Apparently she had grown more comfortable with nudity. Nice, that. It was a pity they were on a busy schedule. But it sure was pleasant to be a human being, in love with a woman who was as much in love with him as he was with her.
*****
“I checked with President Naez, and she said that the Government of Continent Nord will pick up the hotel tab for the Hsiss couple’s unexpected confinement,” Nabbish said to Mikal as soon as he and Kati arrived at the law-enforcers’ suite. “She thinks the event is a wonderful thing for us Waywardians in general, and for Salamankans and the inhabitants of the Continent Nord especially. We’ll have bragging rights for a long time to come; the first-ever Xeonsaur children to have been conceived off Xeon, will have begun their life right here in this city!”
“Kati and I have been in touch with the Nature Spirits about this,” said Mikal, “And we rather suspect that they had something to do with pushing Xoraya into heat. I think that her body was already slowly moving in that direction, but considering the dilated time frame within which the Xeonsaurs exist, it might well have taken a year or more for her to get there without help. The Spirits were behaving in quite the smug fashion when we brought the topic to their attention, so it’s very likely that they decided that this would be a good thing for the world. So, the Planetary Spirits agree with your President, which cannot but be positive.”
“This hotel does not have anything that could be termed a bridal suite,” Nabbish went on with his explanation, “but the management consented to put them into one of their VIP suites, a very decent place to be, when you’re stuck in a bunch of rooms for an extended period of time. When I told them that the Government would foot the bill, they offered to give a generous discount; I think that they’re just as much in awe of the Xeonsaurs as anyone else in the galaxy, and are awfully pleased with the bragging rights that this affords them.”
“Can I go in and see how Xoraya is doing?” Kati asked.
“Sure. I don’t know whether Mikal wants to go, though. Only if you’re comfortable with a beautiful but alien woman sticking her nose into your crotch.”
Nabbish laughed nervously.
“I went through it and it is quite disconcerting, to say the least.”
“Especially, when she pulls her nose back and starts wailing: ‘Oh, I don’t like the way you smell! It’s all wrong!’” added Gerr with a rueful laugh. “It’s a little hard on a fellow’s ego.”
Mikal grinned at him.
“I’m sure all of us human males do smell all wrong to her. Remember, Lizard heat is not as much about sex for pleasure, although when Xoraya talked to me about it, she said that the experience was deemed by Xeonsaur women as one of the great delights of their lives, but about producing fertilized eggs. And since an Xeonsaur woman goes into heat only about once every hundred years, and the first time when she is already at least a couple of our centuries old, proper fertilization is of utmost importance. So one of them is not about waste her heat on males of a different species; it would be biologically foolish.”
“Well, if one, or both of you wish to beard the Lizards’ den,” Nabbish said, producing a little strip of what looked like plastic to Kati from his tunic pocket, “maybe Murra can take you there. The door, right now, is always locked from the outside, so Murra will have to stay in the hall, and unlock it for you when you knock on it. There is another key, but the hotel staff is hanging on to it in order to take in meals, drink, and whatever the joyful couple may need.”
Murra giggled with adolescent amusement as he received the key, and Kati was pleased to note that he seemed pretty normal, in spite of all that he had experienced since she had said good-bye to him on Gorsh’s slave ship, on the Drowned Planet. She did not remind Nabbish that they would not need to knock on the door; she and Mikal could contact Murra psychically. Mikal was coming in with her, she knew, and would tolerate Xoraya’s attentions with good humour. She and he could have a chuckle about it later, maybe when they were getting into their own, very human, sexual pleasures.
*****
Xoraya was sitting in a chair beside the gurney on which Xanthus still lay, although now without any of the life-preserving equipment. He was on his last dose of mind-tangler, and would be able to look after himself, at least when it came to ingesting food and water, and dealing with eliminative functions. Apparently, however, his sexual functioning was at zero, and his wife was crying.
“Oh, Mikal, Kati, what am I to do?” she wailed when she recognized them. “I need, I need, I need, and he’s the only one here who can give me what I need! The rest of the males have a weird smell, and I’m sure that you do, too, Mikal! And, look at him!”
She flipped the sheet off her husband’s comatose form to display his flaccid sex organ, and Kati could barely keep in a hysterical howl, half of embarrassment, the other half of amusement.
Mikal squeezed her arm in sympathy, and gazed upon Xoraya’s tear-stained face with some consternation.
“I thought that you Xeonsaurs had all the time in the world,” he said. “What’s the big rush? He’ll wake up and regain his prowess. Guaranteed, he’ll take care of you and your impatient eggs then.”
“Yeah, but... but I need it so badly, and I need it now.” Tears began to run down the Lizard-woman’s beautiful, scaly cheeks again. “No-one told me that it would be like this. So compelling.”
“Probably because on Xeon not too many women end up in a predicament like yours,” Mikal said kindly, while Kati found some tissues and began to wipe Xoraya’s face.
It was strange to be in a position to behave like an older sister to the Xeonsaur woman. Up until now, all Kati’s experiences of Xoraya had been weighted with the knowledge, that much as she and Xoraya had liked and respected one another, Kati had always been the younger, less experienced one of the two.
“I don’t know how long I can hold on without doing something really stupid, like starting to pummel him. That would be disastrous, though I do understand that our men take a lot of bad behaviour from their wives in heat. But he’s unconscious, and cannot respond to my need.”
“It’s good that you can understand that in your state of mind,” Mikal said. “Hm. I think I’ll contact the Lady of the Lake. I suspect that she and her Nature Spirit siblings had something to do with pushing your hormones into this state more quickly than would have been natural to you. They have energy to spare—I happen to know that from personal experience—so there’s no reason why they can’t wake Xanthus up and bring him up to form, so to speak.
“Kati, you have healer training. Perhaps you can take charge of the patient while I persuade the Lake Spirit to join us for a healing session.”
Kati gave Xoraya’s shoulder a pat and turned her attention to her husband’s comatose body. She examined it with her psychic senses, recognizing that the consciousness was in a quiescent state, resting from some exertion—whatever it was that Xanthus had done astrally before returning to his physical form. As she was doing this, she became aware of having been joined by another mind, that of Murra, who had seated himself in the hallway by the door.
“I helped the jini with Mikal when he came out from under the mind-tangler,” he told her. “I’m sure I can help with Xanthus. The Xeonsaur physique is different from the human, but not that different. And, oh, here comes the Lake Spirit, exuberant as ever; she’ll make this easy!”
She did. Whatever weakening the Scientist’s body had suffered during his long time under the mind-tangler, and during his latest exertions while mind-travelling in space, the Planetary Spirit repaired them all, and apparently could have done much more. She also expertly drained the drug out of his system, and got his circulatory system to work, so that what had been flaccid began to harden as the anxious wife fondled it. Kati and Murra’s biggest challenge was to persuade Xanthus to wake up and believe that he was, indeed, in excellent physical and mental state again; he had been drugged for so long that he had become habituated to the condition.
But at
last, he opened his eyes, and flexed his muscles. Xoraya cried with pleasure, and threw herself upon him, right there on the gurney. Murra withdrew with a mental giggle, and Kati found her face reddening with embarrassment. Laughing, Mikal took hold of her arm, and began to lead her towards the door, which the mirthful Murra was unlocking.
“Thanks guys,” Xanthus shouted to them in healthy, cheerful tones, as they went. “I’m glad to take things from here.”
*****
Mikal had persuaded Kati to go with him back to Gorsh’s old office to use the communications console there.
“I want to try to raise The Spacebird,” he had said. “I want to know exactly what has been happening there. I gather Xanthus was involved, did something that he found exhausting. Time shifting, maybe, or long distance navigation, or both. I know he was not all that energetic, but, nevertheless, he is an Xeonsaur who is very talented when it comes to space and time navigation. For him to totally wear himself out....”
He had shook his head. Had he allowed the Team members, and the others with them, to put themselves into serious danger, something that it had taken a talented Xeonsaur to foil? If so, he would be furious with himself for not having been there to face it with them.
“Mikal, you’re a psi-sensitive, now, remember?” Kati had said. “There are psi-sensitives on The Spacebird. Lank, at least somewhat, Chrysalia, definitely, Llon very much so, Ciela, maybe, and Shyla with the jini, certainly. Why don’t you contact one or another of them?”
Mikal had sighed.
“They’re avoiding me. I have been trying to contact them, but not one of them has responded. You know as well as I do, that when someone wants to refuse ESP contact, they simply do so, turning their thoughts, resolutely, away from yours. Surely Murra taught you that lesson ages ago!”
“Ah, all right then,” Kati had responded. “What if I try?”
“Go ahead. I’m wishing you better luck than what I have had. They’re there, all right; they’re just being coy as anything. I can sense them, but I can’t make contact.”
Kati had tried. And had discovered the very thing that Mikal had asserted. Nobody aboard the ship had wanted to do any mental chatting with her.
“They know that I’ll talk with you about whatever they might report,” she had muttered. “And they’re not ready to open up. Which is utterly silly, since they’ll have to do so sooner or later, the latest when they land back on this mudball. I’m a little surprised at Llon’s silence. I would have thought that he, at least, would show some uncommonly good sense.”
“If not, then not,” Mikal had said. “We’ll try to raise them via the communications network. In some ways, a pinging console is harder to ignore than something in the back of your mind.”
They had found Jaqui in Gorsh’s office.
“I’m feeling sort of lost,” she admitted to Kati, after unlocking the door to Gorsh’s living quarters where the communications console was. “For a while there I had a purpose: trying to bring Judd Gorsh down. Now I’m at loose ends again; I don’t really know what I should be doing with myself.”
“Want to come with me when I go and haul back the kids from the carpet factory in Suderie?” Kati inquired. “I’m hoping that it’ll be a simple task, that we’ll be able to just collect the children without any trouble or arguments. When Max Lordz and I were down there, the woman at the Council of Manufacturers Office claimed that nobody in the city countenanced either slave labour, or the use of small children as a work force made to toil long hours. So, everybody ought to be glad to hand the children over to us, now that Gorsh no longer can claim ownership.”
“Slow down, Kati,” Mikal said. “It may not be quite that simple. A lot depends on what kind of profits the carpet manufacturer in question is making off those children’s backs. We might wish that things were otherwise, but there are people who will do a lot for the sake of profit, including exploiting helpless children, and bribing civic officials. And Wayward, for all its laid-back attitudes, pretty clearly harbours at least a few unethical characters.”
“Mikal, must you strew boulders on my path?” Kati asked, vexed. “I promised Lume that I would come and get him and the others, and I will.”
Mikal grabbed her into a quick hug.
“There are always boulders on our paths, dear heart,” he said. “That’s never stopped us yet, and they won’t stop us now. And going South to fetch the chattel children will be good for our friend here; she’ll get a better idea of how Federation Agents operate, and will be able to decide whether or not she wants to accompany us to Lamania.”
“I’ve seen quite a bit already,” Jaqui said with a grin. “I suspect that I will be coming with you to meet this Boss of yours Mikal; she sounds like the polar opposite of my former Boss, the infamous Gorsh.”
“Hah,” exclaimed Mikal, after he had stepped over to the console to turn it on. “Speak of the devil! Maryse wants a word with us, Kati and me both. Let’s find what this is about!”
He pressed his left thumb into the nodal connector to commune with the machine. Moments later he used his right hand to turn on the screen and the sound, and Maryse’s Lamanian features filled the monitor.
“Whatever you do, Mikal,” she was saying, “don’t let Kati hare off in search of all the human beings that Gorsh managed to snatch and sell into slavery. That information from the Slaver’s records was extremely detailed; we in this office have been going through it, and he sold a lot of people, to a lot of different buyers across the Fringes, as well as on Vultaire, and at least one other Federation planet which is getting the squeeze put on it, even as we talk. What I want to do is have the new recruits go after the chattels, the majority of whom are children. It’s perfect training for them, hard enough work, but not so hard that they’ll be discouraged. And it’ll make them feel that they are doing something worth doing; they’re not just bureaucrats doing simulations—that’s often what I end up getting the interns to start with, if we don’t have suitable tasks for them.”
“But,” sputtered Kati. “It’s my duty to go after them. I promised the children on that slave ship....”
She shut her mouth as Maryse’s image disappeared to be replaced by that of the female member of her Team on Vultaire, Joaley.
“If she tries to argue, Mikal,” she said, “tell her from us, her former Team members, that it’s time for her to come back to Lamania, and relax a little. You guys should be getting married, and find out if you can stand each other when you actually have to spend time with one another when you’re not careening from one crisis to the next. And tell her that Roxanna says, and this is a quote: ‘Don’t be a damn glory-hog, Kati! Leave something for the rest of us to do, too!’”
The screen faded to black.
“That’s not fair!” Kati sputtered. “I’m not trying to be a glory-hog. I’m just trying to keep the promise I made.”
She was surprised to feel tears stinging behind her lids. How could her friends and colleagues be so cruel, and misunderstand her so?
“Come on, sweetheart.”
Mikal had disconnected himself from the machine, and came over to hug her again.
“You have kept your promise. Even if you do nothing more, even here on Wayward, you will have kept the promise you made. Didn’t you tell those kids that you would find, and get help for them? We’ll you’ve certainly done that, among a lot of other things. And as for Roxanna, well, she does have a sharp tongue, and a sharp enough mind to realize that the fastest way to get you to stop and take a hard look at what you’re obsessing about is to snark at you.”
He grinned at her.
“Besides,” he added, “maybe she and Rakil are arguing and she wanted to tear a piece off of somebody.”
“Rakil arguing with Roxanna? Can’t see that happening.” Kati shook her head.
“Right you are. And maybe there are times when his very phlegmatic nature drives Roxanna up a wall.”
It was too bad that Jaqui was in the room with them,
no matter how nice a girl she was. Kati could tell that Mikal wanted to nuzzle her neck, but he also knew that she had trouble with such public displays of sexual affection, and was holding himself in check.
“Oh well,” she subvocalized to him. “Seems that we’ll have plenty of opportunity for that sort of thing while we wait for the Federation judiciary to sort out the questions of your culpability in whatever Chrysalia and Lank have, or have not done.”
Lank and Ciela, when Mikal finally managed to raise them on the communicator were not very forthcoming with information.
“Mission accomplished,” Lank said curtly. “And we’re towing Xanthus’ ship back to Wayward, so it’ll take us a couple of days to get there. Towing a ship that size with a little one like The Spacebird takes a lot of energy, so we can’t travel as fast as we would otherwise. Besides, we were led a merry chase for quite a distance.
“We will report once we get in.”
He cut the connection.
“It’s not like Lank to be secretive,” Kati muttered. “It has me worried.”
“Well, whatever happened, happened, and is in the past,” Mikal said with a sigh. “We’ll have to deal with the fall-out of course, emotional and otherwise.
”In the meantime, we may as well look into the carpet-factory kids, and then try to interview as many of the ex-chattels on planet as we can, although Maryse is sending a ship from the Federation to see about them. But Nabbish said that he had asked Marna Naez what did the Government of Continent Nord want done about them, and she had suggested that any who wanted to settle on Wayward should be encouraged to do so.”
“I guess Xoraya and Xanthus won’t be starting their part of helping out the ex-slaves for two or three weeks,” Kati laughed.
She turned to explain what had happened at the hotel south of the river to Jaqui.
“Wow,” Jaqui commented. “That’s a story for the ages. Is she going to be able to make it to her home planet to have the babies?”
“I kind of doubt it,” Mikal replied. “The Xeonsaur females lay eggs, I believe, so the time between fertilization and the egg-production is not nearly as long as the human gestation period. And the trip to Xeon from this part of the galaxy, even on a Space Cruiser, is a matter of several weeks. We’ll have to find out what kind of an environment the eggs will need, and on what world the maternal Lady Hsiss will want to park them.”
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 67