A Planet For Emily

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A day or so after drugging Suzanne, Sam was in the noisy, crowded port bar of Janice IV, savouring that first drink after a dangerous bit of work successfully completed. Carrying Suzanne off the ship, while drugged, had been simple. Security was not worried about anyone getting off at the Oid port. Why would they be? They had been easy to distract. Sam thought he would have nightmares about the hairy, perpetually grinning, grey figures that met them. One of the creatures dropped a memory unit with a digital transfer order in front of the earthmen, then whisked the still unconscious girl away. They had been back on board within minutes, security none the wiser. He could have enjoyed the girl, Sam thought, but he consoled himself with fantasising over the women his share of the money would buy. Lots of women with few choices and no money in the colonies, or so he hoped.

One problem, or rather two similar problems, was that of Annette and Henrietta. As soon as they realised Suzanne was missing they wanted to know where she had gone. They didn’t believe Nod's assurances that she’d just been shifted elsewhere in the ship. Where on the ship? Why hadn’t she told them? In the end, Nod had threatened them with a recommendation to the captain that they be left at one of the labor colonies. Plenty of others would take their place. That shut the two girls up, but now in the bar on a brief break from their cruise directing duties they still glared at both Sam and Nod who were sharing one of the tiny bar tables.

Nod was also relaxing, day dreaming about just how he would spend his share of the money, when a tall man walked into the bar. He was followed by a shorter man wearing a trench coat and hat, then by a man and a woman who wore the blue coats of the local law enforcement. More importantly, the captain of The Paris trailed along behind.

“It’s our fearless leader, look lively,” Nod whispered to Sam.

“We’re off duty.”

“Looks to be some sort of delegation.”

The man spoke to the girl behind the bar who turned the music off. Then he turned and addressed the crowd. His first words froze Nod and Sam’s blood.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m looking for a colleague of mine who got on The Paris at Earth Station. Her name is Suzanne Clark.”

Annette and Henrietta gasped.

“You’re Rods,” said Annette. “Suzanne showed us pictures of you.”

“So, she was on the ship,” said the captain, a small, red haired man with beady eyes. He had a poor reputation but was cooperating with the local police and Rods because he now suspected someone was running a scam on his ship without giving him a cut. “She’s not on the passenger or crew list.”

The bar was as silent, as if someone had flicked a switch. Nod knew he should edge towards the door but thought that he and Sam were closer to the rest rooms.

“She was working as crew in the kitchen,” said Henrietta, “and had the top bunk in our tier.”

“I knew nothing of this,” said the captain, indignantly. For once he could safely deny wrongdoing. “How did we have a crew member aboard that I didn’t know about?”

“Two of the people who know are right there,” said Annette, gleefully pointing at her two bosses. “Nod was giving her orders and Sam tried to climb into her bunk on the first night, but Nod told him not to.” The entire bar swivelled to look at the two men. Nod knew there was no escape. They’d have to talk their way out. He discreetly gripped Sam’s arm as the younger man started to sidle away. “Steady,” he whispered. “Just don’t say anything.”

“Captain, I’d like your men to come here please,” said Rods.

“Yes of course. Sam, Julian (that was Nod’s real name). You’ll need to come with us until we clear this up.” The two men moved forward slowly. For Sam, the dream had become a nightmare.

“When did you last see Suzanne?” Rods asked the two ladies, while Sam and Nod took the necessary few paces.

Sam noticed, to his surprise, that the short man in the trench coat, was mechanical. He thought briefly about the ransom he could get for a mechanical man and put the thought to one side. He would have to square this incident with the captain first.

“The night before last she was in her usual bunk above us,” said Annette. “Then she was with us when we started the pre-lunch shift. Then I didn’t see her again.”

“When the captain spoke to us about what was happening on Earth Station,” said Henrietta, “she didn’t come out with us. She was never there when the captain or the officers were around.”

“She went along with it,” chimed in Annette, “because she thought she might be in trouble if she was on the ship unauthorised, but she was going to get out here. She had everything worked out. She said she knew people here.”

“She knew us,” said the female law enforcement officer, who was Anne Levinson, gesturing at both her and her husband. “Did you ask what happened to her?”

“Nod and Sam said she’d gone to another part of the ship because the captain was getting suspicious and if we tried to find her the captain would hear about it. Said she was a stowaway.”

“Well Nod and Sam,” said Rods turning to the two crew men. “You’re Nod, right? We should go with the good police officers here and your captain and work out just how Suzanne got aboard The Paris and how she got off again, but I’ve already checked the route. The captain here did a little trading with the Oids.” The captain fidgeted and shuffled his feet. “No one here cares about that,” said Rods dismissively. “I’ve done it myself. But what we do not do is sell a human, especially a woman, to the Oids.”

There was a collective gasp. Nod shook his head violently, rather than nod as he always did, but Sam felt his knees buckle. When the girls had talked about Rods he had scoffed and dismissed him. But confronted with the reality of the tall, solidly built trader with a scar on his face and dark eyes that bored into him, and who knew everything about what they had done, his bravado turned to panic. Rods next words seemed to echo; to be unreal and distant.

“I don’t have time to waste with you, gentleman. All I need to know is some basic details. Who did you sell to, the creature’s name? What did his badge look like?”

“A-arrows up,” said Sam, finally finding his voice.

“Shuddup,” snapped Nod.

“Arrows up?” Rods frowned as he took out his PA and flicked through it. “You mean a triangle without a base pointing up?”

The captive bar audience looked from one man to another as they spoke.

Sam nodded.

“Okay, what else?”

“L-line above it.”

“Straight or sloping?”

“Curvy,” said Sam, gesturing.

“Okay, any name on the creature you sold to.”

Both men were silent.

“Gentlemen, does this have to become physical? Our police officers here have a thing about cattle prods.”

“Not so much a thing,” said Mr Levinson, catching his cue. He had studied philosophy as a youth. “It’s more an appreciation of the value they can add to certain interactions. Some crude labels can be applied to this interaction, such as physical coercion or even torture, but the action has to be understood in the context of the social structures..”

“Let the men speak, dear,” said Mrs Levinson.

“A..atar, I think,” said Sam.

“Azar,” said Nod. There was no point in continuing to deny what they had done. “Big dude for those guys; and fatter in the face. We never got a spelling or a clan name. It was a cash sale, a straight swap. No documents. I only ever dealt with him.”

Rods moved up close to them, lowering his voice to a whisper.

“Guys, I’d better recover my cruise director, undamaged, or I will come looking for you.”

“And do what,” said Nod loudly, as Rods was turning away.

“We won’t discuss it here,” said the trader over his shoulder. “Pain is a very private thing.” He turned back. “Thank you captain, thank you officers. They are all yours.”

“I really hope you find Suzanne,” said Annette.

“I hope so too,” said Rods as he left, Igor trailing along behind him, and leaving the captain of The Paris to glare at Nod and Sam. Nod’s dream about what he would do with his money abruptly vanished.

“It’s a real problem,” Rods said to Eve and Joselyn back on the Max. “Even if I find the creature who bought Suzanne he’ll be a member of a clan and the head of the clan will have Suzanne in his house on the Oid planet. Having got her, he’s not about to give her up, easily.”

“Will she still be alive?” asked Eve quietly.

“Oh sure, for now. She’ll be held for a few days while the boss collects bids, I imagine, but when she’s sold and shipped off world I don’t know how I’ll find her.”

“Can we buy her back?”

“Price would have tripled by now and it’s well beyond anything I could pay even if I got Nod and Sam to give up what money they got.”

“I could offer to go in her place,” said Eve.

“If I ever got them to agree to the trade, Suzanne’d want to get you out. I’d spend my life rescuing people. The same goes for you Joselyn.” Mrs Clark closed the mouth she had opened. “Anyway, I doubt they’d give up one for the other. They’d go for the set if they could.”

“But what do they want Suzanne or any of us for?”

“Dunno, and you probably don’t want to know the details, but it’s not good. The one advantage we have is that it’s an outlaw sort of place. I can go in there and go cowboy and get away with it, for a time, particularly if I’ve got Igor.”

“Go behind or in front?” asked Igor, who had been ruminating quietly in one corner of The Max’s wardroom.

“Behind, mostly.”

“Behind. Get Suzanne. Got it.”

“Another of her admirers,” muttered Rods.