“The living quarters were the easiest to fix up, so they were restored before anything in the lab was even close to finished,” Ciela explained, as she walked the group (minus Lank) through the kitchen and the sitting room, and displayed the two small bedrooms with the double bunks. “The people of the Principality joined together to rebuild the easy stuff; I guess we all felt that we should have everything ready in case Scientist Hsiss returned to resume his work.”
She shook her head to acknowledge the irrationality of the wish. Kati thought privately that Xanthus Hsiss, for all his difficulties with dealing with humans, must have been welcome on the Maldos Chain.
“The Council reluctantly agreed to finance the acquisition of the parts for the lab equipment that we couldn’t salvage from the wreckage,” Ciela added. “But some of that stuff was pretty obscure and hard to get, so we have been scouring lab equipment catalogues for quite a while. Fortunately, Councillor Gorine hired me on as her Page, which means that I have access to the Principality’s communications console—we only have the one. Scientist Hsiss had one on his ship, and he kept an extension to it in the lab, but the criminals took his ship, and trashed the box in the lab, so there’s nothing here now.”
“Do you have the remains of the extension box?” Xoraya asked, suddenly looking lively.
“I think that they were saved, in some drawer,” Ciela replied. “I’ll ask Davo, if he remembers. I do recall that we thought that we’d try to fix it eventually, but it was not high on our list of priorities, since we did not know how to go about making it operational. It was connected to the ship console, and of course we had nothing with which to replace that.”
“Its crystalline core,” Xoraya said, “should still be in resonance with the crystal of the ship’s console. Which means that we might be able to use it to lead us to the ship, whatever the criminal louts may have done with it. How that will help us, Mikal, I’m not quite sure, though.”
“Don’t underestimate even the smallest possible clue,” Mikal said. “We don’t know what is going to be useful in the long run. So let’s find that crystal, if it can be found, and use it, if and when the time comes.”
Davo led Xoraya to a drawer at the bottom of a bank of such. Drawers and cupboards filled a whole wall inside the laboratory. Davo pulled out a smallish wooden box, and opened it to display the pieces of something which had been savagely destroyed, probably by bashing it against a hard object. Xoraya clucked sadly to see them, and then rooted among the broken components until she came up with a transparent crystalline object attached to metal casings at both ends.
“Lace crystal,” she said, directing her words to Kati. “So hard that it’s almost impossible to break, and capable of resonating at speeds which are completely undetectable by human, or lizard, senses. That’s partly what makes the knives made of it so deadly; the vibration adds to the sharpness.”
She then turned to Davo:
“When you get to the stage where you’re going to be rebuilding the transmitter, have your First Councillor send a message to the Xeon Space Station. I’ll arrange to have another core crystal sent to you—one that will turn that little console into a communicator capable of hooking up to any network you choose.”
She added in a low aside to Mikal and Kati:
“They should have at least two consoles capable of across-the-void communications in a principality this size. Especially since they have to worry about being targeted by the criminal element of the Space Lanes.”
*****
When they returned to Maldosa, Lank was gushing with excitement over the scientific equipment in the lab, including the machinery that he had helped Davo and Wil put together.
“It’s amazing,” he told Kati and Llon in the flit, as he piloted them back to town. “It allows the user to make the minutest alterations to the make-up of the drug he or she is working on. No need to just toss or pour ingredients together after measuring them in beakers and test-tubes. You know exactly what you’re doing to the last atom. Which is very useful when the ingredients are plant juices or bodily secretions which can vary a lot from one batch to the next.”
“The workers in the lab on the Margolis Estate on Vultaire weren’t doing anything that precise,” Kati objected. “They were working with test-tubes and beakers, lab burners and glass spoons. And bottling the results into glass vials. Things that even I recognized from my school days.”
“I imagine that the formula that Scientist Hsiss gave to the humans who clamoured for the mind-tangler was one that he had simplified from something much more complex,” said Llon. “One that had a certain amount of leeway in the composition, so that it was effective even if prepared less stringently than Scientist Hsiss was used to operating during his own researches.”
“What are the Tarangayan youths planning to do with the lab, now that they have it operational?” Kati asked. “I hope that they’re not going to draw the interest of some enterprising drug-runner back to these islands.”
“Davo said that they were going to start by just playing around with stuff,” Lank answered. “You know, see if they can’t change the flavour of thornberry juice into something more interesting to them, by mixing in minute quantities of other flavours. Things like that.”
“Hm. Maybe they can come up with thornberry juice that tastes like coffee,” Kati suggested flippantly. “There’d be money in that, although the Paradisans might object.”
Lank grinned at her crookedly.
“Trust you to come up with an idea,” he said, “although, sometimes, a goofy one.”
“Hey, you can’t say that I don’t try,” Kati responded.
*****
Ciela guided the visitors to The Maldosa Lodge, a rambling stone structure close to the ocean, and at the very edge of town. They were on the leeward side of the island, protected from the salty winds by the trees growing throughout the central part of the landmass. Ciela pointed out the abundant bushes covered in red berries which grew almost to the water beyond the lodge buildings.
“The infamous thornberry bushes,” she crowed, “or at least some of them. All the Lodge employees have to do to get juice is to go out and pick the berries, and then steam out the juice! Is it any wonder we can’t get away from the stuff?”
“Anybody thought of turning them into wine?” Mikal asked. “Maybe they’d make a passable fruit wine, or has that been already tried and found to be a rotten idea?”
Ciela grinned.
“I’ll make sure to ask about that,” she said.
*****
Xoraya cornered Mikal and Llon for a moment before joining Kati in the Women’s Bathhouse of the Lodge. Ciela had taken Lank to look at the bar and to get an idea of the group playing music there. He was to join the other two fellows at the Men’s Bathhouse afterwards. The Spacebird’s mist shower facilities were good, but the travellers were keen on luxuriating in abundant water.
“Mikal, you and I can probably use the crystal transmitter core to lay the bait,” she said, while looking about her anxiously, as if expecting to be overheard.
“Because the crooks have the ship that it’s coupled with, is what you mean?” Mikal asked.
Xoraya nodded.
“We need to be on the same planet as the ship, though,” she said. “I don’t know how good the chances are that they’ll come back here to Tarangay in the near future. I suppose that we can hang around for a while, and see. If they don’t, we’ll have to find whatever world they’re usually parking the ship on, these days.”
“What do you think of the idea, Llon?” Mikal asked.
“I’m thinking to make friends with the local Planetary Spirit, or Spirits,” Llon replied. “Such could let us know when and where the ship arrives. Then the two of you—and the crystal core—will have to make yourselves available to be dragged off. Not too easily, though. If you don’t resist at all, our target, or his minions, might smell a rat.”
“Although, I think that he’ll be so delighted with the
opportunity to snag us that he won’t think to ask any difficult questions,” said Xoraya. “Think of it! A second Xeonsaur to navigate for him! And the Federation Agent who slipped through his fingers before he could decant his brain, because some little slip of a young woman managed to escape with him in tow!”
“All the same, we’ll pretend to resist,” Mikal said. “Of course the way we play it depends on the game. But, yes, activating Xanthus’ ship’s transmitter console with the resonant crystal core from its auxiliary ought to bring us attention. It’s just a matter of doing it at an opportune moment when Kati and Lank are safely out of the way. We do need our rescue team intact.”
“Maybe we can send them off to visit Lank’s mother’s grave when the opportunity arises,” Xoraya suggested.
“That’s definitely a possibility,” agreed Mikal. “Do you want to go with them?” he then asked Llon.
The Green Robe pondered for a moment.
“It may be better if I manage to avoid capture somehow,” he finally said with an enigmatic smile. “A witness to the capture might be more useful to Kati and Lank than another mourner at the grave.”
“Or another carouser at Conny’s bar,” Mikal added drily. “Conny’s the flautist who taught Lank to play.”
*****
The travellers were eating supper in the Lodge’s restaurant when Gorine stopped by at their table with news.
“Customs Officer Jaritz just called from the Space Port, minutes ago,” she said right away, not even sitting down. “He said that Scientist Hsiss’ ship just came in, manned by four burly men, none of whom was Xanthus Hsiss. The ship has been repainted and camouflaged, although not well enough to pass through the checks the Customs equipment can make.”
Mikal raised his brows at this last. It seemed that the Tarangayan Space Port Authorities had spent some coin to get good ship identifying ware. They really must have been worrying about the space criminals, even as the Customs Officers had claimed!
“Jaritz said that the men asked about you people when they came through, although they seemed to think that there were only four of you, a couple and two teenagers, the girl an odd-looking youngster. They had a good description of the couple though; there is no question about who they were after. They seemed to know that you would either be already on planet, or arriving shortly.
“Jaritz continued that he wasn’t quite sure what to tell them since this possibility of pursuit had not come up during his talk with Agent r’ma Trodden and Madame Hsiss. In the end, and since there were quite a few ships parked at the Port, he decided to pretend to trawl through his data, and discover that yes, the four of you had, indeed, come through the customs today, but neglected to mention anything about the ship you had arrived on. He also told them that he was not certain, but that he thought that you had headed for Plenty, planning to take a boat from there to whatever your next destination may have been.”
“Next time you talk to Jaritz thank him for me,” Mikal said with a broad grin. “I love working in tandem with the locals; they never fail me, and often exceed my expectations! And thank you for coming to tell us about this, Councillor Gorine. Can we buy you supper, or maybe just a drink if you’re in a hurry?”
“My husband is cooking me supper tonight, but I won’t say no to a glass of ale,” the Councillor said, sitting down on the bench beside Kati, who made room for her. “Did you guys fill Ciela’s head with notions of wine-making? She came back to the office this afternoon, wanting to know if anyone had ever tried to make thornberry wine, and if no-one had, why not?”
Kati giggled, and Mikal looked slightly abashed.
“It was me,” he confessed. “My parents have a vineyard and run a winery, so the inquiry about making fruit wine from what’s available came quite automatically to me, I’m afraid.”
“You were no doubt also thinking of Jock Carmaks and his plans for that abandoned nardo orchard that we came across on Margolis Island, on Vultaire,” Kati said. “His grandfather-in-law to-be was quite enthusiastic about the project.”
“Maybe the boys—and girl—working on the Laboratory Island could do some experimenting,” Lank suggested. “They do now have top of the line equipment to fool around with flavour combinations, and such.”
“That’s not a half-bad idea,” Gorine agreed, taking a sip of the beer that a waiter set before her. “I understand that the past attempts to make wine with the thornberries produced a sour, if alcoholic brew. If those kids could come up with something that was more palatable, we might have an export on hand.”
“So Gorsh’s minions are already here on Tarangay,” Kati said, after Gorine had consumed her drink and gone home to her husband and his cooking. “Any ideas on how we’re going to play this?”
“Did they guess to come here, or did they have some inside information?” Lank asked. “Could they have any inside information?”
“The three brutes must have noticed that you had disappeared from Qupar Station,” Llon responded. “Maybe they finally even approached the Makallys with questions; the Old Man no doubt told them that oh, sure, you had bought a ship and left, days ago. And that’s probably all they got from him, or the Port Authorities at Qupar, for that matter. People there are trying to run a lawful outfit, and don’t take all that kindly to the riff-raff of the Space Lanes.”
“So they probably don’t know which ship is ours,” Lank said, “since Jaritz didn’t enlighten them on that account either.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better if Jaritz hadn’t mentioned our presence here on Tarangay at all?” Kati asked.
“Probably not,” Mikal responded thoughtfully. “The problem with communications systems which depend on nodes is that they can be accessed nodally. It’s not particularly difficult for someone who knows his business to violate anyone’s privacy—that’s why Lamanians are almost fanatic about respecting privacy.”
“And why the Vultairian Exalted were able to bug their communications consoles to practically download your life-story the moment you used one of them,” Kati added, nodding. “Except for the ones at their Space Port Customs; those were inspected by the Federation at random intervals, and even the Warrions did not dare meddle with them.”
“Since these four nosy parkers heard what they wanted to hear from Jaritz, the calculation is that they won’t bother to go to the trouble of hacking into the Customs data,” Mikal continued. “Thanks to the magic Kati’s Granda node performed while creating the escrow account, they wouldn’t get much from there, but they would have got the fact that we’re here—and on what ship we arrived. Jaritz kept the info about our ship from them, and I’m grateful for that.”
“We’re not any closer to figuring out how we’re going to play this,” Kati reiterated. “Is there some way we can get these particular goons to lead us to Gorsh—in Xanthus Hsiss’ ship, no less?”
“This is going to take some serious mental work,” Mikal murmured.
Their meals eaten, they were enjoying mugfuls of hot thornberry juice while they talked. Lank inhaled deeply of the aroma rising from his mug, took a swallow and spoke:
“I guess those guys have scuttled my opportunity to go and look at my Mum’s grave, and say hello to Conny. I wish that they’d taken a little longer to get here.”
“Oh, no!” Kati said, genuinely regretful. “Is there no way that we can squeeze Lank’s little side trip into our schedule now? It doesn’t seem right that he has to miss out on it! Who knows when he’ll get back here again, considering our business and all?”
“We need to hang around here for some time tomorrow, to interview some more people, including the other youngsters who were working with Xanthus,” Mikal said slowly. “Plus we were to get descriptions of the criminals from the people who had seen them. Who knows, maybe some of the four chasing us now were among them?
“I don’t think that it takes all five of us to do that. I’m sure that Xoraya, Llon and I can handle the workload if you, Kati, want to accompany Lank. We have two flit
s, so you can take one.”
“What do you think, Lank?” Kati asked. “Does that sound okay to you? You and I abscond tomorrow morning, leaving these guys to work their butts off, and to hope that the jerks looking for us are scouring Plenty, instead of coming over to this Principality to see if we decided to take a look at what’s left of the laboratory. By the way, I did hear Gorine say that she was setting guards on the Laboratory Island for as long as those idiots remain on planet, right?”
“Right, she did say that,” answered Llon. “And I heard her muttering something about getting hold of a half-dozen of the burliest fellows in Maldosa, when she was leaving.”
“Hm. I don’t know if she enjoyed much of that supper her spouse was cooking for her,” sighed Kati.
CHAPTER FIVE
Crescent City, the place where Lank had grown up was one of the larger settlements of the Long Archipelago, possibly the largest. No-one had taken a census of its population, at least not recently. The Principality that it was located in was not particularly well-run, not the way Greyrock Island was, or Maldos Chain for that matter. Nominally the Oreborne Island was run by a Council, this one with twelve members, but the politics of the Principality were so hopelessly corrupt, that everything was actually in the hands of the richest inhabitants. In fact, Oreborne was one of the Principalities which those of the Tarangayans who were keen to join the Star Federation in one fashion or another, cited with frustration. The rich of Oreborne were just as likely to make common cause with the space criminals, to the detriment of all Tarangayans except themselves, as to agree to a plan to keep the criminals out. Especially if the plan would cost them money.
Kati had picked up this bit of information from a talkative Maldosan woman who had approached her in the women’s washroom of the Lodge’s Bar, during the couple of hours the group had sat there, listening to the band. The woman had been curious to know what the group was doing on Maldos Chain which apparently was not a common tourist destination.
Kati had deflected her questions by telling her about her and Lank’s plan to go and see the place where he had grown up, and had been rather taken aback by the torrent of complaints that the woman had spouted at the mention of Crescent City and its environs. She had listened to the woman for a few minutes with some bemusement, mentally shaking her head at how the human animal never seemed to change its spots.
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 11