Brightsuit MacBear (16 page)

“Usually their own lot. But it is an impossible task for any number of workers. Sometimes I could almost believe they keep their vessels filthy and disease-ridden out of nothing more than a perverse desire to deprive us of our due.”

Boy
, was it?

They weren’t required to climb the screw threads as the military squads had. The guests’ entrance to the A.L.N.
Compassionate
, such as it was, consisted of a thirty-foot rope ladder dangling from beneath the flying bridge at the rear of the huge machine. Leftenant Commander MacRame took a closer look at Pemot and made the polite suggestion that a sling be dropped overside for his convenience.

“Thank you, Leftenant Commander, but I doubt whether that will be necessary. You see, my ancestors were quite as arboreal, after their own fashion, as your own.”

He winked at his human companion, something the boy had never seen him do before. “Cacti,” he whispered, “rather than trees.”

He followed one of the Leftenant Commander’s dozen soldiers up the ladder with considerable agility—more, in fact, than Mac, following behind him, managed.

Chapter XVII: The Captain-Mother

The ladder went straight through a trapdoor onto the open command deck of the
Compassionate
.

This was an expanse of wickerwork similar to the equivalent area aboard the
Intimidator
. Mac could see better, now, how the ship worked. As they trudged along the threads, which were woven as well and had been polished until their edges shone from continuous contact with the moss, the slaves came to the aft or larger ends of the giant screws, climbed off, and followed a hanging walkway forward again. No bulge-muscled overseers brandished whips. Instead, if a slave stumbled or hesitated in line, another one behind him shoved him along.

Somehow, Mac thought, this was worse.

It turned out he’d been wrong about the smell aboard the
Compassionate
. No proper Antimacassarite would permit such a travesty. As each slave left the walkway to resume driving the screw threads, he passed under a shower bar which, if it made his footing more difficult and dangerous on his next trip along the stair steps, at least guaranteed him, after a manner of speaking, a clean death.

Aft of the command deck was a large, roofed superstructure with overhanging eaves, a door, and windows—the silica they required must have been every bit as precious on this vegetation-shrouded planet as metal, the boy realized, unless some portion of the sea plants secreted it—into which they were conducted.

“Doctor Pemot of the planet Mexico!” Leftenant Commander MacRame bowed to a figure seated behind a table and indicated the lamviin.

“Mr. MacDougall of the starship
Maru
.” Again the leftenant commander bowed.

“Please allow me to present to you our esteemed commanding officer, Captain-Mother b’Mear b’Tehla. Captain-Mother b’Tehla, Doctor Pemot and Mr. MacDougall.”

“Bear,” Mac corrected.

“Pardon, young man?”

The white-haired old woman they’d been introduced to sat in a wicker rocking chair with a knitted shawl wrapped around her plump shoulders. She appeared to be even further overdue for rejuvenation than his grandfather. She peered at Mac with shrewd, glittering eyes through the thick lenses of bifocal spectacles.

“MacDougall Bear, ma’am—that’s my name—of the Confederate starship
Tom Edison Maru
.”

The old lady chuckled. “Dearie me. We greatly fear you’ll have to be somewhat forgiving of our good leftenant commander’s roughshod and straightforward military manner. Without a doubt, it has its proper place aboard the
Compassionate
, as, indeed, do we all. Moreover, any inclination upon her part toward empty courtesy would be a poor substitute, indeed, for her real talents. Now, won’t you be seated, Mr. Bear? And what sort of furniture would you find most comfortable, Doctor Pemot?”

“A stool would do nicely, Captain-Mother b’Tehla, or I can remain standing in perfect comfort.”

“By all means find the good doctor a stool, Goldberry, and have our aide bring tea in, if you will.”

“Aye, aye, Captain-Mother.”

Spine straight as a ruler, Leftenant Commander MacRame saluted, turned on her booted heel, and left the captain-mother’s cabin, closing the door behind her.

“Now,” asked the captain-mother, “would you be so good as to tell us what it is which brings the pair of you young beings across the course of our
Compassionate
?”

Leaving Middle C and the rest of the taflak out of it, Pemot explained that he was a Confederate social scientist, a xenopraxeologist, studying the planet Majesty, that Mac was his associate (a word with wonderful, flexible meaning, Mac realized), and that they’d somehow missed an appointment to be picked up by hovercraft and taken back to the Confederate settlement at the north pole.

The captain-mother’s aide, another young woman, came in with a well-laden tea tray. Balanced atop a small stool, Pemot offered his sincere regrets as a literal nondrinker, but was agreeable to nibbling on some of the small crustless sandwiches which had been brought with the tea.

Mac, meanwhile, discovering he was ravenous, had several of the things, washed down with three cups of tea.

When asked about the Securitasian crankapillar, Pemot told a reasonably straight story about what had happened between them and its captain—again leaving out Middle C.

“Dearie me,” asked the captain-mother, “aren’t we the busy ones? And admirably quick on the trigger. Do you know, young fellow, we’ve been pursuing the thrice-cursed
Timmie
and that rascally scoundrel Tiberius j’Kaimreks all over the Sea of Leaves without any luck at all? You are most valiant, and have our full congratulations and felicitations, but we believe we shall miss him.”

Pemot muttered something modest.

“What did j’Kaimreks do?” Mac asked, stuffing another sandwich in his mouth.

“The villain is—was, thanks to your good offices—a chronic sacker and burner of Antimacassarite towns, a habit made all the worse and easier for him since in recent years we have taken to dwelling exclusively upon raft villages and craft such as this. But this is a mere peccadillo, compared to the truly heinous offense against all humanity for which, most lately, we have been pursuing him.”

Mac raised both eyebrows.

“He was,” the captain-mother replied to the gesture, “trafficking—although we hesitate to believe it was at the behest of his government, as uncivilized as they have demonstrated themselves to be at times—trafficking with the…the…”

“The natives?” Pemot had all three eyebrows raised, although the captain-mother couldn’t see the one in back.

“Indeed”—her tone was indignant—“in an effort to enlist them in an unwholesome alliance against us.”

“How innovative of him.” Pemot’s tone was neutral.

“The very word for it.” Captain-Mother b’Tehla nodded, puckering with distaste. “Although we are certainly glad you have had a word such as that in your mouth instead of us!”

They spoke a while longer about j’Kaimreks.

Meanwhile, Mac had discovered something else. Thanks to the several cups of tea he’d had since dawn, one of his physical requirements had exceeded the capacity of his smartsuit, which, owing to its age and state of repair, had been limited to begin with. Something he couldn’t quite define about the current social circumstances made him embarrassed to ask about the
Compassionate
’s sanitary facilities, and he decided to try waiting for a later opportunity.

If he could.

“And so,” Pemot explained to their hostess when they’d finished discussing the Securitasians, “we drastically require transportation to Geislinger so that we may be in time to rejoin the interstellar fleet. Is it possible to persuade you, Madam Captain-Mother, to help us or to find someone who can help us?”

“Dearie me.”

The captain-mother’s wicker chair squeaked as she rocked it back and forth. “We’re afraid this does present us with an insurmountable difficulty, for you see, we represent not only Her Kindness alone, but Her Kindness’ Government-in-Exile, and for this reason cannot venture anywhere near the poles, doctor.”

The lamviin blinked. “Well, I suppose we can make alternative arrangements if we must. We’d planned walking in any case.”

He changed the subject with such haste that even Mac, in his current state, noticed it. “Please advise me, Captain-Mother—and I confess I wondered about this with regard to the Securitasian captain, as well—why do you all continue employing the expression ‘government-in-exile’? Surely the Galactic Confederacy’s never threatened to interfere with the nonaggressive activities of your respective polities. They’re chiefly interested in trade and exploration.”

Mac also noticed the way Pemot had distanced himself from the Confederacy. The ploy—if ploy it was—seemed to work, as Captain-Mother b’Tehla’s answer indicated.

“Perhaps they do not interfere as a collective entity,” she argued, “but they certainly do as individuals, whose irresponsible ideas and actions we are helpless to defend ourselves and our comparatively fragile cultures against. As a consequence, even our own young people have begun to ignore us—and with an impunity against sanctions, which the Confederacy has extended to them. This is not the proper manner in which to run a society, and it is the reason we stay out here, upon the Sea of Leaves, where young people can be brought up properly, without distractions, and with some notion of social responsibility.”

She went on to tell them about a great fleet which had, since what she termed the “invasion,” become a mobile nation, patrolling the Sea of Leaves, converging only in prearranged places at prearranged intervals. Possessing the most limited means of telecommunication—which they regarded as a dangerous liability in any case—the Antimacassarites nevertheless had an accurate idea of the technological capabilities of orbiting spacecraft, and took pains to mask these gatherings from infrared and other kinds of detection.

As the captain-mother explained them to the fascinated xenopraxeologist, their own navigational skills were impressive, considering the primitive implements they used, and they could communicate with other vessels using flag signals, messages sometimes being relayed in this fashion a quarter of the way around the planet.

Mac’s discomfort was increasing, and, at the same time, he was becoming annoyed with his companion. This old lady was just like his grandfather, whose sweetness and sunlight could transform themselves into poison and thunderclouds at any moment, in particular when his authority over his grandson was challenged.

Why couldn’t Pemot see that?

“Okay then, ma’am, since we have business of our own and no intention of subverting anybody, why don’t you just let us off this machine so we can be on our way? It’ll get us out of contact with your precious young people that much sooner.”

The captain-mother shook her head. “Dearie me. We could never accept the responsibility for so reckless a course. It is dangerous enough upon the Sea of Leaves for the fully armed and mechanized contingent we have here in the
Compassionate
, let alone a pair of relatively helpless strangers to our harsh environment such as yourselves. Why, for the sake of your own safety if for no other, we must insist you stay with us.”

“Besides”—Mac stood—“your superiors might want to squeeze information out of us?”

“
MacBear!
”

“Sorry, Pemot, but, as far as this old lady’s stock in trade is concerned, you seem to be buying out the store. I’m not. Underneath all the smiles and endearments, she isn’t any different from Captain j’Kaimreks. Can’t you see that?”

An embarrassed silence descended. The boy didn’t dare explain to the lamviin—who, no doubt, was already beginning to think his companion was turning into a paranoid lunatic—that he also suspected the ready availability of the tea and the lack of bathroom facilities, might be another gentle, hidden persuader.

Pemot didn’t answer.

“She’d keep us here,” Mac added, “using anything, including initiated force, if we weren’t armed.”

“Well, young man,” the captain-mother answered, “as much as we deplore reinforcing your suspicions of us, it may well come to that, although we would much prefer you thought of it in a different light. You are our guests—and gracious guests certainly do not carry lethal weapons into the homes of their hosts.”

Mac felt something cold and hard touch the back of his neck like a steel finger. He turned toward the open window overlooking the command deck and discovered he was staring into the age-stained and pitted muzzle of Leftenant Commander MacRame’s stubby pistol barrel. At the end of the spiral of rifling, deep inside the chamber, he could even see a large-caliber, hollow-pointed bullet.

He turned back to the captain-mother. “You’re really going to be sorry now. Don’t you realize the
Tom Edison Maru
—”

“Dearie me,” the captain-mother repeated for the dozenth time, “young man, you don’t seem to realize your precious starship left off orbiting this planet twenty-four hours ago, and constitutes no threat to us. We keep track of these things, you know. So, despite your ungracious and ungrateful behavior, we believe you will surrender those weapons and remain here as our guests.”

Pemot’s voice was even. “In that case, Captain-Mother b’Tehla, since you’re so fond of having guests, perhaps you wouldn’t mind having a few more. Perhaps a few thousand more.”

“Might we be so bold as to inquire,” inquired the old lady, “what you are referring to?”

“By all means you may ask. But before you do, permit me to answer with a demonstration—”

The Sodde Lydfan leaned forward on his stool toward the open window, pressed two fingers to each of the nostrils beside his upraised major limb, and
whistled!
The glass panes shattered. Both tea mugs on the captain-mother’s table went
tink!
as their glazing crazed, although they managed to stay in one piece.

In answer, a blurred projectile whisked up past the astonished leftenant commander through the window and thunked, quivering, into the raftered ceiling.