by Pam Uphoff
"That's not L'azlod, believe it or not. Younger I think, so it's not the crown prince either. In fact, I think this one's a pseudomale."
"Blozolli's been waiting for someone he called 'Traveler'. They've all got these secret identities, see? Blozolli's Fire One, meaning he was the top spine of the Icefire Met cell." He dropped his voice. "Although from what people say behind his back that's just to fluff his ego, and there's a lot going on he doesn't know about." His eyes slid to the two pseudofems. Was Raelphe getting friendly with his jailers?
"I'm not surprised, he struck me as a lizard who likes violence and just joined REM because it gave him an excuse and opportunity." She dropped her voice as Blozolli and her captor walked over.
"Well, L'svages, couldn't stay away from the party?" Blozolli smirked. "Don't worry, a cute pseudofem like you will find plenty of fun things to do while you're here. Kid, show her to the room next to yours. You two stick together and behave and it'll all be warm." His eyes met those of Raephe's escorts, who nodded in unison.
Traveler eyed her thoughtfully through all of this, but stood back and said nothing. He finally walked off with Blozolli, who was saying something snarky about lawyers. Very Large Lizard trailed behind them.
"This looks like a hotel," Xaero commented, looking around.
"It is." Raelphe grabbed her briefcase from where it had been abandoned in the middle of the floor. She noticed that he hefted it easily. Of course his father's briefcase was of legendary size and the envy of lawyers worldwide. "C'mon, everyone's stays on the top floor. Wait till you see it!"
Xaero blinked at his enthusiasm. No wonder they underestimate me. A trufem with a nephew like this? They didn’t even bother to search my briefcase. Or take away the masks and oxygen . . . hmm, maybe I can still get Raelphe out of here.
The two fems joined them in the elevator. "This is Silver and Gold," Raelphe introduced them with more than a hint of smugness in his voice. They were both average colored with tan and brassy scales, but the slightly lighter toned one had gone in heavily for silver jewelry and scarves, the other fem, gold, and they both wore amazingly short black skirts and mind bogglingly high soled shoes. Tottering on them, they were nearly a match for Traveler's goon.
"So, you two are big on the environment? Keeping Mars red forever and all that?" she asked. "Stuck way out here with no way to go shopping?" No one who wore shoes like that could possibly not be a hobby shopper.
But they both snickered, "Oh sure, we're just suffering for the planet."
The elevator opened to a paleolithic jungle. The air was thick and hot, steam rose from rock lined pools shaded by huge fozles with brilliant flowers. Flame trees towered overhead and cheeps sounded from mossy banks. As they crossed the huge, open, glass ceilinged room, she saw nearly half the area was covered by a sinuous lake with little private sandy beaches tucked into coves.
"Close your mouth." Raelphe was laughing at her. In fact they all three were. "The actual rooms are over here."
Raelphe led her to a tiny moss meadow with stepping stones leading up to doors half hidden in the huge 'rocks' sticking out of the jungle here and there. "I'm here and they fixed a lock for that one, when Traveler called ahead to say he'd caught another lawyer. I suppose it's yours. The fems have the outer rooms and the keys. We're locked in at night."
Xaero studied the jungle beyond the meadow and realized it was a screen. A very good one, but only the foreground plants were real. Back wall, only one way out.
"Sorry," Silver said, "but now that Traveler is here, they've called a meeting, so we have to lock you both in."
"Oh, that's all right," Raelphe reassured her. "Aunt Xaero's probably tired."
Aunt Xaero was exhausted, having caught maybe two splits of sleep last night. Reluctantly she entered the end room. The knobs had all been removed and a heavy hasp and padlock added to the outside. "Get many prisoners here, do you?" she asked.
"Oh, well, we didn't use to. But the proper dungeon is full up right now. I guess with some really dangerous fellows." Gold was the talkative sort.
Raelphe handed over her briefcase and left. The room was painted and decorated like a cave, with a tiny lav and a huge bed pit. The windows were opaque, but quickly cleared at her touch. The sun was low on the horizon, the brightest stars already showing in the deep blue overhead.
Well, Raelphe was fine, and nothing was apparently going to happen immediately. She managed to pull off her boots before collapsing into the bed pit.
Chapter Six
"All this and good food?" Xaero muttered around a mouthful of meltingly light pastry.
She sat with Raelphy (demoted due to teenage table manners) at a table as far away from Blozolli and Traveler as possible. Gold and Silver were acting very guardlike, standing well back and watching everyone else shovel it in. Very Large Lizard was doing likewise, but nearer the bosses.
When they left, Gold and Silver relaxed visibly.
"Gee," Raelphy asked them, "Did you two get into trouble last night or something?"
Gold grabbed a plate and loaded it from the buffet. "Not really, but when the big guy's around we try to, you know, look professional or something. Like guards, not playmates, ya know?"
In as much as her shoes and skirt looked identical to yesterday's garb that was hard to believe. They did have their neck frills totally covered, though.
"Yeah." Silver looked glum, "We don't want to get fired, or suddenly have our job description turn into 'whip the Boss every evening'.'" She glanced sideways at Raelphy, "Things are getting a little weird around here."
Xaero waved at the jungle, "This is pretty weird for an underground antigovernment movement, if you ask me."
Silver nodded, "But it is nurturing a whole lot of plants and animals. I just don't know about this changeover in people. I wish all the old staff would come back. They cared about Mars, and Martians." She sighed wistfully. "Pseudomales are so sensitive and gentle."
Gold snorted, "Oh? So what about Traveler?"
Silver stuck out her tongue. "Point! Some pseudos are aggressive and twisted."
"Like those pseudofems that came in from Imperial City and then went off to Icefire." Gold shot a worried look at Raelphe. "They didn't . . . hurt you, did they?"
"No, just a couple of thumps." He blushed and tried to put on a show of sophistication. "The rough stuff is for the paying customers."
Silver giggled. "I think they were bait of some sort. Fortunately they haven't come back. They were . . . there was something wrong there."
"And those guys from the Cliffs last tenth, with all that weird equipment? They wouldn't even talk to us."
"I think Blozolli's just bored. There was some big something planned six days ago, they wouldn't tell us what." Gold made a face. "Blozolli came back all jazzed up, practically high."
Gold nodded. "I couldn't tell if something went right or if something had gone horribly wrong. Those fems were with him and they were, like dangerous or something. Then they left again, and just Blozolli came right back with Ralphe." She gave Raelphe a melting smile.
So did Silver. "He spent most of yesterday driving around the surface, said he was patrolling, but it drove the real guards crazy. They're, like, real professionals. They've got motion sensors out and stuff, and mostly keep an eye on everything from here. All day the alarms kept going off, and it was just Blozolli, out there being an idiot."
"He broke one cart." Gold said. "They had to go rescue him before you got here."
"Does that Traveler character live here?" Xaero asked.
"Oh, he sort of comes and goes. He meets the Supreme One here regularly, well not regularly, but whenever they need to put their heads together." Gold paused as if it had finally occurred to her that she might not have been a good idea to tell Xaero and Raelpe so much.
"I think Traveler's the messenger boy." Silver rattled on, oblivious to secrecy. "The other leaders, from all over, don't come here very often."
"I suppose they all have secret
names?" Xaero asked, "Do they, like, wear hoods or masks or dress up funny?"
"Oh no, only the Supreme One does that." Gold giggled. "And body paint, of course. I thought we should all dress up and have a party but that Traveler wouldn't let us."
"He is so dreary. All business." Silver agreed. "Even Blozolli's better, not that we've seen much of him lately." She winked at Xaero, "Did you have to get him out of jail?"
"Well, he's not going to be here much longer if he keeps running around on the surface Keeper says he attracts the wrong kind of attention." Silver stated. "He was here for, oh, maybe a quarter straight, before Operation Canyon. He was a nuisance outside then, too."
Outside . . . Xaero got up from the table and wandered over to the windows. These looked north, at Thar. The volcano was perfectly framed, soaring up into the sky. She scanned the mountain and spotted a dark area that might be the Space Base halfway up the foothills. It was, for her, within an oxygen bottle's walking distance. But Raelphe would never make it that far. They'd have to steal a vehicle.
"Can we walk around outside?" she asked the pseudos, "In the atrium, I mean, not really outside."
Gold looked dubious. "You mean you want to?"
"Sure, I like thin dry air and exercise. Good for the figure."
"Really? Well, sure, let's go."
Raelphe eyed her and nodded, "Sure, it'll be a real wilderness, not a pretend one like up here." By the gleam in his eye he'd realized she wanted to scope out escape routes. Or maybe he just wanted to be alone with the fems.
She should have known it wasn't going to be that easy. The fems had to "get ready". They dragged both Xaero and Raelphe to Gold's room, and then with Silver running back and forth to her room for accessories, were required to give opinions on various outfits as they tried them on. Needless to say, her opinion of suitable safari wear and Raelphe's were quite different. When the fems had settled on Raelphe's favorites for this dangerous stroll, they turned on Xaero.
"You shouldn't use that cover-up cream on your eye streaks." Gold shook her head severely, "You have marvelous eyes, like an exotic Dry Scale. Vid stars would kill for eye markings like yours."
"A little lette oil to bring out the shine of the black lines and then let's just try a bit of turquoise powder between stripes, and then a turquoise scarf to bring it out, and . . . "
It was torture by high fashion. When they started talking about breaking for lunch, she persuaded them to finish dressing and then they could go straight down from there. The thought of letting them get close to their wardrobes and makeup again was scary.
Finally, after a maddening leisurely lunch and long freshen up, they made it to the elevator. Gold pushed the number five button which delivered them back to the ground floor lobby. "What's on all the other floors?" Xaero asked, curiously. The place seemed nearly deserted. And apparently had four sublevels.
"Oh, our cover business is data storage. There are floors and floors of these locked cases full of memory crystals." Silver said.
No one stopped them when they walked out the doors. Yesterday she'd been escorted in from the left, so she walked off to the right, following the paths with trimmed foliage.
Her sinuses opened in relief. This half-thin air was perfect.
She spotted two guards and turned to wander casually down an overgrown side path that might give her a good view. Raelphe and the fems were following her, their only interest in their surroundings apparently finding flowers and leaves to tickle each other with. When they stopped and put their heads together, giggling about something, Xaero stopped and looked around, as if politely trying to give them some privacy. A gap between two enormous juffers gave her an excellent look at the two guards, the exterior exit behind them and the three-sided shed with various ground vehicles parked in it beyond that.
Hmm, need to find out where they keep the keys. She turned away and heading deeper into the maze of corridors and greenhouses. The glass in the skylights was scratched and pitted from decades of sandstorms. Occasionally a pane was fresh and clear, but since the plants were robust, to say the least, everywhere, she guessed that any actual breaks had been fixed quickly.
There were cheepers and rockhoppers all over, whisking out of sight around them, but a pair of pikes squaring off in a territorial dispute ignored them.
Raelphe snickered. "Aunt Xaero, do you know how pikes make love?"
Xaero rolled her eyes and refrained from informing him that these were both trumales, and love was not in the offing. "Very carefully." Probably incorrect, too, she thought. Like most Mars fauna they probably relied on low blood flow to the brain along with getting drunk on the endorphins, aphrodisiacs and euphorics custom produced by the opposite gender to overcome the effect of getting poked by spines. Martians themselves were far from excluded from the strategy even though they were not nearly as spiny as most Mars animals, not that she had any interest in exploring the subject personally.
She detoured carefully around the clear areas beneath giant sweepers, skirted the territories of the springers and stood very, very far back from the five huge pets that dominated one greenhouse. She craned her neck in disbelief. The largest was at least twenty strides high. She looked around, and found a large bark twist shed by an oversized corkscrew tree, and tossed it to the nearest pet. Rather than the slow response she'd expected of the massive plant, it whipped around and caught the bark in mid air. It shook it and tossed it, not toward her, but rather at the other pets. They caught it in turn, the bark thrown randomly back and forth, dropping pollen and shreds of itself as it was snatched, shaken, recoated and tossed. The shredding bark zigzagged back and forth across the greenhouse until it finally disintegrated altogether.
She made careful note of the location and, tracking down Raelphe and the fems, she first rescued them from the overgrown mouth that had them cornered and then led them away from the pet greenhouse. A sealed and locked greenhouse piqued her curiosity. She checked that Raelphe and the fems were once again paying no attention to her, then picked the ancient sealant from around a low pane and loosened it, but abandoned the effort when she heard the others coming.
She wandered purposefully around, completing her mental map, noting guards, entrances, good observation posts, hideaways and dangerous spots. After spotting Traveler's cart, collecting dust where he'd left it on one side of the complex, she crossed back to the other side, to the entry with the cart shed, and thus spotted the dust cloud approaching just before the guards turned to the com panel beside them and then turned to look at the dust plume themselves. A vehicle appeared, coming to a halt just outside the doors. She spotted Traveler, Very Large Lizard, some pseudofems dressed even more outrageously than Silver and Gold, and another male, this one a cascade of metallic tones and as he turned, a golden mask over his face.
Xaero waved to the others, motioning them closer and pointing.
"The Supreme One!" Silver yipped. "We'd better get back inside."
"Oh, no." Raelphe moaned. "Not them!"
"Are those the fems you were talking about?" Xaero asked, resisting Gold's pull on her arm. "The ones who didn't give you the professional treatment?"
"Yeah." He was following Silver without prompting.
Xaero caught a glimpse of the VLL tossing something to a guard, who stuck it in a drawer below the com panel, then she yielded to Gold and followed the others back inside and up to the penthouse.
The pseudos nervously ushered them to a little jungle sitting area and then stood back and looked as guardlike as they could until Blozolli found them. "Good, keep them out of the way for awhile." He scowled. "We're not wanted in this meeting. Security is at level red. I am personally in charge." He spun and marched off toward the elevators.
"Which means he's going to get in everyone's hair, I'll bet." Gold muttered.
Xaero looked around, "Is there a lav . . . "
"Oh, sure," Gold led her around a mound of plants and pointed at a rock. "In there."
Xaero pushed on a few spo
ts of fake rock and finally found the door. Scoping out the tiny room, she found no other entrances, but some clever "cracks" that let in light and air. If she stood on the furthest appliance, one of the cracks gave her an excellent view of Traveler's back and the Supreme One pacing as he talked and gestured. The two new pseudofems stood in rigid guard positions, looking like they were ready to leap into action with the whips and chains they were draped with. Somehow their entirely modern laser pistols seemed anachronistic.
"Two days from now . . . take care of the final . . . " she strained to hear as the Supreme One turned away. ". . . can stop it. Nothing." He was obviously a trumale, with a thick growth of secondary spines, although it was hard to tell where the gold spines of the mask left off and the painted gold spines started. The copper, brass and bronze paint streaks made it hard to judge, but she thought his natural color was fairly light, although a light colored base coat under the metallic paint would have the same effect. She started looking carefully for other ways to identify him.
When Traveler rose to get something to the side, she could see that they were the same height, and very close to the same build. Tall, broad shouldered, muscular in a smooth, sleek way. Couldn't be. She watched carefully. She'd seen more of Traveler now than L'azlod, and that wasn't much. She flushed and smoothed her frills. No matter how good looking, she wasn't interested in either of them. The Supreme One was just his size and shape, but with the mask and paint she couldn't be sure it was L'azlod.
"I should come with you, for backup." Traveler said.
"No. That is not possible." The Supreme One was definite about that. "I will . . . immediately after, and we can watch and celebrate." He strolled over to the overhanging plants and stroked them, before turning back to Traveler. ". . . collected all the vater pollen I need?"
Traveler was strolling after him, "Yes . . . put a good sized city to sleep with . . . "
