Blighted Star by Tom Parkinson

Grad had won the first one, but had the
disquieting feeling that his opponent had been more interested in observing how
he had played, rather than in an initial victory. Certainly, Chan had won every
game since then with ease, seeming to anticipate all Grad’s moves. Grad’s
suggestion that a game of Draughts might make a nice change of pace had been
met with nothing more than a raised eyebrow as Jim had set up the pieces for
their fifth game. Now with alarm he saw the pieces being lined up again in the
glow of the lamp/oven.
    “Well,
I’m bushed,” he lied, stretching ostentatiously, “…time to get some Z’s.” Tomorrow
would probably be their last full day together, and the routine would be broken
up by a visit from Lana in that death-trap she had built, assuming she didn’t
drop out of the sky on the way here. Before that he could make a big deal out
of his exercise programme, with a long swim followed by a dozen jogged circuits
of the lake. If he was lucky, and he stretched things out as much as possible,
that would only leave time for three or four games of chess…
     
    <><><> 
     
    The
people of Heart Lake stood on the common and stared. The horse had recovered
from its terror and placidly munched on the grass. No one was quite sure what
to do, how to approach what was after all a really large animal. Obviously it
had come from the Amish settlement to the east, it had probably run away or
just wandered off and got itself lost. But now someone would have to let the
Amish know where their beast had ended up, and because the Amish had no
telecommunications devices, someone would have go and do this face to face. All
the sitting around and waiting for supplies to restart had left the town in a
strange limbo where doing nothing had developed its own inertia. Though they
had nothing better to do, nobody wanted to undertake the thirty-kilometre trek.
Staring glumly at the horse, Gerard connected to Jackson for the second time
that day. Jackson’s projected image stood perfectly still, with unreadable body
language, but Gerard was well aware that he was regarded as a troublemaker by
the Lieutenant.
    “Monsieur
Pitot.”
    “Lieutenant,
are you aware that there is a horse on the green behind me?”
    “Yes
Monsieur Pitot, we have received several calls already about the stray animal.”
    “Very
good. And what are you going to do about it? Has anyone contacted the Amish?”
    “The
Amish don’t have telecoms, Monsieur, but we have taken steps to notify them.”
    “And
what steps are those, Lieutenant Jackson? Surely you don’t think the Amish will
be very happy talking to a probe. And what if something has gone wrong out
there? I don’t think the Amish would have just let the horse go, do you?”
Gerard warmed to his theme. “Has anything been done to contact them yet? Has a
probe been sent out?”
    “Monsieur
Pitot. We have only just learned about the stray animal ourselves down here. We
have sent out an airborne mission to assess the situation Not that we even
think there is a situation. So far there’s just a stray horse. It is a
manned airborne mission…”
    “Ah!
So the new shuttle is ready!”
    “…the
craft used is not the new shuttle which will be ready very soon according to
schedule. The craft we are using was constructed out of spares by one of the
pilots. It has limited capacity but does give us back some element of air
mobility. In fact she set off from here ten minutes ago so she should be
crossing over you within the hour.”
    Gerard
nodded curtly and cut the link. Really these people were beyond incompetence,
and it was a waste of breath to engage them in argument. Sending out a mere
girl on what could, for all they knew, be a dangerous mission on her own. The
Amish were a bunch of weirdoes from ancient Earth history, who knew what they
might do to an unescorted female. It would serve them right if she was raped or
even killed.
     
    <><><> 
     
    Jackson
was worried himself. It had, he