Solbidyum Wars 3: Pirates of Goo'waddle Canals (25 page)

“Tibby, we’re intercepting messages from the ships surrounding Goo’Waddle.  They have spotted the incoming asteroids and are beginning to take evasive action,” Kerabac said.

“Have they spotted us?” I asked cautiously.

“So far there has been no mention of anyone seeing a ship within the cluster.”

“Good.  Let’s hope it stays that way.  Tell Captain Felenna to pull back now.  We’ll ride this in the rest of the way.  She can maintain a cloaked position in orbit in case we need her assistance later.”

We were nearing
Goo’Waddle’s atmosphere, when sudden flashes of light began displaying on our vid screen.

“What’s happening?  Have we been spotted?” I yelled to Kerabac.

“No, I don’t think so,” Kerabac said.  “I think a few of the ships are targeting the asteroids in hopes of destroying some of them.  We need to cloak now before we’re seen.”

“How long before we can break free of the debris field and make it to the surface?

“Eight to ten minutes.”

“That’s cutting it close, but we don’t have much choice,” I said as I watched two smaller asteroids vaporize beside us.  We were still pretty much hidden behind one of the largest asteroids, but I suspected it was being hit as well and could crumble at any moment.

Kerabac activated the cloaking device and immediately the courier security band began beeping out its countdown once again.

“Take us out of here and get us to the surface as fast as you can,” I said, just as the large asteroid in front of us exploded into thousands of smaller pieces.  Fortunately, the RMFF was active; we could see the shield deflecting all sizes of rock and debris as we moved past the mayhem.  Kerabac took us on the shortest course to the planet.  I saw him nervously glancing at the countdown display on his wrist, as the surface zoomed before us on the screen.  We were still about sixty kilometers from the surface when the courier band showed only a minute left on the timer.  Suddenly, Kerabac leveled the ship off and, with only seconds on his timer, he cut off the cloaking device.  Immediately the alarm stopped beeping.  No sooner had the timer reset than Kerabac activated the cloaking device once more.

Up until this moment, I had not paid much attention to the planet.  From space we could see clouds swirling in its atmosphere, but not much of the topography, except for what appeared to be a large sea on one side of the planet.  As we neared the surface, I saw that the planet was laced with canals that crisscrossed the planet in a regular pattern along its longitudes and latitudes, giving the largely uninterrupted land mass the appearance of being divided up into squares, like city blocks, only with water replacing streets.  But the parcels of land were much larger than any city block I’d ever seen.  Most were kilometers long and wide; many appeared to be covered with fields and farms, while others seemed to be mostly urban developments and large cities with thousands of buildings.  Kerabac scanned the surface and then suddenly headed toward the equatorial region of the planet.

“I need to find a place to set us down before the timer runs out,” he said.  “We should be low enough now that I can shut off the cloaking device without being noticed from above, especially if I get under one of the larger clouds.”

He turned the ship toward a large, dense cloud and flew into it before he uncloaked the ship.  Then he eased the ship below cloud level and slowed to a respectable cruising speed, while he traveled along at height of about two kilometers above the surface, just like any other in-atmosphere ship en route to a surface destination.  To anyone who may have noticed us from above, it would simply appear that an otherwise-unnoticed ship suddenly came out from under a cloud on a routine flight to another surface city.

“Any idea where we’re headed?” I queried.

“Yes – to Jomang.  It’s one of the larger cities near the equator.  It’s where we will find Howebim’s brother.”

I had never bothered to ask anyone about Goo’Waddle, assuming it was more or less like Ryken, Plosaxen or possibly even Alle Bamma, and I certainly didn’t anticipated anything like what greeted us on the surface.  Goo’Waddle was roughly the size of the planet Mars in my native solar system.  It was a young planet, mostly flat, with only some low mountains or hills situated around a huge circular sea that covered about one tenth of the planet’s surface. 

The circular sea, I was to learn, was created by a large asteroid impact many millions of years earlier.  Goo’Waddle had a very high water table; one had to dig only about two meters to reach the water level.  Before the asteroid impact, the planet most likely had little to no surface water.  Even now the depth of the water was only a few meters.  The soil was mostly a sandy loam that covered the entire surface of the planet, which was fairly level, except the area around the rim of the large crater, where the low mountains were slowly eroding into little more than hills.

At some point early inhabitants began carving out large canals for use in commerce and transportation; apparently long before anyone now living on the planet could recall.  There was no real way to date the canals, as they were constantly being dredged, deepened, and widened, due to the relatively loose sandy soil that constantly eroded into the waterways and threatened to block the passages and intersections.  It was believed that the earliest canals had existed for over ten thousand years.  In some locations, small harbors were carved into the islands to form docking areas; usually these became the locations of towns and cities.  Only a few of the largest islands had actual designated areas where spacecraft could land. 

The only place any rock material was found was in the vicinity of the impact crater; most of it was small.  Minerals, as they existed on Goo’Waddle, were mixed into the sandy soil and were not easily mined or extracted; so the planet relied heavily on importing such materials to sustain their development.  On the other hand, the terrain and mineral properties of the soil, in conjunction with the temperate global climate made Goo’Waddle an excellent planet for agriculture.

Along the equatorial regions major food crops were grown and, as one moved toward the polar regions, the crops gave way to grassy islands where animals were raised for meat, leather and wool.  Nearer to the polar regions grew giant forests that produced lumber and other wood products as well as nuts.  These commodities were in high demand on the nearby planets of Yentum and Ryken, as neither produced much in the way of food, due to the rocky soil and uneven terrain, which made them more suitable for manufacturing and mining. 

Oddly, in spite of all the water in the canals and sea, Goo’Waddle had no fish or aquatic life.  There had been abundant sea life at an earlier time; but it all died off as a result of heavy pollution from sewage and other wastes dumped indiscriminately into the planet’s canals.  Most of the planet’s drinking water was filtered with various types of equipment; the rest of the potable water was acquired from rainwater.  Water used for agricultural purposes, such as irrigation, depended on the crop; crops intended for food use were irrigated with filtered water or rainwater, while crops used for fiber or non-food purposes were irrigated directly with the polluted canal water.  Crops that received the canal water grew more robustly — probably because of the nutrient and mineral content.

Our landing at the Jomang spaceport went without incident.  Kerabac was able to locate and secure a vacant warehouse space on the spaceport property, where we quickly unloaded our cargo for storage.  Instructions were given to Norkoda take the
RASSON BEDAN
up into orbit and keep it cloaked until it was needed.  We were relatively sure the Brotherhood would be looking for the ship on the surface – and we didn’t want it found. 

We then transferred our currency to what on Earth would be the equivalent of a safety deposit box in a local banking facility, while Endina made arrangements for a place to stay. 

Fortunately, there was no shortage of small rental estate listings, as cartels had been buying up the bulk of the estate land, more or less driving the original owners out of their shrunken estate homes to other planets where they could pursue a more luxurious lifestyle.  The offer of an additional financial bonus to the real estate agent made it possible for us to lease a place late that same night and, while we didn’t have any furnishings, we at least had a place to stay. 

It was dark when we arrived at the estate, so it wasn’t possible to see much of the exterior of the place or the surrounding area.  The air was very humid and carried with it a slightly putrid smell that reminded me of the swamps on Earth.  There was a large wall that surrounded the property; Endina had to enter a keypad security code provided by the agent in order to pass through the estate’s large metal gate.  The gate swung in slowly and we filed in to find a short promenade to the main house, which was completely dark.  Once at the house, Endina entered a second security code that allowed us to open the main door.  As soon as we crossed the entry, lights came on throughout the first floor.  The house was huge.

“It looks we have power,” I said.

“The agent who leased us this place said that the estate has its own fusion power cell.  It was included in the rental price,” Endina explained. 

On the way to the estate, Endina had also related what she learned from the agent.  Although there was an outbuilding for the many slaves that once worked the estate, after the sale of the bulk of the land to one of the agriculture cartels the structure was no longer in use and a smaller area within the main house was set aside for the few remaining domestic slaves that the previous owner had kept for personal use.  We managed to locate this area and, as with the rest of the house, we found it to be barren of any furnishings.  Discolored areas on the walls indicated where paintings or tapestries once hung.  I had seen some statuary outside, but there was none inside the house, though there appeared to be places where some may have stood at one time.

“It looks like we will all be sleeping on the floor tonight.  Tomorrow we’ll see to getting furnishings for the place.  Endina, I’ll leave that up to you,” I said without thinking.

“Ahh…yes,” she said with a wide grin.  “And then I can have you slaves positioning it about according to my whims.”  She laughed, and I realized she was right.  Anyone watching us would be expecting the slaves to be doing such chores, and the people who delivered the furniture would expect the slaves to unload the delivery vehicle and take the furniture inside.  There would be talk if anything appeared out of the norm. 

Fortunately, our location on Goo’Waddle was in a warm climate or, at least, the season was warm — if Goo’Waddle had seasons — so heat and blankets were not required.  Endina took out her vid pad and said, “I won’t need to wait until tomorrow to order furniture.  I should be able to find a place and order some now; maybe we’ll have it here first thing tomorrow.  Most places in the city operate day and night.”

It was decided, for no other reason than we didn’t know what to expect, that someone should be on guard and alert during the night while the rest of us slept.  Marranalis volunteered for the first watch; Kerabac said he would take second; I took the third; and Padaran would take last watch.  Everyone more or less positioned themselves around the main room in the house and lay down on the floor to sleep.  Kalana and I lay next to each other and were soon sound asleep. 

I was in the middle of a dream when Kerabac woke me for my watch.  It had been a strange dream about something chasing me through a dense fog.  I felt small and afraid and I was hungry, thirsty, weak, and unable to go on.  Even after I was fully awake, elements of the dream still haunted me.  I did my best to shake off the lingering sense of vulnerability as I settled in for my watch.  There seemed to be some diffuse light coming in through the windows of the darkened house, so I decided to investigate.

I quietly slipped out, thinking that we had forgotten to set the alarm on the house before we went to sleep.  Once outside, I immediately noticed a dense but low cloud of fog, similar to that in my dream.  The dim light of the moon showed through the fog and created an eerie surrounding that matched the heavy feeling of the air.  I stood there in the silence for a few minutes and was about to return inside, when I heard a whimpering sound coming from somewhere nearby.  I listened closely until heard it again, only this time it sounded more like someone crying.  I crept quietly along the large porch that extended across the front of the house, keeping myself concealed in the darkness of the shadows while I traced my way toward the noise.  The sound stopped, and I waited patiently, listening.

I heard a rustling of leaves, and then another whimper followed by more sobs and soft crying.  I slowly moved forward until I could tell that the sound was coming from the shrubbery right in front of me just below the porch level.  Carefully, I crawled to the edge and peered down toward the ground.  There, in the dim light, I saw a small child of no more than perhaps ten or eleven, curled up in a ball in a small pile of leaves. 

I was shocked and didn’t know what to do.  My first instinct was to say something, but I wasn’t sure which of the many languages in my head would be the right one to use on this young lad.  Something was not right.  It was obvious that he was hiding, but from whom and why was a complete mystery. 

I sat back to ponder this new development.  As I tried to sort out what to do next, a figure came out the front door.  There was enough light to see that it was Kala; she was apparently looking for me.  I caught her attention and motioned for her to come to me quietly.  Just as she arrived, the young lad stirred and made a whimpering sound again; it was becoming clear that he was in some sort of pain.  Kala looked at me questioningly and I shrugged my shoulders.  Kala crept over to the edge and peered
down; and what she did next totally surprised me.  She sat on very edge of the porch and softly began humming a tune that sounded very much like a child’s tune.  Immediately, everything grew quiet in the bushes where the child was hidden.