On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  All three turned their eyes to where Zass was sitting cross-legged on the stage floor, showing the Carmaks offspring his drums, and the sticks with which he played them. He looked much like a normal teenager, other than that he was remarkably well-muscled, and fit-looking, for a youth barely out of childhood.

  “Our Tarangayan, Lank, thought that he could teach Zass the drums. Mathilde didn’t object; she felt that it was an idea worth testing. Lank had taught Rakil to play drums already on Lamania, so he figured that he could do the same with Zass. He had the right of it; Zass took to music like one born to it—which, of course, he is, since his parents were musicians.”

  Marina nodded.

  Kati continued:

  “This afternoon I asked Zass where it is that he goes when he becomes entranced. He told me that he listens to, and gets caught up in, the heartbeat of the world. That might be important, useful in dealing with other Klensers, too.”

  “The heartbeat of the world.” Marina’s eyes grew wide. “That reminds me of something that my grandfather used to say when I was a little girl. He used to say that nobody is as fortunate as the person who can sense the planet’s beating heart. I wonder...I really wonder if there isn’t a connection there.”

  “Perhaps some lore about the Klensers,” Kati answered. “Something that people used to know, but the knowledge was lost.”

  “I suspect that at one time we knew many things that we since have forgotten,” Hector said, a touch of sadness in his tone.

  “This will have to be explored,” Marina said decisively. “We’ll have to talk to the other dissident Exalted; let them know that there’s more to the Klensers than the government sees.”

  “Jorun will have to hear about this, too,” Hector added. “Perhaps the Rebels at the Base can do something among the Klensers there. I don’t believe that it has occurred to anybody there to try to find out the extent of the Klensers’ capabilities.”

  “Kati will be able to talk about this with Jorun when the Troupe gets to the Base,” Marina said. “You’ll be there before either Hector or I will. We have to be careful about dropping in, since we don’t want to give away its location to any of the Oligarchs.”

  “How have you kept the secret?” Kati asked, genuinely curious.

  Marina laughed.

  “Because we know that the government has a way of keeping tabs on our flyers and flits,” she said, “we never, ever, travel very close to the Underground Base in them. We rely on the old methods which the Ordinary Citizens use; it does not occur to the Oligarchs that we would forgo Exalted privileges.”

  “It takes longer to make the trip that way,” Hector added, “so of course we don’t go as often as we might, if we could just fly. But we’re in touch with Jorun through messengers who run word to him when he needs to know something, and he sends runners this way when necessary. It’s primitive, yes, but it by-passes the government’s attempts to keep tabs on the dissidents.”

  He grinned. “It’s as neat and simple as the cart that you people used to smuggle the boy out of Port City. And just as effective.”

  “You know about Nikol’s deluxe carts?” Kati asked, surprised.

  “Hector’s great-grandfather designed those carts,” Marina said gleefully. “He used his Exalted talents to design it so that it’s very hard for even a person with a node to discover the presence of that hidden compartment.”

  “It could be done by a noded person,” Hector added, “but he would have to spend some time comparing distances between parts of the cart, and doing a few calculations. I bet the Warrions who inspected you people at their border didn’t bother to do anything of the sort.”

  Kati laughed.

  “To tell the truth, I worried about it at the time,” she said, “and annoyed my friend Joaley of the red hair by being extra nice to Mathis Warrion, just to make certain that the idea would not occur to him. Satisfactorily enough, he had his goons look over the cart while he allowed me to chat him up.”

  “Sounds like we don’t have to teach you any tricks,” Marina crowed. “Maybe you could teach us one or two.”

  *****

  The morning after that show, the Troupe breakfasted at the Carmaks family home—a beautiful old pile of stone, improved with a notable array of modern Federation conveniences. Marina and Hector introduced them to Jock Carmaks, a musician who had missed the entertainment because he had been playing in a nearby town. Apparently, Ithcar folk were better supplied with entertainment than the Provinces around them.

  “Jock has recently come back from working in the Capital City,” Hector explained. “He has decided to revive the Ithcar Musicians’ Guild. He’s been doing the rounds of the towns and villages, entertaining, and talking up the benefits of such a Guild, to musicians and lay people alike.”

  “I’ll be at tonight’s show,” Jock said. “And I’ll be paying close attention to what you do.”

  “A Musicians’ Guild?” Mathilde, usually quiet as a mouse at gatherings such as this one, dared to ask. “May I join? Or, if Zass and I go to the Underground Base for his safety, will that keep me from doing so?”

  “You want to join?” Jock sounded delighted. “You know about Musicians’ Guilds?”

  “When my parents were alive, they used to talk about them. They used to say that, once upon a time, our whole family would have belonged to one.”

  “Excellent. You’ll get to organize the Guild Cell at the Rebel Base.” Jock beamed. “You’ll probably have to travel to Bouldertown to play for the folk there, too. It’s the town closest to the Base, and sadly short of professional quality musicians, right now.”

  Kati was pleased to see the expression which lighted up Mathilde’s face. But....

  “Jock, you wouldn’t know of a rhyele player who could replace Mathilde in the Troupe?” she asked. “We’re in a better position to do what we’re here to do, if we have at least one local musician in our group.”

  “Let me give the matter some thought,” Jock replied. “Then I’ll let you know what the possibilities are.”

  “You should be the one to go, Jock,” Marina said, staring at him. “You know the ins and outs of the Capital City, and that is where they are headed. You could be very useful to the Team.”

  “You, of all people, Marina, are encouraging me to return to the Sin City?” Jock’s eyebrows were up, and he had a lopsided grin on his face. “I am surprised.”

  Marina had her mouth open to add more, but Hector caught her eye and gestured meaningfully at the children at the table. His wife nodded, and shut her mouth.

  “Later,” she said to Jock.

  “Secrets,” muttered her eldest. “Sin City secrets. Have to make sure the children don’t find out the icky secrets!”

  Kati turned to grin impishly at the girl.

  “I remember how that goes,” she said. “Adults are always being so mysterious, keeping all these secrets. It makes you want to know it all, so badly. Only, once you get to be old enough to find out all about it, you wish you had never done so, after all.”

  “Isn’t that’s the truth,” sighed Hector, and spooned more cheese-coated eggs onto his plate.

  *****

  Kati walked the streets of Carmakville aimlessly, and alone. After the Troupe had returned from the breakfast at the Carmaks’, she had found the Inn walls, and the shared room, oppressive, and had turned around and gone back outside, excusing herself to the others. Her thoughts drifting from Jake to Mikal, she had stopped at the Inn stables to greet the runnerbeasts which were thriving under the care the groom was lavishing on them; there were only a few animals in residence, and, clearly, the young man was an animal-lover. Banishing the threatening inner gloom, she had bantered with the groom for a few minutes while caressing the creatures, and then had left again, still restless. Walking had seemed much the sanest course of action to deal with her malaise—there was no point in infecting her companions with it—so she had set off at a brisk pace, leaving it to her node to do the navigati
ng, and figuring out the route via which she would have to return to the Inn.

  Her steps took her to the Warri River which bisected the town, and one of the old stone bridges which spanned it. Mid-morning cart traffic was sparse, and the pedestrians were few. She could stop, mid-bridge, to admire the view. Old houses stood on the riverbanks, beyond the abundant water lilies, and the large, graceful trees whose roots blocked shore erosion. The Warri was much narrower and tamer here than it had been in Port City, downstream. The Troupe had not travelled all that far, she realized, even though they had been on the road for about three Vultairian weeks. Walking was a slow mode of travel, and they had spent time entertaining the locals wherever they had stopped. She sighed. Three six-day weeks of travel had brought them to Carmakville, and it would take them a lot longer than that to get to the Capital City. Everything was interesting, of course, and the travelling experience was educational, and useful for their purposes, but, at the moment, even the beauty of the small city around her depressed her.

  She was missing Mikal, she realized, needing his presence, his body, his humour, and, yes, even his professorial tendency to lecture! She giggled to herself, somewhat hysterically, to realize that even the ache about Jake would have been muted by Mikal’s proximity. But he was nowhere near, and there was nothing to be done about that. She would have to endure.

  She continued her walk on the other side of the bridge, ambling down the curving avenues that paralleled the river, and along the narrow lanes which crossed them. The loveliness of the town was beginning to lift her spirits, she realized, when she was startled by the sight of a flyer in the sky above the town, apparently coming in from down river. Node-sharpening her vision, she caught the Warrion colours and crest on it. She gritted her teeth.

  “Damn,” she muttered out loud, as the vehicle began to descend in the direction of the Carmaks Family home.

  More trouble. She turned to retrace her route to the business section of the town. She would be wanted, shortly; that was a certainty.

  *****

  Jock Carmaks accompanied Berd Warrion when the Port City Exalted waylaid Kati on the Inn side of the bridge. On that side of the river, next to the bridge, there was a tiny nook of a park, under a giant willow-like tree, complete with a couple of old wooden benches. When Kati saw the two men approaching, she stopped there and sat down to wait for them. She had decided that Berd Warrion could take in some fresh air, while he accused her of whatever it was that he had come to accuse her of.

  “They told us at the Inn that you had left to go for a walk, and even pointed us in the right direction,” Jock said as a greeting, when he and Berd reached her.

  “Kind of them to do that,” Kati replied with a slight shrug.

  A half-grin played upon Jock’s lips as he sat down on the bench facing Kati. Berd Warrion seemed disinclined to rest his buttocks; instead he paced around Jock, finally settling at the bench’s end, with one foot on it, and leaning his frame against the back rest. Kati watched him wordlessly as he fidgeted, unwilling to help him to state his business. Jock remained quiet as well, but looked alert. Kati fleetingly wondered whether Hector or Marina had sent him, or if he had chosen the errand himself.

  “I’ve made enquiries about you through Federation contacts, Kati of Terra,” Berd Warrion finally said.

  Shit. Well, it was bound to happen. Vultaire was a Federation World and had representatives in the Federation Government. She warned the Granda to be on maximum alert.

  “And what did you find out?” she asked.

  “Apparently you do know some rather interesting people in The Second City on Lamania,” Berd said with a smirk. “But more than that, you were something of an item, for a while, on the VidFeeds. Supposedly you saved some Peace Officer Corps operative’s ass on some back-woods planet, more than once, the claim was.”

  “So?”

  “So you’re an Adventuress, aren’t you?” The smirk became lascivious. “And you had a sexual relationship with this operative, Mikal r’ma Trodden by name. Our man in the Federation said that he’s one miserable bastard of an officious law-enforcer, as is his boss, Maryse r’ma Darien. It must have galled him to have to give credit to some Fringe World bimbo who happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  Kati swallowed a mouthful of bile while the Granda soothed her nerves to keep her tension from showing.

  “Meaning?” was all that she trusted herself to say.

  “Meaning—are you trying to make like a spy here or what?”

  Kati nearly hooted.

  “Where the hell did that come from?” she asked when she had her startlement under control.

  “Well, my contact also told me that Lamanians have some crazy rules about Federation men and Fringe World women. If such a woman is in a sexual relationship with Federation man when they arrive on Lamania, they’re separated for a half of a Lamanian year. It’s to allow the woman to decide for herself whether or not she wants to remain in the relationship—or some goody two-shoes rot like that, he said. Can’t say I get it, but he said it’s for real. So maybe to impress this guy, you took on a little spy job while you couldn’t hang out with him. My informant did mention that you had been seen talking with this Maryse r’ma Darien—maybe she’s an impressionable bitch.”

  “Good grief! You do have an active imagination!”

  “Do I?” The smirk was back. “Well how about this, Kati of Terra: Rakil the Borhquan ape that you travel with is Mikal r’ma Trodden’s cousin, lately come to Lamania from Borhq!”

  “What?”

  Kati reeled from genuine shock this time. Why had Rakil not told her this?

  “You didn’t know?” Berd stared at her in amazement. “You honestly didn’t know? Your lover is spying on you then, is that it? He doesn’t trust an Adventuress like yourself, so he sent a spy with you!”

  Kati realized that he had given her the opening that she needed. Thanks to The Monk’s ministrations her self-control returned smoothly.

  “Not to spy on me, you fool.” She decided that it wouldn’t hurt to sound vehement. “To protect me! And he sent him after me, not with me! He didn’t know that Joaley and I would end up here on Vultaire any more than we did! We were just going to look around the Space Lanes a bit, and play music to make ends meet, while we were at it. Then we got dropped off here by a miserable Ship Captain who promised us a ride in return for work; then wanted Joaley to work on her back! Shit, and I thought it was just great luck to have run into Lank and Rakil whom we’d met on Lamania! I didn’t realize Mikal had sicced Rakil on me! The arrogant asshole!”

  “Rakil?” Berd looked puzzled.

  “No, Mikal! He must think that I’m a useless twit who can’t look after herself! A backwoods bimbo, as you said, who can’t be trusted alone on the Space Lanes! I am so going to kick his butt as far as Marrachat Station when next I see him!”

  “Huh, sounds to me like maybe the man’s got a little more sense than my contact claimed,” Berd said. “So much for my wife’s spy theory.”

  He got off from his position on the bench and turned to leave.

  “Might as well go home.”

  “Not going to stay for tonight’s show?” Kati asked innocently.

  “Nah. Saw you guys do your thing at Marita’s. You’re okay, but my tastes run elsewhere.”

  He began to stride towards the central part of the town.

  “That was well-played, Kati of Terra,” Jock said with a broad smile as the two of them rose and began to follow Berd, much more slowly.

  “You think?” Kati responded, grinning herself.

  *****

  Kati tackled Rakil back at the Inn.

  “Rakil, what the hell do you mean by not telling me that you are Mikal’s cousin?” she snarled as soon as the door of the guys’ room shut behind her.

  The sounds of music that had been reverberating in the room came to an abrupt stop. Rakil and Lank both looked up at her guiltily.

  “It never came up,�
� Rakil replied, setting aside his drums, and getting up from a cross-legged position on the floor.

  “It never came up! Well, it just came up, and I nearly walked into a pile of shit because I didn’t know that you and Mikal had been plotting behind my back! Damn it! Did he ask you to keep me safe, or something?”

  “No.” Rakil had sat down again, on the edge of the bed this time, sharing it with Lank and his flute. Zass was on the next bed, cradling his drums.

  “I thought that one up all by myself.”

  “Lord, give me patience.” Kati was furious while The Monk snickered in the back of her mind, infuriating her further. “So you cousins did plot together—and I fell for it like a silly, trusting girl!”

  “No,” Rakil said again. “Mikal didn’t even know I was on Lamania, in The Second City, before I joined The Team. I had meant to go and see if he could get me into the Corps as a trainee, when I saw all that VidFeed stuff about what had happened on The Drowned Planet. And there was the thing about how you and Mikal had to be separated for a half-a-year. So I thought that someone in our Tree Family ought to be making sure that you were doing okay—you know, you being new from the Fringes and all that—and the only available family member was me. So I found out where in Transient Housing you were staying, and talked myself into the first empty room that came up in your unit, and then set out to get to know you.”

  He glanced at Lank.

  “And I got to know Lank at the same time; found out what a good guy he was. Of course I volunteered for this team; it was a great opportunity to show that I was serious about working for the Peace Officer Corps.

  “I apologize if my reluctance to reveal the family connection created problems. What happened, anyway?”

  “We better get Joaley and Mathilde here to listen, too, before I tell this tale,” Kati said, starting to giggle. “It’s a good enough story to tell several times but I’d rather not. Besides, time is passing and we have another show tonight, and I don’t want to burble about this in public. So—“