Take Back Plenty by Colin Greenland
"Take Back Plenty" is a science fiction novel set in a future where Mars hosts a vibrant carnival scene. The story centers on Tabitha Jute, the owner of a space barge named Alice Liddell, who is in dire financial straits and facing legal troubles. To save her ship from being impounded, she reluctantly agrees to transport the enigmatic Marco Metz to Plenty, a notorious asteroid known for its dubious enterprises and hidden dangers.
The narrative unfolds as Jute navigates a world filled with intrigue, encountering characters such as the Zodiac Twins and a Cherub named Xtasca, while uncovering deeper layers of deception involving Metz and his cabaret troupe, who may have ulterior motives. As the plot progresses, Jute's quest intertwines with a hunt for a powerful Frasque star drive, ultimately revealing that her own ship possesses this coveted technology.
The story intricately blends themes of survival, trust, and the quest for freedom, all while highlighting the complexities and perils of interstellar life. "Take Back Plenty" presents a rich tapestry of characters and a dynamic setting that invites readers to explore the boundaries of adventure and the mysteries of the universe.
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Take Back Plenty
First published: 1990
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—interplanetary romance
Time of work: Indeterminate
Locale: Various locations in the solar system
The Plot
As Carnival time on Mars approaches, Tabitha Jute, owner of the space barge Alice Liddell, is penniless and in trouble with the law. In need of a large amount of money in order to pay a fine, she faces the possibility of Alice Liddell, her beloved if rather rickety ship, being impounded.
Jute meets the mysterious Marco Metz, a performer. Metz needs to get to Plenty, an asteroid with a bad reputation, in order to join his cabaret troupe—or so he claims. He offers Jute a sum of money sufficient to get her out of trouble, so, reluctantly, she agrees to take him there.
Plenty is a hollow asteroid, built by the Frasque, an aggressive race that did not last long in this solar system, having been turned out by the Capellans, who had arrived before the Frasque. The Frasque left behind Plenty, riddled with tunnels and huge space docks, and now occupied by all kinds of slightly dubious businesses. Once on Plenty, Jute finds Metz reluctant to pay her, claiming that the troupe’s manager, Hannah Soo, has the money. He does not mention that Hannah Soo is dead. Jute instead meets the Zodiac Twins, Mogul and Saskia, and Xtasca, a Cherub. She discovers that the police seem to be after all of them.
They all flee Plenty in Alice Liddell, by now in a parlous condition. Metz now claims that the troupe members are in fact bank robbers. Later, it appears that they are smuggling a Frasque, but even this seems not to be their true purpose. Jute spends much of the novel apparently wandering aimlessly around the solar system, becoming involved in adventures that nearly cost her her life and ship and that do cost the lives of Marco Metz and Mogul Zodiac.
At the heart of the story is a hunt for a Frasque star drive that, mysteriously, turns out to have been fitted in Alice Liddell all along, only requiring activation. The Capellans, although they gave the star drive to Earth, chose to limit human activity to the solar system, for their own peculiar reasons. Alice Liddell herself is revealed as an artificial intelligence of considerable power, able to take on the running of the asteroid Plenty from the recently deceased Hannah Soo. The ship is in fact telling the story of Jute’s adventures as well as about how she came to be in Jute’s possession. Jute incidentally has also foiled an attempt by the Capellans to gain possession of the star drive.