“The trouble, the way I see it, is that she might recall Lank and me if I talk to her, because she will be worried about our safety. But if we’re recalled, and not available to diffuse this scenario, to pull our guys out, and to bring the bad guys to justice, the chances that everything will end up in mayhem and destruction, go up.
“So,” and suddenly a grin lighted up her face, “I’m thinking to get you, Gorine, and Jorris, to do the talking to Maryse. You do have void-crossing capability in your communication consoles, right?”
“Yes,” Gorine admitted. “It was a small added expense on top of the price of the console in the first place. And it has come in handy, ordering parts for the broken, now fixed, machine in the lab.”
“I’ll make sure to give you Maryse’s co-ordinates before we leave. If you tell her that Mikal thinks that the Tarangayan minds are its greatest wealth, she’ll listen. She probably knows about the top-notch engineering minds already; she’s always recruiting for her branch of the Star Federation Peace Officer Corps and knows what sort of Wilders are to be found where. And when she hears that Gorsh’s minions had the gall to grab Mikal and Xoraya off this planet, she’ll be calling every official she knows in the Federation Government, to get a delegation sent here to arrange protection for you. She’ll bitch because the process has to be democratic, and therefore slower than she’d like, but the democratic process will protect your interests, and is therefore worth the bother.
“And you can tell her that Lank and I are continuing with the mission of bringing Gorsh to justice, and would she please refrain from sending any Torrones ship to the vicinity of Wayward? It’s not a good idea to even think about slagging any place there—we could be anywhere on that planet, and the same is true of Xanthus Hsiss, Xoraya, Mikal, and any number of other slaves.”
“What about Llon here?” Gorine asked. “Do I mention that he’s continuing with you? Or is he?”
“Oh, I’m continuing with Kati and Lank,” Llon said. “But I joined the crew along the way, so Maryse r’ma Darien doesn’t know about me. We may as well keep it that way—at least until a later date.”
Kati shrugged at that.
“It’s your choice, Llon,” she said.
“Now that Gorsh has Mikal and Xoraya, I have my doubts that the escrow account is going to protect you and Lank,” subvocalized the Granda. “If you’re serious about taking this battle to Wayward, I’d say that you two should spend the money that’s left in it, and ditch the ship you paid for with it. And find another ride to Gorsh’s home world.”
Llon looked at Kati curiously.
“Are you getting advice from your inner rascal?” he asked.
“Kati has a Granda node, one infamous for his attitudes, some of which seem helpful, others not so much,” he added for the others’ benefit.
“You’re being kind Llon,” Kati said with a wry grin. “At times the old reprobate is absolutely dangerous, although, admittedly, he has saved lives occasionally, not the least mine. And yes, he just suggested that if we want to get to Wayward undetected, we’ll have to give up the escrow account, as well as The Spacebird. Mikal and Xoraya are tied to that account, of course, so now it’s not safe from Gorsh’s probing.”
“Oh no!” cried Lank. “How can we give up The Spacebird? Think of all the information Darla pumped into her databanks!”
“You can always trade in a space ship,” said Jorris. “What sort of a ship is it?”
“A Free Trader ship,” replied Lank. “In really good condition.”
“We on Greyrock often do business with Free Traders. I don’t think that you’ll have any trouble coming to a deal with one of them, especially if you’re willing to take a ship in a little less than top-notch condition. You, Lank, with your first-rate engineering mind, could, no doubt, fix whatever needs fixing, whereas the average Free Trader pays dearly for maintenance. For such a Trader, a swap would be worth the possibility that someone might come around to ask how he came into ownership. He’d probably agree to say that you two seemed to be down on your luck and anxious to sell, so he grabbed the opportunity for a good deal. This Gorsh fellow ought to understand that kind of reasoning.”
“Hm,” mused Kati. “So long as Gorsh or his minions can’t trace us to the ship we trade ours for.”
“We pick a Free Trader with an unregistered ship,” Jorris said with a grin. “There are enough of those around.”
The Governor of Greyrock seemed to be a veritable mine of information and aid. Kati gave him an inquisitive look, and he smiled back.
“Some of us on this world have a rather vested interest in seeing the numbers of space criminals brought down,” he explained with a wry smile. “That’s why I’m here right now, rather than at home, in bed beside my spouse.”
The mention of a bed and a spouse made Kati’s insides twist a little. Well, if she wanted her Mikal back, she’d have to work at it.
“You are implying, am I right, that you could put us in touch with such a Free Trader?” she said, nailing Jorris with her eyes.
“I think I know a suitable fellow, with a suitable ship, and he and his partner are due to drop by at my offices in Plenty in the next day or two. He brings me special shipments of luxury items, such as coffee and wine from Paradiso, right to my doorstep. He’s very good about reporting his comings and goings to the Customs, however, so we’ll have warning of his arrival. When he comes, I’ll put the proposal of ship exchange to him, and get in touch with you.”
“Well, Lank, you’re going to have suck up Darla’s data from The Spacebird’s computers before then. Looks like we won’t be able to throw it in as a freebie in the ship deal; we’re going to have to earn our keep as Free Traders, if we’re to continue in this business. I don’t want to beg for further funding from Maryse; that would risk a recall for us, while she sends more experienced operators to try to pry Mikal and Xoraya loose.”
“Who do you think that she’d send?” Lank asked.
“Arya would be at the top of my list of guesses. She must be back on Lamania by now. But she can’t work undercover, being an ethnic Lamanian, although she’s a marvel when it comes to dealing with the Torrones.”
“I agree with you, Kati, undercover is what is needed here,” Llon seconded. “Maryse r’ma Darien can always send Arya r’pa Dorral to hide a Torrones ship in the Wayward solar system, if she feels that it would be a good idea. It might, at that, as a back-up.”
Lank gave Llon a sharp glance before asking Kati:
“Don’t we have one of those fancy Shelonian gadgets that can hold ridiculous amounts of information? I’d like to put Darla’s info into that, rather than taxing my non-Granda node with all of it. Not that most of it isn’t in my head already, but what happened today sort of suggests that we should make sure everyone, including the non-noded among us, has access to important information.”
“Mikal had it,” Kati said biting her lip. “He didn’t give it to you, Llon, by any chance?”
“Actually, he gave it to me for safekeeping, before we headed out to the Laboratory Island,” Gorine interjected. “I locked it into the safe in my office. He asked me to pass it you, should anything untoward happen, but I had completely forgotten about it in the confusion that followed our trip to the lab.”
Well, well. Very prescient of Mikal. Kati was sure that something was not adding up about the recent events—or that the sum of the addition came up with an answer different from the one everybody was seeing at the moment. She was going to have a talk with Llon, no question about it.
“Couldn’t you use another crewmember during your Free Trading mission and the foray onto Wayward?” Ciela asked suddenly.
“Meaning?” Kati asked, turning to stare at her.
What the blazes? Had the girl decided that she wanted to put her life at risk on a crazy mission?
“Oh,” subvocalized The Monk sardonically, “and you, Lank and Llon aren’t risking your lives on a crazy mission? With an example like you prancing ab
out in front of her, what’s a girl to think?”
“I’m not prancing,” Kati subvocalized back, “and the girl’s not an idiot. And,” she added with relief, “her parents will not let her go. No way they’ll let her go.”
“We’ll see,” the Granda snipped, and retreated to the back of her mind.
“Meaning that I’d love to join you guys, and you’re short two people right now. I could help Lank upgrade the new old ship, to begin with. And I was the longest-serving of Xanthus Hsiss’ test subjects, so it’s perfectly possible that my mind is already malleable enough to contact anyone who has ESP powers. Besides, I’m not really needed here on Maldos Chain; anyone could do the work I’ve been doing as a Page, and there are four others to work in the lab. And my Mum, being a widow and in kind of difficult circumstances, trying to feed my younger sibs, would welcome the opportunity to not worry about me, because I’d be making a living off-planet.”
“Ciela! Get real!” Kati was livid. “Your Mum would have plenty of reason to worry about you! Way more so, if you came with us, than if you remained a Page to the First Councillor, right here in Maldosa!”
“Mind you,” said Lank, “I’m sure that I could use her help with the ‘new old ship’ as she called it.”
“Lank, you’re not helping!” Kati said severely. “And I don’t want the responsibility of another young life on my shoulders when we’re going into who knows what kinds of danger! If things go wrong and she doesn’t come back, guess who has to give the bad news to her mother?”
“Yeah.” Lank’s grin was wry. “It’s easier with me, my Mum being dead, and all.”
“Lank don’t...,” Kati began, lowering her eyes to the table.
She drew a deep breath.
“You know that I’m sorry about your mother,” she continued slowly, turning her eyes back to Lank who nodded. “But I’m a mother, too, and I lost my child, and I absolutely refuse to help another woman lose hers.”
“You’re not helping Ciela’s mother lose her, if we take her along, Kati of Terra,” Llon said quietly, his kind eyes on her face. “If something did happen to her, the responsibility would definitely lie elsewhere, not with you.”
“Are you set against me, too, Llon?” Kati asked, frustrated.
“Remember, when I joined the crew? Mikal was not hundred percent for my coming along, but he went along with the majority. And I think that I’ve been a very good addition, all things considered. Can’t you now follow Mikal’s example and bow to democratic, majority rule? I have a feeling about our young friend; I think that she will be a stellar addition to our group.”
Ciela beamed at this.
“All right,” Kati sighed. “But only if I can get Ciela’s mother’s personal assurance that she won’t mind us taking her daughter with us.”
“You’ll get it,” Gorine assured her. “I can arrange for you to see her. She’ll burst with pride to think that her child is clever enough to be hired on by off-worlders.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
For all that they travelled in an unregistered space ship, Mose and Hana seemed like pretty middle-of-the-road Free Traders. Apparently they hauled a little bit of this, that, and anything else that someone asked them to get, and made numerous stops to pick up and drop off requested items. Mose’s parents had been hauling Paradisan coffee and wine for various non-Federation customers for decades before Paradiso had obtained Federation status, and they had been able to wangle for themselves an exception to the rule which had all comers to that world jumping through hoops on account of the planet’s Restricted designation. They had succeeded in this because they traded these Paradisan goods only on Fringe planets which were not on regular Federation supply lines, and Mose had taken over this function when his parents had retired to a small rural property which belonged to Mose’s mothers family—she having been a planet-born woman who had fallen for a dashing (perhaps only in her imagination) cowboy of a Free Trader.
The business, which included picking up pearls, and tonics distilled from an indigenous seaweed, from Greyrock on Tarangay, provided Mose and Hana with a modest living, which would have been better if either of them had had the necessary skills to do anything more than the most elementary maintenance on their ship. Things had been somewhat better for them since they had discovered that there were Tarangayans who could, and would, work on ship engines for a lot less coin than what Shelonian-trained technicians charged; needless to say, Tarangay had become a regular stop. Jorris, the Governor of Greyrock Principality had been a good friend to them for some time, facilitating access to ship engine work, and receiving discounts on Paradisan products in return. Now Jorris was proving his worth to them in spades, telling them that he could get their vessel, which was rather limping from going too long without proper maintenance, exchanged for one which had been babied by a capable Tarangayan. The reason why its owners were willing to exchange a ship in first-rate condition for one that needed tender loving care was that some shady folk might be after them, and they wanted a ship which the shady characters could not follow.
Mose and Hana’s limping ship filled that requirement. It had belonged to Mose’s parents at one time, and had not had a registration number for decades, if ever—Mose was not actually quite sure how his father had obtained it. The old man had been reticent about that; there might have been something illegal involved. When he had landed at Space Ports (and he had preferred not to) he had merely registered under his and his wife’s names, and Port Officials, generally tolerant of Free Trader eccentricities, had always accepted that. Mose and Hana had continued the practice, and even the Paradisans, tough though they could be on strangers, had tolerated it, probably because neither Mose, nor his parents before him, ever offered any threat towards the Grenie indigenes.
“If someone shady does come around asking questions about the ship, all you need to tell them is that you bought it from a couple of scared Traders who seemed to be down on their luck,” Jorris told Mose and Hana. “That ought to be believable, since the shady characters recently kidnapped two of their group. If you can imply that the two Traders headed for Lamania with their tails between their legs, so much the better.”
“But they’re doing no such thing, right?” Hana laughed. “They’ve got a plan for going after the bastards; that’s why they want an unregistered ship. Hey, I like these folk already, and I’ve never even met them!”
Free Traders were like that. They, even the ones that led fairly safe existences, had a lot of respect for people with gumption. Thus The Spacebird and what was to become The Spacebird Two met at the back of the Governor’s mansion for the unrecorded transaction that would transfer the ships to their new owners. Jorris spoke to the Customs at the Space Port to forestall any problems from that quarter, and to explain to Jaritz what had happened on the Maldos Chain. He said later, that from Jaritz’s reaction to the news of the kidnapping, he thought that Jaritz himself, had he been a couple decades younger, would have insisted on joining the Team that was going after the kidnappers.
“I managed to pacify him by telling him that Gorine and I were going to be contacting this Maryse r’ma Darien person and letting her know what happened,” Jorris explained. “And to tell her that we Tarangayans, at least on these islands, would welcome help with the process of joining the Federation. That seemed to relieve his ire, some.”
Kati used her role as a panic-stricken person looking for passage to Lamania, to empty out the rest of the funds in the escrow account. With that and the emergency credit chips that she and Lank still carried, Lank and Ciela were able to buy, in Plenty, the necessary parts and equipment for bringing the second Spacebird up to scratch. Lank, of course, did a thorough check of the vessel before he pronounced it solid and salvageable, and before allowing Kati to agree to any deal.
Mose heaved a sigh of relief when he heard Lank’s okay.
“Hana and I have been doing our best for the old girl,” he said, “but it’s hard to keep an engine thrumming when you rea
lly don’t understand how it works. Because of that, we have had to depend on the periodic maintenance we get done here in Plenty, but I know that’s not the same as having a person on board who knows the ropes. Still, we did manage.”
“The ship you’re getting purrs like a kitten right now,” Lank told him. “But, nevertheless, don’t try to get away without regular maintenance. Get it done whenever you stop here on Tarangay; that way you should have years of trouble-free travelling, before you have to worry about anything else, except maybe getting more amber salt crystals for the power unit. But your maintenance person should tell you when your supply is getting low, and right now there’s a lot there.”
“I don’t think that’s true of the ship you’re getting,” Mose said hesitantly. “If my measuring is correct, her supply is getting a low.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Lank agreed. “I know. But it shouldn’t matter to us; we happen to know where we can get more. Assuming that Kati has some solid idea as to how we can pay for the Shelonian gadgets that the people we’re to trade with, like.”
“Shelonian gadgets, eh?” Kati asked, overhearing this. “I suppose that they’d be cheapest on Shelonia itself, or on their Space Station. But that would be another detour, and how many detours we have time for, I don’t know.”
“There’s a big warehouse that specializes in Shelonian electronics at Space Station Plata,” Hana said. “It’s not far, space-travel-wise from here. If you have something valuable to trade, or Federation scrip, or...whatever; their prices are pretty reasonable, and they get their stuff directly from Shelonia, so there’s no question about the quality.”
Kati laughed.
“I’m thinking of sacrificing Berd Warrion’s lace crystal knife for those electronics,” she said. “I meant to give it to Gorine to give to one of her fisher-folk, to use as a filleting knife, but as things have gone, I’ve had to rethink that notion, much as I liked the idea of that weapon becoming a mundane fish-knife.”
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 16
