Davis, Jerry – A Long Curved Blade

Doug’s wife, Janet, was standing beside Cromwell Flack as Leo ranted and raved and stripped Doug of all rank and privilege.

During the tirade Doug stood silently and stared into his wife’s eyes. She was a stranger, now. Janet Nerro, with a PhD in Human Sciences, was willing to do anything to win a place on this Technica expedition, even willing to convince a lowly technician, a repairman, into thinking she was in love with him. Lowly as he was, Technica considered Douglass the best qualified “engineer”

for the expedition and preferred that he be married to maintain the stability of the team. Any woman scientist being considered for the expedition would surely lock her place in on the team by marrying him. Cromwell Flack, the eminent climate expert, was above all this ннн he was allowed to join the team without bringing a wife, which upset the balance. Seven team members instead of eight, and four of them men. Out of all of them, Douglass was the only one who was not a scientist. He was only along to keep everything running for the duration.

Six more years, Douglass thought. Six.

“… you are not to interact with the colonists,” Leo was raging at him, “you are not to speak with them, you are not to look at them! Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“You are not to go into their village, you are not to go into the jungle. Until further notice, you are confined to the capsule.

And you no longer have any access to Technica weapons!”

“Yes sir.”

“Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“No sir.” Actually, he had a lot of them, but didn’t have energy to bring them up.

“You’re dismissed, Mr. Dunhill. Go to your cabin.”

Doug nodded, but he was still staring into his wife’s eyes.

She had no expression at all, she simply stared back. He turned and walked stiffly out of the commons, out into the circular hall.

He passed the thin metal door to his cabin and went instead to Cromwell’s, letting himself in and closing the door behind himself. He sat silently on the bed and waited.

Cromwell and Janet didn’t show up right away, so Doug took the opportunity to use Cromwell’s data terminal. Cromwell was going to be furious to find him in here, but Doug couldn’t imagine himself being in more trouble than he was already in. Using the terminal’s screen, he brought up a summery of the expedition.

TECHNICA MISSION #2786н855

FAILURE OF COLONY AT DROXFORD 2

Cromwell and Janet entered the cabin as Doug was reading through the already familiar text. Cromwell merely made a disgusted face at finding him in the room. “Douglass,” he said, “get out.”

“I want to read you something.”

“Get out.”

“Just listen to me. Please.”

Cromwell sighed and crossed his arms. Janet stood looking uncomfortable. She stared into his eyes, though. Either she was totally without shame, or Doug had married a cyborg. He was beginning to wonder.

“The duration of the mission is seven years,” Doug said, reading from the data. “The object of study: Native adaptation of the descendants of failed colony sent off threeнhundredнseven years before. Expedition goal: To determine why the original colony failed, and find a solution to the problem. Prepare a preliminary report for Technica recolonization effort.” Doug turned the terminal off. “We’ve been here for eleven months, right? So what have we found?”

“I’m not going to waste my time discussing it with you.”

“I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to her. She’s my wife, I have a right to talk to her, don’t I?”

“This is childish, there is no point to it,” Cromwell said.

Doug shrugged. “Janet, please, talk to me.”

“Obviously,” Janet said, “we’ve only been here eleven months, our findings are inconclusive.”

“Inconclusive? We’re to determine why the original colony failed, and find a solution to the problem. Well, we know why the colony failed! The skikes have been killing them off for over threeнhundred years! And it’s obvious how to solve the problem . .

. we move the colony to an area where there are no skikes.”

“We are not going to move the colonists. I’m not going over this with you again.”

“The longer you wait, the more of them are going to be killed!”

“Doug, listen to me. You’re not a scientist. You think you know, but you don’t know all the facts. You’re jumping to a conclusion! All evidence must be considered. The colonists must be studied and their social structure mapped out. Their customs and their evolutionary adaptations must be analyzed. To do that, they must remain as theyнннн”

“They have to be killed off one by one so you can determine exactly why they’re dying?”

“This has gone far enough,” Cromwell said. “Out of here, now.”

“Cromwell, stuff yourself.”

“Alright, I’m going to go get Leo.” Cromwell stormed out of the room.

“Doug,” Janet said, “maybe you are right. Maybe. But you go and move them, and we start fresh somewhere else ннн it may happen all over again with another tenнthousand colonists because we jumped the gun and we didn’t find the truth.”

“There is a perfectly habitable island system a thousand klicks from here with no skike population whatsoever,” Doug said.

“They’d have all they need, and noнннн”

Leo burst into the room. “Douglass!” he yelled.

“They’d have no need to fear!” Douglass said to his wife.

Leo and Cromwell grabbed Doug by the arms and halfнdragged halfнcarried him to his cabin, tossed him in, and locked the door from the outside.

#

For the next three and a half weeks Douglass was incarcerated in his cabin. He was allowed to go from the cabin to the bathroom, but that was it. When he was pulled out to fix something, he was to fix it and then return to the cabin. Lipton and his wife Selene would spend a few hours a day with him, and his wife would occasionally visit. Janet would tell him the situation was unfortunate, and assure him it would end soon as long as he continued to cooperate. Lipton and his wife openly detested Doug’s treatment and would daily make protests to Leo for it to end. Leo remained stubborn because he wanted his word to be law, and because he thought Doug should be taught a lesson.

One night in the middle of the third week a large delegation of colonists carrying torches came from the village. Doug watched from his view port, wondering what it was all about. All the scientists were out to meet them, and after a few minutes Lipton opened Doug’s cabin door and stood smiling at him. “You’re out, my friend,” he said. “You’re free.”

“Oh, what, Leo wants me to fix something? That’s great. Tell Leo that he can take whatever broken thing it is and stick it up his butt, because I’m on strike.”

“No, the colonists have come for you. They’ve made you part of their tribe.”

“What?”

“After that day you went chasing that skike into the jungle, they decided you were a member of their tribe. Selene and I kinda leaked the news that you were being locked up out here, and they’ve come to get you.”

Doug grabbed his jungle gear and followed Lipton outside. The leader of the colonists, Kinjon, was prominent among the delegation; two warrior women stood one to either side of him holding flaming torches. He held out his arms and embraced Doug, and called him brother. “Y’r th’bravest g’damn man of r’people,”

he said, with some significance. “C’m on w’us.”

Doug shrugged, and wordlessly followed.

The delegation returned to the village, where two huge bon fires lit the area in orange, flickering light. Naked men and women did a thrusting, gyrating dance to high, warbling flute music. The scientists followed, everyone but Cromwell using one instrument or another to record the event. To Doug, the whole thing smacked of a fertility right.

They sat in a circle around the two bonfires and watched the dancers flirting with the flames. It was nerve-racking for Doug to watch, he was sure someone’s hair was going to catch on fire ннн

or worse. The heat was making him sweat. He felt like he was being barbecued.

Someone knelt down beside him. It was Jahk, one of the warriors who’d followed him out after the skike. “Y’r new w’us, I got’ta ‘splain things t’you.”

“Okay.”

“Th’girl straight ‘cross fr’m you is Shrew. She’s c’m t’age, ‘n this’s her’s. You been chosen, you’n her first. Your s’posed t’go b’tween th’fires ‘n claim’n her.“On the other side of the circle, obscured by the shimmering of hot air, was a very young girl dressed in a loose gown of woven web straw. It had an almost silver look to it.

“Jahk, run that by me again. I don’t think I understand.”

“Run past you?”

“What?”

“Y’want me t’run past you?”

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