Keeper of the Heart (5 page)

“What’s your
point
, Martha?”

“Your mother may wield a lot of influence where your father is concerned, but not when it comes to the well-being of his Sha-Ka’ani. This sounds more like a warrior idea, a little proof positive of who’s the superior fighter. I just wonder what brought it on.”

“You should have asked Brock.”

“That cretin wouldn’t tell. He just
loves
keeping Challen’s motives secret. For whatever miscircuited reason that had him class me with every other female, he now has it in his mind that I have no business involving myself in
warrior
business. He also won’t admit that I’m his superior, when any fool knows that a Mock II’s intelligence and capabilities increase with age, and I’m
older
than he is.”

“You don’t have to convince me, Martha.” Shanelle grinned.

She headed for the Sanitary corner, activating the walls for a little privacy. Of course, the walls didn’t affect the Rover’s communications system, which meant Martha’s voice could follow her anywhere. It did.

“You do realize,” Martha was saying now, “what this competition means, don’t you? There will be warriors down there who don’t
know
you. And with the city open to visitors, you won’t even have to show up in a
chauri,
which would declare you a Kan-is-Tran woman. As far as the out-of-town warriors will know, you could be a visitor yourself. That means you won’t be off limits, and neither will they. Are you catching my drift, kiddo?”

“Loud and clear, Martha.”

But Shanelle had already realized the implications for herself, and was now feeling a new kind of excitement that had nothing to do with homecoming. This really was a golden opportunity, one she had no intention of passing up—but not for the same reason Martha had in mind. If there were going to be a great many warriors down there, there were bound to be a great many male visitors, too, possibly the best-of-the-best from other planets. Not even possibly. They
had
to be the best if they were here to compete with warriors. Talk about saving time and energy. Instead of her having to go to their planets to find them, they had come to hers.

“Well?” Martha prompted.

“So maybe I’ll sample a warrior before I leave, just so I’ll know what I’m escaping from.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Or maybe I’ll find a visitor I like even better.”

“Pull Martha’s leg, why don’t you?” the computer scoffed.

“You don’t think that’s a possibility?”

“It’s a well-known fact that of all humanoids, Sha-Ka’ani males are superior. They don’t put them together any better, or are any better-looking, than right at home.”

“That’s a whopper and you know it.” Shanelle laughed. “Every world has its fine examples of manhood, even if they end up being the exception to the norm.”

“You didn’t find any to tempt you on Kystran, and how could you, being spoiled by what you’ve got at home?”

“I wasn’t there long enough, Martha, nor did I leave Gallion City to tour the rest of the planet.”

“All right, all right,” Martha said in exasperation. “There’s no point in arguing about it when the truth will tell. I’ll be monitoring your vital stats while you’re down there, so I’ll know
exactly
when your libido gets snagged.”

“Well, keep it to yourself. If it’s going to happen, and I do mean
if,
I’d like to figure it out for myself.”

The head of the Visitor’s Center was on hand to welcome Shanelle back to the planet. She was surprised, because Mr. Rampon usually didn’t leave his plush office unless Tedra or Challen made an appearance at the Center, or unless they were expecting some really important visitor.

“Welcome, Miss Ly-San-Ter, welcome,” he began effusively. “Your mother has purchased an airobus for you, and a good thing, too. Our airobuses can’t keep up with the demand, because of the competitions. We’ve had
waiting
lines, if you can believe it.”

All Shanelle heard was that she had her own airobus, and her smile turned brilliant. “Did mother tell you I wouldn’t need a pilot?”

“She mentioned it, and a good thing, too, since we don’t
have
any extra pilots just now. She also mentioned that you might be flying for us in the near future.”

“I just might.” Shanelle grinned.

“Well, if you’ll step this way, I’ll sign your guests through personally, to save time.”

Shanelle was again surprised. “Why, thank you Mr. Rampon.”

“Just ask him what he wants, Shani.” Martha’s voice drifted up from Shanelle’s waist where the computer link was attached to her belt.

Shanelle’s cheeks pinkened, but not nearly as much as Mr. Rampon’s. He cleared his voice and said uncomfortably, “As it happens, I do have a small favor to ask. One of the High Kings of Century III arrived a while ago. We were able to fly him and his party to the bus station below Sha-Ka-Ra, but the pilot returned to inform me that Ground Transport has run out of
hataari
to rent, and even after all the extra mounts that were brought in.”

“You’re saying he’s stuck at the station?”

“Exactly. And as you know, it’s not a short walk from the station to the city, and it’s all uphill. Not that such an esteemed personage would even consider walking, nor can we suggest it. Those High Kings take insult so easily.”

Shanelle pictured a pompous, overweight king trying to climb the steep, winding road to Sha-Ka-Ra and almost laughed. “No, we can’t have him walking.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind taking his party up with yours?”

“Not at all. One
hataar
does seat two, even three people quite comfortably.”

“And a good thing, too, or we would have even more visitors stranded at the bus station. And I do appreciate this. I will consider it a personal favor.”

Shanelle said a few more words about its being no problem, then left her friends with the administrator while she and Corth went to look over her new airobus at the front of the Center. It took at least five minutes just to get there, for the Center’s main building was huge.

The entire complex sat on about two square miles of land, with the port taking up half that area, and now it was overly crowded with spacecraft from dozens of different worlds. The warehouses took up another big section where the trade goods were stored. Then there was housing for the Trade Ambassadors, more quarters for Security and personnel, still more for visitors who weren’t staying long. Then there were the buildings for maintenance, repair, storage, and everything else necessary to run what was in effect a small city.

“And yet they can’t get a few people up to Sha-Ka-Ra,” Shanelle mumbled to herself.

Martha didn’t ask what she was talking about; she just put her two cents in. “Your father may have relaxed the rules enough to let visitors into the city, or to be more exact, into the park, but I didn’t think he’d relax them far enough to let the buses land in the city. That’s a law for the whole planet, not just here. Sha-Ka-Ra is the only city visitors
can
still get into, even if just to see your father. They are forbidden to travel anywhere else.”

“I know the laws, Martha.”

“Then stop complaining.”

“I wasn’t. It just seems to me that if father was going to let them in for these competitions, he should have made it a bit easier for them to get there.”

“When has he
ever
tried to make things easy for visitors?”

Shanelle laughed. It was true. Even before the planet had been closed to tourism, Challen hadn’t got along well with the men from other worlds, but no worse than any warrior. Tedra had once summed it up nicely. “Visitors are either too frightened of warriors, and subsequently too subservient, or too condescending, thinking of them as nothing but barbarians in need of civilizing. They don’t leave a warrior a middle ground to deal with them.”

But they had to be dealt with. The natural resources of the planet were too much in demand, in particular gaali stones, which had turned out to be such an incredible power source that they even took the place of crysillium, once again cutting long-distance space travel time down by nearly half.

The Sha-Ka’ani had used gaali stones raw, merely for lighting. Advanced worlds had the technology to put a single stone to work to power a whole city, or a whole spaceship the size of a Transport Rover. And one stone was inexhaustible. The energy in the stones never depleted. Small wonder energy-poor worlds might have gone to war with Sha-Ka’an if gaali stones couldn’t be traded for. And the Ly-San-Ter family owned the largest source on the planet, half a mountain full, which had made them one of the wealthiest families in two Star Systems.

But when war was threatened, it wasn’t from the outside worlds, but from right at home. Too many visitors had flaunted the laws too many times, traveling where they weren’t welcome, helping themselves to women they weren’t allowed to have, stealing the planet’s resources instead of trading for them. Shanelle wasn’t sure which particular incident had set off the fireworks, since she had been too young at the time. But she knew a huge army of warriors from the eastern country of Ba-Har-an had ridden to Kan-is-Tra, a journey taking months because Ba-Har-an was so far away. And there would have been widespread bloodshed of the visitor kind if the perpetrators of the incident hadn’t been turned over to them and the planet closed down.

Of course, the planet couldn’t be closed down completely. Compromises had to be made. So bus stations had been installed outside every town and city, inconspicuous, mere telecomms where a Transport airobus could be sent for if someone had something he wished to trade. The airobuses brought the Sha-Ka’ani merchants to the Visitor’s Center, then returned them to their towns. The Trade Ambassadors no longer got to go seeking for what they wanted, but had to wait and hope it would come to them. Not surprising, the Ba-Har-ani never traded again with anyone outside their own country.

“Did you know about this, Martha?” Shanelle asked as she looked over the brand-new, shiny sky-blue Transport airobus.

“ ‘Course I did. Tedra ordered it right after you left for Kystran. Of course, that was before she figured out that piloting for the Center wasn’t all you were planning to do.”

“Let’s not rehash that again. I will make a sincere effort to fall in love very quickly, at least before my father makes his decision and it’s out of my hands.”

“Mutual lust will do for starters. After all, Tedra didn’t love Challen right off. It took at least a week.”

Shanelle touched down on the solidite landing pad at the bottom of Mount Raik without a hitch. The airobus handled like a dream. It was much larger than the one-seater Fleetwing II that she had been using on Kystran to get around in, but then she had learned in her World Discovery class how to fly all of the more modern single-pilot ships known in the Centura Star System. The airobus seated twenty comfortably, with a large cargo bay in the back for trade goods.

Shanelle opened the hatch just before turning to her friends. “This is the end of the easy part. From here on we rough it.”

“You don’t mean on
those,
do you?” Jadd asked, staring in horror at the waiting
hataari
on one end of the solidite paving.

Shanelle grinned, following his gaze. The four-legged Sha-Ka’ani beasts did take getting used to.

Huge, shaggy-haired, with long, wide backs that were as high off the ground as Shanelle was tall. But they were placid creatures, well adjusted to working with man.

But before she could reassure Jadd, Caris said with a good deal of awe, “My Stars, Shani, so that’s what they look like!” She wasn’t even looking at the
hataari,
but at the four warriors waiting with them. “I expected them to be big, but not
that
big.”

“Shani said they’re gentle with women,” Cira reminded her, her own voice sounding eager. “I’m willing to find out.”

“You may have to wait on that,” Yari put in. “Looks like we got trouble coming.”

Shanelle glanced toward the other end of the landing pad as she stepped off the airobus, and sure enough, a party of five men was heading in her direction, none of them looking very friendly. In fact, the short, rotund fellow in the lead looked as if he was just short of hopping-around mad.

Corth moved in front of Shanelle to block her view of the group just as it arrived. Six feet four and dressed in the leather
bracs
of a warrior, complete with sword—Shanelle’s sword, to be exact— Corth brought the round, little man up short, but not too short. The fellow was still seething with belligerence.

“Get out of my way, man,” he ordered Corth. “I demand to speak with the pilot of this bus.”

Corth, of course, didn’t budge, so Shanelle stepped to the side of him to say, “That would be me.”

“Then I will inform you, young woman, that I will have the job of every incompetent at your Center. How dare you people treat His Eminence, the High King, in such a shoddy manner. Do you even know who you’re dealing with? This is intolerable—”

Shanelle had the feeling he was only working up to a really good tirade, so she cut in. “It’s not the Center’s fault that so many visitors showed up for the competitions and that there weren’t enough
hataari
to carry them all. But I’m here to offer you a ride if you want it.”