Eric Flint - The Sorceress of Karres

Goth bit her knuckle. Then shook her head. "But we were also there. the captain would have caught it too, surely?"

"Well," said Ta'zara. "Not if it was in the food. That Mebeckey ate quite a lot of it. And so did I, to stay alive. But I didn't see you eat anything."

"And the plant tried the Dell brother and let itself be pulled away… Okay, it might have been sick. But I think you're right! It must be the food. Must be."

"It's a gamble, sis," said the Leewit.

"So is everything," said Goth. " Hist! Here comes someone. I'll hide you two in no-shape."

It was Pausert, his eyes empty. "You are needed again. There are more Illtraming ships."

"I think we can just work together for speed," said Goth.

There was an infinitesimal pause and Pausert nodded.

The Leewit calmly pulled the door shut behind her. They walked to the control room, and once again she did the Sheewash drive-just briefly-past ships that seemed to ignore them.

"It seems speed is the key," said Marshi. "Do you need more food? The navigation is difficult."

"Yes. More than last time. And some rest. It drains a lot of our energy." Goth understood, suddenly, why Marshi appeared so obtuse sometimes. Yes, Marshi had obviously gotten part of the information in the captain's head-but she got what she looked for. Not everything, obviously. And the plant was obviously not as good at joining the dots as a human would be. Marshi hadn't yet figured that the Venture was going straight back to where she'd come from-and the problems it had had there. Mebeckey was no astrogator, and had not provided the mother-plant with that crucial linking piece of information: where. The pilot had been given co-ordinates to fly to. He was from some inner-Empire world. He didn't know this was the Megair cluster, and that the ship's records had navigational data.

So the witches were fed again. Marshi made no objection to them taking the food back to the room designated as their cell. And Vezzarn was glad to share of their meal with them.

"Now, if we can figure some way of getting some of those leaves they fed you back on Megair 4. I could really fancy some," said the Leewit, who, if she had to tell the truth, was not too good about eating leafy vegetables.

"Too far to 'port," said Goth. "And I've been thinking, don't say the name of the place. The plant hasn't worked it out yet. We'll need to get down in one piece on the planet, and I'll bet they've done some fixing since we left, more's the pity. Get some of the local food into the captain… and get all of us out of there alive. I'm sorry, Ta'zara. I didn't mean to bring you back to your nightmare again.

The big tattooed man just smiled. "I am starting to be like this old man," he said, prodding Vezzarn. "You got me in. You'll get me out. Besides, the Leewit," he bowed respectfully, "gave me something more valuable than anything else to a man of Na'kalauf. More valuable than merely my life."

"What?"

"She gave me back myself. My self respect. I will never let them take that away from me again."

There was the sound of keys at the door. Goth hid the other two and the witches went out, for another short Sheewash hop. Goth kept it to a few seconds, since she wanted to conserve her strength.

"We need to rest. To sleep for at least four hours," she said. "We can't do long uses of the drive and you might need us later. Stop and orbit a moon or something."

Marshi paused. "We need to get there soon. We need to find a male host for the spores."

Goth nodded coolly. "You still need to get there. And then you need to get down. The Illtraming are not going to welcome you, you know."

Plainly this had not occurred to the plant-woman. Goth decided her earlier conclusion had been right. The thing had huge advantages with being telepathically linked-but it simply wasn't very bright. Thick as two short planks of wood, actually. Not used to anything standing in its way. "We can help."

"Why?" asked Marshi.

"Because if we don't, we'll die along with you," said Goth.

Marshi nodded. "When we get down we can spore-tag the llltraming. They respond well and fast to being part of the mother-plant."

"Glad to help," said Goth.

The mother-plant didn't twig on to sarcasm very well, either.

"It is known that you are very helpful. And very powerful. You will be rewarded by becoming part of the mother-plant."

"I can't wait," said Goth. "But we will need our klatha powers to get you down. They're not very friendly down there."

"How is it that you are aware of this?"

"We've been here before."

Then the plant-woman obviously accessed the relevant parts of Captain Pausert's memory. "Previously I had insufficient data. Light shifts. And no-shape."

"Yes," said Goth, keeping herself as calm as possible. "Your Illtraming are very inclined to shoot first and eat anyone that's still alive to ask questions of later."

"The Megair Cannibals are not the Illtraming. They must be some form of slave. Janissaries. The Illtraming are browsers, not bred for combat."

Goth didn't think that she'd ever come across anything less slave-like than the Megair Cannibals, but she didn't say so. She wasn't sure what "janissaries" were, but she was quite ready to accept that the plant might just be wrong. The mother-plant's mind was closed on some ideas, and it certainly didn't fit Goth's game-plan to try to open it up.

The Mother-plant had obviously reached some conclusions. "You will light-shift us. The other Karres human will be brought into the plant to keep you from misbehaving."

"Won't work. I need her to talk to them, and she does that with klatha," said Goth, her heart beating fast, readying herself for action. There must be all of forty or fifty of Marshi's goons on the Venture, she knew. And they could all act as one. Goth wished she knew what would happen when-if-Marshi died. She had a bad feeling that it might just be like cutting a branch out of a tree-hard on the branch but not fatal to the tree.

There was another pause. "Very well. There appear to be a number of Illtraming ships in orbit around the Illtraming homeworld. We will need you to take us inside that cordon."

It seemed as if the Mother-plant hadn't figured out that the Phantoms were ignoring them. Goth smiled sweetly. "Sure. I'll just need some rest, and my sister."

Hanging in the emptiness of space, Sedmon of Uldune kept his guns trained on the one remaining damaged ship from Marshi's little flotilla. Should he have tried to stop Goth, her sister and the bodyguard leaving? Should he have fired on the Venture? And where were the rest of the witches of Karres? His own fleet was thirty hours away. The Imperials were still further. What should he do now? He was alone-besides the rest of the hexaperson, and vocalizing sometimes helped to focus their thoughts. He did not expect a vocal reply.

"Probably nothing," said Toll.

"Or at least that is what the best of our predictors say. The situation is highly fluid and dangerous," said Threbus.

Sedmon gaped at them. "How?… what?" was the best he could manage.

"How did we get here and what are we doing?" prompted Toll helpfully.

Sedmon swallowed. Nodded.

Threbus raised his eyebrows at the Daal. "You don't seriously expect an answer to the first question, do you? Like you, we invest heavily in research. Yes, we do know why the House of Thunders looks a little dilapidated despite the money that continues to pour into Uldune's coffers. We also have things that we do not want the galaxy to know… yet."

"And as to the second question, I would think that it is obvious," said Toll.

"Sometimes the obvious is hard to see, dear," said the big blond-bearded Threbus. "It can be right in your face and not noticed. Like the vatch manipulation of the situation on the Venture. Our daughters and Pausert are really quite bright, and yet they did not see it."