This was bad, Ethan knew. As long as they were on the ship there was always the chance of cutting the anchor cables, slipping their bonds, and overpowering or eluding Corfu’s minions. If they could maneuver the Slanderscree back out onto the open ice where the wind blew hard, they might even be able to outrun a skimmer.
Within the installation their every breath was likely to be monitored by advanced surveillance devices. They wouldn’t be able to go to the bathroom undetected, much less break through a real door. Bamaputra wasn’t taking any chances.
“What about our friends?” He indicated Elfa, Hunnar, and the others. “They can’t stand the heat inside the installation.”
“Their health is not my concern,” said Corfu brusquely as they were herded out of the mess under the watchful eyes of beamer-wielding guards. Those members of the icerigger’s crew who’d gone over to the other side made way for the column. Some of them looked as though they might already be having second thoughts, but no one had the guts to express that kind of opinion in the presence of the handguns. Ethan thought most of them could be made to see the error of their ways, but doubted he or anyone else would be given the opportunity to win back their loyalty.
“Understand,” Kilpit was saying earnestly as they were marched onto the deck, “we do this thing for our families and for the traditions you have forgotten. Wannome first, last, and always. So it has always been among the Tran of Sofold and so it will be again.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Hunnar was muttering. “It doesn’t have to be. Sometimes times themselves must change.” No one paid any attention to him.
Once more they found themselves forced to make the steep climb from Yingyapin to the underground installation. With night beginning to fall the humans were grateful to reach the Earth-normal temperatures inside the mountain.
A quick head count revealed that less than half the icerigger’s crew had joined Bamaputra’s domesticated Tran (that was how Ethan had come to think of them). The mutineers did not join in the ascent but were left in possession of the ship.
The sheer number of captives presented a problem. Despite their insistence that they be allowed to remain together, Tran and their human friends were separated. No doubt Bamaputra hoped to convince the reluctant to join him. Hunnar, Elfa, and the others were herded into a large, empty food storage room where the internal temperature could be kept at a level more to their liking.
As the humans were thoroughly searched by Bamaputra’s security team, Ethan noticed that Skua was eyeing one of their captors with particular intensity. He remarked on it.
“Funny, young feller-me-lad. Time passes in a twinkling but it’s hard to forget certain faces.”
Ethan gaped at him, then at the big man who appeared to be in charge of security. “You know that one?”
“That’s the Antal Bamaputra mentioned. Devin Antal. He and I were in a bit of a war together, on opposite sides. If he’s the same man he was, then he won’t make things easy on us. A real do-as-you’re-told type, but if push comes to crunch, the type who’ll make sure to look out for himself. There might be an opening there for us, if we pay attention.”
Sure enough, the man Skua called Antal introduced himself as Bamaputra’s foreman. He showed them their new home, an unused workers’ dormitory that could be sealed from the outside. After a short speech warning them to stay put and not make trouble he departed for parts unknown.
In a war together. On rare occasions September had alluded to a conflict in which he’d played some important role. That was hardly pertinent to their present predicament, Ethan mused dourly as he sat down on the flexibunk. It was more comfortable than any bed he’d slept in since leaving Brass Monkey, but he still didn’t think he was going to rest easy.
“Our guests are situated.” Antal flopped down on a couch in Bamaputra’s above-ground observation room-cum-office. “Didn’t have any trouble with the people from the outpost. Their Tran were a little more rambunctious. Corfu’s boys had to crack a couple of skulls.”
Bamaputra turned away from the window. “I don’t want anyone killed. Each of them is potentially useful to us.”
“Hey!” Antal raised both hands. “I told Corfu I’d hold him personally responsible. He didn’t like it, but he got things quieted down. I should have taken some of our own people off the line instead of letting Massul’s stooges handle it. You know how these natives are.”
Bamaputra pursed his lips. “Fractious. Undisciplined, combative, unable to live in peace among their own kind. At times they remind me of humanity prior to the Amalgamation. The Dark Ages.”
Antal casually struck a narcostick alight. “What are you going to do with them?”
The installation director frowned at the cloying smoke that filled the room, but he didn’t demand that his foreman extinguish it. The relationship between the two men was of almost equals, like a pair of boxers who never fought because they were ganging up on a third opponent but who fully expected to face each other in the ring one day.
Not that they wouldn’t have enjoyed a good fight, though it wouldn’t have been much of a contest. Antal was a big, broad-shouldered individual in his late thirties, a menial laborer with a degree. He outweighed Bamaputra by forty kilos. But he didn’t think of taking a swing. They needed each other everyday. Antal ran the day-to-day operation of the complex installation that was gradually transforming Tran-ky-ky’s atmosphere and melting the ice sheet. If anything went wrong mechanically, he knew how to get it fixed. If anything else went wrong, well, that was Bamaputra’s business. He knew why things broke. He also saw to it that the credit kept flowing.
It was an awkward relationship, but it worked. The installation had suffered a minimal number of breakdowns under their dual supervision. None of the clandestine shuttle drops had been detected by the government people at Brass Monkey. No reason why they should be: Tran-ky-ky was a big world, difficult to survey. Their supplies always arrived timed so they would not conflict with the arrival of the regular Commonwealth liners.
So what was a Tran ice ship doing probing the continental shelf with a half dozen human scientists aboard?
“I thought they’d get curious about the warming trend hereabouts, but I didn’t expect they’d be able to make an on-site inspection.”
“It would not have been possible,” Bamaputra muttered, “without this extraordinary ice ship and the cooperation of its Tran crew. That, and the three men who have apparently lived for some time among them. A strange story, that. If not for their intervention, albeit involuntary, these Tran would still be huddled inside their own city-states doing traditional battle with their neighbors and the plundering nomadic hordes which migrate around the planet, not setting off on missions of unification which can only inconvenience us.”
Antal puffed on his narcostick and relaxed. “Damned inconsiderate of ’em.”
Bamaputra glanced sharply at his foreman. “Are you mocking me?”
“Would I do that, Mister Bamaputra, sir?”
The administrator let it pass. Now was not the time for him and his foreman to get into one of their little fights. “It’s fortunate we spotted them and were able to bring them in. If they’d been able to turn and run before the skimmer with the cannon had been able to arrive all might be lost.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t and we’ve got ’em.”
“I’d hoped this was a problem we would not have to deal with until both you and I were dead of old age.”