Power Play

20

Oh, Lordee, thought Johnny, kidnapping's come back into vogue! This is ridiculous. 'And so,' he said aloud, 'just how many d'you think you can cram in my copter?’

Zing Chi smiled with pleasant malevolence. 'You will call for others.’

At that point, Loncie snorted, Pablo guffawed and Johnny just grinned.

‘Man, you're looking at the sole and only copter available in this or any other Petaybean hemisphere. And I only got so much fuel left in the tanks. So stop waving that thing at me like it could argue the case for you.’

Cita noticed that it was hard to see the men, for the light had gradually faded while they stood talking.

Youngling, you are safe? Coaxtl's nimbly voice was like a warm blanket.

‘Yes,' she answered, automatically looking around to spot her friend.

At the edge of the ring of armed workers she could dimly make out the shadowy form of the boy she had seen earlier from the copter. Beside him, a pair of eyes shone. Cita knew it was Coaxtl. Then she saw the next pair of eyes, lower down, and the outline of a pair of smaller tufted ears. Another pair of eyes was beside

Coaxtl's then, and, coming from the darkness, another and another and another.

She was about to tug at Captain Johnny's sleeve to point out what she saw when someone screamed and all at once, several other people did too.

‘Quiet!' Zing Chi hollered. 'Quiet, you morons! What is the matter with you?' He strode into the crowd and smacked the first screamer he met. But when he raised his hand to smack the next, a tall man, Zing Chi's head tilted back as his gaze travelled up and up and up, into the snarling face of a standing polar bear. The crowd suddenly grew much more dense as the hundred or so workers shrank towards the copter and the ring of Petaybean snow lions and polar bears, wolverines and wolves, and other large animals stalked slowly forward.

Zing Chi retreated until he came up against Johnny. Johnny had taken the opportunity to draw his sidearm and now he gave Cita an enquiring glance.

Just then Coaxtl's voice spoke in her head. None will hurt you, Youngling. But these ones are a plague to the Home and we have come to see that they go no further.

Cita pulled Johnny's shoulder down and whispered this information in his ear.

Johnny covered Zing Chi and said, 'If those weed-whips of yours will burn, I suggest you build a fire. These critters don't like fire very much.’

‘I guess you don't want to tell them the bad news, eh, Captain Johnny?' asked Pablo. 'What bad news?' Zing Chi asked. 'We only told you what cures people make on this planet. Animals have their own remedies. A polar bear that hasn't mated for a while, for instance…’

Aboard the pirate ship

Yana was lying on her bunk listening to Namid give Diego and Bunny an astronomy lesson. Bunny soaked up everything Namid had to say but Diego made a pain of himself, playing teaching assistant. Marmie was asleep.

The door to their cramped quarters opened and Dinah O'Neill poked her head in. 'Yana, could we talk?’

‘What about?' Yana asked cautiously. Was this the part where the pirates got her off alone and tortured her?

Dinah smiled sweetly. 'Just a little girl-to-girl stuff. I thought you might want to. I've been down to see your planet. I think I may have seen your husband.’

Yana was on her feet and at the door so quickly she almost ran Dinah down.

‘What did Sean say?' she asked, recklessly grabbing the smaller woman's arm. 'How on earth could he meet your demands?' Surely Sean's loyalty to Petaybee was more urgent than even his love for her and their unborn child.

Dinah gave her a secretive feline smile. 'I didn't exactly talk to him.’

‘But you did see him?’

‘Nice-looking guy who turns into a seal?’

How had she learnt Sean's secret? Well, since the wedding, a slightly more open secret. Yana nodded. 'That would be Sean.’

‘Oh yes, I saw him - quite a lot of him actually. How does he do that?’

For a change Dinah was not accompanied by Megenda or any other heavies. Yana toyed with the idea of overpowering her, but curiosity about what Dinah had seen on Petaybee made her decide to wait. Besides, once she overpowered Dinah, then what? Take on the rest of the pirates? She could hold Dinah hostage but pirates like Louchard weren't known for their unswerving devotion to their friends.

Dinah led her into a tiny room which boasted a desk and a double bed. Yana raised an eyebrow.

‘I didn't realize Namid was so serious about the divorce when I brought him aboard. I thought I could get him to reconsider. What did you think? I take turns with the crew?’

Yana said nothing but the eyebrow stayed aloft.

‘You did, didn't you?' Dinah seemed amused, but there had been an edge to her query.

‘What you do in bed is none of my business and I don't think that's why you wanted to talk to me. What's on your mind?’

‘Now, Yana’

‘I prefer Colonel Maddock-Shongili, if you don't mind.’

‘Heavens, there's no need to be so stuffy. You're coadministrator of a whole planet now. That makes you a politician. I'm a privateer. So you see, we have a lot in common.’

‘If you only brought me here to insult me, I'd like to return to my nice, convivial cell please.’

‘You aren't making this easy…' Dinah said.

‘Gee, I'm sorry. I didn't know I was supposed to.’

‘I thought you wanted to return to your planet. I'm just trying to tell you that there might be a way, but it'll be tricky.’

‘Getting Louchard to agree?’

‘Believe it or not, the Captain will be easier to convince than the crew. If it was up to Megenda, you'd all be spaced. You have no idea the personnel problems one has trying to obtain crewmen who are rough enough to do the job but still controllable. It can be a real nightmare.’

‘I'm sure you didn't ask me here to tell me how hard it is to get good help these days, Dinah. Will you get to the fraggin' point?’

Dinah dropped her confidential air, and became very businesslike. 'The fraggin' point, Colonel Maddock-Shongili, is that under certain circumstances I can use my influence to return you to the planet. One of those circumstances is that you must personally guarantee my safety and that of my crew, when and if we release you.’

‘I certainly won't be able to arrange for your guarantee unless I am free to do so,' Yana said acerbically. 'What else?’

‘I have business in a place called Tanana Bay. I've obtained an aerial map which leaves a lot to be desired…’

‘How? Sean didn't just give it to you!’

‘No, a cunning old devil named Adak pointed it out’

‘Adak is Bunny's uncle. You didn't hurt him?’

Dinah shrugged. 'Megenda had to give him a love tap but he was standing in the door of a Nabatira Cube that seemed to be functioning as an immigration office. He was alert and watching your spouse's bare ass sink into the river when last I saw him. He's fine. But the map is too damned indistinct - no roads, no towns, no names. We'll need a guide to the settlement and I also want to find one of those - whaddayacallems? Communion caves?’

‘Wouldn't you prefer the one at McGee's Pass perhaps, or Savoy, to view the fruits of your previous efforts?’

‘After what happened to Satok and company? No thanks. Listen, I hope you're not holding that against me too?’

‘It's not me you have to worry about, mate,' Yana said drolly.

‘Well, then, I have to worry about whatever it is that allegedly makes Petaybee… unusual - at least unusual enough to allow a human being to do what your husband did. Change, I mean. I hope whatever that is won't hold Satok's operation against me. All I knew about that business was that the men delivered such and such an ore to such and such a site and that they had developed something involving Petraseal that let them succeed at mining where the Company had been unable to.’

Yana leaned forward and said with all the earnestness in her, 'Dinah, if I have to personally cover every inch of ground near Tanana Bay to find the communion place for you I will do so just to watch you tell that story to the planet and hear what response you get. But what are you going to tell Louchard if the planet refuses to consider your demands?’

Til think of something,' she said. 'Now, however, it's time for us all to climb into the shuttle and take you home, don't you think?’

‘And Bunny, Diego, Marmion and Namid? Bunny's probably the best one to guide you.’

‘And not much good to me otherwise. Actually, Marmion has become a bit of a liability, delightful as her company has been. Had it not been for her offer of a transport fee, I'm afraid the boss might have done something drastic to… er… eliminate the danger.

But a fee is a fee and I'd much rather drop her off on your quaint little planet than deliver her to her door on Gal-Three where I'm sure her friends and employees would all be there to greet me. And I suppose I'd best face it that it's all over between Namid and me. Petaybee's as good a place as any for the tasteless bastard.' She gave a deep sigh. 'Oh, very well. You can have it all your way for now. There! It's settled! Don't you feel better now that we've talked things over? I know I do!’

The moment the hatch opened, Bunny took a sniff and said, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, 'Home.’

Snow was falling against a pink and tangerine twilight, gilding the heavy snow-cover with rose and gold, a glistening sheet stretching to mountains dwarfed by the distance.

‘Very good, sweetie,' Dinah O'Neill snapped. 'But I already knew this was your home. Where exactly and specifically are we?’

Megenda was climbing out behind Dinah, but as soon as he stepped on the narrow gangplank, the port side of the shuttle sank approximately four feet into the ground, cracking the big pirate's chin on the ledge.

Bunny made a face. 'Sinkholes. From the permafrost, you know.’

Megenda's foot was trapped between the side of the hole and the shuttle. The other two pirates were left inside the shuttle which continued to list further into the water.

‘The fraggin' hole's filling up with water,' Megenda bellowed. The words were just out of his mouth when the hatch closed abruptly.

‘Oops,' Yana said, watching the shuttle and the pirate sink further. 'I don't think that's a sinkhole after all, Bunny. I think we may have landed on ice and it broke through under the shuttle's weight.' She called down into the hole, 'Hope you can swim, Megenda.' Dinah stepped to the edge of the hole to help the first mate but the ice broke under her foot. Had Namid not grabbed her, she, too, would have fallen in the black and freezing water. As the hole broadened, Megenda lurched with his hands to find a hold on the exterior of the shuttle and managed to catch one of the security hooks, his heavy body precariously dangling now from the one hand.

‘Help him!' Dinah said, reaching for her laser pistol which Namid had deftly extracted from her belt when he kept her from falling into the hole. 'Damn!' and she clenched her fists in frustration at its loss. 'Why should I help him?' Diego asked. 'You guaranteed safe conduct,' Dinah reminded

Yana.

‘I didn't mean against natural disasters,' Yana said.

‘He'd be no great loss to me.’

‘He's still a human in trouble on my planet,' Bunny said, down on her stomach and ready to give assistance. 'Diego, Namid, hold on to my ankles!’

Marmion hesitated only a moment before extending the link by grabbing Diego's ankles.

‘Oh, very well,' Yana said, and started to flop down on the ground, but Namid shoved her away and took her place, holding Marmion's ankles.

‘You must think of your child, Colonel,' he told her. 'Here, Megenda! Take my hands,' Bunny told the pirate. 'We can pull you out but you're going to have to turn loose of the shuttle first. Swing your body this way.' Megenda let go of the shuttle and grabbed Bunny's arms so quickly she screamed in pain. Next he got a hold of her long hair, pulling himself half out of the water, literally climbing over her to get out of the freezing water.

The ice cracked ominously under the load it now bore and the edge disintegrated abruptly so that Bunny hung face down into the opening, looking into black water while the pirate hoisted himself over her legs to Diego, whose grip on Bunny's ankles slipped as she tilted downwards.

When Megenda hauled himself on to the secure bank, Yana walloped him on the jaw with Dinah's laser pistol which Namid had passed over to her.

‘Get off those kids, you ass!' she commanded. He slumped sideways, relinquishing his hold on both Diego's arms. Dinah and Yana both scrambled forward on their knees to haul the girl out of the hole.

Yana collapsed in the snow, coughing and panting, while Diego and Bunny nursed various bruises and strains the big pirate had inflicted.

Dinah crept forward and peered over the edge of the hole and then considered the precarious cant to the shuttle.

‘I don't suppose they can just fly out of there, can they?' Yana asked.

Dinah shook her head. 'One skid is caught under the edge of the ice. They're off balance.’

‘On the bridge side, at least the shuttle seems to be able to float.’

Bunny said, 'Yana, we gotta get out of here. I can feel the temperature dropping and this gear of theirs isn't good for more than minus seventy-five.’

‘It gets colder than that this early?' Dinah asked appalled.

Bunny nodded. 'I'd be all right, I expect, but the rest of you are in trouble unless we get to shelter pretty quick.’

‘Have you got a clue where the town is, Bunny?’

Yana asked.

‘If we're right on - almost in - the Bay, it's got to be over that way,' Bunny said, pointing to what looked to Yana like an identical piece of the snow-covered terrain all around them. 'Sorry. I usually come by dogsled along the trail and don't need to pass this way. I've no landmarks here, except the mountains, so we'll have to head that way until I can get my bearings. And we do have to move or you're all going to freeze.’

‘Right,' Yana said. 'How about the communion place? Do you know where that is from here?’

Bunny shook her head. 'It's within the town someplace is all I know. When it was their turn to give the latchkay I was sick and couldn't go.’

‘OK, then,' Yana said, 'let's move out. On your feet, you,' she commanded, using her toe to nudge Megenda, who groaned but remained limp.

‘You shouldn't have hit him so hard,' Dinah said.

‘I should have let him drown,' Yana told her. 'And he'll be the first to freeze, wet as he is. So come on, Namid, Diego, you're strong! Let's get him up and head on out of here.’

Gal-3

Dr Matthew Luzon, striding along the corridor from the shuttle which had brought him back to his head offices on Gal-3, was feeling very good in himself. Assiduous application of the physiotherapy exercises, careful diet and self-discipline had completely restored him to the level of physical fitness which he deemed necessary for a man with his responsibilities.

He had been reviewing applicants for the positions left open by the defection of the highly paid and supposedly loyal assistants that he had brought with him on the disastrous Petaybee investigation. Those who had survived the initial stages of security clearance were awaiting him in his office. He was going to start afresh on the many tasks awaiting a man of his reputation and abilities. He could look ahead now, for bigger and better things.

A gaggle of people coming from the passenger lounge were advancing on him in a solid phalanx, leaving no space for anyone to pass. Frowning, he gestured with his right hand for them to clear to the side to allow him to pass. But then he saw the reason for such a mass: an invalid vehicle, one of the newest types, was in the midst of the people, its occupant turning from left to right as he issued a stream of orders which were being recorded. To Matthew's intense surprise, the man in the chair was none other than Farringer Ball, Secretary General of Intergal: the one man he cared less about seeing than any other in the galaxy; the very one whose intransigence had resulted in the wretched planet being adjudged'sentient' and autonomous, ruining all Luzon's careful plans for its future.

‘Why, Farringer,' Luzon said in his heartiest voice, tingeing it with concern and sympathy for the invalid's condition, 'whatever has happened to you?’

‘Luzon?' Farringer's voice was a wispy croak and Luzon was genuinely shocked at the man's condition. The chair obviously contained life-support devices, for Luzon was now close enough to see the ubiquitous tubes attached to the man at one end and the machine under the seat of the chair on the other. 'Recovered from your injury?’

‘Indeed, and I could wish you the same good fortune. Whatever has reduced you to this sorry state?' Not that Luzon wasn't delighted to see that Justice was being served in Ball's case.

‘On your way to Petaybee, are you? For one of their miracle cures?' Luzon smiled graciously, twisting the knife of his words into Ball's wizened carcase.

‘To Petaybee?' Farringer Ball's wheeze went up an octave and he stared at Luzon in surprise. 'Why should I go there, of all places?’

‘Why, hadn't you heard? Since the board so nobly decided that Intergal should withdraw and allow Terra-form B its autonomy, every drug company in the galaxy is trying to sign up the exclusive rights to the therapeutic treatments available only there.' Partially true, of course, since representatives were on the planet, although, according to Luzon's informants, none of them had reported back to their head offices, or anywhere, on the results of their missions.

‘What therapeutic treatments?' Ball snapped and half of the crowd around him looked expectantly at Luzon for the answer.

Luzon then realized that medics of one kind or another made up most of the groupies around the Secretary General.

‘Why, I thought you'd have heard. You always know what's going on in the medical field,' and Luzon could afford to be slightly condescending: poor health was Ball's true reward. 'There is something about the pure air and organically grown food products on Petaybee, not to mention the ambience, that absolutely changes a man!’

‘It does?' Ball wheezed. 'How?' He peered suspiciously up at the obviously robustly healthy Luzon. 'You only broke your legs…' His tone implied that that didn't take much healing.

‘True,' and Luzon leaned down conspiratorially. 'But then I didn't need the special sort of healing that only Petaybee provides. We really shouldn't have let the planet out of our control, you know. You'd be glowing with health again if you'd taken the cure there.’

‘Taken the cure? What cure?’

‘Now that I don't know in any particulars, I'm afraid,' Luzon replied, knowing that he had Ball just where he wanted him. 'Of course, now that Intergal no longer has any rights on the planet, its administrators… if you can call such novices by that term,' and he permitted a belittling sneer in his voice, 'are of course setting up a monopoly on the surface. I really feel that one cannot put a price on such natural benefits and one certainly shouldn't restrict those who are chosen to receive the cure to such a narrow category…’

‘What category? What monopoly? What natural benefits?' Ball's agitation made his wheeze worse and he started coughing, a dry, hard rasping sound despite the fact that he was also spraying spit around him.

Luzon moved a discreet step to one side. 'Well, I'm no longer au courant with the latest developments, but they have been amazing. Truly amazing. I wonder that none of your medical advisers have suggested the Petaybean Cure to you. It'd make a new man of you, I'm sure.' From the avid expression in Ball's eyes, Luzon knew that his little spiel had had the desired effect. 'Do hope you're feeling better real soon, Farrie. Nice to have seen you. Must rush.’

As soon as he had left the gaggle behind him, Luzon indulged in a smugly satisfied chuckle. The transport business he had backed to get as many people to Petaybee's surface as possible may have come to a crashing halt, but there were other ways of overloading the planet and proving that it could not take care of itself and/or its inhabitants, much less any visitors. CIS would have to step in and alter the current arrangement. Planets could not, should not, go about managing themselves, not in a well-organized inter-galactic civilization. Citizens of the galaxy had the right to pursue commercial ventures whenever these were possible. Citizens were also guaranteed certain basic rights and Petaybee jeopardized these by its very existence.

And then there was the matter of Marmion de Revers Algemeine. Luzon had heard nothing on the news media about the kidnapping. 'Nothing' on that situation was the best news he could possibly imagine. That took care of her: permanently. When was it he and Torkel Fiske were to meet? He tapped up his engagements on his wristpad. Ah, this evening. Very good. They had a lot to talk about. Petaybee might not be a lost world after all.