“Maybe what’s happening around the green girls fits in there somewhere,” Roxanna said thoughtfully, still following Jebo with her eyes. “Did anyone tell you about that?”
“Yeah. Janza reported it to one of my people who passed the word to me.” Jorun was apparently taking the issue seriously. “I think that has to be a small part of some kind of drug production. Something that those girls secrete is used in the manufacture of some kind of a drug—an expensive one, without doubt.”
“I wonder.” Roxanna thought that perhaps she was making a foolishly large mental leap—but, then again, maybe not. “The slavers on the ship that snatched me, and others, from my home world, used a drug they called the mind-tangler to subdue us. Nasty stuff, useful to them, and apparently very expensive.”
Jorun stared at her.
“It’s definitely something to keep in mind,” he said.
When Jebo climbed out of the container, the water in it was pristine. Sira came to the pool room while he worked, with a clean towel, which she handed to him to dry himself with. Jorun turned on a pump which began to empty the pool.
“It goes back into the stream from which we take our water—downstream from our intake,” Sira replied to Roxanna’s question about the water’s destination. “It’s actually clean enough for us to reuse, but we don’t, since we don’t have to. We have lots of water here, and the plants and the wildlife around us don’t seem to mind us using it, since we put it back in good shape when we’re finished with it.”
“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Roxanna said, “and boy, we could have used his kind where I come from.”
“There is one problem with the Klensers,” Jorun stated, back from the pumping station. “It is that there’s no need to be careful about the amount, or kinds, of wastes you produce when you have Klensers available. Some of the worlds that the government does business with never seem to learn clean ways of doing things. Instead, they go ahead and pollute their air and water, year after year, decade after decade, into centuries. And always the solution to the mess, when it gets bad enough, is to bring in Klensers to clean it up.”
“The Exalted do that here, too,” Sira added. “And who knows, maybe we Ordinary Citizens would be just as bad, if we had better access to manufacturing processes, and if the Exalted didn’t grab every Klenser that they can find, for their own purposes.”
“You don’t have much faith in us, do you, Sira?” Jorun asked with a grin.
“I would like to,” Sira replied seriously, “but, the truth is, we haven’t been tried when it comes to doing really stupid things. The Exalted have been hogging that portion of experience.”
“The population of this world is pretty brutally divided into two classes,” Roxanna said drily. “Or, now that I know about the Klensers, maybe I ought to say, three. What do you think will happen when you do succeed in wresting power from the Exalted? Can you make Vultaire a better place for everyone?”
“There wouldn’t be much point in fighting if I didn’t believe that we can,” Jorun answered quietly. “At the very least we could curb some of the excesses of the Exalted. I remember a mentor of mine saying years ago that the problem with the Exalted is that they’ve had things their way for much too long. They are bored, and bored people look for stimulation. And the choices of stimulation grow more unhealthy, the more the status quo stagnates.”
Sira was watching Jebo climb back into his outfit. He looked as clean as if he had just come out of a shower, instead of from a sewage lagoon. When he was dressed, Sira grabbed his elbow, and began to lead him towards the door.
“I’ll take Jebo back to the Klensers’ room,” she said. “Cathe should be ready to feed them, and Jebo will need his share. But Jorun, do have Roxanna come to talk with the group of us who are interested in discussing—and arguing about—our future. As an outsider she’ll be able to add a new perspective to our gabfests.”
“What do you think?” Jorun asked Roxanna as they walked back to the office. “Are you interested in talking with our young idealists—and the pessimists?”
“Sure,” Roxanna answered, and laughed. “My friend Katie used to say that I had a sharp mind, and a sharper tongue. Maybe I can exercise both.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Carmakville, the seat of government of the Ithcar Province was, at approximately fifteen thousand inhabitants, the biggest town in Ithcar, but hardly a large metropolis. It was an old place, filled with ancient, but well-maintained, brick and stone buildings. They looked like they would stay in place, proudly, for another eternity or so.
“These people definitely take care of their housing stock,” Joaley murmured as she looked around her, wide-eyed. “Some of these dwellings look like they could have put down roots to the molten core of the planet by now.”
“Amazing,” Kati breathed, goggling about her. “Yet people obviously live in them—use them, in other words. They’re not museum pieces; they’re homes and businesses, serving the population’s needs.”
She let out a short, uneasy laugh.
“Where I lived, on my home world, anything this old would have been fenced in, and a ‘Do not touch’ sign put on the fence. The buildings would have become a museum, or a theme park, complete with an Interpretative Centre, and you’d go to the Interpretative Centre to find out how the ancients lived. Or else, some enterprising business man would have simply razed down everything, and replaced it with a bunch of stores.”
“You’re joking, I hope,” Rakil said. “This town truly is lovely; the stone and brick work are so old that they’re nearly organic. Like some of the really old trees on Borhq; although, admittedly, I still prefer the live architecture that forms the core of every Tree Family dwelling. In the past decades, with all the development resulting from the trade with the Federation, most families have had to add built sections to the Family Houses, but the old cores are living things, with branches trained to grow the walls.”
“It sounds like something that I’d like to see some day,” Kati responded, but her eyes were on the Vultairian buildings.
The old stonework, and the riotous gardens that surrounded the houses, were lovely. The gardens were mixtures of vegetables, fruit and flowers, with no seeming order to the way the plants were arranged. Kati suspected, however, that there was much method to the madness: each garden that she laid eyes on was a delight in spite of the seeming disorder. There was an underlying artistry at work, one that likely had been refined over hundreds of years.
The runnerbeasts had slowed their pace to a crawl while the walkers gawked.
“I wonder if there’s an Inn anywhere in the vicinity,” Kati said, stepping over to the animals, and running her fingers down the nearer one’s back. “An Inn with a stable, and maybe a groom to look after these fellows. Mind you, I’m perfectly qualified to do a groom’s job, if that’s necessary, after all the time I spent with the runnerbeasts on Makros III.”
“We’re heading for the business district,” Lank informed her, from the head of the procession. “We’ll ask the first person who’s prepared to talk. Hey, Mathilde, come and join me, to give us a bit of local colour!”
Laughing, Mathilde strode over to the front. Her brother Zass remained at the back of the cart, looking slightly distracted. Rakil was strolling beside him, keeping tabs on him. Joaley had the reins, and looked tired.
They had had a long day. At their last entertainment stop, they had found out that the distance between the town and Carmakville was a long day’s walk, even for Vultairians’ legs. They could have stopped at a campground halfway between the two, but spending another night camping had not appealed, not when a place the size of Carmakville beckoned, even if reaching it was a challenge. Accordingly, they had risen before sunrise after the evening’s performance, and started the trek in the grey dawn. Now it was sundown, and they had got to their destination, but not without effort. Even node-enhanced physiques were feeling some strain. Kati was impressed by Mathilde’s lightheart
edness, and not at all surprised to see Zass slipping off into his Klenser torpor while walking. The Monk was complaining that she was expecting too much from the Troupe members; a more sedate pace should have sufficed. Kati, however, had had her eye on a flit that seemed to have been following their progress every day since they had entered Ithcar. If it was a Carmaks vehicle, she was keen to assure the Family, who, according to the local scuttlebutt, were, indeed, good guys, that the Troupe were in the region to entertain, not to make trouble. If it was not a Carmaks vehicle, the Carmaks ought to be told about its presence in their airspace. Besides, it had made sense to make their way as soon as they could, to the local capital, and do, as Joaley had put it, the “decent, diplomatic thing”.
“Yeah, let’s find a place to rest our heads, to eat, and bathe,” Joaley said now. “The ‘diplomatics’ will have to wait ‘til tomorrow morning. I don’t think that there’s any way I could be polite to any pooh-pahs, right now. If I don’t get to eat and bathe soon, I’m going to snap at anyone who looks at me crosswise.”
“Hey, you don’t have to be tired and dirty to do that,” Rakil called from the back. “You do it as a matter of course.”
When Joaley roused herself enough to snarl at him, he laughed.
“Woke you up, didn’t I?” he said unrepentantly.
“Children, stop that,” Kati chided them.
Joaley immediately turned to her:
“Don’t mother me, Kati of Terra,” she snapped while Rakil chortled.
“If it makes you feel any better, Joaley, I’m dying for a good meal, and a hot bath myself,” Kati said. “I’m hoping that I don’t have to tend to our beasts myself, because if I have to, I’ll have to do it before I do anything else.”
“I’ll help with that,” Rakil offered. “I’m not really that tired thanks to my sturdy Borhquan constitution.”
“I’m going to take you up on that, if there are no grooms at the Inn stables,” Kati promised.
The matter took care of itself.
Lank and Mathilde waylaid the first pedestrian the group met, asking her to direct them to a reasonably priced Inn.
“Oh, you’re the musical entertainers,” the woman said immediately, measuring them with her eyes. “And it looks like you travelled all the way from Pansy Creek today. You’re ready for an Inn, alright, and I know just the one, a good one that won’t overcharge you. It’s on the next street over, past the crossroad there, where the business district begins. But I’ll show you. We don’t want our entertainment to get lost.”
She laughed a melodious laugh, and fell into step with Lank and Mathilde. She engaged them in light-hearted banter, telling them about the buildings they passed, and the plants in the gardens.
Kati followed them, admiring the Vultairian woman’s simple, but elegant, dark green tunic and pants. She found herself wondering if it was possible to get something similar tailored for her; it would have to be specially made, since anything ready-made for Vultairians would be way too long for her. Then she shook her head and gave herself a mental slap.
“Just goes to show how tired I am,” she subvocalized to the Granda. “I’m not one to fantasize about clothing.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to get some outfits made,” The Monk replied, “for you and everyone else. You’ve been picking up decent coin, and the Oligarchs aren’t going let you take much of it off-planet. The clothes you bought on Makros III are getting threadbare. Yes, that clothing was of excellent material and make, but you’ve been wearing the same rags for a long time.”
Surprised and chagrined, Kati looked down at her pants and tunic. Yes, it was true, certainly the set she was wearing at the moment, was starting to show its age. “Rags” was rather a strong term for the outfit’s condition, however.
“Maybe you’re right about spending money on clothes,” she told The Monk. “But don’t exaggerate. There’s a lot of wear left in my Narra-cloth items, and I don’t know when we’ll have the time to dig up a tailor, or a seamstress, and get fitted. Never mind waiting around for the items to be sewn up.”
Lank and Mathilde’s new friend showed them and Kati right into the Inn’s Office, which was merely a desk inside a rather cramped lobby.
“Christo, I brought you some very interesting customers,” she called to the man at the desk. “The foreign musicians are looking for a place to stay, and I immediately thought of your place. There are six of them, a pair of runnerbeasts, and the cart that they’re travelling with; you do have room for them, don’t you? They’re all hungry, dirty and tired; looking for the kind of service that this establishment is known for.”
The man, rather short and well-fed for a Vultairian, stood up with a big grin on his face.
“Ah, lovely!” he exclaimed. “What luck for you and for us that you ran into Hani! She’s knowledgeable about what’s available around town; another person might have directed you to a place without stables, or else, assuming that with a cart you’d want only minimal services, to one with stables but only the barest essentials in the rooms. But Hani here understands that entertainers prefer not to have to worry about cooking, or heating water for washing, when they’re in town to put on a show. We have bathing facilities, laundry, a restaurant, and a tavern on the premises, and our rooms are quite comfortable.
“Now, how many rooms did you want to engage? For six people, you can have two rooms with three beds in each, or any number upwards from that—well, up to five, since that’s how many empty ones we have left for the night.”
They took the two rooms with three beds in each, for two nights, with the option of extending their stay if their show proved to be profitable. Both Hani and Christo insisted that that would certainly be the case.
The cost, even with the extras of stabling for the runnerbeasts, laundry services, and the bathing facilities, was so reasonable that Kati had to make a conscious effort to keep from exclaiming her surprise and delight. Hani, watching her face as she opened her money bag, laughed gleefully.
“You wanted a reasonably priced place and you got it, right?” she crowed. “I bet you people were overcharged a time or two, on your way here!”
“More than a time or two,” Kati said with a groan. “Fortunately it doesn’t matter that much, since the Planetary Government won’t allow us to take much of our earnings with us when we leave. Still, it makes a difference for Mathilde, here, and the less money we get to keep, the less we have to spend.”
“That’s right,” said Christo genially. “If we here at Sleepside Inn soak you, that means that the other businesses in town won’t find your stay profitable. Some people never seem to learn the lesson that a community prospers as a unit, or it doesn’t prosper at all.”
Kati made up her mind about new clothing, then and there.
“Are there any tailors or seamstresses in this town?” she asked Christo and Hani as she counted out the money for the two nights’ stay.
“There’s a very good tailor shop on Main Street—that’s the one I met you people on,” Hani replied. “Farther down along the street from where we turned off to come here. ‘Stitches and Sews’ it’s called. It’s run by two brothers and a sister, the Norvaks, and they do excellent work.”
“Are you starting to feel threadbare, Kati?” Lank asked her, giving her outfit the once-over.
“I think we’re all starting to be threadbare,” she replied, returning the favour.
Lank’s clothes were well-worn, but they also had begun to be ill-fitting. He was young; if he was not growing in height any more, he was certainly still putting on muscle mass, and outgrowing his clothes.
“So we’ll all be heading to this tailor shop tomorrow morning, right?” Lank laughed. “I know that look in Kati’s eyes,” he added for Hani and Christo’s benefit. “When she looks at you like that, there’s no arguing with her; you just follow where she leads.”
“That’s right, young friend. There’s a time for democratic discussion, and there’s a time for me to make like I reall
y am the boss.”
*****
The Troupe crowded into the “Stitches and Sews” after breakfast. The Norvaks were an amiable three-some, delighted to serve the musicians with whose reputation they were clearly familiar. Once again Kati was impressed with the prices, and decided that they could afford three changes of new clothes per person, instead of the two she had hoped for. Plus, when Nina Norvak suggested that Mathilde and Zass look over the off-the-rack items because they would find clothing there to fit them at a cheaper price, and heard Mathilde ooh and aah as she pulled out tunic and pants sets, she decided that they all could use some new undergarments, too. Mathilde said that she could actually pay for her own and Zass’ items from the funds that she had earned in Port City, but Kati insisted that the outfits were part of her and Zass’ pay.
“You two have been working with us, so you get treated like the Troupe members that you are,” she said. “Besides, you may need your money later.”
Mathilde nodded, and the look of tension that she had worn during the last days in the Port City returned to her face.
“Don’t worry though,” Kati reassured her, “we won’t leave until we’re sure that you and your brother are safe.”
Mathilde smiled her thanks but her expression did not completely relax. Kati sighed. For all she knew, all the reassurances she was offering Mathilde were just whistling in the dark. Carmakville was the nicest place in which she had been on Vultaire, so far, but would that help Mathilde and Zass?
After the tailor shop, the group went to see the Town Square where they would be performing. The Square was a pleasant surprise; there was a stone stage in one corner, with rows of seating around it. Beyond the seats was grass—lots of room for more audience members. The stage had its own lighting, lamps on poles at each of the three corners, and four more attached to the front arc of the stage floor to illuminate the performers from below.
On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted Page 26