Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [67]
As abruptly as O.O. and his men had appeared, they left.
“He was as good as his word, wasn’t he?” Una commented, standing in the new-fallen snow in front of the cube as the governor’s “staff” took stock of their new premises. “It’s just forty-eight hours since they arrived.”
“So it is,” Sean said, totally bemused by the speed with which this had all been accomplished. O.O. and his men hadn’t even paused when snow had whipped around so thickly that visibility was almost nil—despite the banks of heavy-duty lights that had been put up for work through the night.
The building had been sunk into the ground, neatly placed behind a screen of Kilcoole’s conifers so that it didn’t even seem to be an intruder. A unanimous decision had voted for an outer coating of a barklike paint so that it resembled—at least in color—the other cabins along the road. Of course, the upper level did tower above the neighboring buildings, but there were trees behind it that were taller still. It was empty, of course, for no one had had time to transfer anything.
“What a difference a day makes!” Sean said.
Cautiously approaching the new building, Marduk let out a little snarl. He was pacing along the front of it, sniffing here and there and usually sneezing at the chemical smells clinging to the newly erected building, pawing at the one or two mounds of disturbed dirt left over.
“Well, no good standing around out here, is there?” Sean said and took the three entrance steps in one.
Gal Three
“I tell you, Louchard’s real ship only just left,” Charas vehemently insisted to Commander Nal an Hon. She was once more dressed in the gear of a station brat, but there was nothing of the child in her manners as she leaned across the desk, hands gripping the edge, her white knuckles demonstrating the intensity of her belief in what she said. “That’s why you never found the kidnapped victims in any of the ships that had disembarked.”
“Your instrumentation could be faulty, Charas,” the commander said patiently.
“Faulty my aunt’s left toenail!” She swung away from the desk and began pacing. “My instruments registered the original Mayday from both Madame Algemeine and the colonel. I followed them to Cargo Bay 30—”
“And followed the shuttle . . .”
“So I did, but the shuttle seemed the obvious escape vehicle . . . and we were going so fast . . . My implant returns only life-sign readings past a certain distance.” Charas shook her head: they all had been sure the shuttle had the victims. “But the signal from the implant suggests that Madame Algemeine is still on Gal Three. I got the strongest response in the cargo bay, only there’s some sort of a scrambler system that diffuses so one can’t accurately locate the source.” She held up a hand when the commander started to interrupt her. “Until just this past half hour. Operations say that only five ships have requested clearance in the past hour—hours, that is,” she corrected herself, her smile grim, “since it’s taken me longer to reach you with this information. Freighters, all of them, incapable of moving at any great speed.”
“Look, I want Madame Algemeine back as much as you do, but I’ve only so many forces to handle search and recover operations.”
“Madame Algemeine will, of course, reimburse your costs. What are you waiting for, Commander?”
“Nothing,” he said abruptly. Depressing the Alert pad, he issued instructions, detailing the descriptions and numeric IDs of the five ships to be stopped and boarded.
“Ingenious, you must admit,” Charas said, relaxing now that she had gotten him to act, “remaining on Gal Three while the first of the search and boards were being initiated. But then we know that Louchard uses