Survivors - Jean Lorrah [4]
“Good,” the man said with warm approval. “We’ll get those things off your hands, and then-But you’re cold!” he said as a new wave of shivering coursed through the girl’s body. He looked around, picked up the remains of her clothing and dropped it at once, dusting his hand against his thigh. Then he touched a glittering gold brooch on his chest. It made a chittering noise, and the girl jumped.
The man gave her a reassuring smile, but what he said was not to her or to anybody there with them. “Adin here. I need a metal cutter and a blanket to these coordinates-and hurry. And send down a medic-preferably female. We’ve got a little girl here, assault case.”
“Yes, sir,” the brooch answered him.
“It’s … a comcon!” the girl said. “Innat teeny thing!”
“Yes, that’s right,” the man said. “And you know the word for it.”
“Yah. But where’s the wire?”
“Wire?”
“The wire the sound travels through,” she explained. Did he think her so stupid she didn’t know how comcons worked?
His lips parted again, this time as if he had suddenly discovered something. “So that’s why we couldn’t get a response on any frequency! They don’t have wireless communications.” He looked past the girl to the woman, a question in his eyes.
She lifted the technic thing hung over her shoulder and pointed it at the girl. It made a whirring sound, and something on it lit up. “Reads human,” she said, “and the translator didn’t kick in. That’s why what these people say sounds strange: it’s our language, changed just enough to sound different to us.” She glanced meaningfully at the ruins around them. “Obviously, they once had a much higher level of technology, too. Dare, I think we’ve found a lost Earth colony.”
“Thank God,” he said. “That means we can take this poor child out of here.”
“Dare, you can’t-” the woman began, but was interrupted by yet another peculiar sound. A glittering glow appeared a small distance away, and the girl sat up in utter astonishment as out of nothingness coalesced a blanket with another technic thing on top of it.
The third member of this very strange gang brought both over, and the woman did something with the technic thing behind the girl’s back. Suddenly her hands were free. Then the woman gently wrapped the blanket around her. It was wonderfully soft, clean, whole. The girl pulled it tight just as the glittering glow appeared again-and this time turned into another woman!
“I’m Dr. Munson,” she introduced herself. “We won’t hurt you, child.” She held up a small silver thing. “This instrument will tell me how badly you’ve been hurt.”
The girl backed off, wondering where the woman meant to stick the thing, but she only pointed it. It made a soft whirring as she held it near different parts of the girl’s body. Then the woman looked at it and said, “A slight concussion, one broken rib, contusions, and shock are her immediate problems. But Mr. Adin, you were right to call me. She’s malnourished, needs extensive dental work, and is suffering from both internal and external parasites. Please note that the latter means we all go through full decontamination when we beam up.”
“No protest on that, Doctor,” replied the man that, confusingly, this woman addressed as “Mr. Adin,” but the other woman called “Dare.” It must mean, the girl reasoned, that one was his name and the other his title; he must be the leader of this gang. He rubbed his hand against his clothes again as he asked, “Is it all right for me to ask her some questions before you take her to sickbay?”
“Take her to-?” The woman’s eyes widened, her tone of voice a protest.
The other woman said, “The girl and the men we chased off speak a variant of our language. It’s an Earth colony, Doctor.”
Doctor looked around. Dawn was just breaking, revealing the ruined city. “I can see why your first instinct is to beam the child up, Mr. Adin, but we’ll have to