Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers

by Helena Puumala

  Gorsh stroked his chin.

  “I guess that would work,” he said. “I’ll be following in a flit, anyway, so there’s no question of you getting lost. And if she’s in a bad way, you, Jaqui, can probably nurse her.”

  Jaqui got up.

  “The flyer key, please,” she said to the pilot.

  He dug a small disc from a pocket, and displayed it to Gorsh before passing it over to Jaqui. Gorsh nodded.

  “So go get something to eat; there’s cold fare as usual in the communal kitchen. And then get some sleep; who knows when I might need all my hands ready for action?”

  *****

  Matas, the pilot, was a jerk, Jaqui thought, but he had been right about the woman being sick. She looked awful. Had Matas or his partner—who did he fly with these days, whoever it was had taken off the moment the flyer had landed—even bothered to offer her water, or anything?

  Jaqui sniffed at the smell of the murk in the flyer; it was pretty heavy, she had to concede. She could handle it; she was used to the murk, and had been, pretty much her whole life. A child of a loyal employee of Gorsh, she had lived, always, she thought, either on Milla’s Estate or around the Citadel. Had she had an allergy to the murk, she would probably have ended up in an orphanage.

  She found a full water bulb in a storage compartment, and took it to the back where the woman slumped on one of the seats, definitely looking green.

  “Try and suck a little of this water into your system,” she said to her, lifting her upper body a bit, and wrapping her hands around the bulb. “I unsealed it; it’s ready to go.”

  The woman seemed to snap into a small amount of alertness at the sound of a feminine voice. She grasped the bulb, and obediently brought the mouthpiece to her lips, looking up at Jaqui’s face at the same time. She was having trouble focusing her eyes, however.

  “You’ll get out of this murk-hole pretty soon,” Jaqui said. “I’m to fly this vehicle to Milla’s Estate where the Gorshes have a cabin which is murk-protected but actually clear inside. That’s where the big man wants you—he doesn’t handle the murk all that well himself—so you’ll at least be in clear atmosphere, if not free.”

  The woman nodded. Jaqui patted her shoulder and returned to the front of the flyer, where Gorsh was peering in through the open hatch.

  “She does look really sick,” he muttered. And added to Jaqui:

  “When you get to the cabin, manoeuvre this machine so that the hatch is right beside the cabin door. I don’t want to give her the slightest chance to try to contact anyone using her psychic talents. She has proved herself to be damn good at sliding out of traps.”

  “Will do,” Jaqui answered. “I’ll even help you get her inside.”

  “Good girl, Jaqui,” Gorsh said magnanimously, patting her ass before she could settle into the pilot’s seat.

  Jaqui swore as she pressed the “close hatch” button behind his retreating form.

  “One of these days....”

  The woman in the back, slightly revived by the water which she, fortunately, had been able to keep down, looked at her curiously.

  What was she thinking?

  *****

  “Look, Boss, why don’t you go and tell your wife what you’ve done—if she’s still up,” Jaqui said to Gorsh, once they had Kati on the couch, in the cabin. “You’ll have to tell her sooner or later. And I can look after this one; you know that I’m pretty good with sick people. And I find it easier to do things when you’re not looking over my shoulder.”

  She was slightly shocked at her own daring, talking like that to Judd Gorsh. A few weeks ago it would have been eyes on the floor, and gritted teeth, hating herself as much as she hated Gorsh. But something had happened to her since her and Shyla’s escape attempt. Perhaps it had been the realization that there were people in the world who liked her, and considered her pretty capable. Seleni, the Wise Woman had been one of those, and Murra in the Citadel basement had been another. And Murra had suggested that the three disembodied people thought well of her, too. Then, of course, there had been Shyla, who had counted on Jaqui to help her, even though Jaqui did not have the slightest idea how to do so. But she had! It was not her triumph, of course, Lank and Chrysalia had played bigger roles, but still, it had given her a small amount of trust that good things could happen, even in those parts of Salamanka where Gorsh ruled supreme!

  What was even more shocking was that Gorsh was taking this kind of lip from her. He merely chuckled at her, and with a final grab at her ass, turned, and went out, crossing the murk envelope outside after locking the door securely. Jaqui watched him go through the slit of a window on the door, and, once the man was out of sight, tried the lock, even though she well knew that it would not yield. Then she went to Milla’s closet to see what she could find that would fit the taller woman.

  She came back minutes later with a nightgown and some underwear.

  “The knickers’ll be big for you, but they’ll do,” she said. “And the nightie won’t come close to reaching the floor, but it’ll cover you decently. Now, into the shower with you, and I’ll throw your clothes into the fancy clothes washer that the Boss brought in from off-world. Milla gets the best available, and we’ll take advantage of that.”

  Kati got up and managed a shaky grin.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Kati, in case you wanted to know.”

  Jaqui grinned back at her.

  “I know,” she said. “The Boss has been rubbing his hands together since he got the call from the carpet-maker. You’re Kati, his great infatuation.

  “Me, I’m Jaqui, by the way.”

  “Jaqui.”

  Kati nudged the Granda back into action, from its squashed position. Her mind, and the node had more room now, although only in comparison with how crushed they had been before. They were still constrained into the space of the cabin; they would not be soaring high until they made it out of the present prison.

  “Ah. You’re one of the girls who ran away from Gorsh and found your way to the Wise Woman’s cottage.”

  “You’re well-informed,” Jaqui stated, leading her towards the shower room.

  “Not nearly as well as I’d like to be,” Kati sighed. “And as long as I’m going to be cooped up in this place I don’t think that I’ll be finding out much anything new.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” Jaqui objected. “There are many different ways to peel a pinkfruit.”

  Kati looked up at her with a brilliant smile, even as she began to squirm out of her sweaty clothes.

  “You said it. The cause isn’t lost yet. Not in the least.”

  *****

  “So is Judd Gorsh going to come back tonight to exercise his owner’s rights,” Kati asked later, when she was clean, feeling quite a bit better thanks to The Monk’s ministrations, and spooning up soup that Jaqui had heated up for her.

  “Not tonight.” Jaqui smirked. “That’s part of the reason why I suggested that he go and see Milla. She can get pretty possessive, and she knows that her husband has a thing about you. She’ll keep him in her bed tonight, and he better perform for her—whether or not it takes drugs to do so.”

  “Good grief. To think that I have to be grateful to Milla for keeping Gorsh from mauling me. The only time I ever saw the woman, she was making jokes about setting me to dig tubers on her property. That on top of childbearing, of course.”

  She shuddered.

  “Yeah, the Boss has been crowing about the boys he’s planning to beget on you. Never mentions the girls, though; it’s as if he thinks that he couldn’t possibly father girls.”

  “Idiot,” Kati muttered. “Not that I have any intention of bearing him children of either sex. I did get equipped with birth control clips on Lamania, but I suppose he thinks it’s just a matter of getting a medical person to take them out. However, I don’t think it’s that simple; my old Granda node did go through a few life-times as a woman, and he has mentioned to me t
hat those women had no interest in child-bearing. So, I’m pretty sure that he can derail any possible pregnancy if I ask him to; The Old Monk is a crafty bastard to have living inside one’s head.”

  “If it comes down to that,” muttered The Monk inside that head, “just say the word. I’ll see to it that there are no babies. You’re right; I’ve done that kind of a thing before, and there’s not much of a trick to it for someone like me.”

  “I’d give a lot to have a node,” said Jaqui. “But I don’t think that the Boss would ever implant me with one, no matter what I might do to try to please him.”

  She ran fingers through her hair.

  “I’m actually a red-head,” she said. “I dyed it to be less conspicuous when Shyla and I made our escape attempt. It’s the kind of red that gets passed down through the generations, I understand. So even though the Boss likes to make use of me sexually, he won’t have me produce any babies, nor will he do me any favours.”

  “Gorsh uses you sexually?”

  Well that explained the bum patting. Kati found that she was gritting her teeth, even as Jaqui’s eyes darted everywhere except Kati’s face.

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize, which was really naive of me. Do you care about him? I mean, does it bother you that he has this infatuation with me?”

  Jaqui burst into cackles.

  “Hey, I’ve been thinking of it as whoring for a cause,” she said. “What cause, I’m still a little hazy on, but I got the impression when Shyla and I were kept in the Citadel Cellar with the boy Murra, and his disembodies friends, that you people were determined to work out a way to force Gorsh to face Federation justice for his slaving ways.”

  “We’re still determined to do that. Gorsh catching me, instead, and before I had intended to set myself out as bait, kind of muddies the waters a bit, especially since it will have infuriated Mikal. Does Gorsh know, by the way, that Mikal escaped from that basement?”

  Jaqui stared. She shook her head.

  “He didn’t know while I was with him. I guess Mosse couldn’t be bothered to come up to tell him, and Tere hasn’t been down there today. Of course, the Boss was busy after he heard that you had been recognized, getting his contacts to locate you, and his men to go grab you. But he certainly would not have been purring the way he was, if he had realized that he’d lost the Federation Agent just before he got his hands on you!”

  “Hm. That can’t last much longer, though, so we better not presume on it. I mean to get out of here and finish this job, sooner or later, Jaqui. Count on it. In the meantime, I guess both of us will be whoring for the cause.”

  “If Milla lets you.” Jaqui said. “She doesn’t care about me because she knows Judd Gorsh truly doesn’t care whether I live or die, except when I’m useful. But it’s true that he’s gone on you. I saw how excited he was, when he found out that his men had got you.”

  “Funny, I don’t feel in the least flattered.”

  The two women looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  I’m going to like this Kati, Jaqui thought. She had no idea that she was following in the mindset of a lot of other people.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The morning gathering at Lordz household consisted of Max, Karn, Cassi, President Naez, Llon, Ciela, and a another Great Councillor, a commoner named Nabbish, a plump officious-looking fellow who apparently was in charge of the Law and Order arm of the Government. What there was of it, as Max muttered to Llon before he welcomed the Waywardian guests.

  Sammas hovered in the background as usual, arranging the breakfast service, and listening in on as much of the conversation as he could catch while not neglecting his duties.

  “Are you telling me that Judd Gorsh’s men forced your flyer to land, and then kidnapped your guest and passenger, without the least concern for the laws of the Continent?” Nabbish was asking Max. “He can’t be allowed to get away with that!”

  “Got a way to stop him?” Max asked drily. “I didn’t. Kati said that she would go quietly so as not to put me in danger, too. And she charged me with getting the word to Llon here, just in case she wasn’t able to contact him with her ESP powers before they shut her mind up tight.”

  “She did get a quick word to me,” said Llon, “as Cassi and Karn know, since I happened to be in their company when her mental call came. But, I, too, had to wait for Max to get home to hear the details.”

  “We need a police force,” said Nabbish. “Some way to enforce our laws. If not a police force, then an army—I don’t know, something! One man can’t be allowed to do whatever he damn well pleases!”

  “Judd Gorsh is doing exactly as he pleases, and has been doing so for years,” snapped Max. “We were blind to what he was up to, or we didn’t care, as long as he kept the most unsavoury of his practices off-world. Did we really think that he would keep his criminal activities away from his home world forever? If we honestly did, we were more naive than we had any business being!”

  “Our world was weak, and our Continent in chaos,” President Naez said softly. “We were probably just hoping that things would not fall apart before we had had the opportunity to recoup.”

  “Trouble is that when things fall apart, it’s usually not at the most convenient of times,” muttered Nabbish. “I’d give a lot to have the time and the finances to organize an effective police force.”

  “I don’t want to drag old animosities into this conversation,” said Llon, “but I would like to remind you that the Star Federation never did take Wayward off its roster, and that they have a very efficient police force, known as The Peace Officer Corps. The Corps, especially the Sector in Charge of the Human Trafficking Laws, has a bone to pick with Gorsh, and would be only too delighted to cooperate with the Great Council in order to bring Gorsh to Federation justice.”

  “The Great Council does not have a problem with the Federation,” stated Naez. “It was the Council of the Families, at least on the Continent Nord, that wanted to stay out of the Federation sphere of influence. I imagine that there were those among the Families, who, like Gorsh, liked to dabble in off-world enterprises that contravened Federation laws.”

  “There’s no question about that,” spoke up Karn. “That sort of thing was quite common at one time, I understand. Where do you think that Gorsh got the idea? It’s not happening much now, at least among the Old Families, simply because so many of the Families are shadows of what they used to be. To survive on the shady side of the Space Trade Lanes you have to have brains, and these days brains are a little short in supply among what’s left of the Families.”

  “Aren’t you being a little dismissive of your own constituency?” queried Nabbish. “Being the First of the Families, and all?”

  “No,” Karn snapped. “Not at all. My constituency is the whole of the Continent Nord, and, by extension, the whole of Wayward. My role as the First of the Families is to help the Families to adjust to a reality where they’re not the power anymore, and shouldn’t be, because they botched the job when they had it. I’m one of the Members of the Great Council and serve my Continent as the rest of the Councillors do.”

  “Does this mean that I can tell Mikal r’ma Trodden, the Federation Agent present on Wayward, that the Great Council of Continent Nord supports whatever action the Peace Officer Corps wish to take against Judd Gorsh?” Llon asked.

  “I thought that the Agent was incommunicado, caught in Gorsh’s web?” President Naez said.

  “Apparently he managed to free himself, only hours before Kati of Terra was caught in the same web,” Llon explained. “Thus, he is now the person in charge of our operation. He’s an extremely competent person, I happen to know, and has taken an oath to preserve all sentient life in the course of his duties, so you need not fear killing—at least not by our side.”

  “I could wish for some Federation muscle at this point,” muttered Nabbish. “Gorsh hasn’t taken any oaths against killing.”

  “You could discuss the possibility of calling
in a Torrones Warship with Mikal,” Llon said. “He has the authority to bring them into the skies above us. Although, my impression is that Mikal wants the Torrones to strut, flex their muscles, and maybe even finger their weapons a little, but not do any actual shooting. And Maryse r’ma Darien, his boss, usually makes sure that the person she sends to command the Torrones is also one sworn to non-violence.”

  “Gorsh wouldn’t need to know that, though,” said Nabbish, looking hopeful.

  “Although I’m sure that he knows about the Federation commitment to non-violence,” sighed Max. “It sounds to me from all I’ve heard since Kati and her crew landed on Wayward, that Gorsh has been using the Federation reluctance to engage in killing to protect himself. He thinks that he can do whatever he wants to, since the Federation Agents will not shoot him, or his men under any circumstances, whereas he himself feels free to mow down whomever he wants to.”

  “However, he’s wrong if he thinks that he has a free hand,” Llon said, smiling. “He only had it, and only here, on Wayward, as long as you people were oblivious to his ambitions on this, his home world. Now that you know how extensive, and lawless a power grab he is planning, I believe, that if we all work together, we can thwart him, possibly with no lives lost.”

  “You’re a dreamer,” said Nabbish, “though I’ll admit that I like your dream. But, I’d give a lot to be able to train a gun at that man’s head. I don’t like kidnappers.”

  “None of us do,” agreed Naez. “But I admit that I do like the notion that the side we’re on stops short of killing. Killing can get out of hand.

  “However, do we know what Gorsh can throw at us? Did those members of Kati’s team who were going to find out what kind of forces we’re up against manage to report yet? They haven’t had all that much time to investigate, have they? Events seem to have speeded up.”

  “I communicated with Mikal through my rather unorthodox communications channel, this morning,” Llon answered. “He found out, while he was still in the Citadel cellars, locked out of his body, that Gorsh has what amounts to a large and varied storage depot of off-world weapons. Mikal said that just about everything which he knows of in the way of weapons, can be found there, plus a bunch of items that, apparently, were not on any Federation list.