“What are you telling me?” Mortacks asked after Karn had explained the concerns which had brought him to the office. “That one of our merchants rented a crew of small children to labour long hours in his carpet factory? And that he is hanging on to them even though the so-called owner of the group has been dealt with?”
“That’s the situation,” Karn agreed. “And some of us have come here from the Continent Nord to fetch the children, because there is not much point to doing away with a Slave Trader unless you free his victims, too.”
“But are you sure about this? I find it a little hard to believe that any of the city merchants would stoop to making profits in such a reprehensible manner. We have laws on the books against exploitation of labourers, slavery certainly counts as one, and as for forcing children to work long hours....”
His voice trailed off, and he shook his head.
“Wait,” he added. “My wife and I attended a gala put on by the Council of Merchants, only days ago. We were invited because of my official position, of course, and, admittedly, I don’t really enjoy those dos, because people are always approaching me with requests for exceptions to the rules, tax breaks, and such. But my wife wanted to go, since she is a very community spirited person, and belongs to a group of other women just as concerned with the common good as she is. She’s always nosing around for injustices to bring to light; these women’s view of civic activism is that it pays to be eternally vigilant, and root out shady practises before they become entrenched. The idea, they say, is to keep our city from becoming a ‘morass of corruption’ the way Continent Nord was for a long time, before the people rose up and put an end to it.”
He looked at Karn slightly apologetically as he spoke the last sentence.
“It’s good thinking on those women’s part,” the Sieur Gurt responded with a smile. “My wife, Cassi, would certainly approve of their attitude. If we lived in Suderie, she would be one of their number, without doubt. What happened at your gala?”
“Nothing out of the usual, really. Only Sari, my wife, claimed that she heard a conversation between two of the attendees, merchants both of them, about a third who ‘should be run out of town’ according to them, on account of his labour practises. She did not catch any more, she said, because the fellows realized that she could overhear them, and as her women’s group is considered a bunch of troublemakers by a lot of businessmen, they do tend to gang up against her.
“She asked me to get my staff to look into it, and I’ve got a young man poking around, but so far, nothing. But now I wonder if I shouldn’t tell him to look into Yaroli’s doings. Yaroli has not dealt with me or my office; anything I know about him comes from the Council of Merchants, I’m afraid.”
Karn rather thought that Yaroli had been avoiding Mortacks because he was an honest man.
“Actually, members of my Investigative Team are looking into him, even as we speak,” he said. He thought that Mikal would forgive him for claiming ownership of the Team for the moment—it was for a good cause. “One of them was a half of the duo which earlier determined that Yaroli did, indeed, have a workforce of small boys in his carpet factory, doing hand-knotting, boys whom she recognized as some of Gorsh’s slaves. She knew this from personal experience, having at one time been Gorsh’s slave herself. As you can imagine, she is very determined to see them all go free. As are we all.”
“Sounds like you’ve got some really useful people to help with your task, Sieur,” Mortacks said, almost enviously, Karn thought.
“Yes. Our unlamented citizen Gorsh apparently had quite the extensive operation off-world, involving slave-snatching and selling, and some rather dubious drugs, and thereby attracted some powerful attention to himself. While the Council of Families ran the Continent Nord, it was a good place, it seems, for him to headquarter himself. A bribe here, another one there, and no-one bothered him.”
Karn shook his head.
“Now the new Government and the Great Council have to clean up the mess. Which includes freeing these children, and, I suppose, figuring out what to do with them. Although I think that our new, off-world friends will help with that, even if it is impossible to send the children back to their homes.”
“I hate to say this, but I think that if what you say is true, and Yaroli is using slave children in his factory, he will have paid off a few people to keep it quiet,” Mortacks said. “If it was public knowledge, Sari and her friends would have been all over it already. Wait; I’ll use my communicator console to call her, and ask if she has heard anything about it. And I’ll suggest that she’ll get in touch with her group, and talk to those women. They can be a pretty effective force when it comes to shaming the lax-morals crowd into doing the right thing.”
Which was why when Cassi contacted Sari Mortacks, she already knew that there was a problem at Yaroli’s Fine Carpets.
*****
Had Yaroli or Tarig deigned to walk down to Mama Halle’s Restaurant, that evening, they would have found a rather sizeable conspiracy brewing to interfere with their business plans. But Mama Halle’s was not a place they were likely to frequent, in spite of its proximity.
Taya, Yaroli’s bookkeeper was sitting beside Luco, the son of the restaurant owners, across the table from Kati and Mikal. Mikal was grinning at them, apparently pleased to see them together. Luco’s mother, the Mama Halle of the sign outside the eatery, was doing the Head Waiter’s job this evening, and she was plenty incensed to have heard about the enslaved children from her son and his paramour.
“Why am I not surprised?” she was saying even as she was efficiently taking food orders. “Yaroli is using foreign children who were stolen from their homes as a work force to knot his carpets? I never liked that man! He came here for lunch once or twice, when he first set up shop in that big warehouse which had been left empty for years because people were worried about the old cellars beneath a part of it, and he acted like he was better than everybody else, and looked down at his nose at our dining room, the food, wine list, everything. I told Luco’s Dad that we wouldn’t get much business from him—we weren’t fancy enough for him.
“Now, if he fires you, Taya, for what you’re doing, helping these people, you come to us. We’ll put you to work, keeping our books. They probably need some help anyway, Luco’s Dad, Mart, has been keeping them, and he has no training, his methods are his own, and maybe not the most up-to-date.”
“Thank you Mama Halle,” Taya said, and Kati was sure that she and Luco were holding hands, the way they were grinning. “If Mart wants to take help from a school-trained book-keeper anytime, all he needs to do is ask. I’ll be happy to spend an evening or two going over his work, if he wants me to.”
Mikal, beside Kati, was leaning back, but the grin on his face had suddenly disappeared.
“What did you say about the cellar, at Yaroli’s, Mama Halle?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s all just superstitious nonsense, I’d think,” Luco’s mother replied. “I was told that the place made people feel depressed, especially if they were sensitive to things, or if they spent a lot of time in the area. That’s why Yaroli’s rent is really cheap—believe you me, he wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the cheap rent.”
“I didn’t notice anything when Max and I went there,” Kati said. “But, then, that kind of thing was not on my mind...although I would have thought that The Monk might have noticed.”
“I did,” the old reprobate subvocalized. “It wasn’t bad, just sort of depressing. Not enough for me to alert you, considering what was uppermost in your mind at the time.”
“I sensed it when I mentally scoped the place out, today, before going in,” Mikal said. “I didn’t think that it was a good atmosphere in which to keep children.”
“And the boys are kept in that basement when they’re not working,” Taya sighed. “A couple of the women workers do overtime by looking after their needs, but often they are left there by themselves, which has been really annoying me, and a few of the
other employees who aren’t exactly in love with Yaroli and Tarig’s methods.”
“My people, even the children, are very good at looking after themselves,” said Murra softly.
“Yeah, Roxanna commented on that, ages ago,” Kati told him. “She said that it was probably why Gorsh kept going back to your home world. He was getting easy-to-handle slaves from there.”
Murra grinned at her.
“Roxanna would have noticed,” he commented. “And, yes, the children from your planet were much more rambunctious than the boys from my world, so she was probably right.”
“Cassi, what do you think about us having our demonstration tomorrow?” Sari was asking on Taya and Luco’s side of the table. “Sounds to me like the sooner we get those children out from there, the better it’ll be for them.”
With the Master Law Enforcer on the take, the Team had made the decision to work around the legal channels, and use Sari’s women’s group to bring on some public pressure. The women were organizing a street demonstration against the illegalities believed to be occurring, and inviting the local media, including the vid-feeds, to cover it. If word got out about what was going on at Yaroli’s Fine Carpets, and the public become sufficiently outraged, Master Law Enforcer Muggs would have no choice but to order an investigation. Should he continue to stall, Mikal thought there was a reasonable prospect of bringing in Federation investigators. After all, Wayward was still nominally attached to the Federation, and their officials were already coming to the planet to help mop up the mess that Gorsh had left behind.
Sari was putting her heart and soul into this, apparently. She and Cassi had made quite the impression on one another; Kati was certain that there would be a lot of communication between the two women in the future. And since Karn and Cassi had their recreational property—which soon would be seeing an influx of little boys—near Suderie, the Gurts and the Mortacks would have the opportunity to interact in person in the future, as well. Which was all to the good, certainly according to Mikal’s take on these things.
Cassi deferred to Mikal on the question.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Is tomorrow too soon? Are we ready for it?”
Mikal shook his head.
“Whatever you, Karn, Nebbish, Mortacks, and anyone else involved, think. At this point in the operation, Kati and I are simply resource people, and observers.” He included most of the table in the smiling look he directed at the two middle-aged female conspirators, and Kati once again was reminded of what Maryse r’ma Darien had said about Mikal’s diplomatic talents. “Although we both can pilot flyerfuls of children to the Gurt’s Resort, if that happens to be the skill which is needed.”
“It may well be,” said Sari, consulting a bunch of notes which Jaqui had thoughtfully arranged into a neat pile from the mess they seemed constantly to turn into as their owner flipped through them. Jaqui had positioned herself on the other side of Sari from Cassi, and was acting as a competent aide.
“I must get in touch with the vid-feed providers, first thing in the morning,” Sari added. “I’ll tell them that we’ll be demonstrating after lunch.”
She scribbled another note, and Jaqui rescued it into the pile, before it had the chance to fall on the floor when its owner flung it away enthusiastically.
“Kati, they’ll want to talk to you for certain, since it was you as Captain Katerina, who established the fact that these children were Gorsh’s slaves,” she added. “And Murra, you’ll have to be front and centre, since you’re the same racial type as these enslaved boys are. We want the people of Suderie to see exactly what has been going on.”
Mikal took hold of Kati’s hand when he heard her sigh. On Lamania she had refused to have anything to do with the vid-feeds, he recalled. It had been his reports of their Makros III exploits that had fed the news outlets.
“You’ll do just fine,” he sub-vocalized to her, and realized, as he did so, that now he could make himself aware of The Monk’s communications—at the moment that one was chortling with glee at Kati’s discomfiture.
No wonder she got annoyed with the creature! He was definitely an irritant to have inside one’s brain, always ready with an irksome comment! Mikal tightened his hold on her hand.
“Kati, if we can manage to get Lume out of the factory, maybe you can hold him once he’s out on the street, and explain how you knew him on Gorsh’s slave ship,” Murra suggested.
“That’s the boy who recognized Captain Katerina?” Sari asked. “Oh, that’ll be excellent,” she continued animatedly. “We’ll have a really good show for the vid-feeds! That’ll be very useful when those of us who have to remain in this burg go after the fellows who were taking the bribes!”
Mikal grinned. The corrupt of Suderie were going to find themselves being squeezed, it sounded like.
Mortacks noted the smile.
“She’s good, my wife is, don’t you think?” he asked and there was pride in his voice.
“Good. And enthusiastic. You can’t get a better combination,” Mikal acknowledged. “If I was one of the bribe-takers, I’d be busy trying to cover my ass.”
“Only, thanks to Kati’s work, and that of Law Enforcer Nabbish, at least two of them are going to have to face us bare-assed,” said Sari. “And I’m going to encourage all the women in my group to keep their ears open, and brains working. If there’s more corruption to be found in civic circles, I mean for us to find it.”
“Taya, having worked at Yaroli’s do you think that you could take a guess as to how your Boss will react to the demonstration?” Mikal asked, blithely contradicting his own statement about being only an observer.
Taya wrinkled her brow thoughtfully.
“Good question,” she said. “Yaroli is not the sort of a man to give up easy profits without a fight. Nabbish, you said that you saw him with the Master Law Enforcer this morning, and that Muggs had agreed to not interfere with—what?”
“This morning I thought it was just Yaroli’s business practises,” Nabbish confessed. “But now I’m wondering if there wasn’t more to it. Maybe it had occurred to him that with Gorsh gone, or dead, someone might be coming to take his work force away, and he was making plans to prevent that, if it became necessary.”
“But how could he possibly do that, if we have the citizens on our side?” Sari asked. “There’s no point in destroying his factory or killing the children—no profit whatsoever in that. And he can’t just magick the factory or the kids elsewhere, like some mythical mage!”
*****
Sari’s comment about magicking the factory and the children somewhere else, stuck in Kati’s mind, and she was still worrying it, like a sore tooth, after lunch the next day. She and Mikal had discussed it when they got up in the morning, and had come to the conclusion that they would have to be ready for any, and all possible, reactions on the part of the factory owner and his closest associates.
“Keep The Monk on the alert the whole time during the demonstration,” Mikal had advised her. “He’ll be able to keep tabs on Yaroli through your ESP powers. We’ll know what he’s up to, as soon as he’s up to it.”
The cams that the vid-feed people carried looked like fat guns or small hairdryers, Kati thought, as she watched them arrive, outside the carpet factory. The vid-feed people came in a flyer, and there were four of them: two young women, and a couple of burly men. One of the women, her vid-gun strapped to her hip, strolled immediately over to Sari, who obviously was known to her. The other woman had her cam in her hand, and she was pointing it at the groups of gathered people, and at those women who were still arriving from the tram station. She was also talking into a microphone which she was wearing on her free wrist, obviously giving a running commentary of the goings-on.
The men were also wearing hip-cams, but for the moment they seemed to be observers only, and perhaps protection for the women reporters.
After a short conversation, Sari and the first female reporter came over to Kati and Mikal.
“Kati, will you please tell the Captain Katerina story to Minna, here,” she requested. “She thinks that it would make an excellent introduction to this piece. I know you don’t like prancing for the masses, but this is a good cause.”
She was right, of course, and with a sigh Kati turned to Minna who pulled out her “weapon” and aimed it at Kati’s face.
“You’ll do fine, sweetheart,” Mikal subvocalized to her, and her spirits rose.
It was so nice to have Mikal inputting such sentiments mentally! Such a change from the curmudgeonly stuff that she usually had to put up with from the Granda!
She began the tale of her and Max’s visit to the Yaroli carpet factory, searching as they were for a fine piece of a rug for Captain Katerina’s picky customer. She realized pretty quickly that she had a rapt audience about her person; all of the women who were close enough to hear her were listening intently, and even the reporters were attentive. When she came to the place where Lume ran to her, and she picked him up, some of the women brushed away tears from the corners of their eyes. And there were angry growls when she described how Tarig had kicked her and Max out, accusing them of disturbing the work place.
“We absolutely have to put an end to this kind of exploitations,” stated a motherly-looking woman, when Kati had finished.
The other female reporter had her vid-gun on her as soon as she spoke. The masses were going to get to see her reaction to Kati’s words.
It was after the demonstrators had succeeded in arranging themselves and their placards nicely, and had begun marching back and forth on the pavement bordering Yaroli’s property while the two women reporters were shooting them, that it became clear why the male reporters were there. One of them came over to where Mortacks, Mikal, Karn and Nabbish were standing, preparing to join the demonstration with Kati, Cassi and Jaqui, and Murra.
Showdown on the Planet of the Slavers Page 73