Wildcatter

He laid his precious sample bag nearby and closed all the doors except the one to Meredith’s sickroom. Then he armed himself with the curtain rod, went to the exit, unfastened the manual clamps, and let the door fall open. The fuselage was too close to the ground, so it dropped to about a forty-five degree angle, instead of all the way to vertical.

A few centaurs had emerged and gone to inspect Niagara from what they must think was a safe distance, yittering nervously about the traces of steam still rising from the sand. Their panda-like faces swung around when Seth appeared in Mercury’s doorway. He beckoned them.

They came running, caparisons flapping. They gathered around the ladder. Fortunately, there was a spear-carrier among them. Seth must gamble that the spears were a symbol of rank. He pointed his curtain rod at that one and beckoned with his free hand.

Much yittering.

“Come here, dammit! You think I can stand for hours in this damnable gravity, waiting for you? Yes, you. Come here!”

The spear-carrier understood the gestures, if not the words, and advanced to the foot of the ladder, others clearing a path for him, or perhaps her-unless they were carrying young, they were as hard to sex as penguins. Seth stepped aside and beckoned for it to enter.

The spear-carrier scurried up the ramp at once, nosey as a monkey. Seth led the way to Meredith.

The centaur uttered what sounded like an alarm cry. It… he … poked her arm with a flipper, stroked her hair, made a strange noise that sounded mostly like a chuckle but could well be a Cacafuegian distress call.

“I need help, you cute little idiot. Summon your friends and relations. I want you to carry her for me. Like this.” Seth tugged the edge of the sheet, to show how that worked. Then he cradled the sample bag in his arms like a baby. “So jump on all six feet, understand?” He pointed an arm in Niagara’s direction, cradled the bag again.

Seth had found the Albert Einstein of Cacafuego: the apple dropped, understanding dawned. The centaur rushed out into the corridor, where several others had arrived.

Yitter yitter yitter yitter yitter…

One thing they had in common with humans was that they never stopped talking.

But his desperate plan worked. About eight of them crowded into the dormitory. They all kept yittering, but Einstein yittered loudest. Under his direction, they hoisted Meredith shoulder high-their shoulders-which were about thigh-height on Seth. He led the way, down the ramp, and off toward Niagara, aware that Control would be recording this procession and wondering how it was going to play on his plog: history being made, a naked human conscripting a team of hexapod aliens to carry another human to safety. Or perhaps to a barbecue pit? He held the sample bag before him in a strategic location, partly for modesty, but also to protect important locations from the centaur’s busily exploring flippers. They found his legs fascinating.

He dared not stop to rest and he was staggering by the time he reached the shuttle. The door swung down for him, alarming his escort just enough that he managed to be first up the ramp. The two-meter climb was almost beyond his strength.

Overhead, the first bulkhead hatch of the Gut was closed, restricting the entrance to what would normally be the decontamination chamber. The rest of the shuttle would not be infested by centaurs, which might see Niagara as a giant chimney and want to explore it.

There was little enough room for Meredith as well, but Einstein yittered orders, many eager flippers raised her, and Seth somehow managed to haul her in, at the risk of wrecking his back. He arranged her, sitting against the wall, knees up. Then he gently resisted efforts for the whole tribe to join him. One of them was a spear-carrier-probably Einstein, although he still could not tell one Cacafuegian from another. Seth offered to trade a priceless imported curtain rod for a wooden spear armed with a sharp shell point. Einstein caught on at once and yittered loudly as they made the exchange.

ISLA would throw purple fits, of course, but if the centaurs were not already rummaging all through what remained of Mercury, they wouldn’t need long to work out how the doors opened. They would find bedding, clothes, and many other goodies. Seth had broken every rule in GenRegs 002, the section that dealt with first contact, and would face a charge sheet as long as his arm. He would plead force majeure and sanctity of human life. More important, he was going to be an international hero, so ISLA wouldn’t dare penalize him harshly. Just fine him a million dollars or so. By then he wouldn’t care about small change like that.

“Control, start raising the ramp, but go slowly until the centaurs are all off it.”