Bott hit the big golden door first. The black knob turned a fingerwidth to the left, but no farther. The grumbles of the grobbles grew louder as more pushed up onto the bridge. The scent pf burning grobble was unattractive, but not as unattractive as the odor of approaching unburnt grobble.
A dimpled golden hand reached past him. “Slide these two bolts, Luv.”
Bottt twisted the knob again as the Klamathan hand held back the springbolts. Everyone sprang forward as one when the door swung open.
The door banged shut behind them and did not reopen, though all four of the fell back against it, beaten back by the heat in the light grey room. Hot dry wind ground sand into Bott’s nose. He narrowed his eyes to slits, studying the chamber to find out if this was the last one he’d see.
Most of the floor was occupied by a vast octagonal pool. This pool told Bott he was definitely still aboard the Drover. Bubbles rose to the surface, shimmering with a dozen shades of every color in the spectrum, and then bursting with new waves of light and heat. Above pool and bubbles rose a vast dome, constructed of metal bars curved in gracious, delicate arcs.
“I think we have to climb.” Bott reached a hand to the nearest Bar. It was hot, but not too hot to grip.
“Motivate them toes!” Called the green, picking out a bar and hauling herself up.
“Hang on tight!” Bott cautioned. Some of the curves in the design allowed for large gaps between bars. Whether the gaps were big enough to let the green Klamathan fall through, he wasn’t sure, but he was positive he wouldn’t be able to pull out any of the Klamathans who got wedged in the openings.
“Know what yez mean,” aid the blue, mounting up. “Not at me best when it’s hot. Can’t get traction.”
The wind, to no one’s surprise, did not relent as they rose above the pool. The gold’s hair flipped left and right, as did the coat of the blue Klamathan, allowing generous views of massive scarred thighs. The green reached up and gave her colleague a healthy pinch.
“Bluebottom, you air as much use as a acre o’ snakes,” she called. The blue kicked back at her head, missing wide.
Wiping grit from her face, the gold moved along bars which brought her closer to Bott. “”We may have time to introduce ourselves before new perils are launched. I, sir, am Chlorda Diona Pollar, late of Klamath.”
“I’m Bassada Del Dorma,” called the blue. “From KHLAmath.”
“Louba Bobari Bomar, of Rukhlamath,” the green reminded him, with a glare at the other two.
It was about as bad as Bott had feared. From their pronunciation of the same planet’s name, they marked themselves as members of assorted rebel groups which hated each other nearly as much as they did the Free Imperial State. He shrugged and climbed on; if he was lucky, they might all be Imperial spies just pretending to be Klamathan rebels.
“I’m Captain Bott Garton,” he replied. “How long have you been on board the Drover?”
“Oh, the start of the triumphal procession,” said the gold, now climbing hip to hip with Bott. “Leaders of rebel forces were to be honored by being sold at the first DroverSlave Auction.”
Bott froze, despite the heat of the room and his climbing partner. “You’re…all…rebel leaders?”
”Makes fer lotsa fun,” Bassada Del Dorma told him. “Gotta take turns leadin’. Goldguts ‘ere did get us outa them slave pens. Not ‘at it’s been doin’ us much good so far.”
“There was a lapse in security.” Chlorda told Bott. “Days ago. I naturally took the lead and we were well on our way out when this ridiculous command-sharing rotation came up, and we wound up in this maze.”
“Some commanda,” sneered Bassada. “Stans on her tiptoes an’ yodels when ya gooses her.”
“I do not!” snapped Chlorda. “Well, once.”
“A day,” grumbled her blue colleague, reaching for the cluster of bars at the peak of the dome.
“An’ you?” asked Louba, looking over her shoulder at Bott. “When’d you….” She paused her talking and her climbing at the same time.
Everyone did the same. The wind had stopped. Four pairs of eyes checked every direction, seeking what new threat this might signal. Bubbles continued to rise and pop, now far below them.
“Oo-ah!” Bassada swung at one thigh with her right hand. Her left slipped off a bar, and her face hit another. Before she could drop further, Louba slapped one hand on the blue backside and shoved another underneath. Bassada shrieked, but before Bott could see what, exactly, was being grabbed, he was slapping at his own body.
The whine of the swarm gave away its composition. No one had claimed credit for the electric moths, whether they were exotic organics or an invention of the Imperial labs. What was known on numerous planets for certain was the intensity of their voltage, and their preference for soft flesh over any other target.
Bott whistled and reached into a pocket. He didn’t suppose he’d be needing these souvenirs much longer.
“Thumbprinks, huh?” Louba watched as the moths followed one dropped digit down to the pool. “Member that….”
“Why should these playpretties pay us a visit just now?” mused the Klamathan aristocrat, slapping at a few moths which preferred her cleavage to the severed thumbs of former security personnel. “I wonder…aha!”
The majestic gold head reared. Bott glanced the same direction. A golden panel showed in the ceiling, just above where the dome reached its peak. Had the gold not checked that direction, the contestants might have been harried by stinging moths to hurry down to whatever peril waited on the other side of the dome.
“At’s a piddo!” cried Bassada, now sitting on the bars. “Let greengams go first and haul us after. She kin lift anything at’s loose!”
“Like you, sposin?” Louba balanced herself on the bars and rose slowly to reach for the circular door. Bott braced feet and hands for a new trap, perhaps more and larger insects, but nothing came out at them. The green Klamathan got a grip, and disappeared into the ceiling. Then green arms reached out.
“All clear!” she shouted. “Le’s have a customer!”
“I’m game fer a ride,” said Bassada, sliding over under the hole.
“You will wait your turn,” said Chlorda, sidling up. “Your arms are long enough to give me a boost.” The boost was less than dignified, but served its purpose. Gold legs disappeared into the opening as Chlorda called back a term Bott had not heard before, but understood. He was less personal when it came to boosting Bassada up through the exit.
“Yer nextest, Cap’n.” Bott studied the green arms and then considered the descent along the dome of bars. Not sure which was more perilous, he raised his arms and allowed himself to be collected.
All three women helped him find his way up, each using both hands for the purpose. He knew this groping was a sign they were accepting him as a companion, but he was not positive he wanted to be found THIS acceptable.
“Close the door,” he panted, “Before any moths follow us.”. While they checked the threat below, he was able to pull free of their assistance. Louba kicked the door across the doorway.
The room they had entered was a narrow rectangle, walls light grey with intermittent patches of darker grey. Hot and damp, it might be no more than venting for the fumes from below. That was hopeful: if they weren’t meant to be here there might be an actual way out. A dull whine made Bott think of the moths again.
“Better go,” he said, rising to his feet.
Chlorda nodded to the lighter end of the chamber, starting forward with one hand extended ahead of her at shoulder level. “Of course, we’d be free by now if I’d been allowed to the lead the group straight on.”
“Yah yah,” Bassada responded, pushing up next to her. “I believe ‘at. But we got a cap’n here now, an’ he outranks yez. Maybe YOU gonna get spankin’s, ‘is trip.”
Bott winced, remembering how Klamathan commanders conducted discipline aboard ship. Miscreants were also sentenced to stand in a corner, not a light punishment if that corner was handy to a crew of imaginative Klamathans. He glanced at the broad expanse of cloth across the backside of Louba Bobari Bomar, and then at his hands.
“Aboard my ships,” he said, trying to keep desperation out of his voice, “We made do with confinement to quarters and deductions from that crew member’s loot.”
“Loot?” Bassada Del Dorma whirled, her coat swirling a half second behind her body. Bott felt himself surrounded by muscular arms. “Oh, a pirate cap’n! A pirate, yet!”
“Gonna get out and scrummel up some loot!” The big blue Klamathan slapped her palms together and then threw them wide for a hug that encompassed both Bott and Bassada. Not to be outdone, the impressed aristocrat threw her gold body into the mix, and joined the jovial mauling. The pile collapsed to the floor, with Bott at bottom. Distracted by weight and odor and exclamations, he recognized that whine at the same time: it was an off-key, pitched=-up version of “My Beautiful Lady”, a ballad from his home planet. So this was indeed another torture room, and their progress was being monitored.
He started to explain this, and gagged on the general atmosphere. Green Klamathans , barring cologne, always smelled to him of coffee and burnt sugar, blues of bread and honey, and golds of vanilla. He missed the librarian; Nubry smelled like a sweaty crew member.
“Well, now.” Bassada stood up and smoothed wrinkles from her only garment. “No quarters ta confine us to, an’ we gots no loot, so yez’ll hafta do it our way. Beggin’ the cap’n’s pardon, I’m sure.” She hitched up her hems. “Unless yez’d like ta teach me a good lesson right now fer talkin’ back.”
The gold reached out and slapped the exposed buttock hard enough to leave a purple handprint. “Wait right there! Who said anything about this man being OUR captain?”
Bott was on firmer ground here. He rose, checking his pockets: Klamathan affection frequently had practical applications. The cards were still there. “If none of you wants to step aside for the others, a neutral party’s your logical choice. Besides, I can contact someone who may help.”
He squeezed the sides of the communication card. “Ship, you never told me there were prisoners aboard.”
“You never asked,”
The Klamathans stood back, imnpressed. “Where’n honeypot almighty’d ya pick up a playpretty like ‘at?” demanded Louba, massive green fingers reaching in.
Bott pulled his hand away but did not retreat. “I took it when I hijacked the Drover.”
He braced himself for another embrace, but after three pairs of very large eyes studied him for a moment, the Klamathans turned away for a conference. “It’s a trick,” said Bassada. “Gotta be a spy.”
“I say we let him play captain for a bit, even if he is a spy,” whispered the aristocrat. “He might leave if we don’t.”
“Like ta see him try,” said Louba, glancing at the pirate.
Bassada pulled her back down into the huddle. “Yez always busts alla best parts.”
“Do you know the Klamathan penalty for spying?” the Drover inquired. “It starts with a razor.” Bott shoved the card back into his pocket.
The Klamathan conference broke up, and they rejoined him, patting and poking. “Yer our cap’n,” Louba announced. “Leastways fer a coupla doors anyhew.”
Bott pulled free of the acclaim and pointed to the far end of the chamber. “There’s the first one, then.” He was rather proud of his ability to manage to think in this personal humidity AND the irritating background music. Apparently, the Drover didn’t know he had crew members who whistled farther off key than this.
They reached a square door without a handle, but with two lighted buttons in the center. Bott reached ut experimentally and just brushed the top button. Both buttons went out and the door shot straight up into the wall. He wondered what might have happened if he’d hit the lower button, but this was no time for pondering. He stepped through the square into the darkness, waving the hand that was not in the grenade satchel to warn the others back in case this was the wrong place to be.
He knew the Drover must still be in orbit around Lodeon VII, but this really looked as if they had made it outside. The rolling landscape must have been built in a factory, and the vast starlit sky projected from some hidden source.
Nearest the door were two high hills, with a broad road running between them, and narrower trails to the right and left. Louba stepped up next to Bott, scratching her left elbow. “Lemme see here. We better…yackit!”
She glanced back at Chlorda Diona Pollar, who had pinched her. The gold nodded toward Bott. “Ah!” said Louba, understanding.
Knowing the decision would now be left to him as captain, Bott studied the landscape. There could be no second guesses: the roads diverged too far for them to see the other two from whichever they took. “Ask yer pal in yer card,” suggested Bassada.
Nott knew how little good that would do. But he had to come up with a firm decision, and something to back it up. He doubted there was any chance of blowing part of a hill away, but reached into his grenade satchel. His hand came out without a grenade.
“Well, paint a stripe down me nose and set me to plowin’,” cried Louba Bobari Bomar, as he leafed through Nubry’s book. “A pirate what reads!”
Better not to claim too much. “No,” he said, “This looks like a book, but it’s a special coded map.” He riffled through the pages. “If the, um, bunnybunk is looking up in the picture, we have to turn left, and right if it’s looking down. Anything else, and we go straight ahead.”
“I have heard of such things,” said the gold aristocrat, nodding to her colleagues.
“Where did I leave off?” Bott turned the pages deliberately. “Here!”
There was nothing to recommend this page particularly beyond that it was light enough to be seen in the night atmosphere of this room. The animal was looking up into an orange bush, at a red slipper with a silver buckle. Bott wondered what it was all about.
”Kay.” The green Klamathan swung her massive hips to the left. “Let’s mobilate.”
Bott strode forward, exuding faith in his “map”. And for several yards, the book seemed to have picked a useful path. The ravine that was revealed around the other side of the hill was a momentary disappointment, but he saw the Drover had kindly provided a means of crossing the chasm. One end of a rope was tied to a spiky plant, and the other to a platform for passengers. Bott took hold of this.
“Tink yez puts yer feet over here, Cap’n, Luv,” said Bassada, “At’s a handle up on….”
“Be just like them to make the rope that much too short.” Bott glanced at the Klamathans and the ledge at the far side of the deep, dark ditch. “Better try it two at a time. If we make it, one can swing back for someone else. If not, we both swing back.”
“Or we could just turn back.” The gold sniffed. “It would also be just like them to give us a rope which will break during the swing.”
Klamathans, even under Klamathan captains, seldom proceeded on orders alone. “I’d’a gone right,” said Bassada. Louba said nothing, extending one leg and scratching at the mark left on her knee by a moth.
The other paths were probably no worse than this one, nor any better. But aside from this, to change direction would cast doubt on his book, and his guidance as captain. “No time to go back.” He glanced up. “There’ll be something happening soon. Look.”
Three heads tipped up. Stars were disappearing from the sky. “Better do sumpm,” said Louba, stepping toward the rope.
“I think you should try it.”
Bott had a grenade in his hand; the three Klamathans were crouched for a leap. Nubry was offended by none of this. She brushed dirt from her hair and dark stains from the front of her uniform. “That was a lot of work.” She nodded around the group. “Who’re your friends?”
Bott realized his hands had left the grenade satchel and were holding hers. He let them drop.
“We’ll leave introductions for the other side,” he said, assuming his most captainic tone. “Now we….”
Thunder shook the hill and the path. Looking up, Bott found all the stars were gone. “Come on. If your prayerstone can help us, we can use the boost.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think you’ll need my help, but you can have it.” She raised the stone to her lips and then tucked it into the neck of her tunic. “Who goes first?”
“The lightest ones.” He took her hand and wrapped its arm around her waist. “I’ll bring the rope back.”
“The little snirp…” grumbled Chlorda.
“Quiet,” ordered Bassada. “Can’tcha see it’s his sweetie?”
The rope made stretching sounds but did nothing drastic. Bott took hold of one of the hands at his waist.
“Bott?”
Clutching the wrist, he peeled it back. He shook it, and then let go.
“Bott!”
She screamed all the way down. Bott wondered whether the real Nubry would have gone on so long.
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