Title: After the Rescue

Part: NEW 27/73

Author: Karmen Ghia, karmen_ghia@yahoo.com

Series: TOS

Romance Code: S/Mc and then some.

Rating: NC-17

Appendices: http://members.tripod.com/karmen_ghia/atrappendices.html

See part one for disclaimers, etc.

"The Federation has seized Rovirin and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it," Jir told his brothers from the bridge of his Talljet Inc. ship. "The fucking ridgeheads didn't even lift a finger to help me. Without Maja to keep them on the straight and narrow and on our side, they just don't give a damn about ornery little planets like Rovirin."

There was a longish silence as Hobie and Ling digested this news. Hobie adjusting to losing a strategic position in non-aligned space yet again. Ling, to losing the rich mineral wealth and skilled labor.

"Well, shit," Hobie said at last. "Pack us up and get outta there, Noli."

Jir closed his eyes and nodded. He'd given the order to pack up and move out hours ago.

"And lighten up, darlin'," Hobie soothed. "It's a big galaxy ..."

"... with room for everyone," Jir and Ling finished bitterly for him.

"Hobie," Jir ventured after a pause. "Are you sure you want to send Mr. Death and Mr. Suffering after them?" he asked, referring to Yrit and Gvo.

"Yes. You ever been in Tziviian space? With your shields down, it's like those nightmares where you're running for your life but never get anywhere, while the danger gets closer and closer. Only nightmares can live in a nightmare."

* * *

Maja had taken a look at the city on the craft's scanners and decided to crash in privacy a ways from it. In order to hide the craft, he'd chosen a marshy, tree-filled plain. After a few bumps and a thump, Sarek and he pried open the doors and waded to a sandbar. They stood quietly, collecting their thoughts, catching their breath and watching the shuttlecraft sink into the mud and disappear.

"I hear vehicle traffic in that direction, Maja," Sarek said after a moment. "Come."

Maja nodded, glad to just follow Sarek for the time being.

They made their careful way to a multi-lane road and began to walk alongside it. It started to rain. Sarek extended his cloaked arm and Maja slipped under both. Maja slipped his arm around Sarek's waist and supported the Vulcan a little, also quietly sending a low level of energy into him. They trudged damply along for quite a ways.

Maja was pleased and then dismayed when a huge ugly freighter truck pulled up next to them and a huge even uglier humanoid leaned out and leered at him, saying in Patois: "Riiiide, pretty one?"

He felt Sarek's arm tighten around him.

"Say no," the Vulcan whispered.

"It's too far to walk in this rain," Maja hissed back, sotto voce and then yelled: "For both of us, trucker."

"Yah, yah, yah. K'min, k'min, k'min," he chanted, letting down a ladder for them.

Maja pushed Sarek ahead of him, just so the trucker didn't try to pull a fast one, and climbed in himself.

"You sit next to me, pretty one," the trucker snarled as he dragged Maja across Sarek's lap. He encircled Maja's thigh with one huge hand and squeezed gently before turning to his truck controls.

The truck roared off and switched to hover mode, gliding toward the blue blob of a city on the greenish horizon.

* * *

"How are you holding up, Commander Albany?" Hobie asked gently in Standard, handing the Terran a glass of Loegerian brandy.

"Well, thank you, Captain Talljet," Albany said, relaxing, for the first time in days, into a plush chair in Hobie's cabin. "Thank you for looking after my crew." 'They are my crew now,' he thought sadly.

"We would none of us be here it she hadn't destroyed the mothership, Terran," Hobie responded to Albany's sadness. "The needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few. Your good captain knew that and acted on it as would few ever have the courage."

Albany nodded; knowing the pirate was right didn't make it any less sad.

"Then let's drink to her." Hobie stood. 'And then I'll take you to bed and see if I can't ease some of that sadness of yours,' he thought. "To Captain Maria Norris, whose name and memory I shall defend forever."

"To Captain Maria Norris," Albany murmured, looking into Hobie's caressing eyes. They tapped their snifters and drank in silence.

Hobie was about to make his move when his comm line sounded beneath the Terran's hearing.

"They're here," was all Oza-Tol had to say.

Hobie told him to bring them in.

"Will you excuse me while I conduct a little business in Patois, Commander?" he asked Albany politely.

"Of course, Captain Talljet," Albany replied.

"Oh, call me Hobie." Hobie turned his attention to the door and watched it slide open.

As often as he'd hired Mr. Yrit and Mr. Gvo for this, that or the other thing, Hobie'd never overcome the chill that ran up his spine every time he laid eyes on them. He felt Albany freeze up behind him and turned around. He laid two gentle fingers on the Terran's temple: "Sleep a little, yes, sleep," and settled the Terran's head on the tabletop. He turned back.

The tall, pale bounty hunters were flanked by Ling, Oza-Tol, Neria-Tza and Mizat - four of the strongest telepaths among their ships - and still their energy slithered obscenely around the room. No one offered them a chair as no one wanted them there that long.

"You sssent forrr usss, pirate?" Yrit hissed in Patois, his vocal cords not used to working but knowing Hobie would never unshield enough for telepathy.

"Aye." Hobie kept his gaze on Yrit's chest, no one else made eye contact, it was too hypnotic, too dangerous with psychic vampires like these. "Master Ghet of the Klingon Empire is castaway on a planet in the Tziviian Autonomous Zone somewhere near prina9924455.34. We want you to get him, and Sarek the Vulcan, back." He did not describe either Maja or Sarek to these creatures who saw reality only by its psychic emanations.

"Sssssssarek," hissed Gvo, also unused to speech. "How to find them booooth?"

"They will be together or one will be dead. In that case bring the one that lives."

"And if not together?" Yrit breathed.

Hobie thought about this: Yrit and Gvo were MageCheqs and like the Talljets had a certain amount of second sight. Worse, Yrit was a PholCheq and the Phols were the oracles of the galaxy. Gvo was a CvomiCheq, also psychic but more skilled in reading the portents in the fabric of the universe than the visions of the Phols. So Hobie thought for a moment about what Yrit was saying to him.

"Then bring Master Ghet only," he said at last.

There was a silence but they could feel the hunters' energy redirect to each other as they conferred on the matter at hand.

"The pricsssse for one is one half Prossssi tonne of dilithium chryssssssssssstals. For two is one Prosssi tonne of sssssame."

Ling suppressed an internal flinch; the price was the annual GDP of Vulcan.

"You're mad. The Klingons and the Vulcans won't pay that much," Hobie lied.

"Klingonsssss, Vulcanssss not paying," Gvo breathed. "Master Ghet your brotherrrr."

"Nevertheless, that's still outrageous," Hobie stated, wishing Jir were here to haggle with these ghouls as he had last time they'd cut a deal with them. Jir was brilliant at striking a deal, even with Mr. Death and Mr. Suffering.

They went back and forth for a while and finally agreed on .75 Vitisi tonne, not Prosi tonne, for two and .32 Vitisi tonne for one.

Ling tried not to be too relieved; the new deal was still the first quarter GDP of Vulcan, maybe a tad more.

"And you may not feed on them. If they come to me psychically damaged, even scratched, I'll kill you both," Hobie told the vampires as if he were telling them the time of day.

Now came the part everyone dreaded: the hunters would need something to track from.

Hobie produced one of his dearest treasures: Maja's most recent sketchbook. The all watched in horror as the vampires pawed it and drew its emanations into themselves.

/yessss .... yessss/

Hobie closed his mind to their obscenity.

They placed the object on the deck, knowing Hobie would not touch it until their energy, which never penetrated anything very deeply or very long, had completely dissipated.

For Sarek, Hobie produced something that surprised Ling a little: a finely carved tahola wood hairbrush with a few silky onyx hair still in it.

The bounty hunters spent more time, much more time, with this object...

/very faint...well shielded...contained, contained.../

... but finally put it down.

The pirates turned to go but Messrs. Yrit and Gvo did not move.

"How issss my sssssson, Hobie?" Yrit hissed. Yrit and Gvo were lovers and like most MageCheqs, had flipped for each other and had six children between them. Unlike the Talljets, however, they had sold their children to the highest bidders. And the bidding had been sky high as these children were, with proper training, likely to grow into prophets. Jir had gotten a good deal on Laninin because the child was born blind and Jir had caught Yrit in a sentimental moment about his youngest and last child. The price was also low because Yrit and Gvo were allowed to visit him in Ling's joyhouse whenever they wanted, provided they gave enough notice. (Even powerful empaths like Qhoshi, the madam, and Ling's employees needed time to prepare for creatures such as these two.) The pair had never done so, but always asked whichever Talljet they saw about the child.

"He's fine, Mr. Yrit," Hobie said. "I saw him five months ago. The empaths are teaching him well and he is very good at orienteering."

"What issss?" Gvo asked.

"It's following a trail of objects embedded with energy," Hobie said. 'Like you do,' he thought. "Who knows, he might grow up to be a bounty hunter."

Mr. Yrit and Mr. Gvo slammed up their shields for a little privacy, left the room and shortly thereafter, the ship.

Hobie woke Commander Albany and sent him to bed. Perhaps he'd seduce him tomorrow, tonight he wanted no more foreign energy in his area. He went to bed alone and dreamed of Laninin, empty eyes glowing, following the faintest whisper of ancient dried tears.

* * *

Maja didn't need second sight to know what was going to happen when the trucker pulled out his huge ugly cock and waved it at him.

"Mouth or hands, pretty one, up to you," he leered.

Maja felt Sarek turn to stone behind him: "Make him stop the truck so we may get out, Maja."

"We're on a bridge with no walkway, Sait (old man), and he won't stop, he'll just open the door and shove us into the water," Maja murmured in Vulcan as he slowly scooted near the trucker. Shielding the energy in his hand as best he could he made contact with the clammy flesh. He drew back and tried again more successfully even though he couldn't get his long fingers all the way around it. The trucker didn't seem to mind, he snaked an arm around the cringing MageCheq and crushed him into his smelly armpit. Not that Maja and Sarek smelled divine after their time in the fetid prison ship, but still, even so, Maja was revolted by the feel and smell of the trucker.

'And,' he thought, establishing a jerking rhythm the trucker moaned his approval for, 'if I try to meld with him while he's driving he might crash and then where are we? Dead or maimed.' He visualized the trucker dead instead of panting and moaning next to him. He increased his grip and tempo. 'C'mon, let's get this over with, you ugly targ dick,' Maja thought savagely as the trucker began to wail and bounce in his seat.

When Maja finally felt the vile object begin to jerk and spew in his hand, he pointed it at the driver's door and looked away from the pale orange foam splattering and sliding down it. When it had finished spewing and the trucker had stopped screaming and bouncing and released him, Maja removed his hand and kept it well away from any other parts of his body. He scooted as close to Sarek as he could, trying not to gag too obviously.

Sarek, who'd split his attention between the hand job and the water, gauging their chances of swimming away from all this, put his arm around Maja and offered him the corner of his still damp cloak to wipe his hand on.

Maja gratefully accepted and wiped both hands as if he were trying to remove a layer of skin.

The three were silent for some time, each deep in their own thoughts.

As they neared the end of the bridge (where Maja had emphatically requested to be dropped off), at the outskirts of the city, the trucker cleared his throat and glanced nervously over at them: "I, ah, I got a little house in Tabjeg, about 10 hours from here. After I drop this load, I could take you there, both of you," he nodded at Sarek. "I'm buyin' a bigger truck next year and could get a bigger house, too, so your Sait would have more room. Until I do, you," he looked a Maja, "you could travel with me and he can have the whole house. I go to some interesting places in this half of Imk. Or you could stay home, with the Sait," he added quickly, seeing Maja cringe, "I don't mind, I could take shorter hauls, I've been thinking about doing that, settlin' down, you know?"

"Ummmm...." Maja trailed off, after a silence. He was working hard to keep his face blank and not throw up on the starry eyed trucker.

"They've got notaries here, we could, y'know, make it official before we go to Tabjeg, if that makes you feel better," the trucker suggested hopefully. Maja's stomach keeled dangerously.

"Please, stop," Sarek said politely in Patois.

"Beg pardon?"

"Here," the Vulcan gestured to the streets at the end of the bridge, now passing by. "Please, stop here."

The trucker geared down to stop at a jammed intersection.

"I, ah ..." he looked at Maja.

"Thank you. Goodbye." Sarek opened the door, pulled Maja out of the truck and walked away, guiding Maja with a firm grip on the MageCheq's elbow. Neither he nor Maja looked back.

It had stopped raining but it was still cold and night was falling. Maja wondered where he could find them shelter before dark, in a strange city, where he had no money, etc. He decided not to think about it until he'd washed the trucker off his hand.

"Water, Sait, soap, water, acid, soap," Maja chanted, heading toward a group of women doing laundry in a public trough.

"Drinking or washing?" he asked in Patois.

"Washing," a crone pointed to a plain stone trough.

"A little soap, mother?" Maja asked, pushing his sleeves up and plunging his hands into the cold, clear water.

The old woman gestured that she only had laundry soap. Maja nodded and held out his hands.

"I've got much nicer soap than that at my house, pretty one, and nice hot water, too."

Maja slowly looked up at a shapely middle aged woman with long red hair tied in an orange ribbon standing over him.

"And maybe a little something else for you, too," she continued in Patois, turning slightly to give him a better view of her, in case he'd not already gotten an eyeful.

"Like a hot meal?" Maja ventured politely.

"Yeah, that, too."

Maja tilted his head at Sarek.

The woman looked him over critically, then back at Maja, deciding if he was worth it.

"I got a hot bath and meal for your Sait, too, but that's all," she said firmly, as if closing a deal on a dozen eggs.

"That's all he wants, Fara (beautiful one), lead on," Maja smiled, shook the water from his hands, and exchanged arch looks with the crone.

The redhead smiled wickedly, took Maja by the arm and promenaded down the street so everybody could see her new 'house guest.' Sarek followed; his face unreadable.

She led them to a narrow two story house in a row of similar houses on a little street just off the market square.

It was clean and warm inside and both vulcanoids relaxed a little for the first time in days. She led them through several rooms containing baskets of light brown flossy material neither of them recognized. The biggest room also contained a desk and shelves, which they recognized but also a scale and machinery they'd never seen before.

"Are you strangers here?" she asked, observing them examining the contents of the rooms. "We spin ropes, nets, baskets and other industrial products out of this floss. We call it 'ojijka' in our language. It grows in the roots of 'ojij' trees in the south. I broker it to weavers, here in Bkiz and a few cities outside. I'm one of three brokers in this region," she boasted. "These are just samples, I've a warehouse full in the Sosi district. It's good for industrial products, very strong and flexible but not good for fabric." She led them into a large kitchen with a big curtained bed in one corner, a screen in the other and a piled up desk in another. She threw a log on the fire and hung a kettle over it. "I don't broker the fabric flosses, too much competition and they're all thieves."

"In the roots of trees? How is it ..." Sarek ran out of vocabulary.

"Harvested," Maja supplied.

The redhead picked up a dried twig from the mantle and held it out to them: "The floss pushes a plant through the dirt and when you pull the plant, the floss comes with it." She picked up another dried twig, different from the first and held them together. "Each different floss has a slightly different plant. It's how we know which to harvest and which to leave. This," she waved a twig at them, "is the highest quality, this the next grade down. Never buy any floss that doesn't have the plant still on it," she cautioned, "you'll always wonder what you're getting." She put the twigs down, reached into a cupboard and pulled out a dead animal.

"We don't eat flesh, Fara," Maja told her, settled Sarek into a chair and knelt to remove the Vulcan's boots. Sarek, whose feet were hurting, wondered how Maja knew that but did not protest.

"Oh, really? Well, I'll save it for another day, then." She put it away. "What do you eat?"

"Grains and vegetables." Maja decided not to cloud the issue with dairy products since dairy meant so many things on different planets. He hung Sarek's cloak over a chair by the fire to dry. He set Sarek's heavy damp Vulcan boots on the hearth to dry and pulled off the wet socks. He draped them over the boots and looked critically at the swollen, blistered feet.

The woman looked on with interest at such devotion. She brought a basin of warm water and a bottle of oil then returned to chopping up tubers for dinner.

Seeing her attention elsewhere, Maja quickly healed the worst of the damage and eased the Vulcan's feet into the warm water. He felt a little more tension go out of Sarek and reached into the water to massage the circulation back into his feet.

Sarek, no longer in pain, had the leisure to examine Maja's hands massaging his feet. He wondered what the faint dark marks on them were. Had the half Mage bruised his hands fighting in the transport or the crash or in the truck somehow? He could not recall the empath Talljet brothers ever sustaining a cut, bruise, burn or abrasion for more than a moment; their internal healing mechanisms were too swift and efficient.

Maja felt the water cooling and dried Sarek's feet on a rough towel the woman tossed him. He rubbed a small amount of oil into to each foot and looked about for something to wrap them in. The woman inclined her head toward a blanket over a chair by the fire. Maja rose to fetch it and noticed a half finished sweater the woman was making. He approved of her choice of colors and pattern, it would suit her nicely.

"That will be pretty, Fara," Maja told her, jerking his chin at the sweater.

"Well, I think so," she was pleased by his remark. "My husband always wanted to deal in the luxury flosses but I could never see the profit in it." Her words were tinged with some regret.

"Husband?" Maja looked around him and finding no obvious traces of one. He tucked the blanket around Sarek and wrapped it around the Vulcan's feet.

"He died in a vehicle accident five harags ago," she said, checking the fire under the cooking pot. "At first it was hard to run the business without him, the mills don't like new faces but they got used to me." She put plates and a pot of steamed vegetables on the table next to a loaf of black bread. "And, after all, I only broker the highest quality industrial floss so they know they're always getting quality goods from me," she said firmly, waving Maja to a chair.

Other than that it was vegetable matter, the vulcanoids had no idea what they were eating. This did not at all interfere with their enjoyment of it.

end of part 27

This story also lives at http://members.tripod.com/karmen_ghia/

Appendices: http://members.tripod.com/karmen_ghia/atrappendices.html