by neetha Napew
berthed three places beyond the KDI, looked like another of her class,
still so new she had
few meteor pock-marks or dinges on her hull, and all of her paint looked fresh.
Marrucci caught Kris in the ribs with his elbow, grinning at the ship as a possible hijackable victim. She grinned back and mouthed, “No way, Jose!” at him. He kept grinning.
They saw no Terrans at all once they were out of the main facility and looking about for flitters. Zainal had said there were always a few waiting for possible passengers. They approached the first, its driver a wizened old Catteni whose face was badly scarred.
Balenquah gave the orders, as sullen as a Catteni, and shoved everyone on board, his fingers lingering a little too long on Kris’s hip as he did so, grumbling about wanting to get this duty over with. He squeezed himself next to Kris on the hard wide seat, his thigh pressing against hers in a way that made her want to prang him good. She could do nothing now but sit there and endure his attentions. Had the man no wits about him at all? Didn’t he know she’d never let him get away with such nonsense? Wait till they got back to the KDL . . . no, KDI, she must keep that alteration firmly in mind. With the manoeuvres of the flitter in and out of traffic, Balenquah must be enjoying the ride, rubbing constantly against her leg. Marrucci caught her eyes once and gave her a look that meant he had not missed Balenquah’s ploy.
Then they were over the open market area, their driver skilfully avoiding ascending arrogant flitters in the fashion that had always caused Kris near heart failure in her slave days. They got down safely enough, the driver grabbed the fare Balenquah offered and then flung his craft aloft, out of the way of incoming craft.
“Don’t push me around, Balenquah,’ Kris said in an undertone as they moved off.
“Who? Me?”
Marrucci prodded his back, telling him in Catteni to talk right, then asked Kris, also in the language, which direction to take.
“Here is food market for Deski additives. We buy enough they deliver.”
“We buy plenty,’ Marrucci said. ‘Where?”
Kris had been looking around and spotted a crowd of Deski.
“There!” ‘Deskis! Huh!” and Kris wasn’t sure if Balenquah was acting m character or just being his charming self.
On their way, they passed a booth selling the alcoholic beverages only Catteni could stomach, but Balenquah insisted on stopping to sample one, saying he was thirsty.
“Not good,’ Kris said, frowning because that was the best way to prove to Balenquah that he should try one. All were swill, but let him find that out.
Laughing and jostling her, he pointed to the amber bottle and a large glass. Even the stall-owner looked surprised. Guffawing, Balenquah clapped Kris so hard on the back that she nearly lost her balance but, knowing what was to come, she stood,,firm and waited.
Balenquah was even stupid enough to try to knock back the entire portion; he should have watched another Catteni, who was sipping cautiously. As the raw liquid began to burn down his throat, his eyes bulged and his greyed skin turned red enough to startle her, but somehow he got most of it down.
“Told you not good,’ Kris said, deepening her voice. ‘Better over there!” And she pointed to the corner where her master used to take a drink on market days. She left Balenquah to recover from the pilth - ah, she remembered the name of that particular poison - and strode on towards the Deski. She was also keeping on the alert for any bands of Catteni, swaggering around the market area just looking for trouble. Marrucci waited with Balenquah while Yuri moved out in step beside her.
“Good on you,’ he muttered in English and she elbowed him.
“Agreed,’ he added in Catteni.
They could both hear Balenquah hawking and spitting behind them, and gasping as his system tried to cope with the Catteni equivalent of anti-freeze. It certainly smelled like it. The pilth had also affected Balenquah’s vocal cords, and he was reduced to gargling unintelligible words when he and Marrucci joined them at the Deski plursaw stall, for that was all this merchant sold. She argued over delivery charges, but then added more for an immediate delivery to the KDI. This was actually the most urgent of the supplies they were after. The next was salt: enough to use to preserve meats. Sugar was not a commodity known to the Catteni, so she was to get enough vinegar for pickling. These were easy, since she’d dealt with kitchen supplies and knew where to find them. At the same stall, she was astonished to discover what looked like rolls of cinnamon bark in a sack and a keg of nutmegs: the spicy scent of them was so familiar. She lifted a piece of curled brown bark high enough to her nose to be sure that it was indeed cinnamon - though what it was doing on Barevi was beyond her.
Then, in the gravelly voice she affected for Catteni words, she asked, ‘What’s this?” of the stall-keeper, dropping the bark curl indolently back into the bag and brushing her hand off on her uniform as any Catteni would.
She understood only half of what he said, catching that it was from Terra and used in cooking; she should try some. She pretended indecision until Marrucci tapped her shoulder and came to her rescue.
“Drassi Kubitai likes new things. Try it.”
That’s when they lucked out, because the two commodities were so unusual and suspect that the stall-keeper had been unable to shift any and was feeling he’d made a bad purchase.
So the bargaining began in earnest, but in the end she got the spices, the full keg and the sack, and had him throw in a large bag of peppercorns which he also hadn’t been able to sell. Kris had no problem getting him to deliver to the KDI and could barely contain her delight in finding the seasonings; the mess hall would bless her for ever. She also got gallons of vinegar of a good quality.
In the next rectangle over, Kris found fabrics of all kinds, colours, patterns and materials, some of which she recognized as Terran manufacture which both pleased and upset her. The Catteni must be looting the Earth right, left and centre. She suppressed resentment and went about bidding for whole bolts, in different shades and weights, for children’s clothes. The local weaving industry would suffice any females who wanted something to wear that wasn’t made over from Catteni coveralls, but the kids’ needs were different. Kris bought enough to make the shopkeeper ask if she was a trader.
“Drassi is,’ she said as if she thoroughly disapproved, pointing with no real attention to what she was buying. The last shop also sold needles, and indifferently she threw a handful of packets on the counter and made the shop-owner scrawl a receipt for her.
“Drassi requires.” Which was all she needed to say. ‘Deliver by sundown and will get extra,’ she said, winking as she had seen her steward master do from time to time.
Then she looked around for her shipmates and found them near a fruit-seller’s stall as Balenquah tried to restore his throat lining.
“I told you no good,’ she said and took a goru peafrom the display pile. She turned her head slightly so the stall-keeper would not see that she did not have Catteni-size teeth as she tore off the tough peel as any good Catteni soldier would do and spat it out on the street. One thing for sure, she never thought she’d be eating these lovely winey fruits again. My, she’d come a long distance from that forest. She pointed to a net of the pears, asking the price.
“Four,’ she said and then began haggling for a discount, just like in the old days. She got them at a good price - enough for everyone to enjoy on the way back to Botany - and tied the nets together and slung them over one shoulder. Yuri and Marrucci were watching her. “Tell you later,’ she said in Catten. ‘This way.” They went through another arcade, doors open to display the wares of the more permanently sited merchants, to where she thought she’d find ironmongery. The mess hall had also asked for some big stewing pots and cooking sheets. That sort of thing would be there and, sure enough, she acquired five cauldronsized kettles and some huge baking tins. She also saw other items that were definitely Terran in origin, like the fabrics. If there was so much looting
on Terra going on, maybe they’d be lucky enough to find medical equipment; Leon Dane had patiently r T drawn out the tools he especially needed. If she did, they’d basically filled today’s list, and she wanted to be out of the market area soon. Once the guard changed, there’d be all kinds of gangs of them off-duty, drinking and looking for trouble: any trouble.
So she wanted to get away from the area before the guards arrived.
Knives of the fine size and shapes Leon Dane had wanted were indeed available in one of the arcade stores, but at a price higher than Zainal had estimated. She bought what they had funds for bundles of scalpels, lancers and the retractors, small-headed hammers and surgical saws. It looked from the display as if Earth hospitals had been thoroughly looted. Still, she bargained so hard that the trader wanted to know why she needed such Terran things.
“Terran? What’s that?” and she pretended to try to find the name on the scalpel’s handle.
“Where you been?”
“There and back,’ she said with an indifferent shrug.
“Make it fast,’ Marrucci said in an irritable tone and jerked his head over his shoulder at a gang of Catteni entering the rectangle at the far end, six abreast and brushing past everyone and everything in their way.
“Pack them. We have other business today,’ she said and managed enough saliva to spit into the gutter with. Turning her head, she was able then to gauge the speed at which the gang moved. ‘Get Bal to a flitter,’ she told Marrucci. ‘Yuri stays.” She didn’t trust Balenquah if those Catteni muscled him out of the way.
“What takes you so long, Foto?” she snapped at the storekeeper who was making quite a job of packing the tools, but then the blades were very sharp.
Marrucci did get Balenquah out of the way: thanks to the pilth, he was in no condition to argue much. Kris had just got her hands on the packet from the shopkeeper when Yuri was bowled into her, knocking her into the shop-keeper’s cabinet, causing half his stock to tumble about and several pieces - since the cabinet was open on his side - to stick into him. He was howling with pain and rage as he plucked sharp objects from his thighs.
Yuri reacted, ducking under the first swing of a squat Catteni guard and then kicking out at the assailant’s knee-caps with a double strike that had the guard howling with pain and dropping to the ground.
The shop-keeper shouted for help and grabbed at Kris, almost tearing the precious package from her hand; but she twisted her arm down and up and freed herself.
When he came round the cabinet, bleeding from the cuts, she got him square in the guts with a karate kick, thrusting him backwards and into another glass-fronted cabinet. She heard him scream as a shard of glass penetrated his backside, but she didn’t stop.
“Out of here,’ she yelled in good Catteni, fright thickening her voice as she grabbed at Yuri’s uniform just as he flipped another Catteni to his back.
Several of his mates, reacting to his groans and curses, started after them, but Catteni are not good runners and Yuri and Kris had very good reasons to run as fast as they could. They nearly ran over Marrucci who had come back for them, and so they all made tracks to the flitter where Balenquah slumped, victim of the pilth.
However, the state of him - or rather the smell that emanated from him - added to the bruised goru pears that had split open in the nets Kris had been carrying over her shoulder - made the flitter-driver waste no time in getting them back to the dock.
When they arrived, the merchandise had too, with Pess, a cloth bolt in each arm, dealing with the loading.
“Did the plursaw come?” Kris asked, racing up the extruded gangway.
Pess grinned and nodded, speaking Barevi. ‘First thing. See me, ask questions. I say Drassi orders. Don’t know what he orders.” Well, she could hope no-one heard her speak in English.
Marrucci and Yuri were angling the unconscious Balenquah out of the flitter as she went back to pay the driver.
l
l l ‘We the first?” she asked Pess as she helped him stow the cloth away, making sure that the needles had been included.
Pess nodded. ‘What’s wrong with pilot?”
“He drank Filth,’ she replied, then grinned as she added, ‘I told him it was no good.” Pess smiled broadly and she managed to look away from that yawning cavern of greenish gum without giving him offence.
Beverly and Bert Put came out of hiding and, though they seemed somewhat distracted, listened to their adventures, chuckling over Balenquah’s mishap. They approved her purchases, especially the spices, salt, vinegar and pepper.
“We had to quit because there was a roving band of Catteni looking for trouble,’ Yuri said. ‘We’ll go for the electronics tomorrow,’ he added, looking at Kris for confirmation.
Kris shared out the goru pears and explained how this particular fruit had figured heavily in her first trip to Barevi. They all agreed that the fruit was very tasty indeed.
“We can keep the pips and start our own bushes back on Botany,’ she said, and was looking for something to store them in as she asked if there was any word from the other parties.
“Zainal reported in when he and Mitford reached the restaurant.
So did Coo and Slav,’ Beverly told them. ‘But they had upsetting news.”
“How upsetting?”
Beverly and Bert exchanged anxious glances.
“It’s not going to get any better waiting,’ Kris reminded them, but a sick feeling started in her stomach.
“There are large numbers of Terrans here now, waiting to be shipped out.”
A pause.
“What’s new in that?” she asked.
“Coo says they’re damaged,’ and Beverly tapped his skull.
“They sit or stand and do not speak.”
“WHAT?”
She, Yuri and Gino reacted simultaneously and stared in horrified consternation at Beverly.
“Coo says he heard their minds were taken from them.”
“The Eosi have mind-wipes?” she whispered, appalled.
“Does Zainal know?” Marrucci asked, equally shocked.
“Coo says everyone talks about it - quietly. Even the Catteni.
Zainal will also hear.” Marrucci swore inventively and without repeating himself.
Yuri looked pale under his grey face-paint; it was cracking around the
natural creases of his face and, absently, she reminded herself to tell
him to powder up before he went outside
again.
“Zainal won’t do anything drastic until he can check with you, will he?” Kris asked Beverly. ‘WHAT do the Eosi intend to get out of minds? They wouldn’t know about us.”
“Coo said they are older men mostly, some women . . .
“Scientists, I bet,’ Kris said and Beverly nodded sadly. ‘Oh God, what did we start?” Beverly covered her hand with a reassuring grip. ‘We started a rebellion, Kris, as we wanted to on Earth and couldn’t. But Zainal knew how and has.” ‘But the cost!” She gripped her hands together, holding in the pain of guilt.
“When was there ever a war without casualties?” Yuri said in a bleak voice, absently doodling with the water spill on the table until it was spread out in a Rorschach blob.
“What about Ninety and Dowdall?”
“They say the pens are full of humans. They also heard about the zombies,’ Beverly said. ‘They’re on their way back, too, before the guard changes.” ‘Dowdall remembered that, did he?” Kris said, nodding with satisfaction.
Zainal, Scott and Mitford returned in a silence that spoke more profoundly of the tragedy than words. The first thing Zainal did was remove the cheek and chin pads that disguised him.
“We managed to get into one compound,’ Scott said, slumping in a chair
and taking the glass of hooch that Kris immediately poured for all
three. ‘I recognized a few faces from articles and
newspapers. You’d probably recognize more, John, Gino. The ones I could identify were to
p people in quantum physics, organ transplants and laser applications.”
“Lasers can be used as weapons,’ Kris murmured.
“Eosi have such already,’ Zainal replied, also speaking in a low voice.
“Will they . . . recover?” Kris asked.
Zainal shook his head but added, ‘It depends how long they were subjected to the probe. The Eosi have little pity.” ‘Other news is good, though,’ Scott said, shaking off that dispiriting vision. “Earth continues to rebel, and Catteni are looting on a massive scale.” “I wondered about that,’ Kris said. ‘I bought nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, salt, bolts of Earth-made fabric and needles, surgical equipment: no doubt part of that loot. I hadn’t enough money with me to buy everything Leon said he needed. Do we have more to spend?” she asked Zainal, who nodded.
“No electronics?” Scott asked, perturbed. ‘We need them more than surgical tools.” ‘If the Catteni have looted as thoroughly as it looks like they have, we’ll find all the Terran electronics we could possibly want. But we encountered an off-duty squad,’ Kris said and Zainal grunted. ‘And left.” ‘We did, too,’ Dowdall said. “The spaceport’s full. We were lucky to get a berth.”
“Any damage?” Zainal asked.
“Not to us,’ Kris grinned. So did Dowdall.
“Where’s Balenquah?” Scott asked, looking around.
“Sleeping off a full glass of pilth,’ Kris replied, grinning maliciously.
Zainal roared with laughter.
“I told him it was no good,’ Kris said, still grinning as Yuri and Marrucci chuckled.
“Serves him right, too,’ said Marrucci, but Kris gave him a look and he didn’t elaborate.
“Did you get the Deski plursaw?” Zainal asked.
She nodded. ‘At a good price, too. I got as much delivered as I could;
Pess has most of it already stored away. “Drassi says”,’ and she grinned at him for the efficacy of that cryptic explanation.