“I am his guardian angel,” Jip proclaimed.
I hadn’t known Vorlan culture embraced the concept of guardian angels but was thankful it did because, even if Quorlian culture didn’t, I thought Jip might be able to sell this one on the idea.
Mux heaved himself off the bed and lumbered towards her while his brother, by great good luck, snored on. At the sight of his large, hairy caretaker, Kadi stopped whimpering, fondness apparently being mutual.
“What that mean?”
“It means I look after him. I make sure he is safe and happy.”
“I make sure he safe and happy.”
“Yes. I know. You have been doing a splendid job. But it is time he went back to his parents.”
“Why it time he go back to parents?”
“Children belong with their parents. Do you have parents?”
“Yes. Stay with parents when home. Parents like having Mux and Zud at home.”
“Just as Challa and Kadi’s parents like having them home. They have been gone a long time. They miss them very much.”
All this was more than Jip usually came up with during a conversation with someone new. She told me later it had taken a fair bit of effort, but she’d been able to draw on fear and desperation for motivation.
“Parents like baby?”
“Yes. They love their children. They want them back.”
“Even want other one?” He looked around. “Where other one?”
“Outside, with some other guardian angels. And they want them both back. Please let me take them, Mux.”
“You know name?”
“I know lots of things. Guardian angels do.”
“You know Zud want money for children?”
“Yes. And I know the man Zud said he did not trust might hurt them. He might hurt the baby.”
Mux scowled. “Hurt my baby?”
“Yes. He is a bad man.”
“Parents not hurt my baby?”
“No. They are good people. They will look after the baby.”
“Then they must have baby. I tell Zud.”
“He might not agree. If the bad man has more money, Zud will want to give the children to him.”
Mux thought about this. A slow process. Then his scrunchy face brightened, the perfect solution having come to him. “If you take baby, Zud cannot give to bad man.”
Jip beamed. “That is correct.”
Mux glanced over at his brother. “Zud still want money. Will be mad if he not get some money.”
I immediately reached into my belt and extracted every bit of cash I was carrying. The others hastened to do the same and handed it to me.
“Here,” I said, thrusting it through the window.
Jip took it and passed it to Mux, who smiled.
“Good. Zud be happy.”
I doubted that but wasn’t about to argue.
Neither was Jip. “I am going to give the baby to another guardian angel now, Mux.”
“Wait.”
Turning, Mux stretched out one of his longer arms and picked up the hold-all with the food. Passing it to Jip, he said, “Now go,” and patted Kadi’s head with the hand on one of his shorter arms. “Good-bye, baby.” He looked out at Challa, whom Arlyne was still holding. “Good-bye, other one.”
Challa wrinkled her nose at him, which was the equivalent of an Earth child sticking out her tongue but must have a different meaning on Quorl because Mux looked quite pleased.
I took Kadi from Jip, who then waved us away from the window.
“Take them down the street, around the corner.”
Though puzzled by this, I nodded to the others and we did as she asked.
We used Kirsty’s computer to watch Jip retrieve the observer, and as the screen distorted heard her say, “I must return to the realm of guardian angels now, Mux. Farewell.”
A few moments later, she was down the street with us.
“I thought disappearing in front of Mux might add authenticity to the tale he will tell Zud,” she explained.
Simon nodded approvingly. “Good thinking.”
“Aye, it was,” said Kirsty. “But I suggest we get moving before he gets over the awe of it and wakes his brother. I’m not saying Zud’s much smarter than Mux, but even a tad’s enough for him to know if the bairns are gone, his chances of getting rich are and all.”
Keeping to side streets, we made for the little park, me carrying Kadi, and Arlyne and Kirsty trading off with Challa, who was heavier, and felt more so after she fell asleep again. Deprived of Mux, Kadi fretted for a bit, but by the time we got to the park, he’d dropped off as well.
No one was around so we deemed it safe to talk.
“Right then,” I said. “Time to get off Lurgos. The stowaways won’t have to get starliner tickets, but the rest of us will and we no longer have any money.”
“I still have some,” said Jip. “Enough to get us all to the starport and enable at least one of you to purchase a ticket to Borel, and another to Cholar. But not enough for all three of you to do so.”
“We mightn’t have to get any further than Borel,” said Kirsty. “Once we’re there we can get a message to Taz and have him come pick us up in a royal cruiser. With his whole space fleet in escort ready to bl—.”
“—blast anyone who gets in his way, like Simon here would advocate?” I finished. “I don’t think so. Now that AUP’s in this game we can’t expect it to be as easy as having Taz come for us. It wouldn’t take Drazok long to figure out where he was going and why. AUP has a lot of powerful ships too, and can call in more, still using the contagion ploy. There’s no way Taz is going to go up against them with Challa and Kadi in the middle. Once they’re back on Cholar, different story. The independent planets will flock to his banner and AUP’ll stop supporting Drazok and back off to lick its wounds. Or what’s left of it will. Most of the planets that stuck with AUP before are likely to pull out over this latest stunt, which should make even our parents see it for what it is.”
I glanced at my sister, but she made no attempt to defend AUP. If nothing else, this affair had convinced her of its true nature.
“We still might be able to get a message to Taz and have him come in secret,” said Kirsty.
“Maybe,” I conceded. “For now, we have to concentrate on the money thing.”
Kirsty shrugged. “Why not just access oor accounts on Cholar again? It should be easy enough, now that they’ve been modified.”
“Too risky. I doubt Taz has openly publicized our absence, but someone in the palace might have inadvertently let something slip about us being gone. If Drazok got wind of it, he’d soon guess what we were up to and have people watching for things like bank activity that could tell him where we are.”
“What about our accounts on Yaix?” said Arlyne. “They wouldn’t be likely to check those.”
“There’s nothing to check. Mine’s currently empty.”
“So’s mine,” said Kirsty. “I took it all oot for the trip to Cholar.”
“But I didn’t.” Arlyne allowed herself a small smirk. “I only withdrew a little. I still have quite a bit left.”
“Likewise,” said Simon. “Come on, Arlyne. There have to be bank machines around here somewhere. Let’s find one.”
“I will come also,” said Jip, “I, too, have funds at home on Vorla.”
In addition to food, the hold-all contained blankets, nappies, and other baby supplies, so while they were gone, Kirsty and I wrapped the sleeping children in the blankets to conceal their ethnicity en route to the starport. That much of her doll proposal I considered practicable.
A ground taxi got us to the starport. Once there, Jip used a rapid transit dimension to determine which of the cargo barges in the freight yard were loading freighters going to Borel and found one that was about to head up to a vessel leaving relatively soon.
Simon scooped up Kali. “We’d better get going then. Watch for us in the freight yard after you get to Borel.”
The rest of us went into the starport and got tickets for a Vorlan passenger ship. It left some hours after the freighter, but freighters move slowly, and I knew we’d probably have to wait at least half a day for the others to turn up. It was nerve-wracking to set off without knowing if they’d even got aboard the freighter but, fearful of having messages between us intercepted, neither party dared let the other know how it was faring.
That’s why, when my computer alerted me to an urgent transmission only a few hours into our journey, I went into a panic.
So did Kirsty and Arlyne. We were in our cabin at the time and both hastened to my side as, with trembling hands, I took out my computer.
“It’s not from them,” said Kirsty. “It’s coming in from Cholar.”
That calmed me a little, but not much.
“Should I answer? It could be one of Drazok’s people. Answering will allow for a trace.”
“Not if you just stay on a few seconds to find out.”
Taking a deep breath, I opened the channel.
The face appearing onscreen belonged to Taz. Or did it? The Borelian who’d impersonated Drazok was in custody, but what if Drazok had others on his payroll?
It was as though Taz read my thoughts.
“It is me, Meda. Ask me something Drazok could not possibly know.”
“Okay. Um…uh…where was Simon that time he couldn’t be found back when he was Challa’s age?” Something I’d told him when Challa was on one of her walkabouts.
“Up a tree no one thought he could climb, happily watching people run around looking for him.”
I breathed a little easier. There wasn’t any way Drazok could know that.
Taz smiled. A weary smile.
“I commend you for your caution. I, too, am being cautious. Mr. Skoko has assured me he has provided us with a secure channel but advised against contacting you until you had had time to find the children. I…we…Vostia and I…we couldn’t stand to wait any longer. Have you?”
“Yes.”
Vostia pushed onto the screen. “You have them? They are all right?”
“Jip and Simon have them. The Quorlians took good care of them.”
“But they are not with you?”
“No. It was safer to travel on two different ships.”
“I assume you are making for Borel again,” said Taz. “Be cautious. It is Cholar’s closest non-suspect planet and Drazok will be having traffic to and from it watched. But only covertly, as he knows the Borelian government will not co-operate with him in any way.”
“Or with you either?”
“Borel, like Vorla, prefers to remain neutral when other worlds engage in interplanetary squabbles. Though, in this instance, neither are quite as neutral as they appear.”
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. “We should be on Borel sometime tomorrow. Would you be able to come and get us? Covertly?”
“I am afraid not. The Association has seen fit to set up a blockade around Cholar. No ships can leave the planet’s surface without being fired upon as soon as they reach suborbital space. An act the Directorate claims is necessary because we ‘failed to co-operate with the measures being taken to contain the virus sweeping the Zaidus system’. The independent planets know there is no such virus. None of them have people afflicted with it, and cases have only been reported by the puppet governments of AUP-member worlds. Most of the independents are poised to come to Cholar’s aid if asked, and even without them, our military is fully capable of breaking through the blockade, but I am not prepared to order that at this point as it will involve loss of life on both sides.
“Opposed though I am to you putting yourselves in danger as you have — something we will discuss once you are back here — I know there is at least a chance you can return Challa and Kadi safely home. The Association’s leaders will then have lost the means by which they thought to rekindle their alliance with Drazok and be forced to withdraw their forces and take the consequences of their actions. Which this time are likely to be even more debilitating than the last.”
“How can we get back to Cholar if there’s a blockade?” Arlyne asked.
“A one-way blockade. Ships cannot leave Cholar, but ships from other independent planets may go to Cholar if they ‘choose to take the risk’. They must, however, submit their passenger lists to the commander of the AUP fleet — who is, I believe, our friend Captain Zyoth — as well as scans of the passports of all aboard. This is said to be so AUP physicians may determine if any of them are at particular risk but, in reality, gives Zyoth the means to find out if incoming ships are carrying anyone likely to have found and rescued Challa and Kadi. A ship he could then legitimately intercept under intergalactic contagion laws.”
“We do not think Drazok knows you left Cholar on such a mission,” said Vostia. “But the passenger lists will most certainly be forwarded to him, and…well, we know you to be very enterprising and are sure you can find a way to not be on a passenger list.”
“Aye,” said Kirsty. “We’ll just have to give it a bit of thought.”
“That is why we wanted to warn you ahead of time,” said Taz. “I will end the transmission now. Once you and the children are en route to Cholar, advise me on this frequency and as soon as the ship you name is in Cholarian space, my ships will move in to protect it.”
Being forewarned about a passport and passenger list check was all well and good, but when we went into orbit around Borel we still hadn’t come up with a viable way around it. We took a transit barge down to the capital city’s starport and, wary of Drazok’s people, wandered separately around its least exposed areas until the freighter the others were supposed to be on came in and all the barges transferring goods down from it had docked. We then regrouped and made our way to the freight yard, where, much to my relief, the stowaways were waiting for us behind a storage shed, out of the way of the machines unloading the barges and the people operating them.
“Hiding was fun,” Challa informed me.
She and Kadi were both wearing long hooded cloaks that hid most of their features, items Jip told us she’d just had time to buy in an open-all-hours children’s boutique in the starport on Lurgos before joining Simon and the little ones on the cargo barge. Kadi wasn’t too enamoured of his and kept trying to pull back the hood, which Challa virtuously replaced each and every time. She’d been told it was important he keep it on, and three-year-olds are extremely diligent when it comes to making sure their younger siblings do what they’re supposed to do. Arlyne had even tried it with an infant Simon. (To no avail.)
We told the others about the blockade and the edict concerning passports and passenger lists.
“Well, that could prove awkward,” said Simon.
“Aye. Taz canna come for us, and if we’re for understanding this neutral thing right, Borelians will neither help us get to Cholar nor stop us from going,” said Kirsty.
“If they are not inclined to stop us, we might find it fairly easy to stow away on another freighter, or even a starliner,” said Jip, who now seemed quite taken with that mode of travel.
I wasn’t. “We’d have to take different ships again and I’d rather not.”
“Same here.” Arlyne sighed. “It’s times like this it would be helpful for us all to have a second passport. Not just me.”
Our parents happened to be home on Earth when Simon and I were born. Or, in my case, en route to home on a Terran ship (the Andromeda, hence my name), but Arlyne Rosemary Brent had been born while they were on assignment on Ploxia in the Sajarlon system, making her an automatic citizen of that planet. Ever one to think ahead, my father made sure she could enjoy any benefits this might bring by registering the birth there with the Ploxian version of her name — Breni Arlyah Rosem — and always keeping her Ploxian passport up to date. She’d never used it, but she had the right to and always carried both her passports with her.
“That’s it. Other passports.” I could almost see the wheels turning as Simon said this. “Passports with names Drazok would never recognize.”
“How are we supposed to get those?” I scoffed.
“It’s something I could get my backup guys working on.”
“Backup guys?”
“Yeah. A couple of guys I know. They’re on Borel taking a break from university. I contacted them just before we left Cholar and they were due to head back. I didn’t give them any details. Just said I expected to be on Borel soon and might run into some trouble so could they please stay on a few days and be ready to lend a hand.”
“And you’re thinking they’ll be willing? Even if it’s an illegal hand you’ll be after?” Kirsty wanted to know.
“Sure. I know where they’re staying. I’ll go talk to them and meet you down on the lowest level of the starport. It’s cordoned off for renovations, but they haven’t been started yet.”
No one bothered asking Simon how he knew that. He usually studies the lay of the land before he goes anywhere and had probably read up on the capital’s starport.
As he scuttled off, I asked Jip how long it had been since the kids had eaten.
“They finished the last of the solid food in the hold-all just over an hour ago.”
“Not too long then, but they probably wouldn’t mind a snack. Let’s take them to the cafeteria before we go to meet up with Simon and his friends. Other than obscurity, there’s not much to be gained by staying here.”
The visit to the cafeteria proved a bit taxing. We chose the most inconspicuous corner we could find, but Kadi liked wearing a hood inside even less than he’d liked wearing it outside. And being now more interested in polishing off a dish of Borelian Choco Delight than in harassing her baby brother, Challa could not be relied on to put it back on whenever he yanked it off. We took turns doing it ourselves, marvelling at his tenacity. And his good nature. He never once voiced any objection to being thwarted in this way.
After we’d eaten, we went down to the level under renovation. It was deserted, just as Simon had said it would be, so once we’d squeezed past the barrier and started along a corridor, we let Kadi dispense with the hood. He almost seemed disappointed. Maybe it had been a game.
Simon was standing at a corner a little way down the corridor.
“Any luck?” I asked when we reached him.
“Yes. The guys knew who to go to.”
“How long to get the passports?”
“A while,” someone around the corner said. “but they’re already in the works.”
And into view stepped two people I really hadn’t expected to ever meet again.
Nathan and Leopold Praeger.