CHAPTER TEN
“How would you two like to leave Caliuga, see the Empire? Go to Goshtinnaw, the capital?” asked Wanliet. “Go somewhere, anywhere else? You two are young, beautiful, smart, ambitious – you could be anything you want in the Empire. Heck, you might even become an Inspector General. Take it from me, it’s not a bad gig.”
Before Sirah could speak Aspe wanted to settle things. “No, we have to stay here. There are things we must do, must resolve before we can move on.” Since Aspe was speaking for Sirah, Sirah chose to speak for me, and asked, “Like what? What’s so important that we have to stay here? The old guy’s right, we can be anything we want in the whole universe, and best of all we can be it somewhere else!”
I was tempted to take Aspe’s turn for her, but she ‘interrupted’. “Yeah, sure, we can be the backwards babes, the freaks from the tenth-century! Do you have any idea how hard it will be to fit in? Ask them, ask them how different things are out there, how much more advanced it all is, things we never imagined, worlds where our weirdest sexual fantasies are traded for every day on the street!” Odd, I thought, that of all the things she thought on when considering the future she glommed onto weird sexual fantasies. Made me regret that we’d never gotten together.
It was like Aspe was reading my mind about what they’d find; on the other hand, smart good-looking girls, well, allowances would be made if they were a little backwards, ya know? Might even be able to capitalize on it somehow, ‘pristine consciousnesses,’ or something, it’s a big universe full of all sorts, somebody’s willing to buy anything if it’s properly promoted, right?
But I couldn’t actually say that, because even to me it sounded crass. Instead I offered, “Look, we can keep this to ourselves. After all, Wanliet and I have been keeping big secrets our whole time on Caliuga, one more, even a big one like this, isn’t that big a deal. We can go ahead with whatever you hoped to find here, begin whatever change you wanted to start, but keep in mind that I’m the only one on this planet who can fly my ship out. If you ever want to leave here, it’ll be with me as pilot. Does that change any of your plans?”
Aspe was pacing as I spoke, “Damn, damn, damn!” She turned viciously to me, the pistol wavering slightly in her fury, but always targeted on my torso, usually the lower part. “All right, what else have you got here?! What other little secrets, or big lies, are hidden here? How much more of my home are you going to turn upside-down?! Let me know now, because I’ve got some heavy thinking to do, and so help me if you spring one more surprise on me later, pilot or not, I’m going to start shooting little pieces off of you! It’s not like you need a complete body to fly this thing, I’m thinking.” The wavering muzzle focused south, suggestively.
I had to get her mind engaged, not her ego, because it was the ego and fear fingering that trigger. “We’ve got some provisions, and communicators, and some blasters, medical supplies, there are all kinds of opportunities that all this opens up. Not to mention, Wanliet, did you ever figure out what those damn treasure balls are all about?”
“I think so, but I’m not so sure it matters right now. Make your anger a stranger, Aspe, you’re sitting sweet. Whatever you want, we can help you make it happen. Unless we’re dead. Or have little pieces shot off” he added for my benefit. Aspe was back to pacing, but she paused at the ends of her path. This encouraged me, and, I guess, Sirah, because she spoke up. “Aspe, we can stay or we can leave, we can get power or live alone, we can even start up our own colony. Caliuga still has lots of room! Don’t close the door on any of that!” Aspe pondered and toyed with the trigger some more. “Let’s talk outside!” she barked at Sirah.
Just then I heard a noise from outside the ship. “Are there any smeerps around here, Sirah?” I asked meekly. “No, they’re further south, Chugtallis way. Why?” “I thought I heard something, and didn’t know just how scared I should be that something’s making noises out here in the middle of nowhere. Do you mind if I …?” I gestured to the hatch with my head. Puzzled shrugs from Aspe and Sirah gave me the go-ahead, but the pistol was always trained on me.
Huh. Lordano, or Gurjoo, the mayor, and a score of other riders were waiting outside. A moment’s thought told me this made sense, really, as the ship was only a few hours’ ride from Caliuga and Lordano knew the way, but it still took some digesting, the cavalry showing up for me like this. Maybe because being saved by the cavalry meant I was a ‘good guy,’ a role I’m usually not picked for. “Um, Aspe, Sirah, you might want to come see this,” I urged as I backed slowly back into the ship. Through the now-open hatch they could look out and grasp the situation.
Sirah left the ship first, “Dad, what’re you doing here?” Wanliet and I followed; Aspe remained at the hatch, her arm stretched across the opening, her pistol hand hidden inside, like she hoped nobody knew what she was up to.
“I could see that this Solip City agent Iapmo had plans, bad plans, for the Inspector General, his adjutant, and likely for my only daughter, my child. I couldn’t let her just hurt you, my darling, or to harm the future of Caliuga, the city and the planet. It’s my home and my family, and anybody who tries to hurt them will have to deal with me!”
“Mayor, I don’t know where you got those ideas!” Aspe drawled from the hatch, her gun hand concealed inside. “Like everybody else, we just wanted to see his Excellency’s ship, and help him get some of his personal items from it to make his life, and his mission here, more comfortable. That’s all!” she smiled mirthlessly as her eyes swept back and forth.
I knew this scene wasn’t being played out for my benefit, so I looked at the riders, a sturdy bunch who clearly were on the mayor’s, and Wanliet’s, side. Time to shape the encounter. “We were just gathering some things together from our ship, mayor, but if you’d like to come in and check her out, you have my permission to board.” The mayor looked uneasy, and I realized he wasn’t accustomed to spacer terms. “I’m sorry, your honor, we spacers call our ships ‘she.’ So, if you’d care to come aboard, I’ll be happy to show you around. Not that it’s anything grand, you understand.” Heck, it was a bare-bones smuggler, built for hidden cargo and evasion, but these rubes wouldn’t recognize that. To them the concept, the possibilities would be magical, the most humdrum buttons imbued with potentialities limited only by their imaginations .
“Don’t mind if I do, Mr. Daskal. Don’t mind if I do,” he repeated, his glare challenging Aspe’s blockade of the entry. She gracefully moved aside, keeping her pistol hand concealed, and with her other hand making a sweeping gesture of invitation. “If the ship’s commander says it’s okay, it’s okay,” she purred.
The tour took about half-a-minute. Longer was the explanation of the controls, both the chemical-rocket controls and the wormhole controls, along with the integrity-field-generator we had to keep all the atoms of the ship and its contents linked together in the proper order when we jumped.
“Fascinating, fascinating Mr. Daskal! And you say that, from here, you can rocket to space and then jump to anywhere in the universe?”
“More or less, once we determine where we are. We can go anywhere that we have the co-ordinates to. If we jump blindly we might not like where we end up. Your ancestors’ ship was very fortunate when it jumped and happened to end up near an inhabitable planet. In fact, all your settlers’ ships were fortunate; I’m really puzzled by that, but why question good fortune when it comes your way, right, your Honor?”
He chortled a bit. “Mr. Daskal, when good, honest people have good fortune, we don’t look on it as mere chance, but the hand of Providence moving obstacles from the paths of those who love Him and labor in His service.” I wondered how he explained bad luck, but knew this was hardly the time for that debate, and just beamed back at him.
“Attuned intuition reveals cosmos loving face into,” murmured Lordano, the Gurjoo. “All with love done, nudges and spankings of tenderness and mercy.”
Between Wanliet and Lordano I wasn’t sure I’d ever see things the same wa
y again. I shook my head to clear it, and suggested we leave. “We’ve gotten what we want here, checked on a few things, and now we’d like to return to Caliuga, your Honor.”
His Honor surveyed his little posse, looked at Wanliet, me, Sirah and Aspe, and nodded impressively. “But I think I’d like to ride on the speeder, Mr. Daskal, with you and the Inspector General. If it’s all right with Ms. Iapmo?”
She didn’t have much choice. All she could do was glare menacingly at me as her mouth said, “That’s quite all right, Your Honor. If Jaf can fly this can, I’m sure he can handle my little speeder. I’ll be happy to take your horse back to Caliuga, and then tomorrow take my speeder back to Solip City.”
And so we began our ride back to the home town of Sirah and her father the mayor. We’d made a lap of Caliugan settlements, and gotten far more involved in the politics than I felt comfortable with, and almost died because of it a couple of times. Still, here we were, intact and healthy, and with no easy way to extricate ourselves. My friendly optimist whispered that was okay, because I’d gotten kind of fond of the place, and most of her inhabitants, but then my fearful ego howled that a lot of powerful people wished to see me hanging from a wall in a dungeon. As for Sirah, well, I was still sorting out which camp she was in. Smart, sexy, and exciting, I could see a real danger I’d do something stupid or wonderful because of her – and the way she had me wound up those two might be the same thing. Now that we could leave when we wanted, I didn’t have the easy out of being forced into staying with her, of having matters out of my hands. I would have to make choices, and live with their consequences.
I knew all too well that meant that I would have to give up possible futures, futures where I might have more fun and excitement, or endless misery and heartbreak. It’s not given to us to know what lies ahead when we choose, and sometimes we don’t even realize we’ve chosen until afterwards. Maybe Lordano’s ‘attuned intuition’ was the answer, but I had no idea where the tuner was, much less the frequency.
So the mayor, the Gurjoo, the Inspector General and his adjutant got on the speeder, the mayor next to me, and we headed back to Caliuga City, for the most part pacing the riders from slightly ahead.