Free Balance of Power by Brian Stableford

hand, and then grabbed her hand to make sure we stayed together.
    We had gone some distance before I spoke again. “In your shoes,” I said, “I’d have run.”
    “I wanted to get a little of my own back,” she said. “They were very nasty thoughts that Ogburn was thinking.”
    “Did you have to throw all the guns over the side?” I asked.
    “I thought you didn’t approve of guns.”
    “They have their uses. But we’ll get by. You did one hell of a job. I don’t know how we’re going to put Humpty Dumpty together again, but you did a hell of a job.”
    “I thought we could negotiate,” she said. “We have the food.”
    “Yeah,” I said, without enthusiasm. She’d got some of her own back on the crew, all right—and maybe a bit for me, too. But she hadn’t quite marooned them as finally as they’d marooned us. And we both knew, deep down, that there wasn’t a hope in hell of negotiating our way back home on the New Hope. Even if we patched up the quarrel and somehow gained a little leverage to preserve our lives during the long journey home it would be a long, long trip. Accidents can happen at sea. Not to mention stranger things.
    As we made our way westward in the starry night, I couldn’t quite see how we were ever going to get off Delta.

CHAPTER NINE
     
    We didn’t go far—just far enough to get ourselves thoroughly lost. We could always find ourselves again by heading back to the river. What mattered was that they shouldn’t be able to find us.
    We rested underneath a tree, not really intending to doze off—sleeping in subtropical forests can be dangerous. But the aftereffects of the drug made me far too drowsy to resist the pull of sleep, and I succumbed. I assume that Mariel must have done likewise, but at least she woke up when things began to happen.
    I woke up when she began shaking my arm.
    Day had dawned, and the cool morning was all about us. There was a heavy dew. There were also five aliens standing round in a semicircle contemplating our prostrate forms. I sat up very suddenly.
    They were all males—one very large, the others in assorted sizes, presumably in varying stages of maturity. They were naked except for belts slung over their shoulders, with little pouches and pockets hung therefrom. The biggest one was carrying a spear with an iron blade. Two of the others had big knives, also of iron. All the ones with weapons were fingering them nervously while they watched us. Their fur was dark, with a pattern (black on brown) that was halfway between random blotches and vertical stripes. They looked like anthropomorphized versions of giant tabby cats.
    The big male studied me carefully. He had dark brown eyes with wide pupils—not catlike pupils, but humanoid circular ones. He wrinkled his nose as if he didn’t take too kindly to the way I stank. His lower jaw moved a little, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t think of an apposite remark.
    Who could blame him?
    I put up my hands, palms outward, to show that there was nothing in them. The lamp lay beside me—I ignored it.
    I got slowly to my feet.
    The big one said something. The sounds he made were not unlike one of the more fluid human languages—Japanese, perhaps. But some consonants were missing, others blurred.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, inadequately. “I don’t understand.”
    I looked down at Mariel, helplessly appealing for her to take over. This was her show. But as she struggled to her feet the big one ignored her. He said something else to me, in a tone that suggested he was asking a question.
    “He’s talking to you because you’re the biggest,” she said. I forgave her for not saying “bigger”—it was a stressful moment and she could be excused the slip.
    “Look,” I said, trying to sound pleasant and reassuring. “I wish I knew what you were talking about, but I don’t. I can assure you, though, that I feel nothing but goodwill toward you and yours.”
    It wasn’t much, but it beat Me