Katherine MacLean - The Kidnapping of Baroness 5

“Saw them,” shouted the soldier, not slowing, and Lady Witch looked ahead and shook the reins back to a gallop.

“Who are they?” the handyman shouted after them, but she did not answer. A witch woman should have predicted trouble coming and warned everybody. Best to avoid the question.

The wind was in her face, but there was no smell of burned houses.

She stopped at the entrance to the holdings given her by Lord Randolph, and saw that the wagon tracks and hoofprints had entered and left again.

The gate was unlocked and open. It showed none of the damage that would have been done to it if it had been forced open. Reading the tracks with increasing pessimism, she walked the horse up the steep road. The wagon tracks dented more heavily on the way down. Loaded with loot? She mentioned it.

“We’ll see what they took when we get there,” said the officer. His manner was fatherly. Apparently he did not believe the stories that she was very old, over twenty-five. If he was the sort who went in for disbelief, stories of her powers as a witch probably did not impress him. As she came over the hill she saw glimpses of young workers busily neatening up the yard and repairing fences. Up the hill among the trees a boy tending white goats saw her and waved, but the house workers kept their heads down and kept on working as she and the soldier approached. “Everything is too neat,” she muttered. “They must have done something wrong.”

No one came from her house and laboratory to greet her. They dismounted and Lady Witch led the way into her house. She saw the cook ducking back into the kitchen leaving two plates set on the table near a covered stewpot. Why were they all afraid to face her?

“Come here!” yelled Lady Witch. “Where is everybody? Is anyone dead?”

A small boy escaped from reaching hands in the kitchen and darted to her, shrilling, “Lady Witch! Lady Witch! The demons have taken Lord Randolph and Lord Jeffrey.”

“Oh no!” Lord Randolph and Lord Jeffrey were pigs, but of incalculable value, having been made histogenic organ compatible with the human Lords Randolph and Jeffrey of the same name. The two lords of neighboring counties were overly brave, planning to lead in the front of battle in a necessary war and shorten their already short lifespans. They soon might need blood transfusions and replacement parts. For the rescue of all other patients, piglets that were totally compatible to all humans and loaded with human gene improvements had been born few and stunted, and she had just lost the life of the only surviver—sacrificed for the repair of the two reckless sentries.

“Has Baroness 5 given birth? Is she all right?”

“I don’t know! They took her too!” the boy shrilled.

“No!” she ran to the back, but the pens were floored with fresh straw and totally empty. She dashed into her laboratory, startling a boy who was feeding the caged rats. He took a look at her face and fled.

Tears were running down her face. She sat and stared ahead.

A hand touched her arm. It was the soldier, regarding her with a light of eagerness and awe. “Did you repair that radio?”

“Somebody found it in an old cellar. The field reversal hadn’t burned it out.” She rested both elbows and put her face down in her hands. “What are you doing here? Nobody has permission to come in here.”

“I came to tell you there was no blood. The pigs were not killed. The ones who cleaned up the pens and yard told me there was no blood. If the nomads loaded them in the wagons alive, they must have wanted to keep them alive. I thought you’d want to know.”

Her staff should have told her when she arrived, but they had been afraid to face her. She usually used trickery to impress them with the power of her curses, and she had let them see her talking with smoke demons, but it was all just to make sure they followed scientific directions to the dot. She had not meant them to be so cowed and afraid that they could not tell her bad news.

She called them all together. They denied seeing anything. Gently she asked the boy, Billy, “Why didn’t anybody see them take the pigs?”

Billy danced with eagerness. “The demons were out in the wind, howling, and everyone was down in the old kitchen, where we had the doors and windows barred and a big fire in the fireplace to keep the demons from coming down the chimney. I heard the demons fighting the pigs. The pigs squealed and fought and crashed against the walls, but Cook would not let me go look. Can I help you go fight demons and put them back into bottles?”

Lady Witch raised her voice and projected it at the half-open door. “Whose turn was it to lock the gates at night and stand sentry? Send for him. The gates were unlocked!”

When the teenager arrived he was sullen. “Yesterday your smoke ghosts got loose. They turned into fog and floated through the woods getting bigger and making faces. Then they started roaring and shaking the trees. We locked ourselves in the house. I didn’t know the demons were going to roar and beat on the house all night, and keep us locked in.”

“That was just fog and wind,” she said impatiently. Then she wondered if she should argue. Her smoke demons were only a heavy smoke that coiled in rounded shapes and webbed to itself and stayed swaying around the bottle until she put out the flame. The likeness to demons relied on the power of imagination. If her staff had seen huge smoke shapes in drifting fog, their awed stories could improve her fame. She resolved to send these people back to Lord Randolph before their imaginations went berserk. Better to accept a new staff offered by Lord Jeffrey.

But it would be better to let them believe in their fog demons—better to not contradict their stories. She apologized, “I’m sorry. All my power was diverted to Lord Randolph’s fort. I was using up all my spells to hold death away from the two young idiots who deserved their bad luck. Nothing was left to hold back the demons.” Still crowding at the doors and windows, young men and women nodded vigorously and agreed in deferential tones. “Yes, yes. It’s not your fault, Lady. They got out of their bottles and grew very big. They roared and shook trees. We came here and barred the doors. They beat on the walls and shutters all night.”

She gestured to the man to continue his excuses for leaving the gates open. He continued with more confidence, “I know about demons; my cousin was an exorcist. She specialized in demons. Your demons broke the door to the animal stables and took back your demon pigs, and left hoofprints. Demons leave hoof-prints.”

Again everyone she employed nodded agreement.

Their lack of reasoning infuriated her. Smoke and fog leaving hoofprints? Demons using wagons and leaving wagon tracks? She took a deep breath to yell at them all. The older soldier moved between her and the man.

“Were they the kind of demon whose hoofprints look like goats or like ponies or like horses?” he asked gently.

“Like ponies!” the man replied, but his glance darted around the room from door to window as if seeking escape from sudden doubts.

“Good. They were in league with some passing nomads who put the pigs into a wagon. We can follow that trail. The demons are not likely to be out in sunshine.”

“I’m going to help you get Lord Randolph back!” Little Billy danced with eagerness.

Only children volunteered. The older ones held them back and muttered about smoke demons. She could have ordered them to come with her, but if they were unwilling and frightened they would be useless. She ordered three fresh horses. Somehow she must get back the two boars and Baroness 5, before she gave birth. The nomad thieves would be so startled by what would issue forth from the great sow that they could panic and kill all the sow’s offspring, and cause the failure of her medicine plus years of delay in her research. In a very few years another generation would age and die and friends whom she had promised to save would be gone.