Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers

by Helena Puumala

  “Sure. Looks like what we’re doing out here, right now, is evacuating. That should be pretty straightforward. If Gorsh shows up I’ll call for you or Mikal, but if Chrush has the nerve to show his face, I’m going to, quite simply, kill him. Go on, now, do some healing!”

  She shooed off Kati who had stopped, appalled at her comment about killing Chrush.

  “The Wise Woman is down there, doing some healing, already,” a pretty, preteen girl who was helping a very frail-looking man navigate the Citadel steps, said to her, as she climbed by.

  “Good,” Kati said, grabbing hold of the man’s arm for a second as she passed, sending a current of healing energy through him.

  He looked at her in surprise, and straightened up some.

  “Who is she?” he asked the girl beside him, who shook her head.

  Kati could hear the silvery laugh of the Lady of the Lake. The Lady was feeding energy to her, and she knew that she would not run out of it this day.

  *****

  Kati sensed the presence of Mikal and the astral Xanthus as she passed the level of the arms vault. Some part of Mikal acknowledged her passing but that was all; clearly Mikal was busy doing what he was doing, and recognized that she needed to go down to use her healing powers. The Lake Spirit, she knew, was with them both, as well as what had been the Cellar Creature which was hanging on to the Lady of the Lake.

  “I told Chrysalia that she was in charge of things up above while I’m down in the dungeon, helping to heal the worst cases,” she said to Nabbish when she met him on the stairs.

  Nabbish was carrying a very young woman who looked like a Waywardian, while, beside him, a teenage boy was shepherding a much smaller boy up the stairs. What had those two done to earn Gorsh’s wrath, Kati asked the Spirits around her in shock. The ex-Cellar Creature did the Spirit equivalent of hanging its head in shame, but did not answer her.

  Kati gave the boy and the woman, each, a quick touch, which determined that neither of them was ill, just weak, and malnourished. They must not have been down in the dungeons all that long, she concluded, at least not long enough to grow seriously sick.

  “Lots of them only need food, water, and a bit of looking after,” Nabbish said. “When I get up this time, I think that I’ll try to get hold of some city authorities—if there are any in the safer, southern part of it—and see if I can’t get more flyers for transporting people, and have them set up some kind of a relief centre where the ones in the best shape can be fed and housed while they recover.”

  “That’s an excellent idea.” Kati beamed at him, and his face glowed with her approval. “Oh, yeah, you ought to be told: we brought Milla Gorsh with us from the cabin on the Estate. She threatened me, and now is tied up and muzzled; Lank said that he was depositing her in the back room where the Xeonsaurs and Murra were kept. According to the farmers who were helping her when she accosted me, she has had slaves on her property for a long time, but only lately have the same ones been staying on for any length of time. Gerr can fill you in about that.”

  She then left him and his companions to climb on, while she hurried to the lowest level of the cellars, even as the Cellar Spirit was directing her. There she found Llon in charge of the removal of the last of the ones who could, with the young people’s help, climb up the stairs on their own two feet, and the Wise Woman tending to the couple of dozen who were too far gone for that.

  Without disturbing Seleni, who clearly was cooperating with her favourite Nature Spirit, the Spirit of the River Valley, in the healing process, she started at the other end of the long room which housed most of the sick. There were a few in the other rooms, the Cellar Spirit told her, when she put the question of others to it, but the large room had been the one that had housed most of the inmates, and therefore had the bulk of the ailing, too.

  “We’ll do them after we’re finished here,” she subvocalized to the youthful Spirit, and relaxed her mind to draw in energy for the healing from the Lake Spirit.

  She did physical healing, only, leaving the complicated business of dealing with emotional and mental hurts for later, when there was leisure for it. Thus, she and Seleni (and the Nature Spirits) had the room done fairly quickly, and the young assistants who were going up and down the stairs were able to shepherd its last occupants into the open air.

  “You know that there’s a handful of the sick in the other two rooms?” Seleni asked Kati, looking her over curiously.

  “The Cellar Spirit informed me,” Kati replied. “Two rooms, is it? I guess we can each take one, and then your youthful helpers can take the last ones up, and we’re done with this part of the task.”

  She gave Seleni a wry grin.

  “Then we can go back up, and find out what challenges await us there.”

  “Any idea how the attempt to keep this place from going up in a blast is going?”

  “When we got here, Mikal called for Lank to get himself into the weapons vault, pronto. I didn’t have time to probe, but I suppose it means either that he is out of his depth, or else he and Xanthus discovered something which called for not just a sharp mind and a set of fingers, but the two of them in a single organism.”

  “So, three men are doing their best. I guess that’s all we can ask for. Let’s get the last of the sick and the maimed on their feet and out of here.”

  Seleni led the way to the next room.

  *****

  “Hey, what is going on here?”

  Gorsh looked like a mad bull as he hurried to confront the scene in the front of the Citadel steps.

  “My prisoners! Who said that the prisoners could be brought up from the dungeons?”

  “We are working within the authority of the legitimate Government of the Continent Nord,” said Gerr, giving the person he was shepherding into the flyer, a gentle push. The flyer was the one Kortone had brought back from the southern part of the city; it was almost full. The other one was ready to go, merely waiting for Gerr to go and pilot it, as soon as he had helped fill this one.

  He was rather pleased with the officious tone of his voice. The practise at the cabin on the Leaven Estate had come in handy. Where was Nabbish, though? Chrysalia with her claws was an effective woman in her own way, but she was tiny, and Gosh was a bear of a man, and a misogynist. Gerr didn’t want to leave her facing the Slaver without some strong male back-up.

  “The Continental Government has no authority on my territory!” Gorsh snapped. “I’m the law of the land hereabouts!”

  “Are you now?” Gerr asked, although he was feeling mighty uneasy.

  There were a bunch of armed, burly men standing in the shadow of the Citadel. Gorsh’s troops, he was certain. The famous murk Creature may have deserted Gorsh, but that did not mean that all of his support had collapsed. Those goons would do whatever Gorsh asked them to do, Gerr was certain, even if what they were asked to do was murder.

  What did he, Kortone, and Chrysalia have to throw at them? The locals, except for the prisoners, were all people who either worked for, or were chattels to the Slaver. Could he hope for any help from them, especially since none of them were armed?

  They certainly could have used the help of the famous Waywardian Planetary Spirits right then. Was it possible to pray to them? He could not think of anything else to do at the moment.

  The young woman who had been following in Gorsh’s footsteps arrived on the scene, having kept to a walking pace when Gorsh had started hurrying. Jaqui, it was; Gerr remembered that she was the one who had wired Gorsh’s computers to spill data to the Team.

  “Oh, hello Chrysalia,” she greeted the Crystolorian. “Are Mikal and Kati here, too?”

  “Hi, Jaqui,” Chrysalia responded. “They should be around here, somewhere.”

  They were playing for time, Gerr guessed.

  Gorsh shot Jacqui a cruel look. How did she know this alien woman? And what did she know about the Federation agent? But there was no time for that now.

  Instead he snapped: “Hah! Are those t
wo around? In the building, no?”

  Gorsh’s interest was diverted. Chrysalia shoved the last person who would fit into Kortone’s flyer inside, and motioned to the pilot to press the hatch-locking mechanism.

  “Into the other flyer,” she murmured to Gerr. “We can get at least these flyers full of people to safety while Boss man’s attention is diverted. Come back when you’re done.”

  She had the right of it, Gerr knew. Besides, there was nothing else he or Kortone could do, in any case. He just had to hope that the other Team members were wily enough to finesse the situation somehow. He headed for the other flyer even as the engine of the one Kortone was piloting built up momentum for a take-off.

  Gorsh was not paying attention to the flyers, or the folk still waiting for transport on the grassy expanse before the Citadel steps.

  “Hey, Morg!” he shouted in the direction of the gathering of goons. “Take a half dozen guys and come with me to see what we can find inside the Citadel! I’ve heard that Kati of Terra and the Federation agent might be in there.”

  Morg turned to choose a few of his followers, but apparently had something of a rebellion on his hands. Heads were being shaken.

  “They don’t want to go in there, on account that we were told that the place could go boom-boom, any time,” Morg shouted to his boss.

  “Well, that’s totally ridiculous!” Gorsh shouted back. “Do they think that I’d explode the place while I’m inside it, for Heaven’s sake? Come on!”

  “It’s for real then,” said a compound worker in a quiet voice to her neighbour. “He just admitted that he could blow up the place, even if he’s not about to do it while he’s inside it.”

  Jaqui seemed to be familiar with the speaker, a woman past retirement age.

  “Rosa, it’s true,” she said, also speaking softly. “He has a wrist band that he never takes off. I’d bet a lot of coin that that band holds the trigger which can make everything go boom.”

  “But what’s there to go boom?” the man to whom Rosa had spoken, asked.

  “A weapons stash. Apparently, there’s a whole room full of guns and bombs, nasties of all kinds, down in the Citadel cellars. The murk Creature was guarding them, but it seems to have quit the job.”

  “Bunch of nervous cowards,” Gorsh snapped when only two men followed Morg towards the Citadels steps, and even they did so reluctantly.

  Jaqui waited until the door had closed behind them; then she shouted to the rest of the armed group:

  “You guys, if you can get your hands on some flyers, maybe you could fly people, including yourselves, to safety. Starting with the people in the worst shape.” She gestured at the ex-prisoners.

  “So where’s it safe?” one of the men shouted back.

  “The Wise Woman Seleni thinks that south of the river is the closest safe area,” Chrysalia called to him. “There’s a Healing Centre there that can deal with the ones in need of help. That’s where the other two flyers are taking their loads.”

  She watched the short discussion among the men. It ended with four of them leaving, at a run, heading in the direction of a huge hangar building which Chrysalia remembered noting when she had over flown the area with Lank. She recalled having quipped to Lank on seeing it:

  “That monster must be where Gorsh hides his flying vehicles, I’d wager.”

  “I wouldn’t take the bet,” Lank had answered. “It’s big enough to hold a space ship the size that Kati spoke of, and then some. Xanthus’ ship’s probably there, too. And who knows how many flyers and flits.”

  “Wow, they’re gonna do it,” said Jaqui.

  “It’s amazing what you can get if you ask for it,” Chrysalia said with a grin. “Of course the Nature Spirits may be sweetening people’s moods with their aromas and such. Seleni did mention that it was possible for them to do that.”

  “What about the people Gorsh went to look for?” Rosa asked. “Can they be warned somehow to be on the lookout for him?”

  “Did that already,” Chrysalia said. “I sent the jini off as soon as Gorsh headed for the door. Kati had left it with me when she went down to heal the sick and the maimed. She thought I might need it up here, and I did, to carry messages.”

  “But aren’t you psychic, too?” Jaqui asked. “Couldn’t you just contact them mentally?”

  “I could, but the jini can grab their attention more quickly. Kati’s healing, and Mikal is trying to figure out how to prevent the explosion from happening. They’ll be concentrating hard, and would probably ignore any mental noise that I can make. But the jini is hard to ignore when it wants to be noticed.”

  “I know,” Jaqui said with a grin. “I have experience of that.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Damn,” said Mikal out loud. “Chrysalia just sent a message that Gorsh and a few of his goons are coming into the building looking for Kati and me. Fortunately he doesn’t know where in the Citadel we are.”

  Lank had registered the jini’s presence as a shadowy thing that had suddenly appeared around Mikal’s neck and, moments later, disappeared.

  The two men were disabling the echo chips that were strewed all around the vault: on shelves, on the floor, and stuck to the walls, even. Xanthus Hsiss had figured out that the shards’ resonance could be altered significantly by giving them a precise, powerful zap with one of the laser guns which were part of the arms cache. Mikal’s first attempts had been a tad messy; fortunately he had had the foresight to experiment in a bare corner of the room, bringing the chips there, and had caused no damage other than gouges in the concrete. When Lank had arrived, he had quickly figured out that the guns had one very concentrated setting, which apparently was rarely used, since it was not marked among the controls. It was perfect for the task, which now went much more quickly, an excellent consequence considering that Gorsh and Chrush had been very generous with the echo chips. The things were tiny, besides, and therefore not easy to locate; Xanthus was spending his time looking for the things and pointing them out to the men in bodies, even at that, there was a good chance that they would miss at least a few which had been dropped into awkward places. It would have been much easier to destroy the crystal to which these ones were keyed, but that would have meant locating it, and then getting their hands on it. So they did what they could, instead, and hoped that whatever explosions they could not prevent, the Nature Spirits would be able to muffle.

  “Kati’s down in the dungeons, just finishing the healing of the prisoners in the worst shape, with Seleni,” Mikal added. “They’ll be heading up the stairs pretty soon with the last of the healed. I’m trying to decide whether I should go and join her, to protect her, or if it would make more sense to remain separated, so as to force the miserable criminal to divide his forces.”

  “If you want to go, I can finish here,” Lank offered loyally. “But watch it. Kati will not tolerate being protected.”

  Mikal had to chuckle, even under the circumstances. Lank had the right of it, of course. He had to do something about Gorsh, however, and he didn’t really think that the man would allow himself to be nicely arrested by Nabbish and his men, no matter how pleasant that would have been for the Team.

  Xoraya suddenly appeared beside him, her astral eyes on Xanthus’ form as he was changing shape and size to peek into corners and crevasses.

  “My dear Xanthus has grown very adept at functioning in the bodiless state,” she said. “He may find it difficult to adjust to corporeal existence, once were out of here, and back in our physical forms.

  “I suppose that you’ve been told that Gorsh and three of his burly goons have entered the cellars. Looks to me like their first stop is going to be the room behind the laboratory, where you stashed Milla, Lank.”

  “Releasing her should slow him down a bit,” Lank answered vocally, and shrugged. “If we had more manpower we could have kept her imprisoned, but as things are....” He let the words trail off.

  Mikal lay down the laser gun to concentrate on his e
xtra-sensory awareness. Could he determine where everyone was, he wondered, or would doing that take time which he simply did not have? Where were Llon, Nabbish, and Seleni? Chrysalia had been outside the building when she had sent the jini to him, and to Kati, presumably. She would stay there, he was certain; one of their crew ought to stay there, if for no other reason than to keep an eye out for Chrush.

  “Kortone and Gerr are ferrying ex-prisoners to the Health Centre south of the river,” Xoraya informed him. “Jaqui has joined Chrysalia, and the two of them actually managed to persuade four of Gorsh’s goons who did not want to come into the Citadel with him, to go off to get some flyers to transport more of the people in rough shape to the Health Centre. Jaqui sweetened that pot by suggesting that they could move themselves to a safer spot while they were at it.”

  “She’ll make a good operative,” Mikal thought back at Xoraya. “She’s got all the right instincts.

  “But, how are we going to trap Gorsh? Neither my brain nor my node is coming up with any useful ideas at the moment.”

  “I’ll be bait, again,” came Kati’s thought.

  She must have finished with her healing.

  “And before you say ‘no, no, a thousand times no!’ understand that the Cellar Spirit, the ex-Cellar Creature, is capable of protecting me from that man. In the cabin, it gifted Gorsh with an electric shock every time he tried to touch me. The Spirit is with us here; this place is its original home, even if its memories of it may not be of the best childhood ever.”

  “Mind you, if you’ve been giving him electric shocks, Kati,” argued Xoraya, “Gorsh might be a little less anxious than he was, to get you to become the third occupant of his marital bed. Perhaps you’re tainted bait by now.”

  “Oh, he thinks that I’m doing the shocking, and I’m certain that he figures that he can put a stop to it somehow,” Kati responded.

  She was probably right about that, Mikal mused. Gorsh was arrogant, and had plenty of faith in his ability to control almost any situation. Could the Team use that as a weapon against him?