"Manicholo!"
The thermosensitive crystals tattooed into the man's dermis shifted color slightly, in a wave of cooler purple across the red visage. The reaching hand stopped. "What did you call me?"
Goth, still only half awake, struggled for an answer. "Uh. Manicholo. Isn't that your name?"
The plump sideshow entertainer scratched his head. "Weird," he said. "I've been considering it but I'll swear I haven't told a soul, yet. Look, kid. I'll have to see you off the premises. The local authorities would love something to bust us for, and although I understand your wanting to get off this dump, I don't want Himbo ornamenting their jail for juvie kidnap. This isn't the Empire and they have laws about kids here. Personally, I'd like to get off Nikkeldepain altogether, but the marks are still cranking through the turnstiles."
Goth nodded. "It's okay. I understand. I'm not from here, but I met the local flatfeet yesterday. They aren't the sharpest scribers in the box. I just needed a place to sleep, that's all. Don't worry, I'll go quietly."
Manicholo-to-be looked at her thoughtfully. "How did you find the store? How did you get in?"
You showed it to me somewhere in the future. I should have guessed it was a favorite spot of yours.
But that was not an answer that she could give. "Luck, I suppose."
"Exceptional luck," said the chameleon-man dryly.
"Um. I've been on a lattice ship before," admitted Goth. "So I knew what it was that I was looking for, and how to sneak in. Promise I will go now and not bring back any trouble for Himbo Petey. He's a decent old dope."
Manicholo had a disconcerting habit of noticing just what you didn't want him to. "He's not that old. And just how did you get past the perimeter?"
Himbo
wouldn't
be that old yet. Goth found herself very curious. How big was his moustache? And . . . "Is Dame Ethy with the Show?"
Her captor shook his head. "That does it. You're coming with me to talk to Himbo Petey, young lady."
Goth ported a glass lamp-stand five feet above a display of Medoirian armor and let it fall, then slipped away into no-shape as Manicholo turned to see what had happened.
"Wha—where . . . ?" Manicholo wasted precious seconds looking for her instead of closing the outer lock to the hulk that served as the second props store. By then Goth was outside. It was already quite bright out. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy was busy with its familiar morning chores, mucking out, cleaning up, preparing for the return of the crowds.
Pausert was probably already at school. She hadn't meant to sleep that long. Klatha. It took it out of you! She needed breakfast and to get back to her task—and not necessarily in that order either.
But on a whim, she followed Manicholo as he hurried along to the main part of the lattice, where the circus offices were. It wouldn't take her much out of her way—well, not more than it took to skirt the fanderbags' tail ends carefully. No-shape bent light around her, not more solid things.
Sure enough, Manicholo had stopped by to see a younger Himbo Petey. He was working on the mustachios, but he had a few years to go. They looked faintly ridiculous on his younger face, and Goth had to stifle a giggle.
"—intruder of some sort. A young girl. She seemed to know a great deal about the circus."
Himbo twirled his mustachios. "They do, you know. They find out as much as they can. So where did you find her, and how did she get away? We've got to be careful here, Fenn. The local authorities are ready to jump on us for anything."
Manicholo nodded. "I know. She was in the Props store. No. 2. Distracted me and ran, I think. Means she's probably hiding out somewhere."
Himbo sighed irritably. "We'll do a search. And contact that local councilor fellow, Onswud, and ask if they have any missing persons. Give me a description so that we can say we saw her. That way if it goes pear-shaped, we're on record as having tried and having reported the incident to them. I'll have a word with security. And you'd better make sure that she's not still in that rat-warren of a store, and see that it is locked."
Goth slipped off before he did all of that. She was right in her earlier judgment—Nikkeldepain City was already at work. She could just hope that young Pausert was safely in his school as she made her way along the street to his home.
"Why aren't you in class?" asked a sharp-eyed fellow in gray coveralls. He radiated
self-important minor government official
without having to say so.
"Great Patham! Look at that!" said Goth, pointing. He looked and she did a subtle light-shift on herself, making herself look a little more like her mother.
"What?" The minor official turned back. "What are you pointing at?"
"You should have looked faster," said Goth, shifting her voice too. "It's gone now. Some kind of animal."
The official peered again. "What color? I'm here to catch strays," he said proudly. "Sorry, I thought you were a lot younger."
He went on his way, followed by hard thoughts from Goth. The man's petty officiousness had required her to use a fair amount of her klatha energy for no good reason. The last night's sleep had restored some of that energy, true, and a good meal would restore still more. Still, she'd have to be careful.
Goth noticed that a vehicle sitting in the leafy street close to Pausert's home had an occupant, who was staring at her. She could only hope that they hadn't seen the subtle shift in age. She recognized the fellow as the man from the back of the air-truck yesterday.
Pausert had been rather disappointed when Vala had had to go. She'd been, well, quite unlike any other girl he'd ever met. The affair with the air-truck and police were just the way things happened in his life. But Vala wasn't. He indulged in a little daydreaming about her.
His mother sighed and tugged his ear. "I suppose that was a no."
"Huh? What, sorry . . . I . . . ah, was just thinking about something."
"Never mind. It's been quite a day," she said tiredly. "We had an incident at the institute today. That horrible Rapport boy and some of his friends broke in and were vandalizing the gardens. You should have seen the mess that they got themselves into. I'm glad you have better taste in friends."
Pausert wanted to say he just didn't have any friends, but that would have upset her, so he held his tongue and thought about Vala and the fight. And the sausages. He seemed to be hungry all of the time at the moment. It wasn't easy, growing up and being saddled with Great Uncle Threbus's debts. It didn't seem fair.
"So how was school?"
That was not a question Pausert really wanted to answer. So he tried a well-known diversion tactic. "The lawyers haven't got back to you yet about Great Uncle's will?"
She rubbed her eyes. "No. I'll have to go in and see them again tomorrow."
She'd been trying, determinedly, for the last three years. She was nothing if not stubborn, his mother. But lawyers were a money pit. "So what happened about Rapport and his gang?" Pausert asked.
"Oh, security was all for throwing the book at them. But he howled for his daddy and eventually they were let off with a caution and a very large bill for damages."
Pausert took a deep breath. That wouldn't make life easy. But then, life wasn't easy. The sheer joy of seeing his enemy splattered in Tyrian fruit juice was worth it. And although his mother had seen the tear and the black eye, apparently she'd decided not to say anything. Maybe she thought the police had done it. How could he tell her the truth, without giving away Vala's part in all of this? Anyway, there was no harm done, was there?
The next day when he saw Rapport and a few of his little friends, he realized that it wasn't that simple. The Tyrian fruit dye didn't come off easily. It didn't even scrub off that easily, judging from the red, raw skin. And it was apparent that the experience had some of the boys looking for new company—probably warned off by their parents—but the three who were the core of Rapport's crew were hoping for a rematch. He'd take on any one of them. He'd take any two of them. But four . . .
They let him know that they'd be waiting, after school. And this time he wasn't going to get away.
He couldn't walk any slower. And he couldn't find any more reason to delay. He took a deep breath and walked out through the gates of the Nikkeldepain Academy for the Sons and Daughters of Gentlemen and Officers. That was why they always had had it in for him. Because he really didn't belong here. He was a scholarship boy. And worse than that, they said that he hadn't got the scholarship fairly. That it had just been given to him because his great uncle had endowed the school with it. They could hardly have given it to someone who really deserved it, when Pausert had applied, could they? Huh. He'd won it fair and square. But it wasn't something that he could tell people who had already made up their minds.
"You took your time getting here," said Vala, leaning on the gatepost. "I explained to a couple of purple-splattered boys that were hanging around that they needed to get along home to mummy."
Pausert gaped. "You did what?" he finally got out.
Goth was quite proud of herself. Not only had she dealt with one of the watchers, but she'd had breakfast, and had also had her morning ablutions. She'd decided that the captain was pretty much family, and, if she'd asked him, that he'd have had no problems with her climbing in through a second-floor bathroom window and making use of the facilities. While she was at it she had a snoop around the family home. She felt a bit guilty about that, but, well, the captain really wouldn't mind. The younger Pausert might, but she wasn't planning to tell him until he was much older.
The home was clean, just like the captain always kept the
Venture.
The signs of scraping by on a limited income showed. There wasn't much in the way of food or spare clothing. But there were a lot of signs of travels to exotic places. Bangras from Gilars World hung on the wall. There were other items she didn't recognize. The walls were studded with pictures of various strange animals and plants. There were a number of excellent space-shots. And a photograph of an Imperial officer in pride of place, in the small lounge.
There was a report card from a school, too, which Goth found rather fascinating. She'd never been to a formal school of that sort. Karres did not teach its children like that. She studied his grades proprietorially. He was good at Math. Nikkeldepain Academy—she noted the name, and worked out just how she could use her 'porting skills to get the key for the back door to the house if she needed it again, before setting off to the school.
The boys had been easy to spot hanging about just outside the school's gates. The purple-blotched red faces did make them rather obvious, even if their behavior hadn't done so.
Obviously, they were waiting for Pausert. And he was going to make things worse by waiting until everyone else had dispersed. So Goth took steps herself. She'd learned a thing or two about Nikkeldepain from the captain and his attitudes. It was a pretty masculine society, rather like the Empire and very unlike Karres. She smiled nastily to herself. Toll always said that it was worth quietly fitting into a society—after all, Karres people were just passing through. Threbus said there were times for that, and times for establishing some respect. She'd do both.
"Hello, boys," she said, smiling at them. "Remember me?"
By the looks of it, they did. "You're the tough guys here. Are all these people going to be impressed when I tell them how I helped to improve your looks? I can improve them some more if you like. And I will do both, if you're still around when I've finished counting to three."
They were plainly torn between teaching her a lesson—huh! like that was going to happen!—and being seen fighting with a girl. One girl, at that, and the real threat of having that girl telling the locals just how they'd acquired purple blotches. Rapport's nerve broke first. "You can't protect him forever," he said, sniffing and turning away.
Watch me
, thought Goth.
But he'll be able to deal with worms like you himself, any day.
But she kept this to herself and waited. Pausert emerged, wary and fists balled, a few minutes later.
It did not take Goth very long to penetrate Pausert's armor. He was naturally gregarious, and liked to talk. And, well, she knew him. The most difficult thing was not to give that away. But, sitting on the rails of one of Nikkeldepain's many iron bridges, swinging their legs over the water, in compete contravention of the sign telling them not to, she heard the story of most of his life to date.
The surprising thing was just how little of it she had learned in all the time that they had spent together on the
Venture.
He'd obviously made the decision to put all of this behind him. And it wasn't really surprising.
"—and so he's still MIA. Mother says they think he deserted. She says that's impossible."
His father lost after a minor skirmish on an otherwise routine patrol. His one-man scout ship was never found. He was assumed to have fled the scene and dumped the ship somewhere.
The Imperial navy stopped paying his salary.
And then things got worse.
They'd come back to Nikkeldepain.
"Mother had an offer of a job at the Botany Institute." Pausert kicked the rails. "She's a xenobotanist and a plant pathologist. They really need her, but there are not a lot of other people who do, here on Nikkeldepain. Like, they don't need me either."
"Nonsense," said Goth. "But why did you even come back to Nikkeldepain? There are xenobotany places inside the Empire. There's one in the capital, and one on Green Galaine. There must be lots of them."
Pausert shrugged. "Probably. But Mom had inherited the house. Seeing as my father is looked on almost like a traitor or something in the Empire military, I suppose she wanted to get out of there. And she had a house and job offer here. Only when we got here, that's when things got really complicated. See, the law around here says that your heirs also inherit your debts. And it seems like Great Uncle disappeared owing a few people some money. Not a lot by his standards maybe. Nothing much against the estate. But a lot of money for us."