On Assignment to the Planet of the Exalted

by Helena Puumala

  “We’re in no position to assure her safety, right now,” Kati replied. “She, along with some of you others, will, of course, be sent for, once the Official Investigation is underway. But for now, the Troupe of musicians is just that—a bunch of off-world entertainers making a living by travelling around, and entertaining the residents of various towns and villages.”

  “You’re putting more faith in this Official Investigative Team than I would, in your place,” Jorun said. “Are you certain that it’s wise?”

  Kati grinned brightly at him.

  “Maryse r’ma Darien promised me that she’d make sure to get her best operative to lead that team. I happen to know the fellow; he’s Rakil’s cousin and it just so happens that he and I recently spent almost a year making our way across a primitive planet. After we had managed to escape off a slave ship. During that trip he taught me a lot about handling myself in tough situations.”

  “Katie—Kati—you’re talking about the cop you sprang!” Roxanna stared. “Ingrid and I called him our Golden Boy! He’s your cousin?” Her eyes went to Rakil who nodded.

  “Gorsh kept him drugged, and after his crew brought him into the room we were in, my friend Ingrid and I took over his care—Kati was sick at the time. The slavers were really mean to him so we were glad to do it, he suffered fewer jabs and kicks after we took over the task of keeping him alive.”

  “He told me later that every time he was allowed out of his drugged state enough to be fed, washed and toileted, he used to wonder at the beautiful angels who were looking after him,” Kati told her. “He couldn’t figure out how you came to be there.”

  “Well, I’m glad that he appreciated our efforts,” Roxanna laughed. “I remember wanting to kick Gorsh and that doctor of his in the groin because they were so rough with an unconscious man. But then when Kati escaped and took him with her, I realized that they had counted on breaking down his resistance to something by keeping him under the mind-tangler. They were absolutely furious over losing him—it’s a good thing you and Murra kept Ingrid and me out of the loop; we would have paid dearly if we had been in on the plot, Gorsh was so pissed off.”

  The mention of Murra jarred Kati painfully. But Roxanna had said that the Xeonsaur had made it his business to protect the boy; with a bit of luck that protection would keep him safe until Kati could find and release him.

  “In any case,” she said, “Mikal is going to be in charge of the Official Investigative Team. Maryse figured that the evidence against the Vultairian couple was overwhelming enough that she would be able to insist on being the one to choose the Team personnel. And with any luck at all, we’ll have a scathing report to present to him, regardless of what kind of white-wash is going to be attempted by the Oligarchs.

  “In the meantime,” she added, “we’re just a bunch of curious outsiders, taking a look at a world we’re stuck on.”

  “An Adventuress, and three more-or-less professional musicians, tramping around the country-side, with their camping cart pulled by two runnerbeasts.” Jock threw back his head and laughed. “Earning such good coin with their entertaining, that locals such as Zass and Mathilde, and myself are happy to join them when invited. Contemptible rather than dangerous, wouldn’t you say, Jorun? At least according to the average Exalted?”

  “And, any sensible off-world tourist would want to see the flesh-pots of the Capital City, now, wouldn’t they?” Jorun countered with a chuckle. “And hang out with the people of the class that mattered.”

  “Actually, we do want to see the flesh-pots of the Capital City,” Kati protested mildly. “But we want to go in through the back door and talk to the folk providing the flesh and the pots!”

  “I can tell you a tiny bit about the brothel where Ingrid still is,” Roxanna snapped. “With the green girls, assuming that the green girls are still alive.”

  Kati gasped.

  “Ingrid is on Vultaire as well? In a brothel?”

  Roxanna nodded. She shifted her beer mug around on the table top with clenched fingers, then let go of it.

  “She could have escaped with me, but she wouldn’t leave the green girls, and there was no way the rebels smuggling us out could hide six people, even though the green girls are smaller than I am,” she said. “She’s keeping those girls alive. The regular—by that I mean the non-slave, local—workers said that the green girls always died after a short time, and new ones would be brought in. Then when we came, those girls just surrounded Ingrid; they said that she must be, if not the Goddess, at least Her Messenger. And Kati, you knew Ingrid; she’s the first to give, when giving is what’s needed. Contact with her seemed to help those girls endure what they were being put through, and when the brothel managers realized what was going on they encouraged it, of course. Cheaper for them, if they didn’t have to be constantly importing new green girls; apparently they are expensive.”

  She brushed a tear from the corner of one eye; Joaley, seeing this, passed a handkerchief across the table—one of the ones she had picked up in Carmakville.

  “Green girls?” Rakil stared at Roxanna. “Is their skin actually green?” he asked. “And there were—are—four of them, have I got that right?”

  “Yes, to both questions,” Roxanna replied, dabbling at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Deep olive green skin, and dark green, curly hair. They’re young, barely in their teens, I’d say. They’re a group of four friends, so at least they have one another for support as long as they’re all alive. I was told that usually they don’t last long: first one dies, and the others then follow very quickly after her.”

  “Good gods, it sounds like they’re Grenies from Paradiso,” Rakil stated, looking seriously disturbed. “I remember Mikal telling us about Paradiso and the Grenies. He was there when Paradiso got its Restricted World status. But how the heck is someone managing to smuggle girl quatrads off a Restricted World?”

  “You know, Mikal told a bunch of us about Paradiso, one time, in a bar on the Drowned Planet,” Kati said, consulting the Granda for the details. “He said that one of the main reasons for the Restricted Status was the protection of the native Grenies.”

  “Exactly.” Rakil was shaking his head.

  “It sounds like we’re going to have to light another fire under somebody’s ass in the Federation,” Kati sighed. “Seems like we’ve got hold of hundred-headed hydra. Its tentacles reach everywhere.

  “Still, we’ll have to deal with things as we face them. And a report about slavery on Vultaire will certainly bring the matter of the Grenie quatrad to the proper authorities. We’ll have to concentrate on having the most informative report possible ready for Mikal when he and his team get here, and contact us.”

  “But in the meantime, you will entertain us tonight, no?” asked the kitchen worker who had come by to trade the empty pastry basket for a full one.

  “Oh yes,” laughed Kati, reaching for one of the pastries. “We have to pay for the lovely baking somehow! May as well sing for our supper!”

  Turning to Jorun she then asked: “Do you think that I could have a quick word with you alone?”

  Surprised looks greeted her question from around the table. Keros, the Aide, looked downright suspiciously at Kati, whereas some of her own people seemed mildly offended. Jorun gave her a sharp glance, and then stood up.

  “We can step into my office if you’d like,” he said neutrally.

  “Sorry about this, guys,” Kati muttered to the Team members closest to her, as she stood up. “I’ll explain later.”

  Keros stood up, too.

  “I think as your Aide, I should be in on any conversation you have with any of the off-world Troupe,” he stated, clearly preparing to follow his leader.

  “He’s a damn nosy prick,” Roxanna muttered, giving her head a shake, in an undertone which Kati caught only with her node-enhanced hearing.

  Jorun’s eyes had shifted from Keros to Roxanna, and a small grin appeared on his face as he caught her expression, even if he could n
ot hear her words.

  “Actually, Keros,” he said, turning to the Aide again, “I need you to stay right here at this table, keeping track of the conversation while I am gone. Kati of Terra is hardly going to be a danger to me during a short chat.”

  “Jeez, Keros, sit down and drink your beer,” suggested the nearest kitchen worker. “You stick to Jorun like climber rat to a honey-blossom tree; it’s ridiculous! Let the man alone, once in a while!”

  Santha burst out laughing, while Keros’ face turned beet-red.

  “Like a climber rat to a honey-blossom tree!” she howled. “What an image! You’re a poet, Nilla!”

  Keros sank back into his chair amid general laughter, while Jorun gestured Kati to follow him out of the dining area and towards the back of the hall.

  “Good for Nilla,” Roxanna muttered to Rakil under her breath. “That piece of work needs taking down a peg or two, every so often.”

  “So,” Rakil said to her, changing the subject, partly to move the talk to a safer topic, and partly because he found the young woman sitting beside him very interesting: “You’re old friends with Kati, then, are you?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Hey, you have paper and ink!” Kati exclaimed, admiring the neat stacks of clean sheets in the middle of the table, and the mug of stick pens beside it. “Nice stuff, too. Not high-tech, but it works!”

  “It helps to be close to Ithcar,” Jorun said. “Hector’s people have paper mills—several of them, in fact. The best ones on the continent; one of the main reasons why the other Exalted tolerate what they call the Carmaks’ ‘eccentricities’, is that they’d have to get even paper and ink from off-planet if they couldn’t buy them from his mills.”

  Kati shook her head.

  “Idiots,” she muttered. “They’re strangling their world. And to what end? So that they can sit at the top of the heap and admire their own selves?”

  “And entertain themselves in ways that make any sane person cringe,” Jorun added, sounding desolate. “My world’s an ugly mess, and at times I despair that there’s any hope of straightening things out.”

  “No situation is ever hopeless,” Kati said, thinking of the scrapes that she had pulled through on the Drowned Planet. “And you and the other reformers have allies in unexpected places. I wouldn’t give up just yet.”

  She grinned at the older man as she pulled up a chair for herself, while he seated himself on the other side of the table.

  “Oh, I won’t give up, ever,” he responded. “I’ll keep on trying even if all my efforts come to naught. At the least, I’ll have fought the good fight; that’s worth doing, no matter what.”

  “Are you aware that the Land around you has a consciousness of its own?” Kati asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  Jorun studied her face carefully before replying.

  “The old people speak of such,” he finally answered. “Here they speak of the Essence of the Forest, or the Spirit of the Land, whereas on the seaside where I grew up, it was the Spirit of the Ocean. But as far as I know, no-one has been in touch with such entities for generations; for all I know it’s just old stories. Are you aware of something that I’m not?”

  Kati nodded.

  “While on the slave ship, one of my fellow captives—of a race alien to me—discovered that I have what on my world were known as ESP powers. Since then, I have found out that such sensitivity is not as uncommon as I had thought. For example, many Shelonians have them, and are very adept at using them for healing.”

  She stopped to order her thoughts. Jorun waited for her to continue.

  “On the trail to this Base,” Kati said, after deciding to keep the story as simple and short as she could, “when we stopped to eat and rest, I decided to amuse myself by scanning the area with my ESP sense. I didn’t come across much wildlife, and had just decided that large animals must have learned to avoid humans who might hunt them, when I felt this, sort of amorphous, consciousness connect with mine, wanting to know who and what I was. Outside of running away, and trying to hide, my best option seemed to be to confront it, and allow it to read me, trying to impress upon it my peaceful intent.”

  She smiled, remembering her momentary confusion, and her quick decision to face up to the situation. Jorun, following her facial expressions smiled too, encouragingly.

  “I was treated to a most interesting experience. I learned that this consciousness was connected with the whole of the landscape around me. It took only seconds to read me thoroughly, and to my surprise, to approve of me. It feels that the balance of the world is, and has been for a quite some time, off-kilter, and decided that what I and my Team are here to do will help to restore that balance. For that reason it grants us freedom from interference, and is willing to help us if we need aid. It is, also, aware of what you and your Rebel cohorts are doing, and it wants you to succeed, because your success would also go a long ways to restoring the balance, as it understands it.”

  “That last bit is very gratifying,” Jorun said thoughtfully. “And as for the notion of the world being out of balance, that’s actually an apt way of describing what we face.”

  “According to what this Spirit implied, It’s not just human society that’s out of balance, but the world’s whole body. But a human society does not exist separately from the world which is its home; there is a symbiotic relationship between the two—at a minimum.”

  “It’s a pity that we Vultairians seem to have lost the ability to connect with this Spirit,” Jorun commented. “It could teach us a lot.”

  “Some of you may be able to connect with it,” Kati said. “Santha mentioned, when I explained my momentary mental absence to my fellow travellers, that she had heard old folks say that the Klensers could communicate with the Spirit of the Land, as she called it. So I asked Zass if he could, and he said that whenever he does that tuning-out thing that the Klensers do, he is, in fact, sensing this Spirit. Unfortunately, he said that he can’t communicate with it like I did. However, I did suggest to him that he might be able to learn to do so—after all, he has picked up a number of skills while he’s been with us, all of which were supposed to be impossibilities for a Klenser.”

  “We have given refuge to a small number of other Klensers here,” Jorun mused. “I think that we’ll have to try to communicate with them; see if any of them experience things the way Zass does. Perhaps some can relate more fully with this Spirit.”

  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, clearly weighing the possibilities.

  “There’s something else I need to tell you, however,” Kati added seriously. “This is really why I wanted to speak with you privately.”

  She had the Base Leader’s undivided attention, again. She told him about the gadget of Shelonian origin in the crevice in the woods. And about the image of a Vultairian speaking into it, that the Forest Spirit had shown her.

  “A transmitter of off-world manufacture?” Jorun’s eyebrows shot up. “How...but of course we have been welcoming to all factions of the Underground. Still, there’s no need for any rebel to spy on us; we’re perfectly happy to share our plans, our successes, and failures, with the scattered resistance groups. But surely no-one among us would be monstrous enough to partake of our hospitality while informing on us to the Oligarchs?”

  “Unless an Exalted was pretending to be an Ordinary Citizen in order to infiltrate your organization?” Kati suggested.

  Jorun burst out laughing.

  “You’re underestimating the arrogance of that caste,” he said when his mirth was under control, “and overestimating their ability to take a sane course of action.”

  “Mikal told me a few times that a good operative uses the arrogance of his opponents against them,” Kati commented, taking no offence from Jorun’s outburst.

  “That’s a sound policy, and when it comes to the Oligarchs of this world, there is plenty of arrogance to use,” the older man agreed. “But no, I don’t see this transmitter being brought here by one of the Exa
lted, although I’m sure they have a connection to it, somehow.”

  *****

  The conversation in the dining area had broken up into several; people were talking in twos and threes, even as more Base residents were trickling in.

  Roxanna had turned down a second beer, choosing, instead, to fill her mug with the herbal tea, while one of the kitchen workers explained to Rakil that she did this all the time; she didn’t drink much alcohol.

  “Hey, each to her own,” Rakil responded laconically, while passing his mug to the worker for a refill of ale.

  The woman grinned at him as she took his mug, understanding that he was not about to give up the seat beside the dark girl, as the table they were at, filled. She did not mind helping the polite off-worlder if he was smitten with Roxanna; it would be good for the wee girl to be courted by the awfully nice, if large and somewhat hairy, foreigner. She had often seemed so sad, though tough as nails, and smart as a whip.

  Roxanna had been reluctant to talk about herself at first, so Rakil had told her about himself, letting her ask questions, and answering them. How did he know Kati? How had he come to be a member of the Investigative Team, and what was his role in the Troupe? He told her about his juggling and poetry recital act, and how he had picked up some rudiments of drumming from Lank, who was an “amazing instructor”.

  “Fortunately the Vultairians are not super sophisticated when it comes to music, so even my small talent gets me a passing grade,” he explained with a chuckle. “Now, Lank and Joaley, they’re the true musicians among us; even Kati is an amateur compared to them.”

  “I don’t think Kati would ever claim to be anything more than an amateur,” Roxanna agreed, thinking of the sing-songs on the slave ship. “Her genius was to get everyone involved; on Gorsh’s ship, she had even the little alien boys singing our songs—humming at first, of course.”

  “She still does that—gets everybody to sing, that is—and she has taught the rest of us how to do it, too.”