by Jean Kilczer
The slaves around us, cracking and hauling the salt crust while pumps sucked precious lithium from underground, slid me frightened looks and returned to work.
“Get back to shoveling, Havthror,” a BEM slave called to the Kubraen. “This one will get you into trouble!”
“Not from me,” I told the BEM.
I held Toby's reins in the midday heat. It lay like a soggy blanket across the land. The taste of dust was heavy in my mouth.
The old Kubraen's twin breathing slits flared with each painful breath that rasped in his throat. Sweat ran down the brown creases of his arms. His slab feet were braced apart as he tried to dig the shovel under a large chunk of salt crust with his long fingers. His sunken chest heaved with effort as he lifted it to the waiting cart.
I tied Toby's reins to a broken pick axe and took the empty shovel gently from his hands. “Here, old father. Let me help you.”
He blinked at me with reddened eyes. “Oh, you are Terran Jules, Lisha's progenitor. I remember you when you helped my people on our homeworld. Oh. Does the young one live fine?”
“Lisa's fine.” I dug through hardened salt and hefted a shovelful into the cart. “She's back on Earth. How's Briertrush? Is he OK?”
"Oh, yesh. Leader now Briertrush. Now that Gwis in greth state.
“How long have you been here, old father?”
“Oh.” He rasped out a dry chuckle. “Maybre two lifetrimes.”
I glanced up at the high tower and saw Boss Slade's shadow behind the bars of the blinds.
I'll catch hell for this, I thought, and lifted another shovelful while the old Kubraen sank to the ground and sat, hunched forward, his head hanging.
“Do you want to get Havthror killed?” the BEM slave asked me in his metallic voice and swung his axe into the salt with four tentacles.
I heard murmurs from the slaves as the click of a horse's hoofs grew closer.
Azut stared at me from his mount, his coiled whip gripped in a tight hand. “Put down the shovel, overseer.”
I did, and wiped my forehead.
“Ye like to walk the edge, don't ye?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I threw back. “It's where I live!”
* * *
“What in the name of the Sacred Idols of Altair is that fool doing?” Boss Slade shouted from his window in the high tower as he watched Jules take the shovel from the staggering Denebrian.
“I-I would say he's trying to help that slave,” his secretary Zora said and wiped spittle from her chin.
Boss Slade swung to face her. The elongated scales on his back lifted into spikes until Slade towered over the petite, female Altairian.
“Anyway, from how it looks, sir,” she whispered and seemed to shrink into herself.
“And what brought you to that clever conclusion, Secretary Zora?”
Zora glanced around, her data pad clutched to her chest, as though to seek escape from this conversation. “Boss Slade,” she whispered with lowered snout, “ye physician advised ye not to maintain an agitated state of mind…if possible.” She dipped into a curtsy. “Remember ye heart, my superior.”
“And yesterday he was down there watering the ponies.” Slade slammed a fist against the wall. Chips of plaster flew. “He tasks me!” He strode across the office and turned, a meaty fist extended. “Have I not given him everything he could ask for?”
Zora nodded quickly and stepped back against the wall, her golden eyes wide.
“Have I not treated him with nothing but kindness and respect?”
“Yes, Boss Slade. Ye have surpassed yeself with kindness and respect.”
Boss Slade waited.
“And…and ye have given him the best accommodations and…the finest horse in the stable!” she blurted. “What more could he possibly desire?”
Appeased, Boss Slade sat at his desk. “And yet he repays me with defiance.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at the cracks in the newly-painted wall and the chips of cement on the floor.
“Some aliens are just plain born stubborn,” Zora offered, “and no matter what ye do for them, they will always –”
“Oh, get out, ye fool!” Slade slammed his sore fist on the desk. “Ye be nothing but a pritcull yeself.”
“Yes, sir.” Zora hurried to the door and closed it softly behind herself.
Slade rubbed his cheek so hard a few scales flaked off. “Damn pritculls all.” He stared at the window. Tel or no, he would not stand for the Terran's insubordinate behavior. He relaxed back into the chair and gasped as a sharp pain shot across his ribs. “By all the Idols,” he whispered and rubbed his chest, “I am cursed with my subjects.”
“Zora!” he yelled into the computer.
“Y-yes, Boss Slade,” the voice came back meekly.
“Tell the painters to redo my office again.”
“Yes, my superior.”
“Zora!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell Azut and Kluth to bring that insufferable Terran to my office.”
* * *
“Don't you understand yet that I will not tolerate defiance from ye?” Boss Slade said in his raspy Altairian voice. Pieces of spittle flew from his mouth. “Isn't that clear enough, human?” He slammed his desk with a broad scaly green fist. The computer jumped.
“I won't sell my soul to maximize your profitability,” I told him.
He waved his fist at me. “We had a deal.”
“You had a deal. I didn't sign a contract.”
“If ye defy me again in front of my subjects, ye will regret it. I promise ye that.”
“Then don't demand that I do your treacherous work…in front of your subjects or behind them.”
He spread his clawed hands on the table. The webs between his fingers stretched. “Ye will do my bidding, Terran, one way or the other.”
I bit my lip. Spirit? I need help. You still owe me.
Nothing.
Star Speaker? Gwis? Her Kubraen name. Come on down from Nirvana, just for a while. I'm in deep shit!
Nothing.
Star Speaker said she would not answer my sends, that each lifebind was a small thing, not to be taken too seriously. It felt serious. Great Mind? I sighed. I was on my own.
“Who are ye contacting?” Slade tapped his broad tail nervously on the floor.
“Just searching,” I admitted. “Nobody's home.”
I am here, Jules, Spirit sent. How do you desire that I help you? Yet again.
Spirit! Send a tel message to my daughter Lisa. She can receive across the stars. Tell her I'm a prisoner on planet New Lithnia. Make sure she relays the message to Joe Hatch, her grandfather. He's a former Counter Terrorist captain in W-CIA.
I know.
Can you do that for me? I'm in a mess here!
Is there a time when you're not in a mess, Terran?
It's not my fault.
Is she on Earth?
Yes!
You tax me with your requests.
Spirit!
As you Terrans like to say, I'm on it. But next time, go ask Star Speaker.
OK.
He broke the link.
I looked into Slade's scaly, green, flat-snouted face and realized just how much I hated him.
“Are you done with your comlink call?” he asked. The tubes vibrated with a metallic sound as he drew in a breath.
“There was nobody home.”
He sat down and studied me. “I can offer ye anything a Terran could possibly desire, Jules,” he said too softly. “Wealth. Power. Fame. All I ever asked in return was that ye act as an overseer and inform me of any thoughts of conversations of rebellion ye pick up among my subjects. Was that so difficult that ye have to defy me and play the savior to these miserable subspecies?”
I bit my lip.
“Now, what is your drug of choice?”
“Freedom.”
He sat back. I heard his broad tail slap the floor. “And ye second choice?”
“You're wasting your time.” I scr
aped at a hangnail on my thumb.
“The Terran girl we sent ye. She's a virgin. We checked. She did not please you?”
“She's a child! Where are your ethics?”
“I've heard of Terrans fucking much younger ones than she, so don't preach ye ethics to me.”
“Can I go back to my cell now? The air is cleaner there.”
“Ye are arrogant.”
“I've been called worse.”
“Then ye refuse all my offers?”
“Categorically, yes.”
He stood up and nodded to the two guards behind me. “Ye are heading for a fall, my friend.”
“I wouldn't doubt it…my friend.” I got up and left with Kluth and Azut.
Chapter Five
Abby Hatch sat in her recliner in the den and smiled at the framed photo in her hands of Jules and her granddaughter Lisa laughing as they ate ice cream cones at the county fair. Joe Hatch sat beside her in his armchair and slowly rocked as he studied a holo cube of planet New Lithnia.
“They look so cute together,” Abby commented.
Joe glanced at the photo. “Sometimes I wonder which of them is the bigger kid.” He scratched the white stubble on his cheek.
“That's not fair, considering all that Jules has accomplished.”
“I wouldn't mind a good pipe.”
“Joseph!”
“Didn't say I was going to light up, Abby.”
She chuckled. “If I remember right, your pipe is somewhere on planet Fartherland, where Jules threw it into a gully, I think it was?” She stared at the photo and her expression became serious. “What are you going to do?”
Joe shook his head. “I can't call in the troops on the word of a six year old. They'd think the old crote went over the edge.”
“Still, Jules is gone.”
He picked up his glass and sipped red wine. “Chancey and Bat haven't been reassigned yet.”
“Are they on Earth?”
He nodded. “Visiting family.”
“And Huff?”
“Back on his homeworld, Kresthaven.” He put down the glass. “Probably bored stiff playing checkers, their national pastime. When he finds out that Jules went missing, you can bet he'll be on the first ship bound for Earth.”
“Then you're thinking about getting the team together?”
He nodded. “See what's going on before we call in the troops.”
“Joseph, can't you let the team go to New Lithnia and handle this without you?”
“Now Abby, you know that wouldn't be fair.”
Abby felt a twinge of fear as she put the photo in her lap and leaned toward him. “At your age, Joseph, I'm not thinking about fair. I'm thinking about safe.”
“He's depending on me, Ab.” He took another sip of wine. “Only Christ and Buddha know what he got himself into this time!” He stood up. “I've got some calls to make.”
Abby picked up the photo and blinked back tears as she traced a finger across the laughing faces.
A few minutes later she heard Joe yelling into the comlink in the kitchen. She held her breath and waited.
He strode back into the den and picked up the holo.
“What is it, Joseph?”
“You're not going to believe this, Ab.” He turned the cube over in his hand. “On the illustrious planet of New Lithnia, slavery is legal.”
Abby gripped the photo. “How can that be? It's against Alpha's Constitution.”
“Lithnia isn't subject to Alpha's Constitution. There's a strong lobby in the halls of Congress.” He laid the cube on the mantle. “Special interest groups who are happy with the status quo and the big creds the mines bring in to their bosses.”
“But…slavery, Joseph?”
He nodded, picked up another photo from the mantle and sat down to stare at it.
“Let me see it, Joseph.”
He handed the photo to her.
THE TEAM was scrawled across a picture of Joe, standing in front of the small, military starship Sojourner. To his right, Jules, tall, lanky, his mop of blonde hair lifting in a wind, his blue eyes shadowed into a hawk look by the sun, smiled his knock-out smile for the camera.
Abby chuckled.
“You see something funny here, Ab?”
“He's one of the most adorable men I've ever met.”
“Contain yourself, woman. You're married.”
“Sometimes I forget, Joseph.” She tousled his hair.
Next to Jules stood his good buddy, seven-foot tall Huff, a massive, white, bear-like Vegan.
“Huff's truly a gentle giant,” Abby said.
“Not if you touch his cub.”
“Jules?”
Joe nodded. “Tore apart the operating suite in the hospital on Denebria when he thought they'd hurt him, and threw the door into the recovery room.”
“You never told me that.”
“They called in a vet to tranquilize him with a gun.”
“Oh my God, Joseph.”
“Jules bailed him out of the kennel.”
Abby sat back and chuckled. “Those two boys are a comedy act.”
“Not always so funny, Ab. Not always.”
On Joe's other side in the photo stood muscular, rakish Chancey, black as ebony. A Harlem tag with high cheekbones, a soft mouth and close-cropped hair. There was a challenge in the twist of his lips and the glint in his eyes that attracted women. Next to Chancey stood soft-spoken, gentle Bat, the southern medic, a man in his thirties, already bald under his wrinkled military cap. Square-jawed and grinning, with mild, pale eyes, Bat was also the team's confidant.
Abby sat back. “What are you going to do, Joseph?”
“The only thing I can, Ab. Get the team together on our own, and grab a flight to New Lithnia.”
She stared at the photo. “I don't suppose there's anything I can say to stop you.”
Joe reached out and took her hand. “I suppose not.”
Chapter Six
I had to escape, I knew, while I waited for Joe Hatch and the World Alliance troops to arrive. I wiped sweat from my forehead as I lay on my cot in the cell and breathed the smell of moldy cement. They had shut off the air conditioning and meals now consisted of fried dough balls with shreds of meat. Punishment fare, Azut called it. I think I missed the coffee most.
I was becoming friends with Azut, who brought my meals. It turned out he was a young tag, brash and lacking compassion, like the young of many races, including Terrans. Compassion doesn't easily take root without older members to open young minds to the oneness of their race. Empathy comes later, and is an even rarer bird.
I hated to use Azut in my escape plan, but Boss Slade had kept me in this cell for two days, and I had no idea what plans he was devising for my fate. He might have me whipped, or executed, or both. I'd tried a mind probe, but he was a sensitive, and very aware that I was probing. His thought had come back to me: Keep it up, Terran, and I'll hang you by your thumbs. Not conducive to a quiet state of mind. It was time to get out.
I showered, shaved, and vibed my clothes in preparation for days and nights I might spend in some hideout while I waited for Joe. Things were not going smoothly for him, or he would have been here by now.
I heard Azut's claws click along the stone hallway. “Slop's on!” he called.
I swung off the cot. Here we go. “Thanks, croc face. What is it this time, baked salt crust?”
He chuckled and watched as I uncovered the tray and picked up yet another fried dough ball with shreds of dangling meat, and nibbled on it. “Oh, yum,” I said. “Food for the gods. So when's your tour of duty up?”
“In an Altairian month. We can't wait to leave this pritcull rock!”
“We?”
“My blood brother is a tower guard. We took the jobs so we could be together. Something a subspecies wouldn't understand.”
I knew he was goading me, so I just shrugged. “Whatever you say, overseer of the benign slave trade. Heading back to Altair?”
�
�The ship has to make an official stop on Alpha first.” He watched me eat the ball. “Then it's off to Altair. How does that thing taste to a subspecies?”
“Like shit.”
I'd just bet they had to make an official stop, to consult with their company's bosses about Lithium Love Mine's profit margins.
Azut loved to talk about his friends in Altair's ponds and their night dives for flappas and timgratts that burrowed beneath the bottom mud. He reveled in describing the campfires on the beach after the hunt and the fresh meat of their catch as they laughed and related their experiences. Later, they would bring some reserved meat to the females in exchange for sexual favors. I chuckled. Life must be good in the swamp ponds of Altair.
I nibbled on a dough ball. “Then it's back to the ponds?”
He sat down and grinned. “We can't wait.”
With his mind now in a relaxed state, I began to spin a red coil of tel power. I extended the half-eaten dough through the bars. “Want to try some?”
He leaned back and shook his head.
I forced the red coil to grow and spin faster. This would not be a mere mindlink. It would be a deep penetration, an overpowering of his will with mine. And it would leave me with a headache. It always did.
I imaged a picture of ponds under his planet's night sky, from a holo cube of Altair I'd once seen. Ragged black clouds raced along the tumultuous gray sky. Sparse, ruddy-leafed vegetation flattened in a wind that keened though raw pinnacles, tortured down from plateaus by the violent microclimate. Sudden fierce storms scoured the land's skin and sent it rushing into surrounding ponds.
I spun the coil faster, hotter, forced it to grow while brain cells burned out, until it spun like a small tornado, there behind my eyes.
“Are you going to eat –” Azut started as I focused on his forehead and threw the coil.
His head snapped back as though he'd been shot. His wide mouth opened.
I sent the coil spinning deep into his brain, twisting his thoughts into my design. You slip into the satin of inviting water, I sent.
His tail began to sway. His eyes dulled.
There in green gloom you sink to glossy mud and move, weightless, searching, brushing aside empty shells, lifting mud into little clouds that hang above the mounds. Grasp your weapon, Azut! There are flappa beneath you.
