On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  What? Oh, yeah, the Xeonsaurs had the ability to navigate through time and space; that was why Xoraya’s Life-Mate was being kept prisoner on Gorsh’s Slave Ship. That’s why Kati had ended up where she was, with no hope of ever going back home. But, wasn’t that sort of travel against all Xeonsaur laws? Didn’t it amount to unnatural interference in the way the galactic consciousnesses operated?

  “Since we’re not taking anything physical along, I’m not breaking any rules by combing through the strands of time to connect with Vorlund at the best possible moment,” Xoraya answered Kati’s unasked question. “And we’ll return to the present with nothing new—or old—with us, only the knowledge that we’ve done the best we could to pass on the word.”

  “I’m assuming that you know what you’re doing,” Kati subvocalized.

  “Not really,” Xoraya answered. “Navigation was never my forte, so I didn’t bother to study it much. However, like any of my people, I have enough natural talent to manage a short mental hop such as this one, all on one world, and with only minor time displacement. Give me a moment to prepare, and then follow me wherever I go.”

  Kati kept her attention firmly on the Xeonsaur while she waited; thus she did not miss the appearance of a vortex-like passage, when it appeared next to Xoraya. Xoraya entered it without hesitation, and Kati followed, swallowing any misgivings. She had no trouble following the Xeonsaur, and within seconds, there they were, aboard a space ship, facing Vorlund who sat cross-legged on a mat on the floor, his eyes closed.

  “Master Healer, we, Xoraya of Xeon and Kati of Terra, have come into your presence,” Xoraya sent, mentally. “Please attend to us.”

  Vorlund opened his eyes.

  “My apologies, ladies,” he said without missing a beat, although Kati was not sure whether or not he spoke aloud. “I was travelling with the Forest Spirit, studying this world, so my attention was elsewhere.”

  “I know,” Xoraya subvocalized. “The Ocean Sister helped me to reach you and she mentioned that you were accompanying her Forest Sib. That is actually why I chose this moment to contact you; I knew that you were approachable.”

  Kati felt young and stupid. She had not been aware of the Ocean Sister’s presence, never mind that the Essence had been helping them, during the transition from the Margolis Estate to the interior of the Federation Cruiser. But apparently, Xoraya did know what she was doing.

  “I’m always open to being approached by you, or our young friend, Kati,” the Master Healer said. “I take it that she found you—physically, that is?”

  “More or less, yes.” Xoraya was non-committal, and Vorlund raised his eyebrows at her choice of words. “But what’s important now is to get word to Mikal and Malin, and we are unable to communicate with them directly. Can you pass to them information about the layout of the Island and the keep where Canna and I are being held, if I give it to you? Mikal needs to know that there are three Margolis Exalted in the keep, and that they are all equipped with little devices which can alert their bodyguards at a moment’s notice. He and Malin will have to be very careful once they’re in the vicinity, and I am going to recommend that Kati and her Team wait for them, before they attempt to storm the keep.”

  “Your recommendation sounds sensible. I trust that Kati is listening to you. Yes, whatever information you can pass to me, I can relay to Mikal; if not in precise images, at least in words spoken over a rather clever gadget, undetectable with the technology that the Exalted have.”

  “Good. If the Forest Spirit and the Ocean Sister will be good enough to help me build a bridge from my being to your node, Master Healer, I will commence passing over the necessary information.”

  At the end of the data transfer, Vorlund promised to get word to Mikal as quickly as he could. Xoraya thanked him, said that she and Kati would be in touch with him later, nodded to the younger woman, and summoned the vortex once again.

  Moments later Kati was back in the flyer, opening her eyes to the waiting faces of her Team, feeling seriously disoriented. What exactly had happened? Had she and Xoraya actually managed to get word to the Master Healer, and thereby to Mikal and Malin?

  “So-o-o?” asked Joaley, even as Katie got The Monk to help her reorient herself to being physical again. “Did you get a message through?”

  “I think so. At least as far as Master Healer Vorlund, and he promised to relay it to Mikal. Apparently he has the means to do so,” Kati replied.

  Talking seemed to help her to gather her wits, so she continued:

  “Xoraya seemed to do some curious thing that apparently Xeonsaurs can do. I think that she took us back in time a little bit, just to make sure that the message would get to Mikal and Malin ‘in time’. It kind of freaked me out, disoriented me, is the best way to put it, I guess.”

  She saw raised eyebrows all around her.

  “Well, that explains it, I guess,” Joaley finally said. “You came back so quickly; you stayed in a trance almost no time at all, and here we were expecting it to take hours like it did when you were dealing with the Ocean Sister on your own. I was pretty well expecting you to tell us that something had gone wrong and you’d have to try again.”

  Kati sat up straight in her chair, and laughed a trifle uneasily.

  “You find it weird; just think of how I feel,” she said to her Team-mates. “Apparently the Ocean Sister was helping us but I wasn’t even aware of her presence. I just followed Xoraya to the Cruiser where Vorlund is—it’s at the Port. We talked—if that’s the right word—with the Master Healer, and Xoraya passed the information we had, to him, and he promised to relay it to Mikal via some kind of a mechanical communicator link—I was right about their having the latest in Shelonian technology. And then I followed Xoraya back, and here I am.”

  “And presumably Xoraya is back in the keep below us, waiting for rescue,” added Lank.

  “I suppose. And she wants us to wait for Mikal and Malin.”

  “Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have another two people, one of them an experienced Agent, in on this rescue attempt,” Rakil said. “Only that means that we have to wait some more.”

  “Don’t tell me that you, Rakil, of all people, are getting antsy?” Joaley snapped. “Mister Cool, Calm and Collected, himself?”

  Kati sighed.

  “We’re all getting antsy. Nothing ever is as simple as you expect it to be.”

  “I suspect that what has happened is actually good for Vultaire and the Resistance,” Jock said, grinning ferociously. “With Federation Agents about to witness in person some of the shit that the Exalted have been up to, it’s going to be difficult for the Oligarchs to claim that nothing sinister is going on.”

  “True,” Kati agreed. “And that’s worth a lot. I wonder if the Torrones have been called in, yet? I suppose that Mikal is responsible for that. Right now, it’s a good thing that it’s not up to me—a Torrones warship hovering over the Capital City, threatening to blast it to next reality if the Oligarchs don’t come clean, seems a lot like just what this planet needs.”

  “Good gods, Kati! Are you getting blood-thirsty on us?” Joaley sounded appalled. “Watch that Granda node! You don’t want to let it influence you too much!”

  “You’re right,” Kati agreed, sighing. “I’m getting tired of dealing with the stinking Exalted, I guess, and am starting to sound like The Old Brown Monk at his worst. And, agreed, it won’t do. Neither this world, nor any other, needs violence-prone folk, me and the Granda included.”

  “Well, let’s hope that this part of the action will come to an end reasonably soon,” said Lank, grinning slyly. “Then we can get back to singing for a living.”

  There were snorts of rueful laughter all around.

  *****

  Mikal’s communicator alerted him to an incoming message while he and Malin were flying high in the flit, listening while the Troupe performed their songs to some invisible audience of Vultairians. Malin turned the music down while Mikal waited for the data. It
came from Vorlund, via the planet’s electronic atmosphere, rather than through the nodal network which, connected as it was to countless noded brains, was more open to being breached. A consideration which should not have been an issue in a civilized universe, but the Vultairian Exalted seemed to not play by civilized rules, and a veteran operative did not take needless chances. So Mikal waited the moments until the transfer was complete, and only then did he connect nodally to the communicator. When he was done, he passed the communicator to Malin, who repeated the action even while continuing to pilot the flit.

  “I guess we better make tracks,” the Paradisan commented as he handed the communicator back to Mikal. “I’ll see if I can get any more speed out of this bird.”

  “They did agree that it was wisest to wait for us,” Mikal said. “That’s good of Kati. On Makros III she was always the one ready to jump off a cliff-edge. Perhaps being in charge has been good for her, forced her to consider what might happen if things go wrong. Plus, she does have that hot-headed City Peace officer, Joaley r’ma Elise, on her Team; maybe one headlong rusher in a group fills some kind of a psychological quota.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was so,” Malin said. “My mother always said that she almost wished that I had never grown up, because once I wasn’t around to ride a runnerbeast through storms at a break-neck pace, my next-oldest brother took up the habit. And he is much more delicate physically than I am; he’s always breaking his bones, whereas I took the tumbles in my stride.”

  Mikal took a deep breath, and brought out his com again.

  “I’m going to take the precaution of telling Vorlund that I Authorize Josh to request that the Official Investigation brings to Vultaire a Torrones Warship. Vascorn gave me the Authority to call for the Torrones, if I thought it advisable. Thank the gods that we now have a President who actually listens to people like Maryse r’ma Darien. It definitely sounds like the Margolises have a mind-tangler lab which they’re operating with slave labour on that island of theirs; I want some serious muscle behind me when we shut it down.”

  For a moment he wondered if he should contact Josh directly, then vetoed the idea. The Port Authorities were certainly monitoring the ship’s communications system, and Josh, as the Pilot, was nodally connected to that. If the Exalted managing the Port were monitoring the Pilot’s transmissions—and Mikal assumed that they were—it was better if the request for a Warship originated with the Cruiser’s crew, and not some mysterious transmission from on-planet. Let the Port Authorities think that the ship’s crew had grown so frustrated with their imprisonment on the tarmac that they had resorted to begging for big guns from the Federation Officials! They would most likely believe that there was no chance that the request would be granted; they were going to be in for a surprise about that!

  “Unfortunately the Torrones won’t be here to help us get Xoraya and Canna out,” Malin said as he pushed the flit to fly as fast as it would. “We should reach the Island Estate in an hour or so. The morning will be advanced by then, I’m afraid. I hope that the Margolises are as indolent here as they are on the Federation Space Station.”

  “For once I hope that they have bed-partners to keep them busy all morning,” Mikal said from between gritted teeth. “And that they drank a lot of alcohol last night, declining the blood-clearing services of their nodes.”

  With an effort, he kept from drumming his chair armrest with impatient fingers. There was no need to infect Malin with his anxiety; the Paradisan was doing his best with the flit, and that was more speed than what Mikal himself could have coaxed out of it. Kati’s Musical Group was still playing quietly in the background; he tried to relax and listen to them. Malin, noticing his attention, upped the sound a little, enough that it surrounded them without being overly intrusive.

  “Here’s a new song that we wrote in honour of performing here in this delightful town of Oisir,” Kati’s voice said, bubbling with laughter. How Mikal missed her and her cheerful countenance! “It’s called ‘The Slumming Song’, and we intend it to reflect the feelings of someone important who has come to a small town to help celebrate the Seeding Festival, the Harvest Festival, or some other occasion important to a farming community. Each member of the Troupe contributed a verse, and we’ll each sing the part we contributed. We would ask that you, the audience will join us singing the chorus after each verse. Here, I’ll teach you the chorus first—”.

  “Hey, the Troupe could make a living entertaining on Paradiso,” Malin laughed. “Paradisans would love what they’re doing!”

  They listened to the first verse, and Mikal began to chortle at its end.

  “They’re making fun of the Exalted, the rascals!” he said.

  They listened to the chorus and the second verse.

  “I wonder if the Exalted present caught on?” Malin asked when the chorus began again.

  “I doubt it,” Mikal answered. “Otherwise the tour would have been finished. Some Exalted would have put a cork in it.”

  “Well, they are very careful with their mockery,” Malin commented after the third verse. “The Exalted probably thought that they were being admired, while the regular folk knew perfectly well what was going on. They’re probably still singing that song in Oisir on every likely occasion.”

  “They’re probably singing it across the continent by now. That’s the beauty of subversive art. It can bring into focus something that people know, but have never truly thought about.”

  “And it’s hard for the reigning Authorities to fight that sort of thing, because it’s all done in innocent fun,” Malin crowed. “This is great, you know.”

  “I agree. Even if their music is all that Kati’s Team managed to infect Vultaire with, they’ll still have done a lot. And it’s something that’s hard to get rid of, once it has taken hold.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The residents of the Underground Base were the first to notice when the Klensers grew agitated. The Klensers living there had been integrated into the lives of the rest of the inhabitants, ever since Zass and Mathilde had arrived, and Katimi had been born, so a disturbance among them quickly became obvious.

  “Hey, Zass, are you all right?” Roxanna stopped to ask the youth one morning.

  She had noted that he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his reed-pipe beside him, rocking his body back and forth rhythmically, eyes closed, and a pained expression on his face.

  Zass opened his eyes and looked at her, although he did not stop moving. She slid down on her knees beside him, and placed a soothing hand on one of his arms. To her surprise, the boy grasped her hand with his, clinging to it as if drawing strength from it. The look of discomfort did not leave his features.

  “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Roxanna asked. “I’ll help if I can.”

  Zass shook his head.

  “Don’t think you can,” he muttered, his voice thick with emotion. “The Forest Spirit is upset. More than upset. Something’s really wrong, but I don’t know what.”

  “Oh my,” Roxanna murmured, trying to think. “This must be affecting the others—Kaya, Una, Jebo, Shiff, Han and Dowl, too.”

  Zass nodded. Unwilling to let go of the lad’s hand, Roxanna looked around to see if there was someone nearby to run an errand. It was early and most people were still rolled up in their sleeping blankets along the edges of the Great Hall and wherever else they might have found a likely spot, and she did not want to disturb them unless it was truly necessary. But there was Nilla, on her way to begin the morning shift in the kitchen; she was always one of the first people up and about.

  “Nilla,” Roxanna hissed as the older woman came near. “Can you please get hold of Jorun and ask him to come here? Something’s up, and I don’t want to leave Zass alone when he’s all agitated, but Jorun needs to know about this—and maybe he’ll know how to deal with it. I certainly don’t.”

  Nilla glanced at Zass’s face and nodded.

  “Jorun will be in his office; I�
�ll ask him to come here,” she said. “He’ll come right away when he hears that it’s you who’s asking.”

  She hurried off. Roxanna heaved a sigh of relief. She knew that Nilla was right on both counts. Almost every morning Jorun managed to arrive in his office before she could make it there, and she was one of the earliest risers on the Base. And he knew that she never asked for his help without a reason; he had commented on occasion on how much he appreciated the fact that she was not one “to whine about every splinter”, as he put it.

  Meanwhile Zass seemed to have sunk back into his agony, but he was still clutching her hand tightly, as if he needed the contact. Probably he did, Roxanna thought, worrying about the other Klensers who should have been sleeping in their room. Perhaps if they were asleep, they were okay. She did not know enough about the Klenser physiology or psychology, to judge. Not that anyone else on the Base knew much more than she did. If only Kati had still been there, she might have been able to do something! At least she could have probed Zass’s mind and found out what exactly was going on.

  But Kati was not there. She was most likely in the Capital City from which Roxanna had run away months ago. Roxanna wondered, once again, how the Unofficial Investigation was proceeding. Had the Team Members succeeded in getting the evidence that they were after? Was this trouble with the Forest Spirit somehow related to whatever demons the Investigation was unearthing?

  Then Jorun was there, in his comforting, middle-aged bulk, squatting beside her and Zass with the surprisingly elegant agility that the Vultairians were capable of. He studied Zass’s face and the hand that was gripping Roxanna’s.

  “He’s not comfortable,” Jorun said, definitely understating the case.

  Roxanna couldn’t help but crack a smile at that; she thought of all the times she, Cathe and Sira had made gentle jokes at this particular trait of the Base Leader. But she was, oh so glad that he was there, thinking things through calmly, while she herself was suffering with Zass!