Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moons of Kordea

by Helena Puumala

  Texi nodded at her, stooping to pick his wife up.

  “As a Kordean, I put more faith in your Witch-knowledge than in medicine,” he said to Sarah. “If you’ll keep an inner eye on her until she comes around, I’ll be grateful.”

  Meanwhile Jillian had taken charge, with Jory, of the process of emptying the Hounds’ pockets.

  Jory was confiscating every firearm stronger than a stunner, getting the Security personnel to collect them into a bag which he unfolded from one of his pockets.

  “I don’t care if Trahea doesn’t have any restrictions,” he said. “I’m not leaving deadly weapons with these louts. They could be killing unarmed Traheans with them, just for the fun of it.”

  Jillian brought four objects shaped like egg-halves, cut lengthwise, to Coryn, while Sarah and Texi were preparing to leave for the Official Residence with Nance, watched over by Kyle and Chet.

  “Take a look at these, Coryn,” she said. “I suspect that these are what we’re looking for. See, this one is turned on; it came from the idiot who stunned Nance. There were twelve Hounds altogether, and four of them had these. So one in three was equipped with them.”

  “Sarah, before you leave, can you take a look?”

  Coryn took the one which was turned on from Jillian and handed it to Sarah. She grasped it, and almost immediately dropped it back into Coryn’s hand.

  “Please, turn it off,” she said with a shudder.

  Even with the fleeting contact that her amarto was making with the skin of her chest, the thing was amplifying her emotions to a frightening extent. For a short moment she had been aware of the needs within herself that she was not ready to acknowledge, of her angers and frustrations, and, yes, of her love and respect for her friends, and all the people who had helped with the present caper. There was much more, but she did not want to think about any of it.

  “That’s it, all right,” she added. “And you’d need a Witch much better trained than I am, as yet, to work with it.”

  “That bad, is it?” Coryn asked, examining the object, looking for the on/off switch.

  He found it, and pressed it. Something inside Sarah loosened, relaxed.

  “It’s just that it amplifies emotions,” she said. “I don’t know how it does it. But I don’t like to feel my emotions enhanced tenfold—or whatever—any more than I want to feel someone else’s. It’s disconcerting.”

  “I won’t bring them to the Residence,” Coryn said with a nod. “I’ll lock them up in the Office.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  To Coryn’s surprise, Steph Clennan’s response to his request came a couple of days after he had made it. He had expected Steph to have to do some asking around before locating his old training-school friend, and then to have to persuade that friend to travel to one of the least favoured locations in the Confederation.

  “Jaime’s on his way to Kordea,” Steph said on the vid-communicator, grinning broadly.

  “What? Just like that?” Coryn stared at the pilot’s happy face on the screen. “I was expecting to have to sweet-talk the fellow, after you spent days tracking him down, and to make him an offer that he couldn’t refuse, involving working alongside beautiful Kordean Witches!”

  “Apparently he had just arrived here on Mallora when I started searching for him,” Steph explained. “Had finished his degree, and was unhappy with the post-doctorate opportunities the universities were trying to interest him in. Not challenging enough for our genius boy, what they were offering. So he had turned them down, and had hitched a ride back here to talk to Carovan, to see if there was anything interesting here. At the least, Jaime figured, that Carovan could put him to work testing ships, flyers, flits, and what-not. It would have been a waste of a brain, but according to Jaime, no worse a waste than what the academics were suggesting. I found that a bit hard to believe, but Jaime is Jaime.

  “The upshot of it is that I broached him about your problem, and he jumped at it. I was all ready to have Fiana handle him, tell him what a great guy you are, Coryn, even if you don’t know an anode from diode. But I had barely mentioned the terms ‘Agency’ and ‘amarto-detector’, when he was already figuring out how he could work his way to Kordea—no money for passage, apparently, since he was spurning all the offers coming his way.

  “Fiana and I, with Carovan and Janine, took him out for dinner and drinks before he left, and he went on about how incredibly interesting a planet Kordea actually was! He’d been doing research the whole time he wasn’t cadging passage, and knew even about the weird moon which apparently is in completely impossible orbit! He is totally intrigued!”

  Coryn laughed.

  “Fantastic,” he said. “I’ll let you in on the tale of how he relates to the Witches! Marlyss facing him, me asking her to work with him—that ought to be worth a vid-feed story in itself!”

  He told Steph to give his best wishes to Fiana before cutting the connection. For a moment he wondered how her work spying for The Agency in the Malloran Capital was going. He would hear the results, once there were arrests, he knew. Until then Fiana would be closed-mouthed; she would not even let on to anyone outside trusted Agency circles that she was in the information gathering business. The Malloran gossips were probably having a field day tut-tutting about how Carovan had fallen for the charms of the ex-alyena and was squiring her everywhere, while his wife, and her husband, had their heads in the sand! Steph and Janine were, no doubt, cackling together every chance they had!

  “Our boy genius is on his way here,” he told Jillian, when he spoke to her in the outer office.

  “Already? That was fast work,” Jillian said.

  “No work at all, apparently,” Coryn replied. “The universities hadn’t had anything interesting to offer him, according to Steph. It seems that Jaime thinks that what we have is an excellent challenge, and he finds Kordea a fascinating anomaly among the inhabited planets of the galaxy.

  “By the way, what’s an anode, and a diode?”

  Jillian raised her brows.

  “You really don’t know?” she asked. “Didn’t you take even the most elementary of science courses, or have you forgotten all you learned? No wonder they threw you out of pilot school! I’ll get Joe to explain them to you, one of these days, over a beer.”

  Coryn shrugged.

  “What I’m really going to be using, in the coming days, is diplomacy. I’m going to have to persuade Witch Marlyss and her coven to work with Jaime.”

  *****

  When Jaime showed up some days later, at the Liaison Office, Coryn decided that Steph had rather overstated his friend’s nerdiness quotient. The young man who asked for him at the reception desk was a tall, thin, slightly awkward specimen, but in no way a misanthrope. He would have fit in rather nicely with the crew that had gone drinking at The LockandKey the night Nance had been stunned. He did glance at the women in the room appreciatively, but not in an obtrusive manner. Plus, he did not react to Coryn’s looks at all. Possibly Steph and Fiana had told him about Coryn’s past as an alyen, and mentioned that the best way to get along with the Liaison Officer was to ignore the topic. And apparently the workers at the Port had informed him of how much they appreciated the job Coryn was doing.

  “I got off this cargo tub which I had helped to baby across deep space, and asked at the customs where I could find the Kordean-Confederation Liaison Office, when suddenly the guy who had been looking at me like I was a gnat or a grasshopper, jumped up and took notice,” he said.

  “He asked: ‘Do you know Coryn Leigh, the Chief Liaison Officer?’ ‘Never met him, yet,’ I said, ‘but I’m supposed to start working for him, as a Scientific Advisor.’ ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘Leigh can use a Scientific Advisor; I hear that science is one thing he’s pretty pathetic at. But he sure can perform miracles when it comes to dealing with the natives; he’s even got those greenhoods, the Circle Witches, eating out of his hand, never mind the powers-that-be in Trahea City.’”

  Coryn laughed at that.

/>   “I suspect that the Witch Marlyss, the Eldest of the Circle of the Twelve, would be quite insulted if she was told that she’s been eating out of my hand. Whatever you do, don’t mention that bit to her when you meet her. It will help things a lot if you can develop a good working relationship with the talented ladies.”

  “I’ll be working with them?” Jaime’s eyes lit up. “I didn’t realize that I would actually have contact with the Witches; Steph only spoke of an amarto-detecting mechanism that needed to be taken apart and understood.”

  “The detectors are the reason why I wanted you here,” Coryn replied. “But I doubt that you can do much with the little annoyances without the cooperation of the women who can make use of the amartos. Which means that once you’re logged in as a Liaison Office employee, and have settled in—I’m assuming that you need a place to stay, and am offering a corner of the Official Residence until you’re in a position to rent a flat of your own—I’ll be taking you to meet with Marlyss, the Eldest of the Twelve. I doubt that she’ll work with you herself, but she did suggest, when I dropped Sarah off at Ferhil Stones, and gave her one of the four detectors we managed to snag, that some of the Apprentice Witches, or even Dian, the youngest and the most adventurous of the Twelve might make themselves available. Sarah Mackenzie might be of use when she visits us, here, but from what she said to me when she helped us obtain and identify the things, she doesn’t feel that she’s well-trained enough to deal with the effects that the detectors have on the amarto-sensitive. Although, I’m sure that she’d be willing to describe the effects that she felt, when you get the chance to question her.”

  A slim, athletic, brown-skinned woman interrupted them.

  “Coryn, you’re going to have to rush off to do some of those diplomacies of yours with the City VIPs. I’m sure that I can take care of the details involved in turning Jaime Morrow into a Liaison Office employee.”

  “You’re right, Jill,” Coryn replied, glancing at a clock. “I have a meeting at the Civic Building in about twenty minutes. Shit, I won’t have time to walk; Texi, you’ll have to ferry me there—I know you’ll be pleased to get away from the so-called paperwork.

  “Jaime, this lovely lady is my Second-in-Command, Jillian Ashton, a very capable woman. She’ll look after you. She’ll even send someone to show you to the Official Residence, and introduce you to the servants.”

  A burly, black-haired, young, male Kordean accompanied the Liaison Officer out of the large office. Jillian Ashton took Jaime to a small but well-equipped side office, clearly her personal work space.

  “Don’t let your jaw drop to the floor when you see the Official Residence, and ‘the corner’ that will be assigned to you,” she said. “I’m assuming that as a recent doctorate grad, you’re more used to what Sarah calls ‘shoeboxes’, rather than fancy digs. Someone, for sure, was siphoning a shitload of money to their personal uses before Coryn, and our Agency superiors, discovered that there should have been a Kordean-Confederation Liaison Office at the Trahea Port for as long as there has been a Trahea Port. Regardless of what else my boss succeeds in doing on Kordea, getting this office up and going, alone, should be enough to earn him an award.”

  “I suppose that the lack of such an office has contributed to the dearth of information about Kordea,” Jaime said, thoughtfully. “After Steph Clennan approached me about this job, I read everything I could get my eyes on, but it didn’t amount to much. Especially considering how anomalous this planet is—you’d think it would have been crawling with curious scientists trying to figure out what the heck is happening here.”

  “The necessity to make the night day, and to sleep in the daytime keeps a lot of Confederation people away from here. Plus, the Witch Circles have not exactly encouraged Terran curiosity. If you’re interested in studying this planet, and you can get along with the green-hooded women, I believe that the field is wide open,” Jillian said.

  She fed the little disc of personal specs that Jaime had handed to her, into the machine on her desk. Its screen immediately filled with information about Jaime’s educational background—which was considerable—and basic personal information.

  “You’re well-educated,” she commented while scrutinizing the screen.

  She was probably the person best-equipped to appreciate that fact in the whole office. The terminology involved would have passed right by Coryn, she knew. Steph’s recommendation was what counted for him.

  Jaime grinned.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “However, I took a roundabout road to University, so I’m quite aware that there’s education and there’s education. The School of Hard Knocks is an excellent and useful institution, too.”

  “And attendance at it is mandatory for pretty much every one of us,” Jillian added, laughing.

  *****

  Jaime, the house guest at the Official Residence was welcomed by Dili and Curt, who, obviously, often felt that there were plenty of times when they were getting paid for not doing much.

  “You’re such an easy person to serve, Mr. Leigh,” Dili said every now and then. “You don’t make messes, and you never complain about the food we cook, or the services we provide.”

  “I have no complaints,” he usually responded. “The food has been just fine, everything gets cleaned regularly and often, and you and Curt keep careful accounts of all the household expenses. Oh, and you keep in stock the beer and the wine I like, although there’s really no reason why I couldn’t pick that stuff up myself.”

  “Not that he’s going to add to your workload all that much,” Coryn said to Dili that morning, before she left to go home. “He’s been a student for a number of years, at a prestigious university, but schools of all kinds tend to be rather dismissive of their students’ personal needs. Little cubby-holes for sleeping quarters, at best, cafeteria meals, and look after your own clothes and cleanliness. I doubt that he’ll be more trouble to you than I am.”

  “Raya from the Office came to show him where to drop his bag,” Dili said, chuckling. “Curt hadn’t gone home yet, so there were the two of us here. The young man’s eyes nearly fell out of his head when we were introduced to him as the house servants. And when he saw the room he’s to sleep in—we had the back one prepared for him, just like you asked—he just stared.

  “I told him that I usually prepared you a meal to eat when you arrived home from work, and asked if he wanted a plate to be waiting for him in the refrigerator, too, and he stared some more. Then he said, sure, if it wasn’t too much trouble!” Now Dili was actually giggling, something she did not often do. “I was going to remind him that I get paid for the work I do, but decided that maybe I better not! The poor boy might have thought I was making fun of his ignorance!”

  “That was most kind of you, Dili,” Coryn said with a grin. “Probably the last person to have looked after his everyday needs was his mother, when he was still a teen. Mind you, that’s true of most of the people in the big universe out there. Even the rich rarely have human servants these days. Machines can do much, but personal attendants are usually for those people only who are too disabled to do for themselves.”

  Jaime showed up moments after Coryn had made sure that Dili was well protected in a hooded robe as she headed out to walk home.

  “Jillian kicked me out of the office,” he said. “She said that no-one who doesn’t have to, works when the sun is up. It’s just too brutal to have to walk anywhere, including home, even wearing one of those cowls that protect you from the rays. It’s the heat, she said. The Kordeans handle it better than we Terrans do, but they don’t like it either.”

  “Yeah,” Coryn replied. “Dili just left moments ago, and she has to walk to her home in Trahea. She always leaves going until the last minute, and I’m always worrying about that—I feel that I’m responsible if she gets sunstroke, or develops skin cancer. Curt tells me not to fret, that no-one can talk sense to Dili when she makes up her mind about something. And she has apparently decided that walking through su
nrise is preferable to leaving early, because the streets are emptier at the later hour. Less chance of running into druggies, and all that.”

  “Yeah, the Confederation sources on Kordea went on about the drug dangers of Trahea,” Jaime said. “How much of an issue is it, really?”

  “Not nearly as much as the Nervous Nellies would have you believe,” Coryn replied. “Drugs are easy to get your hands on in the city, that’s true. But the locals don’t use them much, and when they do, they generally go for the mild ones: the ones that energize a bored or a tired worker doing physical labour, or the ones that can make you forget your troubles for a short while. I’ve heard of the occasional tiger-dust-fuelled knife fight happening, and Sarah, the amarto-sensitive Terran, once ran away from a would-be rapist with some far-reaching consequences. But, though the jerk involved had bought his stash of tiger-dust here, the events involved happened pretty far away; I suppose that Steph regaled you with stories of that adventure.”

  Jaime grinned.

  “Steph regales, yes. He hasn’t changed when it comes to that, though, these days, he’s a much more mature, responsible fellow than I remember him being during our training school days. I guess partly he’s just grown older, but there’s no question that the beautiful Fiana has been a really good, stabilizing influence on him. She definitely puts a boot to all the stereotypes about looks and brains never coexisting.”

  “I’ve been friends with Fiana for a long time, and she’s about the most grounded person I know,” Coryn said. “She taught me a hell of a lot, and she did quite a bit of scolding because I took my time to grow up. And I admit to having been slightly shocked when she fell in love with Steph—I’m the party who happened to introduce those two—but in retrospect it really made a lot of sense. She wanted a smart, talented man who had a sense of humour, and Steph qualifies in all those ways. And she’s half-Calligan—I suppose she told you about her crazy, mixed-blood family on Calliga, which she ran away from, to become an alyena—and Calligans don’t give a hoot about trivialities like looks, or age-differences.”