Revenge of the Catspaw

by Helena Puumala

  “It was done over quite a long time,” Carl had explained. “The thing was, the city, and its surrounding communities, had been expanding for ages, always swallowing up more of the best farm land. That was when most of the transport was by land, before flyers and flits had been invented, which meant that streets, roads, and parkades took up as much, or more space as peoples' dwellings. And it was pre-space travel. The fact was that there were plenty of places empty of people in our part of the world; only, the people were living on the fertile ground rather than the areas where building was possible, but farming was not.

  “So a consortium of experts and politicians decided that a change should be made, and they pushed hard enough to force it to happen. I understand that the time was one of turmoil otherwise, too, and that was helpful to the push to create change.”

  Interesting though Earth's history may have been, Coryn had other pressing issues to consider.

  He thought that Fiana and Jillian, at the Kordean-Confederation Liaison Office, ought to know about the murkiness surrounding Peter Mackenzie's ex-employers. Or was it too risky to bring the matter up via possibly compromised communication channels?

  He debated with himself for a moment, and then made a quick decision. He sent a feed to the Liaison Office's coordinates, keeping it as terse as possible. Fiana and Jillian would figure it out, even if it sounded cryptic; they understood the need to give away as little information as was possible. They would guess that he was, in fact, suggesting that the Office do a little more digging than he could, under the circumstances.

  “Re: Peter Mackenzie, possible replacement as Chief Liaison Officer. Ask about his past work experience, esp. prior to captivity years. Employer name is XYZ Imports, the Laurentia Branch.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Liaison Office was in an uproar.

  Messages were zinging back and forth, between the Office and the Headquarters on ASC, between the Office and the Diplomatic Corps Main Office; among Ferhil Stones, the Institute of Kordean Studies, the Liaison Office, and a variety of Port and City Offices.

  Rumours seemed to be materializing from empty air, and Fiana and Jillian were kept busy responding to frantic queries.

  Was it true that Coryn had been recalled to the Agency Headquarters, and was going to be replaced with some incompetent joker of Marcues' choosing?

  “He has let me know that he has, for the moment, accepted Marcues' directives, and is going off to Space Station XER to perform what he called a 'make-work' task,” was Fiana's answer to the questioners. “I'll be staying on as his temporary replacement for as long as I can physically manage the job. What happens after that will not be determined by the Agency Head, Ry Marcues, but by the bureaucrats at the Diplomatic Corps. There is no need to panic.”

  She and Jillian, both, however, were worried. Not so much about the day to day running of the Office—they had a handle on that, at least for now—but about what was going on at the Agency Headquarters, and what Marcues' rash action meant for Coryn. Neither of them was happy to hear that Coryn would be travelling alone to Space Station XER. The incident involving the three Neotsarian Elites at the Trahea Port had made them very uneasy. It had suggested that The Organization Elites were targeting Coryn, for whatever reason, perhaps simply because he was a thorn in their side.

  “Do you think that Marcues is sending a security detail with him to XER?” Fiana asked Jillian.

  “Hah!” Jillian snapped. “But Coryn will be on public transport; I checked the itinerary. A mega-liner from ASC to Flameworld, and a small, privately owned transport to XER. He should be safe on the mega-transport; I'm sure that word about those three Neotsarians has already been passed around the transportation bureaucracies, and the big ships' Security personnel will be on alert. Coryn's name on a passenger list will have them on alert for Hounds.

  “The worrisome leg is the one between the Flameworld and XER. Those smaller, profit-making craft could be compromised, given that money changes hands. But I'm sure that Coryn is aware of that, and is stepping carefully.”

  “But alone, stepping carefully may not be adequate,” sighed Fiana. “I absolutely don't like this. Who's to say Marcues isn't the one who is compromised?”

  Jillian glowered at her temporary boss.

  “I'm glad that you're the one who said that,” she said. “The possibility is giving me the worst heebie-jeebies!”

  **

  “What fresh insanity is this?” Marlyss demanded when Fiana reached her on the com.

  It was one of the few times when Marlyss made no objection whatsoever to having been called to talk over the Terran communications system. She had even allowed Witch Alta, the receptionist, to turn the camera on, so Fiana could see her expression. ”Can that fool at the Agency Headquarters do this?”

  “He seems to think that he can,” Fiana replied carefully. “I'm quite certain that Coryn has pointed out to him that he does not, in fact, control the Kordean-Confederation Liaison Office. We come under the Diplomatic Corps; that is who finances us. I suspect that Coryn went along with the recall because he's trying to figure out a way to get it turned around in such a fashion that Marcues can save face. You know Coryn; he's always trying to keep things running as smoothly as is possible.”

  “Things are not going to be running smoothly between Kordea and the Terra Confederation, if we have to deal with some fool as the Chief Liaison Officer! I might just refuse to deal with the Liaison Office altogether!”

  “For the moment, you'll be dealing with me,” Fiana said soothingly. “And I'm hoping that this will be no more than a hiccough, and Coryn will be back in control by the time I'm ready to give birth.”

  “How are you, by the way?” Marlyss asked solicitously. “Have Mora and Dr. Jonas been looking after you?”

  “Everything is proceeding as it should, they tell me,” Fiana replied with a smile. “I'm uncomfortable, but that, Mary says, is unavoidable, even in this day and age. According to her, I should have got into this pregnancy business ten years ago, if I wanted to breeze through it, but, as I told her, Steph didn't come into my life until recently, so I hadn't much choice.”

  “It's a good idea to be picky when it comes to the father of one's child,” Marlyss said with a grin. “Life's a lot easier that way.”

  After cutting the connection Fiana wondered if she ought to warn Marcues about problems with the Kordean-Terran relationship, should he insist on filling the post of the Chief Liaison Officer with someone other than Coryn Leigh. Then she decided to leave things be, for the present. There was still a strong possibility that Coryn would come up with one of his inventive solutions to the dilemma. He had a talent for that.

  **

  Marlyss, meanwhile, retired into the tower workroom of the Circle of the Twelve. It was empty; the Witches were not scheduled to be using it in the next few hours. The room, however, was a peaceful place in which to conjure up Stone-energies, and Marlyss often did so, when she wanted to work alone.

  The Guru Johannes would be en route to the planet Altec III. That circumstance might make it easier to contact him, Marlyss mused—or perhaps not. He had reported to her from Space Station ASC, as he had promised to do.

  “So far so good,” he had told her. “The pesky Neotsarian Elites remained on the mega-transport. They did not leave at ASC as Coryn had worried that they might, even though they had paid their fares to the next stop. However, that only means that he doesn't have to deal with them, here; he does have to deal with the Agency Head.”

  He had asked Marlyss to inform him of any new developments on Kordea, and that was what she, now, was about to do. She sat down, cross-legged, on a low cushion on the floor (she was a spry woman in spite her advancing age), facing the window through which the moon Lina was shining into the room, full as always, and now safe from the manipulations of the Neotsarians.

  It so happened that she was able to easily reach the Guru Johannes. When she touched his mind, she sensed that he had opened himself to rece
ive her; had he had some intimation that she would be contacting him? He was resting, but awake, inside a space-liner cabin, the Greencat in the bunk above him. He immediately embraced her mental presence, and she realized that she liked this about him: he let her know that he took a hearty pleasure in their connection.

  She told him the information that Fiana had passed on to her.

  “The Agency Head has removed Coryn from Kordea,” she communicated. ”Apparently he is to go to the Space Station XER on what Fiana referred to, dismissively, as a 'make-work' project. XER is where Sarah's troubles began, and I find the coincidence disturbing.”

  “You're saying that Marcues has removed Coryn from the position of the Chief Liaison Officer?”

  “So it seems. Fiana thinks that he wants to appoint someone whom he favours to the position. However, she did add that he cannot foist just anyone on us. The Liaison Office does not really come under his authority.”

  “But, so far, Coryn has acquiesced with the decision?”

  “Fiana thinks that he is using the travel time to and from the Station XER to try to come up with a way to return things to the previous status quo, without antagonizing Marcues into doing something even more stupid.”

  She could sense the Guru's mental chuckle. She knew that he appreciated Coryn's peace-making instincts. Then she felt a hardening of his attitude.

  “I would very much like to know why this Marcues sent him off on this 'make -work' project,” he mindspoke. “I took a few moments when I was on Space Station ASC to locate the Agency Head's mental signature—it was not difficult, since I know a little something about the contents of Coryn's mind, and that of Jillian Ashton. My impression was that he is a confused individual trying to look good in some peoples' eyes, but aware that he is not looked upon with favour by most of his employees. He is angry, and jealous of the regard in which Coryn is held by those who work for him. He is an easy mark for anyone who might want to manipulate him.

  “I did the psychic look-see before Coryn spoke to him. At the time he seemed to be inordinately pleased with himself, as if he had thought of something very clever..”

  “Something clever?” Marlyss was puzzled. “Perhaps he thought that sending Coryn away for a short time was a clever move on his part? Why would that be? Coryn will be back, wanting to be reinstated to the Liaison Office job.”

  Then Marlyss felt an icy grip around her heart.

  “Unless he's not supposed to come back, and Marcues knows it,” she subvocalized.

  She was shocked by her own fright at the thought. It dawned on her, that she had begun to think of Coryn as if he was her own child. She had been proud of his achievements, and had been overjoyed when he and Sarah had found one another. His obvious happiness had delighted her, and since Sarah was who and what she was, the pairing would serve to keep him within the Witches' orbit indefinitely, in one fashion or another.

  “I did tell Coryn, on the mega-liner, that the woman Neotsarian Elite was broadcasting very negative emotions at him,” the Guru said. “He seemed to take my warning seriously. Question is, can he act on the warning?”

  “It's not just the danger to him that I'm worried about,” Marlyss sighed. “Nor my own feelings of loss, should something happen to him. There is Sarah to consider, too. How will she react if things go wrong on this little jaunt that this Marcues has dreamed up?”

  “We may find out, sooner than we wanted to, how the Blessing of the Eldest of the Twelve works,” said the Guru. “I think that the Greencat and I will be doing a quick turn-around on Altec III, and returning to Confederation space. We may be needed.”

  **

  Flameworld had been named for a string of active volcanoes which were creating a long, narrow archipelago in the middle of an ocean, but in many ways it was a pleasant world. There had been no sentient species of life on it when the Terrans had colonized it. That had been a long time ago, although not in geologic terms, and many of the volcanoes were still spewing out lava, if not all of them, all of the time. The ash in the atmosphere obscured the world's sun, giving the daytime sky a reddish cast, and creating greenhouse-like conditions which not all humans appreciated. For that reason the planet had never attracted the number of Terrans that the inner Galactic planets had, and was still quite sparsely populated.

  The largest settlement was a pleasant sea-side town, rather than a real city. Its Space Port was located away from the ocean, at the edge of the town. Coryn disembarked from the shuttle which brought him down from the mega-liner, curious about a world which he had not previously visited.

  The first thing he noted was the diffusion of the daytime light, muted as it was by the profusion of ash particles in the air. The second one was the humidity, which no doubt had as much to do with the coastal location as with the particulates in the atmosphere.

  The third thing to catch his eye was the circumstance that two men who looked suspiciously like Neotsarian Hounds were scrutinizing him and the other arrivals, from the other side of a fence which separated the flat concrete of the small Space Port from the street beyond it.

  He swore under his breath. He had intended to walk from the Space Port Terminal to the local Agency Office—there was a small one in the town. His plan had been to report his presence to whoever manned it, and to ask for any news that might be relevant. Were the Hounds here to see what he was doing, and where he was going, or were they planning to bash his head in and inject him with truth serum like the ones that had attacked him in Trahea, not that long ago? He decided that he would have to contact the Agency Office and ask about the best way to get there while avoiding trouble, annoying though that was. He knew little about the local transportation options; he was not planning to stay long.

  “I swear the dratted Neotsarians are following me around,” he muttered to himself while making his way to the Terminal building.

  The small transport to Space Station XER, however, was not scheduled to leave for hours, as yet. He had no desire to spend the intervening time within the claustrophobic confines of the Port Terminal. He had hoped to take in a few local sights—after talking with his Agency colleagues, of course.

  As he and his fellow travellers approached the Customs, he entertained himself with some idle speculation as to what Sarah might have done in this town, known as Sealand, when she had travelled to XER from Earth. She must have had to wait, too; the transports from Flameworld to XER left once a day, and the mega-liners did not drop off passengers all that often, either, (though they did come by more often than they did at Kordea). She had transferred liners at Space Station RES; Fiana who had met her aboard the ship to RES, had shown her around that busy Station, and had ensured that the inexperienced, young traveller had safely boarded her connection. Coryn had met her briefly at the Galactic Gardens Restaurant where Fiana had taken her for lunch, and would have paid her almost no mind at all (he remembered with a rueful head-shake), had Fiana not told him that the black-haired girl from Earth had shown a curious reaction to an amarto which the jeweller, Max Caitlin, had showed them.

  That had been ages ago, it now seemed. So much had happened since then. Now that spunky young woman from Earth was his beloved wife, even if only a very select group of people on Kordea knew it. And the Guru Johannes, and the Greencat, of course.

  He missed Sarah already, he realized. He missed her intensely! When he returned to Kordea he would have to ask about her time on Flameworld. And he was going to have to search for just the right souvenir to present to her! Not from XER, there was “nothing to spend money on, on XER” she had said. But surely he'd find something here, in Sealand, on Flameworld!

  He asked the young female Customs Agent about local transportation, and about shopping, as she very efficiently processed him and his bag.

  She squinted at the information on the screen in front of her, after she had glanced at the stunner which was stored in a special pocket of the bag.

  “You're an Agent, not incognito, going to Space Station XER,” she sai
d. “You're going to drop by the Agency Office, right?”

  At his nod, she continued.

  “Call one of the mini-cabs; or Mary over there,” she pointed to a woman sitting behind a desk by the outer door, “can do it for you. We’ve been infested by The Organization people, lately, and no-one with a braincell or two in their cranium trusts them. If I'm not mistaken, you're a known quantity in the Agency. We were warned about your arrival, and I just let the local Office know that you've got here, safely.

  “Oh yeah, and when you get to XER, remember that your personal com will be useless. Those Ammha-fearing doofuses don't want their people to connect to the outside Galaxy, and that means that travellers are blanked out, too, except for the public consoles which the Station is required to keep available, for the use of the residents and the travellers, both.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” he said, smiling into her almond eyes.

  She was a pretty, Oriental-looking young woman, and in pre-Sarah days he certainly would have flirted with her. Or perhaps not; he had been obsessed with blond beauty then—women more like Lindy Cass. What an idiot he had been, ignoring countless interesting, attractive women! No wonder Fiana had spent so much time scolding him for his immaturity!

  That thought uppermost in his mind he smiled a good-bye to the Customs Agent, gathered up his bag and headed towards Mary's desk to see about a mini-cab.

  **

  “Yeah, the dang-nab Organization Hounds have been swarming this town lately,” the middle-aged female Agent said in answer to Coryn's question, after he had introduced himself to her. “They've been studiously ignoring us, though. All this activity—does it have anything to do with you? I hear that you've succeeded in disrupting their plans more than once in the recent past.”

  “You know, I'm starting to worry that they are tailing me,” Coryn replied, running a hand through his hair. “It's not a pleasant thought. It's seriously disturbing to have to worry about whether or not I'm going to have to stun or drop-kick my way out of some ambush, any moment—presuming that the Hounds aren't bold enough to use a laser pistol, or a blaster!”