“This is about Zass, isn’t it?” Kati asked when she was able to get a word in.
“Yes.” Marita had sat down behind her desk, leaving Kati to lever herself into the arm chair in front of it. “You know about Klensers?”
“I have a bit of general knowledge, and Gen was just enlightening us about the toxic spill and how Zass must have gone to help clean it up.”
“It happened last night when I was here at work,” Mathilde said, wiping tears off her face with a towel. “I didn’t know anything about it, but when I went home Zass wasn’t there. I went to the neighbours’, and they said they’d seen about the spill on the news, but that there had been no answer at my door when they rang. They told me where the spill was and I went there right away; didn’t even change my clothes. When I got there, there were twenty-six Klensers there, just finishing the cleaning. Twenty-six means two Wild ones; the Exalted always send the Government Klensers in dozens, if they need more than a few. I found Zass easily, got him out of the water, and put on his clothes. And took him home. But there was an Exalted keeping an eye on things, and he saw us, of course, and they can remember what people look like, so we don’t have a hope. I don’t remember ever seeing this man before, but he could have seen me performing, and knows who I am. No wonder he didn’t even try to stop us from leaving; he knew that the Warrions can pick Zass up any time.”
“Where is Zass now?” Kati asked, wondering if Mathilde had left him home alone and unprotected while she came to work. Would she have been that foolish—or that desperate to keep the job?
“At my neighbours. But they only agreed to have him stay there this one night, because they don’t think that the Warrions will be looking for him, yet. They don’t want to get into a fight with the Exalted, and I can’t blame them. The Exalted always win.”
Of course, they did. They had the advantage of better eyesight, superior hearing, ability to note and recall minute details of their environment, as well as some physical self-repair powers. All bestowed upon them through the translation nodes which they denied to the Ordinary Citizens! They had turned the Ordinary Citizens into an underclass, an underclass that really did not have all the advantages that they themselves did! It was this underclass which kept the world humming, producing all that the Exalted enjoyed, while getting only a sliver of the fruits for themselves! And at the bottom of this class structure were the Klensers, who were presumed to be the creatures of the government—and less than human!
“Marita, could he be hidden here, maybe in the empty room upstairs, for a short while?” Kati asked.
“A very short while,” Marita said with a nod. “I’d already thought of that. But he can’t stay for more than a few days. Once the Exalted can’t find him among the Ordinary Citizens, they’ll search among us off-worlders. They know that our sympathies are with the regular folk, not with the Oligarchs. And if I want to keep this business feeding, and housing the people who depend on it, I have to allow the Warrions to search the premises when their goons present me with a warrant signed by a Judge—an Exalted Judge.”
Kati nodded.
“A couple of days ought to be enough. You’ll lose your entertainers, though. You know that we’ve been talking about going on the road. This is as good a time for that as any.”
Marita, too, nodded.
“I had heard that you and Joaley were talking about that, and that’s why I called you in here,” she said. “The Ithcar Province, to the northwest, is run by a Family which is actually sane. Meaning that they don’t exploit their people, and they don’t corral their Wild Klensers. Apparently they have to tread a very careful line, otherwise they would be thrown out of the Planetary Government, but the fact that they are one of the Four Hundred does protect them. I’m told that there are other such members of the Four Hundred, too, but the Carmaks of Ithcar are the only ones I’m certain of. And I only know about them because my Sam is a nosy parker who spent years cooking his way around this continent before he hooked up with me.
“If you take Mathilde and Zass with you, you can drop them off in Ithcar where Zass will be safe, and allowed to lead as normal a life as a Klenser can. He will still be taking part in local cleaning efforts when necessary—Sam told me that Ithcar hasn’t called in the Government Klensers for generations because they have enough Wild ones at home.”
“I wanted Mathilde with us, in the first place,” Kati said. “Remember, I asked you about it sometime ago?”
At Mathilde’s nod, she added:
“I hope you mentioned the fact that I had asked you to go, to someone. It would make your leaving with us look more natural.”
“I mentioned it to my neighbours, a while back, after you had asked,” the Vultairian girl replied, starting to look a bit less harried. “I said that I hadn’t made up my mind.”
“Good. Now you can tell them that you have made up your mind, and you’re coming with us. But don’t mention Zass unless you’re good at lying, in which case say that he’s going to be spending the time of your absence with friends who will hide him.”
“They know that I was trying to find someone to hide him,” Mathilde responded softly. “I won’t need to say anything.”
“What about these fellows who are supposed to start entertaining with you?” Marita asked then. “Dare you trust them? Will they go with you or stay here in Port City, do you think?”
Kati laughed a short laugh.
“Joaley and I know them a little. We met on Lamania, in The Second City. I know enough about them to feel certain that they won’t tell tales. Rakil, as you no doubt have noticed, is a Borhquan, from the Northwestern Continent, as he keeps saying, which apparently means that his honesty is beyond question. And Lank, I gathered from a thing or two he has said, has seen enough exploitation in his short life that he will never betray another human being. As for, will they come with us? I think Joaley and I will watch their performance tonight, and if we think they’ll fit in with us, we’ll ask them to come. I’d wager that if we want them to come, they’ll be ready to go when we are.”
“It would make me feel better if they did go with you,” Marita said with a sigh. “Three young women and a boy making their way around this world, just doesn’t strike me as particularly safe.”
Kati swallowed the retort on her tongue, and merely smiled quizzically. She lifted her bottom from the plush chair.
“Time to go out and act normal, Mathilde. At the end of the night some of us will come with you to get Zass. The sooner he gets here, the sooner we can start working out how to ensure his safety. But right now I’m hungry for my dinner.”
*****
The evening’s show went well. Lank and Rakil had put the time since Kati and Joaley had last seen them into good use, and had created a slick entertainment. Lank’s flute accompanied Rakil’s juggling, and to everyone’s delight there was a section in Rakil’s performance where the smooth juggler turned into an awkward ball-dropper, who also made a mash of the poem he was reciting, looking very much like the ape that the Exalted claimed the Borhquans were. Even Lank’s music seemed to go off the rails—the flute sounded horribly off-tune. The two performers looked at one another in mock consternation while standing on the stage, waiting for enthusiastic audience members to pick up Rakil’s balls which had scattered to the four corners of the Terrace. The watchers hooted, seemingly wondering how much of the act was for real, and how much was show. Then, when Rakil had received all his balls back, Lank put his instrument to his lips and slowly began to play again, tentatively and simply at first, building up into greater complexity as he went along. And Rakil began re-reciting the poem he had mangled, and threw his balls into the air again, an expert juggler once more.
When, a short while later, Lank set his flute aside, offering Rakil the drum, and broke into a rendition of a wild sea-shanty from Tarangay, the audience was theirs. The three women joined in with their instruments and singing voices, and the last hours of the evening at Marita’s Terrace and Bar, were
a party just as good as anything that Kati and Joaley had managed with Darce and Wen.
“So do you think that we’ll do?” Rakil asked Kati and Joaley as the performers were drinking the beers that one of the patrons had got into the habit of buying them at the end of the night.
They were also waiting for the coins to stop dropping into the collecting bowl, and the last of the customers to straggle out, many after complimenting the new members of the troupe.
“Well, your act is quite different from the one Darce and Wen did,” Joaley ventured, “but the crowd seems to like it. Which is enough of a recommendation for me.”
“You’re in, as far as I’m concerned,” Kati said with a laugh. “We don’t exactly have a line-up of possible replacements.”
Mathilde giggled at that. It was good to hear her giggle, Kati thought. Maybe they could keep her brother safe.
*****
Usually, by the time Marita closed the bar, Sam had already left the kitchen to collapse for his night’s rest, but this evening he carried the tray of food for the performers to Kati and Joaley’s room himself. He set it on the table and then sat down at the edge of Kati’s bed, looking tired but alert.
“Marita tells me that you people will set out for Ithcar Province in a day or two,” he said. “We think you can use my knowledge of the continent; I travelled around it quite a bit some years ago, and Vultaire being what it is, I doubt that too much has changed. With the help of my node I built a mental map of sorts, and maps, except for the roughest, hand-drawn ones, are hard to come by on this world. I think the safest way for me to pass on the information is node to node, and that will give it to you in as complete a form as possible. Which one of you is the one most suitable to receive it, do you think?”
The Monk rose to attention while Kati looked around at the other four off-worlders around her.
“It’s probably me,” she said with a sigh, obeying The Monk’s bidding. “I have carried a map in my head before; it’s still there somewhere, in the cracks among my nodal neurons, even though I doubt that I’ll ever need it again. Only thing is, I’m not in love with doing the node to node transfer of information, and I’m guessing that you’re talking about a huge chunk of data.”
“Not nearly as much data as the amount that the Xeonsaur stuffed into your mind through Murra’s link with you,” The Monk subvocalized petulantly. “I know you don’t have that sweet boy running interference for you, but you have had me with you now for a while. Surely you’ve learned a few things since then, and developed the psychological equivalent of a tough skin when it comes to nodal transfers.”
“The Granda’s giving me shit for hesitating,” she acknowledged with a slight grin as the others looked upon her with some bemusement—in Mathilde’s case with open puzzlement.
“You have a Granda node?” Sam asked with some surprise. “Then, yes, you are the one to carry this information. You can dole it out to the others as needed, in any manner that’s practical. The Granda will make this transfer much easier for both of us; it’ll have the experience and expertise to strip the data from my node as it offers it and to slip it into your mind smoothly. It’s a real piece of luck to have a Granda amongst you; what with all of you being Wilders of one type or another, except for the Borhquan, I was all prepared for a slow and careful data transfer.”
“All right, bring it on.”
Kati sat down on her bed, next to the older man with a sigh. Abruptly she was anxious to get the thing done and over with. She handed her left hand to Sam who took it and carefully examined the pad of her left thumb. He then pressed his thumb against hers, and The Monk sprang into action, seemingly turning himself into a hose with a suction cup at its thumb end. Kati shuddered at the weird feeling this strange neural connection gave her. The Granda took only moments to absorb all that Sam’s node was passing over, and she was glad that she knew that in a transfer like this the nodes were scrupulous about protecting their owners’ privacy, and censored the transfer of anything that the transmitting person considered too private to be shared. No sex, no bathroom trips; even nudity often was a taboo. Mikal had hinted that there were substances which were sometimes used during the interrogation of criminals, that could override the privacy imperative; the thought of such gave her the chills. Although in cases such as the Morhinghys abusing Kerris—there were exceptions to every rule.
It was over. She had her hand back. For a second or two her brain roiled with images of towns, and roads through farmland and forests; rivers, and bridges crossing them, of countless tall Vultairians, both Ordinary Citizens, and the Exalted. Then the Granda brought it all under control, and the images disappeared, no doubt to appear again whenever she needed the information.
“His node did create a map of his travels,” The Monk subvocalized to her. “I’ll see if I can’t refine it, and get it ready for you to draw upon, and to pass to your friends.”
“Kati, are you all right?” Joaley asked, sounding concerned.
Kati realized that she had closed her eyes and opened them to look at the other five people in the room. They all were looking at her worriedly. She drew a deep breath.
“Yeah. I always find this kind of connecting disorienting, but the Granda has it in hand now. It tells me that the information should be of great value to us on this trip.”
“Glad to hear that.” Sam had stood up. “Now if you people want to eat up and do whatever else you need to do before getting into sleep mode, I’m going to shower, and crawl into bed beside Marita.”
Joaley walked him to the door and locked it behind him.
“So,” said Rakil, uncovering the trayful of food that Sam had laid on the table. “Will somebody explain what exactly is going on, to those of us who don’t know?”
*****
“My brother is in danger.” Mathilde was the first one to speak.
“So we gathered from what Gen gossiped at suppertime while you were in Marita’s office,” Joaley replied quietly. “Since you were more or less alright when you and Kati came out of there, I assumed that Marita and Kati came up with a plan. I suppose Sam’s contribution of his travel diary is a part of that plan.”
“Mathilde and Zass are coming with us on our tour of the continent,” Kati said. “We’ll swing by Ithcar Province, which, Marita told us, is the one sane place within reach that she and Sam know of. Apparently the Carmaks Family who are in charge, are not into exploiting their people, the way most of the Oligarchs are. The Wild Klensers are allowed to lead their lives, and only asked to help with the cleaning when there’s some to be done within the borders.”
“I’ll be performing with you as long as we’re on the road,” Mathilde added. “That’s the reason why I’m coming.”
“How are we going to smuggle Zass along?” Joaley asked logically enough. “Won’t it be obvious that the Vultairian teenager with us is Zass if Mathilde is travelling with us?”
“Working on that,” Kati answered. “But first we have to get him here from Mathilde’s neighbour’s place.”
“I’m letting the word out that I’m sending him away to friends out of town, in order to keep him safe,” Mathilde said. “I was making inquiries about that all day, today, but I wasn’t able to come up with any place for him. Everybody’s scared, and Marston, who usually is not, apparently is having trouble of some kind, and can’t help anyone.”
“We can tell you about Marston, Mathilde,” Joaley said. “Kati discovered, through her special talents, when we went to see him, that the Warrions have wired his house for sound so thoroughly that they know everything he and Liss do. If Zass went there, the Exalted would pick him up in no time. Apparently that sort of thing has happened before, and Marston and Liss could not figure out who had been betraying them.”
“Shit,” Rakil muttered. “Divide and conquer.”
“Indeed. I suspect that a lot of that is happening on this world. People without nodes and deprived of technology don’t have much in the way of defences against
that kind of manipulation.” Joaley looked angry. “There’s a lot of mistrust among the Ordinary Citizens.”
“As soon as we’ve finished eating, I want to take one of the guys and go to Mathilde’s with her, and pick up the boy,” Kati said. “We’ll bring him here; Marita’s letting him stay in the empty room until we can get on the road. I’m hoping that seeing him will give us an idea of how to deal with his presence.
“Rakil or Lank?”
“I’ll come, of course,” Rakil responded immediately.
“Just because you’re bigger, Rakil,” Lank muttered, “doesn’t automatically make you a better bodyguard than I could be. I’m not helpless.”
“I know that,” Rakil said soothingly. “You’ll get your chance, worry not.”
“I’ll have you remember,” Kati said severely, “that Joaley and I have been functioning quite well without bodyguards for a couple of weeks now. And you’re coming along with me tonight, Rakil, as much for Zass’s benefit as mine. Just in case the Exalted have decided to pick him up tonight.”
“I’m sure that we still have time,” Mathilde said. “If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s that the Exalted don’t rush. That makes them scarier in a way, than they would be if they did hurry. You keep looking for a way out even when you know that there isn’t one, and it wears you down. You think that maybe you can find an escape route, and just end up cornered anyway.”
“That’s a form of psychological warfare,” Joaley sputtered. “Obviously they are making use of all the advantages that they have taken for themselves. Arrogant bastards; that’s what they are.”
“One of the lessons Mikal taught me on the Drowned World was that you can use a person’s arrogance as a weapon against him,” said Kati. “That’s probably worth remembering while we’re here.”
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 18
