Free Will's Galactic Adventure by Edwin Pearson Page B

where we found him. He’s been away from his studies for far too long already.”

Chapter 9
    The big screen on the wall of the control deck was still showing the rearwards view. The black ship was still there, getting smaller by the second as
Brenda
pulled away. Will was watching it hanging silently in space. A concerned look crossed his face; he sat thinking for a while longer then asked Mavis a question.
    â€œMavis, is it OK to just leave them there like that? You know, stranded. In space I mean. Shouldn’t we have taken them somewhere? To a police station or gaol or something? Shouldn’t you ninjas do something with them?”
    â€œNo, there’s not really anywhere to take them. If you remember, I told you that the ninjas weren’t policemen. It would be too complicated. Think of all the different races living on all the different planets across the galaxy…”
    â€œFousands of ‘em. Cor, I could tell you about places…”
    â€œSpiv! The boy asked a sensible question. Let me answer it!” Then looking back to Will, “No, Will, all the different races could never agree on a proper punishment, or even on what was a crime.”
    â€œThat’s true enough. You might be surprised to ‘ear that even I’ve ‘ad the odd misunderstandin’ ‘cos ‘o that sort o’ fing. Once nearly got thrown to the fangbunnies on Lycanthrope Twelve because of a misunderstandin’ about where I’d parked my shuttlecraft.”
    â€œIn a bank vault, as I recall, wasn’t it?” Drych asked.
    â€œJus’ tryin to make a deposit. That’s usually the way they do it there. Innocent mistake. Could ‘appen to anyone.”
    â€œBut it happened to you, Spiv. These things always do. Now, please let me finish explaining to Will.” Mavis continued: “The different races usually get on well enough but they could never agree which set of laws or rules to follow, or which courts to use or which punishments to apply. That’s why the ninjas came about. We can’t send people to gaol or anything – we just sort of lend a helping hand, where we can. Try and keep things… in order. In balance.”
    â€œSo will Cream Tea and Teacake be stranded there forever?”
    â€œOh no. They’ll cool their heels flying around in this solar system for a while then some other ship will come along, they’ll make some sort of a deal to cadge a ride or buy a spare hyperdrive engine and they’ll be off again. None the wiser, probably, though we can but hope.”
    Will felt better when he heard that. “I didn’t much like Cream Tea and Teacake but I didn’t think they deserved to be lost in space forever.”
    â€œSee, that’s exactly Mavis’ point! The Lycanthropes – they’re the ones on Lycanthrope Twelve – they would ‘ave ‘ad them straight in the fangbunny pen and no messin’. You’d ‘ave probably just let ‘em go with a sharp ticking off. Different ideas about crime and punishment, see.”
    â€œThis talk of your adventures reminds me that we should ask you how you managed to get your pictures back,” said Drych. “Perhaps that is another adventure that you would like to tell us about.”
    It was usually impossible to tell what Drych was thinking because his voice was always so dead-pan and the expression on his face never changed. Still, this time Will did get just the slightest impression that there might have been a hint of a twinkle in the dragon’s golden eye as he said this.
    â€œAh, yes, well… Not sure I can be tellin’ all and sundry the tricks of the trade. The wossnames, secrets of my success, you might say.”
    â€œGo on,” prompted Will. “Surely we’re not ‘all and sundry’.”
    â€œQuite right,” put in Mavis, “not all and sundry. Comrades in adversity, perhaps, after that