The Sorceress of Karres (15 page)

They found a tree with a convenient branch. Rope climbing lessons followed. And very shortly after those had not succeeded, rope knotting. That did make it easier. By now, Pausert was entirely carried away by the excitement of it all, and Goth was feeling guilty. She tried to call it off, planning to come back quietly that night. But Pausert read her too well. "You're not going without me," he said.

So they walked around to the back of the building. Goth was now really quite nervous. She would have done this in no-shape or light-shifted to look like something that belonged here, but she couldn't do that in his company. The "close your eyes" trick would never work twice.

She found herself appealing to the Toll teaching pattern in her head. And yes, there was an answer. Not quite as good as no-shape or a light-shift, but it would make them a lot harder to notice, without being obvious to young Pausert. He could go on imagining they were just incredibly lucky. She'd bent light around herself and others before. Made refractory illusions of light-shifts. She could also bend light around the air. It was tricky. Air was not cooperative about staying in the same place. The molecules moved unpredictably. But an illusion could be created in it.

Goth tried to trace the klatha patterns in her head, but it was like herding smoke. The best she could do, unpracticed, was to create a greenish haze around them. And that made her sweat.

"Guess we just hope no one is looking out of the window," said Pausert, his voice sounding a little uneasy.

"Nothing to stop us walking here. You said the gardens are open to the public. Try to look like you're having fun."

"Oh, but I am. Really. I haven't made a lot of friends here."

"You don't fit here too well," said Goth. "Don't worry, eventually you'll find a place and people that you do fit in with perfectly."

"You sound like you know," said Pausert, half-smiling.

"Do, I guess. I've been a lot of places." She did not add that quite a lot of them had been with him.

By this time they had reached the down-pipe, in among some bushes. Here, at the back of the institute, the gardens sloped away to open land beyond the city edge, and scattered small-holdings and farms. There was nothing that close at hand that they were likely to be seen, unless it was by someone wandering in the slightly unkempt gardens.

"You first," she said, pointing at the pipe. That way she could hide him in a light-shift while he climbed. He stood just a little straighter at what he plainly perceived as a responsibility, and set off up the pipe. Goth hid him in a light-shift, merely patterning his back to look like the wall and pipe. By the way he huffed and puffed, she thought critically, he was not as fit as he could be. About time she got to work on that! She wondered if there was some local equivalent of the mountain bollem she could talk him into hunting with her. There was nothing like that for getting you in shape.

When he was up, she followed him, climbing the pipe as easily as a staircase. Soon they were both on the roof tiles, moving to the rows of skylights. The institute roof was taller than any of the other buildings in the area, and so not overlooked. It was gently sloping and not difficult to move on, just a little hot. Goth was glad it was winter. Pausert was sparkling with the sheer adventure. It was Goth's turn to be wary now. She was learning a great deal by being responsible for him, for a change.

They peered down through the first skylight. The plants looked quite different from above and Goth couldn't be sure just where her patch of maroon leafed markers were. But Pausert had a good sense of direction—or just knew the place very well—and had them move on. At the third skylight he tried, he found what he was looking for. "Okay, now if we tie the rope to that bar . . ."

"If we just sit still and watch for the patrols," said Goth firmly.

"Well, all right. It's just that I have math homework to do. You will tomorrow, too."

Goth had not previously encountered "homework." It didn't sound like she was going to enjoy it, though. They watched. After about twenty minutes they had the patrol schedule sorted out. It seemed that orders had come down for more patrolling, and maybe even IR beams, but the security patrol had had many peaceful years of drinking tea and occasional saunters through the beds of plants from a hundred worlds, and weren't about to let a bunch of kids change that.

They tied the rope securely, after a short but fierce debate about who could tie the better knots, and dropped down into the dense foliage of a makemake tree. At least, that was what Goth thought Pausert said. It seemed a strange thing to call anything. After another heated debate both of them went down. Goth did put her foot down a little this time and went first in spite of his protests. She soon wished that she hadn't. Makemake was obviously "make you itch," but after her first brush with the leaves she carefully avoided them. She could think of no way of telling Pausert about it, so he just had to find out for himself.

Once down onto a narrow little walkway, they stood and scratched their arms and legs, until, avoiding any more leaves, they made their way to the edge of the bed and down into the corridor between the botanical beds. It had all seemed quite easy so far, but a few yards from the locker below the planting of maroon-leafed
Mularina tremblence
from Coolum's World, they must have walked through one of the infrared beams. Goth had forgotten them.

A siren sounded. "Back to the rope, quickly," said Goth. They ran back and crawled under the stinging foliage. Goth did a light-shift on the rope, just where it was visible above the tree.

"It came from here. From this sector," said the lead guard.

"Probably a bird or something," said the second security guard. "They keep getting in."

"Someone could be hiding in the bed. It's one of the ones with a sampling walkway."

"Don't be crazy. That's a makemake tree. No one would go near it. You itch for days."

Goth knew all about that. It was hard staying still and not scratching. She still didn't have her coat.

"I think we'll just have to keep watch here for a bit. Radio in and have them activate the beams again. That way we'll know if whatever it is decides to go anywhere."

After a while Goth decided to risk a peep. And a quiet scratch. The two guards were sitting on the edges of the plant beds, right next to the locker that held her coat. It was probably too big to 'port, but she tried anyway, out of sheer frustration—and was rewarded by her miffel-fur coat. Her teleporting abilities must be getting better with practice and age. And so they need not have come down here, and had the encounter with the makemake tree. Now, would patience serve? The itching was something fierce.

"I'll have to get back," whispered Pausert. "I have math to do. I need to have it done before Ma gets home."

"Give it another minute or two," whispered Goth.

"You got your coat. Great!"

"Yes, it would be nicer if I wasn't itching like mad," said Goth, scratching.

"I just knew the name of the tree," he said, defensively. "Didn't know what it did. Or at least I didn't remember."

"Well, at least I'll have a coat to protect me, climbing up." Goth concentrated on thinking about the air just a bit farther down the corridor. Making the image of something in the air, not just a refraction, was going to be tricky. But making the air opaque . . . 

"That looks like smoke," said the guard.

"It does. Better go and look."

The alarms went off again. Goth realized they'd forgotten to radio in, in their haste and surprise.

"They've got enough problems," said Goth. "Let's go."

"Vala, you're amazing," said Pausert quietly. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" asked Goth innocently. "Now climb."

So they did. Goth had to leave the rope visible—but from below Pausert looked like a piece of roof. An itchy piece of roof. She followed. Even if the security men had not been busy explaining what they'd seen and done, they could not have seen her. Once they were on the roof they hauled the rope up and then closed the skylight. Except for the rash on her hands and Pausert's legs, they'd come away without a scratch, and with her coat. They dropped back down the drainpipe and into the bushes and headed out of the park.

"We will stop at the drugstore and get something for the itch," said Goth, firmly. And Pausert didn't even argue with her.

* * *

The pink goo helped for the itch. It wasn't beautiful. A sort of payback for the purple they'd covered Rapport and friends with, Goth decided. She'd talked Pausert into letting her join him in this math homework at his spartan house—so that she could see what level of work she would be expected to do. The answer was a combination of very frustrating and quite simple. She was used to harder problems—but not at all used to having to show how she derived her answers.

"What's the point?" she demanded crossly. "If it's right, it's right."

"But if it's not right, they can't give you any marks for the part you had got right."

"If it's not right, your ship is a crater."

"There are other uses for math besides astrogation," said Pausert, defending for the sake of it.

"Oh. Like what?"

"Like biology, for starters," said another voice. It was Pausert's mother. "But getting it wrong there can actually be just as bad."

Pausert leapt guiltily to his feet. "I didn't hear you come in, mother. Vala's joining my math class and—"

"Glad to see you have brought her home. I think she's right, though. My uncle was apparently forever in trouble for not showing his work. He always said he could tell which answers were right. Nearly drove his teachers mad. He never learned the method as prescribed."

It had never occurred to Goth that other people might not know when their math calculations were right. "He sounds like a good man," she said gruffly.

Pausert's mother laughed. "Depends on who you ask. Growing up, I thought he was pretty wonderful."

It was all Goth could do not to agree with her. She stuck to nodding.

"So. A girl doing advanced math—and who believes the only purpose of it is astrogation. I wonder if the Nikkeldepain Academy for the Sons and Daughters of Gentlemen and Officers has any idea of what is going to hit it. They'll give you a rough time, my dear."

"Huh. I'll give it right back."

"You could. But it is probably not how you'll win the fight, Vala."

"I'll be there too," said Pausert, staunch and solid as ever.

"I am sure you will, Son," said Pausert's mother, proudly. "But seeing as I did it, long ago, without any supporters, maybe you should go and get us some fresh bread, and leave me to chat with Vala about it."

When Pausert had gone, Pausert's mother smiled. "First, let me get you something better than that Darmin lotion for the makemake stings. So it was you two, was it?"

Goth blushed to the roots of her hair. "We didn't do any harm. I was just fetching something of mine I had left behind last time." She took a deep breath. "You ought to do something about those boys. They're making his life a misery."

Pausert's mother smiled sadly. "I know. But it's actually quite difficult not to do something that would make it worse. Nikkeldepain's not a bad little place. But they don't like incomers here. I wanted to give you some advice on how to deal with it best. Being a tomboy and trying to punch your way through all of it is just too difficult. Ask me. I found out the hard way. Of course I was a little younger than you, and it took me a while to learn to be a social chameleon. I didn't like the idea at all. And I was delighted that that Rapport boy got what was coming to him, by the way. But I can't tell Pausert that."

"Captain, he's been sneaking around the ship. Trying his hand at lock-tickling," said Vezzarn, disdainfully. "Even Missy Goth is better than he is."

Pausert raised his eyebrows. "What? Have you been teaching Goth your tricks?"

"She asked me to," said the old spacer. "And you know, Captain, their little Wisdoms are hard to refuse."

"I suppose this means that you are teaching the Leewit too," said Pausert dangerously. "Now look here, Vezzarn, I gave you another chance . . ."

"I explained how you'd feel about it, Captain. They said they wouldn't steal anything. They just thought . . . in their line of work, well, it might be useful," said Vezzarn, looking as if he might turn and run at any moment.

On the ship, of course there was nowhere to run to, and that probably was all that was holding him back. Captain Pausert got himself under control with a deliberate effort of will. When he'd first met the three witches of Karres, they'd seemed to have no more morals than a jungle-cat. He'd thought that had improved a bit, but he felt responsible for them. He knew, now, that that was why Toll and Threbus were happy enough having him ride herd on them. The girls didn't seem to have much respect for property, but they didn't lie. Not to him, or, as far as he'd been able to establish, to anyone else. The work of Karres could indeed lead to lock-picking being an important life skill.

"Well, you'd better teach me too, then," he said, trying to keep his tone even. "I can't have them knowing things that I don't. Anyway, what do you mean? Mebeckey the castaway has been picking locks. How do you know? Been using spiderwebs?"

Vezzarn shrugged. "I'm good at it, Captain. He's not. He leaves little clues for someone like me. Scratches on the surface of the lock. Locks with the tumblers half-turned. That kind of thing. Amateurish. But you need to watch him, Captain. He tried the armament's cupboard last night."

"But didn't succeed, I assume."

"He got in all right, but I think he was disappointed. He didn't find anything," said Vezzarn. "I thought something was going on, so I moved the blasters to my cabin. I've got a lock-up there that would fool anyone but two or three of Uldune's best."

"And fool me, or even the Leewit, if I need them," said Pausert. "Did that occur to you, Vezzarn?"

"I reckon her little Wisdom would just bust it with one of her whistles," said Vezzarn, grinning. "I set her too hard a lock, to give her a bit of a lesson, and she did that. Gave me a bit of a lesson instead."