“I’m assuming that Lank and I are invisible to him, and therefore not an issue.”
“I think so,” Jaqui agreed. “I’ve spent time in his apartments in the last few days, and have seen the fancy equipment that he uses to track the markers. I think that he figured that allowing me to see all the fancy stuff would make me more aware of his power.”
“But instead,” grinned Lank, “it made you more determined to defeat him.”
“You got that right,” answered Jaqui. “I started to try to work out how I could make use of the information.”
She linked arms with Shyla.
“We’ll get you out of this trap yet, Shyla,” she said. “And me, I’ll go back to Gorsh, sobbing with sorrow, ‘cause you ran away from me, and threw yourself into the lake!”
“Like my friend Kati would say,” laughed Lank, “better get your acting chops into gear!”
*****
The part of the lake shore to which Jaqui directed them was a tangled mess of unhealthy vegetation, abandoned equipment and packing materials, with paths criss-crossing it all.
“Homeless people used to bunk here at one time, so I was told,” said Jaqui, “but when Gorsh took over half the city, he would come here and force anyone he found to join his work gangs. The lucky ones ended up on Milla’s Estate, and the ones in the best shape were sold with the other slaves, apparently, for whatever coin Gorsh could get for them. Anyone who refused to co-operate was locked in the dungeons on the lowest level of the Citadel, and no-one lasts long there.”
The girl shuddered.
“So nobody stays the night here anymore, although, some come looking for cast-offs in the daytime.”
This explained the paths which were visible in the starlight, and clearer in the light of the tiny off-world lamps which both Jaqui and Lank were flicking on and off.
“Are there any stray animals around here?” Chrysalia asked.
“Lots of rodents,” Jaqui replied. “Real pests those creatures are. The people living closest to this area complain about them; they’ve been begging Gorsh to clean them out. But he hardly cares, since they don’t gnaw holes into his floors, or come in and steal his food, and he hasn’t done anything.”
“I’ll send the jini to find us one.”
The jini allowed itself to be coaxed from under Lank’s shirt, and became visible on his shoulder. Chrysalia touched it, communicating with it, and it disappeared into the dark.
“The jini!” Shyla exclaimed in a slightly shrill voice. “How did you get the jini? It was supposed to stay in the Citadel cellars!”
“That jini’s still there,” Chrysalia said. “This is another one. And I had a small part in its formation, so I can communicate with it, and it obeys me. It has, however, taken a special liking to Lank; I suspect that our male friend, here, has more mind powers than he realizes.”
“Kati said something like that to me on Vultaire,” Lank muttered. “I wasn’t sure what to think about it.”
The area must have been overrun by the creatures since the jini came back almost right away, herding a large, angry rat-look-alike. It snarled at the humans, but the jini had it hemmed into a small space, and refused to let it either attack the bipeds which it assumed to be its tormentors, or run off from them.
“Okay, Shyla,” Chrysalia said. “Bare your left shoulder, since that is where the marker is buried. Try to remain calm, even though I’m going to have the jini bring that disgusting creature very close to you—it will not be allowed to touch you. What I want to do is get the tracer from your flesh , and into the body of the rat within seconds—with luck Gorsh won’t even notice that there has been a transfer. Always assuming that we’re not all blown to smithereens the moment the thing touches empty air. That’s a possibility, but not a high probability; would Gorsh spend the kind of coin that that kind of bomb costs, on slaves?”
“If you and Lank are willing to run the risk, I’m sure Shyla and I are,” Jaqui responded, while Shyla nodded her head vigorously. “We have a lot less to lose.”
“All right, then.”
Chrysalia took hold of Shyla’s shoulder with her left hand, and let out the long claw from the tip of her right index finger.
“Better close your eyes, Shyla,” she said, while Jaqui shone her light on the bare shoulder, and stared at Chrysalia’s hands.
Shyla obeyed, and the jini lifted the rodent up to the level of the girl’s upper arm, where it snarled at first, and then began to whine pitifully. Chrysalia’s claw dug into the muscle of the girl’s shoulder; she shuddered, but kept herself nearly still, even while the talon, which Lank knew to have its own locating ability, searched for the marker, and found it. The claw of the ring finger came out then, penetrating into the same hole in the flesh; moments later both talons came up, holding something minuscule between them. In a smooth motion they moved to the rodent and plunged into its back, eliciting a shrill scream from the animal.
Chrysalia pulled her tools from the rat, and leaned down to wipe off the blood on them into the grasses on the ground.
“Jini, chase that creature to the water, let it swim in a ways, and then drown it,” she said out loud, and the spirit creature allowed the animal on to the ground, and began to chase it, at the speed of a running human being, towards the lake.
“The jini knows its business,” murmured Lank, following it and the rodent with his light until they disappeared among the grasses.
“Yes, it does,” Chrysalia agreed. “And Seleni will know that we have succeeded, since she is in touch with it, too.
“Shyla, you will have to come with us, and remain in our rooms at the Inn where we are staying until we can get you to Seleni’s. I’ll take Shyla to the Inn, if you, Lank, and the jini will accompany Jaqui far enough back towards the Citadel as it is safe. Better run some so Jaqui will be huffing and puffing—and sobbing, of course—when Gorsh or his men come to meet her.”
She gave Jaqui a dazzling smile.
“You might want to run to the shore first, as if to try to change Shyla’s mind. Any delay here can be accounted for by the shock her actions caused you. Now off with you, Jaqui and Lank; the jini will meet you by the water.”
She grabbed hold of Shyla’s arm and began to lead her towards Mikki’s Bed and Breakfast.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kati divided up the duties for what remained of her Team in Strone.
Ciela was given the task of selling the small lace crystal shards. Sammas, always helpful, offered to give her a hand whenever he could spare the time from his other duties, and Kati was pleased to see that the Tarangayan girl accepted the offer gratefully and courteously. It was not just a diplomatic thing to do; Sammas had a lot of local knowledge that none of The Spacebird’s crew could possibly claim. The sales that they had already made to the Government had given them an idea of what kind of prices they could expect, but Kati did not doubt that the canny Head Housekeeper could give Ciela pointers that would help her deal with any potential customer who decided to haggle with a young saleswoman.
“With Sammas looking into things, you won’t have to worry about how she’ll do, Kati,” Max told her. “Sammas is absolutely amazing. Of course he thinks that I allow the younger staff to run circles around me, but I don’t mind that. I don’t have to worry about their behaviour; he speaks to them, if he thinks that they’ve crossed some line. And he’ll make certain that even the most arrogant of the Old Family members won’t cheat Ciela, should they come looking for a good deal in communicator crystals. He is thoroughly honourable, and believes that every young person deserves the best instruction possible, in his or her duties.”
Llon agreed to sit in on the interrogations of the chattels whom Gorsh had lent to the members of the Old Family Councillors. Cassi Gurt was going to be performing the actual interviews in her husband’s Great Council office, where the Councillors in question had been partly persuaded, and partly bullied, to bring their acquisitions. There were not very many of them in Strone y
et; Karn said that when he began the process of rounding them up for the interviews, many of the Councillors complained to him that they were still waiting for the promised bodies, and who did Judd Gorsh think he was, making them wait?
“As if they think that I should call up Gorsh on their behalf, and insist that he make good on his promise to compensate them for voting against what I believe in!” Karn said, laughing. “Are they senile, someone tell me, or just stupid?”
However, Cassi would interview the ones who had arrived. It was a mere flyerful, less than a dozen individuals, but it was a start. She was happy to have one of the Free Traders join her during the process, even though Kati suggested that Llon would do more listening than talking. She would have liked to have participated in the interviews herself, but she could not be everywhere, and Llon was a perfectly competent substitute. In many ways he was even more knowledgeable than she was, and he would give her a detailed report at first opportunity, she well knew.
And she felt that she had to be the one to check out the carpet factory on Continent Sud. She was the one with a familiarity with Murra’s boys; vaguely she wondered if any of those in the factory were from the group that she had come to know on the space ship which had abducted her. She doubted that; those boys would have been sold long ago, to knot carpet fibres in some other plant, on some other world. Nevertheless, she wanted to see these ones, if for no other reason, than to identify them as Murra’s boys.
Murra had not been able to stop the abductions from his world, apparently. He must have been on board the ship that had picked up these boys, when they had been abducted. He would have been keeping company with Xanthus Hsiss, the Xeonsaur who would have been doing the navigating across time and space. Maybe, just maybe, while in orbit above his home planet, approximately at the right time, (hopefully after he had been abducted himself), he had been able to contact his Institute, at least to let them know that he was still alive and working on the problem.
Kati had pledged herself to end the abductions of those boys, as well as the rest of the disorder which Gorsh’s discovery that he could use Xeonsaur talents for his own ends, had created. Towards that end, she and Max had put together a scheme to get her into the carpet factory on the Continent Sud, to take a look at the boys knotting the carpets there.
It was not a complicated plot. Max would fly the Free Trader Captain Katerina to the Continent Sud. The two of them would ferret out the factory which had been selling the high quality carpets to the importer, Lovale, on Continent Nord. According to the back story that they had concocted, Captain Katerina had promised a favourite customer that she would search for a unique rug for his bedroom, and someone at the Strone Market had told her about Lovale’s carpets. Lovale, however, had not had any on hand, having had his supply disappear very quickly, even at the price that he was charging for them—a recommendation for the stock, of course. Thus Captain Katerina had decided to go to the source of the carpets, to check them out there, and to perhaps obtain one at the wholesale price rather than at Lovale’s inflated rate. Max Lordz, having acted as an agent in a transaction between Captain Katerina and the Government of the Continent Nord, had offered to facilitate her affairs in the Sud, as well.
They decided to take Max’s flyer rather than a flit, since, according to their cover story, they’d be bringing back at least one carpet. Besides, they would be flying for a few hours over open sea, and a flyer was preferable for that, even if the summer weather remained clement.
“The carpet factories are in the industrial city of Suderie. It’s on the northern coast, conveniently for us, and I’m slightly familiar with it. Enough that I can find a place for us to stay, although I have no idea where the factory we want might be. But, I suppose, once we are there, we’ll find our way.”
“Possibly, if they really do make good carpets, it’s just a matter of asking someone,” Kati said lightly. “Since I’m a Free Trader, asking about stuff to buy ought to be something that people expect me to do.”
“Indeed,” Max agreed. “We can use that.”
Kati gave him a long look. Max might have been a member of a Family in decline, but there was nothing the matter with his ability to make logical connections. She found herself wondering how different things might have been on Wayward, had this man been free to marry the commoner woman he had loved, rather than having been forced into a union with a cousin.
The thought brought Mikal’s face to the forefront of her mind again. When would the two of them be together again, she wondered. When would they be free to begin a life together as full partners, not separated time and again, by the vagaries of existence?
She bit her lip, and straightened her back. Thoughts of Mikal were replaced by the images of the boys that she was going to be looking for, which was not helpful at all since she was immediately reminded of Jake—her lost little boy. A worse morass for her thoughts to slide into—she was going to have to control herself. Mikal she would find again, but Jake was gone for good.
“Buck up, woman,” The Monk subvocalized, his brown-hooded face giving her a stern stare. “You’ve got work to do.”
She did, indeed.
*****
Suderie was an industrial city. When Max and Kati overflew it, following its contours on a map that the flyer’s databanks provided, Kati saw that it was divided into two unequal sectors—maybe three, or four, if one was to be really precise. There was the manufacturing sector, an area of broad, low buildings: factories, and warehouses, according to Max. It took up the largest portion of the landmass, extending from an agricultural area outside the city down to the ocean side port, where large ships and barges awaited loading and unloading, or were sailing out—to wherever they were heading—heavily laden with the products of the city. A smaller region of houses and apartment blocks provided living quarters for the workers who toiled in the factories. A portion of this, near the ocean, was made up of large mansions with extensive grounds, obviously the dwelling area of the folk at the top of the city’s social pyramid. Between the housing and the manufacturing areas lay a narrow strip of commercial establishments; that would be where they would find accommodation for themselves, and parking for the flyer, Max said.
All the areas were connected with the monorail tram system that Kati remembered admiring when she had first arrived in Strone. Efficient, was her thought.
“You’ve got to get the workers from their homes to their jobs,” Max said, with a snort, when Kati commented on this. “The city makes sure that it can be done. The manufacturers don’t mind paying taxes if they have good access to labour, and the Suderians are known for the services they provide to the plant-owners. This is not a beautiful place but it is well-run—a bit of an anomaly on my world. Popular with manufacturers, for that reason.”
“Certainly, then, a place which a Free Trader Captain might want to visit,” Kati opined.
Max chuckled.
“Some of your crew were commenting on your ability to ferret out information in a strange place,” he said. “I’ll be curious to see you operate.”
“Just so long as you don’t mind being associated with a somewhat eccentric Free Trader Captain,” Kati commented.
Now Max laughed out loud.
“This is going to be fun,” he said.
*****
They parked the flyer in a garage which Max had patronized during an earlier trip to Suderie, in the commercial strip between the residential and the manufacturing sectors. They paid for a parking spot for a couple of days at a booth by the entrance; the booth was manned by two bored-looking security guards, besides the ticket-seller. Safety of the vehicles was attended to, apparently, but Kati judged that it was not a large concern. The guards had a deck of cards between them on a table, and they studied her and Max with avid curiosity when they walked by. The younger of the men actually stared at Kati, then ran his eyes down her figure. At that, she changed her mind about asking the woman selling the parking passes for information. Max’s knowledge a
bout lodgings would have to suffice; Captain Katerina was in no mood to be ogled.
Max’s knowledge turned out to be perfectly adequate. He led the way to a rather modest-looking edifice across the street from one of the numerous tram stops, pointing out this convenience as they strolled by.
“We can take advantage of the local transportation system as long as we’re not hauling heavy goods,” he said. “The mono-tram system is really very good in this city; everyone uses it. It takes you close to almost anywhere you might want to go, including the rich folk’s mansions. Their domestics need to get to their jobs, you see! And it’s a cheap way to travel; the city’s powers-that-be want their labour force to be mobile, at least within the city!”
Well, that was going to be a change, Kati thought. No runnerbeast carts and endless walking, the way her Team’s life had been on Vultaire. Well functioning public transit was a step up, definitely!
She was aware of Max watching with amusement as she chatted up the plump man who served them in the hotel lobby. For the time being she did not question him about what she was really interested in, only about the services the hotel provided, and the eating establishments in the area that they were in. She was tired from the long flight, and guessed that Max was, likewise, so it made sense to leave off work for the day, find a comfortable place to eat, and then retire. They could begin work early the next morning.
However, on hearing that their lodgings charge included the use of large communal bathing facilities, separated by sex, she determined to make use of the women’s bath before crawling into the bed in the modest room assigned to her. The hotel was not a fancy one, as Max had warned her before they had arrived, but it was, as he had also noted, adequate in facilities, and clean. Those qualities, he had pointed out, were not necessarily present in every lodging place on Wayward.
*****
Kati slept well that night, and assumed that Max had done likewise in the room next to hers. They had eaten a quick and quiet meal in a nearby restaurant, recommended by the hotel clerk, aware that the sun had gone down while they had obtained, and settled into their rooms. Kati realized once again that she had little notion of the length of the day and night cycle in her present location; Granda could have figured it out, of course, given a bit of information. But she had been too tired to question her node—or maybe she just didn’t much care. The business of travelling from world to world, and hopping around whatever world she happened to be on, had made her blasé about such things as seasons, and the length of the days. For the first time since she had arrived in the galaxy she was in, she found herself longing for a settled existence: one world, one city, one place of residence, one particular man beside her.... Would that time ever come for her and Mikal? He had said that he had really nice living quarters in The Second City on Lamania; he had encouraged Rakil and Roxanna to stay there while he was gone. Kati had never seen the place; nevertheless, suddenly she felt homesick for it.
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 39
