Power Play

14

Sean swam with the single-minded fish schools until they reached the lake, where the fish all at once made a single silver river into another of the underwater caves. Sean followed and when the water grew too shallow, the fish turned back, but he was in another dry grotto. As he was changing form, he saw the phosphorescence once more organize into a straight line, this time pointing inland. Once his feet were under him again, he followed it. Though Sean had swum the waterways of Petaybee all his life, these caves and passages were new to him, the most recent seismic activity. The line of luminescence led him through passages towards the cries for help that were first only echoes like the one he had heard near Kilcoole, but soon became the faint cries of real voices.

When he turned a corner and saw the five hunters, he almost laughed at the expressions of terrified anger and frustration on their faces. One of them, de Peugh he thought, had developed a distinct twitch and his hair had a great deal more white in it than Sean remembered as well as a tendency to stand straight up. Minkus was gibbering to himself and Ersol kept looking around the cave and up at the opening they had fallen through as if it was about to eat him. The wooden Petaybean weapons Sinead had substituted for their high-tech rifles were piled together in a little heap that someone had tried to set on fire for warmth, he supposed, all but the dagger Mooney clutched in his fist as he pointed to Sean and yelled.

‘You're another damned hallucination! Go away! Nobody walks around bare-assed in this weather.’

‘We have nothing for you, honestly,' Minkus cried, cringing away. 'We gave the rabbit de Peugh had in his pocket to the cat. It would have eaten us otherwise. Please, please don't harm us!’

Sean glanced apologetically down at his own now-human flesh. 'Harm you? What with? I thought you lads wanted help.’

‘Oh, we do, we do!' Minkus cried. 'We've been down here days, weeks, months. It's been the most horrible nightmare. The walls shift and melt and little lights come on and sometimes I see little volcanoes exploding and then when I look again there's nothing…’

Sean shook his head. 'You can't have been down here more than a few hours. Where're my sister and the others?’

‘They abandoned us to be eaten by wild beasts,' Minkus said.

‘Well, we do have a saying here on Petaybee that some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you, but mostly it's not to be taken literally. Shall we find a way to get you out of here?’

‘We'll follow you back the way you came,' Mooney said.

Sean grinned. 'Not unless you can hold your breath for a very long time. How'd you get down here?’

‘We fell!' Ersol pointed to the hole, far above them. With the arrival of someone who was probably able to extricate them from their captivity, his dignity was restored. 'We were lucky we weren't bloody killed. We could sue…’

Sean laughed harder. 'Sue what? The planet? You are, to all legal intents and purposes, trespassing on private property. Very private property.’

‘Private… vat… vat… vatapplied for hunting licences,' Minkus complained, his voice shrill with hysteria.

‘Which were not yet granted, I must warn you. Nor would they have been. However, follow me.’

Sean had spotted the dotted line which Petaybee had illuminated to guide him and now struck out through the remainder of the underground passage leading away from the lake.

‘Hey, man, how come you're not wearing anything?' Ersol asked, staring at him.

‘I… er… was swimming when I heard you yelling for help,' Sean said.

‘Why aren't you freezing?' Minkus demanded. Clot-worthy was also staring in disbelief at their saviour.

‘Oh,' and Sean shrugged, looking down himself as if he might have changed shape since he last looked, 'adaptation to Petaybee. And it's not all that cold down here, you know. You wouldn't have frozen to death by any manner or means.’

‘No, just died of starvation…' Mooney said, licking his lips.

‘Not that either,' Sean said, 'but I'm sure we can find you something to eat when we get where we're going.’

‘Where are we going?’

All five had fallen into a single line behind him as he strode purposefully through the passage, the little line of phosphorescence popping out just ahead of them. Petaybee was full of new tricks these days, he thought with no small degree of wonder. New passages, new ways of communicating direction, and that extremely idiosyncratic and erratic echo.

‘All I know right now is that we're getting out of here. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine,' Sean said.

'Now, guess, guess.'

‘Oh, frag, there it is again. That voice! Once it sounded like it was crying some woman's name. Listen. What is it?' Mooney demanded on a semi-hysterical note. He crouched down, brandishing his dagger, his eyes showing whites all the way around like a spooked curly's.

Tetaybee,' Sean replied amiably, without breaking stride. The others rushed to keep up with him. He really must discover how to bring clothing with him when he went selkying. Despite his disclaimer, the temperature was not all that high in the tunnels.

‘Does it do that often? Echo you?’

‘It wasn't echoing me.’

‘It wasn't?' Ersol lost his pomposity again.

‘If it wasn't,' Minkus said with the edge of fear in his voice, 'who's speaking?’

‘I told you - Petaybee.’

'Petaybee!'

‘Now, see here, Shongili, that was an echo.’

‘Was it?’

'Petaybee.'

‘Oh, my gawd!' Ersol said, his voice quavering badly. 'Lemme outta here!’

‘It can't be far now. The passage is getting narrower and sloping up - we should be reaching the surface soon,' Sean said encouragingly.

And they did. Walking up an incline, they emerged from the side of a hill into a cool snow-laden wind that required all Sean's physical control to resist shivering.

‘Hey, Shongili, I don't care what you say, your goosebumps just got goosebumps. Here,' and Ersol threw a sweater around his shoulders. 'You got some spare pants in your pack, don't you, Clotworthy? Mooney, break out a pair of socks, at least.’

They paused long enough to put Sean into minimal coverings and then continued down the slope. They emerged onto a low ridge and a clump of wind-raked bushes to stare down at the lake, its edges now frozen, on the other side of which Sinead had left them.

‘Hey, isn't that your sister?' Ersol cried, pointing to figures on the verge.

Somehow 'your sister' sounded like a nasty epithet. Sean ignored the tone, knowing that Sinead could be a trifle difficult at times and these men, particularly, needed the kind of lesson only she could teach on Petaybee.

Sean put both hands to his mouth and uttered the ululating call they always used to cover long distances. One figure responded, straightening up, and looking around.

‘SINEAD!’

The sound of her name reverberated under her feet. Then a piercing distant whistle from the far side of the lake indicated that Sinead had not only heard, but seen them.

‘Let's go.’

‘Isn't there anywhere we can go besides near her?' Minkus asked plaintively.

Sean chuckled to himself as he led the way down the slope. Somehow this encounter had restored him in a way not even the swimming could. Or maybe it was a case of both. The planet healing and then revealing what it was he had to do: organize the influx and protect Petaybee as best he could.

He was reminded again of the influx as, halfway back to Kilcoole, they met Clodagh leading the white-robes like a mother duck with her ducklings behind her. The white-robes broke formation, however, and hurried forward to fuss.

‘You poor men, we heard your cries!’

‘You couldn't've,' Mooney said. 'We weren't that loud.’

‘It was awful,' Clotworthy said to Sister Agate. 'I can't stop shaking.’

‘It's the cold, poor dear.’

The hunters confided to the other off-worlders about the cat, the unicorn, and their injuries.

‘Poor Mr de Peugh,' Brother Shale fretted. 'Whatever is wrong with him?’

Clodagh shrugged. 'Looks to me like he lost an argument with Petaybee.’

‘The Beneficence?' Brother Shale asked. 'The Beneficence did this to these poor men?’

‘Oh surely not,' Brother Schist said nervously. 'That wouldn't be very… benevolent… would it?’

‘Sin,' said Sister Igneous Rock firmly. 'He sinned against the planet and it smote him.’

‘Now you just cut that out!' Clodagh said. The hunters weren't the only frustrated people that day. 'Petaybee hasn't invented sin yet.’

Luzon's Headquarters

‘They did what? Dr Matthew Luzon said in a volume that blasted the eardrums of the party on the end of the comlink.

‘The PTS transporter licence has been revoked and the vehicle impounded.’

‘That can't be donel' Why, Luzon thought, angrily stamping the cane he still had to use into the thick carpet, there weren't nearly enough people down on the planet's surface yet and he hadn't been able to infiltrate enough of his agents to effect the sort of damage he had planned on creating. Makem hadn't reported in since he landed, either, and so Luzon had no idea if the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company had reached the surface. They had been so eager to slay the unicorns for their horns, long believed to have aphrodisiac and healing powers, to acquire the whiskers of the orange cats, which they had been told had similar powers as well as life-extending properties. He had also given them a list of therapeutic plants and lichens, which incidentally included all the vegetation so far catalogued on the planet's surface. The way those fellows worked, a forest could be hewn, chopped into splinters and removed, quicker than one of those disgusting felines could blink. The'renewable wealth' of Petaybee would be past history.

‘Perhaps, but it has been done. The remote device was removed from the cockpit and there's one of those propulsion unit clamps that would blow the vessel into trash if someone tried a manual take-off. That ship is grounded.’

‘But that's a totally prohibited perversion of basic commercial venture rights. All the proper forms have been accepted by…’

‘They've just been dis-accepted, Luzon. The credit account has had its assets frozen and mail, messages or credit transfers addressed to PTS are being returned to sender.’

Matthew Luzon, fuming and sputtering and sorely tempted to send the comunit across the room into the mock-marble fireplace, was trying to figure out how the carefully constructed and protected PTS operation could have been discovered and blocked. Who? Unless that twit-brained Makem had been corrupted down on the planet's surface? The noise of his room buzzer penetrated his fury.

‘YES?' Even Luzon was astonished at the snarl in his voice and moderated his tone. 'Yes?’

‘Torkel Fiske to see you,' said the sexy-voiced receptionist of this exclusive health resort.

‘Ah, the very man.' Matthew's ire settled almost as instantly as it had flared. 'Enter. Enter. My dear Captain Fiske, how good of you to spare some time to visit the convalescent.’

Fiske came in, suavely dressed and smiling, with a touch of smug satisfaction that was visible to the shrewd eye of his observer. Matthew began to feel that his unexpected visitor was going to cheer him no end and prolonged that pleasure until he had seen Fiske suitably supplied with the drink of his choice and some of the enticing tidbits that the resort offered its distinguished clientele.

‘I came, Doctor Luzon, because I felt that you might not have heard the news,' Fiske said, still smiling unctuously. He took another sip, chose one of the little canapes to eat.

‘I fear the medics have required me to suspend my usual activities until my injuries are completely healed,' Luzon said, 'so I've not kept up with general news. If anything is bad enough, someone always manages to inform the galaxy,' and he smiled condescendingly over such a foible.

‘Then I was right. You haven't heard about the kidnapping.’

‘Kidnapping?' And Luzon leaned towards his guest, his heart pounding in the suspense of waiting to hear the names of the victims.

‘Yes, kidnapping. And from Gal-Three where, as you may know, they have such a tight security system.' Fiske smiled at Luzon, a smile deprecating the machinations of a security system that failed to secure.

‘Really? How very alarming.’

‘Yes, and everyone is astounded. I mean, who would have thought that Marmion de Revers Algemeine had a single enemy in the galaxy.’

‘Not her!' Luzon could scarcely contain his joy though he expressed a horror which caused Fiske to grin more broadly.

‘And… you'll never guess who was kidnapped along with her?’

‘No, indeed I cannot, so do tell me.' Luzon was all but bouncing about on the seat of his electronic mobility device.

‘Colonel Yanaba Maddock-Shongili…’

‘Not the doughty Colonel?’

‘And…’

‘Oh, not more victims! How appalling!’

‘Buneka Rourke and young Diego Etheridge-Metaxos too.’

Luzon raised his eyes ceilingward. 'There is justice in the universe. Truly, there is!' He bowed his head. Then peered up at the grinning Fiske. 'Who perpetrated this atrocity?’

‘The infamous Captain Onidi Louchard!’

‘Oh! Famous… I mean, infamous. I've heard the pirate was clever but to breech Gal-Three Security, I'm truly speechless. And?’

‘And what?’

‘Have the bodies been returned?’

‘You are bloodthirsty, Doctor,' Fiske said, his glance tinged with censure. 'The ransom has been set…’

‘On Algemeine?' Luzon snorted with scorn. 'It'll never be paid.’

‘What do you mean?' Fiske sat forward, concerned.

Luzon waved his hand at such folly. 'My dear Fiske, Marmion Algemeine is one of the top financiers in the known galaxy. She would adhere to the Code out of principle, unlike the cravens on the Amber Unicorn.’

‘What Code do you mean?' Fiske repeated, now seriously agitated.

‘Why, the Anti-Extortion Code, of course. Surely you're aware that the really rich have the most stringent laws against the payment of ransoms? To prevent wholesale kidnappings and the payment of vast sums of ransom monies? A wise move and no-one has tested the Code since the spectacular and highly publicized failure of the Amber Unicorn ploy over a hundred years ago.’

‘But… but… Louchard is smart and ruthless. He'll figure a way around it.’

‘Not if he was fool enough to choose Marmion de Algemeine, he won't,' Luzon said, dismissing the matter with a snort. 'Why, what's the matter?’

For his handsome guest had turned quite pale under his space tan.

‘Then Maddock and those kids will die too?’

‘Of course. They've no assets… unless…' and now Matthew rubbed the carved jade head of his cane against his lips. The coolness of jade was so soothing and helped him think. 'Unless Louchard can figure out a way to get concessions out of Petaybee.' Immediately the words were out of his mouth, Luzon cancelled that possibility - until he glanced at Fiske again. 'Don't tell me that was your master plan, Fiske?' he asked scornfully. 'Tell me - what was Louchard like?’

‘I never met Louchard,' Fiske said, his expression set, his tone distracted, like that of a man, Luzon recognized, who is thinking very fast about something else entirely.

‘But didn't you mention to me the fact that Louchard was involved in the smuggling of those miserable quantities of ore that were extracted from the planet?’

Actually both men knew that Fiske had mentioned no such thing and Louchard's involvement was speculation. Still, that would account for the pirate being willing to kidnap that wretched trio in the hope of being able to obtain concessions no-one else had had from Shongili. Luzon would never believe it was the planet: therefore the mind behind all his misfortunes on Petaybee had to be the very human one of the man who stood to lose most - Sean Shongili.

‘He might just do something to protect that unborn bastard of his, at that,' Luzon mused. 'Where are you going, Fiske? You bring me such interesting news.' But Luzon's words did not pass the door that Torkel Fiske had slammed behind him.

It was a considerably more cheerful Luzon who began tapping out numbers on his comlink.