“If you want to join the gang, Kami, you're welcome to do so.”
“Actually, the reason why I came around to see you is that I'd heard that you were into giving the Elites who think they own this world a hard time, whenever the opportunity arose,” Kami said.
Shellion grinned.
“I've developed a reputation, have I?” he countered.
“I and my group of pals have a reason to be very pissed off with the Elites,” Kami said carefully.
“Is the athletic blonde you mentioned earlier one of your group of pals?” threw in Dini from the other desk. Clearly she was following the conversation.
Shellion raised an eyebrow at her, and she returned to her papers, though Kami very much doubted that she shut down her hearing. It behooved him to speak carefully.
“What did the bastards do?” Shellion then asked. His expression had turned hard. “Kidnapped one of your kin?”
“Something like that.”
Kami felt his face tightening up, too. The memories of Cameron Mackenzie kept as an intelligent slave were very close to the surface at that moment. He realized that he had dug his hands into the box of tools and spare parts, and was clutching some of the items as if his life depended on hanging on to them. He pulled his fingers out of there to realize that the Greencat had stood up and was butting his thigh with her head. He leaned towards her, to caress the fur at her neck.
“What were you looking for from my group?” Shellion asked. He, too, was being very careful.
“Information, certainly,” Kami replied. “Help, maybe. Only, we run a pretty democratic group, my companions and I. I'd like to have them meet you and have you talk with them, before we make any sort of a formal, or informal, request.”
“Democracy, eh? I like that. Where are your people staying?”
“Right now, half of them are earning a bit of coin by performing at the Market near the City Centre Park. A couple of the women are running another errand, but they're supposed to return to the Market when they're done.”
“Earning a bit of coin? Yours is an enterprising crew, sounds like. Why don't I come and meet them; this does sound interesting.”
He grabbed one of the coms, and tossed another to Dini.
“Look after things here, Dini. Get Lew to help you; he'll do whatever you ask of him, and if someone misbehaves he's got the muscle to handle it.
“We'll walk, I think. The Market's not that far, and some of us believe in taking every available chance to get exercise, and keep fit.”
**
The domicile which corresponded to the address that was on the outside of Jerold's letter was a modest one-story house on a small lot. It would not have looked out of place in Laurentia, on Earth, Sunny figured. The house was surrounded by a riot of shrubs, flowers, and dwarf fruit trees, with a couple of ornate benches set up among them.
“There's probably a wee vegetable garden in the back,” Sunny muttered, as she and Lindy climbed the few steps that took them to the door.
Lindy used the knocker on the door while Sarah watched curiously.
“No doorbell,” Lindy explained. “An Agent has to know a lot about the ordinary life on a lot of worlds. You need to be able to fit in, wherever you are, at least enough that you don't inadvertently scare the horses, every time you step outside. So you learn to look for doorbells, knockers, pull-cords, all the various ways guests announce their arrival, in the various corners of the Galaxy.”
“Scare the horses!” Sunny chuckled. “That's an old one!”
Before Lindy had a chance to react, the door in front of them opened, to reveal a woman who looked to be in her fifties. She looked somewhat worn out.
“Yes?” she said, looking the younger women over. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you Janet Lowe?” Lindy asked. She consulted the front of the envelope in her possession. “Wife of Merlen Lowe, and mother to Jerold Lowe?”
“Yes, I am.” Her face had turned ashen. “Jerold—is he all right?”
Lindy smiled at her.
“Worry not,” she said. “He's well. Quite well, in fact. I've been trusted to deliver this letter from him to you. I also have some images of him to show you, but they might as well wait until you, and your husband, if he's around, have read the letter.”
She proffered the letter, and the woman took it.
“It's Jerold's writing, all right,” she said, opening the door wider, and backing away from it. “Come on in.”
Janet Lowe asked Lindy who introduced herself and Sunny, if they wanted something to drink. They accepted cool glasses of water and sipped at them while their hostess read the letter. When she had finished, she sat for a while at the kitchen table where they had settled, in complete silence while tears began to well from her eyes.
“I'm so glad that he's safe, and away from those miserable kidnappers,” she finally said, while wiping her face. “We didn't hear anything for years, just that he had been taken from the school, just before he was due to graduate, and the School Authorities thought that he was taken because he was such a good student. Needless to say, we told our other son to not excel, and I guess that worked because he's still here, working with some local researchers.
“But, oh, Jerold is so far away from home! I don't know how Merlen will react to that! And Jerold says that you people need help to get some other people away from those Neotsarian Elites, and that we should try to give whatever help we can!
“Merlen would know more about what we might be able to do, and Devin, our other son. I'll have to try to get hold of them; I'm sure they'll be able to take some time off work, under the circumstances! Everyone we know has heard about how Jerold disappeared! Some even tried to find out what happened, and where he was taken, but the Elites will not answer any questions that we whom they consider lesser beings, ask!”
“Do you want to look at these images?” Lindy asked kindly.
She pulled out the little holo-projector from her pocket and turned it on. The first image sprang into being in the air above the table, and Janet cried out in amazement. She stared at the image of her son, transfixed, and Lindy set the gadget to run through its repertoire.
“He seems so much older,” Janet whispered at the end, overcome with emotion. “But then, it has been, what, almost six years that he has been gone.”
“Those shits,” muttered Lindy as she turned the projector off. “What gives them the right to grab people, just like that, and make them do their bidding?”
“I don't understand it,” said Janet in a shaky voice. “They say that we belong to them, because we live in their Sector of the Galaxy. That it is our duty to do whatever they want us to do, give up to them whatever they may want from us. They're the rulers, and we're the subjects. Makes no sense whatsoever to me.”
“As far as I'm concerned, it's just wrong,” declared Lindy. “They should be stopped—only, so long as the inhabitants of this part of the Galaxy accept them as overlords, nothing is going to change. Rebellion is going to become a necessity, but that's tough, when power is all in their hands.”
Sunny, listening to her, could feel Sarah's thoughts stirring restlessly within herself. Was she supposed to be an agent of change in the Neotsarian Sector of the Galaxy, at least to some small extent? She had power, not in her hands, but in the Stone she wore on a chain around her neck, insulated from detection. Was she supposed to not only rescue her beloved Coryn, but to somehow facilitate the march towards the rebellion which Lindy was visualizing?
**
When Lindy and Sunny returned from the Lowe household, Seer Jon, Leon, and Sandy had abandoned their money-earning pursuits, at least for the moment, and were deep in a discussion with Kami, and his new acquaintance, who apparently was Shellion. Devin Lowe had accompanied the women; in fact, he had transported them back to the market in what amounted to a small electric car, a vehicle he had helped to design and build at his workplace.
Apparently, mechanical transportation built by the
locals was frowned upon by the Elites, who liked to be the only ones to zoom around in flyers and flits. But some locals had discovered that the Elites were lazy when it came to enforcing bans on ground transportation, and now the researchers at Devin's workplace had begun to sell the electric cars, hoping that the longer the Elites put off coming down hard on the vehicles, the more difficult insisting on a total ban would be.
Kami introduced Shellion to Lindy and Sunny, after Devin had greeted him as an old friend, grinning delightedly to see him.
“Lindy is actually the leader of our group,” he told Shellion. “She's the real pro, so she gets to carry the heaviest responsibility.”
“Pro?” Shellion asked. “I thought that Leon and Sandy were Law Enforcers from somewhere or other, even though they can put on a pretty good musical act. Doesn't that make them pros?”
“It does,” Lindy answered him, “and I'm awfully glad that we have them with us. What I am is what's known as an Agent. I work for The Agency, the main task of which is to keep The Organization, or the Neotsarians from seeping out of their Sector—this Sector—of the Galaxy, and from taking over our worlds.”
“If you're trying to recover kidnapped people from the hands of the Elites, shouldn't you all be Agents?” Shellion asked.
“Sometimes we are,” Lindy replied smoothly. “At other times we Agents work with non-Agents since that can make us look more authentic. Like this time we're making like a bit of quickly put-together entertainment troupe, travelling here and there about the Neotsarian Sector of the Galaxy. Down on our luck, a little. Thinking of joining us?”
“Shellion, you should go,” Devin said. “This business sounds like just the sort of a thing that you've always been talking about. Get a good hit right at the heart of their operations, where the arrogant guys who think that they're the boss of everybody consider themselves totally invulnerable!”
“But can he sing? Or play an instrument? Or caper?” asked Leon. “We have to consider our cover story.”
Shellion laughed.
“I'm actually pretty good with an ancient stringed instrument known as a guitar,” Shellion said. “I don't have much of a voice, but I'm sure someone from my crew who can sing, would be thrilled to accompany me. Dini, for instance.”
He grinned at Kami.
“Of course, if she comes, Lew will insist on coming, too. He's gone on that girl, and she loves to ignore him, and make googly-eyes at every other young male around.”
“My Dad and I are going to be scouting for a suitable transportation for you people,” Devin said. “Both his company, and the one I work for, import and export goods of all kinds, so we're familiar with the freighter schedules. Most of them take passengers; that's about the only way we ordinary folk among the inhabitants of this Sector ever manage to travel among the stars. At least when it comes to trips we choose to take ourselves. We're going to try to work out a route, and a schedule which can take an adventurous entertainment troupe from here to Volgoid, since Volgoid is the likeliest planet where valuable slaves would be stashed, with a few stops along the way to authenticate the cover story.”
Sarah-Sunny stared at the table top in front of her. Everything was taking so long; it was frustrating. Meanwhile Coryn was suffering; she knew that for a certainty. Not that many others weren't, also, but it was his pain that affected her most directly.
She was aware of Lindy's hand on her shoulder.
“Take it easy Sis,” Lindy whispered to her. “We're moving along, faster than I had dared to hope. We'll get there yet.”
Shellion noted this little by-play, and a glance at Kami told him that he knew what it was all about. Was he looking angry because whatever the Elites had done was having ill effects on the little sister of the woman he was sweet on?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Coryn was trying to mentally befriend one of the cat-animals while he waited for Dyron to meet him for one of their chats on the outdoor bench. The hungry animal was not in the mood to be humoured. It was standing just on the other side of the fence which separated the beasts from the humans, and seemed quite aware of the fact that the consciousness which had approached it belonged to the man sitting on the seat on the little hillock by the building. The beast also broadcasted its impression that the man in question was, in spite of his emotional raggedness, a meaty specimen. Plenty of good, solid muscle on him; he would have sated the hunger of a few of the large cats, had they had the opportunity to tear into him.
The Agent withdrew from the not very pleasant mental contact with the animal, and fought down the despair which, these days, constantly seemed to flood his mind. He had spent the night in Evella's playroom—or perhaps the term torture chamber was the more correct designation—and he had been the usual mess of pain, anger, and frustration when she had sent him back to the Pleasure House. She had not flown him back herself; she had delegated the job to a couple of her burly minions who had seemed to have been scared of him, and had kept a stunner pointed at him the whole time. He had not spoken with them; not that he had anything personal against them. It was easy enough to see that they were doing as they had been told to, by Evella, or someone else in the Copoz household.
He stared at the the hungry beast which stood amid the trees and the shrubs on the other side of the fence, no doubt still wanting to turn him into a meal. Vaguely, he tried to sort the negative feelings that Evil Evella aroused in him, thinking, perhaps, that way to gain some control over them and himself.
Topmost in his mind was the anger, anger at having had his volition taken away from him, anger at the careless dismissal of his human rights. Beneath that was shame, shame of what he was being forced to do, and shame because he was not able to prevent it from happening. Was this what female rape victims experienced, he asked himself. Probably, he answered the question, and felt another surge of the anger which had become a constant companion. Then there were the frustration and the despair: why couldn't he do anything to help himself? He was a trained Agent, a good Agent; he ought to be able to break out of the trap! He also realized that his captors wanted him exactly where he was, physically, emotionally, and mentally. The Neotsarian Elite males had given him to Evil Evella for a reason—Evella made an excellent jailer for someone like him! She tore him into bits, rendering him less dangerous, in spite of his seething fury. All that fury was nonoperational, and did nothing except damage the owner further.
Even the cat-animal seemed to have taken note of that.
No, with or without Dyron, he was going to have to try hijacking the little flit, and effecting an escape. In fact, he hoped that Dyron and his fellows would decide that he ought not to come; the attempt would have a better shot at success if he took to the flit alone. Presuming that Dyron would help him with the cameras, as he had indicated that he might. It would be easier to find a hiding place for one person than for two, and as he had told Dyron, the bastard Neotsarians would not hesitate to shoot the dark-skinned man, whereas they did still need him alive.
Dyron had said that Sarah, and some others, were coming, she disguised in such a fashion that even Coryn would not be able to recognize her by looks. That had to mean temporary body-sculpture; his insides twisted to think on it. He loved Sarah just as she was; how would he react to her as someone else? She had not known when they would be coming, and time had already passed—although he was hazy on how much time. The Keepers, no more than Evil Evella herself, were not keen on helping the slaves keep track of the length of their captivity, and Coryn, especially in the beginning, had not had the clear mental focus to count the days as they had slipped by. Just another indication that the Neotsarian tactics were working.
“I can't let them win,” he muttered aloud. “I absolutely can't.”
Dyron arrived to sit down beside him, softly as was his habit.
“We decided that I would not accompany you, but that we would help you as much as we could,” he said in a low voice. “I'd be willing, but the others, they agree with you that I shoul
d not risk death, if help is coming. One of us has a touch of foreseeing, and he thinks that the chances of getting away are not good, not even for you alone.”
“He's probably right,” Coryn answered. “But I have to try. Otherwise, I'll lose what little mind I have left.”
Dyron placed his hand over Coryn's on the bench.
“I know,” he said. “That's why I'm not even going to try to talk you out of it. So, we'll do it, the next time you're here when the woman with the little flit brings back the Terran boy.”
He lifted his hand just before Ariane stepped out of the building, and got up to walk to the fence where the big cats stood.
“Those dark-skinned guys are pretty weird with the cats,” Ariane said to Coryn. “It's as if they can communicate with them.”
**
Several days passed by before the opportunity to put the plan into action came.
Ariane and her Underkeepers had time to grow rather exasperated with the way the dark-skinned men had began to hang around the flyer landing pad. There seemed to be at least one of them near it during all daylight hours, observing the comings and goings of the flying vehicles.
“I don't understand what they're up to,” she said, when she reported the development to her bosses. “They must realize that even if they could grab one of the flyers, they wouldn't get very far in the city. They look different enough from the run-of-the-mill population that the Law Enforcers would pick them up in no time at all. And it's not the Terran guys who are doing the hanging about; they seem pretty oblivious to whatever is going on.”
“Do the aliens associate with the Terrans much?” her boss asked. “I mean, could they be conspiring together? Whispering in corners, or outside by the fence, where the spy-ears can't catch what's being spoken?”
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