"It seems almost a shame to wake them," Goth heard someone say. She opened her eyes. Olimy and Sedmon looked at her. She and the Leewit were lying on the floor next to the remains of the food they'd devoured before passing out. Someone had been kind enough to provide her with a blanket, Goth noticed. She stretched, shook her head trying to clear it. One of the Sedmons? Here? How long had she and the Leewit slept for?
"What are you doing here?" she asked, suspiciously.
"Such a friendly greeting," said one sixth of the Daal of Uldune. "I heard that you needed a ship. So I brought you mine."
"How long have I been asleep for?" Goth rubbed her eyes, trying to get her brain to think clearly. "It's more than a week's travel from here to Uldune, Sedmon."
"You have been out for about twelve hours,"said Olimy. "You need to be careful, Goth. You can kill yourself, draining that much energy."
"Had to be done," said Goth. "Olimy, you know Karres pays its debts. And we owed him. How is he, by the way?"
"Considerably better, Your Wisdom," said Ta'zara from the bed against the wall behind her. "Well enough to defend you and the Leewit if need be."
"You just stay put," said Goth firmly. "I don't want to have to do that again in a hurry."
"Is the Leewit all right?" asked Ta'zara. "I would not have had her do herself an injury for me. Your companion Olimy said you could kill yourself, draining that much energy."
"She's fine. She'd sleep through a stampede of wild bollems, that's all. My problem was just having used a lot of energy in that fight."
"And then used even more putting me back together," said Ta'zara. "We of Na'kalauf also honor our debts. My debt to her can not even be repaid with my life."
"I shall have to be more cautious than ever about offending the Leewit," said Olimy with a grin.
Goth helped herself to a slice of pie leftover from their pre-sleep frantic feed. "Now, can we stop beating about the bush, Sedmon of the six lives," she said. "Or I will personally call a certain lady friend of mine and tell her to make your life-all of them-the equivalent of Patham's third hell."
The lord of the bloody-historied world of Uldune, Master of the House of Thunders, sat down on the floor next to her. "We caught Mebeckey. And he sang. Told us that he had passed information onto Marshi about you needing to locate a circus. He did it for a price."
"Is he still alive?"
"At the moment, yes." The Daal tugged his chin. "It appears that the plant infestation can be gotten rid of. But it is rather like a highly addictive drug, Goth. He was desperate to get it back. That was all he asked for in exchange. He is already going through more hell than my experts could put him through. In fact we got him to sing by giving him a palliative. He's a desperate man. You see, he got a new spore, from one of her agents… and that rejected him too. My scientists are doing on tests on him. When we got the news about the circus we made all the speed that the Thunderbird is capable of. That is… more than we're willing to admit any ship in the Empire or Uldune can do. Not quite as fast as the Karres ships. There was a limit to subradio communications, but we did get hold of an agent on Mandellin's world. They told us you had come here. We were able to cut our journey time considerably. You see, Goth, we really do not like this situation. We're deeply concerned about this Tchab-Marshi."
"I'm sorry. She's got the Illtraming map. And the captain," said Goth quietly.
"On the other hand it does seem that between you and Himbo Petey, and the people of Pampez, you have crippled her as a criminal power. She deployed most of her available foot-soldiers and even a large number of her capos here. And deserted them here too." Sedmon raised his eyebrows. "Can Karres never do anything unspectacularly?"
"Is the circus all right? Is Himbo all right?"
"He's been in to see you several times. So has just about everyone else in the circus," said Olimy. "And I should say the circus itself is fine too. If by fine you mean 'full-to-bursting'. They're packing them into the aisles. Even Hamlet is jam-packed and they're running a special morning show. The Pampez herders have taken them in as their own. They've almost made a planetary hero of Himbo Petey. That was why I was rather worried about you, Goth. By public demand he rode a fanderbag around the ring, and cracked that whip of his. I would have thought that the cheering would wake anyone, even half-way around the planet."
"Well, I hope it pays for some of the damages."
The Sedmon smiled sharkishly. "This is the first direct profit on my share of this investment that I have seen. You do realize Goth, that Marshi's 'people' are by in large known and wanted criminals across the Empire. In fact a few of them are even wanted on Uldune, and it's not something we're known for. There are some substantial rewards offered for some of them. Fortunately, dead or alive, in many cases. There have been three Imperial Security Service lighters collecting those that the locals hadn't already shot or hanged."
"Or hadn't been stood on by fanderbags, or hadn't run into the human equivalent of a threshing machine," said Olimy, jerking a thumb at Ta'zara.
"Hanged?"
Sedmon nodded approvingly. "Justice around here is swift and salutary. They were easy enough to round up. Not many places to hide-and rather obvious in appearance compared to the locals. Some tried to flee out onto the plains. Others sought refuge among the wisent buyers. Except the wisent buyers-the real ones-suddenly found that they had a good reason to co-operate."
Olimy laughed. "Yes. I believe they suddenly decided to increase their purchase price too, before the hanging seemed like too much fun to stop."
"Anyway. The citizens of Pampez, the citizens of the Empire, even some of my operatives are very pleased with the way things have come out. And the ISS and my operatives, and indeed I believe Karres, are hunting for any trace of the Venture, or Marshi. And yes, the ISS are assuming that the plant-infested criminal brethren are potentially infective," said Sedmon.
"It came out all right," said Goth. "But it's not over yet. She could do the same, or worse again if she finds what she needs to breed. Imagine if she'd got those spores into your Daalmen. Or the