Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers

by Helena Puumala

  Rudi had seemed like the only one of the officials to show some humanity. The woman he had accompanied to the ship had not seemed bad out there, but Chrysalia had muttered to Kati when she, Ciela and Llon arrived with the bags that the Customs lady had turned wooden once she and Lank had arrived in the building.

  “Maybe she’s the type that follows every regulation precisely,” she had murmured. “Or else, she’s just afraid of losing her job if she doesn’t toe somebody’s line.”

  “Hm. We don’t know what we’re up against,” Kati had responded, “so I guess we’ll comply with all rules and requests that get tossed at us.”

  They had done so. Kati, usually quick to chat up the locals when the opportunity presented itself to get information, had found that she was being given the cold shoulder, and after an attempt or two to engage the workers in small talk, she had given up. Only Lank had seemed to have been able to keep a conversation going with Rudi who was showing him items on a computer screen, and Kati had hoped that he was having more luck getting data than she had had.

  “Well, I hope your Rudi isn’t a scammer, and that his benefactor really is ‘a grand fellow’,” Kati replied. “Although, I suppose, even if everything isn’t on the up and up, at least we’re likely to get a ride from the guy to a more congenial neighbourhood.”

  “Like the Inn District,” The Monk subvocalized. “This city must have one, although I must admit to never in my lives having spent any time in Strone.”

  “But you’ve been on Wayward before.” Kati jumped on the implication immediately. “Did you spend a whole lifetime on this planet, or did you just visit it?”

  “Just visits,” the Granda responded. “In a couple of separate lives, one of them too far back in time to be of much use to us.”

  “What place or places did you visit?” Kati asked.

  “A city called Salamanka. That was in my next-to-last existence, and I disliked Salamanka. Apparently, once upon a time it was a beautiful city, and the buildings were mostly still there. But the beauty had been overshadowed by some misery or evil—I don’t know which. My host, and he was no angel himself, couldn’t wait to get the heck off-planet; he thought the whole world was a shit-hole like Salamanka. Compared to it, even this drab corner of Strone is a fine place.”

  “Sounds like this Salamanka must be one of those places Llon spoke of. Wanna bet we’ll have to go to one of those hell-holes to find that knife-making factory? So be ready to brace yourself for another unpleasant trip.”

  ‘That’s what that weapons collector on Station Plata implied,” The Monk subvocalized gloomily. “And your arch-enemy, would-like-to-be-boyfriend, will certainly be found in such a place.”

  “Which means that so will Mikal and Xoraya. Think we’ll be able to work out a way to lift the gloom, old reprobate?”

  “We’ll figure out something.”

  But The Monk didn’t sound particularly optimistic.

  Just then, a large flier came into view above one of the empty, dusty streets. While the group members watched in silence, it descended, and came to a landing on the street crossing beside them. Kati had barely time to collect her wits from contemplating how weird it seemed to have a flyer come down on a city street, when the hatch opened and let out a tallish, thin man, past his middle years, but still vigorous-looking. He had the olive complexion which, appeared to be the most common colouring on Wayward.

  His smiled broadly as he approached the group.

  “Captain Katerina and crew of The Spacebird Two?” he inquired. “But, of course, who else could you possibly be?”

  He extended a hand to the Captain; Kati took it, slightly surprised at the gesture with which she was quite familiar—from another life-time.

  “Welcome to Wayward,” the man said. “I am Max Lordz, a minor member of the Grand Council of the Continent Nord. It looks like the fact that I helped one of my young constituents to get a job here at the Strone Space Port has borne fruit. More interesting fruit, in fact, than I had dared to hope, when I suggested that he let me know if, and when, travellers worthy of note come through.”

  “Are we worthy of note?” Captain Katerina asked, after she had introduced her companions. “Just hardworking Free Traders, I’m afraid, looking for a place to lay our heads at night, and a market for our goods.”

  “Precisely.”

  Max Lordz rubbed his hands together, grinning.

  “Hardworking Free Traders coming through the Port at Strone, rather than parking in some shady operator’s back tarmac. You, Captain Katerina are selling valuable goods, but are, apparently, beholden to no-one on Wayward. Just the sort of a trader we in the Grand Council would like to see more of.

  “Now, unless you are seriously keen on taking rooms at an inn, I would like to invite you to be guests at my city quarters. As a member of one of the Old Families who used to run this continent before we brought in a democratic system of government, I own a large house in town, complete with servants, but am in residence there alone, since my wife has passed away, and my only son has gone—to ruin. I have plenty of room for guests, and I would enjoy having some off-planet ones.”

  Kati had already sent the Granda to take a measure of the man. While waiting for the report she glanced at Llon who nodded almost imperceptibly. The Monk returned and seconded the opinion; Max Lordz really was pleased to see them, and he was, to a cursory inspection, an honest, if stubborn and, sometimes, a difficult man.

  “Well, then,” Captain Katerina said, picking up her bag, “we’ll take advantage of your offer of hospitality, Councillor Lordz. It does solve the problem of making a deposit for our accommodation at an inn, when we have precious little ready cash on hand.”

  “It’s a common problem for Free Traders,” Lordz said, taking Kati’s bag from her. “When Rudi mentioned that you had left an item of trade as a deposit for Port fees and taxes, I immediately thought to offer the hospitality of my house.”

  “Rudi implied that you might be able to help us with the sale of our merchandise,” Lank said, as he picked up his and Chrysalia’s bags of personal belongings.

  Chrysalia had picked up the sacks of lace crystal. She was taking her role as their guardian very seriously. Kati guessed that she had no intention of allowing Max Lordz to handle the sacks; she didn’t much like even the other crew members touching them.

  “I think that I can be of help,” Lordz said. “And I hope to direct you towards buyers who can be trusted to make the best use of them—in other words keep you from falling in with shady characters. There are enough of those on this world, although some of us are trying to change things.”

  They settled themselves into the flyer. The baggage went into the back, except for the lace crystal bags which Chrysalia set at her feet. Lordz glanced at her and the sacks with some curiosity but did not comment. He settled in at the flyer’s controls while Lank sat down in the seat next to him, and gave the dash a quick study. Kati did not doubt but that he could have taken over the flying from their host at a moment’s notice. As a matter of fact, she thought that she probably could have flown the vehicle herself, had she known where they were going. The machine appeared to be very like the one with which she had taken flying lessons, on Vultaire.

  *****

  The flight was a short one, simply a hop from one part of the city to another. Kati, curious about Strone, spent most of it looking down on the cityscape.

  The three constants, when it came to cities, she mused, were buildings, streets and inhabitants. There could be tremendous variations within the three, but they all existed in any place which called itself a city. The buildings could be magnificent, or they might be hovels. Or they could be anything in between, or a combination of the two, and of everything in between. The streets might be mighty boulevards, or muddy alleys, but they were there, in some form or another. And inhabitants: without people—or a reasonable facsimile—any city was a mere ghost town, a dead zone.

  In Strone, the buildings were varied.
There was a slight resemblance to cityscapes that Kati remembered from Earth, but from an earlier era than the one in which she had dwelt. The habitations were squarish constructs, many of them surrounded by yards or gardens, and ran the gamut from opulent to mere huts. There were many businesses, and what appeared to her to be industrial areas; the Space Port apparently was at the edge of the town in an industrial area, which was likely why it had seemed so dusty and deserted. In the heart of the city, towards which they were speeding, stood a complex of huge, magnificent, old buildings, probably the seat of the Government of the Continent Nord. The broad streets in the area were relatively free of traffic, other than what looked like trams running on monorails, and which apparently stopped automatically at every street corner, whether they picked up and disgorged passengers, or not. Probably a very reliable, if not a fast form of transport, Kati judged, and well-used by working citizens, including the staff of what she was assuming were the Government Offices. Farther from the Government Complex there were also gaggles of foot traffic, bicyclists, scooters, and blunt-nosed trucks which obviously were used for hauling, but seemed to be powered by something other than internal combustion engines. Above these all scooted the fliers and the flits, not in large numbers, but there were enough of them for them to form an intrinsic part of the streetscape.

  Max Lordz put the flyer down in front of an outbuilding on the grounds of what looked to Kati like a mansion, rather than what Lordz had called it, “a house”.

  “I’ll let you folks out here, in the garden, before I park this thing in the hangar,” Lordz said. “The servants should come by to help you with the luggage, within moments.”

  Three servants arrived before he had the hangar door completely open to roll the flyer in. Kati recalled that the older flyers had to be rolled into garages and parkades via ground passages, because, in enclosed spaces, the flying mechanisms could create vibrations capable of damaging machinery around them, including other flyers and flits.

  “I’m kind of possessive about these things,” Chrysalia said to the uniformed woman who reached for the sack she had been hauling. “The only one, even of the crew, I’ll allow to help me with them, is Llon here.”

  She passed the bigger sack to Llon who took it good-naturedly. Chrysalia mollified the servant with a brilliant smile, and the woman turned to grab one of the other bags, which happened to be Kati’s, who grinned at her in turn.

  “Crew woman Chrysalia takes her task of looking after our valuables very seriously,” she explained with a laugh. “I’m Captain Katerina, and I humour her, since she is a very capable and efficient member of our group. That’s my bag that you’re carrying, by the way.”

  “Yes ma’am,” answered the stocky, middle-aged woman.

  “I’m sure,” said one of her companions, also middle-aged, and stocky, but male, “that we can adjust to your habits, given a chance. Sieur Max has accommodated a variety of guests in the past, and we have always succeeded in serving even the most demanding ones.”

  Kati turned her smile on him.

  “We’re not planning on being demanding,” she said. “Free Traders usually learn to adjust to whatever situation they find themselves in.”

  The manservant smiled, too.

  “We will show you to the suite of rooms that has been set aside for your use. Sieur Max has requested that we serve a snack in the downstairs sitting room, since dinner in this household is generally a late affair. He assumed that your meal times may be off-schedule, since you just arrived at the Space Port aboard your ship.”

  “I believe that he is right about that,” Captain Katerina conceded.

  “A snack!” Lank’s eyes lighted up. “I could certainly use a snack! Breakfast was a forever ago!”

  His enthusiasm drew laughter from the rest of the crew of The Spacebird Two, as well as from “Sieur” Max’s servants. Ciela made a (slightly accented) crack about hungry, growing boys, and the female servant said that she would warn the cook to provide plenty of provender.

  *****

  The downstairs sitting room was a large, but comfortable place, with a huge, old fireplace dominating one wall, and a bank of glass doors opening into a patio, and a garden beyond it. It was summertime outside, so the fireplace was not lit, although it was stacked with resinous wood which no doubt would have created a crackling blaze. There were comfortable couches, benches and chairs around the room, some of them organized into groups to facilitate conversation. At one end was a large table with the promised “snack” laid out on it, complete with dishes, utensils, and trays which could be used to carry the food to the seats.

  A number of servants were present to help, including the two men and the woman the crew had already met—the woman, Signe by name, had been the one to fetch them from the suite they had been allowed to take over. A lively young girl server handed out, and demonstrated the use of, little stands on which the trays fit rather ingeniously, allowing the eaters to relax without worrying about spilling their victuals.

  Lank with his youthful appetite was an immediate hit with the help. The Cook, introduced as Johanes, plied his plate with various delicacies, telling him what they were and from where they came. Kati, next in line behind him, chose from among them a less meaty assortment.

  “No way can I eat like Lank does,” she protested to the Cook who was clucking at her more modest selection.

  “But you will have a glass of wine, no?” Sammas, the older manservant who had met them at the flit, and had been introduced as the Head Housekeeper, asked, brandishing a bottle of red.

  “Yes, I’ll certainly give it a go; I’m quite fond of wine,” she replied.

  “This is very good,” Sammas said. “It comes from the Lordz vineyards; the family is well known for their wine.”

  Kati swallowed a comment about Mikal’s parents’ vineyard, and another about Sickle Island Red. Captain Katerina would not know about such things, although it was okay for her to have some small familiarity with wines. Instead, she simply accepted the proffered glass, and sniffed its heady aroma.

  “I think that I’m going to like this,” she said, and collected her things on a tray.

  She followed the young girl servant to where Max Lordz was sitting in a deep armchair, and accepted her help to settle her tray on a stand beside a modest chair next to the host.

  “So Captain Katerina of the ship Spacebird Two which has no registration number,” Sieur Max said, “you have come to Wayward with an interesting cargo. And a rather large entourage for a Free Trader. I’m curious, of course.”

  “You would be,” Captain Katerina conceded. “Free Traders don’t normally bring along half their families on their trading trips. But these are not ordinary times, and fortunately our goods are rather valuable without taking up much space, so I could indulge my whim of hauling along relatives. Of course, the whim was related to the fact that my husband, who is my usual travel companion, could not accompany me this time. He thought that he’d feel better about me going, if I had some other relatives with me, and I agreed to take along Uncle Llon, Ciela, and Lank. Lank happens to be an accomplished pilot, so I was quite happy to get him, to replace my spouse’s piloting skills.”

  “Things are a little unsettled on Tarangay these days,” interjected Llon who had settled into the seat next to Kati. “Katerina’s husband felt that he ought to stay home and safeguard their assets there. So some of the rest of the family decided to step into the breach, and make this trading jaunt with her.”

  This was interesting. For some reason Llon was making sure that their cover story would be recited—in a room full of servants’ ears no less. Kati did not quite understand why he was doing that, but presumed that he had good reasons. And knowledge of some kind which she was not privy to.

  “And crew woman Chrysalia is another of your relatives?”

  Clearly she was not a blood relative to any one of them. The girl servant with the tray stands was just settling her onto a divan across from Kati. The plate on
her tray was heaped with plant-based food-stuffs; it looked like the Crystolorian had found a lot of edible bounty on Max Lordz’s table. Kati was pleased by that; it meant one less worry for her.

  Chrysalia turned to face Sieur Max even as she dug her long fingers into an assortment of raw vegetables which covered one-half of her plate.

  “No, I’m not one of the Tarangay relatives,” she said. “My presence is part of the deal my people made for the cargo which Captain Katerina and her shipmates picked up on my world. I wanted to see the galaxy, and, for a price, the Captain agreed to hire me on to The Spacebird Two.”

  “I made a good deal, there,” Captain Katerina asserted with a grin. “Crew woman Chrysalia has proven herself to be a very competent person.”

  “Ah. And I suppose that the crew woman also serves as a source of information about the cargo?” Sieur Max’s eyebrows had gone up.

  “I can be that,” Chrysalia assented. “Assuming that potential buyers are unfamiliar with the qualities of Crystolorian crystals.”

  Lordz turned his attention to Kati.

  “Why did you decide to bring your load of lace crystal to Wayward, anyway?” he asked bluntly. “You could sell it almost anywhere, and possibly at a better profit than you’ll make here. Not to say that we won’t be glad to have it—we can certainly use it, and buyers will fall over themselves trying to be the first in line to get a chunk—but Wayward is hardly the first world that comes to mind when a trader is looking to sell a valuable cargo.”

  Kati glanced at Llon, and caught his rudimentary nod. Time to lay the truth out on the line. She looked at Chrysalia, as well; the Crystolorian made a gesture with a finger which Kati had once seen Mikal use, and which, according to the Granda, signalled agreement among the members of the Federation Peace Officer Corps. Where had Chrysalia picked it up? Another little mystery—but she had her go-ahead.