The tall, pale-skinned noblewoman stared down at the rotund, dark-skinned Shelonian, and wrinkled her nose. Vorlund, only now beginning to catch his breath from the fast jog from the Flit Parkade, glared at her in astonishment.
“Besieged world?” he sputtered. “To spy? Better that I should ask you: Are you a paranoid neurotic, Senate Chairwoman Sartose? You are Senate Chair Sartose, are you not? That’s who wanted to see me, I was told.”
“Don’t tell me that you don’t know what’s up above us,” Sartose snapped. “Some Lamanian woman, Arya r’pa Dorral, that’s the name she claims, is threatening to overrun the city with Torrones Warriors unless we agree to return some hostages, a couple of women whom she claimed that some of our Exalted nationals kidnapped from the Star Federation Space Station! And she insists on investigating claims that the Noble Houses of Vultaire keep slaves obtained from known slave traders! Besides which, she’s telling me that we treat the Klensers among our population as slaves! That is all utter nonsense, and she has no right, under the Charter of the Star Federation, to make threats to the legally constituted Authorities of this planet!”
“If it’s all such utter nonsense, why are you so worried that I might be a spy?” the Master Healer asked, reasonably enough. “Why have I been rushed here from my ship, by flit, without even the opportunity to look at your fair world except from the air? I was hoping for an opportunity to mingle among the crowds gathered near this very building, and find out what is happening among the ordinary folk of this world, but instead, that young whipper-snapper dragged me here to your office at top speed.”
The Senate Chair glared at him.
“That ‘young whipper-snapper’ as you called him belongs to the class of the Exalted elite of this world,” he said icily. “Show a little respect, alien commoner.”
She drew herself to her full height, and once again stared at the Master Healer down her nose.
“We do have protocols,” she added haughtily, “and one of them is that those of us born into the Exalted Class deserve to be treated with the respect due us as the Elites that we are.”
For a moment Vorlund merely looked at her, in total astonishment. What the blazes was going on here? How had these idiots managed to get so out of touch with the multiplicity of the Federation peoples? Then the humour of the situation struck him, and he burst out laughing. He had a very jolly laugh, a sound that could cut through the most persistent self-importance.
“I’d like to have you try that on Arya r’pa Dorral,” he said. “Assuming, of course that she is up above us, with a Torrones Warship, as you claim. She’ll tell you what to do with your protocols.”
Sartose’s already pale face turned whiter yet. Her lips tightened into a thin line.
“And why should I put up with insolence from you, alien?” she asked.
“Oh, try laughing at yourself, for once in your life,” the Master Healer suggested. “Or has the Exalted Class of Vultaire grown so self-important that they’ve forgotten the fine art of giggling at one’s foibles?
“Look, I want to make my way among the people of this city, see if there are those who might need the services of a Healer. If you are about to be descended upon by a contingent of Torrones Warriors, and there are those among your population, foolish enough to challenge the Warriors, my services may come in very handy. So kindly stop acting like an idiot, allow me to walk among your citizens, and persuade that whipper-snapper of a Noble youth to quit shepherding me.”
“Ah, you admit that you’re out to spy on us, then!” Sartose exclaimed. “We have prisons in this city! And I have bodyguards! I can have you thrown into a prison as a suspected spy and who’s going to help you then?”
The Master Healer sighed. If this woman was all the leader that Vultaire could manage, the planet was in even worse trouble than he had suspected. He was not worried by her threats; with his ability to connect with the Forest Spirit, as well as with Kati of Terra, any stay in a Vultairian prison was going to be a short one. But he did not wish to be confined by these idiotic elites; there would be work for him, and he wanted to be free to do it.
Suddenly the door of the office burst open.
The clerk from behind the counter was there, looking frightened.
“Chairwoman Sartose!” she cried, distressed. “The Klensers are pouring in here and the bodyguards can’t stop them without damaging valuable property! They’re nattering something about a friend of theirs being kept against his will in your office! They say that the Spirit of the Land wants him brought out into the open! Whatever that means!”
“That friend would be me, of course,” the Master Healer said with dignity. “I have been told that the Klensers can communicate with the entity which I know as the Forest Spirit, which, no doubt is the same one that these Klensers call the Spirit of the Land. The Forest Spirit knows well that I do not in any way mean to harm any of its creatures, but instead wish to promote their well-being. If the Klensers call me their friend, that gives me delight, and if you’ll excuse me, Chairwoman Sartose, I’ll solve your invasion problem by going out to meet these friends.”
He swept out of the room, past the clerk who moved out of his way, to be confronted by an extraordinary sight in the hallway. A crowd of beautiful, fit, well-muscled Vultairians dressed in tattered shorts and shirts was streaming towards him, while other Vultairians, in black uniforms, were vainly trying to hold them back by physically tackling them and dragging them to the floor. The uniformed ones were not particularly successful in their endeavour, partly because they were out-numbered, and partly because their opponents were clearly the better physical specimens, able to overpower the black-clad guards in one-on-one combat—as long as the latter did not resort to using the arms that they were carrying. Thank goodness that the Vultairian Elites considered the Klensers to be property much too valuable to be harmed, the Master Healer thought as he hurried towards the melee.
“Let us put an end to this silly battle!” he shouted in the most commanding tone that he could muster. “You who are called Klensers, know the Spirit of the Land, and are looking for me: here I am, at your service!”
“Yes,” the nearest Klenser, a male who was being restrained by two of the uniformed guards said in a rusty-sounding voice, and he stopped resisting his captors so suddenly that they nearly fell down over each other. His face broke into a large grin.
“Oh yes,” another voice from slightly farther back, called. “You are the Master Healer, Vorlund by name, a foreigner but an excellent friend to the Spirit of the Land and therefore to us Klensers!”
This was a younger male voice and quite articulate, and Vorlund’s attention was immediately drawn by it. He looked curiously into the crowd, wanting to know with which face to connect it. Even as the struggle in the hallway ceased, a youth broke away from the others to face him.
“Oh, you look exactly as the Spirit told us that you would,” the lad said, looking delighted. “Just like I saw you in the mind of Kati of Terra, another foreigner who can heal. She said that she learned what she knows of healing from you.”
“You know Kati, do you?” Vorlund asked.
“Oh yes. My sister and I travelled with her Entertaining Troupe for a time. She took it upon herself to hide me from those who would have penned me; my sister did not want to give me up to the Farms.”
He leaned down from his height to take the Master Healer’s proffered hand.
“My name is Zass,” he said, “and I am the Spokesperson for the Klensers while we mass on the Grounds around the Government Buildings, since I am the one with the most practice in speaking out loud. I am, however, quite young, and inexperienced, and have to rely on the wisdom of the older Klensers, and the Spirit of the Land.”
“There is wisdom in understanding one’s limitations,” the Master Healer replied. “But, I would know, are there those among you who need healing? If so, I would be taken to them, so I can get to work.”
“No Klenser needs you urgently,” Zass replied, even as the tw
o began to walk away, with the Klenser crowd surrounding them—protectively, Vorlund felt. “We can repair most damage that we suffer, if it’s physical. Damages to the mind and emotions are harder, although a few of us picked up a bit from Kati of Terra when she helped one of us. But right now our kind can wait. We have friends, however, friends who have helped us during our stay here in the City, who have been poorly treated by the government Authorities and their guards, and some of them are in a very bad way. We would like these people to be the first to receive help from you.”
“Of course, Zass. I will do whatever I can to help.”
The round little man disappeared into the crowd of tall bodies which swept him towards the outer doors of the building.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“So have you and your troops descended upon the Capital City yet, Arya?” Mikal asked, speaking into his little communicator.
“No,” came the answer. “I’ve been waiting for a word from you—to find out whether or not the rescue of the kidnappees was successful or not.”
The island morning was beautiful. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky; the storm that Malin had flown the flyer through seemed to have happened in some other reality. A pleasant wind blowing from the open ocean carried the briny smells onto the flat rock on which the flyer and the flit were parked, even as the various occupants emerged from them to perform whatever morning ablutions were possible. There was no fresh water, which made any sort of washing an impossibility, but fortunately the fruit that Lank and Joaley had piled up, were juicy enough to quench thirst, although hunger was going to be an issue. At least everyone had managed to get some much-needed rest, and even Xoraya and Canna were beginning to show some spark, although Canna did complain about hunger pains.
“It’s probably just as well that we have no food,” Joaley said. “Your body has been going without for a while. A semi-liquid diet like the fruit we have here is probably the best thing for you right now. It’s easy on the digestion, and yours is going to have to relearn to handle solids.”
“You’re probably right,” Canna said with a sigh. “I’ll probably be smart to stick to broth and simple soups for a few days, no matter how much I crave a plate of tubers and veggies with a side of meat.”
“Creamed soup is what my Grandmother used to feed us when we kids had starved ourselves for whatever reason,” Malin said, putting an arm around Canna’s shoulders protectively. “But then, she made the best soups ever, so none of us ever complained.”
“Why would kids starve themselves?” Joaley asked curiously, biting into another globular fruit. “Where I come from, we never seemed to have enough to eat, so we would not have dreamed of passing up a meal when there was one to be had.”
“You sure you didn’t grow up in the same slum that I did?” Canna interjected.
“Not the same one, but much like it, I expect,” Joaley answered. “And nothing like Malin’s Paradise, I don’t think.”
“Paradiso,” Malin corrected her. “And we have wicked storms on my home world. We kids were often foolish enough to not prepare for such eventualities, and would find ourselves unable to get home, and have to hunker down in the nearest shelter to wait out a day long storm. Water wasn’t a problem; it came down in torrents from the sky, as long as you could keep the wind from tearing you away from whatever hole you had crawled into, but if you hadn’t taken a pack with you, like your elders were always telling you to do, you went hungry.”
Kati listened to this conversation with only half her attention on it. The other half was trying to follow the one that Mikal was conducting on his com; he had turned away from the group to do so, and hearing his side of it required the full use of her node’s abilities.
“Kati’s Team, and Malin and I have succeeded in getting Xoraya and Canna away from the Margolises,” she heard Mikal say. “We spent the night on a coastal island off the Eastern edge of the main continent. We will have to return to civilization as soon as possible, since we’re pretty well out of supplies, and the ex-kidnappees suffered a considerable stretch of physical deprivation before we broke them loose.”
“Xoraya Hsiss is probably the one of the two in better shape,” Arya told him—but Kati could not hear this, of course. “She has lizard metabolism and therefore can no doubt handle physical deprivation much better than the human woman. Are you coming to the Capital City?”
“That’s where things are happening right now,” Mikal answered. “The Klensers have massed there, and you’re about to make a descent with your fancy troops, right? I suppose the local Revolutionaries are trickling in as well—Kati thinks that the dissident Exalted will be there in such numbers as they have, and she likely knows more than any non-native about what’s happening.”
“It’s a good time for me to flaunt some Torrones muscle,” Arya replied. “Vorlund was in touch with me a while ago. He caught a ride to the Capital, only to have the Senate Chairwoman try to pen him up. However, it seems that the word of his healing powers had preceded him, and those people called Klensers went to rescue him. They wanted him to heal some people who had been roughed up by the Government bodyguards for daring to treat the Klensers with dignity—at least that’s what he told me. What about the off-world slaves? Are they a reality that I should be digging into when I get down there with my helpers?”
“Oh, it’s for real, indeed. Kati has some pretty damning evidence, and she’s certain that we’ll find more if we root around a bit. Although, don’t make the mistake of thinking that the Exalted won’t try to pull the wool over your eyes. Kati thinks that they want to hang on to the status quo which is so favourable to them, indefinitely; forever, if they can.”
“But, of course. Dead wood wants to keep on standing and pretending that it is still alive, even when the storms are buffeting it, and tearing at its rotten core. How many times have human beings seen that happen?”
“Maybe we could ask Xoraya. She is a student of the human species, and she has been at it for a longer time than anyone else I know.”
Mikal put the little com away into his pocket and turned to look at Kati who was apparently somewhat distractedly watching an interplay happening among Malin, Canna and Joaley as they tried to slake their hunger and thirst with the globular, juicy fruit of the island. Xoraya was lying on the ground near them, her eyes closed and her face open to the sun, looking very much like a lizard sunning herself—which was what she was. Rakil, Lank and Jock were not in sight, although Mikal remembered seeing them crawl from the flyer and the flit at about the same time that everyone else had dragged themselves out into the sunlit world. Not that he was worried about the three; there wasn’t much real estate to get lost in around the vehicles. Probably the three had gone to pick some more fruit, or to check out the seashore—or maybe they had simply retreated into privacy to deal with their bodily needs.
“So is the operation unfolding as it should?” Kati asked Mikal when he approached her.
“More or less,” he replied, reaching out to grasp her arm.
He could not resist the impulse to touch her, in that way to ensure himself that she really was there, within physical reach.
She took his hand into her strong fingers, and smiled at him, clearly just as happy to be in his presence as he was in hers.
“Arya’s going to go down with her contingent of menacing troops,” he added. “And Vorlund has arrived in the Capital City, too. Apparently he had a spot of trouble with the powers that still are—for the moment—but the Klenser folk arrived en masse to rescue him. They seemed to know that he could heal—and some of those whom they considered their friends needed a healer.”
“The Klensers are in contact with the Planetary Spirits,” Kati said, nodding. “The Forest Spirit and the others would keep them informed of what’s going on.”
Mikal nodded.
“And Vorlund is able to contact the Forest Spirit,” he said.
“As I no longer can,” Xoraya spoke up, opening her eyes and raising her bod
y into a sitting position.
Kati found herself wondering whether the Xeonsaur could draw the energy of the sun directly into her body while she basked in its rays. It would not have surprised her in the least if this was indeed so.
“It is indeed unfortunate,” the lizard-woman continued, “that I could not retain the powers of my mind as they existed while I was under that drug. Although, I do think that the forced experimentation with it has given me some idea of where Xanthus was trying to go with that part of his trials. It really is a pity that some of his human collaborators found the drug in its present form useful, since they put an end to his tests.”
“Sounds like you have been mulling the matter over,” Mikal commented.
“I have had the time to begin such contemplation, yes,” Xoraya answered. “And I suppose that I’ll have more opportunity to think about it before we find my Life-Mate, and succeed in freeing him. But I suppose, now that you, Mikal, have had your little chat with the Lamanian Lady in charge of the Warriors, you short-lives are anxious to head for the Capital City.”
“Indeed. Only it looks like three of our number have gone missing.”
Mikal turned to look at Joaley, Malin and Canna.
“Does anyone know where those three hared off to? Are they just taking their time answering Nature’s call, or did they decide to eat all the fruit that they could find before we leave?”
Malin laughed.
“No,” he said. “Lank told me that the three of them were going to take a quick look at the shoreline before we returned to the vehicles and took off. He was curious about the sea shells since he comes from a water world, and figured that this was likely his last opportunity to get a glance.”
“Jock and Rakil decided to accompany him,” Joaley added. “Jock to point out a thing or two that he happened to know about local shells, and Rakil to learn whatever he could about anything and everything. Malin stayed behind to look after us helpless women, while you were busy on the com.”
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 77
