Escape from the Drowned Planet

by Helena Puumala

  “So,” he finally began, looking at Kati. “The girl made it halfway across the World. You didn’t escape or travel by yourself, now did you.”

  “What’s that to you?” Kati made her voice sullen, uncooperative.

  “For one thing,” Lavesk said in a hard voice, “you wouldn’t know to be here, now would you, girl?”

  Hm, Kati thought. He’s antsy; it took almost nothing to piss him off.

  “Maybe not, maybe so,” was the only reply that she made.

  “Don’t play the fool with me, bitch! I know that you escaped from the ship in the company of a Star Federation Peace Officer. That’s an established fact. There has also been a report that you were seen travelling with him soon after the breakout.”

  Lavesk stopped and drew a breath. Antsy, nothing; he was a nervous basket case. He was angry, volatile; Kati realized that she was going to have to tread softly.

  “Take the lead and draw him on carefully,” the granda subvocalized to her.

  “You were travelling with this Mikal character,” Lavesk snapped before she had time to plunge in herself. “Where is he now?”

  “All right,” Kati replied a little breathlessly, choosing her words carefully. “I was travelling with him. But surely you don’t expect me to betray a friend?”

  Lavesk smiled at her. It was not a nice smile.

  “That is exactly what I expect you to do,” he said, his voice both tight and saccharine at the same time. “As a matter of fact, I can force you to betray your friend, this Mikal.”

  He pulled out a small gun out of his pocket. Kati remembered seeing its double on Sickle Island, among the items confiscated from Guzi and Dakra.

  “See this thing here,” he said, handling it like one does a beloved object. “It shoots poisoned darts into your bloodstream, and fells you comatose or kills you, depending on the poison. I’ve got killing poison in it. And Joakim here, beside me has a blaster, another deadly weapon.”

  “Do you want me to run and get my weapons bag, Lavesk?” the youth whispered to him, loudly enough for all to hear.

  Lavesk threw him an irritated glance.

  “No. Just back me up, for crying out loud,” he snapped, turning back to Kati and her companions.

  Kati conceded in her mind that the three stunners in her and the Bayne boys’ possession were not much of a match to what they were facing. But then, she and the three with her had known before they began, that they had no hope of matching Gorsh’s men in firepower. But when it comes to wits, she thought, we outrank these two by several levels.

  “Of course, killing me won’t get you the information that you’re looking for.” Kati inserted a tremor into her voice to make it seem like she was even more frightened than she actually was.

  “No,” replied Lavesk coldly. “However, I’ve a mind to start with your friends. Which one shall I shoot first? The old man maybe? He looks like the smartest one of you and therefore the most valuable to you. That doesn’t mean a thing to me, though; local mud grubbers are worth shit.”

  Kati chewed on her lip for a moment. She stole a glance at Yarm who was sitting in his saddle totally still, staring at the gun in Lavesk’s hand.

  “All right,” she said slowly. “I’ll take you to him. But only if you leave my companions alone.”

  Lavesk smiled, one of his unpleasant smiles.

  “Maybe we’ll take them along with us,” he said.

  “It’s a ways. We’ll have to ride. Can you two ride runnerbeasts? Maybe we can leave a couple of my friends here and you and the boy can ride their animals—although runnerbeasts can be pretty spirited creatures....” Kati trailed off as she saw Joakim looking at the two runnerbeasts standing riderless on the grass near them.

  The lad nudged Lavesk and pointed; Lavesk looked at the animals and grinned.

  “I think that we’ll take all three of your friends—as insurance,” said Lavesk in a tone of satisfaction.

  Joakim ran off to gather up the beasts.

  “Hey, my animals!” cried Zenco and made a motion to retrieve them, aborted as Joakim pointed a blaster at his face. “Well...,” he added uncertainly.

  “You’ll get your beasts back,” Joakim promised loftily, still brandishing his blaster. “We’ll just borrow them.”

  Kati waited until the two of them had mounted the runnerbeasts, in a somewhat ungainly fashion, trying to adjust to what for them must have been unfamiliar saddles and bridles.

  “All right then,” she said when they looked more or less ready. “Let’s go.”

  She sent Yarm and the Bayne boys ahead of her, and followed them at a run, glancing back to make certain that the other two were following them. They were, trying manfully to keep up with the blistering pace that Yarm was setting on their way through the town and towards the southern trail. She felt exhilarated. The scheme was working! It had been easier and quicker to get the slavers moving than she had expected it to be, and whether they realized it or not, they were somewhat out of control of the situation now; it’s hard to shoot straight while controlling a racing runnerbeast, and these men were unused to riding the animals. And things were going to get further out of control for them yet!

  *****

  Kati, Yarm and the Bayne boys did not hear the cheering that erupted into the air surrounding the Temple when the last runnerbeast had disappeared on its way south.

  “By the Heavens!” exclaimed Zenco, shaking his head. “She had it nailed! They fell for her line like honeyfish for sweet bait! I wondered whether maybe they’d have more sense, but that young woman had them figured!”

  “Well let’s hope the rest of her plan works as well,” said Wills. “Those weapons that they were brandishing are nasty-looking things! Which reminds me that as the local law enforcer I guess I’ll have to confiscate that bag of tricks the boy left on the Temple steps. I sure don’t want any kids getting their hands on that stuff; that would definitely be a recipe for a disaster.”

  He began to walk towards the Temple, and after a moment’s hesitation, Zenco followed him. He had responsibilities for the safety of Faithville’s citizens, too, and he wanted to do what was right, even though the thought of the contents of Joakim’s bag made his neck-hairs rise up.

  Jocan who had been hanging about, in a crowd of teenagers from the Religious Community, headed for the Community’s dining hall where he had left Mikal earlier to drink herb tea in the company of some of the Community adults, and to worry.

  “Mikal, she’s got them going south at break-neck speed!” he shouted as he burst into the room. “Come on, and do your part, now that Kati’s busy doing hers!”

  Mikal was on his feet before Jocan had finished speaking.

  Two burly fellows got up with him.

  “We’ll get the ladder to the Temple,” one of them said and they headed out the door.

  Mikal and Jocan headed for the Temple, followed by a retinue of the people who had been waiting with Mikal in the dining hall. Mikal kept their pace to a walking gait, telling himself that there was no point in running even though that is what his body wanted to do. The ladder would not get there any sooner than the men could carry it there, and he could not reach the beacon without it.

  On the Temple steps they ran into a small crowd surrounding Wills and Zenco, who had opened Joakim’s bag and were looking at its contents, looking puzzled.

  “Good Lord, shut that thing and hide it somewhere,” Mikal said to the mayor and the law-enforcer. “That stuff is incredibly dangerous and nobody here knows how to handle any of it. When we get a Federation ship here, I’ll take it aboard; there will be somebody on it who’ll know how to deactivate those weapons, and make them safe.”

  Wills shut the closures on the bag gingerly.

  “Where the heck can we store it safely in the meantime?” he asked, staring at it apprehensively.

  “A cave, or something made of stone would be best,” Mikal replied. “Hey, the Temple would do, if there’s a closet or cranny in it that everybo
dy doesn’t know about. Thing is, if one of those things blows, you don’t want to take the whole town with it.”

  “And what could cause them to blow?” asked the Eldest of the Religious Community, drawn to the conversation by the suggestion that the Temple be used for storage of the bag.

  “Some idiot deciding to be curious, basically,” Mikal replied. “Some kid deciding to pull out pins or draw triggers on the items in there, that’s what it would take. If the bag’s left alone, and sitting still, nothing’s going to happen.”

  The Eldest picked it up.

  “Well, then I know where to stash it.” He walked with it to the Temple doors. “When you’re ready to take it off-World, come and see me. No-one will interfere with it between now and then.”

  “Always assuming that Kati and companions do manage to take care of Lavesk and Joakim,” muttered Mikal. “I’m sure the miserable creatures have something rigged up so that we’re being imaged the whole time were in the vicinity of these steps. Well, I can’t do anything about it right now, so I might as well do what I can.”

  The men carrying a long wooden ladder had arrived and Mikal and Jocan ran up to the doors to open them so that the ladder could be taken into the Temple. The first of the two men hauling the ladder began to climb up the stairs while the other one steadied it at the rear, and suddenly the distance between them was peopled with volunteers who helped to support the ladder and to carry it inside the building.

  Inside, Mikal unwrapped the two dishtowels he had borrowed from the Community’s kitchen staff while he was drinking numerous cups of tea in the dining area. He tied one around the top of one of the ladder’s uprights, to form a bit of a cushion there, and directed Jocan to do the same on the other upright with the other towel. When that was done, he looked at the volunteers, and the two men who had carried the ladder in.

  “What I want to do is have this thing stood up against that large painting on the back wall, right next to that odd-looking star by the mountain peak,” he told them.

  “Ah,” breathed Jocan. “The star. You want to reach the star.”

  Mikal grinned.

  “You’ve got it,” he said.

  The folk handling the ladder took it to the back of the Temple, and very carefully set it against the picture, the tea towel cushions protecting the painting from the sharp corners of the ladder’s top. The two men who had been with it first, checked to make sure that it stood securely and then took places on each side of the ladder, to make certain that it would not move while Mikal was on it. Its top end was next to the star beside the mountain peak, and Mikal drew a breath, took a last look at the ladder and checked the sturdiness of the first few rungs. Then he began to climb up. The room fell silent, while all the people present watched him scale the ladder. They watched him reach the star, make some odd twisting motions to it with his fingers, and then they saw it open up. A collective gasp rose from the onlookers; Mikal ignored it and spent a minute or two with his finger tips moving inside the star. Then he pulled his hand out, closed the star again, snapping whatever mechanism was on it into a locked position and began to climb down again.

  “All right,” he said, once he was on the floor again. “I’ve done all I can do. And you’re off the hook, Jocan, since this beacon seems to be operating just as it ought to.

  “Now we watch and wait.”

  He turned his eyes towards the south.

  “I wonder how Kati’s making out?”

  *****

  Kati was riding a runnerbeast that was rushing south at top speed, following right behind Bayne Cho who was chasing his brother who, in his turn, was nipping at Yarm’s heels. She was marvelling at the speed the animals were capable of, these creatures, so unlike the horses of her own world. Horses’ progress would have been noisy even on the soft ground underfoot, but the runnerbeasts had padded paws with retractable gripping talons which at the moment were nowhere to be seen, or heard. Every now and then she glanced behind her to see how Joakim and Lavesk were managing; apparently their saddles were still intact because they were almost keeping up with the beasts that they were following. It seemed that some native god must have had a soft spot for the inhabitants of this part of the World, because they had run into no other travellers along the trail; considering the group’s break-neck pace that was fortunate both for them and anyone who might have gotten in their way.

  Afterwards, she was never certain how long this mad dash went on. Mero had told her that the saddles he doctored might last for a half-an-hour of hard riding, maybe a little bit more. So perhaps they had been on the trail for approximately thirty minutes when she heard Lavesk’s shout, and, glancing back saw him half off his beast’s back, clutching at its neck desperately.

  “What the fuck?” she heard Joakim cry; then she turned a corner, and the slaver fell out of her sight.

  “Keep moving. Keep the others moving,” the granda subvocalized to her. “I’ll ride your PSI powers to keep an eye on those two, and let you know if you have to take action.”

  Bayne Cho was slowing down in front of her.

  “Keep moving!” she shouted to him. “Tell your brother and Yarm to keep going! The granda node’s keeping an eye on those two and will let me know what we have to do.”

  Bayne Cho shouted the instruction to Bayne Bo who must have passed it to Yarm because the pace picked up again to its former crazy speed. They rode like this for few minutes and then the monk that was the image of the granda was hailing her urgently.

  “Slow down!” it was telling her. She shouted this to Bayne Cho.

  “You have to get off this road, off the whole ledge! You have to ride down the side of the mountain, there’s a huge rock below here; all of you have to get behind it, below it as quickly as possible!”

  Kati yelled this out to Bayne Cho and headed for the side of the ledge, glad to note that the others were doing the same, without a question.

  She found a path through the trees going in the direction she wanted, set her animal on it and shouted to the others to come and find it. Then she was on her way down, the runnerbeast’s gripping talons out, grasping at the rocks for foothold, and making its way down the path surprisingly gracefully. Ah, there was the rock the granda had spoken of, the path led around it. She glanced behind and was glad to see that she was being followed by her three companions. Getting behind—or below—the rock took only a short time but it felt like forever, as Kati fretted about whether or not they would make it. To be safe from she knew not what.

  Yarm, who had ended at the back of the procession, had barely made it to safety with his runnerbeast, when there was a flash above them, a flash so blinding that they shut their eyes against it automatically, even in the shade of the rock. The animals from whose backs they had not had time to dismount, made a keening sound, as if they were experiencing some profound loss. Kati climbed off her beast and cradled its head against her breast, and looking behind her saw that her companions were reacting in a similar fashion.

  “What was that?” Bayne Cho asked Kati in a shaky voice after all had fallen silent and remained that way for a minute or so.

  “I’ll ask the granda,” Kati said, feeling weak and disoriented.

  Moments later she spoke again:

  “The granda says that the boy, Joakim, totally lost his cool when he realized that his animal had become unrideable. He tossed a flash bomb on the trail in our direction. A flash bomb flattens everything in front of it—well, more than flattens; things just kind of vaporize and disappear. The ledge above us is bare rock for about a kilometre or so, and whatever was on it, plants, animals, people, soil even, everything, is just gone. Lavesk, to his credit, tried to stop the little shit, talk him out of it—that’s why we had time to get out of the way—but the idiot refused to listen.

  “The granda says that we should wait at least ten minutes before we climb back up, to avoid burning the runnerbeasts’ feet, but that the heat dissipates surprisingly quickly and we will be able to chase those m
iserable creatures, since they are on foot, and stun them silly.

  “Ye gods, I want to drag those jerks to Mikal and his bosses and tell them to do their worst to them. Right now I’m hoping that the Federation goes in for dungeons! To just destroy a patch of ground like that, denude it of every living cell! It’s horrible!”

  She had crouched down against the rock wall as she spoke and now buried her face in her hands. She had been seeing the scene through the granda’s senses augmented with her own ESP, and the disorientation of seeing bare rock where moments ago a whole eco-system had existed, was making her head swim. The anger she was feeling about the pointless destruction was making her nauseous in spite of the granda’s efforts to keep her physical processes on an even keel.

  “I’ll go and take a peek around this rock,” Bayne Bo whispered to his brother, and worked his way around Yarm and Yarm’s runnerbeast to the edge of their hiding place.

  When he returned, his face was white.

  “What?” Bayne Cho asked him.

  “She didn’t lie,” Bayne Bo said in a low voice. “There’s nothing left there—except stone.”

  “If we’d been on that trail, we wouldn’t exist anymore,” Yarm murmured, shaking his head.

  “It’s a good thing she’s got that—whatever—inside her,” said Bayne Bo. “That’s what kept us alive.”

  “That combined with her own talents,” Yarm said, staring at the woman scrunched up against the rock. “Even Mikal couldn’t have saved us the way she did. She’s one of a kind.”

  His voice was low, but with her enhanced hearing Kati heard him. She took her hands away from her face and opened her eyes to look at her companions.

  “And to think that less than a year ago I was a naive young mother on my own world, trying to decide whether to leave my son with his grandparents when I went off to finish my education, or to take him with me and deprive him of his grandparents’ presence. And them of his. And I thought that was a life or death decision! And today...well, it’s today that we have to deal with!”