by Renee Duke
Outside, night had fallen. We edged around to the clearing, hugging the wall all the way.
As we got closer to the air cars, Simon nodded toward the small one with the diplomatic decals. “That kind of vehicle’s pretty hard to tamper with, but I’ll give it a try.”
“You?” said Taz.
I reminded him that disabling things was one of Simon’s specialties.
“Mm, yes, I suppose it is. Very well. Go ahead.”
The rest of us made our way to the multi-seater. Being in the midst of nowhere, the driver hadn’t bothered to lock it. While we were waiting for Simon, Taz slid behind the controls, and Jip and Kirsty and I strapped ourselves into the passenger seats at the back.
A few minutes later, Simon climbed into the front passenger seat. “Mission accomplished.” He secured his straps and looked expectantly at Taz, who was studying the air car’s control panel.
After a moment, we all began to look expectantly at Taz. He, however, just went on staring at the numerous gauges and dials in front of him.
“Would…ah…would any of you happen to know how to operate this thing?” he inquired, looking a little embarrassed.
“Don’t you?” I asked.
“Alas, no.”
“You’re kidding.”
Taz shook his head mournfully. “It is an area of my education which had been sadly neglected, I agree. But there it is. I am a prince. Princes do not have to know such things. I have always been chauffeured everywhere.”
“And you didn’t think to reveal that little snippet of information until now?” I said incredulously.
“No. I suppose I thought that, since an air car was the only possible means of traversing the dangerous territory around us, I would, inspired by necessity, find some way of working it once we were aboard. Unfortunately…well, I have been trying to remember what my driver does before take-off, but…” he trailed off helplessly.
Simon scrutinized the controls. “I know this one will start the engine,” he said, indicating a button on Taz’s right, “and this lever here will take us up. But that’s about all I can tell you.”
Taz nodded. “It will have to do for now.”
“It will that,” said Kirsty, peering out the window. “I think Drazok’s just found oot we didn’t care for oor supper and are trying to book tables at another restaurant.”
She pointed to the side of the building, where lights from three search beacons were moving swiftly toward us.
Taz jabbed the starter button. “Hang on!”
Chapter Sixteen
Taz yanked on the lift lever and made the air car go up. Straight up. Luckily for us, an automatic safety lock brought it to a halt at a certain height. If it hadn’t, we might have kept going forever.
“At least we’re air borne,” Taz said as I relaxed the death grip I had taken on the sides of my seat. “Now if I can just find the correct button to take us forward, all should be well.”
He twisted a small dial. The air car began to move violently from side to side.
“Apparently, that was not it.”
He somehow steadied the air car and studied the control panel again. “I wonder what that does?” he said, pressing another button. This time, the air car shot backwards, narrowly missing the top of a tall tree.
“Ah, now we are getting somewhere.” Taz sounded pleased. “If that button is for going backwards then, logically, the one above it must be for going forwards.”
The air car’s designers must not have been slaves to logic. Instead of going forward, we began to spiral downward. Taz’s hands flew over the controls, pressing several at once.
Close to the ground we spun around and zoomed toward Drazok and his men. They were all huddled around the other air car trying to make it go, their features clearly distinguishable in the light from a search beacon. Despite our peril, it amused me to watch their faces register alarm as their minds made the connection between our rapid approach and their possible demise. The added look of horror on Drazok’s face was probably due to a sudden vision of Taz killing himself before it was convenient for him to have him do so.
If our captors had not flung themselves to the ground, I think we might have decapitated them. And we would definitely have collided with their air car if Taz hadn’t thought to pull up on the lift lever again. This time he was able to level the craft off before the automatic brake kicked in. Within seconds he had us following an erratic course away from the hideout and out across Smugglers’ Stronghold.
“We seem to be doing quite well now,” said Taz. “All I have to do is make this thing stay in the air and keep it going the right way.”
Kirsty rolled her eyes. “Oh, aye, that’s all. And just which way is the right way?”
“Any way that gets us away from Drazok,” said Jip. “Is that not so, Taz?”
“Only if it eventually leads to a starport,” he replied. “We still have to get to Cholar in time for the Succession Tribunal. It is set to convene the beginning of next week, and the trip itself will take at least two days.”
“A military ship could get us there faster than that,” said Simon. “Couldn’t you commission one from the government?”
“Klavor’s government is totally corrupt. Its officials would not be inclined to do favours for the leader of a world that has oft denounced its practices.”
“Taz, watch oot for the top of them hills!” Kirsty suddenly squealed.
Taz swerved sharply to the right to avoid embedding us in one of the hills Kirsty had called his attention to. He muttered something about hills having no business in his path, and went right back to the conversation we’d been having. “I am afraid we will just have to take a regular passenger ship to Cholar. The nearest starport is in the Klavorian capital, and Drazok will have people watching for us. We will have to be very careful once we get there.”
For a time, I didn’t think we ever would. Taz was too taken up with keeping us airborne to figure out directions. After about two hours of uneven flight, a faint glow appeared on the ground up ahead of us and I realized we were approaching one of Klavor’s best known landmarks: the Illuminated Swamps.
“We’re definitely off-course then,” Simon said when I voiced this thought. “We didn’t go by the swamps on the way to Drazok’s hideout. But at least we’re out of Smugglers’ Stronghold. If we just knew which way the capital was, we’d have it made.”
As we got closer, we saw the lights of several air cars flitting about.
After studying them for a moment, I decided they had to belong to tourists. “Tour companies bring people out here from the capital every night. Some of the lights will be from tour buses, the rest from groups of individual cars following a guide.”
“And will doubtless follow him back,” said Taz. “If we attach ourselves to them we will not only find our way more easily, but cloak our entry into the capital by being one vehicle among many.”
He headed toward the Illuminated Swamps. At this point I’d like to give a detailed description of those famous marshlands. Unfortunately, I can’t. I didn’t get a chance to look at them. None of us did. We were too busy watching out for other air cars and screaming at Taz whenever we were in danger of hitting one, which was often. The tourists in the other air cars couldn’t have got much out of the experience either. They spent their time getting out of Taz’s way or just holding their vehicles steady while he zoomed over, under, and around them. One by one, alarmed tour guides signalled their groups to pull away from the madman who was trying to ram them and high-tail it out of the swamps.
We were unable to catch up with the fleeing sightseers, but when we got to the outer edges of the swamps, we met another tour group coming into the area. The guide in charge of this group was a quick thinker. After watching us fly an obstacle course around three of his vehicles, he snapped on his address system. “Hold your position. We’ll pick you up on the way back.”
Taz somehow managed to keep our car steady until all the incoming vehicl
es had gone by. Sweeping down low over the swamps, he stated his intention of waiting there until the tour guide came back for us.
It was a move much appreciated by the carnivorous amphibians inhabiting the place. Klavorian Swamp Creatures never bother large groups of tourists, but can usually be counted on to give a warm welcome to stragglers in lone air cars. About ten of the brutes reared up out of the slimy water, jaws snapping.
“Saints preserve us all!” yelped Kirsty.
The rest of us howled at Taz to get us out of there. He required no urging. Seizing the lift lever, he took us up to maximum altitude. Aside from a few dips and turns, he kept us there until the tour guide reappeared and told us to follow the group at a safe distance.
Taz tried, but he didn’t know how to regulate our speed. He caught up with the other air cars and was soon weaving in and out of them as recklessly as before. The tour guide swung around and came alongside us, deftly copying our unpredictable moves.
“Okay, okay. Parallel us. Out there.” He waved his arm to the right. Taz nodded and lurched in that direction, just missing the guide’s car. He then kept us on a reasonably straight, albeit choppy, course all the way to the guide’s headquarters in the Klavorian capital. We landed in the parking lot with a thump, some distance from the other air cars.
“Well, it was a near thing on several occasions, but we seem to have made it here in one piece,” said Kirsty. “I’ll never be criticizing Sustran drivers again.”
Taz looked offended. “All things considered, I thought I handled this vehicle with remarkable skill. I do see where the ability to pilot one properly could be a tremendous asset, however. I must make a point of taking lessons when I get back to Cholar.”
We climbed out of the air car. The sight of people buying hot food at a nearby concession stand reminded Taz that we had not had supper.
He took some money from his belt. “I believe almost any currency is accepted on Klavor. Kirsty can come with me to help carry trays. The rest of you will have to stay here. We must avoid moving around in an identifiable group.”
As they went off, Jip said, “I think I will go and look for a place that sells maps of the city.”
“Do you want us to come with you?” I asked, thinking the Klavorian capital might not be a good place to wander around alone late at night.
“No. I can travel faster on another plane. I will not be long.” She turned and withdrew, presumably into the same kind of rapid transit dimension her father had taken out to his land skimmer on Heltiga.
A split second later, someone hailed us. Turning, I saw the tour guide who had led us in from the swamps striding toward us.
“I want to talk to you,” he said, then blinked. “Say, weren’t there three of you standing here just now?” Simon and I both shook our heads. “No? I could have sworn…oh well, I want to ask you something. Who’s that idiot you’re with? The one who was trying to turn my tour into a giant pile-up?”
“He’s our tutor,” I lied.
The guide accepted this, and asked if our air car was a rental.
“No, it’s ours,” I lied again.
The guide nodded. “I didn’t think a rental company would trust anything to a maniac like him. If he goes on the way he’s been doing, he’s going to kill all of you. You know that, don’t you?”
“He doesn’t have much aptitude for driving.”
“Yeah, I could tell. What’s he want a car of his own for anyway? He could have rented a chauffeur-driven one. I know they’re not cheap, but…” He shook his head, unable to comprehend such folly.
“I think that, after tonight, he might do just that,” I said consolingly.
“Good.” The guide smiled. “If he does, do you think he’d like to sell this car to me?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said, taken off guard. “He might.”
“Go ask him. I’ll give him a good price. My company could do with another multi-seater. I’ll take it off his hands right now.”
Simon ran to the concession stand to fetch Taz and Kirsty, who had just procured some meat pies and soft drinks. The guide repeated his offer to buy the air car, and Taz accepted. Since no one ever asks for things like ownership papers on Klavor, the transaction did not take long, and worked to the benefit of all concerned. We got the money for our passage to Cholar; the guide got another air car for his company and was able to save his planet from a threat to all traffic.
“Where has Jip got to?” Taz asked after the guide had gone off with his purchase.
When I told him, he became very concerned. He said Klavor was no place for a young girl to walk around unaccompanied and demanded to know which direction she had taken.
“Who knows? She zapped herself into some other dimension. Which is what she’ll do if anyone threatens her. I don’t think we have to worry about her.”
We didn’t. She returned a few minutes later with a city info-card. Having already skimmed though it, she called up an advertisement put out by a Klavorian starliner company. Entire families were being offered low-cost, one-way passage to Cholar on what were classed as immigrant ships: old interplanetary vessels which still met safety standards, but were slow, and lacked the comforts of modern ships.
Taz thought the ad looked promising. “Cholar’s strong economy makes it possible for us to open our doors to many aliens of good character. I signed the order for this year’s immigration quota a few weeks ago.” He glanced at the schedule. “There appears to be a ship going out tomorrow morning. It will be in space three and a half days. That will be cutting it close for attending the Succession Tribunal, but to arrive alongside a group of immigrants might be a good course to follow. My enemies are far more likely to be watching for us aboard regular passenger ships.”
“Do you really think we look like immigrants?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never met any.”
“Neither have I, but I’ve seen pictures. We don’t look poor enough.”
We really didn’t. Underneath the recently acquired grime, our clothes were of good quality. So were our travel bags, the only pieces of luggage we’d snatched up when we escaped from the hideout. We might have been taken for temporarily down on our luck travellers, but that was about all.
“We can soon change that,” said Kirsty. “There must be poor, threadbare, clothing for sale somewhere around here. Some of the pawnshops on Sustra sold auld suits and things. With all the shady dealings that go on here, Klavor’s sure to have a few pawnshops. Or fencing parlours made to look like pawnshops,” she amended.
It did indeed. They were even considered tourist attractions. The names and locations of several were on the info-card Jip had picked up. All were open for business late into the night, and some were quite nearby.
The first one Taz and I tried didn’t deal in clothing. The second one did. We picked out one drab, but what some might call serviceable outfit for each member of our group, making sure that Taz’s included a sort of bandana that could be pulled down low to cover his telltale Cholarian forehead and eyebrows. We also got some pieces of cheap looking luggage to put our own things in. The pawnbroker’s prices were nothing short of robbery, but Taz was in no position to haggle. He paid her without protest and we joined the others back at the tour company’s headquarters.
Half an hour later we emerged from some public hygiene cubicles looking, we firmly believed, like a band of impoverished young people out to find a better life on another world. Taz went off briefly to sell our good travel bags at another pawn shop. Despite their obvious worth, he didn’t get much for them, but at least no one asked him where he’d got such expensive items. How down-and-out people came by things was not an issue on Klavor.
Aware that a taxi would be beyond the means of people in straitened circumstances, I suggested going by travel tube. There was one proclaiming itself the Starport Tube, and most of its passengers appeared to be travellers on a low budget.
When the tube got to the starport, the gatekeeper took on
e look at the people getting out and pointed to a walk-in passage at the side of the main building.
“Immigrant ships are through there and off to the right,” he said in a tone that implied he handed out that piece of information all too often.
“Our guise appears to be working,” Taz whispered as we went into the starport.
Chapter Seventeen
Our ship was not due out for several hours. Even so, the dingy underground chamber set aside for immigrant ship traffic was not as devoid of people as I had expected. Having a ticket did not guarantee anyone a place aboard any specific ship. Starport officials sold as many tickets as were asked for. Anyone who got aboard a transit barge before such a ship was declared full was allowed to take passage. Everyone else had to wait for the next one, which often didn’t come by for a week or more. Hotels were beyond the means of people who had spent their life savings on tickets, and a lot of them were camped out in the waiting area subsisting on whatever food they had, or could scrounge.
Planets destined to receive immigrants had no control over how those immigrants were shipped to them. I could tell by Taz’s face that he was not too taken with Klavor’s system for dispatching Cholar’s future citizens. Frowning, he went to purchase our tickets and we huddled in an inconspicuous corner until he came back with them.
We had decided that Taz should board the ship alone, Simon with me, and Kirsty with Jip. After Taz had distributed the tickets, I suggested he also share out the weapons he had taken from Drazok’s men. I could tell he didn’t like the idea of arming us, and found I was losing patience with his overprotective attitude.
“Things might get sticky at some point, Taz. We have to be able to defend ourselves. Or at least threaten people.”
“I suppose so,” he said, and reluctantly handed one of the stun guns to me, and the other to Jip. (Even on short acquaintance he seemed to consider her a more responsible choice than Kirsty.) He kept the liquidators himself, saying they were too dangerous for children.
