On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  “And you are one of those whose task it is to try to right at least some of the wrongs,” Xavia added quietly. “And now I’m going to have to tell you that the wrong you have informed us about is not just that of the human criminals.”

  Mikal’s ears pricked up. If he had not already been paying attention to the Xeonsaur woman with every fibre of his being, he would have done so now. He watched the green woman’s scaled face, and her eyes, oddly dark by human standards in such paleness, and he saw what he could only judge as sorrow and chagrin, there. He did not speak, but waited.

  Xavia sat entirely still for a minute or two while Mikal watched her. He glanced quickly at Xoraya, and saw that the younger of the two women was also sitting still, her delicate hands on her lap, her eyes downcast, staring at her hands. There was a tautness about her, however, which the older woman did not display. Mikal read it as a pent-up desire to act.

  “I am quite certain,” Xavia finally said, “that the Xeonsaur on that human slave ship is my son Xanthus Hsiss.”

  “My Life-Mate,” Xoraya chimed in.

  “His study is the development of drugs,” Xavia continued, “many different kinds of drugs, with many different purposes. Some were meant to alleviate pain, and some to cure diseases. Others were intended to expand the mind, and allow meditators to understand difficult concepts. He and his colleagues were trying to develop ones that would be useful to the short-lives, too; partly because they wanted to alleviate pain and suffering, and increase the enjoyment of life, among all creatures. Partly, of course, it was because it is by providing humans with items that they desire but cannot manufacture themselves, that we Xeonsaurs pay for the desirable merchandise that we import from the human worlds.”

  Mikal nodded. It was common knowledge in the Federation that some of the most exquisite technology had been developed on Xeonsaur, and had—occasionally—been replicated by the Shelonians. The engines of the Star Ships were one such invention, an old one by now, but even at this late date only a certain percentage of humans, even node-enhanced, could understand their workings. Medicine was another field that had benefited from Xeon ingenuity, although in that field the Shelonians preferred to rely on their native heal-craft rather than technology, and had left the use of items such as artificial uteri to others, including the Lamanians.

  “Well, to shorten an exceedingly long story, Xanthus and his colleagues had developed a mind-expanding drug which they believed showed a lot of promise. Thing was, to make it usable by humans, they needed to run some trials on humans, and tweak the formula using chemicals which humans could tolerate. It was decided that someone should venture out into human space to conduct such experimentation—not in Federation Space, of course, but among the Fringe Worlds, and their Space Stations.”

  Xavia had the grace to look embarrassed. Mikal found his facial muscles tightening.

  “Xanthus was the one who elected to leave Xeon in order to do the experimentation,” Xoraya said. “That is how I met him. I’m a student of the short-lives known as humans—your kind, Mikal—and he contacted me for information. While I was filling him in on what I felt that he needed to know, we fell in love and chose to become bonded as Life-Mates. I wanted to accompany him on his travels, since it would have been a great opportunity for me to study the short-lives in the field, but I was denied permission to do so. Very few of us are allowed to travel off Xeon, farther than this Space Station, and accompanying one’s Life-Mate on a field trip was not deemed an important enough reason to do so, even though it would have helped him, and also furthered my studies. I had to stay behind at the Institute where I had my fellowship, and continued my studies with information funnelled to me through this Station.”

  “We heard from Xanthus from time to time, of course,” Xavia continued, “and he was in touch with his colleagues. Apparently he ran into some difficulties; the drug was not performing as expected with human test subjects, and he was forced to try to modify it, using various biochemical substances that he was able to obtain while working on the world upon which he had set his laboratory. When I questioned his colleagues, one of them told me that the last time that he heard from Xanthus, Xanthus had sent word to say that he had come up with some fascinating results, but not quite what they wanted.”

  Xavia drew a deep breath.

  “I now think that Xanthus got caught in a web of his own making,” she then said. “He must have dealt with some unscrupulous humans while obtaining the chemicals which he used to modify the drug. I am quite certain, and his colleagues agree with me, that the mind-tangler that the slave-snatchers on the ship which held you prisoner, Mikal, were using, was a variation on what Xanthus was developing.”

  She had turned her dark eyes away from Mikal, and was staring into the fireplace where logs awaited the spark that would ignite them into a blaze.

  “The World Councillors are furious, of course.” Her voice sounded desolate. “However it happened, what matters is that he has allowed his Xeonsaur talents to be used recklessly for profit. Whether willingly or not, he has been navigating long distances, and across time, merely to allow a greedy human to gather up other humans as slaves in places and times far from this one. He has broken a fundamental law of my species, and the fact that he was cleverly manipulated, and used, by opportunistic humans does not excuse him. We, the Xeonsaurs, are supposed to be able to keep that from happening.”

  “I am also considered to be at fault,” Xoraya added. “I was the one he relied on for information about humans. For him to have fared so ill, the information I gave him must have been inadequate.”

  “Now we, the family Hsiss, have been charged with righting as much of what has gone wrong as possible.” Xavia sounded tired and old, suddenly. “The Councillors are not offering much help; they are busy condemning us. We were given permission to talk to you, and for one of us to accompany you out into the Universe. About the only positive I can think of is that Xoraya is a student of humanity, and as such will not be totally naive among them.”

  “So you will be accompanying me back to Federation Space?” Mikal asked Xoraya.

  He surprised himself by feeling slightly disappointed that it was not Xavia who would be coming. Although, it did make more sense for Xoraya to be the one to go: she was a “student of humanity”, as she had stated. With Xanthus her Life-Mate, she was, without doubt, keen to free him from his imprisonment, and Mikal was sure that she would be as competent in the endeavour as any other Xeonsaur, including her mother-in-law—if the Xeonsaurs had a concept of a mother-in-law. She may have been young in the terms of her own species, but she was, nevertheless, certainly much older than, say, Mikal’s grandfather.

  “The family decided that I was the best person to go,” Xoraya said with a slight smile. “Besides being the most expendable family member.”

  Xavia shook her head ruefully at that.

  “That merely means that as a Scholar in her field, she’s not involved knee-deep in the Hsiss Family businesses,” she explained. “Unlike myself, for example; sometimes it feels that all of our efforts would come to naught if I wasn’t around all the time. And since Xanthus and Xoraya hadn’t produced any eggs before my son left on his ill-fated mission, Xoraya is not restrained by maternal duties.”

  “And you are willing to join forces with those of us who want to find and capture the slave-trader Gorsh, in order to locate and free your Life-Mate from the imprisonment in which Gorsh and his ship-mates seem to be keeping him?” Mikal asked Xoraya.

  “Of course.” Xoraya looked directly at Mikal. “I understand from the Nodal Record that this Kati of Terra made, that she is bound and determined to free the slaves that she spent time with on this Gorsh’s vessel, along with all the other slaves that Gorsh captured. It occurs to me that I could be useful to her in her quest, even as she may be useful to mine. Perhaps the three of us, plus other humans who have a stake in this, could make common cause, each adding his or her talents to that of the others, and thereby succeed where
not one of us alone could hope to do much.”

  “And what talents would you be adding to our store of abilities?”

  Mikal hoped that the question would not sound either stupid or arrogant. He really did want to know what it was that Xoraya was planning to—would be allowed by the Xeon Councillors to—contribute.

  The blue-scaled woman took his question in stride.

  “As Xavia mentioned, the Hsiss Family has been charged with the task of righting as much of what has gone wrong as is possible,” she reiterated. “I am allowed to do whatever is necessary to that end. That means that I may navigate across space and time to follow the ship that Xanthus is being forced to guide. I can return snatched slaves to their own time and space if it seems possible to do so without doing further damage to their lives and their times—I have been instructed to obtain human advice on that. If returning the slaves home is not possible, I am to offer them the opportunity to reassure their nearest and dearest—although I will, without doubt, need the aid of some humans who are psychically talented, to do so.

  “Also, I am a creature of considerable intelligence, and can add that intellect to any group of which I become a member.”

  “Thank you. I should imagine that as a ‘student of humanity’ you’re aware that members of The Star Federation Peace Officer Corps—to which I belong—are not allowed to kill other sentient beings in the course of performing their duties. It’s a restriction which I take very seriously.”

  “As you should. I don’t know how much you know about us Xeonsaurs—probably not much, since our kind have made a fetish of remaining mysterious.” Xoraya lifted a finger up and glared at Xavia. “Don’t try to contradict me about that, Mother of my Life-Mate; you know that it is true, and we might not be in this pickle if it was not.”

  She turned to Mikal again.

  “I’m afraid on this issue Xanthus and I simply have had to agree to disagree with Xavia and the rest of the Hsiss Family—as well as most of the rest of the population of Xeon. But, we Xeonsaurs are not killers either, not even of short-lives. Even in his experimentation Xanthus took great precautions to not cause any permanent harm to the short-lives who agreed to participate in his project. And no-one was asked to take part without understanding what he was agreeing to do.”

  Mikal took this assertion with a grain of salt, but decided that this was not the time or the place to discuss it. What he was being offered was as much, if not more, than he had dared to hope for, and he, and the Star Federation, were getting it without having to resort to begging, threats, or any sort of deal-making that might have compromised their position. Possibly this Xoraya woman was as astute as she claimed to be, and had learned something about the humankind during her scholarship.

  He drew a deep breath.

  “When can you leave, Xoraya Hsiss?” he inquired. “We should head for the Star Federation Government Space Station orbiting around Lamania, at our earliest convenience. A Peace Officer Corps Cruiser is waiting to ferry us there.”

  “I can have my affairs in order and my bag packed by this time tomorrow, Space Station time,” Xoraya said immediately. She looked elated.

  “You have to go to the Federation Government Space Station?” Xavia asked. “Can’t you just get on with the search for Xanthus and the criminals?”

  “Oh, Mother of My Life-Mate!” Xoraya laughed. “This, I am certain, is a part of that process! With the humans, wrangling politicians are always a part of every process! I do think that Mikal knows what he is doing and he is doing it in the most straightforward fashion that is possible.”

  Mikal changed his mind about which Xeonsaur lady he wanted with him on this mission. Xoraya did have some expertise about the behaviour of humankind; she would be less obstructive—not to mention, less bossy—on this mission than the older woman could possibly be.

  *****

  In Bouldertown, Kati was approached by a woman named Santha, who called herself a runner, and explained that it meant that she relayed information from town to town in a low-tech fashion which the Exalted of Vultaire could neither influence nor infiltrate.

  “I am to guide you to the Underground Base,” she said. “Unfortunately you won’t be able to take your cart there with you, but we have a safe hiding place for it, your beasts and extra gear, in the barn of a trusted farmer. He’ll be here to pick it up when we start for the Base tomorrow morning, and he will deliver it to the campground outside of Ithcar on the road that will eventually take you to the Capital City.

  “Hello, Jock. Have you joined the Troupe, or are just coming to the Base to chat up Jorun?”

  “I was persuaded to take Mathilde’s place as the Troupe’s balladeer, and will be accompanying them to the Sin City. I’m not as pretty as Mathilde, but perhaps I can make myself useful in my own way.”

  It was the middle of the afternoon, and Bouldertown was to enjoy a show that evening. The town was the nearest settlement to the Base, but even at that, the musicians would have to take a healthy walk over a rocky, forested terrain. That could not be helped, and, interestingly, no-one seemed to worry that the Oligarchs might note that a group of musicians had disappeared for a few days.

  “There’s a reason why the Underground Base is in the area,” Jock had said, when Kati had broached the subject. “It’s pretty forbidding countryside, rocky and thickly forested, with only a small farmable valley here and there—like around Bouldertown. It’s considered a sink-hole of sorts; you never know if and where you’ll come out once you enter it. Exalted from outside of Ithcar almost never do. They have a superstitious dread of this part of Ithcar, and the no-man’s land next to it. I think they must have all been raised on tales of monsters in the forest—whereas in reality, the area has the best hunting on the whole continent.”

  “Sounds like the monsters are living in their heads,” Kati had said.

  “Right,” Jock had agreed. “These people populate a forest with imaginary ogres while the ugly beasts live inside their own selves. It’s handy, though; those of us with no fear of trees and rocks can wander in the area unmolested, unnoticed and unquestioned.”

  “Don’t they even bother doing fly-overs?” Lank had asked, having followed the conversation. “Those could be done safely in their flits or flyers.”

  Jock had laughed.

  “I don’t think you quite understand the psychology of irrational fear,” he had said. “Even the government officials, when they fly to Carmakville on business, will detour around this area, rather than fly across it. Their machines might fall down from the sky, never to be found again.”

  “’Here there be monsters’,” Kati had quoted.

  “Huh?” Lank had said.

  “On my home world, before all the oceans were explored, the map-makers used to write those words beyond the known stretches of the seas,” she had explained. “Same kind of thinking.”

  “Except that our Exalted are populating the forest with monsters,” Jock had argued, “not out of ignorance, but because they need the monsters to be somewhere—somewhere outside of their own selves.”

  Kati had had nothing to add to that.

  *****

  In spite of putting on a show for an appreciative audience in the evening, the Troupe members were up before dawn the next morning. Santha took them to the kitchen of a local family for a hearty breakfast before the trek. The ladies who cooked for them—there were two of them—offered to tuck a meal into the cart for those of them who would be travelling on to the Capital City, before the farmer took it to the campground. Kati thanked them profusely and did not make the mistake of offering money for these services. Jock had begun to show his value as a Troupe member by explaining to her the intricacies of local behaviour; in this case, how all that was wanted for the kindness was thanks. Any suggestion of payment would be an insult.

  ”These people are proud,” he had told her. “They are also helpful and kind, and they believe in the Underground, and what it is trying to do for the Ordinary Citizens. T
he fact that you have come to entertain them in this back-of-beyond place, and, furthermore, are going to the Underground Base, endears you to them, and they want to do what they can for you. Feeding us is one way that they can do that, since it saves us time because we don’t have to cook for ourselves.”

  “Since Zass and I will be staying on at the Base, and I’m to be a member of the Ithcar Musicians’ Guild,” Mathilde said to the helpful women after breakfast, “I’ll see if I can’t come back here, every now and then, to sing and play a few songs. It won’t be the same as the Troupe, but it would be something—and I would enjoy it very much.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful!” burbled one of the ladies, reaching to give her a hug. “It should be safe enough, if you come alone; outsider Exalted don’t show up here very often, and even if they do decide to come looking for your brother, we’ll finesse it somehow.”

  Mathilde giggled.

  “I’ve been trying to take lessons in ‘finessing’ from Kati,” she said. “She’s a master of the art.”

  *****

  The forest trail which they followed was narrow; in many places the travellers had to walk in a single file. Santha, in the lead, often stopped to wait for the followers. She had arranged the order so that long-legged Jock, Mathilde, and Zass were the last people in the line.

  “Make certain that nobody gets left behind,” she had said to them as she had organized the line-up.

  “You can count on us,” Mathilde had replied.

  Jock had sketched a salute of sorts.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he had said.

  There were places on the track where what was an easy vault over a fallen tree trunk for the Vultairians, turned into a difficult clamber for the shorter members of the Troupe, Joaley especially, and at those times either Zass, Jock, or Mathilde was ready to offer a helping hand.

  A little farther down the path, Santha would stop to wait, often chatting with Lank who followed her in the line-up and who, as the tallest of the off-worlders, had the least problems on the path.