by neetha Napew
‘Nothing,’ he said, abruptly, recognizing that he had been tardy in assimilating her information. Depressing the alert pad, he issued instructions, detailing the descriptions and numeric IDs of the five ships to be stopped and boarded.
‘Ingenious, you must admit,’ Charas said, relaxing now she had got him to act,’ remaining on Gal-Three while the first of the search and boards were being initiated. But then we know that Louchard uses state-of-the-art technology. This abduction was very carefully planned.’
She sighed, rubbing her face, for she’d been working with only catnaps to refresh her ever since she’d received the first mayday: prowling about the immense cargo bay, checking every single ship in the facility, time and time again, trying to locate exactly which of the hundred or so ships hid the victims. But her locator, despite being state-of-the-art, displayed so many ‘echoes’ even when placed against a hull, that she had been unable to pinpoint the target ship. Fortunately, her disguise had saved her from retaliation by some of the ships’ personnel: aliens in particular were apt to take offence if you were seen hanging about their vessels for no apparent purpose.
At the outset of this incident, she’d seen the women in the company of Macci Klausevitch so she hadn’t been as close on Yana’s heels as she normally would. For that she blamed herself. Getting slack in her middle years: have to quit this kind of work if she was going to be less than top efficient all the time.
So the pair waited. Commander an Hon courteously supplied her with a meal and then a shower in his private facilities while fresh clothing was procured for her. She was adrenalin-poor at this point, having pushed herself for days in her vigil. She had almost nodded off when the first reports came in. The slowest of the five vessels had been apprehended and it was, as it was supposed to be, a drone grain carrier and all its components checked out as they should. The second was carrying only two holds of cargo, to the captain’s disgust, and he was in no fit mood to be stopped on such a spurious charge. The third was also innocent and the fourth, but of the fifth all they found were large fragments of the hull.
‘Wasn’t blown apart, wasn’t hit by any spaceflot, wasn’t burned or melted or anything, Commander. Just like the hull had been a weevy-fruit, split open down the axis.’
An Hon and Charas exchanged despairing looks.
‘Damn that Louchard!’
Charas felt as near to tears as she had the day her mother died when she’d been eight years old.
‘Any residuals to track?’
‘We’re searching, sir, but they could have just used the drift to take ‘em the way they wanted to go and, begging your pardon, it could take weeks to do a search pattern and we’d still not be sure we got the right trail.’
‘Return to base, Captain, and thank you.’ Grimly, Commander an Hon looked at Charas. ‘You still have a life signal from Madame Algemeine, don’t you?’
Charas touched the point on her mastoid bone and inclined her head positively. Madame Algemeine was the only client for whom she would permit such an invasion of her personal privacy but she ‘owed’ her for her life and sanity so Charas was willing to do anything to protect this client.
‘We can check with Sally Point-Jefferson, too,’ she said.
When a death occurred, those carrying the implant tuned to that person experienced an unforgettable blast.
The tall lean Commander waved aside that suggestion with a twitch of his lips. ‘If she got the blast, so would you!’
‘Now what? The kidnappers didn’t leave a final warning of any kind, did they?’
‘Nothing past the last one M’sser Klausevitch passed on to us.’
‘Klausevitch,’ Charas murmured and locked eyes with the Commander. ‘Odd man to be chosen as messenger. And Madame herself cancelled Millard and Sally as bodyguards?’
‘Hmmm.’ An Hon shrugged for the whimsies of the rich. He’d’ve had an operative with Yana in the head, her tub, under her bed but who would have thought a kidnapping of someone of Madame Algemeine’s status would occur in this day and age after the Amber Unicorn fiasco! True, there were occasional incidents involving lesser lights like merchants, captains, executives and enough freaks eking out a marginal living on any big station like this to account for GBA and ‘accidents’ as well as extortionist intimidation but nothing on the scale of this felony. ‘Madame Algemeine had some critical meeting or other that they had to prepare for and doubtless she felt that she was well-enough known - with the Klausevitch along - to inhibit any confrontation.’
‘And who let the two kids loose?’
‘That has already been dealt with,’ the Commander said in a hard voice for the unseen eye supposed to follow the young folk had somehow missed their departure from the Algemeine apartments. His licence had been revoked and he was currently looking for any work he could get.
‘That Klausevitch fellow,’ Charas said, returning to one aspect of this whole affair that nagged her like a damaged nerve. ‘What else have you discovered about him?’
‘I got a repeat of the original clearance. He certainly wouldn’t have been hired by Rothschild’s if there was anything suspicious about him. But I’ve asked again for a comprehensive.’
‘He was sure green-e-o at the Algemeines’ first thing that morning. And I heard he doesn’t usually rise until midday.’
‘That is true.’
‘Or is he just hot for pregnant women?’ Charas asked with feminine cynicism.
‘There was that case…’ an Hon paused, rubbing his chin speculatively, ‘… where a salesman with an impeccable record was convicted of grand larceny following an investigation of his accounts. He admitted falling under the spell of this Louchard personage. It is a possibility,’ an Hon admitted. ‘As the Great Sleuth remarked, “When you discount the improbable and only the impossible remains, that will be the answer.”’
‘You’ve got surveillance on him?’
‘You may be sure of that, and on anyone else even remotely involved in this affair, up to and including our society hostess, Pleasaunce Ferrari-Emool.’
‘Yeah, her!’
‘She’s been known to associate with some unlikely characters.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Get some sleep, Charas. You’re not good to anyone in your present state, though you cleaned up better than I thought you would.’
Charas managed a grin. ‘Any place here I can catch a few winks?’ she said, rising. ‘Don’t want to be far away if you need me. And I’m not all that sure I could make it to my digs.’
When Madame Algemeine had imported Charas as her Gal-Three unseen eye, she had naturally introduced the woman to Commander an Hon. She had ‘assisted’ him from time to time when her principal client was absent from the station so he had a high degree of respect for her capabilities, the present situation notwithstanding. He himself showed her to one of the cabins reserved for unexpected visitors of the desirable kind. She lay on her side, positioned her legs comfortably and immediately her breathing went into a deep sleep pattern. He activated the comlink and left.
He should be getting some gen back on Klausevitch and he couldn’t imagine why it took so long to be linked in to Gal-Three. Because of the prestige of their special residents, Gal-Three had priority clearance up to top secret levels. Surely Klausevitch was not above that category.
17
Aboard the pirate ship
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‘There!’ cried Diego. ‘I can feel the vibrations now. Can’t you?’ and his tone was slightly accusatory.
‘Yes, actually, I can,’ Yana said, her fingers splayed on the bulkhead.
‘And the air has definitely changed,’ Marmion said, sniffing. ‘I’ve never noticed before how different air can smell.’
‘You would if you lived where it’s pure,’ Bunny said somewhat condescendingly, ‘and then had to breathe the muck. Oh, your launch had good air but some places on Gal-Three it was… well, it was downright stinky. Like the stuff that hovers over SpaceBase
back home.’ The last few words came out in a tone that everyone recognized as homesick. But Bunny made an effort, inhaled the bad air, and turned resolute.
‘We’ll get back to Petaybee, gatita, I know we will,’ Diego said soothingly.
‘Hell’s bells,’ Yana said, ‘for all we know we may be heading there right now.’ She looked queryingly at Namid.
He shrugged his helplessness. ‘Louchard is known to be devious but rarely direct. He likes to hunt, stalk his prey and then snatch.’
‘He makes a practice of kidnap?’ Marmion asked, startled, and for the first time fear coloured her eyes.
‘Not that I know of,’ Namid said as soothingly as Diego had spoken to Bunny. ‘Now don’t you worry yourself, Madame…”
‘I thought we’d reached the first-name basis, Namid,’ and Marmion emphasized his name.
‘Thank you, well, let me repeat. No, Louchard tends to deal in inanimate cargo which is why I’m really surprised to see him turn to abduction.’
‘Cargoes being unable to testify in court, right?’ Yana remarked in a cynical tone.
‘Exactly, and once sold on can rarely be traced since so often they are the raw materials which are turned into different goods entirely.’
‘Tell me,’ and Yana had difficulty controlling a sudden surge of mirth,’ does Louchard then steal those goods and sell them on?’
Namid’s face and eyes lit with answering amusement. ‘I really haven’t been with this happy band of free-souls long enough to have observed that.’ Then he sobered. ‘I can only extrapolate from what Dinah used to tell me. And, of course, I’d no idea that she was generally transporting stolen goods.’ He sighed unhappily and now it was Marmion’s turn to console him.
‘But you do agree that we’re breathing a different kind of air right now, don’t you?’ Bunny insisted as if that little concession was more important than any of the other topics with which they had whiled away their incarceration.
‘I do,’ Marmion said and the others nodded. ‘Clever of you to have noticed, Bunny. Although why the pirate ship remained so long at Gal-Three…’
‘That’s the easiest part to guess,’ Bunny said, impatient with Marmion. ‘Who’d look on the station for us?’
‘A good point,’ Marmion said magnanimously. ‘Your pirate captain is indeed a devious man.’
‘I wonder if he’s an orphan,’ mused Namid, trying vainly to cheer himself up.
‘An orphan?’ Bunny exclaimed in surprise: she’d been one most of her life and had never found the condition easy. Of course, she nearly lost Namid’s response because thinking about being an orphan reminded her that if the pirate should waste them all, Cita would be all alone again and lose what precious little self-confidence she’d gained since knowing she was Bunny’s sister and a Rourke.
‘Yes, an orphan,’ Namid went on briskly. ‘To further the analogy of the pirates I mentioned earlier.’
Bunny forced her mind off sad thoughts and listened while, with such music and words as he remembered from the score of The Pirates of Penzance, he regaled them and thus passed the hunk of time till their next meal as pleasantly as their circumstances allowed.
Petaybee
‘They call this “spring”?’ asked Zing Chi, chief representative of the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company Limited, as he glanced round the desolate sweep of the broad valley, soggy with melt, yet burgeoning with insect life and the blooming of plants which the insects were helping to pollinate. He was thoroughly disgusted and wanted to leave when they’d only just managed to get to Petaybee South. The transport service on which he had booked his team had been terminated and their monies returned, but the refund alone was barely sufficient to bribe their way to the planet’s surface, and at that, comparatively unsatisfactory, setdown point. The southern pole of the planet contained some of the botanicals listed, but the northern continent was the documented source of what he had been assured were riches of herbal gold - and those elusive qualities in unicorn horns and cats’ whiskers for which his company could charge their oldest customers (and, of course, only the oldest needed such help) vast fortunes, whether or not there were any discernible results to the intake of Petaybean products.
Zing Chi was one of the best field operators, able to strip acres of plants by bloom, leaf, stem and root in no time at all. Some of the vegetation in sight looked familiar and was supposed to be plants which had been brought to Petaybee during the initial terraforming so they could adapt to this new world. But the nearest were only ground cover, cultivated to keep topsoil from being blown away.
He had been given no warning that his entire team would have to do all of their collecting on foot. They had seen no villages so far, no cities, no place to purchase transport of any sort. Zing Chi began to fear that there was none to purchase.
Fortunately, his people were very good walkers and walk they did, gathering, stripping, and neatly cataloguing anything vaguely resembling the plant materials listed, even those available elsewhere.
After five days, they had laid bare a strip approximately fifteen miles long and half a mile wide. It took all the animals they could find to feed them, for this time of year there were no berries or nuts of any sort remaining. Zing Chi’s team consisted of a hundred and fifty people and they required much food.
One day, the son of one of his senior men, Lu Han, brought a small spotted lion cub in his arms.
‘Which whiskers do we need, boss?’ he asked Zing Chi. ‘This little fellow will need some of them for his balance and space sense. He won’t mind losing a couple though, I think. He’s a good cub.’
‘Do as you’re told and the animal will have no need for whiskers. We haven’t enough to eat. Kill it, take the whiskers, and skin it. The rest is for the soup pot. Our clients have specified that they want the whiskers of orange cats only, but since they do not seem to know enough to assist us in reaching that which we need to harvest, I do not suppose they will know the whiskers of an orange cat from those of this cub. The bounty will be the same.’
‘But boss
‘Do as I say.’
The boy nodded and the cub, as if sensing that the decision had gone against him, began to wiggle in his arms.
18
Petaybee
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Cita caught Johnny Greene as he boarded his copter for the trip south to help O. O. and his men install Loncie Ondelacy’s cube. Coaxtl padded behind. The cat did not think highly of flying machines.
Birds are for eating, the cat protested. Riding in them makes one feel that one is a youngling being carried in the beak of a prey-bird for the feeding of her chicks. One does not like this feeling,
‘Stop complaining,’ Cita said. ‘You’ll like being in the South again. Hi, Captain Johnny!’
‘Cita! How are you and your fine furry friend this morning?’ the pilot asked, grinning down at her.
‘I am far better than I have any right to expect, though I worry for the sake of my sister and Aunty Yana and Diego. But this one’, she pointed to Coaxtl, ‘longs to see her old caves again. A week ago she said she was fine but suddenly she growls in her sleep and talks only of going home. I heard you were taking one of these big houses to Loncie and Pablo, and I hoped that we might burden you with ourselves. I would like to show Carmelita and Isabella what I’ve learnt in school. I have many new songs to sing, however poorly, for those who were so kind to a foolish stranger before I came here.’
‘What does your uncle say?’
‘He doesn’t mind. He says you are making regular trips now and could perhaps bring us back in a day or two? So we will not trouble Loncie for too long?’
‘Sure, if it’s OK with Sean. I know Loncie and Pablo and the kids will be glad to see you again. They’re not going to believe how you’ve filled out in just a few months!’
All of these words had to be shouted over the roar of the copter’s great engines, but at last Cita made herself comfortable in the back and Coaxtl grumblingly curled u
p in a tight ball at her feet.
Cita enjoyed the trip very much. She liked watching as O. O’Neill’s special jet-crane hoisted the great boxes in the air and flew with them dangling, just so, so that the weight did not upset the aircraft. Johnny’s aircraft carried lighter cargo, in addition to herself and Coaxtl - more administrative paperwork bundled by Una Monaghan to go to Loncie Ondelacy.
Cita loved it when they reached the sea and she could see that the ice was already beginning to thicken off the northern coast. Whales and seals danced in the shadow of the aircraft, and dolphins leapt high, as if trying to touch the dangling cargo with their noses before diving again.
Gradually the water began to change, from grey-green to brighter, jade-green to pale grey-blue and to the deep bright blue of the glacier crevasse, then back again to blue-green, and almost lime. The air clouded with steam and below, the water boiled and hissed. Off to the right, a little island stuck up above the water, probably not even a mile wide yet, but it seemed to grow even as Cita watched, and already parts of it were seamed with green. Beyond, stretched other such islands, and Cita wondered how long it would take them to touch and make one big one.
Coaxtl was sleeping and didn’t seem to be wondering about anything, but she growled and sometimes snarled and her paws curled and uncurled. Cita wished she knew what the cat was dreaming but Coaxtl only spoke to her in her head on purpose - Cita was still too stupid and insensitive to read the great cat’s mind.
Then they were beyond the steam and the islands and back into the iceberg-clogged waters near the southern coast. Breakup was just beginning there, even as winter was beginning in the North, and great rushes of water spumed in the air as the icebergs broke free and calved from the icepack. She saw a white bear jump from one piece of ice to the other, trying to reach shore. The bears were very hungry and ate people, but still she hoped he made it. He was trying so hard.
They didn’t even stop and refuel at Portage but flew straight on to Sierra Padre where Loncie and Pablo and their family lived.
