She turned over the information in her mind. If she ever found it, what would she do with it? The people were all lost. There was just her now. Was it all worth it? Should it just stay lost, hidden from doing good, and harm? Or was its recovery something necessary for this galaxy, the same as humans coming here had been necessary to control the Owls?
Somehow, it made sense she should find it, and keep it safe. She was the last of the Family, and should carry out their last wishes as she had been born to do. She knew. She had Seen.
Power? She was born to rule. But what? Who? Perhaps now she was no one really, as there was no one to recognise her as what she was. Perhaps this was a gift. She could lay down the burden, and just, stop. She’d never thought of this before. There had always been the mission. But perhaps now she had a choice.
"Penny for them!"
She looked up as Jamie came into the room.
"Ye seemed deep in thought there," Jamie explained, and plopped down in a chair, long legs and arms sprawling out.
"Just doing some research."
"Found anything?"
Anna hesitated.
"Not much," she admitted.
"This ship is amazing!" Jamie cried enthusiastically. "So much new technology to get my heid around. So many things it can do."
Anna half listened as he rattled off a series of technological marvels. She smiled. He was like a child in a toy emporium, with unlimited credits.
Credits. The word triggered a memory, and reminded her she still hadn't converted any credits to gals. They'd left in so much of a hurry, she'd forgotten.
"Where’s Snark?"
"Having a nap." Jamie laughed. "He certainly needs his beauty sleep."
Anna smiled politely.
"So what now?" asked Jamie.
"I’m doing some research. Re the Stone of Destiny, and also about Monifieth. I’m hoping to get more clues about where to go next." She looked up at him. "Do you know anything about either of those?"
Jamie cocked his head to one side, thinking. His short red-gold curls glinted in the light. Anna was surprised to see a light scattering of freckles across his cheek bones and nose. Perhaps there were stereotypical Scots after all.
"I know about the Stone of Destiny. I took a subject in History as part of my studies, and I was interested in the different people who had been searching for it over the years, and also imagining where it had ended up." He paused. "Monifieth, evidently it’s an auld place where the clan lived way back on Earth."
Anna was disappointed. Not so much he didn’t know much, but she’d been counting on Monifieth having some significance, being a clue to a place in this galaxy. How else could she find the place with the three waterfalls? It was galling. She had little better than nothing.
"Of course," started Jamie. "Monifieth is also the name of a station in a tactics and strategy game we played at the Academy. But that must just be a coincidence. There’d be lots of references to fieths and mons for any Scots."
"Fieths and mons" repeated Anna, wrinkling her forehead. "Mons and fieths." She flung the tablet down. "It’s impossible! I’m going to have my own nap!"
She stumped off. Jamie was nonplussed. He had been hoping to find out a little bit more about her. Anna was very reticent, hardly said much at all, and kept herself to herself. Not a bad stoic Scots trait, but he wanted to get to know her better. Perhaps, ah weel, he’d go and have another look at the ship's engines.
A coms link beeping woke Snark up with a start. He’d been in the middle of a dream where he was presenting the Destiny Stone, a large brilliant cut diamond the size of his head, to the grateful cat nation. His Grandmother stepped forward to award him the Medal of Honour, the highest award a cat could earn. She slipped the ribbon with the medal on it over his head, and it hung proudly on his chest. A roar of approval and applause came from the crowd, including both his former enemies, and friends, all of the Council officers, and, there was Queen Jane. Suddenly a band of heavily armed Owls had erupted from nowhere firing into the crowd, and he'd woken up.
Jamie was sitting in the Captain’s chair gazing at the screen in front of him. He quickly switched to an incoming coms link, scanned it, and looked across at Snark.
"Message for you Snark."
"For me?"
Snark was both glad and wary at the same time. How had anyone found him?
He looked at the coms link. His ship had intercepted a signal which had come through the nearest jump point, and registering Snark’s name, had passed it to Seasprite's coms. So it wasn’t addressed to this ship, but someone he knew. His ship had intercepted this message to a fellow trader of his. Actually not really a friend as he was a scumbag in every sense of the word, but, he read the message. It was an instruction to send the message on if they knew where Snark was, and could get it to him. An encrypted message. Sent from?
"What?" he exclaimed, jumping up, and bounding clear over to the coms chair. There he looked more closely at the popped up message screen. It was from his Grandmother? But why, how?
He had no idea what the encryption key could be. Think!
Finally, he entered a password only he and Grandmother would know. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing! This was ridiculous! She could have used something easy to figure out.
And suddenly he knew it. When he was a kitten, they had played a game using numbers instead of letters and words. Their own code.
He tried again, the message opened, and a vid played.
"Prrinks! Greetings. We have heard of your exploits with Queen Jane and the humans to conquer the Owls and free many species from their bondage. With the entry of humans into the galaxy, and the momentous changes occurring to our space and species which will no doubt impact on the Cat World, we are calling a World Council. We ask that you attend. We require your expertise and assistance in the decisions which we will make at Council."
His Grandmother paused, and smiled at him. Grandmother was as ever direct and to the point, no sentimentality at all. She went on.
"Grandson, no doubt your return will be met with some difficulty, but I would like to see you, and believe you can help us understand the nature of the humans, and the changes we will face. Please come home as fast as you can get here."
There followed some instructions on how to reply, and the details of the World Council.
Please come. Snark was surprised at her asking anything rather than demanding.
It had come though, finally. A request to return. But he didn’t have anything to offer. But wait! He'd been with Queen Jane, and knew the humans! He would come bringing his expertise. And by the time he arrived, his first shipment of the new trade deals he'd made with the Owls would have already been unloaded. This was what he'd been waiting for, a chance to go home.
Perhaps this was the end to his Quest. Perhaps he parted company with Anna and Jamie, and left them to search for the Destiny Stone. But he wanted the ship as he’d been promised, and he, well, he was buying into this whole idea of the Stone, and the excitement of the chase.
In or Out? Maybe both?
"What is it?" asked Jamie.
"I need to go home."
He looked at Jamie with a grin which stretched from one large bald ear to the other. His tail waved vertically up, and his eyes widened and glinted.
"I can go home."
Nineteen
Mac swore a lengthy Scots curse. He’d forgotten how difficult Clan Councils were. How seemingly rational individuals would get together and suddenly turn into complete eejits!
"I call a recess," he yelled into the mayhem.
He was barely heard. There were several verbal fights going on simultaneously, and he was sure they involved old quarrels. He left the council auditorium, and made his way to the inner boardroom.
It was already several standard weeks after the raiders had arrived. They were only raiders after all, chancing what they could pick up on this out of the way, isolated planet. They had been rudely surprised. They'd been told as usual t
o "Piss off!" When they’d ignored what was really a serious warning, Mac had coordinated the Kingdom's system defence force comprising several Cruisers and Destroyers. The battle which ensued was quickly over, the raiders losing in what for them must have been a huge shock, just before dying. The few survivors were in the cells being interrogated.
But it had rattled him. This was just the beginning of potential unrest, destabilisation, and decline he could see occurring in the galaxy, as bad elements emboldened by the Owl’s defeat, tried to take advantage, and pick off 'weaker' units.
He’d been gathering as much intelligence as he could about the activities of Bhatet and the Brotherhood, and any other stray bandits in the vicinity. As well as the intentions of the humans and Queen Jane. Jane had unwittingly created a power vacuum below the system government levels, and what was she going to do to fill it? And what about the sector council? The Scots were not part of the Council, but the Kingdom they had joined was now leader of it. In theory as a Duke of the Kingdom he had influence, but in practice he needed consensus here before he could offer advice to the Duke's Circle and Jane herself.
He’d called a Clan Council meeting. But what had he been thinking? Perhaps he’d have been better to handle matters himself in private consultation with the clan leaders. Instead, he was doing the right thing, and as usual, it was all bogged down in local politics.
Of course the recess wouldn’t last long, and he had to get the warring factions and hot-headed clan chiefs to agree on a way forward. He knew they had to bolster their defences, and also their attack capability. They had advance warning of any attack coming their way, through the Kingdom's satellite network, but it was imperative they had a fall-back position, if things went completely sour.
In theory, Jane would prevent any major force ever getting to their planet. But in practice, who knew where any substantial threat might come from? And Jane hadn’t known about the raiders after all. One possible problem was the Scots in the Human Federation, and once the blockade was removed, what they might do when they found out there was another planet of them. They might decide they deserved to rule, because they had the numbers. He wasn’t sure anyone here had actually considered this possibility yet. Again, Jane would help, but they needed to be prepared. Something which seemed so small to everyone else, could start a human civil war. And he wasn’t sure Jane would even recognise it, let alone be able to stop it.
They needed their own militia forces, not to mention expanding police forces on land, and in space. They had to be able to deal with any threat on their own. And be damned if he was going to rely completely on Kingdom forces for security.
He was joined in the boardroom by Colin Campbell, chief of the Campbell clan. Soon Willie MacPherson followed, and then the Black Douglas.
Mac pointed them in the direction of the drinks bar, and helped himself to a beer. He needed to keep a straight head going back in to the meeting.
"We’re not getting much further forward," suggested the Black Douglas. She sipped her whisky carefully. "Perhaps we should call it a day."
"I agree," seconded the Campbell, sculling a whiskey shot. "We’re getting exactly nowhere."
"They’re not getting it." Willie MacPherson sipped his whiskey.
"Aye, agreed," said Mac.
They were right. Pack it in for today, and start again afresh tomorrow.
With the meeting wound up for the day, Mac returned to his manor house. Several of the clan chiefs were staying with him from their outlying settlements, so he faced entertaining them to dinner. His wife was a doctor at the city hospital on shift work, so he would have welcomed his mother’s presence to be the hostess at these functions. She, stubbornly, had returned to her haven in the woods. He worried about her.
When the Scots had crash landed on this planet centuries ago, they had been a diverse bunch of drunken humans with various Scots heritage. Given they'd ended up here on a drunken whim, it was amazing they'd developed a thriving, functioning society and government, enough to create what they had in a short amount of time, given the interference and threat from the Owls. The apocryphal story of the eating of the owl Admiral, whether fact or fiction, cemented the spirit of the community. The clans had formed more out of necessity than design, and the clans were made up of a range of people from different heritages. When they'd retreated into the Highlands, the mountains, to avoid the Owls, they'd lived off the land, and made do. But when the Owls started to avoid them altogether, owl fricassee or not, they'd had the opportunity to build a civilisation, a society, and a culture, linked to old Scots heritage and traditions. They had indeed achieved a great deal. And Mac was not going to see it fall.
He stood by the command console in his drawing room that night, and managed his incoming email and coms. He now had agents on a number of neighbouring systems and planets, reporting to him news and intelligence. It was costing a small fortune, but it was worth it. They could now no longer hide behind "Piss off!"
He briefly wondered how Anna and Puss were going. He’d not completely bought into the Stone story, but at least Jamie would be getting some exposure to the galaxy. Jamie was his Anderson cousin, and although young and overly enthusiastic, was a solid addition to the security of the clan. He missed him in an odd way. Perhaps it was his positive outlook and unbounding energy, something he himself was sadly lacking. Jamie had learned as much as he could here, he'd needed to branch out, and this was the time for it.
Anna was a bit of an enigma. A striking looking woman, she showed her age and inexperience. But she was stubborn and committed to what she wanted to achieve. He thought Jamie would be a bit smitten. She had very curious looking eyes, and a very attractive sureness of her purpose. But he doubted the mission as being just a wild goose chase. She was sincere, but there were so many holes in her story, and what she wanted to achieve. He hoped she could find what she wanted, and of course, he could have a cut of whatever it was.
And poor old Puss. He'd always liked Puss, and their trading relationship had become deeper over the years. He hoped Puss would get something out of this whole shemozzle.
Twenty
The next day, the council reformed in the main auditorium.
Mac had lobbied several of the key influencers the night before. He hoped their support would carry the day for a program of re-armament and development of their protective forces and systems. He outlined the proposal to the Council.
"We need to secure not only our own space in our system, but make the surrounding space and systems safe as well. This means extending influence where we previously have been isolationist. We need to talk the talk, but also walk the walk. I think we need to open a direct dialogue with Queen Jane and the other Dukes. We need to be able to patrol and protect our own space. This will mean building or buying ships, munitions, and a commitment to employing people in all sorts of system security roles. Before we can do that, we need commitment by all of the clans."
"What? Spend money?" shouted some wag.
There was general laughter.
"Actually yes." Mac was matter of fact. "We need to invest in our protection infrastructure. Otherwise we’re back in the mountains, shivering, should the Kingdom one day fail to be there when we need them the most."
"That would be auld MacDuff!" shouted the wag.
It was true MacDuff was a hermit of sorts with a band of people who lived in the high mountains. Mac tried to keep an eye on them, but they often didn’t reply to overtures or coms.
The wording of motions were agreed to after much debate, and went to a vote. The vote of a combined clan chief's council meeting was one vote for each of the chiefs, and one per representative for specific entities not subject to individual chief's oversight. Mac had the deciding vote, if it came to down to it.
The motion, to open direct dialogue with Queen Jane, and the Human Federation, was passed by a slim majority. There were still many Scots who felt the isolationist policy which had served them so well in the past was still the way to
ride out any change.
The motion to invest in their strategic defence capability was debated at length, and no resolution was agreed to. They recessed for the day, and would continue in the morning.
As the delegates filed out of the auditorium, Mac felt a hand on his harm. A tall woman stood next to him, wearing a tartan sash of light blue.
"Cousin!" He kissed her on the cheek. "What do you think of our happy band of brothers and sisters?"
The woman laughed and kissed him back.
"The usual, I’m afraid. Not wanting to spend too much of their own money on something they’ve never really thought much about before, and which they see as just money down the drain." She glanced sideways at him. "You certainly have ye’re work cut out for ye."
He sighed.
"It’s been ever so. So, Jenny, how are you enjoying being a Guild representative?"
"It’s interesting if nothing else. The city guilds are definitely behind building our defences. They see the value of protecting trade, and making the most of more humans entering this galaxy. We’ve got several conservative factions though, who don’t want to see an influx of potential settlers from other human races, although we’re pretty multi-cultural now. Under the clan banners of course."
"You'd be one of the few who see a danger from our Human Federation cousins. Well ye’re Anderson, through and through."
"Of course! I try not to flaunt it too much though in Council."
Jenny was of the Anderson clan from Mac’s mother's side.
"Have you heard from Jamie?"
Jamie was her younger brother.
"No, not yet. It’s early days. I don’t expect anything for a wee while."
"Do ye think there’s going to be anything in this Destiny Stone?"
"No idea! But Jamie will protect our interests there. He’s also got what he wanted. To explore beyond our borders."
Snark's Quest Page 8