Captain Pausert's heart sank closer to his boots. This certainly wasn't his lucky day. No matter what shape change Goth had managed on Pul and Hantis . . . they'd be hauled out of here. If only he could talk to Goth.
They were shepherded along the Venture's passages, as the customs men displayed their expertise. They inspected absolutely everything, vibro-sensors probing the walls for hidden chambers, the officers peering everywhere, even into drawers too small to hide an infant, let alone a person. At length they came to the stateroom which the Nartheby Sprite had occupied with her grik-dog. There was no sign of either Hantis or Pul. But the customs men began with searching under the beds, chairs and cupboards.
Something, the captain felt, was odd about this room.
It was only when he glanced upwards that he realized what it was. The elegant central light-fittings were off-center. The room was not quite the right shape! Goth must be creating an illusionary bulkhead. Pausert did his level best not to look at the wall. But what would it help? Goth's illusions could fool the eye, but the vibro-sensors in the custom inspectors' hands would see right through them, so to speak.
The inspectors began on the first wall.
When they reached the end of it, Pausert saw Goth calmly nudge Hulik. The do Eldel stepped with all her weight on one spike-heeled foot . . . onto the toes of the obnoxious customs officer.
Hulik do Eldel was a slimly built aristocratic-looking woman. It was still a lot of weight to concentrate on one small square half-inch of heel.
"Yow!" The customs officer yelled and pushed her off.
Hulik's look of surprise and her apology were masterful. "I am so sorry, sir! It's these heels. I was just getting ready to disembark, and after wearing ship boots for weeks . . . I just lost my balance. I really am sorry. I do hope your foot is all right?" With a performance like that, if Hulik had actually run away to that showboat planet, she'd have been the queen of the galactic stage by now.
Naturally all the customs officials and police officers had turned to look. Facing as he was, Pausert had to keep a poker-face as the wall they'd been about examine . . . appeared to slide around to the wall that they had just finished with.
"You did that on purpose!" grumbled the customs officer, massaging his foot through his polished shoe. "You won't distract us! Check that next wall carefully."
They did. Very carefully. Eventually they finished and began on the next. And to his absolute horror, Captain Pausert began to rell vatch.
Little silver slit-eyes and vatch laughter.
Troubles never came singly.
He could see Goth knew about it, too.
The illusionary bulkhead began to develop a window. None of the customs officials were looking at it just then, concentrating their attentions on the opposite wall. But they would be sure to turn any moment now. And the window in the illusion revealed the startled face of Hantis, with Pul in her arms. It was a charming cottage window complete with leaded diamond panes and lace trimmed chintz curtains, neatly framing the fugitives' faces.
As Captain Pausert stared, unable to tear his eyes away, two things happened. First, he felt the forcecuffs on his wrists vanish. The field that had held them disappeared, and the small metal force-generator fell to the floor. And, second, looking at the window that the mischievous little vatch had created—all Pausert saw, briefly, were the Nartheby Sprite's elegant boots, moving rapidly upwards and out of view.
Plainly the little vatch thought it would have some fun with the captain trying to fight his way free, before the Imperial customs officials saw the "window" it had created in Goth's light-shift illusion.
Well, he wouldn't do what the vatch expected. And it looked as if the Nartheby Sprite had helped him to avoid having to do so. She obviously had klatha skills of her own. Or had Goth lifted her with her teleportation skill? No. Goth could manage objects of a few pounds in weight, but despite her delicate elfin appearance the Nartheby Sprite must weigh far more.
Pausert hastily concentrated on finding the vatch. He couldn't catch or control this little one with his klatha hooks, but it did seem that he could tickle and distract it.
His resistance to taking the course that the little vatch had tried to trick him into had saved them from a fight. It had also caused one of the customs officials to squint at the fading window. It was a good thing the official couldn't hear the vatchlet giggling and squeaking. Stop it, Big Dream Thing!
The man rubbed his eyes, and then very deliberately turned away shaking his head. Pausert went on "tickling" furiously. The last thing they needed now was more complications. With any luck, the vatch would go away. Pausert was so intent on tickling that he had to be herded out of the room by his captors, who weren't gentle about it. But he had his reward. The relling of vatch presence grew fainter and then vanished.
The search went on, relentlessly. The customs men got very excited about the big safe, and the secret compartment in the engine room. And became very disappointed when both proved absolutely empty of people. They did confiscate the Totisystem Toy inside it. It was a very badly designed educational toy, which Pausert and Goth had fitted there in the vain hope of fooling spies. The spies who had tried to steal the spacedrive for the Empire or the Agandar's pirates had not been taken in.
The customs officials, however, were more gullible.
Pausert grinned through his gag. If he hadn't been so mad at Gerota Town customs men, he would have felt sorry for them. He just hoped that the Totisystem Toy didn't explode on them, as the rather fiendish educational device was inclined to do. The toy was another one of the odd unsellable items that his one-time about-to-be father-in-law, Councilor Onswud, had dumped on Pausert in lieu of a decent cargo. Looking back, Pausert could see that he'd been set up to fail. Well, he'd succeeded, beyond their wildest dreams—and gotten lucky, too. He could have ended up married to the insipid Illyla. Instead she'd married Councilor Rapport while he was away. That was real luck, although it hadn't seemed like it at the time.
But right now, in the back of a smelly paddy wagon bouncing over the cobbles towards what would doubtless be an even smellier jail, Pausert didn't feel all that lucky. Hantis and Pul were still hidden on the ship, but the rest of them were being taken away from the Venture. And Pausert still hadn't had a chance to talk to Goth. Maybe they'd put them all into one cell together and . . .
Nobody had noticed yet that his hands weren't forcecuffed. That wasn't too surprising, since forcecuffs just didn't fall off. Pausert wondered if he could gain any advantage from his free hands, but it didn't seem so. The others had been transported together, but he was apparently considered more dangerous. He had a transport all to himself. It seemed unfair. It was hardly his fault that the Leewit had somehow got her guards to take her gag off. The destruction that she'd caused with her whistles had wrecked the groundcar, and had meant that the customs officers had had to call for another.
* * *
The captain's gag was only taken off after he had been transported from the jail to the courthouse. The judge wasn't particularly interested in hearing their side of the story, but the prisoners had to answer when their names were read onto the record.
"Ungag him, officer," ordered the judge. He was a lean man whose face seemed to have been colonized by a rampaging tribe of thick black eyebrows. The eyebrows crawled together and the judge peered at Pausert. "Now. Have you been correctly identified?"
This judge looked very different from the one who had soaked him for the release of Maleen, Goth's sister, in what seemed another lifetime. "Yes, Your Honor. But those charges are a pack of trumped-up lies."