CHAPTER 20
“The thing is,” said Me’a to Goth, “we are basically trapped in here. I mean, yes, we have the Leewit curing this creature. In a way that’s the most valuable hostage we could have, but we’re rather stuck here with it. And if the Soman Consortium got it to do what they wanted once before, they can again. It’s not something we can carry away in our pockets.”
Goth shook her head. “Even if we have to destroy it, I’m not leaving it to either the Somans or the Iradalians. Or anyone else for that matter. At least now I have my klatha skills to add to the Leewit’s. I can hide us so they simply can’t see us. I can ’port things. But I want to go back through that door to find the captain. And Ta’zara.”
She felt faintly bad about the afterthought, but she really, really wanted to see Pausert. Her klatha was back…if it had ever gone away. She wanted to tell him, so badly. If they could be together now, as compared to when she thought she’d lost it and couldn’t bring herself to tell him.
“It’s possible—but not that likely—that I can blow that door down. But there must be some way of opening it. I assume there’s a mechanism this side too, in case they got stuck out here. The Soman crowd must come up here, I suppose, if only to feed the creature.”
“Yes, but it is probably hidden. There’s a little hut back there. It’s worth checking, I suppose. Then I can try the door for what imprinted memories it might have.” Goth wrinkled her face in distaste. “It’s not likely to be a pleasant experience. I’ll see what I can find first.”
The hut proved to be a cold store for vials—labeled and carefully ordered. It didn’t take long to figure that those were the odd pheromones the Somans had been using to make…what did the Leewit call it? The Arerrerr. There was a lot labeled sea-squill exudate. So exactly how the Mantro barges got their willing workers was now more than plain. Goth put a handful of the vials in her pocket. They’d ’port easily and might make a good weapon if they were just thrown hard.
She was looking for any possible switches or controls when she heard the Leewit calling, so she ran back. The Leewit was sitting down, resting against one of the Arerrerr pillars, or rather, legs. She looked, Goth thought, tired and young. She was also trying to talk around some sort of compressed seed bar she was cramming into her face. The rochat was fastidiously eating a few crumbs with the look of doing her a huge favor.
“Energy bar,” said Me’a. “Do you need one, Goth? I have a few stored in the chair.”
“Let her eat them,” said Goth. “I haven’t done much. What are you calling for? Are you winning?”
“For now,” said the Leewit in a spray of crumbs. At least it might have been what she said.
“Swallow and tell me what you called for.”
So the Leewit did. A drink, provided by Me’a, and she was at least audible. “Goth, there’s some of those seaweed flakes on my table on the Venture, ones that I was feeding to Tippi. You know, the ones in that funny-shaped bottle. I know it’s far, but the Arerrerr needs them. Or rather, it needs selenium. Its body chemistry is kinda like Tippi’s. That’s why the rochats thrive and breed on Cinderby’s World, but don’t on Na’kalauf. And the poor Arerrerr has been short of it for a long time. There’s some selenium here, but not enough and it’s been here a long time. The lack is slowly killing it, and I need some for repairs.”
“I’ll try. It’s long range.” Goth knew exactly what the object looked like, exactly where it was in the Venture, even if she had no idea where the Venture 7333 was.
But as it turned out, ’porting it was almost ridiculously effortless. Either the Venture was much closer than they realized, or she had suddenly grown in teleporting ability. She did know that progress with klatha use was usually like that. It wasn’t linear progress, but sudden steps. Sometimes people just never climbed up that next step. Maybe she had. After the stress of the last while, it was a nice thought.
The rochat was headbutting her hand and giving her its odd growl in its attempt to get the bottle—so she nearly dropped it, passing it to the Leewit. The Leewit looked sternly at Tippi. “One flake. It needs it more than you.”
By Tippi’s behavior, the rochat didn’t care how badly the Arerrerr wanted it. She wanted it herself. But the Leewit ignored her complaints and went and reached up and into a stalactite-fringed opening above them—and pulled her hand out quickly. “Huh. Nearly ate my hand too,” she said. “I guess it was really hungry. I still am. You couldn’t ’port me some pancakes with Wintenberry jelly, could you, Goth?”
“Nope. Not unless you left a bunch ready made outside the robobutler, you greedy little bollem. Eat some more of Me’a’s energy bar.”
“Hush,” said Me’a. “I’m picking up something from the bugs I seeded behind us.” Then she beamed widely. “Ta’zara. He’s giving a war chant. I feel sorry for any Soman people that run into him.”
“We have the door between us and them,” said the Leewit.
“The captain will sort that out,” said Goth, confidently.
And indeed, he did. Minutes later a piece fell out of the door, cocooned and cut off from the rest of the metal, and the captain and Ta’zara pushed it open.
* * *
Pausert was prepared for an enthusiastic greeting, but not quite the rapturous one he got. Goth seemed to be literally bouncing off the cliff wall in quite her old lithe, lively way. And she kept stopping and kissing him again. The Leewit had hugged him and Ta’zara, but was now all business. “Right, Captain. We need to take Arerrerr out of here. They’ll just abuse her. And they haven’t been feeding her properly.”
“Arerrerr?” asked the captain, warily.
The Leewit patted what he had taken for a natural rock formation, limestone perhaps. “This is Arerrerr. The Soman Consortium have been using her to condition the slaves.”
“What?”
So they had to explain. It was a confusing explanation, but Pausert had had years of making sense of the Leewit, and Goth, and both together. He looked at the vast creature. At the small cave opening they had just come out of. “Um, can it move?”
“Quite slowly. But she won’t fit in that hole. Not anymore. She was put in here when she was little.”
“For safekeeping,” added Goth. “She was going to be fetched. Only…they never came back.”
“Who never came back?” asked the captain, still trying to get this all sorted in his head.
“Captain! We’ve gotten something big coming up the passage,” interrupted Me’a. “The bugs are picking up some serious power fans. It must be some kind of tank!”
“I can hide us in no-shape,” said Goth.
“I’d rather blow their front end off, shoot their rear end off, and ram them in the middle!” said the Leewit. “Have you still got some of your exploding rockets, Me’a?”
“Three. But they have limited facility against armor. On the other hand, we have what’s probably the most valuable hostage in the place. I don’t think they’ll come in shooting.”
They didn’t come in shooting. They came in stinking.
Me’a had wheeled to the opening and focused a scope from the arm of her wheelchair down the passage. “If I can get in range I can get a spy ray on them…oh, it is a tank. A Mark 7 Sirius. They’re pretty well shielded against everything. And they have a range of target detection equipment that is second to none. We’re in trouble.”
Ta’zara, looking over her shoulder at the screen display of the tank which barely fitted down the tunnel, said, “We can drop the tunnel on them. But then we’d be stuck here too.” He sniffed. “What is that smell!”
Goth smelled it too, and laughed. “Sea-squill-cocoon exudate. They think we’re enslaved to it, will love it. It’s the job the Arerrerr was set up to do when we came up here.”
“Uh,” said the captain, swallowing. “That’s some perfume! I hope it didn’t work? I’d hate to put that on after shaving.”
“The Leewit stopped it,” said Goth.
“Thank Patham! But even hiding in no-shape is going to be hard. I feel I might have to throw up.”
“I have gas-filter nose plugs,” said Me’a.
“Good,” said Goth. “Put them in quick, because I doubt if they have any. They’re in an airtight tank. Let’s see how they like their own medicine.”
And when she ’ported an open sea-squill-cocoon exudate vial into the tank…it proved that they really couldn’t live with their own medicine. Less than twenty seconds later, the hatch on the top flew open and several gasping, gagging and vomiting Soman soldiers scrabbled out. Of course, seeing as they had a vial of the stuff outside, it wasn’t a lot better in the passage. Still, they were in no state to resist Ta’zara. They would have been in no state to resist a newborn.
“Well,” said Me’a. “I think we have transportation.”
“The Arerrerr won’t fit,” said the Leewit. “We need to take her to the Venture. We need to get her away from here.”
“I get the feeling that we’re going to have to bring the Venture to her,” said the captain, looking at the strange misshapen rocklike creature. “I could probably set the ship down on the plateau above us, and then we could use our tractor beam to load her into the hold. It would depend on her weight, but that is the best I can think of, at the moment. Which means we need to get back to the Venture.”
“I suppose so,” said the Leewit reluctantly. “Okay. I’m going to put her into a healing trance. At least she won’t know we’ve left her. And they won’t be able to abuse her. I’ve fixed her, gotten rid of the plug they put in, but they would probably do it again.”
“Why hasn’t the Arerrerr just made us all love her?” asked Goth, suddenly wary about her little sister’s “fixes.”
The Leewit grinned. “She thinks she has. I’ve put in a little nerve shunt for now. It’s temporary, but we’re safe enough. Just give me a minute or two.”
So they did. The Mark 7 Sirius was brought forward and turned around, and a few minutes later, with all of them aboard, they set off back down into the Soman caves. Fortunately, Me’a was as adept at driving the tank as she was driving the wheelchair which was now strapped onto the back. They used one of the rear guns to bring down the rock at the entrance to the tunnel, blocking it, and went looking for trouble.
They didn’t have to go that far to find it, but the “trouble” had expected the tank to be on their side. And they didn’t expect a vial of sea-squill exudate to get ’ported high up into the cave above them and to smash in their midst. It was, Goth reflected, a small payback for all those who had been sent to work on the Mantro barges.
“I have accessed the tank’s data and mapping system,” said Me’a. “It’s got the entire Soman cave system in it. Including holding cells, their living quarters, armories, ammunition stores and storage caves. The passages which are accessible to the tank are marked. So where are we going? Straight out by the shortest route?”
“I think we may as well clean up this rat’s nest properly. And certainly free any other slaves we find,” said the captain. “We should head for the main living areas. That’s where most of them will be, I suspect.”
The presence of the tank did simplify things. Obviously, news had gotten around, it seemed with extra panic added. The tank had very little opportunity to use its guns. The slave holding pens were next on the list. The captain and Ta’zara had freed some, and those had already freed others. Of course they also ran away from the Mark 7. But they were easy to avoid shooting at, thanks to the one-piece overalls.
Then they went about systematically destroying the Soman Consortium’s armories, assets and stores. It was only when they came to a cavern that was full of boxes they recognized—the cargo of hyperelectronic forcecuffs—that the captain held the Leewit back from her gleeful experimentation with the tank’s varied weapons systems.
“I’ve got an idea for those,” he said. “From what I can work out we’re pretty near the surface, close to the doors. As far away from the conditioning creature—the Arerrerr—as possible really. We’ll use them later.”
“Those doors are something of a problem,” said Me’a. “Looking at the maps on the screen, we won’t be able to access the fortification and the spaceguns with the tank. And we can’t get out without going past them. Two layers of them. With spaceguns. That is something that outguns us, and will destroy our armor.”
“We’ll have to take them out first, before we and the other prisoners try and bust out of here.”
“I guess. But we ought to finish off the slave pens first. There’s another close to here. It’s where they put the slaves after they had been conditioned, preparatory to shipping them out.”
“That could be awkward. I’ve never felt anything quite as intense as what the Arerrerr did to us, and we just got the start of the treatment. The effects are reversible, but I don’t think the victims are going to thank me.”
Security for the treated slaves was plainly less of a priority. Where they’d had to blast through steel bars for the untreated prisoners, these were kept behind a locked door that the tank simply drove through. Unlike the untreated ones, these at least were no longer in forcecuffs, but did wear the orange overalls. There weren’t many in the dormitories right now.
They came rushing out of their quarters—about fifteen of them—and ran straight at the tank. “Are they trying to attack us barehanded?” asked Goth, incredulously.
“They’re not coming to attack. They’re coming to love,” answered Me’a, dryly. “Look at their faces.”
“They’re in love with a tank?” said the captain.
“They’re in love with what we smell of. We never took off that bit of sea-squill exudate that the Somans had on the outside. The tank’s air filtration and purifier has cleaned out most of the smell from in here, but I would guess it is dumping that waste straight into the outside air. So the tank smells even more of it. So do we, probably. You’ll find this lot are the slaves who weren’t desirable for individual buyers, so were gotten rid of by selling them to the Mantro barges on Parisienne.”
“Oh. Well, that’ll stop them wanting to do anything but help us. Hey! Look. We know that one! It’s that long thin drink of water you rescued, Captain. The tall guy who was a captive in the pirate vessel we blew apart. The fellow we gave passage off Cinderby’s World to. Farnal. The one who organized the other prisoners.”
“Well, at least he looks happy now. He was a pretty miserable sort,” said the captain. “Mind you, he tried to do his best for the rest of the captives. I mean he paid their passage, looked after them.”
“At least they won’t want to give us trouble,” said Ta’zara.
“Except by being too clingy,” said the captain. “But what do we do with them?”
“Well,” said Goth. “First off, I think we get rid of the sea-squill stink on the outside of the tank. This lot don’t look like they can think straight with it that close.” So she ’ported it elsewhere. “And then I think we go and talk to them.”
“Yeah,” said the Leewit. “See what can be done, I suppose. I’ll go. It’s healing they need.”
So they got out. That is to say, the Leewit, Me’a, and Ta’zara got out. Ta’zara first, then giving Me’a her chair off the back—which had fans to get her down. Goth and the captain stayed in the tank, on guard.
It was rapidly apparent that Ta’zara’s martial arts skills were not going to be needed. The slaves were still in a state of happy euphoria—and they associated the tank and the people in it with that. They were only too eager to cooperate. They were perfectly willing to let the Leewit draw Farnal aside. He smiled at her, recognizing her.
“What are you doin’ here?” she demanded. “You managed to get captured twice! Did you think we’d always come to your rescue?”
“No, young lady. To be captured was always my mission, my service to the Church of Irad. We had studied the routes preyed on by the slavers and pirates selling to Karoda very carefully. I was among those sent out to be captured, so I could be the hand of Irad in destroying the beast. I was here to destroy the creature which turns men into slaves,” he said with a sadness underlying his happy smile. “I was always intended to be captured. I wanted to be.”
“But…you helped the others escape Cinderby’s World,” said the Leewit. “You helped them get home when we freed them.”
He nodded. “They were free, but in trouble. They needed guidance, and support. That too is a good deed in the service of Irad.”
“And just how did you plan to destroy this beast?” asked Ta’zara. “Because it is plain that you failed.”
“I cannot tell you, sir, in case others succeed. It is probable will be others taken. There were quite a number of us sent out.”
“He’s got a bomb in his belly,” said the Leewit to Ta’zara. “It makes sense, now. The captain was wrong. They don’t want to capture the thing that conditions the slaves. They wanted to kill the Arerrerr.”
The older man gaped at her. “How did you know…?”
The Leewit shrugged. “It was making you sick. I examined you, remember. I treated you, made you get better.”
He sighed. “Our technicians were worried about that. They had to interface Irad’s will with our nervous system. It was a risk, but one I believed was worthwhile. After all, it was a small sacrifice to be made. And yes, the ruling faction of the high priests of Irad do favor capturing the beast. Our group hold that it is evil incarnate, and it must be destroyed.” He frowned, just slightly. “The levels of corruption there…you would not understand, but we found that several of the high priests are active in the financing of vessels engaged in piracy, and shipping conditioned slaves inward to the Empire. That was how we knew where the true vessels of Irad’s will—those of us carrying the bombs—had to be placed in order to be captured. To destroy the evil thing which makes Karoda slaves.”
“Well, it’s not going to be destroyed,” said the Leewit. “But we’re not going to have it making more slaves either. In case you hadn’t figured it out, we’re busting up this place, cleaning up the slavers. It’s over. But the Arerrerr is not going to be killed or go to Irad. It’s not evil. It’s just an animal. The Soman were evil, and your high priests would have been eviler. So we’re dealing, see. It’s all over.”
“I am glad. It is too late for me, but it always was something I was willing to die to end.” He smiled wryly. “The oddest thing is, I know it to be false, but the rapture… It is in itself a love I have never felt, even in my service to Irad. I understood how it was abused, how it made slaves, but not the way the slaves felt. The misuse was evil, but the love and joy it brings is of itself not.”
“Yeah. But it’s not real,” said the Leewit.
“It is to us. It is odd to find myself a slave, an evil I have fought all my life. And yet…” He sighed again. “I understand what was done to us. But I am sure all of us will make our way to Parisienne and try to find a place on one of the barges so we can serve. I know what we love and where it comes from. We were told. It is worthy.”
The Leewit rolled her eyes. “You’re really messed up.”
“Maybe. But I feel more whole than I ever have,” he said calmly.
The Leewit shook her head. “Wait. I gotta talk to Me’a and the others.”
* * *
Sitting in the tank, keeping a wary eye back the way they’d come, Goth finally had some time to be alone with Captain Pausert. To tell him how afraid she’d been that she’d lost klatha skills, and how glad she was having them back. “So you and me can still be together, Captain.”
He squeezed her hand. “I never saw it as any different, Goth. And I wish you’d told me. I could have told you that you were wrong. You ’ported that power wrench for me, when you were helping me with those calibration checks.”
“I did? I don’t remember,” said Goth, wrinkling her forehead. She remembered doing the checks with the captain. It was a slow, tedious and awkward job that he always saw to himself. He was exceptionally good at it. Klatha luck, perhaps.
“Sure you did. I don’t think you even thought about it. It’s so natural to you, and you were busy with the micrometer readings, when I asked.”
“Oh. But…but that was weeks ago!” said Goth, flushing. All this time…
“Yes. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is you’re back to being yourself. Anyway, it’s not like I’m that good…by Karres standards,” said the captain. “Not that useful. I mean the cocooning is useful, but I think it’s in some ways like making vatch hooks.”
“You’re a hot witch, Captain! You can handle the Sheewash Drive,” said Goth, automatically supportive.
“Like just about every other witch,” said Pausert.
“You’re way stronger than most. Stronger than Maleen, and our family are known to be some of the best. And you can do the Egger Route. And you’re probably the best vatch-handler ever.”
“And as a result we have little to do with vatches these days,” said Pausert. “Except Little-bit and her like and they come and go, and there’s not a lot I can do about them.”
“Just keeping the big ones away is pretty useful. Super useful actually. They used to use us as playthings. Now they leave us alone. That’s huge.”
“I suppose it is useful. It just didn’t feel that way. To be honest with you, I keep feeling as if the vatches are still around, just on the edge of my perception. They can be as sneaky as humans, if you ask me.” He glanced around, as if expecting one to appear. “Anyway, Goth, klatha is something we use but klatha using isn’t what makes you. Goth is who she is. And she’s also Vala, the girl of my dreams when I was a boy growing up on Nikkeldepain—when I knew absolutely nothing about klatha or you using it. I just thought you were wonderful. That was enough for me, then, and I haven’t actually changed that much.”
“I know,” said Goth, gruffly. “You’re pretty solid, Captain.”
At this point the Leewit peered in the manhole on the turret. She looked disapprovingly at them. “Huh. I need some advice about what to do with silly people in love with real stinkers. I reckon you would be the right people to ask.”
“What have we done to be stinkers this time?” asked the captain, cheerfully.
“She,” said the Leewit, pulling a face at her older sister, “should have talked to me.”
“That’s different,” said Goth equally cheerfully. “I’m usually a stinker for talking to you.”
The Leewit sniffed. “Crumping kranslits to both of you. Now what am I going to do with these people? It’s not right to let them go and be slaves on the Mantro barges. But it is what they want to do. What they will be happy doing. I know it’s just the Arerrerr’s work, not real. But what it has done to them is real to them. I don’t know what to do now.”
She stroked Tippi’s sleek head, which had popped itself out of her shirt, looking to be petted. The rochat did seem to do that when people were distressed, and the Leewit plainly was distressed. “I can fix them, I could even make them forget, but…it’s a bit like Ta’zara and the Megair Cannibals. They don’t want to forget. Even the guy with the bomb in his belly. The one we rescued, and transported to Marbelly. Farnal. They’d rather be dead than be without what it’s done to them. Most of them would probably kill themselves in despair—having had it and then having had it taken away. My teaching pattern…says people often do that when they lose what they love. The best I could do is make them forget what happened. And in this case that is hard. It’s a primitive part of the brain. We respond to smells at levels far below the thinking part of the brain. And this got hooked into all their emotional feedbacks and pleasure centers without any throttling down. They could forget the incident, but they will always know that they lost something. Something they found really precious. They don’t want to forget it.”
“Bit different from wanting to forget,” said Goth. “From what I can work out, the Arerrerr was a pet. It needed looking after, and looking after it made the aliens feel good. Maybe even happy. A bit like Tippi. The Arerrerr doesn’t need much, just some leaves and some petting. In some ways it doesn’t give much, rather like Tippi. I don’t think it loved its aliens. Oh, it misses them, because they did a good job and it was comfortable, well petted and looked after and happy. But I am pretty sure they loved it. The image of them telling it they were coming back for it…it was heartrending. And loving it and looking after it made them happy. Just like looking after Tippi makes you happy.”
“Yeah. I reckon you’re right. They all look like you two dopes. But I still don’t see what I can do about it. If they realize I’m going to take that away…it’s going to take more’n Ta’zara to hold them still.”
The captain looked thoughtful. “Is it possible to turn this change in their minds away from loving sea-squill smell? I mean, now that it is set.”
“You said it was pretty simple,” said Goth to the Leewit.
“It is. I think it will reinforce the more exposure they get. But at this stage, it’s just one neuron path. It’s associated with smell. Very basic neural function.”
Goth smiled to herself. You could hear the teaching pattern helping the Leewit. She skipped from her usual language, clinging to the fact that she was the youngest and liked being the youngest. “The guy with the bomb. Can you claim he needs treatment to take it out?”
The Leewit scowled. “Not too keen on surgery, Goth. I’m still sort of scared of it.”
“Teleport surgery? I know they do it on Karres. Mother told me. We did a small bit with the nursebeast on Nartheby.”
The Leewit brightened. “Oh. Yeah. Hang on.” She stood, plainly referencing her teaching pattern. “Yep. We can try anyway. It won’t hurt him. You and I work together…touch talk. I could direct you and you ’port it out of him?”
“If I know how big it is and can get a mental handle on it. If I get the wrong bit, it could do some damage, but it wouldn’t be cutting him open. And while you’re in there…you shift that neural pathway.”
“Yeah. Um. Maybe. But to what?”
“Each other?” suggested the captain. “They’ll need someone not to take advantage of them. At the moment they desperately want to please… Mantro barges and the stinking work on them. Make it any one person and that person could take terrible advantage of them. If they’re looking out for the best they can do for each other, well, that would stop that.”
“I like that,” said the Leewit, thoughtfully. “Even though they’d be like you dopes, but still. Come on, Goth, Captain, we’re going to need your strength. Me’a can guard us with the tank.”
“So what do you need to do the change? They used scent vials for the Arerrerr,” said Goth.
“Hadn’t thought of that. I’ll need a scent sample from each and all of them. That could be hard.”
“Separately?”
“No, all together will probably do. The reaction will trigger off any of the molecules, even in low concentrations.”
“No-shape, and if you give me something to collect the samples on, I could do it,” said Goth.
“There’s a first aid kit here, with some absorbent swabs,” said the captain, producing them.
“Perfect,” said the Leewit. “And I will make them sweat a bit for you. I got a new whistle for that!”
So Goth went out, unseen, and simply took dabs off the skin of the suddenly sweaty and slightly nervous happy people.
When she came back, they did a changeover, with Me’a taking control of the tank, and the others going to the wary group.
It was obvious that the Leewit’s whistle hadn’t made them easier to deal with. “You all got your nose filters in?” asked Goth of her companions.
The others nodded. “Okay. I’m going to crack a vial of sea-squill smell.”
“Make it real quick,” said the Leewit. “They don’t need to smell a lot of it, and neither do we.”
So she did. It worked. “Look, we need to do a follow-up medical procedure on you,” the Leewit explained to Farnal. “You’ve got that bomb in you, which will eventually blow up.”
He nodded earnestly. “That could hurt others. Innocents.”
“Well, I couldn’t do this earlier, because my sister wasn’t with me. But I reckon we can help.”
“But how? It was a major surgical procedure to put it in,” said Farnal.
“You leave that to us,” said the Leewit. “We’re using new techniques. Trust us. We rescued you, saved all those other slaves, treated your injuries, and then got you off Cinderby’s World.”
“This is all true. You have displayed your goodness, and I think you have been a hand of Irad. I will trust you,” said Farnal.
They took him into one of the dormitory rooms, and got him to lie down.
The Leewit put her hands on his shoulders. “The transdermic injection may sting briefly,” she said—and touching him obviously induced some kind of nerve-based anesthesia.
“You’ve been watching those medical shows,” said Goth to her sister.
“Yeah,” said the Leewit. “Need to fake something besides klatha being used. Goth, hold onto my shoulders and I’ll try and lead you in. The teaching pattern says I can do this. I hope it works. Captain…if you lend us strength.”
Goth found it nearly as disturbing as reading history from objects was. She found herself seeing the layers of tissue and blood vessels that her sister moved her power through and along, with the man’s heartbeat loud in her ears. The Leewit transported her down between the ropes of intestines and their rhythmic movement and little gurgles, to a spheroid with a couple of spiky protrusions, one of which had plainly connected to the spine, and the other to a major artery. Suddenly the vision zoomed in, and she could see those connections were closed off with some hard white substance. And then they zoomed out and did it again. She could hear the Leewit’s voice somewhere in the distance, yet within her. “That’s it. Can you take it out? Not breaking the blockers I put in.”
’Porting always took careful visualization, but she had that now. So she took it out.
She was not really prepared for being in the middle of an earthquake.
When the shake and tumble had stopped and she found that she was still somehow seeing the world from inside the gut cavity through the Leewit’s klatha senses, she asked, “Did it go off?”
“No, you dope. Just the bomb suddenly wasn’t there in his abdomen,” said the Leewit’s distant-near voice. “Everything rushed in to fill the space. I nearly lost control for a bit. I got a few minor bleeders to fix. All right. You can go out now.”
“Not sure I know how to.”
“Just let go of me. You’re squeezing a hole in my shoulder.”
So Goth did. The bomb from Farnal’s belly lay on the floor rocking slightly…inside one of the captain’s transparent force cocoons.
“I didn’t know if and when it might go off,” he said. “Best to be safe I thought.”
“Swab,” said the Leewit.
So Goth gave it to her.
A few moments later she pulled her hands away, and smiled at the two of them. “That was easier than I thought.”
“I feel like I went through an earthquake,” said Goth.
“Well, next time we shouldn’t actually be in there when you do it. And my shoulder is sore. But the job is done. He’ll wake up in few minutes. He’ll be a little sore, but no longer in love with anything that smells of sea-squill.”
“That’s a win for him. So what about that bomb? Will it go off?”
The Leewit shrugged. “My teaching pattern doesn’t cover bombs, and the captain hasn’t given me any to ’speriment with. And I did so ask him to.” She stuck her tongue out at the captain.
“Yeah. Well, it is sitting in a cocoon over there. What do we do with it?” asked Goth.
“You ’ported it here? You dope,” said the Leewit. “Don’t you think somewhere else would have been smart?”
“Easy, you two,” said Captain Pausert, grinning at them. “Here. I brought two of the ration bars from the tank. You’ll probably need them and they might make you better tempered. I don’t know that much about bombs, but it’s safe in the cocoon. Vezzarn’s the right man to ask, but Ta’zara or Me’a might know more.”
They both took the ration bars, and ate. “Tastes as bad as Me’a’s energy bars, but not as hard on the teeth,” said the Leewit at the end of it.
“Better than nothing, but not nothing better,” agreed Goth. “How hard was changing the Arerrerr’s work?”
“Piece of cake. Quick too. Easier than chewing that ration bar. I could do the others without them even knowing, now I’ve done one.”
“So let me hide you in no-shape and we’ll go and do it. It’ll be easier than getting them to trust us first.”
“It is sort of without consent,” said the Leewit.
“Uh-huh. If any complain you can undo it, and make them want to work on the Mantro barges to smell sea-squill all their lives. We don’t want to spend too much time on this. The Soman crowd probably still outnumber us. They’re just in a mess right now.”
“I guess,” said the Leewit.
So they went out.
* * *
The captain looked at Ta’zara, still standing at the doorway, and sighed. “I suppose I should be used to them.”
Ta’zara smiled. “As the man said of storm wind: ‘There is no stopping it, so you may as well go with it. Who knows where you may end up?’ It is good that my mistress considers what she does, though. She is growing, Captain.”
“Yes. Both of them are. I’m the one who feels like he is shrinking. What do we do with this fellow? What do we do with this bomb?”
“Leave both, I would say,” said Ta’zara, calmly, looking out of the doorway at the group of people. “I think I can work out where they are.”
“Why? Is Goth’s no-shape less than perfect? She would want to know.”
Ta’zara shook his head. “Come and look. The ones they’ve treated are quite obvious.”
They were. The faces and postures showed it. They glowed with happiness, with pleasure at being with those their modified nervous systems told them they adored.
“I don’t want it done to me, but I can see how it works,” said Pausert quietly. “And how they made such good slaves. I’m glad we’ve put a stop to it.”
“It is a particularly evil thing to take advantage of,” agreed Ta’zara. “Still. I believe they were very expensive, and therefore treated quite well. Ordinary slaves are often not treated well because they are quite cheap.”
“I don’t care. It had to stop,” said Pausert. “And we need to make sure it doesn’t start up again.”
“On this we are in complete agreement, Captain. The Arerrerr’s power can be terribly misused. Besides slaves… Soldiers could be made into utter fanatics. I am not sure quite how the Leewit plans to do it, though.”
Ta’zara seemed convinced she had a plan. Privately, though, Pausert wondered how such a creature’s abilities could ever be kept safe from abuse.
While he was still pondering this, Goth and the Leewit returned. “Done. I think. They kept milling around,” said the Leewit, tiredly.
“I kept track,” said Goth. “Being able to know where things are in space goes with ’porting them. People are no different. How’s the patient?”
“Breathing fine,” said the captain. “But I’m not much on medical matters, as you know. He’s been stirring a bit.”
“He’s waking up,” said the Leewit. “He’s about due.”
And indeed, Farnal sat up a few minutes later, and blinked at them. “Did you succeed? You seem so young for a surgeon.”
“Look on the floor,” said the Leewit.
He did…and then flung himself hastily on top of the bomb. “Get out! Get out quickly!”
“It’s shielded,” said the captain. “A hyperelectronic bomb-disposal shield.” It was simpler than trying to explain what that actually was. And, for Karres and its operatives it was far safer to keep its mechanisms secret.
The man got up, rubbing his plainly bruised stomach. “Good, dear ones. I was so afraid you would be killed.” There were tears in his eyes. “I thought you would just deactivate the switch. It is not possible to remove it from the body without activating the timer. It only has a brief time before exploding. I think you should still leave. I could not bear it if you were to be hurt.”
Goth looked at the Leewit. And the Leewit looked back at Goth. “We both held the swab.”
It took Pausert a few moments to work it out. “Well. At least we know they won’t attack us. I suppose we can leave this bomb here. Unless you have another use for it, that is?”
“Thinking,” said Goth. “Come on, Farnal. There are lots of people out there who will be happy to see you. And you them.”
They went out of the dormitory room and left him to join the others, returning to the tank. Me’a had been busy in there. “I’ve used the spatial maps and the data to position a remote probe in the passage leading to the gateguns. I used that for a direct line-of-sight spy-ray penetration. They’re preparing a counterattack. I’m listening in on their planning. I’ve even managed to penetrate their systems. I’m trying to use that to circumvent their comms shield. I am stealing all their data while I am in there… Here. Let me put the sound and visual up on screen. Ta’zara, we need to plan.”
Her fingers danced across the hyperelectronic keypad. Onto the tank’s central display screen came the image of the people of the Soman Consortium—or what was left of it, in the fortification behind the gateguns.
There were still quite a lot of heavily armed men. There were even a couple Goth recognized. Bormgo…and the obnoxious Jaccy from the sheen clipper Sheridan. He must, somehow, have gotten them to not to condition him as a slave. Yelissa was there too, clinging onto him. Well, Goth understood that now. It was still a surprise to see them there.
“That’s the nasty piece of work who drugged me on the ship! The one who wanted to send me here to be turned into a Karoda slave,” said Goth.
Pausert cracked his knuckles. “Which one?” he demanded.
“Can you keep it down?” asked Me’a. “I’m trying to listen. It always pays to know what your enemies are thinking and doing.”
“It might pay better to ’port them a little bomb,” said the captain, tersely. “It was, come to think of it, really intended for them. I think delivering it might stop them thinking or doing. Can you do that, Goth?”
“No problem. I can see where it is going. But will it go off? What about the cocoon?”
“I can take that off anywhere. I made it. I know it. I don’t have to see it or touch it. We can take it off here and we can set the trigger.”
“Better we go to it. Leave Me’a to watch and listen in.”
When they went out, they found the conditioned slaves in a tight huddle on the far side of the room. They went into the cave room where the cocooned bomb lay.
“Now we need to work out how to activate it,” said the captain bending forward to pick it up. “I’ll just…”
The cocooned bomb suddenly glowed searingly. “Oh,” said the Leewit. “Maybe it really didn’t like being taken out of his belly.”
“I guess that’s the end of that idea, Captain,” said Goth.
Pausert looked at the glowing sphere. It was bright enough to make him narrow his eyes to slits, but that was the only effect it had. “Not really. If you can ’port it like that, I can undo it anywhere. And that version of the cocooning doesn’t even allow gas molecules to pass. Just visible light.”
“Easily done then,” said Goth. She took his hand. “On the count of three I’ll ’port.”
Pausert found it the oddest thing. He’d never really gotten quite how teleportation worked with klatha, before… And now he was doing it. Well, experiencing it as if he was doing it. He wondered if he could…but first to reverse the pattern that made the cocoon. He only had to start it for the energy field to stop resonating and collapse.
Goth looked up at him, her mouth slightly open. “So that’s how it works!” she said. Plainly she’d had the same experience. She squeezed his hand hard. “You’re a hot witch, Captain.”
“And so are you.”
“Come on,” said the Leewit. “Let’s go find out what happened. I think I felt the explosion. And that bit of rock fell down.”
Out in the main chamber quite a few more pieces of rock had fallen down. The group of former slaves had retreated to a far corner. The Leewit, Goth, the captain and Ta’zara scrambled into the tank. Me’a shook her head at them. “Just when I was piggybacking on their system to get a tight beam communication to Vezzarn. The shielding is tight on this place. They’re calling their associates home to help, and I thought we might as well do the same—and you go and collapse the roof on them.”
“Their safe cave caved in?” asked the captain.
“That was what the spy ray showed,” answered Me’a. “We’ve got our former slaves approaching the tank. I have been thinking about what you did to them, Leewit. I don’t think sweat samples from everyone worked quite the way you planned.” She smiled wryly. “We did do some investigation into just how the Karoda slavers conditioned their slaves. We didn’t find out a lot, but the scent material was refined—I think to take out all the elements which don’t just belong to a specific individual. That lot…probably love all of human kind. The sweaty ones, the most.”
“Oh,” said the Leewit. “Yes. I suppose so.”
“It could be worse,” said the captain. “And I assume the specific bits will keep them fond of each other. Let’s see what they want.”
“Probably to make us sweat,” said Goth. But this was not the case. They wanted reassurance and direction—and to know what was going on. And to tell the Venture’s crew they knew their minds had been messed with. “Could it be done to others who have so been conditioned?” asked Farnal. “It is morally wrong to tamper with the minds of men, but compared to loving the smell of sea-squill, and wishing to be in that smell…”
The Leewit wrinkled her brow. “Prob’ly not,” she admitted. “It’s a self-reinforcing pattern. This was the best we could do for you to escape it. It was possible because you had so little time and chance to smell sea-squill stink. You still won’t find that as revolting as most. But people who have been conditioned and getting feedback for a while? Nope.”
“They are to be pitied,” said Farnal. “We will have to see what can be done for them. No one understands this condition better. Now, you said you had been busy freeing other slaves, and that there was a little more to do before it was done. How can we help?” He smiled. “We have talked together. We will do whatever we can for you, even to death. As long as we can do it together.” The group surrounding him nodded almost in unison. They seemed to have made him into their speaker, but it was plain they agreed.
“What you can do for us is to stay alive and get out of here,” said the captain. “Their command and control center—the roof collapsed with the explosion. But they have sent out a call for all their people. There’s going to be extra trouble, and probably some more explosions before we’re done. We don’t want to be worrying about you. We’re going to try and deal with the front gates now. I’d stay back for a while. Arm yourselves if possible.” He saw the doubt on their faces. “You may need to defend each other. Karoda is a tough place, even outside the Soman base.”
“That is true,” said Farnal. “I was one of the survivors of the ’03 war. We must arm ourselves, brothers and sisters.”
“You do that. Also tell any other slaves you see that they have to head downhill. The caves are confusing but the exit is the lowest point,” said Me’a.
“We will spread that news.”
“Right. We’re going to break out,” said the captain. “I believe there is quite a loud siren on this tank. When you hear that, it’s time to head for the exit.”
“Actually, there is even a public address system,” said Me’a.
“Even better. Listen for it. We’ll give instructions as best we can.”
They closed the hatch and headed through the tunnels that the Somans had converted the cave system into, toward the inner gates. “Of course, I am not even sure that the tank can blow them open, or where their controls are,” admitted Me’a. “And, just as we’re not sure how well hardened those hull-metal doors are, we don’t know how the blowing of their command and control center affected the spacegun chambers or their power and manning. I mean all the lights in this cave-tunnel complex of theirs have stayed on. The power supply must be robust.”
“Just get us to the gate, Me’a. We’ll deal,” said Goth.
That brought a chuckle from Me’a. “I begin to appreciate, fully, the warnings that Sedmon of the Six Lives gave about the need to give the Wisdoms of Karres my full cooperation. I didn’t quite get it back then. Not the full implication.”
“Ha,” said Ta’zara, cheerfully. “You have seen nothing yet. When you have been where I have been…”
The inner gate being reached, they could see it for the first time, as they had been unconscious when they came in. It had big and fairly simple mechanical hinges. “Could blast those,” said Me’a.
“We can, just now. But that looks like a personal access door,” said the captain. “The Leewit can just give a little whistle to get rid of any lurkers, and Goth and I will go in no-shape to check it out.”
“Can I try out the public address system?” asked the Leewit. “What sort of whistle do you want, Captain? A frightener? A stunner? Or why not both?”
“Both sound good, in that order, if you let us put on earmuffs first!” The tank had earmuff-mouthpiece combinations for its operators, and these could be set to mute. Those outside the tank were not so lucky.
* * *
Goth had to admit that she was having the time of her life. Having thought that she’d never be able to use klatha again and she and the captain could never do Karres’ work together, let alone the sheer power of actually using their klatha powers together as they had with ’porting Farnal’s bomb…it felt like opening a whole lot of presents on her birthday. “The no-shape I have us in is basically everything. No radiation is getting out, and the light is bent around us.”
“Is it an effort?” asked Pausert.
“Y’know, it’s odd. It’s much less effort, now. I had to do a fair bit of it on the sheen clipper. This…is harder, but feels easier. It’s as if I have come back stronger after nearly dying. Klatha progression is sort of stepwise, not linear.”
“Well, don’t you go nearly dying again. I’m quite content with you as strong as you are,” said the captain, giving her hand a squeeze. “Now…this door. Shall I just cocoon the lock out of it?”
Goth shook her head. “It’s got a security pad. Probably needs an entry code.”
“Well,” said the captain. “I could try my gambler’s luck on it. That seems klatha driven.”
“But it doesn’t feel right,” said Goth. “I can hear it in your voice, Captain. So why don’t we make ourselves a little door in their hull metal?”
“Now that does feel right,” said Pausert. “Pick a spot. I’ll cocoon it. That worked remarkably well on the spaceport wall.”
“Save your cocooning for their spaceguns, Captain. It takes much more energy. I’ll just ’port a nice doorframe shape line…to over there. Minimum effort.”
The chunk of hull metal was still remarkably heavy. It dropped slightly to the ferrocrete floor, but that was only a fingernail width or two, with a laser-cut line around it. Otherwise it stayed in place.
“I’ll just have to give it a shove, I suppose,” said the captain. He did and it moved very slightly. So they both did. “Might have to get Ta’zara, or the tan…”
It gave way suddenly and they both fell inward on top of it. For a moment Goth’s no-shape cover was disrupted.
The fire systems of the Soman defenses were not disrupted.