Chapter Nine

It was eight days before Flora was contacted by the planetary security force with news of what was going on.

Sokama berry bushes were disappearing from the forests some fifty miles from the town. They were poisonous to humans, but the staple food for a small semi-mammal called a kadsh. They in turn were the food for a much larger carnivore called a carabuda. The scientists studying herd movements saw the carabuda were deviating from their normal areas, following the kadsh who were looking for food.

Investigating why the kadsh were leaving the area they found many bushes had been dug up from the ground. This alarmed them, so they contacted the local police who passed on the report.

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Flora, Mari, Lucy and Mirta were in Flora's office, discussing the situation. It was early evening, and the sun had set throwing reds, oranges, and yellows over the sky, which was still faintly blue.

"So you were right, Lucy, the fire was a distraction," said Flora.

"Yeah," Lucy nodded, "It helps to know how Witches think, and that's what all the facts added up to."

"But what would anybody do with sokama berry bushes?" asked Mari, "The only thing they're good for is food for the kadsh."

"That's where you're wrong," answered Lucy, "They are very poisonous to many intelligent species, and the poison itself is tasteless and clear. A drop is enough to cause death to any normal-sized human adult. Very useful in assassinations."

"And Linphea is the only place they grow," added Flora, thoughtfully.

"A bunch of bushes were taken from a wide area," put in Mirta, "That means more than just a simple assassination is involved." She paused, then "Maybe someone wants to grow their own bushes? Be a supplier of the poison?"

"That's not a bad idea, Mirta," said Lucy, then smiled. "If I wasn't on this side of the mystery, I might do it myself."

Mari blanched, but Flora and Mirta, used to Lucy's sense of humor, giggled. Mari eyed them all uncertainly.

"Wait a sec!" Mirta suddenly exclaimed, "When I met Inez the first time, she had a bag of sokama bushes! I never did find out why she was taking them!"

Lucy frowned. "But Inez is dead. We saw their ship disappear into the sun's heat."

"Yeah, but she, Zee and Megan don't have to be the ONLY Witches involved!" Mirta replied, "Weren't they part of a larger Coven?"

"Yeah... the..." said Lucy, thinking, "Coven of the... Thirteenth Dead Moon!"

"I'll look that up," said Mari, sitting at a computer. A half-minute of typing brought up only one online reference and it had almost no information, not even the Coven's base planet.

"What about any other uses for sokama berries?" asked Flora.

More typing. "No," came the answer, "That's the only one that comes up. Oh, wait..." She read for a bit. "Oh, this is an article about an antidote to the poison, but the problem is getting it to the victim before the poison works."

"Guess we reached a dead end," said Lucy, who sat back, thinking.

Flora was silent as well. Mari continued to scroll through references.

Mirta was thinking too. Something was nagging at the back of her head. Something that would solve this problem... She stood up. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

She went to her own office and stood in the door, looking around. She had started putting in personal touches, but the room was still pretty bare. Whatever the solution was, it wasn't here. Across the hall she went into the library, looking at the titles on the book spines, hoping that would trigger the memory. Nothing.

She went downstairs to the reception area, but it was quiet and vacant. Both Zing and Chatta were at home. Chatta had caught a cold, and Zing was taking care of her.

Going into the communications room, she looked around until her gaze met the holo-projector. She went and called up pictures of the forest fire taken from satellites. Then she slid the view around to show where the bushes had been taken. Zooming in, she saw the unmistakable shape of a spacecraft half-hidden under some trees. Checking the time stamp, she found that the pictures had been taken at the same time they were fighting the fire. She gasped. THIS was what she was trying to remember!

Tapping the intercom button, Mirta said, "You guys, come to the comm room! I've found something!"

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Five minutes later, Mirta's discovery was confirmed. They zoomed in as well as possible, but could make out no markings on the ship (to no one's surprise).

"Lucy..." said Mirta, "The ship Inez had was dark blue, wasn't it?"

"Uh... yeah, it was..." agreed Lucy, and looked at her friend. "Think we could get the data from our trip to check against?"

"I'm pretty sure we can," was the answer, "Most institutions cooperate with a Guardian Fairy's office. But this will be our first contact with Red Fountain."

"But wasn't their ship destroyed by the sun?" asked Flora, uncertain what they were getting at.

"Yes, it was," answered the red-headed half-fairy, "But that Coven might have more than one ship, or rented another from the same place."

Flora smiled at her sister. "That's good thinking."

Mari put in a call to the Specialist's School, and an hour or so later the sensor data from the Red Fountain ship came in. The ship had been destroyed, but the data had been sent when they communicated with Alfea and the other schools.

"Mirta, Lucy, there's a personal note attached," said Mari, and the friends came over to see.

LUCY AND MIRTA:

ANALYSIS OF THE VIRUS PROGRAM AND THE FALSE DATA ABOUT BEKISAN REVEALED NOTHING WE DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW. I TRIED TO TRACE IT BACK TO ITS ORIGIN, BUT AGAIN, NO LUCK. SORRY.

TIMMY

"So we can't prove that Coven sent it. Just great," said Mirta.

"Doesn't surprise me at all," answered Lucy, "But why is Timmy still at Red Fountain? Didn't he graduate?"

"Yes, but in our last chat session Tecna told us he had been hired to do a systems overhaul," said Mirta.

"Good on him," muttered Lucy, and turned her attention back to the pictures.

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The comparison proved to be inconclusive. None of the satellite pictures were good enough to make the identification a sure thing, but did give a 78 percent chance it was the same type of spacecraft.

"So, what's the next move?" asked Lucy, sitting back in her chair.

"We go to the fields tomorrow and take a look ourselves," said Flora, Maybe we can find a print from the landing gear, or paint scraped by a tree. Or maybe someone left something that could be used to identify them."

Lucy, Mari, and Mirta agreed with that idea. They had certainly done all they could here.

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The next morning found Flora, Mirta, and Lucy ready to go. It was too far for them to fly, and no Transfer Platform was any nearer than they were, so they would have to find another means of getting there. Lucy absolutely refused to ride the giant ladybugs, so that left the transport leaf.

It was taken out of storage and the three of them boarded for the flight. Neither Mirta nor Lucy had ridden this kind of thing before, so were rather nervous.

Soon they were flying over the trees and lakes of Linphea, and both finally relaxed enough to look over the sides and enjoy the trip. There were no signs of civilization anywhere.

The trip took about thirty minutes, and when the leaf landed they stepped off onto springy grass. All around them were tall trees with fronds for leaves, and the undergrowth was thick. Odd animal calls were heard clearly, though the creatures making them remained hidden.

Finding a hole where a sokama berry bush had been, they examined it closely. The hole was carefully dug, and all the plant's roots had been taken. The thief obviously wanted to keep the plants healthy. It seemed like the idea of a poison supplier having his own garden had been borne out.

The three wandered apart by agreement, to search more efficiently. Mirta was looking at the ground around where bushes had been taken, but so far had found nothing. She had decided to find the edge of the harvested area, and was looking toward a field with high grass when behind her a voice spoke.

"Well, well, well... looks like our trap worked," said a familiar, female voice.

Mirta spun around to find it, and was shocked at what she saw. Inez, Zee, and Megan, alive and well. And all three were smirking at her.