Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers

by Helena Puumala

  Chorus

  Where the skies are all clear and there's never a gale

  And the fish jump on board with one swish of their tail

  Where you lie at your leisure, there's no work to do

  And the skipper's below making tea for the crew

  Chorus

  Now I don't want a harp nor a halo, not me

  Just give me a breeze and a good rolling sea

  I'll play me old squeeze-box as we sail along

  With the wind in the riggin’ to sing me a song

  Shyla was taken by surprise by the decrepit old man when he came to stand beside the table, looming over her.

  “So,” he said in a thin, reedy voice, when the song had ended. “Come back from the dead, have you? The young man and his so-called aunt have something to do with that?”

  “What?”

  The word was all that Shyla could manage to croak. She stared at the old goat, realizing as she did so that she had seen him before, during her days as Gorsh’s slave on his compound, although the when and where escaped her. Fear constricted her throat, and she could not have answered the questions put to her even if she had wanted to.

  Suddenly there was a flurry—of something—around her, and something warm, and comforting nestled against her neck. The jini number two!

  Even as she became aware of the jini, she saw that Lank was looking in her direction, had seen the old man, and recognized him. Holding his flute in his hand, he whispered something into Soola’s ear and she began to strum her strings again, and to sing. Lank jumped down from the stage, stepping towards Shyla’s table. He smiled suddenly, and Shyla knew that he had seen and recognized the jini.

  “I guess it’s time for us to leave,” Lank said, and obediently Shyla stood up.

  “Is it, now?” the old man asked, glaring.

  The jini hissed at him, drawing the man’s attention to itself, and for a moment he looked unsure of himself. Then he drew from his pocket an ornate stick—and Lank recognized the lace crystal knife for what it was.

  “Pulling that out may have been a mistake, Chrush,” Lank said in a low voice. “I know a woman who took one of those away from its owner and came within a hair’s breadth of killing him with it. He survived only because she changed her mind, and decided to let him live.”

  “No-one can turn this knife on me,” said the old man. “It is bonded to me, and I will kill you with it. And the girl who should already be dead.” He nodded at Shyla. “And I will kill the woman you call aunt, whether or not she really is your aunt.”

  The space around the three of them, (four, if you count the jini) had emptied. Soola’s friend had fled the table, and the patrons nearby had taken their drinks and moved further afield. Soola was still singing and strumming her instrument; the music created an incongruously soothing background to the conversation going on.

  The jini repositioned itself around Shyla’s neck so that a portion of it was right against one of her ears.

  “You need to get the knife away from him, if Lank and you are to survive this,” a voice said into her ear.

  Absurdly, it was Mikal’s voice. Shyla realized that she was hearing it via the jini, somehow. Psychic experiences had never been a big thing in her life, and she felt confused. But the jini was stroking her, warming her, calming her down.

  “Chrysalia says that he’s talking nonsense,” Mikal’s voice went on. “He can’t have bonded that knife to himself. Not that it matters. We’re not going to turn it on him, just knock it away from him. Once Lank’s not facing a lace crystal blade he can handle himself. My cousin taught him some excellent self-defence moves, a while back.”

  The old man was operating the trigger which uncovered the blade, his hands shaking visibly. He was not a healthy man. Shyla knew that Mikal was following the scene with her, whether through her eyes, or somehow seeing through the jini, was unclear to her. But she understood that he would talk her through what she needed to do, and realized with rising elation that she had the advantage of surprise. The old man would never suspect that she could do anything to help Lank!

  The man had the blade out, and he was beginning to lean towards Lank, the knife poised to slash.

  “Now,” said Mikal’s voice. “Knock his wrist and hand with your whole arm, as hard as you can! While he’s slightly off balance—he’ll stumble and lose the knife!”

  Shyla did it!

  The old man screeched in surprise as Shyla’s arm came down hard, and his fingers lost their grip while he himself nearly fell down. The knife clattered to the floor, and suddenly the waiter was there, diving for it, and gingerly picking it up, then closing it and passing it to someone behind him.

  And still Soola was singing and strumming a quiet ballad.

  Lank did not get to display his self-defence techniques. The old man righted himself with an effort, saw that he had lost the round, and turned around to run for the door. No-one stopped him, but no-one returned his knife to him either.

  While the bar exploded into a din that drowned out Soola’s music, Lank paid the tab, took Shyla’s arm and the two of them left, the jini still wrapped around Shyla’s neck. It spoke no more, however, not in its own voice (assuming that it had one), or anyone else’s.

  *****

  Mikal slipped out of the trance-like state he had been in, and let go of Seleni’s and Chrysalia’s hands which he had been holding. That contact with these jini midwives had allowed him to communicate with Shyla in the lakeside bar, and to instruct her to foil Chrush’s plan.

  The jini which had for some reason decided that Lank was under its special protection, had alerted the Wise Woman and the Crystolorian to the old man’s threatening presence in the bar, even before Shyla and Lank themselves were aware of him.

  “What can we do?” Chrysalia had cried when she had realized what the ancient one intended to do. “The jini’s gone there and has settled on Shyla’s shoulders, probably because Lank is on the stage, playing his instrument, so I know what’s going on! But I have no idea what to do from this distance, and I don’t doubt but Chrush is armed—probably with one of his knives, although one that has it’s connection to Crystoloria cut off, since I can’t sense it at all!”

  “We have a professional here with us,” Seleni had said calmly. “And a psi-sensitive one at that. Mikal, give each one of us a hand. We should be able to transmit to you, through the jini what’s going on. You can better decide what to do than either one of us.”

  Mikal had done as asked.

  Clasping hands with the two women he had become aware of them, of the jini whose birth they had facilitated, and of a lot more. He had sensed the other jini which was still in the Citadel cellars keeping an eye on the two Xeonsaurs, and Murra, but more than that, he felt as if the Nature Spirits of the planet were reaching out to him, calling to him, filling him with their zest for life. He had to, in fact, make a concerted effort to turn their entreaties back (kindly), in order to concentrate on the jini which was with Shyla. And as he did so, the Spirits added their efforts to his, to follow and understand what was going on. He realized that he knew when the old man was going to pull out the knife before he had made any gesture towards doing so, and that he knew that the oldster was weak enough that even a girl like Shyla could force the weapon from his hand.

  He had done what was necessary to save the two lives; the Nature Spirits had rejoiced with him in that triumph. And with a last thank you to these helpers, he had returned to his normal life—if anything about his life was normal any more—in the Wise Woman’s back garden.

  “Well, that was an interesting experience to have had a small part in,” Seleni said as she shook herself after minutes of sitting motionless. “Mikal, you are becoming a rather remarkable specimen of psychic talent.”

  “Who would have thought that Xanthus Hsiss’ potion had so much in it?” Mikal responded with a grin.

  “I don’t think it’s just the potion, friend,” Seleni answered. “The Natural Spirits of thi
s world adore you. They like working with you, and are willing to aid you any way they can.”

  “Well, they’re good allies to have,” Mikal commented. “And if we’re to have a happy ending to this affair, we will most likely need all the allies we can gather to ourselves.”

  Chrysalia nodded to that but did not speak. She had been getting the feel of Chrush while she had participated in the foiling of his murderous intent to the small extent that she had. The old man frightened her. There was so much negativity in him! It was as if all that had once (whenever that might have been) been good in him, had been sucked through some black hole in his heart, and turned inside out into an evil. Had the exile done that to him, or had it happened before that? Was it why her people’s ancestors had not only exiled him, but, before doing so, had torn off his lace crystal talons by their roots?

  Now her people wanted her to arrange a death for him, a death which was at least three hundred years past due. How had he managed to cling to life for so long?

  Mikal watched Chrysalia with some concern. He could empathize with her dilemma. Her people had given her a job which, though necessary, was distasteful. It might also well be very difficult, since the old man, in spite of his decrepitude, desperately wanted to go on living.

  He would probably end up helping her with her task in some fashion or another, since his job appeared to be mixed up with hers, at least in the sense that Gorsh was somehow making use of the old man’s abilities. Just as he had made use of Xanthus Hsiss, only without Xanthus’ consent, and Mosse the Mage and the Cellar Creature, though those two were willing dupes—if they were dupes. Were they, in some way, mixed up with Chrush, too? He did not know the answer to that question, any more than he knew at the moment how he was going to get Kati out of Gorsh’s hands.

  But as Kati herself was fond of commenting: there had to be a way.

  *****

  Max, Nabbish, and their entourage established themselves in the third-best hotel in Salamanka. It was the one of the four best ones which was on the south side of the Salamanka River, and Llon gave it his okay after only a moment’s inspection, something that he had refused to do with the other three that they had stopped at. When Nabbish had objected at his refusal to settle in at the number one establishment, he had simply said that the Waywardians were free to stay wherever they wanted to, but he would go elsewhere, and take Ciela with him. Max had given him a long look, and said that they would all accompany him to a place he approved of. Nabbish had started to argue, but Max had snapped at him, and he had desisted.

  The third-best hotel was situated within walking distance of where the river valley vegetation began, a circumstance Llon had pointed out to Max with some satisfaction.

  “Not that it’s the main reason for picking this place,” he said, as they established themselves into the three bedroom suite they were to share with Ciela, while Nabbish and his recruits settled into the neighbouring one. “This hotel, being south of the river, is completely clean of the taint which seems to be a feature of the ether in much of the city north of the river. It’s not everywhere; there are pockets that are absolutely clean, according to my sensing of these things, so with a little bit of detective work we could have found a small hotel, or two, or three, where we might have settled without worry, but your Government colleague would likely not have found them imposing enough.”

  “That’s true about Nabbish,” Max sighed. “He’s good about law enforcement matters, but he does seem to believe that it’s important for the Council Members to present an image of influence and power. I can’t say that I agree with him; sometimes you can get more done by blending in with the crowd.”

  He grinned.

  “I did a lot of that when I was persuading people to get behind the notion of the Great Council for the Continental Government. And, as we know, it worked.”

  “You also had the good sense to throw your weight behind people who could lead the process while you were working behind the scenes, and among the crowds,” Llon pointed out.

  “That was necessary, of course. I had no illusions of being a leader myself. Marna makes a good President, and a good leader, whereas the population would never have accepted me, or Karn, in that position, simply because of our family backgrounds.”

  “It is fortunate for the Continent Nord that you understood that, and did not resent it,” Llon added. “Sometimes the hardest thing for human beings is to accept their limitations.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Ciela from the bedroom where she had been unpacking and arranging the contents of her bag, which included a few of the small lace crystal shards which she and Sammas had chosen as appropriate to be peddled in Salamanka.

  “What shall I do with the shards?” she asked of her elders, displaying the carefully wrapped package.

  “There’s supposed to be a safe here, somewhere,” Max replied, scrutinizing the walls and the furnishings.

  He discovered it under the rudimentary communications console which, he knew, could only connect them to other consoles in the city, not to Strone, or the Government offices there. The clerk at the front desk had apologized that they had only one suite with a full-service console available, and it had made sense to give that one to Nabbish and his men, since they had much more use for it. The safe was a primitive affair, too, with a mechanical key left in the lock. Such were the amenities of the third-best hotel in Salamanka, Max mused, as he held the safe door open for Ciela to make her deposit, and then locked the door. He gave the key to Ciela.

  “You may as well keep that,” he told her. “The shards are your responsibility.”

  Ciela nodded as she took the key and slid it into a pocket.

  “Are we going to get in touch with Lank and Chrysalia?” she asked Llon. “Maybe they’ve come up with some way to get Kati away from Gorsh’s hands. And the Xeonsaurs, too, of course.”

  “If you’re really anxious for the latest news you could come with me for a walk in the river valley,” Llon replied. “It wouldn’t hurt to have some company with me, as a matter of fact. I’d invite you, too, Max, but I suspect that you’ll be needed here to keep Nabbish from getting overanxious to act. Try to keep him from rushing off in all different directions before we have the lay of the land and a plan of some kind. He could do more harm than good if he rushes into things headlong. Things have been awry here for some time, so a little further delay won’t do our cause much harm.”

  “I’ll do my best to keep him in line until you’ve had a chance to consult with your friends,” Max said. “I think it’ll help if we can get him to meet with this Federation operative at the soonest. Nabbish will listen to him.”

  “And Mikal is worth listening to,” Llon agreed.

  *****

  Lank made two trips with the flit to ferry Chrysalia, Shyla, Seleni, and Mikal to the third-best hotel in Salamanka, for a meeting with Llon, Max, Ciela, Nabbish and his men, Kortone and Gerr. The sitting room of the suite occupied by Max, Llon and Ciela seemed to be overflowing with people, yet Mikal felt keenly the lack of co-conspirators on their side of the fight. Gorsh was holding Kati, Murra, Xoraya, and Xanthus, as well as Shyla’s friend, the indomitable Jaqui.

  Now it seemed that they had another adversary to worry about, the ancient Chrush, the exiled Crystolorian who had decided that he did not ever want to die. Or did he want to live forever? Mikal was not quite sure which it was; he rather thought that there was a difference between the two sentiments, but possibly Chrush was not aware of the distinction.

  “So there are the Gorsh couple: Judd and Milla,” he now iterated to the group. “Then there’s the Cellar Creature, and Mosse the Mage who thinks of himself as the go-between for Gorsh and the Creature—or is it the other way around? Plus, now we have Chrush who apparently is allied with Gorsh in some way, and may well be working with the Cellar Creature, too.”

  “None of whom we can walk up to, and arrest,” Nabbish muttered.

  Mikal grinned, amused by t
he image of the Waywardian marching up to Gorsh and insisting that the Slaver was under arrest.

  “The shock of being told that he’s under arrest might almost net us Judd Gorsh,” he said. “But only almost. The man has too many resources to fall back on, including the others I cited.

  “And then there’s everything of ours that he’s holding hostage,” Mikal continued. “Kati, the two Xeonsaurs, Murra, Shyla’s friend Jaqui, all the slaves, and who knows how many Waywardians who dare not speak a word against him.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to catch hold of this complicated creature’s tail so as not to have to worry about one of its many maws biting us in the butt. Especially considering the arsenal that’s been stashed into the Citadel cellars.”

  “Did you actually ascertain the presence of that weapons depository?” Nabbish asked.

  “Yes, indeed. I had a little help from Seleni’s River Valley Nature Spirit when I psychically wended my way to take a look. So I was able to take a good look, and I did not like what I saw. There’s enough there to blow Salamanka to smithereens, should our unfriendly Slaver feel threatened, and that’s in addition to all the things he could arm his men with—assuming that the men whom he claims as followers really are willing to fight for him.”

  “There’s a good question,” said Seleni. “Waywardians have been pacific enough to not object while the man took over half a city, and quite a bit of the countryside. Would these people fight for him if he wanted them to? I think that it’s quite possible that they’d yawn at his request, and ask why they should bother. What’s the difference to them who’s in charge?”

  “Seleni, you’ve just put your finger on what has defeated a reform movement after a reform movement on this world,” Max said, his smile devoid of humour. “It was a reflection of how bad things had got, that we actually managed to get a democratic system set up for the Government of the Continent—after years of talk, and persuasion by a goodly cohort of people.”

  “But, perhaps in this particular instance, that passivity might work in our favour?” mused Mikal.