The shuttle touched down onto a patch of smoothed rock in front of a cluster of squat, blocky buildings whose lights were only distantly visible in the monsoon. The light outside was dim at best and rain lashed the shuttle's hull with a drumming sound and ran in torrents down the portholes. A bulky, high-sided personnel carrier – some military surplus looking thing – trundled out from one of the larger buildings and docked at the shuttle's airlock. We all shuffled aboard and then it took us to the buildings.
They had been built from local grey stone and Konkreet and looked plain and functional apart from steeply pitched roofs. Water cascaded down from the roofs and sluiced away to a nearby river. For a moment, I was surprised there was no fence surrounding the buildings but then I realised there was nowhere to run to. Nowhere at all.
As I peered through the porthole, I spotted a shooting star flame through the soupy atmosphere. Looked like the cometary bombardment hadn't quite ceased. As it crashed behind a range of low mountains, I made a wish. No, I'm not superstitious but old habits and thoughts die hard. I turned away from the dispiriting scene.
The transporter carried us into a barn-like structure. Heavy metal doors slid down behind us and I heard the muffled hum of an atmosphere changer. When a green light flashed over the carrier's door and it opened wide, we all trooped off and stood in the barn. The air in the barn was hot and clammy. One or two of the Röötherspherians complained.
"You don't like it – take a hike," the pirate guard snapped. "Outside the air temperature is over eighty-five deg C, humidity one hundred per cent. The air is poisonous. It'd be a toss-up whether you'd boil or choke first."
That shut up the Röötherspherians.
"Good news is, you've got all the comforts of whichever sorry planet you're from. There's food and water and once Economou pays up, you'll all be free to go. Captain Knofahgginarebagz is a man of his word."
That was good to know, although personally I wouldn't have trusted the ape-man further than I could throw him. About one metre on a good day. The pirate crew led the passengers away, the Röötherspherians still moaning like drains. As high value captives, us three were held separately. We were taken to another building and locked in.
"Wait there – Captain Knofahgginarebagz has plans for you," the pirate said as he slammed the door. An instant later, I heard the buzz as a magnetic lock engaged and then the hum of a low-grade force-field. They certainly didn't mean for us to escape.
In the quiet, I fiddled with the view-screen and looked out at the dismal scene. I saw the landing strip, the huddle of buildings, the low mountains. And constant, unending, torrential rain. Lightning flashed over the peaks. There would be no let-up in my lifetime. Turning to Çrámerr, I asked him how long it would take Economou to pay the pirate's ransom demands.
"String theory," he said, enigmatically.
"What do you mean?" Julianna asked him before I could.
"Meaning, 'how long is a piece of string?' There all sorts of factors to be equated. Like political pressures, how valuable the spacecraft is, commercial dynamics..."
"So basically we're on our own?"
"No – as a Vice-President, I'm a high-value commercial asset and the board will pull out all the stops to get me back onside."
I wondered about that. The company I work for is nowhere near the size of Economou interplanetary Logistics, Inc. but there are men who would happily step into my shoes without a second thought. Some would even stab me in the back to get there as well. I know who they are and I keep my eye on them. Yes, that most certainly includes you, Peterson.
However, at Economou, I knew there must be loads of thrusting, dynamic executives all eager to fill Çrámerr's shoes. They would have mastered his strange management-speak and would also be pushing hard for promotion. Depends how much the board wanted him back.
But I had a different problem. I'd failed and I'd never failed before. That's why I was the best interplanetary recovery agent in Orion's Arm. That's why I get the best – and most lucrative assignments. Yet here I was, stuck on this hell-hole while the pirates held Sava's Kississ shell – and his consort (or gynoid). That wouldn't look good on my CV.
But for the time being, I was at a loss. Without a protective suit, I couldn't leave this building. With a temperature of over eighty-five C and a poisonous atmosphere, I'd be dead before I got ten paces.
Still there were compensations. In the form of Julianna. And our suite – although basic – wasn't too bad. It was better than the alternative. Which was death.
***
Later that day – or early the next – Knofahgginarebagz himself entered our suite. He wore a brown heavy protective suit that made him look even more bulky than before. Water dripped from his suit and onto the tiled floor where it steamed in the cooler air.
The ape-man pointed at me. "You. Come with me," he snapped, throwing a spare suit onto the floor before me. As he did so, I noticed he had a dagger strapped onto his belt. I knew that blade – knew it well. It was my own blade carved from a solid diamond. It cost a small fortune and it had saved my life on many occasions. I wasn't happy about seeing it at the ape-man's side but what could I do? Nothing.
"You only had to ask," I said mildly. I slipped on the suit and sealed it. Çrámerr checked the seals for leaks.
"Take care, Vic," Julianna mouthed as I followed Knofahgginarebagz out the airlock and into the rainstorm beyond. Water rattled against the insulated cloth. The suit smelled foul – of old sweat and body odour. Don't pirates ever take showers? Or is it part of their macho image to smell bad?
I studied my surroundings carefully as we left our building and crossed a wide, cleared area. In the driving, torrential downpour, I couldn't see much. The clearing was mostly flanked by buildings, some obviously used for accommodation, but Knofahgginarebagz took me to a long, low metal structure that had to be a storage warehouse of some kind.
As we walked, I saw a few more distant meteor strikes. It seemed as if this world was undergoing a cometary shower but as Knofahgginarebagz didn't look worried, I tried not to show any emotions. The percentage chance of being struck by falling space rocks is very small anyway.
Knofahgginarebagz unlocked a pedestrian door set next to a larger vehicular gateway. We stepped into an airlock, through my suit I heard the hiss of an air interchange, and then on into the main warehouse itself. We unsnapped our helmets and I was glad to breathe fresher air again.
It wasn't as full as I expected. I sort of expected something you'd expect from a child's holo-movie about space pirates. You know the sort of thing: a warehouse crammed to the ceiling with treasures looted from one end of Orion's Arm to the other. Jewels, high-tech machine parts, valuable artworks, high-powered sports-flyers, furs and hides from endangered species, bottles and barrels of rare liqueurs and sad-eyed slaves waiting to be sold on in one or other worlds where slavery is legal – or at least goes on under the authorities' noses.
Instead, there wasn't much here and I guessed that their previous stolen property had not long been fenced. Knofahgginarebagz led me over to a well-known crate and pointed it out to me. I looked at it. Knofahgginarebagz took out a HandPad and scrolled down the cargo manifest. His evil apish eyes glared at me.
"So this thing is worth sixty-six mill?" he growled, shaking his head. "Let's have it open and see it."
"Do you think that's a good idea? I mean, I'm just a guard – not an art specialist."
"Just as well I've got some servo-bots who are programmed to handle delicates. Let's see it." The word 'delicates' sounded odd coming from Knofahgginarebagz's fanged maw. He pressed his HandPad and two multi-armed robots swooped from out of the corners.
"Open that crate – break what's inside and I'll have you dismantled. Got that?"
"Yes, sir," one of the robots said. Its voice was tinny and mechanical and I hoped its handling techniques were better than its vocalisation. I sat on another nearby box and watched as the two servo-bots rapidly unscrewed the crate, their multi-arms working quickly, then stacked the sides neatly and undid the packaging.
Soon, there it was, exposed in all its glory. One and a half metres of dull, disappointing nothing. Knofahgginarebagz looked at me.
"You should see it under ultraviolet. It looks very different then," I told him.
"I know what I'm doing. I am aware of the special properties of Kisisium hennessyanum. But no way is that worth sixty-six mill of anyone's money. I won't get anywhere near that amount for it."
"Oligarchs," I said. "Money's meaningless to those guys. I wouldn't pay that much for it myself but if they want something bad enough, then they've got to have it."
"Something smells fishy about the whole deal," he grumbled.
I sniffed the air. The shell had been thoroughly cleaned out and I couldn't smell anything fishy. Only the stench of under washed pirate leader but I didn't tell him that.
"Well, at least we know it's undamaged. I tried to keep our shots away from the cargo holds but sometimes accidents happen." Turning to the servo-bots, he commanded that they re-crate the shell.
On the way back to the airlock, I asked how long he intended to keep us passengers but he didn't answer me. He seemed deep in thought – probably contemplating the folly of people with more money than sense. He escorted me back to our suite but took my suit away with him when he left. I hadn't really expected he'd forget about it.
When I entered our room, I heard Çrámerr telling Julianna, "My wife doesn't appreciate the 24/7 365 commitment of the modern work-life interface. I'm a work hard, play hard kinda guy."
Julianna was sitting on an easy chair with an unreadable expression on her face. All the same, I didn't want Çrámerr getting over-friendly with her. This out of the way world hadn't been connected to the Galactoweb – or else dampers had been fitted to these buildings. Either way, nobody was broadcasting anything so he couldn't show us his vast office, teams of lackeys and underlings, personal moon home, chauffeured private shuttle etc. We were strictly on our own, cut off from the rest of hi-manity.
"When they cloned you, did the docs get rid of that embarrassing social disease at the time? Oops, sorry," I said, putting my hand over my mouth.
Julianna grinned at me but Çrámerr gave me a foul look. That probably put the temporary blocks on his take-over bid.
***
All the same, we were thrown back on our own devices with no idea how long we would be confined for. I wouldn't have minded being alone with just Julianna for company – unless her gynoid programming was deeply ingrained, I might have got somewhere. And if she was a real, live hi-man, I would definitely have got somewhere. I saw the way she looked at me when she thought I wasn't looking.
But we had Çrámerr in with us. He really missed his thrusting, corporate boardroom environment and spent a lot of time mooching about. He tried to engage us in discussions about corporate strategy, ultra-futures, takeover bids and leveraged finance but we weren't that interested. Weeks passed and I guessed that when we got back to civilisation, we'd all be deleting this time from our memories.
The pirates were polite and after that initial visit with Knofahgginarebagz to the warehouse, I didn't see him again. They brought us food, made sure we were okay but that was about it. Every time I looked out of the inset porthole I was greeted by the same view of distant black mountains veiled by constant rain. Occasionally, as if to break the monotony, a distant meteor strike lit up the horizon.
We endured. That's all we could do. We talked about escape but with the lethal environment outside there was nothing we could do. We speculated as to how negotiations were proceeding and how long we'd be stuck here. However, the pirates never told us any news. Occasionally I wondered about the Röötherspherians and whether they had yet been released but the pirate guards never told us about them neither. More importantly, they never told us how negotiations for our release were proceeding.
More weeks passed. We slept, ate, talked, sat silent, and looked out the window. And argued and bickered and squabbled.
***
On a Nineday, it was the same routine as usual. Same old, same old. The pirates brought in our meals and placed them on the metal table. As always, there were two of them, one to serve the food and collect the empties while a second stood by the airlock and covered us with his weapon. They were efficient and had obviously looked after hostages before. Their protective suits steamed and dripped water onto the floor making them look like prehistoric animals newly emerged from the slime.
I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary and was doing my exercises, keeping myself in trim. I'd just done my fortieth squat thrust while holding the metal table out at arm's length to maintain upper body strength. Both Çrámerr and Julianna worked out but not to my extent. The pirate watched me idly – he'd seen it all before and doubtless he'd see it all again until our ransoms were met.
Then a flash of light lit up the porthole followed an instant later by a tremendous explosion.