‘What's the matter, alannah?"
She gave him a painful smile. 'Since seeing the holo, I have a plan. I wish I didn't almost, but I do.’
‘To do what?’
‘Nail the pirates, Luzon and Torkel Fiske and get them all out of Petaybee's hair for good.’
‘That sounds worthwhile. What's the catch?’
‘It would involve taking the holo, returning with this shuttle to the pirate ship and posing as Louchard. Since I'm the only possible shuttle pilot who qualifies, it means I'll have to leave Petaybee again, and the very thought ties me in knots. Still…’
‘Why do you have to do that?’
‘To take the ship back to Gal-Three where it and the crew can be taken into appropriate authority. Meanwhile, posing as Louchard, I'll confront Fiske and Luzon and make damned sure there's an incriminating record of what transpired between them.’
‘I can't let you take that risk, Yana. Especially not in your condition,' Sean said, sounding sterner than he meant to at the idea of her not only leaving the planet again but putting herself in such danger.
‘I don't see much choice, not if the pirates are to be put out of commission and Luzon and Fiske stopped from interfering with us once and for all.’
‘It's a good plan,' Marmion interjected. 'Excellent, in fact. It needs to be done. Only, may I make one small suggestion?’
Sister Igneous Rock was with the orange cats and the debilitated hunters, de Peugh and Minkus, when Adak burst into Clodagh's cabin, which she had turned into a temporary clinic as well as pharmacy.
‘Sean and Yana are bringin' in a bunch of folks that got Petaybeed up at Tanana Bay and over by Bogota,' he said. 'They're in a pretty bad way, according to Yana. She says some of them might not live, though she reckons they're none of 'em any worse than Frank Metaxos was when he first got here.’
‘Oh dear. Clodagh is off with Mr Ball, I'm afraid. She took him to the springs for therapy,' she said. But before the words were out of her mouth, two of the orange members of the nursing staff tore out of the door that Adak had left slightly ajar.
The shuttle landed just as Clodagh showed up with Ball in his wheelchair strapped into the basket of Liam Mahoney's dogsled. Dr von Clough ski'd along beside them. He looked very tired. Brothers Shale and Schist, looking somewhat bemused, followed a disgusted-looking orange cat who seemed outraged at their lack of efficiency. Sister Agate adjusted her robes to their usual decorous length. While Ball received his therapy in the waters of the hotsprings, she had been inside the grotto engaged in deep consultation with Aidan Yulipilik about the therapeutic uses of Petaybee's mildly intoxicating drink, blurry. The blurry was not all that was intoxicating. Sister Agate was quite flushed from the attentions of the dashing Aidan, who made drums, snowshoes, dog harness, and skis for the entire village and many other parts of Petaybee. He also had twinkling slanted blue eyes and a physique that might be envied by many twenty year olds.
That could not be said of the poor people whom Sean and Namid began carrying or helping out of the shuttle. Most looked geriatric, astonished, and bitterly unhappy.
‘There's not room enough at your place, Clodagh!' Sean said. 'Oh, this is Namid Mendelsky, a friend of Marmion's. We'll use the meeting hall for now - we'll need to use the school Cube as well. There are still more patients to be evacuated from Bogota. We only brought the worst ones this time.’
One of the poor souls was a woman, small and perhaps pretty once, with totally white hair and sunken cheeks. She was a pitiable object and moaned and cried out often. Four of the men died before they could be treated. Clodagh said if they could have arrived sooner they might have been saved but that it was the planet's will.
Sister Igneous Rock had the quite heretical thought that perhaps the planet might have willed something else if it had been aware of other options - like more fast transportation, easier access to intravenous fluids, just a few basic medical necessities. Clodagh's medicines could work wonders of recuperation, once the patients got past the critical stage, but fast transit, a source of not-quite-so-spiritual power, and convenient plumbing could do a lot towards remedying many sorts of emergency situations.
And there was all that geothermal energy the planet had to spare. It seemed a shame and a bit of a waste, really. But who was she to say?
She felt less modest about it within the next forty-eight hours, as the shuttle flew back and forth to the South until it was finally grounded for lack of fuel. It had fetched patients from the South and taken fuel to Johnny Greene so he could also assist in the air-lift. Even though everyone in Kilcoole helped, all of the water carrying, wood chopping, water boiling, heating of irons, lighting of lamps and candles, carrying and disposal of wastes, changing and washing linen especially since most of it was not linen or anything resembling it but wool or fur or someone's down sleeping bag, and not that easily washed - left her totally exhausted.
Indeed, under such hard conditions, it took her, Agate, Schist, Shale, Clodagh, and Dr von Clough, who never ceased complaining about the conditions, every waking hour for three days to save two-thirds of the patients. The man who had been the foreman of the work crew in the South died, as did the father of a lost-looking young boy who cried into the coat of a young wildcat while little Cita patted him on the back.
The woman from Tanana Bay lived, and the big black man, though just barely, but the other two died. Clodagh said it would be a long haul for her and the other survivors.
The Chief Engineer on board the Jenny had been uneasy for days. He could run the administrative bits of the ship, but when all the senior officers just took off like that without so much as a by-your-leave, well, what was a bloke to think? Miss Dinah usually passed on the Captain's orders, or Megenda, or failing that Second Mate Dott but they were all gone now, weren't they? He'd assumed, naturally, that the Captain had stayed on board and sent Miss Dinah off with Dott and Framer. But, when he himself had checked the Captain's quarters and discovered them empty, and Louchard nowhere on board, the lads had broken into the Haimacan rum and got legless. No-one had attempted to clean up the resultant mess, despite his warning that there would be hell to pay when the Captain returned.
And now the reckoning was due. There was the Captain on the comscreen.
‘Good to see you, sir. We thought you was on board wif us, sir, till we noticed you wasn't, like.’
‘Very observant,' came the Captain's gurgly alienish voice from out of his octopus-like head with that funny eye channel runnin' all around it. The reason he had Miss Dinah to front for him, everyone reckoned, was that too much lookin' at the Captain woulda been bad for morale. 'But obviously, I am not there as I am here on board the shuttle. Our mission is accomplished, but there is still the matter of payment for the Algemeine woman.’
‘Framer said as how them high-class people wouldn't pay no ransom.’
‘Framer talked too much. Framer has paid the consequences of indiscretion. Even dignitaries have families who do not wish to see them… detained, or to suffer any… inconvenience. Besides which, outside parties had an interest in this detention. Patch through the following transmissions to these codes and rendezvous with me at the following coordinates.’
‘Aye-aye, sir. And may I say, sir, that it will be good to have you aboard again, sir.’
Torkel Fiske was entertaining in his suite aboard his father's star-yacht when the call came in on the private channel that was supposed to be available only to him and his father. It only took one glance at his caller to tell him that the transmission was definitely not from his father. He closed the door quickly so that his guest would not inadvertently catch sight of his caller. The creature on his screen was hideous. Not that Torkel hadn't seen Aurelians before. He had, and he hadn't liked them then either. On those occasions, they had been in appropriate places, not invading his privacy. 'Yes?' he asked. 'This is a private channel. How did you gain access? You are in violation of the Inter-galactic Communications and Trade Act…’