On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  “Though, she’d been itching to get at the Exalted of Vultaire for some time,” Lank added. “That was pretty clear when she recruited us for this task. I think that she has known for a long time that shit was happening here, and jumped at the chance to shove proof of slavery on Vultaire in the faces of the Federation politicians.”

  “The Oligarchs have been bragging for ages of how they’ve got the Federation Government officials eating out of their palms,” Jock said with a sigh. “And it sure has seemed that they were right about that!”

  “There are too many politicians on the Federation Space Station who don’t want to make waves,” Rakil muttered. “A few favours or presents can make people like that turn a blind eye to stuff that they don’t want to see anyway. My great-uncle was the Borhquan Representative to the Federation Senate when I a kid, and he used to come home really upset, sometimes. He’d say that there were too many Senators who merely enjoyed their position of power, instead of doing the work required. They were easy to fool, and there were those who played them for fools.”

  “Well, I sure hope that Maryse shakes them up, and then some,” Lank said fervently.

  “Or manages to do a bit of playing for a fool, herself,” Jock added with a wry grin.

  They had come outside again, and Mycha met them, offering to show off the hydro-generator in the stream. Roxanna said that she would give the generator a pass, having seen it before, and not really being that interested in mechanics. Lank and Jock were keen on it, but Rakil took the opportunity to get Roxanna all to himself for a few moments.

  The short, dark woman led the big Borhquan to a quiet spot alongside the building, where a fallen log provided seating. Roxanna had sat there before, but, almost always, alone. Once, Cathe had come with her, when the memories of her slave days had overwhelmed her, but that had been early in her stay. Later, she had found that alone time was not easy to obtain in an open-concept living space of the hall. The little private spot had become a refuge for her, one which the Vultairians seemed to not need the way she did. Now she was pleased to have it; there was something about this kindly bear of a cousin to the fellow that she and Ingrid had looked after on the slave ship, that drew her.

  “This is a nice quiet place,” Rakil commented when they had sat down on the log.

  “It’s about the only spot I have found where a person can have a little bit of privacy without going off into the forest, or demanding to spend time in one of the little private sleeping cubbies which are generally reserved for loving couples,” Roxanna explained.

  “You don’t care to walk in the forest?”

  “Me, I was a city girl,” Roxanna said with a light laugh. “And since the cat-men abducted me while I was out in the bush at someone’s cottage, I’ve developed a certain uneasiness around too many trees. How about you? Are you a city person, or a country boy?”

  “We have no cities on Borhq,” Rakil answered. “The only place even remotely citified is the Star Port Town, and it exists only to serve the space vessels. My world has two—just enough to qualify us for full membership in The Star Federation—but there are others from elsewhere that make regular, or not so regular, stops at our Star Port. I never lived in Port Town, although I spent time there, picking up stuff for my family and delivering the goods that we exported off-world. I lived with my Tree Family at the Family Compound, which is, in effect, a giant tree house.”

  “A giant tree house?” Roxanna wrinkled her nose. “Well, that’s certainly exotic.”

  Rakil grinned.

  “That’s the usual reaction I get from people who have never been to Borhq,” he said. “However, when I arrived in The Second City on Lamania, I didn’t find city life all that different from what my life had been. In a clan dwelling you get used to being in close quarters with all sorts of people—they just happen to all be your relatives. And, pleasantly, in The Second City there were no Old Aunts keeping an eye on my doings, and weighing whether I was a credit to the Family or a disgraceful annoyance.”

  “So what made you leave your world? I’m assuming that your leaving, unlike mine, was your own choice?”

  “It was a choice, all right. According to my mother, the Old Aunts were tending towards the opinion that I was more of a disgrace than a credit. There were a few young women from the neighbouring Tree Families who wanted me to choose a partner from among them, which would have meant leaving my Family to join hers. That’s supposed to be an honour for a Borhquan man, to be asked to join a woman’s Family. I had three women—and their Families—to choose from, so I ought to have been thrilled. Only, none of the women made my heart speed up, or do any of those things that a man’s heart is supposed to do when he is smitten.”

  Not the way you make my heart go pitty-pat, he thought to himself.

  “I guess that I could have been practical, and picked the best deal of the three, as was suggested, but I’m something of a romantic, I guess, and I annoyed everyone by refusing to choose. When my mother pointed out that I was making myself very unpopular with the Elder Aunts, I remembered that, Mikal, my half-Lamanian cousin, had said that if any of us wanted to see the Universe outside of Borhq, we should come to Lamania’s Second City. The Federation Peace Officer Corps were always looking for good people, he had said. I started asking around at the Star Port about passage. There are always Star Ship Captains who will take you on if you’re willing to do grunt work to pay your fare, and I found one such, who was also willing to drop me off at The Second City Star Port.”

  “Fascinating,” Roxanna said. “Travelling from one world to another sounds no harder than thumbing a ride was on my planet.”

  “It’s not always that simple,” Rakil countered immediately. “Here, on Vultaire, for example, if you’re an Ordinary Citizen, you’re not going anywhere, unless it’s walking from one village to the next. And Vultaire is a Federation World. As a matter of fact, getting to Lamania, was easier for Lank who is from a Fringe World called Tarangay, than it would be for your average Vultairian. Mind you, Vultaire is an exception in the Star Federation, and an unfortunate one at that.

  “When all this is over you should be able to go to The Second City, if you want to. You can claim Federation Refugee Status, and take up residence there. Lamanians are very good about strangers and half-breeds; they love them, partly because they find them very useful. And, if, later on, you’re interested in seeing Borhq, you could come and meet my Tree Family. You could find out how we Borhquans manage a world.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Roxanna replied with a sigh of longing. “I have to admit that the Base already feels cramped, and I haven’t been here that long. I guess there’s still a lot to be done before I make it out, but you’ve given me hope. Right now, that’s worth a lot.”

  As they walked back to the building, Roxanna realized that, for the first time since she had been abducted, she felt like an attractive woman, rather than an object to be used, or a precocious child. Not that anyone at the Base had ever been anything but kind to her, but it was nice to be seen for the adult woman that she now considered herself to be. Rakil apparently enjoyed spending time with her, and chatting with her. After what she had been through, the attention he was paying to her felt like a heady brew. She was going to be sorry to see him leave!

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Kaya’s daughter was born at sunrise the next day, a few hours after Santha and the Healer, Mirta, arrived at the Base, exhausted by their night-time walk. Fortunately the Vultairian sky was star-lit, with two small moons, one of which had been up. Runners and Healers were used to having to travel at night; however this trip had come at the end of a long and challenging day. Mirta, a boney, middle-aged woman with kind eyes, had been visibly pleased to see that Joaley and Kati had things well in hand in the birthing room. She had examined Kaya on her arrival, stated her opinion that it would still be a while before the baby arrived, and had looked over the equipment that Cathe and Sira had readied for the birth. Then, pronouncing everything in or
der, she had asked if the off-world women, along with Cathe and Sira, minded keeping an eye on things while she snatched a little shut-eye, since she had been up since the previous dawn, and Santha had had to fetch her from a local farm where she had been attending to the needs of a dying old woman.

  “The life of a Rural Healer,” she had said while explaining this. “We see to both the beginnings and the ends, as well as to whatever troubles may happen in between.”

  Cathe had immediately straightened out the blankets on a free pallet.

  “By all means, lie down for a while,” Kati had encouraged Mirta. “Joaley and I have slept a bit now and then, and so have Cathe and Sira, in their turn. We’ll be fine until things get serious, and then we’ll wake you up to mastermind the finish.”

  “Be sure to drag me out of bed when she’s ready to start pushing,” Mirta had said, slightly anxiously. “Does at least one of you know about pushing?”

  “I do,” Kati had answered with a grin. “Been there, done that. It feels like you have to find the toilet, immediately.”

  “Good. When Kaya makes that complaint, get me up at once.”

  With that the tired Healer had lain down, to be awakened two hours later, to preside over the finale. Kati and Joaley had been immensely glad to have a Healer who knew her craft, on hand for the birth. As Joaley said later, Mirta had made the final stages of Kaya’s labour seem to go deceptively smoothly, and “she pretty well just caught that baby coming out”.

  “She talked Kaya through it,” Kati had added. “She kept her from panicking which she easily might have done, this being her first birth.”

  “Plus, Mirta had that baby at the mother’s breast, suckling away, in no time at all,” Cathe had added. “I had only begun to wonder about how to accomplish that when she already had the baby cleaned and at the breast. I just stared.”

  “She’s a pro, no question about it,” was Joaley’s opinion.

  *****

  Fortunately, the Troupe had scheduled to spend a second night at the Base. Kati and Joaley were in no mood to head out the morning after the childbirth, and, besides, the Base inhabitants did want the original group to perform for them. Not that they had been unhappy with the first evening’s show, which had been missing only Kati and Joaley, and had been augmented by Roxanna, who certainly knew how to coax the audience to sing. That performance had whetted the Base residents’ appetite for diversion, apparently. All of them were keen to see the whole group in action, even while talk had sprung up about having Mathilde, Zass, Roxanna, Sari and some of the resident Klensers form an in-house band.

  That afternoon, Zass, Shiff and Dowl of the Klensers, and Lank with them, tramped into the Forest to search out reeds that they hoped would serve for pipe-making. They came back with armfuls, and full of enthusiasm. Kati, coming across them at a table in the corner of the Hall, was delighted to see that Shiff and Dowl were as much a part of the enterprise as Zass and Lank were. Dowl was busy trying to recreate the type of pipe he remembered making and playing as a boy, while Lank was showing the other two how to make the reed instruments that had been popular on Tarangay. Vic came by with a jar of resin which he thought might help preserve the finished pipes, and lengthen their life-spans. He stopped to listen to the first notes which Dowl played on his simple instrument.

  “We’ll have enough musicians to entertain even our nearest neighbours on occasion,” he said happily when Dowl’s tune was over. “Life sure is looking up.”

  “Just remember that when you want to go to sleep early, but all the musicians are practising their pieces in the Hall,” Lank warned him with a laugh.

  “Oh, I never want to go to sleep early,” Vic replied airily, “and it’s not like this Hall hasn’t been noisy. We revolutionaries can be an argumentative bunch.”

  “Oh yes,” added Rayna, who had stopped to listen to Dowl’s music while walking by on some errand. “The music, even at practise stage will be an improvement over the shouting matches of the Circle. And Jorun will be delighted to get help with the job of continually soothing troubled waters.”

  Kati slipped off to see Kaya and the baby, whom Kaya had turned into her namesake, after shyly asking if that was all right.

  “Sure, name her after me if you want to,” Kati had said to Kaya with a laugh, “only my given name is actually Katharine—“ she almost added as her mother had used to: “like Katharine Hepburn of ancient movie fame”, but remembered in time where she was, “—Kati is just a short form of that.”

  “Hey, that’s a lot like my name, Catherina,” Cathe had said, smiling.

  “Katharine Mirta,” Kaya had said softly, her eyes leaving her baby’s head to take in the exhausted Healer who had fallen asleep on the pallet next to her.

  “Katimi,” Joaley had crowed, grinning broadly. “In my mother tongue that would be ‘Little Kati’.”

  That had been the crowning touch. Katimi the baby became, and she had seemed perfectly content with that, resting peacefully beside her mother, her belly full of milk.

  *****

  Kati introduced Katimi to a raucous crowd that evening, while Kaya waited in the first row of the audience, flanked by Cathe and Sira. Mirta had already left, having been fetched by another runner to attend to a different birth, this one happening in Rivertown. Kati did not envy the Healer the necessity of travelling on foot all the way to Rivertown, and then attending to a—hopefully uncomplicated—birth. She had been surprised to hear that Rivertown did not have its own Healer, but depended on Mirta, based as she was, in Bouldertown.

  “There aren’t that many of us,” Mirta had explained. “It’s not an easy life, and not too many young people aspire to it. People in Bouldertown are lucky because my youngest daughter is apprenticed to me, so they’ll be assured of a local Healer for a long time to come—assuming, of course, that she doesn’t marry some man who wants to spirit her off elsewhere. Rivertown has not had a Healer for years; as far back as I know, they have always depended on Healers from the neighbouring communities. It hasn’t worked out too badly for them since they do have several near neighbours, unlike Bouldertown which has no acknowledged neighbour except Rivertown.”

  Beer was flowing somewhat liberally this evening, so when Kati returned the baby to her mother, she suggested that Kaya take her back to the Klensers’ room reasonably soon after the entertainment had gotten underway. Cathe, listening in, had nodded even as Kaya did.

  “Don’t worry, Kati,” she had said. “Kaya needs to rest, anyway. Sira and I will make sure that mother and daughter are safely off to bed before the noise level gets too horrendous.

  “Not that I want to fault these people for wanting to celebrate, when there’s something to celebrate,” she had added. “Our lives have been a bit trying, as we’ve been hiding, and biding our time, hoping that we could actually do something to change the status quo.”

  *****

  The following afternoon Santha led them to the rest area outside the Ithcar border, on the way to the Capital City. Their team of runnerbeasts, and the cart waited for them there, hidden behind some shrubs.

  “Vern and Ted likely brought it here in the morning,” Santha said, after inspecting the animals which appeared to have been well-cared for in their owners’ absence. “No doubt they fed and watered the beasts before going back home; they’re responsible farm boys.”

  Kati spoke to the creatures, loosened the tethers that had kept them by the cart, and took them and a pail to the pump to water them again.

  “I suppose that we won’t make it anywhere tonight?” she asked Santha. “Or do you know if there are any villages, or other rest areas within our reach tonight?”

  Santha shook her head.

  “I’d figure on an early start tomorrow, if I were travelling with you,” she replied. “Even at that, at cart pace, it’ll be past suppertime when you reach the next town—it’s called Marocville. You won’t earn much coin there; the Maroc Family is notorious for sucking all they can out of their popula
tion, but the folk will be thrilled to have an evening of entertainment and will give you what they can spare, and they’ll feed and water you with the best they have to offer.”

  “I’ve been through there,” Jock said, coming to fill a pot with water. “I was unfortunate enough to be accompanying one of the local Exalted. He was a bastard; I could smell the hatred which he generated everywhere he went. I was caught in the backwash; I think that it was then that I decided that it was the better part of wisdom for me, as a musician, to not announce my connection to the Exalted class while I was in the countryside outside of Ithcar.”

  “The Marocvillians are envious of us Bourldertownees,” Santha said. “We’re on the better side of the Provincial boundary.”

  Jock took the water pot back to where Joaley was preparing to make herbal tea, so that Santha could share it with the Troupe before she began her hour-long run back to her home town.

  “It’ll go fast since I’m by myself,” she explained.

  “No short-legged creatures slowing you down,” Joaley laughed.

  “No short-legged creatures slowing me down,” she agreed. “But don’t get me wrong. I have certainly enjoyed the company of you off-worlders. Wouldn’t have missed it for anything!”

  Then she was gone and there were only the five Troupe members left.

  They talked over the events of the past two days while preparing supper from the fresh food supplies that the Bouldertown farm wives had generously packed into the cart. Rakil had to listen to jibes about his interest in Roxanna, but he took it well, more concerned for the young woman’s well-being than his own ego.

  “She didn’t say much about how things went in the brothel, except to worry about how her friend Ingrid was holding out,” he said to Kati, sounding worried. “I’m afraid that it means that things were pretty bad.”

  “She’s well out of there,” Jock spat. “I know people in the Capital City and some of the Exalted were perverts. Roxanna, being as small as she is, was probably sold as a child to pedophiles.”