The Shaman of Karres

by Eric Flint

  “For a fee, naturally.”

  “Blaster charges aren’t cheap,” said the port operator, cheerfully.

  “I could like this place,” said Goth to the captain.

  The captain nodded. “It does seem friendly enough.”

  That impression changed while they were unloading the cargo into the Soman warehouse. The warehouse was little more than a roof on steel posts—open, as were the others around the spaceport. The only visible difference was that this one was bigger. The fact that thieves probably would be shot seemed to have reduced the need for locks or fences. While they were there, a group of about twenty heavily armed men drove up in three flatbed floaters. “This the cargo for Soman?” asked one, leaning out of the cab.

  “That’s what it says on the consignment note,” said the captain.

  “Right. You want us to sign for receipt?”

  “They told us we had to get that to get paid,” said Me’a. “Not that we’d care, otherwise.”

  That seemed the right answer to give. Men got out of or off the flatbeds to start loading, and the driver signed the consignment note. Then someone got out of the third flatbed cab, looked at the captain, and shouted, “You! What in Patham’s name are you doing here?”

  Captain Pausert looked at the stocky, rotund man. He’d swear he’d never seen him in his life before. “Delivering a cargo,” he said, calmly.

  “That’s not likely!” snapped the man. All around them heavily armed men stopped what they’d been doing…and reached for their weapons.

  “That’s Bormgo. From the Consortium on Cinderby’s World,” said Me’a, quietly. “I knew he came from here, but I never made the connection.”

  “Who are they, Borm?” asked the tall man who had signed the receipt.

  “He’s the one who shot up Herc’s ship. And then busted things open on Cinderby’s World. He was working with the Imperial cops.”

  They were facing a semicircle of twenty blaster rifles and other weaponry. “Coppers. Coming to Karoda,” said the tall man, shaking his head. “And they’re using kids and cripples for cover.”

  “We’re not Imperial police,” protested Pausert. “They arrested us on Cinderby’s World.”

  “Yeah? They seem to have let you go. They don’t usually do that,” said the tall man with a sneer.

  “We weren’t guilty. The judge let us go.”

  “They were in it up to their necks,” said Bormgo. “Very thick with that Chief Inspector Salaman.”

  “No, we weren’t!” protested Goth.

  “I think I might whistle at them,” said the Leewit, crossly. “Seeing as no one else seems keen to do anything.”

  “It will wait,” said the captain, sternly, before turning to say, “I’m sure we can explain. Our ship was just in the right place at the wrong time.”

  “Oh, really,” said Bormgo. “Well, I guess we’ll find out who is right and what is going on. You’ll tell us happily, after a little…treatment. Take them along, boys.”

  So that was how they found themselves being loaded up onto the flatbeds along with the cargo of forcecuffs in their crates. Well, almost all the cargo was in the crates. The slavers took some out to forcecuff them.

  The floaters edged their way along under the trees down a winding trail that took the Venture’s crew up toward the mountains. The Leewit, sitting next to Pausert, waited until their captors were talking and laughing among themselves to ask him what his plans were.

  “We’re getting to their base; we might get to find out what’s going on, and deal with it.”

  “I like ‘shoot their front end off, shoot their rear end off, and ram them in the middle,’ more than all this stuff.”

  “Patience. That’s the ‘deal with it’ part.”

  “Huh,” said the Leewit. “I’ve gotten some new special whistles I want to try.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ll get a chance.”

  “Or make a chance,” said Me’a, quietly. “There is fair amount of rumor about how the Wisdoms of Karres operate, but it is something of a surprise to me. It’s not the way I would have done things, but at this stage I am following Ta’zara’s advice: to watch and learn. Give the word when you need me to do anything.”

  One of their captors climbed back from the armored cab, to where they’d been put into a barred section on the second to last floater. He stopped in front of Ta’zara. “You’re one of those Na’kalauf fighters, supposed to be so tough, aren’t you?”

  “I am from Na’kalauf, yes,” said Ta’zara calmly.

  “That’ll put your price way up,” said the slaver. “An absolutely loyal bodyguard for life has gotten to be valuable.”

  “I already am a life-sworn bodyguard,” said Ta’zara, with calm finality.

  “I guess that’s about to change…agh…” The last part of that was as the man cartwheeled over the edge of the flatbed.

  The floater behind them stopped and plainly radioed theirs, because the entire caravan stopped. It was noticeable that the first thing their captors did was to deploy a watchful force—looking for attack from the forest. And it was plain the last thing that their captors thought could have happened was that the man, with a broken head and a broken leg, might have had his leg broken before he fell, not after. He wasn’t in any state to tell them, and so, after some rudimentary first aid, they loaded him up again and the floaters moved on, now with two watchful guards on the back with weapons at the ready, looking into the trees.

  “I could cure him,” said the Leewit, quietly.

  “That would be awkward,” said Me’a. “You see, at the moment, they think someone or thing out of the forest must have knocked him off. Not Ta’zara breaking his knee.”

  “You will not allow them to steal my loyalty, mistress?” asked Ta’zara. “It cannot be permitted.”

  “Besides the mess it would cause. Half of Na’kalauf knows he is the Leewit’s life-guardian. Breach of that oath…well, any man or woman of Na’kalauf would kill Ta’zara,” said Me’a. “If they ever found out that these Karoda slavers even tried to change that, it would probably mean war.”

  “I would kill myself first,” said Ta’zara.

  “No, you won’t,” said the Leewit crossly. One of the downsides she had found to being a healer was that she was aware of the pain of others—at least if they were badly hurt and close. She could block it…almost entirely. “We’re going to shoot their bows off, blow their stern off and ram them in the middle, just as soon as the captain gives the word…hey. We’re going into a cave.”

  They were. A whole labyrinth of them, by what they could see in the headlights. It was rather clear why Iradalia’s soldiers had never worked out where the slaver’s base was. The floaters left no trail through the caves. Eventually they came out of the oppressive darkness and back under the forest canopy again. But the Leewit had no idea in which direction lay the spaceport where the Venture 7333 stood. Then they drove through more forest, and back into a cave. It was a shorter journey this time, only broken by some blaster fire at a shrieking flying creature that swooped down out of the darkness to attack the guards. In the woods beyond that they saw a pack of long-fanged creatures watching them from the shadows. “They’re as big as a bollem,” commented Goth, who had been mostly silent on the trip.

  “Yes. I think the return journey is going to be interesting,” said the captain. “But I dare say we’ll manage. We’ve got a few skills they don’t have, don’t we?”

  “Um,” said Goth.

  The caravan of vehicles had arrived at an overhanging cliff into which a door was set. Not just a door, but a hull-metal door, triple-layered, big enough for the floaters to drive through, under guard turrets fitted with spaceguns. Even if the Iradalians got here with an army, it wouldn’t be easy to get in.

  In front of them loomed another door, equally impressive, equally well armed. Anyone breaking in this far would be in a fire zone. A solitary guard came out and went to the driver of the lead floater and spoke brie
fly to them.

  “Ah. Password. Melon. Answer, Cantaloupe,” said Me’a.

  “How do you know?” asked the Leewit.

  “The spy ray in my wheelchair. And a bone-induction earpiece. I’ve been listening in on them for most of the trip. I have not learned much of value. Bormgo is convinced you are more than you seem. The rest think he’s either wrong or stupid, but he is quite high up in the Consortium. So…when do we take action, Captain? I took the liberty of sending positional data to Vezzarn on a narrow-beam transmitter. We can communicate with the ship.”

  “Just let us get inside,” said Pausert, grimly. “I think I’ve had about enough of patience.”

  But they were ill-prepared for the fact that the slaving operation was an old one, and had long since developed a method of dealing with potential trouble from slaves. The floaters’ driving cabs had sealed windows, and the cavern had knockout gas.

  CHAPTER 19

  The captain awoke somewhat blearily to find he was in a prison cage—a cave with floor-to ceiling bars—and his ship coveralls had been replaced by a bright orange one-piece garment. He was sharing the cell with about twenty other prisoners—although, if they crowded them in, there was space for five times that. Ta’zara was also waking. His first question was: “Where is the Leewit?”

  “I don’t know,” said the captain, grimly. “But we’re going looking for the others.” He held out his forcecuffed wrists to Ta’zara. “Tap in the opening code. I want to be able to slug a few of these fellows.”

  Of course these were the cuffs that they’d brought along, and that Vezzarn had worked on, so Ta’zara could and did. No sooner had he done so than one of the others in the cell—a bent, elderly wizened man in an identical orange one-piece who had been industriously sweeping the cell a few yards from them—started yelling. Ta’zara might still have been forcecuffed, and groggy from the drugging, but the fellow never got to draw a second breath to yell again. Hastily, watching the others in the cell, the captain freed Ta’zara from his forcecuffs.

  “Can you do the rest of us too?” asked one of the other prisoners quietly. “Someone may check on what the yell was about. Probably another trusty.” He pointed at the unconscious sweeper. “He’s already a Karoda slave. Happy cleaning the cells and keeping watch on the prisoners. I guess he was too old for the Mantro barges. And he was telling us we’d all soon be happy too,” he grimaced. “I’d rather go down fighting.”

  He wasn’t the only one holding out his forcecuffed manacles. In fact, all of the other prisoners were.

  “I wish we could,” said the captain. “We only have the codes to these new ones. But we’ll break you out of the cell, anyway. We’re going.”

  He used his klatha ability to cocoon off the lock—which as it was no longer attached, they pushed out. That left them in a cave passage, lit by glow-globes. They met another trusty coming around the corner—this one did not even get to scream. The only problem was there was a choice of passages beyond, and no clue to which lead where.

  * * *

  The Leewit, Goth and Me’a also awoke in a barred-off cave. Me’a still had her wheelchair—but they’d been stripped and given a new pocketless garment. The Leewit was the first to wake. The first thing she noticed was that Tippi the rochat was not in the shirt of her new garment. In fact, wasn’t anywhere. That was enough to make her angry and worried, leaving aside being drugged and caged. They could use the Egger Route to escape, but what had happened to Tippi?

  She felt rotten so she tried using her healer skills on herself. Her teaching pattern said she’d been doing that already, which is why she was awake first. A little time would still be needed to clear the anesthetic gas through her liver, but it was happening. She set to work on her sister, and then Me’a. Knowing what was needed made it easier, and by the time they were awake her own feeling of sickness had largely gone. All she was, was hungry, angry and worried about her rochat. “Time we got out of here,” she said. “The captain can catch up with us. I need to find Tippi.”

  “Dears, you mustn’t try to escape,” said one of the other women in the cell, a dumpy older woman, barely looking up from her work of polishing the bars with a rag. She beamed at them quickly before going back to concentrating on her work. “You’ll soon be happy.”

  “I’m going to whistle at you,” said the Leewit, “And you’re not going to be happy.” She pursed her lips.

  Goth put a hand in front of the Leewit’s mouth. “Wait. That’s important. I’ve heard it before. I need to ask why we’re going to be so happy?”

  “You will be taken to the Ghandagar. I know you are afraid, but really it will be so much better afterwards. You will have service to be happy in. Believe me it is the best thing that could happen to you. I was never happy before. I was rich and powerful, but not happy.”

  “Jaccy’s woman, Yelissa,” said Goth. “I never realized she was a Karoda slave. Like this woman obviously is.”

  “It’s not slavery, child. I love to serve and I am happy. I never was that before.”

  The Leewit looked at the woman with her cleaning rag. “This is what they do to their slaves?”

  “I’d say so,” said Goth. “Nasty.”

  “It isn’t,” said the woman, calmly. “And you will find this is true too.”

  The Leewit walked over to her. “Hold my hand, will you?”

  The woman took it…and moments later slumped to the floor. The Leewit had to stop her head from hitting the ground.

  “Good thinking,” said Me’a. “She would have tried to stop us. But how did you do that?”

  “Shut up,” said the Leewit, fiercely. “I need to concentrate. I need to work out what has been done.”

  And she did. The good part was that she understood it, with a little help from the teaching pattern. The bad part was that it would be hard to undo. It wasn’t a very complicated neural change. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was—at least as far as the slave was concerned—that she really did feel just about exactly as people did when they were really happy…only a lot more. The Leewit knew, even without her teaching pattern, that any human would struggle to step away from that.

  It shared some characteristics, neural pathways, hormone and endorphin production stimulation of what humans called “love,” the teaching pattern explained. The brain of the slave had been changed, physically forming new pathways to ensure this.

  The Leewit, not used to not knowing how to deal with something, found herself not knowing what to do this time—except for making certain it didn’t happen to her or the captain or Goth. Or Ta’zara or Me’a or Vezzarn. Or, actually, anyone else. “Right,” she said letting go of the woman’s hand, leaving her unconscious on the floor. “It’s time we got out of here. Goth, can you ’port us some keys? Or a piece out of the lock? Hide us in no-shape so we can go looking.”

  Goth took a deep breath. “I can’t.”

  The Leewit looked at her crossly, her mood not helped by what she was trying to process. “Don’t be a dope, Goth. Stop waiting for the captain to do everything.”

  “Don’t you be a dope, little sister,” said Goth. “I mean I can’t. I can’t ’port anymore. I think I can still read things because this place is giving me the grue. I don’t want to touch anything. But my other klatha skills seem to be gone. I burned out. I used too much getting back down the Egger Route.”

  The Leewit stared at her and blinked. And then shook her head. “That…”

  “Hush. There is someone coming down the passage,” said Me’a.

  It was several of their heavily armed captors. The Leewit was quite pleased to see them right now. She got to whistle, finally. To use some of her directional whistles was just more pleasant than dealing with thinking about all this stuff. The first whistle was a thin, high-pitched whistle, a refinement on the whistle she had used on Moander. The delicate components of those heavy blasters’ charge units became shards of fragmenting glass. There was quite a lot of heat generated in the process, to
judge by their yells and desperate attempts to get rid of bandoliers of charge units. You could see that in the sudden flare of the burning units, as the passage lights also exploded.

  But the Leewit was in no mood to stop there. Sound, she’d found, was a lot more powerful than people realized. It could stun, induce anything from terror to confusion and make various muscles—including the ones controlling sphincters—suddenly relax.

  When she’d finished, Goth said, “Great. Now we’re still trapped, but in pitch darkness. And they stink.”

  A light glowed into life, on Me’a’s wheelchair. “Fortunately they don’t seem to have examined my chair too closely. I can cut the bars and get us out of here. If you want to go, that is? I think being somewhere else might be a wise move.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” said Goth.

  “Yes,” agreed the Leewit. “I need to look for Tippi. And bust their enslavement machine.”

  “Very well,” said Me’a. “I have some thermite putty. If you apply some around the bars for me we should be able to depart this cave, hopefully without bringing the roof down. You will have to close your eyes and cover your ears, of course.”

  “Get these forcecuffs off first,” said Goth, practically. “But then, yes, let’s blow this place.”

  So they did. The thermite putty ringed around the bars weakened them enough to make pushing them out easy, and they were able leave the darkness, the stunned captors and smoke, and head down the passage. “Your Wisdom,” said Me’a, as she struggled to steer past the bodies. “Not that I want to complain, but this is quite hard to negotiate in a wheelchair.”

  “Then why don’t you use your floater-boosters? I’ve seen you do so for stairs often enough.”

  “They use a fair amount of power. I’m not sure when I will be able to recharge. And, after your whistle some of my utilities are reporting damage, even if I wasn’t on the front end of it. I’ve gotten my diagnostics repairing what can be dealt with. This chair is normally as powerful as a small tank. Now it’s more like a small armored car.”