‘Let's see the blood,' one of them demanded.
Yana was barking so hard and painfully that she was bent over her knees, trying to ease the spasms that racked her belly. She was hoping the coughing wouldn't provoke a miscarriage. That thought made her clasp her belly protectively as the compulsive tickle kept up its irritation and she kept up her coughing.
‘You see! You see!' Bunny cried, outraged. 'Get her a doctor. She's no good to you dead!’
The hatch shut with a resounding clang.
‘She'll be all right?' Diego asked, his voice taut. 'She won't lose the baby or anything?’
Yana shook her head, denying that to him as well as to herself. And kept right on coughing, gasping for breath now, her ribs aching from the exercise.
‘We must be able to do something!' Bunny cried and had pounded twice on the hatch when it opened again and a soulful face, long and aristocratic, framed with silvery hair and a well-trimmed beard looked in briefly. He was pushed aside by Dinah O'Neill.
‘What's this? What's this? Blood?’
‘She can't stop coughing from all that gas you poured into us,' Bunny said angrily. 'Do something.’
‘This is Doctor Namid Mendelsky…' Dinah began.
‘I'm a doctor of astronomy, not medicine, Ms O'Neill,' he said contritely. 'But your infirmary must have some sort of linctus. Even pirates get coughs…’
‘Privateer,' Dinah O'Neill corrected primly. She spoke over her shoulder. 'Bring the first aid kit.’
‘That's for injuries…’
‘Get it.’
‘Codeine stops the cough reflex,' Diego said helpfully. 'Most first aid kits have something of that sort in them. Mild. Useful.’
Yana hesitated. 'C-codeine?' she gasped. 'What about the b-baby?’
Mendelsky raised his eyebrows and gave a slightly uneasy shrug. 'I wouldn't think there'd be much risk to the foetus at this stage, but I'm no obstetrician. I think it's a safe bet, however, if the cough continues to be this violent, that you could miscarry.’
She nodded, pausing only a moment to bark again.
‘What she needs is to get back to Petaybee, and Clodagh's syrup,' Bunny said.
‘Ah, yes,' said Privateer Dinah O'Neill brightly. 'Well, we can see our way clear to do that, after certain basic arrangements have been made.’
‘Ransom demands, you mean,' Marmion said stiffly.
Dinah O'Neill twinkled at her as if she'd said something very witty. 'First we really must do something to stop that coughing or we won't be able to get her to agree to anything.’
Yana violently waved both arms, trying to indicate that despite her coughing she wasn't about to agree to anything. Then the guard returned and was thrusting the first aid container, a sizeable one too, at Dinah who side-stepped so that the box went to Dr Mendelsky.
‘Please,' Bunny said, now supporting the weakening Yana against her. 'Find something!’
‘I'm really an astronomer, not a medical…’
‘Anything!' Bunny cried in an anguish punctuated by Yana's painful barking.
‘Ah, codeine!' Namid Mendelsky held up a vial in triumph and then his face lost that look for one of doubt. 'But how much?’
Marmion held out her hand for the vial. Looked at it. 'The spray,' she said authoritatively and, when she received that, did the filling and then released the drug into Yana's throat. Almost magically, it seemed to everyone in the small room, the paroxysm eased and Yana lay, exhausted, against Bunny.
‘And look, an herbal linctus?' Mendelsky passed that over to Marmion who also read its label.
She broke the seal on the cap and opened the bottle, passing it to Yana who let the thick liquid flow into her mouth and down her throat, lining it in a soothing fashion. She recapped the bottle, clutching it to herself, her lungs heaving to reduce the oxygen debt the coughing had caused.
Dinah O'Neill clicked her fingers at Marmion who still held the hypospray and the codeine vial. Marmion handed them over.
‘So?' Marmion asked the privateer in a deeply significant tone. 'Now what?’
‘Can you walk, Colonel?' Dinah asked, peering down at Yana.
‘If a walk means we can settle this nonsense sooner, I'll make it.’
‘Ever the valiant colonel,' Dinah replied, dimpling at her. 'I do admire your resolution and intrepidity.’
‘Thanks,' Yana said, exhaling wearily. That coughing had taken a lot out of her but she mustn't indicate just how much.
‘Good. Then Megenda, the first mate, will escort you to the Captain's cabin. I have other duties to attend.’
‘Macci?' Marmion asked, hopeful of an answer.
‘Now, that would be telling, wouldn't it?' Dinah said, mildly reproving and went off. The doctor of astronomy followed her and a larger figure loomed in the hatch opening.
First Mate Megenda was a tall, muscular black man who probably had ended up a pirate-privateer because he looked the part so completely. One eye was a cyber-implant that was only slightly less menacing than an eyepatch. He had cut the sleeves out of his orange coverall and wore a striped jersey beneath it and a flowered red bandanna around his shaven head. Really, Yana thought, grasping at any diversion, the man had been watching far too many swashbuckling holovids.
He gestured peremptorily for them to follow him -and an equally large and threatening fellow, olive-green rather than black, fell in behind Diego who was last to leave their prison. Yana managed another swig of the linctus, for just the act of getting up made the tickle return to her throat.
They were led through corridor after endless corridor, past supply locks and repair bays and what looked like weapons rooms and cybersleep facilities, storage bay after storage bay. Some of them, Yana could have sworn, they passed by more than once. They walked until her feet hurt and her cough was ceaseless but still their captors led them on through more corridors. The Captain evidently controlled business on the ship via remote most of the time, because the Captain's quarters certainly appeared to be hard to reach. Most of the commands that didn't come via computer were probably relayed by the O'Neill woman and the first mate.
But the Captain made the first mate look normal. The chamber into which Megenda led them was theatrical in the extreme, resembling an opulent captain's chamber from an ancient sailing vessel, with swags of rich material, hard-copy navigational charts, antique compasses and sextants and things which would be of very little use in space, plus a computer console and a few other contemporary touches disguised in what appeared to be real wooden settings.
Behind a large carved desk, the top of which was an immense star chart, sat the infamous Onidi Louchard. Yana had wondered what this pirate chieftain would be like. She'd heard that Louchard was a woman. Hard to tell. To the world, the Captain appeared as an Aurelian - a six-armed, vaguely humanoid creature with a craw full of fangs that would have stretched from ear to ear had the creature had ears, and an optical slit that circled its entire cranial prominence. This was a holocover. Even if the wavy aura wasn't discernible, which it was (though only slightly), an Aurelian, even an Aurelian pirate - an unlikely occupation for a peaceful sea-dweller with a language similar to that of Earth's aquatic mammals - or even an Aurelian who could live outside its normal environment, would have no conceivable use for the gadgetry displayed in that room.
Also, this particular Aurelian dry-environment-dwelling pirate spoke pretty good English, through some sort of distorting device.
‘I had no idea you had a sense of humour, Louchard,' Yana stopped coughing long enough to say.
‘Enough. You will record the messages as they are written for you on these sheets. You, Madame Algemeine, will have all of your liquid credits transferred in the manner described here. In addition, you will sell your interest in the following concerns for the price given to the first buyer approaching your broker. The entire transaction, needless to say, will be kept completely confidential if you wish to remain alive, alert, articulate and anatomically complete. These transactions will take place in time-controlled sections so that any security measures on the part of your people will be detected and you will, I guarantee, suffer for them.