by Eric Flint
“Umph. I think I’ll whistle at all of them. Those that don’t run are really sick,” said the Leewit crossly. “I thought I could go fishing or something. Goth and the captain are going fishing. It’s not fair.”
“I can tell them to go away.”
“No,” said the Leewit, regretfully. “Tell them I’m going to be especially rude to the ones who are faking.”
Unfortunately, as she later discovered, the Na’kalaufer still considered that a treat, and a story to tell.
* * *
It was a long and tiring day for the Leewit. The tides dictated that they’d be leaving by the next afternoon. And when she got back to the ship, she’d barely had time to sit down and drink caram juice and wonder when Goth and the captain would get back from fishing, when Me’a came in.
“I thought you were going to catch a boat home. We’re going to have to charge you rent,” said the Leewit grumpily.
“I was,” said Me’a, “but I have thought about it for a long time, and waited to ask you something. You have never been anything but rude to me since you met me. Others you are sometimes polite to. But me, never. Why?”
The Leewit looked at Me’a in her wheelchair. “Because I felt you needed it.”
Me’a nodded slowly. “It took me some time to work out what you were doing, but I am in your debt. I was about your age when the disease struck me. I think that was the last time anyone treated me as you have. It is a great gift, Your Wisdom. I have thought at great length about what I needed to do to adequately reward you for what you have done for me, and for others who would have suffered my disease.”
“I didn’t ask for any reward,” said the Leewit. “I have lots of dried fish.”
“No,” said Me’a with a slight smile. “You did not. Instead you gave me more healing. You called me a silly cow. I did not understand immediately. But I think I do now. You showed me neither pity nor fear. Not showing pity…that I understood. It took me a little while longer to work out how powerful you were, that you need not show fear because you could kill if you wished to. If you can reach into people to heal, you can reach into them to kill.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just did what I always do.”
“I know. It is as much part of you as breathing. You showed yourself to be someone whom it would be an honor to serve, to be my Ta’taimi, if you will accept my service. It is fitting that you should be rewarded with what I have. I am Me’a, and I pledge myself to your service. You may not see that you need me yet, but you will. Ta’zara is a great warrior. I am a great organizer. A tactician, of some repute, it is said.”
“Can you play poker?” asked the Leewit.
Me’a nodded. “Not very well. It’s been a long time. I am sure you will explain the rules to me.”
The Leewit looked darkly at her. “Huh. With an answer like that I’m gonna have to stick to playing for points, not money. That takes the fun out of it.”
“Chicken stakes,” said Me’a, cheerfully. “Never more than a tenth of a mael.”
“Why do feel I’m being suckered?” said the Leewit.
“Because you are. It adds up remarkably quickly, and is much easier to lead someone into debt with just little bets. It will, of course, be my privilege to instruct my Ta’taimi into certain skills.”
“And,” rumbled Ta’zara, “to recall that as her hearthman what you win is the property of the Ta’taimi.”
The Leewit turned to him. “So…what do you think?”
Ta’zara smiled. He seemed to find that so much easier now. “She is a very bad woman. She cheats at cards, and she is good at that. Her bond-guards told me so. But my work is not to think for you or decide for you. I am your warrior, not your war counsel.”
“If I were your war counsel, which I am not,” said Me’a, “I would point out that the captain and your sister plainly intend to marry. And in the fashion of marrying people, they may well settle down for some years and have children. It is my thought that the Leewit does not plan to settle down just yet.”
“No,” said the Leewit gruffly. “You got something there. Goth’s going just like Maleen. All soppy. I still want to go back to the circus.”
“I could assist. Arrange. Do some of the tasks the captain does, while Ta’zara provides the rest, and I have some skills that could get us out of trouble,” said Me’a, persuasively. “You are, of course, the Ta’taimi. You decide and you order. But as far as many of the worlds of the Empire are concerned—they will treat you as a child. I can act as your proxy. Fool them that I give the orders.”
“I think I am going to talk to the captain about it,” announced the Leewit, and went off to do so. She found him and Goth in the control room, having just gotten in from their fishing expedition. Holding hands. It did make a sharp point out of what Me’a had said. Both he and Goth looked…very happy. Like they were sort of part of each other.
Abruptly, the Leewit realized that they were, or would be soon. Goth was of marriageable age now. She and the captain had always had a tight bond, but the nature of it was changing. The Leewit swallowed hard. She didn’t like changes, as a rule—and this one was going to be especially hard on her.
“Come to talk to you two,” she announced. Goth didn’t take her hand away from the captain’s, she noticed. That had changed too.
“We’re listening,” said the captain.
“Yeah. Well, you two are going to get married, aren’t you?” asked the Leewit.
“I told the captain about that long ago,” said Goth. “When we get back to Karres. If this trip takes too long, I’ll be on the shelf,” she said with a laugh.
The Leewit didn’t find it funny. “Yeah. Well, I figured. So I better do some planning. ’Cause I’m not going back to Karres yet.”
The captain looked startled. “But…” he paused, looked at Goth, inquiringly.
Goth shrugged. “She was too little to go off on her own when we went to Porlumma. But she wanted to come. And the prognosticators told Toll and Threbus you’d be along. I guess they have plans now too. Usually younger ones get paired or grouped. We’re kind of free agents…sort of.”
“I’m busy making plans all by myself,” said the Leewit. “Well, with Me’a. And Ta’zara.”
Goth grinned. “You know, I was just saying to the captain that I’d bet that Me’a had made some kind of plan to come along.”
“So…you think it’s a good idea?”
“I think she would be hard to stop,” said the captain. “Or at least hard to stop her following us. And it’ll be easier to watch her from close by than when she is following us in her own ship.”
“She’s got her own ship?” asked the Leewit.
“It set down yesterday.” Goth pointed to a ship visible on the viewer. “She came up to the bridge and asked us if she might contact her. Maybe she doesn’t want us to know she’s gotten her own communicator. Maybe she was just being clever, figuring out not telling us would make us mad when we found out. I reckon she is pretty smart. She’s the kind who likes to think a few steps ahead all the time.”
“Which is fine until the steps don’t go the direction you thought they would,” said the captain.
“We could stop her,” said the Leewit. “I mean she’s rich and sneaky, but we’ve got klatha.”
“Yep. But do you want to?” asked Goth. “She’s even got a ship for you to use.”
The Leewit turned away hurriedly, because she hadn’t wanted to think about that. When the captain married Goth…the Venture 7333 was his ship, not hers.
The captain seemed to know what she was thinking. “This is your ship too. There’ll always be space on her for you.” He paused. “Unless you put another stink bomb in the air recycler.”
That made her laugh. “Going to clumping well have to think of something worse now!” And she went off to find Me’a and Ta’zara.
* * *
“I think that they think it’s a good idea. Why didn’t you tell me you have your own ship?” she
asked Me’a.
“Because it is never good to show all your cards. That is something the Wisdoms of Karres know, don’t they?” She rolled her chair forward and held out both hands, palms up. “Will you accept my service?”
The Leewit looked at her. “So what am I supposed to say? If you were being my advisor.” She spoke Na’kalauf, because of her klatha skill, and she knew the word didn’t quite mean advisor. More like war counselor.
“Put your hands on mine and say, ‘Yes, I accept you. You are mine,’” said Me’a.
“Is that all?” asked the Leewit.
“Yes. It doesn’t really matter quite what is said. That is where the Na’kalauf’s people differ from the Empire. Binding is easy. The more serious it is the easier it is because there are fewer conditions. For La’gaiff, there are no conditions at all. It is the unbinding that is hard. So you do not bind yourself lightly. I have considered this and reached my decision.” There was a calm certainty in Me’a’s voice.
“And what is my side of this?” asked the Leewit. “I haven’t got much gold. And I have to leave some with young Je’tara.”
“Such gifts are the traditional reward for great service,” said Me’a. “Which I would still have to do. And I have a lot, and as my property is now yours to use, it will not be a problem. You can make it my task to see to it.”
“All right then,” said the Leewit. “Do it.”
CHAPTER 17
The trip to Iradalia-Karoda was relatively uneventful other than the normal happenings of interstellar travel. There were a few encounters with possibly hostile ships, but no need for the Sheewash Drive. Navigationally it was quite a clean piece of space. They did what was normal on such legs—the Venture got cleaned, checked over, and the Leewit played cards with anyone she could. Even Me’a.
“I should command you to stop beating me,” she said sourly.
“Of course. If that is your command,” said Me’a.
“No. That’d be no fun then,” the Leewit grumbled. “My turn to deal.”
The captain spent some of the trip learning more wrestling skills from Ta’zara. It was a useful way of working out his limits, and working up a sweat.
Goth spent her time—very much in private—trying to ’port things. And to her horror, failing. There didn’t seem to be a teaching pattern to tell her what to do. And she just couldn’t bring herself to talk about it, yet. Not with anyone.
The Iradalia-Karoda system was rather beautiful, if you looked at it from space. One reddish and one bluish world spun in close orbits around each other. The binary planet had several rings around it, obviously the remains of moons that had met each other a bit too closely. “Wonder how long before the whole thing falls apart,” said the captain, looking at the place on the forward viewscreens.
“If you live on Iradalia—that’s the bigger, redder one—you believe it is only the divine grace of Irad that stops it happening tomorrow. If you live on Karoda you know they’re getting a tiny bit further apart,” said Me’a.
“You’ve been here before?” asked Goth.
“Early in my career. Iradalia produces some lovely gemstones, the export of which is very highly taxed. And of course there is a rich profit in avoiding their import and transit taxes and customs.”
“And Karoda?” asked Goth.
Me’a raised her eyebrows at her. “Bespoke slaves. Willing slaves, who like being slaves. I don’t know what they do to them, but that left nothing for us to make money on. Karoda had nothing of interest to smugglers, and is not an easy or safe base. We make most of our profits by not giving monies to governments and selling goods which the government laws don’t allow. Karoda doesn’t have taxes, or even much in the way of laws. It’s a pretty wild place, as the Iradalians find out every time they’ve tried to invade it.”
“Oh. I gathered there was some sort of war going on,” said the captain, fishing.
“There has been for centuries. It’s quite funny in some ways. It’s a bit one-sided, really. Karoda’s people can’t be bothered to do more than womp their troops every time the church of Irad sends them in. Iradalians tend to make pretty bad fighters. Very few of them know which end of a blaster shoots, and even wrestling is considered evil in the sight of Irad. A hundred Na’kalauf warriors could walk all over Iradalia in a month. If Karoda was organized, or could be bothered, they’d go over and flatten the place.”
“Why do the Iradalians keep trying then?”
Me’a shrugged. “It’s supposedly about the slaves. But Iradalia makes a lot of their state’s money out of taxing those same slaves.”
“What?”
“They control the rings. Any ship getting in or out of Karoda needs to pay transit visas, and their goods pay a transit tax,” she explained. “So: Karoda makes a lot of money out of Karoda slaves, but Iradalia’s main source of income is ships going in and out. They even charge tax on the slaves. They claim that is intended to make the immoral business too expensive.”
“I thought you said Karoda could lick them in a fight,” said the Leewit.
“Yes, but they’d have to want to. And get organized enough to do it.” She grimaced. “The Karodese don’t organize well. Or take orders well.”
“You say they charge transit visa fees… I think I just figured out that we got burned on that cargo,” said Goth with a scowl. “We got paid to transport it. Now we’ll have to pay their taxes.”
“Sneaky.”
“But I thought Karres organized that cargo,” said the captain. Goth had taken over looking after the Venture’s money, which he had found a relief. She was good at it, and seemed to like doing it, as much as the Leewit liked playing cards.
“Yeah. It’s still booked through us, though. I reckon we’ll get it back,” said Goth, sounding cross. “But someone set out to cheat us.”
“Karres is not in the business of destroying every cheat,” said the captain.
“Huh. We gotta clumping start somewhere,” answered the Leewit. “It might as well be with them.”
“Maybe later. We’ve got our primary job to deal with, remember,” said the captain.
“If I might ask,” inserted Me’a, “what is this primary job?”
By now they all knew that Me’a knew a fair amount about Karres—as much as Sedmon of the Six Lives did. But after talking it over with Ta’zara privately, they were pretty sure her oath to the Leewit was a near unbreakable one, so the captain didn’t try to avoid the subject. “We’re here to stop the war between them.”
Me’a shook her head. “Captain, you may as well try to stop the tide. The war has gone on for centuries. It’d only end if one side won. And that can’t happen short of sterilizing one or other planet. Karoda wouldn’t give up while there is one living person left, and they’re a culture that lives by their guns and fights all the time—except when the Iradalians attack, when they all go after them. Iradalia believes they have a religious duty to conquer Karoda, but they…well let’s just say you can’t train soldiers when you have none, and most of your instructors don’t know which end of a blaster shoots, and mostly end up running away. You’re not even allowed to have a weapon on Iradalia. They’d have to hire mercenaries, and they won’t do that because they believe it is the duty of true believers in Irad to destroy the evils of Karoda.”
“All the evils…or just slavery?” asked Goth.
“All of it. Slavery gets talked about most, but really the whole way of life on Karoda is something the Church of Iradalia can’t handle.”
“And the church gets to decide?” asked Goth.
“Iradalia is a theocracy,” explained Me’a. “The high priests decide everything.”
“It sounds pretty terrible.”
“For some understandings of terrible,” said Me’a. “They’re very kind. No one starves. Everyone gets rations. Everyone does what they’re ordered to.”
Something about the way she said it plainly made the Leewit suspicious. “And if they don’t?”
�
�Well, the priests’ secret police would kill you. It’s not a society for disagreeing,” said Me’a.
“I understand why Karres doesn’t want them winning. They didn’t want Karoda winning either. The prognosticators say both would be bad,” said Pausert.
“There’s no pleasing some people,” said Me’a. “Seriously, for Karoda to win, Karoda would have to change, become organized, and then yes, they’d be dangerous.” She looked at Ta’zara. “When it comes to combat with arms, at range, they are better fighters than the warriors of Na’kalauf. They do that all their lives, and have for centuries.”
“They sound really friendly,” said Goth in a sarcastic tone.
Me’a smiled. “They are. Provided they feel like it. Everyone is armed, and everyone is ready to use those arms. They’re mostly very polite, very honest and very friendly. It’s when they stop being that that it that turns ugly fast.” She looked at the Leewit. “Best not to call them names first, Ta’taimi.”
“Huh,” said the Leewit. But it was a thoughtful huh.
They were soon in hailing frequency. It was demanded what ship they were, and their destination. Captain Pausert gave their current identity, and their destination as Karoda.
The voice over the communicator informed them they would need to dock at the customs asteroid, and gave them the coordinates. “All cargo for Karoda need to be inspected by customs priests of the Theocracy of Iradalia, and you need to pay the appropriate transit taxes. Attempting to evade these will result in your ship being destroyed.”
The captain snapped the communicator off, having seen the Leewit drawing breath. “You can’t whistle at them. And you can’t use dirty words on them either,” he said, sternly. “I’m still the captain here.”
“And you’ll probably get a chance once we’re being inspected, little sister,” said Goth. “Iradalia sounds like it might make Nikkeldepain look like a fun place.”