by Eric Flint
Easy. You big dream things think that would stop me? I'm not a new hatchling.
As she fell a few hand spans to the floor, the Leewit reflected that being powerful didn't always make you particularly clever, and that maybe this was just as well.
Goth too was free, rubbing the bit she'd landed on and frowning faintly-a sign of intense concentration in the second of Toll and Threbus's daughters. "Clever Leewit," she said. "Now for the million mael question. Is Little-bit still around the Venture and can we talk her into doing stuff for us?"
***
He entirely unsure where or even right now, what he was. He stood up. Something told him this place was familiar. But that memory was buried. All that was important was to cover all, to harvest, to bring back to the mother-plant, to create more seedlings. There were other hazy memories of doing something else. Of someone important called Goth. But what was someone? There was only one. The mother-plant. He was part of the mother-plant. It would grow in him and grow in him. Eventually he would be full of the mother-plant and he would burst into a pool of motile fragments.
The idea did not worry the part of the mother-plant that had once been Captain Pausert of Nikkeldepain. He only knew that much because the mother-plant was trying to access the memories of that person that used to be. It had not known what it was to be part of the mother-plant. It had not known purpose: to cover all, to harvest, to bring back to the mother-plant, to create more seedlings.
The memories the mother-plant could access were cloudy, incomplete and disturbing. The mother-plant saw and recognized the Illtraming spacecraft. It had known for some time about the existence of the witches of Karres. But now it saw them for what they were: something that knew of the mother-plant's existence, and had somehow killed a haploid without killing the host, just as the Illtraming had deserted the purpose. Karres would try to stop the mother-plant from covering all, harvesting, bringing back to the mother-plant, and above all: stop the creation of more seedlings.
It had powers that the mother-plant feared. Powers the Illtraming had abused too, in those vile perversions of mother-plant seedships. Ships that went too fast and could not be destroyed. Ships that had forced the mother-plant to turn its last weapon onto them, a weapon that cracked the fabric of space-time itself. The mother-plant had not wished to do that. But the Illtraming would not return to the purpose: to cover all, to harvest, to bring back to the mother-plant, to create more seedlings.
Other life must exist to serve that purpose, not for any other reasons. To do so was evil. The mother-plant rooted among the motile Pausert's memories. It was difficult to access any motile from this strange species properly. This one was more difficult than most. Parts of it were blocked. Parts the mother-plant needed for this 'klatha'.
But at long last the mother-plant had the Illtraming device. The prime female motile was nearly full now. This had arrived just in time. The device was typical of the Illtraming motiles. They had been cunning little artificers, who liked making new and clever things. Even as part of the mother-plant that aspect of their nature had been useful and not suppressed. Like their love of decoration and patterning objects. The mother-plant knew the decoration was purposeless, did not serve to cover all, to harvest, to bring back to the mother-plant, to create more seedlings, but it had found that preventing that wasteful aspect had also smothered the creativity of useful things for the plant.
It had taken the mother-plant some days to get the new motiles to trigger the device that the Illtraming had created. Clever little motiles-to store and move the complex electronic heart to the navigation system that they had once used to guide the mother-plant seedships thus! It wasn't what the humans understood as 'a map' of course. Such a thing worked poorly in the three-dimensionality of space. It was instead a vast database of stellar information. Now the mother-plant could finally see just where the Illtraming homeworld lay. Fortunately, she had through the archeological looting, a powering system that could activate it. There would still be some work necessary before it could cross reference this onto the human maps. But the mother-plant had vast resources among the new hosts. The mother-plant did not care how it spent them. But it needed its old host. And it needed it soon. The mother-plant seedlings must come to be.
Some of the motiles were allowed a fairly large degree of self-determination. Some even thought on their own, and were just absolutely dependent on the mother-plant via the hormonal feeds to their pleasure centers. This Pausert-part of the plant could be allowed no such freedom, the mother-plant knew. The Pausert-part had told her that it too would be like the Illtraming.
Still, it had brought her much valuable information. The spore planted in it had not been wasted, although there were few spores left now. The motile, it seemed, was valued as individual-a concept the mother-plant did not fully understand-by the klatha-wielding Karres.
The mother-plant had not wasted a spore on the other captive, that Pausert part knew as 'Vezzarn'. It wasn't worth keeping. Too old and of too low an order in the human hierarchy. Anyway, it must have escaped. It was no longer on the ship.
***
The Leewit shrugged. "Maybe. Little-bit is going through a stage right now where she seems to prefer watching. Like interaction is hard work and it's a bit boring. The problem is that she goes anywhere and we don't. I have no idea how to make contact when she doesn't want to. The captain can call them. I can't."
"We need to get after the captain. After our ship."
"Yeah, but how?" asked the Leewit.
"Olimy," said Goth. "I need your ship." It was not a tone that brooked argument.
The Karres agent shook his head, none-the-less. "It's a one man scout, Goth. Besides the fact that you'd kill yourself with overuse of the Sheewash drive, just where are you going to go to?"
That was such impeccable logic that Goth could do no more than glare at him angrily.
"They've got several hours head start, Goth. The ship could be anywhere," he said.
"Yes. Being right does not make things better for you, Olimy," said Goth darkly. "I'll still need a ship. Unless… I'll take the Egger route!"
Olimy shook his head. "At the risk of being right again, assuming that Captain Pausert is still on the Venture, you will arrive in the post-Egger state and at best be captured and more likely be killed."
"It's a case of we need a ship and a one man scout is too small," said the Leewit. "You, me and Ta'zara… where is he by the way?"
"Downstairs. They have a local surgeon with him."
"He's hurt?" The Leewit stood up hastily. "I need to go to him. What happened?"
Olimy put out a hand to stop her. "There was quite a fight after you got tranq-darted and the captain put you inside the cocoon shield. Ta'zara stopped them getting to either of you two. At last count there were some thirty two badly battered thugs who he personally hospitalized. He's a one man army. But he did take some punishment. I don't think you should go there, Leewit."
"She's a healer, Olimy," said Goth. "You see to getting us a ship. We're going to need it, and the lattice is a little bit too big and heavy."
They went down. If the Leewit was distressed by the state of her bodyguard, she did not let on. The doctor did, briefly, attempt to stop her. The Leewit was not feeling very patient, and the poor man found himself rubbing his bruised head while lying against the far wall. "I'm here," she informed the groggy Ta'zara. "Lie still. I am going to fix what I can."
The Na'kalauf man might have been having trouble getting his eyes to focus, he had concussion, several gaping wounds, and have lost a great deal of blood, but he knew that voice and recognized the hand taking his. Goth could see him relax. "They shed ju were orright, mistress. But better f' knowing," he slurred weakly, struggling for breath.
"And shortly you're going to be better still," said the Leewit, exercising perfect control over her voice. Goth only knew that because she knew her sister. "Gothie. Lend me some strength."
Goth had been exhausted by the fight and her kl
atha use in it. Time had helped a bit. But she was still bone-tired and drained. "Sure. Just… don't take too much, see."
The Leewit nodded, completely serious and very much more grown up. "I just need to do some things. The rest will have heal naturally. Or later. But he's bleeding inside. In his head and body."
"Fix, little sis," she said, putting her hand on the Leewit's shoulder, feeling the surge of klatha energy.
A few minutes later they both sat down. The big tattooed man was breathing easier, and his color and pulse had improved, as the wary doctor informed them.
"Good," said the Leewit. "Now get someone to get us some food. Lots. I'm so tired I don't think I can move and Goth is in a worse state. You can sew him up now. And give him some more blood. He needs it."
Chapter 30
"It seems almost a shame to wake them," Goth heard someone say. She opened her eyes. Olimy and Sedmon looked at her. She and the Leewit were lying on the floor next to the remains of the food they'd devoured before passing out. Someone had been kind enough to provide her with a blanket, Goth noticed. She stretched, shook her head trying to clear it. One of the Sedmons? Here? How long had she and the Leewit slept for?
"What are you doing here?" she asked, suspiciously.
"Such a friendly greeting," said one sixth of the Daal of Uldune. "I heard that you needed a ship. So I brought you mine."
"How long have I been asleep for?" Goth rubbed her eyes, trying to get her brain to think clearly. "It's more than a week's travel from here to Uldune, Sedmon."
"You have been out for about twelve hours,"said Olimy. "You need to be careful, Goth. You can kill yourself, draining that much energy."
"Had to be done," said Goth. "Olimy, you know Karres pays its debts. And we owed him. How is he, by the way?"
"Considerably better, Your Wisdom," said Ta'zara from the bed against the wall behind her. "Well enough to defend you and the Leewit if need be."
"You just stay put," said Goth firmly. "I don't want to have to do that again in a hurry."
"Is the Leewit all right?" asked Ta'zara. "I would not have had her do herself an injury for me. Your companion Olimy said you could kill yourself, draining that much energy."
"She's fine. She'd sleep through a stampede of wild bollems, that's all. My problem was just having used a lot of energy in that fight."
"And then used even more putting me back together," said Ta'zara. "We of Na'kalauf also honor our debts. My debt to her can not even be repaid with my life."
"I shall have to be more cautious than ever about offending the Leewit," said Olimy with a grin.
Goth helped herself to a slice of pie leftover from their pre-sleep frantic feed. "Now, can we stop beating about the bush, Sedmon of the six lives," she said. "Or I will personally call a certain lady friend of mine and tell her to make your life-all of them-the equivalent of Patham's third hell."
The lord of the bloody-historied world of Uldune, Master of the House of Thunders, sat down on the floor next to her. "We caught Mebeckey. And he sang. Told us that he had passed information onto Marshi about you needing to locate a circus. He did it for a price."
"Is he still alive?"
"At the moment, yes." The Daal tugged his chin. "It appears that the plant infestation can be gotten rid of. But it is rather like a highly addictive drug, Goth. He was desperate to get it back. That was all he asked for in exchange. He is already going through more hell than my experts could put him through. In fact we got him to sing by giving him a palliative. He's a desperate man. You see, he got a new spore, from one of her agents… and that rejected him too. My scientists are doing on tests on him. When we got the news about the circus we made all the speed that the Thunderbird is capable of. That is… more than we're willing to admit any ship in the Empire or Uldune can do. Not quite as fast as the Karres ships. There was a limit to subradio communications, but we did get hold of an agent on Mandellin's world. They told us you had come here. We were able to cut our journey time considerably. You see, Goth, we really do not like this situation. We're deeply concerned about this Tchab-Marshi."
"I'm sorry. She's got the Illtraming map. And the captain," said Goth quietly.
"On the other hand it does seem that between you and Himbo Petey, and the people of Pampez, you have crippled her as a criminal power. She deployed most of her available foot-soldiers and even a large number of her capos here. And deserted them here too." Sedmon raised his eyebrows. "Can Karres never do anything unspectacularly?"
"Is the circus all right? Is Himbo all right?"
"He's been in to see you several times. So has just about everyone else in the circus," said Olimy. "And I should say the circus itself is fine too. If by fine you mean 'full-to-bursting'. They're packing them into the aisles. Even Hamlet is jam-packed and they're running a special morning show. The Pampez herders have taken them in as their own. They've almost made a planetary hero of Himbo Petey. That was why I was rather worried about you, Goth. By public demand he rode a fanderbag around the ring, and cracked that whip of his. I would have thought that the cheering would wake anyone, even half-way around the planet."
"Well, I hope it pays for some of the damages."
The Sedmon smiled sharkishly. "This is the first direct profit on my share of this investment that I have seen. You do realize Goth, that Marshi's 'people' are by in large known and wanted criminals across the Empire. In fact a few of them are even wanted on Uldune, and it's not something we're known for. There are some substantial rewards offered for some of them. Fortunately, dead or alive, in many cases. There have been three Imperial Security Service lighters collecting those that the locals hadn't already shot or hanged."
"Or hadn't been stood on by fanderbags, or hadn't run into the human equivalent of a threshing machine," said Olimy, jerking a thumb at Ta'zara.
"Hanged?"
Sedmon nodded approvingly. "Justice around here is swift and salutary. They were easy enough to round up. Not many places to hide-and rather obvious in appearance compared to the locals. Some tried to flee out onto the plains. Others sought refuge among the wisent buyers. Except the wisent buyers-the real ones-suddenly found that they had a good reason to co-operate."
Olimy laughed. "Yes. I believe they suddenly decided to increase their purchase price too, before the hanging seemed like too much fun to stop."
"Anyway. The citizens of Pampez, the citizens of the Empire, even some of my operatives are very pleased with the way things have come out. And the ISS and my operatives, and indeed I believe Karres, are hunting for any trace of the Venture, or Marshi. And yes, the ISS are assuming that the plant-infested criminal brethren are potentially infective," said Sedmon.
"It came out all right," said Goth. "But it's not over yet. She could do the same, or worse again if she finds what she needs to breed. Imagine if she'd got those spores into your Daalmen. Or the
ISS."
"Or worse, Karres," said Sedmon, grimly. "She is not a spent force yet. And we're determined to make sure she-and this plant-are destroyed. At any cost."
Goth had a sinking feeling that cost might include the life of Captain Pausert. She had to stop that from happening.
***
It took nearly two weeks before the news came in.
"We have a positive sighting on the borderplanet of Merega V. The Venture set down with four other vessels to refuel. Marshi was seen." Sedmon paused. "The operative is busy sending through an image. But there is also a person that fits the description of Captain Pausert."
Goth heaved a sigh of relief. "Let's go. You are about to experience the Sheewash drive, Sedmon."
Olimy held up a hand. "Goth. The operative said that he was in no way a prisoner. In fact he was seeing to the refueling."
Goth looked at Olimy. Sedmon. And then at her sister."He's part of the plant!" she said in horror.
The Leewit ground her small fist into her palm. "I guess we're just going to have to get it out of him, Sis."
Olimy said nothing, bu
t Sedmon bowed. "A leech was put onto the Venture. We can track her. If you want to make use of the Thunderbird ?"
Goth stood up. "Farewells will just have to wait. Let's go, Leewit. Is Ta'zara fit to travel again?"
"I reckon," said the Leewit. "And we can work on him some more if need be."
"Going to go Sheewash. That takes it out of you too." She looked at the adult Karres witch. "You coming, Olimy?" she asked innocently.
He laughed. "No. You'll have to do your own Sheewash. I am coming along, but I'll be a step behind you. We've been calling people in from the nannite cleanup. Karres herself is coming. But that's not so quickly or easily organized, as you know.
"Well," said Goth, pacing. "Let's get moving. They've got quite a start on us."
"You can't catch it all up at once," said Olimy, warningly. "There are some Empire ships, some Uldune ships, and Karres also on track. The Venture 7333 is on a remote patch of the starways, but we're converging on them. Try to work on a delaying strategy if you get there too soon." He made no attempt to stop them. That was not the Karres way, after all.
***
The hexaperson was worried. The Daal of Uldune was no saint. He couldn't be, as the ruler of a planet like Uldune. Still, of late he had found that he was less unfeeling than was it was good for the Daal to be. Uldune treated the Witches of Karres with the respect-and the suspicion-that a powerful and bloody ruler treats a even more powerful force. That had, in the past, proved wise. But as the Daal he had grown up in an intrigue-filled and un-gentle environment, in which the six were, of necessity, almost entirely isolated from contact with the rest of the populace of Uldune. Emotion had largely been a stranger to the Daal… until Hulik do Eldel had woken a slumbering giant.
The hexaperson had discovered that he cared very deeply about someone. And as if that had been a crack in his defenses, the hexaperson was discovering that he cared about other people too. Not many other people. But Goth and the Leewit had somehow wormed their way in. They were not just Karres-which was respected, but as an enemy, because all who were not the hexaperson were some kind of enemy, except Hulik. But those two small witches had become something more. He liked Captain Pausert too, for that matter. The man was just so… unbelievably un-devious and well, idealistic. It had been a shock to realize that Karres too was rather like that. Yes, they were secretive. But had they been interested in ruling he had come to realize that they could have seized power fifty times over.