Escape from the Drowned Planet

by Helena Puumala

  They were a happy, laughing troop, carrying their small baskets on their arms and gaily joking with one another. As soon as they came near the trees they started poking around in the ground with their toes and looking down into the scraggly grass, searching for morels.

  “Hey, I found a couple,” shouted Saria almost as soon as she had entered the trees, squatting down to collect the prize. “Hey, there would have been a bunch here but somebody’s trampled them! Who’s been walking around here lately anyway? Nobody from the Community, that’s for sure; we don’t destroy perfectly good food.”

  Jocan went over to take a look.

  “Hm, look,” he said in a low voice, “there’s pretty well a path—not an old one, but definitely a path—right there, can you see it? Going in that direction?”

  Saria, having gathered the two intact mushrooms straightened up, looking in the direction Jocan had indicated.

  “You’re right,” she replied. “But I can’t see where it’s going; it goes straight and then sort of disappears.”

  “I’ll follow it and see,” Jocan said, doing exactly that.

  Saria came behind him, just as curious as he was.

  Where the path seemed to disappear it abruptly turned to the right, and led them back out of the woods. Outside of the trees, Jocan turned around to look at the path along which he and Saria had travelled, even as Mikal had told him to do, and discovered that it was gone.

  “What happened to the path?” Saria asked him, staring at the undisturbed grass in surprise.

  Jocan shook his head without replying.

  Saria dropped on her knees to grab a handful of mushrooms growing beneath the nearest tree.

  “Since there are ‘shrooms here on the outskirts of the woods there ought to be lots in the middle,” she said, straightening back up. “There’s a shaded clearing in the middle and the morels love the shade and the damp soil there. Shall we go and look?”

  “Sure, let’s,” answered Jocan, allowing Saria to take the lead.

  A few moments later they found themselves on the edge of the wood once again.

  “What?” Saria asked, looking around in puzzlement. “I was walking into the woods, not out of it. How did we get here?”

  Jocan shrugged.

  “Let’s see if we can find the others,” was all he said.

  In the end, the whole group found themselves at the other side of the treed area. They had found a few morels; Tania had a handful, as did Saria, and the tall, dark-haired boy, Samo, had more than either of them. Jocan had a couple, and one of the other boys had one, but the rest of the pickers had found none. All, except Jocan, were frustrated; they had all been aiming for the central clearing but no-one seemed to have reached it.

  “Well, let’s give it another try,” Jocan said. “But if we can’t find any more, we can’t find any more.”

  “There may be enough in these baskets for one salad,” Tania said with a shake of her head, “but that’s it. Ammi’s not going to be very happy.”

  They headed towards the interior of the copse. Jocan who had manoeuvred himself near Tania this time noticed that the people on his left seemed to disappear among the trees while those on his right—including Tania—remained in view. These four teens found themselves skirting the edge of the wood once again, covering ground that at least one of them had already walked, and finding no mushrooms.

  “What do you think is going on?” Tania asked Jocan.

  Jocan only gave a shake of his head without answering. He had a pretty good idea; but he did not want to talk about it here, where very likely there was someone inside the Deflector Shield listening to their conversation. And watching them circle around the copse even as they were attempting to enter it.

  They met the others on the side from which they had first approached the trees, and with shrugs turned to return towards the Religious Community compound.

  “What the heck were you doing out there in that wood?”

  They were confronted by Joakim, who apparently had left his post on the Temple steps long enough to accost them.

  “We were picking mushrooms for Ammi’s salad,” Saria replied, annoyed. “What have you done to our mushrooming ground? Did you steal it?”

  “What the hell is ‘a mushrooming ground’?” Joakim countered.

  Jocan noticed that his right hand was in the same pocket that it had been in that morning. He was caressing his weapon.

  “It’s ground where you pick mushrooms, obviously,” replied Samo, in the tones of one speaking to a slow-witted child.

  Joakim laughed at him.

  “Mushrooms come in packages, you idiot,” he said.

  “Packages! You’ve got to be joking!” Clearly Tania couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “If, where you’re from, mushrooms come in packages,” Jocan said with a grin, “it’s because somebody packaged them. They do grow on the ground, believe it or not. See, look!” He thrust his basket under the off-worlder’s nose.

  “Oh yuk!” Joakim groaned, pushing the basket away. “I’ll take mine in packages!”

  “We’re going to give these to Ammi to wash and slice for a salad,” Tania said smugly. “Come on, everybody.”

  She turned her back to Joakim and headed off. Her companions followed her, leaving the off-Worlder to return to his post on the Temple steps, with his hand still inside his pocket.

  “What a complete dork he is,” muttered Samo to Jocan as they walked along. “You’d think someone from the stars would have a spoonful of brains in his head.”

  Jocan still said nothing. Mikal had warned him to not blow his cover while in the earshot of the off-worlders. And these fellows had possibly a long earshot—they were equipped with nodes just as Mikal and Kati were.

  *****

  The young people had all subsided into silence by the time they came back to the picnic tables in the Community green space. The adults at their table—now including Ammi and the woman who had fetched tea and cookies, Dai, watched them closely as they arrived. Tania silently collected all the baskets and combined the scanty mushroom harvest into one of them; it was about half-full when she was done. The other teens watched her.

  “Well, Ammi, I’m sorry but that’s it—that’s all we could find,” Tania said at last, laying the basket of mushrooms on the table in front of Ammi.

  “That’s about as much as I was able to pick the last time I was there,” Ammi said, staring at the basket. “Well, I guess it’ll perk up one salad; that’s about all.”

  “So what happened?” Yarm directed his question to Jocan.

  “It’s there, just like I thought,” Jocan replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “Protected by a Deflector Shield, I’m sure of that.”

  “You mean...because we couldn’t get into the middle of the grove?” Saria asked, her eyes wide.

  “Yeah. A Deflector Shield keeps deflecting you away from what it protects,” Jocan replied. “If you don’t know the area very well, you may not even know that you’re missing something.”

  “But because we have been picking mushrooms in that little clearing for a long time, we’re aware that something is wrong,” Ammi commented.

  “It felt weird,” said Samo. “No matter how hard I tried to walk into the middle where the best mushrooming is, I kept walking away.”

  “That’s what all of us were doing,” added Tania. “We were just skirting around the grove, not ever walking through it, like we used to.”

  “That’s exactly how they described it on Sickle Island when those two that we caught there, Guzi and Dakra, had hidden their flyer in a little wood which, fortunately, a couple of farm boys had been using as a playground.” Jocan drew a breath. “I wasn’t there,” he continued, “I was busy helping to trap Guzi and Dakra with The Seabird’s Rangers, but the people who were there did a pretty good job of describing how it was.”

  “I think Mikal was hoping that you people would just bang your shins into something invisible,” Yarm said tho
ughtfully, “and therefore all that those two have, would have been a camouflage tarp.”

  “Yeah. I remember him saying that he was surprised that they had spent the money on a Deflector Shield on Sickle Island,” Jocan added. “He figured that the slavery business must be bringing in even more coin than anyone had realized. I guess this proves it, since this is another Deflector Shield; the slavers didn’t get the one on Sickle Island back, any more than they got the flyer that it was hiding.”

  “Well, I think that you and I, Jocan will have to report this to Mikal and Kati,” Yarm said. “They’re no doubt waiting impatiently for our news.”

  He rose and turned to the Eldest.

  “So you’ll be coming at supper-time with Ammi?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Ammi is my Second. She usually deals with matters that have to do with the women’s affairs,” the Eldest replied.

  “Well this definitely affects us women of the Community,” said Ammi, her eyes on the basket with its scanty mushroom harvest.

  “Do you think we could have one or two of the young people come, too?” Jocan asked. “Joakim certainly affects their lives.”

  The Eldest shrugged. Ammi stared.

  “Mikal and Kati are pretty good about that sort of thing,” said Yarm with a smile. “Why not, if a couple of them want to come?”

  “Good.” Jocan’s grin was broad. “How about Samo and Tania come with the Eldest and Ammi to the Faithville Inn?”

  Tania clapped her hands and Samo laughed.

  “Sounds absolutely great,” he answered.

  “Why them?” grumped Saria. “The rest of us want to know what’s going on, too.”

  “Samo and Tania will inform you once they get back,” Jocan said.

  “And there is no way we’ll turn this meeting into any sort of a youth convention,” added the Eldest firmly. “So two’s it.”

  *****

  “Damn,” said Mikal when Yarm and Jocan had finished reporting what they had found out. “Another Deflector Shield. Another handy circle of trees in which to stow a flyer. What is it with this World anyway? Is it full of groves of trees with empty centres, or are Gorsh’s people just damn lucky?”

  “Not lucky, no,” Kati argued, laughing. “Not when we managed to snag Guzi and Dakra, not once, but twice. And got them thrown into the local jail for a good stretch, the second time. I wouldn’t call that good luck—not for them, anyway. Thing is, if you’ve lived among trees, and I have, you would have noticed that quite often small patches of trees are pretty uneven in growth; it’s probably not that hard to find one that has a big enough empty space to stow a flyer.”

  Mikal had been pacing the floor but now he stopped that and sat down.

  “No doubt you’re right,” he said to Kati. “I’m just getting antsy with inaction. There’s nothing more annoying than having to sit on your backside and grind your teeth while other people do the legwork.”

  “Hey, come on Mikal,” Kati protested, shaking her head and giggling. “I’ve known people who call that being the boss, and love every minute of it. Are you sure you’re normal?”

  “Sounds like Kati and I must have run into some of the same people,” Yarm added with a grin. “On the other hand, I doubt that being cooped up in the Faithville Inn is exactly a treat; still, I should imagine it’ll come to an end pretty soon, now.”

  “I’ve nothing against this Inn except that there are walls and ceilings and doors, to keep you in,” Mikal muttered. “And most of the time, I’d consider those to be good things. Only—it’s hard to be so close to getting to where you have to go, and then being thwarted.”

  He stood up again and resumed his pacing. Kati, seated cross-legged on the bed, gritted her teeth. She had been watching his pacing for some time now. This seemed to have been his time of the day to be on edge while she, herself, was feeling reasonably calm, probably because she had come up with a plan to divert Joakim and his accomplice away from the Temple long enough to allow Mikal to get inside, and make his beacon call. She had succeeded in chasing him to the Men’s Bath to wash himself after Jocan and Yarm had left, but he had spent only enough time there to wash quickly, and had returned to their room just as antsy as he had been before leaving. She had encouraged him to do his meditations but he had demurred, saying that he had gone through his meditation exercises in the morning and did not feel like doing a repeat. So he had paced the floor while she tried to immerse herself in studying the local writing system from the books that they had brought with them from Delta. A pointless exercise at this stage of the journey, she knew, but it kept her attention somewhere other than the man pacing the floor.

  “Did anyone tell Sora’s daughter that two more people are coming for supper?” she suddenly thought to ask.

  “No, Do you want me to go and do that?” Jocan asked.

  “How about if I go and talk to her?” Kati suggested. “You and Yarm probably want to wash before supper, and there’s only about an hour left before it’s time.”

  She jumped off the bed and started to pull on the boots, which she had removed before climbing on the bed.

  “A wash sounds like a great idea,” Yarm said, stretching in his chair. “Jocan? Mikal? What about it?”

  “I’ve already bathed, but you two go on,” Mikal answered. “I’m pretty lousy company right now, anyway. It’s probably better if I get to stew here by myself for a small while. Maybe I can get hold of my temper.”

  Kati slipped out the door into the hallway and drew a deep breath. Chuckling to herself she mused on the fact that this was the first time that she had been annoyed enough with Mikal to be happy to have an excuse to get out of his presence.

  “This may have been the first time but I kind of hope it’s not the last,” she muttered to herself as she wended her way towards the lobby and the restaurant. After all, every pairing involved a certain amount of friction, along with the loving and the caring and....

  “Sensible woman,” subvocalized the monk inside her mind.

  *****

  Ten people convened around the large table in the private dining room of the Faithville Inn’s Restaurant at the supper hour. Yarm, being the one who was acquainted with everyone except the Faithville law enforcer, made the introductions, only ceding the role to Mayor Zenco when it came to naming Wills, the law enforcer.

  “We don’t have much of a seating arrangement worked out,” Kati said, playing the hostess, “but I thought Mikal and I would take the ends of the table and let the rest of you pick your places along the sides.”

  Ammi discreetly herded Tania and Samo into the middle seats on one side and settled herself across from them, Kati noticed with some amusement. Jocan sat beside Ammi, so as to be close to the other teens. The Eldest and Mayor Zenco took the seats next to Mikal, leaving Yarm and Wills to sit next to Kati.

  They barely had time to sit down when the door burst open and the servers arrived with bottles of wine which Zenco proudly declared were some of his best.

  “You people have proper respect for good wine, I can tell,” he said happily.

  Kati took a sip from her glass as soon as one of the servers had poured the wine, and informed the table that Zenco’s best was as good as Sickle Island Red.

  “That, coming from her,” Mikal told Zenco, “is high praise. Kati was quite taken with Sickle Island Red when we had access to it on our travels.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” said the Winemaker.

  “This is indeed very delightful,” commented Ammi, after sipping from her glass. “We at the Community generally drink only the wine we make ourselves, and naturally, our wine-making is much more amateurish than Zenco’s.”

  She did not sound in the least perturbed by this.

  “I guess I better enjoy this, then,” said Samo, grinning cheerfully. “Who knows when I’ll next get the chance to drink it?”

  Tania just giggled into her glass as she inhaled the wine’s bouquet.

  Then the servers who had left after pourin
g the first glassfuls of wine returned, loaded with trayfuls of the local delicacies that Kati had helped to pick from the list that Sora’s daughter had recited to her. Once the dishes that they had brought had been spread around the table, they retreated again and the diners eagerly dug into the food. As seemed to be the custom on this world, the table talk during the meal consisted of comments about the victuals, about the wine, or about innocuous subjects such as the weather. Important topics were saved for the after-dinner hours; it was deemed rude to ruin the guests’ digestion by speaking of unpleasant or stressful matters while eating was in progress.

  Thus it was not until all the plates were empty that the serious conversation began.

  “All right,” Mikal broached the discussion. “It seems to me that my presence on this world has caused a problem for the inhabitants of your town, a problem which I’d rather not have caused, but which, once I became stranded here, was unavoidable.”

  “Perhaps you can explain to us how that is so,” suggested the Eldest of the Religious Community.

  “Yeah,” Mikal replied. “I’ve spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out how to best put it into words. Maybe if I begin at the very beginning....

  “When the Star Federation was formed about a thousand years ago and the Peace Officer Corps was created to try to deal with the lawless elements inside it, and on planets allied with it, or in close enough proximity to affect the lives of its citizens, the reality that sometimes agents were stranded on worlds which had no space capability, had to be addressed. This was done by setting up beacons on those of such worlds which were close enough to the Space Trade Lanes, to possibly be of interest to perpetrators of interstellar crime. A stranded agent could use these beacons to summon a Federation space vehicle to pick him or her up. The agent, of course, had to be able to find such a beacon, and the beacon had to be available for use when needed. This meant that they had to be installed in very secure buildings which were, however, easily recognizable and open to the public. Somebody decided that religious temples would be the ideal places to locate such beacons, especially if an effort was made to reinforce the buildings in such a manner that neither time nor the vagaries of Nature could easily destroy them.”