Deluge
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Скарборо Элизабет
- Серия: The Twins of Petaybee #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Deluge». Краткое содержание книги:
Meanwhile, the powerful and avaricious Company is making another attempt to take over the world of Petaybee for its resources, and the twins parents, Yana and Sean, along with the entire planet, must fight for the independence of their sentient world once and for all...
Then they backed out, leaving the soldiers unharmed and unfettered, but unarmed as well. Johnny and Pet went to work constructing a bolt across the door, boarded up the windows, then called Sinead to come and stand guard, along with the villagers who’d insisted on coming with her.
The wind was gone, but it had blown all but a light skim of snow from the ice on the river, which had frozen solid enough to ski on. Yana and the others grabbed their skis, leaning against the wall of the longhouse, strapped them on, and headed upriver to where the ship was docked at the old Space Base.
The night was white with snow, and as they reached the head of the river, the wind rose up again, driving a horizontal wall of crystal darts across the snow-covered ice. The ship, the terminal, and everything beyond was invisible to them, just as they, Yana hoped, were invisible to the ship. From what she could recall, the Corps had no equipment capable of penetrating such a storm. A proposal to orbit a satellite around Petaybee to provide better communications and more conveniences was still on the table. If she, Sean, and the others had allowed the installation, they might have been able to foil the people who’d arrested Marmie. On the other hand, a satellite would have provided the company with better access to more-sophisticated equipment, including the kind that could have detected the presence of the five skiers approaching the ship.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Petaybeans lacked the technology that could cut both ways, working for or against them, but on the other hand, the planet’s active participation in promoting their and its own welfare gave them a considerable edge as long as they could keep their feet on Petaybean soil, snow, ice, or water.
Disguised in the soldiers’ winter clothing, they blundered through the storm to the ship under Rick O’Shay’s guidance. Although Rick hadn’t lived on Petaybee full-time since his youth, he had retained the Petaybean knack for navigating through the nastiest weather the planet dished up. They used the ID tag Johnny had taken from the sergeant to signal their desire to come aboard. Normally there would have been questions asked, but in the howling wind and knifing snow, using the com was impossible.
Once they were through the lock, where they brushed off their outer clothing but did not remove it, the sentry on the other end asked, “You five are it?”
Johnny nodded.
“I thought you were bringing back prisoners. What’s the matter? Couldn’t find them in the whiteout?”
Johnny nodded again.
“The rest of your guys are still searching for them?”
Another nod. Yana resisted the impulse to roll her eyes in exasperation. If she were this kid’s C.O., she’d have him on report as a security risk. Corps training and discipline-not to mention ethics-wasn’t what it had been in her day, if he was any example.
He used the com unit to report their return and said, “Captain wants to see you on the bridge.”
Unmolested, they walked past him into the belly of the beast.
CHAPTER 7
IT’S TIME! RONAN’S mental call broke into Murel’s dream of the river. They’re unlocking our door now. Yours?
Awakening, Murel listened. Not yet. Sky?
Hiding, Sky replied. This place is not in space now. It is stopped on the ground, but the ground is not our ground.
As Murel sat up, the door slid open. Two of the soldiers who sometimes brought the food stood outside.
“Okay, brats, your chariot awaits,” one of them said, unnecessarily waving her stunner at them.
They were herded to the docking bay and hustled aboard a shuttle. Ronan and the boys joined them as they were all jammed inside the small craft. From the main part of the ship they could hear barked orders, groans, and footsteps, and through the shuttle’s viewport, just before they launched, Murel saw a great crowd of adults, some in Marmie’s livery but most in civilian clothing, being forced into the bay by armed guards. She spotted Mrs. Fogarty among them.
The shuttle lifted, maneuvered through the open hatch of the ship, and rose into the air above a bleak desertlike area whose sole distinguishing fixture was a massive city-sized fortified compound. As the shuttle gained altitude, Murel saw that the captive adults below were being offloaded directly to the surface, where they were marched down a short road through concertina-wire-topped walls and into the stark and barren grounds of what appeared to be a squat, rectangular building with several attached satellite buildings, each no more than two stories high. It reminded her of the hospital building on Kilcoole-if that building had grown to monstrous size and exuded brutality instead of a healing atmosphere. She tried to see as much as she could in the second or two before the shuttle pivoted in the air and headed out over open water. So that’s the prison, she said to Ronan. I’m glad we’re not going in there, at least.
Let’s see where we are going before you get too thrilled about it, Ronan told her.
She wasn’t the only one to notice the destination of the adults. “I want to go with my parents!” Rory demanded with a good imitation of his grandmother’s haughtiest tones. “You have no right to separate our family.”
“Sorry, kid, you’re a little young for prison,” the shuttle copilot said. “They’d eat a morsel like you alive.”
He made a disgusting slurping sound.
But Rory’s demand had unsettled the younger kids.
“Mom!” a boy wailed, and rushed to the viewport.
The copilot casually backhanded him and sent the child flying back into Rory’s and Ronan’s laps.
“Hey!” Huy objected.
“You want some too, girly?” the man asked. “We’re flyin’ here, okay? And we’re not taking you to see your mommies and daddies, so just forget that. Forget them.”
“Austin, shut up. You’re scaring them,” the pilot said in a low voice, but one easily audible to the twins, who heard almost as well when they were human as when they were seals-unless, of course, it was someone forbidding them to do something they wanted to do. “We have a job to do here, but there’s no sense in being a jerk about it.”
For one brief moment Rory’s eyes met Ronan’s. Murel didn’t have to read her brother’s thoughts to know the boys were wishing they could blow something up. But then Rory dropped his eyes, looking a bit sick.
I feel a little queasy myself, Murel admitted to Ronan. What are they going to do to those people, just because they worked for Marmie? This is crazy! “If it was up to me, we’d drop the kids off with the rest of the criminals,” the copilot complained, then added in a lecturing voice, “It’s a well-known scientific fact that criminal tendencies are hereditary. If you ask me, there’s no need to waste fuel taking them to some kiddie resort.”
“I didn’t ask you. Orders are orders. The kids are processed differently. You know that.”
The shuttle left the buildings behind, crossed the barren land, and suddenly they were flying over what looked like an ocean.
Resort? That sounds hopeful, at least, Murel said.
Indeed, Ronan agreed. Now if we can just figure out how to get from here to there and back again.
“Two of those brats attacked our guys,” the copilot was continuing. “Bit them. Seems to me it wouldn’t hurt the little punks to let them see what they have to look forward to when they’re older.”
As if the soldiers didn’t attack us first! Ronan thought.
“Aw, shut up, Austin. You’ve started to enjoy this prison transport duty way too much,” the pilot said, still in a voice too low for most of the kids to hear. “About time you transferred.”
“What the frag do you mean by that?” Austin asked.
“You’re getting to where you’re buying into the idea that these people exist for you to push around.