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11
The five figures spirited Jory away in a car that smelled of fish or snakes or something. One of the real Fril drove. It was trip of a few minutes. The noisy clatter of the space port grew louder and enveloped them as the car turned down short streets. When the car halted, there was a furtive payment, an exchange of sharp, thin light beams full of official seals, and the humans hustled Jory out by his elbows. The Fril took off with the car. Jory stood before a sea of lights in whose center rested the grav-assist boat that would take him to space.
Jory was amazed at the bustle of the cargo boat that was ten or more stories tall. He entered with his companions and stood on a dirty steel floor in a low-ceilinged corner crammed with bio-electronic devices and displays. Jory stared in fascination at all this wonderful machinery that had been locked out of Oba for centuries.
Jory saw that the cargo bay occupied most of the boat's interior. Broad bulkheads were open, and Fril and other alien laborers worked around the clock loading the boat for its trip into orbit to join the Dora Mora. The noise of generators, voices, and loaders was deafening. The interior bay was 200 arm spans long, 100 arm spans wide, and 40 arm spans high. The ceiling was slightly curved outward and reinforced on the inside with steel beams that had circles cut out for lightness. Bright biolume strips streaked the ceiling and the walls with a light so bright in some places that it was bluish.
In that moment, a small worm of determination settled in Jory's soul. If he were ever able, he would come back and smash those gates. He would tear down that concrete drum wall. He would free not only the humans on Oba, but the Shurians from themselves.
"This way," Jerzy said, grabbing a handful of Jory's cloak. He pulled, and Jory and the other two men followed. They bolted up a narrow, claustrophobic metal stairwell that rang with their footsteps. On the second floor, they entered a doorway that led to a series of narrow rooms or cabins set into the boat's walls, whose windows overlooked the loading bay. Jerzy locked the door behind them, while Don pulled the dark blue curtains on the windows closed. There was one virtual window to see space once they took off. The room was carpeted in dark red, and had a kitchen built into the other end from where Jory stood. A door at the other end led, he supposed, to more rooms like this one, places for the crew or maybe the officers to rest while the boat was under way.
"About ten hours," Jerzy said, "and she'll be lifting off."
They pulled off their disguises and threw them over a set of couches set in one corner. The three spacemen wore the ubiquitous uniform of the bipedals—a loose fitting cotton jumpsuit that opened down the front and had many small pockets to keep things when gravity was at a premium. Jerzy's was a faded khaki, Don's a new dark blue, Hans's a dim light blue. Hans and Don threw themselves back on the worn but comfortable looking brown couches along the outer wall. Jerzy headed for the corner sink. Jory stared at the soft lighting, and the smooth waves it made on the creamy, plastic-coated ceilings. He welcomed a host of clean, human smells. These men took everything for granted while, for him, every moment meant a new sensation.
He hardly noticed the door that opened or the woman who walked into the room.
She had to speak his name twice before he looked at her, startled.
She was pretty, that he could see. Her skin was dusky brown. Her hair was puffy like the Shurians', but black and thick, with many fine curls, and cropped just beyond the ears so it made a fluffy helmet. Her eyes were serious, light blue and playful. Her jumpsuit was new and clean, brown like a tree trunk. Jory liked the way her hips moved in the suit, and her unassuming breasts were high and firm. She moved with style and authority. "I'm happy to see you, Jory O'Call." She extended a small hand whose nails she'd painted glossy rouge. Her grip was light but firm. Official. "I'm Josenda Kellahi. I'll be your official guardian until you join the crew of Dora Mora."
Jory nodded, enjoying her warmth and light smile. He noted the light pink lipstick, the several tiny gold rings in her cheeks, the small pink bow attached to her high forehead. He also noted with surprise that she packed a huge black gun in a dark green holster on a wide web belt with small military-looking pouches. On the left chest surface of her overalls were insignia patches suggesting she could shoot, run, wrestle, and fight with the best of them.
"We'll be taking off in six bells," she said. "They are loading the heavy cargo bottom first. Ten tons of special Oba core-soil for a royal pleasure garden on Rorath IV." She grinned. "Where there's a need, we go. You'll probably enjoy the Service." Seeing his confused, numb look, she added: "Of course you're entitled to quit if you wish. Just—don't before Captain Aptath has had a chance to present you with a proposal." She had a crisp, athletically attractive, almost handsome face. The softness of her skin, the curvature of her cheeks, and the twinkle of her lipstick made her look pretty and feminine. He liked looking at her, in this wealth of wonderful light, as her features kept pulling between the athletically hard and feminine soft.
Jory sat on the couch while she stepped beside Jerzy at the sink to prepare steaming hot cups of something for them—kjaba, they called the bitter but savory black brew whose steel-keen edge could be blunted with sugar, milk, and other condiments too strange for Jory to name. He didn't care about the confusion of this wonderful new world whirling around his head—he was just glad to be alive. Then, as always, the thought of Ramy followed, and he felt a wrenching sadness.
That, in turn, reminded him of Girex and Giru. "Josenda, there is one thing," he said as she walked carefully juggling two small, white ceramic cups on tiny plates.
"Yes?" she asked attentively, since apparently it was her job to hover around him like a mother, a friend, and a police officer. She handed him his cup and they sat down. "Careful, it's hot," she said. He took his first sip of kjaba and spit it out. Not only was it hot, but it was sheer black hell.
"Ah!" he cried, handing her the cup and running to the sink. He heard clouds of laughter all around him as he rinsed his mouth out. "Sacred Oba Mountain, that stuff will kill you."
"You'll grow to like it," Josenda said.
Minutes later, sipping gingerly at a cup doused in condiments, he began to appreciate the cloying but robust way this drug entered his senses of smell and taste and made his blood run faster.
"There is one thing." He pictured Girex and Giru sprawled in their sad and dishonored deaths. "I had two friends here in Kusi-O. They were very gentle and took good care of me. I wish we could take them with us for burial. They have a child who will wonder what happened to them."
The three men howled with derision, and Jory almost hated them. He could see why the galaxy had rebelled against their human overlords hundreds of mendz ago—if the legends were true—.
Josenda seemed poised as ever, and he sensed resistance from her also. "Jory, it's impossible. The risks... the timing... the laws... we'd have to negotiate with the local authorities, and one thing would lead to another. Do you realize that if anyone learns about you, you'll be marked for death?" She set her cup aside and spoke firmly. "Maybe you don't understand. It's illegal for the five of us to exist on this planet. Or for that matter to run free in most of the galaxy. We have for centuries been under a shoot to kill edict. We don't own these ships or run this cargo. We have proxies and overlords like Captain Aptath."
"Captain Aptath isn't human?"
"Well... he is of our kind," she said slowly. "You'll learn more about this ship soon enough. The officers and the crew of the ship are Ruandap." She continued: "For us to make arrangements like this would involve Captain Aptath's officers contacting the Fril police and somehow explaining... no, it can't be done, I'm sorry."
Jerzy and company still laughed. "A couple of snake drug addicts, ho ho!"
Don slapped his sides. "Hope they don't clog up the incinerator."
Jory rose and walked close. "Gentlemen, if you amuse yourselves further, this will become very personal, very quickly. I warn you."
Their expressions faded into looks of disbelief and joshing. "Oh come on, man, we're just having a laugh."
"The Fril couple were kind to me. I would like to bury them with honor. Where I come from, we honor those who have died."
"But these are reptiles."
"No, they were people. They treated me like a person."
Hans rose huffily to refill his kjaba at the sink, and he brushed past Jory. He was a big man who moved in hulking movements, and Jory heard him mutter in his thick patois, "I can see why they would kill you on the other side." He shook his cup out on the floor and walked to the kjaba urn. "If I don't take you back there and toss you over the wall myself."
Josenda rose. "Hans, this man is worth a million of you to Captain Aptath. I will throw you over the wall if you even say another word."
"Keep your beans in the bag," Hans muttered.
Jory turned to her. "I insist that we make an effort."
"All right," she said, snapping open a com pad. " Dora Mora, this is Josenda. Patch me through to the O.D." She walked out of the room, slamming the door shut, leaving Jory with the men.
Jory stood his ground and looked at them.
Jerzy waved his arm. "It's not worth the sizzle. Ease up, O'Call. You made your qifin' point and I respect you for it. Don't push it by being rectal."
"I'm not pushing anything. I'm prepared to answer any further questions."
Hans scoffed to himself, but appeared to be thinking that the price of pursuing this wasn't worth it. They were human, on a hostile planet, and subject to execution if someone slipped up.
Don apologized. "Sorry, man. We all have buried dead. We know the feeling."
Jory slowly turned away from the confrontation, thinking, yes, and half of them you probably killed, being mercenaries.
Josenda re-entered the room. "Captain Aptath will send an officer to the Fril boss. He'll say that he was contacted by the child's guardians to retrieve his parents' bodies." She appeared somewhat surprised. "I can see you'll have your way around here." She remained friendly enough, but something had changed. Jory figured it out soon enough. He wasn't one of them. He was a special person whose any word to the Captain (whom he hadn't met yet, nor whose purpose he knew) could affect them in unknown ways. Suddenly it was the woman and the three mercenaries on one side of a wall, and Jory alone on the other.
When the bodies of Girex and Giru were brought to the boat hours later by Fril mortuary workers, Jory looked down from the secrecy of the curtained mezzanine office. He was alone in the room. Josenda had gone to freshen up after making sure the doors were securely locked, and the three mercenaries had gone to catch up on their sleep.
Jory felt sad, seeing naked Fril laborers carelessly handling the two yellow ceramic tubes smeared with black calligraphy. Then he spotted his first Ruandap. There were three of them, big men in uniforms similar to Josenda's, with side arms. One appeared to be a ship's officer, for he wore a colorful sash around his neck, and a gold medal on his chest. He had dark, blunt features. The Ruandap officer and a Fril representative nodded and shook hands. Fril workers carried the containers to a safe spot in the ship.
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