The robed man with the ugly face was accompanied by a well-fed Golden. I knew little about the Golden, who were distant cousins to the Kermac and the Blue, other than that they were merchants and maintained big bazaars in all corners of the galaxy. This one had an ugly cross-like symbol burned or etched in his otherwise bald head.
The Kermac whispered, “That cross-shaped scar means he is a disgraced Golden and is not allowed to sell or buy anything or conduct business. If the Golden find out he deals in sentient beings, they might send assassins.”
I simply made sure that he knew I heard his explanation. At this point, I didn’t care what kind of species the slave business owner was, I also would save the Golden the expenses. I had no plans of keeping him alive.
The man with the brown cloak and the ugly alien face pointed at me and said, “How much for the fighting boy?”
The Golden had a laboring way of talking, and somehow he didn’t even get all the words in Squawk right. “He caused much damage, and we think he is a troublemaker. But he brings good Polo for company when sold to the arena!”
The ugly one had big ears, and a hairy nose that seemed, like the rest of his skin, too big for the skull underneath and hung in loose skin folds down to his chest.
The Kermac again supplied me with some information. “That is Yotenen; they are native to what you call Downward, and I have never seen one in this part of the galaxy. Broody, mistrusting race, not pleasant to deal with.”
What the Kermac called a Yotenen held up a heavy little bag. “Who knows what tomorrow brings, who knows if the Arena purchasers come and buy or believe your stories about him. I saw him fight and I offer 100 big Polos, full-weight.”
“I could part with him for 200.”
“I take him and the Saresii girl, and I give you 250.”
It was demeaning to be there, hearing two beings haggle over you. They were still outside, and the guard was armed. They had to come in before we could rush them.
The moneybag changed owners; the steel barrier lifted, but only the guard came in. For our impromptu plan to work, they all had to come. There was no other way; I had to jump the guard.
As the Oghar came closer, Tirkov made a groaning sound to distract him and as he turned I rushed up, slung my chain around the Oghar’s fat neck, twisted my body to close the loop of the chain and pulled the chain with all I had across my own shoulders. The guard gargled and choked, the Kermac jumped up took the knife from the guard’s belt and stuck him.
Knowing we had seconds, I turned to rush after the other two when I saw the cloaked Yotenen push the owner forward and inside our prison. The disgraced Golden staggered a few more steps and fell over; several fine steel needles had penetrated deep into the back of his head.
The Yotenen man snarled with an urgent tone, “Quick, Eric, I brought a second cloak. Let us get out of here.”
Of course! Wasn’t it the secret ability of the Sojonites to change shape? This was the Mother Superior!
Tirkov was already stripping the guard and putting the things on when he stopped and laughed. “It looks I am not the only one who has friends around here.”
The Kermac was over the dead owner, pulling on the smudgy golden robe, and stopped. “You are full of surprises, human.”
I took the offered cloak and slipped it on. The merc grabbed my underarm and looked at me with flashing blue eyes. “I am still trying to figure your rank and specialization. Age-wise you might already be full lieutenant, but I could be wrong. You haven’t told us how you ended up here, other than some cryptic remarks. I doubt you are the kind of officer herding a bunch of scientists at a distant outpost that got raided by pirates. I think you are a spacer. Come on, tell us the name of the last ship you served.”
“I don’t think I am breaking any regulations saying that. It was the USS Devastator.” I took hold of his underarm the same way. “Good luck, Tirkov!”
“Take care, Eric, this is a big universe, but I think we might run into each other one of these days.”
Actually, I was more surprised about my own emotions and reaction. I took the offered hand of the Kermac and grabbed his underarm in that greeting Nilfeheim warriors reserved for each other and said, “Good luck, Wizard. I doubt we will run into each other, but you opened my eyes to a few things.”
He bowed slightly. “I never thought I would say this, but I respect you, Union man. You, too, gave me much to think about.”
The hooded alien slid close to me and whispered, “I am sorry it took so long to find you, but there are a lot of slave cages to go through.”
I slipped in the cloak, and moments later, we left. It took us a while to get to the ground level but none of the guards paid any particular interest in us. There was a steady traffic of coming and going. Slaves being transferred, sold or used in work gangs for some local purpose or another. As we reached the ground, she pointed at a waiting two-legged lizard with a saddle on it.
My new friends waved once more and disappeared moments later behind the bend the canyon wall made.
She asked me to climb on the back, and after I did, she did the same and sat behind me. The lizard made a screeching sound as she forced it with a tug on the reins to get walking.
The lizard moved fast, and we had soon left the Canyon of Tears as this side arm of the local canyon was called and reached a more active area. Everything was built in or at the canyon walls. Either in recesses or like balconies dotting the canyon walls all the way up. Bars, restaurants, bordellos and other small businesses advertised with illuminated signs. Here on the canyon floor was a steady traffic of carts, people on foot and lizards either pulling wagons or being ridden.
Only now did she speak again. “You caused quite a stir, stealing a slaver ship, dropping the core directly before the feet of the local lord and his cronies.”
“I didn’t know if you were still alive. I had planned to find the local temple as soon as I was able. I had to do something. I didn’t want to end up on a Togar table.”
“I was worried sick about you! I promised Richard to keep you safe. That tornado was the strangest thing. Normally they don’t occur around here at this time of year and rarely if ever exceed a T4; it was our bad luck to be caught in it.”
I frowned and said, “Bad luck isn’t even coming close; I think Loki personally is out to get me.”
She asked, “Who?”
“The god of mischief and trickery in the mythology of my people.” Then I asked her, “Did you get hurt? I tried to hold on to you, but it was too late.”
She steered the lizard down a side corridor and said, “I took the form of a Heentok. That is a storm rider from a planet where hurricanes and violent storms are the norm, but I lost sight of you.”
She made the lizard stop and jumped off. We had reached some sort of corral; a man-height fence separated about a dozen of these animals, and another one of those short three-fingered beings took our mount, and she received her deposit back.
The lizards smelled putrid, but here it was even worse, and I was glad to follow her away from it. I almost lost her as she suddenly turned left into a narrow cleft in the rock. Here, too, were little businesses and the dwellings of individuals.
She turned to see if we were followed and then pushed me through a curtain that hung from a cave entrance and into a sparsely lit tavern. Neither the being behind the counter nor the few patrons took any notice of our presence. They weren’t consuming drinks but ate little flower buds from small bowls. We didn’t really stop but passed through a second set of curtains, down a windy corridor that was almost completely dark.
We resurfaced in another canyon corridor and did this sort of thing four or five times more. I doubted I could trace our way back. Finally, we went through the back door of a dirty, low-tech hotel of some kind and ended up in a room with a mattress and a few pillows on the floor. The small round window was without glass but had a set of curtains through which she looked outside, “I am pretty certain we haven’t been followed
.”
She dropped the cloak and right before my eyes the shape of the ugly skin-fold-covered alien begun to melt and shift, becoming almost like a liquid. Moments later, she was the same older Saresii woman I had seen aboard the luxury yacht.
She opened a trunk I only now noticed and said, “You need to get changed, too. Once they discover you’re gone, this place will become a witch’s cauldron. You and your friends caused a nice little steer and the Local Lord most certainly does not want to hear you escaped before you could be sold and punished in the arena. That is why we need to change now and leave this planet, preferably before they notice.”
She changed again into an Oghar female just as brutish looking as the males, with pronounced jaws and tusk-like teeth poking past the upper lips. From the trunk, she put on the typical leather and metal garment outfit that appeared to be common for both genders of that race.
Her green-skinned hand with long yellowish claws and fine-scaled skin pointed at the trunk. “The other costume is for you! Get cleaned in the hygiene cell and get dressed. We are in a hurry.”
I found the little shower and a sign in bold letters written in several languages that warned of wasting water and listed the horrendous fees for using it.
I must have wasted almost 100 Polos worth of water. I could not remember a time when I enjoyed a shower more than now
I doubted there was anyone more anxious than me to leave this planet, but the shower was pure bliss and rinsing my dried-out gills made me realize I still had them.
She was standing by the window as I came out and said, “I estimate we have about three or four hours before they realize that I send the other slaves to do work they weren’t supposed to do. That happens here all the time, but when they get back, they will find the owner and the dead guard, and I am certain the local lord will prevent any ship from leaving until you and the others have been found.”
I found that the seemingly primitive trunk had a set of controls that activated a portable Auto-Dresser unit.
The Auto-Dresser disguised me into a humanoid feline being with fine dotted soft fur, large ears and whiskers and a twitching tail! Over it, I wore a tight brown leather bodice with a red sash.
“You are a Togar warrior now. Virtually unknown in Union space but a fierce race, quite aggressive and the red sash signals that you are in heat and just killed a suitor.”
I could not believe my ears and spouted, “I am what?”
She crossed her muscular arms. “It keeps all nosy folks away. Togar females are even more irrational than human women during that period and kill and maim for the silliest reasons. The best thing is, every Togar we meet will instantly fight anyone to the death for giving you the slightest disrespect, and there are a lot of Togar on this world.”
I checked my new looks in the mirror field. “I sure hope no one wants to mate with me! I don’t really want to find out what love means to a crazed two-legged Togar tomcat.”
She actually laughed. “Not to worry; they are a strict matriarch society. The retractable claws on your costume are monofilament Ultronit. You could claw a robot to shreds. Trust me, I used that disguise many times!”
“Only you are a Sojonit shapeshifter trained in all those secrets. I only wear a clever bio flex costume! Can I not rather be some sort of human something?”
She shrugged. “This is what we had at the local temple. Trust me, the other alternatives would have pleased you even less. Besides, I booked us a flight on the next transport out of here, and it is for a Togar female with her Oghar bodyguard.”
At least I could wear weapons openly; a Togar blaster and two sword-like knives were part of the disguise. I did like the claw part. I could not help being fascinated by my tail. It twitched and moved, probably part of some random neuro-impulse program incorporated into the costume. I had no control over it, and that was a good thing.
“Stop looking at your tail. It won’t fall off.”
“I never had a tail before!”
“Well, technically speaking... sort of!”
She pressed another contact on the portable Auto-Dresser, and it crumbled and dissolved before our eyes into a pile of metallic dust. All that remained was a small zero point energy cube she put in one of her pockets. “Let’s go, Maguria, my Togan beauty. The transport is leaving soon!”
On our way back to the spaceport, I could not ignore the gangs of humans and other beings everywhere with brooms and shovels fighting what seemed a hopeless battle against the dust and sand, accumulating in doorways and on sidewalks.
Everyone on foot wore cloaks in probably every shade of brown, and it was getting dark now. I also noticed the strange hopping movements almost everyone around us and before us was making. She warned me and pulled me at the sleeve. I almost stepped in a big pile of reeking greenish dung.
She whispered, “The lizards drop them everywhere. Walking here is called the Alvor two-step.”
Other slaves had the disgusting duty to scoop those droppings into buckets.
She nodded toward the slaves. “I detest it as much as you do, but open war is not the answer. Something has to be done, but subtle and not with the Terran sledgehammer.”
I gave her a side look and noticed my long whiskers twitching in my field of view. “I hear that all the time, but I think sometimes the sledgehammer method shows others who’s boss.”
She sighed. “As I said, you’re a real Terran, no matter what colony planet you come from.”
We reached the mouth of the canyon and before us, stretched the landing field. I could see the brown slave trader awkwardly leaning on its side. A makeshift scaffold was growing around it, probably to hoist the core back in. Two other ships were there as well. There was a smaller courier ship and a genuine SII Poodle IV, known to be the first privately available long distance ship and a true antique.
She guided me to one of the stone buildings and into a sparsely furnished passenger lobby. There were only about a dozen beings in that bare waiting lobby. It had a glass front and a few crude-looking benches, nothing else.
After we sat down, she said, “War will come again. It is certain. All we can do is delay it as long as possible.”
I remembered the Kermac wizard who was a slave just like me, but he confirmed what I believed about them. “It’s the Kermac who agitate and pull the Tyranno’s fin. They did that even before Terrans were around! They tried to attack us with psi spores. It was them who sent spies and had me abducted!”
She patted my furry legs. “Of course, you are correct, but I am also a spy for a long time, and to be a successful one, you need to learn to see things with the eyes of your enemy.”
I glared at her and said, without thinking, “It can be very dangerous to do that. One might lose focus and not only see things like the enemy but think like them as well!”
“I am very aware of that, and our common friend Richard Stahl said that to me more than I can count. You are in many ways very much like him!”
“I doubt Admiral Stahl would dress up as a Sojonit and enjoy every second of it!”
She laughed. “That is true. He actually would rather die!”
A fat human in blue robes and dust mask came in, and he was followed by six naked slaves. Each of them carried great loads. The fat man barked at his slaves, and they set up a table and cylinders and boxes on top of it. The blue-dressed man placed himself on the table and yelled in several languages, including Union idiom, “Water, refreshments, perfumes, carbo snacks and meat sticks. Get them before you leave on your long trip. There won’t be any refreshments on the transport.”
Twenty minutes later, we boarded the old Poodle converted to something like a passenger transport. Two Togar males rudely pushed a Karthanian out of the way and then I realized they did that for me.
We found out seats and settled down, and moments later, the Poodle lifted off into space.
Chapter 6: Kaliment
As old as the Poodle was, it was surprisingly well-maintained, and the small c
rew kept it reasonably clean. I was not very comfortable, which was partially due to the disguise I wore. The fine soft pelt of my costume proved to be quite warm, and for some reason, they kept the cabin temperature well in the thirties on the C scale. It felt just like sitting in a Nilfeheim sauna wearing a Fangsnapper fur coat. Well, maybe not that extreme, but certainly close.
The Poodle space ship we had boarded was an antique, at least fifteen hundred years old, but its basic shape looked just the same as the latest Poodle model coming off the assembly lines. Two, thirty-meter diameter ball-shaped spheres connected to each other with a short cylinder about ten meters in diameter. This gave the ship the appearance of an old-fashioned dumbbell weight.
On top of the first sphere, was an elongated pointed wedge. It contained the bridge and other command and control functions. Two ISAH pods on each side of the aft sphere completed pretty much the outside looks of a Poodle. Terrans said that the ship was ugly as sin and if it stood on its long landing gear, it looked just like a groomed Poodle, which was some sort of pet also native to Terra.
The passenger area and living quarters were inside the first sphere, and freight, fuel, and engineering were in the second sphere. In case of an emergency, the Poodle could separate, and the first sphere would become a rescue pod.
Due to the shape of the passenger compartment, we did not sit in rows as one would on a Union space bus. The seat rows followed the curve and completed an almost complete circle. The center was occupied by the ship’s access shaft and two hygiene cells. There was a little bar and a small, currently unstaffed galley.
The set-up had room for about a hundred passengers, but only perhaps twenty-five took the journey with us.
I pretended to be sleepy and curled up on that unyielding passenger seat to prevent any conversation with the two Togar males, sitting almost exactly across from me.
They did keep their distance, but my companion said, whispering but with an amused tone in her voice, that at least one of the Togar was considering getting mauled and injured for a chance with me.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7 Page 64
