Murd bowed. "Yes, sire. It shall be as you say."
He turned to McCade. "Tell me, good knight, would you have a holo pix or other means of identification by any chance? Our markets are large, and there are many cubs."
Rico scowled at the thought and reached inside his vest. He removed a data cube and handed it over. "Photos, descriptions, it's all on this."
Murd bowed once more. "Thank you, squire. Work will begin immediately." Then he backed toward the tapestry and disappeared.
Lif hoisted a pitcher and filled their mugs with more vak. "So, my friends, let us drink to Murd's success, after which I will seek your advice and counsel."
McCade lifted his mug and took a small sip. Here it comes, he thought to himself, the price for Lif's cooperation. Chances were Murd wasn't doing a damned thing and wouldn't until Lif made it clear that he should. Lakorians were shrewd bargainers, one reason why they'd been so successful as slavers, and everything had a price. He decided to move the process along.
"Advice, Your Highness? Surely you have advisors more qualified than we?"
Lif chuckled indulgently. "Yes, good knight, on things like taxes, crops, and fertilizer. But when it comes to matters of war, my advisors lack imagination. Surely you remember this from our campaign against the despot Zorta?"
McCade did remember. Though brave, the Lakorian officers tended toward all-out frontal attacks, and were something less than innovative.
Nonetheless, McCade was careful to avoid acquiescence, and an indirect insult to the Lakorian general staff. After all, if Murd liked to hang out behind the tapestry, there might be others as well.
"A successful campaign as I recall, Your Highness, and one in which your forces performed admirably."
Lif laughed. "Your tact does you credit, Sir Knight. But enough of this dancing around. Chances are it will take Murd a few days to check all the slave markets. In the meantime I have a small problem and would appreciate your help and advice."
McCade blew smoke toward the distant ceiling. Lif had set the trap. There was little he could do but jump in and hope for the best. "Of course, sire, we would be happy to help. What's the nature of the problem?"
Lif picked up a carving knife and waved it like a wand. "It's my brother, Bulo, the now Baron Lif. He has taken over a town outside of our ancestral lands and refuses to leave."
"I see," McCade replied with a. growing sense of dread. "And how can we help?"
Lif brought the knife down hard. Two inches of the durasteel blade penetrated the wood. It wobbled back and forth as he let it go.
"That should be simple, good knight. Go into the town, find my brother, and do what has to be done."
Six
Molly awoke from a fitful sleep as a hatch swung back on its hinges and hit the ship's hull with a dull clang. The woman they called Boots let go of the ladder and dropped the last few feet to the first level. The gratings shook with the impact.
The nickname stemmed from the way the woman looked from below, like a large pair of combat boots, topped by a black blob. Of course the children saw her at meals as well, a beefy woman with her hair in a bun, but the name still seemed to fit.
Acting on impulse Molly made a rude noise. There was a deathly silence for a moment, followed by giggles and laughter. It was the first time anyone had laughed since the attack on Alice.
Boots stamped a gigantic foot. The grating rang in response. "Who did that?"
Silence.
Boots spoke again. "Give me her name, or lose your next meal!"
Molly was afraid now. They received so little food that meals were extremely important. Most of the kids would protect her, but one was all it would take to give her away. She didn't know what Boots would do and didn't want to find out.
But there was only silence.
Boots climbed the ladder and closed the hatch. The children had sacrificed a meal but gained a measure of self-respect.
Those closest to Molly whispered their congratulations and asked what she planned to do next. Accidentally, and without forethought, Molly had become a leader.
Molly knew Mommy was a leader, and a good one too. She chaired the council that ran Alice. And Mommy said Daddy was a leader as well, the kind you want to have when there's trouble, or when people start to give up.
All of Molly's life she'd heard them talk about politics, about people, about how to get things done. What would they say about this situation? What could she do to help herself and those around her?
Molly could almost hear her mother's voice. "Basics come first. Nobody wants to talk about freedom and justice until their stomachs are full."
Molly winced. Rather than give them food she had taken it away. Sure, the incident had granted her some temporary popularity, but that wouldn't last long. Hunger was stronger than loyalty.
First she must find a way to fill their bellies and improve their living conditions. Then it would be time to discuss things like freedom, which in this case meant escape.
Hours passed. Finally it was mealtime once again. The hatch opened and hit the hull with the usual clang. Boots dropped to the grating.
"All right, any wise comments this time?"
Silence.
Boots grunted her approval. "Good. All right, you little hold rats, time for din-din, top grating first. Hurry up, I don't have all watch."
There were the usual rattlings and clankings as the topmost layers of children crawled toward the ladder and climbed upward. Boots administered an occasional lick to the slower ones urging them to "hurry up or forget the whole damned thing."
Forcing herself to ignore the pain caused when her filth-encrusted clothes came in contact with the open sores on her arms and legs, Molly tried to think, tried to imagine a way in which she could use this brief moment of comparative freedom to better their living conditions. Try as she might nothing came to mind.
The children blinked as they left the darkness of the access way and entered the brightly lit hangar. As usual there was a row of shuttles and interceptors along the far side of the bar, attended by a small scattering of maintenance bots, and some ship-suited technicians.
The mess line cut the space in half and the A's, B's, and C's were already going through it. Molly could smell the yeasty slop and her stomach growled in response.
Shuffling forward when the line did, Molly forced herself to look around. She must remember to think. What could she do to better their circumstances? Wait a minute, who was that?
A rather pleasant-looking man with some sort of lump on his shoulder. What was that thing anyway? Molly had never seen anything quite like it. Whatever it was looked kind of pretty, all shiny and shimmery, like the fabric in Mommy's best dress.
In any case, the nice-looking man was talking to someone else, a man who looked anything but nice. He was big, like a weight lifter, and wore a heavy leather harness instead of a shirt.
Without thinking, without considering the consequences, Molly left the chow line and walked toward them. They were in charge, she could tell that from the way they stood, and the other crew members shied away. She had thirty or forty feet to cover. It looked like a mile.
What was it Daddy had told her? If you're doing something you shouldn't, act natural, look relaxed. People see what they're conditioned to see. So Molly walked when every fiber of her body wanted to run.
And it worked. Molly was only five feet away from the two men when she heard a yell of protest and the sound of running feet.
The nice man turned, laser blue eyes locking onto hers like range finders, a smile touching his lips. The slug thing shimmered wildly and seemed to ooze a few inches to the right. The man didn't seem to notice.
"That's close enough, child. You smell like the bottom of a recycling vat."
Molly stopped and drew herself up straight. "Exactly, sir. Are you in command?"
The man gave a slight nod. "Yes, I am."
Loud footsteps came up behind her and a heavy hand fell on Molly's shoulder. She knew
who it belonged to without turning around. Boots sounded half angry, half scared. "Come here, you . . . I'll teach you to disobey my orders!"
The man held up a hand. "Hold. I want to hear what she has to say."
"But, sir . . . I . . ."
"Silence. Let the child speak."
Molly's heart beat wildly in her chest. The blue eyes were cold and empty of compassion. What could Molly say that would move a man like this? Her voice quavered slightly.
"Sir, if you are in command, then we children are your property. It seems safe to assume that you plan to sell us. Yet we receive only two meals a day, no medical care, and spend most of our time on bare metal gratings."
Molly held out her arms. They were covered with infected sores. "Look at the condition of your property. Our value falls further with each passing hour. Eventually some of us will die."
"Is that it?" The man's voice was hard and unyielding.
Molly swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."
The man looked up over Molly's head. The meaty hands disappeared from her shoulders. "The child makes sense. Feed them three times a day. I will send the medical officer. Arrange for clean clothes. See to their quarters." He gestured toward the blond man. "Raz will inspect them once per cycle."
Molly felt Boots stiffen behind her. "Yes, sir!"
The man nodded and turned away. A few seconds later he and Raz were in deep conversation.
A hand fell on Molly's shoulder. It guided her away from the chow line to where some cargo modules were secured to tie-downs in the deck. As soon as the modules hid them from view Boots spun Molly around, grabbed the front of her ragged shirt, and pulled her in close.
"Listen, brat . . . and listen good! You think you're real smart, real slick the way you conned Pong, but you forgot one thing. He spends most of his time on the bridge . . . and I spend most of my time with you."
And with that Boots slapped Molly across the face. Then came more slaps followed by hard fists and huge boots. Darkness came as a welcome relief.
Seven
The hovercraft bumped and shuddered through a series of small rapids throwing the tightly packed serfs left and right. Adults swore, children cried, and a variety of domesticated animals growled, hissed, and squealed their objections.
It was bad enough for the passengers in the main cabin, but for McCade, Rico, and Phil, as well as the Lakorians assigned to assist them, it was part of a long, boring hell.
They'd been locked in the forward hold for two days now, unable to see out, and constantly thrown about.
Light came from a couple of high portholes and some tired chemstrips. And like most holds this one came complete with cargo, some unpleasant life forms, and plenty of strange odors. Their table was a cargo module, crates stood in for chairs, and odds and ends took care of everything else.
At the moment Rico and six of the Lakorian troopers sat around the table, playing poker and swearing prodigiously.
One of the Lakorians was named Ven, a crafty type who'd risen a couple of ranks since McCade's first visit years ago, and commanded the rest.
Ven folded with an expression of profound disgust and pushed the small pot in Rico's direction. The human raked it in.
It was good to see Rico having a little fun. He'd been dark and gloomy of late, something he denied, but the others recognized for what it was . . . grief. Vanessa's death had hit him hard.
McCade climbed up on a box and tried to look out through one of the small slitlike portholes. It was a waste of time. Between the spray thrown up by the hovercraft's fans, the rain that never seemed to stop, and the vessel's erratic motion, he could see little more than a gray-green blur.
McCade climbed down and lit another cigar. The air was already thick with smoke and moisture, but what the hell, it was something to do.
Phil opened one eye, didn't like what he saw, and turned over. The variant had built himself a bunk on the top of some packing crates and spent most of his time in it. The warmth and humidity made him miserable so he was sleeping through as much of the trip as he could.
There was a narrow open space along the port bulkhead. McCade used it to pace back and forth, cigar clenched between his teeth, smoke issuing forth in small puffs. At some point during the next hour or so the hovercraft should arrive in the village of Durn. Then he'd know what they were up against.
The whole thing sucked but there wasn't much McCade could do about it. Without saying so directly Lif had made it clear that the situation in Durn was directly linked to Murd's efforts on behalf of the children.
It seemed that Lif's younger brother Bulo had always been something of an embarrassment, spending most of his time chasing after females, and gambling away his share of the family fortune.
When Lif became king, Bulo had expected his brother to elevate him to an appropriately lofty post. Something lucrative but not very demanding.
So, when the post failed to materialize, and Lif refused his requests for favor, Bulo took drastic action.
Picking out a village, apparently at random, Bulo invaded using his entourage of toadies and young toughs to overwhelm the local police force.
Lif had received the predictable protest from Duke Isso, Lord of Durn and a powerful politician, not long thereafter.
Just as Bulo had intended, Lif found himself in a difficult position, forced to choose between a member of his own family and an important ally. If he used force against his brother, it would be the same as finding him guilty of a crime, and by Lakorian tradition, that guilt would extend to Lif's entire family including Lif himself.
And if the king didn't move against Bulo, Duke Isso would use the issue to make serious trouble in the House of Nobles, possibly leading to war.
Of course he could give Bulo what he asked, and forget the whole matter, but Lif knew better than that. Bulo would want more, and more, until the entire planet groveled at his feet.
No, that would never do. So the answer was to have someone else perform his dirty work for him, someone Lif could deny if necessary, someone like a group of itinerant aliens.
McCade dropped the cigar butt on the deck and ground it out under his boot.
Yes, the whole thing was more than a little transparent, but effective nonetheless. Lakor was a big planet, home to many slave markets, and only by securing Lif's cooperation could they be sure of checking them all.
That meant they'd have to find Bulo, snatch him out from under his army of butt kissers, and get him back to so-called civilization.
McCade was thrown forward as someone cut the power too fast. He caught himself on a cargo module and heard feet thump as the crew ran to get bumpers and boat hooks.
Now McCade was thrown in the opposite direction as the captain ordered full speed astern. Thanks more to luck than skill, the hovercraft hit the pier with a gentle thud and came to a stop. Then the power was cut and the vessel settled down onto her inflated skirts.
McCade scrambled up to the porthole, wiped away the condensation, and peered out. Minus the spray, and with only a slight misting of rain, McCade could see most of the dock. It was surprisingly well made and in good repair. A testament to Duke Isso's provident use of tax money.
He saw some ragged-looking serfs drag the gangplank into position, lift it up into the air. He heard, rather than saw it hit the hovercraft's deck.
At this point some passengers started to disembark but the staccato cough of an automatic weapon sent them fleeing back up the gangplank.
A brand-new group of Lakorians was starting to board. Although heavily armed, they acted more like civilians than soldiers, sauntering up the gangway as if boarding a yacht.
McCade turned slightly, pointing toward the doors and overhead hatch. The Lakorians, all members of Lif's personal bodyguard, took up positions opposite the two main entrances. Phil aimed his machine pistol up toward the cargo hatch and Rico waited with a blast rifle cradled in his arms.
McCade looked back just in time to see the Lakorian dandies disappear from sight.
He bit his lip and strained to hear what was going on.
There was a good deal of incoherent shouting as Bulo's followers asserted their right to search the hovercraft and the vessel's skipper told them to shove it.
The skipper had received a rather generous subsidy to carry the aliens in his forward hold, and to do so in complete secrecy. He could double-cross them of course, but that would mean double-crossing King Lif as well, a rather unhealthy thing to do.
The problem was finally resolved with a Lakorian-style compromise, in which the dandies were allowed to search the upper decks, while the holds remained sealed.
This saved face all the way around, and inconvenienced no one, except the peasants, who were more worried about getting enough to eat than notions of personal honor.
McCade's Bounty Page 5