Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers

by Helena Puumala

  “After we decided to go and do some trading on Chrysalia’s home world, I came across the information that Wayward has a history of having manufactured lace crystal knives,” Captain Katerina said. “We were able to obtain a handful of the long pieces suitable for processing into knives, and, naturally, wish to sell them to an outfit capable of making the best possible use of them. I suppose that we could have rooted around in Federation databases, looking for other places with manufacturers, but it seemed simpler to come and see if the expertise was still alive on Wayward. Perhaps you, Councillor Lordz, can tell us if that is so. If it is not, we can always take our long crystals elsewhere, and try to find the best deal that we can, for them.”

  Max Lordz gave her a hard stare.

  “Funny,” he said. “You don’t really look or act like a person who would deal in things as deadly as the lace crystal knives are. I’m missing something here, am I not? Or, perhaps you are, Captain Katerina. Do you realize what those knives can do, and what their intended purpose is?”

  “A collector on Space Station Plata told me that they are made for the sole purpose of stabbing people in the back, with the intent to kill. Having handled one—the one I sold to the collector in question—I can believe it.”

  “She was going to give it away to a fisherman on Tarangay to gut fish,” Lank piped up. “But there was a question of finances, so she was persuaded to change her mind.”

  “A fish knife.” Lordz chortled. “Now there’s a thought. An expensive, dangerous fish knife. But it’s probably safer in the display case of that collector. The case probably has locks that would defeat the most experienced burglar.

  “That story only deepens the mystery, however, my dear Captain. I still don’t understand why you’re peddling lace crystal shards which can be turned into very dangerous weapons, although I now understand why crew woman Chrysalia came along with you, and has been guarding your trade goods with her body.”

  “Where are they at the moment, by the way?” Kati asked Chrysalia, realizing that all her group was in the sitting room and the sacks were not in sight.

  The thought of someone naively getting their hands on the long shards gave her the shivers.

  “Sammas allowed me to place the sacks in the house safe,” Chrysalia said. “They are quite safe there, Captain Katerina. Only Sieur Max and Sammas know how to open the safe, and I have taken the trouble to look into their hearts, the same as I did with you and your crew members when you came to Crystoloria, and I trust them both.”

  “The ESP abilities are running wild among the people you associate with,” snarked The Monk inside Kati’s head.

  “What’s the matter?” she shot silently back. “Are you starting to feel less unique?”

  She nodded her approval to Chrysalia.

  “Isn’t that the most interesting comment?” Lordz said. “I’m beginning to get the feeling that I’ve inadvertently got myself mixed up in more than I wagered on, when I offered to take you on as my guests. What exactly is going on?”

  “Would you mind very much if you and I spoke of it in private?” Captain Katerina asked.

  She wanted to keep the servants out of it, at least as much as was possible. Not that she suspected them of anything worse than gossiping—she had the sense that Max Lordz had the loyalty of his employees, and treated them well—but they would, in fact be safer, the less they knew, should things go awry. And things had a habit of going awry when Gorsh was in the picture.

  Lordz stood up, looking thoughtful.

  “We’ll go into my study,” he said. “A bottle of red? Is this a long enough a story for that?”

  Kati grinned.

  “I would say so,” she answered, and heard Ciela giggle.

  “Lank, don’t let her drink too much wine,” Kati said, looking at the girl’s somewhat flushed face.

  “I’ll take care of her, Captain,” Chrysalia said. “You need not worry about her.”

  Lordz had accepted an opened bottle of red from Sammas, and turned to lead Kati across the room and into a hallway. His study opened off the passage, and was a small, cozy room, with another unlit fireplace in it. There was a desk with what might have been a communicator console to one side, bookshelves with leather bound volumes on them, and two easy chairs in front of the fireplace. Lordz took them to these chairs, and, laying his wine glass on a small table between them, took Kati’s glass from her and refilled it.

  They sat down.

  “By the way,” he said as he sank into his seat, “please call me Max. The Sieur business I’ll put up with from the help, but not from my friends or guests. Although you’ll find, if you spend any time with us here in Strone, that there are plenty of men belonging to the Old Families who want that particular honorific used by anyone not of the Old Families. I, and a few others find it, and them, utterly tedious, but old habits do die hard.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that. I’m Kati to my friends, so, let’s drop the Captain Katerina business, too, while we’re at it.”

  She sat down into the comfortable chair, and took a sip of the wine in her glass.

  “Okay,” she began. “Where shall I begin? I’ve quite the story to tell. And my accompanying friends indicated to me that you are one to whom I definitely should tell it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “That girl is an emotional mess today,” Xoraya communicated when Shyla and Tere arrived in the cellar room where the comatose bodies were kept. “Something bad must have happened.”

  “That’s hardly a surprise, considering in whose hands we all are,” Mikal thought back at her.

  Xanthus had gone back into his resting mode, and it was just the two of them sharing the psychic atmosphere with Murra. That had been happening a lot lately, and Mikal and Xoraya had found themselves quite frustrated while trying to get a handle on the situation that they were in.

  “I’ll ask her what’s the matter,” Murra offered, and proceeded to do so, speaking kindly to the girl before putting in his query.

  “Thanks,” Shyla responded to his words, “but there’s nothing that anyone can do to help me. I’m a slave, and I don’t have any say in what happens to me. I guess I should be glad that Jaqui warned me about what Gorsh is going to do with me; only thing is that the warning doesn’t help me in the least. He’s sending me to serve a man to whom he wants to do a favour—apparently this old man asked for a virgin slave. I suppose that you can guess what that means; I certainly know, since Jaqui spelled it out to me.”

  “Can’t you run away?” Murra asked.

  “Where would I go?” Shyla was nearly in tears. “This isn’t my world, and I don’t have one of those berry things in my neck to make it possible to talk with anyone. I wouldn’t get very far, and I’d get a whipping when Gorsh’s people caught me, and brought me back.”

  “Damn!”

  Mikal tried to control his fury. This was just the sort of thing that he had joined Maryse’s Corps to prevent! Only, right now, his anger was feeding the very entity which was enabling the Slaver to do what he did. He had to think clearly—and calmly.

  Xoraya jumped into the breach while Mikal struggled with his emotions.

  “Murra, ask her if there isn’t anyone who knows the lay of the land, and who might be willing to run away with her. What about this Jaqui who’s been telling her things?”

  “Jaqui is about my age, and has the reddest hair I’ve ever seen on a person,” Shyla replied to Murra’s question, calming down a little while her mind was on someone else. “She was born here from what I know; her mom is one of Gorsh’s local workers, a paid worker. But the mom is weird about Jaqui; I don’t think she wanted to have her, and she doesn’t object to anything that Gorsh wants to do with Jaqui. Someone said that she—the mother—was almost a child herself when she got pregnant, and couldn’t really handle a baby. Gorsh let her keep her job, and she’s grateful to him for that, and a loyal employee. Jaqui hates Gorsh because he has made her his fancy woman; he beds her when he wants a w
oman, whether she wants to be bedded or not.”

  “She’s a red-head?” Mikal was back in the mental conversation. “Must be Guzi’s get! Ye gods! But, you know, I bet she’s a spunky thing; Xoraya, think of Joaley, and how spirited she was! And Jocan would have been this girl’s half-brother, and he was a marvellous addition to Kati and my twosome on the Drowned Planet!”

  “Do you think that this Jaqui might be willing to run away with you?” Murra asked Shyla.

  “Shyla,” Tere broke into the conversation, “that’s a grand idea! Maybe you haven’t heard Jaqui grumping but, I swear, everyone else has. She loathes having Gorsh hump her, but he doesn’t care—the way the story goes is that he got her implanted with birth control clips as soon as she had her first menses, just so he could use her without worrying about begetting any red-haired children. Her kind of red-heads always have red-haired babies, apparently. And her Ma thinks Gorsh is her saviour, and she’d be in his bed if he wanted her, while her Pa never cared whether she lived or died—probably would have preferred that she die.”

  “I guess I could ask her about this,” Shyla said tentatively. “If only I had some idea where to go.”

  “First they have to get out of this city that we’re in,” Mikal told Murra.

  “It’s the city of Salamanka,” Murra thought at him.

  “After that, they ought to try for one of two things, but preferably both, if they possibly can. They should try to find a way to get in touch with the Nature Spirits of this world—a Wise Woman, or a Shaman ought to be able to help them with that. I’m sure that such a person would help to hide them from Gorsh as well. And they should try to get in touch with Kati, Llon and Lank, our three off-world companions. I don’t know who they’ve come to Wayward with, or who they have allied themselves with on planet, but I’m certain that they’ll be pleased to help two young women running away from Gorsh. Count on it.”

  “Well, trust my favourite Federation Agent to come up with a plan,” threw in Xoraya. “Think you can pass what information the girl ought to know, to her, Murra?”

  Murra merely grinned, and began to talk.

  *****

  “You’re telling me that the funny boy they’ve got with the bodies in the cellar said that you and I should run away from this place?”

  Shyla and Jaqui were sitting on the ground in a tangle of sweetberry bushes in a lot abandoned to weeds, about a block away from Gorsh’s office. The lot was separate from the Citadel grounds, and the other buildings that housed the main part of the Slaver’s operations, but it was a portion of his holdings, so the girls could not be accused of running away while they were there, only, at worst, of neglecting their duties. But Gorsh and the Overseer expected that they would occasionally neglect their work—they were two young girls, after all, hardly to be assumed to have a strong sense of responsibility. If they were caught, they might get scolded for having slipped away for a private chat, and Gorsh could (and, being Gorsh, probably would) haul Jaqui in for a more than normally brutal sex session.

  “He said that you would be likely to do it. That he knew someone who had known your half-brother on some other world, who had said that if you were anything like your brother.... He’s a spirited lad, apparently, and very bright.”

  “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about my relatives,” Jaqui muttered. “But if we get caught, and are brought back here to be whipped....”

  “He said that we must not get caught. If I was by myself, I’d probably get caught—that’s the trouble—but if you’re with me, you know the ways of this world better than I do, and can help with them. We got to get out of Salamanka, he said, as quickly as possible. He said that he had reason to believe that Gorsh’s influence doesn’t extend outside of the city except for his wife’s Estate, and the people there very likely would be willing to help us. Gorsh has run into some problems with his off-world businesses; because of that he has less money and influence than he used to.”

  “That’s true,” Jaqui said, furrowing her brow. “That’s why he’s planning to give you to that creep, Councillor Koruse, who’s as bad as Mage Mosse, and a hundred years older, for a year. He doesn’t have the cash with which to bribe politicians, so he’s using slaves instead.”

  Something that looked faintly like hope was dawning on Jaqui’s usually negative countenance. Shyla, every time she had seen Jaqui, had wondered how a girl so pale-skinned could have the look of a looming storm cloud; now, she saw that cloud lift for a moment, and she realized that under normal circumstances she and Jaqui could be friends. However, the cloud returned, almost right away.

  “I’ll stick out like a sore thumb with my hair,” Jaqui sighed. “Gorsh’s people could pick me up before half the day had gone by. Nobody, but nobody else on this planet has red hair, certainly not as red as mine.”

  She pulled a strand from her bangs to hang in front of one of her eyes and stared at it, cross-eyed, almost.

  “And it’s so curly and bouncy it’s hard to keep covered, unless I cut it almost completely off.”

  “Or dyed it dark brown. Murra said that your brother had dyed his hair when he needed to hide the fact that he was a red-head. Surely we must be able to get our hands on some brown hair dye. Some of the older women use dye to hide the grey that’s making them look like crones.”

  Suddenly Jaqui giggled.

  “And some of the not-so-old ones, too. My mother’s not even thirty-five yet, but she’s got some grey hairs and she buys hair dye and uses it, she’s so scared of looking old. I can probably steal some of hers; only I’ll have to take it with me, and dye my hair along the way, so no-one will know to look for two brown-haired girls, instead of a brown-haired one and a red-head. Maybe we can make this plan workable yet.

  “But where will we go? We could maybe find work in the capital city, Strone, but that’s pretty far away, and nobody is going to offer us a flyer ride there, certainly not unless we agree to bed some old rich coot, and that’s the very thing we’re trying to get away from.”

  “Murra said that we should try to find a Wise Woman, or a Shaman, out in the country side. If this world is anything at all like the one I come from, you can always find a country healer or a midwife who knows about spirits and stuff. Nature Spirits are always helpful to people in need, and we’ll certainly qualify.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of such. Kind of like the opposite of what Mosse hangs out with, in his cellar.”

  “Something that Murra said made me think that it’s Mosse’s pet that’s keeping the Lizard people confined to the basement. That and the drug. Don’t know about the human with the funny hair, though. And I’m not sure, but I get the feeling that Murra can talk to the Lizard people in his head. I think that’s where he gets his information from, like about your half-brother.”

  Jaqui nodded.

  “I heard Gorsh say once that he can’t send the funny-looking boy away, because his presence is what keeps the Lizard man functional. Although, I guess he’s coming to the end of his useful life pretty soon; that’s why he snatched that Lizard woman when he got the chance.”

  Shyla screwed up her face.

  “One of the older slaves, one that’s been here years and years, said that she had heard that the Lizards live almost forever. So I find it hard to believe that he’s getting close to dying. He looks sick to me, not old.”

  “End of life useful to Gorsh, and death are two different things, Shyla,” Jaqui said. “When we run away we’ll come to the end of our lives useful to Gorsh. And you better believe it, if his boys come looking for us, they’ll shoot to kill, if that’s the only way to put an end to our running.”

  Shyla shuddered.

  “I don’t want to give up,” she said. “I sort of like the idea of deciding for myself who I’m going to lie with and when.”

  “You and me both. Oh, that would be heaven to not have to put out when Gorsh pushes me onto the bed. Wonder what bedding a man you want to bed feels like?”

  *
****

  “If you girls are going to scram, you better do it tonight,” Tere said to Shyla in an undertone the next day. “The Overseer is having a flyer brought in from the Estate for the purpose of shipping the slaves that are to be lent out, and you and Nic are in the first shipment that’s supposed to go. It’s to go tomorrow morning.”

  “Yikes!” Shyla exclaimed. “I didn’t realize that it was going to be so soon!”

  She was scared again. It was one thing to plot an escape; another entirely to put it into effect, especially before she and Jaqui had really had a chance to work things out much.

  “Jaqui probably already knows,” Tere added. “I heard her arguing with her mother; she wanted to go and get something from her mother’s room and her mother was accusing her of stealing her things, like clothes and stuff. She was saying that she’s not the one to do that, and that the thief could be anybody. Which is true; people are pretty bad about that sort of thing around here. I’ve never understood why, but a lot of folks are really careless about how they treat others.”

  “It’s Mosse’s monster’s influence,” Shyla answered. “Murra told me that, when I ran down there to take him the fruit juice he wanted for the patients. We talked about it because with you not along, Mosse was really scary; for a minute I thought that he was going to grab me and do, I don’t know what, right then and there! Coming back up, I just ran, until I got all the way up the stairs!”

  “It’s a good thing that you’re going, Shyla,” Tere said. “You’re my friend, and I sure don’t like the way they treat girls around here.”

  “I hope my going doesn’t get you into trouble,” Shyla said, frowning. “Murra said that they need someone to go back and forth to see and help him, so you’re probably okay, and I sure hope so. Jaqui and I will try to do whatever we can to help everyone else here who’s under Gorsh’s thumb, but it could take a long time before we get anywhere where we can be of help.”