The physician allowed only a few more questions, and the answers didn’t amount to much. The kids seemed to have been drugged just outside the palace walls and didn’t know where their abductors might have gone from there.
“They must rest,” the physician said. “In their own home, if possible. The benefits of familiarity —”
“— must be withheld for the moment,” said Tolith. “We can’t run the risk of them inadvertently saying something and alerting outsiders to what has happened. The public will find out soon enough. Secrets concerning the royal family are hard to keep.”
By then we’d been noticed, and the girls told we would have to stay at the palace too. Not, I think, because our guardians thought we’d say something we shouldn’t, but because they were close friends of the royal family and wanted to stay there themselves.
To make it easier for Keza to settle her children, Taz and the others returned to the command centre. Having again followed discreetly, we moved to the far side of the room, behind a conveniently large-sized display board that was not being used in the search. Occasionally, we even dared to peek out.
“I am afraid we have found nothing of consequence,” Chief Rupin’s second-in-command reported. “Making the kidnapping public knowledge would increase the chances of finding someone who knows something but could also endanger the children if the kidnappers were to panic. Every Cholarian knows the penalties for crimes involving children are severe.”
“The kidnappers are not Cholarian. We have learned they are Quorlians. Quorlians are not inclined to panic. They’re not quick-witted enough.” Chief Rupin turned to Taz and Vostia. “That being so, I think we should make more people outside the palace aware of the kidnapping. Not an actual public announcement, because I know you would not want people to become so incensed over the seizure of their beloved little prince and princess that they might subject innocent Quorlians to harassment, but it could be of great help to my men to have our regular military forces, the planet’s constabulary, and security personnel at various transport facilities on the look-out for them.”
Taz looked at Vostia. Her lips trembled for a moment, but then she took her husband’s hand and nodded.
“See to it,” Taz said.
As Chief Rupin’s second-in-command hurried off, the chief himself shook his head wearily. “Quorlians are truly not the most intelligent of beings. If the boy’s description had not so clearly pointed to them, I would not have thought them capable of carrying out something like this. Not even with the assistance of that wretched Jorthoan. Someone else must be involved.”
“I agree,” said Verim.
“Possibly the Blag Dalgo Mr. Skoko spoke of,” said Tolith.
“The Blag Dalgo he now has,” Mr. Skoko said as he came through the door dragging another Ralgonian behind him.
The newcomer’s arms were strapped to his sides with restraining bands attached to a holding beam held by Mr. Skoko, who told the startled assembly he had monitored the ransom transaction, traced it to a hotel on the outskirts of the city, and apprehended Blag Dalgo before he could get away.
Verim immediately lashed out. “The kidnappers warned us against tracing that transaction, Skoko. By doing so, you could have imperilled the captives!”
“It would not have been in Dalgo’s interests to harm them. And he always looks after his own interests.”
“You could not be sure it was this Dalgo.”
“I was reasonably sure. Just as I was reasonably sure he would only be looking for signs of a trace from a Cholarian tracking device, not a Ralgonian one, which operates quite differently. The Vedetian children were not at the hotel, so he must have secreted them somewhere.”
“They were found, quite by chance, in a factory, and have been safely returned,” said Verim.
“Ah, something else Dalgo did not take into consideration, did you, Dalgo?”
Dalgo merely glared. Until he beheld Taz looming over him. Then he started to look a little nervous.
As well he might.
“Where are my children?” Taz demanded, seizing him by the shoulders and shaking him.
“I do not know,” Dalgo replied sullenly.
“That appears to be true, Your Majesty,” Chief Rupin said before Taz could subject Dalgo to another, probably more violent, shake. He had turned the lie detector on as soon as Dalgo got there and held it up to show it had not reacted in any way. I would imagine Dalgo was far more used to being interrogated than Brizerom was and, having observed the detector, thought he might as well answer honestly.
“How is it you don’t know?” Chief Rupin queried.
“Because, after a somewhat acrimonious exchange over their bungling, the grunt workers I’d hired quit on me, and set off for parts unknown. Taking the prince and princess with them.”
“Why would they do that?” Verim asked.
“Apparently, I hurt their feelings. I was, you see, a little annoyed with them. I thought I’d made it clear they were not to take all the children my palace contact said were sleeping in the royal nursery last night. Just the two royal ones. But no, they had to come out with five. Five!” He gave a snort. “I doubt the morons knew the difference between two and five. Or between Cholarian children and Vedetian children. And, when I told them they had three too many, they were going to take the surplus ones back. Wide-awake witnesses who would have raised the alarm in seconds. I drugged the little nuisances as quickly as I could and stuck them behind some bushes.
“I then tried to get in my ground car and leave with the royal children, but it seems the dim duo had been brooding about some of the less than complimentary things I had said and wanted an apology. When they did not get one, they decided to cut me out of the proceedings. One of them said — and this is word for word because, believe me, their vocabularies are not extensive — ‘These ones valuable, these ones not?’, and upon receiving an affirmative answer said, ‘You call us bad names. We not like that. We not help you anymore. We keep valuable, you keep not valuable.’”
“But after giving it a little thought, you realized they might be valuable after all,” said Mr. Skoko. “Hence the recent ransom demand.”
“Why not? Having lost possession of the royal children, I was obviously not going to get anything for them. But I know how soft-hearted Cholarians are about children, so it seemed likely the Supreme Ruler would pay something to get them back. Not as much as I could have asked for his, of course, but more than their mother would have been able to afford. I put too much time and effort into this scheme to come out of it with nothing.”
“Was it your own scheme, or someone else’s?” Chief Rupin inquired. “Your palace confederate indicated you were working for other people. Dangerous people.”
“I have, in the past, had numerous employers, some dangerous, some not. Lately, however, contracted work has been a little scarce. I’ve been forced to go into business for myself and have learned it is best to let those whose help I enlist think I am part of a larger, more sinister, organization. I embark upon private ventures as opportunities for them arise and, having just wrapped up one on a nearby world, thought I would stop off on Cholar to see some old acquaintances.”
“I found no record of you being back on Cholar when I ran a check,” Verim said.
“Probably because I followed my usual practice and slipped onto the planet unnoticed. I was only on file here before because I came in posing as an immigrant. Someone I met at that time told me he was working in the palace and having him on the inside was too good a chance to pass up. I planned the abduction down to the last detail and only had to wait for a suitably stormy night in which a malfunction in the security monitors would be dismissed as storm-related. When it finally came, I let my palace contact — who was decidedly reluctant to do my bidding, but pathetically easy to intimidate — know the job was on so he could drug the children’s attendants, cut off the power, and adjust the security monitors. All he had to do after that was let the others in and lure the guard over to them so they could put him out of action and make the snatch. That part should have gone smoothly too. And would have if I had not made the mistake of hiring Quorlians.”
Chief Rupin told him that was not his only mistake. “Even if you had succeeded in making off with the prince and princess and obtaining the anticipated ransom, how did you expect to enjoy your ill-gotten gains? There is nowhere, on or off Cholar, you could have gone where my Royal Guardsmen could not find you.”
Dalgo looked smug. “Oh, I think I could have. The ship I arrived on, and planned to get away on, has a cloaking device. There is no way you could have tracked me. Your technology is not up to it.” He shot another glare at Mr. Skoko. “I should have remembered Ralgon’s is. But until he broke in on me, I was not aware Skoko was here.”
Under further questioning, Dalgo said the Quorlians’ names were Zud Eth Thulos and Mux Eth Thulos. “Brothers even more intellectually challenged than most Quorlians. I’m surprised you haven’t caught them yet. Perhaps your men are not as good at hunting people down as you think. Having their names should help. They both have criminal records and their pictures are sure to be on file somewhere.”
Dalgo’s look suddenly became calculating. “That information should be worth something. Skoko over there directed the ransom money back into the royal treasury, but I’d be willing to settle for having a smaller sum held in reserve for when I get out of prison. Where I imagine I will be going for a little while?”
Verim’s jaw clenched. “For a very long while.”
Dalgo laughed. “Really? I doubt it. According to interplanetary laws concerning non-citizens — laws most planets in this system abide by, be they AUP-members or independents — the most my sentence is permitted to be is the maximum I would receive on my home world for the same crime.”
“You came here as an immigrant and were granted full citizenship,” Verim reminded him.
“You’ll find I renounced it. And since it was actually my palace contact who drugged those women and breached your security you will not be able to charge me with that. As to the ransom demand, you got both the ransom money and the Vedetian children back, so even the maximum sentence should not exceed —”
“You also kidnapped Cholarian children we have not yet got back,” said Verim.
“But I did not personally take them, nor ask a ransom for them. In fact, any lawyer could argue I never really had them in my possession. So, I repeat, you cannot impose a longer sentence on me than a Ralgonian court would.”
“They can if the Ralgonian government gives its approval. Something I will personally see to,” said Mr. Skoko. “Does that penal colony on Prexath accept alien prisoners, Lord Verim? If it does, I believe Dalgo might benefit from a stay there.”
“He shall have the honour of being the first,” said Verim.
Mr. Skoko’s offer to intercede with the Ralgonian government shook Dalgo a little, but the prospect of being immured on Prexath didn’t seem to concern him nearly as much as it should have. He said he’d never heard of it.
“I will tell you all about it on the way to the holding facility,” Chief Rupin promised before turning to address Taz. “I will question him again there, Your Majesty. You and the others should go and get something to eat. You must keep up your strength. If anything of importance arises you will immediately be notified.”
Taz and the others demurred for a while, but then gave in. One by one they left the command centre until only Mr. Skoko — who said he had already eaten — remained.
Curious to know something, I went over to talk to him.
“Back in the receiving room, you said there were limits to what you’d do for money. So, how come you didn’t resign from Professor Vor-Zoag’s service when we started giving you so much trouble?”
He gave me the look I think he reserves specially for us. Something in between irritation and repugnance.
“I had already committed myself to safeguarding you and, despite having been woefully misled by naïve claims regarding the innocence and innocuousness of that distinguished gentleman’s daughter and her travelling companions, my word is my bond. Since then, all assignments involving adolescents have been subject to extremely thorough background checks. And a much higher fee than hitherto. Now, if you will excuse me, there are things I should be doing to help locate the missing royal heirs. A task for which I will not be asking payment. I found them quite cute and endearing.”
With that, he stomped off.
“We were cute and endearing too, when we were that age,” I called after him.
“Hah!” he threw back.