The Peytabee Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  Satok pinned Bunny to the mattress and snatched at the band of her trousers. She tried to kick him, but he’d pinned one of her knees down with one of his own. Her right arm, stuck between her back and the mattress, groped for her weapon, which was digging into her hip.

  All of a sudden the dogs began to howl. Satok swore and rose, grabbing a weapon as he turned toward the door. Almost as an afterthought, he turned on Bunny. As he struck her open handed across the face, her teeth bit into her cheeks with an explosion of pain.

  “Don’t move,” he said, waggling his finger with mock playfulness.

  Of course, she did move the moment he threw the bolt on the door. It was hopeless to dart past him into the night, and the trap door was too far away, but at least she was able to pull out her ice pick.

  “Shut up, you lazy pack of mutts, or you don’t eat for another week!” he bellowed out the door. The howling quieted to a whine. He took a long look around, then turned back to Bunny.

  Fresh out of more subtle tricks, she jumped up and ran back to the trap door. She was smart enough not to show her weapon.

  “Don’t you touch me again, mister,” she said, lisping a little through her cut lip.

  The dogs began howling again, but this time Satok refused to be diverted. He reached Bunny in two seconds flat, and Bunny, backing up, found she was against a wall with nowhere to run, not a good position for any animal to be in. Further more, Satok was standing on the trap door as he closed in on her, his hands going for her throat.

  The front door slammed open, flooding the room with strong icy wind.

  Bunny punched upward with her ice pick and felt the pointed tip sink into meat. Satok’s grip on her loosened, but he had twisted away from her to face the front door and her weapon didn’t make the lethal strike she intended. She was trying to loosen her neck from his arm and her weapon from his wound when another body crashed into them, almost strangling her as the impact drove Satok’s arm against her wind pipe.

  As Satok whirled to meet the new attacker, Bunny dove out of the way, searching for another weapon.

  Diego was riding the big man’s back, punching at him with a dagger, but Satok reached back and wrested the dagger from the boy’s hand as if he were taking a rattle from a baby. Bunny groaned. Diego was good with books and computers—he wasn’t a fighter.

  She picked up a wrench and danced around the two of them, trying to get in a lick here and there but she was afraid of hitting Diego.

  Satok looked annoyed, but hardly worried. Still standing on the trap door, he reached back and grabbed Diego’s head in both hands and started pulling him over his shoulder.

  Bunny dropped to her knees, threw herself forward, and whacked the big man hard with the wrench, first on the knees, then the shins. He whirled around, still holding Diego’s head in a vise, and she slammed the wrench against the backs of his knees. He fell to the ground with a crash that swept Diego’s legs against the computer table and toppled the machine to the floor.

  But when he and Diego fell forward, they cleared the trap door, and the pounding under the door that had been obscured by the sounds of the fight became clear. Bunny crawled to the door and pulled up the ring. Through the widening crack, Krisuk’s arms and head appeared, and with a shove he pushed the door back across Satok’s calves.

  Satok was slamming Diego’s head against the floor.

  Gaining confidence at the sight of Krisuk climbing out of the hole, followed closely by his father, Bunny dove toward Satok’s head and brought her wrench down over it. Again, the man twisted at a crucial point, and Bunny’s wrench only tore loose the back of his ear just as a third person emerged from the secret passage.

  Satok grabbed the injured ear, staggered to his feet, and ran, Krisuk and the others after him.

  Bunny knelt beside Diego. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He blinked at her twice, rubbed the back of his head, and said ruefully, “I came to your rescue.”

  She kissed him, bloody nose and all. “You sure did. Are you hurt bad?”

  His hand came away bloody “Not bad. I think. My dad always said my skull was the hardest part of me.”

  Iva was kneeling beside them now. “Come on and I’ll bandage that for you.” she said. “We’ve seen what Satok did to the planet. Some talk he had! The others will catch him and he’ll tell his lies no more.”

  “No,” Diego said. “We’ve got to get to Sean and Yana and tell them what Satok’s done.”

  “How did you know he was a pirate?” Bunny said.

  “If we go back through the cave, you’ll—“ Diego stopped and stared at her. “What do you mean, pirate? As in pirate pirate?”

  “He’s one of Onidi Louchard’s shipmates,” Bunny said. “I think he’s still working with them to loot Petaybee.”

  “Frag! We gotta warn the others!”

  “Shh,” Iva Connelly said. “You’re not going anyplace till I bandage your wounds. You, too, young lady.”

  Diego and Bunny insisted on leading the curlies back down to the village. Meanwhile Krisuk and some of the others returned, empty-handed.

  “Satok got away. Kev Nyukchuk and his sons are trying to trace Satok by the tracks and blood in the dark,” Krisuk told them.

  “Where’s your father?” Iva asked.

  “He stayed to feed the dogs. You remember Satok taking Tarka’s pups?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re half-starved and mean now, but Da recognized them and he’s going to try to tame them again. The curlies were in bad shape, too, and we found more cat skulls . . .”

  The next morning at first light, Bunny and Diego, carrying a carefully bandaged and bundled Dinah, were back out on the trail away from the river, the Petaybean wind at their backs, pushing them toward the Fjord.

  Matthew Luzon was as amused as he was capable of being that Marmion Algemeine thought she was controlling him by contradicting his theories, cultivating the enemies of the company, and trying to seduce his staff away from him. Of course, she was incapable of understanding a man like him. She was nothing but an over aged debutante whose inherited greed made her good at acquiring more wealth. She couldn’t begin to understand someone like him, someone motivated not by money or personal aggrandizement, but by a strong, totally altruistic commitment to truth and the scientific process.

  Others laughed when he called himself a scientist, but Matthew was devoted to science in a way that few were. A literal-minded man, he was nevertheless fascinated by the lies people were fond of telling themselves about the universe in which they lived, despite all of the evidence pointing to the fact that the average human being was powered by electro-chemical impulses in the same way that computers were powered by electronic ones, and the universe itself was a large, marvelous accident.

  Most of the scientists and troops within the company believed as Matthew did, but few had his zeal not only for believing the truth, but for exposing the lies and self-deceptions that weakened the sentient mind, every inhabited sector of the universe, and the company, as well.

  There was a sort of brain fever that people contracted once they left civilization. Matthew had seen it again and again, not just among the inhabitants of colonial outposts like this, but also on space stations and ships too long away from port. People encountered a few mysteries that had not yet been properly investigated, and they suddenly decided that even the things they understood had some sort of strange causation. They started believing in myths, anthropomorphized machinery, and nonsentient life-forms; they talked to plants and animals. Ridiculous, but there it was. Matthew considered himself to be something of a deprogrammer/reformer/reformationist.

  Usually, he had found, there was a ringleader, or maybe more accurately, an opinion maker, generally someone suffering from the borderline schizophrenia that passed for “creativity.” These people had to be stabilized and adjusted, or eliminated. Elimination was not the preferred option, simply because one such person would invariably be replaced by another le
ader, whereas if one used the power they had already built up among their fellows for one’s own purposes, results were much quicker.

  As an anthropologist, he had made a particular study of the sort of beliefs people were apt to indulge in, and from what he’d heard of Petaybee, their mass illusion was not an especially unusual one.

  They thought their planet was sentient. Quite likely all these seemingly remarkable incidents of meteorological and geological shifting were merely coincidental, possibly a delayed reaction to the TerraB process—and he faulted Whittaker Fiske for not remarking on that probability. Certainly these natural occurrences should not be attributed to some gigantic powers or some sort of immense alien life-form, dabbling in so-called adaptive changes.

  He was no fool. He had studied the autopsies and all of the Kilcoole group’s other “evidence.” He was more inclined to think that the claims were more in the nature of a local belief than a planet wide one. The “adaptive changes,” which bordered on extremes, were no doubt mutations from some latent toxins contained by this world which had previously gone undetected. They would, of course, need to be eliminated—or the inhabitants removed, which would suit Intergal’s purposes quite well.

  But the commission wouldn’t do so on his unsupported opinion. His wisest course was to find other opinion leaders who held beliefs different from those of the people in Kilcoole, to demonstrate to the commission that local superstition on the Fact of one group should not be allowed to be taken as a planet wide condition.

  To that end, he ordered a helicopter for his own use while Marmion was out and busy charming the locals. He was told that a pilot named Greene could be made available to him.

  “Destination, sir?”

  “I wish to travel to the settlements on the southern hemisphere,” Matthew said. “I will need transport and accommodations for myself and three assistants.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said with an apologetic wince. The only craft now available has room for the pilot and two other people. That’s all.”

  “Then make another craft available. Do you think my work is so trivial it can be performed unaided?”

  “You said that, sir, not me.”

  “What is your name?” Matthew sputtered.

  “Rhys-Hall, sir. Captain Neva M. Rhys-Hall, communications officer. No offense intended, sir. If it’s the pilot’s name you’re wanting, sir, it’s John Greene. He’s scheduled for Harrison’s Fjord anyway at 1220 hours, can refuel there and take you southward. If you can be ready and at the field by then, you’ll save time and be there before dark.”

  “And accommodations?”

  “You’re on your own there, sir. Up till recently, the company never considered this planet worth two depots and command centers. I’d take a sleeping bag and a survival tent, if I were you.”

  “Thank you for the advice, Captain. I will not forget it.” Or you, you impertinent bitch, he told himself.

  One assistant, then? The decision was not difficult to make. Braddock Makem, a man who thought much as Matthew himself did, was the most trusted and resourceful of his assistants. He found Braddock in his spartan quarters, studying the various reports, and told him what was required of him, in perfect confidence that the gear and Braddock would be ready at the appointed time.

  Chapter 9

  When Marmion arrived at the building—which was painted a really awful murky dark green—where Matthew Luzon had set up his office, she found only his five minions, all industriously tapping out commands while their screens showed curves and graphs and columns of figures. She didn’t approve of statistics of any kind: they only proved what the statistician wished them to. Credit reports and prospectuses were, of course, in an entirely different category.

  They had the good manners to stand when she entered the room, so she smiled at them while she made a show of peering about.

  “I don’t see Dr. Luzon, and I did so wish to have a word with him,” she said, beaming at the nearest of the lot. “You are . . .” She struggled to remember Sally’s tips on how to distinguish them one from another. “Ivan, aren’t you?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “And where is Dr. Luzon?” Marmion noted the absence of one—Braddock Makem—and began to realize she might have underestimated Matthew’s devious zealotry. How embarrassing. “Has he gone off into the wilds on adventure and left you here, slogging away at the tedious details?”

  One after another of the physically fit young men cleared their throats.

  “Ah, I see that he has, and it’s very much too bad of him, as I’d arranged for Captain O’Shay to take all of us to that so—mysterious cave for an on-site investigation. Matthew’s so keen to do on-sites,” she put in, managing a little move of disappointment, “and this is one of the most important ones, so Whittaker Fiske assured me.” She paused to consider her disappointment. Then, brightly, she smiled around at them. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t come with me, since it’s so hard to get a big enough copter to take us all. In fact, just us will take up all the room. So, come on, now. Save those important programs, laddie bucks, grab your anoraks and let’s be off . . .” When another of them—ah, yes, the very blond one was Hans—started to object, she said, “Now, now, I won’t hear any excuses from you, Hans. This is as important as all those figures, because it’s subjective, not objective, and it will certainly show the commission how diligent you are in examining every facet of this investigation.”

  Sally and Millard had deftly slipped in behind her and were handing out outer wear to the men, who were so accustomed to obeying authority that they automatically complied. They were out the door and in the personnel transport and on their bumping way across to the big copter before they knew what had happened.

  Rick O’Shay hurried them aboard, directing the seating in order to balance the load. “Real glad you fellows could make the time for this side trip, because you don’t see much from a shuttle. Blink your eyes and you’re past the interesting points. Miz Algemeine, you’re up front . . . Hey, where’s Dr. Luzon? Rick looked around, surprise and disappointment on his face. I thought he was the one wanted so much to come.”

  Marmion could have kissed the young man—he was very attractive, anyway—because Ivan and Hans were obviously having second thoughts about the advisability of this sojourn.

  “Hell’s bells.” Rick shook his head, a lugubrious expression on his face. Then he brightened up and took a deep breath. “Well, you guys can give him a full report on what he’s missing. That’s it, now buckle up.”

  The big copter swung up and headed north by east, barely troubled by the turbulence.

  Sally was wedged between Hans and Marcel, with Millard at the window and facing Ivan, George, Jack, and Seamus Rourke, whom Marmion had introduced as their expedition guide. Seamus had been Clodagh’s suggestion. “He’s as good, bar Sean or myself, as you’d want or need,” Clodagh had assured her.

  “You’ve often been to this cave site, Mr. Rourke?” Sally asked conversationally when she saw the first hint of “should we really be here?” anxiety on Jack’s well-tanned, handsome face. With Marmion out of earshot in the front, Sally felt responsible for keeping things running smoothly in back.

  “Not this particular one, Miz Sally,” Seamus said affably, twiddling his thumbs: sitting down, doing nothing while traveling a long distance was new to him. “Been in most on the east coast, whenever the folk there invite us to a latchkay. We exchange hospitality like, us in Kilcoole and them on the coast, once a year. Good things, latchkays,” he went on when he saw her look of inquiry. “Gets folks from nearby and as far away as the weather permits figurin’ out how to solve any problems that’ve come up since the last one. And we get some fine singing done. Too bad you weren’t all here for the last one we had. Fine songs from Major Maddock and young Diego. Kind of songs that ease the heart and mellow the soul. Maybe we could fix it that we have another one, sort of to welcome you all to Petaybee,” he added. “What with the early thaw, we
couldn’t’ve planned another short of June, but I don’t see why we can’t show you lads a bit of Petaybean hospitality while you’re here. You do like dancing, don’t you?” He asked that with such skepticism that one of Luzon’s men had to reply.

  “I think we all do, sir,” Hans told him.

  “We wouldn’t expect you to sing a’ course, unless,” Seamus hastily added, not wishing to insult anyone, “you had a song you wanted to share with us.”

  Luzon’s men looked totally out of their depth. Sally and Millard managed to keep their expressions merely receptive. but they dared not look at each other.

  “Ah well, you can always listen,” Seamus said, “and eat some real good chow, and a’ course, Clodagh makes the best blurry on Petaybee.”

  “Blurry?” Hans jumped on the word.

  Everyone turned toward Seamus.

  “Blurry’s a tradition here,” Seamus said, warming to his subject. “Drink it cold, warm, hot, and it soothes the cockles of the heart. Doesn’t take a man’s senses from him like al-ki-hall-ics do—“ He frowned, “ and no one’s ever had a hangover like the SpaceBasers get from that rot gut they drink. You could say . . .” He considered his next words carefully. “. . . that it’s a tonic for what ails you. Give it to the kids when they’re feeling puny, and next day they’re up and out again. ‘Bout the only thing it can’t cure is frostbite, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Clodagh’ll figure out how to do that soon, too.”

  Sally and Millard exchanged significant glances. Marmion Algemeine would have to hear every detail of this.

  “Is this blurry of yours good for indigestion?” Sally asked, seizing on the common complaint as the safest.

  “Sure it is, and as good for labor pains as it is for flatulence, heartburn, and yer all-purpose bellyache,” Seamus assured her, turning his face toward her so that she alone saw the broad wink

  ‘Do you use many . . . Local remedies here, Mr. Rourke?” Ivan asked, his eyes sharp on the old man’s face.