Power Play

11

Sean Shongili was awakened by Adak, who had just received word via Johnny Greene that stragglers from the shuttle containing the first group of hunters had shown up in Harrison's Fjord, suffering from exposure and demanding to make contact with their attorneys.

He was still sorting that out when Una Monaghan located him in Clodagh's cabin, dragged him down the road to Yana's and pointed at the comlink. Yana's voice transmission was staticky, but the words appearing on the screen were unmistakable.

‘We've been kidnapped, Sean. Me, Marmion, Bunny and Diego and this is what the ransom is,' she began as his knees, unaccountably unable to support him, folded and his butt fortunately hit the seat of the chair. 'They don't intend to let us go until the ransom's all paid.’

‘But we don't have any credit!' Sean began in protest.

‘We're apparently in possession of a valuable planet,' and then Yana began coughing.

‘Yana? Are you all right?’

‘She is not all right,' another voice said. 'She coughs much and bloodily and…’

The transmission was abruptly cut off. Sean stared at the comunit, tapped it, thinking the connection had merely been interrupted. But, after a few more moments of useless tinkering, he had to admit that this wasn't the case.

‘And the ransom is Petaybee?' And just how did the kidnappers expect him to hand over a planet? A planet that certainly wasn't his to give!

‘Sean?' Una had popped her head around the door.

‘Una! Get Johnny and find out how we can reestablish contact with the parties who've kidnapped Yana, our baby, Bunny and Diego, and Madame Algemeine…’

‘Kidnapped?' Una's voice broke. 'Johnny! Yes, I'll get Johnny. He'll know.’

Johnny didn't, but he opened a channel to the Space Station and Dr Whittaker Fiske. Whit, recovering nobly and quickly from the shock of the news, said that he'd find out or die trying.

Sean was unable to attend to any of even the most pressing duties. Una and the other off-worlders who were being assigned to useful services for the benefit of the emerging Petaybean government carried on as best they could. Though the true nature of the problem was not mentioned to anyone but Johnny Greene, very shortly everyone in Kilcoole knew that Yana, Bunny, Diego and Marmion had been kidnapped.

Nanook crept in to occupy a corner, saying nothing but keeping his amber eyes softly on Sean. Coaxtl, minus Cita, shortly arrived and stationed herself on the opposite side. Orange cats appeared briefly in the doorway and disappeared as Sean sat and stared at the comlink, willing it to work and provide good news. Good news only!

In his head thoughts went up and down on a mental carousel: Yana and his unborn child were kidnapped; Bunny, Diego and Marmion too. By whom? For what reason? He had no right to give a planet as security! Not to anyone. Only the planet could say what it would or wouldn't do. Maybe that was the answer. The best thing to do with the problem was turn it over to the planet. But he couldn't leave the office, not until that bedamned, unworking comlink awoke with some news. Would he see Yana alive again? Would they ever see their baby? Kidnappees did not often return unharmed, alive or compos mentis. Who knew in what condition they'd be returned, if they were returned? Anything could happen to them - maiming that was not just physical but mental and emotional as well. He'd heard rumours of hideous mind-wiping devices that could totally destroy your personality by causing permanent amnesia that severed all bonds.

How had Marmion let an abduction occur? She'd promised they'd all be safe for that so-called'short time' it would take to satisfy the CIS Committee about the nature of Petaybee. They'd been gone long past the original estimates. So the kidnappers could set it all up? And start swamping the planet with drug merchants, hunters, religious orders, orphans, homeless relatives and all sorts of human flotsam and jetsam. And no facilities to handle such an influx.

The comlink buzzed and Sean pounced on it like a hungry mink on a roosting chicken.

‘Sorry to tell you this, Sean,' Whittaker Fiske said, 'but the kidnapper has been identified as Onidi Louchard, a well-known and clever pirate with a well-equipped outfit and a base that no law enforcement agency's ever been able to discover. Louchard is ruthless and has formidable resources.’

‘Do they have a medic?' Sean demanded savagely, the sound of Yana's coughing echoing in his ears. Damn! She'd only just got over the after-effects of the

Bremport gassing. How could she be subjected to another episode?

‘Huh?' Whit was taken aback by the unexpected question.

‘Yana's got a cough again, bad enough so they use it to threaten me with.’

‘They lose her as hostage and they've no leverage

‘Damn it, Whit, what d'you mean by that?

‘That if she's sick, they'll bloody well see she gets better! Of course. What'd you think I meant?' Sean murmured something but Whit went on. 'The commander of Gal-Three's organized a massive search of and contact with every vessel that left the docks since before Yana, Marmion and the kids went missing. They're leaving nothing to chance.' Whit gave a groan. 'But it's going to take time. That's one of the busiest stations in the whole Intergal net. I've also had a word with Anaciliact and he's none too happy with that PTS group. He's going to get an injunction against them to prevent any further unauthorized trips to the surface. I'm going one better. I'm getting permission for you to have a representative in the SpaceBase control tower so you can trace any drops they might make before that injunction is served. We gotta find them first.' Whit made a noise of total disgust and annoyance at the obstacles. 'We don't need any of this right now!’

‘Precisely why we have it,' Sean said bitterly. 'Can you spare Johnny to watch the screen?’

Whittaker shook his head regretfully. 'No, much as I'd like to but he's far more useful elsewhere than sitting on his duff looking at a screen for hours on end.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Get Una to see what she can come up with.’

That was not only heartening advice but a good notion: Una possessed a knack of finding people with unusual, and very useful, talents.

Til ask her.

‘I'll keep in touch, Sean, and see what else I can learn that's going on at Gal-Three.’

‘Find out where Luzon is,' Sean said dourly.

‘I did. He's doing intensive therapy in some fancy spa to get active again.’

‘Again? He's never stopped being active - against Petaybee.’

‘If we could prove that, Sean,' Whit said in a savage and none-too-hopeful tone, 'we'd do Intergal a big favour.’

‘Count on me.’

As soon as the link broke, Sean explained to Una what was needed and why.

‘One of my first group, I think, had some station-keeping experience,' she said after a long moment's thought. 'I thought it very odd indeed that we were landed so far from any place civilized…’

Since she implied that Kilcoole was civilized, Sean burst out laughing. She regarded him in some surprise.

‘You do my heart good, Una. You consider Kilcoole civilized?’

‘Comparatively speaking,' she said with a slight grin, but inwardly she was gratified that she had eased the haunted look on Sean's face. She had come to admire him very much in the short time she'd been working with him, helping him with impossible burdens: not the least of which was this continuous influx of unnecessary people, especially the commercial types who seemed so eager to raid whatever wealth this planet held. 'We were told that the SpaceBase had been destroyed so we would have to be landed at a distance from the nearest community…’

‘Only the exact distance wasn't specified…"

‘That's it. Had I known what I know now…’

‘Tell me, Una, exactly what were you told and by whom?’

She paused, organizing her thoughts: Sean had discovered that organization was her strong suit.

‘Well, first there was the bulletin about Petaybee being a sentient planet. So I tagged the word on my terminal for any further information, knowing, you see, that some of my family had been sent here. Petaybee', and she gave him a little smile, 'was suddenly much in the bulletins and then the advertisement appeared, offering safe and quick transport facilities to the surface of the planet.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Well, about three weeks after the first mention of Petaybee. I had enough frequent-flyer hours to my credit to get to the Intergal Station easily enough. And the cost of getting to Petaybee's surface was not all that much, considering. In fact, rather cheap.’

‘Cheap enough to attract passengers, huh?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Go on.’

‘When I got to Intergal Station, the transit desk told me to book in at the Mallside hostelry where all Petaybean passengers had to register. When I checked in, I had to deposit the fare and then I was given a departure time.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘By whom?’

‘The clerk at Mallside. Oh, I got a stamped passage chit or believe you me, I wouldn't have handed over most of the last credits I had to my name.’

‘You wouldn't happen to remember the number of the account to which you credited the fare?’

‘I do. BM-20-2334-57.' She repeated it so that Sean could jot it down. 'The next morning I was given a time to assemble in the hotel lobby. I must say I was a little surprised at the… diversity of my fellow passengers. And relieved to find that there were other folks trying to find their Petaybean relatives.’

‘What did your courier look like?’

‘There wasn't one. When I arrived… a little early, I admit, because I was so eager to be on time. Some small link transports don't wait so it's wiser to be on time,' she told Sean in her earnest manner. He nodded and she continued, 'There was a printed notice that we were to proceed to the departure gate. Anyone not on time would forfeit their fare.' She paused. 'The only thing that reassured me was that the transport was so obviously new and one of the other passengers said it was even state-of-the-art.’

‘Would you have forfeited your fare if it had been a ramshackle vehicle?' Sean asked.

She gave a little laugh. 'No, I'd sold up to get here. But to the business at hand, Sean, it's Simon Furey who might stand watch for you at SpaceBase. He's the one who noticed how new the transport was.’

‘Where's he right now?’

‘We can ask Wild Star. She's teaching in the latchkay shed.’

Wild Star was certain that her husband Simon would be quite willing to help Sean out. In the first place, he'd love to get his hands on the guy who had dumped them down in the middle of nowhere. If it hadn't been for Cita, they could have frozen to death their first night on the planet. In the second place, he'd two badly blistered hands from chopping wood, which was the chore he'd been assigned in Kilcoole.

‘I don't mind doing my share, like,' he said, displaying the bloody signs of his industry, 'but I'd rather a chance to toughen up more gradually, like. Ya know what I mean?’

He said he'd s*ood enough watches on the mining vessels he'd worked over the past twenty years so that he felt himself able to do what Sean wanted.

‘Just don't mess the guy up so much we can't get civil answers out of him, will you?' Sean said.

The shuttle was due to make its weekly descent to Petaybee within the next thirty-two hours and Simon was able to plot from its trajectory where it would touch down - in the forest nearer Shannonmouth than Kilcoole. There was no pilot to remonstrate with or wring information from. A highly sophisticated remote-controlled module guided it to and from Petaybee.

This Simon Furey discovered when he barged past the disembarking passengers and attempted to get into the pilot's compartment. He'd come prepared with a device that would disable electronic locks so he was able to get into the forward cabin.

‘If I'd had just a little more time, I could have bollixed up the remote so the shuttle couldn't take off again. But it'll come back, won't it? I didn't mess up the panel, like, disabling the lock.' He looked at Sean for reassurance.

‘As long as whoever's running this show doesn't realize the lock was tampered with… What would you need to bollix the controls?’

Simon grinned. 'It don't take so much, really, if you know what to do. I'll have another look through the refuse skips at the SpaceBase. They're jettisoning an awful lot of useful stuff.’

‘They are?' Seamus and Adak chorused together.

‘Thanks, Simon,' Sean said, clapping the older man gratefully on the shoulder. 'We'll take any salvage you can hoist.’

‘Figured.’

‘Now,' and Sean's expression altered from amusement to anxiety, 'let's see where we can stash this bunch of pilgrims!' For there were more robed figures huddling in the miserable knot of the disembarked passengers. Clodagh was still in the Kilcoole cave with the first bunch of Rock Lovers or whatever the'religious' seekers called themselves.

Shannonmouth agreed to shelter the seven who were looking for their families. Nine of the religious had rock and stone names and demanded to be taken to Brothers Shale and Granite. So Sean took them back to Kilcoole to commune with their brothers and sisters. Three more hunters and another drug company representative made up this passenger complement. They, too, had to come back to Kilcoole though Sean didn't know where he'd be able to stash them. Now, if Simon should be successful in aborting the transport's return to the Intergal Station, maybe this would be the penultimate group he'd have to worry about. And with winter closing in, he'd have to sort the whole kaboodle real fast. Trying to spread the burden of extra numbers on the already stretched economy at least kept his mind off Yana.