Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [52]
“You’re an astronomer?” Marmion asked, eyeing him more kindly than she had before. When he nodded, she went on. “Did she ever get you to talk about your specialty?”
A flush spread across Namid’s sallow face and his expression became decidedly chagrined. “Constantly. I was, as you can well imagine, quite flattered. Why?”
“What area of astronomy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Types of star systems, planets . . .”
“Planets, yes, she was fascinated about the formation of planets.”
Marmion, Yana, and Bunny exchanged glances.
“And she seemed really interested,” he added, confused.
“Perhaps sentient planets?” Marmion asked.
He laughed then. “Really, Madame Algemeine, sentience in a ball of matter thrown out by a cooling primary? Come now, I know you’re an intelligent woman.”
“And intelligent enough to recognize sentience when I see, feel, and hear it.”
Namid leaned toward her, his incisive green eyes capturing her gaze as he transferred his arms from his chest to a tight hold on the table edge. Yana could almost see his thought processes trying to catch up with the sincerity of Marmion’s tone.
“You’re in earnest, aren’t you?”
“Deadly earnest,” Marmion said in an edged voice.
“And you were abducted because of a . . .” He paused, still dubious. “A sentient planet?”
“Surely Dinah has made mention of Petaybee in your presence?”
“The name has come up frequently of late,” he began, frowning. Then he made a little warning gesture of his fingers and looked meaningfully at the corners of the room, apprising them that the room was probably bugged, which Yana had already guessed. “But I did not realize it was the name of a planet.”
“It is,” Yana said. “Planet Terraform B, or Powers That Be, or Pee-tay-bee.”
“I see.” He paused another beat, shook his head. “No, I don’t see.” He placed his fingers on his forehead, as if the contact would stimulate understanding.
“Frankly, nor do I,” Yana said, beginning to feel as if her throat might withstand the effort of conversation. She hadn’t had so much as a tickle all during the last few minutes. “The ransom for me seems to be Petaybee.”
Marmion and Bunny gasped; Namid looked confused.
“I think your . . . erstwhile colleagues, Marmion, have made a bad tactical error in suggesting”—Yana paused significantly as she stressed the word—“that Petaybee has untold riches which it has refused to divulge to Intergal. In fact, Namid, an Earth-type planet of its girth and density has only minimal mineral resources which would prove—”
“Have proved,” Bunny said in a flat, angry voice.
“—impossible to produce due to the intemperate weather conditions on the planet’s surface. It does have—and on this basis, we may yet be able to come to some arrangement with one, and one only, drug company—renewable valuable plants. But such an enterprise would not be a snatch-and-strip process: rather one that will accrue profit slowly and only when the planet has paid back to Intergal the expenses the company has already incurred in the terraforming and maintenance. What Petaybee has is intangible wealth, not readily salable valuables.”
“And the planet is . . . somehow . . . controlling its future?” Namid asked, still struggling to believe the initial concept.
“The planet controls its surface rather well,” Marmion said with a wide grin. “It counteracts the use of explosives by making volcanoes just where miners wish to dig. It rescinds the use of a flat surface for spacecraft by extruding a ziggurat that covers the exact center of the landing field and unsettles all the peripheral buildings. It either melts prematurely or conjures up diabolical weather patterns to preserve what resources it has. A formidable opponent, and a desirable friend.”
“I’ve lived there all my life,” Bunny added, “and life is good on Petaybee.”
“But not to everyone’s taste,” Yana added drolly. “Still, the air’s pure and unpolluted, and the soil is rich enough to produce food crops in their season—and marvelous herbs and plants which are made into the most efficacious potions and syrups. And while it’s a hard life, it’s a good one,