“In other words,” said Cassi, “there is no governing body on Wayward capable of reining Gorsh in. That is the ugly truth. If we had time, the Great Council could put together workable institutions, including proper laws and law enforcement, but if we take the time, we also give time to Gorsh. He has already taken over almost half of Salamanka from what I have heard, and Milla Gorsh’s Leaven Estate is a monstrous conglomeration of agricultural land and forest, the farms cultivated by a combination of tenant farmers, workers, and chattels. And Milla is trying to annex her nearest neighbour; meantime, her husband is swallowing up more of Salamanka.”
“I understood that he had run into cash-flow problems,” said President Naez.
“He has,” smirked Karn. “I heard that he tried to bribe you on the Leaven Estate matter—with a human chattel, no less. How’d that go?”
“How do you think it went?” Naez snapped. “He wanted to know if I wanted a young man to grace my bedroom for a year, the arrogant cuss. I told him that I already had a younger man gracing my bedroom—my husband is a few years younger than I am. He was getting ready to say something more, but I interrupted him to tell him that I didn’t have time to discuss idiocies; I had lots of work to do. I don’t even know if that was about the Leaven Estate matter; I’m just assuming that it was, since I had heard that he had been going around trying to buy Councillors to side with his wife on the matter.
“He must be out of touch to think that I could be persuaded to let Milla take over her neighbour’s lands. I didn’t fight as hard as I did for a democratically elected Council, just to see a new, if different, oligarchy take over and mismanage Continent Nord.”
“This is why Marna is the President of the Great Council, democratically elected by the members,” Max said, addressing the off-worlders, and grinning broadly.
“Mind you,” said Naez modestly. “There weren’t all that many people to choose from, considering that all the Old Family Councillors were unacceptable to the non-Family members, and that most of the others had no support among the Families.”
“Compromise is one of the great governing tools,” said Kati, “or so the Lamanians who run the most well-governed world that I have seen, insist.”
“No, no, Kati,” said Lank from his position at the foot of the table, “don’t start. Leave the pontification on government and statesmanship to Mikal.”
He had Kati giggling.
“True,” she said. “I don’t want to steal Mikal’s thunder. He can do the lectures on government when we get him out of whatever hole Gorsh has stashed him in.”
“Stashed him in?” Cassi was the one to pick up on that.
“Mikal r’ma Trodden is the Star Federation Peace Officer who allowed Gorsh to capture him, along with the Xeonsaur lady, Xoraya Hsiss, in order to begin a process of undermining Gorsh’s operations from within. He is also the operative with whom I escaped captivity on Gorsh’s slave ship.”
She spent a few minutes explaining how Mikal had ended on that slave ship in the first place.
“He’s the Federation Agent who mysteriously disappeared from Salamanka, after sending a courtesy copy of his report on the conversation he had with Milla Gorsh, to the government of the day,” Karn said enthusiastically. “The Council of the Families was still running things then—if you can call what they did running anything—and the copy was filed under the heading: ‘Non-urgent’. I came across it when I started going through all the paper that was creating a fire hazard in the Council Offices when the Great Council took over from the Families. Since I got the designation as The First of the Families before we were able to elect a president, I was the first official to look at all that stuff, after the regime change.”
“Was there anything relevant to us in his report, do you remember?” Marna Naez asked.
“The usual stuff, only filtered through a professional investigator’s eyes,” Karn replied. “Agent r’ma Trodden clearly had his suspicions of Milla’s operations. One thing he noted was that there were a lot of non-Waywardian young people working on the Estate, with no apparent provision for their schooling.”
“Which is exactly what her supposedly pesky neighbours are complaining about these days,” said Marna. “And she and her husband want to shut them up, and confiscate their lands. I think that we need to prevent that.”
“So crewmembers, did any of you come up with ideas about how, and where we should be moving from here, when it comes to Gorsh?” asked Kati.
“I asked my crew to sleep on the question, and tell me whatever they came up with, tonight,” she explained to the Waywardians.
“It occurred to me that maybe we could use the long shards of lace crystal as a bait to lure him somewhere where we can clamp some handcuffs on him,” said Chrysalia, wrinkling her nose. “Only thing is, considering our lack of manpower, we’d have to lure him somewhere on his own.”
“I think that once we’re ready to use bait, we should go with the big one,” Lank objected.
“The big one?” asked Cassi, looking puzzled.
“Yeah.” Lank was grinning. “Kati, here. Gorsh is keen on her apparently; wants to turn her into wife number two. Admittedly Kati’s not keen on becoming wife number two, but she can put on a good act for a just cause. I saw her do it on Vultaire.”
“Sounds risky to me,” Max protested. “The man has a reputation as a user of women.”
“I think he’s a user of people,” Kati protested. “He doesn’t treat either sex particularly well, I’d say, judging from my experiences on the slave ship, and the time Mikal and I spent avoiding his minions on the Drowned Planet. Besides, everything we do will be risky.”
“I think that before we rush head-long into any action, we should do a little studying of the situation,” said Cassi thoughtfully. “Find out what exactly is going on in Salamanka, and at the Leaven Estate, as well.”
“I haven’t given up on the idea of talking to the chattels that he’s sending into the city as bribes,” added her husband. “They may well be able to enlighten us as to what is going on in Salamanka, and the Salamanka Citadel.”
“I can enlighten you people a little bit about what is happening at the Citadel,” Llon said, drawing all the Waywardian eyes to himself.
“How is that possible?” asked President Naez, her eyebrows up.
Llon smiled at her.
“We’re a multitalented crew on The Spacebird Two,” he explained. “Kati and I are able to communicate with the Nature Spirits of planets, although Kati likes to leave doing so to me, since she finds it a time-consuming task. During my garden walk earlier today, I got in touch with the nearest Nature Spirit, which, of course, is connected to all the other ones on this continent—you could say that these Spirits are all one, even though there are many of them.”
He went on to explain what he had found out: about the two girls who had dropped in on a Wise Woman in the river valley during their attempt to escape from Gorsh’s captivity.
“So we know now that Mikal, the two Xeonsaurs, Xoraya and Xanthus Hsiss, and the ESP-talented boy, Murra, are being kept in the cellars of the Citadel, and their ability to psychically communicate with anyone outside has been blocked by the negative—perhaps we could call it an unnatural—Spirit that dwells there. The Wise Woman that the girls consulted, however, was knowledgeable enough to cooperate with her nearest Nature Spirit to create a jini, which the girls took with them to Gorsh’s compound, to protect them, and to act as a communicator between the inmates and the Wise Woman.
“I will communicate with the Nature Spirits again tomorrow morning—as Kati learned on Vultaire, morning is a very good time to connect with the Spirits—and find out what the jini has told the Wise Woman, Seleni.”
“Very efficient,” said Max. “Although I’m not sure that a jini can help much when it comes to counting armed men or guns. And we need to know about things like that, too. We need to know what kind of destruction Gorsh can scatter around, if he feels threatened.”
> “It may not be as much as we fear,” said President Naez. “He’s used to seeing this world in a mess of incompetence. He’ll be expecting more of the same. I very much doubt that he’ll expect there to be an organized resistance to his shenanigans, although he’ll know that things won’t just fall into his grasp, either. He is aware that not all of us are prepared to let him enlarge his fiefdom, and he’ll guess that the main thrust of the resistance will come from the reformed Government.”
“The Peace Officer Corps of the Federation want things to be done without the loss of sentient life,” Kati said. “That’s one reason why a little Free Trader ship is on the job, and not a Torrones War Ship. If it is possible to do this without a fire-fight, that’s how it is to be done. Mikal has taken an oath of non-violence; Llon is dedicated to growth of human potential, rather than its destruction; me, I’m in the curious position of having a killer translation node attached to my nervous system while subscribing to pacifist beliefs.”
“My people, the Crystolorians, do not advocate using violence, although we are quite capable of it,” said Chrysalia. “Some of you might be shocked to find out how much damage I can do in spite of my apparent fragility.”
“Since your people peddle the lace crystal shards which can be turned into those very dangerous knives, I doubt that anything you could do would surprise me,” Max said drily. “I nearly died from one of those knives.”
“I know,” Chrysalia replied. “I’m afraid that I rather encouraged the help to gossip while you and Kati were closeted in your study. Your son was the knife-wielder, I gather?”
Max shuddered.
“To think that the Lordz Family has come to this,” he muttered.
“Would your son be someone that Gorsh could use to benefit himself, Max?” Kati asked carefully. “Family feuds, it occurs to me, can be used by smart operators to create more chaos, and confusion.”
“I’m sure that Judd Gorsh would love for Maros to be the Head of the Lordz Family. In that case the Family holdings would be ripe for him to pick over. However, I mean to keep living for some time yet—and, if at all possible, I’ll figure out a way for Maros to never gain Family Authority. I want the people on my lands to continue to live in peace and prosperity even after I am gone.”
“Unfortunately we’re not ready yet for the ownership of the land to be passed to those who live on it, once Max dies,” President Naez said. “The population of the Continent Nord is used to a semi-feudal arrangement of land ownership—I say semi-feudal because the cities are different from the rural areas. Traditionally, in the country, the Families are in charge: they look after the marketing of the produce, the buying of the necessary equipment, the hiring of seasonal help, and so forth. They form the central, decision-making core of the rural districts, freeing the individual tenant farmers to work the land, without each of them having to deal with these other matters.”
“The Lordz Estate actually is easy to make an example of,” said Karn, “Since much of their land grows wine grapes, and there is a very successful winery on the Estate. Max is in charge of it all, is how it works. Of course he has hired Overseers—otherwise he’d have to work full-time on the Estate, and could not attend to his duties as a Member of the Great Council. But even so, there are a lot of decisions that he has to make, or to double-check. Decisions related to grapes grown, wines produced, and marketing.”
“And those are the simplest matters; there are plenty of others on every Estate,” added Cassi. “Like which of a tenant’s children ought to follow in his or her parent’s footsteps. Also, what crops should be given space on the farms, and what foodstuffs should be bought from the neighbours, instead of growing them.”
“You haven’t even mentioned adjudicating disputes among the tenants,” laughed Max. “Now there’s one Maros has no talent whatsoever for. He’d probably kill all the disputants, with no concern for the consequences for the Estate.”
“What I’m hearing, I think, is that the new Government does not want to rock the boat too much,” said Kati. “At least in the rural areas you want to keep the status quo more or less intact; you just want it to work better for everyone involved?”
“That’s not a bad way of expressing it,” President Naez said with a smile. “The system, when it works, works quite well for the cities, too. They get the foodstuffs, and the raw materials that they need for their people and factories.”
“There are certainly improvements that need to be made,” Max conceded. “We want to encourage positive change like the revivification of The Families, and allowing more input from the non-landed classes. But we also want to keep the economy humming along, keeping the population fed and sheltered.”
“We’re not here to destroy livelihoods,” said Llon. “We’re her to put an end to a slave trade which is creating difficulties far outside of this world. The way to do that seems to be to bring Judd Gorsh to face Federation justice. How the citizens of Wayward choose to repair the rent that tearing out the evil that has taken root among you will cause, is ultimately up to the people.”
“If you need help reorganizing your government, however,” Kati said with a sly grin, “you could do worse than asking for Lamanian assistance. Lamania is a well-run world, and takes care of, besides its own population, an assortment of newcomers from a variety of planets. Doing so does not seem to cause them any hardship; instead, they welcome those who wish to settle there, considering them a healthy addition to their otherwise ethnically homogeneous population.
“However, right now we have other fish to fry,” she added. “We have determined that we need more information about what is happening where Gorsh is king. Llon has said that he can come up with at least some information through his Nature Spirit contacts. Karn, can you get at least one of us of the Spacebird’s crew access to the report Mikal filed on his interview with Milla Gorsh? There might be something that has meaning to me or to another of us?”
“Sure. I’ll get my staff to make a copy and send or bring it here to Max’s, tomorrow,” Karn promised right away. “And those loaned chattels; I still want to see what we can get from them.”
“How about if I talk to them, Karn?” Cassi suggested. “A woman might seem less threatening as a questioner.”
“Good point,” Kati agreed. “And since these are off-worlders, don’t hesitate to mention that you have talked to other off-worlders who are concerned about the well-being of Gorsh’s captives. That might reassure them that we won’t be tattling to Gorsh about the chats.”
“What about a couple of us going to get the lie of the land in this Salamanka place?” Lank asked. “I’m thinking that we could use the long lace crystal shards as an excuse. Claim that we’re looking for a manufacturer of lace crystal knives to buy the shards. I volunteer, and suggest Chrysalia as my companion, assuming she’s up for it.”
“Of course I’m up for it,” Chrysalia said. “If Kati agrees that it’s a good idea.”
“You know, you may actually find a maker of lace crystal knives in Salamanka,” said President Naez, wrinkling her nose. “There used to be one there, years ago. My husband’s family business used to buy the shards from the Free Trader couple who brought them to the planet, and re-sold them to a Salamankan artisan who made quite the profit from the knives. I recall my father-in-law saying that neither his business nor the Free Traders made nearly the kind of money that the knife-maker did, although neither of them complained about their share. No-one ever did know why the traders quit coming; everyone assumed that something must have gone really wrong. Things do go wrong for Free Traders; theirs can be a dangerous occupation.”
“My people looked into it,” Chrysalia said, her voice harsh. “Something did go wrong for them—badly wrong. The man died; the woman barely survived. She’s a tough one though, and she built a new life for herself. Now we want to know what connection the lace crystal shards had to their fate.”
“You mean outside of the run-of-the-mill greed of the shady operators of
the Space Trade Lanes?” Lank asked, his eyebrows up. “There’s enough profit in lace crystal to make any space criminal drool.”
“But we build safeguards into the crystals,” Chrysalia protested. “What happened should not have happened.”
Kati stared at her. This was a new wrinkle, one that Chrysalia had not shared before, though she had talked about the mystical connection the extruders of the lace crystal had with their product.
“Safeguards?” she asked. “I don’t understand what you can possibly mean. When Berd Warrion pulled the knife on me on Vultaire, there was, as far as I could tell, nothing preventing him from raping and killing me as he intended. And when the Granda turned it on him, I came within hair’s breadth of ending his life—it took all my healing skills, plus those of the Granda and the Forest Spirit to bring him back from the brink.
“I should imagine that Max’s experience was just as frightening.”
The Monk was on alert inside her head. He was waiting for Chrysalia’s response with as much anticipation as she herself was.
Chrysalia smiled at Kati, and Kati was reminded at that moment of the fact that the other woman was not truly human. Like Xoraya, her motivations were not necessarily the ones that Kati’s kind subscribed to.
“Neither you nor Berd Warrion were under our protection when he pulled the lace crystal knife on you, on Vultaire,” the Crystolorian said. “We didn’t care whether you lived or died, any more than we cared whether the Vultairian did. Although, at least to some extent, we were aware of what was happening, through the resonance of the weapon. As we were, later, when you used the knife to defend yourself and your companions on Space Station Qupar. Even as we had some knowledge of the attack on Max, and of every bit of violence or attempted violence ever done with the knives made with the crystal that we create.
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 33