I couldn’t worry about it at the moment, though. A couple of the Caerleons seemed to have had exactly the thought I’d been concerned about. As I’d feared, they drew their flint blades and turned to Archimedes’ limp form.
I grabbed a spear that had been dropped and thrust it at the first enemy. At the last moment, I redirected the spear to what I hoped was a non-fatal attack. The spear passed through Deltan muscle and jabbed the Deltan behind him. I released the spear, leaving both Deltans howling with pain and surprise, grabbed the knife that one had just dropped, and drove it into the thigh of a third enemy.
With the quick removal of three of their number, the others backed away from Archimedes, fear written on their faces. I pulled my lips back as far as I could and did my best Hulk impression, roaring and gnashing my teeth.
Apparently, it was effective. One tripped while trying to backpedal and sat down abruptly, and the other two turned tail and fled.
I stood over Archimedes’ still form and spun around, snarling, looking for anyone within reach. At this point, if I had caught someone, I very probably would have done something impossible for a Deltan and blown my cover.
Not necessary, though. The battle was over. Three of ours were down. Eight of theirs were down, three of them obviously dead. Including Fred.
Buster and I exchanged silent looks, then we turned to Archimedes. I knelt and examined him. He was still breathing, although a faint liquid sound in his lungs concerned me. The beating looked to have been more enthusiastic than really necessary. Deltans had marvelous healing abilities—I hoped it would be enough, otherwise Archimedes might lose an eye. The teeth, at least, would grow back.
Very slowly and carefully, Buster and I lifted Archimedes and headed back to the village.
*
A week later, Archimedes was looking much better. He hadn’t lost the eye, although he was still complaining about blurry vision.
He sat with his granddaughter, Lisa, who went into fits of giggles watching her grandfather eating baby food. He’d be on that diet for a few more weeks, according to Belinda.
Donald sat in front of the fire, nursing a large hunk of jerky. He extended an arm, holding a knife out to me. I took the flint blade and examined it.
“Mm, yeah, not exactly up to Archimedes’ standards.”
“It’s crap,” Donald said. “It looks like you guys were right. We questioned a couple of the survivors, after the medicine woman was done with them. By the way, she thinks you’re an idiot for wasting resources healing enemies.”
I waved the comment away. “Once the fight is over, everyone bleeds the same color. And Annie is way more reasonable than Cruella ever was. She would have just told me to stuff it.”
Donald nodded. “Anyway, the knife is some of the best work coming out of Caerleon. So they have crap knives and crap spears, and are barely doing better with hunting than how my father says things were back at the old village. They’ve even started to get gorilloids sniffing around again.”
“And they blame us.”
Donald grinned at me. “I never said it made sense. I guess it’s our fault for having more skilled people and better tools and better hunting.”
“And more adults.” I grinned back. Then I grew serious. “But if this is the problem, it’s fixable. Just have some of their best and brightest come over and get Archimedes to train them.”
“I’m sure they’ve thought of it,” Buster cut in, as he came up and sat down. “But there’s been so much fighting, they probably think we’d just laugh at them.”
“And they don’t want to look weak.”
I rubbed the fur above my eyebrow, the Deltan equivalent of pinching the bridge of my nose. “Unbelievable. So, how do we broach the subject?”
Archimedes looked up from playing with Lisa. “We should just offer to teach a couple of their people.”
“The teaching thing didn’t work so well before,” I pointed out.
“They weren’t hungry before,” Archimedes answered. “I bet they’ll pay more attention now.”
We looked at each other around the fire. No one had to put it into words. It was worth a try.
Cities Victorious
Marcus
October 2215
Poseidon
A month after the uprising, things were finally settling down. But despite all my attempts to dodge, bob and weave, and otherwise avoid taking on a position of responsibility, I’d still somehow ended up as the Chairman Pro Tem. Of course, there was some logic to having the reins held by someone who was available twenty-four seven, never forgot anything, and couldn’t be bought or blackmailed.
Still, I was going to arrange elections as soon as possible.
The drone settled into New Thark’s docking bay and floated into a parking spot. The cargo bay doors opened and I stepped out. I took a moment to look around—most of the spots were taken, as people continued to move into the city.
I walked to the elevators at the end of the bay and got in with a half dozen random strangers. Interestingly, two hundred years later and twenty light years away, people still behaved the same in elevators as they did in Original Bob’s day. Everyone turned to face the doors, and ignored each other.
As the elevator rose to ground level, I surreptitiously examined the other passengers. No one paid me any particular attention. I was just another anonymous, random individual. It amazed me how good that felt.
I stepped out of the elevator and found myself outdoors, with a transport station to my left and a park to my right. I let the other passengers hurry to grab taxis first, while I took the time to look around. This was my first time in the new version-3 floating city. This model boasted two square kilometers of usable surface, divided about evenly between residences, businesses, and parkland.
The fibrex dome stretched over the city, ensuring a warm, dry environment, no matter the weather outside. Residents were scattered around, sitting on benches or on the grass, working away on their tablets or remote-controlling some piece of equipment, VR headset and gloves firmly in place.
Why the Council would have wanted to prevent this was beyond me. Some people just seemed to want to display their power by defining what others could or couldn’t do.
I shook my head, then turned and headed for the transport station. I grabbed the next available pod, spoke Kal’s address, and sat back as the pod accelerated into the underground track.
In less than two minutes, I exited the pod, followed the directions it had given me, and was standing at Kal’s front door.
*
We sat around the table, Kal, Denu, Gina, Vinnie, and myself, drinking beer and comparing war stories. The new government of Poseidon, such as it was.
Gina put up a list of names. “Here’s the Council members we’ve captured. Five out of seven. Based on comments from a couple of them, you might be right about the last two having escaped in subs.”
“So they might be hiding out on any of a hundred mats.” I smiled at her. “Or they might already be in the belly of the leviathan.”