Inadvertently she trod on someone's arm and the man tried to knock her feet out from under her, cursing.
Kris steadied Kathy and motioned her to the wall, where they might find a safer place to wait.
"Zainal will come for us, won't he?" Kathy asked.
"Yes, of course he will, Kathy," Kris said positively. "Chuck will have sent Ferris running for him."
They found a place to sit but they were not far from the commu-nal slop pots and the stench was overpowering, so they moved, care-fully, through the other prisoners to find a less redolent place.
Most of the inmates were sprawled, getting what sleep they could. The air certainly stank of stale beer and whatever other alcohol had been consumed: the stench was incredible.
"He will come?" There was understandable anxiety in Kathy's voice. "He will come!" Kris replied in an unarguable tone of voice and then, finding a space against the wall in the corner, pulled Kathy down to sit beside her.
"I'm thirsty," Kathy said. "Don't think about it, Kathy."
Kris did not think Kathy's courage would improve by being told that prisoners in Barevi prisons were rarely fed or watered: at least not until prior to being forced onto a slave ship. She composed herself to remain calm and await Zainal's arrival. Ferris would have found him, no matter where Zainal had been.
But barely had they got themselves settled when the prison doors swung open and jailors, cracking nerve whips, roused the inmates with harsh commands to stand up and move out. She was startled when a door in the side of the prison was opened to reveal a ramp. She remembered that sort of ramp and tried to suppress a surge of fear. Kathy didn't realize what was happening and Kris wasn't going to tell her. The prisoners were being driven toward the ramp. Kris caught Kathy's arm, holding her back. "Zainal, where are you?" she murmured urgently.
They were among the last to be driven up the ramp, Kris looking over her shoulder at the main entrance, hoping against hope to see Zainal's large form in the doorway and hear his voice commanding the guards to leave her alone. Surely he would come to free them. The tip of the nerve whip caught her arm, though her clothing absorbed most of the painful strike, and despite her reluctance, she was driven up the ramp and into the hold of a KDM.
"We're on a ship," Kathy said, frightened.
"So we are," Kris remarked, amazed at how calm she managed to sound.
"What are we doing on a ship, Kris? Where is Zainal?"
"Trying to get us free, I'm sure," Kris replied, though the smell of the hold was no reassurance at all. This was a slave ship: it stank of fear and human excrement.
The ramp door swung shut and was dogged tight by a guard. "Find a wall space, Kathy," Kris said, holding tight to Kathy's hand so they wouldn't be separated as the other prisoners milled about aimlessly.
"Find us, Zainal," Kris chanted to herself. "Find us. Free us."
A sudden movement of the ship as it undocked threw both women to their knees, and Kris barely managed to keep from crying out with fear and pain as her right knee connected painfully with a bolt on the steel floor. There would be no pleasant Botany at the end of this forced journey.
They both felt the surge as the ship took off, sending them slid-ing into other bodies and pushing them back against the far wall of the hold.
"I'm scared, Kris," Kathy said as the metal beneath them throbbed with the power of takeoff. Her voice was close to a wail and Kris threw an arm around her shoulders.
"Me too," Kris agreed. "Zainal will stop this farce. Just you wait."
Chapter Eighteen
The accusation is a farce, Kapash," Zainal was saying, having stormed into the market manager's office demanding an explanation. "An aggrieved client has every right to file a charge against a mer chant who has sold imperfect goods or misrepresented his stock." "You know how we have been trading the coffee. You've tasted enough of it to know that our product is exactly as represented." Kapash merely smiled up at Zainal, obviously delighting in his discomposure, tilting languidly back in his chair.
"Now, what fine will you levy so that I can pay it and release Kris and Kathy?"
Kapash steepled his fingers, ignoring Zainal's urgency. "Well now, the standard fee is forty Catteni bunts."
"Gone up since I was manager, hasn't it?"
Kapash's chair crashed to the floor and he stared hard at Zainal. Then both men heard the rumble of a ship taking off from the dock and Kapash smiled.
"If those women are on that ship, Kapash, you will be sorry for it. They have been falsely accused and you know it."
"I do?" Kapash pretended an innocence that only made Zainal more positive of his complicity.
"What will it take, Kapash, for you to sign a release form and stop that ship before it leaves Barevi orbit?"
"What will I take, Zainal?" Kapash asked, idly drumming his fin-gers on his desktop.
"Out with it. I want the ship stopped before it can leave this sys-tem. What is it you want?"
"The location of the Eosi treasures."
"The what?" Zainal stared, in dismay and contempt. "How would I know that?"
"You were once to be an Eosi host and you would have been in-formed of such things."
"No, I wasn't because I never became Pe's host. Do not underes-timate the guile of the Eosi, Kapash. They made no one their confi-dants, especially not an unhosted Catteni."
"But someone knows," Kapash exclaimed. "They had so much treasure. So much coin for their rents and deals, and most of the valu-ables taken from Earth."
"I'm sure they did very well for themselves, but I have no idea where they stored their possessions. What will you take, Kapash?" Kapash looked extremely uncomfortable.
"I'm sure you talked with their staff assistants, didn't you?" Zainal continued, not wanting to waste too much time talking.
"They knew nothing," Kapash said, flicking his fingers. "And we spoke to every one of them."
And not gently, either, Zainal thought, but he had no pity to spare for those traitors who had lived extremely well, serving their Eosi masters.
"Something I can give you, Kapash." Zainal did not dare rush the man and yet there was a need for urgency. Only Kapash could have the ascending ship halted at the space station before it left the system for whichever slave colony was its destination.
"Your coffee beans," Kapash said, coming to a decision.
"I don't have that many left," Zainal admitted. "They have sold well." He tried to think how many sacks remained on the BASS-1. "You have a ship. You can go back to Terra for more. You will go back, and I shall have the concession here in the market for as long as I wish." He scribbled some words on a sheet of paper and passed it across the desk for Zainal to sign.
It was a release for all coffee beans on board the BASS-1.
"Sign the prisoner release first, Kapash," Zainal said, pointing to the various colored forms in the cabinet behind the man. "The blue one," he said, remembering that detail from his own term as market manager.
"Their names?" Kapash asked, holding his writer over the blue sheet.
"Lady Emassi Kris Bjornsen and Captain Emassi Katherine Harvey." He spelled the names, watching intently as Kapash wrote. When the form was completed, duly signed by Kapash, and stamped with his office's seal, Zainal signed the release of the beans.
"You will also no longer use coffee as a trade item," Kapash said. With that, he must have known that he effectively ended Zainal's mission on Barevi. He reached out for the release. Zainal held it out of reach.
Zainal pointed to the communications board to Kapash's right. "Only if you immediately phone Ladade and order him to keep that ship from leaving Barevi space."
Kapash seemed to hesitate. When Zainal raised a fist menacingly, remembering how much of a physical coward Kapash was, the man grabbed for the hand unit and made the call.