The captain parried successfully and took a step back. And then he learned the lesson all good actors do: If you are retreating, don't do so towards the edge of the stage.
He tumbled over and fell against the front row seats.
With a leap, Kleesp followed him. "Give them space!" yelled someone. "Move the chairs!"
To Pausert's astonishment, the audience was cheering wildly. This was entertainment! They thought the play was still on!
The cheers grew to a deafening roar, as the captain's sword and Kleesp's clashed in a flurry of thrusts and parries. Alas, not all the chairs had been moved out of the way. Pausert stumbled over one, bringing it down in his fall.
Luckily, Kleesp fell also. The captain's sudden fall caused his lunge to miss wildly and the assassin lost his balance. Pausert snatched up the chair he'd fallen over and slammed it down on Kleesp's back. Unfortunately, it was one of the flimsy folding chairs used for the front seats of overflow crowds. It couldn't do any real damage—though it bought Pausert enough time to vault back onto the stage.
Kleesp followed relentlessly. "You'll pay for that," he snarled. Another flurry of lunges and parries—alas, all lunges by Kleesp and parries by Pausert. What else could he do with a tipped sword?
Steadily, the captain was forced back towards the wings. He stumbled over the fallen prop pillar again, and rolled backstage under the curtains.
Kleesp followed instantly, sensing the kill, using his free hand to thrust aside the curtains. He arrived backstage so quickly that the captain was just getting back onto his feet. Kleesp lunged at Pausert. Hard.
Knowing it was useless, Pausert tried to hold him off with the foil, but Kleesp's blade struck the captain neatly on the middle of the left breast.
His powerful lunge also carried Kleesp forward with his full weight pressed against Pausert's foil, which the captain had held up stiffly in that last futile gesture.
The buttoned tip bent, as intended.
The other blade, carefully weakened with an acute-angled cut so it would snap to a sharp point, did not bend at all. It slid with sickening ease right through the ribs and into the chest cavity.
Kleesp looked down, gaping. Blood suddenly gushed out of his open mouth. "You've killed me!" he coughed. The words were spoken more in chagrin than anger.
That was quite understandable, Pausert thought wildly. He didn't know much about the mentality involved, but he was quite sure that dying because you'd grabbed the wrong blade . . . was not going to make for bragging rights in whatever afterlife pirates enjoyed.
Or didn't.
Another cough; another gush of blood. It was obvious the sword had pierced the assassin's heart. Kleesp clawed at the blade, but his eyes were already rolling. Horrified, Pausert released the hilt of the sword.
Some strange last surge of effort kept Kleesp on his feet for a few stumbling backwards steps—just long enough for him to collapse through the curtains and back onto the stage. His impromptu and quite unplanned reentrance produced a veritable hurricane of applause.
Pausert shook his head. And then realized that his troubles were far from over. Something hard and narrow was now pressing into his lower spine. The way something presses which is being made to do so.
"That's an M9 blaster you're feeling," growled a voice in his ear. "Now move—slowly—back onto the stage."
Seeing no alternative, Pausert obeyed.
* * *
As soon as he came through the curtains, Pausert realized that his earlier premonition was quite correct—Kleesp had been no madman, suddenly unhinged. He'd planned everything as part of a coordinated effort. There were three men standing on the stage who constituted no part of the thespian troupe. The captain vaguely recognized two of them—some of the locals hired on by the showboat during its stop at Tornam, the same planet where Vonard Kleesp had joined the company. Four men, in all, counting the one still prodding Pausert forward. And all of them were armed with M9s. Not a handgun any military force would favor, due to its short range, but one that was quite in demand in criminal circles. Whatever that model blaster lacked in range, it made up for in destructive power.
The actors were also on the stage, but they all had their hands raised. And it wasn't just the actors, either. However they'd managed it, Kleesp's cohorts had rounded up Vezzarn as well—along with one of the Sedmons.
"No funny stuff, Pausert," growled the voice in his ear, "or we'll kill all the actors. Starting with the women. Don't think we won't. We're the Agandar's pirates and you know our reputation. Now. We need those two kids also, and then we're all out of here. You figure out how to get them, or we start the killing."
In the odd way that one notices details at this sort of time, Pausert's eyes fell on one of the blaster-holding men on the stage. The one nearest to him, except for the one at his back that he still hadn't seen. Something about the man's stance made it clear that he was now the one in charge. The burly pirate grinned sardonically. "You might have killed the boss, but I guess that just means more money for the rest of us once we get our hands on the Agandar's account. So where are the two witch kids?"
"I really have no idea," said Pausert slowly. His arm was now beginning to hurt. He needed time to think.
He wasn't going to get it.
The pirate turned to one of his associates, and pointed at Hulik. "Shoot her in the head. It'll help his memory."
And then things started happening very fast, and all at once.
Somebody kicked the backstage door off its hinges.
A flat came hissing down onto one of the assassins, knocking him off his feet. Unseen hands—or vatch ones—had apparently untied a rope.
A whistle like a punch on the jaw felled another, the pirate leader.
One Sedmon came through the door he'd just kicked in. The other, the one already on the stage, dove at the pirate who was bringing his blaster to bear on Hulik. He never would have made it in time, except that something—a pen? Pausert couldn't quite tell—went sailing from Vezzarn's hand and struck the assassin. Whatever it was, it was sharp enough to gash the man's face and completely distract him. An instant later, the Sedmon's tackle had the pirate on the floor and the two of them fell to wrestling for control of the weapon.
That left the still-unseen man holding the blaster against Pausert's spine. Old naval training came back to the captain. Holding a weapon pressed directly against a trained fighter is the trick of an amateur—or a thug grown overconfident. A quick twist and an elbow strike knocked the weapon aside. The same elbow came back up in a forearm smash to the jaw that drove the man backward. The captain followed, raising his hand for a very nasty strike at the throat.
The strike never landed. The fellow, already staggering, flipped onto his back as if he'd tripped over something unseen. The unseen something emitted a very Goth-like "Ow!" and the assassin's head made an even louder "thunk!" as it smashed against the floor of the stage.
Pausert pounced on him. He hit the man once, with his fist. A nasty temple smash. But he did so more out of anger and general principle than from any real need. The fellow had obviously been knocked cold from the impact of his head against the stage.
The captain pried the blaster out of a limp hand and rose to his feet, ready to use it. But—
There was no need.
Vezzarn had apparently joined the Sedmon's tackle on the man who started to shoot Hulik. Between the two of them . . . especially since Vezzarn had retrieved whatever missile he'd thrown so accurately and had then used it to . . .
Pausert winced. He winced again when he caught sight of the pirate who'd been floored by the falling flat. In and of itself, the flat hadn't done much more than knock the man down. What had kept him down thereafter was Pul's jaws, clamped on his leg.
Well. At one time, clamped on his leg. Right now the leg itself was no longer attached. Mentally, the captain shrugged. If the thug didn't bleed to death before medical help arrived, modern prosthetics were quite miraculous. And although Pausert
wasn't any more familiar with the ethos of maximum security prisons than he was of the pecking order in the pirate afterworld, he suspected that "Stumpy" was a better monicker than "the Goof Who Picked Up The Wrong Sword."
Not that he cared anyway. Live by the growl, die by the growl. So be it.
Besides, Pausert had other problems that were far more pressing.
First, the applause from the audience was so deafening he could hardly think. The exuberant miners still thought it was all part of the act. Apparently, they ascribed such minor details as a severed leg and several quarts of spilled blood to "smoke and mirrors."
Secondly, the accolades now showering the stage—no, raining on it—were a positive menace. Gold is heavy, even in small pouches. Pausert found himself wondering for a moment if he and his fellow thespians were about to undergo an ancient form of death by torture. "Stoning," he thought it was called.
Then he spotted the person he was looking for, off in a corner, and forgot about everything else. Pausert felt almost dizzy with relief. Goth was holding the Leewit, both of the sisters shaking a little in the aftermath of using a lot of klatha power. They'd need to be fed, a lot, and quickly.
But he'd deal with that later. Goth had been looking for him also, and the moment his eyes fell on that expressionless face he knew she would be okay for a while. Something in her eyes told him so. He wasn't sure what it was, but he didn't doubt the knowledge.
Deal with the rest first, then. He saw that Dame Ethulassia was binding up a bleeding gash on Vezzarn's forehead. Hantis and Pul were mounting guard on the pirate whom the Sedmon and Vezzarn had grappled. The man looked to be badly beaten up, but he was not unconscious. It hardly mattered. His gaze was flicking back and forth from his cohort's severed leg to the instrument that had severed it. Pul in Full Gape Mode was . . . an utterly paralyzing sight.
As for Hulik, who'd almost been killed—
Hulik was cradling one of the Sedmons in her lap, while the other hovered over her. "Sedmon! Sedmon! Speak to me!" she was pleading.
Why is she doing that, Big Real Thing? There is nothing wrong with the Divided Thing.
The vatch was sorely puzzled, and Pausert didn't blame it. The captain was quite sure there was nothing seriously wrong with the Sedmon, beyond a few bruises. He wasn't breathing the way someone would if he was knocked out. Nor—the real tip-off—was his clone acting at all anxious. In fact, he seemed immensely pleased.
"Please, Sedmon!" Hulik whimpered. "Please!"
Slowly, theatrically, the Sedmon opened his eyes. "What—happened?" he asked, putting on such an act of being dazed and confused that Pausert had to fight down a laugh.
"You saved us, Sedmon! Both of you, you saved us all!"
"Hey!" the Leewit interjected from the corner, annoyed enough to come out of her own shock. "Other people had something to do with that too!"
Hulik ignored her. "You were amazing!" she said. "Can you move?"
"I don't know," said the Sedmon, who started to sit up, then groaned. "My head!"
"Here, I'll get you both back to your ship," said Hulik tenderly, helping the prone one to his feet. "I'll take care of you until you feel better."
"Oh—thank you, lovely lady," the Sedmon breathed.
She blushed. Hulik blushed. Pausert could see Vezzarn's jaw sagging. His own jaw was pretty loose, too.
"We need to get you both lying down," she told them. "You might have gotten hurt somewhere else—"
Pausert felt a gentle tug on his sleeve. "Come over here, Captain, and we'll see to that," said Dame Ethulassia, tugging on his good elbow and pointing to the wound on his other arm. "I realize that the do Eldel is normally your ship's medic. But—ha! No use trying to get her attention right now."
She coaxed Pausert over to sit down beside Vezzarn, and began cutting his shirtsleeve away. He yelled as she pulled the cloth out of the wound. She ignored him just as resolutely as she ignored the corpse of her former paramour Vonard Kleesp.
"Here, Captain," said someone—Richard Cravan, from the rich-sounding voice—handing him a cup of something. He drank it, and felt a pleasant numbness begin immediately.
"What—" he asked, thickly, "What happened to Hulik?"
"Remember that I said she was in love, but hadn't realized it yet?" asked Ethulassia. "Well, she just realized it. So did he. They, I mean. Hence the act." One corner of her mouth came up in a sardonic little smile. "I'm glad we never gave either man a speaking role—I've never seen such a terrible bit of overacting."
Pausert blinked. He'd already deduced as much himself, but now that he really thought about it . . .
"Hulik? But—" his mind grappled feebly with the ramifications involved. "There's six of them!"
Ethulassia raised her eyebrow. "Sextuplets? Must be clones, I think. Either way . . ." Her other eyebrow raised. "Adventurous lass!"
"And one of her. And that's not our problem, Captain," said Vezzarn. "Somehow, I doubt it's much of a problem for her, either."
"Besides," rolled the rich tones of Cravan's voice, sounding enthusiastic, "think of the dramatic possibilities for future thespians! A modern update on the venerable Hindu epic, the Mahabharata—whose heroine Draupati, I'm sure I needn't remind you, married all five of the Pandava brothers."
Pausert has never heard of the Mahaba—whatever it was called. He mumbled as much.
"How unstudied of you, Captain," reproved Cravan. "You really should, you know. Draupati and her husbands had such a lot of adventures. Oh, volumes and volumes and volumes worth."
Speaking of volumes . . .
Pausert looked for Goth, and saw that other members of the cast were now providing her and the Leewit with something to eat. A lot of something to eat. He didn't know where they'd found so much food on such short notice, but he wasn't really surprised. Thespians, he'd come to learn, were nothing if not adaptable and expert at improvisation. Especially with the Leewit's scolds to spur them on.
Nothing left to worry about, then. The drug Cravan had given him was definitely taking effect. The audience's applause now sounded like a waterfall, heard dimly at a distance. The pitterpat of the accolades still showering the stage, like a gentle rain.
"I think I'd like to lie down and sleep," Pausert said weakly. And did.
CHAPTER 24
"I think we're probably done with the Agandar's pirates," said Captain Pausert, as they sat around the mess table in the Venture. "Their leader—his name turns out to be Juhta—confessed that Kleesp was the Agandar's lieutenant although he still refuses to explain why they've been chasing us so relentlessly. But what's worrying me is the fact that we haven't seen any more of the ISS. I mean, by now they should have talked their way out of prison on Tornam. Subradio should have carried the news ahead."
Goth yawned. She'd had a hard day practicing their roles in the latest thespian production, and some cage mucking-out, and bit of practice at their act. "The Sedmons said they'd done some covering of our tracks. Besides, Captain, the Venture is ready to fly again. We can run if they come looking."
"And all for the cost of some tinklewood fishing poles," said the Leewit. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
Captain Pausert was getting the measure of the littlest witch by now. "I kept one as a switch," he said, calmly. "You never know when you might need it."
"Huh," said the Leewit. "You and which army?" But it was quite cheerfully said. "So does anyone know where we're going next?"
"Yes. The Sedmons have set the itinerary along with Himbo. We're going to Yin Bauh. It's at least a place we should be safe from the ISS."
"I thought," said Goth, biting the end of a strand of her brown hair, "that Hulik said no place in the Empire was really safe from the ISS."
"Ah. But Yin Bauh isn't really part of the Empire, missy," said Vezzarn, looking very cheerful. "It's an independent principality. Within the Empire's borders, true enough—but the sultan doesn't like competition with his secret police, and has some pretty abrupt ways of making that cle
ar."
"What do they do there, Vezzarn?" asked the Leewit, just an edge of greed in her voice. The witches didn't, strictly speaking, need gold dust. But the Leewit had enjoyed collecting it anyway. "Is it another mining world like the last one?"
"Yin Bauh? No." The old spacer laughed and pointed at the dishcleaning unit. "If you want to know what they do there, look on the base of half the cheap trade goods in the Galaxy. 'YB made.' "
The Leewit looked astounded. "I thought that stood for 'why be made?' You mean it's a planet?"
"It's a planet, all right. A tax haven, without the labor laws of most of the rest of the Empire. All the big companies have manufacturing plants there. It's a pretty grim sort of place, mind you. But it is nice and inconspicuously on our way to the Imperial Capital, eh, Captain?"
Pausert nodded. "So it is. And you girls should be nice and inconspicuously on your way to bath and bed. And remember to wash behind your ears," he said sternly to the Leewit.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "I'm going to talk the little vatch into putting baking soda in your bubble-bath."
"Don't have any, child," said Pausert with a grin. Bubble bath was a newly discovered chink in the Leewit antiwashing armor. Actually, Goth had privately told the captain, most of that was for show these days. But the Leewit liked to resist baths. She felt it was something she ought to do just as a matter of principle. The Mistress of the Universe shouldn't even be subjected to getting dirty in the first place.
Goth rolled her eyes, but her shoulders shook slightly as she led the Leewit off to that fate worse than death, hot water. "And don't you forget to wash behind your ears either, Captain," she called back sternly.
"I won't. Good night, girls."
* * *
Three days later, the lattice ship drifted her way downward to a landing on Yin Bauh. They were making a night-side landing and it was plain to see that this world was heavily populated.
"We going to get audiences?" wondered Goth, with all the scornful skepticism of a new-converted thespian. "This looks like the sort of planet full of holo-theaters and threedee parlors, with wall-to-wall vidscreens in every house."
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