Power Lines
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Скарборо Элизабет
- Серия: Petaybee #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Power Lines». Краткое содержание книги:
Only solid evidence would convince the company to leave the planet alone, and for all its sentience, Petaybee's communications were highly subjective; indeed, some outsiders seemed entirely immune to its voice. So Yana and her friends would have to find some other way to prove that the planet was worth more to the company alive than dead...
At that point, the door opened, admitting an Omnicron officer who, despite Matthew's scowl, presented him with a large green rock, veined deeply in orange, and a note.
"Aha!" Matthew sprang to his feet, flourishing the rock toward the screen. "The ore samples that were removed from Satok's craft have been found by metal detector in the woods at Shannonmouth, where they were illegally removed from his vessel and hidden: yet another example of the sabotage that is almost planetwide. This is high-grade copper, according to this quick assay."
"Copper? Is that the best you can do, Matthew? Copper?" Nexim Shi-Tu demanded. "Not gold, or platinum…"
"Lieutenant, did you see any gold or platinum among the samples? Matthew asked, his eyes gimleting the Omnicron man.
"Sir, I wouldn't know either in the raw state. I was told to bring this to you because it's the purest of the lot we found."
"Pure copper is not to be sneezed at," Marmion said without a trace of sarcasm, "but hardly in the same category as a respiratory remedy that cures damaged lung tissue, now is it?" A technician bent and spoke to her and she said to the screen, which was still fuzzy but not so noisy "Is that better now, Farrie?"
"Yes, I believe it is. Continue."
"D'you have something for immaculate conceptions, too?" Bal asked slyly.
"By whom is Major Yanaba Maddock pregnant, Marmion?"
She shrugged. "Let's not digress from the purpose of this commission, gentlemen. Major Maddock's personal life is not at issue in this hearing and should not be at issue in any other hearing as long as she has obeyed her orders."
"Aha!" And Matthew once more jumped to his feet. "That's just it. She hasn't obeyed orders."
"But she did," Marmion replied firmly. "As she was instructed by Colonel Giancarlo, she became a part of the society of Kilcoole and set about learning as much as she could about Petaybee. She learned a great deal, although it was not, perhaps, what her superiors had expected her to discover."
"Where is she?" Barringer Ball asked, looking around the room. "She was the uniformed one from our first conference, wasn't she?"
"I believe she has been detained on Vice-Chairman Luzon's orders," Marmion said, turning to Matthew with a suddenly implacable expression on her composed, elegant face, "another breach of the civil rights of Intergal officers." And that's for the record, Farringer," she added sternly. "Even an Intergal commissioner cannot go about denying officers their civil rights."
"Of course I had her detained," Matthew almost shouted back, "as an unrepentant renegade ally of the Kilcoole Group. As a matter of course, I had medical tests run on all the renegades-"
"Why?" Whittaker cracked that one word out. "What right had you to impose a restriction on any one of the citizens of this world? I've told you once and I'll keep on telling you: They are not sabotaging Intergal. Intergal is sabotaging itself on Petaybee."
"Oh, come now!" Matthew said, his voice dripping with scorn and the indignation that, rather to his surprise, he found he was actually shaking with. Or was that indignation causing him to shake? It seemed to be shaking everyone else, too, and the table, as well.
Fiske was continuing, heedlessly. "By denying the demonstrable proof that the pharmaceutical wealth will be a long-term and highly profitable use of Petaybee. So what did your needless medical tests prove?" Typical of the man, he had no sooner asked the question than he answered it himself. "Not a damn thing except they're the healthiest bunch of people your tame medical staff has seen in a hunk of years. So they've a few spare parts that help them adapt to Petaybee's climate. So what? Nothing mysterious."
"Vice-Chairman Luzon has been so busy he hasn't seen the obvious, Farrie," Marmion said with a hint of sympathy for the misguided Luzon. "I'm sure we can come to some arrangement to extract some ores when they don't involve disturbing invasions of Petaybee's integrity. Open-pit mining is as disfiguring as deep-pit mining is-is-"
"You're saying the damned planet feels mining operations?" Farminger Ball demanded, staring with round eyes at Marmion.
"Just as much as you'd feel a bone drill for a marrow sample: an archaic example, but then most mining methods verge on the archaic, as well as the destructive," Marmion remarked. "Certainly it's like peeling skin from an appendage, or suffering first-degree burns, and even you can appreciate how painful that would be."
"Marmion de Revers Algemeine," Farringer Ball began at his most pompous, "do you actually subscribe to the theory that this planet is sentient?"
"I most certainly do. And so do Sally Point-Jefferson, Millard Ephiasos, and Faber Nike, and you know very well, Farrie, that none of them are the least susceptible to 'illusions' or 'hallucinations,' not with the reports they have submitted to you on various occasions which I need not specifically mention."
Matthew interrupted with a contemptuous gesture and his silkiest tone. "Madame Algemeine is a beautiful, intelligent woman, quite talented at making money, well adapted to survive under civilized circumstances, but she is used to dealing with people of the same sensibility. Here, I fear that she has fallen under the influence of the same primitive passions that claimed the major's good sense and caused her to cast disrepute on her previously outstanding military record. A lady of such refinement as our chairperson…" Matthew shrugged, but was gratified by the rising color flooding across the delicate flesh on Marmion's aristocratic cheekbones and slender neck. "In the best interest of Intergal, I'm requesting-no, demanding-a purge of all residents on this colony planet due to their almost unanimous obstructive behavior, the deliberate sabotage of Intergal expeditions, and subversions too numerous to list. And I charge Major Yanaba Maddock with treasonable activities; captains O'Shay and Greene for deliberate acts of sabotage and treason to this investigation; Dr. Sean Shongili for willful acts, including homicide, against the best interests of Intergal, whom he has contracted to serve; Clodagh Senungatuk for-" He paused to look down at his list.
"Oh, great stars in the sky, Matthew," Marmion said, with a laugh, "how many people did you steal away from their homes in the middle of the night to remand on such ridiculous, trumped-up charges?"
"Don't laugh too soon, Marmion," Matthew said severely. "Not when community leaders have been slain to prevent them from disclosing local lodes to Intergal officials."
Unfortunately, his long list had given Marmion time to recover her composure and her rather deplorable sense of humor. "And please remember to indict whoever it was you allege seduced me to primitive passions, Matthew." She winked at him in a childish way, then added disparagingly, "Do be sensible, Matthew, and face the facts you've helped gather. The autopsy reports clearly state death by misadventure-"
"A highly toxic plant was purposefully allowed to infest the ore locations-"
"To spring up overnight? That's quite a green thumb, Matthew!" Marmion snapped back. "How can anyone, other than by actual planting and nourishing over a considerable period of time, tell a plant where to grow? Besides which, you've been so busy quizzing innocent folk about all kinds of misdemeanors that you never took a look at the records of four of those 'murdered' men. James Satok, James Unidak Reilly, Clancy Nyungaruk, and Soyuk Ishunt were dishonorably discharged from Intergal for fraud and black-market activities involving Intergal supplies."