19
‘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.