On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  Abruptly, the delicate voice of a young woman surrounded them, singing a sweet ballad in Vultairian, accompanied by what sounded like a stringed instrument. The girl was good, but Mikal did not recognize her voice. She had to be the one the Team had picked up in Port City, the one who had a Klenser brother whom Kati had taken it upon herself to shield from being shipped to a Klenser Farm.

  “Hm, lovely,” Malin commented.

  Mikal assumed that he meant the singing and not the wrap he had picked up, since he spoke before tasting the food.

  “I think that she must be the Vultairian girl whom Jaze spoke of,” Mikal said. “Mathilde, I think, her name was.”

  “I think you’re right. Jaze did say that she had a wonderful voice, better than any of the off-worlders, which I thought was interesting.”

  “She must be a professional. I don’t think that anyone on Kati’s Team claimed to be that. They were just enthusiasts. Although Joaley sings very well, and Lank probably comes close to professional quality with his flute playing.”

  It was quite pleasant to eat and listen to music. After the ballad Malin toyed with the controls of the system, playing random songs from the Troupe’s program. Much of it was typical bar music, Mikal thought, rousing shanties for sing-alongs, and sing along the patrons did, judging by the background chorus. Some music was played on string instruments, some with various pipes, and there was, almost always, a drum in the background. A short interlude of his cousin, Rakil, talking over the sound of drums and a pipe, while he, apparently, was fumbling through a poorly executed juggling act was included. It was accompanied by much background laughter.

  “Rakil must have been screwing that up on purpose,” Mikal commented to Malin. “He’s actually a heck of a juggler. Used to amuse all the kids of the Tree Family, and annoy the old prunes who ran the schools, by practising during class.”

  “Sounds like I’d like your cousin a lot,” Malin laughed.

  “You’ll get to meet him soon, if we have any luck at all,” Mikal said. “Kati’s Team should already be at this Margolis Estate.”

  “Think that they’ll have done our work for us?” Malin asked with half-smile.

  “If they’ve tried to, I hope they haven’t run into anything they can’t handle.”

  “Yeah, there’s always that, isn’t there?” Malin muttered.

  He turned to check the instruments on the dash, and as he did so, a new song began. Talk had been edited from the recording, Mikal was sure, for the piece was not preceded by patter, and Mikal could not imagine Kati singing the song without talking about it first. It was “The Mudball Song” and he remembered it from Makros III, from occasions when she had entertained the travellers around an evening’s campfire. She and her Team had translated it into Vultairian and it was a rousing ode to a natural world in that language, too.

  “Hey, I like that song!” Malin cried, swallowing his mouthful hastily. “That’s a catchy tune!”

  “It’s Kati’s signature song,” Mikal said softly. “It’s supposed to let the slaves who were on that ship we escaped from, know that Kati’s somewhere around, trying to find them.”

  “It’s from her world?”

  “Oh yes. She taught it to all the children who were kept in the same room with us in the slave ship. She helped to keep the kids entertained.”

  Mikal was aching to see Kati. To be close to her, to hug her, to tell her how much she mattered to him. To lie with her. To continue on with her, with the task of finding, and freeing the children who had been enslaved on the ship, and to bring their enslaver to justice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  After all the members of Kati’s Team had familiarized themselves with the flyer’s controls and operation, Jock introduced them to the contents of the map-bank, something with which, he told the others, Uncle Kelt had insisted on equipping all his flying machines. Joaley was the one to notice the nodal connector on the monitor, and insisted on experimenting with it.

  “Yep,” she said moments later. “It’s all loaded into my brain now. I’ve got an image of the whole Vultairian globe inside my head. Want me to do the flying to this Isle of Margolis, or are the rest of you going to take advantage of nodal technology?”

  As an answer, Jock pressed his own left thumb against the indentation that Joaley had indicated. Moments later he whooped with delight.

  “To think that I didn’t know about it!” he exclaimed. “Man, that would have come in very, very useful many times! For Uncle Kelt, too!”

  “They really do love keeping people ignorant on this world,” Joaley grumbled. “This is standard knowledge on Lamania for anyone who uses flits or flyers.”

  “I must admit that I never flew enough on Borhq to have anything but the most basic knowledge about flyers,” Rakil said, reaching for the nodal connector. “But I have no qualms about acquiring more.”

  Lank went next, leaving Kati to be the last to make the connection, somewhat reluctant to do so, as always. However, she was not going to not do it; there was too much at stake. She drew a deep breath and pushed her thumb-pad into the indentation, letting the Granda draw out the necessary information while she shuddered.

  “I see that you survived the connection once again,” Joaley said with a grin when it was over—more quickly for her than anyone else, since The Monk did know his business.

  “Yeah, but I really do have trouble with it, in spite of the scorn that The Monk heaps on me,” Kati replied with a sigh. “It just feels so weird.”

  “You’ll get used to it eventually,” Joaley assured her. “It took me a while, too. But since I wanted to work as a Peace Officer, I had to suck up a lot of information, so it was either cope or give up. I coped, and these days I’m perfectly comfortable with it.”

  “I got my node when I was two years old, so I’ve never have any problems adjusting to it,” Rakil said. “But I do understand that people who get them at a later age often have difficulties.”

  “No kidding,” Joaley muttered. “I was damn sick for days after the implantation. I suppose that you missed out on that fun, Kati, since you got a Granda node.”

  “Hah!” Kati snorted. “That was on the slave ship and the Captain’s son was supposed to get the Granda! The Monk hid his presence by making like I had an ordinary node, and boy, did I get sick, and I mean sick!”

  Jock had taken the flyer into the air again, while the others had been jawing.

  “From the map, I gather that there’s an uninhabited island about a quarter hour’s flight from the Margolis’ Estate,” he said. “It’s along the coast and forested. If we approach it from the ocean side, we can put down on some rock or another to wait for the dark. We should be able to fly the last short hop in star light, and alight in some convenient spot, using enhanced sight and whatever light the skies will grant us.”

  “We did bring some of the cart lights,” Joaley said. “We’ll probably need them once we’re depending on foot power.”

  “It would be better if we could manage without, while we’re not within walls or rocks,” Kati countered. “We don’t want any curious person investigating any out-of-place lights. While we’re on the uninhabited island, waiting for full dark, I think I’ll try to make friends with the Ocean Sister, and see if she’ll help us scout. Maybe she can put me in touch with Xoraya Hsiss, who can, perhaps, help us with the lie of the land where she is.”

  *****

  Jock found the island and landed quite smartly on a rocky promontory facing the open ocean. Vegetation made up of trees, vines, bushes, and an assortment of other broad-leafed plants which Kati could not begin to classify, began steps away from the parked vehicle. Like children let out of a classroom, the Team spilled out of the flyer to breathe in the salty air, and to do a little exploring.

  “Careful, everybody,” Jock shouted at the capering Team members. “This is not the safest of environments, you know.”

  “We’ll be all right!” Lank yelled back. “I’ve been on a lot of islands!
As long as the plants out there aren’t poisonous!”

  “No guarantees about that!” Jock responded, but it was obvious that he, too, was pleased to get a break.

  They found secluded spots to take care of bodily needs and joked about leaving behind DNA evidence of their passage. Kati looked around for a suitable place in which to make contact with The Ocean Spirit; she needed to be close to the water, but sheltered enough from the wind, that a period of physical idleness would not be too taxing. There was always The Monk to massage her bodily systems internally, but a long period of inactivity, especially if she was buffeted by the elements, might be hard to endure. She had already spent a long day sitting in the flyer, reasonably comfortable though the flyer was.

  Lank pointed out the perfect spot to her, a crevice between the rock they were parked on, and another one; the crevice faced the ocean. There was a small indentation on one side of it, just about the right size for Kati to sit in, with her feet tucked down where the two rocks met. The sea was visible to a seated person, and the last storm to have passed through had washed the stones clean.

  “Wait a sec,” Lank said solicitously. “I’ll get a cushion for your bottom from the flyer. Then I guess you better get started. Evening will be falling soon.”

  “Yeah, and I think we’re close enough to the planetary equator that we won’t get much of a twilight, here,” Kati agreed.

  Lank returned with a seat cushion from the flyer. These cushions conformed to the user’s tush shape as well as to the chair, and Kati gratefully climbed into the crevice with it, and arranged it on the stone seat. She settled in, and Lank remained nearby, as if to guard her. The other three Troupe members stayed close, as well, ready to help at a moment’s notice.

  The mental signature of the Ocean Sister was very different from that of the Forest Spirit. Once she realized that she was being hailed, she whirled herself into a wild exuberance which was a tremendous contrast to the calm peacefulness of the Forest entity, and left Kati feeling like she was trying to catch a tiger by the tail. She had to concentrate hard to follow the psychic dance that was abruptly taking place around her.

  “Oh, you are the one who my Forest Sister—or is it Brother?—told me would contact me! You come from elsewhere, and have that Old Man consciousness living inside your mind! You have brought music to our people who had almost forgotten that music existed! The ones who call themselves the Exalted decided long ago that music was a waste of time! But you have come to help right the balance of this world; you are here to undermine the power of the portion of humanity who want everything to revolve around them, and feed their wants and hungers! You have allied yourself with those of the people who want to change things, who want the world’s resources to be shared fairly by all!”

  Kati sat in a mental silence through this barrage, not quite certain whether she was being commended or criticized. Suddenly it ended, and she could feel the Ocean Sister touching her mind, studying her. What this Spirit did, she realized, was much like what she herself had done many times, on first mental contact with another. It amounted to taking the measure of the other, and it was usually followed by a judgement as to whether the other was worth the trouble.

  “Ah yes,” the Ocean Sister continued. “You’ll do, you’ll do just fine. You mean well, and you can actually do some good, not just flail around like a fool, as some do, even if the Old Man inside your brain is an annoying, disgusting creature at times! You have learned to keep him on a leash, and insist that he helps you with your efforts! That’s good; you and I can be useful to one another!”

  “Do you know anything about what’s happening on the island that we’re going to?” Kati asked, giving the Ocean Sister the image of the Margolis Estate as the Granda had it from Uncle Kelt’s maps.

  She was feeling somewhat uneasy with the Spirit’s attitude towards her.

  “Oh, it’s a pustule, a draining sore in my physical being!” the Ocean Sister wailed. “Those human creatures who claim ownership of the island—as if it’s possible for mere humans to own a portion of my physique—have been abusing it for generations! Instead of tending the land and accepting its bounty, and fishing the waters around it to supplement their diet, and to fertilize their crops, they have insisted on taking, and taking and taking! They have left the land, and those they deem their lessers, impoverished and hungry; the poor folk left on the island survive by fishing in the waters which I have been able to keep abundant! But it’s a dull diet, and no-one cares to try to raise crops because they well know that anything that they can’t eat right away will be taken away from them! As if the crops belonged to the overlords! Oh, the situation has been sad for a long time, and now it is worse; there is something going on there that I do not understand at all! The ones who claim ownership have brought in some foreigners, off-worlders like yourself—only nothing like yourself!

  “They are doing something in one of the rock dwellings in the interior, making a liquid, combining substances to create a substance totally new and different! I don’t understand it, but the so-called Exalted are gleeful and secretive about it! The off-worlders doing the work, are unhappy! They want to go home but they are not allowed; I don’t understand why! I would be glad to send them home; I understand the love of one’s home!”

  “I understand that the Exalted of the island, members of the Margolis Family who claim ownership of the island, recently brought in two new off-world persons there,” Kati managed to slip in when the Ocean Sister’s mental torrent paused for a moment.

  “Oh, your information is right! And they are there against their will, too! What is it with these Margolis Exalted? Why are they dragging unwilling foreigners to my shores? My Forest Sib talks about the balance of the world being awry, about the Exalted having too much of everything and the rest of the folk not enough of anything, but what I have to put up with, here, on one, single island, is worse! These Margolis Exalted are more than upsetting the balance of the world, they are defiling the island with their poisonous ways! As their workers make the stuff, toxins seep into my insides! They are making lots of the—what do they call it?—drug! And the people doing the work are kept here against their wishes, to poison my body; that’s a travesty!”

  “Have you tried communicating with the newest arrivals?” Kati took advantage of another short pause.

  “Can I?”

  Kati felt as if giant eyes had suddenly zeroed in on her, demanding an answer.

  “Are these beings such as yourself, and can communicate with me and my Forest Sib?” the Ocean Sister demanded. “If so, I want to speak with them.”

  “One of them contacted me with the help of the Forest Spirit,” Kati replied. “She has been pushed out of her body by the drug that the Margolises use to keep her physically comatose. While she is out of body, she can mind-speak. I was hoping to find out her location on the island from her, but she may be attending to the health needs of her body, and that of the young woman who was captured with her. That may take a lot of energy.”

  “Oh, I have lots of energy to feed her, if she’ll let me,” the Ocean Sister said in what seemed to Kati like ‘an airy tone’. “Do you think that she’ll trust me? I’m not quite as serene as my Forest Sib!”

  That last was true, indeed.

  “Tell her that Kati of Terra asked you to help her, and to communicate with her. Tell her that I’m on my way. And please, Ocean Sister, can you guide my friends and me to these new arrivals once we reach the island? We’ll be flying there under the cover of darkness.”

  “Of course. I’ll go and try to reach the mind of this new alien on the island. You had better get back into your physical form, for the sun has set, and your friends are waiting for you in the dark.”

  *****

  Kati came to, to find that Lank had clambered down into the crevasse in which she was seated, and was leaning against a rock, holding one of the lights the Team had taken from their cart. She was stiff, and very grateful for the cushion she was sitting on. A sal
ty wind was blowing from the ocean, assaulting her nostrils with fishy smells. Lank’s light beam was upon her as soon as she let out a groan; there were more lights higher up on the rocks, and the first concerned voice that she heard belonged to Rakil:

  “Is she back with us, Lank?” the Borhquan asked. “Do you need help down there?”

  “I’m back,” Kati answered in a rough voice before Lank could speak. “Bones and joints creak at the moment, but a bit of motion should fix that. Lank, can you give me your arm? And maybe grab the cushion, my hands and arms must have been in an awkward position; they’re numb.”

  “Of course, Kati,” Lank replied. “Lean on me, if you want to.”

  Then Rakil had slid down to their level, and between them, the two males boosted Kati up the stones. She could feel her circulation start to return, and the internal massage which the Granda had begun as soon as she had become alert to the outside world, was having its salutary effect. She knew that she would be fine in minutes, and be able to think about reseating herself, in the flyer.

  “How long was I out?” she asked, glad to hear that her voice was back almost to normal.

  “Two and a half hours,” answered Joaley, handing her a drink from their supplies. “Get that down your throat, go for a pee, and we’ll get this show airborne. I hope you picked up some good info from the Planetary Spirits.”

  “I’m always surprised how long these communications can take,” Kati said, grasping the proffered drink. She could use it. “In this case, though, I think that I understand why. This Ocean Sister is a tough act to catch. I probably spent most of the elapsed time trying to get a hold of her tail.”