Power Play

19

‘We've stopped,' Bunny said, suddenly sitting up straight on the edge of her bunk. She'd been leaning against the bulkhead and watching Namid write down the lyrics of the patter song. Some of the words Namid was transcribing - like Major General - were new words to her but it helped to watch him put them down. She could sound out the syllables, as he'd been teaching her to do, and then later, when they were allowed out to walk the corridors - Louchard's latest relaxation of the rules of their incarceration - he would teach her the proper pronunciation. Sometimes words didn't sound the way they looked which only made the chore of reading them harder. She had complained bitterly that words should look like they sounded.

‘Whaddya mean, we've stopped?' Diego demanded, laying his hand, palm flat against the metal wall. 'I still feel vibrations.’

‘Yeah, but they've changed,' Bunny said.

‘Yeah, and how much space flight have you done?’

‘Enough!’

‘Children,' Marmion said, in her most reasonable, let-us-not-quibble-over-trivia tone.

She'd had to use a lot of that lately as the confinement became less and less bearable. Even learning The Pirates of Penzance and the other Gilbert and Sullivan operettas that Namid knew was beginning to pall. At first it had been great fun; entertaining and engrossing. Marmion had a lovely light soprano voice and had been cast as Mabel, while contralto Yana had managed a creditable Ruth, Diego a decent Frederic and Bunny, aided and abetted by Namid, became chorus and all the other parts. Bunny liked the piratical chorus best and was learning the part of the Pirate Captain - since he was an orphan - as she gleefully discovered at the end of the show. Between learning the lines and the lyrics, many an hour had been passed.

‘Look, Diego, you may have been brought up on a high-tech station,' Bunny said, ignoring Marmion's attempt at pacification, 'but you sure aren't good at reading signs. I've had to or I'd've been buried under avalanches and snow slides and all kinds of other hazards…’

‘All planetary…’

‘Well, a ship is a small planet, isn't it? And the vibrations have just altered! I was right about the air, wasn't I? Why can't I be right about the vibrations?’

‘She may be, you know,' Namid interposed with a wry grin. 'The Jenny's got speed in her and it's been three days since the air source altered. That'd be about the necessary travel time from Gal-Three to Petaybee, wouldn't it, Marmion?’

‘Yes, it would,' Marmion said, exhaling. This experience was not unlike a boardroom wrangle and as intense as any take-over or merge struggle and she was finding her tolerance and understanding stretched to the limit. If it hadn't been for Namid's presence and diversionary tactics, she was sure there would have been fairly nasty squabbles, due simply to the pressures of so much proximity. Even with the most fiercely contested of her financial deals, she'd always been able to 'leave' the premises and cool down. She was fond of Bunny and Diego: she genuinely liked Yana who was bearing up nobly. She was more than a little fascinated by the complex personality of the astronomer who had such divergent interests and informations: she'd never met any one else so catholic in his tastes and so accomplished - in the nicest possible way. Maybe she had dwelt too much in the rarefied atmosphere of her social sphere. One could become too specialized. Her time on Petaybee had opened that door and this experience was showing her a vast panorama she hadn't known existed - the panorama and pertinences of enforced idleness.

Dinah O'Neill had managed to gain them more privileges: better food, the daily tour of the corridors as exercise. Putting their heads together one night, Marmion and Namid had discussed the size of the ship. He had been on the Jenny somewhat longer than they had, but he admitted that generally he was far more interested in things light years distant than he was in his immediate surroundings. Still, he agreed that they had had to have been on a larger ship than the Jenny when they'd been marched into Louchard's presence that first time. Bunny, who could describe the different types of snow to be found in a three-mile area with distinction and accuracy, was able to describe the seemingly identical corridors with the same eye for minutiae. The Jenny's captain's quarters, for instance, were adjacent to the crew's quarters, separated only by one passageway - the ups and downs suggested auxiliary corridors connecting the Jenny to a larger craft.

‘Deliberately confusing us as to the size and type of vessel,' Marmion had said.

‘Two ships, then,' Namid said, scratching his whiskers.

‘Had to be,' Marmion agreed.

While Diego and Bunny had told the others about the shuttle, this was no shuttle they were on. It was much larger than Marmion's launch, which was compact but larger than the shuttle the two youngsters had seen in the hulled vessel that had originally attracted them to Cargo Bay 30, and ended up with their kidnapping. The two had apologized for their escapade, profusely and with much self-castigation. And the 'its'… If they hadn't been curious, if they hadn't skived off on their own, if they hadn't put Marmion and Yana to the trouble of coming after them…

That brought up the other question: what was Macchiavelli Sendal-Archer-Klausevitch's role in all this - apart from being tagged as messenger-boy for the piratical ransom demand?

‘Pies Ferrari-Emool might know more about him,' Marmion had said, 'but I didn't. He was the newly appointed CEO of a Rothschild's subsidiary and would certainly have had an in-depth security check done on him to get to such a rank. I mean, how could he possibly have alerted the pirates that we were in Cargo Bay 30? What I'd very much like to know is where was Charas during all this?’

‘Charas?’

‘Never mind, Namid,' Marmion said, smiling and quickly changing the subject. 'And why hasn't Commander an Hon been able to track us? The security on Gal-Three is supposed to be state-of-the-art.’

As Marmion had fretted over this factor many times, Namid sighed quietly.

‘We'll know when this is all over, my dear.' And he'd patted her nervous hands.

His touch did soothe her, Marmion realized, even as she also accepted the fact that it was useless to review the events that had led to this impasse. It was better to think ahead, and practise meditation. Namid had had a few new tips on quiet contemplation modes. They'd all learnt them, as a way of both keeping sanity and to pass the heavy time of captivity and inaction.

Had the time of inaction passed? Marmion now wondered, if the ship's vibrations had changed.

‘Well, the engines are still very definitely on,' Diego said, both his hands on the bulkhead. In fact, everyone had been attempting to assess the change.

‘We could be in orbit,' Yana said and her hand went to the little pouch of Petaybean dirt.

Bunny and Diego followed suit. Marmion had not worn the little pouch the day they were kidnapped but she didn't think the planet would care much what happened to her. She was responsible to and for herself.

Bunny watched Yana. Then she shrugged as the Colonel did.

‘No change, huh?' Bunny asked with a wry grin.

Yana shook her head. 'It might not be Petaybee we're orbiting.' There was an edge of depression and pessimism to her voice.

‘Where else?' Diego demanded, stridently. 'It's the planet she wants to plunder, isn't it?’

‘I had hoped she'd realized that there is no way to do that,' Yana said, again in that bitter tone.

She'd been away from Sean over four weeks now -a whole month in the development of their child. She could feel the lump in her belly now, slightly protruding from what had been a flat, well-muscled plane.

Physically she was feeling better than she had at the outset of their imprisonment but the mental strain of uncertainty was beginning to mount, as was the tension of being restricted. Not that her long voyages on troop carriers hadn't been restrictive, but this was restraint of a different nature. And one she bitterly resented, although she tried not to, fearing that it might mar the foetus in some bizarre fashion. Her fears had taken the form of nightmares in which her born or unborn child appeared as some sort of monster. She shuddered.

Just then the panel opened and there was the second officer, not nearly as ferocious as Megenda, but almost as repellent in a slimy sort of way.

‘Time for walkies,' he said and gestured brusquely for them to fall in and take the exercise offered.

SpaceBase

Adak was on duty at the SpaceBase Cube. Simon Furey had painted a sign which had been nailed above the entry:

‘WELCOME TO PETAYBEE!

PETAYBEAN IMMIGRATION AND INFORMATION!’

With the demise of PTS, the only spacecraft using the now flat, but somewhat pitted and broken, landing field were from the Intergal Station. Mostly, they were employed in lifting equipment off the planet. On the far side of the field the mounds of disembodied walls, floors and roofs marked the graveyard of the old facilities, damaged when Petaybee had erected its ziggurat complaint against the Intergal despoilation. Adak and some of the other Kilcoole residents kept a sharp eye on this debris, most of which they could repair and put to good use once Intergal officials had cleared away and left them to the salvage.

Adak could keep track of comings and goings from the Station by the discreet tap into the Intergal Comnet, which Simon Furey had been able to make, so he knew when ships - with possible 'invaders' -might be landing. That left him with a lot of free time to mooch round the piles, which suited him fine. Though there was enough of a snow-cover to run the dogs through the woods, the river had only a thin crust of ice on it, not strong enough for the snocles to use as a road. The really heavy weather hadn't set in yet but he sure hoped Intergal would settle out soon so they could get to work. With all the people coming in and nowhere to put them, they'd be right glad of any son of shelter that could be cobbled together.

A small vessel had just set down at the Station but he hadn't seen any passengers emerge, just the crews unloading the sort of stores that wouldn't be harmed by sitting out in the snow on the plascrete. Yet two people were now striding up to the door: a slim little woman with light brown hair, tufted with silver, lynx-like, above her ears and on her crown, lightly sprinkled with snowflakes, and a big guy who walked like a long-time spacer.

‘Hello?' Dinah O'Neill smiled her most ingenuous smile at the fur-clad round-faced little man who peered at them in round-mouthed surprise. 'Is this the right place to find out how to get to Tanana Bay?’

‘It's the only place and why would you want to be going to Tanana Bay? It's snowing and we've had blizzard warnings,' the little man said. 'But much as it pains me to admit it, I'm after bein' the closest thing to a bureaucrat we got here 'cept for the Governor. Adak Rourke, immigrations officer, more or less, at your service, ma'am. And what could I do for you, exactly?’

‘I believe I may have some relatives here in a place called Tanana Bay,' Dinah O'Neill said, and altered her smile to a sad expression. 'I wanted to come and see if we really are related and if perhaps I could make a home here near them as all my other family have died out and I've nowhere else to go.’

‘You really must be hard up to come to Petaybee, then.’

‘Blood is thicker than water. Even frozen water,' she added, indicating the snowfall. Privately Dinah wondered how the hell the planet could afford state-of-the-art Nabatira Structural Cubes like this one if the planet's economy was so marginal. Still, the old man's response had been immediate and she didn't think him guileful. One wanted to attract folks to a planet, not send 'em running. Or maybe they did, to keep all the wealth to themselves. 'Actually, I wouldn't have dreamed of coming here until just recently. I met a man who was telling me about how he'd been down with a committee investigating a so-called sentient planet settled by a lot of the people relocated by Intergal in the time of the Reunification War in Ireland, where my people come from. In the course of his work, the man I talked to had met some people he thought resembled me who shared a similar surname. So, I decided to check it out.’

‘And how about you, sir?' Adak Rourke turned to Megenda, who had been standing at bored ease behind Dinah throughout the conversation. 'I take it you and the lady here are together? Would you have relatives here too, then? Maybe some of them Andean folk on the Southern Continent?’

Megenda cast a wild sideways look at Dinah and she said smoothly, 'He's an old family retainer. I can't pay him any longer but I couldn't convince him to leave me. He's very protective.’

‘That's real good of you, sir, to look after the lady so,' Adak Rourke said approvingly. Megenda nodded and glowered.

‘Now then,' Dinah said brightly. 'Where can I get transport to Tanana Bay? Here?’

‘Here?' And Adak Rourke crowed a laugh, then sobered. 'Well, here's as good a place to hear the bad news as any. Right now, all the curlies are busy with them hunters that keep swarmin' in like summer bite-hards. The dog teams are booked up for the next two weeks.’

‘What about shuttles? Surely…' and she waved vaguely at the space port.

‘Dama, I don't know where you come from but there's one copter available to this entire planet and it's borrowed and late returning from where it went to, and no other air transport at all since Intergal reclaimed all they had.’

‘Really? I've heard this planet is full of opportunities.’

Rourke snorted, shuffling papers around as if he knew what he was doing with things that had to be read.

‘Who was it exactly told you all this? Not that I mean to pry, Dama, but someone misled you proper.’

Dinah waved vaguely. 'I can't recall his name. I was so excited about what he was saying. He said he'd been here with a Captain Fiske.’

‘Huh!' Rourke's eyebrows climbed in search of his receding hairline. 'Captain Fiske ain't exactly had Petaybee's best interests at heart. You should be careful where you get your information, Dama. But just because Fiske's a curly's arse ain't no reason you're not welcome. You know anything about deep sea fishin'?’

‘Not much,' Dinah admitted, 'but I'm willing to learn.’

Adak snorted again. 'Little thing like you might have fast fingers and be good at gutting but you're a mite light for fishin' work.’

‘Is that all that happens at Tanana Bay?’

‘Sure, ain't much else up that way.’

Dinah said, 'Nevertheless, I'd like to go, unless, of course, my information was wrong. Where could I get in touch with the town leaders and enquire about my relations?’

‘Short of Tanana Bay, nowhere.’

‘You've a comunit…’

‘Oh, that one! That only tells me when there's spacers comin' in. Ain't got no link to anywhere. Not even Kilcoole.’

‘Kilcoole?' Dinah paused. 'That name sounds familiar.’

‘You could get to Kilcoole. Snocle'll be back on its regular run soon. Got some mail and stuff for the Governor.’

‘The Governor?' Dinah asked as innocently as if she hadn't been sending the man ransom demands for the past few days.

‘Yeah, Sean Shongili,' and now the little man seemed to swell his chest out with pride. 'He's even got a Cube like this one.’

‘Oh?’

‘Had to,' Adak rattled on with a broad grin. 'Yana's cabin - she's Colonel now - was so chuck full of paperwork you could barely find Sean in the middle of it all.’

‘Really?’

‘Yup, and that O. O'Neill' He peered at her a little too closely for comfort but she couldn't see how one man would know about the correspondence of everyone on the planet, immigration officer or no. 'I don't suppose you're an O'Neill too, are you? Never met one before and now they're comin' out of the woodwork.’

Dinah contained her start of surprise. She quite deliberately hadn't given the little man her name.

‘O. O'Neill?' She could also look exceedingly blank.

‘Oscar O'Neill of the Nabatira Structural Cube Company?’

‘Never heard of him. Why did you say he was here?' And, Dinah thought to herself, how did Nabatira Cubes get to poor backwater Petaybee?

‘He brought in the four Cubes that we got sent.’

‘You mean these Cubes - they're very expensive articles, in case you didn't know - were just… bestowed on you?’

‘Sure were, 'cos we couldn't afford 'em, being new at being an independent planet. Say, can you read and write?’

‘Yes,' Dinah said, adding in her mind,' doesn't everyone?' just as she also realized this man could do neither.

‘Teacher?' and Adak leaned forward eagerly. 'We got one at Kilcoole - Wild Star Furey, and she's doing the job a treat. Why, two of our kids already read their-selves right through the primer they were given four weeks ago.’

‘Well, you're an up-and-coming independent planet then. Big tourist trade?’

‘Tourist? Oh, you mean the hunters? Well, we don't know yet how they come to know about us,' and Adak did not approve. 'They don't know how to hunt proper on Petaybee. Worse, they keep getting lost and not knowing how to speak to Petaybee to find out where they are.’

‘Speak to Petaybee?’

‘Wai, some of 'em's not done bad. But now the whole kit and kaboodle's here we can't get rid of 'em. Them and the druggists…’

‘What would druggists…?’

‘Oh, you know the sort, Dama, big shots from drug companies. They think all they gotta do is dig plants or strip leaves and make pots of stuff to sell for bags of credits.' Adak scoffed. 'They've another think coming and most of 'em is awful slow. They eat a lot, too.’

‘And that's bad?’

‘Wai, lucky we had a good harvest this year, long spring, good summer. Got a bumper crop, or would have if all these folks hadn't dumped on us. Oppor-tooo-nists is what Sean calls 'em. They sure are lousing up our opportunities.’

‘Maybe we should go to Kilcoole?' Dinah suggested.

Adak eyed her shipsuit and her neat jacket critically. 'Wai, you ain't dressed proper for anything but the snocle, Dama, and one of our drivers is unfortunately being held by pirates offa the planet. Sorry for the inconvenience. You can sit over there.' He pointed to the rough benches lining the wall. 'Won't be too long. A coupla hours till those guys bring us whatever pile o' junk's going to Sean this time.’

Dinah and Megenda exchanged glances but obediently sat themselves down. The Cube might appear windowless from outside but there was a strip of oneway plasglass all around, affording them a good view of the activity around the spacer through the light snowfall.

‘Captain Louchard's not going to like us waiting about,' Megenda murmured to Dinah.

‘I know, but it can't be helped,' she replied and crossed her slim legs. She had much to think over while she waited. At least the building was warmish. And the snow would hide the little shuttle craft she and Megenda had arrived in. She fingered the finder in her pocket which would allow them to locate the craft no matter how much snow covered it.

Adak Rourke had turned away from them to his comunit. '… that Muktuk wrote…' he was saying. 'That's a rogue, Una.’

Dinah had been a pirate long enough that she didn't care for it when someone was communicating long distance while she was in the room and without an escape route. She sauntered back up to Rourke's desk as if bored and sat on the edge of the desk.

‘So tell me, Adak. I'm awfully curious about this Tanana Bay. Where is it anyway? Actually, I was wondering if there was a map of this planet or something. I can't imagine the whole place being arctic.’

‘Well, it is, Dama. Doctor Fiske says that's 'cos we only got continents on the poles with nothin' in the middle - well, not so far. Governor says the planet's workin' on makin' middle bits but it'll take a spell. Now then, as for a map,' he reached into the middle drawer of a desk and drew forth a much-creased sheet of paper with a monochrome photo on it. 'There's not a lot but Dr Fiske give us this aerial map and showed us where Kilcoole is. I can show you where other places are if you got a bit of time.’

She smiled sweetly. 'From what you say, I've quite a bit of that. So, then, where is it?’

‘Right about - well, first you have to find Savoy and Harrison's Fjord which are’

‘Why, when I want to go to Tanana Bay?’

‘Snot that simple, Dama. You have to get your reference points, like and’

The desk was suddenly thrown into shadow as Megenda loomed as only he could. 'Stop stalling. Give us the coordinates.’

Sean streaked from the Kilcoole Cube in a stream of papers when Una gave him Adak's message.

‘He said the lady Muktuk and Chumia wrote to was here looking for her relatives, Sean,' Una told him. 'Said she was an O'Neill if ever he saw one. He'll try to keep them there.’

‘Are Muktuk and Chumia still in town?’

‘No, sir. They went home right after leaving the message.’

‘Send a team after them and if you can't locate one, send Sinead on skis. She's the fastest in the village. Damn, without the Company here, we're going to have to organize some kind of police force.’

‘How about Madame Algemeine's organization?’

‘Good idea. Ask Whit to get a message to Gal-Three. But no-one is to move in until we can safeguard Yana and the others.’

‘Where are you going, sir?’

‘For a swim,' he said.

Una shook her head as she watched him tear off his fur vest and shirt as he ran towards the river. Other people bundled up to go outdoors in this weather. Sean stripped down. She liked these people, she really did, but she doubted she'd ever understand them.

Even in seal form, swimming as fast as his flippers could take him, Sean arrived at SpaceBase too late. Adak was on the floor of the Cube, a large bump purpling on his head. 'Big sucker hit me,' he said. 'The lady was nice enough, though. They wanted a map to Tanana Bay.’

‘Did they now? At least we know where they're going.’

‘Yeah, but I don't think there's any way we can get there in time.’

‘I can,' Sean said grimly.

Fortunately, the river ran close by the Cube and Sean dashed back out the door, still stark naked, dived in and disappeared under the water. Adak touched his bump gingerly. 'Musta got him outa bed or somethin',' he said. 'I coulda loaned him some pants anyway, if he'd stopped long enough…’

Megenda was already at the shuttle's controls and Dinah O'Neill was just about to climb in when a disturbance on the river caused her to pause. She was here to sus out this planet and its peculiarities.

Her eye had been caught by the sight of the river-ice bursting open, frothing with bubbles, then geysering three feet into the air as a large silvery seal jumped on to the bank. She was about to turn away when the seal turned into a well-built naked man, one of her favourite tourist attractions.

The man ran into the Cube and Dinah smiled.

‘You comin'?' Megenda grunted.

‘In a moment,' she said, and her wait was rewarded. After a few minutes the door to the Cube flung open, the naked man ran out, jumped back into the water and disappeared beneath the ice.

She saw Adak Rourke standing in the doorway, scratching his head, looking slightly nonplussed, not much the worse for wear, and not terribly surprised at his visitor's appearance. Perhaps she was being unimaginative in her assessment of the possibilities of this place.