Only a few other people got on the train at the Station; they looked like late-shift workers heading for their jobs. The ones who paid any attention to the Troupe members assumed that the strangers must have grown bored with the dullness of the evenings in their corner of Volgoid Prime City, and had decided to try a different locale. If the person thinking that way had been to one of the Entertainers' shows, he was likely hoping that the off-worlders would not run into trouble with the Law-Enforcers, or the Elites. Strangers did not always understand how easy it was to get on the wrong side of the Elites.
The Troupe members sat in silence while riding by the Space Port Station where they had caught the train travelling in the opposite direction, not that long ago. They stared tensely at the tall grey towers of the business district, and the dreary, closed shops on the lowest levels of the buildings. Beyond these, the train arrived at a central Hub Station; here the travellers had to change trains. Their destination, the map and schedule readers had determined, was on the outskirts of the Volgoid Prime City.
The Greencat had loped off earlier, preferring to make the trip on foot, at her own pace. She was confident of getting there before the others; she had left just after the second show had ended, as the shadows of twilight had begun to gather.
The city dwellers had mostly withdrawn to cocoon in their dwellings, discouraged, as they were, by the powers-that-be, from livening up the streets. Even in the Seaport area, little activity took place after nightfall. Jessy's Tavern, a stone's throw from the Park, hosted a few hardy souls who wanted to dissect the entertainment—these were mostly the young people who were keen on keeping the shows happening after the Troupe had left—over steins of Jessy's craft beer.
Lindy and Shellion had prepared answers for any curious fellow-travellers who might question the Troupe's presence on the trains at such a late (for Volgoid Prime City) hour of the day. But no-one approached them, not even during the wait at the Hub for the next train. Their fellow travellers merely eyed the strangers among them with a lack of enthusiasm, and almost no curiosity. Something about that lack of interest had the Troupe members huddling close together. Sunny found herself thinking that the Seaport area really did seem to be the lively corner of the city that the locals claimed it was, if only in comparison with the rest.
“We will have to do something to this Empire,” Shellion muttered to his fellow Yukoidians, Dini and Lew. “This city is a total disaster for the regular folk living in it. I thought our home world was badly out of kilter, but this....”
He let the words die away and shook his head.
Lindy, listening in, nodded vigorously.
“We'll have to get you help from the Confederation,” she said in a very low voice. “The Elites have got to go. They're perching at the apex of a system which is dying underneath them, yet they're refusing to let change happen.”
“Maybe that's why all this has happened,” Sunny spoke up, taking an unusual liberty. “The Creator that the Kordean Witches speak of has decided that things have to change in this portion of the Galaxy. We're the catalyst that's to get the reaction going.”
“An astute observation, Sunny,” Seer Jon said with a smile for her. “Nothing ever happens without a reason. Sometimes the trials we must endure make excellent sense when looked at in a much larger context.
“You might remind Coryn of that when we have got him out of the hole he has been in. He'll be needing the knowledge that the crap he's been through was not in vain.”
**
When Evella Copoz's flyer arrived at the Elite Women's Pleasure House, early in the evening, Coryn sighed with frustration. He had no desire to be dragged off to Evil Evella's boudoir; besides, he hadn't yet really recovered from the last session. Also, he had a feeling that something was going to be happening at the Pleasure House this night—Dyron and his compatriots had been acting tense all day, though offering no explanations.
To his surprise it was not Evella's bodyguards who alighted from the flyer, but Evella herself, carrying a tote with her. As she alighted, she spoke to the man who was piloting the vehicle, and once her high heels were solidly on the landing pad the flyer took off again. Evella headed for the building; Coryn who had happened to have been looking out at the landing area from a window, turned around and headed swiftly in the opposite direction. He hurried to the bench facing the cat-infested wood. Not that it would help, Keeper Ariane could easily locate him anywhere on the premises. However, he had no intention whatsoever, of seeming in the least bit willing to do Evil Evella's bidding.
“Ariane!” Evella shouted as soon as she was inside.
“Madame Copoz, how can I be of service?”
Ariane was quick to come to the entrance hall; clearly she was aware of Evella's arrival.
“I am going to have to have my session with my beautiful boy here, in house,” Evella said. “Geof and his male buds are taking over our home for a celebration, a big celebration, but I am not invited. There's been a big break in the project which he has been helping with. Elite Mogron, who's in charge of it, wanted to enjoy a big bash before he pulls all the strings together for the First Tier Elite who is sponsoring him. He wants to enjoy women at the bash so he can't have it at his place—his wife's a dried-up prudish prune. But she's the daughter of one who wears a gold-circle, so he must not annoy her. Not if he wants to keep his position.
“So, I've been kicked out of my house, and must take advantage of your rooms.”
She sounded petulant.
“Our rooms are quite suitable for the purpose, Lady Elite,” Ariane said soothingly. “Let us go into my office and see what's available, tonight, and you can make your choice. I can send one of the Underkeepers to fetch your favourite—unless you'd rather try a little variety, and have me send for one of the other courtesans?”
“Oh, send for my usual sweetie,” Evella said, her voice saccharine. “And have the Underkeeper take him to the room that I choose. Get her to stay there until I arrive. She can help me with the drugs that the pretty boy requires to perform. Annoying that, the need for the drugs; I guess he's getting a little old for a courtesan.”
“That is a problem with the enslaved male courtesans,” Ariane acknowledged. “They lose their enthusiasm for the work much too soon, and then have to be plied with drugs. Only the very youngest ones can manage without, and even they become difficult after a year or two.”
“And my boy is not really a boy any more,” Evella said with a nod. “He must be in his thirties by now.”
Keeper Ariane was slightly shocked by Evella's choice of the room—it was the rarely used one known as “the punishment room”—but she knew better than to comment. She merely checked her surveillance system to locate Coryn, and the Underkeeper nearest to him. She sent the Underkeeper to fetch him from outdoors, with instructions to take him to the room that Evella had chosen, and to stay there as long as Evella needed her.
“Now, did you want me to take you to the room immediately, Madame Copoz,” she then asked, “or did you want to have a glass of refreshment first?”
“If you're asking whether or not I want to indulge in drugs myself, before sex, Keeper Ariane, the answer is no. I like to enjoy my pleasures clearheaded. Besides which, when I'm with my sweetie, it's best that I have my wits about me at all times. I wouldn't put it past him to try to harm me if he thought that he could.”
Ariane thought that Evella Copoz had that right, especially once Coryn had seen what Evella clearly had in mind for him. But it was not her place to respond to the statements of the Elite women. Besides which, Evella Copoz, from all Ariane had heard of her, liked to live dangerously. Possibly, one day that attitude would catch up with her.
**
When the Troupe members left the train station, the Greencat detached herself from nearby shadows and joined them. Apparently, she had unerringly come to wait near the right door, although the station had at least two exits.
Lindy, aware that they were in a situation in which her
training would come in useful, fingered the stunner inside her pocket as she took the position behind the animal which was to lead them to their destination. The weapon added to her confidence, illegal as it was, in Volgoid Prime City. Even such non-lethal arms were routinely confiscated from off-planet visitors at the Space Port, so the Team had brought in none. However, Shellion had used one of the connections he seemed to have made in the city, to obtain a number of the benign weapons. Of the Team members, only Sunny did not carry one, but she, of course, had a much more powerful weapon: the combination of her amarto and her ESP.
The feral cats in the wooded enclosure, Seer Jon had explained, had been persuaded, by the Greencat, to become another weapon in the Team's arsenal. They would be most useful if the Elites took it upon themselves to try to stop the Team from releasing the prisoners, the Seer had added. It appeared to Lindy that the outline of how the Kordean Marriage Blessing and Curse would operate, in this case, was beginning to show itself.
Shadow-filled, but otherwise empty, streets and avenues slipped by under the Team members' feet. The Greencat had slowed her pace to accommodate the slowest of the bipeds: Sunny-Sarah with her short legs, and the Seer-Guru with his older ones. Shellion, from his position behind Lindy, shook his head at the emptiness of the streets; the Volgoid curfews struck him as foolish, if, in this instance, fortunate for him and his companions. Sure, it meant that fewer law enforcers were needed to patrol the streets, but any felon willing to ignore the curfew had things all his own way. No curious eyes noted his passing, nor witnessed what he was doing. Just as there was nobody to see the Team members slip along the shadowed walks in silence.
They came to the end of the rows of houses, and apartment blocks. Beyond a cross-street was a wide, grassy expanse, and, behind it, a treed park. The Greencat stopped on the grass, and turned to face the others. Seer Jon leaned down to caress her back, while, no doubt, communicating with her.
Moments later, he looked up.
“There's a gate into the fenced portion of the park along a path which we can access from here,” he said. “It's locked, of course, but the mechanism is a simple one, involving no electronics.”
He sniffed.
”A pointless expense, electronics would be, since the animals do not have opposable thumbs, and people who do, have been convinced that the beasts are to be feared. The lock is there to keep the mischief-minded from opening the gate and running off, leaving the cats to discover the way out, and into the city, causing panic among the population.”
“These should take care of it, then,” said Shellion, pulling out a bunch of metal sticks on a ring from his pocket.
Kami laughed.
“Lock-picks,” he said. “I should have guessed that you would come prepared!”
“Lock-picks, yes,” Shellion agreed with a grin. “Probably useless on most Confederation worlds, from what I've gathered from listening to all of you, but they can come in very handy in this sector of the Galaxy. Like they will, now.”
“They'd be of use on Paxic IV,” said Leon. “I've had to confiscate a few bunches at work. Pity I didn't think to grab a bunch from our bin of odds and end before Sandy and I left on this mission!”
“Volgoid Customs would have confiscated yours, Leon,” Shellion said. “But, no worries. These will work just fine, especially if I hand them over to Lew who has more expertise with their like than I do.”
“More experience using them, you mean,” Lew said with a chuckle, accepting the bunch from Shellion. “I was the trusted break-and-enter operative in our group on Yukoid!”
“The trusted break-and-enter operative,” Lindy said, eyebrows up. “Pity this is not the time or place to explore that statement!”
“Isn't it, though?” Shellion responded with a laugh, before turning to the Seer.
“You're sure that the feral cats won't touch us?” he asked. “This is not a good time to become a meat dish for hungry beasts!”
“The Greencat promised them that if they leave us and the prisoners alone, we will not interfere with anything that they might want to do to the Elites who are responsible for keeping them half-starved, and penned up.” The Seer-Guru smiled sardonically, “So, as long as you can keep your humanitarian impulses under control when it comes to the Elites, we'll have no problems.”
“Think that the Elites will show up?” Lindy asked.
“Sure they will,” answered Shellion. “They'll be thinking, when one of the in-House workers calls for help, that all that they need to do is rush over here with their so-called Law-Enforcers, or body-guards, and do some shooting. And pick up the Stone-sensitive girl that they're after!”
He threw a glance at Sunny who, like always, it seemed, was flanked by Lindy and Sandy. Looking at the girl it was hard to believe that she was the one on whose talents the whole operation depended. How had the Elites broached her disguise?
Sunny caught him looking at her, and grinned back, brightly. Sarah, within her, was more than just stirring. She was mentally preparing herself for her part! She fingered the lacings of the browhorn testicle sac in which her amarto was concealed. Oh, she was ready for action!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lew dangled the ring of lock-picks from a pinky finger as he examined the mechanism which he had been asked to open, and snorted derisively.
“A piece of crap,” he said. “I could deal with this with one hand behind my back, in pitch darkness. Why hasn't some enterprising young lad let these cats out a long time ago? We'd have done it on Yukoid, and made pets of the beasts at the same time!”
“Never underestimate the power of fear to enforce what the powerful, or those assumed to be powerful, cannot enforce themselves,” said the Seer-Guru. “And fear can become an ingrained habit, especially when it's implanted into your soul when you are a child, and is reinforced by everything that happens around you.”
“Pockets of hope exist even on this sorry world,” Shellion said with a small grin. “And, I suspect that what we're about to do is going to expand them—assuming the word gets out!”
“Someone will have to make sure that the word gets out,” murmured Lindy, her eyes on Lew and the lock-picks.
Lew had attacked the lock. He was not in pitch dark, although the light around them was dim, neither did he have one hand behind his back. Thus he made short work of the offending mechanism, and pushed the gate open before any of the others had the chance to grow in the least impatient. The ten of them poured into the woods, to be met by about a dozen lean animals who sniffed at them eagerly.
“Oh, you have been cruelly mistreated!” cried Sunny-Sarah, squatting down to caress two of the skinny animals. “I'm so sorry! We would have brought you food if we could have, but....”
“But buying lots of raw meat or fish, and then hauling it with us on the train would have attracted attention even in this ridiculous town,” Sandy finished the sentence for her, caressing another one of the feral animals. “And we're of more use to these creatures, where we are, rather than if we'd ended up in jail, being interrogated by some meat-head Law-Enforcer!”
“Hey, Sandy, aren't you a law-enforcer yourself?” Lew asked in a teasing voice.
“Sure,” Sandy agreed placidly enough. “But I don't work for lunatics who starve animals. Never have. Never would.”
“Let's get moving, troops,” Lindy said, while Shellion pulled the gate almost shut, ensuring that the locking mechanism stayed open. “We've got work to do.”
Her words drew the Team members into immediate alertness, and the ears of the cats' perked up at her tone. Every creature seemed to be eager to act.
The Greencat, along with the feral cats, headed towards the second gate. That gate would take them onto the premises of The Elite Womens' Pleasure House, the prison where young, enslaved men had to perform as sex-slaves to bored upper caste women.
The human Team members followed the beasts, each of them tense with the knowledge that their target was mere minutes away.
Sarah
-Sunny kept her attention focused on the feral cats, even as the Guru had suggested that she do, while the Team had been on the train.
“It's better if you avoid psychic probing,” he had said in a low voice. “I know that you have enough ESP that you can scan the target, even without using your Stone, once we're close to it. But you may well be quite recognizable mentally, and we want to be sure that your presence is not known to the enemy until we're ready to take action. I know you're keen to touch Coryn's psyche, but, if the Neotsarians have a surveillance system involving amarto shards, and their amarto-detecting mechanisms, you contacting him would give away our game in an instant. We want to avoid notice for as long as we can—unfortunately, no matter what, we won't be able to do so for long.”
There was another reason why he had wanted to keep Sarah from probing. He had been in contact with Dyron and been told that Evil Evella had come to the Pleasure House and had settled into the most feared of the client rooms with Coryn who had been gritting his teeth when an Underkeeper had come to fetch him. The Team could not afford an emotional bomb to go off during the operation which required speed and finesse. And Sarah had to be able to handle responsibly a huge burst of amarto-power.
One of Dyron's planetary compatriots had overheard Evil Evella tell Ariane that the male Elites in charge of luring Sarah to Volgoid had chosen this very night to celebrate their achievements, news welcomed by both the Guru and the Greencat. For the moment, they had chosen to keep the information to themselves, but hoped that the circumstance would give the rescuers a few more precious moments in which to work. The Guru grinned to himself, recalling that Shellion had called that one correctly, a day ago. The Yukoidian troublemaker either had excellent instincts, or else had discovered, and retained in his cranium, a lot of useful information about the habits of the Elites of Volgoid!
That troublemaker was perhaps the most comfortable of the Team members at the moment. His was the type of personality to thrive on rebellion, and there was plenty to rebel against in the Neotsarian Sector of the Galaxy! He was a risk-taker, who enjoyed putting himself into dangerous situations. Plus, presently he was involved in a good cause, one he could be proud of!
Revenge of the Catspaw Page 27