The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [51]
It was all very businesslike. It was, in fact, Kanakaratnam explained, pretty much like any other commercial enterprise. Since the beginnings of the twenty-first century, piracy had become a fairly big business on its own, with established brokerage houses prepared to collect a ransom and pass it on to those demanding it, in return for which they guaranteed the safe return of captives. “In fact,” Kanakaratnam told Ranjit with satisfaction, “getting caught with that stolen junk was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. My cell mate at Batticaloa was supposed to be in on this, but he got picked up for something else. But he told me all about it, and when I got a chance to get away, I knew just where to go.”
Even businesslike piracy did, of course, sometimes have its unpleasant side. One bad side, Ranjit was pretty sure, was what the pirates did with any crew members who resisted them too vigorously. (Ranjit asked Kanakaratnam, but he simply didn’t answer. Which was answer enough for Ranjit.)
When Kanakaratnam told Ranjit that the takeover was complete and he could come out of his cell, Ranjit found out there had been at least one unsavory occurrence. It was because of the ship’s captain, who had possessed an excessive sense of duty. He hadn’t wanted to turn over the keys to the strong room. Of course, that problem had been readily solved. The pirates had shot the captain on the shuffleboard court and promoted the much more cooperative first officer, who himself had pulled the keys out of the deceased man’s pocket and handed them over.
Ranjit had never been on a cruise ship before. Despite the grim circumstances, this one still offered all sorts of absurd amenities. There was a swimming pool on the top deck (though not conveniently usable when there was any significant wave action, which was almost always). The kitchen produced quite good meals, even if the actual passengers were clumped despondently together on one side of the dining room, watched over by pirates with assault rifles. The casino was closed, but that made little difference since all the passengers had already been relieved of the cash and credit cards they might have gambled with. The bars were closed, too, and there was no nightly show in the barroom theater. But there were canned movies on the TV screens in every stateroom, and the weather was balmy.
Too balmy, according to Kanakaratnam. “I’d rather have more clouds,” he said. “You don’t know how many eyes are up there, watching us. Satellites,” he clarified, when Ranjit looked puzzled. “Of course, they don’t pay much attention to an old rust bucket like this, but you never know. Oh,” he added, reminding himself of an obligation, “and Tiffany’s looking for you. Wants to know if you’ll help her with the kids up on the sundeck.”
“Why not?” Ranjit said agreeably, in fact rather looking forward to seeing his four playmates again. He was miserable, yes, but doing everything he could to hide it. When he came out of the stairwell into the bright tropical daylight of the sundeck, he couldn’t help casting a quick look at the sky.
Of course he couldn’t see any of those eyes in the sky. He hadn’t expected to but could not help wondering just who it might be whose eyes were staring down at them at that moment….
And, of course, he had no idea of what totally nonhuman eyes some of them were.
There turned out to be about twenty