Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers

by Helena Puumala

  “Zeke was protecting the people he was trading with when he sold his life, and I’m certain that Darla agreed with him about the necessity of doing so, even while she grieved for him. And when she gave Lank the coordinates, she was saying, in effect, that she trusted us to follow the practise.”

  A moment’s silence followed these words.

  “Another reason why we have to locate the pinger, preferably before it locates us,” Kati said. “So far the only idea as to how to go about doing so, seems to depend on my ESP, and the Granda’s ability to extend it, in so far as the Granda can extend it. I hate to sound negative, but I’m really not all that optimistic about our abilities to locate a tiny, electronic gadget sitting dormant among the vast reaches of space.”

  Llon smiled at her.

  “You are wise to feel doubtful about the success of the enterprise,” he said. “We’ll have to come up with a better plan, of course. And we will.”

  “I’ll comb through Darla’s data, again, with the ambush location in mind,” Lank said. “I can’t think of anything that might have hinted at it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there. She may not have wanted us to know a salient detail like that unless we were actually going to use the route coordinates.”

  For the moment, that was as good as it got. Llon agreed that going over Darla’s information was a good idea, and that Lank should do it. Ciela asked to be a part of the search, and Kati reluctantly gave the girl her permission to partake in it, even while she fretted about whether it was wise to allow the girl to know more than she absolutely needed to know. What she didn’t know no-one could beat out of her, was what Kati was thinking, but Llon told her to not worry needlessly; they were not in any imminent danger of falling prey to torturers. Kati, sighing, bowed to his Watcher wisdom, while wondering what exactly she and her companions had got themselves mixed up in. And how were Mikal and Xoraya doing? She would have felt better had The Spacebird Two been on its way to Wayward and to deal with the problem that Gorsh posed.

  *****

  “So, considering that you are a Watcher, or a Guide, as Xoraya put it,” Kati said to Llon when the two of them tackled the supper dishes, while the teens returned to the ship’s bridge to commune with the computer and Darla’s data, “how much help can you give us on something like finding our needle in the haystack?”

  “Not as much as I’d like to,” Llon answered thoughtfully. “I have to be with you here in the confines of the physical universe in order to help at all. That means that I’m limited by what’s in Mikal’s book of The Laws of Physics, as much as any one of you is. And my role, as the terms Xoraya assigned to me indicate, is to guide and watch over, rather than direct the flow of events. It wouldn’t be very useful to humanity if we simply, willy-nilly, took over the running of their lives, and made certain that everything worked out for the best.”

  “Yeah, that would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it?” Kati agreed. “We’d learn nothing that way.”

  “However, we do choose the people who we help very carefully, and try to direct them to move in directions that are known to promise positive consequences, assuming that the persons involved do their best to move towards good results. If this trip retracing Zeke and Darla’s steps had the look of an impending, unmitigated disaster, I would be doing my utmost to divert you from it. Since I am doing no such thing, but in fact encouraging you to pursue it, you can rest assured that it has a very good chance of succeeding, and that the benefits that will flow from it will far outweigh the risks involved.”

  “But, if I’m hearing you correctly, you’re saying that it is up to me, Lank, and Ciela to figure out how to succeed at it?”

  Llon smiled as he dried the dishes which she was piling on the drainer.

  “You’ve got it,” he said. “You usually do get it. That’s one reason why you’re playing a central role in this drama.”

  *****

  Kati requested that the Granda assist her in going over the conversations with Darla that she and Mikal had had on Space Station Qupar. The Monk complied, running the detailed memories in front of her mind’s eyes while she engaged physically in the mindless task of performing repetitive exercises designed to keep her body in shape.

  “She called it a ‘twisted path to treasure’,” muttered The Monk inside her mind, “and she said “a route’ rather than ‘the route’, which implies that Zeke and Darla were aware of more than one road to their destination.”

  “That suggests that they probably varied the paths that they used,” Kati subvocalized. “Yet that was not enough to keep them safe, obviously. I wonder if there isn’t a transition point which all or most of the route variations shared?”

  “You’ll have to ask Lank about that,” The Monk growled. “If Darla gave you people data about all the various paths that she and Zeke used, he may have already thought of that. And with his ability to understand the convolutions of space, he may well be in the process of figuring out a track which avoids that particular transition area.”

  They did have the advantage of having a Tarangayan genius—make that two Tarangayan geniuses—aboard The Spacebird Two.

  “The two of them might just give us the edge we need to outwit those pirates,” agreed the Granda. “Combined, of course, with my knowledge about how those low-lifes would be likely to set about snaring someone who is ambitious enough to try to make their way to Zeke and Darla’s Crystal Planet.”

  Kati cocked a mental eyebrow at The Monk.

  “So start sharing,” she snapped subvocally.

  “I have,” objected the Granda. “I told you about the pinger.”

  “And it turned out that Lank was ahead of you on that. He had already been making inquiries about such markers at the Jax Emporium on Station Plata, at the time when you were still preening about your knowledge about lace crystal knives.”

  “I was not preening about my knowledge about lace crystal knives! I was helping you with your task of the moment, which was to peddle the dratted knife! You weren’t thinking about Darla and Zeke’s route to the Crystal Planet at that time! You were too busy with the crystal knife that you already had, and turning it into a stash of electronic trade goods! When you weren’t mooning about Mikal, and wondering if it wouldn’t be better to forget trading and go directly to Wayward to try to rescue him, and everyone else!”

  This had Kati giggling as she did her repeats. The Monk was so easy to rile, the egotistical bit of neuronal energy that he was!

  “Truce,” she subvocalized after calming down. “We’ll consult the geniuses before we retire tonight.”

  *****

  “We found something really interesting,” Lank said when Kati, fresh from a mist-shower which had cleared the sweat off her body, approached him and Ciela on the bridge.

  Lank turned on the large flat-screen, counter-top monitor, which, nevertheless, gave a three-dimensional image of space. He jumped out of the pilot’s seat to stand beside the monitor, Ciela following his lead, and coming to stand beside him. They left room for Kati next to her, and she took the spot, wondering if she could understand the demonstration. The Granda was crowding behind her forehead, looking through her eyes even as she did, anxious to be in on things.

  What the screen depicted was an ordinary space diagram—ordinary in Federation and Fringe terms. Since boarding The Spacebird—the first one—Kati had developed some familiarity with the diagrams. Until then, they had meant nothing to her, although she had seen variations, on the space ships that she had travelled on. The Monk, however, knew the notation backwards and forwards, and stood ready to fill in her knowledge gaps.

  “This is the transition area that we’re heading for right now.”

  Lank used an internal pointer to highlight what he meant.

  “It’s near the star of the world Endal, an important Fringe world, partly because it is so close to a transition area which can be used to access many parts of the galaxy. The sector fairly teems with transition coordinates, and becaus
e of that, is probably the most important starting point for trade ships outside of the Star Federation. The Free Traders love it; the Endalites have made no effort to turn it into a cash cow for themselves. They’re happy with the business that it naturally brings their way, but they have teamed up with a few nearby worlds to keep the crime syndicates from taking over. Although, it would be pretty hard for anyone, including the Star Federation, to make themselves the boss of a transition area that busy; if someone blocks the co-ordinates you plan to use, all you have to do is head a little farther along normal space, and you’ll find a different set that will take you where you want to go, if by a slightly more roundabout route.”

  Lank stopped to draw a breath.

  “The unaffiliated criminals like the area for exactly the same reason,” muttered the Granda. “And the syndicates hate it, even while they use it all the time, because they can’t control anything.”

  “So there’s no mystery as to why Zeke and Darla used it as their starting point,” Kati stated.

  “None whatsoever,” Lank agreed. “It would have been surprising if they had chosen not to start there. It would also have been more dangerous for them to leave from somewhere else, because then their movements could have been traced more easily. So, they took care to always begin their forays from a crowded place, to coin a metaphor, where their goings and comings would not be particularly noticeable.”

  “Nevertheless, someone did pay attention to their comings and goings,” Kati noted.

  “Yeah. Word must have trickled out through the businesses that they sold their crystals to, to some crime syndicate or another which decided to try to trace the movements of their ship. But Zeke and Darla may not have known that that had happened, although they must have realized that it would, sooner or later.

  “Did you realize that they sold some of their lace crystal on Wayward?”

  “Curt Sandu, the collector who bought our knife from the Jaxes, said that it had been forged on Wayward, so I did wonder if there wasn’t a connection,” Kati replied.

  The Monk was now definitely paying attention, she noted.

  “At the very least, it occurred to me that we could use the lace crystal that we traded for, as an entry into the shadier parts of the society on Wayward. Go looking for a buyer for some of our crystal there,” she added.

  Lank nodded.

  “We’ll be swimming in dangerous waters, though, I think,” he said, but his expression was one of suppressed excitement, not of fear.

  Ciela looked a little more dubious, but there was determination in her stance.

  “I’m thinking that the crooks who chased and mangled Zeke and Darla definitely had a Waywardian connection,” Lank added. “It occurred to me, when I came across the bit about them selling crystal on Wayward, in one of the side notes that she had left on her chart, that maybe, with their Dark Arts, the criminals from there had been able to mark their ship somehow, so that they could trace it, at least through a few transitions, on their way towards the Crystal Planet. Obviously the marking didn’t hold throughout the whole trip; if it had, the syndicate from Wayward would now be in charge of the crystal trade, and it would not have been necessary to ambush Zeke and Darla’s ship. But it did allow the crooks to prepare the ambush, and they probably thought that it would be enough, that they’d be able to squeeze the location of the Crystal Planet out of Zeke, especially if they used Darla as a hostage in the negotiations.”

  Kati shivered, and saw Ciela shudder.

  “But Zeke didn’t cave. I think that he and Darla had a pact about that kind of a thing: neither was to cave under any circumstances. They held to it.”

  There was respect in Lank’s tone of voice.

  “They knew that they were taking risks, and when they came against a wall they didn’t give. But I understand Darla’s desire to see some sort of justice done, and if we can bring that a little closer to reality, I’m all for it. Especially if the process takes us down a path that we want to follow anyway.”

  “But there’ll still be a pinger at the site of the ambush, and maybe at any or all of the other transition sites that the criminals were able to determine Zeke and Darla to have used,” subvocalized The Monk. “What can the genius boy do about them?”

  When Kati put the question to Lank he grinned.

  “We’re going to the Endal Transition Area,” he said, and looked at Ciela. “Between the two of us we used Darla’s information to plan a completely different route to the Crystal Planet. This one is actually shorter and more straightforward than the one Darla and Zeke used.”

  “You can do that?”

  Kati gaped, and even the Granda was astonished.

  “Sure.” Lank was grinning from ear to ear, and even Ciela smiled. “Two Tarangayan minds, one of them noded—heck, no space diagram can defeat a combination like that. It’s not just space ship engineering that we excel at; we can make sense of the convolutions of space. Maybe even time if we really studied all this carefully.

  “So we’re not limited to the routes that Zeke used; knowing the starting point and the end point, we were able to create a totally new path. Let the Space criminals try to beat that!”

  “If the Federation doesn’t bring Tarangay into their fold immediately, once they find out about this, they are bigger fools than they have any business being,” snarled The Monk. “Does Llon know about this?”

  *****

  The Spacebird Two was just one of many ships to traverse the Endal Transition Area, intent on its Free Trading mission, and thus of little interest to anyone who could possibly have paid attention to its passage.

  Llon was smiling as he watched Lank handle the ship’s controls as it transitioned out of the area.

  “I trusted that our talented crew would work out a way around the problem,” he said. “I guess my faith was well-placed.”

  “Hm,” muttered Kati, suppressing laughter. “I can remember on the Drowned Planet solving problems with pure nerve and audacity. Seems like we’ve moved into a whole different category of problem-solving now. Genius-level brain power is required—something that I do not possess.”

  “Hey, you know enough to surround yourself with talent, Kati,” Lank laughed. “There’s nothing smarter than that!”

  “Yeah, but let’s not forget that I objected to Ciela’s joining us. If Llon had not gone to bat for her....” Kati shook her head.

  “That’s how I can best be useful,” Llon said. “Nudge things in the right direction when there are seemingly excellent reasons to do things otherwise. Don’t forget, Kati, that your objections to Ciela’s coming with us were valid; however, her desire to join us, and everything that she can add to the group were reasons enough to allow her in.”

  “Does that mean that I have more roles to play in this drama?” Ciela asked from the co-pilot’s chair.

  That seat seemed to have become her habitual residence, at least while Lank was doing the piloting.

  “Oh, I think so,” Llon replied. “But you won’t necessarily always get to perform to your strengths, the way you did this time. Think you can manage if Kati needs you to play the femme fatale in order to trick some self-satisfied male?”

  Llon was clearly in a good mood. Kati had the impression that the three of them had passed some test, and that the Guide was pleased with their performance.

  “Well, I guess that until we get to this Crystal Planet, my role will be to make sure that the piloting crew, and our Guide eat healthy meals and take enough exercise to stay in shape,” she said. “Towards that end I’m heading for the galley, to put together another meal from the canned, dried and frozen goods in our stores. The fresh stuff is all gone, folks; we’ll be living like true Free Traders in the coming days.”

  “Don’t worry, Ship Mama, whatever you come up with, I, at least, will eat,” Lank promised. “I’m not a picky eater.”

  “Ship Mama?” she heard Ciela chortle as she went. “Lank, your talk is as silly as Kati’s!”

  S
he slowed her exit to hear Lank’s response.

  “We all do our best,” was his cheerful answer.

  *****

  “No, please, don’t hurt them.”

  The girl was almost crying. The boys flanking her looked grim.

  The mag-lev stretchers had found their destination on one of the lower levels of the Citadel. Xoraya and Mikal, following their passage in their bodiless state, had been fighting to keep at bay the murkiness of the psychic atmosphere the whole trip. The threesome in charge of the bodies had made their way down several flights of stairs, and had finally entered a room that looked like a huge laboratory of sorts. Apparently it was presided over by a man whom Mikal judged to be in his late twenties, or early thirties. Somehow he had expected the person in charge of a place like this to be an old, ugly man, or a crone, but nothing could have been farther from the reality he was facing. The man was young and handsome, although his good looks were not of the type to endear him to anyone, apparently not to the girl now facing him, protective hands on the mag-lev stretchers.

  The handsome man laughed.

  “Oh, come on, sweet Shyla,” he said. “Your name is Shyla, isn’t it? Sometimes I forget the names of all the human fodder that pass through these rooms. But you’re a ripe fruit of young womanhood, Shyla, and still a virgin, in spite of having fallen into slavers’ hands, so it behooves me to remember your name.

  “It does not become you, however, to show compassion to laboratory rats, sweet Shyla, for lab rodents is what’s on these stretchers. I will experiment with them as I please, and that is all there is to it.”

  “The Boss wants them kept intact,” one of her companions, the shorter, apparently spunkier one, objected.

  “Oh, does he now?” said the handsome man, turning to look at the speaker. “You heard him say that?”

  The boy nodded vigorously.

  He had heard no such thing, of course. But he had guessed from Gorsh’s expression as he had gloated over the comatose bodies when they had been brought out from the space ship that these were prisoners important to the Slaver. That meant that they should be treated with at least a modicum of care, he figured, and the rogue Mage was in Gorsh’s employ.