The Peytabee Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  But as they passed over the broad plane between rivers and mountain ranges, they saw a strange sight. The ground was as bare for miles around as if it had been closely grazed by some animal, and many people were bent over, harvesting what looked like weeds. Cita could see no reason for it.

  Johnny flew low, buzzing the people playfully, but also curiously, Cita thought. These might be like the hunters and the funny people in white robes and the serious business people she had seen before.

  Whatever they were, Coaxtl didn’t like them. Without so much as a warning, the cat sprang to her feet and threw herself against the door.

  ‘Coaxtl, no! We’re high up! You would be killed.’ Coaxtl scratched long rents in the steel of the door, snarling. One will go out. NOW.

  Cita ran to throw her arms around the cat and was dragged to the window as the copter canted to the right, and she suddenly found herself looking into the face of a boy a few years older than herself, with features that reminded her somewhat of Pablo’s. He had been holding something and his arms were still stretched towards it, where it cut a swath through the untouched undergrowth.

  Coaxtl’s scratching grew less as Johnny circled the area twice, thoroughly confusing the Nabatira Company cranecopter, which hovered uncertainly before flying slowly forwards, waiting until Johnny finished his survey. The people on the ground below looked up. They were not well dressed for winter.

  When the people were at last far behind them, Coaxtl heaved a great sigh and jumped up on the seat Cita had occupied, parts of her hanging over the edges. Cita plopped down within the overhang of the cat’s giant paws and scrunched the thick soft fur of her friend’s belly with her fingers.

  Coaxtl did not speak for the remainder of the flight, though she rumbled contentedly from time to time as Cita stroked her. Cita would have spoken but the roar of the copter jets was too loud and besides, she did not know what to say.

  As soon as the copter landed and the door was open, Coaxtl streaked out and bounded away.

  ‘Wait!’ Cita cried.

  The Home is in need, Coaxtl’s voice told her. Bring help.

  Johnny jumped down from the copter and helped Cita down. ‘Looks like your friend had an urgent appointment.’

  ‘She said the Home needed help,’ Cita told him.

  ‘Yes,’ Johnny said. ‘I can see that. Don’t worry, Cita. As soon as we’ve had a word with Loncie and Pablo and O. O. knows where she wants him to install his cube, we’re outta here and I think we need to pay our respects to the planet’s newest guests and ask them what the frag they’re doing here. I have a hunch we’ll find Coaxtl there.’

  ‘You are wise, Captain Johnny. Surely that is where Coaxtl will go for she opposed their presence.’ Cita pointed to the long rents in the steel door.

  Johnny groaned. ‘That’s not going to be easy to explain to the Company.’

  But there was no need to explain to Loncie and Pablo, beyond telling them of the barren swath the newcomers were cutting. Loncie told O. O. to put the cube behind the house, and ran out the door just ahead of her husband, who grabbed both of their coats and summoned several neighbours. All of them crowded into the helicopter, each pushing Cita away to climb in before her.

  She knew they were adults and much wiser and stronger than she. She knew she was being wicked and disobedient to crowd her way aboard. But Coaxtl was her friend and did not speak to others here.

  She stuck out her chin and lowered her brows and tried to look defiant and invisible at the same time, but felt a pair of hands lift her over the heads of the adults seated on the floor, and found herself dragged into Loncie’s lap.

  ‘So you come with us, eh, Pobrecita?’

  ‘Si,’ Cita said. ‘I do.’

  ‘Bueno,’ Loncie said, patting her back.

  The copter set down and the doors opened. People poured out. Not many, compared to the people on the ground. Only seven, plus Cita and Johnny.

  The newcomers stayed well back of the rotor blades until Johnny shut them down. Then they pushed forward, a handsome golden-skinned man with black hair and black hooded eyes at the fore. All of the people were carrying things Cita couldn’t see clearly.

  ‘Slainte,’ Johnny said. ‘This lady is Lonciana Ondelacy, the regional administrator of the Southern Continent. This is her husband, Pablo Ghompas, and these here are what you might call the County Council.’

  The man made a slight bow in the direction of Pablo and Loncie. ‘How kind of you to greet us.’

  Loncie inclined her head slightly, cautiously. ‘What brings you here, senor?’

  ‘A mission of mercy, madame. My name is Zing Chi. I am of the Asian E and E Company Limited. We have been sent to collect certain substances to heal the sick and ease the ravages of age. Many of these things are obtainable only here. But we had no transportation until you arrived, and no way of finding what we seek. You can help us?’

  Cita did not like his smile and hung behind Loncie’s broad back.

  ‘We’ll be pleased to, honoured guest,’ Pablo said, before anyone else could say anything. ‘If only you will tell us what you seek.’

  Zing Chi reached into his pocket and pulled forth a written list. Pablo accepted it, handing it to Loncie, who had been in the Company and thus could already read, unlike Petaybeans.

  ‘What is this?’ Loncie asked, anger rising in her voice as she read. ‘The whiskers of orange cats? Unicorn horns?’

  ‘Oh, my goodness me,’ Pablo said, before she could tell them what she thought of their list. ‘What does it all mean? Gentlemen, whatever would you use such things for?’

  ‘Unicorn horn is well known as an aphrodisiac and a preventer of poisonings, good sir,’ Zing Chi said with another bow. ‘Most valuable. The whiskers of the orange cats are said to prolong youth and good health.’

  Pablo shook his head. ‘Not here, I’m afraid. Someone has misled your informant.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Oh, my goodness, yes. The unicorn horn you find on Petaybee is no good at all for aphrodisiacs.’

  ‘Is it not?’ Zing Chi asked politely. The other townspeople and Loncie watched Pablo as if he were their teacher. Obviously they held him in great respect, as they should.

  ‘You have been misled,’ Pablo said. ‘That is understandable, sir, since undoubtedly your information could not have come from anyone who actually had harvested the worthless horn of one of the northern curly stags in the winter. The horns are good for cutting ice, which is what the curlycorn uses it for. No more than that.’

  ‘Are you absolutely certain?’ Zing Chi asked with apparent courtesy but his eyes said that he did not believe what he was told.

  Pablo sighed and hung his head. ‘You may ask my wife.’

  Loncie shook her head sadly. ‘It is true. We had Captain Greene fly us down the horn of a curlycoat killed in an avalanche so that Pablo could try the cure but, alas, it was no good. Nothing did any good, in fact, until he ate the polar bear balls.’

  ‘Polar bear balls?’ several of the men gasped enquiringly.

  ‘Ah, si. When I finally recovered, I was muy macho in a way that only the polar bear balls of Petaybee can make a man who has lost his will to…’ Pablo made what was often considered a rude or lewd gesture.

  ‘I will add that to the list, then, sir,’ Zing Chi said.

  ‘Of course, with all Petaybean remedies, there is a secret in the gathering as well as in the mixing, you understand,’ Pablo said.

  ‘What secrets would those be, kind sir?’ Zing Chi asked.

  ‘If I told, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?’

  ‘We are willing to pay special… informants… handsomely for research information,’ Zing Chi said.

  ‘Oh, did you hear that, Pablo?’ Johnny asked. ‘They’ll pay us handsomely. I could get my copter door repaired and you and Loncie could reinsulate your hacienda.’

  ‘I don’t know, Captain Johnny,’ Pablo said, shaking his head. ‘Once the secret is sold, it is no lon
ger a secret, and it is very dangerous.’

  Loncie grabbed her husband’s arm. ‘We could build new bedrooms for our fourteen youngest offspring, corazon,’ she said.

  Cita looked up at her curiously. Loncie and Pablo had only Carmelita and Isabella.

  ‘That is true,’ Pablo said. ‘Very well. But we are Petaybeans, remember, and you gentlemen perhaps should not risk your lives professionally. It must be said that taking polar bear balls is done only when one has dire personal need, as I did. The secret, you see is’ He beckoned the man forward and whispered fairly loudly in his ear. ‘The polar bear must be alive when you take his balls. You sneak up behind the bear and quickly tie a string around his balls. Then you must follow him around until they drop off.’

  ‘Why not just kill the bear and harvest the balls?’ Zing Chi asked, not whispering.

  Johnny pretended to be shocked. ‘You didn’t tell him that part, did you, Pablo? Well, I guess as long as the bear’s out of the bag, you ought to know. My great-grandad, when he first came to Petaybee, needed bear balls but he was in a big hurry and he killed the bear. He got what he wanted OK but only used it once before he dropped dead in bed. Did die happy though.’

  ‘And have we the correct ingredient for youthful-ness?’

  Johnny looked at the list sideways and smirked. ‘Cat whiskers? Who was the joker who made this list out anyway? No, mate, cat whiskers are no good to anybody but the beastie what wears ‘em most of the time. The way I figure it, your informant felt something sticky and figured it must be cat’s whiskers without checkin’ his source. What they use for prolonging youth and health up north is coo-berry thorns. And I’ll tell you the secret to that for free. You got to get the protected ones, in the middle of the patch, to get the best results.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Zing Chi said with a bow, extending his hand and pointing the object in it at Johnny. ‘What you see in my hand, and in the hands of my workers is a laser harvester, which is capable of flaying a man as easily as a tree. With the use of these implements, we will gladly take your suggestions under advisement and procure the items you suggest in addition to those we seek. First, however, we require transportation to the sources of these things. This you will provide us while the County Council, as you call them, stay here as the guests of my Company.’

  19

  On the ‘Pirate Jenny’

  Contents - Prev/Next

  ‘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.