Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [112]
“Here’s the gent you was expectin’, Ms. Marmion, come to take you home.” Adak looked up at Nike’s large frame, apparently satisfied that this man was appropriate to 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 Jenny will be forfeited, but I think the authorities might 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 honorable 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 out of 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.
“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 workday, 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