CHAPTER 13
Goth awoke to the sound of people moving around in the ship. She should have thought to bring breakfast along with her, she realized. Best to find out what they were doing, she decided.
What they were doing was offloading the cargo, in double quick time, and preparing the ship for takeoff. That preparation included cleaning up the boss’s suite, so Goth was glad not to be there.
Actually, it seemed the ship would be a good place not to be soon, so she took the parts, the hat and dark glasses, and a spare jacket and left on one of the ground trucks—which, today, they were using as well as the trolley pulled by the chattering little humanoids. The stores were being packed into a warehouse, but Goth decided that the spaceship spare parts should be put somewhere where they were less likely to be accidentally found. So she went into the factory, which was running full tilt, crushing paratha and packing it into tiny bottles that ran down a conveyor to get sealed. The sealer was against the wall, and had some space behind it. Goth slipped the units into the dusty cavity behind and below—and nearly got herself caught, by touching that machine’s casing and losing her no-shape.
It drew her in. It was full of memories. This was where the injured prisoner Lieutenant-Commander Kaen had been put to work. He’d fixed that machine…and sent his name out with every single bottle sold. There was also the image of a little hairy humanoid somehow tied to his hopes and fears.
“Who are you?” one of the prisoners from the cells asked. Goth was no longer in no-shape, and just standing there.
“New prisoner,” she said. “I was sent to work here. But they didn’t tell me exactly where I had to go. Everything seems to be a bit of a mess this morning.”
Inwardly Goth was cursing. She didn’t want them searching where she’d been seen—or describing her too closely. She used a light-shift to alter her appearance. But habit caught up on her: She’d been using the ghostly image of Pausert’s mother to try and frighten the crew of the Bolivar, so that was the face she chose. And then seeing the startled look on the face of the other prisoner, hastily modified it.
The woman looked at Goth again, blinked, and rubbed her eyes. “For a moment I thought you were that Lina woman. The one who ran off and got herself killed by the Gaks. Did they tell you where you were supposed to be working?”
“No. They just chased me out of the cell they put me in,” said Goth sullenly. “I want out of here.”
“Huh. Fat chance,” said the other prisoner. “Where are you going to go? Leave here and the Gaks will kill you. And even if you got away from them, what are you going to eat out there?”
He shook his head. “Wait here. I need to shut down my crusher. I was told to get Pilsk to help load plants at the nursery. But you’ll do. Pilsk is a borgum.”
Goth had a few seconds to scoop some debris over the parts behind the cover, before the other prisoner came along and led her out, toward the warehouse, where a bored spacer was sitting on a small armored ground vehicle. “You took your time, Vanessa. Who’s this? It’s not Pilsk.”
“She’s a new prisoner, Heffner. What’s your name, woman?” asked Vanessa.
“Orthia,” Goth supplied. She’d had time to think of that and prepare.
“Didn’t know there were any new ones. Come with the ship, did you?”
Goth nodded.
“Well, come on, there’s work to be done,” said Heffner. “We’re to put a thousand seedling trays on the ship.”
“The boss is taking them off-world?” asked Vanessa.
“Yeah, but not you, Vanessa,” said the spacer, sardonically. “You should have known better. You’re lucky to be alive. And you, Orthia? What did you do?”
“It was just borrowing,” protested Goth sullenly. “I didn’t really steal it, no matter what Forz says.”
The other two laughed, obviously not believing her. “You drive, Vanessa,” said the spacer. He climbed into the gun turret, and Goth sat herself down in the second seat. Vanessa started the ground truck and they went into the compound that held the scruffy huts of the humanoids, and then out of a far gate, toward patchworks of fields, all growing the big-leafed paratha. On the one edge of the fields was a long, low building. By the time they got there, Goth had decided that the spacer and Vanessa—despite being a prisoner herself—were both on a par with the crew of the Bolivar, if not worse. It was time to ask some direct questions, and get some direct answers.
The spacer was armed. Vanessa obviously wasn’t. Still, his hip-blaster’s power unit was easily portable, but he might have something else. And Goth had learned a great deal from that sore shoulder. She gave them a false light image to use for a target. The image also had her Clipe needler in hand. “Just stop right there,” said Goth.
The spacer took one look and dived sideways, clawing out his blaster. His look of horror when it didn’t fire was a pure pleasure. He hastily pulled at the power unit…which wasn’t there. He started to reach for a pocket, and Goth let a Clipe needle blow dirt all over his face. “Lie very still,” she said. “Otherwise you’re going to lie still forever. I want some answers. If I get them, you get to live. If I don’t I’ll find someone else to tell me.”
“Give me the gun, Orthia. You can’t get away. There’s only one ship. And the boss doesn’t care about hostages.”
He was brave, Goth had to give him that. He was also misinformed, at least about the getting-away part. “Even if he doesn’t care, you do. At least you care about staying alive,” Goth said. “Vanessa. Tie him up. There’s rope in the ground-truck.”
“One of the patrols will come around, Orthia. Look,” she pointed at an armored groundcar across the fields in the distance. “Give up. Me and Heffner will say nothing. We promise.”
The only fit answer to that was: “Get the rope, Vanessa.”
Vanessa’s tying was deliberately loose, but once she’d finished tying Heffner, Goth checked the ropes, Clipe needler against his spine. As she expected, they were too loose. She then made Vanessa tighten them up properly, after which she searched Heffner and removed a spare power unit from a pocket and a rather nice knife. “Now load him in to the ground-truck, Vanessa. Do your best to help her, Heffner. Otherwise I’ll just tie a rope to your feet and drag you behind like a bollem.”
“Are you crazy? You’ll never get to the ship,” complained Vanessa, nonetheless trying to pick up an uncooperative Heffner, who just looked sullen.
“I’m not going to try. Go on, Heffner. Stand up before I shoot you in the leg so you have a reason for behaving like you’re crippled. I need some answers out of you.”
He cooperated, but Vanessa went on trying to talk. “I’ll help you but you must let us go.”
“I’ve come to look for Lieutenant-Commander Kaen and Lina. We’ve tracked both of them this far. You get to go free when I find them.”
“You’ll never get off this world alive,” grated Heffner. “Anyway—the scout-pilot and the woman are dead.”
“Then I’ll have their killers.”
He snorted. “Good luck. The Gaks killed them. And that’s nothing to what we’ll do to you. You can’t get away.”
“Actually, it’s you who can’t get away. Your ship won’t fly again. I did that last night. That was the alarm you heard. You’re all stuck here.”
They both looked at her in horror. “But…but we’ll all die,” said Vanessa.
“We’ll make you fix the ship. And you are just as stuck!”
“I may fix your ship. But I am going to want answers first. Sit down, I am going to tie you to the seats.” Goth could see the patrol vehicle heading around. But before the other armored vehicle got to them, Goth had the ground-truck started and headed slowly back toward the base…and then, once the patrol had gone past, turned around again. The “slowly” part had been more a case of learning to drive the vehicle, but it really was quite simple. Light-shift on a moving vehicle was quite hard, so Goth waited until she was near the edge of the fields before doing so. The jungle of tall, feathery looking trees was not that far off.
Her passengers didn’t know that light was bending around them. “Where are you going?” demanded Vanessa, her voice high and panicky.
“Away. I want to ask you some questions in peace. Then I might bring you back,” answered Goth.
“The Gaks will kill all of us, you mad fool!” she yelled.
The prisoners were unaware of the invisibility of the vehicle. Goth picked on a thinner-looking patch of brush, and gunned the ground-truck forward. “The sooner you answer all my questions, the sooner I let you go. If I get the information I need, that is.”
“We’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just don’t go into the jungle,” begged Vanessa.
Goth ignored her and kept going. She’d given up on the light-shift while they drove. It was hard going at first, but the problem now was finding a path through the vast feathery trees. It was quite dim under the canopy. Both prisoners were begging her to go back and struggling to free themselves. She stopped. If these little humanoids were dangerous…right now all they would see was a tangle of shadows. “So what happened to Lieutenant-Commander Kaen and Lina? Tell me.”
“They did pretty much what you did, you crazy woman. Ran off into the jungle,” said the spacer.
Piece by piece, Goth got the story. The lieutenant-commander had been shot down in an ambush arranged by the boss’s contacts in the Imperial Space Navy. He’d made a crash landing on Lumajo.
“The Gaks brought him to us on a stretcher,” said Vanessa. “He was hurt pretty bad. No one expected him to live, but the boss thought he’d question him, so we put him in one of the cells. He got better while the boss was off-world. We made him work in the plant. He was a good engineer, and he fixed things. But one day we found he’d cut a hole in his cell and slipped away during the night. The ship wasn’t here—it had just left. Look, I gave him extra food. Heff wasn’t even here yet.”
“Hang on,” said Goth. “You say the Gaks brought him to you on a stretcher. I thought you said they’d killed him?”
“That was then. They got crazy later,” said Heffner.
“They treated us like gods back then,” said Vanessa.
Digging through their answers, Goth began to form a picture. This had been a pirate and smuggler base, before the little humanoids had brought them gifts of paratha. Paratha had just started becoming big business, when Lieutenant-Commander Kaen had been shot down. A then-young Vanessa had been one of a smuggler crew, before she’d gotten herself imprisoned and effectively enslaved. Something had gone wrong between the smugglers and the locals, and except for the little tribe living in the compound, it was now open war. Things had been hostile before Kaen had fled, and by the time Pausert’s mother came a few years later the only way to get the paratha—for which they now had a valuable, captive market—was to grow it. They’d had to fort up and the Gaks attacked them on sight. And it had only gotten worse since, with the base nearly being overrun twice.
“That’s what the nursery is for, see,” said the garrulous Vanessa. “The boss is trying to get a plantation working somewhere else. This is getting too hard. Only the last lot of plants died.”
It seemed that the answer to whatever had happened to Kaen and Lina would have to come out of the Gaks. Humanoids she couldn’t even talk to! If only the Leewit were here. If only the captain were here…no. He would have been doing his best to destroy the entire smuggler base by now. “All right. I’ve heard enough. I’m cutting you free—well, I’ll leave your hands tied. Your base is back there.”
“What?” they both exclaimed.
“I’m letting you go. That’s what I said I’d do.”
They both looked at her. “But…we’re in the jungle. Outside the perimeter,” said Vanessa.
“I’m going further into it. So you’re better off here. And I’m not taking you with me,” said Goth.
Both of them were silenced. Then Vanessa asked, “Could you give us a lift? Please?”
Despite the situation, Goth burst out laughing. Oddly, that frightened both of them into scrambling out, and running frantically, diving and weaving behind trees.
It was something of a window into their minds, she realized, starting the ground-truck up again. They’d assumed she was laughing for the reasons they’d laugh—which plainly were pretty awful. And there she’d been about to take them a bit closer to the perimeter. Vanessa had said “please,” and that even worked on the Leewit.
Goth pushed her way between the huge trees as best as possible—which meant reversing out a few times, something she was not very practiced at. Inevitably on the fifth time, she got the ground-truck stuck. Well, she’d have to walk. The dappled shade was tricky for no-shape, and right now the forest seemed silent and empty. She’d vanish when she needed to, she decided.
Walking was easier to do than drive, but she had no real idea what direction she was going, or how to find what she was looking for. The only form of life she’d seen was a slim, lithe streak of red fur, on a creature with an oddly beak-like mouth. But she’d find them. She’d done enough tracking and hunting on Karres.
Unfortunately, they found her first, and, as Goth didn’t see them, she had no chance to hide.
All she knew about it was a sudden agonizing pain in the back of her neck. She grabbed at the spot trying to turn to see what had hit her.
It was a feathered dart, about as long as her hand. As the world blurred and she fell, she saw one of the humanoids peering around the huge bole of a tree, a long pipe in his mouth.
* * *
That was the last she remembered, until the world swam into focus again. Looking at her was someone she recognized. Someone, if somewhat older, she remembered clearly from Nikkeldepain.
Lina did not look pleased to see her. In fact she looked very grim. Her first words were not pleasant either. “Young woman, you’re dying. Now: You can make that quick and painless, or slow and painful.”
Goth tried to sit—and found that she was tied up. Her mouth tasted dreadful, and she felt absolutely wretched. She swallowed. “Lina? I came to find you.”
“So they still know my name. You’re young to be involved in their vile business. Now, I need to know certain details…”
“Don’t you recognize me? I’m Goth…Vala.”
Pausert’s mother looked at her. And looked again. And then shook her head, and rubbed her eyes as if to clear them. “You can’t be! I mean you do look like her…but she’d be ten years older than you look.”
Goth managed to laugh weakly. “Nikkeldepain. The Threbus Institute. The makemake stings.”
The woman shook her head incredulously. “But…what are you doing here? I mean…you were such a nice girl. Pausert was heartbroken when you left.”
Goth thought that was good to hear, even if she felt like she wanted to throw up. “I’m going to marry him as soon as I’m old enough. Which I already am now.”
“But…my dear, what are you doing here? With Pnaden’s thugs…”
“Looking for you, obviously. I came the same way you did,” explained Goth.
Goth was not prepared for her future mother-in-law to burst into tears. “Dear Patham. I’ve killed you.”
Goth had had enough of being tied up, so ’ported a bit of the cord away and sat up. The world swayed quite a lot, with the effort. “I’m still alive,” she said, crossly.
Pausert’s mother swallowed, and she struggled to get control of her voice. “For now, yes. But it’s a slow poison, irreversible. It’ll kill you in the next three days. I’m so sorry, Vala.” A slow tear ran down her face. “My poor girl. My poor son. And I can’t even tell him. There is nothing we can do. I’ll have them take you to the octagon.”
“I’m not planning on doing nothing,” said Goth. “I don’t suppose you’ve gotten any blankets or thick jackets? You need to wrap me up.”
“It’s the effect of the poison on the darts. It’s really very warm.”
“I’m not cold, Lina. I need them for padding. I’m going to have to leave you. And I don’t think I can take you with me.”
“You can’t leave. The only ship…”
“Well,” said Goth “They can’t leave either. I took a few parts out of their ship. I have my own method of traveling. It’s hard. I would try and take you, but I feel so rotten that I don’t think I can. Stay safe. I’ll be back.”
“But Vala,” protested Pausert’s mother. “I’m sorry, but you’ll lapse into unconsciousness in about three hours. You can’t fly a ship. We’re too far from an Empire hospital, even if they could do something, for you to get there. Each time you wake after that will be shorter. The best I can do is to take you to the octagon…”
“The best you can do is get me some blankets or coats. Now. Trust me.”
The woman looked doubtful. “I…”
Goth was feeling really wretched again. “Look. Everything you heard about your Uncle Threbus is true. He’s my father, and I can do even stranger things. Now please, get me some padding, quickly. Or I will go without it, and that can get me hurt.”
“Threbus!” She exclaimed, shaking her head, disbelievingly. But she got up and left the little leaf-thatched room, and soon returned with two of the little hominids helping her to carry a large bundle of soft bright-colored fluffy fabric, the color of the creature she’d seen in the forest. “Is this any good?” asked Pausert’s mother.
“Wonderful.” Goth struggled to her feet. “Can you and the little aliens wrap me in it? I’ll give Pausert your love. I’ll try and come back soon. I have the coordinates.”
“But…you’re dying. And they’re not aliens. They’re the Gyak. But we’ll wrap you up if it will make you happier. I wish…” She shook her head and stopped. Then said something in the hominid language. They started rolling her up in the fluffy fabric.
“Then I’m going to die after I get back to the captain,” said Goth. She was feeling awful, but the Toll pattern in her mind would help with the Egger Route. And…well, if she was dying, there were ways of shutting down her body and mind, a defense Karres witches used as a last resort. Rescue would have to come to her then, but it would slow everything in her body down. Right down, to the point where she’d seem dead. She’d be as close to being in stasis as could be, without a stasis chamber.
It might still not be enough, she knew, as she slipped into the betweenness that was the Egger Route, and swam toward the Venture. Karres people did not die easily, but they did die.