Rescue from the Planet of the Amartos
THE WITCHES’ STONES: BOOK ONE
RESCUE
FROM THE PLANET OF THE AMARTOS
by
Helena Puumala
The Witches’ Stones: Book One
Rescue from the Planet of the Amartos
Helena Puumala
Copyright Helena Puumala 2015
Published by Dodecahedron Books
Cover image Copyright Dale Olausen 2015
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This version (2015) of the book The Witches’ Stones - Book 1 is a republication of an earlier version (2012), with a title change and some minor changes to the text, in order that it fit the whole saga, as I am imagining it in Books 2 and 3. Please note that Book 2 has been completed and will be out very soon (spring 2015). I am currently in the early stages of writing Book 3.
Once again, I want to thank all of the family members and friends who have contributed to the development of my writing, through their caring and encouragement. Special thanks go to my sister Kaye, my brother-in-law Ken, and our friend Rosemary, three of our enthusiastic and trusted beta-readers.
Leona Olausen, a truly talented artist, contributed the background image for the cover. My son, Scott Olausen, an Astrophysics PhD graduate, helped with information about some of the dangerous stars that the characters encounter in the book.
And, of course, my husband and co-writer (and Editor, as well as the other half of Dodecahedron Books) gets credit for some of the more scientific aspects of the book, as well as for contributing to some of the action sequences. He is also responsible for formatting the book and finalizing the cover.
Thank you all, as well as anyone else who participated in the process, but whose name I have failed to mention.
Helena Puumala
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Also by Helena Puumala, on Amazon.com
About the Author
About Dodecahedron Books
PROLOGUE
The tall man in the grey suit had been walking the streets and the alleys of the Trahea Trade City on Kordea, for weeks. He spent most of his time in the city’s shabbier quarters which lay between the expensive off-worlder lodgings near the Space Port, and Trahea proper, where the more respectable natives resided. He had, at first, seemed like an odd bird to the sin-peddlers who made their living there, with his well-pressed, natty suit, his naturally grey hair, and his middle-aged face which had obviously never spent any time in a body-sculptor’s parlour. Eventually, though, they had grown used to his presence and paid him no mind.
Had someone been curious enough to have followed his comings and goings, they would have noted that he had enough funds to spend his sleep-time hours in one of the fancier hotels near The Port, but that he spent his waking hours doing the rounds of the cheapest bistros, cafes and bars. Oddly for one exploring such an area, he drank nothing stronger than coffee, avoided illegal drugs, and ate very sparingly of the riot of ethnic cuisine available.
Kordea, the world, was clearly not unknown to him. From the first night he had arrived, he had adjusted his habits to the diurnal cycle of the planet, which orbited a blazingly hot sun, but whose cool nights were almost always illuminated by at least a few of the seven moons that circled it. He seemed to be knowledgeable of the culture, and interacted easily with the natives. Evidently, he knew how to maintain a low profile and avoid attracting the attention of the powerful and mysterious Witches of Kordea.
At least a few of the sin-sellers that the man spoke with must have realized that he was hunting for something very special on the seamy side of Trahea. He conversed often with wait-staff and bar-keeps, slum land-lords and drug-pushers, bookies and gamblers, and pimps and prostitutes. Yet he purchased almost nothing from them; indeed, not even from the legitimate souvenir stalls which lined the alleys that led to The Port. He spent coin on food and coffee, that was it; had he not been gregarious and curious, merchants of all types would have dismissed him as the worst kind of a customer - a solitary cheapskate, to be served grudgingly, and otherwise ignored.
But even the denizens of a demi-monde, or perhaps especially they, like to talk about themselves and their neighbours. So, if it was information that the grey-suited man was hunting, he must have found plenty of it.
In the end, he found what he wanted.
He zeroed his interest to a Kordean prostitute who had a half-Kordean adolescent daughter. Lila had been an adventurous lass once; she had dreamed of the stars - an ambition which had scandalized her conventional family. She had found a male spacer in the Trade City who had promised her those stars, and she had estranged herself further from her kin by becoming the man’s lover. Unfortunately the spacer had been incapable of keeping his promises; he had been addicted to several of the mind-altering drugs which were openly sold in the streets and the alleys of the Trade City. He had, in fact, managed only to impregnate Lila, before dying in a stupid, tiger-dust-fuelled knife-fight in a dive of a bar. He had left Lila with few options. Fortunately, she was pretty in the raven-haired, pale-skinned Kordean fashion, and so she had begun to sell her body to feed herself and her daughter, catering to other-world customers who liked to pretend that they were making love to one of the Witches of Kordea when they used her services.
When Lila realized that her daughter was an amarto-sensitive, a girl who could key the Witches’ Stones, she contacted her relatives, asking for help to get the girl into training with the Witches, hoping by this to gain for her a better life than the one that her mother was leading. But her family had spurned her, telling her that the Witches were not interested in training half-bloods, even talented ones; besides which, her kin wanted nothing to do with her or her mongrel child, anyway.
So when the grey-suited man made his proposition to Lila, she was prepared to listen. He told her that he came from something sometimes known as The Organization, among whose people talents such as her daughter’s were respected, regardless of the bloodlines of their owners.
“If you let me take her with me,” he told Lila, “we will make good use of her gift. Her abilities will blossom; they will be of great benefit to the humankind.”
He may even have believed his own words; perhaps the way he saw the universe, they were the truth.
Lila allowed her daughter to leave with him on a Star Ship, telling her daughter that she, at least, would get to see some of the galaxy outside of Kordea.
*****
The mental screaming began some months later. It was amplified in some fashion, so Lila, possessing only the sensitivity of a mother to her child, had no trouble recognizing her daughter’s psychic signature. The Kordean Witches had to barricade their minds from the din. Even the slightly-amarto-sensitive Terrans, whose psychic abilities could do little more than maintain the fires within the beautiful Witches’ Stones that were used as decorative jewe
ls by rich Terrans, were distressed by it, having no way to block themselves from its energy.
Someone told Lila to take her troubles to the Space Port Authorities. They, fortunately, took her story seriously, and alerted what was known as The Agency, whose operatives immediately recognized the grey-suited Organization man as one of the arch-enemies of the Terra Confederation. The Agency people realized that the grey-suited man may have pulled off the most dangerous coup in centuries.
An Agent was sent to speak with Lila, and to seek the cooperation of the Witches to assist in the rescue of the girl. Confederation spies among the servants of The Organization scientists were alerted. Contingency plans were developed.
But before any other action could be taken, the screaming stopped.
Chapter One
"Ship Mechanic Mackenzie, when do you expect to have this ship ready to leave Maintenance?"
A slim, dark-haired girl whirled around from her work to face the questioner.
"If nothing serious turns up,” she replied, “I’ll be done at the end of my shift today."
The words were a direct quote from the report that she had filed with the Maintenance Sector Computer the same morning. Sector Manager Kalso should have been familiar with it.
Nevertheless, he frowned at the time-counter in his hand and then squinted at the girl's face.
“That's almost seven hours away," he said.
It was. So, what of it? Sarah Mackenzie shrugged.
"The ship's captain wants it done by lunch,” Kalso explained.
"Oh. You're sending someone along to help me, then?"
"Impossible. " The Sector Manager's face set into hard lines. "We are very shorthanded, as you well know."
"Well, then the Captain will just have to wait. I can't do seven hours' work in three."
With another shrug she prepared to turn back to her tasks, but froze in mid-step as she saw the superior’s eyes narrow into thin slits.
"Suppose, Ship Mechanic Mackenzie,” he said harshly, “Suppose that I order you to finish maintaining this ship inside three hours?"
Sarah's palms turned clammy. Her knees felt shaky and her heart began to race. Her eyes frantically searched the grim face in front of her for some sign that the man did not mean what he said.
"You can't do that,” she whispered.
She gathered together what courage she could find inside herself. She disciplined her watery legs into solidity, forced her body to stand straight, and her eyes to stare squarely at Kalso. There was only a slight tremor in her voice when she spoke.
"Sector Manager Kalso, I will never thumbprint a ship card unless I am completely satisfied that the ship has been fully maintained. It's much too late to make adjustments when something malfunctions in omega-space."
The second sentence had been drummed into her mind during her apprenticeship in spaceship mechanics until she could have rhymed it off in sleep. It was the first commandment of a well-trained spaceship mechanic, and she could no more have set it aside than she could have disowned her name. Variations of the spaceship mechanics’ oath could be traced back to the space shuttle disasters of the early days, so many centuries ago. It had long been considered criminal to send a poorly maintained ship out of space dock.
Kalso's look darkened further at her words. His eyes flashed with fury. Sarah watched one hand ball into a fist, and for a few awful seconds she was certain that he was going to hit her; then, with a visible effort, the man controlled himself.
"I will cite you for insubordination, Mackenzie!" He spat the words into her face, then turned away and stomped off. Moments later she heard a loud clang from the direction in which he had disappeared - he had let himself out of the ship, crudely using the manual controls.
Trembling, Sarah returned to her job.
"This has got to be the last straw," she muttered, blinking away tears as she groped at the wires leading into the omega-transmitter. Her fingers, however, were those of an expert, and registered the condition of every connection that they touched.
"This place has been horrible every last day of the four months I've been here," she told the wires as she reached for the tool she used to tighten loose connections. "The Authorities have been treating me like scum or something worse, and now they have the nerve to try to turn me into a criminal! Kalso actually ordered me to turn in a ship before I've finished with it!"
Space Station XER was not the best workplace for an independent young woman. Once again Sarah cursed the naivete that had landed her there. When she had thumbprinted her work contract while still on her home planet, Earth, she had had no idea that she was sentencing herself to a Standard year in a place where women, ordinarily, were seen but not heard, and certainly not employed as spaceship mechanics. Only a galactic labour shortage could have forced the XER Authorities to hire Sarah for the job that she now held. They simply couldn’t afford to skip over such a well-qualified, willing applicant. Nor were they pleased to have her, however badly they needed her. She was an outsider and, as a working woman, a threat to the social order existing on the Space Station. She was barely tolerated.
Sarah had had to learn to accept the situation in the four months that had elapsed. A work contract was a sacred document to any worker who planned to continue to use the Galactic Central Employment Service. One stuck with the job one had agreed to take on, until the term ended.
What had just happened between Sarah and Kalso was much more serious than routine ostracism, however. Kalso had pressured Sarah to pass as maintained a ship that she had not finished working on. To do so was against Confederation law, and terribly dangerous. The thought of it was enough to turn Sarah's palms sweaty again! No human being understood exactly what happened when a spaceship slipped through "omega-space", instantaneously passing from one portion of the galaxy to another. What was known, however, was that the process somehow jarred the ship's innards, and, for safety's sake, every ship was given a thorough maintenance check at five-jump intervals. More often than not, some critical part was near the breaking point by that number of jumps. Skimping on these checks was madness!
"Aha! Found her hard at work!"
Again Sarah whirled around to face an intruder. But this time her expression relaxed into a smile as soon as she recognized the interloper.
"Matty, you scoundrel!" she exclaimed, shaking a finger at him. "Surprise me like that, will you? What are you doing here? How did you find me?"
The tousled-haired, grinning youth laughed at her and shrugged.
"Sorry to make you jump, Sarah," he apologized. “I'm here to see you, of course. I want to invite you for supper."
Sarah noted that he had failed to respond to her last question, but that was nothing unexpected. Matty Harmiss was a minor mystery to her, and to everyone else that she knew on Space Station XER. He had a peculiar habit of showing up in places to which, according to all reason, he should not have had access. The Spaceship Maintenance Sector, being a security-controlled area, was such a region. Also, in spite of his strange mobility and the fact that he was an outsider not born to the Space Station, he seemed to have persuaded the XER Authorities to grudgingly accept him - they even turned a blind eye to his habit of making fun of the place.
Even though she was very curious about Matty, Sarah knew better than to probe further.
"Great," she responded, pleased with the invitation. She could certainly use a diversion this afternoon. "So where are we dining - at the Central Caf?"
"Afraid so." Matty's grin was regretful. "If we had the time and the resources to take a quick trip to XES or the Flameworld I could offer you a choice of restaurants but as things stand. . . . And you know what the cooking facilities are like in the cubicles that pass for homes on this Space Station."
Sarah chuckled. The Central Caf was notorious for the poor quality of the food it served, and for a lack of a pleasant dining atmosphere. However, it was the only eatery on XER, and also the only place on the Space Station where folk could sit and conver
se inconspicuously, and in relative comfort. This was enough to make it a very popular spot, especially with travelers and other outsiders who were not accustomed to the sort of inconvenience that the Authorities expected the locals to accept.
"We'll make do, as always. How I wish, though, that I could board the next ship to XES or Flameworld! With a one-way ticket!"
"Come, come! It can't be that bad!" Matty eyed the girl curiously.
She met his gaze and nodded her head seriously. "Oh, yes," she said. "This time it is that bad."
The youth's normally merry eyes filled with concern.
But before he had a chance to make any queries Sarah held up her hand to stop his questions.
"It'll keep till supper," she sighed, "but be prepared for an earful then. In the meantime I have got to get this ship done by the end of the shift. I'll meet you when I get off, okay?"
“Will do very well, Sarah. And I have something to talk about over supper, too. It just may make you forget your troubles for a while."
And with another grin and a wave he was gone.
*****
The Central Caf was a huge barn of a place, intended to feed crowds of people as cheaply and efficiently as possible. In spite of its name it was not a self-serve establishment. Certainly the Space Station Authorities, followers all of the austere God Ammha, would have been delighted if the restaurant patrons had had to carry trays, line up for service, and dispose of their own garbage, but in a highly technological society that would have made no economic sense.
Having to go to the trouble of serving oneself food might be good for a customer's soul, but it so happened that servo-robots worked much more efficiently and neatly than human beings could. No matter, the majority of the patrons were travelers passing through on their way elsewhere, and God Ammha's priests did not have to worry about them. The women of XER fed their families at home, however deficient their cooking facilities were by galactic standards. Therefore, at Central Caf, robot-service it was.
There was nothing about the decor which would invite the diners to linger over coffee and dessert; nevertheless, almost everyone did. XER contained very few spots where a traveler could kill the hours between a ship's landing and the take-off of another one, in relative comfort. Thus, even though the metal tables were ugly, the chairs hard and the screens that separated the tables from each other flimsy, the place had become a hang-out for anyone with time on his hands. Sarah considered it a great place to "people-watch", and the only such one on XER!