Part 2 (1/2)

The clans were like that. Always the streak of practicality. Even a pleasure craft paid its own way, when possible. Seera and Captain Lortice were hauling a load of multicolored Joser fabrics, clothing, and a load of * Both Manjanungo and Pak first appeared in s.p.a.cEWAYS #8, Under Twin Suns, which concerns itself with the Satana Coalition and the slave-ring on Jorinne.

27.concentrate for the smelter on Franji. Had the Lady Seerava not put her foot down firmly, Lewuvul would also have been messily surrounded by a ”deck load” of external cargo pods. Fine way for a n.o.ble lady to travel, much less appear in a foreign capital!

”In here, my lady.”

She raised her stare from Karmal's tightly-clad b.u.t.t to see him step aside with a polite gesture. With a little smile, Seera went right in, ”accidentally” brus.h.i.+ng him, and stepped over the slight threshold of the cabin's emergency air seal. She stood uncertain in the darkness, idly pinching a nipple through the silken-thin peignoir while she waited for the steward-her steward-to switch on the light. Or just lay l.u.s.tful hands on her, in the darkness. That was a nicely romantic concept. What other purpose could he have, fetching her here to this remote section of the s.h.i.+p in the middle of its scheduled ”night?”

Karmal Pak had another purpose. Karmal Pak had not reformed, to walk the path of righteous-but-poor lawfulness. He departed and closed the door behind him. Against her.

That was when the Most n.o.ble Lady Seerava Sonde-layne, widow of the Lord Hivala Sondelayne, began to suspect that she had made an error in judgment.

First she discovered that her voice did not actuate the light. Even after she found the switch and could see, Seera could not get the hatch open. Cargo holds locked from the outside. A glance around showed her her pet man-mountain snoring on one of the close, narrow chamber's two narrow bunks.

She made her tone imperiously n.o.ble. ”Wake up there, Boroboodhi! Open this door for me!”

The giant lay inert. Seera approached and poked at him. She slapped his broad face. No response. With a 28.growing sense of planned betrayal, she knew that the only man on Lewuvul who was not a stranger, who had served her husband and stayed on to serve his lady widow ... had been drugged.

Boroboodhi was a peasantish Joser who'd have spent his life in the gem mines or back-hectares, farming. Instead he had long ago been taken in, befriended and trained by Seera's husband. Boroboodhi had all but wors.h.i.+pped the man and extended his fealty to the widow. Juggernaut, s.h.i.+p's First Najendra called him. She meant no malice; he was. What Boroboodhi the Juggernaut lacked in genius he made up for with a stubborn and unswerving canine loyalty. Besides, he was very big.

Here he was, and he'd been here first, and he'd been drugged. None of this was encouraging for his female master.

He awakened eventually. He had tried the door at once. He had tried the door for, as near as Seera could figure it based on nine meals, three s.h.i.+p-days. His composure continued. Not Seera's; she was about ready to go out of her skull. It was not the first time, but d.a.m.n it, this was manifestly unfair.

Just when she'd been about to have some fun-at last!

In the two years since her husband's death, the Most n.o.ble Lady Seerava (ne-Sarik) Sondelayne had been decidedly at loose ends.

She did like jewels, and the planet named Jorinne was famous for them. Jewels were lovely. They made her feel good and she adorned herself with liberal quant.i.ties of them. Jewels, she felt, distracted attention from those few imperfections she secretly admitted in her face and form (which was one to inspire l.u.s.tful fantasies in 29.an ayatollah). She did like gemstones and jewels, Seera Sondelayne did, and she did like men.

Her jewels had departed her with the same dramatic suddenness as her husband Hivala, leaving her with more sense of loss than his untimely death had done. For the first time in her rather long life (fifty-one years, for all her looking thirty-three or so), she came to appreciate the difference between nudity and nakedness.

Nudity was a nice word describing a nice state that frequently preceded a form of recreation she favored. Nakedness was being minus one's beloved jewels.

She had said as much to her brother-in-law, who had a.s.sured her that any man would miss his jewels a lot more than a woman. Not if he were her husband, she had swiftly retorted.

Life among the high-nosed clanners of Jorinne had proven stifling. Not at all like her fun-filled life on fun-filled Suzi before she had married the youthful Joser lord named Hivala Sondelayne. (Hivala of Sondelayne.) Each of them had been married once before. They were hardly children. He was not only at the top of a wealthy planet's wealthy ruling cla.s.s, but of the whole blanking Galaxy's. And he was charming.

Maybe he hadn't been. Maybe the first part had made her imagine the second, because she wanted it to be so. How could she have guessed what a fobbing old stick-in-the-mud the younger brother of the Sondelayne of Sondelayne would become over the years? Back then, Hivala had been totally immersed in the gaiety of the annual Shambanafest. And totally immersed in Seerava Sarik, first figuratively and then literally.

That had ended. First Hivala's fun-loving quality went, and then his winning potency and interest-unto-fascination, and then Hivala.

By that time her sons were making their own wastrel 30.paths along the s.p.a.ceways, and Seerava did not feel abandoned and bereft. She felt free. Free!

She proceeded almost at once to kick up her heels, and, to mix a metaphor or three, to round them.

As swiftly the whole stiffneckedly lordly bunch of her clan-in-laws had proceeded to get bent thoroughly out of shape. Just because at long last Seera (that offplanet woman Hivala had fetched back, rather than marrying properly within the Twelve Clans; genetic engineering handily saw to no ill effects of inbreeding) had decided that it was time she had some fun again. They didn't even approve of her going in for rejuvenation treatments ”only” a year after Hivala's awful accident, so that she was restored to about the same appearance as when he had married her. But d.a.m.n it nearly everyone's apparent age was not its real age-and how long should one remain in the dull old white of mourning, anyhow?

(It was cramped in this confounded s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p ”cabin'/storage chamber. There was barely room for the two monastic bunks, a sink, and the sitter her kidnappers had fitted it with. Sitting within grabbing distance on the other bunk was the largest man Seera had ever seen. And the Lady Seerava Sondelayne of Suzi and Jorinne had seen several planets and many men. Too many men-and not enough men. But-grab Boroboodhi?!) ”I have no interest in how 'they' do things on other planets,” her weary-eyed brother-in-law had said, once he had forced their confrontation in the privatemost chamber of his mansion. With a desk between them. Just a nice little intime throneroom, Seera thought.

”My concern is how we conduct ourselves on this world, our beloved Jorinne. You, madam, are the relict of my honored and honorable brother, and you are the subject of the gossip of the lowest servants!”

31.What lowest servants? she thought; we use cybers- robots! Robots don't gossip, n.o.bles do. Mostly these d.a.m.ned Joser n.o.blewomen who never enjoy themselves enough and naturally begrudge me my little diversions -purely out of envy and jealousy.

”Your needs,” he went on, stressing the word, ”are your own affair, Seerava-even if yer unfortunately choose to consort with Jarps and Lady Vike knows what other non-humans. However. When your conduct scandalizes your own children and forces them to apologize for yer . . . when yer brings disgrace on the House of Sondelayne and thus all the clans, then your . . . affairs are no longer private.”

The Ja-Sondelayne paused while he regarded her steadily with eyes that had no interest in her face or her form or her experience and expertise.

”You are daughter to Vijay Sarik of Shambana and thus claim a sort of n.o.bility on Suzi, quite apart from my late brother's high station. You may if yer choose, madam, take your dowry and depart. Surely your own people will welcome a daughter who married so well and n.o.bly on Jorinne.”

You arrogant old fart, Seera thought.

Her father was long dead and the Sondelayne knew it. She no longer knew anyone on Suzi. Be friends with her sister and her mother, after all these years away? Not likely. True, her dowry might purchase her a palatial residence or a small planet. It was not much here, amid the anciently built-up opulence of the Galaxy's wealthiest planet. Too, she had long been accustomed to such surroundings. By now, she suspected that her well-aged dowry would be pretty small topatoes on Suzi, too.

”Should yer choose to remain on Jorinne,” the lordly Jasondelayne was saying on, gesturing with a triple-ringed hand, ”your pretty boys and your non-human 32.playmates will be dismissed off planet.” He gazed at her with eyes that belonged in a tomb. ”Or dismissed in some more emphatic way, Seerava. Remain here and your life will be quiet, Lady Sondelayne ne-Sarik, and correct.”

Seerava was only just able to maintain her silence in the face of that inconceivably grim prospect. Holy Lady Vike and Booda-I'd rather die and go to Bleak! Her brother-in-law was meanwhile studying her (all circ.u.mspect, with skirt down to her instep and collar up to here). After a time, almost incredibly, his face softened.

”Dash-blank it, Seera, you are old enough to know better! I quite agree that my n.o.ble brother Hivala was a bit of a wimp, but I can't have yer holding up this anciently n.o.ble house to ridicule. You must understand that. Go ahead off planet for awhile, hmm?” His gesture was a loose one that included all the Galaxy and seemed to say, Anywhere but here. ”Get this-this rut out of your system someplace where everyone doesn't know yer. When yer return home to us, your true family, you may regain the respect of your sons. Meanwhile ... the scandal of Manjanungo's slaver career and now piracy is entirely enough for us all. And you might even track down that bubble-brained daughter of my bro-of yours.”

Tamala! That bubblebrained girl was a large part of her mother's problem. Well and nicely betrothed to the young scion of a Clan Jacath family, Tamala had selected a casket of jewels that Seerava considered appropriate for the Sondelayne trousseau. As was customary, the Jasondelayne had added a valuable gaud.

And ten days before the wedding, Tamala disappeared. She left only a hologram denouncing her mother's wanton ways. The charming girl's message went on to avow that True Happiness for her could exist 33.only in the master's cabin of an Outreacher s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p captained by a certain Katmandou Vee.

That 'gram was Seera's first inkling that she was not the only t.i.tled lady to visit the handsome Outie's private quarters. The gilt-tongued devil! Ah Holy Lady, the scandal! Seerava was not in truth all that b.l.o.o.d.y interested in recovering her errant daughter. She was more interested in confronting Captain Kat Vee!

It would also be nice to have the jewels back.

Now, some time later, she thought that it would be nicer still to get out of this hole of a hold. The man who shared the cabin was big enough to replace two cargo-haulers-the machines, not stevedores-and he possessed the same conversational talents. The s.h.i.+p was warm because she had mandated it that way. He exerted himself again and again and some days had elapsed since he had bathed. Now more days had elapsed. And he was so close.

He is loyal, isn 't he?

Now the giant raised his head from his hands. Moving with the grace of a grounded hovercar, he rose to his extra-large feet and tried the door. The hatch. He had tried it hourly for three days. Now and again he tested his weight and strength against it. Once he had tried his shoulder. Seera would not have been surprised to discover that the impact had knocked the s.h.i.+p off course.

This time he only checked. Satisfied that it was still locked, he sat back down on the bunk that was so painfully near. Seera lay holding her breath. She wondered what thoughts lay beneath the stolid surface of the man-mountain, if thoughts indeed lurked there. Boroboodhi was still young. Younger than she, anyhow. Didn't he ever . . . ?

Both the boarding of Starqueen and the division of 34.spoils worked out, which made Manjanungo feel embarra.s.sment and renewed ident.i.ty problems. Had he been cowardly in sending Kenyo to board the liner along with Sibanda?

He must put that out of his mind. Better still, convince himself that he had been only an intelligent commander. He had sent a less important unit into danger, that was all.

Still, Sibanda departed the scene with only one brief communication, and she did not await an answer: ”Ramesh Jageshwar would be happy to count you friend, Manjanungo.” And s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p Serendip was gone.

Would, she had said, not will. The message was clear to Manjanungo of Jorinne. ”... would ... if you should choose to keep your nose clean and out of our way. And take the blame.” For Manjanungo had no doubt that on Starqueen he had been given full ”credit” for the attack and the ma.s.sive theft so deftly handled by Sibanda/R. Jageshwar's cybernetic units.

In a way, that appealed to Manjanungo's ego. The second biggest liner in s.p.a.ce, with a renowned captain -and the best-armed! Of course the witch-employee of Ramesh Jageshwar had surprised him still again, by splitting the loot evenly. She magnified the crime by taking her agreed-upon additional twenty per cent in the form of live booty. Walking cargo. People. Ramesh Jageshwar was not, after all, known as a pirate. Throughout the Galaxy, he was called King of the Slavers.

Ah well. Manjanungo had been in and was in that business, too. As well be sought for one as the other. His fleet was abuilding, and what fine prices his corseted, well-trained girls would bring, on some out-backworld. (And his prisoner, too!) As well be sought 35.for piracy as slavery. Everyone knew that TGO was not really interested in stopping either; TGO existed to prevent war and in that it had long been supremely effective. Never mind that TGO used trickery and blackmail and intimidation and a.s.sa.s.sination, that nice name for murder (of potential war-causers). The Gray Organization's philosophy was in one regard the same as Man-janungo's: the end justified the means.