“No, I haven’t,” Max admitted. “But not much time has passed yet, since Llon passed on our request. Are you in a big hurry, for some reason?”
“It just occurred to me that the Great Council should have an official presence in Salamanka right now, considering what happened to you, and who was behind it. As the Councillor in charge of law enforcement, I’m thinking that I should certainly be one of the people to go, but I realize that I couldn’t do much by myself; I couldn’t even find this group of people your guest, Llon, keeps us in touch with.”
Max thought this over.
“This does impact the Government of The Continent Nord, certainly,” he said, after a moment. “We’d have to take Llon with us; he’d have no trouble finding this Wise Woman that facilitates his communications. Not that he couldn’t tell us how to get to her place, but I get the feeling that he, too, is antsy to get closer to where things are happening, and if we go, he won’t take no for an answer.
“Who else should we take?”
“So you’re in agreement with me?”
Nabbish looked delighted.
“What about if I take a couple of our new Police recruits?” he asked. “Not that they could do much to protect us, but this would be an excellent learning experience for them.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Max agreed. “But don’t have them in uniforms, or anything like that. And don’t be surprised if this Federation man wants to be in charge of their actions; these Federation operatives take oaths of non-violence, so they’re pretty sticky about the behaviour they will accept from anyone associated with them.”
“Now that sounds like the kind of work I would like the recruits to see!” Nabbish sounded pleased.
Max gave him a long look. He had wondered why President Naez had gone to some trouble to get this seemingly common man to be certified as the Councillor in Charge of Law and Order. He figured that he had just received a hint of an answer to that question. And Marna Naez had it right. There had been entirely too much gratuitous violence on Wayward, for much too long.
Llon did insist on going, and wanted Ciela along. Ciela had sold enough of the lace crystal shards that finances were not a problem; thereupon Llon insisted on renting flyers to take the group to Salamanka.
“You may want a Government presence there,” he said to Nabbish, “but I’m not at all sure that we should be announcing it from the rooftops quite yet. Mikal tells me that there’s a nasty batch of weapons in the Citadel cellars, and it includes bombs that could blow the city apart. It may be best to not scare Judd Gorsh unless we’re forced to, for some reason or another. In the meantime wiles and guile are what were going to be operating with.”
What remained of the sack of the lace crystal shards went back into Max’s safe, with only a small bundle of the pieces tucked among Ciela’s possessions, and Ciela and Llon headed to the vehicle rental place to pick out two flyers. One of Nabbish’s recruits came along; he was an accomplished pilot, as good as Ciela was. He would be flying the second flyer; Ciela would pilot the one that Max and Llon were to travel in. Max could have handled it, but he was happy enough to leave the task to the girl, and she was inordinately pleased to have been entrusted with the task. Much as she had enjoyed acting as the lace crystal sales person, that job had not satisfied her taste for adventure; she had felt like she had been given the safest job available, while others went into danger.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Llon said to her. “Things could get sticky in Salamanka. Gorsh has Kati, somewhere, incommunicado, and he is not averse to handing nubile young women to old men with questionable intentions. And the people on his side in this contest don’t have nearly as many qualms about killing people as the Federation Peace Officers do. No-one can guarantee your safety, Ciela, although everyone on our side wants you to remain so.
“If you want, you can stay here in Strone; I’m sure Max will pilot the flyer if you decide to bail out.”
That earned him a snort, as he had expected it to.
Thus, when the two rented flyers climbed up into the sky above Max’s city property, Ciela was at the controls of one, while the young Waywardian police recruit, Kortone, was at the controls of the second.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was time for Lank and Chrysalia to tackle the matter of the knife-maker.
Chrysalia carefully rewrapped the long shards, and then stowed them in their bag. Lank had his node retrieve from the recesses of his memory, the address that Marna Naez had given them, and the two of them climbed into the flit, once again. Mikal watched them go regretfully; he felt that he should have gone with them, but it was too early to tip his hand about who he was associating with, these days. He could have caused the other two more trouble than his help was worth.
“This address is pretty close to the Citadel,” Lank said, after consulting the flit’s map of Salamanka. “Definitely in Gorsh’s sector of the city.”
“Why am I not in the least surprised?” Chrysalia sniffed.
“Probably because you already, as I recall, intuited a connection,” Lank answered calmly. “Let’s hope the rascal is still there. Are you going to commission him to make at least one knife?”
“We might have to do something like that, to explain our presence, won’t we?” Chrysalia sighed. “I don’t like it.”
“We could ask for something other than a killing knife,” Lank suggested. “Maybe a chef’s knife, a skinning knife for hunting and trapping, or....”
“...or a fish knife for you to take to Tarangay,” Chrysalia finished with a chuckle.
“Or a fish filleting knife,” Lank agreed. “Only Ciela would have to take it to Tarangay instead of me. I’m not in any hurry to go back there; these days home is The Second City of Lamania.”
“Should we risk taking the flit directly to the knife-maker’s address, or should we stop at the Bed and Breakfast first, and walk from there?” Chrysalia asked.
Lank thought this over.
“Let’s stop at Mikki’s,” he said, as he took the vehicle up above the river valley and turned it towards downtown. “It may be wiser not to advertise the fact that we’ve enough funds to rent machines.”
“But I’m still to be your aunt, right?”
“If you’re comfortable with that. Otherwise we could do what Kati and Mikal once did, and you could be my employer, and I’d be a servant.”
“I think I like the aunt and nephew scenario,” Chrysalia said with a grin. “You make a fine nephew, my dear nephew!”
“Good. We’ll stick with that. It’ll be easier, anyway, since we’ve been using it at the Bed and Breakfast.”
The flight from Seleni’s cottage to the Inn was a short one. Lank dropped Chrysalia off at the back door, clutching her bag of shards, and took the vehicle to the parking garage, before returning to their rooms, where Chrysalia, by then, was waiting for him.
She handed him the sack.
“It’ll look better as we walk if you carry it,” she said, with evident regret.
“I’ll take good care of it,” Lank responded as he took it, tucking it carefully under his arm. “I may not have your emotional attachment to these things, but I am very aware of their value.”
“Yes, I know. I suspect that we’ll both be gritting our teeth if it becomes necessary to leave even one of them with that man—whoever he turns out to be.”
*****
“Where did you get this?”
The knife-maker, who was an old, old man, turned the lace crystal shard which Chrysalia had unwrapped from its cloth, over and over in his hands. They were strange-looking hands, Lank thought as he watched their motion, the fingers were deformed, more so towards the tips. Odd for someone who apparently made amazing knives, the sharpest in the galaxy; Lank admitted to himself that he did not understand it. There was something very strange there, but he had no idea what it was.
The old man had a node; Lank had grown so used to checking for the little lump under the left ear that he now di
d it automatically, whenever he met a new person. Here, on Wayward, he was also used to connecting the nodes to Gorsh; if a person had a node, he must have dealings with Gorsh, was the way it added up in his brain. Unless the person was from off-world, with Federation connections, like he, Mikal and Kati. That second option struck him as doubtful in the case of this man, who had said that his name was Chrush, so a Gorsh connection it had to be.
“From a planet in Wilderness space,” Chrysalia replied to the question, with a shrug.
She was looking exceedingly uncomfortable. Was it because she was considering the possibility that she might have to leave the shard with this dry, old creature, and have him work on it?
“From a planet in Wilderness space.”
The repeated words sounded mocking in Lank’s ears. What did old Chrush know, or think that he knew? And why did Chrysalia have a half-frightened, half-awed look on her face as she regarded the dry as dust figure before her?
Lank decided that, the good nephew that he was, he ought to show some solicitude for his dear aunt.
“Auntie dear,” he said in a low voice, but perfectly aware that the noded old man would catch the words. “If you’re not feeling well, I’m sure that we can put any transaction off until another day. We can walk back to the Inn, and you can lie down to rest, if you think that that would help.”
The old man turned his eyes in Lank’s direction. He studied the tall youth, and pursed his lips together.
“And how would you, woman, have acquired a nephew like that?” he asked. Lank could hear the insolence in his voice.
“Through marriage, of course,” Chrysalia answered calmly.
Lank was surprised that she was not bristling at the old man. He himself felt like bristling, and Chrush was directing his insolence at Chrysalia, not at him.
“Oh, come on. Crystolorians don’t leave their home world. And they certainly don’t marry outsiders.”
How did he know what Chrysalia was? Now Lank was on full alert.
“They do leave their world sometimes,” Chrysalia replied, and now her voice was perfectly serene. “As you, of all people, should know.”
Chrush stared at her. He wrapped the lace crystal shard into the cloth in which Lank and Chrysalia had brought it, but did not release it from his hold.
“I think that the two of you better leave now,” he said. “But I also think that I will keep this lovely item with me.”
His eyes were on the sack under Lank’s arm, and there was a look of greed in them. Lank clung tightly to the bag, determined that the old coot was not going to get its contents.
Chrysalia drew a deep breath.
“All right then,” she said, her voice completely calm, but also very cold. “I’ll let you have that piece. But don’t assume that you’ll get any more.”
She took hold of Lank’s elbow and with a slight pressure on it indicated that they should go. And they did so, in silence.
Chrysalia did not speak again until they were half-way to Mikki’s Bed and Breakfast.
“I will need to consult with my people,” she said then. “And with Llon. And Mikal and Seleni, of course. And I truly wonder whether Judd Gorsh has any idea what he has allied himself with.”
“You know who the knife-maker is?” Lank asked, a little tentatively.
“Yes I do. Believe me, I did not expect to find what we did find.”
She took hold of his arm and pressed her fingers against his flesh, as if looking for comfort—or perhaps offering comfort to him.
“I need counsel. I have no idea how to handle this.”
She looked up at him with a quizzical smile.
“I’ll tell you what it is the same time I tell the others. It’s not a story to be bruited about too often.”
*****
“Llon is coming to Salamanka,” Mikal announced when Lank and Chrysalia arrived at Seleni’s cottage abruptly, hours earlier than they had been expected. “With some Waywardians, some of them members of the Continental law enforcement. And the girl, Ciela, whom you people picked up on Tarangay.”
“The Waywardians?” Lank queried. “Is Max Lordz among them?”
“Someone named Max, yes. And the Chief Law Enforcer, named Nabbish, I think, plus a couple of his men. A Continent Nord Government presence they claimed to be.”
“I told them that there was no way that I could accommodate them all,” Seleni said, “but Llon explained that they would establish a headquarters somewhere in the city, since they were on official business. I’m thinking, though, that some one of us ought to make certain that they make their base in a non-tainted area. Or can we leave that to Llon, do you think?”
“If the others are willing to listen to Llon, they’ll be all right,” Mikal said. “But if you think that I could help, I’m ready and willing. In fact, I’m ready and willing to do just about anything that does not keep me sitting here in the river valley, pleasant as the valley is. It’s time for me to get back into action.”
Seleni laughed.
“I wondered how long it would take you to get to this point,” she said. “You’re a man of action, not used to watching others take care of the work. And my feeling is that we need you in action, if we are to succeed in our undertakings. But you will need to be careful. Judd Gorsh knows that you’re loose, and he knows what you look like.”
“True enough,” Mikal sighed. “However, he doesn’t know where I am, and where I might show up next. So I have that on my side. And we do have the flit for travelling, and, I’m assuming that Llon and company are coming in flits or flyers, which means more, hopefully anonymous, vehicles.”
“I certainly don’t want you to be picked up again by Gorsh, at this stage of things,” said Chrysalia. “You are one of the people whose input I am going to need when it comes to the situation that Lank and I came across, at the knife-maker’s.”
Seleni turned to her, looking concerned.
“How did that go?” she asked. “You two returned awfully quickly. Did you find what you were expecting to find?”
Chrysalia shook her head.
“That situation is much more problematic than what I expected. In fact, I am going to have to try to reach the experts among my people, and ask them some questions. I was hoping that you would help to amplify my powers, Seleni, so I can have as clear a communication link as possible, across the void. I don’t want to be misunderstood.
“Once I have spoken with my mentors, I will be ready to explain the situation to the rest of you, and get your input and advice. I will want Llon’s advice, too; I suspect that his arrival will be a very good thing.”
“If you are going to do this communicating with your people right away,” Mikal said, “I offer the amplifying services of my psi-powers, also. I may be new to this business of extra-sensory perception, but it seems that the Nature Spirits of Wayward have taken kindly to me, so I may be able to add some of their strength to the mix.”
“Mikal, that’s an excellent idea,” Seleni said, looking delighted. “With you and me drawing on the Planetary Spirits to boost Chrysalia’s powers, she should find it reasonably easy to contact her mentors, and to obtain their counsel.”
*****
Seleni, Chrysalia and Mikal retired to the Wise Woman’s favourite place in which to contact the Planetary Spirits. This left Lank and Shyla at loose ends, for a time. Shyla was restless; she had been cooped up at Seleni’s for several days now, and did not have the Wise Woman’s rapport with Nature and its Spirits, nor her patience.
“How long do you think that I have to keep hiding here?” she now wailed to the youth. “I’m supposed to be dead, right? Surely no-one is looking for me! It’s not that I want to do much, just walk the city streets for a change, instead of sitting around in the back garden, counting flower stalks!”
When Seleni was around, she knew better than to make comments like this. However, Lank was young himself, and understood the girl’s impatience with the pastoral setting.
“Yo
u’re right about nobody being out looking for you,” he conceded. “Maybe if we took the flit into town, we could walk down to the waterfront, and go into one of the bars there. We could find out what kind of music is played there, and I’ll even take my flute along; maybe I’ll get to join in with whoever is playing. There can’t be any harm in it, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t really want to sit here waiting either, especially since Chrysalia wouldn’t tell me what was going on at the knife-maker’s!”
“Everybody can be so secretive around here,” muttered Shyla, grabbing a sweater. “I have no money, though. Is that a problem?”
“Not when you’re with me,” Lank laughed. “Kati always was lucky with finances, and we’re riding her luck these days. Not that we can spend like drunken sailors, but we’ll be able to pay our way at whatever tavern we end up in.”
“Good. I didn’t think that this was a good time to try that batting your eyelashes trick that we girls sometimes did, back home. You know, convince some guy to buy you a beer, or whatever, by making googly-eyes at him.”
Lank hadn’t known. Of course he had seen Kati pull a number of feminine tricks over the time he had known her, but none of them had involved free beer.
“Live and learn,” he murmured under his breath, looking at Shyla with new eyes.
What other sort of nonsense was she capable of? And could any of it be put to use to help their cause?
*****
The staff at the parking garage had grown used to Lank’s comings and goings, and barely noted the company he was keeping this day. Not the frail aunt this time, they were probably thinking, only some girl he was likely sleeping with. If that was what they thought, Lank was in no hurry to disabuse them of the notion, and not just because it was good for his ego. The girl was safer in this crazy city if she was assumed to be attached to him, than as a nubile virgin who might catch some pervert’s eye. He grabbed her arm possessively as they walked by the security booth, where the lone guard was playing some kind of solitaire with an unfamiliar deck of cards, and yawning, paying almost no attention, once he had determined Lank’s identity.
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