“I am not going to hurt you; I really want to pay for the damage.”
He straightened out a little and then looked around. “I guess 25,000 huthkarta or 2,000 Union credits would do the trick.”
I pulled my credit box. “All I got is Unions.”
He became all business and friendly and deducted the sum into an ancient-looking Union bank transferomat. The thing pinged and he now appeared really happy. “They tear up the place almost every week; it’s the first time someone pays. I get the place cleaned and throw the dead into the composter and no worries; the law never comes here.”
I also looked around. “I don’t think we killed anyone.”
Har-Hi grunted and motioned me to follow him outside. He pointed at an Oghar worker sticking head-first in a hole in the wall. “He doesn’t look too fresh and the one you threw over the rafters isn’t moving either. Maybe this isn’t what he meant by keeping a low profile.”
I looked at him and said with a guilty tone in my voice, “Maybe I overreacted a tad, but you should learn to hold back as well. What you did wasn’t exactly pulling punches either.”
He opened the door for me. “We better get out of here before they change their mind and call the local law enforcement after all.”
We left through the front door, where we were intercepted by the smudgy-looking waiter. “Quick, come and follow me.”
He scurried before us and made such a quick turn in a narrow, dark alley we almost walked past.
He didn’t speak but kept on leading us through a virtual labyrinth of alleys and backyards, until he finally slowed down at the back door of a desolate-looking building.
He said to me, “Day code?”
I answered, “Classic red.”
He knocked at the door in a particular rhythm. It opened, and he urged us to rush in.
Chapter 25: To the Smelter Moons
The door was opened by a greenish-skinned being who looked like an Oghar, but was even shorter than the Ithe waiter who had guided us so far.
In my short time traveling the Galaxy, I had already seen strange beings and the saying went that beauty lay in the eye of the beholder. I was certain someone in the Universe would find this gnarled-looking being pretty, but I could not find any other description than ugly.
Har-Hi whispered, “She’s a Laurin Oghar; they are even shunned by other Oghar species, and their five-star system is the smallest kingdom and the closest from here if I remember correctly.”
Behind the door was a narrow corridor. The walls were as shabby-looking as the doors and adorned with graffiti, cracked plaster, and exposed brickwork. The place reeked just like the liquid Nefkin had splashed on Har-Hi and Ninety. Light came from weak globe-like things hanging on short strings from the ceiling. Only two of the eight that used to be there still worked; the rest were missing or smashed. I heard the wailing of an Ithe child somewhere and the sound of alien tele-entertainment coming from behind a door that had lost much of its original paint. The narrow corridor was even further restricted by a flight of constricted stairs leading upward.
Har-Hi whispered, “Beings actually live like that? The dungeons on our Dai Mother are a more cheerful place than this.”
The Ithe waiter said, “This is how the majority of Ithe workers live. The rent here is barely affordable and takes about 50 percent of their meager pay.”
I looked around. “I’ve seen worse, even at home.”
Har-Hi said, “You’re telling me they have worse places on Nilfeheim?”
I turned my head while we ascended the creaking wooden stairs and said, “Yes, our own burg used to have tanneries that were much worse than this. I am sure there are still many burgs and clan chiefs that treat their low men just as bad as slaves. I have also seen the tenant blocks of the Bottom Low on Sin 4.”
Har-Hi stomped up a few stairs behind me. “Maybe when all this is done, we need to visit your Nilfeheim and make sure our own conditions are in order.”
I agreed with him and said, “My grandfather and my former wife are working on this right now. Things change slowly on Nilfeheim but they are changing.”
“I wonder if there are other places on Union side like that?”
The next floor looked just like the one below. Our guide went on to tackle the next flight of stairs and I asked, “How many stairs do we need to climb?”
The gnarled Laurin Oghar, who had yet to say a word, held up both her claw-like hands and showed me five of her fingers; she had three fingers and a thumb on each hand.
Har-Hi cursed. “This dump has five storeys; doesn’t it have an elevator?”
Something strange happened; the Oghar woman was only looking at Har-Hi without saying a word yet and he seemed to answer to a statement she made. He said to her, “You got to be kidding? Fourteen levels and a permanently broken elevator; I pity those who live all the way up and have to climb these stairs every day.”
While we kept climbing, I asked my Dai friend, “Was she whispering or something? I haven’t heard a word out of her so far.”
Har-Hi who was behind me on the stairs, said with a strange smug tone in his voice, “She hasn’t shut up since she opened the door.”
I was still wondering about that as we reached the fifth floor. Oghar were not known to be psionic gifted and even if she was, Har-Hi was a Union officer and thus should have been shielded. But only psionics could explain that he could hear her and I could not.
The fifth floor did not look any different than the previous floor, except perhaps a little less graffiti. The old woman opened a door at the end of the corridor. It looked just like any of the other doors, peeling paint and exposed press-wood, that had started to disintegrate at the corners.
The Ithe waiter said, “This is as far as I go; I need to go back to work and from the mess you made, it will be a long night cleaning up.” Without waiting for a response and without turning, he went back to the stairs and rushed back down.
We entered what looked exactly like a poor old woman’s apartment was supposed to look. Pieces of wet laundry hung on strings. The walls were covered with a once-decorative layer of papery material, which peeled in large sections off the wall. A moldy, organic odor with a slight sour and rancid smell hung in the air. There was a tiny living room that was decorated with cheap plastic and ceramic knick-knacks of alien design and smudgy seat cushions instead of a sofa or chairs.
An old-looking electronic boxy device with a flat 2D screen flickered grainy pictures of a military parade. A door led out from the living room onto a tiny balcony, with barely enough room for a person to stand. A flimsy rusty railing missing several pieces appeared to be an awfully inadequate safety measure. The vista from her balcony was as depressing as the rest of the apartment. All one could see was the brick wall of another building just like this less than five meters’ distance away. I was sure this Ithe-made canyon of brick and concrete created one of those narrow alleys we had rushed through coming here.
I had my hand on the butt of the blaster I was carrying underneath the boiler suit and checked the rest of the small flat. There was a tiny hygiene chamber and a small bedroom with a pile of blankets on the floor that appeared to be the bed of the old woman. This was supposed to be a NAVINT contact and so far, everything appeared all right, but I no longer trusted appearances and wanted to make sure we were alone in the apartment. This was only one safety measure of mine; I hated to be surprised in situations like this.
As I returned to the living room, Har-Hi seemed in a conversation with the old Oghar woman, yet I could only hear his responses. She held up a framed picture of a much younger and somewhat less ugly Laurin Oghar wearing a dark gray uniform and standing next to a black flyer.
Har-Hi said, “Ah, I see your son is the pilot chauffeur to the Magistrate.”
I spread my arms. “Can someone tell me why I can’t hear a thing?”
I was certain Har-H was actually grinning behind his Ithe disguise. “Patience, my captain, patience is an important
trait in this clandestine spy business. Someone told me that once and not too long ago.”
I wished I could actually stick my tongue out at him. “Right back at me, I know.”
He chuckled. “You can’t hear the woman because she is a Bunthik and has many methods of having a conversation.”
“Didn’t you say she is a Laurin Oghar?”
The old Oghar spoke for the first time in heavily accented Union Lingo. “They tell me you are a formidable captain and all that, but it is apparent you haven’t spent much time outside the protected Union Space of ours.”
I glared at her, forgetting that glaring was not really possible with stalk eyes and said, “You are quite correct; it’s more or less my first time.”
Then I looked around. “We are able to speak freely. I made sure of that.”
She said, “Did you? This apartment is bugged and under surveillance like every other apartment, but here are even more bugs than elsewhere. When my son comes, there are actual agents listening, not just recorders and machines.”
She pointed to her ceiling lamp. “Karthanian intelligence visualizer.” Then she gestured toward the window. “Laser ear picking up the sound vibrations of every spoken word.”
I completed her litany and said, “Drak audio amplifiers embedded in the wall. Your neighbor to the right only lives there to keep an eye on you. I might be a bit green around the gills when it comes to this sector of space, old woman, but don’t mistake my apparent youth for foolishness.”
She cackled a dry laugh. “It appears that she who calls you Soja has trained you well indeed; how do you know all this?”
I said to her, “I won’t let you see all my rune stones before I know more.”
She laughed again. “Whatever you do to make this flat surveillance-proof, please stop it. There are very advanced NAVINT devices that feed the listeners all sorts of information, just not the real kind.”
I exposed my wrist comm and said, “Shea, you heard the woman, I am sure. Give the word to Circuit and the others.”
Shea spoke directly through the tiny earpiece I carried. “Yes, captain. Our team followed you and was busy securing the place. Circuit is recalling his nanites and Lt. Bergdorf, who was right behind you, is on his way back to base. However, Narth and Ensign Three-Four have already neutralized the laser ear agents. They are happily lasering the neighbor’s window now and Lt. Fifcheer made the neighbor watch a tele-entertainment show instead of listening in. Do you want them to do reverse that?”
I responded, “No, let it be and tell everyone to stand by for the next part of our plan.”
“Aye, captain.”
The woman said, “Relax, captain, we have been doing this for years now. Would you care for a cup of young-grass tea? My son won’t be here for at least another hour.”
I declined. “No, I am fine.”
The little kitchen area was separated only by a different floor cover from the living room. She began to boil water anyway and while she prepared tea, she said, “Yes, I am of the Laurin Oghar kingdom.” She paused and made sure I saw her opening one of the shabby cupboards filled with mismatching cups and dishes, some made of faded plastic and some of chipped ceramics. With a gesture to the cupboard, she asked again, “Something else, perhaps? I have beer, ale, or something to eat?”
I raised my hand. “No, not at the moment.” I did not want to explain to her that the disguises we wore didn’t let us eat or drink, as Ithe and Human facial features did not line up. Besides, I wasn’t a big fan of tea or the local cuisine.
She snickered and said, “Suit yourself then.”
The shelves inside the cupboard suddenly moved up, cups, plates, and all, while with an almost inaudible humming sound a modern, expensive SII-MOLRECON Serv-Matic pushed into view. The machine produced a cup of tea in no time and it did not smell like the bitter grass tea that everyone on this world appeared to be drinking.
She said, “Since we have a little time, I believe it won’t hurt if you learn a little about the Oghar kingdoms, as they are strewn all over this region of space and some of them are quite big and a force to be recognized.”
I sighed silently and sat down in one of the cushions.
She pointed at her own face. “This is not a disguise, I am really that ugly, and I am really of the Oghar race. I am well aware how other beings look at us. Even the other Oghar species usually shun us and don’t give us the time of day.”
She sipped on her tea and gestured toward Har-Hi. “Your friend is Dai. He knows much more about the Oghars than the usual Union members. Yes, you may know a little about your own Oghars, the ones who were smart and joined our illustrious Union, but what about the Nine Kingdoms out there? Your Dai friend surprised me; he even knows one of the ancient and quite secretive sign languages and knows about the Bunthik.”
She raised her hands, holding the cup, and her fingers moved in what I thought was just a nervous habit but now I saw Har-Hi, who still had his arms crossed, move the fingers of his right hands in a similar fashion.
He said, “Because the Laurin Oghar are smaller and weaker than any of the other Oghar species, they do not hire out as mercenaries, heavy laborers, or guards as many of the Oghars you know do. The Laurin are, however, known to be good domestic laborers. You know the ones doing laundry, tailoring, gardening, and being chauffeurs and such. They are ugly and they know it. Because of it, they learned to stay out of sight as much as possible. They do their work almost as if being invisible and have made an art out of that. This talent gained them a very good reputation, and Laurin domestics often get better pay than domestics of other species.”
I listened as my friend told me about multi-cultural interactions of beings and species I barely knew existed.
The Oghar woman said, “Our kind have been promoting and cultivating this reputation for a very long time. However, as much as you can be a good domestic, you can be a bad one. The talents my species cultivated over the millennia can also be used for other purposes. Those who leave our poor kingdom to seek employment as domestics elsewhere are known at home as the Ranthik. However, those who use their skills for other purposes are called the Bunthik. When a Laurin is exposed as being part of the Bunthik, he or she is executed in public and by the judgment of our queen herself, for the damage it could cause to the Laurin Oghar reputation.”
She sighed and sipped from her cup, before she continued, “Our kind has caught the short end of the stick in many ways after the big Oghar war that broke up the old Empire. We have been bred and used for domestics in the old days and the former Oghar colonies that became the Laurin Kingdom are poor on natural resources. Being a good domestic is like a religion to us. It is a way of life for almost 5,000 years.”
She put the cup down and looked at us for a moment as to see if we still paid attention. Satisfied with whatever she saw, she continued to explain, “The Bunthik are like the Worm in the Union, a secretive underground organization. They are among the best thieves in the Universe, and they know how to obtain information from their masters without them knowing and use it for blackmail or to sell information to the highest bidder. We Bunthik began our existence out of resentment to be nothing but domestics, barely above slaves. Shunned and dismissed as ugly, forced to dwell in the shadows or wear funny face masks and robes, so we don’t offend, has been accepted as our lot in life by the Ranthik, but not by us. One of these days, Captain Velvet, you need to learn why there are so many different Oghar species and why it is not nature that made us so ugly and weak.”
She sighed, sounding quite Human. “The Bunthik are a small group, hunted almost to extinction and to stay alive and to give our skills and knowledge to new generations, we have developed many secretive ways, including forms of communication no uninitiated observer would ever even notice.”
Shea, who was on the bridge of the Tigershark and holding the Conn at the moment, could see what we saw through the micro-optics installed in the stalk eyes and she said into my ear piece, “She needs
to be more careful. I have decrypted her finger language. She was asking Har-Hi how he knows that sign language so well and he told her that his nanny was a Bunthik who taught him many of their secrets.”
I turned and asked him, “So how come you had an Oghar nanny?”
The old woman said, “She learns fast, your captain.”
He sighed. “Yes, she does, especially since she has a Level 12 intellect girlfriend peeking and giving her advice.”
To me, he said, “My tribe once raided an Oghar convoy and a Laurin Oghar was one of the survivors. As you know, my tribe never participated in slave trade and we never used any sentient beings as forced laborers. We set the survivors free, but she who later became my nanny wanted to stay with us. At first, she acted as a spy for an Oghar king, but she really liked me and came clean to my father. She stayed with us and became the nanny of all my father’s children.”
From the subtle tones of his voice, I noticed how much he cared about that nanny, and I wondered why he had never told me about her before.
Our host got up and put the Serv-Matic away, then she pointed at the tele-entertainment viewer and the images flickered more than before. “My son has entered the building. He has two guards with him; they will come in for a short moment, check out the apartment, and then leave us alone. So, I must ask you to hide until they are gone.”
Shea said into my ear, “The apparent flickers of the visuals are a code as well.”
She made us go into the tiny hygiene room. It had only room for a body waste disposal unit that appeared to be made of concrete, a small sink with mirror and a shower stall. “You can see and hear what is going from here and as soon as they are gone, you can come out.”
Har-Hi said, “What kind of security goons would not look here first? It’s not exactly a very good hiding place. Not that your apartment has many other choices.”
She wiggled her fingers. “Silly Dai!” Then she closed the door. We could hear her walking to the front door.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7 Page 145
