A Different Flesh by Harry Turtledove Page A

thrust out to impale his attacker. The sim gave a bubbling shriek; blood gushed from its mouth.
    â€œGo!” Dale yelled again.
    Without Joanna, Wingfield would have stood by the other Englishman no matter what he said. When she squalled at the rough treatment she was getting, though, he scrambled away into the woods. Lucas followed a few seconds later.
    For as long as they could, they looked back at Henry Dale. After that first one, no sim dared come within reach of his sword. He stayed in the clearing for what seemed an impossibly long time, stones flying all around him.
    At last he turned. “Catch me if you can!” he shouted, brandishing his rapier. Wingfield saw how he limped as he ran; not every stone had missed. Dale crashed through the undergrowth, going in a different direction from his comrades and making no effort to move quietly. His defiant cries rang through the night. So did the sims’ bellows of rage as they pursued him.
    â€œYou make for home,” Caleb Lucas urged Wingfield. “I will give Henry such help as I may.”
    â€œThey will surely slay you,” Wingfield said, but he knew he would not hold Lucas back. Had their positions been reversed, he would not have wanted the youngster to try to stop him.
    Just then, the sims’ shouts rose in a goblin chorus of triumph. Screams punctuated it, not all from an English throat. As Dale had promised, he did not die easily. Caleb Lucas sobbed.
    â€œCome,” Wingfield said softly, his own voice breaking. “Now we have but to save ourselves, any way we may.”
    Wingfield lay on the straw pallet in his cabin, having scant energy for anything more. After the desperate dash back to Jamestown, he was gaunt rather than lean. Insect bites blotched his face and arms; leeches had clung to his legs when he and Lucas plunged into the swamps to elude the sims.
    The worshipful looks Anne sent his way went far to ease the memory of his privations. She had hardly let Joanna out of her arms since her husband had come stumbling home the night before. The baby was nursing again. She had done little else, once reunited with her mother.
    The sound of weeping came through the doorway. That too had gone on since the night before, when Claire Cooper learned she was a widow.
    Anne sighed. “So high a price—two good men lost, to rescue a single babe.”
    Wingfield nodded. Lucas and he had agreed there was no point to speaking ill of the dead. Let Henry Dale be remembered as a hero; with his folly forgotten, the tale of his undoubted bravery at the end of his time would inspire those who still lived.
    Wingfield did say, “Aye, we lost a pair, but the sims paid far dearer than we.” That far, at least, Dale had been right, he thought, though better none had died on either side. He went on, “Their bands range widely, but they are small; this one took a hurt from which ’twill be years recovering.”
    â€œGood!” Anne said, a fierce light in her eyes. “The sooner those foul animals are driven far from the haunts of men, the sooner we sleep at our ease of nights.”
    â€œAs you’ve said, my dear, in the past I’ve taken both sides of that question, but now I will name the sims men.” Wingfield spoke reluctantly but firmly.
    â€œHow can you think that, after what your own daughter suffered at their hands?” Anne ran her hand protectively over Joanna’s scanty yellow hair.
    â€œAnne, were they beasts they would have slain her. Instead, they kept her hale as best they might. Caleb feels they sought to learn of us from her, as the Spaniards have fetched sims back to Europe for learned men to study. Having thought much on what I saw, I can draw no other conclusion than that he is right.”
    His wife remained unconvinced. “Man or beast, what boots it in the end? We should rout out savages no less than wild beasts—or with all the greater vigor, as presenting more danger to us