“Something that she said to me in passing suggests that you’re right, Jock,” Kati added with a sigh. “She wasn’t very forthcoming so I didn’t press her. I just told her to create a nodal record of all her experiences during her captivity. It should carry some weight, even if she didn’t know how to do the records while she was going through the events, since she did have the node already then.”
Kati had had the Granda download the procedure for creating non-falsifiable records into Roxanna’s node in the morning before the entertainers left to continue their journey. She had put the task off until that final day, since she herself was still uncomfortable with nodal contact, and she was well aware that Roxanna’s experience with such would have involved the slaver Gorsh’s minions probing her mind.
“Look, Roxanna,” she had said that morning, “I wouldn’t even suggest this if I didn’t think it was very, very important. I know it’s not comfortable; I’m still not used to nodal downloading, or uploading, and I’ve had to do it a number of times, and always under the best of circumstances. But your node is not a knowledgeable crank like mine is, so it needs to be taught to make witness records that will pass muster in a Federation Court of Law. The easiest way to do that—and the only one available to us right now—is to connect my old crank to your node, via the connector spot.”
Roxanna had shuddered.
“I don’t even know what good circumstances for node-to-node contact are,” she had muttered.
“Knowing the person who you are contacting is a start,” Kati had replied quietly, “especially if that person has your best interests at heart. And believe me, I want to do what’s best for you. I also do think that you need the ability to record events properly. I promise that my node will respect your privacy; this will be a one-way load, from my node to yours, that’s all.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” Roxanna had looked dubious, angry and frightened, all at the same time, “it’ll be the first time that connecting through the nodal spot hasn’t felt like psychological rape to me.”
Kati had opened her mouth to express her dismay at the words, had thought better of it, and shut it again.
“Here, I’ll show you,” she had said, instead, grabbing Roxanna’s left hand in both of hers.
It was best to get it over with, before whatever had happened to Roxanna would scare her silly. Kati told the Granda to use as light a mental touch as possible, and to be sure to pass on only the necessary instructions, and to take nothing from her.
“Don’t explain to me my business,” The Monk had subvocalized, irately. “She and her node will get the best treatment possible. I can be much more sensitive than even that lover of yours was to you, the first time he had to broach your nodal privacy.”
Kati had suppressed an urge to kick The Monk’s robed ass—a hard thing to do, since he was merely a mental construct—and had pressed her left thumb against that of Roxanna’s. The Granda, in spite of its annoying personality, knew its job, and quickly had initiated the contact with the younger woman’s node. The download had gone smoothly and fast; it had seemed to Kati that The Monk was telling her that it was done almost before she had had time to experience the usual sensation of a hose emptying out through the pad of her thumb. She had let go of Roxanna’s hand, pleased to see a slightly surprised expression on the younger woman’s face.
“That’s it?” Roxanna had asked. “Oh yes; I think I understand what my node’s to do!”
Kati had made a split-second decision to push her luck. She had grabbed Roxanna’s hand again.
“How about it if your node unloads to mine its memories of what has happened to you since the Vultairians bought you?” she asked before making the connection.
Roxanna had shrugged. “Sure, why not?” she had responded.
“Wow! That was easy and painless!” she had added when it was over.
The Monk had preened, making Kati wish fervently that it was possible to do more than mentally snarl at him. Still, she had repeated to herself, he did know his business. And she had more useful information. Not that she had been prepared to even glance at it at the moment. She asked the Granda to shelve it until later when she’d have more time—and courage—to tackle it.
Now Kati watched with some apprehension as Rakil sat in stony silence on the piece of log that was serving him as a chair. He was carefully paring the tubers which Joaley, the chief cook for the evening, had passed to him.
“Rakil,” she said gently to him, “she made it out, and we’re in a position to bring her torturers—some of them anyway—to justice. Try not to let it get to you.”
He lay the paring knife into the bowl with the tubers, and raised his eyes to her.
“I just wish I could take her away from here to Borhq, where the women in my Tree Family could cluck over her, get her talking about what happened to her, and help her heal,” he said. “Then, maybe, she might be able to see me as a potential lover and a partner. As it is, maybe she sees all men as potential torturers.”
“I don’t think that she sees you as a potential torturer, Rakil,” Kati protested. “I had the impression that she was rather pleased with the attention you were paying to her.”
“She’s been at the Base for a while, now,” Jock pointed out. “Working right alongside Jorun the whole time, I gathered. Jorun’s a good guy; to him she’d be like a daughter, and a very bright one at that. I’m sure that will have helped her.”
Kati made a face.
“The mention of time makes me feel guilty,” she said, “because it took Mikal and me so wretchedly long to get off The Drowned Planet.”
“Circumstances beyond your control,” Joaley threw in from where she was concocting a salad. “It’s absolutely pointless to feel guilty about a situation which you could not change. And we’re here now, all of us, out to free all the slaves on Vultaire.”
Kati burst out laughing.
“You make the whole endeavour sound hopelessly pompous, Joaley,” she protested, noting that the three males’ faces had broken into grins, too.
Joaley looked up from her work, a smile on her face.
“Made you laugh,” she said, giving the salad a hearty toss with a wooden spoon.
She quickly turned serious again.
“How did your session having your node show Roxanna’s node the ropes go, this morning?” she asked.
“It went fine, once she allowed me and The Monk to do our thing,” Kati replied. “She was antagonistic before that though. That’s understandable, I’m sure that Gorsh and his minions were not kind when they decanted her brain, after Mikal and I escaped the slave ship. And her attitude made me wonder about the goings-on in that brothel; I remember how Mikal told me after I’d made the nodal connection with him for the first time, and The Monk had made some snotty comment to me about nodal connectors and sex, to never even consider sex while connected nodally before I had known my partner for at least ten years. How does this one sound: Gorsh gets extra money for Roxanna and Ingrid at the Slave Market because they are noded, and thereby new avenues for sadistic pleasure have been opened?”
Joaley shuddered, and Rakil’s face darkened again.
“If you’re suggesting that the Exalted customers might have been encouraged to indulge in a form of mental rape,” said Jock, “all I can say is, but of course. It would certainly be the favourite perversity of some idle idiot, or a few.”
“It doesn’t kill you,” Joaley said harshly, “and it so happens that I know that for a fact. But it can be an incredibly humiliating experience, in which someone gets off on your deepest desires and fears.”
“Sounds like the red-head has experience,” subvocalized the Granda. “She’s been on the naive side of the equation. I know it from both sides, and kid yourself not, women can nodally rape men, just as men can do it to women. You could say that it amounts to one person forcing another to enjoy an experience which he or she would rather not go through at all. Withdrawing into yourself is not an option.”
“Shit,” Kati said out loud. “The Monk just enlightened me about nodal rape from his great storehouse of experience. Shit, and shit.”
“Eloquently put,” said Joaley, a half-grin on her face. “The salad’s ready. Are the tubers ready for the pot, Rakil?”
“This business of making nodal records,” Jock broke in, turning to Kati. “If you can excuse an ignorant noded person from a backwoods province, could I be taught to do it, too?”
“You mean to say that you’ve never been instructed in the art?” Kati asked, scandalized. “Sorry, Jock, it never even crossed my mind that the Oligarchs would leave their own class members ignorant, but, of course, the Carmaks are as much as renegades. We’ll have to teach you, certainly; we’ll need records from you for the Official Investigative Team.
“I’ll do it, Kati,” Joaley offered. “I can do it while Rakil gets the tubers cooking. As a City Peace Officer, I had to have detailed knowledge of it, so my node is quite capable of handling the transfer, and I know you still get a little weirded out by the process. My node’s speed may not be quite as fast as the Granda’s, but this’ll be good practise for it, and no-one should be in a hurry since it’ll still be a while before dinner is served.”
“Thanks, Joaley,” Kati said. “I do appreciate you doing this. Roxanna would not have accepted the transfer from anyone but me, but I expect that, Jock, you don’t care which one of us presides, as long as the thing gets done.”
“Right on,” said Jock, reaching for Joaley’s left hand with his.
Kati watched slightly enviously the ease with which Joaley took Jock’s proffered hand and made the thumb-to-thumb connection.
“All right, she is good,” The Monk subvocalized when, only seconds later, Joaley pulled back her hand. “That was plenty fast.”
“Ah-hah!” cried Jock. “This is excellent!”
*****
The Troupe’s arrival in Marocville was inauspicious. On the way to town they had travelled through kilometres of fertile farming country, and Kati had begun to wonder whether the stories about Marocville being a hole were factual. Surely the land could support a thriving town! However, once the settlement came into sight, it proved to be a pimple on the plain. Dusty streets, dilapidated houses, and a few scraggly trees offering dubious shade to parts of a weed-filled Town Square welcomed the entertainers. The business district, to one side of the Square, amounted to a handful of buildings, one of which, thankfully, was an old, but, possibly comfortable, Inn. There was a combination Restaurant/Tavern, too, and it looked like its owners were at least eking out a living, while the dry goods store beside it looked unhealthy. There was also a shop that sold farming equipment—it looked more prosperous than the dry goods—and an open-fronted Market full of stalls, which at the moment were empty.
There was no Town Office Building to be seen.
“Where do we get permission to set up a show?” Lank asked, looking around. “I don’t suppose that we can just take over the Town Square without talking to someone.”
“We have to approach the Maroc Family,” Jock replied. “They consider the town their property. Whoever is the best at haggling should deal with the Marocs. They’ll want a cut of the profits, and they don’t give a hoot whether or not we make enough money to eat.”
“I’m your woman there,” Joaley said, looking around at the others. “Tomorrow, first thing. But I’ll want at least a couple of you with me to bear witness. I don’t trust anyone I haggle with.”
“You’ll have to do without me,” Jock said with genuine regret. “I’d love to watch you get the better of the local grandees, but I’ve been through here before, so they might remember my face. It’s better, if on the way to the City, I pretend to be an Ordinary Citizen.”
“I agree,” Kati said. “Flaunting our Exalted Ithcar connections while we’re on the road isn’t wise.
“However, Joaley, if it seems advisable, don’t hesitate to use your rank as a Star Federation Citizen. We do have a friend or two in high places—they will want us to return safely to Lamania.”
“I’ll want Rakil and Lank with me,” Joaley mused. “Rakil for muscle, and Lank to catch anything I might miss while I’m haggling.”
“Ah, I get to be the hairy ape again,” Rakil sighed, half in jest.
“Count on the Marocs to comment on that,” Jock said drily.
“It’s a good thing that I have thick skin, and a sense of humour,” Rakil responded, grinning.
“And more brains than all the Marocs put together,” added Kati.
The street that had been empty since they had arrived, was not, any longer. Someone was walking towards them from its residential end.
“Hmm, we’ll have to see about getting us some rooms at the Inn,” said Kati. “Lank, want to come with me to do that? The rest of you can keep an eye on our possessions and engage the approaching townie in a chat.”
Lank followed her up the wooden steps of the Inn, into the Lobby. Chimes announced their entrance into a room which contained only a counter, behind which was a narrow space for a worker. Two doorways, one of them beaded, and the other leading into a hallway were in a back corner. Kati could see no stairs, which surprised her since from the outside it had looked like the building had rooms on the upper floor.
A tired-looking woman pushed aside the clacking strings of beads to enter the room; her eyes lit up at the sight of strangers.
“Do you have rooms available?” Kati asked, stepping to the counter while the woman positioned herself behind it.
“Certainly,” she replied, pulling up a greyish sheet of paper from under the counter. “We’re not busy, right now.”
Kati wondered if they were ever busy. But, surely there had to be times when even this sad town rocked with life; after harvest-time, maybe, when the farmers around would come into town to party!
“There are five of us,” she said, “two women and three men, and none of us are couples. So depending on the price of accommodation we can split into two or more groups—oh, yes, we also have two runnerbeast pulling our cart. They’ll need stabling, and we’d like the cart stored safely.”
“We have stables in the back and my son will be happy to look after your beasts and the cart for a small fee to be added to your room charge.” The woman had begun to look more lively; probably she was happy to get even a few paying customers, if the “not busy right now” meant that there was no business at all, as Kati suspected.
“I can put you in two rooms that share a bath between them,” she offered. “There are two single beds in each, and we can add a cot into the bigger one; there’s plenty of room for it. They’re in the back so you can get to your cart and visit your runnerbeasts if you want to. The main entrances are from the outside, a feature that some of our guests consider a fine convenience.”
She cited a price that sounded very reasonable to Kati, and she readily agreed to the arrangement. She paid a small deposit, accepted the keys to the rooms, and received instructions for locating the doors.
“I’ll call my son to come and get the cart and the beasts,” the woman said, heading for the beaded door. “If one of you will wait in the front with the animals, he’ll be there in no time at all.”
Kati and Lank returned to the cart, to an animated conversation.
“Truly, if you’re planning to put on a show in town tomorrow night, that will be wonderful,” the townsman was saying. “Things get a bit dull here at this time of the summer. It’s better at harvest time, but right now, not much goes on. You’ll get an audience so long as your prices aren’t out of our league. How much were you planning to charge anyway?”
“We’ll do what we’ve done elsewhere, which is put out a bowl by the stage—or whatever we use for a stage—and audience members can leave what they can afford, or feel is a fair price for the show,” Joaley replied.
“We must be reasonably good entertainers, because we’ve made out all right, so far,” Rakil added with a smile.
“You could run into a bit of a problem with that system in this town,” the local said. “Not because of the townsfolk, or the farmers who no doubt will come into town for the show—the word about it will get around very quickly.”
The townsman glanced around suspiciously, but when he saw that the arrivals were only the rest of the Troupe, he leaned in a little closer, lowered his voice conspiratorially, and continued:
“It’s The Maroc. He will cause trouble for you, I’m afraid. He won’t let you put on your show without getting a cut, and he always wants a hefty cut. He’ll probably insist that you charge a set fee per audience head, and then take half of that amount for rent for the stage.”
“Even if we just use the Town Square as the venue?” Joaley asked.
“Especially if you use the Town Square as your venue,” the local stressed.
“What exactly is the relationship between the Maroc Family and the town?” Kati asked, while dangling the room keys at her cohort, to let them know that they were in.
“The Marocs own all the land here,” the man replied, and Kati could hear suppressed anger in his tone. “In the town, and all around, in the surrounding farming country. They own the surrounding forest, too, everything in the area. They are the Exalted, the nobility, and everything belongs to them.”
“So everyone pays rent to them, is that it?” Kati asked.
“It’s worse.” The townie looked grim. “I understand that a lot of the nobility charge rent on the land. They collect it once a year, and let the Ordinary Citizens get on with their lives. The farmers and the townspeople can make a little extra for their efforts if they’re good at what they do. The Marocs aren’t satisfied with that. They claim that everything produced on the land belongs to them, and they want a cut—a hefty cut—of all the profits. So, if for example, your apple trees produce a good crop—and that because you have husbanded them well—and you make cider with the extra apples, you have to take half of that cider to The Maroc.”
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 41
