On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  “Don’t worry, Rakil,” he said. “If we need to do any stealing, I’ll do it. I’m sure I learned to do it without getting caught, before I was five!”

  *****

  Captain Gannon and his passengers put on a noisy show for the benefit of the Port workers, once the Marta was safely landed. Linny came out to help, begging Rakil to reconsider his exit, while he cursed the Captain, and explained to the Cook that there was no way he could stay, the way Gannon was cheating him on pay. Meanwhile Lank stood by and glared at Linny, muttering a few times that surely he and Rakil could do better, busking at any corner of Main Street, Port City, than working on the Marta.

  “Are you two entertainers?” asked a Vultairian worker, once Linny had rushed back into the belly of the ship, sobbing, and Captain Gannon had ostentatiously banged the passenger hatch shut.

  The Port worker stood by the Marta’s cargo hatch, beside a small forklift. He was there to pick up the Shelonian electronics, but Manny had not yet brought out the shipment; he had no doubt been watching the Rakil and Lank show, on the bridge visuals.

  “Yeah,” Lank responded. “I play the flute and I also sing, and my friend is a juggler who plays the drums for my singing, and the sing-alongs that I lead.”

  “You do sing-alongs?” The tall young man’s eyebrows shot up. “If you need work you two should stop at Marita’s Terrace and Bar. There are a couple of off-world women there, who do fantastic sing-along shows; they’ve got the whole town abuzz. They were working with a couple of guys who did comedy, but the fellows just left Port yesterday; they did well enough from the show that they were able to buy passage to The Marrachat Station, free and clear. The women are looking for a replacement act; they’ve got a local girl doing the singing during the supper hour, but even with that, I think it’s tough for them to keep the show going for the whole evening.”

  Lank and Rakil looked at one another.

  “Sounds like it’s worth checking out,” Rakil said. “Marita’s Terrace and Bar, did you say? How do we find it?”

  “It’s right on the Main Street after you exit the Port through the Customs House,” the worker explained. “Marita’s got the only big terrace on the block. You can’t miss it. She rents rooms to off-worlders, too, if you need a place to stay. Assuming she’s got any available right now.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Rakil said.

  Lank winked at him saying nothing. Kati and Joaley had got a message to them already, it seemed. Efficient women. Lank wondered if they had managed to incorporate Tarangay songs into their act—that would have been another message, besides the fact that they were great sing-along songs.

  *****

  Less than an hour later they were sitting on Marita’s Terrace with foaming beer mugs on the table between them. Lank was looking about him critically, noting the presence of the triangular stage in an inner corner of the large area, and the lack of a dance floor.

  “I can see where the performers do their thing,” he commented, “but where do the people who like to dance do theirs?”

  “In the aisles, probably,” Rakil replied flippantly, “and on the tables once they’re drunk enough.”

  “You’re right about the aisles,” said the waitress who was just passing by with a full tray of empty beer mugs. “But our bouncers, Batt and Mutt, make sure that even the drunkest dancers keep their feet on the floor. The local pooh-bahs would close us down in a second if we allowed dancing on the tables.

  “Coming to see our entertainment tonight?”

  The waitress had stopped beside Rakil and was assessing him visually. Rakil sighed. He was aware of the fact that Borhquan men had a reputation among Federation women. They were considered top-notch lovers, and there were plenty of the fair sex willing to overlook the hair growth on the nape and halfway down the back, and the hulking size of the men of his race, in order to test the theory. Perhaps this waitress was one of those; Linny on the Marta would have been delighted if Rakil had chosen to share her bunk with him. However, as Rakil’s coach in the arts amorous on Borhq had explained to him, a promiscuous man is rarely an ideal lover; women appreciate faithfulness in their partners. He was perfectly willing to admit that he adored sex, but not of the kind that saw him shown the door the first thing in the morning. He had been very careful to explain to Linny that the reason why he was rejecting her overtures was that there could be nothing more than a single week for them, and if he could not have more, he preferred to sleep alone. It was probably a credit to the older woman who had been his coach that the scarred cook took no offence. In fact, she and he had become friends, and she had taken great pleasure in her role as the lover jilted because Captain Gannon only paid him a pittance.

  Lank noted Rakil’s silence and jumped into the breach.

  “Actually,” he said, “we were wondering whether we could talk to your entertainers. A worker at the Port happened to hear us say that we were thinking of doing some busking while on planet, and he mentioned that the two women playing at Marita’s Bar were looking to replace a comedy act that had shipped out yesterday. We don’t really do comedy, but Rakil here is a great juggler—he recites poetry from his home world while he juggles—and I play the flute, and I sing and can lead sing-alongs, so we thought maybe we’d check out their requirements. Are they around for us to talk to, by any chance?”

  “I can send someone to fetch them,” the girl replied after giving Lank the once-over. “It’ll be up to them whether they want to try you guys out. They might, if you can lead sing-alongs. Sing-alongs have become very popular since Kati first introduced them, but I do think they tire her out.”

  “Well, we’d appreciate it if you could get hold of them,” Lank responded, elated to hear Kati’s name.

  He and Rakil exchanged a significant glance after the waitress moved on with her trayful. They sipped on their beers, and looked around at the other patrons. The clientele appeared to be about evenly divided between off-world types and the tall Vultairian natives, most of them, ordinary folk. There was one table on the street side of the Terrace crowded with the gaudily dressed Exalted Citizens. Four of the six sported a bright silver insignia on their shirt-sleeves; the remaining two had a brilliant red pattern there. Lank guessed from what he had learned during his research, that the capes thrown on the backs of the chairs would also display these family identifiers, for that was what they were; each of the Four Hundred Families had what amounted to a Crest, and which they always displayed in public. Neither the silver crest nor the red one was the one the Morhinghys had worn; these Exalted did not, therefore, belong to the Clan Morhinghy.

  “Hey, weren’t you guys on Lamania, at the City Cash Market, just weeks ago?” a familiar voice interrupted his scrutiny.

  Lank looked up in surprise, to see Joaley’s familiar face, for once above him, since she was standing. Rakil was staring at her in surprise, too; his face slowly taking on a look of pleasure.

  “I don’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t expect to run into anyone here that we knew!”

  Joaley moved to one of the two chairs still empty at the table, and sat down with plop. She gave her head a shake.

  “What the heck are you two doing here? Why didn’t you stay on Lamania and enjoy life?” she asked.

  “Hey, we could ask you the same question,” Rakil chuckled. “We got a little tired of the easy life. And we wanted to see the universe.”

  Joaley threw her head back and laughed.

  “A familiar story. And don’t tell me—you decided to work for your passage on a Trader, some scummy old space boat, I bet, and found out that the Captain wanted more out of you than you were prepared to give. Instead he, or she, told you that if you didn’t go along with his wishes, he’d kick you off ship here in Vultaire Port City, and you guys were pissed off enough to let him do it!”

  “Sounds like you know the script!”

  Lank watched the waitress come by and deposit a full mug of beer in front of Joaley without bothering to colle
ct its price from her.

  “Thank you Mirry,” Joaley said to her. And: “Thanks, too, for sending for me.”

  “You know these guys?” Mirry asked, stopping for a moment beside Joaley, once again eyeing Rakil and Lank curiously.

  “We’ve met,” Joaley replied. “A busker meets a lot of people at the City Cash Market on Lamania. Mostly other entertainers, of course.”

  “Of course,” Lank responded, adding smoothly: “Is the woman you were working with, here too?”

  “You bet. No way I’d lose her.” Joaley drank to that, while Mirry, somewhat reluctantly, went on her way with another trayful of mugs. “You can always count on Kati to come up with a good idea when you need one.”

  They had decided, before Kati and Joaley left Lamania, that it was best not to pretend to be total strangers. As Kati had pointed out, the less complicated their story, the fewer the opportunities for foot-in-mouth disease.

  “We heard at the Port that the entertainers at Marita’s Terrace and Bar were looking for a replacement act for the funny guys who shipped out of here recently—did the fellow say yesterday?” Rakil said, changing the subject.

  “Wen and Darce left yesterday morning,” Joaley said with a sigh. “Last night was a tough evening. Kati and I, and our Vultairian balladeer, Mathilde, had to cover the whole night, and the crowd wanted Kati on the stage most of the time, leading the sing-alongs.

  “We collected good coin, though,” she added, brightening, “with just the three of us to divide it up. But I don’t think that Kati can keep up the pace for long, especially since there are no such things as days off in the Vultairian calendar.”

  “I can lead sing-alongs,” Lank pointed out. “Learned to on Tarangay, my home world.”

  “Hey, we hit the Musical Archives a while back—well, electronically—and downloaded into our nodes a lot of Tarangay songs! They added a lot to the show; we’d have been repeating ourselves to the point of boredom without them!”

  “Maybe you could give us a try-out tonight,” Rakil suggested. “Lank here plays a mean flute, besides being able to lead sing-alongs, and I do a juggling act while reciting Borhquan poetry. I imagine that we can fill in whatever time you women need off, well enough to keep the crowd sweet.”

  “Sure, why not?” Joaley furrowed her brow. “I can’t say off-hand that I remember whether I saw the whole of your act on Lamania or not; there were a number of stages there and we were busy doing our own performing.”

  “We’ve been working on it since then, anyway,” Lank improvised smoothly. “The crew of the ship we were on liked what we do. I don’t suppose this crowd is much more demanding.”

  “Do you have a place to stay for the night?” Joaley asked solicitously. “If not, Marita has a couple of rooms empty. Kati and I are renting here and it’s a pretty decent place to bunk in, clean and comfortable. Although we are planning to move on soon, look around the world a little bit since we’re here.”

  “I was just going to say to Lank that now that we have work at least for tonight, we ought to look for a place to sleep,” Rakil said with a smile. “Sounds like you’re solving that problem for us, too.”

  “I aim to please,” Joaley responded, laughing. “We’ll catch Marita as soon as we’ve downed our beers, and she can show you the options.”

  *****

  Lank and Rakil had agreed to rent the room with the garden window for the next few days, and were settling into it when Kati returned to Marita’s from meeting with Marston and Liss. Joaley would have gone along, too, but as it was about the time for Lank and Rakil to show up in Port City, the two women had decided that one of them should stay put at all times.

  “Hey, Kati, your partner scooped up a couple of guys to fill up the roster tonight,” Didi, the waitress who worked the early shift, said to Kati at the back door as she came in.

  Didi was on her way out. Her shift was over just before supper time, when a couple of waiters came in to supplement Mirry and the bartender, who, along with Marita herself, seemed to put in endless hours. Sometimes Kati felt like a wimp for not being able to sing all night long, when, around her, people worked ridiculously long hours.

  “Bah,” Joaley had snorted when she had mentioned it one night as they were getting ready for bed. “They’re not singing or playing music. Not to take anything away from them—I think everyone on Vultaire, with the obvious exception of the Exalted, works way too hard, for way too little return, but making music is exhausting, especially when you’re doing it to keep a barful of drinkers entertained. Besides, don’t forget that it’s a sideline for us anyway; just wait ‘til were doing it on top of all the investigating we’re supposed to be doing.”

  Meeting Marston and Liss had been a part of that investigating. Kati and Joaley had determined that one of the places they ought to investigate was definitely the Capital City of Vultaire. Since Marston and his wife had lived in the Capital before moving to Port City, they were a good source of information, an opportunity that Kati was not willing to pass up. Therefore the four of them had had meetings—always in some neutral, outdoor environment, with the Granda using Kati’s ESP sense to ensure a lack of curious, Exalted ears—during which Marston had given the investigators an overview of the Oligarchic goings-on in the Capital.

  “So where did Joaley find them?” she asked Didi now, stopping to chat.

  “They came here,” Didi told her. “Mirry told me that they had heard at the Port that some women here were looking for entertainers to fill their roster. And then it turned out, when Joaley came down to talk to them that she had met them on Lamania! Isn’t that something?”

  “A twosome that Joaley had met on Lamania?” Kati furrowed her brow, as if to scare a memory out of her node. “What did they look like?”

  “They took one of Marita’s rooms,” Didi replied with a grin. “Go up and take a look. I’m sure they want to meet you, too. I’m off; my children await.”

  She hurried out the door, leaving Kati standing there. With a shrug of her shoulders she headed for the stairs, instead of going into the bar to exchange a few words with Marita, as she had planned. So Lank and Rakil had arrived. Her and Joaley’s time at Marita’s was coming to an end.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At suppertime, when Kati and Joaley, and their new recruits came down to the restaurant, they discovered that a crisis had blown up. Mathilde was nowhere to be seen, although her rhyele was in its usual dinner time spot, leaning against the kitchen wall by the performers’ table.

  “Where’s Mathilde?” Kati asked Mirry who walked by with a loaded tray.

  “In Mom’s office,” Mirry answered shortly, without stopping.

  One of the waiters heard the exchange on his way into the kitchen, and he stopped to gossip:

  “She came in all agitated, almost in tears, and asked to speak with Marita. Marita took one look at her, drew her into her office, and closed the door. We’re all worried that this has something to do with her brother—maybe the Exalted have found out about him.”

  “Found out about him? What’s going on?” Kati was mystified.

  Mathilde’s comments about the brother whom she was apparently looking after had been brief and cryptic. She had not wanted to speak of him, and Kati and Joaley hadn’t pressed her. As long as the issue did not affect Mathilde’s role as an entertainer, they had not wanted to harass her.

  The rush in the kitchen must not have been too bad since Gen took a few moments to talk.

  “You didn’t know? Well Mathilde’s been pretty tight-lipped about Zass, which is the right thing to do, of course. But she must know by now that you people won’t run to the Warrions to tattle. You see, Zass is a Wild Klenser. If the Exalted find that out, they’ll pen him up with the Klenser flocks so fast that you won’t even see it happen. His kind are usually safe as long as they don’t use their talent, but they find it very hard to not help when they’re needed. There’s something about the ability that makes them want to clean up messes; the p
ollution draws them to do the purifying.

  “Last night there was a big spill of something or other into the Warri River, that’s the river that runs through town. I guess Zass must have gone to help clean it up while Mathilde was here; she must not have known about the spill before she got home, and found him gone. Otherwise she would have locked him into a closet or something, before she left. Now the Warrions know about him and probably are looking for him. Mathilde has to hide him if she doesn’t want him to end up in a pen.”

  “Do the Warrions know who they’re looking for?” Kati asked.

  “Not necessarily, if he got away before they collected the Klenser crew that they had brought in to clean up the mess. Mathilde likely figured out where he was when she found him gone, and went to fetch him. But they would have seen that there were more Klensers working than they brought in; so now they know that there are Wild ones in the City. And the Government pays a bounty to anyone bringing in a Wild Klenser, although you don’t catch the Ordinary Citizens collecting on it often. They know that the trait could show up in their own families any time. And we off-worlders don’t do it either; it’s a sick way to make money. They’d have to pay me a heck of a lot more than they do, to get me to drag in a Klenser.”

  He slipped through the kitchen door before Kati had a chance to question him further, but just then Marita’s office door opened and Marita appeared. She looked directly at the entertainers and beckoned.

  “Kati, can you come in here for a moment, please,” she asked, her voice low enough to be caught only by another noded person.

  “Keep my guitar safe, guys,” Kati said and slipped across to Marita’s office. Marita shut the door behind her.

  Mathilde was sitting next to the desk, wringing her hands. Her face was tear-streaked.

  “I had hoped that Marston and Liss would help us,” she was saying to Marita. “They have hidden others in the past; they have connections to the Underground. But when I talked to a friend who knows them, she said that they don’t do that anymore, and won’t until they can find a new place to live. And that could take weeks. I don’t know what to do. I guess I have to send him somewhere, but I don’t know where, and then I won’t be there to stop him if he tries to go do clean-ups.”