Pausert tugged his chin. "Just what is wrong with you? And your silent friends?"
One of the two tall men said. "There were twenty of us, once. And when we were brought here, there were some others from other ships. Some went over the wall. You can go too."
Their tone said they wouldn't be going along.
Pausert sighed and sat down. "Look. I know this may seem unbelievable to you, but we are going to get out of here. I'm willing to take you with us. But the more you can tell us about this situation, the more likely that becomes. The Megair Cannibals made some mistakes thinking they could take us captive. They got panicked and they haven't searched us for weapons."
"You don't understand," said the tattooed man. "They never do. They don't mind you breaking out. They want you to run. They want you to try to fight. If one of them gets killed, they don't care. He was obviously a weakling—and they eat him too."
"The only thing you can do is stay thin, and not give them what they want," said the other skinny man. He cackled suddenly. "Starvation'll kill you eventually, and Patham have mercy on us for what must seem like suicide. But if you die skinny, you deny them what they need."
He looked like he was a fair way along toward his goal.
"Well," said the captain. "You might as well eat, get your strength up, because we are getting out of here."
"No one gets off Megair except inside the Cannibals' bellies," said the tattooed man. "Sorry. There is no way out."
"If I have to take one of their ships instead of my own, we're going to prove you wrong," said Pausert.
"It's no good," said one of the tall thin ones. The two were as alike as two peas in a pod. Pausert wondered if they were brothers.
"Their ships don't work the same as ours," the man continued. "That's been tried. We can't fly them. Besides—escape from under those space guns? Ha. We're here to be food."
"I'm here to give indigestion to the first one of them that tries," said the Leewit. "Why do they want to eat people, anyway?"
The other tall skinny man cackled again. "They have to. The plants of Megair 4 can't provide all the micronutrients they require. They need meat, and there's not much in the way of animal life in these miserable swamps except small animals and slugs and bugs."
"Yeah?" said the Leewit. "We have news for them. We're not dinner."
Pausert had to agree with her about that. As soon as Goth got here, it would be time to go. With or without these captives—but he couldn't really leave them to be eaten. The question was, where was Goth? He was starting to get worried.
Goth, having now applied logic, had finally arrived at the surface, and was making her way to the walled compound. Only, whereas below surface the collar of bones and wire had caused the other Cannibals to avoid her, here it was attracting unwanted attention. Obviously she was in the wrong place at the wrong time—or the wrong place, unescorted. The problem was that changing her appearance was a bit more difficult. She needed someplace where she was not observed, and the gray-skins seemed to be all over the place.
Several of them had started towards her, and had then sheered off, as if their courage deserted them. Goth wished that she had a slightly better idea of what was going on! Still, the low-walled compound on the edge of the spacefield was about the only place she hadn't been yet. Her sister and the captain had to be there.
She had barely a hundred yards to go when a big gray-skinned Megair Cannibal lurched out of the rain at her. He was going to attack her! But she'd walked all over the inside of their mound and they'd just gotten out of her way. What was wrong now?
Whatever it was, she had to deal with it. She decided to do a light-shift split, the trick she'd learned from the vatchlet. There were suddenly four of the nasty looking Cannibals with a collar of bones at their throats—none of which was actually her.
The attacker paused mid-stride and almost fell over. Then he retreated, whimpering. Goth noticed that as well as the teeth being filed, the nails on the Megair Cannibal's hands had been cut into points. He hadn't been about to attack her with his weapons, but with his hands and teeth!
It started to rain even harder, really sousing down in thick sheets. The sooner they got off this horrible world, the better, Goth decided, as the four images walked toward the stockade. So far, all she could say about the place was that the Megair Cannibals deserved it. They were a problem that Karres needed to turn its attention to. Moander, the Nuri globes, and Manaret had preoccupied her world's attention for some time now. But those threats had been dealt with, and it was Megair's turn soon, if not maybe right next.
She wondered just how the Cannibals had dealt with the Phantom ships and how they'd survived the Nuri globes. They weren't that far from the dead suns of the Tark Nembi cluster here. She knew that their ships had prowled the edges of the Empire for a long time, even outside the Chaladoor.
Nearly at the gates now, Goth was wondering how she'd get in. Then she spotted some more dim figures approaching through the rain. Figuring that no one could see her disappear in this rain, Goth slipped away into no-shape.
The party of Megair Cannibals approached. It was one of their high ones, by the collar—and what Goth had plainly been missing, which was an escort of lesser gray-faces. If the rain was bothering them, they were certainly not letting on. A lone gate-guard, whom Goth had not even seen in his gate-house, hissed a challenge at them.
A quick, nasty fight ensued. The gate guard was overwhelmed and the collared one left his followers outside. As Goth slipped in behind him, she realized that they were tearing the corpse apart.
"It's one of their lords," said the tattooed Ta'zara in a hushed whisper. "They never come out here,"
"How do you know?" said Pausert, keeping calm. Could this be Goth? Where was she?
"The collar. They hang a finger-bone from each kill on it. The more bones, the more rank."
"Rank all right. They smell," said the Leewit, smiling suddenly. The littlest witch had been putting a brave face on it all, but Pausert could tell that this place made her uneasy. That was hardly surprising, really. She'd also plainly found the dispirited prisoners depressing.
A moment later, the captain felt ghostly fingers squeeze his. Goth! His relief was of such an order that he smiled at the oncoming Megair Cannibal lord.
The Cannibal lord seemed to find that cause for wariness. He stopped short of them and spoke. He did not speak in croaks and whistles, but in heavily accented Imperial Universum. "We find no special things on ship. Ship do not go."
"That's what we told you," said Pausert.
"Ship not same as enemy." He made the statement as if calling for an explanation of that.
"I could have told you that too. We tried to tell you, in fact."
"The enemy still is there. We find nothing—three huntership try to leave. If you get here, we can go. We can go to hunt. We need meat."
"We are busy dealing with them. We are going to get rid of them." Pausert certainly wasn't telling the Cannibal anything useful. The one advantage to having the Phantom ships patrolling the Chaladoor was keeping creatures like these from raiding ships in the civilized parts outside it.
A thought crossed the captain's mind. They had loot, generations worth of loot, probably including various electronics. Maybe even a multiplier link. The Megair Cannibals were no soft target. But compared to the Nuri globes or the Phantom ships, easy to deal with. The Daal of Uldune could probably do it, let alone the mighty Empire. The cluster would be hard to capture and a bad place to fight, but it could be effectively blockaded.
On the other hand, the Phantom ships could not be blockaded or easily fought.
"We need a part to fix our ship," he said, "and we'll get away and have our people deal with them. We just came to establish what the problem was."
"The enemy cannot be escaped," stated the Cannibal.
"We got here, didn't we?" said Pausert reasonably. "Let us go. What do you lose if we don't succeed?"
The gray-faced Cannibal lord stood wrinkling his nose, obviously searching for words. Eventually he resorted to grunts, croaks and whistles of his own strange language.
The Leewit translated. "He says he's for losing nothing. But the high lord Gwarrr gave the orders about you. He'd have to be for being eaten, first." The Leewit paused, frowned. "If I'm understanding it right, Captain, these guys are not very good at ever admitting they're wrong. If a leader gets challenged, well, the challenger has to beat him. And the loser gets eaten."
"Literally dog-eat-dog politics!" said Pausert. He smiled thinly. "I wish I could get some of the councilors from Nikkeldepain to visit here for a bit. Ask him what he wants to do. I think it'll be clearer in his own language."
The Leewit did, and then translated the reply. "He says nothing is for the doing, then. The Phantom ships have got them trapped. Maybe they will find a way to defend against the Phantom ships, just like they did against the Nuris. If not, they're for eating each other on this terrible planet they've been trapped on."
Pausert was surprised to find himself agreeing with the Cannibal about anything. And surprised to hear one of them describe their home as a terrible planet.
The Leewit was plainly taken aback herself. She asked something, and the gray-faced man with red eyes and sharpened teeth replied. At length.
"What was that?" asked Pausert.
"I asked him why they live here, if it's so miserable. He said when heaven broke—that's sort of what he said, I think—their fleet was trapped here. At first, they thought this place was like home, just colder. But the prey was slow and stupid and they hunted them all out. What's left isn't worth hunting. So now they have to hunt off-world, but they cannot get off because of the enemy."
"I have to ask," he said, thinking that once they got out of here they'd have to deal with these . . . From close up, if you ignored the color of their skins and the red eyes and the sharpened teeth and nails and the receding chins, they looked almost human. "Why do you hunt and eat people? Why don't you just farm? Or if you have to hunt, hunt animals?"
The Megair Cannibal drew himself back, obviously offended. He rattled off some words that the Leewit translated as: "Hunting is high honor. Cannot look for prey that is lesser."
That was a rather different way of looking at it, the captain had to acknowledge. It still didn't clear things up too well, as far as what to do with them in the long term, or even how to get out of here in the short term. There was always the Egger Route, but not for the dear old
Venture.
Pausert faced the Cannibal lord, with the one question that was still on his mind. "So why did you come and see us, then?"
The red eyed being stared back at him. "To know." And it turned and walked away, back to the gate.
"They're just plain weird," said Goth, when he'd gone. "Let's go and sit on the far side over there, away from these people. I need to tell you all the things I've seen. And then we need to break out of here."
"I can't tell you how good it is to have you with us again, Goth," said the captain quietly, as they walked around the edge of the compound, keeping under the eave. "I worry. I know. I don't need to—you're a hot witch. But I do anyway."
"Just to keep in practice," said Goth, with a chuckle. "You know how much trouble you caused me with that whistle, Leewit? I got to explore that whole anthill before I could find you. They're not nice, these Cannibals, but they're not stupid either. That's quite a fort."
"I really don't like this place," said the Leewit. "It's like the whole place is sick, sort of."
Pausert felt the vague prickle of klatha force. The Leewit was a healer—or would be when she'd grown up. Most of the time, she was a little girl and something of a hooligan. He squeezed her hand. "I think we need to get out. I think we need to go and do some scavenging in among those derelicts in the junkyard, fix the
Venture,
load these captives up and get out of here, double quick time. Only thing is, how are we going to leave? Egger Route? We can't leave these captives to get eaten, but I am reluctant . . ."
"We can deal with their communications and even their detection system," said Goth cheerfully. "I can break them up pretty well without the Leewit—or I can take her in there and let her whistle at them."
"Let me whistle down the communication system!" said the Leewit gleefully. "That'll bust up more than just the command post. It'll bust everything that's listening in too. Remember? Like we did with Moander!"
Pausert couldn't help but smile at the thought. "I like it. I like it a lot."
"Good. Then I think we should go before they start adding the
Venture
to the scrap pile, after they've pulled everything out of her."
"I hadn't thought about that," said Pausert, taken aback. "Well. Up the pole and into the swamp, eh. We can't leave Vezzarn, but what about the others?"
"We'll come and fetch them. Mebeckey hasn't said a word since they took us captive. It's a bit worrying. He usually talks all the time, and now he's shut up."
"Could be fear, I suppose. This place is enough to give me the willies. But what do we do with him?"
"Leave him," said the Leewit and Goth simultaneously. Obviously something about the fellow prickled both of them too.
Vezzarn had come sauntering over. "What now, Your Wisdoms?" he asked. "I assume Missy Goth is around somewhere. 'Cause I see you smiling, Captain. That Mebeckey is trying to find out how they decide who gets eaten first."
"We're about to make a break," said Goth, still invisible. "I assume they're watching this place somehow, and they'll follow us. Except we're going back to the
Venture
before they loot bits of her. The captain thinks we might be able to get a replacement multiplier link out of one of the wrecks."
"I reckon they must have some kind of spy-ray tracker on the people in this place," said Vezzarn. "In my old line of business I had to fool those a few times. I brought a scrambler from the ship. It's in my boot heel, with the lock-picks and my UW."