FRENCHY II : Having a Blast

by George Olney

  Life sucked for Alesos as well. Daddy looked down at him and gave forth with a loud, "Hunghhh."

  How could a simple grunt, Alesos asked himself as they were expertly shaken down and disarmed, sound so utterly menacing?

  In a course of events straight out of a B class hapless explorer/hostile native holo-vid, Alesos plus Boraz were summarily hauled off and bound to stakes set back from a cliff overlooking the water. One compensating factor, although it went unappreciated given their current state of mind, was that they both had a beautiful view of the picturesque bay.

  Fuzzy shortly appeared to give them a speech consisting of thousands of words informing them of their present status and immediate future. Although deciphering the massive word flood strained his forebrain, Alesos was finally able to glean the following points: A. They were very bad men. B. Daddy was royally pissed at them. C. As a result of A. and B. they were going to be sacrificed to Levanuchomp. D. On the other hand they might survive.

  Point D. was of immense interest to Alesos, but he was unable to make full sense of the situation given the fulsome elaboration of points A. through C.

  Aid came from an unexpected source.

  "Man, you guys are truly in an ungood, badly dissonant fix."

  Alesos's head snapped to his left and he found himself beholding two each grav surfers, male and female, in full costume and carrying boards.

  "And exactly what does that mean?" Alesos asked, forcing himself not to sneer at the young weirdos. He badly needed relevant information and the young man addressing him at least appeared to be willing to speak in less than overwhelming word counts.

  "It means, Fra-man, that the righteous folk here are willing to let old Levanu deal with you. They can do it too, under local law."

  Alesos felt his mind go totally blank. As a result, a question he would normally regard as irrelevant and possibly stupid popped out. "I thought the whatever was named Levanuchomp."

  "Two words, Fra-man. Levanu chomp. The curvy talking to you kind of ran her words together in spots."

  Given Fuzzy's use of verbiage in huge doses, Alesos hadn't noticed.

  However, the young man continued to speak. "Levanu's a pseudoshark, Fra-man. About thirty or so feet long. Big mouth. Big teeth. The folk here usually call him and feed him a whole tarka carcass on a raft. A tarka weighs in at about a thousand pounds or so. Levanu just chomps up the whole thing, raft and all."

  "And all?" This was spoken with a bit of a gulp, accompanied by a pale face. Two pale faces and two gulps in fact, since Boraz was listening.

  The young grav surfer nodded placidly. "And all, Fra-man. What they're going to do is put the two of you in a canoe, then call Levanu. If you can paddle across the bay before Levanu catches you, you're home free. Otherwise, you're today's sacrifice to Levanu instead of the carcass. Really old ritual, Fra-man. Hasn't been done with a human in a long, long time. Huge local significance."

  The girl next to him piped up in chirpy tones. "Those sacrifices are truly gnostic! Everybody loves them. So traditional and all. Tour guides are mostly our surfing mates and we've called every one in the area since you two are the sacrifice. They're all bringing their groups to watch. This ought to be a really whacked up show!"

  The surfer guy terminated his explanation with, "You're really going out in a big way, Fra-man. Something maximal to remember. At least for us if you don't make it. May the Phorst be with you."

  After bestowing their most hallowed benediction, the surfers casually strolled on, relaxed and mellow.

  Alesos felt his eyes trying to cross while deciphering the surf-speak, but manfully kept his attention on the key point. They had to get across the bay. He'd never paddled anything, let alone a canoe, but he was suddenly motivated to try. Very hard.

  Shortly, Alesos and Boraz were untied by a number of large native men, frog marched down to the beach, and stood in front of a canoe. Fuzzy, in her role as sacrifice moderator, accompanied them. The two men were then placed in the canoe and held firmly while Fuzzy, speaking with astounding brevity, said, "You be quiet. Daddy say invocation and call Levanu."

  On the cliff above, Daddy, wearing a cloak made from long thin leaves, was standing with immense ritual dignity, flanked by two other similarly attired native men holding large sea shells. Lining the cliff on either side of him were huge clumps of tourists, generally groups surrounding their guides. The tourists quieted as Daddy held up his arms, hands outspread and loudly gave a long speech in the liquid Watanaoean language. At the conclusion, the two men flanking him blew repeated musical blasts on the seashells, now revealed as native trumpets. The crowd cheered.

  The whole thing was quite quaint and very impressive.

  Alesos was underwhelmed.

  After a period of tense silence, Fuzzy pointed to the distant sea outside the bay. "Levanu comes," she announced with appropriate drama.

  Just below the horizon, two fins, hugely large and set side by side at a thirty degree angle, could barely be seen cutting the water and heading for the bay.

  Alesos and Boraz were released and the canoe pushed into the water. "You better paddle now," Fuzzy called to them cheerfully, waving a polite bye-bye.

  As Alesos picked up a paddle from the bottom of the canoe, Boraz said, "Boss, this boat's leaking."

  Alesos screwed up his face in terminal irritation and replied in pure petulant disgust, "Ohhh, just shut up and paddle!"

  On the cliff above, Husband sidled through the wildly cheering crowd of tourists to stand next to his father in law. "Think they'll make it?" he said quietly in educated Rembaud.

  Judiciously studying the canoe's panicky progress, then the slower approach of the oncoming pseudoshark, Daddy replied in the same quiet, educated voice. "Possibly."

  He cast an expert's critical eye on the pair in the canoe. Despite the obvious panic with which they'd started, the two appeared to be getting the hang of using the paddles. Oh, the canoe was staggering forward in anything but a straight line. In fact, there were constant direction shifts, not to mention the way the little craft was wobbling wildly as Alesos and Boraz threw their bodies in all directions, swinging their paddles with frantic speed and splashing enough water around to scare every fish for a mile or so. Still, they appeared to be making reasonable headway Levanu, on the other hand, was almost leisurely as he swam towards the bay. "Even probably," Daddy said judiciously. "Levanu's a little sluggish today. One of the other villages on his regular route must have fed him rather well. He doesn't seem at all motivated."

  Husband thoughtfully studied the cheering crowds that lined the cliff. It appeared that most of them were cheering for Levanu. In the case of Alesos and Boraz, he considered it quite justified, but still thought the cheering a bit ghoulish. "Well," he commented philosophically, "whether those scum survive or not, this show is certainly good for business. We'll probably sell out of Levanu shirts and boko wood carvings of the blasted fish. Have to order more from the distributor."

  Chapter 17

  Agent Frenchy Kwaa'kani was well aware, thanks to her training, of how good police work was a matter of following a trail and connecting the dots. The Federation Enforcement Arm wasn't exactly a police agency in the way Earth understood the term, she knew, but the connect-the-dots part seemed to be the same everywhere. For the last several months, the Arm had been working its way along the trail connecting dots and now had a firm ID on who was behind the plot to raise teenage girls as slaves. As a bonus, a few things pretty much confirmed same guy gave the orders to kidnap Nos and kill his parents.

  Now, she and Grae, along with several others, were heading out shortly to make an arrest. The perp was high up the political/financial food chain, so it had to be done carefully. He had to be scooped up and carted off before any extraneous problems, such as politicians he owned, horned in to complicate the arrest and possibly give the bastard just enough time to jump out of the net. Not a problem. The Arm knew how to handle that kind of situation. It was sort of a specialty, since t
he Arm frequently had to deal with major corruption cases and other such crimes big enough to require Federation attention. Once again, Frenchy decided she really liked her new career. It was kind of neat, she mused whimsically, an ex-stripper was now the equivalent of an FBI agent. Who'd a thought it?

  Before they went off to nail the bad guy, though, there was a situation that needed resolving. Fortunately, the two people involved happened to be in the Hold at the moment and she and Grae were on their way to meet with them, which made Frenchy grin as they walked. Her impish side said those birds needed a bit of resolution, even if that resolution wasn't something she totally liked.

  On the other hand, she'd done it before with Maev and that had worked out. Let's see what happened here.

  As Frenchy and Grae approached the table in the cafeteria, it became obvious that the people already occupying two of the table's chairs were in heated argument. Again. Some competing theory on the dig, Frenchy thought, knowing them. Big surprise. What made her smile was that Justa, deep in dispute with Red, was wearing one of her coveralls. Archeology and the dig of a lifetime apparently trumped Custom, which was fine with Frenchy.

  "Hi, folks, have a seat," Red said, barely missing a beat before turning back to hammer down one of Justa's hotly defended points.

  The argument went on for a few moments, involving names and citations that meant nothing to Frenchy, before Red said, "Hold it! That paper didn't date the Shorgan site that early. I ought to know. I wrote it."

  Justa looked briefly embarrassed, then gamely prepared to dive back into the fray. That's when Grae called a momentary halt. "I'm sure this is very important to the write-up of your finds, you two, but we need to have a few moments before you continue."

  His dry voice cut through the argument and brought it to a screeching halt. Frenchy looked at Red and Justa with a smile. "I take it this sort of thing is normal between two archeologists?"

  Red grinned. "I'm the archeologist here." He pointed at Justa. "She's the anthropologist."

  "Which is just as important when evaluating the cultures that may have made those artifacts," Justa shot back.

  She turned to Frenchy. "Cultural context is vital when trying to understand of some of the things we've uncovered." Waving at Red, she continued, "He's far too ready to make a snap decision."

  Red started to huff up, but Frenchy dived back into the breach. "All well and good, guys, but there's something more important we have to discuss for the moment."

  Ignoring the pair of slightly offended and highly doubtful looks that plainly said nothing was more important than the dig, she continued, "Grae has something he wants to tell you."

  Grae smiled minimally as the looks were turned on him. "Thanks, mistress. Justa, give me your pendant."

  Justa got the slightly worried look that Tribal girls always got when given that order, at least in Frenchy's experience. Grae's next words settled her back down. "Don't worry. You're not being summarily unbound."

  She relaxed a little and handed him the pendant.

  He took it and gave it to a very surprised Red. "Here, Red. She's yours."

  "There are ground rules here, bucko," Frenchy said, firmly suppressing a feeling of evil glee at the stunned look on Red's face. "You can't just let her go. You, Fra Bobdino, have to find a way to honorably unbind the girl or marry her under Tribal Custom. Don't worry, she'll tell you what Custom says. You two have to work it out, whatever happens. It's no longer our problem."

  As the two sat there in a minor state of shock and staring at each other, Grae got up to leave. Following him, Frenchy delivered a parting shot. "Good luck to the both of you."

  Red was gaping at Frenchy as Justa gently but firmly reached over, took her pendant from a still stunned and unresisting hand, and put it back around her neck. As she walked away with Grae, Frenchy took another look at the table. Justa was giving Red an old fashioned look that had a fair amount of affection in it, then back they went, butting verbal heads in heated debate. "Off hand," Frenchy commented to her husband, "I'd say it will do both of them some good. Red needs a little air let out of him and it's only right for Justa to be back in anthropology where she belongs. It'll keep her from focusing on herself, too."

  Grae grunted. "Red has to have a partner if he's going to stay here digging - which he will. That site's going to keep him here for years. He needs someone to bounce his theories off of anyhow. The flip side of his maverick pronouncements is that sometimes he gets it wrong and finds himself well off the deep end. I think Justa will keep him from doing that.

  "Justa will learn a lot from him," he continued, "and he'll keep her ego trimmed back."

  "Win-win," Frenchy replied. Remembering Justa's expression as she put the pendant back around her neck, she added, "I suspect other things are in their future as well."

  She chuckled. "Yep, I think those two are set.

  "Now to get busy on some important stuff."

  "Mistress, are you ready to go pick up the scum that was kidnapping teenage girls?" Grae asked her with a grim smile.

  Frenchy's return smile was predatory. "Oh, yes."

  #####

  Vorter was the premier corporate and banking world of the galaxy. As such, it was the headquarters location for of many major galactic corporations, including most of the major galactic corporations controlled by the Jona-Savonia family. The Jona-Savonia corporations, immense though they were, were currently in a state of deep insecurity, kept very, very quiet so as to not cause upheaval among stockholders, markets, etc.

  The problem for these corporations was that the holder of the vast majority of stock in the Jona-Savonia corporations, which is to say Fra Jona-Alon-Savonia, was on the missing list. So, for that matter, were his wife and son, heirs to the family fortune. Various corporate boards were suffering a crisis of insecurity. Lawyers answerable to those boards were currently assembling a SWAT team of top corporate legal types to Do Something.

  As it happened, other entities were also moving to Do Something. Or had already done so.

  The Stellar Investment Bank was by no means the largest interstellar banking institution on Vorter, but it was a major player and occupied one of the largest office towers in Genever, the second biggest city on the planet. The tower was huge enough that parking garages were located every fifty stories, with VIP parking - protected from the elements as well as the peons - on the roof just over the penthouse.

  The bank's Chief Manager also considered himself a major player, both as director of the bank and as an individual. His bank director status was visibly shown by the fact that his lushly decorated office occupied a good bit of the tower's penthouse, with the remainder belonging to his personal staff. Invisible, but intensely real, the spread of his personal influence throughout the Vorter business community was the true indicator of where he actually belonged in the pecking order. In sum, he was rather near the top.

  And wanted to change the "rather near" part to "at".

  Said Chief Manager, Barto-Dias-Colones by name, sat behind his huge custom made desk and pondered heavily on two projects he considered related only in that both had major future implications in his large and growing personal business empire. The cause of his pondering was that he really knew nothing about where either project stood.

  One project, the first step in his takeover of the Jona-Savonia corporate holdings, involved that greasy fool, Alesos, whereabouts currently unknown. All Barto-Colones knew at the moment was that the parents were dead and the boy was in the custody of Alesos's snatch team. The plan was for this team to deposit the boy with the very discreet institution he maintained on Seeway, where the brat would be properly conditioned to become a subservient creature and a pliant tool in his future plans. Unfortunately, the current whereabouts of snatch team plus boy were unknown. If that continued for very long, alternate plans had to be activated to gain control of the Jona-Savonia interests by other means. Shit, after all, happened. The boy, if he eventually surfaced, could be eliminated quietly.
Frankly, Barto-Colones was coming to the conclusion that elimination might be the best course under the circumstances.

  The second project wasn't nearly as critical to his future plans, although it had the potential to allow his expansion into a minor but highly profitable area of galactic commerce: female slavery. He intended to raise his own female slaves using techniques developed on Seeway, thus allowing him to become a major supplier and bypass the current, somewhat disorganized, structure in the slavery business. Unfortunately, his trial farm on Lycanth was now out of contact and had been so for over four months.

  Given the time lags in interstellar communications, Barto-Colones wasn't overly disturbed about his ignorance of either project's current status, but it was rapidly becoming time to take action. He had to find Alesos and discover the whereabouts of the boy, if he still lived. He also had to put someone unobtrusively on Lycanth to make a report on his farm if he didn't get one shortly.

  Events were currently in process that would make his pondering moot.

  Unknown to Barto-Colones, a luxury air car was just landing on the VIP pad. In itself, not an unusual happening. However, a number of other air cars had also landed on the tower's various pads a very short time earlier. These cars were markedly larger than the limo now grounded on the VIP pad. They had to be, given the number of black clothed, armored, and weapon equipped men and women contained in each car. Those men and women quickly and smoothly took control of the various security stations in the tower before a number of them spread out to do other things. The fact that access to the VIP pad was now under control of the aforesaid men and women was the reason the limo landed without hindrance. Or informing the penthouse office.