“And? Have we escaped rain only to get caught in a torrent, if you get my drift?”
“No, I didn’t get the feeling that we’re worse off; if anything, I prefer this bunch, assuming that what I was sensing is the real thing. It should be, since deception through telepathy is nearly impossible to do. They really are a peaceable lot. They truly don’t want murder done on their territory, and these caverns are their territory.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I do wish they’d trust us enough to undo the knots that bind us, though.”
Kati found herself giggling at his glum tone.
“That would be nice. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to even think of our physical discomforts, never mind bring them up, before the entity which I was communicating with me swept itself away, telling me that it/she/they/whatever would ‘speak’ with both of us once we were in The Farseer’s presence.
“So, in the meantime, I guess we endure and wait.”
*****
The journey to meet with The Farseer took much longer than Kati had anticipated.
She and Mikal had lain for what seemed like hours on the moving wagon—fast-moving, considering that its motive power was bipeds pulling it—before it at last came to a halt, and one of the eyeless creatures deftly undid the knots that Mikal had complained about, and led them, sore and stumbling after the long, forced inactivity, into a rest cave, complete with a trickle of water and primitive toilet facility. Kati needed no urging to make use of the toilet crevice, and Mikal staggered into it as soon as she came out. Meanwhile, their guards had brought in their packs and she was glad to dig out a food packet from hers. Mikal joined her, and the two of them ate hungrily while trying to massage their leg muscles into normality.
When they had finished their meal and had drunk enough water to feel satiated, Kati felt a thin mind thread reaching to her. She paused in her exercising, and concentrated on the thread. It was coming from the nearest eyeless one—she had noted earlier with the help of her light, that the humanoids were also eating, from supplies that they carried on the wagon, and had made use of the rest-stop’s latrine facilities.
“We must keep on travelling. We do not know how fast your enemies can move. They have not given up yet. But we will allow you two to go untied, if you agree to stay on the cart willingly.”
“We will remain on the cart for as long as you wish us to.”
She would have okayed pretty nearly anything to be free of the restraints.
“Good news and bad news,” she told Mikal after the mental connection broke. “The bad news is that we have to board the wagon and get pulled on it for another long stretch. The good news is that if we do it voluntarily, they won’t tie us up.”
“I trust that you said yes, yes sir, we will be good, sir!” Mikal said, picking up his back-pack, ready to continue the trip.
“Something like that,” Kati replied. “Also, Gorsh has not given up yet. You must have been an awfully important prisoner, considering that he’s willing to chase you for days and nights on end through dark underground passages.”
“I expect that he realizes that I can put an end to his lucrative trade in human bodies. And that is exactly what I intend to do.”
“It seems that our ambitions run along parallel lines. Me, I’ m dead set on bringing Ingrid, Roxanna, Murra and every single one of those kids out of slavery. If that means destroying Gorsh’s business, so much the better.”
They were back on the wagon by then. It jerked into motion, and they wrapped themselves in their blankets, trying to get as comfortable as was possible on the hard surface. They may not have had all the comforts of home but neither of them was about to complain. Their arms and legs were free and they could try to sleep, while the creatures that were taking them to their destination had to travel on foot and pull the cart that carried them.
*****
The wagon’s second stop was at what appeared to be a living place of the eyeless ones. A group of them seemed to have been waiting for the wagon, and it was a few of these individuals who took charge of Kati and Mikal.
“You have your sensory organ aids to make walking around possible?” The thought thread was thin but definite; Kati caught it—and figured out what was being asked of her.
“We have our lights,” she replied mentally.
She and Mikal had each turned one of them on as soon as the cart had stopped.
“Good. We will guide you.”
The creatures did exactly that, leading them first to a rather ingenious bathing area in which they were able to clean up a little. After that they were fed, with food from the aliens’ kitchens—assuming that they had kitchens—served on thin slabs of stone. Kati sent a quick query to the granda before touching hers, and received assurance that the edibles were, indeed, edible, and would not hurt her.
“I’m keeping watch for toxins,” her node subvocalized, “but if memory serves, the food of this world does not clash with most humans’ digestion.”
“That’s useful to know,” she responded, digging into the meal. “We’ll run out of ship rations pretty quickly, and will have to rely on local food.”
She turned her attention to Mikal who had also dug into his slabful of victuals. They had arranged their lights on the eating surface to provide enough illumination to avoid accidents, and Kati was pleased to note that her eyes had adjusted to the dimness fairly well. She noted that Mikal, seated across from her, looked much better than he had when they had left the ship; so much so, in fact that she was quite surprised by his ability to recover physically. He appeared younger and much more energetic than he had earlier.
“You seem to have survived rather well the ordeal aboard Gorsh’s ship,” she commented between bites.
“Having a node helps,” he explained. “Of course, a candidate for a Peace Officer has to be a healthy specimen physically, to be accepted into the Corps, in the first place. But a node can help its owner to recover from all kinds of physical insults, when it’s not being overwhelmed by a strong drug like the mind-tangler.”
“Useful things, these nodes,” Kati muttered between bites. “I’m a little surprised that Gorsh was generous enough to provide slaves with such luxuries.”
“I should imagine that he has his reasons,” Mikal said. “Outside of having a lot of resources to throw around, that is. Perhaps the uses that he has for the group that you were a part of, require facility with languages.”
He grinned at her wickedly.
“For example, the second wife of a Captain of a space ship ought to be able to converse in a number of languages. Especially if the Captain plans to display her among his peers.”
Kati nearly choked on a piece of fruit.
“Everyone’s a comic these days,” she said tartly when she could talk again.
He was feigning innocence, but she could see the laughter in his eyes. Then she turned her attention to the piece of fruit she was holding and forgot to be offended.
“Wonder where this came from?” she asked, turning it around in her hands.
“What?” Mikal looked bemused at her sudden change of topic.
“This fruit. I’m sure it didn’t grow down here,” Kati replied.
Mikal shrugged.
“Maybe these beings have openings into secluded valleys in which they grow fruit, vegetables, whatever,” he suggested.
“Must be,” Kati agreed and popped it into her mouth. It tasted very good.
Once they had finished eating their hosts herded them back onto the wagon. They were given a new escort; the creatures who surrounded them, and set about to pull the cart were a livelier, more energetic group than the earlier crew had been by the time they had reached the latest stop.
Kati noticed something else after the wagon had been in motion for a while.
“Aren’t we climbing?” she asked Mikal.
“Yeah, we are. Isn’t that interesting?”
The granda broke into her ruminations. “We have been climbing, very sl
ightly, up until recently, the whole time that you have been getting a lift. When the two of you were packaged and tossed on the wagon at the first rest stop, we did not continue travelling in the direction that you two had chosen, but headed a different way, along tunnels that we did not include in our plans. We are going to where The Farseer is, not to your original destination.”
Kati reported this to Mikal. He laughed.
“That’s probably just as well. With a little bit of luck Gorsh and his minions will be looking for us in a completely wrong place.”
*****
“I guess we’re basically baggage,” Kati groaned somewhat later, wrapped in a blanket and using a corner of her pack as a pillow.
She and Mikal were lying in the dark, with not much on hand with what to pass the time.
“I didn’t realize that adventuring on alien planets could be at times more boring than running the children’s programs at my in-laws’ resort,” she added ruefully. “Or entertaining the children on Gorsh’s ship.”
“The first truth about adventuring,” recited Mikal in the tone of one repeating an old adage, “is that it’s boring when it’s not frightening. Mostly the stories are better when they’re told, than when they’re lived through.”
“That’s how we can spend the time as we roll along,” Kati said brightly. “We can tell stories to each other. Since we don’t know anything really about one another, it’ll be educational besides being interesting.”
“An excellent idea, Kati,” Mikal agreed. “Want to go first? Tell me something about yourself, how you ended up here, where we are, to start with.”
“Hm, I can do that, I guess. Where to begin?”
Kati thought about herself and her life for a moment, recalling facts that she had covered with Ingrid and Roxanna on Gorsh’s vessel.
“Here goes,” she then said, and continued:
“My son, Jake, and I were living at my in-law’s Resort, in an area known as Northern Ontario, on a very pretty lake. It was a busy resort; we catered to fishermen, vacationers and hunters, and therefore were busy from early spring to late autumn. We even had business in the winter; snowmobilers, ice-fishermen and cross-country skiers often stayed with us. During the summer months I was responsible for the children’s programs—doing that allowed me to look after Jake at the same time, conveniently enough.
“Jake’s father, Donny, and I were divorced, but I had stayed on at the Maki Resort partly because I really had no other place to go, but also because my in-laws, John and Raisa, and their daughter, Anna, were very fond of Jake, and it did not feel right to deprive them and him of each other. Besides, I had no problem with Donny’s family, only with him.”
“You mean to say that your ex-husband lived at this Resort, too?” Mikal asked.
“Yes.” Kati replied. “We weren’t living together, though.”
In the dark, she grinned impishly, though, obviously, Mikal could not see the grin.
“John had fixed up a flat above the boathouse for Jake and me, after the divorce. The two of us lived there, gloriously apart from the folk in ‘the big house’, as Jake referred to the family home. Donny had a new lady friend, as a matter-of-fact, one of the young women employees. I was perfectly happy with that—she kept him busy, and therefore he had less time to resent my existence.”
“Was that sort of an arrangement usual where you come from?” Mikal queried.
“No,” Kati answered. “Like I said, I really had no place else to go.
“My parents had died in a car accident when I was seventeen. The accident happened in the winter, in a snow storm, and involved a logging truck which had hit a patch of black ice and had gone out of control. I suppose that what I’m saying doesn’t mean much to you, Mikal, but it doesn’t matter really; I’m hazy on the details, anyway. I didn’t really want to know anything more than that Mom and Dad had died instantly. The rest of it was too awful to contemplate; I was told that I had saved my own skin by refusing to accompany them on that trip. I didn’t feel lucky; I was devastated. My parents left me all alone, since my mother had no living relatives, and my father had been estranged from his family, across the ocean, decades ago.
“There was some money left to me, however. Mom and Dad were late-life parents. When my mother got pregnant with me, they had long ago given up hope of having a family; I was a miracle to them. They had been school teachers all their adult lives and had managed to save a nice nest-egg by the time they retired, which was less than a year before the accident. They had taken to referring to their savings as my ‘education fund’—it was supposed to ensure that I’d get through University.
“I finished High School the spring after they died, but I was in no frame of mind to go on to University. However, I didn’t want to fritter away my inheritance, so I went to work as a waitress in a restaurant that summer, thinking that I would figure out how to go on with life while I was earning a living.
“I met Donny that fall, at the restaurant.
“At first he didn’t notice me at all, although I certainly noticed him—he was a good-looking chap, if in an arrogant sort of a way. Then, the third or fourth time that he came in, he suddenly started paying attention to me, a lot of attention. I couldn’t believe my luck. I was flattered; I was needy, of course. The women I worked with tried to warn me but I would not hear them. I fell for Donny’s line: bait, hook and sinker.”
Kati ran her hands over her face, and let out a sigh.
“We were married shortly after New Year’s, before the first anniversary of my parents’ accident. I moved to the Resort with Donny and by spring I was pregnant with Jake. I realized pretty quickly that the best thing I had got out of the marriage—besides Jake—were my in-laws. I remember how, when I first met Raisa, she hugged me really hard, with tears in her eyes. I didn’t understand it then, but later I realized that she regretted the fact that I had married her son, even while she welcomed me into the family. She knew what I had married, but she also realized that I had to find out for myself what she already knew.”
The memories tumbled through Kati’s mind. She remembered how Donny had turned from her swelling, pregnant body in disgust, leaving her alone in the bed that they were supposed to share. This was after he had been complaining that in her pre-pregnant state she had been too skinny for beauty. Katie, who had never until her marriage been particularly body-conscious, now had been utterly confused. Was there no pleasing this man that she had married?
Apparently not. Even Jake’s birth had left him indifferent. John and Anna had been the ones to drive Katie to the hospital on a cold winter day, and it had been Anna who had stayed with her through the ordeal to welcome Jake into the world.
“Well, he looks like a baby,” had been Donny’s only comment on first laying eyes on his son.
Fortunately everyone else in the family had been thrilled with the new arrival. Raisa and John had enjoyed lavishing attention on their first grandchild whenever their busy schedules permitted it. Anna had embraced her role as an auntie. Katie had basked in the knowledge that she had brought joy to the family even if she was bereft of a husband’s affection. She had settled into the life on the Resort, taking as much of a part in the daily workload as her motherly duties allowed. There had not been much time for regrets, although at times she did wonder why the sullen man who seemed to be avoiding his wife and child had married her.
Then she had found out.
Two weeks before her twenty-first birthday she had received a letter from the lawyer who had been handling her parents’ estate, asking her to come to his office in town, to discuss the disposition of the Trust Fund. According to the terms of the will, she was to take over its administration on her twenty-first birthday, and the lawyer wanted to know, considering her changed life circumstances, whether she wanted to keep the capital invested in the Trust, or if she had other plans for it. In the last paragraph of the letter, he had pointed out that as an inheritance from her parents, the trust money belong to her
alone; she had the right to dispose of it as she pleased, without obtaining spousal approval.
The lawyer was an old, established resident of the area who had handled her parents’ affairs for years. She had wondered at first why he had reminded her of her right to dispose of her inheritance as she alone saw fit, but when, as soon as he had heard about the letter, Donny had suddenly turned his charm full force upon her, the first shoe had dropped. The other shoe had dropped later that evening.
She had taken Jake, who had been a toddler, out to the Resort playground on that lovely autumn evening, to spend the time before the sun went down, playing with the pails and the shovels in the sandbox. The families were gone for the year so there were no other children there, just Jake, thrilled to have everything to himself.
“An easy bed-time, maybe, if he wears himself out,” Katie had muttered to Anna before she and Jake headed out.
“Careful if Donny comes there,” Anna had whispered to her. “Don’t let him bully you into anything.”
He had caught up to them before they reached the playground.
“I think that I’ll come with you to the lawyer’s office,” he had said, right away.
“Why?” Katie had asked, uneasily recalling Anna’s words.
“Oh, ‘cause I’m your loving husband, sweetie,” he had answered in the cajoling tone she well remembered from when he had first started courting her. Now she had wondered how she ever could have fallen for it.
“You’re not my loving husband,” she had replied quietly. “Do you take me for an idiot?”
“I married you, didn’t I?” he had shot back.
“Yeah, and you’ve no doubt broken every one of the wedding vows since then,” she had answered, turning her face away to hide the tears welling in her eyes.
Furious at herself for crying, she had picked up Jake and hurried with him to the playground. There, she had let the boy loose to grab a pail and shovel and plop himself down to dig in the sand. His grin, as he had looked up at her, had been beautiful.
Escape from the Drowned Planet Page 10
