‘If we could prove that, Sean,' Whit said in a savage and none-too-hopeful tone, 'we'd do Intergal a big favour.’
‘Count on me.’
As soon as the link broke, Sean explained to Una what was needed and why.
‘One of my first group, I think, had some station-keeping experience,' she said after a long moment's thought. 'I thought it very odd indeed that we were landed so far from any place civilized…’
Since she implied that Kilcoole was civilized, Sean burst out laughing. She regarded him in some surprise.
‘You do my heart good, Una. You consider Kilcoole civilized?’
‘Comparatively speaking,' she said with a slight grin, but inwardly she was gratified that she had eased the haunted look on Sean's face. She had come to admire him very much in the short time she'd been working with him, helping him with impossible burdens: not the least of which was this continuous influx of unnecessary people, especially the commercial types who seemed so eager to raid whatever wealth this planet held. 'We were told that the SpaceBase had been destroyed so we would have to be landed at a distance from the nearest community…’
‘Only the exact distance wasn't specified…"
‘That's it. Had I known what I know now…’
‘Tell me, Una, exactly what were you told and by whom?’
She paused, organizing her thoughts: Sean had discovered that organization was her strong suit.
‘Well, first there was the bulletin about Petaybee being a sentient planet. So I tagged the word on my terminal for any further information, knowing, you see, that some of my family had been sent here. Petaybee', and she gave him a little smile, 'was suddenly much in the bulletins and then the advertisement appeared, offering safe and quick transport facilities to the surface of the planet.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Well, about three weeks after the first mention of Petaybee. I had enough frequent-flyer hours to my credit to get to the Intergal Station easily enough. And the cost of getting to Petaybee's surface was not all that much, considering. In fact, rather cheap.’
‘Cheap enough to attract passengers, huh?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Go on.’
‘When I got to Intergal Station, the transit desk told me to book in at the Mallside hostelry where all Petaybean passengers had to register. When I checked in, I had to deposit the fare and then I was given a departure time.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘By whom?’
‘The clerk at Mallside. Oh, I got a stamped passage chit or believe you me, I wouldn't have handed over most of the last credits I had to my name.’
‘You wouldn't happen to remember the number of the account to which you credited the fare?’
‘I do. BM-20-2334-57.' She repeated it so that Sean could jot it down. 'The next morning I was given a time to assemble in the hotel lobby. I must say I was a little surprised at the… diversity of my fellow passengers. And relieved to find that there were other folks trying to find their Petaybean relatives.’
‘What did your courier look like?’
‘There wasn't one. When I arrived… a little early, I admit, because I was so eager to be on time. Some small link transports don't wait so it's wiser to be on time,' she told Sean in her earnest manner. He nodded and she continued, 'There was a printed notice that we were to proceed to the departure gate. Anyone not on time would forfeit their fare.' She paused. 'The only thing that reassured me was that the transport was so obviously new and one of the other passengers said it was even state-of-the-art.’
‘Would you have forfeited your fare if it had been a ramshackle vehicle?' Sean asked.
She gave a little laugh. 'No, I'd sold up to get here. But to the business at hand, Sean, it's Simon Furey who might stand watch for you at SpaceBase. He's the one who noticed how new the transport was.’
‘Where's he right now?’
‘We can ask Wild Star. She's teaching in the latchkay shed.’
Wild Star was certain that her husband Simon would be quite willing to help Sean out. In the first place, he'd love to get his hands on the guy who had dumped them down in the middle of nowhere. If it hadn't been for Cita, they could have frozen to death their first night on the planet. In the second place, he'd two badly blistered hands from chopping wood, which was the chore he'd been assigned in Kilcoole.
‘I don't mind doing my share, like,' he said, displaying the bloody signs of his industry, 'but I'd rather a chance to toughen up more gradually, like. Ya know what I mean?’
He said he'd s*ood enough watches on the mining vessels he'd worked over the past twenty years so that he felt himself able to do what Sean wanted.
‘Just don't mess the guy up so much we can't get civil answers out of him, will you?' Sean said.
The shuttle was due to make its weekly descent to Petaybee within the next thirty-two hours and Simon was able to plot from its trajectory where it would touch down - in the forest nearer Shannonmouth than Kilcoole. There was no pilot to remonstrate with or wring information from. A highly sophisticated remote-controlled module guided it to and from Petaybee.
This Simon Furey discovered when he barged past the disembarking passengers and attempted to get into the pilot's compartment. He'd come prepared with a device that would disable electronic locks so he was able to get into the forward cabin.
‘If I'd had just a little more time, I could have bollixed up the remote so the shuttle couldn't take off again. But it'll come back, won't it? I didn't mess up the panel, like, disabling the lock.' He looked at Sean for reassurance.
‘As long as whoever's running this show doesn't realize the lock was tampered with… What would you need to bollix the controls?’
Simon grinned. 'It don't take so much, really, if you know what to do. I'll have another look through the refuse skips at the SpaceBase. They're jettisoning an awful lot of useful stuff.’
‘They are?' Seamus and Adak chorused together.
‘Thanks, Simon,' Sean said, clapping the older man gratefully on the shoulder. 'We'll take any salvage you can hoist.’
‘Figured.’
‘Now,' and Sean's expression altered from amusement to anxiety, 'let's see where we can stash this bunch of pilgrims!' For there were more robed figures huddling in the miserable knot of the disembarked passengers. Clodagh was still in the Kilcoole cave with the first bunch of Rock Lovers or whatever the'religious' seekers called themselves.
Shannonmouth agreed to shelter the seven who were looking for their families. Nine of the religious had rock and stone names and demanded to be taken to Brothers Shale and Granite. So Sean took them back to Kilcoole to commune with their brothers and sisters. Three more hunters and another drug company representative made up this passenger complement. They, too, had to come back to Kilcoole though Sean didn't know where he'd be able to stash them. Now, if Simon should be successful in aborting the transport's return to the Intergal Station, maybe this would be the penultimate group he'd have to worry about. And with winter closing in, he'd have to sort the whole kaboodle real fast. Trying to spread the burden of extra numbers on the already stretched economy at least kept his mind off Yana.
12
The 'unseen eye', aka Charas Parclete, who had been instructed to keep a close one on Yana had followed the target subject and her escort through the maze and down to the cargo bay area. Since it was obvious that the two women were in the company of a more than capable-appearing male - and someone the 'eye' had better get some gen on if he was to be much in their company - the 'unseen' remained covert. In fact, the target subject and her companions were out of sight a good deal of the time as Charas had to remain unseen. Suddenly there was a bit of confusion ahead and when the covert watcher moved to a better viewing position, a whiff of the gas wafted across her face. Gagging and trying not to breathe while still attempting to clear her lungs gave the watcher a bit of trouble - especially as the mayday reached the mastoid implant which was linked to Marmion's alarm pad just when the gas effected a very short period of unconsciousness. Struggling to regain full use of her senses, Charas staggered unseen around the crates and cartons and saw only one body on the ground. Pressing the emergency signal for help, she dashed to the body.