Power Play

17

‘There!' cried Diego. 'I can feel the vibrations now. Can't you?' and his tone was slightly accusatory.

‘Yes, actually, I can,' Yana said, her fingers splayed on the bulkhead.

‘And the air has definitely changed,' Marmion said, sniffing. 'I've never noticed before how different air can smell.’

‘You would if you lived where it's pure,' Bunny said somewhat condescendingly, 'and then had to breathe the muck. Oh, your launch had good air but some places on Gal-Three it was… well, it was downright stinky. Like the stuff that hovers over SpaceBase back home.' The last few words came out in a tone that everyone recognized as homesick. But Bunny made an effort, inhaled the bad air, and turned resolute.

‘We'll get back to Petaybee, gatita, I know we will,' Diego said soothingly.

‘Hell's bells,' Yana said, 'for all we know we may be heading there right now.' She looked queryingly at Namid.

He shrugged his helplessness. 'Louchard is known to be devious but rarely direct. He likes to hunt, stalk his prey and then snatch.’

‘He makes a practice of kidnap?' Marmion asked, startled, and for the first time fear coloured her eyes.

‘Not that I know of,' Namid said as soothingly as Diego had spoken to Bunny. 'Now don't you worry yourself, Madame…"

‘I thought we'd reached the first-name basis, Namid,' and Marmion emphasized his name.

‘Thank you, well, let me repeat. No, Louchard tends to deal in inanimate cargo which is why I'm really surprised to see him turn to abduction.’

‘Cargoes being unable to testify in court, right?' Yana remarked in a cynical tone.

‘Exactly, and once sold on can rarely be traced since so often they are the raw materials which are turned into different goods entirely.’

‘Tell me,' and Yana had difficulty controlling a sudden surge of mirth,' does Louchard then steal those goods and sell them on?’

Namid's face and eyes lit with answering amusement. 'I really haven't been with this happy band of free-souls long enough to have observed that.' Then he sobered. 'I can only extrapolate from what Dinah used to tell me. And, of course, I'd no idea that she was generally transporting stolen goods.' He sighed unhappily and now it was Marmion's turn to console him.

‘But you do agree that we're breathing a different kind of air right now, don't you?' Bunny insisted as if that little concession was more important than any of the other topics with which they had whiled away their incarceration.

‘I do,' Marmion said and the others nodded. 'Clever of you to have noticed, Bunny. Although why the pirate ship remained so long at Gal-Three…’

‘That's the easiest part to guess,' Bunny said, impatient with Marmion. 'Who'd look on the station for us?’

‘A good point,' Marmion said magnanimously. 'Your pirate captain is indeed a devious man.’

‘I wonder if he's an orphan,' mused Namid, trying vainly to cheer himself up.

‘An orphan?' Bunny exclaimed in surprise: she'd been one most of her life and had never found the condition easy. Of course, she nearly lost Namid's response because thinking about being an orphan reminded her that if the pirate should waste them all, Cita would be all alone again and lose what precious little self-confidence she'd gained since knowing she was Bunny's sister and a Rourke.

‘Yes, an orphan,' Namid went on briskly. 'To further the analogy of the pirates I mentioned earlier.’

Bunny forced her mind off sad thoughts and listened while, with such music and words as he remembered from the score of The Pirates of Penzance, he regaled them and thus passed the hunk of time till their next meal as pleasantly as their circumstances allowed.

Petaybee

‘They call this "spring"?' asked Zing Chi, chief representative of the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company Limited, as he glanced round the desolate sweep of the broad valley, soggy with melt, yet burgeoning with insect life and the blooming of plants which the insects were helping to pollinate. He was thoroughly disgusted and wanted to leave when they'd only just managed to get to Petaybee South. The transport service on which he had booked his team had been terminated and their monies returned, but the refund alone was barely sufficient to bribe their way to the planet's surface, and at that, comparatively unsatisfactory, setdown point. The southern pole of the planet contained some of the botanicals listed, but the northern continent was the documented source of what he had been assured were riches of herbal gold - and those elusive qualities in unicorn horns and cats' whiskers for which his company could charge their oldest customers (and, of course, only the oldest needed such help) vast fortunes, whether or not there were any discernible results to the intake of Petaybean products.

Zing Chi was one of the best field operators, able to strip acres of plants by bloom, leaf, stem and root in no time at all. Some of the vegetation in sight looked familiar and was supposed to be plants which had been brought to Petaybee during the initial terraforming so they could adapt to this new world. But the nearest were only ground cover, cultivated to keep topsoil from being blown away.

He had been given no warning that his entire team would have to do all of their collecting on foot. They had seen no villages so far, no cities, no place to purchase transport of any sort. Zing Chi began to fear that there was none to purchase.

Fortunately, his people were very good walkers and walk they did, gathering, stripping, and neatly cataloguing anything vaguely resembling the plant materials listed, even those available elsewhere.

After five days, they had laid bare a strip approximately fifteen miles long and half a mile wide. It took all the animals they could find to feed them, for this time of year there were no berries or nuts of any sort remaining. Zing Chi's team consisted of a hundred and fifty people and they required much food.

One day, the son of one of his senior men, Lu Han, brought a small spotted lion cub in his arms.

‘Which whiskers do we need, boss?' he asked Zing Chi. 'This little fellow will need some of them for his balance and space sense. He won't mind losing a couple though, I think. He's a good cub.’

‘Do as you're told and the animal will have no need for whiskers. We haven't enough to eat. Kill it, take the whiskers, and skin it. The rest is for the soup pot. Our clients have specified that they want the whiskers of orange cats only, but since they do not seem to know enough to assist us in reaching that which we need to harvest, I do not suppose they will know the whiskers of an orange cat from those of this cub. The bounty will be the same.’

‘But boss

‘Do as I say.’

The boy nodded and the cub, as if sensing that the decision had gone against him, began to wiggle in his arms.