Power Play

4

Youngling, you are troubled, the rumble of the clouded snow leopard's concern brushed soothingly against the painful thoughts and feelings attacking Cita's spirit.

‘Coaxtl,' the girl reached up and put her arm around the neck of the great cat, burying her face in fur. 'Oh, Coaxtl, I am nothing but trouble. I have been weak and foolish and now my new family, my sister and her mate and my beautiful new aunt, have left me behind and my kind uncle is so displeased with me he seldom speaks to me any more. I am indeed unworthy to be included in the activities here, too stupid to help, too needy, too…’

Too long dwelling in the false caves of men, Coaxtl said with a cough of disdain. Too long away from the clean cold snow. Come, let us go to the mountains together and chase each other's tracks and find a rabbit who wants to die. It will be like the old days, before the men brought you here.

Goat-dung wailed and hugged the cat harder. 'Oh, poor, poor Coaxtl, I know you have stayed here away from your home just because I am too stupid to look after myself and you are a very kind cat…’

Hush that! And stop thinking of yourself as Goat-dung, Youngling. The others have given you good names - the name of your dam, Aoifa, and the name of your sire and your litter-mate, which is Rrrrrourrrrke! Coaxtl took great pleasure in roaring the name. Or they call you Cita, which is a better name than La Pobrecita, the poor little one, or Goat-dung. This one would drop all of those kitten names and simply call oneself Rrrrrourrrrke!

‘I wish I were your kitten, Coaxtl.’

Well, you aren't, but we can pretend. Come. Though you've gained some weight since you've been here, still you are not too large for one to carry on one's back pan-way. One smell's snow and one wants to rrrroll!

Goat-dung, no, Cita, no, The Rrourrke Youngling, climbed on to the back of her friend, and together they bounded away from the river and the town, from all the bustling people, away from the memories of the terrors of the SpaceBase, and out into the forest with its showers of rust-coloured needles and bright golden leaves. Rabbits, squirrels and birds scattered before them as Coaxtl raced through the red underbrush, her paws crackling on the carpet of old leaves which sent up a delicious, spicy smell with the cat's every step.

Before they reached the edge of the forest, Coaxtl suddenly laid down and rolled over. Youngling Rrourrke tumbled into the leaves and laughed as Coaxtl mock-pounced her, all four paws landing clear of the girl while the furry face gazed into hers.

‘Your breath smells like dead meat!' the girl cried.

Yours smells like you've lived among men too long! Coaxtl answered. What are you lying there for, lazy Youngling? It's your turn to carry me!

‘And how should I do that, crazy cat?' she asked, scrambling out from under the creature's underbelly, where twigs and leaves dangled from the silky fur. The girl opened her mouth wide and pretended to go for the back of the cat's neck. 'Shall I carry you in my mouth, like a mama cat?’

Don't be impertinent! Coaxtl said, and bounded off into the brush. Bet you can't track me!

Goat-dung,' Pobrecita,' Cita,' Aoifa,' Youngling Rrrrrourrke roared her name and plunged through the brush after her friend. Every time she paused, bewildered when the cat seemed to be nowhere around, she heard a laughing thought just ahead of her and saw the quiver of a bush or the flash of silver fur which was not awfully good camouflage in the brightly coloured forest, and she was on the trail once more.

And then, without warning, she ran out of the forest onto the edge of the muskeg-humped plain, and there was no Coaxtl, not anywhere.

Hsst, the cat's voice cautioned. Hide. A man-thing comes.

‘What? Where? Coaxtl, I can't find you. Where are you?' she asked, and rustled the brush trying to find sight of the cat. But while her back was turned, she suddenly smelt what must have alerted the cat long before, and saw a small flat vessel, not like the copters she had once known as Company Angels but what Bunny had referred to as a'shuttle'. It had letters on the side. Bunny had been showing her stupid sister letters before she left. She thought the names of those letters were P, like Petaybee or Pobrecita, which began with such a letter, and I - no, the table on top - that was it! Bunny had said that a 'I had a table on top -PT… S like snake or serpent - PTS. That was what it said on it.

She was so proud of herself for puzzling this out that she didn't think to hide. She had become somewhat easier among people since her move to Kilcoole, and more accustomed to what Coaxtl called man-things. The Shepherd Howling had not cared much for such things unless they were bringing supplies, so machinery played little part in the terror of her life among the Flock before she met Coaxtl.

So mostly she was curious and watched the shuttle land, despite many hissings from Coaxtl. She had no idea that such an important-looking craft or the people from it would take any notice of someone like her.

One by one they climbed out and sank promptly into the squooshy hillocks of muskeg. Their lower clothing and legs and feet would be very wet, she knew. Some of them carried long metal sticks and some of them had long white skirts, others wore short skirts and high fur boots and leaned on the arms of companions. Still others wore shiny pants. All of them were much too warmly dressed in layers and layers of fur and down, mittens, boots, coats, mufflers, and hats.

‘Aha!' one of the ones in a skirt cried. 'There's one!’

‘One what?' asked a woman's bored voice.

‘An aboriginal Petaybean.’

‘There's no such thing,' another protested.

‘Ah, you sir, as a businessman, obviously do not understand the spiritual nature of the relationship between the Petaybean native and his or her Great Benefactor. It has been explained to me and my brethren, however, by an expert on the subject.' And without waiting for further argument, the man in the white skirt slogged forward, squooshing up to his knees with every step. 'You there?’

‘Brethren.' He had said 'Brethren'. Shepherd Howling talked that way, and Dr Luzon. They were not very nice but she had learnt to mind them. Half of her wanted to shrink back into the brush but she stood as if rooted while the man approached and waited for him to demand that she do something she didn't want to.

‘Oh, little girl, yoo hoo!' another white skirt, this one a woman, called.

‘Yes, you!' the man said. 'You are an indigenous native of this glorious being upon which we stand?’

‘Well,' the girl began.

Youngling… Coaxtl's voice whispered.

‘Well, yes, I guess so.’

‘Ah!' the man's nervous smile broadened into a wide grin and he beckoned to those waiting behind the shuttle. 'She is! Come along, it's all right then.’

The others surged forward as awkwardly as the first, carrying their bags and their metal sticks and baskets.

The woman in the white skirt was the first to arrive. 'Brother Shale, you've been too hasty as usual and frightened her.' The woman pulled back her hood to reveal a shaven head, and took off her mitten to stick out a hand. 'Hello, honey. I'm Sister Igneous Rock. Take us to your leader.’

Ponopei II

Torkel Fiske had disguised himself before leaving his shuttle. He didn't care to be recognized by any of his father's cronies. A dark colourwash and a quick weave altered his hairstyle to shaggily long with a parting instead of his usual cropped red cut. A false dark moustache which looked utterly convincing, a pair of dark glasses well suited to the climate of the resort moon Ponopei II, a white synlin suit and a Caribbe seascape-designed shirt that were unlike anything he ever wore anywhere else, woven sandals, no socks and the sort of jewellery he normally wouldn't be caught dead in at his wrists, fingers, neck and one ear completed his ensemble. He chemically altered his skin colour with the substance designed to keep shipsiders from feeling out of place where sun and sea worship were the norm. Running an allview holo to check his appearance, he didn't recognize himself. He looked like a pirate on vacation himself.

Good. Onidi Louchard wouldn't take him for a rich, regimented fool then, a Company flunky who had risen to power on his father's reputation. More and more he was starting to feel that people around him did view him in that light and he hated it.

Fortunately, he had had cause to disguise himself before on Company business. A little fiddling with the computers altered the identity codes to provide him with yet another persona. His shuttle was an Intergal rental registered to M'sser J. LaFitte, a gem dealer from Burroughs Canal, Mars.

He had come to Ponopei II often enough that he knew his way around and was known, so he was gratified when none of the docking officials recognized him, nor the florist where he bought his leis, one for himself and one to seal the deal with Louchard. The maitre d' at his favourite restaurant failed to recognize him as well, but said, on consulting the reservation, 'Ah, M'sser LaFitte, your companion has not yet arrived, but your chamber is ready. This way, sir.’

Torkel spent the next fifteen minutes sizing up the people who entered after him, wondering which one could be Louchard. After watching three men in shorts and sandals, another in a yellow business suit similar to his own, five giggling young girls and one slightly older, petite, demure looker, dressed to kill - a society trophy wife, he guessed - he thought he had been stood up-Then the trophy wife in the soft lavender and blue sarong dress turned her snappy high-heeled sandals his way. Her legs were very nice, he noted. Pity women seldom showed them in public any more - except here, of course, where they showed everything. In taking in her appearance, he saw that she was somewhat older than he had assumed at first, her dark blond hair tufted at the ears and crown with silver. Then he realized she was wearing a blue frangi-pangi behind one ear. Louchard's communique had melodramatically mentioned a blue flower and that he was to bring leis.

The woman with the blue flower smiled and extended a tiny, beringed hand. All the rings had gems that matched her dress except for a prodigious stack of gold ones on the ring finger of her right hand. He admitted her to the chamber, and shut out the sights and sounds of the soft pink sands of the beach, the lime-green waters, and the multicoloured gardens by closing the hatch of the privacy bubble behind her and drawing the beaded curtains.

‘It's Captain LaFitte, surely, isn't it?' the woman enquired, sliding neatly across from him.

‘It's Captain Fiske, as your organization was told,' he said. 'And I was told I would negotiate with Louchard.’

‘Louchard couldn't make it,' the woman said with a charming show of teeth in a pink lipsticked mouth. 'I represent the organization. We understood you had business to discuss and I am the business manager, Dinah O'Neill.’

‘I see,' he said, and he did. She was no more a business manager than he was Jean LaFitte. The appearance of Onidi Louchard was a carefully guarded secret, but he had heard that the pirate was female. And this lady's eyes were as cold and calculating a's he always fancied himself to be. They understood each other quite well already. 'The deal is simply this. I recently met some gentlemen in business with Louchard on the planet known to the locals as Petay-bee. It's a treacherous world that refuses to give up its secrets to outsiders, but seems to have a fondness for certain people who live there. Three of those people are now on Gal-Three. The one I'm concerned with is a former Company Corps officer, Yanaba Maddock. She and her paramour, a suspicious local named Shongili, have manoeuvred themselves into being named coadministrators of the governmental affairs of Terraform B. They're the ones who threw a monkey wrench in your operation on the planet and they're now the ones in charge of future resource use. Maddock is pregnant. Her husband is, for a variety of complicated reasons, unable to leave the planet. The teenagers accompanying her are a boy of no particular consequence and a girl who is the husband's niece. But the important one is Maddock.’

‘I can see where holding her would give you a certain… leverage. But I fail to see where there's any profit in that for us,' said Dinah O'Neill.

‘I really should have spoken to your leader then,' Torkel said. 'He would have understood at once. Petaybean mineral wealth is still waiting to be mined. Captain Louchard has seen this…’

She shrugged. 'That is true. But it's also true, Captain, that there are many other worlds to mine. Petaybean ore and gems are top quality but are proving… costly to extract. In addition to losing four men and the supplies invested in their operation you now want us to kidnap some settlers? That planet doesn't yield its largesse to them either and they're all poor as dirt. Sounds to me like you've got a personal problem with these people, Captain. We're not terrorists, we're business people.’

‘So is the woman who is hosting Yana Maddock and the children. I'm sure as a "business person" you'll be familiar with the name Marmion de Revers Algemeine?’

‘Naturally, though regrettably she has never shown an inclination to avail herself of our services. If the parties you're interested in detaining are in her care, however, I must tell you that such an operation would be so difficult it would be no more cost-effective than your other proposal.’

‘Even if detaining Algemeine as well as Maddock is possible? I would think that the lady would command an extremely high ransom.’

The woman shook her head and looked at him pityingly. 'So would the board of directors of Intergal, but we do know our limits, Captain.’

He leaned over and boldly took her hand. 'So do I - on my own. You don't think I'd suggest this unless I knew I could expedite access to the targets, do you? Just say yes and we can make this happen.’

She smiled and covered his hand with her other one. The rings bit into the back of his knuckles. 'I never could resist a smooth-talking man who wears more jewellery than I do. Expedite away, Captain, and have your people get in touch with our people. You know how.’