ARC: Under Nameless Stars Read Free

a few seconds later, she, Katie, Liam and the hog all dropped to the floor of the crate, pulled down in the grip of artificial gravity.
    She’d done it. She was aboard the Helen of Troy . Now, all she had to do was track down a single three-foot-tall Skirni among the starship’s thousand or so other passengers, follow the alien to find her father, free her father from his captors and get away again, all while first avoiding discovery and being sent back to Mars. Right.
    With the sandhog’s slow, raspy breathing the only sound, she and Liam sat silently on the floor of the crate and waited several minutes in case anyone should come. Finally, Liam stood and cautiously peered out through one of the holes in the crate wall.
    “Looks empty,” he said quietly.
    “Katie hungry,” the rikkaset signed at Zenn, big eyes blinking. Then she went to Zenn’s field kit backpack where it lay on the floor and began pulling at the cover flap with her deft little paws. “Friend-Zenn have treats? Treats for Katie in bag?”
    “No. Sorry. Treats later,” Zenn signed. “Wait a little.”
    Katie huffed at her, sat down and wrapped her long, striped tail around her body.
    Zenn went to where Liam stood and looked out to survey the scene. They were in a vast, dimly lit cargo hold, with containers of all sizes and shapes piled to the ceiling as far as she could see. The sandhog rumbled and twitched in his sleep; the movement made the entire crate rock back and forth.
    “Hey, I’ve got a wacky idea,” Liam said, regarding the hog. “How about we get outta here before Tiny rolls over and mashes us?”
    Zenn eyed the hatch on the crate’s ceiling.
    “OK,” she said. “But we’ll need to keep him asleep until we’re both through the hatch.”
    “So, what’s the problem? You leave your knockout ray pointed at him and we climb out.”
    “I can’t just leave him under permanent sedation,” she said curtly. “It could kill him.”
    “Oh, can’t have that. I guess.”
    And besides, she thought but didn’t bother to say, it’s my equipment and I’m responsible for its proper use and maintenance.Otha had drilled this fact into her on countless occasions during her classes back at the cloister. Back on Mars. Back with all the people and animals and places she loved and was already starting to miss. At least she had the backpack, the one Otha had given her to use as a field kit. The Skirni had grabbed the pack off the desk in her room. Immobilized by whatever weapon he’d used on her, she’d seen him sweep a stack of her computer mem-shards into the pack, just before he’d thrown her over his shoulder and made his escape. When she’d retrieved the pack in the warehouse, the shards were the only things missing, as far as she could tell. But why take the shards? More to the point, why take her ?
    “So,” Liam said, “how do we get outta here in one piece?”
    Zenn thought for a few seconds, then crouched by the backpack and searched in it. She found what she was looking for and stood again, a length of hemp-braid rope in her hands.
    “What?” Liam said. “You’re gonna lasso him?”
    She didn’t answer but stooped to secure one end of the rope around the seda-field unit. She then knotted the other end around her wrist, then signed for Katie to get into the pack and, once she was settled, hoisted the pack up, slipping one strap over her arm.
    She nodded at the hatch in the ceiling. “Give me a boost up.”
    “Oh, sure. I’ll just hang out down here with the giant killer-hog.”
    “He’s not a… Just lift me up, will you?”
    Liam gave her a look, then laced his fingers together. She put one foot into his hands and he easily lifted her up until she could reach the latch of the feeding hatch. She opened it, grabbed the lip of the opening and, with a final push from Liam, was up and out. On the roof of the crate, she quickly slipped off her pack, lay down flat and reached in for Liam.
    He was trying to jump high enough to