“Well, the woman’s more than a pain in the butt now. She’s no doubt on the loose from the cabin. I don’t doubt for a minute but that she called for one of those other off-worlders who are hanging around Salamanka, to come and rescue her. I sure hope Milla got there first and confiscated my knife. As far as I’m concerned she can blast the woman to smithereens, while she’s at it!”
“Milla’s got orders to not harm her,” Gorsh had snapped. “She has my permission to use a stunner on Kati, in an emergency, but that’s it. Anyone else, however, I don’t care what she does.”
At this point Jaqui heard the Overseer clear his throat, to attract the attention of the other two men, surely.
“The murk Creature that this woman persuaded to go away,” he asked, “was that just the portion enveloping the cabin? Or is the murk gone from everywhere?”
“I have no idea,” Chrush snarled. “I came directly here to inform you of the events at the cabin, only to have to argue with you, Judd Gorsh. However, anyone with even the slightest amount of sensitivity to these things should be able to determine what’s going on just by walking around the Citadel compound. Or even down the streets of half of Salamanka. The oppressive air that the Cellar Creature emanates, has slowly been spreading out into much of the city.”
“Well, I don’t really notice it, ever,” said the Overseer, “except when I go into the Citadel cellars. I guess I’m not particularly sensitive to it, which is a good thing since I have to be everywhere at one time or another.”
“I do notice it,” Gorsh said. “That’s why my office and apartment are here, and not in, or closer to, the Citadel. I suppose that I could go for a walk around the compound and take a sniff. Although, I certainly hope that nothing but the cabin has been affected. Things could get troublesome if we’ve lost the protection of the murk.”
“We should finish the accounts first,” said the Overseer. “They’ll be left undone if we don’t do them now.”
“True.”
Jaqui heard Gorsh sit down heavily, at the computer she presumed.
“Give me your figures there, Barros,” he said. “I’ll input them. We’ll worry about how we’re doing financially, later. If ready cash is short, we’ll work out something.”
“The merchants in the city will always give you credit, Judd,” Barros said. “They know you’ll pay up sooner or later.”
“I’m going home,” said Chrush. “When you hear from your wife about the knife get in touch with me.”
The outer door slammed shut. Jaqui finally dared to change position, and stretch a little.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“The air has cleared up completely,” Murra said to Mikal when he and Llon arrived in the room beyond the lab.
Mikal propped the door between the back room and the lab open with a bin. He looked at the young girl who was sitting on a chair beside Murra and the gurneys which held the Xeonsaurs’ forms.
“This is Elli,” Murra introduced the girl. “She was kept in Mosse’s quarters, but with Mosse in the infirmary, she has come out, and we have been talking.”
Yes, of course. The jini number one would have encouraged the girl to get proactive before it left to return to Seleni when the murk lifted.
“Good. Hello, Elli. I’m Mikal and my companion is known as Llon. We’re going to take the Xeonsaur bodies, as well as yourselves, up into the world outside. Maybe you can help us with the gurneys. We’ll need to take a few of the intravenous nutrient bags, too, though not the ones that contain the drug, mind-tangler. I don’t know how long Xoraya and Xanthus will still stay under—it could be a while since they’ve been kept drugged for a long time now—so we have to be prepared to look after them as long as is necessary.”
“I’ll find a bag to carry the nutrient packets,” Elli said right away, heading for the storage cupboard. “Murra knows better how to get the patients and the gurneys ready to be moved.”
Apparently Elli was pleased to have the chance to do something useful.
The three males removed the life-support equipment from their floor stands, and transferred them onto the lighter support structures which could be attached to the beds. Mikal checked to make sure that the power packs for these systems and the hover feature were operational, while Llon checked the patients’ appearance, and termed it satisfactory. By this time Elli had found a bag, and had filled it, as per Murra’s instructions, with the larger pile of the nutrient packets in the cupboard. The smaller pile Murra told her to leave; it contained the food laced with the drug.
“Have you got a convenient pocket, Murra?” Mikal asked the boy as he activated the hover on each of the gurneys. “If you do, please take one of the drugged food bags and stick it in there. If not, give me the bag and I’ll carry it to the flyer, and give it to the pilot for safekeeping.
“I’m having one of my premonitions,” he added to Llon who was looking at him curiously while Murra went to do as bid. “We might have to keep Xanthus under a little longer that I’d hoped.”
Llon raised his eyebrows as he took charge of Xoraya’s gurney.
“Something to do with the weapons cache?” he asked. “That is where Xanthus has gone, according to Xoraya, right?”
“Possibly something to do with the weapons cache,” Mikal conceded, getting the Scientist’s bed into motion. “But let’s get this job done. If we can settle these two into the back of the flyer, we can leave Murra in charge of them. Then Kortone can fly them to safety, and the rest of us can return to help Seleni, Nabbish and company with the dungeons’ inhabitants.”
They headed out. Mikal left the door open between the back room and the lab, revelling in the clarity of the air that surrounded them.
“Ooh, the air has gotten even better since you two came,” Elli said, sniffing appreciatively. “And, earlier, it did suddenly get pretty good.”
“You can thank Mikal, here for that last improvement,” laughed Llon. “One of the local Nature Spirits, the one associated with Lake Salamanka, has fallen in love with him, and brightens up the world wherever he goes.”
“I don’t know if talking about ‘falling in love’ is really apt when we’re discussing Nature Spirits,” Mikal objected with a grin. “But I will admit that I’m taking shameless advantage of this one’s willingness to be nice to me. Fortunately the Spirit doesn’t seem to mind, but responds to my requests whenever possible.”
“She, the Lady of the Lake, truly does like you, Mikal,” Murra said as he walked along, breathing in the air. “She also approves of Kati, especially since she’s the one who thought of encouraging the Cellar Spirit to seek help in order to grow into a true Nature Spirit. Since the Cellar Creature was born out of human misery, the encouragement of a human being was necessary to set it on a path towards further growth. The Lake Spirit does not quite understand why the humans did not know that.”
Mikal laughed.
“Sounds like you’re able to communicate with the Lady Spirit better than I can,” he said.
“That’s because I have the advantage of training,” Murra replied. “Besides, she tells me that you’re also being coy because you’re in love with Kati and you don’t want to give her cause to be jealous.”
Elli giggled at that, and Llon grinned.
“As if the Lake Spirit would try to come between you and Kati, Mikal,” Murra added.
Mikal shrugged his shoulders comically.
“We human beings can be silly that way,” he said to all at large, including the Spirit, (not that there was anyone else in the stairwell which they were entering). “Maybe it’s a part of the same blindness that had nobody understanding that a Nature Spirit born of negative human emotions had to be set free by a human act.
“Perhaps the instructors at your Institute would have something to say about it, had you the chance to ask them, Murra.”
“Perhaps,” Murra agreed. “Only, I very much doubt that I’ll ever get a chance to ask them that question.”
Mikal very much d
oubted it, too. Xoraya and her mother-in-law had said (quite a while ago) that the Council of the Planet Xeon had authorized the Hsiss family to do what it took to set as many things right as was possible, once Gorsh and his meddling with time and space had been stopped. However, actually to return any of the snatchees to their homes and times seemed like a further tearing of the fabric of reality. Kati, and the teens from her home world, had said that there was no way they could return to where they came from, even if the means did exist. As one of them, Roxanna, had put it: “With this node in my neck, and knowing what I now know, I’d sound like a lunatic every time I opened my mouth. My people barely believed that there was life on other planets, never mind advanced civilizations spanning other galaxies.”
“Well, let’s get these bodies to the flyer as quickly as we can,” Mikal said, starting the process of hovering the gurney he was controlling, up the staircase. “Then Kortone and Murra can take them to the hotel where our Waywardian contingent is staying. That’s probably the best place to stash them for now. Kortone can direct them to be taken into the suite he’s in, and, Murra, you can stay there to look after them while Kortone returns to help the rest of us with the inhabitants of the dungeons.”
“And the weapons cache,” Llon added.
Mikal scrunched up his face.
“You had to remind me, Llon. Yes, I would guess that the astral Xanthus will be roping me in there, very soon. Hey, Lady of the Lake, did you bring the Cellar Spirit back to its old haunts? Seleni seemed to think that he and you could help with the nasty mess of weapons. Think you two can do a little muffling of the impact if Xanthus and I don’t succeed in destroying any traps that Gorsh and Chrush may have set?”
“We’ll do our best,” a mental answer came from somewhere. “Though that Chrush is a wily old operator. The Astral Man is trying to figure out how he booby-trapped this place; he has determined that the place is booby-trapped.”
“Damn,” Mikal swore out loud. “We will have to get everyone out of this building, as far away as we possibly can, and as quickly as is possible. Does anyone know who—if anybody, considering how unpleasant the place used to be—occupies the above ground levels? They may well be innocent of anything other than needing a job and having been given one by Gorsh.”
There was no-one there who could answer the question.
“We’ll have to follow Seleni’s lead and count on the people around this place,” Llon said. “We’ll have to stop a group and tell them to go and empty out the ground level and the upper floors of the building. And to send everybody in the vicinity away, the farther the better.”
“Indeed, an evacuation is absolutely necessary,” Mikal agreed.
Things were getting more complicated every moment. And it was only a matter of time—and probably not much time—before Gorsh, or Chrush—or both of them—would show their faces and raise a ruckus because people were messing around in their backyard. Possibly Seleni was right, and most Waywardians would refuse to shoot their compatriots, but there were bound to be a few who had no such qualms. They might be quartered in the upper levels of the Citadel, for all he knew. Damn! He really needed a Torrones Warship and a large contingent of the elite troops, and this was the one time he did not have them! He hadn’t wanted to tip his hand to Gorsh by calling them in, and now they could not possibly arrive in time to make a difference, even if Maryse had taken the precaution of stashing a vessel behind the nearest asteroid!
He only had three local law-enforcers on hand, because there was no such thing on Wayward’s Continent Nord as a police force. That lack, of course, had served to make Gorsh careless enough that Mikal’s Team could presently be doing what they were doing, but....
Well, he had to work with what he had, which was partly women and children. But he did not even have the best of the women with him; Kati’s presence would have given him a lift, besides which, she was an amazingly useful person to have around. Pity he was not a more practised ESPer; as it was he could not stop and concentrate to locate her.
Then, suddenly, as they were reaching the top of the last staircase, he sensed her personality, coming through the atmosphere of the Lake Spirit!
“Chrysalia, Lank, Gerr and I are coming. We’ve got Milla packaged in the back of the flyer. Chrush is on the war path; I took the half-finished lace crystal knife that he was going to use on me away from him, and he sent Milla to retrieve it, the fool. But he is very dangerous, likely the most dangerous of our enemies, because he has the least to lose, and everything to gain. And he, I believe, has been the real brain behind Gorsh’s operations.”
Then her presence was gone, and Mikal was pushing open the Citadel door, to float the gurneys out.
*****
Peace still reigned around the Citadel, to Mikal’s great surprise. He had expected all hell to have broken loose in the time that he and Llon had been downstairs, but, the fact was, they had not been down there long.
The group hovered the beds to the flyer, where Kortone, as soon as he saw what was coming, opened the hatch, and cleared a path to the back of the vehicle by moving seats out of the way. Mikal realized why Nabbish had left Kortone for flyer duty; besides being a good pilot, he was also a medic of sorts, trained to deal with the sick, and their equipment, including what was in the flyer. Once they had the patients in the medical restraints, and the gurneys folded up and stored, Kortone expertly set up the life-sustaining equipment. Mikal heaved a sigh of relief to see the man’s capabilities, and exited the flyer feeling more hopeful than he had entered it.
“Take them to your suite at the hotel,” he bade Kortone. “Murra, here, will come with you. He’s been looking after them all along, so he’ll be able to do so at the hotel, once they’re again on the gurneys. Then you’ll be able to return for more ferry duty. I expect that there will be enough of that coming up.”
Kortone nodded, and motioned for Murra to take the seat next to his.
“The hotel also has a healer on hand,” he said. “I looked into that; since I’ve got training as a medic, I was curious as to how they dealt with possible sickness. I’m sure I can ask at the front desk for the healer to look in on things in the suite while I’m gone, so the boy won’t be left completely on his own.”
“Excellent. Good luck, both of you.”
“Luck to you, Mikal,” Murra said, before the hatch slid shut.
Mikal waved at him and Kortone, before turning to where Llon and Elli were talking to a mixed-sex group—adults, this time—who had stopped to ask them what was going on.
One of the group, a stout, grey-haired lady was explaining to Llon how happy everybody was that the air on Gorsh’s compound had cleared.
“Even the people who never really noticed the murk have been commenting on how light they have been feeling for the past while. So they were affected by the bad atmosphere, even if they did not realize it. I certainly do hope that the air stays clear—although I do believe that the murk was serving some purpose for the Boss. Whatever it was, he’ll just have to do without it.”
“Trouble is,” Mikal broke in, “that without the protection of the murk, Boss Gorsh will be feeling very vulnerable, and so will his insane henchman, Chrush. Did any of you realize that what the murk was preventing, was the use of ESP powers, such as telepathy?”
The woman shook her head.
“I was told that it had come into being over the hundreds of years when the Citadel was used to house armsmen, plus captured prisoners in the cellars. The captives were tortured to extract information, and left to starve and to die of thirst otherwise. There was tremendous suffering, and that pain gave birth to a Spirit of sorts, but not a good Spirit like the ones that inhabit woodlands and waters. Instead, it carried with it the memory of all the ills done, and that is what made it reek, and suffuse everything with negativity. But I did not know that it could actually block thought transference, but then, I’m not a Wise Woman.”
“It was that blocking power which made the Cellar Creature u
seful to Gorsh,” Mikal said. “And neither he, nor Chrush, realized that it was actually a Nature Spirit in the making, and wanted to put its painful past behind, and grow into a positive Spirit. Well, someone thought to ask it a question, or two, and on hearing the answers, encouraged it to join the other Nature Spirits for lessons in Spirit behaviour.”
“Are you saying that it’s still around, then?” the lady asked.
“It’s around, somewhere. Although I feel the presence of the Lake Spirit, its teacher, and my friend, so strongly that I can’t catch the feel of the transforming younger Spirit at all, at the moment,” Mikal replied.
“You can sense these Spirits? You’re aware of their presence?” a portly male asked dubiously.
“Oh, some people can,” threw in the voluble woman before Mikal could answer. “The Wise Women, and the Shamans all can. But the Boss doesn’t like people who can, and that old one that he reveres, Chrush, absolutely loathes them. I’m certain that he’s scared of them; he’s afraid that they can read the nastiness inside him. He is nasty, even I can sense that, and so can you Colim, though you don’t have even a pinky finger’s worth of sensitivity in you.”
“This conversation could go on for hours,” Mikal interrupted, his inner tension rising again. “But there’s trouble brewing. Big trouble, on account your Boss Man is not going to like it when he discovers that the Cellar Creature has left, and he will find it out soon—may have already deduced it, if he’s heard that the portion on the Leaven Estate is not there anymore.
“Gorsh has a room stuffed with various weapons, including bombs, in the Citadel cellars. He probably has a way to detonate the whole mess if things start going seriously wrong for him, and some people are busy making sure that things will not go as he wants them to.”
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 61
