Power Play Read Online Free PDF

and we all depend on each other. You’ve just gone and upset that system something terrible. Now then, Sinead will be glad to release you after you’ve accompanied her to make due restitution to those you’ve
offended.”
    “And our property?” Ersol nodded to the rifles.
    “We’ll return it to you on Earth, if you’d care to leave a forwarding address. Might take a while though. Backwater place like Petaybee, the postal service is atrocious. No doubt that’s why I never received your request, or if I did,” he added with a gesture to the piles of paper, “I haven’t got around to answering it yet. Sinead, I think maybe you might get Liam to accompany you, and maybe Dinah. She’s been driving Liam nuts since Diego left. And you could loosen the hobbles on these gentlemen so you don’t have to carry them outside again.”
    Sinead gave him a mock salute and hauled her prisoners back outside.
    Sean sighed. It didn’t look as if he was going to be bored while Yana was shipside, anyway. Now he’d better see if he could enlist Whit Fiske to help him find out about this Petaybean Tourist Service shuttle business.
     
    Yana, Bunny, Diego, and Marmion were all together in the forward viewing lounge as the great sprawling array of interlocking circles that was Gal Three grew from a glittering spot of light to its real majestic splendor. The circles were stacked five deep horizontally and, in places, nine in vertical alignment. There were two more thick, squat circles at nadir and zenith of the complex, which housed its defensive equipment. Yana stared in fascination. She’d never had such a view of the facility: both of her trips here had been made in the belly of a troop transport. She rather thought they’d been docked on one of the nadirward circles.
    Diego was explaining the various levels to a goggle-eyed Bunny: the upper levels were for executives and company chairpersons; the next level housed recreation and mercantile areas for the Gal Three resident population; the middle one was probably all accommodation, both for transients and residents; while the fourth was devoted to repair, environmental controls, and other such mechanical operations. The fifth was for storage, while the blobs on top and bottom were restricted to Gal Three personnel, defense, and administration.
    “Wait a min, Diego.” Bunny finally got her awe under control. “People live all their lives on this—thing?”
    “Sure. I haven’t lived that long on a planetary surface, you know,” he replied.
    Her look was clearly “you poor deprived kid,” but he didn’t notice it, for he was already waxing verbose on the entertainment and catering treats that were in store for her.
    “Oh, and I have just the right couple to be sure you don’t miss the right places,” Marmion said cheerfully. “My nephew and niece—or, rather, my late husband Henri Algemeine’s nephew and niece. They are such charming youngsters that I know you won’t object to their company.”
    Yana could see Diego’s wince and Bunny’s blink of astonishment.
    “They really do know their way around,” Marmion went on firmly. “Bailey Algemeine’s sixteen—”
    “Eighteen, Marmion,” Sally corrected her. “Remember, he graduated from Aldebaran Tech last month.”
    “Aldebaran Tech?” Diego breathed respectfully.
    “Time does fly, doesn’t it? Yes, and I do believe he got both patents on his escape-pod projects.”
    “Escape pods?” Diego was impressed.
    “But he’s free for a while and waiting for just the right opportunity. So it’s fortunate he’s on Gal Three right now, isn’t it?” Marmion’s bright smile was irresistible.
    “Your niece?” Bunny asked with a sideways and slightly proprietary glance at Diego.
    “Charmion’s finished her course in neural deprivation—she’s a Pultney-Gabbison, you know,” Marmion bubbled on. “So she came with Bailey for a visit. He’s been showing her around Gal Three, too. She’s nineteen. Almost too