Killashandra (13 page)

She reached the dirt road that served as main artery for the settlement, deserted at that morning hour except for some small, peculiar-looking animals basking in the sun. She was aware of being watched, but as that was only to be expected, she continued her inspection of the unprepossessing buildings facing the road. The brew-smell continued to permeate the air but intensified to her right. Common sense indicated that the wide gray structure on the far side of the road some thousand meters away was probably the source. She headed there.

As she walked she heard doors and windows open behind her, marking her passage to her objective. She permitted herself a small smile of amusement. Human nature did not change and anything new and unusual would be marked in a society as dull and repressed as she suspected Optheria’s was.

The brew-smell was almost overpowering by the time she reached the gray building. An exhaust fan was extracting the air from the roof, its motor laboring. Although there was no sign or legend on the building to indicate its purpose, Killashandra was not deterred. A locked front door, however, did pose an obstacle. She rapped politely and repeated her knock when it brought no immediate response. Thumping on the door also produced no results, and Killashandra felt determination replace courtesy.

Was brewing illegal in Optheria’s largest city? Or could it be brewing without due license? After all, Bascum originated on Optheria and might have a monopoly. To be sure, she hadn’t paid much attention to what plants were being so carefully tended in the gardens. Home industry? Thwarting the ever vigilant and repressive Elders?

Quickly she stepped around the building and toward its rear, hoping to find a window. She caught a glimpse of a running juvenile body and heard it raise its voice in warning. So she raced around the corner to find the rear doors folded back on a scene of much industry as men and women supervised the bottling of a brew from an obviously improvised vat. The young messenger took one look at her and fled, ducking down the nearest alley.

“May a thirsty stranger to this planet have a sample of your brew? I’m perishing for lack of a decent glass.”

Killashandra could, when she exerted herself, be smoothly charming and ingratiating. She’d played the part often enough. She glanced from one stony expression to the next, holding her smile.

“I’ll tell you it was some shock to discover this planet doesn’t import anything spiritous or fermented.”

“Shuttle got in yesterday,” someone in the group said.

“Too early for tourists.”

“Those clothes aren’t local.”

“Nor island.”

“I’m not a tourist,” Killashandra inserted in the terse comments. “I’m a musician.”

“Come to see the organ, have you?” The man’s voice was so rich in contempt, disapproval, cynical skepticism, and malicious amusement that Killashandra tried hard to spot him in the hostile group.

“If I can judge by my reception above, that sour lot permits few favors. A body really needs a brew here.”
Again she fortified her smile with winning charm. And licked dry lips.

Later, in reviewing the scene at her leisure, Killashandra decided that it might have been that unconscious reflex that won her case. The next thing she knew an uncapped bottle was thrust at her. She reached to her belt pouch for the Optherian coins she had acquired on the
Athena
but was curtly told to leave off. Money didn’t buy their brew.

Although some had turned back to their job, most watched while she took her first sip. It was rich despite its clandestine manufacture, slightly cool, undoubtedly improved by a proper chilling but superior to the Bascum and almost on a par with Yarran.

“Your brewmaster wouldn’t happen to be of Yarran origin?” she asked.

“What do you know of Yarra?” Once again the question was posed anonymously though Killashandra thought the speaker was on her left, near the vat.

“They make the best beer in the Federated Sentient Planets. Yarran brewmasters have the best reputation in the Galaxy.”

A rumble of approval greeted this. She could feel the tension ease though the work continued at the same swift pace. Above the rattle of bottles, and the noise of crating the full containers, Killashandra heard a gasping wheeze to her right, on the roadway, and then a dilapidated vehicle, its sides scarred and rusting, pulled up to the open door.

Immediately crates were loaded into it, Killashandra helping, for she’d finished her bottle and wondered how she could wheedle another, others, from them. Thirst properly quenched, she’d find it easier to deal with the reproaches of Thyrol and the others. No sooner had the load bed been filled than the vehicle moved off and another, equally disreputable, slid into its place. Of course
this patently unauthorized operation proved conclusively to Killashandra that the population of Optheria had not all stagnated. But how much of a minority did they constitute? And did any of them actually wish to leave Optheria? Some people enjoy thwarting their elected/established/appointed governments out of perversity rather than disloyalty or dislike.

When the third transport had been loaded, only a few crates remained. And the vat and its attendant paraphernalia had been dismantled and reassembled in different form entirely. Killashandra gave the brewers full marks for ingenuity.

“You expect a search?”

“Oh yes. Can’t mask brewing completely, you know,” said a sun-wrinkled little man with a twinkle in his eye. He offered Killashandra a second bottle, gesturing to the loaded vehicle in explanation of his generosity.

As she inadvertently glanced in the same direction, Killashandra noticed that his workers, each laden with a crate, were disappearing up and down the street and into the alleys. Just audible was an odd siren. He cocked his head at the sound and grinned.

“I’d take that with me, were I you. Won’t help you to be found in my disreputable company.”

“You’ll be making another batch soon?” Killashandra asked wistfully.

“Now
that
I couldn’t say.” He winked. The siren became more insistent and louder. He began to fold over the doors.

“What’s the quickest way back to the City?”

“Over two ranks and then to your left.” He closed the last lap of the door behind him and she heard the firm click of the lock.

The vehicle with the siren was moving at a good clip so Killashandra made rapid progress in the direction the
brewer had indicated. She had just reached the next parallel road when she heard the sound of air brakes engaging and considerable shouting. She ducked around the corner and was on another deserted block. When she heard the pounding of booted feet, she realized that she might not have time to explain her possession of the illegally brewed beer if she was caught out on the streets.

The first door she approached was locked and her quick rap met with no response. The second door was jerked open just as she got to it. She needed no urging to step into the sanctuary. Indeed, not a moment too soon for the searchers came pounding around the corner and stormed past the door.

“That was a bit foolish, if you ask me,” said the woman beside her in a hoarse accusation. “You may be an alien but that wouldn’t matter to
them
did they apprehend you down here.” She gestured for Killashandra to follow her to the rear of the little house. “You must have some thirst to go roaming about Gartertown in search of quenching. There are places which legally serve drink, you know.”

“I didn’t, but if you could tell me—”

“Not that the hours you can drink are that convenient, and our brew’s superior to anything out of the Bascum. The water, you know! This way.”

Killashandra paused because a crate of the illegal bottling was sitting in the middle of the floor of the rear room, right by a section of flooring which had been removed.

“Give me a hand, would you? They might do a house-to-house if they’re feeling particularly officious.”

Killashandra willingly complied and, when the crate was stored, the section replaced, the hiding place was indistinguishable.

“Don’t like to rush a body’s enjoyment of a brew, but …”

Killashandra would have preferred to savor the second bottle, but she downed it in three long swallows. The woman took the empty and chucked it toward the disposal. With a loud
crunch
the evidence was disposed of. Killashandra drew her fingers down the corners of her mouth, and then belched yeastily.

The woman took a position by her door, ear to the panel, listening intently. She jumped back just as the door swung in wide enough to admit a fall figure.

“They were recalled,” the man sdaid. “And there’s some sort of search going on in the City—” He broke off then because he had turned and caught sight of Killashandra standing in the doorway.

She was as motionless with surprise as he for she recognized him, by garb and stance, as the young man from the infirmary corridor. He recovered first while Killashandra was considering the advisability of dissembling.

“You’re making this far too easy,” he said cryptically, striding up to her. Surprised, she saw only his fist before a stunning blackness overcame her.

She roused the first time, aware of a stuffy atmosphere, the soreness of her jaw, and that her hands and feet were tied. She groaned, and before she could open her eyes, she felt a sudden pressure on her arm and her senses reeled once more back into unconsciousness.

She was still tied when she woke the second time, with an awful taste in her mouth and the tang of salt in her nostrils. She could hear the hiss of wind and the slap of water not far from her ears. Cautiously she opened her eyes a slit. She was on a boat, all right, in an upper berth in a small cabin. She was aware of another presence in the room but dared not signal her consciousness by sound or movement. Her jaw still ached though not, she thought, as much as on her previous awakening.
Whatever drug they had given her was compounded with a muscle relaxant, for she felt exceedingly limp. So why did they bother to keep her bound?

She heard footsteps approaching the cabin and controlled her breathing to the slow regularity of the sleeper just as an outer hatch was flung open. Spray beaded her face. A warm spray so that her muscles did not betray her.

“No sign?”

“No. See for yourself. Hasn’t moved a muscle. You didn’t give her too much, did you? Those singers have different metabolisms.”

The inquisitor snorted. “Not that different, no matter what she said about alcoholic intake.” Amusement rippled in his voice as he apporoached the bed. Killashandra forced herself to remain limp though anger began to boil away the medically induced tranquillity as she reacted to the fact that she, a member of the Heptite Guild, a crystal singer, had been kidnapped. On the other hand, her kidnapping seemed to indicate that not everyone was content to remain on Optheria. Or did it?

Strong fingers gripped her chin, the thumb pressing painfully on the bruise for a moment, before the fingers slid to the pulse-beat in her throat. She kept her neck muscles lax to permit this handling. Feigning unconsciousness might result in unguarded explanations being exchanged over her inert body. And she needed some before she made her move.

“That was some crack you fetched her, Lars Dahl. She won’t appreciate the bruise.”

“She’ll have too much on her mind to worry about something so minor.”

“Are you sure this scheme is going to work, Lars?”

“It’s the first break we’ve had, Prale. The Elders won’t be able to fix the organ without a crystal singer. And they’ve got to. So they must apply again to the
Heptite Guild to replace this one, and that will require explanations, and that will bring FSP investigators to this planet. And there’s
our
chance to make the injustice known.”

What about the injustice you did me?
Killashandra wanted to shout. Instead she twitched with anger. And gave herself away.

“She’s coming round. Hand me the syringe.”

Killashandra opened her eyes, about to argue for her freedom when she felt the pressure that brooked no argument.

Her final awakening was not at all what she had been expecting. A balmy breeze rippled across her body. Her hands were untied and she was no longer on a comfortable surface. Her mouth tasted more vile than ever, and her head ached. She controlled herself once more, trying to sort out the sounds that reached her ears. Wind soughing. Okay. A rolling noise? Ocean waves breaking on shore line not far away. The smells that accosted her nostrils were as varied as the wind and wave, subtle musty floral fragrances, rotten vegetation, dry sand, fish, and other smells which she’d identify later. Of human noises or presences she had no input.

She opened her eyes a fraction and it was dark. Encouraged, she widened her vision. She was lying on her back on a woven mat. Sand had blown onto it, gritty against her bare skin, under her head. Overhead, trees bent their fronds, one sweeping against her shoulder in a gentle caress. Cautiously she lifted her torso, propping herself up on one elbow. She was no more than ten meters from the ocean, but the high-tide mark was safely between her and the sea, to judge by the debris pushed into an uneven line along the sand.

Islanders? What had Ampris said about the islanders? That they’d had to be disciplined out of autonomous
notions? And the young man of the corridor who had assailed her. He had been suntanned. That was why his skin was so dark in comparison to the other onlookers.

Killashandra looked around her for any sign of human habitation, knowing that there wouldn’t be any. She had been abandoned on the island. Kidnapped and abandoned. She got up, absently brushing the sand off her as she swung about, fighting her conflicting emotions. Kidnapped and abandoned! So much for the prestige of the Heptite Guild on these backward planets. So much for another of Lanzecki’s off-world assignments!

Why
hadn’t she left a message for Corish?