‘Here's the gent you was expectin', Ms Marmion, come to take you home.' Adak looked up Nike's large frame, apparently satisfied that this man was appropriate for that task.
‘If you will excuse us?' Marmion said to the others. Yana willingly relinquished her pilot's seat to Faber. 'I have arrangements to make for the CIS court to be moved to Petaybee and an incriminating recording to deliver. Faber, the Louchard holo and certain representatives of law and order have a rendezvous to keep with a pirate ship. Oh, and would you all have any use for a spare space-worthy vessel?' Her smile was definitely mischievous as she glanced round.
‘What do you mean?' Yana asked, not certain if Marmion could pull off that sort of stunt.
‘Well, the ship will be forfeit, but I think the authorities might just consider it a just compensation for the inconvenience, harassment, outrage, and indignities of a false incarceration of Petaybean citizens?’
‘You were kidnapped, too,' Yana said while Sean chuckled.
‘Ah, yes, but I have my own ship and Petaybee could certainly profit by having its own navy.’
‘A shuttle and a spacer?' Sean said, grinning. 'I think we might even go into the transport business…" When he heard Clodagh's exasperated snort, he held up his hand and added, 'Of course, there will be a strict enforcement of immigration - to keep the undesirable element from landing on our native soil.’
‘An eminently sensible and honourable career for a piratical vessel,' said Namid, who had been sitting quietly behind Marmion. He rose now and took her hand. 'Return soon.’
She gave him a lingering glance and a saucy smile. 'Oh, I will. I certainly will.' Then she dimpled at Yana and Sean. 'But I'll send the ship back as soon as I can talk the authorities into it.’
‘What do you mean?' Dr Matthew Luzon demanded imperiously of the three officials who had presented themselves at his main office on Potala. 'I'm under arrest? For what crime, might I ask?’
‘Fraudulent misrepresentation, illegal transport licensing, accessory after the fact in an instance of kidnapping’
‘Oh, now come off it,' Matthew said, cutting off the charges with an irate wave of his hand. 'That is utterly outrageous…" He caught sight of his new chief assistant trying to get his attention. 'Well, what is it, Dawtrey?’
‘Sir, they've been through the legal department and the arrest is legal and not a single loophole that can be challenged…’
‘Preposterous.’
‘Dr Matthew Luzon, you will accompany us to the court which has issued this warrant to answer the charges, forthwith and immediately,' the officer in charge of the deputation said in such a pompous tone that Luzon laughed.
‘We'll see about this,' he threatened and depressed a toggle to summon his security staff.
‘Sir, sir, Dr Luzon,' his chief assistant said, pumping his hand in the air with the urgency of a schoolchild in desperate need of relieving himself,' the matter has been seen to, before we'd even permit them to interrupt you.’
‘And?' Luzon stood up, to give the three-man deputation the full force of his imposing stature and personality.
‘They are acting quite within the scope of their duties and you really will have to go with them.’
‘I, Dr Matthew Luzon, interrupt a busy schedule to appear in a minor court?’
‘It's a major court, sir,' the assistant said, 'and Legal says you have no option but to accompany them without protest or…’
‘… A charge of resisting arrest will also be levied against you, Dr Luzon.’
The senior official, expressionless though his face was, did seem, in Luzon's estimation, to be enjoying his duties far more than he had any right to. The very idea that officials could barge into his office, interrupt his work day when he had an entire planet to set to rights, was preposterous. And yet, the atmosphere was rife with barely concealed emotions, almost 'menacing' in the tension.
A discreet tap on his door, which his senior secretary hastened to open, resulted in the view of his entire legal staff, assembled in the outer room. Peltz, the senior adviser, caught Luzon's eye and gave him a quick nod of the head. Luzon took that to mean that they had everything under control and this risible situation would soon be a rather bad taste in his mouth.
‘Very well, gentlemen, if that is the order of the court, as a law-abiding citizen of this galaxy, I submit.' There was nothing at all submissive about Dr Matthew Luzon as he smartly passed his would-be captors on his way to the corridor and to the personal vehicle which should be waiting at his level to transport him.
The vehicle awaiting him was not his personal one but a drab and very official one and matters proceeded downhill with astonishing speed after that.
Nor was he at all reassured to discover that the plaintiff who had levelled these charges against him was none other than the Secretary General of Intergal, Farringer Ball, and that the warrant had originated from Intergal's Petaybean installation.
‘The planet's corrupting everyone,' he shouted as he was led off to a holding cell. The last glimpse he had of his well-paid, highly trained and motivated legal department were their slightly bemused expressions. Bemused at his expense.
Nor was his incarceration in any way mitigated by the fact that he was led past a cell containing Captain Torkel Fiske who was sitting in abject dejection on the spartan bed of the accommodation.
‘Fiske? What's the meaning of this?’
‘Now, now, sor,' said the senior officer hurrying him to the next section of the prison and his own quarters, 'no talking. That's not allowed to prisoners on remand.’
What Torkel Fiske could not figure out was how he had been implicated in the Algemeine-Maddock-Rourke-Metaxos kidnappings. Unless, of course, Captain Louchard had been captured and had taken revenge on what he considered to be Torkel's perfidy by deciding to turn Galactic-evidence to gain a reduced sentence. Kidnapping demanded a fate far worse than death - imprisonment in a space capsule which was then released beyond the heliopause of the local star system with sufficient oxygen to keep the criminal alive long enough to regret both crime and life.
Some took as long as weeks to suffocate, depending on the amount of oxygen supplied, and there was no legal amount specified so there was no way of knowing how long you would keep on breathing. If you were claustrophobic, maybe you went mad first. If you had agoraphobia, the torture would be equally severe. No-one had ever been rescued.
Torkel had managed to get a message off to his father although he wasn't sure if that would do any good. Why, his father might even have told the officials where to find him: Whittaker was scrupulous about obeying the law and Marmion was an old and valued associate.
What Torkel had counted on was Captain Louchard's piratical expertise as well as an ignorance of the Gentlepersons' Agreement regarding being kidnapped. There hadn't been an abduction of someone of Marmion de Revers Algemeine's social prominence in so many years that the Pact was no longer common knowledge. Besides, Torkel would have been happy enough with the abduction of the minor personalities, to pay back Yana, and indirectly Sean, as well as those obnoxious kids. Caveat emptor! Even a pirate should know where to draw the line in dastardly deeds.
Odd, if Louchard was responsible for Torkel's arrest, that there had been nothing on the net reports about the capture of pirate and crew. That would have given Torkel sufficient warning to make for parts unknown and to undergo a complete identity change. He'd some tentative plans made in that direction but he'd been taken so by surprise that he hadn't had a chance to put them into use. He'd opened his door and there they were!