The Expanse - J.M. Dillard [54]
Indeed, before the weasel managed to concoct another lie, one of the gargantuan aliens returned, his large paw gripping a human-sized miner. With a single thrust, he sent the miner hurtling forward; the humanoid collided with the nearest wall, sending up a fresh cloud of trellium dust, then sank to the floor.
The foreman, utterly unmoved by this display of brutality, told Archer casually, “Take your time.” He headed, guards in tow, to the door.
Archer waited until he heard the metal door clang shut.
The instant it did, Trip bent down and helped the miner to his feet—a gesture not lost on Archer.
The miner—male, his body very humanoid in appearance, though his face was masked by rags—pulled angrily away from Trip. He held up a thickly bandaged hand.
His voice was deep and grating, though not as damaged as the foreman’s. “Do I have you to thank for this?!” His words were muffled by the layer of rags that covered his nose and mouth.
It was not what Archer had expected of that first encounter: A Xindi angry at him. Mildly, he replied, “The foreman said it was an accident.”
“Did he?” the alien answered snidely. He paused, eyeing the two humans with suspicion, then demanded, “What do you want?”
He did not, of course, know of the attack by his people on Earth: He had been in the mines too long, Archer realized. “You’re Xindi?” the Captain asked.
“A nine-fingered Xindi,” the humanoid allowed, with more than a little derision. “What do you want?”
“Where’s your homeworld?”
The Xindi began pacing back and forth in front of Archer and Trip, sizing the Captain up. “You came all the way to this hideous planet ... bribed the foreman to see me ... for what, directions to my planet? I find that hard to believe.”
“We have important business with your people.” It was an honest enough answer.
The alien leaned forward, intrigued. “But you don’t know where to find them.” He considered this an instant, and apparently made a decision to trust Archer. Slowly, he unwound the cloths that covered mouth and nose, and at last revealed his face.
Archer heard Trip draw in a low breath beside him; it could not have been an easy moment for the engineer.
The Xindi was startlingly human in appearance. It would have been easier, Archer reflected, to hate him if he had looked radically different—but his appearance brought up an uncomfortable thought.
If we knew aliens were going to destroy Earth in the future, would we launch a weapon to destroy them first?
“If you want information,” the Xindi said, “You’re going to have to help me escape from this place.”
“What do you mean escape?” Archer asked. He had already guessed the answer, but he wanted it verified.
The Xindi gestured at the pathetic, blue-stained creatures surrounding them. “Do these look like volunteers? We’re captives—slaves!”
Archer exchanged a knowing look with Trip. To the Xindi, the Captain said, “A simple set of coordinates. That’s all I want. I’m prepared to pay you.”
There was an arrogance in the alien’s voice that belied his desperate circumstance. “The only payment I’m interested in is my freedom. If you can’t provide me with that, then stop wasting my time!”
Archer drew in a breath to reply, but stopped. Beside him came the softest sound: a low growl, emanating from deep within Trip Tucker’s chest. In the space of less than a heartbeat, Archer watched as Trip struggled with a sudden burst of rage, then abruptly lost the battle.
The engineer surged forward and pegged the startled Xindi to the wall by the throat. In an instant, the two were nose-to-nose. Archer stood ready to intervene—but at the moment, he decided, a little shaking up might do the Xindi some good.
“I don’t know what you’re doing in this place, and I don’t particularly care!” Trip proclaimed, with deadly heat. “But we didn’t come here to stage a prison break, so why don’t you just give us the coordinates and we’ll all stop wasting each other’s time!”
The Xindi glared