Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [78]
“Who was it exactly told you all this? Not that I mean to pry, Dama, but someone misled you proper.”
Dinah waved vaguely. “I can’t recall his name. I was so excited about what he was saying. He said he’d been here with a Captain Fiske.”
“Huh!” O’Connor’s eyebrows climbed in search of his receding hairline. “Captain Fiske ain’t exactly had Petaybee’s best interests at heart. You should be careful where you get your information, Dama. But just because Fiske’s a curly’s arse ain’t no reason you’re not welcome. You know anything about deep-sea fishin’?”
“Not much,” Dinah admitted, “but I’m willing to learn.”
Adak snorted again. “Little thing like you might have fast fingers and be good at gutting, but you’re a mite light for fishin’ work.”
“Is that all that happens at Tanana Bay?”
“Sure, ain’t much else up that way.”
“Nevertheless, I’d like to go,” Dinah said. “Unless, of course, my information was wrong. Where could I get in touch with the town leaders and inquire about my relations?”
“Short of Tanana Bay, nowhere.”
“You’ve a comm unit . . .”
“Oh, that one! That only tells me when there’s spacers comin’ in. Ain’t got no link to anywhere. Not even Kilcoole.”
“Kilcoole?” Dinah paused. “That name sounds familiar.”
“You could get to Kilcoole. Snocle’ll be back on its regular run soon. Got some mail and stuff for the governor.”
“The governor?” Dinah asked as innocently as if she hadn’t been sending the man ransom demands for the past few days.
“Yeah, Sean Shongili.” The little man seemed to swell his chest out with pride. “He’s even got a cube like this one.”
“Oh?”
“Had to,” Adak rattled on with a broad grin. “Yana’s cabin—she’s colonel now—was so chock-full of paperwork you could barely find Sean in the middle of it all.”
“Really?”
“Yup, and that O. O’Neill . . .” He peered at her a little too closely for comfort, but she couldn’t see how one man would know about the correspondence of everyone on the planet, immigrations officer or no. “I don’t suppose you’re an O’Neill, too, are you? Never met one before and now they’re comin’ out of the woodwork.”
Dinah contained her start of surprise. She quite deliberately hadn’t given the little man her name.
“O. O’Neill?” She could also look exceedingly blank.
“Oscar O’Neill of the Nakatira Structural Cube Company?”
“Never heard of him. Why did you say he was here?” And, Dinah thought to herself, was that how Nakatira Cubes got to backwater-poor Petaybee?
“He brought in the five cubes that we got sent.”
“You mean these cubes—they’re very expensive articles, in case you didn’t know—were just . . . bestowed on you?”
“Sure were, ’cause we couldn’t afford ’em, being new at being an independent planet. Say, can you read and write?”
“Yes,” Dinah said, adding mentally, Doesn’t everyone, just as she realized that this man could do neither.
“Teacher?” Adak leaned forward eagerly. “We got one at Kilcoole—Wild Star Furey, and she’s doing the job a treat. Why, two of our kids already read theirselves right through the primer they were given four weeks ago.”
“Well, you’re an up-and-coming independent planet then. Big tourist trade?”
“Tourist? Oh, you mean the hunters? Well, we don’t know yet how they come to know about us.” Clearly, Adak did not approve. “They don’t know how to hunt proper on Petaybee. Worse, they keep getting lost and not knowing how to speak to Petaybee to find out where they are.”
“Speak to Petaybee?”
“Wal, some of ’em’s not done bad. But now the whole kit and kaboodle’s here we can’t get rid of ’em. Them and the druggists . . .”
“What would druggists . . .”
“Oh, you know the sort, Dama, big shots from drug companies. They think all they gotta do is dig plants or strip leaves and make pots of stuff to sell for bags of credits,” Adak scoffed. “They’ve another think coming, and most of ’em is awful slow. They eat a lot, too.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Wal, lucky we had a good harvest this year, long spring, good summer. Got a bumper crop, or would have if all these folks hadn’t