*****
They gave the rockscape a little extra cooling time before heading out on it on the runnerbeasts. They then hurried across the bare landscape, slowing down only when they were back in vegetation. They found the runnerbeasts with the broken saddles first; the slavers had left them when they had started walking back towards Faithville. The granda warned them when they came close to the walkers, and then Kati took Bayne Bo with her and the two of them had their beasts creep on padded feet well into stunner range. Joakim and Lavesk were not careful; they thought that they had nothing to fear since the four and their mounts should have been vaporized. Kati stunned Joakim, and Bayne Bo took his first ever stunner shot and put Lavesk under. Then they hailed Yarm and Bayne Cho to join them with the extra runnerbeasts.
Kati found rope—some of the rope she and Mikal had taken from Gorsh’s ship so long ago—and the Bayne boys tied Joakim and Lavesk onto the runnerbeasts that they had ridden earlier, heads and legs dangling on the sides.
“Hey, Kati, doesn’t that position bring back memories?” Yarm asked her with a laugh.
“I hope being in that position on a runnerbeast is as uncomfortable as it was on a Narra,” Kati replied with a broad grin. “Mind you, they don’t really have to suffer since they’re unconscious.”
“And that’s the way we’ll keep them until we’re back in town, at the very least,” added Yarm. “Even if we have to stun them again and again.”
*****
The first townspeople they encountered on their return, after a much slower ride back than the one that had taken them away, began to cheer when they realized what the extra runnerbeasts were hauling on their backs. Cheers, shouts and laughter followed them as they made their way along the streets towards the Temple square where they expected to find Mikal and Jocan. Halfway there a young boy ran up to them, crying that a Federation ship had landed by the Temple.
“Are you sure?” Kati asked him. “Isn’t it kind of fast? We’ve only been gone not much more than a couple of hours.”
“It’s a little one,” the boy replied in a tone that implied that he was giving an explanation. “Mikal called it a ‘Scoutship’.”
“I guess we’ll just have to go take a look,” Yarm said with a grin. “Not a problem since we’re heading there anyway.”
They rode onto the grassy area around the Temple, surrounded by a small crowd of the townspeople of all ages. It was a jubilant crowd although apparently somewhat in awe of the shiny saucer-shaped ship which was parked (like an oddly shaped bus, Kati thought) beside The Temple steps. Mikal and Jocan, along with the Eldest, the Mayor and Wills, the town law-enforcer, were standing next to it, talking with two lightly-built people dressed in what looked like green, one-piece uniforms, complete with well-fitting hoods.
“Lamanians,” the granda subvocalized, augmenting Kati’s vision so that she could see the pale, hairless faces, and the large heads covered by the hoods.
The conversers, alerted by the noise made by the procession, turned to stare at them. Jocan was the firsts to catch on to what was going on.
“It’s them!” he shouted gleefully. “They’re back! Look! There are all four of them still on runnerbeasts and—good Lord—look what they have with them!”
He broke into a run heading towards the returnees, his face a mask of delight. When he reached the crowd he lifted his arm and pumped his fist repeatedly.
“You guys did it!” he cried. “You guys took those creeps away—and you brought them back stunned and tied up! It’s awesome!”
Then Mikal was there. He had hurried after Jocan and was now pushing his way through the crowd to reach Kati. She slipped off her runnerbeast as Mikal reached her and he grabbed hold of her, pulling her into a tight hug. For a moment she snuggled against him, eyes closed, enjoying the relief of seeing him again.
He drew himself apart then, enough to look at her face.
“We had a few tense moments,” he said. “Our Federation friends from the Scoutship said that they had seen a bright, broad flash, like the explosion of a flash bomb, about an hour or so ago, in the area south of here. We were afraid that maybe Lavesk and Joakim succeeded in finishing off all of you. We were just discussing what to try; whether to wait for them in town, or go and look for them on the trail, and pick them up there.”
“Mikal, it was Joakim, and he nearly did get us,” Kati said, her throat tightening at the thought of what the flash bomb had done. “The granda was using my ESP to keep an eye on them, and it warned us to get under cover, so we did. But the landscape in that area is totally ruined; everything’s gone except the rock.”
She could not keep the horror of it out of her voice. It was only when Mikal pulled up his shirt-tail to dry her eyes that she realized that tears were running down her face.
“Flash bombs are awful weapons,” he said as he finished wiping her face. “And to give such to a teenage kid is absolute idiocy.”
The Lamanians had arrived to join the group which had halted its motion on the grass. The locals respectfully moved out of their way as they approached Mikal and Kati, and the three who had made the trip down the trail with Kati. The two from the Scoutship were eyeing Kati curiously as she stood in the circle of Mikal’s arms; then their attention was drawn by the bodies roped onto the runnerbeasts.
“So you caught them,” the female one said, wonder in her voice.
“The four of us: Yarm, the Bayne boys and me, yes, we got them. Since we had the stunners, it was easy after the flash bomb.” Kati shrugged. “They thought that they had killed us, so they weren’t expecting Bayne Bo and me to be creeping behind them.”
“How did you avoid the flash bomb?” The woman, again.
Kati shrugged a second time.
“My granda node has learned to ride my PSI energies, so, after Lavesk and Joakim lost their mounts, it kept them under surveillance. When they started arguing about the flash bomb, it quickly scouted out a hiding place—down a little ways on the mountain and behind a rock—and directed us there. We just made it before Joakim threw the thing—the little shit!”
“Joakim? The boy, right?”
“Gorsh’s son. My acid-tongued, young friend on the slave ship called him ‘Daddy’s weakling boy’ the first time she saw him. I now think he’s considerably worse than that,” Kati said, eyeing the dirty hair falling down in lank strips from the youth’s upside-down head.
“Well, now he’s a prisoner,” the Lamanian woman said with a short laugh. “He ought to be able to enlarge our information stores about this Gorsh’s doings, once we get our wires connected to his node.”
She turned her eyes on Mikal.
“I think our boss is going to want to hire this Kati,” she said, smiling. “You just might lose your status as the top Agent once she’s on the payroll.”
“We’ll be keeping it in the family, though,” Mikal replied with a broad grin, tightening his arm around Kati’s waist.
“Methinks that you’re going to have to wait the half year that the Social Services decrees for Wilder women who have been taken advantage of by Federation men,” the male Lamanian said in a sly tone of voice, eyeing Kati with an expression which she could only classify as a polite leer.
“Yeah, Jeffo, and you’re thinking that you’ll be allowed to see her during that time, while Mikal can’t,” his female colleague snorted. “Watch that man, Kati. He’s an operator.”
Kati started to laugh.
“Don’t worry about me,” she told the Lamanian woman. “I may be a Wilder woman, but, boy, have I ever learned to take care of myself in the time since—well since I left home! And Mikal suits me just fine.”
“But maybe you don’t know that his last wife left him?” Jeffo said, looking hopeful.
“My last wife!” Mikal sputtered. “How many wives are you implying that I’ve had?”
“I do know about it,” Kati laughed.
She disengaged Mikal’s arms from around her.
“Let’s get back
to the business at hand,” she said; then addressed herself to the Lamanian woman: “First, how did you people get here so fast?”
“Our superior, Maryse, got that message Mikal sent via the Free Trader. So we have had this beacon under surveillance for a while; there’s a Torrones war ship in orbit up there. That’s how we’re travelling, actually. But since we didn’t know what exactly was happening down here, we didn’t just want to drop in without an invitation.
“Oh, and Mikal, the Torrones Captain wants to know why he can’t just slag the crooks’ ships into the rock when they land in that rendezvous spot on the southern continent. Apparently that would be the easiest way to deal with them, but Maryse gave orders that they’re not to do that under any circumstances. I’ve been able to keep the Captain sweet, so far, but an explanation from you would certainly help.”
She had a wry grin on her face as she spoke; Kati decided that the Torrones Captain must have been a pain in her backside on the subject.
“Tell him that it’s an absolute no-go.” Mikal sounded as adamant as Mikal sometimes could. “What’s with that Captain, anyway? He must know that the Federation doesn’t stoop to destruction like that! He wants to know why? Well, for one thing, some of those ships are full of children who have been captured to be sold as slaves, and we want to free them, not slag them. Secondly, those mountains in which the rendezvous field is, are honeycombed with tunnels and—“ he drew a deep breath, “—there are sentient creatures living in those tunnels.”
The Lamanians stared at him.
“Well, that should satisfy even a Torrones,” the woman finally said. “I’ll send word up as soon as I get back to the Scout.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
With the townspeople’s help they began the clean-up job.
The Lamanian woman, whose name seemed to be Arya something-or-other, went to the Scoutship to relay Mikal’s message to the war ship above them and to fetch some restraints to be used on Lavesk and Joakim. Mikal emptied Lavesk’s and Joakim’s pockets. With the Deflector Shield Controller and the Remote to the flyer—making a quick detour to the Scoutship to use its equipment to clear out any embedded restrictions to their use--he and Jeffo set off into the mushroom wood to deal with the nest that the slavers had created there. The Eldest of the Religious Community brought out Joakim’s weapons bag from wherever he had stashed it, and handed it over to Arya. She opened it and shook her head; then took the darter and the blaster that had been found in the slavers’ pockets and tossed them into the bag, too.
“I’ll put this in the Scout,” she told the Eldest and the other persons hanging about. “It’ll go to the Torrones ship Captain; he has the know-how to deal with it.” She grinned wickedly. “It’s for that kind of expertise that we allow them to stay in the Star Federation, after all.”
It sounded like an old joke, but somewhat beyond the listeners’ understanding. Kati supposed that she would learn its meaning one day soon; she and Mikal were slated to leave with Arya and Jeffo, and the now expertly restrained prisoners, in the Scoutship as soon as Mikal and Jeffo had dealt with the flyer, and a decision had been made as to what was to be done with it. There was no room for it in the small Scoutship, but Mikal and the Lamanians were adamant that it should not be left where Gorsh’s minions could possibly find it.
The townspeople and the members of the Religious Community helped to clean up the mess Lavesk and Joakim had made of the mushroom grounds, inside the Deflector Shield. Mikal told them that they could keep whatever of the equipment they could use, and most of it ended up with the Religious Community. The Eldest told Mayor Zenco that the townspeople needed only to ask, to borrow any of it, at any time. The flyer itself was a bigger issue, but everyone in both communities wanted it out of the common mushrooming location, the sooner, the better.
“It’s solar-powered and pretty easy to fly,” Arya commented, after the flyer was as clean as the combined efforts of the people cleaning the grove could get it. “And we of the Federation are going to have a presence on this world now, in one form or another, so there is no reason to destroy it.”
“I’m thinking that it should go to Yarm’s Northern Plains,” Mikal said thoughtfully. “The Federation will most likely want to deal with the Central Council of the Northern Plains, at least to begin with. They seem to be the most organized people on the planet, from what I can tell. Jocan could pick up the secrets of flying it in a jiffy, and he and Yarm are going to the Northern Plains anyway. Where are they?”
Someone fetched them from where Jocan had been chatting up Tania, and Yarm was discussing, with Ammi, the uses of some of the off-world items that the Religious Community had obtained.
“What do you think?” Mikal asked them. “Would you like to travel to your home, Yarm, in a flyer piloted by Jocan, rather than take the long route by runnerbeast?”
“I have no problem with runnerbeasts,” Yarm laughed, “but I bet that this is an opportunity that Jocan will not want to miss. Besides, I’m certain that the Central Council will not want to pass up a flyer—and an able pilot for it. It’ll make at least some travel easier, that’s for sure.”
Jeffo set to teaching Jocan the basics, while decisions were made as to what to do about the runnerbeasts that would have to be left behind. Kati offered to give hers to the Bayne boys, “in return for services rendered”, and Mikal threw his in with hers. The Eldest of the Religious Community said that his people could likely raise the money to buy Jocan and Yarm’s beasts, and they needed a couple of more runnerbeasts quite badly. Yarm told him that they’d get as good a deal as he and Jocan could manage to give—and considering that they had fast, alternative transport home now, they could be generous.
“Well,” Kati said finally. “I guess all that remains to be done is to check out of the Faithville Inn and to spend our last loot on a good meal for everyone who helped today. Shall we go there and take advantage of their restaurant facilities? The food’s pretty decent, and the wine is excellent—we’ll order Zenco’s best. Arya and Jeffo, you, too; you’ll have to make the acquaintance of this World’s cuisine.”
*****
“So Mikal, you’re of the opinion that the Federation should contact the Central Council of the Northern Plains, when they send people here to deal with the criminals using this planet as a rendezvous point, right?” Arya asked during a lively discussion that followed the evening meal.
“Yes. From what Yarm has told me I’ve drawn the conclusion that that’s the most populous part of this planet, and well-governed,” Mikal answered. “There are other well-run places, like, for example, the Sickle Island, but they’re much smaller population centres. Mind you, someone will have to go to the Sickle Island and relieve their law enforcers of a couple of Gorsh’s people that they jailed for bringing lethal weapons into their town, Portobay. I’m sure they’d love to get rid of the weapons as well; right now they’re sitting in a safe in their Reclamation Centre.”
“I assume that all this information will be in your nodal report.”
“Of course. Kati will be making a report, too. Her node has information that mine does not; especially about Gorsh’s ship and the people on it, since I was drugged during almost the whole time I was there.”
Arya turned to Yarm.
“You’re an official of some sort for this Northern Plains Council, then?” she asked.
“After a fashion,” he replied. “I have been travelling the world, and reporting back to the Central Council on what I’ve seen and experienced. One of the topics in which the Central Council is interested, is how the various populations have organized themselves. Also, how well they are doing when it comes to meeting the needs of their people. I guess you could say that it has been my job to try and measure—in rough terms, of course—how much recovery of civilization there has been in the world since The Disaster.”
“Hm. It’s interesting that your Council would care,” Arya commented.
“Oh, they care a great deal,” said Yarm. “
There’s a consensus among my people that we cannot allow our World to develop in such a fashion as to end up with another disaster. We want to live differently from how our ancestors did before The Disaster, and we want to see the change all over the globe, not just in our part of it. Therefore we have to, first of all, know what is going on. Eventually we want to influence other people to live co-operatively with one another and nature, but we cannot do that without information.”
“This is why I think that the Federation should ask for the assistance of the Councils of the Northern Plains in protecting the sentients of the Southern Continent’s mountain range,” Mikal interjected. “I think they could be very helpful. Always understanding that the expansionist policies of the pre-Disaster, surface-dwelling population frightened these sentients so much that they kept themselves separate from them, to the point where the surface-dwellers did not even know that they existed.”
“That time when you talked about eco-systems in need of protection, Mikal, you mentioned old legends,” Yarm said thoughtfully. “I have been trying to remember the manuscripts I had to study when I first took on the task of being an information-gatherer. I recalled one tale of a sentient, tunnel-living race of blind people that were presumed to once dwell on the Southern Continent. If they’re still there—well that would be the most wonderful thing I can imagine. To be sharing this world with another sentient species; I cannot think of anything more amazing!”
“If the people you work for share that view, I have high hopes for this world,” asserted Mikal.
“Indeed,” added Arya. “And the Federation will certainly undertake to protect this world from the riff-raff of the Space Lanes. I’m going to recommend that, to begin with, we’ll keep a couple of Torrones vessels in orbit, to frighten away the ships of operators such as Gorsh. Then we can figure out the connection you might want to form with the Federation.”
“Just make sure those Torrones know that they’re not to land, and they’re not to use any of their weapons in a way that might affect the planet,” Mikal said drily.
Escape from the Drowned Planet Page 79