“No, of course, not,” agreed the Elder blandly. “However, I would suggest that you’d probably be better off assimilating into our Settlement, rather than traipsing into the forest on your own. There are dangers out there, as we, who have been here for many years, know, plus now we have those come here who claim ownership of this planet—on what grounds, I don’t understand.
“Perhaps you who have come from the stars know more about the politics out there than we simple folk do? We haven’t been able to make our way off this planet for generations, now.”
Roland shrugged.
“We are spiritual people and have little interest in galactic politics. However, one of the reasons we chose to come to this portion of the sky is that it has been deemed to not belong to either the Confederation, nor to those others, whom the people of the Confederation call The Organization. If The Organization is claiming ownership of this world, that is a surprise—it wouldn’t be the Confederation, since they don’t bother with the border worlds.”
“You people have a space ship in a working condition,” the Elder then said. “You could become useful members of our society. We would in no way interfere with your spiritual practices. This Settlement was put together from a number of different religious groups, and we have learned to live with one another. None of you look like the subsistence farming types—I doubt that I’m wrong in assuming that you come from an urban world.”
“Well, you’ve got that right,” Roland conceded with a wry smile, “although my wife, Elli, pines for a garden, at the very least. As do some of the younger women. Not Sarah, though,”—he fixed his eyes on her—“she, along with our Joe, is a space ship mechanic, and the two of them could probably put your old vessel, out there in the gravel pit, into operation, given a chance.”
“We have communal farms, gardens and greenhouses,” said the Elder. “Right now we’ve had to expand our production, what with the supposed new owners of the world trading with us for all the foodstuff that we can spare. Your gardening women would come in very useful, and we can train anyone interested, in our farming methods.
“As for the ship mechanics, they’d be an answer to some of our prayers. Can they repair flyers and flits, too? We seem to have lost the skills for even that. But then, the first decades here were rough ones—that’s why the groups got together to form a larger whole—and we were so busy surviving that we lost a lot of the skills that the original settlers had brought with them.”
“Sounds like you’re making some pretty solid arguments as to why we should add our small population to your larger one,” Roland agreed. “But what about the newcomers with their fancy ships? Haven’t they offered to help you? To teach ship mechanics, or to fix the smaller vehicles?”
The Elder pursed his lips.
“Certainly not,” he snapped. “They built some kind of an installation a few kilometers from here, a few years back. They’re using our bit of a Space Port without so much as a please, or thank you. I suppose that we ought to be pleased that they do bring us a few fruits of civilization to pay for the food they want from us, since we’re not in a position to argue the issue. They have flyers which they use to haul materiel to their headquarters, or whatever it may be, but they haven’t offered to help us with ours, or to ferry anything for us.”
“Sounds like they could use some spiritual lessoning,” Roland muttered.
The Eldest laughed.
“Oh, they think that they know all there is to be known about God, or Gods, and according to them, the Gods are on their side. They are worthy, and the likes of us are not. Whatever we may think or believe.”
*****
Sarah and Joe spent a couple of days making certain that Hera’s Hope was ready to take off at a moment’s notice, and capable of taking the maximum number of omega-jumps that a ship of its class could reliably do. Meanwhile the others scattered to work for the communal farming enterprises; everyone except Elli who actually did have plant growing and animal husbandry experience, relegated to some of the least skilled, and, sometimes, unpleasant, tasks.
“Kvetching allowed,” Roland told them the first morning, “so long as it’s in character.”
Texi and Nance had the hardest time staying in character. Neither of them had ever before been off Kordea, and a world where the day-night cycle was the right-side-up, so to speak, was a revelation to them. Altec III had no moon at all, so, though the sky was much starrier than Sarah remembered the Earth’s night-time firmament being, the nights were dark, good only for sleeping and sex, as Joe put it, to Jillian’s annoyance. It was early summer where the Settlement was located, and the days were balmy and long. Excellent for outside work, as a matter-of-fact, and Nance, used to toiling hard and for long hours, was pleased to bury herself in the weed-hoeing detail to which she had been assigned, partnered with a preteen girl who was knowledgeable as to the crop plants grown on the farms, as well as to the weeds which tried to choke them.
Nance almost felt sorry for her husband who had settled in to fix the Settlement’s fliers and flits; there were two of each. Without doubt they belonged to the space ship which Sarah and Joe were scheduled to start working on as soon as they were done with Hera’s Hope.
Elli took Jillian with her into the greenhouses, Sarah assumed, to keep a lid on the younger woman’s tendency to balk at authority. Dian and Jaime, along with Roge and Stu, were to spend their days, at least to start with, on one of the communal farms which surrounded the Settlement. Dian, like Nance and Texi, had no physical experience of planets outside of Kordea, but as a Circle Witch, she knew a lot about many places, including other realities.
Roland warned her and Jaime to not come on as too know-it-all, and Jaime protested that he was a total neophyte when it came to farming, and farm animals.
“I grew up in Trahea,” Dian added, “so I won’t have to feign ignorance of farms.”
“Still, from what Coryn told me about the two of you, you’ll be picking up on stuff in no time at all,” Roland said, wagging a finger. “Try to slow your learning curve down a bit.”
“Neither of us is going to want to be considered irreplaceable on the farms,” Jaime laughed. “So I’m sure we’ll have no trouble pretending that we’re not the brightest lights on-planet.”
Roland, himself, went off with the Settlement Elder the first morning, hoping to pick up further information about The Organization installation, while making the acquaintance of the important men of the community. For apparently the VIPs were all men, a circumstance which had Jillian fuming.
“What is it with these religious dorks, anyway?” she had asked the evening of the day on which they had arrived, when the group had gathered in the ship’s lounge to compare impressions. “The guys all think that women should be subservient to them, as if we don’t have just as many brain cells as they do. I don’t get it.”
That was probably when Elli had decided that Jillian needed to be kept on a short leash.
“We’re not here to propagandize these folks,” she had said firmly. “Each of you has to keep in mind the purpose of this enterprise, remembering that everything else is secondary.”
Jillian had sighed.
“Yeah, I know,” she had conceded. “Coryn kept telling me that, on Kordea. ‘You’ve great powers of observation, Jill,’ he used to say, ‘and you’re not afraid to make split-second decisions; those things make you a good Agent. But if you don’t learn to use a little more tact in your dealings with people, you’ll never get to the next level.’”
“Coryn knows his business,” Joe had said, laying a comforting hand on his wife’s arm. “I trust you’ve been heeding him.”
“Trying to, yes,” Jillian had answered.
*****
Meanwhile, back on Kordea, Coryn found himself far busier than he had expected to be.
He had to reorganize the Liaison Office to run without several key people. Less experienced staff had to fill the hole that Jillian’s absence created. An enthusiastic young woman, named Karan, w
ho had been Jillian’s assistant, became the Liaison Officer’s Second for the duration. The Port facilities took over the maintenance of the Office’s flyers and flits, and of piloting, whenever Coryn could not pilot for himself.
“Oh don’t worry about that,” the Maintenance Head, Sackow, told him. “We’re actually well staffed right now, as far as small vehicle personnel are concerned. We’ve trained a number of locals, and many of them don’t mind doing overtime—well, you know what it’s like, the day and night being out of kilter. It doesn’t matter to the locals what sort of hours they work, when they’re getting decent pay. And we’ll invoice the Liaison Office for our costs.”
There were meetings with the City Directors to attend—Coryn was always surprised by how often his input was requested by those locals, but, perhaps, his handling of the housing issue had won him friends. He had to flit to Ferhil Stones, occasionally, to have in-person talks with Marlyss; as well as, sometimes, making his way to the other Circle Strongholds. He received, and monitored the clandestine reports that The Mission participants sent back, through some convoluted channels which ensured that they were neither intercepted nor decoded by The Organization’s spies.
Thus, he knew when Hera’s Hope had reached its destination, and the supposed pilgrims began to infiltrate the little town which lay close to the presumed target. Roland Harmiss kept him informed of what progress was being made, which, at the beginning, was not much, besides the confirmation that something pretty big was going on at the location which the informants had fingered as the likeliest laboratory site. The Mission participants had not yet figured out how they were going to manage the awkward job of getting into the target facility to check it out.
Word of the threat that The Organization posed to Kordea must have penetrated the political classes of the Confederation, for abruptly the Diplomatic Corps became intensely interested in the affairs of the Affiliate World. Coryn was requested to report on the incident of the Lina-trap, how it was foiled, and what steps he and The Agency had taken to try to ensure the safety of the planet. Amusingly, he thought, he was not to send off the report electronically; the Corps was taking the precaution of having a human courier pick up the disc and the paper copies the Liaison Officer was required to prepare.
“I’m not sure what the point of this is,” he said to his Acting Second, Karan, who did the paper printing for him, and packaged everything securely for the courier. “There’s not much point in keeping secret anything other than what The Mission is up to. And I’m not leaking the details of that to the diplomats. If they don’t understand the reasons for secrecy they shouldn’t be in the business that they’re in.”
At about this time, too, Coryn was contacted by the only one of the original Agents left on the Space Station RES, the gem-shop proprietor, Max Caitlin. Thanks to his profession, he had been a colleague very useful to Coryn, in the early days of dealing with the amarto-angle. Now, it seemed, that he had, along with every other jeweller in the Confederation, been sent instructions by the Agency Head, Marcues, not to sell amartos at all, and to turn over any that he bought, to Confederation Authorities.
“What’s going on?” Max asked Coryn. “Nobody has explained the why of this. I’m aware that Marcues can, at times, be as high-handed, and secretive as his opponents in The Organization, but if The Agency wants the cooperation of the gem-shop owners, someone has to open up a little on the subject. Many of the jewellers have turned to me with their questions; they know that I have, shall we say, interesting connections. Can you enlighten me about this, and give me something that I can pass on to my fellow gem-merchants?”
“Sorry, Max, I should have got in touch with you,” Coryn replied. “I ought to have known that Marcues would not be tactful.”
It was well-known in The Agency circles that Marcues was a political appointee, and had not come up through the ranks. He was an efficient bureaucrat, but the Agents beneath him had learned to work around him.
“There’s really no need for secrecy, anymore; The Organization has shown its hand. They are using a combination of amarto-power and Terran technology to threaten Kordea, with the idea of forcing the Seven Witch Circles to assist them in their galactic power grab. The purpose of the ban on amarto sales is to try to keep them from getting more Stones with which to experiment, and to build more of their infernal machines, some of which are really quite innovative and powerful.”
“The Organization is being innovative?” Max’s brows on the screen image shot up. “Now that is frightening!”
“We suspect that they got their originality through the unoriginal method of capturing, and enslaving smart, creative people, a couple of whom are amarto-sensitives,” Coryn explained. “So you can imagine that I’m pretty much on edge these days. Which explains why I failed to check with you, even though I did know about the instruction sent to the jewellers on every Confederation planet and Space Station.”
“It’s too bad that you’re stuck out there, on that crazy world, Coryn. I could sure use a face-to-face conversation with you about all that has been going on. I realize that it won’t do to blab too much over these communicators; they can be compromised.”
Coryn sighed as he cut the communication. He recalled how difficult things had seemed when he, Fiana, and Max had met on RES, quite a while ago, to plan the necessary actions after a desperate young woman had accidentally keyed a stash of amartos on a planet at the edge of the galaxy. His life had grown a lot more complicated since then, and, at the moment, there seemed to be no end in sight to the complications.
Perhaps the Port workers had noted that his usually cheery demeanour had evaporated around the time when Hera’s Hope had left, for suddenly he found himself with a flurry of social invitations. Kyle and Chet started to come by regularly to his Office to see if “anyone there” wanted to traipse to The LockandKey for a brew or two after the work night was over. Jana, who had been the one to help organize the Liaison Office’s premises in the first place, invited him to dinner with her husband, and their teenage daughter and son. Even the Port Director called, requesting his presence at a gathering of Port Officials and their families. It was amusing, and somewhat gratifying; all around him people seemed to have noticed him, and had decided that he was valuable to their social milieu, and not merely a cog in the big, well-oiled wheel which was the Trahea Port.
One night, as morning approached, he left a gathering at The LockandKey, and headed home to the Official Residence, via his usual walking route. He had not imbibed much alcohol—it seemed like these days he never felt free to really relax, whether he was on the job, or, supposedly, not.
He scanned the sky above him, which was moonlit and starry still, wondering in which direction the world Altec III might be, in relation to where he was. How were Sarah, and the others making out, he wondered. It was good that he had had the recent conversation with Max Caitlin. Now that Max was aware of the seriousness of the situation, he would certainly encourage his colleagues to abide by the new rules. Fewer Stones would find their way into Organization hands, no matter how much the rogues were willing to shell out for them.
Once again he found himself wishing that he could have gone with The Mission. But he had chewed that one over, time and again, and had always come to the conclusion that he had had no choice in the matter. Sarah’s life was more important than any wish of his to be an action hero—besides which, as a known quantity to The Organization, it would likely have been tough to pass himself off as a religious colonist. He let out a short, wry cackle as he entered a shadowy alley which he usually used as a short-cut.
His trained body was aware of an unexpected presence before he actually heard the noises. He was instantly alert, grasping the stunner in his pocket with his right hand, and the emergency communicator in his left, that thumb ready to press the alarm button the moment it became necessary.
The first sounds came from his left, and he tensed up to try to determine how far from him the potential danger lay. Then he
heard noise behind him—close, very close. He let the stunner and the com fall back into his pockets, and leaned behind him to grab whoever was there with a quick back flip, a martial arts manoeuvre which he had perfected years ago. The goon on his left had come near enough in the meantime that he could use the body he had got hold of, to bash him with. He let it go, and had the satisfaction of seeing two shadowy forms fall to the ground in a tangle. He heard sputtering, but no swearing; he knew that he was dealing with The Organization Hounds.
“Ah, the pretty boy can fight!” someone said on his right.
He instantly straightened himself out, and turned to face that danger. He succeeded in shoving the man so that the stunner shot he aimed at the Agent veered wildly. But by now the two others had untangled themselves, and one of them used his stunner, not well, but catching Coryn’s right shoulder. Even as his arm was going numb, he grasped his weapon and managed to send the third man to sleep, before he lost his grip.
He pressed the alarm on his emergency com, only to see the whole scene light up with the brilliance of blaster fire. He heard bricks tumble behind him, even as the wave of the blast lifted him up into the air, and threw him painfully to the ground. His head banged into a sharp rock and he lost consciousness.
“You better not have sent him away for good, Rammer!” someone shouted, though Coryn was beyond hearing. “We’re to grill him, not kill him!”
*****
When Coryn came to, he was lying on a floor, his wrists bound behind him, and ankles tied together, with a headache pounding behind his temples. It was full day, and whoever had dumped him had neglected to consider the burning sun of Kordea. Fortunately the room’s windows were up high, so he was in shadow, but even thus, the light was not helping his head. The dryness of his throat was much worse than the couple of pints of beer that he had consumed at The LockandKey warranted.
He seemed to have been left completely alone, which made no sense. Whoever had attacked him had done so for a reason; he was a known quantity in Trahea, and by now the Port Authorities would be searching for him, and so would the City Authorities, certainly goaded into it by the Port personnel, as well as the workers in his own office. He was still alive, so the attack had no connection with any tiger-dust user who might have been, while high, already looking for money with which to pay for his next hit. Besides which he vaguely remembered that he had decided, before blacking out, that his attackers were Hounds.
Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moons of Kordea Page 15
