrow and elegant, eerily similar to those of the egrets that inhabited the waterways of his Florida home. Their yellow eyes were piercing, their beaks elongated and slightly curved only at the very tip. The richness of the swathes of cloth with which they were clad was the final confirmation of what he’d already begun to suspect.

The one on the right spoke. Her feathers were brilliantly white, her knuckles bloodless on the reins. Her mount backed and sidled with nerves, and she punished it with a sharp cut from the whip she carried in her left hand. Her voice was shrill and angry-sounding. His only chance of understanding her was back in the watercourse.

“Pleased to meet you too, ma’am,” he said, keeping his chin high. “Y’know, there are some really nice folks on this world. And there again, there are you folks. But like they say, ya gotta learn to take the bitter with the sweet.”

The smallest of the three, on the left, had grey feathers irregularly stippled with black. There was no doubt that he owed his survival to her, but as he looked up into her intent stare he felt the freezing finger of a nameless apprehension that had nothing to do with the drawn blades of the soldiers behind him.

The one in the middle was tall and aloof. She had a gold mantle partly drawn over her head, but it was still visible that she had reddish feathers. Her voice, when she spoke, was considerably easier on the ear than that of the first, but its drawl conveyed a degree of boredom. She pulled her mount backwards out of the line and threw a brief command over her shoulder before she rode away.

White – he was never to know any of their names – dragged her mount around in a circle and whipped it again, glaring at him as though ready to deal with him in the same way given half an excuse. Then she rode after Red. The cracked note of her voice raised in argument drifted back; it seemed that quarrelling sounded the same in any language.

For long moments Grey sat immobile, so still that she was an image painted on the backdrop of the trees. He kept his spine straight and stared back at her. It was impossible to describe her as ugly; none of the three of them were that; but there was some quality in that unblinking gaze that he had never encountered before. Fear curdled in the pit of his stomach. The yellow eyes watched him carefully, and then she nodded – a curiously inhuman motion in which her head lifted and lowered on the slightly elongated neck without any change in its angle. She issued another order, in a voice that was low and sibilant, and then she turned her beast and followed the others without haste, not deigning to respond to the shrill complaint that greeted her as she drew level with them.

Trip was hoisted to his feet once more. The soldiers remounted and he was partly pulled, partly lifted to sit pillion behind one of them. He tried to resist, but the hiss of steel clearing the scabbard again told him that his reprieve could be only a temporary one if he persisted. “‘Kay, keep your damned feathers on,” he growled, submitting. T'Pol would be watching. T'Pol would have a plan. He believed that, he told himself as the stags began moving into the forest.

He had to believe that.