Dismay flickered through Noely--but resolve, as well. “All the more reason for us to go and check them out. I don’t believe they would want war or even to take more than you could spare. I think it’s just people who’ve come to make a home for their families. Our doctrine, when I came, was just that--to make every effort to conserve resources for future generations. If it is people from the colony group--the Artemis--they should have the same tenets and goals as we had. They wouldn’t have come to make war. They will want peace to provide for their families.”
“If?” Ryne asked.
Noely frowned uneasily. “They had only started the Artemis when we left. The projected date to complete was twenty years. Granted, that would have allowed a good bit of time to develop new technology that could be a great deal faster than our ship. That bastard, Ama-Zing developed a drive that brought him here years before we arrived and he had left many years after we left. Development wouldn’t have stopped at any point. It’s possible. It’s just …. It makes me wonder if itisthem. I think it must be, but I know everyone will want reassurance.”
* * * *
The flight was an ordeal--probably for all of them, Noely thought, but more a test of endurance for pain for her--and fear.
She’d blithely dismissed qualms about her pregnancy--hers and her mates’. She wasn’t even to the halfway point--wasn’t having a lot of trouble with clumsiness or discomfort from her ‘blossoming’ size, but there was no getting around the facts. Whatever she thought about it before they’d left, she definitely felt the strain.
She thought a good portion of it was fear of flying.
Well, fear of being carried by apersonthat was flying--because she’d never gotten past that.
That was enough to make her tense and she was convinced that was where a lot of the discomfort-to-pain had come from.
And it wasn’t close--neither the village they detoured to first to leave the baby with one of the village women nor the village of the ‘sky people’, as the natives referred to all aliens that invaded their world.
Because they knew damned well they weren’t from their planet.
Terran, who carried her for the last leg of their trip, set her down carefully and held her until he was certain she had regained her balance before he released her.
Noely tried not to take it badly that Roque had carried her the first part of the trip.
And Terran tried not to be insulted that Roque decided he needed to be the one to protect and Terran to carry as they approached the new colony.
Of course, Roque was the alpha and that was generally the case.
And Terran should have been used to it, but he never really had totally accepted that he wasn’t an equal--as much as he looked up to Roque.
When Noely had stretched the kinks out, she looked around curiously.
“You will stay here with Terran and Torr until I have reconnoitered with Ryne.”
A flicker of indignation went through Noely--mostly because she was eager to see the Earth people and impatient about another delay--but she kept her irritation to herself the best she could and merely nodded and looked around for comfort.
There wasn’t a lot to be had, but she found a patch of vegetation that wasn’t too prickly, wasn’t poison, and wasn’t in direct sunlight and settled on it.
Terran and Torr walked a wide circle around her as Roque and Ryne took flight and disappeared.
Her two ‘guards’ were gone for a little bit and then returned and took up positions within sight of her.
* * * *
They weren’t actually far from the village--a fair distance on foot--with enough running room to sweep Noely to safety if it was necessary--but it didn’t take Roque and Ryne long to draw near enough to see what they needed to see. Even though, rather than approaching it directly, they flew upwards until they’d attained an altitude they thought it unlikely the sky people would spot them where they would still be able to see themselves.
As far as Roque could see, the people had focused only upon guarding themselves and establishing their colony. They had built the wall and appeared to be adding a second wall a little further out. There were guard towers to help them see a good distance, and armed men manning them.
But Roque saw nothing that made him believe it was an army--or that they were bent on conquest as the bastard, Ama-Zing had been. The majority of the people moving around the compound did not appear to be warriors.
The real question, he thought wryly, was whether or not he could approach without getting his head blown off.
Signaling to Ryne, he circled lower and lower and finally dropped to the ground at the very outer edge of the cleared area beyond the walls where the gate was.
Ryne landed shortly behind him.
There were a dozen weapons aimed at them as soon as they settled on the ground.
