On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  “But if there’s a change in the plans?” Malin asked.

  “There are always changes in plans,” Mikal replied with a shrug. “Then we improvise, and use our training and best instincts.”

  “Your signal,” Josh said, his eyes on the Bridge displays. “Plus, the surveillance just did go off—our monitors are telling us that we’re sitting in the proverbial dark. You two have thirty minutes.”

  Malin was already out of his seat, picking up his pack. Mikal, following suit, gave him top marks for reaction speed. They nodded their thanks to the Master Healer and Josh’s wishes of luck and headed for the hatch, with a last check of the stunners in their pockets. Outside, they moved quickly, like a couple of late arrivals hurrying across the tarmac—there was no need to pretend to be relaxed, since anyone leaving a ship at this hour would likely exhibit some tension. It was a time to be home and in bed, Mikal thought wryly, cuddled up with a loved one, if that was an option—the notion brought an immediate visage of Kati to his mind’s eye, Kati asleep—he banished the thought.

  “Mikal r’ma Trodden of Lamania; Malin of Paradiso?”

  They had reached the shadow of the Arrivals Building. It was only dimly lit at this quiet hour. The voice, speaking in the somewhat flat tones of a Vultairian, came from the shadow.

  Mikal node-enhanced his sight. A very tall, slim man appeared to be standing against the building’s wall, invisible to anyone without the visual help.

  “Yes,” Mikal replied softly for both of them. “You must be Marston.”

  “Yes. I was told that you would know where it is that I’m supposed to take you.”

  The Vultairian gestured to indicate that they should circle the building instead of entering it. Mikal and Malin fell into step with him as he led them towards the high fence which separated the Landing Field from the city. Next to the building Mikal could see that the fence had a gate, just wide enough for one person to pass through.

  “Our travelling companion, a Shelonian Master Healer, has been in communication with a woman called Kati of Terra—I believe that you’ve met her—who has some strong PSI talents,” Mikal said.

  “Ah, Kati the Entertainer!” Marston sounded delighted, even though he was keeping his voice low. “The first thing she did when we met was tell me that my home was full of electronic listening devices! And here I had been trying to figure out who in our resistance cell was the traitor who had been leaking all our plans to the Warrions almost before we had made them!”

  “Did she blow them to kingdom come for you?” Mikal asked.

  Marston shook his head.

  “No. She thought that it was better to leave them alone and let the Warrions think that we didn’t know about them. Instead, my wife Liss and I lived—and talked—on eggshells until we were able to rent a few rooms from an off-worlder. It was not easy, believe me. And we in the Underground began to make our plans while taking walks down city streets or through parks, and guess what?—none of our plots leaked out to the Exalted ever again!”

  Mikal grinned at him.

  “Kati’s good,” he said. “It’s hard sometimes to remember that she has no training in Peace Officer Corps Procedures. Mind you, those are the two reasons why she was fingered for this mission: she can think on her feet, but is not officially associated with the Corps.”

  “The Warrions consider her very annoying, but insignificant,” Marston said. “I was told that the last time Berd Warrion came home from the Capital City he was screaming obscenities about ‘that little Fringe World Adventuress’, as he calls her. What she managed to do to piss him off, I don’t know, apparently Berd wouldn’t say, but nevertheless, everyone in the Port City Resistance is chortling with glee.”

  “As long as she’s not endangering herself,” Mikal muttered with some alarm, wondering how the Exalted had provoked Kati.

  They had reached the narrow gate which was ajar. Marston led them through it, and then turned back and shut it properly, so the lock caught. They walked in silence around the rest of the building and across the street which separated the Port from the city proper.

  “So where is it that you’re supposed to get to?” Marston asked once they were among the deserted, late-night streets.

  “The premises of a cart-builder by the name of Nikol,” Mikal replied softly. “Somewhere on the outskirts of the City. A man by the name of Kelt Carmaks, a member of a renegade Exalted Family, is supposed to be meeting us with a flit at this Nikol’s place.”

  “I know the place and I know Nikol,” Marston said. “He’s a good man.”

  “Kati vouched for him,” Mikal agreed. “She said that she bought the cart which her Troupe of entertainers used during their travels from Nikol.”

  Marston laughed quietly.

  “I sent her to him. She needed to hide a Klenser from the Warrions, and I knew that Nikol had been building carts that could be used to do that, for a long time.”

  “Sounds like there’s a story there that I haven’t heard yet,” Mikal responded. “So Kati was helping someone. She’s always doing that sort of a thing. Helping someone, that is.”

  Marston gave Mikal a searching look even as he directed the others’ steps down a narrow cross-street which would take them away from the centre of the city. There was something about the way this Federation Agent spoke of the woman who had sung in Marita’s Bar a few months ago, that told him volumes, even though he was a mere non-noded, ordinary Vultairian. Kati of Terra was very important to Mikal r’ma Trodden of Lamania. Maybe one day he would hear the whole story. If he was lucky; if the Resistance succeeded.

  Malin had been looking around curiously while his companions had been talking.

  “What sort of a public transportation system does this city have?” he now asked. “I don’t see any gondolas like they have on Lamania, nor any tracks for the little trains that we use in the towns on Paradiso. Or does everyone own flyers and flits, so there is no need for any other transport?”

  Marston gave a bark of a laugh.

  “Everyone who matters has flits and flyers,” he replied. “That would be the Exalted. The rest of us walk wherever we have to go, use runnerbeasts as beasts of burden and for transporting children, the sick, and the old when necessary. We’re very healthy since we walk so much.”

  “Oh.” The young Paradisan sounded slightly confused. “Is that why,” he asked additionally, “why you’re a Resistance member? Because the non-Exalted Vultairians aren’t treated well?”

  “To say that we’re not well-treated is a bit of an understatement,” Marston answered in a tight voice. “It would be closer to the truth to say that we are being exploited. I could tell you stories—but of course the Elites will deny all that I say, and claim that my words have no weight since they are merely those of an Ordinary Citizen.”

  “Nevertheless, I would like to hear your stories,” Mikal said. “We’ll be walking for a while, right? Lots of time for me to listen to an Ordinary Citizen’s point of view of life on the old, established, Federation World of Vultaire.”

  “The sun will have come up by the time we reach Nikol’s,” Marston responded, with a glance at the eastern horizon which had begun to brighten. “I can regale you with tales ’til then, if you want to hear them.”

  *****

  By the time the threesome arrived at Nikol’s shop in the early morning light, Marston had given Mikal and Malin an education in Vultairian politics, and in how the Resistance, in all its permutations, had been trying to fight the Oligarchs.

  The topic of translation nodes, and the refusal of the Exalted to share them with the Ordinary Citizens came up, of course. Malin displayed puzzlement when Marston mentioned that the offspring of the Exalted were implanted at age sixteen.

  “Why sixteen?” he asked. “On Paradiso, and most other Federation Worlds, according to my understanding, children get the nodes at about two years of age. That’s when it’s easiest for them to become accustomed to them, and there are no side-effects. By sixtee
n, implantation sickness is a real issue.”

  “It has to do with the Klenser mutation which all Vultairians carry,” Marston replied. “It’s a recessive trait so it is impossible to tell who will show it, and it does not manifest until adolescence. Klensers are more important to Vultaire’s economy than even the most pure-blooded Exalted, and the Klensers are never implanted with nodes. If Berd Warrion’s eldest son had turned out to be a Klenser, he would have ended up on a Klenser farm just as certainly as the child of a poor farmer. Actually, the farmer would have had a small chance of hiding the child; Berd Warrion could never have done that.”

  “So there’s a price for privilege, even here,” Mikal mused.

  “Of course, the knowledge that this is so, makes the Oligarchs more determined to find and capture for the Klenser farms every known candidate,” Marston added. “I haven’t heard whether Berd Warrion did succeed in finding the Wild Klenser Kati of Terra took it upon herself to protect, but I know that he spent a fair bit of time and effort trying to chase the boy down. If you talk to her, tell her to step carefully around that man.”

  “I suspect that she’s already quite aware of the necessity,” Mikal said, feeling a sudden chill pass through his body, “but I will mention it. I do hope that she’s taking precautions, and that the members of her Team are on high alert.”

  *****

  “Kelt Carmaks usually doesn’t land his flit on my property when he comes into town,” Nikol said when Marston had introduced Mikal and Malin to him and explained that they were to meet the Carmaks politician there. “I have plenty of room for his machines in the back, but he has told me that the government officials can trace their whereabouts, and he doesn’t want my place to be known as a dissident meeting place—which it is—so he has usually parked his vehicle downtown, and then walked here, like an Ordinary Citizen.”

  He had been breakfasting when the threesome had come knocking on his shop door, and now the four were sitting around his table, drinking the delicious herb tea that his wife had brewed as soon as she had see the visitors. She had greeted Marston with delight, clearly familiar with him from the past.

  “What I was told,” explained Mikal, “is that Kati and one of her Team members, a mechanical genius named Lank, took it upon themselves to wire some music into Kelt Carmaks’ flying machines, and in the process inadvertently undid the wiring of the spy-eyes in the vehicles. So now they are untraceable, and to re-bug them, the Oligarchs would have to admit that they are spying on the dissident Exalted.”

  “Inadvertently, eh?” Nikol grinned delightedly. “Kati and Lank, is that right? They were the ones who came and bought the deluxe cart from me—a while back now, but they were a couple of bright young off-worlders, and obviously keen to help a fellow musician and her brother, and I haven’t forgotten them. My wife and I went to Marita’s to listen to the women perform with the first two men they worked with. That was before those fellows shipped off and the women hooked up with the other two, the ones who went travelling with them. It was a really enjoyable show—wasn’t it Jaze?”

  Jaze, agreed that yes, indeed, it had been a fun show.

  “We might have gone a second time, but we hadn’t the opportunity, and then they came to buy the cart and a couple of runnerbeasts from the stables next door, and left to tour the countryside,” she added. “I hope that they managed to keep that boy they were protecting, from the Warrions’ hands. I just don’t understand why the government can’t treat the Klensers with dignity. You’d think the Exalted would have a bit of gratitude, since their off-world goodies are paid for by the Klensers’ work on the Fringe Worlds.”

  “The Oligarchs don’t know what gratitude is,” her husband snapped.

  “As far as we know, Berd Warrion hasn’t got his hands on Zass—as yet,” Marston told the couple. “Let’s hope that things stay that way.”

  “Kati informed us that there was a problem with the Resistance communications network,” Mikal said, changing the subject. “She said that the communicators which the Exalted sell to the Ordinary Citizens, are equipped to send signals to the government spy network, so they are, in effect, useless to the Rebels. She asked that Malin and I pass any coms that we could spare to the Underground.”

  He dug into an inner pocket of his pack, and pulled out a half-dozen small devices, all exactly the same except for their colours—an assortment of rainbow hues.

  “These are of the latest Shelonian design,” he said. “The Cruiser’s pilot, Josh, assured me that they cannot be rewired the way some older models can be, to relay messages to a third party. But they can be used to contact older models, so you, Marston, for example could communicate with a fellow by the name of Jorun at the Rebel Base in the Forest by Ithcar, who has an older model which Lank stripped of its government tracer.”

  He offered a yellow, oval object, half of which appeared to be covered with buttons, to Marston, who took it, somewhat gingerly.

  “I’ll need lessons in its operation,” the Vultairian said, looking at it curiously, and palming it experimentally inside his fist. “It’s small enough to hide easily,” he added, sounding a little bit hopeful.

  “Malin, go to it,” Mikal encouraged his off-world companion, who eagerly caught another of the objects, and turned towards Marston.

  “Malin spent quite a bit of our passage from the Federation Space Station to this planet, figuring out the intricacies of this technology,” Mikal said with a laugh. “He may as well put to use what he learned. What about you, Nikol? Would you like the opportunity to be in touch with fellow Resistance members?”

  Nikol admired the communicators that Mikal had set on the table; then shook his head.

  “It’s better if I stay away from that sort of thing,” he said. “I can explain the assortment of people who come and visit, as a side effect of the cart-building business—an amazing variety of folk do take an interest in runnerbeast carts. But if some nosy Exalted, or one of their spying goons, found an expensive off-world object like that in my possession—even if they had no idea what it was—questions would be asked. It’s not worth the risk; Marston can always come by, or send someone, if I need to know something. What I do is too important for me to take any unnecessary risks.”

  Jaze, beside him, heaved an audible sigh of relief.

  “I bow to your caution,” Mikal said respectfully, adding: “It’s just as well; we don’t have more than these six. Malin and I need one each, and I think that we’ll have to give one to the donor of the flit we’ll be borrowing, so he can keep in touch with us. Marston definitely should have one; Kati specifically mentioned his name and the fact that it would be good for him to be able to communicate with this Jorun. So that leaves two extras, and there are likely legions of people who could put them to good use.”

  *****

  Marston left once he felt confident about his ability to work the little communicator. At present he would not be able to contact Jorun, for that he needed the call numbers of the communicator that Lank had doctored—or re-doctored—and none of them knew what they were. However, once the numbers had been relayed to him, Marston would have a safe way of contacting the Underground Base. The prospect had him more optimistic than he had felt for quite some time.

  By the time he returned to the tiny flat that he and Liss had rented from the curio shop owner for whom Liss worked, he was in excellent mood. He went into the shop to give his wife a hug and to greet the proprietor, a short (in his opinion), dark-skinned off-worlder who claimed to have been living in Port City since Berd Warrion’s father had been a foolish young lad. It was a claim that might have been true; in any case Gonus was well established in Port City and had little fear of the Warrions, so little in fact, that he had offered to rent the empty flat above the shop to Liss and her husband when he heard of their plight from his frantic employee.

  “The Warrions know better than to put bugs in my walls,” he had told her when he had made the offer. “I had a run-in or two with Berd’s sire,
and that strutting fool had to admit that he got the worst of it.”

  He had not explained how he had managed to put a leading member of a Four Hundred Family into his place, and neither Liss nor Marston wanted to broach the subject as long as Gonus himself did not offer information. There was something about the dark-skinned off-worlder that made them glad that he was on their side, and not against them. Not that he had ever been anything but kind and fair in his dealings with them.

  “So how’d it go?” Liss asked Marston as she hugged him.

  It was mid-morning, and the shop was quiet for once. Gonus who was busy polishing some small statues that he had recently bought from a traveller down on his luck, had nodded to Marston when he had come in and directed him to where Liss had been poring over some account books which the Warrions, like most of the other Exalted, demanded that the merchants keep—and keep up-to-date.

  This was why Liss had got the job with Gonus in the first place; she had done a lot of book-keeping in the Capital City, and had a real talent for it. Gonus, noded though he was, found such figures terminally boring, and had fought with the Warrions over the mess of his financial records. They claimed that he was trying to avoid paying taxes, and he claimed that he was actually paying more than his share. So, when Liss had shown up at his shop, Gonus had hired her on the spot, and she had spent the first couple of months straightening out her employer’s accounts. When she was done, it had been clear that Gonus had, in fact, been paying more taxes than he needed to, to Berd Warrion’s fury, and the merchant’s vindication. These days Liss handled the books during quiet times like this morning, and helped with the retail business when it got busy, and could count on having a job for as long as “Gonus had a shop”. Which he told her, would be for some good while yet; his people were a long-lived race.

  “Really well,” Marston replied. “One of the men, the one in charge, knew Kati, remember her? The singer? I got the distinct feeling the way he talked about her that there’s something between those two; I’d say that he was showing more than just professional concern.”