by Eric Flint
The shopkeeper's eyes bulged. "How… "
Goth looked at her hand, and then hastily returned what she had 'ported to the drawer. But it was a bit late for that. It was time for turning and running.
They ducked into a side street.
"What was that picture?" asked Pausert. He hadn't seen it too well, apparently, to Goth's relief.
"I really don't know," she said. "But I would avoid going back there for a while."
She had the locality of the cash-box now. And her second attempt did feel a bit more like cash. She knew that Pausert would look on it as theft, so she did a quick check to see what she had. A twenty Mael note. Well, she had one of those. If the pastry cook didn't spend it in a hurry, he would be all right. Anyway, it would serve the shopkeeper right for keeping that sort of picture under his money.
"I can't really afford to buy pastries anyway," admitted Pausert. "There is a sausage seller down the next street that's not too bad. He used to have a stall near the school. Just don't think about the sausages too much."
It was good advice, Goth reflected, as she ate a few minutes later. Still, if it didn't kill her, it'd probably do for food, or at least something to fill the hole where her stomach used to be. And Pausert was obviously good at following his own advice, as he ate three of them.
He had been a bit difficult at first. "No. I couldn't. Really. I am not hungry," he said.
"Huh," said Goth. "I owe you for helping me when I had that… fit. And I won't eat alone, and I'm starving and you wouldn't want me to starve, would you?"
The sausages smelt reasonably good. She could see that he was tempted. "Look. I'll hire you to show me around Nikkeldepain City. Payment will be some of those sausages. If I had to get a proper guide they'd skin for me a lot more. You get to eat, and I get a guide. How is that for a deal?"
He nodded. "Okay. If you're sure."
"Sure as can be," said Goth. "Now, what'll you have?"
They washed the sausages down with some lime-green juice that Pausert liked, and Goth thought was rather like the sausages-best avoided. Now that her hunger was eased, Goth began to think about why she was here. It was really neat meeting the captain as a boy her own age, but there had to be some terrible danger threatening him.
She began fishing for details as they walked. He was determined to give her a full sausages' worth of a guided tour. Nikkeldepain City didn't have a lot of sights, but he was going to show her all of them. On foot, and not by the monorail which seemed to be the normal mode of transport here.
She got the feeling that he was also fairly lonely. Well, judging by the gang of boys back at the botanical institute, he didn't have a lot of friends. She began to tease out bits of his life, school and family from his conversation. She was surprised to find herself learning a fair bit about her own father in the process. Threbus had also come from here, years before. And he had left quite a mark. His niece, Pausert's mother, was a widow. She'd come back to Nikkeldepain after Pausert's father had been killed in a military action somewhere on the borders of the Empire.
He was not from Nikkeldepain, and the locals didn't like that much. "I'm an outsider," admitted Pausert. "And Great Uncle Threbus managed to make himself infamous here. Ma says when she was growing up it was a bit different. I mean his practical jokes were still talked about, but after the Flidean expeditions on the Venture he made quite a lot of money. And where there is lots of money Nikkeldepain will turn a blind eye."
"I bet," said Goth. But, as interested as she was in finding out what had happened-she was pretty sure that a lot of Threbus' "practical jokes" were the start of his klatha skills manifesting themselves-Pausert was curious about life on the lattice ship, or just life off-world in general. It became very clear that long before he had rescued Goth and her sisters on Porlumma and gotten himself into trouble with the authorities on Nikkeldepain for associating with the prohibited planet of Karres and its notorious witches, that he'd been getting ready to leave, anyway. Their intervention had forced him to flee to the life of a vagabond of space, but he seemed more than happy with it. Thus Goth was willing to feed that desire, although she had to be careful not to mention Karres. After all, Captain Pausert had, in perfect truth, said that he had never heard of it.
It took her a little while to realize that they were being followed. And whoever was doing the organizing was good at it. If Nikkeldepain's memorials and prominent sights had been a little more popular with visitors, she would not have noticed. But it was so improbable that the same man with tan shoes and blue trousers would be visiting the corn exchange, the statue of Nikkerliss, and the old fortification, at exactly the same time as them.
Goth could not really see any reason for ever visiting any of them at all. It was obvious Pausert couldn't either, but he was doing his best to earn his meal. They'd seen nearly everything except the Central Museum of Historical Nikkeldepain-which not only charged entry, but her guide said had nothing but moldy old rubbish that they took school groups to see. Goth wouldn't have minded taking the monorail to several of the spots, but Pausert plainly never considered taking it. He walked with a long-legged easy stride, and kept forgetting to walk at her pace and then guiltily slowing down. Goth had always considered herself a good bollem hunter, happy to walk and track, but Pausert had plainly got himself very fit legging it about the streets of Nikkeldepain.
At the next sight, a grain mill, the follower had changed. Now it was a woman with a cone hairdo. But now that Goth was aware of them, the information she'd absorbed talking to Hulik do Eldel, who had been a top imperial agent, made them easy to spot.
It occurred to her that if they were being tailed-and she assumed it was Pausert they were tailing, not her-they were probably using a spy ray to listen in to their conversation too. That made her blush slightly, and also made her angry. There were going to be some painful lessons learned around here.
"I have a challenge for you, Pausert," she said cheerfully, just short of a street corner. "You close your eyes and I'll lead you. I'll take you somewhere. Then you tell me which of Nikkeldepain's sights it is!"
"Sure," he said, and obediently closed his eyes. She took him by the elbow, and they stepped around the corner and into no-shape. She just hoped no one noticed them disappear. But they'd probably just not believe their own eyes. She turned him around and set off the way they'd come.
To nearly get run down by a hurrying woman with a cone hairdo, speaking into a wrist communicator. Goth hurriedly led Pausert away in the other direction. They got to a particularly ugly building with a nice bench and she said "open them."
"The old power station," he said, grinning. "It's harder to walk with your eyes shut than I thought!"
And easier to lose a tail, thought Goth. And then she got a horrid surprise. The man with the tan shoes was idling along the pavement, reading what appeared to be a guide book. And, yes. Over there. That had to be the woman with the cone hairdo.
They weren't tracking him by sight.
There was no way they could have found them so quickly, if they were. She felt terribly alone and vulnerable. The little witches of Karres traveled around the galaxy perfectly cheerfully, exploring and learning. But they never went alone. She wasn't quite alone this time, either. She was in the company of one of the most powerful klatha operatives that Karres had ever encountered. A real Wizard of Karres. The only trouble was that Pausert wouldn't develop into one for quite a few years. Right now he was just a poor boy from Nikkeldepain with a black eye. A rather nice poor boy, but nothing more.
She gave him her best smile. "I have to get back. But you have been a great guide."
He bowed and blushed. "A pleasure. So, um, are you going to be around?"
Very definitely! thought Goth, and for a lot longer than you realize. But all she said was "Maybe. You take care, huh."
"I can't walk you back to the lattice ship?"
"Nope. I'd get into trouble. See you. Maybe." And she got up and walked off. She could see his reflectio
n in the plate glass of the nearby shop window. He really looked quite tragic.
But cone-hairdo was watching her. So she walked on, and into the shop. It was a fairly busy lady's dress shop. Goth went into a fitting room and emerged in no-shape, bending light around her, moments later. She found cone-hairdo reporting on her wrist communicator. She had an oddly flat voice.
"Yes, he's alone at last, Franco. We should be able to make the snatch soon."
Goth could only hear one side of the conversation. "Well, it's not our fault," said the woman. "That bunch of kids were following him around like glue. And you said we were to avoid witnesses. Then he acquired a girl with red hair. You've got the stills pictures of her that Mirkon took. And a name from the spyray. Track her down in planetary records. They're obsessed with records in this place."
In the meantime Pausert, now bored, had got up and begun to saunter his way down the street, whistling. Goth was surprised. He still whistled the same tune, years later.
"He's moving off. Got to follow him," said the woman. "Mirkon has just gone to collect the van. Keep him on the trackerscope. Out."
Goth followed quietly behind her, her mind seething. Someone was putting a lot of effort into this, but why? And something about Pausert's circumstances stank. She knew, from casual comments over meals and in conversation, that her father had left behind a small commercial empire on Nikkeldepain, the results of several lucrative discoveries, when his last expedition had stumbled on Karres. She also knew that he had been declared legally dead there-which was a source of some amusement to the family. He'd gone to some lengths to protect Karres and to provide the Nikkeldepain authorities with this conclusion, even sending back an empty ship-the Venture 7333 -and a log that pointed at disaster in a different quarter of space.
Pausert's mother was his only heir on Nikkeldepain. He'd thought well of her, and said that it wasn't surprising that the captain had come out so well. So where was the money?
Chapter 6
The incident happened in a little side street, and it was done so slickly that, even forewarned, Goth was nearly taken by surprise.
A grubby little white air-truck slid past young Pausert and slowed to a crawl. The back door opened and a man beckoned to Pausert, who smiled and walked forward to speak to him. It was tan shoes, the follower from earlier-"Mirkon," presumably. And cone-hairdo was closing in, fast, from behind, a transdermic syringe in her hand.
Goth had to take action herself, just as fast. This was no time for finesse. She was between the woman and Pausert. She 'ported the syringe into Mirkon's hand-the wrong way around. He instinctively squeezed the sudden apparition that smacked into his palm. Goth didn't wait to see what effect it had. She was too busy head-butting Cone Hairdo in the stomach. And as the fast-striding woman staggered back, she kicked her. It wasn't exactly great fighting, Goth knew, but her victim didn't know what had hit her. Cone Hairdo tripped over the curb and landed hard on her back. The cone-shaped hairdo turned out to be a wig, which went flying.
Pausert had heard her explosion of departing breath after the head butt, and turned to see her inelegant crash-landing on the sidewalk. Being Pausert, he turned to help her up. He retrieved her wig, unaware that the man he'd been about to speak to had keeled over sideways in the back of the air-truck.
"Are you all right, Ma'am?" he asked politely, handing her back her wig.
Goth decided that as the driver too must be an accomplice, it was time to get rid of him and the vehicle. The throttle was controlled by a small foot-pedal, just like most of the aircars in the Empire. The driver couldn't see her because he was looking backwards, his hand on the door handle. Peering past him, Goth happily saw that it was the kind of pedal that had a spring to keep the cable taut and off the floor. A cheap model! She knew from experience that the throttle stuck full if the spring broke, so she 'ported the spring elsewhere.
The airtruck, its door now half open, suddenly roared to full throttle and accelerated down the narrow side street, swaying wildly with the brakes squealing as the driver-accomplice tried to control it. He should have paid more attention to his steering, as he hit a lamp-post, ramped the curb and crashed into the corner.
Goth hadn't intended his departure to be quite that spectacular. Luckily, no bystanders were hurt. The driver leapt out and ran away.
The woman had obviously realized that this was no time to be present, either. She snatched her wig and ran away from the open-mouthed Pausert.
Of course, at this point, the local flat-feet turned up. "And what is going on here?" demanded the policeman of the one person he could see on the scene: young Pausert.
"I really don't know," said Pausert. "The lady fell over. I was helping her up. Then… Where has she gone?"
The woman and her wig had disappeared.
More policemen arrived, one on a hover cycle, siren howling. He had the sense to check the airtruck, find the unconscious man in the back, and call for an ambulance. In the meanwhile one of the policemen was staring inquisitorially at Pausert. "You're related to that Captain Threbus aren't you?"
Pausert, incurably truthful and with a strong familial resemblance, nodded. "He was my great uncle."
"Hmm. Well, you'd better come along with us then," said the officer sourly.
"But I had nothing to do with it!" protested Pausert. "The driver ran away."
"We'll check on that."
So Goth had to follow as the young Pausert was led off towards the police station, and the unconscious Mirkon was driven away in an ambulance. It would seem that her father had had quite a reputation here on Nikkeldepain. On the positive side, if the enemy had been trying to capture or harm him out of sight of any witnesses-Pausert was surrounded by witnesses now.
A horrible thought occurred to her. What if they too were villains? She walked a little closer. No-shape-bending light around herself-was not something she had to consciously exert her mind to do. But it took energy. She was already tired and hungry again.
And then came the next problem. Someone had plainly called for a patrol-car. Goth realized that there was no way that she could fit into it, along with the three bulky policeman who seemed to believe that they'd gotten their man. She had to do something quickly. She had no idea where the local police station was and she had no intention of letting Pausert out her sight. She settled for the advantages of no shape to reach in and remove the starter-bar from the vehicle's ignition, and dropped it down the grate of a nearby drain. It landed with quite an audible plop, but fortunately the policemen were too busy telling their comrade to radio for a tow for the crashed air-truck.
"You can do it when we're back at the station," said the driver irritably. "I don't know why you couldn't have walked anyway. I was just on my break."
"You're always just on your break," said one of the other officers, pushing his way in. "Come on, Hasbol. Get the kid inside, and let's get down to the station."
So they did. The door was closed. Goth waited and watched the searching and commotion. The door was opened again, and Pausert and the officers got out again. "So how do you think I got here?" yelled the driver irritably. "One of you must have taken it. Or him. You'd better search the kid."
They emptied out Pausert's pockets, which had all the useful things a fourteen year old boy might have in them-string, some odd bits of scrap metal, a bottle cap, a broken pen-knife, but no starter-bar. They patted him down but still did not find the missing starter-bar.
"We may as well walk back to the station," said one of the men eventually. "And you'd better call in, Bryton. There's something very fishy about all of this."
So they marched off together, escorting Pausert-who was struggling to hide a grin at their misfortunes. The captain that Goth knew would have been better at keeping a straight face. Goth was able to walk along behind them, having taken the step of light shifting to the shape of one of the local constabulary. It was less effort than staying in no shape indefinitely.
It was a mere two blocks away and round
one corner, so, other than to protect the way their uniforms bulged over their belts, there'd really been no reason to call a patrol car out. Still, from what she could gather, Nikkeldepain City did not have much crime to entertain them. They were grumbling about the extra duties that the presence of the showboat lattice ship had put onto their poor overworked selves, and, so far, they'd been unable to arrest anyone for their troubles.
"That Circus master-Petey. He'll be behind all this. Mark my words. I don't trust him."
Goth's heart leapt. Himbo Petey? Here? Then the lattice ship must be the Petey Byrum and Keep, the Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Her friends here to help! And then she realized…
They weren't yet her friends.
It was still comforting to think of them being here. Of course over the years, lattice ships did visit nearly every inhabited planet. Quite a co-incidence-but one of the things that the people of Karres had learned about klatha force is that there really were no co-incidences. Just patterns, some of them too enormous to ever see.
Pausert was stoical throughout all of this. Goth, who knew him well, could see that the boy was quite nervous despite his stolid expression. He just wasn't letting the police see it. Well, that was hardly surprising. She just wished that she could tell him that she was here, and that she'd see that he was all right.
A few minutes later, she discovered that she was not alone in her task of shepherding the young Pausert. His mother was quite a fearsome one-woman army herself.
"He happened to be in the same street as a car crash and you arrest him? He can't even drive yet! Anyway, where would he have got this vehicle from? Tell me that! Are you accusing my son of theft?"
"Uh. We're still following up on that," admitted the desk-policeman. "The vehicle was hired from Porklotta vehicle hire. But we've been unable to trace the ID of the person who signed for it."
"And who presumably was an adult, produced a driver's license, and paid a deposit," snapped Pausert's mother. "Even if my boy had the money, no one could take him for an adult. And where in Patham's name would he get a license that matched his ret-ID? They would have checked that, you know, or you should know, if you weren't a bumbling idiot."
