Powers That Be

Chapter 1

 Striding in the crowded processing center of Petaybee’s spaceport, Yanaba Maddock eyed the side door as a drowner would eye a drifting spar. Unobtrusively making her way to it, she hoped it wasn’t locked. It was, but the lock was not proof against the skills she had acquired in her years as a company soldier, investigator, explorer, training officer, and, most recently, long-term resident of a medical facility. Automatically checking to see if her activity was being noticed, Yana slid the door open just wide enough to accommodate her thin body. She paused to pull on her gloves: she had been warned in the briefing-and she always took briefings seriously-of the danger of bare skin sticking to frozen surfaces.

 For a moment she leaned back against the slide panel, to secure it in case she had been observed. Then the cold air hit her. She knew from previous cold-weather training not to inhale the freezing blast that whipped around the corner of the building and slammed into her face.

 “The temp-er-actch-chur of Planet, Terraformation B, commonly called Petaybee, at certain locations during certain points in lime during the winter can range as low as minus two hundred degrees fare-in-height,” the computer aboard the shuttle from ship to port had cautioned. “That’s cold, troops. Do not touch metal objects with your unprotected epy-dur-mus. Do not run, or the air will freeze into small icicles in your lungs and lacerate them. Wear or carry your winter gear with you at all times. Do not count on a nice warm vehicle for warmth. For one thing, there is a shortage of nice warm vehicles on Petaybee, because machinery that doesn’t freeze and crack in the extreme cold is expensive. For another thing, even the expensive equipment breaks down, and you may find yourself stranded. The tem-per-atch-chur at Kilcoole Space Base today is minus fifty degrees fare-in-height. Some of the locals have been known to regard this as relatively tropical by comparison with what they consider real winter. Bear in mind that summer to these same individuals consists of two months of fairly constant daylight as warm as fifty-five to sixty degrees above zero, still twelve to seventeen degrees colder than regulation shipboard settings of seventy-two degrees. So button up your outer gear, ‘cause the wind blows free, and take good care of yourselves, remembering at all times that your ass belongs to the company. That is all.”

 Yana had smiled to hear the computer briefing given in the gruff voice and speech patterns of a senior NCO, but she was no more inclined to ignore the warning than she would have been had it been issued by a flesh-and-blood top sergeant. Minus two hundred, huh? Good thing she’d gotten here during a “heat wave.” Icicles lacerating her already trashed lungs would do nothing for her convalescence.

 Fumbling with outerwear that had been broiling her in the facility, she pulled her scarf across her mouth, flipped the hood to her head, pulled it down over her forehead, which was fast becoming wooden with cold, and tucked the scarf securely up to her eyes before she tied the hood under her chin.

 Cold though the air was, and despite a taint of overheated oil and space fuel from the snow-rimmed plascrete landing pad, the freshness of it-warmed by her breath as she inhaled through the muffling fabric-was clean! One of the small joys of her life were those first moments of breathing fresh, unadulterated, unrecycled air. the real stuff.

 She inhaled through her mask, tentatively at first, because her lungs were still not working as well as they should-one of the reasons she was the perfect candidate for Petaybee in the eyes of her employers. Gradually she began to take deeper breaths; she wanted to flush the dead air of a spaceship out of her poor abused lungs. They would have even more of a chance to heal here in Petaybee’s unpolluted atmosphere than in the rarefied aisles of that medical complex back on Andromeda Station.

 She took in one deep breath too many and started to cough, gasp, and choke until her eyes teared with the spasms. Panting with short chest inhalations, she managed to get control again. The tears froze on her cheeks and she brushed them away. Grimly she thought that you could have too much of a good thing-even air. And she had better get back inside: for all she was wearing garb appropriate to the new climate, she could feel her fingers and toes numbing. She spared one look at the horizon; the great bowl of a blue sky without so much as a defense shield over the spaceport, and the ice-covered land and wondered if she really had made the right decision.

 Slipping back inside, she pushed the hood off, pulled down the scarf, and scanned her nearest neighbors. Only one of them seemed to notice that she had left and come back. He blinked and frowned before turning his attention to the screen at the far end of the long hall where the names of those to be processed were blinking. Y. MADDOCK was one of them.

 She moved forward, squeezing past people until she came to the more eager layers of folk, packed tightly as they waited for release.

 “Maddock, Y,” she said to the official, offering her plastics.

 “ID,” he said without looking up from his terminal.

 She extended her left wrist, and with rough fingers, he turned it so he could see it, bending her hand painfully.

 “You’re cold!” He looked up now, seeing her as a person, not a number.

 She shrugged. “Leaning against that door.”

 “Humpf. Didn’t you attend the briefing?” He frowned. “Don’t touch metal ...”

 “Even inside?” she asked with the innocent inquiring look she had used to flummox brighter men than this one.

 He frowned, and then the terminal required his attention, her plastic having jumped out of the processing slot. It skidded halfway across the worktop before he caught it. Yana kept her face straight: he looked the sort not likely to appreciate chasing anything, much less plastic.

 A slip of film extruded from the slot by her hand.

 “That has your work number, which you will memorize, work assignment, living quarters, ration status, travel and clothing allowance, and the name of your official guide as well as his office hours. Your travel pack has already been delivered to your quarters.” Then he paused and startled her by smiling. “You can take one of the waiting vehicles outside the terminal. Major Maddock. Welcome to Petaybee.”

 Amazed by both the courtesy and the unexpected smile, Yana thanked him and moved smartly out of the way to make room for the next person in line.

 A translucent roof shield protected the area outside the passenger terminal. It was filled with the sounds of confusion and impatience as the processed arrivees, most of them lugging their precious 23.5 kilo personal-allowance sacks, searched for each other or for transportation.

 “Yellow slip, huh?” someone said in her ear, pulling her hand down to peer at it.

 The someone was a young girl, so bundled in furs that only her face was visible, and that slightly obscured by long wisps of fur and, possibly, her own hair. She appeared to be in her early to mid-teens; her keen gray eyes were alive with intelligence and interest

 “I’m cleared for yellow, too,” the girl added, and her mittened hand shoved a plastic square under Yana’s eyes. The woman grabbed her hand for a longer look at the official-looking plastic. The girl didn’t resist, though her eyes widened slightly at the strength of Yana’s grasp.

 The plastic-covered printed documentation that licensed Buneka Rourke to convey passengers in an authorized snocle within the environs of the port but no farther. There was a large A in the right-hand corner and a renewal date sometime later on in Petaybee’s year.

 “How much?”

 Buneka Rourke blinked and then grinned companionably. ‘From here to your place, it’s on the PTBs.”

 “The PTBs?” Yana wasn’t sure she had heard correctly.

 Buneka’s grin broadened, and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Sure, PTB-the powers that be. Petaybee,” she added. “You didn’t know that’s where this planet got its name?”

 “The briefing said it was Planet, Terraformation B,” Yana said.

 The girl waved her mitten dismissively. “They would manage to make it sound dull. But it’s really named after them-the Powers That Be that move us from A to B or Z or wherever they gotta plug holes or clean up disasters or fight wars. C’mon. Let me get you out of this mess and give you a proper welcome to Petaybee.” The girl tugged at Yana’s sleeve, pointing to a battered-looking but clean orange/yellow snocle with fluorescent numerals, MTS-80-84, that matched those Yana had seen on the plastic ID. But as Yana stepped off the curb, a big figure intervened.

 “Yellow ticket? I take yellow tickets.” The man glared menacingly at the girl. “You doan wanna ride with this flitter-face. She turn you over into snow drift. No one find you. Yellow ticket deserves big, warm snocle.” He gestured toward a large, sleek affair.

 “I’ve already-“ she began.

 “Terce, she’s legally mine.”

 “You ain’t cleared for yellows,” the man said, hunching belligerently over the girl. He was a tall enough man, but the furs made him even more bulky.

 “Am, too.” She waved her ID at him; snarling, he batted at her hand, dismissing her qualification. “I got a passenger all legal, Terce,” she went on. “You weren’t even here.”

 Yana deftly inserted herself between them and made eye contact with the intruder. “I’ve already accepted Rourke’s assistance, but I thank you for your willingness to transport me.”

 “I gotta, dama . . .”

 At first Yana thought he was swearing at her and then realized that he was bowing with great subservience. There was an edge of anxiety in his voice and manner.

 “You’re safer with me,” the girl said, glaring such a challenge first at Yana and then at Terce that Yana sensed that more was at stake than just a fare.

 “Look, girl, another yellow ticket.” Terce gestured toward a man whose yellow ticket was plainly visible in his hand, “you take ‘im.” Then he took a firm hold on Yana’s upper arm and began to swing her toward his vehicle.

 Deftly, almost automatically, Yana disengaged her arm and then strode across to the battered little MTS-registered snocle.

 “Dama, dama,” Terce cried, real concern in his voice.

 Yana ignored him, lengthening her stride when she heard the triumphant exclamation from Buneka, followed by the sound of boots slithering across the snow mush behind her. Yana hit the door release on the passenger’s side, then paused a moment to catch her breath before she slung her sacks onto the rear storage shelf. Still chuckling over her success, the girl slid into the driver’s scat.

 “You’d better button up. This thing takes longer to warm up than Terce’s fancy sleigh.”

 “And I’m safer with you?” Yana asked at her driest, as she rearranged her hood and scarf and belted into the seat before slipping her hands back into the fur mittens.

 The girl’s eyes crinkled. “Well, Terce is known to do ‘errands’ for folk. My hunch is he was there on purpose to collect you. If you’d wanted to go with him, you could have, of course, but you didn’t. So you didn’t know he was there to meet you. So ... you’re safer with me-especially the way he was acting. He’s not very bright.” Her remark was couched in a kindly tone but held a hint of caution nonetheless. She glanced over at Yana, her eyes bright, alert.

 Well, Yana mused. An hour on the planet and intrigue starts already. Never a dull moment, no matter what the spaceflot about Petaybee was. PTB! Powers that be. She chuckled at the thought but let that also be an answer for her driver.

 The chuckle turned into one of her coughing fits, and between spasms she fumbled in her sack for her bottle of syrup. She was suddenly weak with the effort it took to draw enough breath between explosions that threatened to blow her ribs apart. The fur mittens made her hands clumsy, and she almost dropped the bottle before she could peel a mitten from her shaking hand and get the plastic cap off. As soon as the syrup began to coat her pharynx, the spasm eased. She cradled the bottle in her hands, against her chest. The preparation had a lot of alcohol in it, but she still wouldn’t risk it freezing.

 The girl slowed the vehicle and looked back at her with wide eyes. Poor kid looked as if she were wishing that she had let Terce take her fare.

 “Are you-all right, Major?”

 Yana gulped another swallow of the syrup, this time feeling the warmth spreading into the poisoned cavities of her damaged lungs. Every time she coughed, ;-he images flashed through her brain of the graphic films the doctors had shown her when they had explained why she was no longer fit for active duty. As if the fact that she couldn’t laugh or hoist a duffel bag without a paroxysm of coughing wasn’t evidence enough of her disability. Still, she was alive, which was more than the others were. She recapped the bottle, tucked it into her parka pocket, and pulled the mitten back over her hand. It was already going numb with cold. She noted with satisfaction, however, that there was no blood on either mitten.

 Catching the girl’s anxious look, she said, “Don’t worry, Rourke, it’s not contagious. Took a little gas at Bremport Station was all.”

 “From the sound of that cough, you must have had a nasty time of it,” the girl remarked, speeding up slightly again but proceeding more cautiously than before, as if afraid the jarring would set her passenger off again.

 “You might say that,” Yana said, thinking of the others. The hell of it was, she had been through a lot worse in her younger days and had come through without a scratch. Bremport was supposed to have been a routine training mission-new recruits, a couple of them from Petaybee, she remembered. She remembered just about everything from that mission, over and over again.

 Using the technique she had learned a long time before from one of her old sergeants, she switched her focus, letting her eyes rest on the panorama of blue and white nothingness, the featureless landscape soothing her, helping her blank her mind, the cold in the air matching the cold inside her.

 Ground-hugging vegetation pierced lumps of snow with frozen spines. Then she noticed that the snocle track was on ground slightly lower than the rest of the terrain.

 “You guys dig a new road here, huh?” she asked her driver.

 Rourke snorted. “Not a bit of it. Do you think they’d be spendin’ money on improvements for the likes of us? This-is the river!”

 “No kidding?” Yana looked out and down. Where the snow had blown away in one patch, she saw the translucence of powder blue ice. “Anybody ever fall through the ice?”

 “Not lately. Even this late in the winter it’s still between minus seventy-five and minus thirty most of the time.”

 “If everything is frozen, what do you do about drinking water?” Company leaders automatically considered such details.

 “Oh, that. I’ll show you.” The girl grinned and continued on.

 After a few moments the ground had more rise and fall to it. Beside it, stunted trees, rooted and branched in billows of snow, began appearing closer and closer together until they formed a sparse forest on either side of the snocle. The girl veered the machine over toward the trees, and around the next bend, Yana saw a little pavilion set up on the ice, smoke rising from a hole in the top. Rourke had been decreasing the speed of her snocle and now drifted to a gentle stop.

 The tent shook slightly from within and what looked at first like a bear emerged.

 “Slainte, Bunny!” the bear said with a wave, dispelling the illusion. The fur-clad man lumbered forward, lifting his great fur boots high above the snow. His face bristled with icicles from the ruff around his mouth and nose, which was only lightly frosted, to his beard, eyebrows, and mustache, which were thickly encrusted with ice.

 “Slainte, Uncle Seamus!” The girl waved back and cut the motor. The man’s eyes flicked up through his personal icicles to glance at Yana, a searching look for all its brevity. “This is Major Maddock, Uncle. She’s going to be staying at Kilcoole.”

 “Is she now?” He included Yana in his wave, and she nodded at him.

 “Do you have some thermos or two for me to take to Auntie, since I’m passing her way?” Bunny asked.

 “Now, that would be very good of you, Bunny. I’ve two now, and I’ll have more later when Charlie and the dogs come along. This dama doesn’t mind stopping on her way, does she?”

 “Nah! She won’t mind. Will you, Major? You wanted to see how we got water. Come look in the shed.”

 Moving a little more slowly than she would have liked, Yana climbed from the snocle. Out here, on the river, the cold immediately clenched its fist around her face and thighs, the only parts of her that weren’t encased in synfur. She hoisted the muffler around her nose, but the sweet smell of wood smoke still came through. She wondered if it would set her coughing again. But there was Bunny, encouragingly holding up the flap of the tent and pointing to the fire burning in a circle around the rim of a long black hole in the ice. An insulated container on a length of line stood beside the hole, along with two other containers, which Seamus now gave Bunny.

 Yana took a couple of steps toward the tent before the smoke from the fires wafted toward her. She felt her throat seizing up and stepped back, silently cursing her weakness. How the frag was she going to survive on a cold planet if she couldn’t breathe in the presence of fire?

 Bunny, her shoulders bowed as she hauled one of the thermoses with both hands so that the container bumped against her shins, nodded to Yana to return to the snocle. Yana was relieved not to put her lungs through any further ordeal. She turned with more enthusiasm than was prudent and her feet promptly slid on the ice underlying the thin covering of drifted snow. She placed her feet more cautiously then, and managed to make it back to the snocle without falling.

 Seamus set the other water thermos in beside her and ran a mitten across his face, an accustomed gesture that dislodged some of his facial icicles. “Welcome to Petaybee, such as it is, Major. You need something, you just ask Bunny here.”

 Yana nodded. “Thanks.” It was just possible that, if her official guide turned out to be anywhere near as inept as she herself was in this environment, she would find Bunny’s unofficial assistance more useful.

 They arrived at Yana’s new quarters long after darkness had fallen, though by Yana’s calculation it was no more than late afternoon. She looked at the small single house standing alone on pilings beside others of similar construction. It had one window and one door that she could see in the gloom, and the window was small. Whatever. It was bound to be roomier than some of the berths she’d had, and compared to her place on the ward at the space-station hospital; it looked palatial, as well as incredibly private.

 Bunny hefted her duffel out of the snocle for her and pushed open the door. The interior was spare, white as the outdoors, and contained a cot, a small table on which rested her survival pack, a chair, and a stove for heating and cooking.

 “It’s too late for you to inprocess today. Sorry it took so long,” Bunny said. “Look, wait here and I’ll get some blankets. You’d better take this water, too. No one’s given you your ration.” She nodded toward the thermos on a shelf beyond the stove. - “That’s for your auntie, isn’t it?” Yana asked. “And I can scarcely take your blankets, too.”

 Bunny shook her head. ‘They won’t care about the water, and I can spare the blanket. You’ll be issued your own tomorrow.”

 She drove away in the snocle and, in a short time, returned on foot, carrying a bundle of puffy cloth and a packet. “Smoked salmon strips,” she said, indicating the packet.

 “What?”

 “Fish. It’s good,” Bunny said patiently. “You’ll like it.”

 Yana’s day had started back at the station hospital nearly thirty hours earlier, and she couldn’t face anything more taxing than rolling up in blankets and going to sleep as fast as possible. “Thanks,” she said.

 “Okay, then. Shall I pick you up in the morning to meet your guide? I could get the blanket then, too.”

 Aha, Yana thought, a little blackmail here to ensure the continuing custom. Very enterprising. “That’ll be fine,” she said with a weary lift of her eyes that would have to pass for a smile. Bunny showed her how to light the stove before she left and promised to help her organize more fuel the next day.

 Without waiting for the room to warm up enough for her to remove her outerwear, Yana arranged the chair at the head of the cot, sat down, and stretched her legs out on the bed. She had chewed only a couple of bites of the oddly spiced salmon strip before she fell asleep, as she had for the last few weeks, sitting up.

 Bunny Rourke returned to her aunt’s house after delivering the blankets to her client and returning the snocle to its special shed.

 “I’ll need to check it out again in the morning,” she’d told Adak O’Connor, the dispatcher and guard.

 “No shuttles due from SpaceBase for another week,” Adak said, removing his headphones and turning away from the radio that connected him to SpaceBase and the few other places on Petaybee that had such advanced equipment. He scowled at his record book, which contained the schedules for the port and kept track of the whereabouts of the vehicles-both of them. Bunny was licensed to drive one, Terce the other: they were the only authorized drivers to and from Kilcoole. The shuttles belonged to InterGalactic Enterprises, known as Intergal, the omnipresent if not omnipotent corporation responsible for the existence of Petaybee, and the boss of all Bunny’s people. Bunny had qualified for her license only because one of her uncles was an important man and owned his own snocle as well as dogs. When Bunny’s parents had disappeared, Uncle had taught her to drive the snocle to help her make her own way in the village so she wouldn’t be a burden. She was Uncle’s driver on the rare occasions when he preferred the snocle to his team. She also made the trip out to his place to keep the machine running for him and repair it when it broke down- usually from neglect. Her uncle was a brilliant man but not mechanically inclined. Bunny took after her Yupik granddad: she could fix anything. And six months ago, on her fourteenth birthday, she had obtained her license to ferry passengers from Space-Base to Kilcoole and back.

 “I know there’s no shuttles,” she told Adak, “but my fare has to inprocess in the morning.”

 “Can’t she walk or go by sled?”

 “Nah. She’s an important dama. An officer. But she’s puny. Said something about being at Bremport.”

 “The massacre where the Shanachie’s boy was killed? Ah, the poor dama. And how is she puny?”

 “She coughs. Bad. But she seems nice. Anyway, the snocle is authorized for official functions, so I want to take her round to the outpost as quick as possible so she can settle in, like.”

 “Good child. You’ve taken to this dama, have you?”

 “She’s sleepin’ this night under the quilt Auntie Moira made me.”

 ‘Then by all means lake the snocle in the morning, but mind you, no sight-seein’.”

 “Thanks, Adak,” she said. “I’ll bring you one of Auntie Moira’s cakes in the morning when I come, shall I?”

 “That would be very welcome, Bunny. Good night now.”

 “Good night,” she said, and headed back to the shed behind her aunt’s house.

 Ever since her older male cousins had turned a little too inquisitive about her development, Bunny had preferred to sleep out here, in back of the kennel where Charlie kept his team of noisy and protective dogs, who warned her of anyone approaching. She wasn’t really scared, though. Most of the people who came to see her brought her things-fish or moose chops, zucchini or tomatoes in the summer-though some came just to visit. She was personally related to a large percentage of the village, and she knew who would help her and who to avoid. There were a few people she didn’t want coming to her place-Terce, for one, but he was scared of Charlie’s dogs. Mostly, everyone looked out for her. That would have made her feel like a child except that she looked out for them, too. That was how it was in Kilcoole. She was actually very adult for someone her age, trusted with the responsibility of living on her own and holding down her own job.

 Approaching her house, she was greeted by the hounds, who set up a good welcoming howl as she walked quickly through them, unclipping the lines from Pearse and the lead dog, Maud.

 She was pleasantly surprised to see smoke rolling up from her chimney to the sky. As she followed its path she saw the lights were on display tonight: a simple pale green band whipping across the black sky, dancing and twisting and sequined with stars. The smoke from the chimney smelled grand-nutty and warm. Maud whined and stuck her long muzzle in Bunny’s pocket. The dogs were more used to Bunny, who had time for them and who usually fed and exercised them, than they were to Charlie, who was their owner. Bunny petted Maud absently. Even with her stove getting a head start on the chill, without her quilt she would need the dogs for warmth tonight. She would let them in to get toasty by the fire while she ate her supper.

 The big red dogs with their thick soft coats took up most of the floor space in the little shed. It contained her berth, a scrounged unit cut out of one of the dead ships at SpaceBase, a shaky tabletop pegged into the wall and placed so she could sit on her berth to eat, plus the stove and the shelves she had built from old storage crates to hold her few belongings. She had the three books left her by her parents, a set of tools-a gift from her uncle upon obtaining her license-and a selection of shells, rocks, and mushroom-shaped tree tumors, as well as hand-me-downs from the cousins and what little gear she had. On the table was a mare’s-butter candle; it gave a fairly bright light, though it didn’t smell very good. Her shed was built of stone, of which Petaybee had plenty. She had caulked it with mud two breakups earlier and reinforced it with some plasti her cousin Simon had scrounged for her at the SpaceBase when he first joined the corps, before he shipped out. The plasti had originally been used to repair the bubble around the SpaceBase garden, and it did well in the cold, never cracking or contracting.

 Something plopped down beside her onto the table and mewed up at her. She reached down to stroke the rust-and-cream stripes of one of Aunt Clodagh’s cats, though which she couldn’t say since so many of the Kilcoole felines were orange-marmalades. The cat pawed the door, and Bunny smiled and followed, chattering to the cat.

 “So Clodagh already knows about my passenger, does she, and left you here to tell me to report? Glad to, cat, as long as there’s a bite in it for me.”

 The dogs in the shed had ignored the cat; the ones in the yard did not bark as it led her through the kennels. No one’s dogs even barked at Clodagh’s cats. They went where they pleased and knew where everything was and what everyone was doing-as did Clodagh.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 2                                                                                        

 The  official  guide-only  a  second  lieutenant,  Yana noted-stood up when she entered the room. “Major Maddock,” he said, saluting and flashing her quite an energetic smile. “Lieutenant Charles Demintieff, first Petaybee military liaison officer, at your service, dama.”

 “Relax, Lieutenant,” she said. “I’m reporting to you, not the other way round.”

 “Yes’m. It’s just that I’ve read your file, and we don’t get many heroes back here.”

 “Most heroes don’t make it back anywhere,” she said.

 He laughed as if she had said something extremely witty. ‘Then we’re luckier still to have you, Major. Colonel Giancarlo from SpaceBase snocled in this morning to welcome you personally. When you’ve had your chat with him, we’ll go over the routine stuff.”

 Walking into the adjoining room, Yana felt as wary as if she were entering the bridge of an enemy-held ship. If the SpaceBase brass wanted to talk to her, why hadn’t he done it at Inprocessing and saved himself a long, cold ride?

 The colonel, in contrast to the lieutenant, did not look happy lo see her. His insignia was one she had seen only occasionally:

 Psychological Operations, a euphemism for the Intelligence branch. She reported, and he waved her into a chair while he continued typing something into a terminal.

 “Well, Major,” he said after she had been sitting there long enough to become impatient and uncomfortable in her heavy gear. “What do you think of Petaybee so far?”

 “Seems friendly,” she said cautiously. He was testing her somehow, but she wasn’t sure for what. “The air is clean, pretty cold. Fairly primitive technologically. New recruits from here need extensive training in the simplest equipment, and it’s pretty obvious why, from what I’ve seen of my quarters and the village. Am I missing something?”

 “If you are, you’re not alone,” he said, his eyes shifting from the terminal to hers and boring into them. “There shouldn’t be anything here that we didn’t put here. This planet was nothing but rock and ice when Intergal claimed it. The company terraformed it, upgrading it from frozen uninhabitable rock to a merely arctic climate. For the last two hundred years, it’s been useful as a replacement depot for troops, a relocation center for the peoples who were being displaced by our other operations. Because the climate is rough on machinery, only SpaceBase contains much in the way of modern comforts. The transportation needs of the inhabitants are mostly supplied by experimental animals bred for the purpose.”

 “Experimental?” Yana asked. “Like lab animals?” She had been born on Earth but had spent her childhood being shunted with her parents from one duty station to the next. Lab rats and monkeys were somewhat familiar to her, along with a number of different alien species, but she was unfamiliar-except from pictures-with the beasts she had seen on her way here today.

 “Not exactly, although I suppose their ancestors did some time in a lab-originally. The company hired Dr. Sean Shongili to alter certain existing species to adapt to this climate. That’s how the resident equines, felines, and canines, and many of the aquatic mammals come to be here.”

 “1 see,” she said, but she didn’t. The dogs obviously worked as sled animals, the cats to keep down rodents. But she couldn’t understand why Petaybee supported equines, too. Horses, from what little she knew of them, seemed rather inappropriate for such a climate. And considering the need for hacking and burning holes in ice to secure water, wasting such effort on domestic pets seemed totally unproductive.

 “Well, Intergal doesn’t, entirely,” the colonel said, as if he had read her thoughts. “The animals we commissioned are here, but there have been sightings of other types that indicate perhaps Dr. Shongili and his assistants were a trifle more creative than was covered by their authorization. The current Dr. Shongili, also Sean, is certainly an odd bird, not what you’d call a team player. We’ve monitored his records, however, and can’t find any evidence that he’s been exceeding his instructions. We could, of course, move him, but this is not a research area favored by many in our employ, and the Shongilis have done so well at producing viable species for arctic conditions that we’re reluctant to remove the current Shongili without more concrete evidence. Trouble is, unauthorized species are not the only anomaly. Something else is going on here-our satellite monitors have detected deposits of important minerals on this planet. When we dispatch teams, they either can’t find the location of the deposits, or else they simply don’t return.”

 “That’s why psyops is interested?” she asked, relaxing a little.

 “You got it.” Suddenly he grinned at her, an expression that did not make him any more attractive. “That’s where we can help each other, Major.”

 “Sir?”

 “You’re here this morning technically to be demobilized. You’re a medical retiree due to spend the rest of your days on this iceberg, which is unfortunate for you. However, your experience as an intercommand investigator, and your earlier work with preliminary data gathering landing teams, is of some interest to us, despite your disability, as is your record of combat experience. You don’t realize it yet, of course, but being a combat veteran carries considerable cachet in this place where most families have at least one, and usually several, relatives in the corps. Furthermore your genetic stock is similar to these people’s.” He eyed her, and Yanaba knew he was assessing the sprinkle of white in the black hair that Bry used to claim had an auburn cast under bright light, the high cheekbones, the rather bleached-out olive complexion, and the slightly tilted green-gold eyes. Her body had once been lean and athletic, but weeks of illness had reduced her to brittle gauntness at a weight she might have enjoyed had her strength not deserted her along with the extra kilos.

 “How’s that?” she asked, mystified.

 “The people on this continent are a mixture of Irish and Eskimo-we’ve resettled cold-weather natives all over the planet to assist the others in assimilation. In this area it’s Eskimo: in other settlements, ethnic Scandinavians and Indo-Asians.”

 “I don’t exactly fit then,” she said, smiling as tolerantly as possible.

 “Well, of course, you were practically born into the company, but your father was Irish and your first name, Yanaba-“

 “Yanaba,” she corrected. “That’s Navajo-my mother’s people. It’s a war name, like a lot of traditional Navajo names. Means ‘she meets the enemy.’ The Navajo, by the way, were desert dwellers, not snow people.”

 “Close enough,” he said. “Desert can get damned cold midwinter.” He dismissed her objection with a wave.

 That told her she had made a tactical error by showing up his ignorance before she heard what he wanted. But she had a fierce loyalty to her family. All she had of them now was the history recorded in the computers for her by her parents before their deaths. It was about all she had had in her life that hadn’t been Internal-issued.

 “We think you can fit, Maddock,” he told her. “And we want you to do just that, because we need to know what’s going on. We want you to get to know the people, find out what or who exactly is responsible for these problems: if Shongili is concealing experiments in producing new life-forms on this planet, we need to know about it. If the geologic survey teams are being deliberately ambushed and eliminated, we want to know that, and we want to know whom we have to deal with. You don’t have enough technical knowledge to locate the deposits yourself, but we want you to find out who’s preventing our teams from locating them. If there’s some kind of sabotage or incipient insurrection brewing, help us put a stop to it.”

 “Wouldn’t it have been more effective to recruit a local informant?” she asked.

 Giancarlo snorted. “There’s something screwy about all of them. They all stick together all the time, and every time I’ve had one of them in my office for any length of time, they start sweating and turn red. Why would that happen if they’re not scared, hiding something? Even Demintieff sweats like crazy every time he comes in while I’m here. This office is always freezing when I arrive, and even while I’m here, he keeps that outer office way too cold. These people also have gatherings that nobody from SpaceBase is invited to, and if you ask one of the new recruits from here about it, they just shrug.”

 “You haven’t actively interrogated anyone yet, then?”

 “No real excuse so far. What would I ask? Why do you people sweat so damned much, and how come I don’t get invited lo your parties?”

 Yana nodded.

 He leaned forward and stabbed at the desk with his finger, as if the gesture would somehow make his words plainer. “We need someone loyal to the company to gain their confidence, find out what’s going on.”

 “What if they just sweat because they’re used to the cold, and they have orgies or something at their parties and don’t want to mingle with outsiders out of embarrassment?”

 “Major, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. You were injured at Bremport; you saw what happened there. I shouldn’t have to tell you what swamps of insurgency these colonial planets can be. Unauthorized life forms have been spotted on this planet. Research-and-development teams have disappeared into nowhere. You can’t tell me these circumstances aren’t related. What you have to tell me instead is how they are connected with each other. Do you read me?”

 She nodded, cautiously, and evidently mistaking her caution for hesitation he pressed on.

 “You said something about your quarters. They’re pretty standard for down here, but we certainly have the wherewithal to make them more comfortable. Also, you’re not full retirement age yet, nor eligible for full pension.”

 “I have a medical discharge, sir.”

 “Not exactly. Not yet. Actually your disability status as of now is”- He tapped a key. -“only twenty-five percent. That won’t generate much of a pension. If you were on covert active duty, however, you could do a lot better. We could even throw in hazardous-duty pay.”

 “Sir, with all due respect, while I wouldn’t sniff at the money, the doctors back at the hospital . . .”

 “You can’t contact them from here, Maddock. And in the event you need further, fairly expensive care, the transport from here back to there would be beyond your means, unless, of course, Intergal foots the bill. I’ll expect progress reports via Demintieff on a weekly basis unless, of course, something comes up that I should know about instanter. Demintieff will take you around, introduce you to people . . .”

 Whatever this guy’s specialty was, Yana reflected, it wasn’t the gentle art of psychological persuasion. He was about as subtle as a photon torpedo. But she owed Intergal her life and had spent her life in its service. She wasn’t going to turn them down just because this hammerhead thought he was blackmailing her. Besides, she could use the pay.

 “With respect, sir, I think maybe Demintieff should do the bare minimum of guiding me around. Seems to me I’d be better off on my own. I’d be less suspect to any possible terrorists within the area if an indigenous civilian helped me acclimate rather than a uniformed professional.”

 “Good thinking, Maddock. This conversation never happened, of course.” He dug a sheaf of old-fashioned hard copy from a case at his feet. “However, this contains a full briefing on what we know and suspect thus far. Familiarize yourself with it and burn it.”

 “Yes, sir.”

 “Enjoy your retirement, Maddock.”

  

 Bunny Rourke was sitting on the edge of Lieutenant Demintieff’s desk when Yana and Colonel Giancarlo emerged. Neither Bunny nor Demintieff was perspiring unduly as far as Yana could nee, although at the sight of the colonel, Bunny fled through the doorway with barely a nod to Yana. ..,

 “Demintieff!” the colonel snapped.

 “Sir!”

 “You’re to report to SpaceBase. Congratulations, son, you’ve been chosen for duty shipside.”

 “But, sir . . .” The lieutenant, formerly so cheerfully obsequious, looked as stunned as if the colonel had suddenly kicked him in the balls. He evidently did not feel that congratulations were in order.

 “Grab your gear on the double and you can ride back with me, soldier.”

 “Permission to say good-bye to my family, sir,” Demintieff said with some difficulty.

 “Permission granted as long as you can do it within the next forty-five minutes. Duty calls, son.”

 “Yes, sir.”

 “Maddock, in view of this man’s reassignment, you are authorized to requisition civilian assistance during your civilian orientation process or until the position can be reassigned.”

 “Yes, sir. May I suggest my driver, Miss Rourke, sir?”

 “Sure, Colonel, Bunny will look after the major,” Demintieff put in, rather gallantly, Yana thought, in view of his own evident distress. “She’s my own sister’s cousin-by-marriage and a very good girl.”

 Seeing this side of Demintieff, and realizing how well connected he was locally, Yana cursed herself for making suggestions before she got the lay of the land. He would have done as well as Bunny from the standpoint of gaining the trust of the villagers, but now he was being sent away from home, an assignment he obviously did not relish, to provide a reason for the change in routine. Damn fool shouldn’t have enlisted if he didn’t want to serve shipside, she thought fiercely, but she had trouble meeting his eye. Giancarlo returned to the inner room, and Demintieff’ s eyes were brimming shamelessly as he turned toward her.

 “Dama, would you and Bunny mind very much givin’ me a lift up to Clodagh’s? My gear’s there, and Clodagh’ll see to it that my family in Tanana Bay get notified.”

 Yana could only duck her head as the lieutenant scooped up a tightly wrapped bundle from his desk, started to hand it to her, then carried it out to the snocle.

 Bunny was starting the engine when Yana and Demintieff emerged from the building. She started to say something when Demintieff climbed in beside her, leaving Yana the back section, but Demintieff cut her off with “Take me to Clodagh’s quick, Bunny. They’re shipping me into space.” In his distress, his voice had thickened into the same oddly precise brogue coloring of Bunny’s and her Uncle Seamus’s speech.

 Brilliant start, Major Maddock, Yana told herself. Everybody on this damned planet seemed to be related to everybody else.

 “Okay, Charlie, but I’ll have to drop you and Yana off and take the snocle back. I’m only checked out for another fifteen minutes. I’ll hitch up the dogs to take Yana home and bring you back over here.”

 “If there’s time. Giancarlo may requisition your snocle to take us back to SpaceBase, though Terce brought him out. You’ll look after my dogs, won’t you, Bunny? They already think you belong lo them, and I want them to be well cared for; they’ve been with me since they were pups.” He dug through layers of fur and found

 ·       i wallet, then handed her a wad of bills. “Here’s to help you with their food.”

 She released one hand from the wheel and accepted the money, stuffing it in her parka. “No problem, Charlie. I’ll keep on looking after them. You didn’t know about this reassignment?”

 “No idea. He decided just like that.”

 Yana found herself leaning forward, wheezing into Demintieff s ear: “You’ll be going to Andromeda Station to inprocess and for assignment. When you get there, unless he’s gone now, the master sergeant in charge of deployment is Ahmed Threadgill. Tell him Yana Maddock sends her love and reminds him of the time she alerted him to the Ship Police raid. He’ll know what I mean.” Ahmed would know she was calling in the favor and that he was to look after her friend. It wasn’t much, considering the way she had caused however so inadvertently the situation, but it could keep his hide intact.

 “Yes, Major Maddock. Thank you, dama.”

 She clapped him on the shoulder, a little feebly, and sat back until Bunny skidded to a halt outside a house a little larger than Yana’s own quarters. The morning’s exertions had left her panting and trembling with fatigue, but she still took note of this house. The snow in front of it was full of huge strangely shaped lumps, and the crusted snow all around them was lightly dotted with what looked like some kind of shit, which vaguely shocked ship-bred Yana. Stiff oval nets with points at each end hung over the door, three pairs of what were unmistakably skis leaned against the side of the house, and from the back of the house issued a high-pitched keening, like a woman screaming.

 “I’ll take you back in a minute, Major, if that’s okay,” Bunny called back as Yana climbed out of the vehicle. “Besides, you’ll want to meet Clodagh. She was asking after you last night at supper.”

 Charlie Demintieff grabbed the bundle of cloth from the snocle, and Bunny drove away.

 The screams erupted again and Yana hung back, tensed, listening. Charlie, who had already taken a step toward the house, turned ponderously in his furs, saw her staring, and touched the elbow of her coat with his mitten.

 “That’s just the dogs,” he said, his mouth spilling clouds of condensation into the air, as if his words were freezing there. “When our dogs were first made, our grandfathers called them banshee-dogs because of that sound, but they’re just saying hello.”

 Yana nodded, hearing her own breath rasping in her ears above the screams of the dogs, and willed herself to relax and follow Charlie to the house. A feline with rust and cream markings stood on the roof above the doorway and looked down at them as if considering a pounce. On another corner of the house sat the cat’s twin, resembling pictures Yana had seen of the gargoyles decorating ancient Terran architecture. Another of the creatures sat in each of the windows flanking the door.

 Just as Charlie reached the door, it opened before him and was filled by the largest woman Yana had ever seen. Of course, people on shipboard were required to keep their body weight to a certain level, a requirement necessitated by the narrow passages, small hatches, and the close confinement of the rooms. Also, anyone in space had to be able to fit into the suits and, should it become necessary, the cold-sleep shells. The rigors of shipboard life plus the uninspiring quality of the nutritious but mostly tasteless rations guaranteed that regulations were easily met by all personnel.

 But this woman! She was like a planet herself, or at least an ovoid meteorite, a large round entity unto herself-imposing, to say the least.

 “Charlie,” the huge woman said as she opened the door. “I hear you’re leaving us.” She threw a hard look over his shoulder to Yana, as if divining her role in the matter.

 The woman fell back, and Charlie Demintieff stepped into the house, holding aside the standard-issue gray military blanket that covered the inside of the door so that Yana could enter.

 Demintieff stripped off his hat, muffler, and gloves and loosened the front of his coat; Yana followed suit. The house was small and close, but not as warm as Yana would have expected. Nevertheless, as Giancarlo had indicated, the woman’s upper lip and brow were dewed with perspiration. Yana wasn’t sure, however, if the moisture on Demintieff’s face was sweat, tears, or melting ice from his hair and eyelashes.

 The woman embraced Demintieff, her caress oddly delicate and tender for such a massive being. Demintieff returned her embrace with every evidence of affection.

 “Don’t worry, Charlie,” the woman said. “Natark is hitching his team now. He should be in Tanana Bay by tonight.”

 Demintieff showed no surprise that the woman had anticipated his news, but simply said, “Thanks, Clodagh. I just wanted to say good-bye. Bunny’s taking my dogs.”

 “Good. Good. Bunny treats them well,” Clodagh said, making no further attempt to comfort him but seeming to share his sadness. She offered neither a look nor a word of false encouragement that he was likely to return: they all knew he probably wouldn’t.

 “This is Major Maddock, Clodagh.”

 “Ah, the dying woman,” Clodagh said. It should have sounded tactless except that her tone was vaguely ironic, indicating that she was only referring to Yana’s own opinion of herself, as if they had already had a long discussion about it. A soft smile and the penetrating gaze of Clodagh’s tilted blue eyes also showed that she meant no offense but simply cut straight to the heart of Yana’s concerns as she had to Demintieff’s.

 “Come, sit, have tea. Charlie’s sister and the rest of the family are on their way. Bunka will bring you to supper tonight, if you’ll come, but right now we have to talk about Charlie.”

 Even as she spoke people began arriving, until the room was crowded with bodies that smelled of wet fur, smoke, and wet dog. Clodagh’s house boasted a big table with four chairs set close to the stove. Yana, still in her parka, was soon stifling from the heat of the stove, but as the room filled up, she had no elbow room to remove her coat. One of the cats jumped up on the table and began sniffing her coat and her face. She let her hand drop to its marbled fur and it purred and took her gesture as an invitation to settle onto her thighs.

 Meanwhile, furs and scarves and quilted fabric brushed by her and she wondered that people didn’t singe themselves on the hot stove as they wished Charlie Demintieff farewell. Yana’s debilitated lungs labored harder as the room filled, the lack of oxygen smothering her. She began deliberately taking deep breaths as first one and then another of Charlie’s friends and distant relations stepped up to crowd around him near the stove, envelop him in a furry hug, and step back away to make room for the next person. Yana couldn’t imagine having so much family.

 Clodagh stood among them, not as tall as some of the men but distinguishing herself by the space around her. Her hair, Yana noticed, was quite beautiful, cloaking her shoulders in shining black waves, the black of a hue that somehow was not too harsh with the woman’s fair skin. Her cheeks were pink with the heat now and she was perspiring freely, glowing like some benevolent “un. She didn’t appear to be as old as Yana, and yet she effortlessly carried an air of the kind of authority generally conferred only by well-seasoned maturity.

 Just as Yana thought she was going to have to fight her way through the crowd for air or black out, people began filing back out the door with last good-byes for Charlie, and suddenly it was the four of them again, Clodagh, Charlie, Bunny, and Yana.

 “We have to hurry,” Bunny told the dejected-looking young officer. “1 need to drop the major and get you back.”

 “Okay,” he said.

 Clodagh put something in his hand with a soft pat before he pulled on his mittens. As they were leaving she said, “Major Maddock, will you come to supper tonight with Bunka?”

 Yana nodded and waved, and turned back toward the path between the houses to face four excitedly yapping dogs strapped to a low sled.

 “Climb in, Major,” Bunny said.

 “You’re kidding. There’s not room for all of us.”

 “You ride, and Charlie can drive. I’ll run along beside,” Bunny said, “just as far as your place.”

 Yana looked at the low, insubstantial-looking sled and the four wriggling, whimpering dogs, who were having their pointed red ears and muzzles scratched by a kneeling, sad-faced Charlie Demintieff. Their faces looked more like those of foxes or cats than those of the dogs Yana had seen pictured. Their coats were very thick and their legs fairly long and muscular, but their paws were covered in little booties. Every time one of them could get close enough to lick at Demintieff, it did.

 “How far is my place, anyway?” Yana asked. She had not formed an impression of any vast distances within this town; on the contrary, the snocle rides had been brief.

 “Just down the road,” Bunny said gesturing. “But you’re not used to the cold and . . .”

 “And I’m an invalid?” Yana asked, hitching her muffler up higher on her nose. “The dying woman, eh? Not dead yet, Rourke. Not by a long shot. You take Charlie back-and Charlie?”

 “Dama?”

 “Don’t forget to look up Master Sergeant Threadgill and tell him what I told you.”

 Charlie nodded once, briefly, his chin set. Bunny tumbled into the sled and settled herself for transport while Charlie, one last time, whistled to his dogs, who obediently trotted off toward the company station.

 Yana sighed, sending a plume of her breath up against the crisp blue sky, and began trudging in her heavy gear in the direction of her new quarters. Damn Giancarlo anyway. If he wanted her to spy for him, did he have to start off by doing something that, if the truth were known, would alienate the whole village from her? Of course, there was always the possibility that he, like Yana, had had no idea that Demintieff was one local boy who happened to be stationed close to home because he wished to be. But Giancarlo should have known before he went off half-cocked. If this assignment had any significance at all, he definitely should have had Demintieff checked before he decided to replace him. That kind of rashness could blow this mission.

 Mission? This was supposed to be her new life! Not that it looked as if it was apt to amount to much. She ought to thank Giancarlo for giving her something to occupy her mind, to keep from going nuts here on this ice ball.

 Feathers of smoke curled up from the houses; if there were any shops or supply stores, they were indistinguishable from the dwellings as far as she could see. Each step in her bulky primitive clothing was like walking in heavy gravity. She couldn’t bend her head easily to see the path before her, or her muffler would fall down and her hood ride back on her head. But by turning her head slightly, she saw that many of the houses contained kennels full of dogs and had mysterious-looking lumps out front just like the ones she had seen in Clodagh’s yard. Two of the larger places had not only houses but outbuildings, and in one of the yards two horses were zigzagging back and forth in the snow. Yana thought (here was something strange about the horses, but she couldn’t quite decide what. Never mind. She’d return to her quarters and read the briefing. She needed to find out what was regular about I his place before she could determine what was irregular.

 She made it to her door with only one slight mishap, when “h<- slipped once more on the ice and had to recover from a coughing fit before rising. She hadn’t hurt herself seriously otherwise. How could she, with so many layers of clothing? A passerby-impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman in those wrappings, but the person was short-stopped and waited for her toughing fit to abate, then gave her a hand up. She felt like a bloody baby, and wanted to slap the person’s hand away, but as soon as she was on her feet the person said in a muffled voice, “You got to walk a little duck footed when it’s slick like this.”

 She watched the person waddle away; then, feeling sillier than ever, she fell into a waddle gait until she reached her own door, the last one on the row.

 Something bright flashed ahead of her as she opened the door, and she stiffened, until she heard a thud from the direction of the table and beheld one of the orange cats sitting upon it, nonchalantly cleaning the snow from furry paw pads.

 To her relief, the log she had left burning in the stove earlier that morning was glowing coals. She wasn’t sure how long such primitive material was supposed to last, but she had the impression it needed refurbishing frequently. She stripped off coat, gloves, muffler, and coverall and sat down on the chair in her uniform. She had best strip off the insignia. She sighed. That would be admitting to her present status. Whatever. She wondered what she would do for clothing here when her uniforms wore out. She had no other kind of clothing, having been shipside most of her life. Considering the assorted outerwear she had seen in Clodagh’s, perhaps the locals had indigenous sources and supplies. She would have to ask Bunny where she got her furs. Meanwhile . . .

 She spread the brief on the table, while the cat looked on inquisitively. The report contained a short history of Petaybee and its settlements, as well as maps showing the resource sites and the spots where the missing survey teams had last been seen.

 Petaybee: third world from star XR798 in the Valdez system. The original evaluation team found no life forms, sentient or otherwise, on the planet: the rocky surface was largely frozen during most of the solar year. The Whittaker Effect was suggested as the best terraforming package for the planet and was inaugurated. Colonization was feasible, and procedures were initiated as the planet warmed. The only landmasses available were in the polar regions, where the climate was sub arctic, with a long extremely cold winter, temperatures frequently as low as or lower than -100 degrees F, summers barely two Terran months. Daylight is intense and almost constant during the summer, but dwindles rapidly into total darkness for most of the winter. Suitable colonists were chosen from ethnic groups accustomed to such conditions.

 Knowing Intergal’s ways, Yana doubted the “ethnic groups” had been asked their choice in the matter. She kept reading.

 . . . following initial seeding, adjustments were made cm-site by company staff members among the colonists. The team determined that although the planet could support life of a primitive sort, most low-level machinery and electronics would not withstand the cold. Therefore, biological alternatives were developed. Company botanists perfected food and fodder crops, and other domesticated plant life specially designed for the Petaybean growing season. Summer thawing of rivers and shorelines is facilitated by the planet’s network of subterranean hot springs, which to some extent warm the surface water, which becomes warmer as it deepens, preventing all but the shallower streams from freezing to their total depth. This deep water, along with hot springs occurring on the planet’s surface and open year round, and small quantities of melted snow, provide hydration for plants, humans, and animals.

 Company geneticists also altered existing animal species to conform to the requirements of the Petaybean climate. The following species were developed under company auspices: Petaybee curly horses, for nonsnow and heavy-duty transport; foxhounds, intelligent hybrid dogs for pulling sleds; domestic felines, originally for fur-bearing purposes but later to control the vermin, the development of which was not authorized. Additionally, fur-bearing species able to sustain themselves in the wild were introduced and specially adapted for the climate-wolverines, wolves, bears, lynx, as well as caribou, reindeer, wild sheep, and moose.

 Sounded right to Yana. Just about what one would expect a fully stocked subarctic Earth clone to have. She had done the Service and London interactive holos as a kid. The only thing missing so far was the malamutes, as in Malamute Saloon, and the fox-hounds seemed to be standing in for them. Too bad there wasn’t a continental mass along the equator that would be more temperate. But even with long-term terraforming, one couldn’t always choose appropriate sites for continental masses, though she didn’t know the geology involved in supporting Gaias.

 She skimmed past the description of ocean and river dwellers, noting that some long-extinct species on Earth had been revived for this planet, making the terraforming valuable for that purpose if no other, in her estimation. Five kinds of whales populated the ocean: orcas, humpbacks, grays, rights, and the small so-called pilot whales, as well as dolphins, otters, seals, walruses, and all of the fish and plant life necessary to support them. The only odd thing about Petaybee was that the oceans were still many times warmer deep down than they were upon the icy surface, since considerable geothermal activity was still taking place following the terraforming. This same activity accounted for volcanos, hot springs, earthquakes, and the odd domes the Irish-Yupik-descended colonists of this continent called “fairy hills,” the report noted.

 Yana flipped forward. Nothing irregular here yet that she had to memorize and eat. Nothing she shouldn’t know-or be able to ask about, for that matter. If it was here and it was authorized to be here, it was no doubt a matter of public record.

 The next aberration she found was a notation that it had been unnecessary to develop a methane-based energy system when, by the time enough colonists had settled the planet to make such considerations a priority, it was discovered that the smallish alder trees transplanted to this planet had somehow mutated far beyond the alterations of the company botanists, into a completely new hardwood that made unusually long-burning and hot fuel. That explained why her home fires were still burning, anyway.

 But in the last part of the report, she began to wonder if the computer’s word processor hadn’t gotten scrambled with some kid’s IAH game. One of the expeditionary team members, prior to of complete disappearance, had reported via land-to-ship voice transmitter that she had seen what appeared to be a unicorn, Unicorns were definitely not among the authorized species for this planet, or any other. The official theory, the report went on to say, was that the woman had suffered from snow blindness or hallucinations induced by hypothermia. This climate was hostile to those not bred to adapt to it, the report rationalized. One team member who did return from that expedition appeared to have aged at least a decade and had patently gone insane, babbling about hearing voices from the soil and tree roots, though the reports he .we of crystal caverns led the authorities to hope that there was some thread of reality in his ramblings.

 The locals, both company employees and dependents, denied knowledge of crystal caverns or any of the other anomalies but did admit that sometimes they too suffered from cold-induced hallucinations, particularly when out on the trail with their teams.

 Yana rubbed her fists through her hair and put the report in the stove. Like a lot of company paperwork, it didn’t actually say much that couldn’t have been conveyed in a short verbal briefing. Disgusted, she watched the papers burn, the cat poking its nose around her arm to see into the stove as well.

 “I’m going to have to take you back to Clodagh’s tonight, kittycat,” she told it. It blinked golden eyes at her. “At least with “o many like you stalking about, she’s unlikely to have missed you.”

 Just then there was a thump at her door, and she called out to whoever it was to come in. By the time she realized no one was coming and had closed the stove door to investigate, the area in front of the house was as empty as it had ever been-but a bundle of wood sat beside the stoop.

 Yana pulled it inside, although it could as easily have remained out in the dry, freezing air. She wanted whoever had brought it to know she had found it and planned to use it, since so far she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to acquire provisions and today, at least, she didn’t have enough energy left to investigate. She had given the bed quilt back to Bunny, thinking she would get a new one today. Belatedly she realized that the bundle Charlie Demintieff had been carrying might have contained her thermal blanket and other authorized survival gear. In the confusion, it had been left at Clodagh’s.

 The cat looked up at her expectantly, and she sat back down at the table, wishing she had a console to work on. Nothing to read, write, work at, or interact with unless she wanted to put all those clothes back on and tramp about in the cold. The cat looked up at her and mewed.

 “Just as well we’re taking you home tonight, beast,” she told it, giving it a stroke. “Otherwise I’d go buggy, landed with so much solitude all of a sudden.”

 As if it understood her, the cat chirruped and hopped down from the table, where it began chasing the toggle string of her parka with every evidence of great concentration and ferocity. It leapt high with front paws spread and twisted in midair to land squarely upon the coat’s drawstring. Then the cat sat down, gave its paws a lick, and looked up at her expectantly. Other than the coat’s drawstring, there wasn’t a single thing to dangle or roll in the cabin.

 Finally Yana took off her webbed uniform belt and dragged the buckle on the floor for the animal to hunt, while it did its best to entertain her. After a while, they both fell asleep by the stove, Yana with her head on the table, the cat curled by her elbow, while the winter-muffled village of Kilcoole remained unnervingly free of clanging, computer beeps, and the hive like activity of spacers. Yana’s sleep was light and her dreams fragmented with scenes of a surgeon using a horn growing from his head as a scalpel, twenty young troopers convulsing while clawing at a hatch as poison gas slithered into a hold that looked something like a crystal cave, and a tiny man she knew was Charlie Demintieff being pounced at by an orange cat.

 Diego Metaxos hadn’t been all that thrilled about being dragged down to Petaybee to watch his old man in action as a geological surveyor. In all of his sixteen years, he had never been planet side, and he expected life on Petaybee to be as dreary and routine as life on board ship. But when he saw the place, he was glad he had come, and when he met the dogs, he was even gladder. By the time the lady let him drive her dog team, he had been convinced that this trip was the most brilliant thing that had ever happened to him.

 At first he had been freaked out by the whole idea of the expedition, and with good reason. Even the shrink on his dad’s ship had told him that he had had a lot to be freaked out about recently. First of all, his mom had fallen for a company exec who liked Mom fine but didn’t want any other attachments. Mom, a senior astrophysicist, had never exactly been the warm type, and Diego had spent most of his life moving with her from ship to ship, or watching her come and go from various assignments while he sat in front of a teaching computer. Lots of the places Mom was assigned, there had been no one his own age, and very seldom did he find an adult who wanted to be bothered with someone else’s kid. At the last couple of stations, he had begun to pal around with a few of the younger corps troops, listening to their casual conversation and admiring the hard-core way they handled themselves, but he was always conscious that he wasn’t really one of them, and in case he forgot it, his mother made no bones about her displeasure in his choice of company. Then, too, about the time he started to gain a little acceptance and make one or two friends, they moved to a new station. He then had to fall back on the resources he had developed since he was a little kid, a good imagination and a quick brain. He didn’t really need any friends. Both his mom and his dad were brilliant, self-sufficient people, and he was, too. All he had ever needed was computer access, and he could entertain as well as educate himself. He was good at languages, having started out speaking both Spanish and English from when he was a little kid, and he enjoyed reading actual old hard-copy stories in both languages when there was nobody he wanted to hang around with, so he got by.

 He had gone to visit his dad and Steve about once every calendar year, and that was okay. He really loved his dad, even though he was a little on the perfectionistic and ultra serious side, except with Steve. Steve got him to knock it off, to relax and laugh a little. Steve was always finding neat things to share with them. He had given Diego his first hard-copy book-a Spanish-language text of Don Quixote-for Diego’s ninth birthday.

 “Pay close attention to Sancho Panza and Dulcinea,” he had kidded Diego. “I’m a little of both.” He struck a flamenco pose.

 No wonder Dad and Mom hadn’t gotten along. Even if Dad hadn’t discovered he was gay, he and Mom were too much alike, both studious and serious and very literal-minded. So Diego didn’t mind Dad and Steve’s arrangement all that much; it just had never occurred to him that he might end up living with them.

 He had just begun to get used to that-and he had even come to find out that Dad had wanted him all along but had been second best when it came to custody because in the eyes of company management theirs was a less-preferred sexual orientation to Mom’s. Diego didn’t see what difference that made. Nobody tried to tell him which way to swing, even if he had been ready to do any swinging of any kind. So far, he hadn’t met anyone who instilled in him a desire to implement the procedures his manuals and texts described.

 So he had just been getting used to his new situation and settling in when Steve had come down with some kind of virus just before Dad was due to take off for this mission to investigate something or other on Petaybee. That was when Dad had gotten the bright idea that Diego should come along, too, as his assistant instead of Steve, and “broaden his horizons.”

 In fact, he hadn’t actually seen a horizon before, since he was in it, by dirtside reckoning. Pointing this out had caused Steve to rasp at him not to be a smartass and to give new experiences a chance. So he had come along, and to his surprise, the landscape of Petaybee looked more open and spacious than, well, than space.

 But where space was black, Petaybee was blue and white, even when it turned dark, as it quickly did on their way from SpaceBase to the dinky little town where their guides met them. The sky was sort of dark ivory, and he could still see Petaybee’s sun, like a small snowball hanging in the sky, as well as its two moons, one organic and one company-manufactured, in the sky.

 Being here was sort of like being inside the moon, all pale and shining. SpaceBase was a hole and the town was ugly, but the countryside was really pretty fascinating, and the snocle ride into Kilcoole seemed all too short. The place was so much like something from his books, and yet so different that he knew he would never forget it even if he didn’t decide, as his father obviously hoped, that he would become a great geologist like his old man.

 Then, when they started unloading the equipment from the snocle, and a whole fleet of dogs, about fourteen to a sled, pulled up in front of the station, he started getting hooked.

 The dogs were the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen. They were red as a Mars moonscape but delicately featured with foxy, intelligent faces. At first their barking scared him a little bit, but then the lady-when she spoke he could tell she was a lady-driving his sled said they were friendly and he could pet them if he liked. They were soft! The tops of their coats were a little icy, but when he took his mitten off and dug into their fur with his hand, it was as soft as anything he had ever felt, and warm enough to keep his hand from freezing before he stuck it back into the glove. As he was bending over to pull the mitten back on, the dog licked his face. “Hey, boy!” Diego said, and hugged him.

 “Girl,” Lavelle, the driver, said. “That’s Dinah, my leader. She likes you, and she’s a good judge of character.”

 “Leader?”

 “The dog I talk to, and the one who tells me and the other dogs what’s going on up ahead, what to do. As you can see from this arrangement, mostly all the other dogs see is the rear end of the dog in front of them.” The dogs wagged their curled feathery tails and grinned as if that was a great joke they all shared.

 He rode with Lavelle while his dad rode in the sled in front of them. The other members of the expedition, two women, one a seismographer and one a mining engineer, and the man his dad said was a soil mechanics specialist, all of them Doctor Somebody-or-other, rode in the other sleds.

 It was a great ride, bundled along with the supplies into the furs on the sled, bumping and whisking over snow and ice while the dogs ran ahead, tails bouncing. But the best part was when, once they were well out of town with nothing much in the way, Lavelle let him drive.

 “When you want them to go, yell to Dinah, ‘Hike!’ and ‘Gee!’ if you want them to go right, ‘Haw!’ to the left, ‘Whoa!’ when you want them to stop. Dinah will do it and see that the others do it. She’s a smart pup. You stand here.” She showed him the rough hair-hide strips along the runners where he could put his feet without slipping. “The brake is here. Step on it if you want to stop, but you won’t stop very quick on ice.”

 The other sleds all passed them, but Lavelle didn’t care. As soon as he had his hands on the handlebars and his feet on the treads and Lavelle had strapped on the nets made of wood and babiche-rawhide strips-he shouted “Hike!” to Dinah and off she went, the others pulling with her, whining a little at the sound of a new voice.

 Dinah was, as Lavelle said, a smart dog. She wasn’t about to let the other sleds stay ahead of them and passed them easily, falling in behind the first sled, the one his father was riding in.

 The run to catch up was the best part, with the wind biting into his face and blowing his breath back, the whole white-and-blue world framed in the icicles clinging to his lashes and the ruff of his hood. As soon as they slowed down to fall in behind the other sled, he got cold, then bored at having to stay so far behind. Lavelle, loping beside him with a funny knee-high gait to let each cumbersome snowshoe clear the snow before she set it down again, began telling him about the great races her grandfather had told her about, the ones they used to have in the old days in Alaska, which was part of a country back on Earth.

 “One of the biggest races they had back in those days developed from a dogsled relay that took emergency serum from a big city to a little town called Nome far away,” she told him. “People admired the stamina and skill it took to do it, and so they made a race out of it. Whole towns sponsored dogs and their drivers, and people all over the world knew about it. Another race they had ran along the route the mail sled used to take. It spanned two countries, and drivers from all over brought their teams to compete. In both races, they still took a little mail with them to deliver at the end.”

 “Why did they need to send the mail by dogsled?” Diego asked. “That’s silly when they could use computers.”

 “Some places they didn’t have computers, sometimes,” she shouted back. “And sometimes folks just liked to prove they could do things in the old ways and still survive like their ancestors did. They were learning to be tough like them, you know?” She grinned, a very white grin in her sun-darkened face. “Tough like us.”

 He grinned back, but he thought privately it was a little backward to do things the hard way instead of learning new skills. But then, he was now doing things the old hard way and he was learning new skills.

 They camped that night and he listened to his father talking about rocks and stuff for a while, over rations that were much the same as what he ate on the ship. Then Lavelle slipped him a stick that smelled strong, but very spicy and interesting.

 “Eat it,” she said. “It’s good. Smoked salmon. I caught it and smoked it myself.”

 He nibbled on it and she sang him a peculiar song about catching that particular fish. She said the song was her own song, though the tune was to an old Irish song her Grandmother O’Toole had taught her, “The Star of the County Down.”

 The chorus went:

 “From SpaceBase down to Kilcoole town On out to Tanana Bay The wild fish swims but I caught him And he’s our food today.”

 He fell asleep quickly in the heated shelter. The next morning when he woke up, looking forward to maybe driving the dogs again, soft powdery snow was sifting down from the sky. He knew, scientifically, that the snow was part of this world’s ecosystem, but at the same time it seemed strange that he had spent so much time above this planet and had never been on it before. His father explained that snow was white rather than clear because it was a dense accumulation of light-reflecting frozen water crystals, but Lavelle showed him that each flake was a different, beautifully ornate design. He had to ride in the sled because Lavelle said they were nearing rougher country, and she had to be vigilant for the place the expedition was seeking. She promised to let him drive again on the way back.

 He spent a lot of time lying in the sled, catching flakes on his mitten and trying to memorize the shapes before they melted.

 “Maybe tonight at camp I’ll make you some snow ice cream,” Lavelle said, bending over him so that her breath blew icily into his face. “I’ve got some seal oil and dried berries with me, and a III lie sugar.”

 “Seal oil?” he asked.

 “Yeah. Gives you instant energy on the trail. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

 He pulled a face, and she pushed his ruff down over his eyes.

 But the storm picked up as they moved, and twice the Petaybean guy, who seemed to be Lavelle’s husband, asked Diego’s d”l her and the other men if they wanted to camp, but they said to keep on, that their instruments were showing them the way. The snow no longer fell in single, beautiful flakes but in clumpy sheets, HO hard that it was all Diego could do to see the tails of the dogs In front of him, never mind the other sleds. All around him the world was white, and the sled moved more and more slowly, while Siggy, as Lavelle called the Petaybean guy, tried to break trail, keep track of the sleds, and persuade everyone to stop.

 The ride had become much rougher, and although he couldn’t see anything, Diego knew they had left the plains, because the dogs were tugging the sleds up and down little hills and, finally, up a long, long pull.

 He heard Siggy yell something, and then he heard Dad cry out and the woman in front, Brit, whistle and call “Whoa, you mutts! Whoa! Oh, shit!” and multiple sounds of slipping, cracking, and sliding, but by that time the dogs had reached the summit and were plummeting down, too.

 A man screamed, and several heavy things rolled and tumbled just as the sled was suddenly airborne, and Diego felt himself flying more surely than he had ever flown in the spacecraft he had lived in since he was a baby.

 Lavelle called, “Whoa, Dinah! Back girl!” and Diego felt her hand pull on his ruff. For a moment she had him; then the sled jarred again and she fell and his hood was free, and he was falling from the sled, rolling, tumbling, into the snow, over and over, until his feet struck something soft at the same time his head struck something hard, and there was darkness.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 3                                                                                                   

 Yana tried to take the cat back to Clodagh’s that evening when Bunny picked her up, but the cat refused to cooperate. When she tried to pick it up to carry it outdoors to Bunny’s waiting sled, the cat escaped, firing a warning volley across her knuckles with its claws, and hid.

 Yana explained this to Clodagh while the big woman finished stirring the contents of a pot on the stove. Delicious smells came from the pot and from the oven.

 “Keep him,” Clodagh advised her. Looking around the room at the four identical felines lounging on various furnishings, she added with a slight smile, “I have extras. Besides, they go where they wish and do as they choose. You seem to have been chosen.”

 “Yes, but what am I supposed to do with it?” Yana asked.

 “Feed it,” Bunny answered. “That’s the important thing. And let it in and out as it likes, unless you want to keep an indoor tray for it.”

 “They do all right outdoors for prolonged periods,” Clodagh said. “They’ve been crossbred for that, so they don’t lose their tails and ears to frostbite the way their ancestors did. But they usually prefer a fire and a lap most of the time. They’re good company.”

 “Mm,” Yana said noncommittally. “I need to find out where to get things: food, clothing, wood. Someone brought a load and left it beside my door. Do you know who it was so 1 can thank them?”

 Clodagh shrugged. “Could have been anyone. One of Bunka’s relatives, maybe. Someone who knows you need more than the PTBs provided for you. Speaking of that, don’t forget your pack tonight. Not that that flimsy blanket will do you a lot of good. You’ll need a proper one.”

 “Where can I buy one of those?” Yana asked.

 “Not at the company store, that’s for sure!” Bunka said. “They don’t have anything there but obsolete spacer stuff.” She crossed to Clodagh’s bed and pulled aside the standard-issue blanket to reveal another-full of lovely soft yellows, blues, and pinks-underneath. “Here, feel.”

 Yana leaned over and felt. The blanket was thickly woven or knitted-she had no idea which-of some heavy, long-haired material. It would be wonderfully warm.

 “It’s beautiful,” she said.

 “Speaking of that, here comes Sinead and my sister Aisling now,” Clodagh said. “Sinead gathers the hair for spinning from the horses and dogs and sometimes the wild sheep she hunts and Aisling spins, dyes, and weaves the hair into the blankets. Perhaps they’ll make a trade.”

 Another woman entered the room. She was almost as round as Clodagh; her face and hair bore a resemblance to Clodagh’s, as well, but the newcomer had a much dreamier look about her. She was followed closely by a small, wiry woman who helped her off with her wraps.

 “Welcome, sister, Sinead,” Clodagh said, smiling at the two women. “We were just talking about you. Have you eaten?”

 “Nah,” said the shorter and slighter-built of the two women, shucking her outer garments off with great dispatch. “We heard you were entertaining tonight and came to gawk.” She stuck out a hand to Yana. “Sinead Shongili here. Nice to meet you. Did you make it home okay without falling again?”

 “You were the person who showed me how to waddle!” Yana exclaimed.

 “None other. And this lovely lady is Aisling Senungatuk,” Sinead said, fussing a bit over Aisling, who was settling her ample form into a rocking chair Clodagh had pulled from a corner of the room. Aisling smiled warmly up at her partner and indicated that she was comfortable.

 “Yana was just admiring the blanket you women made for me, sister,” Clodagh told Aisling.

 “I’ll put you on my list, Yana,” Aisling promised in one of the loveliest voices Yana had ever heard.

 “Yeah, the blankets they send you from the company are all crap,” Sinead said. “I need to gather some more material for weaving, but my Aisling can make you the most gorgeous damn blanket you’ve ever seen, can’t you, love?”

 Aisling nodded, her eyes dancing when she looked at her partner. “You bet.”

 “I’m afraid I haven’t got much to trade you for it,” Yana told them, “apart from some obsolete insignia. Had to give away any souvenirs, and bring only what I couldn’t do without. Baggage allowance didn’t give me any latitude there. You don’t know where I can get a small computer, do you?”

 Sinead gave a merry laugh. “You’ve got to be joking.”

 Clodagh said, more gently, “Oh, no, dear, that’s not for the likes of us, goodness me no. Nobody here in Kilcoole has such a thing. We’re just poor ignorant ips you know, and the PTBs like it that way.”

 “Ips?”

 “The inconvenient people,” Aisling elaborated. “That’s who they got to colonize this place. They wanted our land on Earth, you see, and promised us a new place in exchange. Frankly, we had nothing to say about it. Evicted, we were. No one could afford to own land anymore. So we came here, as they intended.” Her eyes dropped as she finished the statement; then she turned an apologetic look to Clodagh. “Sorry. It doesn’t do to get me started. And we should be going now. We didn’t really mean to interrupt supper. We just came to see if there was anything we could do to help.” She nodded in Yana’s direction.

 “Thanks,” Yana said, and Clodagh showed them to the door, Sinead darting three steps forward and two back for each measure of her partner’s statelier progress.

 When they left, Clodagh pulled a bottle and some cups from the shelf over the cloth-draped cabinets along one wall and asked, “Will you be havin’ a drop with your supper, dear?”

 “Pardon?”

 “Clodagh’s home brew,” Bunny said. “It’s good. Gives you good dreams.”

 “I don’t know. With all the medicine I’ve had lately . . .”

 “It’ll do you good,” Clodagh said. “Has medicinal properties. You can’t get sick drunk on the stuff-just a little pleasantly blurred. You look as though you need blurring, my dear.”

 “Clodagh’s the local healer, so you can trust her on that score,” Bunny told Yana.

 “Just a little then,” Yana agreed. The spicy smells from the stove were making her long to put something in her mouth. If not food, then drink was not a bad alternative.

 But with the drink came a heaping bowl of some sort of noodles and a red meat sauce, accompanied by hot, crusty bread. She burned her lip on the first mouthful, something she had never done with prefab ship food.

 “This is delicious,” she said when she had had a few cooler bites. “What is it?”

 “Moose spaghetti,” Clodagh told her.

 There was another knock at the door. Bunny hopped up, slurping in a strand of spaghetti, and opened it. A rush of cold air and a parka-clad figure entered the room at the same time.

 The person, a woman, pointedly did not look at Yana as she unbuttoned her coat.

 “Sedna, how’s it going?” Clodagh asked her.

 “Oh, fine. Just wondered if you had some mare’s butter I could have. We’re about out.”

 “No problem. Say, Sedna, have you met Major Maddock yet?” Clodagh asked.

 Sedna shook her blond curls and then allowed herself to look squarely at Yana, a look which told Yana that meeting her was more the point of the visit than the mare’s milk. She thought she vaguely recognized the woman from Charlie Demintieff’s send-off earlier that morning.

 “Major Maddock,” Clodagh began.

 “Yanaba, please, Clodagh, or just Yana,” she said.

 “Yana, this is Sedna Quinn. How’s your boy’s earache, Sedna?”

 “Better, Clodagh, since you made up that poultice.”

 “You got time to eat?”

 “Nah, I got to get back and help Im scrape that moose hide. I’ll bring you some-“

 “Well, say, if you’re that busy, why don’t you take some of this moose spaghetti home for supper? That way you won’t have to fuss.”

 So Sedna sat at the edge of her chair with her coat half-buttoned while Clodagh dished up a containerful of the pasta.

 “So, Bunny, pretty sad about Charlie, huh?” Sedna asked.

 “Yeah, too bad. I hope he’s gonna be all right. It’ll be lonesome up there, I bet. I wish they’d given us time to send him off good, make a song for him. He’ll miss the breakup latchkay and everything.”

 “I’ll make a song for him, even if he won’t hear it” Clodagh said.

 “Maybe you could record it or write it down and Bunny could take it in when she’s back at SpaceBase,” Yana suggested.

 Sedna straightened her back, gave Yana a pitying look, and said primly, “A song has to be sung from one person to the other to be any good.”

 “I’m sorry,” Yana said. “I don’t know your customs yet. It’s just that I could see how much you all liked Lieutenant Demintieff and I know how important it is to a soldier to hear from friends, whether they’re dirtside or on some other facility.”

 “It’s okay, Yana,” Clodagh said. “Sedna, Yana’s going to be staying with us here so she’ll find out soon enough. The fact is, Yana, nobody here knows how to record much less write.”

 Yana sputtered with surprise. “They don’t? You don’t? But how the hell can that be? The Petaybean recruits I’ve met all know how; Bunny surely must know how to have passed her snocle test.”

 Bunny shook her head. “That’s all done on comm link- verbal and visual cues. And of course the company teaches the soldiers to read, at least enough to get by in the corps, in basic training and at the officers academy down at Chugiak-Fergus, but other than that . . .” She shrugged.

 “Surely the colonists who first came here . . .” Yana insisted.

 Clodagh shook her head. “Only those who were high officers in the company already. Oh, sure and some of our great-grandparents maybe knew a little bit at one time-maybe as much as the company teaches soldiers now-but back then, so the songs tell us, everybody had fancy machines to talk to them and show them pictures of what needed to be done. The company apparently didn’t think we needed the machines as bad as we needed other stuff when they sent us here, and such things were far too dear for the likes of us to import once we were here. So there’s just , a few of those machines on the planet, the ones the company needs to keep here for their own business. As for your written books, well, I don’t suppose anybody had a clue where to find many of them anymore, except for the special ones the scientists had. So we sort of fell back into just talking and singing and telling about what happened, like people did way back a long time ago.”

 “We do okay without that stuff,” Bunny said, with a defensive edge to her voice that was immediately tempered by wistful-ness. “Except, sometimes, like now, but still there are some people who can . . .” She turned to Clodagh.

 “Including, if I’m not mistaken, your own Uncle Sean, Bunka,” Sedna said. “Is that so, Clodagh?”

 “Of course. He’s a Shongili.” To Yana, Clodagh explained, “The Shongilis were originally of Inuit stock but already had careers as valued Intergal scientists when Petaybee was founded. Scan’s and Sinead’s grandda was the most respected man in our hemisphere until his death.” With what seemed undue pride she nodded emphatically. “Shongilis definitely can read-books and books if they want to. Even Sinead can-Aisling’s seen her do it, but said Sinead told her mostly she’d rather read animal tracks instead and rely on her own sharp ears and long memory for stories and songs like everybody else.”

 Bunny bounced up and exclaimed, “I forgot! That’s right! Uncle Sean can not only write, but he has stuff to write with and a recorder. He could do it!”

 “Your uncle is an important man, a busy man, Bunny,” Sedna said, horrified. “He’s got problems to solve for the whole planet. We can’t go bothering him with every little thing.”

 “Charlie being shipped out isn’t really a little thing, though, is it, Sedna?” Clodagh asked. “No, I think that’s a good idea. If Yana knows how to read and make recordings, too, and if you’d help us do it, Yana, we wouldn’t need to bother him very much. He could just loan her the machine. You think he’d do that, Bunny?”

 “He will if I ask him and tell him it’s your idea,” Bunny said. “I’ll go up to his place in a couple of days, next time I don’t have any fares to and from SpaceBase.”

 “Maybe Yana’d like to go with you. I bet Scan would like to meet somebody else who knows writing.”

 “How about it, Yana? You’re not scared of the dogs, are you?”

 Yana shook her head, grinning. “No, I’d like to ride in that contraption.” As advertised, the home brew was starting to blur her.

 Sedna, a container of moose spaghetti in hand, said goodbye; she crossed at the doorway with yet more drop-in guests, one of whom Yana had already met. Bunny’s Uncle Seamus was less encrusted with snow and ice this time and was accompanied by a tiny woman with short, wavy silver hair.

 “Slainte, Clodagh! Bunny said you were having the major over for dinner and Moira and me wanted to bring her some fish. Here you go, Major,” Seamus said, and handed her a string of stiff frozen fish as if he were handing her a promotion to executive vice-president of Intergal.

 “Thanks, uh... Seamus,” she said, pretending to admire them. She didn’t have any idea what to do with them, so she hung the string over the back of the chair, where it was instantly the object of much interest from the cats.

 “Get away, you lot,” Clodagh said, wading through orange fur to rescue the fish. The cats stood on their hind feet and batted at the string as she held it aloft. “Better hang them outside until she’s ready to go, Seamus.” ‘

 “Right,” Seamus said, casting an odd sidelong glance at Yana.

 She waved and said thanks again, and planned to ask Bunny later about the etiquette involving gifts of fish.

 They stayed a short while longer, and while they were there two more people came by, a rakish-looking girl introduced as Arnie O’Malley and her little boy, Finnbar, who chased the cats. Finally, all of the extraneous guests left, the girl calling, “Wait’ll you see my new latchkay dress, Clodagh! The lads will be making songs about me for years to come.”

 “That Arnie, always showing off,” Bunny said disgustedly.

 “What are these songs everybody talks about?” Yana asked. She was full of food and on her third glass of home brew and was feeling pleasantly relaxed and even a bit sleepy. “Are there a lot of musicians in this town?”

 “Nah, only old man Ungar and his bunch,” Bunny said. “But everybody makes up songs.”

 “Even/body?” Yana had never personally known anybody who wrote songs, or admitted to the practice.

 “Yes,” Clodagh said. “We make songs about everything, even one about the reason we make songs, but that particular song belongs to Mick Oomilialik. Maybe he’ll sing it for you at the latchkay.”

 “What’s that?”

 “Oh, it’s a big feast and sing where we get together to talk things over. My Inuit ancestors called such a thing a potlatch and my Irish ancestors called it a ceili, so one of the first batch here combined it into latchkay. Anyway, everybody makes songs to sing then about what’s happened during the last season. Sometimes villages get together and share food and news.”

 “So you only have them once a season?”

 “Except for weddings, funerals, and other special events, yes.”

 “Well, what might you write a song about, for instance?”

 “Charlie having to leave is one kind of thing. 1 might write a song pretending I was Charlie.”

 “And you can make up music and everything?”

 “Oh, no, not usually. Mostly we use the old tunes. And there’s drumming, too,” Bunny said. From Clodagh’s wall she pulled down a circular drum, holding it in one hand and using the other to extract a stick from the back of the drum.

 “Our drums can be used like Inuit drums and beaten with a wand in strict time,” Clodagh explained, “or if you want to use it like an Irish bodhran, you beat it with that little stick. Or your fingers, if you’re real clever. When a song is first presented, we use only the drums so everybody can hear the words. Later on, if the song’s owner permits it, others sing along and other instruments join in.”

 “I can sing her one of mine,” Bunny said.

 Clodagh looked mildly surprised. “Okay. I’ll drum. Which one?”

 “About getting my snocle license. Irish Washerwoman.”

 “What?” Yana asked.

 “Oh, ‘Irish Washerwoman’ is the tune,” Clodagh told her. “Our ancestors liked each other well enough but it was easier for the Inuits to adapt to the Irish music than it was for the Irish to adapt to the Inuit. Of course, some of us don’t have the voice for Irish melodies, so then we sing in the Inuit way.”

 “It’s more like chanting,” Bunny said. “So our singing is like us-all mixed up. Anyway, here’s my song:

 “Oh, I’m getting my license to snocle today

 from the big shots although I’m a Petaybee maid

 You’ll forgive me if I’m very vocal, hooray!

 But I’m getting my license to snocle today.

  

 “That’s all there is,” Bunny finished. “But I sure was happy about it, even if it’s just a short little song. I didn’t want to brag too much.”

 Clodagh said, “Here, I’ll sing you a song in the other style.

 “Before it awakened the world was alive. It brooded in a shell of ice and stone. Alone, thinking of its own mysteries, Deep dreaming. Jajai-ija.”

 Clodagh was chanting slowly and deliberately, and the effect was that of an eerie tune, similar to some styles Yana had heard on shipboard holos and in company pubs throughout the galaxy. The last note of the verse was very low, almost guttural.

 “Then came the men with their ships, their fire Awakening the fire within the world Sundering rock, cutting river channels, Great holes were gouged for ocean beds. Jajai-ija.

 “Painful was the awakening, the beginning As only beginnings can be painful But the pain roused the world from dreaming Melted its blanket and dribbled water in The mind of the world Jajai-ija!

 “Awake, the world grew leaves Awake, the world grew roots Awake, the world grew mosses and lichens Awake, the world knew wind. Jajai-ija!

 “Then came more men and the world grew wings The world grew feet and hands. The world grew paws and claws. The world grew feathers and fur.

 “Noses smelled the new world and mouths tasted it Fangs tore it and fins and scales swam through The new waters. And the tails of the world Wagged, happy that it had been given a voice. Happy that it woke up. Jajai-ja-jija!”

 Yana nodded appreciatively, while pictures of ice caves and snow plains and various disjointed animals somehow connected to the planet’s surface kaleidoscoped in front of her eyes. The blur had become audible as well as visual. When Clodagh was done, Yana smiled and thanked her for the song and the meal and refrained from saying that the Corps of Engineers terraforming department might well wish to adopt that song as their anthem if they ever heard it. Clodagh began clearing the table, and Bunny pulled on her parka.

 Although Bunny was willing to drive her home, she let Bunny take her dogs straight back to their kennels and walked back. Blurred and blithe, she carried her pack and her string of fish, enjoying the snapping freshness of the air, thinking that maybe the world in Clodagh’s song had lungs, too - healthy ones.

 She hung the fish outside the door, as they had hung at Clodagh’s, up high, the effort costing her another coughing fit that doubled her over in the snow until she was afraid she would freeze to death. She crawled inside and started to spread the blanket on her bed, then saw by the moon’s light through the windows that there was already a soft brown fur spread over it, the cat peacefully curled on top of it. Yana gratefully joined the little animal, glad of its steady, contented breathing and its warmth.

 Warmth. Diego shuddered to life, staring out through eyelashes frozen together, feeling himself dragged. He rolled over. He hurt bad. His dad had him under the arms and was tugging him, sliding him, inch by inch, over the springy, snow-covered surface.

 “I’m okay, Dad. I can do it,” he said, and rolled over, away from his father. Dad looked as if he needed Diego to pull him in turn. His lips were cracked and bloodless, but there was a great deal of blood elsewhere, frozen on his face and parka ruff from a cut on his forehead.

 “Cave,” Dad said, shouting against the wind. “Under-the ledge. Limestone-“

 “Tell me when we get in there,” Diego yelled back.

 Somewhere very far away dogs howled, and he thought maybe he heard voices, too, but they didn’t sound close. That Dinah was something, though. Maybe Lavelle would let her loose, so she could come and find them.

 “We’ll be okay, Dad,” he said, as much to reassure himself as his father, but even to his own ears his voice sounded no louder than a whisper compared to the wind.

 They crawled toward the piece of shadow looming under the side of the hill amid all the white. Snow drifted and blew in front of it.

 His father took a laser pistol from his pocket. “Wild . . . animals,” he said, and they crawled into the opening.

 They huddled inside, listening to the wind howl outside. Diego’s dad looked bad to him; he seemed to have doubled his age in just a few minutes. His black hair was iced over, and the thick black eyebrows that normally made his dark eyes seem so penetrating were dead white with encrusted snow and ice. His expression was not so much scared as dazed, and the blood from the cut was running again, pretty freely. Diego’s own face was wet, too, as was the ruff on his parka. Then he realized that was because it was warmer here in the mouth of the cave.

 “Dad, let’s go on back in. It’s warm in here. Come on, let’s keep out of the cold till the storm’s over.”

 He felt more like his father’s father than his son then, and that was as scary as being stuck out in the blizzard. But Dad nodded a little stiffly and followed him.

 The passage sloped sharply downward for a time, and it was very narrow. Dad had to squeeze sideways and kneel to get through one part, but it had grown so warm that Diego took off his hat, mittens, and muffler and stuffed them in his pocket and unfastened his parka. About this time he began to hear the humming from inside the cave, as if it housed some huge machine. For all he knew, maybe it did. The company had made this planet, hadn’t they? At least that’s what they claimed, though Diego privately thought it was pretty weird to create such a physically inhospitable place.

 The path bent sharply to the right, then to the left, and seemed to stop. Diego groped toward the wall in front of him, his hands touching strange indentations, like grooves swirling in some sort of design.

 With his touch, the wall gave way and a soft, eerie light from within sent a shaft to meet them. Diego pressed forward into the room, where flame-colored liquid bubbled up in a central pool and the walls glowed with phosphorescence, where roots and rock formations twined and curled into strange designs in the elongated, rough shapes of animals and men, and where the humming was so loud, so perfect, so beautiful that after a while Diego thought he must be hearing the voices of the angels he had once read about-and they were telling him things. He listened so closely that he could not hear his father screaming.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 4                                                                              

 Yana awoke the next morning at the cat’s insistence. It stood by her head and, every time she tried to go back to sleep, poked its nose in her face. She seriously considered throwing it across the room, but then decided that both it and she needed something to eat. She could hardly inflict corporal punishment for a reasonable demand.

 She had a collapsible pot in her survival kit and still had the water left in the thermos jug Bunny had loaned her. She set water on to heat and retrieved one of the fish from the hook outside her door, but from there on she had no idea what to do with it.

 There were still some food pellets in her personal baggage, so she gulped down a green one and a pink one and set the fish on the stove to thaw. When it had well and truly stunk up the cabin, she gave it to the cat, who danced with delight.

 “Don’t tell Seamus,” she said to the cat. “I think he meant for me to cook it, but between you and me, I never learned how to cook a meal, just get the basic pills I need down my gullet.”

 The cat looked up through slit eyes, purring and growling over the fish at the same time, its expression clearly saying, “Your loss is my gain.”

 Yana was used to the close confinement of a living area within a hostile environment but found that despite her fatigue and illness she had trouble remaining inside her cabin for more than two hours at a time. It was cold outdoors, and the gear she had to wear to be outside was heavy and clumsy, but she could by God breathe the air, however gingerly.

 During the few hours when the sun made the sky bright blue and the snow sparkle, she would have clawed her way through the door to get out if she’d had to. With all of its current landmasses clustered near the poles, Petaybee’s light and darkness cycles closely resembled those of the polar outposts of Earth, where both extremes seemed to last for months at a time. Fortunately, she had arrived late in the dark cycle, so she got some differentiation between night and day, though not as much as she would have gotten in the artificially regulated watch cycles aboard company corps spacecraft.

 She saw someone sliding past her cabin on long skis and rushed outside without her hat to ask them where they had gotten the skis.

 The young boy flushed with more than activity. “They- uh-they’re made around here,” he said finally, but she could see the Intergal logo on his boots.

 “Could I buy a pair at the company store, do you know?” she asked, thinking she had yet to find the damned store.

 He didn’t say anything but slithered hurriedly past, which told her they probably were neither made on Petaybee nor sold at the store: more likely they had been “relocated” illegally from SpaceBase.

 Down the street, someone carrying a package emerged from the doorway of one of the houses. The figure, of rather greater mass than most, walked-waddled-glided toward her on the ice, and Yana recognized Aisling, the blanket maker she had met at Clodagh’s.

 “Slainte, Yana,” Aisling said.

 “Uh . . . slainte, yourself, Aisling. Say, I’m trying to find my way around the village. Can you show me where the store is?”

 “Sure. I just left there. Why, what do you need?”

 “Nothing in particular. I just wanted to know what was available.”

 “Not much, but come on, I’ll show you. Mostly, we try to make our own from what the planet provides. Some of us trade what we make at the store for the few things they have that we can’t manufacture ourselves. Our stuff never stays in the store, though. I think they’re sold for triple, maybe four times, what we’re paid, on ships and space stations and to other colonies. So mostly we deal directly with each other. You know, one of my blankets for one of the good skinning knives Seamus makes, or Sinead will trade a moose hindquarter for a mountain sheep fleece for me or enough mare’s butter for our lamps. Old Eithne Naknek often trades the sweaters she knits for food and wood, and we all trade hides to cut for boots and parkas. When I can get cloth, I can make real pretty things for latchkays. Used to do that a lot, but since the SpaceBase closed to civilians, you can’t hardly get fabric anymore.”

 “I can see where I need to get to know who to go to for what,” Yana said. She could also see that she was going to need some barterable commodity other than company scrip to get by. She had never tried hunting for food before. Most planets where she had touched down had still been too new for anyone to be sure what was palatable and what was poisonous; and anyway, there was always the awkward possibility of ending up inadvertently lunching on one’s host species.

 Aisling took her into the store. From the outside, it looked like just another house; inside it seemed even tinier, with the stove dominating the room and counters all around the edges. Flanking the stove were two tables, sparsely littered with bags of nutrient tablets and uniform neckties and buttons, as well as trousers in

 very small sizes. Aisling was scanning the shelves beyond the counters.

 “Look, Yana. There’s a good small pot. You better grab it. We’ve got one, but anything useful goes quick.”

 Yana purchased the pot. Looking further for something useful, she saw only small machine parts, burned-out chips, and multicolored wires.

 “Sinead takes the wire and welds it into designs on tools and pots,” Aisling told her as they left. “And uses the chips for jewelry. You should come over for supper sometime and we’ll show you. Though everybody will be bringing things to trade or gift with at the latchkay.”

 Yana said she would like to do that, and Aisling continued on her way.

 Two days later, as Yana was slowly waking up with a cup of hot watery beverage between her hands, she was jolted out of her semi-trance by the sound of dog feet and dog whines and howls outside. Bunny’s face, framed by her parka ruff and mittens, appeared in the window. Yana waved at her to come in, and Bunny stuck her head in the door.

 “If you still want to come with me up to Uncle Sean’s place, come on. I’ll wait out here with the dogs, but you better hurry. It’s a good two-hour trip, and we may have to track him down once we get there.”

 Yana nodded and, after throwing two more logs in the stove for good measure, pulled on her boots and tugged her coverall and coat over her uniform. Grabbing mittens, hat, and muffler, she walked outside. The cat followed her.

 “You sit there,” Bunny told her, indicating the appropriate place in the sled. She wrapped furs and quilts around her. “It’ll be cold sitting still. Later on, when you’re feeling better, I’ll show you how to drive dogs. Driving keeps you warm.”

 Then Bunny put in Yana’s lap a pair of the big oval nets Yana had seen hanging over Clodagh’s door. “You always want to have all your survival gear with you when you leave the village,” Bunny said. “I don’t think we’ll need snowshoes, but you never know.”

 Something warm landed on Yana’s thighs and burrowed under the furs. She bent over and saw a familiar orange face peeping out at her.

 “Oho! Bunny, can you get rid of the cat?”

 “It’s okay. That’s one of Clodagh’s cats, and they go everywhere.” With that she whistled up the dogs, pulled the brake up from the ice, and pushed with her foot, as if the sled were a scooter. With much wagging and anxious whining, the foxy-looking red dogs began pulling the sled down the icy expanse between the houses, around a corner, and out onto the river again.

 For a while the ride was serene, the sled swooshing over white still lit by the light of moons and stars, Bunny occasionally calling to the dogs or to Yana to look at one set of tracks or another and pointing out “snow goose,” “fox,” or “moose,” accordingly. Then she whistled more sharply, shouted “Ha!,” and the dogs made a rather sharp turn up over the bank of the river and through the slender, snow-draped trees.

 The sled bounced along from there, the dogs frisking up hills and running down them, the sled sometimes suspended breathlessly in midair for a moment as it went over a bump. Bunny kept control with the brake and her voice, and once the lead dog, Maud, turned back to look at her and whined when Bunny called out “Gee!” Bunny promptly called out “Ha!” instead, and Maud, satisfied, turned back to the trail. Mostly the dogs trotted at a leisurely pace, and Yana got a good view of their excretory functions as they stopped to mark the trail every once in a while.

 Finally, however, the trail turned downward for a long time, and then a vast treeless straightaway of ice and snow stretched clear to the horizon, broken only by huge, jagged, upright ice teeth that seemed to be shifting ever so slightly against the brightening sky. The howling of dogs close at hand occasioned answering howls from Bunny’s dogs.

 Bunny whistled the dogs to a stop then, and Yana saw that the coral-tinted squarish hill between them and the giant ice teeth was not actually a mound of snow kissed by the rising sun, but a building painted in that unlikely shade. As the dogs trotted to a halt, they rounded the corner of the building, and Yana saw a snocle similar to Bunny’s sitting before half a dozen small houses, each with a howling red fox-hound on top of it, caroling a greeting to the newcomers.

 “Here we are,” Bunny said. “And it looks like he’s at home, too.”

 Yana had formed no preconceptions about Bunny’s relative, apart from expecting him to vaguely resemble someone of the blood kin she had already met. But Dr. Sean Shongili wasn’t like anyone she had ever met, either here on Petaybee or anywhere else in her lifetime-despite the fact that she had the distinct feeling that she had encountered him before.

 Bunny had rapped on the door, singing out a cheerful “Slainte, Uncle Sean,” a greeting lost in the canine chorus. She urgently beckoned Yana to hurry up, but Yana had to disentangle herself from the furs and the cat before she could stagger to her feet. That long, cold ride in a less-than-comfortable position had stiffened all her joints. She hated to appear less than agile and forced her body to move with something near a semblance of normality.

 The door she approached pulled inward, and with snow glare impairing her vision, Yana could distinguish only a medium-sized form, for once not distorted by layers of clothing. The man was actually in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the collar open.

 “Uncle Scan, I gotcha home! I’ve brought Yanaba Maddock to see you. And 1 gotta favor to ask. In Clodagh’s name.” On those words, Bunny put a hand on Yana’s back and propelled her into the house.

 Blinking to adjust her eyes, Yana looked about a room that sprouted unusual shapes from every surface, wall and ceiling, a veritable djinni’s cave of wonders and a heinz of unassorted utensils, tools, parts, and, as usual, felines. These were six times the size of the one left curled in the sled furs and not a one of them was orange-colored. Fine heads turned, and autocratic amber, yellow, and green eyes assessed her. In a basket near the fire, a black and white bitch with a harlequin face lifted her head, sniffing, moved her foreleg to hide the pups that nursed her, and remained alert the entire time the visitors remained in Scan’s cabin. That was the sum of Yana’s first impression. Then the man dominated the scene.

 Scan Shongili smiled, and his eyes did, too: sparkly silver eyes that looked straight into hers, clever, “seeing” eyes that were bright with an unqualified welcome, a decided change from the superficial social manners that were usually all she was accorded and many degrees more kindly than Colonel Giancarlo. But Giancarlo had a mission for her, and he probably never regarded his mission personnel as remotely human.

 Shongili wasn’t much taller than she was; a subtle aura of great strength, intelligence, and charm emanated from him, though charm was a quality she had never trusted-until now. He was a lean man, which for starters she liked, with a narrow face, slightly broad at the eyes, which were wide-set and large; cheekbones that were more Magyar than Indian; a generous mouth with finely carved lips, white, even teeth just visible behind them; and a purposeful chin and jaw line. Not a man easily persuaded from his purpose.

 “Well, now, so you’re Major Maddock,” Scan said, and she hurried to pull off her right glove as he extended what looked like an abnormally long-fingered hand. But it was warm and grasped hers just firmly enough for her to sense, again, the unexpected resources in him. In fact, the touch of his skin on hers was slightly electric, stimulating.

 Then the silver eyes blinked and something in the altered look made her frown slightly, confused, for all that there didn’t seem to be any diminution of his welcome or smile.

 “Has everyone on this frozen ball of ice heard of me now?” she asked, slightly petulant. She forced a smile on her lips to make her words seem more of a joke than they had sounded in her own ears.

 “Good news travels faster than bad on Petaybee,” Scan said. He moved with lithe grace to the ever-present stove of a Petaybee home, pouring three cups from the equally ubiquitous steaming pot. “Actually, I have the only radio link with the town around. Adak at the snocle depot gets downright chatty if anything interesting happens-such as Kilcoole getting a new citizen, and a war hero at that. Here’s something to warm your guts after such a long sled ride, Major.”

 “Thanks,” Yana said, ignoring the war hero comment and hoping to restore herself to his good opinion after that flash of aggro. “You’re very kind.”

 His silver eyes glinted as he handed her the cup. “Bunny would skin me alive if I never asked you where your mouth was,” he said, and winked with pure mischief before he presented Bunny with her mug.

 “Too right, Unk,” Bunny said, “and Scan makes a good bev.”

 Yana clasped it in both hands, to warm numb fingers, taking her time about sipping a liquid she knew would be too hot to drink immediately. The rising steam carried a spicily inviting odor to her nostrils.

 “Charlie’s gone, I hear,” Sean went on, hitching his hips up onto the nearest flat surface.

 “Yah! With barely time to say good-byes, and no song,” Bunny said, then cocked her head at him, smiling winsomely. “Which is why we wondered if we could have the recorder. The major here knows all about equipment like yours, and she volunteered to help us send him a letter. To make up for his sudden departure, like.”

 Sean flicked a gaze at Yana, and she quirked her lips in a smile.

 “Charlie-boy’s not the one to irritate folk,” Sean said. “Wonder why they posted him off-planet.” But he put his cup down and, with a single fluid movement, spun on one heel to an overburdened wall cabinet from which he unerringly extracted a recording device. Not, Yana realized as she saw the face of it, an obsolete affair but nearly state-of-the-art from the last time she had been issued one. The cabinet was crammed with technological gadgets of all kinds, half of which she couldn’t put a name or use to. She watched as Sean negligently pushed back into place equipment that would have been worth a small fortune on any planet, much less a technologically starved one like Petaybee.

 “Half of it doesn’t work,” he said, without seeming to have noticed her attention. “Petaybee’s hard on any kind of instrumentation and machinery.”

 “How do you manage your work then?” she blurted out.

 He gave an diffident shrug. “I improvise. We do a lot of that on Petaybee.” He handed her the recorder. “Do you understand this type?”

 She examined the display keys more closely and nodded, deciding to limit her comments. “Had one almost like this on my last assignment.” She slid the thin rectangle into a thigh pocket. Then she nodded at the big cats. “I haven’t seen anything like them here.”

 “Them?” Shongili looked half-surprised, half-amused. “My track-cats. When they’re of a mind, they’ll even pull a sled.”

 “They’re big enough.” Yana moved slightly on her buttocks. She was near enough to the stove to begin to feel the heat. She shrugged her jacket open a little more. “Do they always look at a person like that?”

 Scan laughed. “They’re always interested in new things.”

 “Did you design them like that?”

 Scan’s mobile eyebrows developed a quizzical quirk. “Design them? They designed themselves,” he said with a shrug.

 “Yes, but I thought you and your . . .”

 “Not them. What he did; what I do is check on adaptability, not evolution or even mutation, but something in between as each species makes subtle improvements to survive in conditions their ancestors never had to cope with. Petaybee is a prime example of survival of the fittest.”

 “He’s off,” Bunny said with an air of resignation, and let herself fall backward into the chair she had been perched on. There she struggled out of her outer layers, preparing to endure. She shot Yana a grin to quell any apprehension.

 “Like cats whose ears are no longer susceptible to frostbite?” Yana asked, remembering Clodagh’s offhanded comment.

 “Exactly.” Scan grinned. But the humor in his silvery gaze held more than acceptance of her statement. He was probing, too, and a lot more deftly than Colonel Giancarlo could.

 “Why haven’t you done as much for the humans stuck here?” Yana asked, not quite certain she could tease this unusual man, but suspecting she could.

 “Ah, them.” Sean waved a hand. “We genetic manipulators aren’t allowed to help humans. They have to do it the hard way.”

 “Have they?”

 Sean cocked his head, his amusement not one whit diminished. “I’d say there have been . . . adjustments made. Learning what furs, for instance, are most suitable for the purpose of keeping human bodies warm.”

 “That’s intellectual, not biological,” Yana said.

 “Mankind’s intelligence distinguishes us from the animals, my dear major. And allows adjustments much faster than animals can alter their genetic codes.”

 “Do they? Here on Petaybee?”

 “Over the last two hundred years, they’d have to, to survive. Wouldn’t they?” He drained his cup. “Of course, the original Admin was sensible about some of the species they sent, which helped.”

 “Which ones?” Yana asked.

 Bunny snorted, obviously knowing the answer.

 Scan grinned, a grin of pure unadulterated mischief. “Why, the curly-coats.” When Yana cocked her head at him inquiringly, he beckoned to her. “I’ll show you.”

 “They’re his pride and joy, Yana. You’re in for it,” Bunny said, propping her feet up on a footstool and obviously not intending to join Scan and Yana.

 “I asked.”

 “The curly-coats are equines,” Sean said, and as he cupped her elbow with his hand, she experienced the same electric shock of contact. “Originally from the Siberian area of the Eastern Hemisphere. They exist comfortably in extreme temperatures, having a spare flap in their nose that closes off frost. They survive on vegetation that wouldn’t keep a goat alive. Small, sturdy, able to maneuver on tracks even a sled has trouble running.”

 He led her down a corridor from the main room, past closed doors, and into a link between the house and a spread of other buildings that she took for research and laboratory facilities. The link passed in front of other closed doors, some with security keypads. She was adept enough at sussing her immediate surroundings without appearing to do so, yet she had the sense that Sean was aware of her automatic scanning. They came to the end of the link, which opened onto a paddock with snow fences keeping the drifts from its surface. In the paddock were a dozen small horses, curly-coated to the point of being shaggy, with long fur icicled under their throats, and long feathers curling down from their sturdy barrels and down their short thick legs. At first she wasn’t sure which end was which, since the manes were as long as the tails and just as thick. There were several brown animals, but most were a creamy color; they were all browsing on what looked much like the icicled spines she had seen on the riverside three days before.

 “You’d never spot half of them in this terrain” was Yana’s first comment.

 Sean chuckled, apparently pleased by her remark. “They’re survivors!”

 “What do you use them for?”

 “A variety of things. Their milk we can drink, fresh, frozen, or fermented, or make into a butter which we use in our lamps.”

 “I have,” she said, restraining herself from wrinkling her nose.

 “It smells but it’s better than nothing. Their coats we can comb and use for wool.” Yana thought of the warm soft blanket she had seen in Clodagh’s. “We can eat their flesh, drink their blood-“ He glanced at her to see if that repulsed her, but she had eaten far worse than curly-coated equines in her time- worse and tougher than these little animals looked. “We can ride them, use them as pack animals, use them as extra blankets if we’re caught out in bad weather. They don’t object to sleeping with humans . . .”

 She looked at him then, for the undertone to his comment was both risible and dogmatic. His silver eyes glinted with the mischief that seemed an essential part of his public self.

 “They are amenable to anything we can think up for them to do. And they never complain or balk.” Thai seemed to be of A paramount importance. “They’ve saved many a team from hypothermic death and starvation. In fact, you can bleed them quite a bit before they are weakened.”

 “Useful.”

 “Indeed.”

 “Were they used by the teams that disappeared?”

 Sean was surprised at that question and scratched the back of his neck. “Been given a few ghouly stories to keep you awake at night?”

 “Not ghouly to me,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve been first-team on a few company planets, a couple where I’d’ve been glad to have a few curly-coats along.”

 “Oh?”

 She could see interest sparking the glint in his eyes. He leaned back against the plasglas, propping his arms on the wide sills, apparently not affected by contact with the cold surface, whereas she could feel the frost of it oozing into the semi warm link.

 She gave a laugh. “Don’t get me started on that phase of my life. It’s over.” She made a cutting gesture with her hands.

 “Then it’s time to sing about it. You came through.”

 “Sing? Me?” She ducked her head in denial. “Not me- couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

 Sean smiled-almost challengingly, she thought. “Inuit chants can’t be called tunes, not without a stretch of the definition, but they do grab the mind and make audiences listen. I think they’d like to hear your songs.”

 Yana was not affecting modesty: she just didn’t think any of her experiences were worth hearing about, and certainly some of them she wouldn’t talk, much less sing, about.

 “I’m serious, Yana.” He spoke her name with an odd lilt. She shot him a quick look and saw that he was, indeed, serious. Then his expression turned sly. “The spring latchkay’s coming up soon.

 You’ll be coming, and there are some folks hereabout would like to hear a song about Bremport.”

 “Bremport?” She went rigid.

 He laid a light finger on her arm. “You were at Bremport. Charlie picked up on that when he got a copy of your orders and the briefing on your medical history.”

 “That should have been confidential,” she said, feeling less guilty about Charlie than she had the day before.

 “Charlie’s older brother Donal was at Bremport, too, so it was of more than casual interest to him. So were three other sons of Petaybee and two daughters, and us here knowing nothing about their deaths but that they are dead.”

 Damn Charlie anyway. Giancarlo had been right to transfer him-the boy’s loyalties had been too mixed for him to be an effective company representative here. Still, she couldn’t blame him, but-damn. She remembered to exhale then, and swallowed hard on all the things she didn’t wish to remember about Bremport.

 The swallow was a mistake. Somehow it went down wrong and she started to cough. Hard as she tried to limit it to the one cough, another burst past her lips, and the next thing she knew she was racked by a paroxysm. She fumbled in her coat for her syrup and dragged the bottle out. But she moved too swiftly: it flew from her groping fingers and smashed on the stone floor of the link. As if the loss of the syrup were a signal, the coughing fit intensified. Scan’s very strong fingers gripped her arms, supporting her convulsing body and he began to hurry back the way they had come, though she had trouble keeping on her feet. She had to bring her knees almost to her chin to keep the spasms from tearing her abdominal muscles.

 “What’s the cause, Yana? The gas at Bremport?”

 She managed to nod a yes. Then he was assisting her into a laboratory, flicking up lights, and settling her onto a nearby stool before he sprang across the room to the large array of cabinets there. Without fumbling, he poured out a dose of a clear yellow liquid and returned to her side.

 “Something of Clodagh’s that makes cowardly coughs evaporate on its fumes,” he said. “We all take it now and then.”

 Yana was in no condition to object to anything anyone might consider remedial. Between one spasm and the onset of another, she knocked back the liquid-and rolled her eyes, inhaled, and then exhaled gustily, for the medicine had a kick in it that could only reduce any cough to tatters. And the next spasm didn’t materialize.

 Surprised, Yana took several short breaths, fully expecting each one to deteriorate into a cough. Scan regarded her with a growing smile curling his lips.

 “See? Guaranteed effective.”

 “What was in it?” she gasped respectfully, still aware of the taste of it in the back of her mouth.

 The mischief returned to Scan Shongili’s eyes. “Well, now, that I don’t know. Clodagh won’t pass on the secret of her elixir. She just makes it.”

 Yana was aware of the plethora of laboratory equipment from slidetrays to electronic microscopes-and not obsolete ones, at that. She waved her hand at them.

 “You look as if you could analyze the contents . . .”

 “Ah . . .” Sean held up his hands. “It’s unethical to plumb the secrets of another professional. I do animals; she does humans.”

 “But isn’t there an overlap somewhere along the line?” Yana asked.

 “How so?”

 “Those cats of hers. And you’ve cats that are totally different.”

 Sean grinned so broadly that Yana knew she would never get an honest answer on that score. “So I do.” Then he turned from her and went back to the cabinet. He held up the bottle. “I can spare this since it seems to have been so effective for you.”

 Yana hesitated. She had had to use up far too much of her personal baggage allowance for enough bottles of the syrup to see her through her recuperation. But there was no question that Clodagh’s was more effective. She sighed, cutting that loss and accepting the bottle. Maybe it would suffice to see the cough to an end before she had to go back to the prescription stuff.

 “Clodagh makes it up in huge batches every fall to cope with coughs,” Sean said, tucking the bottle securely in the inner vest pocket. “You can get more as you need it.”

 Yana felt another twinge of resentment against a system that did not supply her with enough money for even basic needs, much less medicinal niceties.

 “Can you give me a few helpful hints about this place?”

 He regarded her in surprise. “Bunny’s good at that.”

 “Yes, but when I ask how I am to repay someone for leaving fuel by my door when I haven’t asked for any, or giving me fish I don’t know how to cook . . .”

 He laughed with kindly amusement at her disgruntlement. “I see what you mean. It’s so obvious to her that she doesn’t realize how new and confusing it could be for you.” He tucked her arm under his and guided her out of the laboratory, firmly clanging the metal door closed behind him. “Well, now, everyone knows you’re new, and new to the ways of Petaybee, so they’re helping you out. Old custom . . . especially for people they want to like ...”

 “Want to like . . .”

 The silver eyes glinted. “They like heroes. No, they genuinely do,” he amended when she snorted in disgust. “You’re worth your weight as a role model . . .” Then he took a second look at her gauntness. “That’ll improve,” he said kindly. “So they’ll sort of ease you into the environment the best way they can. What you do”- He held up one admonitory finger when she started to protest. -“is return the courtesies to the next stranger who arrives on our frozen shores. Or,” he said, giving her that sly sideways glance that challenged her, “you compose a song to chant at the next latchkay.”

 “I don’t think they really want to know about Bremport,” she said very slowly.

 His arm pressed hers encouragingly against his side. “They’re tougher people than you realize. And they have a need to know, Yana. As much as you have a need to sing about it, even if you don’t know it.” His eyes were somber.

 “Whatever,” she said noncommittally, not willing to accept the truth, or the inevitability, of his suggestion.

 They walked the rest of the way back to the main house in silence, a silence that was the most companionable one she had enjoyed in many a year. Scan Shongili was a most unusual man. Where under what sun could she possibly have encountered him before?

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 5                                                                        

 When they reached the house, they almost ran Bunny over: she was in the process of reaching for the door latch just as Scan flipped it up. Seeing her face, Yana knew that something had happened-something bad.

 “Message from Adak, Scan. A hunting party found one of the lost teams.”

 “They did?” Scan took the hands that Bunny had held out in an unconscious appeal for comfort. “And?”

 “There are five still alive . . .” Her voice trailed off.

 “Which five?”

 Yana read into that question that he was amazed that anyone had survived.

 “Two of theirs this time, three of ours.”

 He dropped Bunny’s hands and started to gather items about the room, cramming them into a pack at the same time he put on outerwear. He was ready in one circuit of the room.

 “Where are they?” he asked.

 “Clodagh’s.” As if that should have been a given.

 “Drive us there, will you, Bunny?”

 “Sure!” And the girl began to shrug into her wraps.

 Yana wondered at how lightly Sean Shongili had dressed for a long drive in freezing temperatures. He hadn’t even rolled down his sleeves or done up his shirt collar, and the smooth pelted fur jacket he donned wasn’t nearly as thick as Bunny’s or hers. He grinned as he caught her expression.

 “I’ll be warm enough.”

 Then he hurried them out to the sled, where the dogs were already standing in their harness, yapping as if infected by the urgency that possessed the humans.

 With deft movements, Scan settled Yana into the sled, bundled the furs about her, ignoring the cat’s attempts to get into her lap, and gave her custody of his pack, telling her not to let it fall off.

 Then he snugged his hood over his head, tying it under his chin, and shoved his hands in the thick fur mitts that were fastened by thongs to his sleeves.

 “Come on, Bunny!” he yelled, and whistled at the team; the dogs strained against their harness even as Bunny wrenched the brake free of the ice and paddled with her foot to set the sled in motion.

 The sled bumped forward, Yana clutching the pack for fear it would tumble off her fur-encased lap. If she had thought the outbound trip was fast and jarring, though she knew that Bunny had gone easily for her sake, the inbound journey was another matter. Scan ran beside Maud, the red leader dog, urging her to her best pace, chivying Bunny down steep inclines when she would have taken safer routes.

 Yana hung on, determined not to close her eyes when the sled tilted at alarming angles and the landscape seemed to fly past her. She was particularly aware of the increased speed when the sled thudded from one hummock to another, crashing her bones together. Or when the cat, who had somehow crawled back under the rugs, sunk its claws through her pants leg to keep from being thrown about. Stands of hardwoods that had seemed miles apart during the outward journey streaked past her with barely an interval between them.

 The abrupt arctic daylight had waned by the time they neared the settlement and saw its lit windows blinking welcomingly through the trees at them. The dogs slowed as they reached Clodagh’s, making their way through a welter of other teams parked there. Scan grabbed the pack with a flash of a grateful grin at Yana and charged up the steps, Bunny right behind him as soon as she had hauled on the brake.

 Grunting but telling herself that of course she understood their haste, Yana peeled back the furs and extricated herself from the sled. The cat jumped out and disappeared under the pilings. Oddly enough, as Yana straightened up she found that she wasn’t nearly as stiff this time. She felt for the bottle of Clodagh’s elixir and wondered what it contained. Then, hesitant about intruding, she climbed the steps to the porch. She could hear the subdued buzz of many voices even before she opened the door and slipped inside. The warmth was like a blanket surrounding her, but the press of people almost made her withdraw.

 Peering over and around the bodies packed inside the room, she could see no part of the injured survivors, though there was a long clear space in one corner of the room where they might be lying obscured by the crowd. Clodagh’s head and hips appeared from time to time, and once she saw what looked like the top of Scan Shongili’s head. Bunny was standing by the stove, where she was precariously dribbling coffee into two cups, trying to keep from spilling any as she was repeatedly jostled.

 Yana hoped one was for her, and it was: Bunny threaded her way through the throng and offered Yana a cup. She reached eagerly to accept it, for the warmth on her hands as well as her innards. She blew across the surface and at the first careful sip wondered if Scan used Clodagh’s recipe or if it was the other way around.

 “Could you see? Arc they going to make it?” she asked, nodding toward the corner.

 Bunny nodded, her eyes dark with worry.

 “Ours’ll recover a lot faster’n theirs, so there’ll be more questions an’ tribunals and inquests and stuff.”

 Which Bunny felt were irrelevant, Yana decided. “Isn’t it just that your people are better acclimated?”

 Bunny looked disgusted. “Of course they are and we try to explain that to them, but they”-the pronoun was used in contempt-“never admit the fact. Their people should somehow be better able to cope when most of ‘em’s never lived outside at all. And,” she added with perplexity in her voice, “that’s not the real problem anyway. The real problem is that they think they have to know everything about everything, and they don’t. Even we who live here don’t. But we know enough to pay attention to what the planet tells us, and they don’t seem to pay attention to nothin’.”

 Yana sipped, letting the warmth thaw the ice in her blood. Maybe she would do better if she ran like the others did. She had done nothing but sit, and she was whacked-whereas Bunny’s face was ruddy with stimulation, and Sean hadn’t even looked puffed when he had grabbed the pack off her lap. Everyone in the room had settled down to what might be a long wait, one of many they endured with great patience. Yana felt her own running out, complicated by a growing sense of claustrophobia in a room packed with folk she didn’t know well enough to wait equably with. She shifted her feet restlessly, wondering if she could withdraw without giving offense. Not that that was so much a problem, since she doubted anyone would notice one less body in the room except with gratitude. A more realistic concern was whether she could make it through this bunch to the door. And if and when she did, what would she do then, back at her cold and lonely cabin? That half hour in Scan’s company had emphasized the disadvantages of solitude. She had felt oddly alive and on the alert in his company, the first time she had felt that way since Bry.

 “Look, this might take hours,” Bunny said, and Yana glanced sharply at her. “I’ve got to tend the dogs.”

 “Could I help, so I’ll know something about their care?” Yana asked, hoping to delay the onset of bleaker hours alone.

 “Sure.” Bunny grinned, pleased at her offer. “It’s not all that hard.”

 “If you say so,” Yana said, and bundled back up in her winter gear to walk beside the team as Bunny drove it back over to the kennels at her Aunt Moira’s.

 It wasn’t hard, exactly, but it required Yana to concentrate as she followed Bunny’s example in removing the harness, checking it for wear, oiling it, and hanging it up properly, then checking the dogs’ paw pads for any cuts and applying an ointment concoction of Clodagh’s between the toes before chaining the animals up.

 “You’re lucky,” Bunny told her. “I cleaned the dog yard and put down fresh straw this morning already, so you don’t have to do that part.”

 Having shown her what to do, Bunny retrieved some pre-chopped chunks of fish and other meat from a barrel outside her door and went into the house. When Yana had finished the dogs, she went inside and saw that Bunny was boiling the preboned meat, mixing with it what looked like hardened bread dough and fat. She finally crumbled up some suspiciously familiar pink-and-green tablets that looked like vitamin-mineral supplements of the kind issued to company troops. While the mixture heated, Bunny thawed snow on the back of the stove. Once it was melted, she and Yana used the same container to water each of the dogs in turn. By then the mixture was cooked to Bunny’s liking, and they distributed it to the hungry animals.

 Some of the dogs picked at their food like company diplomats at a high-level formal dinner; others wolfed it down with great gusto, growling over it, their jaws snapping as they ate.

 ‘They-uh-seem to enjoy their food,” Yana observed as the dog nearest her savagely gulped down his carefully prepared meal as if it were a bear, just-killed.

 Bunny shrugged, grinning at the vagaries of her charges. “They do, right enough. And if one doesn’t get it down fast, another’ll try to snag it. That’s one reason we chain them apart. Cuts down on meal fights.”

 “That cat of Clodagh’s that followed me home seemed to want to eat the fish Seamus gave me frozen solid,” Yana said.

 “Nah! He might bat it around a little and gnaw at the edges, but he’ll wait for it to thaw, or better yet, for you to cook it for him.”

 “The same way you cook for the dogs?”

 “Of course not. The same way you cook for yourself.”

 “I don’t,” Yana admitted. “I’m ship-bred, you know. Food supplements and healthful nutrient bars for rations. Occasionally we get something else, but only the crew members assigned to cook for special functions learn to cook. So, how would you cook it to feed yourself and, uh, guests?”

 Bunny grinned at the folly of the people who ran her world but didn’t know how to feed themselves, then patted Yana on the hand and said, “Don’t worry. It’s not hard. I just stew it with a handful of my aunt’s herbs and it makes right good eating.”

 Yana thought that over for a moment. Then, taking a breath, she asked, “Tell me which herbs make that sort of fish palatable.”

 “Sure, but you ain’t had a chance to get any yet. So I’ll scrounge enough. Meetcha at your place.”

 Yana had her stove fire going nicely when Bunny arrived with a small sack of the things she had filched from her aunt’s kitchen.

 “Aw, don’t worry about a pinch of this and that,” Bunny said when she saw Yana’s worried expression. Then in short order, she demonstrated the art of concocting a fish stew from the herbs, a handful of rice, and chunks of what cooked into edible root vegetables. Bunny used all the fish from the string. “Because a stew gets better the longer it’s alive. All you gotta do is freeze what’s left overnight and thaw it on the back of the stove when you’re getting hungry. I’ll also show you how to make pan dough.”

 She did, and Yana ate a gracious sufficiency. Bunny was still mopping up the stew juices with some of the pan dough when Sean’s unmistakable voice called out, “Slainte, Yana!”

 Bunny was closer to the door and, at a nod from Yana, went to open it.

 “Ah! Any left in the pot?” he asked, sniffing expectantly.

 “Wouldn’t Clodagh feed you?” Bunny asked, catching a plate and a spoon from the shelf on her way to the stove.

 “She had enough, and I needed a little space,” Sean said, undoing his coat and hanging it neatly beside the others on the door pegs.

 “Who got out this time?” Bunny asked as he settled at the makeshift table so comfortably that Yana stifled the apologies she was about to make.

 He paused long enough to ingest a spoonful before he answered.

 “The Yallup group,” he said, jamming a piece of pan bread down into the juices. “Lavelle, Brit, and Sigdhu made it; they’ll be grand with some rest and decent eating, though Siggy lost another toe. The odd thing”-Sean wriggled his spoon about as if the movement would solve the oddity-“is that two of them made it.”

 “Yeah!” Bunny looked awed by that.

 Shouldn’t outworlders survive on this planet if their native guides were efficient? Yana wondered.

 “Who?” Bunny went on.

 “The team geologist the Yallups sent, father and son, Metaxos by name, Diego and Francisco. Damn fool brought his kid along for the experience.” Scan spaced his phrases, eating in between gouts of information. Bunny snorted at the folly of folk’s notions of experience; Scan grinned, light from the mare’s-butter lamp on the table dancing in his silver eyes. “The son’ll sing about it. The father .. . now, that’s where the trouble begins. He’s aged. The boy said his dad was mid-forties. Looks closer to ninety.”

 “Ohhhhh!” Bunny drew out her exclamation, rounding her eyes, apparently finding great significance in this.

 “Does hypothermia age you?” Yana asked.

 “On Petaybee it can,” Bunny said tersely. “So did they find anything?” She leaned conspiratorially close to Sean, her eyes glistening with eagerness in the lamplight. “The usual?”

 Sean snorted, sopped up more stew on a piece of bread, and ate it before he answered. Yana thought he deliberated over his reply.

 “More or less the usual. The kid gave some pretty concise descriptions. Caves, glistening lakes of free water, horned animals, sleek water beasts-you know, the usual.” He broke off more bread, affecting keener interest in the business of eating than telling.

 “Ahhhh!” Bunny let out another of her pregnant syllables.

 “If you’re deliberately speaking in parables, I’ll go walk the cat,” Yana said, rising.

 Sean’s arm reached out and pulled her back down to her chair, grinning an apology.

 “People lost for weeks, gripped by hypothermia and close to the edge of starvation, tend to hallucinate.”

 “But you say he gave concise descriptions ...”

 “Vivid ones, though not necessarily accurate,” Sean said, but Yana had the feeling he believed them. “Then the Spacebees arrived and took them all away. Rounded on Odark’s people for not bringing them directly in to SpaceBase. But Terce was at the base and you were with me out at the lab, so what were they supposed to do? Clodagh’s is certainly on the way, and closer.” Sean took a deep breath, suppressing his disgust. “They needed aid as soon as could be. They got it. I’m not sure the geologist will pull through, though.”

 He chased the last of the juice in his bowl with the last of the pan bread. Yana debated the protocols in her mind and had her hand on the stewpot to offer more when Sean held up his hand.

 “That does me fine, Yana, and you share a portion. More would be considered as impolite as too little.” He pushed his chair back from the table, smiling at her.

 “What did ours say?” Bunny asked eagerly, sitting forward again.

 “Not much. Too busy warming up and far too glad to have been found to deal with more than that right now.”

 Yana nodded. She knew what Sean meant. “They’ll be debriefed then?” she asked.

 “Oh, and how!” He tilted the chair back, balancing himself with one foot on the table leg.

 “Front, back, inside out, and outside in,” Bunny agreed, shaking her head as if she felt sorry for the victims. “Did they find anything? I mean, anything real?”

 “Like the deposits they thought sure they’d locate?” Sean’s voice was level, but there was a silent laugh in his eyes, as if he knew something no one else did and treasured the knowledge. “No, they didn’t find the sites, though Lavelle and Brit swear they should have, for they had updated and accurate readings and should have been right on site when the storm hit them. They dug in, of course.” Bunny nodded, and Sean went on. “No time to make a decent icehouse, but Siggy’s a dam fine survival artist.”

 “They owe their lives to him, I’d say,” Bunny remarked stoutly in support of Siggy’s abilities.

 “They do indeed, and the boy, Diego, said as much several times.” Sean shook his head. “I hope they go easy on the kid with this debriefing nonsense. He was telling the truth or I’ve never heard it.”

 Bunny’s mouth twitched irritably. “They wouldn’t know the truth if it bit them.”

 “And it has.” Scan and Bunny locked eyes, sharing some private knowledge. “I must get back,” he said, rising and walking to the door to collect his things.

 “Have you a light?”

 He held up the long cylinder he extracted from a pocket. “I’ll be fine. That rib-sticking stew’ll see me home.” He grinned at Yana, tipping the cylinder to his forehead in gratitude. “Yanaba, Buneka!”

 The use of formal names surprised Yana, but she smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. He was gone in a swirl of cold air. Peering out her small window, Yana saw him, the cylinder held over his head as he jogged off at an easy pace, quickly lost in the night.

 “Isn’t he taking a dogsled back?” she asked Bunny.

 “Scan? Not that little distance.”

 “That little distance took us nearly two hours.”

 “Oh, he’s a good runner. Lotta times when we go out, he breaks trail for me. Sled’d only slow him up.” Bunny lifted the thermos and shook it. “I’ll bring you more water tomorrow. Thanks for the chow. G’night!”

 A second swirl of cold air saw her away, leaving Yana alone, confused and with plenty to think over.

 Over the next couple of days she didn’t see much of either Bunny or Scan, nor hear anything about the rescued men, although she did glimpse figures in Intergal regulation winter-survival uniforms lumbering through the streets more than once. The conversations she had with others in the settlement never touched on the subject she knew was in everyone’s minds, as if the people thought they could will the incident into nonexistence by carefully avoiding it Clodagh appeared on her doorstep the first morning, a lumpy bundle in one big hand and four cats at her heels. They promptly entered and did a quick recon before settling near the stove while Yana politely invited her in, though she was damned if she knew what to offer in the way of hospitality. She still hadn’t had a chance to get in any supplies, and her fish stew was not going to last four days if that was all she had to eat, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Her stomach was learning to demand food, not the bloat of nutrient pills.

 “Did a quick round,” Clodagh said, plopping the bundle down on the rickety table and untying it. A variety of small packets, some of them squares of cloth tied with a narrow thong, were revealed, and a half-dozen small jars. Three seemed to hold salves, pink, white, and green; the largest of the others held salt crystals, the second a dark powder, and the third a red-orange powder. “We’ve good salt supplies from the caves so don’t worry about asking anyone for more when you go short but hot stuff”-and her big fingers closed about the dark powder-“is hard to come by, and you don’t need much to flavor the pot. This”-she indicated the red-orange powder-“is good for the trots. Just enough on the tip of your finger put on your tongue and swallowed with a sip of water. Tastes awful but sure stops the bo-wells.” Yana had never heard the word spoken quite that way. “When your crapper’s full, just tell Meqo. She’s manager of the dung heap this winter. The white stuff is good for frostbite. Use it even if you’re not sure you’re bit. Does no good too late. The pink is for chilblain-keeps ‘em from cracking. Watch your toes for the itch . . .”

 “I know about chilblains.”

 “Sure, and I ‘spect most company soldiers do at that,” Clodagh said amiably. “This greeny stuff is antiseptic. You might have some of your own-no? Well, this is better’n anything Intergal ever whomped up. These,” she went on, gesturing at the small packets, “are spices, hots, sweeteners: reckon you can tell which is which by the smell of ‘em.” Then she hauled a much larger white sack from the folds of her parka. “Flour, single ration.” A small tightly covered pot followed. “Risings, and soon’s you take a schmerp, add some flour to keep it going. Keep it warm at all times.” After a rummage in her clothing, a small quilted wool affair appeared, and the yeast pot was wrapped inside it. “Beans.” A sack was pulled out of a pocket. “Three kinds. Puto says she has more she’ll add when she gets back here. Navarana and Moira say you can join them in the woods when the time’s right to collect your own wood pile.” From another source, a hatchet emerged and was formally presented to Yana. “I’ll need it back, a’course, when you can get one of your own. Aisling’ll have some yarn for you.” Keen eyes peered into Yana’s. “Unless you don’t know how to knit?”

 Yana shook her head.

 “Nah, a company person wouldn’t need to, would she, drawing supplies direct from Intergal? Well, Aisling’s patient, and there’s nothing she likes better than to start someone off on the right foot, iffen they’re willin’.”

 “I’m willing,” Yana said firmly. “And thanks, Clodagh. I really appreciate all your help.”

 “Pshaw! You’ll do the same in your own turn. Ippies stick together, cocking a snoot at the company for all they’re so superior!”

 With that she swung her ample bulk about with unexpected grace and was out the door before Yana could say more.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 6                                                                                    

 The wind roared down the pass from the mountains, through the foothills, and across the snowy plain that hid treacherous muskeg, rattling the snocle with bullying gusts. Bunny sat inside in full outdoor dress, watching the big shots prowl around and point as if they knew what they were doing.

 They didn’t. Even after they hauled Siggy’s team back out here, way before the team had had a chance to recover from their ordeal, they knew no more than they had before. Of course, being stupid ips, Siggy and the others had no idea what the technical readings actually said, but this was where the storm swept down upon them, losing both ips and company men in a whiteout. Bunny had been in whiteout conditions herself several times along the river with the snocle and going back and forth between Scan’s place and Kilcoole. White snowy ground underfoot, white sky overhead, and white haze and snowfall obscuring any other features of the surroundings, whiteout was disorienting and dangerous. It was a little like she’d heard space described, only white instead of black.

 You could either keep driving, if you knew your trail, and hope you’d come out on the other side or find a landmark, or you just stopped and waited it out. The sensible thing to do, this far from any villages, would have been to bed the dogs down and wait it out, but the geologists had brought a lot of equipment and only allowed space for as much food as they felt they would need on the strict timetable they had set for themselves.

 Lavelle told the company men, “We said, ‘You better stop here until we can see something’ but they said, ‘Aw, no, we’ll just be usin’ our instruments.’ Only problem was, their instruments broke ‘cause of the cold.”

 The company men insisted that the instruments had been made for this climate and that it was impossible that they would break, and Lavelle had just shrugged. Thereafter she didn’t know much except that the sleds had gotten separated, and the other three had been lost, drivers, dogs, geologists, equipment, food, and all. She had been driving the sled with the boy in it, so she had had room for a few more supplies. Brit had been driving the sled with the father, with Siggy running between them to keep them connected, as he had tried to do with the other sleds before they got lost back up to Moose Lake. Maybe they hit a thin patch of ice. Then, as they were coming down a pretty steep slope, the sleds overturned and both passengers were thrown out of the sleds, to roll down the hill and vanish.

 “Didn’t you think it was a little strange, them just vanishing like that?”

 “No. What I thought was strange was that they couldn’t find us. We were hollering like everything and the dogs were barking. Brit wanted to start searching, thinking maybe they were knocked unconscious, and we did look around where they should have logically been. But when we didn’t find any holes or anything, Siggy said the safest thing to do for everybody was stay put, light a fire, keep warm, and make noises all the time while the whiteout lasted.”

 ‘Trying to save your own skins, huh?” asked Colonel Giancarlo, the one who had sent Charlie away.

 “No, no,” said a younger captain with a handsome weather-beaten face and a much pleasanter manner. “Very understandable,” he said soothingly to Lavelle, who had started to bristle. “What happened then?”

 Lavelle looked straight at the colonel and said, “Then the weather cleared a little and Dinah kept whimpering, so I unhitched her. She run off and pretty soon we heard her howling; then she came trotting back with the boy. He said she dug through a drift to get him but his father was hurt and could we come and help him pull his father out. He got trapped in sort of a little avalanche, but fortunately, there was a cave in the side of the hill where he was trapped. They made it to the cave, but the snow blew back against the entrance again and it was real dark. The boy said he knew we wouldn’t find them there but it was shelter and he’d been afraid to leave for help for fear he wouldn’t find him again. He’d called out but we didn’t hear each other for the wind.”

 “You didn’t even try to find the others?” Giancarlo snorted contemptuously.

 Lavelle had started yelling then, a rare event for the gentle and mild-mannered woman. “We didn’t even know where the heck we were, mister! If Odark hadn’t found us, I don’t know if we’d have any of us made it back alive. Siggy couldn’t even walk by then, and Brit and I would never have been able to dig the father out without the dogs helping us.”

 All the while the conversation was going on the boy, Diego, stood out there in the cold listening to them natter on, his face closed except for the occasions when something said or done seemed to make him angry; then his dark eyes would glow like fresh-stoked embers in the snow-burned red rawness of his face.

 Bunny didn’t know what to make of any of it, except that she was tired of acting just smart enough to drive her snocle, but dumb enough and friendly enough so that the big shots would keep talking in front of her, continuing their interrogation as she drove them to the ill-defined area where the party had been discovered. Terce was carrying on as if he had already become part of the inquisition, and the company men didn’t make a move without consulting him.

 It took two days on the snocles, driving them out to where the hunting party had run across the survivors, and then, with the recent snowfall in these parts and the wind blowing drifts everywhere, they could only approximate the location. Bunny shivered. She was out of the wind here in the snocle, and the sky was clear, but outside the wind picked up veils of snow and flung them across the landscape. Behind her, the trail was already drifted over in places. The company men had sent Terce back to make camp at the halfway point with Odark and Brit. Lavelle and the boy had remained behind to “assist with inquiries,” and try to help them determine what had become of the other team members.

 Bunny opened the door and climbed out of the snocle, trudging over to where the men stood arguing. Diego’s adrenaline seemed to have run out while the company men wrangled around him. He had been radiating tension and at times anger at the interrogation, but now he slumped against Lavelle, who put her arm around him. He looked exhausted. He really shouldn’t have been out here again so soon, but his father couldn’t be moved. Siggy definitely had to rest and look after his frostbite, or gangrene might get the rest of his foot. Clodagh had given him some stuff, but the company men had taken him back to SpaceBase and “accommodated” him in a separate room from the crazy man, Diego’s father, until he could be moved with the others to “another facility.” Bunny didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t like the sound of it.

 “Excuse me, folks,” she said to the party, “but we better make tracks while it’s daylight.”

 “I say when we move,” Giancarlo told her. “You do realize, lady, that if I decide to, I can see to it that your license is revoked?”

 “Oh, yes, sir. I know what an important man you are-how important all you people are. And that’s why I’m telling you. If we don’t get going now, I might lose my snocle instead of just my license, or another hunting party might have to find us. Our weather here, sir, as you may have noticed, is tricky. It has lots of-uh, different things-“

 “Variables?” the captain suggested helpfully.

 “Yeah. Those. Lots of variables. And right now a bad storm’s making. Also, sir, that lad looks to me as if he’s all done in.”

 “She has a point, Colonel,” the captain said. “Maybe we should make for camp now that we’ve seen the approximate site and come back better equipped when the weather clears.”

 The colonel glared but waved his mitten toward the snocle.

 Diego Metaxos sat by himself in the corner of the shelter while the soldiers cross-questioned Lavelle. He wished they would let her alone. She had tried to help them-in fact, he thought, she had helped him a lot. And she could help him more, if only the interrogators would go away so he could talk to her.

 Dad’s delirious ravings seemed incredible to those men, and Diego knew they hadn’t really believed him either when he had tried to tell them about the cavern, even though he was obviously unhurt. In a way he didn’t blame them. Now the whole thing seemed like a dream to him-or it would have, except that his father had emerged from the same time and place looking as if he were still trapped in a nightmare.

 Diego wasn’t sure exactly what he and his father had gone through. All he knew was that their experience of that time in the cave had to have been wildly different for Dad than it had been for him, because while he felt fine, something awful had happened to Dad in there. Even after the icicles had melted from his hair, it remained white, and his face was drawn and sunken, like a skull’s, the skin dried and far more wrinkled than it had been. The worst part was that except for the initial babblings, he wasn’t responding too much of anything, just staring straight ahead, as if he couldn’t see at all. The doctors said he was in some kind of severe shock, but how could that be? He and Diego had been together, and whatever it was Diego had experienced, it hadn’t been anything to produce such an effect-at least not in him.

 At first, he had told the rescuers and the company investigators everything, but when he saw their immediate skepticism, he had sense enough to clam up, beginning to doubt and second-guess his own perceptions. He needed to sort it all out, and he didn’t intend to say any more until he was sure Dad would be tended to by someone who cared about him as more than an employee or a subject for study. Unfortunately, civilian dependent teenaged sons didn’t have much clout with the company hierarchy. Dad needed Steve, and he needed him quick.

 And maybe when Steve came Diego could talk with him and go over everything again in his own mind. But right now he shied away from thinking about it.

 One thing was for sure, and that was that the company investigators weren’t going to be able to answer any of Diego’s questions. They were too busy third-degreeing everyone for answers to listen to questions.

 The girl was looking at him funny. Most of the time she stared straight ahead, pretending to listen to the men as they talked amongst themselves or barked questions at Lavelle. But when they were looking the other way, or at each other, the girl’s eyes slid sideways, trying to meet his, and her mouth opened, as if she were about to speak.

 Finally she got up and went outside, and he thought she had to go check on her snocle or pee or something. When she came back, she casually sat down beside him. None of the company men seemed to notice.

 “I’m Bunny,” she said, sideways out of her mouth.

 “I know. I heard them talking to you. I’m Diego.” He realized he was talking out of the side of his mouth, too. But he felt relieved that someone was finally talking to him rather than around him, and he knew immediately that this girl understood that what had happened to him and his father was not just another academic problem or fact-finding mission.

 Her eyes gleamed the same way the dogs’ eyes had gleamed in the darkness, and her lowered voice reminded him of the whisper of the sled runners on the snow.

 “I know,” she said. “Are you scared?”

 “No-well, scared about Dad, maybe. But otherwise, no.”

 “You ought to be,” she said in a tone that implied she knew something he didn’t know.

 “Why? Is it going to storm again or something?”

 “Probably. But I don’t mean that, I mean them,” she said, nodding to Colonel Giancarlo and the others.

 Diego shrugged. “They’re just doing their jobs, trying to find out what happened,” he said. He watched Giancarlo’s fierce expression as the colonel tried for the fiftieth time to catch Lavelle in a lie, and added, “Not that they seem to believe anybody.”

 “They’re like that. Look, I’ll be around. If you need anything, let me know, okay? I mean, with your da sick, is your mum going to come down here, too? Does she need a place to stay? My people would help.”

 He felt another flare of resentment and gave her a dirty look, then decided that wasn’t fair. She was just trying to be nice- maybe nosy, too, but at least she wasn’t browbeating anybody the way Giancarlo and the others were. “Nah, my mom’s, uh, not available-but I think Dad would want Steve here.”

 “Who’s that?”

 “His assistant, and his partner,” Diego said, daring her to make something of it.

 But she just nodded and said, “Okay, I’ll see if I can find out what’s being done officially, and if nothing is, we’ll try to do something unofficially. I just wanted you to know you’ve got friends here. Night.”

 “Buenas noches,” he whispered back.

 You did good, Bunka,” Clodagh said later, when Bunny had returned to Kilcoole. She had dropped Giancarlo off at the company station to await word from the head of the search party, and delivered the others back to SpaceBase before returning to the village. “The boy is alone. Do you think he saw anything, or was it just the father?”

 “No,” Bunny said. “I think he did, too. I can’t say why-he’s denying he remembers a thing now, but they wouldn’t believe him if he told them the truth anyway. The father’s in the high-security ward at the infirmary. The flot around SpaceBase is that he’s crazy.”

 “Poor boy,” Clodagh said, her eyes blinking rapidly through the steam from the teacup she held to her lips. “All alone. I can’t feel much for his father, but the lad is so young to be left to the company wolves, especially when he has passed through what he has. If only we could initiate him, it would be better. Has he no one?”

 “Just this Steve,” Bunny said. “He is Dr. Steven L. Margolies, assigned to the same branch and regular duty station as Metaxos. I found that much out from Arnie’s soldier boyfriend at the communications shed. He put up the name Metaxos on the computer and it was there, under the info on Metaxos. I don’t know how we could find Steve though.”

 Clodagh shook her head regretfully. “It’s not really our place to find him, but the boy will need help when he goes back out there-“ Her head jerked up. “I wish Charlie was still here.”

 “Maybe Yana can help,” Bunny suggested.

 “Maybe,” Clodagh said slowly. “But be careful. Charlie was one of us. He would know, the way you do, what the boy is going through, as well as how the PTBs are. We don’t know Yana so good yet.”

 “Sean likes her,” Bunny said.

 “He does, does he? What did he say?” Clodagh smiled a very pretty smile that transformed her face, her eyes twinkling with gleefully prurient interest.

 “Nothing, but I could tell,” Bunny said. “Don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know-well, maybe not the first . . .”

 “Yana could be a good ally, but she’s real closed up. That’s better than being too friendly, I guess, but I’d feel better about her being here if we knew more about her.”

 “Give her a break, Clodagh. It’s not her fault she was born at the wrong time and place for you to have delivered her the way you’ve done half of us. I’m going to go down there now and see if she has any ideas. Don’t worry. I won’t give anything away.”

 Over the next ten days Yana gradually accustomed herself to the new environment. She slept a lot, in between the necessary chores of keeping warm and eating. She kept Clodagh’s medicine near her so that every time she felt the tickle that was the prelude to a cough, she could take a swig and forestall a spasm. Whatever was in the stuff was far more efficacious than what the medics had given her on Andromeda. She practiced taking deeper breaths of the marvelous fresh air of Petaybee, expanding her capacity, flushing out the last of the gas from the depths of the lobes. She would never be much use here on Petaybee if she couldn’t even breathe without coughing.

 She had just finished making another futile trip to the virtually useless company store when she saw the snocles pulling into corps headquarters way up the street. Some game or the other was definitely afoot, but until the trouble came looking for her, she would conserve her strength. She needed all she could muster to withstand her own cooking, she thought, as she attempted to make a meal for herself and the cat. Other than the fish she had been given by Seamus and the one pan she had been given, she had found damned-all of any use through company channels in Kilcoole.

 The trouble did indeed come looking for her a short time later. She was in the middle of browning the fish when someone pounded at her door. She opened it to see Giancarlo standing there.

 “Maddock, where the hell have you been and why haven’t you reported in?” he snapped before she could invite him inside.

 “Nice to see you, too, sir,” she said with a growl, pumping his hand and pulling him inside. On the stove, the grease she was cooking the fish in crackled and spat. The cat scooted under the bed. For some reason, Giancarlo’s appearance suddenly infuriated her. Maybe it was because she was frustrated trying to keep house with the charity of the villagers because the store was so ill-stocked there was little her meager funds could buy to keep her alive. Maybe it was because they were no longer on shipboard or space station and so it didn’t look like the corps to her. Maybe it was because this guy was the kind of petty martinet she had always hated and had sworn she would get back at when she retired. Maybe it was because he was such a contrast to the polite and kindly locals. But she thought it was because after killing everyone around her and half killing her, the company still allowed brass-assed spooks like him to threaten to withhold medical treatment and to dump her unprepared in a place like this in order to use her. A couple of years earlier she would have taken it for granted that they had the right, that Giancarlo had the right. Now she felt anger rising up inside her high enough to choke her if she didn’t vent a little of it.

 “Do sit down and tell me how, sir, I’m supposed to contact you with no radio, no computer, no transportation, no contact person, not even a bloody goddamn pen, sir, or a fraggin’ piece of fraggin’ bloody paper, sir. While you’re at it, tell me how you expect me to maintain cover and gain the trust of the people here when you, sir, come barging in shouting my name like the ship’s bloody paging program. Sir.”

 She sat down in the chair, leaving him to remain standing or sit on the bed, she didn’t really care which, while she crossed her arms and glared up at him.

 “I see discipline has relaxed after only a few days of pretending to be a civilian.”

 “I am a civilian, sir. Maybe an employee, if the company cares to issue me anything to do my bloody job with, maybe not.”

 “You, uh, seem to be feeling better,” he said lamely.

 “Yes, Colonel Giancarlo, I am. Even we invalids have our good days. A weapon. I forgot. If I’m doing espionage here, I ought to have a weapon. If for no other reason than to hunt my own fraggin’ food. They do that here. They have to. Have you seen that company store? What’s the company trying to do here, sir? Incite another Bremport?”

 “That’s enough of that, Major. What I want to know is why the hell you didn’t inform us about this latest fiasco with the geologic team.”

 “Could be because I had barely arrived when it happened. Could be because I wasn’t briefed on who was here and who wasn’t to begin with. Could be because I have no means of communication, no liaison officer since you so impetuously dismissed the one who was already here-“

 “We had reasons to believe his loyalties were divided,” Giancarlo said. He was sweating now, bundled up in his outdoor clothing while the stove radiated heat throughout the room.

 About then she realized that the stove wasn’t just sending heat waves: the fish pan was billowing smoke. She began coughing, but she was so angry that, still bent double from the spasms, she grabbed her knife, stabbed the burning fish, and flipped it over in the blackening grease, still glaring at Giancarlo when her eyes weren’t clenched shut from the spasms.

 Giancarlo began coughing, too, and rose as she stumbled for the door and flung it open. They both stepped into the open air, breathing deeply, while the smoke rolled out the door.

 “I want no repeat of this omission in the future,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ll look into the problem of your special equipment. Good evening, Major.”

 She coughed and managed to blurt out “Colonel” only when he was well down the street. She covered her mouth and nose, reached around the corner of the door for the hook containing her parka, and grabbed Clodagh’s cough syrup and her muffler. Downing a swallow of the syrup, she rubbed the muffler in the snow and, holding it across her mouth and nose, dashed back into the cabin. She forked the burned fish from the pan and flicked it onto the snow for the cat to salvage later. Then, with the door still open, she put on her parka and sat outside, waiting for the smoke to clear.

 Fraggin’ bureaucrat! He was one lousy grade above her and thought he was some kind of fraggin’ deity. Idiots like him had assigned Bry that mission that had gotten him killed. Idiots like him had cut costs by shortchanging the colony on Bremer until the colonists had grown tired of watching each other and their children die of curable diseases and starvation, and had rebelled. What was that saying about “penny wise and pound foolish”? Damn!

 “Are you okay, dama?” her across-the-road neighbor, whom she hadn’t yet met, hollered out his door.

 “Fine!” she called back.

 “I saw smoke,” the man ventured, diplomatically not referring to the rest of the row.

 “Burned my dinner,” she said.

 “Want to come over while your house clears?”

 “No, thanks,” she called, trying not to sound as belligerent as she felt. “I’m out here for my health.”

 When she had literally and figuratively cooled off enough, she went back into the house. The odor of burnt fish was still very strong, but enough smoke had cleared so it didn’t bring on another coughing fit. She kept swigging on Clodagh’s bottle every so often to fend off hunger pains while she scoured the pan with her knife and fought off the cat, who kept climbing her leg, mewing piteously. It naturally wanted no more to do with the burnt fish than she did.

 Bunny knocked on the door and let herself in before Yana could answer.

 “Come in, sit down. No, better yet, I’ll be glad to feed you fish if you cook the dinner,” Yana told her.

 Bunny shook her head and took the pan away from her, filling it with snow to melt on the stove and plopping the fish in-all of them. Yana had forgotten to take the rest of the string back outside, and they had all thawed.

 “How did they expect you to live down here when they didn’t teach you how to survive?” she asked.

 “That’s what I was just asking my good buddy, Colonel Asshole Giancarlo, when he came to give me his hail-and-farewell address.”

 “I heard,” Bunny said.

 “You did?”

 “Yeah, all up and down the street. People thought you might be burning him at the stake or something until your neighbors saw him leave. They said you sure looked mad, dragging him inside. Then the smoke started billowing out of your house. You threw him out the door with burning fish and sat out in the cold.”

 “How could you know?” Yana asked, mortified at the picture she probably had presented. Some clandestine operative she was. Giancarlo would probably send some mercenary hit man after her after this incident, but it was worth it. Asshole. “It just happened.”

 Bunny shrugged. “It’s a small town, Yana. By the way, your face is black all down the middle from your eyes to your chin.”

 “Shit.” Yana pulled out the tail of her uniform blouse, dipped it in the fish water, and scrubbed. “Did I get it?”

 “Not all. Your nose is still dirty.”

 That struck Yana as funny, and she began laughing so hard she started coughing again, realizing as she fell into hiccoughs that she was also slightly drunk from Clodagh’s cough syrup. She collapsed on the bed.

 “Oh, shit, Bunny, what a week,” she said, her laughs subsiding into a flurry of silly intermittent giggles.

 That started Bunny laughing, too. She put a plate on top of the pan for a lid and sat down at the table, laughing louder than Yana until her laughter started Yana off again.

 “You’re as bad as me,” Yana said finally. “I’m a fine ‘zample to the younger gen’ration.”

 “I sure would have liked to see you haul that Giancarlo in and kick him out,” Bunny said. “I been driving him around for days and he’s-he’s-“

 “Yeah, isn’t he?”

 “He’s been browbeating Lavelle, even though she told him what happened. And he has poor Dr. Metaxos locked up in the crazy ward and won’t believe what Diego tells him, and Diego’s all by himself and can’t find his other father ...”

 “Other father?”

 Bunny nodded. “His father’s partner, Steven Margolies. You know, they’re like Aisling and Sinead, and they’re Diego’s folks, but nobody’s even let the other father know about Dr. Metaxos. If Charlie were here, he could maybe have gotten a message to this Steve through people he knew at SpaceBase, but now there’s no one in town who can help Diego, and you can bet Giancarlo won’t do it.”

 “My my. You’ve sure taken up this Diego’s cause in a short period of time. I thought he was in shock and half out of it.”

 “He’s not. He’s just worried about his da and nobody will believe him.”

 “What’s he look like, Bunny?” Yana asked her.

 “He has really dark eyes, very big, and his hair is- Yana, you’re laughing at me!”

 “Yep, I thought so,” Yana said. “He’s cute, is he? ‘Sokay, Bunny. So you like this boy and nobody will help him and Giancarlo was his usual charming self to your buddy, so you’re glad I told him off and you came to tell me so? Or did you really just come down to cook me dinner so I wouldn’t starve to death?”

 “Well, I was talking to Clodagh ...” Bunny’s face grew a little sly as she turned and pulled two steaming and fragrant fish out of the pan and arranged them on a plate. Carefully she picked the third one up by the tail. The cat was no laggard and had snagged it out of her hand before she could lay it on the floor for him.

 “What I told Clodagh . . .” Bunny began, managing to stand between Yana and the fish.

 “What?” Yana said, sobering now so that Bunny stopped playing and settled into the chair, handing Yana the knife so she could carve into her fish.

 “Was maybe you could help Diego. You know, maybe you could ride in with me to SpaceBase next time I have a run and like wear your uniform and maybe Arnie’s boyfriend would help you get a message to that man you said would help Charlie. Maybe he could let Dr. Margolies know what happened and-well, you did say he was in deployment. Maybe he could get him down here.”

 “Military deployment, Bunny.”

 Bunny shrugged. “It’s all just PTBs anyway, isn’t it? Can’t they pull strings or something?”

 “Hmm. Maybe they can. If anyone could, Ahmed could. Or if not, he’d find out who could.” And in the back of her mind, it occurred to her that she could also use her full uniform and access to SpaceBase as an opportunity to “requisition” some of the equipment necessary to the duties Giancarlo seemed to think she was so derelict in performing. If at some later date he actually got around to issuing her duplicates, she could trade the items for other locally produced items. She wasn’t really qualified for this kind of subterfuge, having never actually been a supply officer, but she figured necessity was going to have to be the mother of invention in this case.

 Yana was very popular that evening. Bunny hadn’t been gone more than a half an hour when there was another knock at her door. She opened it to find Scan Shongili leaning against the doorframe, astounding her again with how much less bulky he was than everyone else.

 “Come in,” she said. “You’ll catch your death. A virus or something . . .”

 The silvery eyes glinted with amusement and his mouth quirked at the corner. She had an unauthorized urge to brush back the lock of silver-brown hair that fell boyishly forward onto his forehead.

 “I hear you’ve been taking on the Intergal high command,” he said, stamping his feet outside and entering, shrugging off his light jacket before even closing the door.

 “Oh, that.” She waved her hand dismissively, pretending more nonchalance than she felt. She was probably going to have to do a little creative groveling over that sooner or later if she was going to be able to help the boy-or maybe not. She was no longer feeling so smug. The smart thing for Giancarlo to do was to cooperate with her if he wanted results; but, although he was far from stupid, for someone in his specialty, he did not seem to have learned the value of cooperation, though no doubt he found it in himself to cooperate with those of higher rank. She would worry about it later, she thought, realizing at the same time that the effects of the cough medicine’s overdose hadn’t quite worn off. She was using a lot of her mental energy to keep from throwing her arms around Shongili’s neck and planting a kiss on the warm smile with which he was favoring her.

 “Uh, sit down,” she said, brushing her own hair back from her face and hoping her hands had gotten washed somehow in the midst of all of this and she wasn’t resmearing herself with ashes. “Can I burn you some tea?”

 “Please. I just got back from running with the search party.”

 “Any trace of the others?”

 He shook his head and sat on the bed. She lifted a finger to tell him to wait, ducked outside, dipped up a pan of snow from a high drift, where animals hadn’t been able to reach it, and returned to plop it back on the stove.

 “No,” he said. “Not a trace. And it started snowing hard again, so we had to give up for the time being. If your friend the colonel would just release Lavelle, I’ll bet Dinah could help. She’s the best leader of all of the dogs, and if our people are still findable, she’ll locate them. We’ve been out for three days now.”

 “You must be exhausted.”

 “A little. I just came by to ask if you’d finished with the recorder yet.”

 “Oh, frag! No, I haven’t, really. Clodagh came by once, too, but I completely forgot to ask her when she wanted to do the song for Charlie. If you need it, maybe I could-“

 “No, no, that’s okay.” He peered over her shoulder. “Your water’s boiling.”

 “Thanks.”

 He took a deep breath and said, “What I actually wondered was, well, while you’ve got it, have you given any more thought to making the song about Bremport?”

 “Oh, Scan,” she said, sitting back down hard. To her annoyance, she began to cough again, not because she had to but out of reflex. “Scan, I just can’t do that. It’s too soon. A lot of it’s classified. And I just don’t want to think about it. People here don’t want to hear it, either, trust me.”

 He reclined on the bed, propping himself up on his elbow, and gave her a long hard look. “I could say the same thing, Yana. Trust me. You need to do this. We need to hear it.”

 “Sean, I can’t. I’m no songwriter and I can barely stand to talk about it. Anyway, I only saw one small, awful part. The rest I’ve put together from what I was told before or since about Bremen”

 “I’d like to hear about it,” he said, quietly insistent.

 “Did you have someone there? Did you know someone there?” she asked.

 “You,” he said, making and holding eye contact. “At least, I’m trying to know you.”

 That unsettled her for a moment. She put some of Clodagh’s herbs in a bag and steeped them in the tea water while she thought. Maybe she should talk about it, not only because Shongili wanted to know, but because she was still furious about the whole thing. She couldn’t keep popping off at superior officers on whose goodwill she was dependent and get away with it.

 “Okay,” she said. “Since you think it needs to be told to everybody else, let’s turn on the recorder. I don’t believe I could go through this twice.” He said nothing, but raised his eyebrows inquiringly and she said, “My coat. In the pocket.”

 He moved with natural, lanky grace, rolling across the bed and onto his feet, striding the step or two to the doorway and extracting the recorder, rolling back across the bed with the machine in one hand. He set it on the table beside her chair and punched in the recording sequence.

 She put the cup of tea beside him, then realized it was her only cup. Giving a shrug, she carefully raised the pan in both hands and sipped the tea from the lip before settling down again.

 She could have gone next door and borrowed a cup, perhaps, but she didn’t know the people and she felt that if she interrupted this moment, it wouldn’t return. She might never again have the courage to discuss it. She certainly would never again have the kind of total attention she had from Scan Shongili.

 “I’m not sure what’s classified,” she said to begin with. “Except that I’m not supposed to tell you how the terrorists infiltrated the station.” She shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know that for sure anyway, though I could speculate. The thing is, Scan, the deaths were unnecessary. None of those people had to die. None of them should have. The terrorists were after food, medicine, and supplies.”

 “How do you know?”

 “Because I lay there on the floor playing dead, watching them loot the place, and that’s all they bloody well took.”

 “We heard that they systematically ran through the place executing everyone they found alive,” Sean said.

 Yana shook her head. “There was no need of that. I think they did make sure of a few of the crew, but the station commander and supply officer just happened, by pure coincidence mind you, to be visiting another ship that day. My ship. It had just transferred supplies, and I was bringing fresh recruits over to familiarize them with a Class One station and demonstrate some of the equipment. I-um- I was just showing them how the snorkel worked.”

 “The what?” Scan asked, leaning forward.

 Her voice had been clear and matter-of-fact so far, but suddenly she was having trouble forcing it above a whisper. Her throat began to spasm and she started coughing again. Scan held out the bottle of Clodagh’s medicine, and she took a good swig before she continued.

 “The snorkel. It’s for short repair jobs in airless sections of the ship, so that you don’t have to suit up. There’s an exchange unit in it that returns oxygen for CO2, breath for breath, without the need to carry heavy tanks or wear a full space suit that might be too bulky to do some of the inside repairs in tighter places. Also, you can send snorkeled personnel into certain areas of the ship without having to flood the whole area with O2. New invention. They discovered the exchange material on Bremer.”

 She stopped and watched him. She had lit the lamp earlier, and now its glow and that of the moons and stars through the window illuminated the room. The planes of his face were shadowed, and his eyes held hers, silently pulling more out of her. The tension was broken when the cat jumped up onto her knees and settled down, purring, as if knowing she needed reassurance that she was here, on firm ground, with living people and in no immediate danger, instead of back there.

 He nodded slowly, an almost imperceptible movement.

 “I stepped back into an air lock with the mask in place and let the inner door close. The students were looking through the view plate and watching me on the screens on either side of the door, as I explained the mask to them.

 “I saw the vapor pouring in through the ventilation duct before any of them did, but I couldn’t speak to them because of the snorkel. I signaled them to stand back and hit the O2 button for the lock, waited a beat, and hit the exit panel for the door. But then I realized the vapor was pouring in behind me, too. 1 heard an explosion-felt it really-and the door jammed half-open between us. The recruits were coughing and crowding the outer door.”

 She stopped for a moment and took a swig of cough syrup, seeing the faces in front of her. “An eighteen-year-old girl blocked my way back into the hold. She was trying to get through to the outside, I guess, and was coughing so hard she couldn’t straighten up. People were vomiting, crying. The girl’s nametag said Samuel-son and she had almost white hair, cut into a crew cut. You know, trying to look the part of a company cadet. Her scalp was bright red through her hair, and her eyes were bulging. I exhaled into the mask, tore it off, and tried to wrestle it over her face, but she fought me. I-uh-had to knock her down to get past her, into the room. I put the mask back on and breathed into it but the O2 that came back wasn’t pure. I must have let some of the gas leak in while I was trying to rebreathe her. The yellow vapor was still swirling, and through it I saw the viewscreens. Masked figures were running around, carrying weapons and containers, grabbing all the new supplies. My first thought was that they were station crew investigating the gas in the ventilation system. But that didn’t jibe with the weapons and the way they were ignoring the people dying under their feet. I tried buddy-breathing with the nearest cadet who still had some life in him, and he seemed to realize what I was trying to do, but when he breathed into the mask, it fouled it, and he died too. They all died. Every damned one of them died and I just lay there, playing dead, on the floor breathing through the contaminated mask, exhaling the gas and CO2, sucking in poisoned oxygen while the terrorists ran through the station. The alarms were blaring and the station computer calling for help, but the last thing I saw was the masked face of one of the terrorists through the viewport leading to the main corridor.

 She looked surprised to see us lying in there. I had my face against the floor so the mask wouldn’t show, and I was wedged among the cadets’ bodies. I did-not-cover myself with glory.”

 She didn’t realize until he pulled a rag out of his pocket and wiped her face that she had been weeping. She took the rag from him and scrubbed at her face vigorously, not wanting undeserved sympathy.

 He withdrew gently, asking, “How did you get out?”

 “The station computer alerted the ship’s computer, and they sent medical teams and oxygen. It can’t have taken very long, any of it, but I was unconscious by then. I woke up at Andromeda Station, unable to move. I was on an automatic respirator. Four or five of us survived, I understand, but we weren’t allowed to meet. Once we were well enough to talk, we were questioned for weeks about how we managed to survive the others. At first I think they thought I was in league with the terrorists. But then some of the administrators on Bremer got scared and turned over the terrorists. We were exonerated, they were executed . . .” She shrugged, at a loss for any more to say. “Some song, huh?”

 This time he rose from the bed and put his arms around her. She tried not to cry, not to play for sympathy. She had no need of it. But she developed a very sudden and crucial need for being held against Sean Shongili-since he had volunteered.

 “I-urn, I can’t tell you anything specific about the kids from Petaybee,” she said into his shoulder.

 He hugged her more tightly and she relaxed into him, closing her eyes, relieved to have talked about it. Relieved that so far he hadn’t told her what she should have done instead of what she had done to save the kids who were in her charge.

 He surprised her then by saying, “Get dressed.”

 “What?”

 “You’re not tired, are you?”

 “I wouldn’t want to try to go to sleep now, no,” she said, wiping her face with the heels of her hands so she could look him in the eye.

 “I want to take you somewhere.”

 “Where?”

 “A place we use for cleansing. Come on.”

 She pulled on her quilted pants and parka, her mittens, hat, and muffler, and stuck the cough medicine back in her pocket.

 “Let’s take this, too,” Scan said, sticking the recorder into his own pocket.

 “You don’t still think I could sing . . .”

 “We’ll see what you think,” he said, prodding her toward the door with a hand that lingered between the bottom of her cap and her folded-down hood, at the base of her hairline. A rush of longing for him made her feel weak-kneed and ashamed at the same time, as if she were exploiting the tragedy to hold his attention.

 She sat with him in the cab of his snocle, the motor obscenely loud in the silent village. In a moment they were through it, past Bunny’s sleeping dogs and Clodagh’s house, past the company station and out onto the snowy plain.

 The machine slid over the snow and parted drifts, spraying white glitter in its wake, the engine’s hum the only sound, as if they were riding the wind. After a few moments Sean leaned forward and pointed up, and she looked above her to see a long weaving band of rainbow-striped feathers undulating across the sky like the warbonnet of an old-time cinematic warrior.

 They watched and rode in silence. A big cat sprang away from them; then the lights of their snocle snared a wolf and they had to tack around him to keep from injuring him. They didn’t really need the lights, it seemed to Yana. The snow reflected back the light from the moons and stars and the aurora, casting deep shadows against which prominent objects were etched in a sharp relief. For the first time, she saw that the settlement was within sight of hills and mountains, off to the east and southeast. They passed between the first pair of hills and cut behind them, following a winding pass that didn’t assail the mountains directly, but nudged gently into them. Within this shelter was more of the vegetation she had seen along the river, tall conifers and a great deal of brush.

 It was darker here, in the shadows of the hills, and Scan stopped the snocle.

 “We have to walk in,” he said. “There’s no way to get back there by snocle or sled, but it’s an easy walk.”

 She nodded and followed, thinking she could use the crisp air to clear her head of cough-medicine fumes and the leaden emotional aftertaste of Bremport. She could taste the gas on her tongue again and smell it deep inside herself.

 The air here was not as cold as that at the village. Stunted trees and brush grew along the man-made walkway fashioned of carefully pieced bits of flattened machine hulls and suspended over the snow and humped mounds of undergrowth.

 Sean had been taking the lead, and now he reached back for her and pulled her forward.

 “Look,” he said, pointing to a large animal watching them from the shadows.

 “It looks just like I do in this getup,” she said of the burly furry form.

 “That’s because you look like a bear,” he said, his voice husky, whether from whispering and cold or emotion she couldn’t tell. “This is all muskeg underneath here, spongy, swampy. You’ll soon see why. Berries stay on the bushes much later than elsewhere, which is what interests him.” He nodded at the bear. “Come, we’re almost there.”

 And around the next bend she saw the rising steam, curling above the snow-laden tops of larger trees, and two steps farther she saw the pools and the falls.

 “Sean, it’s beautiful,” she said, taking in the upper pool, closest to them, where water bubbled up from the center in a fountain and formed a deep wide well reflecting the moons and stars in its ripples. Some hidden current sent the water cascading into a second pool and a third. A narrow path, almost free of snow, ran alongside the banks, leading in steps down to the lowest pool. Scan was already shucking his clothing. He turned and grinned at her.

 “You’ll dry out better if you only get your hide wet. If you can’t swim, there’s a lot of places where it’s shallow enough to wade, but you’ll prefer total immersion.”

 She had already begun to unfasten her outer clothing. He jumped into the water with a flash of moonlight on his pale muscular backside. She caught a shadow-darkened glimpse of him sliding over the falls and heard him laugh.

 Hoping this wasn’t another of those instances where everybody else was freezing their butt off while Shongili was warm and under-or in this case un-dressed, she quickly finished stripping and much more quickly waded into the pool, then glided into the water. The pool by the fountain was indeed warm, almost uncomfortably so, and it unknotted her chilled muscles and soaked her through and through with its heat until she felt lazy and languorous. The water carried a hint of sulfur and mint. She kept as much of her under the surface as possible, diving repeatedly.

 The diving caused a ringing in her ears that sounded almost like music. She swam underwater as long as possible, listening to it, hoping to remember which tunes it called to mind.

 She surfaced long enough to catch her breath before approaching the waterfall. It wasn’t a long one, a drop of just a few feet, and the lip of the fall was smooth beneath the tumbling water. If Shongili could do it, so could she, she thought, but she flipped over and went down feet first, her knees, belly, breasts, and face momentarily tweaked with the bite of the icy air.

 The water in the lower pool was a little cooler, a little easier to swim in without falling asleep, but as she was surfacing, something flashed between her legs and up behind her.

 She flipped around and grabbed, thinking to find Shongili, but her hand touched wet fur instead of wet skin and she found herself looking down into the laughing silvery eyes of a large gray seal.

 She hadn’t thought seals liked fresh water, especially not warm fresh water, and especially not inland streams, but perhaps this was another of Petaybee’s permutations that Scan wanted her to see.

 The seal flipped up and back under her and dived down into the lower pool. Where the hell was Scan? She felt a cold droplet on her face, and another, and looked up to see that light snow was floating down from a sky now only partially clear. She shivered and dove under, hearing the music again. This time, perhaps because of the closeness of the falls, she could almost hear the singing of lyrics as well.

 The seal somehow or other had propelled itself back into this upper pool and now came up under her, as if inviting her to hold on to it while it swam around and around.

 Yes! She did hear words, not lyrics after all, but spoken words, low and murmured. She thought perhaps Scan might have returned and was talking to her from the land. When she raised her head, however, he was nowhere near, though the murmurous words continued to the soft water music. She glimpsed the seal under the falls for a moment, and she decided she would get out of the pool. But first, she’d warm up beneath the water pouring from the hot pool above.

 There was a narrow ledge under the pool, and as she climbed up on it, she saw the flash of gray fur again as the seal darted in and out. Ignoring the creature, she stood and let the deliciously warm water play over her face and hair, cascading down her shoulders, back, hips, and calves, caressing her face, throat, breasts,

 belly, and thighs. The water continued its tune, and listening for the rhythm, she realized suddenly that the air pressure had changed around her. It wasn’t water alone that was caressing her, stroking her abdomen, counting her ribs with splayed fingers, cupping her breasts . . .

 “By the powers that be, I welcome you home,” Scan’s voice said, as if reciting a line from a song or a poem. His lips slid beneath her ear and kissed her throat, and she turned in his arms, knowing full well that this was probably going to mean no end of trouble at some point but not caring at all.

 His skin was slick with water but almost as well furred as the seal’s. She turned in his arms and threw her own arms around his neck, kissing him hungrily. When the kiss was done, he held her for a moment, then looked down at her with silver eyes confusingly like those of the seal. She blinked and retreated a half step. The laughter in his eyes saddened briefly into wistfulness, then brusqueness as he held her away from him and said, “We’d better go now. You get out and get dressed. I’ll be right behind you.”

 As if now was a time to be formal? She pulled away from him and dove back into the cooler pool, swimming briskly out and deliberately letting the cold touch her bare skin before dressing again.

 Frag, what was it, anyway? Had her revelations been too much for him after all? Or had he really meant this little swim to be therapeutic and just gotten momentarily carried away when it became erotic instead? Maybe he had a serious interest elsewhere. Maybe he didn’t like women. No, she had had definite evidence to the contrary. Angry and baffled, she pulled half-frozen clothing over her wet body and began walking very briskly indeed back down the pathway.

 Halfway back to the snocle, he joined her, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder, the thumb of his glove brushing her cheek.

 “I think you’ll find you can write that song, now,” he said.

 She wanted to hit him but satisfied herself with pulling away and riding in silence all the way back to her cabin. But, after he left and her frustration died down, she realized he was right.

 The frustration didn’t stay with her. He had wanted her as much as she wanted him, she knew, and there had to be some reason why he had insisted they restrain themselves. When she thought back on it, she could see the cold snowflakes falling into the steaming water and hear the music beneath the falls again. She activated the recorder and spoke into it.

 “Having only air for food, They gave us poison to breathe Even those who had never harmed them Even those who would have helped them Even those who were only children Even those who were very like them.

 “Holding a piece of their own world, I survived Breathing through their own soil, I lived I could not save anybody, not even all of myself. They did not help anybody, not even themselves. They died, as those around me died, and the Food, and the medicine were taken back. In the station, people choked and died On the planet, people starved and died When captured, the killers bled and died I was sent here to die, too, here where the snows live, The waters live, the animals and the trees live, And you.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 7                                                                         

 Bunny knocked on Yana’s door early the next morning. “I’m heading out to SpaceBase. Can you come now?” Yana had had very little sleep, between the ride out to the hot springs and back, and staying up late to record the poem. That had stimulated her far beyond her expectations; she had been unable to rest, kicking herself for not confronting Sean Shongili last night when it would have made sense. Now, except for a lingering twitchy nervousness, the encounter seemed hard to believe. She was both glad and sorry that he lived so far away: glad because she would not have to face him; sorry because there would be no chance meetings, no possibility of seeing him unless one of them deliberately sought the other one out.

 What the hell! She had better things to do. She hauled herself out of her bunk and pulled on a uniform blouse that still bore insignia. She hadn’t removed her rank from her fatigue jacket yet either, and she slipped it on under her parka.

 “Are you feeling better this morning?” Bunny asked owlishly as they set out down the river.

 “As opposed to what?” Yana snapped.

 Bunny didn’t seem offended; she just smiled and said, “Well, you were so upset over that Giancarlo making you burn the fish and then . . .”

 “When you left me, I was doing fine, wasn’t 1? Was that supposed to change?”

 Bunny glanced away from the river road and over at her, then back again. She looked disappointed.

 Yana heaved a sigh and leaned back in the seat. She would have preferred to sleep until they reached SpaceBase. “I’d like to know who it is who’s keeping a log of my activities and guests- then I could set the record straight when necessary. I’d hate for the whole village to be wrong about something. And that cough medicine of Clodagh’s should be a controlled substance, by the way.”

 “He really likes you, Yana,” Bunny said.

 “Buneka, I’m not going to discuss this with you,” Yana said firmly, settling herself and closing her eyes. After a few moments of not sleeping, she asked, “He hasn’t always been by himself, has he?”

 “Sean? Oh no, he used to have lots of girlfriends when he was traveling around the world. He almost married Charlie Demintieff’s sister Ruby once, but she changed her mind at the last minute and married a guy from Baffin Point instead. How about you? Lots of old boyfriends?”

 “Bunny!”

 “Well, but have you had? We know all that stuff about each other.”

 “I’ve had a few boyfriends, I guess you could call them, yes.”

 “Anybody serious?”

 “My husband,” Yana said shortly, not wanting to dig into her memories of Bry so soon after talking about Bremport. Couldn’t these damn people leave anything alone? And why did she feel like she had to answer anyway? “He died,” she said shortly.

 “At Bremport?” Bunny asked almost reverently.

 “No. Not at Bremport. Ten years ago. During a shuttle malfunction. Bunny, 1 really don’t want to talk about it. Now then, what was the name of Diego’s friend again?”

 As Yana suspected, entering the base from the outside was different from being inprocessed through the cattle chutes. In places like this, with little of intrinsic value on the premises-by Intergal standards anyway-personnel were bored and security was lax.

 “Whew, this is a hard, ugly-looking place,” Yana said to Bunny as they pulled up to the gate.

 Bunny’s mitten described an arc around the perimeter. “There used to be lots of little businesses around here: bars, pleasure places, shops for the soldiers. Sometimes they’d bring in extra equipment that wasn’t actually needed and trade it for something to send to families on other colonies or stations. But about a year ago, that all stopped and the company had the whole corridor bulldozed and you had to be a soldier or have a pass to come onto the base. We found out later about Bremport.” She shrugged. “The elders were glad when the base closed. They said the soldiers were corrupting us, but heck, half of them were from here anyway, and related to us, so when their families were allowed out here, lots of us could go into the shops and buy cloth and other stuff that never makes it out to our store.”

 Yana’s parka was uniform issue, and she opened it to let her rank show as they passed the gate guard, who nodded at Bunny’s ID and saluted Yana. The guard hut was a small “instant” building of composite material in a pale pastel. In the lights of the base- and the entire base was so strongly lit that Yana wondered that they couldn’t see the lights clear from Kilcoole-she noticed that the buildings all had some sort of a pastel tint: anemic pink, bilious green, jaundiced yellow. All of the colors were watered down with the familiar omnipresent gray, so that the squat, rectangular buildings merely stood out in ugly relief from the snowy surroundings but achieved nothing so frivolous as beauty or gaiety. The buildings were set in precise rows, down which the arctic wind roared. Beyond the hunkering buildings, abandoned launch gantries towered awkwardly, swaying in the wind like the writhing legs of dying insects.

 Bunny pulled up to a building much like the others except that it bore a letter and a number-C-1000. “There’s my fare,” she said between closed teeth, then jumped out, ran around to hold the door open for Yana, and said with a large obsequious smile, “I thank you for your patronage, dama. Please remember to ask that Rourke be sent for when you wish to return to our village again.”

 “Don’t overdo it,” Yana growled between her teeth and in a louder voice said, “Could you direct me, Rourke, to the infirmary and the communications depot?”

 Bunny’s fare, in the usual anonymous company parka and muffler up to the eyes, walked around the front of the snocle and squinted at Yana.

 “Major Maddock? Yanaba Maddock?” he asked.

 Startled to be recognized so soon after arriving on the base, she counted to three and turned slowly to face the man, raising a rapidly icing eyebrow. “Yes?”

 The man pressed his padding against her padding and gave her a stiff hug. “With all due respect, Major, I thought I’d never see you again. When I heard you were on Bremport. . .” He was struggling to unwrap his scarf and hood from his face.

 “Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated, as the man said,” she told him. By then, he had pulled the hood back to reveal the longer-than-regulation bronze hair and smiling brown eyes she recognized from her days with the survey teams. “Torkel!” she said.

 “Small universe, eh?” It was a very tired but often true spacer’s joke.

 “What are you doing on Petaybee?” she asked.

 “I was wondering that myself until I met you. Can I buy you a cup of something hot?”

 “Sir . . .” Bunny began.

 “I’ll make it worth your while to-uh, cool your heels, Rourke. Shouldn’t be too hard around here.”

 “Yes, Captain,” Bunny said. Then she spoke more boldly, surprising Yana. “Sir, would it be possible for me to go see Diego? I mean, I just thought-“

 “Good idea,” Torkel said. “A pretty girl his own age ought to cheer him up some. Building ten-oh-six. If anybody questions you, tell them I authorized it.”

 Yana wasn’t surprised that Torkel was confident in the amount of weight he swung as a mere captain. The fact was, as she and a few others had reason to know, his rank had little to do with his true degree of power. His family had developed the terraforming process used by the company to create colony worlds such as Petaybee, and his father currently sat on Intergal’s board of directors. Torkel was a very competent officer, but he had been a captain longer than it took most to make general. Generals had a lot hidden from them, whereas captains tended to end up in the thick of things. No one had told Yana this, but she had figured it out, from shipboard conversation and a few remarks Torkel had made in jest.

 It was a joy to sit across from him over steaming cups and energy bars in the dingy little canteen. They had removed hats, hoods, and mufflers but still wore their coats unfastened and peeled back, for the canteen was not well heated. Torkel studied her face as if he was memorizing her.

 “It really is you. I can’t tell you how I felt when I heard about

 Bremport, and then heard that you were there that day. I wanted to execute the terrorists personally.”

 “I know the feeling,” she said dryly.

 “You’re looking wonderful. Better, really, than the last time I saw you.”

 “Really? It’s amazing what a little toxic gas can do for a girl’s complexion. I did lose quite a lot of weight and I haven’t gained much back, trying to-“ She started to say, “trying to figure out how not to burn my food,” but he was already interrupting, leaning forward and looking deeply into her eyes.

 “No, it’s not that. You’re more relaxed-less locked up inside yourself. I guess it must have been that we met each other so soon after your husband’s death . . .”

 “Or so soon after your divorce,” she reminded him. He had been going through the female crew members at an astonishing rate by the time she had left for another unit. He had never come on to her before, though, but always treated her as a senior officer, with respect and what friendliness she had been able to allow. Still, if he thought she was less locked-up now, she had either become much better at hiding her feelings or she must have been more of a mess than she realized back then. “What brings you here, Tor-kel?” she asked, to get the conversation back on firmer ground.

 “Oh, I’m sort of troubleshooting,” he said. “Nobody’s sure exactly what’s going on. Minerals we can spot from space but can’t locate on the surface, teams disappearing, unauthorized life-forms cropping up. The company asked me to evaluate the situation. I thought maybe you might be on the same mission, and we’d be working together again?”

 “Well, I am in a way, but more covertly,” she said. “I’m living in the village.”

 “Among the locals? That’s pretty rough. How badly were you injured at Bremport?”

 “I got a discharge, but I’m recovering,” she said, and realized that it was the truth. The pains in her chest no longer plagued her and the cough was much less frequent, thanks to Clodagh’s syrup. “Anyway, Torkel, I’m glad I ran into you. Giancarlo is a little unreasonable.”

 “I’ve noticed he was pretty heavy-handed dealing with that native woman.”

 “How’s she doing, by the way?”

 “She and the others are probably going to be sent offworld to be interrogated further. Nothing anybody says really adds up, Yana. Fifty teams have been sent down here in the past ten years, and this is only the second time that we’ve had any survivors at all.”

 “How is the boy?” Yana asked quickly.

 “He’s scared. Alone on a hostile world . . .”

 “Torkel, I think Giancarlo’s been filling you full of shit about the natives here. They’re nice people, and they know a few things the company could learn to its benefit.”

 “Sure they do. That’s what this is all about,” he said with a wry lift of one side of his mouth. “And I’m not surprised to hear you have a high opinion of them. I’m sure you bring out the best in them. Even the ips know a good thing when they see it.” He held her hand in both of his and kissed it, which both pleased and slightly alarmed her. If Intergal had a Prince Charming equivalent, it was Torkel Fiske, but she had never expected him to come after her, even in passing.

 She patted his hands with her spare one, pressing her advantage. “No, they’re very caring people. They’re not only worried about Petaybeans who are being held, they’re also very concerned about the boy. His father, too, of course. Has anyone gotten ahold of his father’s partner?”

 “Partner?”

 “Yes, it’s on the computer. A Steven Margolies, Metaxos’s assistant.”

 “Yana, you’re brilliant as ever. I didn’t know anything about this. I’ll have the man sent for at once. Metaxos is no good in the condition he’s in now. The boy, now, he might help us if we keep him on-site and with Margolies, a man intimately familiar with Metaxos’s work. That’s a good rationale for relocating the whole family unit to Petaybee.”

 “Won’t Metaxos need better care than the infirmary here can provide?” she asked. “I heard his condition was pretty bad.”

 “Oh, care here’s going to improve shortly. We’re bringing in more troops and support teams to try to crack this case. Between the two of us, there’s even some talk of evacuating the planet and doing some serious mining until it pays back.”

 “I thought it was a high-recruitment area.”

 “It is. Has been very good. But lately there have been fewer new recruits despite the austere conditions. Seems like the natives just don’t want to leave.” He smiled at her again, his eyes, even in this light, clear and a beautiful light brown, the color of Clodagh’s tea. “If you’re going to be here, I won’t want to leave either.”

 “Good,” Yana said, softening her briskness by smiling warmly at him. “I can’t imagine anyone handier to run into right now. Giancarlo, as I mentioned, is being difficult. Now then, Torkel, repeat after me: ‘Is there anything you need, Yana?’ “

 He leaned closer, and she could feel his breath as he said, stroking her palm with his thumb, “Is-there-any-thing- you-need-Yana?”

 “I have a list,” she said.

 What sorta hold you got on the captain?” Bunny asked as she helped Yana load the snocle. “He tol’ me to come back and get you.”

 “It’s called the ‘old buddy network/ “ Yana said, trying not to feel smug over the haul she had just made. “By the way, a burst went out to Steve Margolies. Diego’ll have company here real soon.”

 Bunny paused in hefting the pack of “clothing, winter wear, one of each” Yana had freed up. “That’s great, Yana. Only how?” She gave Yana a searching look.

 “I suggested that maybe the dad would come round faster if he had the support of his family unit.” Yana hesitated then, not sure if she should confide in Bunny some of the plans for Petaybee that Torkel had mentioned. “You may be busier than ever soon,” she heard herself adding.

 “How so?”

 “They’re bringing in more troops and some support teams.”

 Bunny snorted. “What good’ll those do ‘em if they don’t believe what they been told!”

 “Intergal is trying damned hard to find those minerals they can see from up there.”

 “Yeah, they do keep trying, don’t they?” That amused Bunny. “There. All your gear stowed safe and tight. Let’s get home. I got dogs to feed.” When they had reached the main road out of SpaceBase, she had other questions. “Who’s this captain dude, anyway? The colonel really snapped to when he arrived, like he wasn’t expected and not all that welcome, either.”

 Yana chuckled. “His name’s Fiske, Torkel Fiske. Son of the family that developed the terraforming process used here.”

 “They did Petaybee?” Bunny turned very wide eyes on Yana. “How come you know him?”

 “Served on the same ship a coupla times. That’s all.”

 “That’s “//?”

 “That’s all, Bunny,” Yana said in a tone to discourage further queries. And yet, it started her to thinking. Torkel had sure acted glad to see her. Now, when a guy like Torkel Fiske could bed practically any female he wanted, why had he been so attentive to her, Yanaba Maddock? Mad he actually known, all along, that she was on a covert mission in the village? He had sounded genuinely surprised. Or was he just surprised to have run into her at Space-Base? Had he meant what he said, about the possibility of evacuating everyone from Petaybee so they could blast the planet apart to find the minerals they had been after for so many years? “Ever wanted to get off Petaybee, Bunny? Get to see other worlds, where the living’s a bit easier?”

 Bunny shot her a quick glance. “Why would I want to leave Petaybee? I belong here, Yana. Not just because I was born here. I belong here! I belong to this planet.” Then she clamped her lips shut and concentrated on her driving.

 She had returned to her normal cheerful self when she slowed the snocle to a stop exactly parallel with the steps to Yana’s little house.

 “I’ll unload, Yana,” she said. “You go tend your fire. Some of this stuff won’t do for freezing.”

 “Only if you agree to eat with me?”

 Bunny grinned. “You mean, you want me to cook for you again?”

 Yana waggled a package of dehydrated veggies at the girl in mock threat. “I got me things even I can’t ruin.”

 There had been a most curious selection of foodstuffs available at SpaceBase, as well as basic things like flour, beetshug, and powdered yeast in a can big enough to supply the entire village for the next decade. She had several big tins of pepper and other hot seasonings. She would use those to trade. She had acquired a ream of paper, a box of inked styluses, and a ream of message tapes: the whole village could send one apiece to Charlie. Compared to the village store, the SpaceBase BX was a cornucopia of useful and occasional unlikely commodities.

 In an inside pocket she had as neat a little pair of infrared night binoculars as could be found, just the thing for seeing distances on a snow landscape. She had a first-aid kit though some of the contents had long since passed their expiry dates, but she had wanted the compact field instruments more than the medicines. She had a heavy-duty thermal sleeping bag, another quilt, clothing, skis, snowshoes, an ax, a hatchet, cross- and hacksaws, and enough nails and screws to set up a carpentry shop. And much to her delight, she had discovered, lying dusty on a bottom shelf beneath items of uniform apparel, several lengths of prettily figured fabric in bright colors, no doubt left over from the days when the soldiers’ families were allowed to visit and trade on the base, too.

 Also scattered among the more strictly utilitarian goods, she found other items apparently for sale or trade with civilians: beads, belts, glues for several different types of jobs, a carpenter’s last in her foot size, three each of plates, bowls, and cups, a big skillet, two more pots, and a multiple knife with a six-foot run-out cord she had already attached to her belt.

 She had a pail of multiple vitamins and minerals with an expiry date two years hence, and three boxes of the trail rations designed for Petaybee conditions. There had been cartons of those, newly shipped in, or so the quartermaster had told her. Plus a big can of freeze-dried coffee and another of real tea, and a few other comestibles that, as she had told Bunny, she knew she couldn’t ruin in the serving.

 She set about opening the cans she chose to serve, slopping the contents into appropriate pans and arranging them on the stove, which had not gone out. She had coaxed it to a more active state and was determined that this time she wouldn’t be distracted from her task.

 Clodagh’s cat had watched her put things away with very interested eyes.

 “Taking inventory, cat? How good do you count?”

 The cat blinked insolently at her.

 She had the meal prepared, rather proud of herself at producing more than a single pot of edible food. Bunny was certainly appreciative. Then, after dinner, Yana presented her with a length of the pretty fabric, the blue, which she felt would be a flattering color for Bunny. She was totally unprepared for the joy and prolific thanks, the hint of tears in Bunny’s eyes.

 “I never had anything this grand before, Yana,” the girl said softly, holding the fabric to her face and rubbing it across her weather-chapped cheek. Then, with a wide smile, she beamed at Yana. “I’ll be the belle of the latchkay in this.” Her face dropped and she frowned. “That is, if Aisling can make it up in time for me. She’s awful busy as it is.”

 “Aisling does your dressmaking, too?” Yana had been counting on the woman’s services herself, and she ran through her barter goods to think what would be most appropriate.

 “Yup, when there’s something to do, and something to make with,” Bunny said, still caressing the fabric in her lap. “What did ya get for yourself?”

 Yana unfolded the deep-green-figured length.

 “Ohhh, now that’s ace, Yana, you’ll look great in that!”

 “Think so?” Yana held it up against her. She hadn’t had much in the way of feminine frippery in a long time, not since Bry, who had liked her in nightgowns. Which he promptly took off, a habit that had tickled her errant humor.

 “Yes, I think so. And Sinead has some beads that would bring out the background green. Why, I can see it made up already. Wait a tic!” And Bunny was out the door, hauling on her parka as she went.

 Yana folded her length up carefully, her ringers savoring the smooth finish, and set about clearing up the remains of their supper. She saved a dollop of the protein in the pan and put it down for the cat, who sniffed it then pawed around it as if trying to bury it.

 Bunny returned with a flourish, Sinead and Aisling behind her. Without taking off her parka, she rushed over to the chair where she had put the blue and held it up for the two to see, letting the folds fall about her. “See? Isn’t it the most gorgeous stuff you’ve ever seen?”

 Yana thought she had never seen anyone get so much pleasure out of cloth.

 The rest of the evening was taken up by discussions of styles and decorations for both latchkay blouses. Aisling had taken charge of the two lengths, holding them up against Yana and Bunny, draping them this way and that to see how the finished design would fall and, Yana noticed, smoothing the fabric as if her hands, too, had rarely felt such quality. Sinead was sent back to their cabin to bring up certain trimmings and beads, to be sure that the colors matched, and then that the patterns of beading and decoration were approved.

 “Hear you got up to my brother’s place,” Sinead murmured when Bunny and Aisling were deep in the consideration of cut and style. Her eyes were intent on Yana’s face. “Did he show you around much?”

 “I think he did. Saw the curly-coats, and those great cats of his.”

 Sinead grinned, but her expression was as secretive as it was inquisitive, so Yana didn’t know why Sinead had brought Scan up in the conversation. Could Sinead possibly know about their trip to the warm springs? That was their business.

 “No seals?”

 Yana managed to hide her reaction to that softly delivered query. She turned her head and met Sinead’s keen eyes easily. “One. It seemed to like fresh water, though, which I thought was a little strange.”

 Sinead eyed her a long moment and then, with a cryptic grin, turned away. “We got a lot o’ strange beasties on Petaybee.”

 “Oh? Why haven’t I come across any yet?” Yana asked good-humoredly, despite the fact that her pulse had begun to race. This was exactly what Giancarlo wanted to know. Did Sinead realize that?

 “I think you have to discover them for yourself. Like the seals. Tell you what, why don’t you come check the traplines with me sometime? You might be surprised what you see when you know what to look for. Sometime soon maybe.”

 “Thanks. I’ll take you up on that,” Yana said, careful not to sound too excited.

 Sinead turned back to arranging beads, wires, and trimming for Bunny to inspect.

 Then, before Yana could quiz Bunny on the barter aspects of the new clothing, Aisling and Sinead had folded up the two lengths, cleared away the trimmings, and were out the door into the dark cold night.

 “I didn’t discuss price with ‘em,” Yana said to Bunny.

 “Naw, that comes later, if you like what they do. And they’re good, Yana. Aisling sews like a dream, and Sinead is a wizard with the beads and trims. You don’t need to worry they’d muck up material like that! And gee, I’ve never had such pretty stuff for a latchkay blouse.” The girl’s eyes shone. “I can’t thank you enough ...”

 “Pshaw! That’s my thanks for your help, Buneka. But the latchkay’s coming up soon, isn’t it? Will the blouses be finished in time?”

 “Sure.” Bunny grinned. “They left so they could start. You wait and see. We’ll be the fanciest-dressed females there!”

 Diego was surprised to see the snocle-driver girl again, but at the same time, in one part of his mind, he knew he had been waiting for her. Or if not for her exactly, he had been waiting for something to happen to relieve the heaviness that had fallen on him since he had returned to SpaceBase. He had come outside, the cold air being a change from the smelly stuff inside his quarters. It was also something to do, and the only sure way he knew to keep from trying to choke that dickhead of a colonel who kept on and on with questions Diego was sure his father didn’t even hear. Why didn’t they leave his dad alone?

 “Diego? Hi. It’s me, Bunny,” the girl said, keeping her voice low and looking around her, as if she was worried about being seen.

 “Hi. Did you bring me a cake with a file in it?”

 “Huh?” she asked.

 “Just an old joke I read in a book someplace. Sorry. Nice to see you again but-“

 “Look, I just came to find out if anybody told you yet.”

 “Told me what?” Diego demanded. He hadn’t meant to be surly, but that’s how it came out. He was feeling pretty impatient with all of the guessing games and little hints being passed over his head all the time.

 The girl merely looked at him, exasperated, then said slowly and patiently, as if talking to a very small child, which he supposed was how he was acting, “My friend, Major Maddock, got her friend the captain to send for Steve.”

 “She did?” Diego sat upright, staring at her. “How d’you know?”

 “She told me. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

 “Nope. Wow, that’s great,” he said. He’d be okay; Dad would be okay, if Steve was coming. Steve would straighten everything out. Steve would believe him, even if the colonel and the others didn’t, and Steve would know how to handle these assholes, get them to leave him and Dad alone. His relief was so intense it scared him. Maybe this was some sort of scheme, raising his hopes like this. “You sure?”

 “Sure, I’m sure.” She gave a disgusted flick of her hand. “I don’t go about spreading rumors. Wanna come to the latchkay?”

 “Latchkay? What’s that?”

 “Party. Everyone’s coming. Good singing, good music, good eating,” she said, and Diego could see that she was excited.

 “Dunno,” he said. “I don’t feel much like going to a party with Dad the way he is. Besides, I’m not sure Giancarlo will let me.” § Bunny grinned smugly. “So don’t ask him. Ask Captain Fiske. Just tell him that Major Maddock told me to ask you, and he’ll let you come for sure. He likes her.”

 “Yeah? Well, as long as my dad’s condition doesn’t change or anything, you know, I guess I could. Nothin’ else goin’ on around here.”

 Her grin broadened. “You’ll be glad you did,” she told him. “Get to meet a lot of good people and hear some good songs.”

 “That’d be a change. Sure is no one here you could call ‘good.’ What kind of songs?”

 “Ones my people know. Ones they write about us and our history. Good songs,” she said.

 If things had been normal, if he were back on the ship and his father had never come here and he had never come here and they had never found the cave, he might have made a smart remark, might have said something to make fun of her. But now that seemed like kid stuff. She was serious, and he felt as if he owed it to her to be serious, too. “What are they like?”

 “Well, some are things you sing and some are things you chant. Some rhyme and some don’t. But they all tell you stuff about things that happen to people, things that happen on the planet.”

 “Like poems?”

 “I guess so. We just call them songs. What’re poems like?”

 He grinned and said, “Wait a minute,” and went back to his bunk, pulling one of his precious hard-copy books from his pack. His nose was half-frozen, but he didn’t care. He took the book back out and thumbed it open to a page. “Here’s one I bet you’ll like.

 “ ‘A bunch of the boys were whoopin’ it up At the Malamute saloon . . .’ “

 He read her the whole poem, and she really seemed to like it, and then she recited something of hers, what she called a song. He had to admit it was pretty good, but he suddenly felt too shy to tell her then that he had tried a few himself. Besides, he was about to freeze to death standing outside the ugly blocky building talking poetry with a girl who dressed like a gorilla. “Guess I’d better go check on Dad,” he said apologetically.

 “Is he any better today?” Bunny asked.

 “He’ll be a lot better if Steve gets here. You sure you’re not spoofing me about that?”

 Bunny shook her head slowly. “I don’t do that kind of trick, Diego. None of us would.”

 She left then. Diego watched her drive off in the snocle, wondering how a girl got the chance to drive one of the few decent vehicles on this iceberg. Maybe when Steve got here ... He wouldn’t let himself count on that. Not that he still thought Bunny would lie to him: Why should she? Why would she? But maybe it wouldn’t be as easy as she thought. Maybe Giancarlo wouldn’t let Fiske send for Steve. He liked Bunny, but she hadn’t been around company crews like he had-she couldn’t know how untrustworthy people could be, how unreasonable. She sure was a funny girl. And she really seemed to like this place.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 8                                                                                         

 A scratch on the door heralded Sinead’s arrival at some O-dark-hundred hour. Yana was on her feet instantly and opened the door, dancing about on tiptoe as the cold of the floor ate through her bedsocks.

 “I’ll stir the stove,” Sinead said, loosening her outer garments. “You’ll need something warm in your belly today. Sometimes I think it’s colder just before spring than it is midwinter. Good day to check the traplines though.”

 As she busied herself, pouring water from the thermos into a pot to heat, shaking down the ash from the embers, Yana inserted herself into the layers she felt she would need on this expedition.

 “Wha . . . arrrre ... we trapping?” she asked, her teeth chattering. She wondered that everyone in Kilcoole seemed to have whole teeth. She was certain one morning her front ones would crack off.

 “Whatever’s willing,” Sinead said with a droll grin.

 “Which leaves me no wiser.”

 “It’s a good time to see what’s available,” Sinead repeated. “The time of year when some are more happy to die than live.”

 “How can you tell which is which?”

 “You’ll see. Here, drink this!”

 Yana was quite willing to, cradling the cup in her hands and occasionally, carefully, holding it close to her cheeks to warm her cold face. As carefully as she wrapped her quilts about her prior to falling asleep, her face insisted on being out in the open, and was always cold in the morning.

 Sinead had made a single serving of porridge, as well. “Aisling fed me,” she said with a grin. “Can’t get out of the house in the morning without being stuffed.”

 Yana grinned back, for a moment envious of Sinead, who had a caring partner who saw to her comfort. Then, warmed by the hearty meal, she was ready to go. Sinead had damped down the energetic blaze so that there would be coal to start up again when Yana returned. Clodagh’s cat went out with them and whisked away on some business of its own.

 “D’you have one like that?” Yana asked Sinead as she settled in the sled.

 Sinead gave a snort. “No one has Clodagh’s cats. They have you.”

 Yana agreed heartily and pulled the fur up to her face just as Sinead shouted to her lead dog, a big shaggy brindled female she had named Alice B.

 There was no one else about as the dogs pulled the sled quickly down the main track of Kilcoole, though some houses showed lights. They were soon out into the forest, and Sinead urged her team to the left, down a long slope and then onto a wide expanse of white. Here and there Yana saw what looked to be the tops of square fence posts jutting up from their winter blanket and wondered if this was where the village grew its crops in the short summer season.

 When she saw the leaders suddenly drop off into nothing, she just had time to take a firmer hold on the driving bow before the sled abruptly nose-dived down the steep slope.

 They crashed past more of the spired vegetation she had seen on her first ride on Petaybee; then the surface became smooth again. Another one of Petaybee’s many rivers? As they then traveled up a slope on the other side, she decided her notion was correct. Frozen bushes shortly gave way to trees, growing thicker as they progressed along the trail Sinead was following. The track led slightly uphill and then dipped downward again, across another clearing and into more forest, with Sinead pulling ever left, toward the slowly brightening eastern sky.

 A time or two Yana’s sharp eyes caught the glimmer of lights through the trees, and she smelled woodsmoke. On and on the dogs ran, barking now and then, evidently from sheer joy. Sinead would laugh and urge them on.

 They had been traveling upward of an hour, in and out of forests, when Sinead called Alice B to a halt by a small shack. More of a lean-to actually, Yana thought, rising from the sled, rather pleased to find that she wasn’t as stiff as usual. Nor had cold half crippled her. Was she actually becoming acclimated to this frigid planet? Probably she would become accustomed to the cold just as summer arrived, and by that time any temperature above freezing would roast her.

 She helped Sinead unhook the dogs, check their feet, and set up their picket line. Then Sinead swung to her back the pack that had been Yana’s cushion on the trip out. She passed a second, smaller pack to Yana. From the sled she took a long bundle, which she unwrapped to display three spears with sharp pointed metal ends and one with a wicked-looking barb and hook that Yana thought might be a harpoon, though she had never seen such an instrument before. Two bags and a large Y-shaped affair, which she could identify as a hefty slingshot, had also been packaged with the weapons.

 “Ever use one of these?” Sinead asked, passing over the slingshot.

 “I spent much of my childhood in domes where something like this would have been frowned on,” Yana said, testing the feel of grip in her hand and the give in the slings.

 Sinead gave a snort. “You handle it like you know anyhow.”

 Yana grinned. “One learns.” She took the bag of small stones that Sinead handed over. “What’s the other? Your slingshot?”

 Sinead hefted the bag. “A variant-matched stones attached to long strings. You get them swinging in circles in opposite directions like this. When you’ve got enough momentum going, you twirl them overhead until the tension’s right, then loose them to tangle the feet of whatever you want to bring down.”

 “I’ve seen that sort of thing a time or two. And where you’d least expect it.”

 Her pack settled, Sinead entered the lean-to and emerged with two sets of snowshoes, handing a pair to Yana. She knelt to attach hers and then they were both ready, Sinead leading the way into the dense forest, only slightly illuminated by the rising sun.

 They had traveled about half an hour, Yana judged, when Sinead stopped to kneel by a heavy evergreen bush. Hauling the skirt of branches to one side, she pulled out the oddest-looking wicker contraption Yana had ever seen, with the smaller end turning back inside itself. It held two gray-furred long-eared animals of good size.

 “Thank you, friends,” Sinead murmured, and then with a deft twist of strong gloved hands she wrung their necks.

 Yana was startled. “They weren’t dead yet?” she asked, surprised more by that than by Sinead’s quick dispatch of them.

 Sinead shrugged. “They came to die.” She hummed-though Yana was certain she caught the sounds of words, as well-while with quick movements she wound cord from an outside pocket about their hind legs and secured them to a hook protruding from her pack.

 Then, continuing her odd humming, she put a handful of pellets in the oddly shaped trap and replaced it under the bush. By then Yana had figured out that the trap let the creatures in through the clever inverted neck, which, apparently, couldn’t expand as an exit. Like a fish trap she had once seen, where fish could swim in, but not out.

 “You don’t trap them dead?” Yana asked when Sinead fell silent. She had the oddest notion that Sinead had been singing some sort of a ritual requiem.

 Sinead shook her head. “No, we live-trap. It is our way. But it means I must run the trapline every three, four days, or they would also starve.”

 Yana shook her head, surprised. “You said it was a good time to die? Were those rabbits waiting here for you to kill them?”

 “So it would appear.” Then Sinead rose and started off to the left again.

 They had emptied ten similar traps, and Yana now carried a share of the catch, when Sinead, holding up her hand for Yana to tread more warily, stole toward a thicket. Parting the branches so carefully that only a few grains of snow fell, she motioned for Yana to look into the small clearing. A large buff-colored reindeer stood there-on three legs, the fourth broken at the knee and hanging at an obscene angle. The deer had been cropping the bushes around it, and the snow had turned to muddy slush where it had trampled the clearing in its food circuit.

 Sinead moved back, holding up one gloved hand to indicate Yana was to stay put. She slipped out of her pack, laying it quietly in the snow, and with spear in hand, she crept around the thicket. Yana watched as she disappeared into another portion of the undergrowth. Then she heard a grunt, a whirring noise, and a thunk as the spear found its target, and then an uninhibited crashing of bushes.

 “Okay, Yana,” Sinead called cheerily, and Yana pushed through the thicket and saw the spear sticking out of the deer’s head, right between its eyes. “Grand pelt on this buck,” Sinead said, running her hand down the side and back of the dead beast.

 “This isn’t one of your humane traps, is it?” Yana asked, looking about the clearing as she hunkered down beside the hunter.

 “Not a trap, but I’ve seen does have their young in places like this.”

 “You’re a mighty hunter, Nimrod,” Yana went on, observing how much of the spear’s metal point had entered the beast’s skull. “That was some throw.”

 “The idea is to cause as little pain as possible. Skull’s thinnest right between the eyes. Minute the point hit its brain it was dead. Which it wanted to be with a break like that,” Sinead said, pointing to the broken leg. “Hadn’t done it but a day or two ago, either. Bone ends not frozen through. ‘Mother thing about a head kill is the skin isn’t marred. C’mon. We got real work to do now.”

 To Yana’s surprise, Sinead had her help drag the carcass from the little clearing. “Doe might need it come spring, and it don’t do to leave death scent around.”

 They gutted the animal, a procedure Yana found somewhat less distasteful than dissections of alien creatures she had witnessed during her search-and-discover days with company expeditionary parties. Sinead demonstrated the technique with almost ritualistic care and put the offal in a sack she had obviously brought for the need. She kept out the liver.

 “Lunch,” she said, “but I’ll just put the rest of this-which we can use-where nothing can reach it.” She hung the sack high on the branch beside the carcass, which was already stiffening with cold. “We’ll come back for it. Gotta finish the line.”

 Then Sinead beckoned Yana to follow her as she took up her trapline again. They had acquired several more animals, two already dead in the live traps, when Sinead decided it was time to eat. She built a little fire and, with sharpened twigs, skewered slices of the liver.

 The cooking smelled as good as the eating tasted. Yana licked her fingers, shoving them into her parka to dry them on her shirt when she had finished eating. Sinead heated a pan of water and made some tea, which they took turns drinking.

 “So,” Yana said. “So far these all seem to be fairly standard critters, the kind that would have occurred in the northernmost parts of Earth back in the old days. I had kind of hoped for something a little more unusual.”

 Sinead looked across at her, a slight smile on her face. “Day’s early.”

 “Do you ever catch those freshwater seals?” The shock of Sinead’s reaction to that casual question made Yana try a hasty apology. “What’d I say wrong? You’re the one asked me had I seen them.”

 “You see a seal, dama, and you be respectful.” And there was no question of the menace in Sinead’s manner.

 Yana held her hands up in surrender and laughed shakily. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to put both feet in my mouth. Are seals special?”

 “Very,” Sinead said in an unequivocal tone. Then she, too, lightened up, the tension draining out of her body. “Petaybean seals are one of the more unusual beasts: on the surface they may look like the ordinary Earth species, but they’re very much a product of the planet and they must be protected. Not many people ever get to see a Petaybean seal.” Unexpectedly Sinead grinned, her eyes intent on Yana’s face. “You see one, you be respectful,” she repeated pleasantly.

 “You can count on that!” Yana said fervently.

 Sinead rose and neatly covered their small fire with snow; and then they were on their way again.

 Nine traps later, with some carcasses whose pelts had caused Sinead’s eyes to glisten with pleasure, Yana realized that Sinead was swinging to her right. Maybe they were on the homeward leg. Yana hoped so. Her back and calf muscles were beginning to protest: individually the dead animals weighed little, but she had fifteen dangling from the pack now, and her legs were feeling the strain of unaccustomed snowshoeing.

 There was no way she would complain, but she was tiring. Still and all, she had surprised herself with the day’s work. Far cry from what she had been like first off Andromeda. A healthy life in the outdoors, with untainted air to breathe and decent food to eat, was certainly providing cures never found in an Intergal medical cabinet.

 Yana heard the cracking sound almost as soon as Sinead, who dropped to her knees. Yana did likewise and watched with bated breath as Sinead crept forward. She motioned for Yana to come up, but also signaled her to proceed quietly. Yana had done her share of stalking-of beasts in her expeditionary days, of people in her days as an investigator-and moved appropriately. The cracking continued, a cracking and a thumping. Again Sinead moved forward, stepping with extra care, inserting herself into one of the ubiquitous thickets that grew everywhere. Yana let the branches close around her as she followed Sinead. Instead of peering up over the thicket, Sinead began to part the lower branches, crouching down to look through. She waved Yana to a point beside her, and Yana realized that she could almost see through to what looked like a riverbed. With exquisite caution, she slowly made an obscured peek hole in the branches and barely stifled her gasp of astonishment.

 Animals that she first thought were some of Scan’s curly-coated horses were standing about on the frozen river. One was butting at the ice, obviously determined to make a hole from which it and its companions could drink-and it was butting with a short, stumpy curled horn that grew out of the end of its nose bone. The critter was putting its all into the exercise, sometimes dropping to its knees with the force of its blows, then heaving back to all fours and springing from powerful hindquarters to beat again at the ice. The rear view exposed some obvious male appendages; checking the others of the group, Yana came to the conclusion that the horn seemed to be a perquisite of the male of the species. Suddenly it gave a triumphant bellow and began rearing up, coming down hard to stomp at the ice with its sharp hooves. The others in the small herd did likewise and then backpedaled as a black hole appeared in the white surface.

 Sinead turned to grin broadly at Yana and then signaled her to withdraw. They jogged quite a ways down the track before Sinead stopped.

 “Was that a unicorn I saw?” Yana asked, panting and wheezing just a bit from the exertion.

 Sinead grinned with humorous malice. “There ain’t no such animal and neither of us is virgin, though me more than you, 1 guess.”

 “I didn’t see any in Sean’s herd. And he showed me the stallion.”

 “This is a wild curly. They need the horn to get water in the winter.”

 “Does the horn fall off in the summer then?”

 “Don’t know. Never saw a horned curly trying to break ice in the summer.” Sinead was off down the track before Yana could press her for more information. Well, she had been promised unusual animals-and she’d got ‘em.

 To Yana’s surprise they were back at the lean-to much sooner than she had anticipated. She helped Sinead hitch up the team to the sled and deposited the frozen small animals on the sled bench, and then they made a straight line back to where the deer was hung. Nothing had touched it.

 By the time they reached Kilcoole, Yana taking turns with Sinead to ride the sled runners, it looked the same as it had when they left: no one about on the frozen track and lights coming up in the cabins as they passed.

 “Need help skinning any of these?” Sinead asked as she deposited a fair half of the produce at Yana’s feet.

 “I wouldn’t mind,” Yana admitted. “Though I could probably figure it out, I’ve never really done it before. I have done a little trapping and hunting, but seldom for food; mostly it was for specimens that needed to remain intact for examination and analyses.”

 Sinead took charge, demonstrating the technique of placing the slits and peeling the coats back, stripping away connective tissue. “Ruining the hide wastes part of the critter’s gift to you, so you want to do it right. Sharp knife helps.” She helped Yana skin out her share, watching until she was satisfied that Yana had the knack. Yana found she learned skinning with a lot more ease than she did cooking.

 Sinead pointed up to the crossbeams. “If you tie your catch up high out here on the porch, nothing’ll get ‘em. I’ll bring back your share of the reindeer when we’ve butchered it. And its hide. You have more need of it than we do.”

 With Yana’s profuse thanks trailing after them, Sinead and her dogs went on up the track to the cabin she and Aisling shared.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 9                                                                                              

 A week later, Yana noticed unusual activity at the Kilcoole meeting hall. When she went up to investigate, she was put to work by a laughing Clodagh, who was organizing every available body to assist in the good work. By midday the place had been swept clean, the floor washed, the trestle tables set up, and the chairs placed around the walls. The platform was erected where singers and players could be seen, and heat was pouring forth from the two fireplaces and the big fuel-drum stove. The breakup betting board had been hung from its accustomed hook, the dates and two-hour sections newly inscribed, waiting for folk to place their wagers as to the day and the approximate hour when spring would crack winter’s ice and the rivers would once again begin to flow with wet water.

 The latchkay stewpot, the biggest kettle in Kilcoole, occupied its burner, and every time the lid rattled with steam, a delicious odor wafted free. The big coffeepot was ready to go on-no need to do it yet or the coffee would walk out of the pot and demand dancing space. Mugs waited in platoons, and someone had donated a whole pail of sweetener. Soon the cakes and pies and other baked goods would arrive, and the other dishes the village’s best cooks would provide.

 With the hall set up, Yana hurried back to her cabin to complete the rest of her civic duty and prepare her hot dish. Bunny had suggested beans, probably because they were relatively foolproof, Yana suspected. However Yana, who felt she was doing quite well with the cooking lessons, not only seasoned them with the pepper Bunny had recommended, but actually got cocky enough to add garlic, just because she liked the flavor. She also threw in a heaping handful of dried tomato and capsicum flakes, because the dash of color made the plain beans look more festive.

 She had just taken the beans off the stove when, rather to her surprise, Aisling and Sinead came by with the finished blouses. She was amazed that they had finished the garments so quickly, especially considering the intricacy of the ornamentation. Hers fit beautifully. Its V-neck was tastefully decorated with beads cunningly sewn on to the material’s design, a sort of appliqué. The full sleeves were gathered into a tight cuff, also beaded, and the bodice of the shirt fit close to Yana’s lean frame, but not so close that it didn’t soften the spare lines of her thin body. And there were pockets, also bead-trimmed, into which Yana could stuff her hands when she didn’t know what else to do with them. The open collar was also cleverly decorated, with beads made from segments of some of the wires Yana had seen in the store. In exchange for the blouse, Aisling gratefully accepted Yana’s proffered bags of those spices Bunny had said the two could most use.

 By the time the other women left, it was time to bathe and dress for the main event. Usually, Yana just took a spit bath in kettle-heated water, but she wasn’t about to put her new blouse on without a proper bath. The hot springs, while a few miles away, was not an impossible walk, and on several occasions since Scan had introduced her to it, Yana had trekked there for a dip. Usually there were other people enjoying the water, so she wasn’t surprised not to encounter the “special” seal she must treat with respect Had she been properly respectful that first time? she wondered. On this latchkay morning, the entire village was in and out of the pool, sprucing themselves up for the long-awaited celebration. There were such splashing and carryings-on that the communal bathing deteriorated into a sporting event. At which time Yana left, wrapping up well for the walk back to her cabin.

 “Slainte, Yana,” Bunny called cheerfully as Yana reached her porch. “Want you to meet Diego,” she said, pointing to the well-wrapped figure in her sled. “Here, give this to the major . . .” Bunny shoved a water thermos into his hands. “Major Yanaba Maddock, this is Diego Metaxos.” She gestured with her hands for Diego to get a move on.

 Yana felt for the boy, knowing how stiff a body could be after one of Bunny’s sled rides, as he unfolded, a little awkwardly, balancing the water thermos.

 “How’s your father doing?” Yana asked, walking to the front of the porch to take the thermos from the boy. Seeing his haunted expression, she felt even sorrier for him.

 “She”-and he jerked his mittened hand over his shoulder at Bunny-“said you’d made them get Steve.”

 “I didn’t make anybody do anything, Diego,” Yana said with a self-deprecating laugh, “but I did suggest-to someone who has the power to authorize such things-that it might reassure your father and improve his condition. And yours.”

 “Yeah, thanks.” He started to turn back, noted Bunny’s frown, and turned back, a halfway smile tugging his cold and cracked lips. “I mean it, Major Maddock.”

 Now Yana could see why Bunny could be interested in the boy. Not only was he around her age, but he was tall and well built, with longish wavy black hair and intense dark eyes with curling lashes any girl would envy. And that little smile of his held a certain charm. It was certainly an improvement on his lost, haunted look. What had he seen in the caves that had produced that effect? Not that Petaybee wasn’t daunting to anyone suddenly plonked down on its surface.

 The two turned to go, but Yana suddenly remembered the blouse. “Wait! You’ll want this for the latchkay,” she said, ducking back inside. In a moment she handed the blouse to the girl.

 Tears sprang up in Bunny’s eyes. “Oh, Yana! For me? It’s so beautiful!” She held it up in front of her parka and swung around to show Diego, who pretended indifference, but Yana thought she saw a flicker of admiration behind the boy’s nonchalance.

 Bunny hugged her. “Thank you! I’ll go get dressed right now.”

 Yana watched Bunny, with Diego walking beside her, jump onto her sled and skim down the street, the plume tails of the dogs wagging as they knew themselves near home, and food.

 With a satisfied smile, Yana went inside her nice warm house, to dry her hair and get ready for the latchkay.

 To Yana’s surprise, there was a knock on her door just as she was about to leave. She had been hearing people going past her door, on foot and with dogsleds, for the past half hour, though it was only midafternoon. She spent the time primping, trying to make her own appearance worthy of the blouse, admiring the way the garment added sparkle to her eyes and brought out highlights in her hair, even making her skin glow with unaccustomed color. The knock startled her. Bunny, probably.

 Before she could reach the latch, the door swung slowly open and a well-snowed figure-for it had begun to snow again-stood in the doorway. She recognized the finely decorated gloves as Scan Shongili lifted his hands to push back the hood of his parka.

 Yana’s heart did an unexpected flip-flop. And got even more agitated as Scan grinned at her.

 “If you thought you were going to weasel out of singing tonight, think again,” he said, stopping inside and closing the door. “But I see you have dressed for the occasion. Nice shade on you,” he added, nodding with approval. He stepped up to her, putting a finger on the beaded work of her collar and tracing the design. His smile deepened and his silver eyes gleamed. “A combined effort, if I do not mistake the fine Italianate touches of Aisling and my sister.” ‘

 Yana swallowed, unaccustomed to being complimented on her appearance and inordinately pleased that Scan had. “They were very good to get it finished in time for the latchkay.”

 “Nothing Sinead likes better than a race against time,” he said with a second cryptic smile. The intentness of his gaze reminded her of Sinead’s regard across their trapping campfire.

 “You-you should have seen Bunny’s face when I gave her the blouse they made for her,” Yana said, knowing she was babbling. She reached for her parka, which Sean took from her suddenly nerveless fingers and held for her. Feeling slightly foolish, she turned, shooting her arms out for the sleeves. Deftly he slipped the bulky parka up and onto her shoulders, settling it with a little flick of his hands across her shoulders. Then his fingers brushed the nape of her neck and she had to suppress a convulsive shudder. The memory of their hot-spring interlude flooded her, and she hoped she wasn’t blushing. So she flipped her hood up, pressed shut the parka fastenings, all with her back to him, before she jammed her hands into her gloves and collected the bean pot. Turning resolutely, she smiled at him, just as if she hadn’t gone through all kinds of mental acrobatics over the simple act of his helping her into her coat.

 “Let’s go. My debut awaits!”

 “I hear the boy’s alter-parent is on his way down. Good idea,” he said as they stepped into the well-rutted roadway.

 There were folks behind and in front of them, and every house had lights on to illuminate the way to the hall. Yana hadn’t appreciated just how many people lived in and around the village.

 “Is everyone on Petaybee here?” she asked, trying to estimate attendance from the steady traffic and the numbers of sleds already parked in front of the hall.

 “Everyone who matters to Petaybee,” he answered, grinning at her.

 She mulled that over. “Why should I matter to Petaybee?” she finally asked.

 “Why shouldn’t you?”

 She wanted him to explain that remark and to stop being so cryptic, but before she could speak, someone hailed him from a passing sled. He cupped her arm in his, shielding her from the snow spray, as he called a cheery reply. Then they had to pick their way around sleds and sled dogs, careful not to tread on animals half-buried in the lazy snow that was adding new depth to the old.

 They could hear the happy noise of many cheerful voices, the scrape of fiddles, the wheeze of an accordion, the tootle of a tin whistle, the bass thrum of a bodhran as they reached the front door. Light flared out onto the sawdust that coated the well-trodden snow as the door opened, letting out a puff of warmed air, redolent of leather, clean linen, and herbal scents.

 As soon as Sean was identified, he was absorbed into a welcoming group that effectively divorced him from Yana. She shrugged, impressed by his popularity, as she hauled off her outerwear and tried to find a spare hook on the line down the left-hand wall. She gave up and tossed her parka onto the growing pile in the corner, then slid out of her boots and tied their drawstrings together before setting them down beside the pile.

 An arm snaked around her waist and she was pulled into a tight embrace. She was about to struggle when she realized it was Sean. Then she was guided out and onto the dance floor and found herself, willy-nilly, pumped about in an energetic polka by her grinning partner.

 Those on the sidelines seemed determined to encourage him to grander feats of speed and agility. She clung for dear life to his shoulder and his guiding hand as the room swirled in dizzying circles about her. Three or four weeks earlier she would have been coughing uncontrollably after the first turn about the room, but now she didn’t even feel the need to reach for Clodagh’s cough medicine. She was breathless, of course, but it was with the sheer momentum of the dance as she was swept away in Scan’s arms while other dancers careered around them. She had better not have a coughing fit here. She could be accidentally stomped to death if she lost her footing! But it was all very exciting. She had never-not even when Bry was being extra sociable-danced quite this uninhibitedly. It was unbelievably exhilarating-dancing with a whirlwind. She didn’t know how Sean kept his balance, much less how he kept dancing so lightly, and yet she who, a mere five weeks before, had barely been able to walk without doubling over with lung spasms could now-almost-keep up with him. Whether it was due to the romance of the moment or the beneficial effects of Clodagh’s cough medicine she didn’t know, but she loved it.

 The dance stopped only when the musicians needed to catch their breaths and moisten their throats. Weak and breathless, Yana was obliged to hang on to Sean for fear of falling, and she shivered with reaction to the closeness of the hard, strong body that supported her, and the hands that clasped her body with a touch that sent peculiar ripples up and down her arms and legs. She knew she should pull free and didn’t want to-not in this lifetime.

 Sweat was trickling down her face by then, and she was afraid if she didn’t attend to that she would disgust her partner. Except, just then, he laid an equally moist cheek against hers and laughed in her ear.

 “You offworlders sure can rob a body of breath with your dancing!” he said.

 “Me?” she exclaimed in amused outrage, and pushed back to be sure he was teasing her.

 His silver eyes gleamed with mischief, and he pulled her back to him, leading her off the floor toward the immense bowl of punch, which no doubt consisted largely of Clodagh’s blur-maker. Yana didn’t care what was in the punch: she would welcome the moisture to unparch her throat. Fastidiously, she found her one cloth handkerchief and blotted the sweat on her face. Sean was likewise engaged, nodding and grinning at folks as he released her to get them two full cups.

 “This is perfect,” she said, after rolling the drink around in her mouth.

 Scan’s arm around her waist pulled her close against him. “Helps the nervous performer,” he murmured in her ear.

 “You had to remind me?” she demanded in a mock-accusatory tone. She had managed to forget that upcoming ordeal.

 “Stick with me, babe,” he answered in a mock-gruff voice, “and you won’t need to worry!”

 “You intend to get me suitably drunk?”

 “No one gets drunk on Clodagh’s punch,” he replied with fake indignation, adding with another wicked leer, “but you’ll be so blurred it won’t matter.”

 “Here’s to that,” she said, and chugalugged the rest of the cup. He took it from her hand and passed it to the lady serving to be refilled.

 “Hey, too much of this and I’ll forget the words,” Yana protested.

 Sean shook his head, handing her the cup. “Some words you don’t forget, Yanaba.” He laid his fingers lightly on her shirt above her heart. “Some words come from there and, once spoken, can’t be forgotten.”

 She gave him a long look, awash with a few unblurred anxieties, like why he had insisted in the first place, why she had let him in the second-and in the third, should she go through with it?

 “Have you placed your bet yet?” he asked, pointing to the breakup board and the knot of people about it. Someone had just chalked in a mark. Scan grinned. “Tolubi’s out by two days and six hours.”

 “How d’you figure that?” Yana regarded him suspiciously.

 He gave an indifferent shrug. “I’m not allowed to bet I’ve been right so often.”

 “Can I?” ‘

 Sean gazed steadily at her. “You could. But, knowing that I’m always right, would you?”

 Yana returned his gaze. “If you’re always right, I’d be taking an unfair advantage.”

 “You could still place a bet.” His tone was bland and his eyes lazy.

 “A sure thing’s not a bet,” she said. “And I’m not a betting woman anyhow.” She gave him a droll smile. “I always lose, and I wouldn’t want to spoil your record.”

 Sean laughed at that, his eyes twinkling, and she knew her response had pleased him.

 “What would my prize have been?” she asked.

 “Don’t know what it is this year,” he replied. “Usually credit at the company store, or pups, if there’re some good ones due in the spring whelpings.”

 The music started up again, a two-step, and before she could protest, Sean had her out in the middle of the floor dancing with him, one strong arm clipping her waist so that she couldn’t duck away, the other hand with fingers inextricably laced around hers.

 She had time during that dance to see the crowd, standing and sitting around the big hall, and she wondered if the entire “native” population of Petaybee had somehow managed to assemble in this one spot. Kids raced about the edges of the dance floor, tripping over feet, howling with hurt and being comforted by whoever picked them up and dusted them off; babies were traded off as dancing partners were claimed. Little girls danced with their grandfathers and teenaged boys asked their aunties and grandmothers to dance or showed the steps to smaller cousins; a few of the older kids, looking self-conscious, waited to be asked to dance by a member of their peer group, but often little girls and grown women danced together, as did some of the men and boys- whoever didn’t have a partner danced with any other available body.

 Yana spotted Bunny, who was looking remarkably lovely and feminine, in close conversation with Diego near the food table: Diego had already started to munch on a meatroll, and Bunny was nibbling on a hunk of something in one hand.

 Sean was an excellent dancer, possibly the best she had ever been partnered with, and for once her feet seemed to know which way to go. She dreaded stepping on his toes, especially as he had discarded his heavy boots and was wearing some beautifully beaded moccasins.

 Between dances, Sean kept her mug full and piloted her about the hall as he met and exchanged some of his cryptic remarks to men and women.

 “Who are these folks?” she asked in his ear as he maneuvered her to yet another couple.

 “The parents of the Bremport victims,” he said.

 “What the frag! That’s unfair, Sean.” She tried to pull free, but his grip was implacable.

 “Why? They know you’re going to sing. They’ve wanted to meet you. They have. You’re their last link with their dead.”

 “Oh, frag it! That’s not fair. To me, Sean.”

 “Yes, it is, because now you’ll know which faces to look for when you’re singing.”

 “Is that why you’re attached to me like a limpet?” she asked bitterly. “So I can’t escape this ordeal?”

 “It won’t be an ordeal for you, Yanaba, but a release,” he said softly and with such great tenderness that she felt weak-kneed. Damn Clodagh. She was blurring.

 About then, she noticed that Bunny and Diego had not once parted company.

 “Yes, Diego’ll sing, too. You aren’t the only one,” Scan said, observing the direction of her interest. Then he chuckled. “Will the miserable like some company?” He began to propel her in their direction.

 Some quality of the look with which Bunny was favoring Diego made Yana dig her heels in. “No, Scan, we won’t interrupt them.”

 “No.” Scan looked at the young pair, his mobile face thoughtful. “No, I don’t think we will. Bunny’s handling him like a trooper.”

 “Handling him?” Yana bristled.

 Scan shrugged, his expression bland. “Keeping him company, if you like. You know more people here than he does.”

 Just then Sinead and Aisling danced up to them, Sinead leading, as always. Both wore superb leather shirts, Aisling white, Sinead buff, with elaborate decorations which were so tasteful that jewels could not have been better displayed.

 “Enjoying yourselves?” Sinead asked, her expression bland, but the slightly arch tone of her voice seemed to convey some hidden message evidently intended for Sean.

 “Now that you mention it, I am,” Sean said, equally archly, locking gazes with Sinead. “How about you, Yana?”

 “Oh, I am, indeed I am,” she replied. Sinead nodded and kept walking.

 “What’s up with your sister?” Yana asked Scan, as he whirled her in a pirouette to the other side of the room.

 “Don’t let her worry you for a single minute,” he said.

 She caught an odd twitch to his mouth, a twitch of minor irritation, she thought. Well, sisters had been irritants to brothers since the worlds began.

 About the time she was beginning to wonder if the music makers had been trading off with others who looked identical to keep up such an amazing barrage of dance tunes and tempos, the current ones put down their instruments and left the little stage.

 Somehow Scan had timed it so that he and Yana were at the seemingly bottomless punch bowl as the last note died away. He pressed yet another cup into her hand.

 “I’ll be too blurred to sing,” she said, trying to put it down.

 “Drink it. You’re on.”

 With what seemed to her like unceremonious haste, he then guided her across the floor to the platform.

 “No, no, Sean,” she protested, noticing herself to be the center of attention. In the sudden way these people had, everyone was settling into a quiet mode all around the room as Sean led her inexorably to the stage. Even the children were quiet, the babies remarkably all asleep.

 “Yes, yes, Yana.”

 “Why me?” she protested, but her feet seemed willing to follow Sean.

 “You’re the hero.”

 She tried to wrench her arm free of his grasp, but his fingers merely tightened, and then she was stumbling onto the box that was the step up to the platform. She stood there, miserably aware of being the focus of so many eyes, so much unwarranted attention, of her coming ordeal. How could anything she said, or sang, help ease their losses?

 Scan held up both arms and what little noise there was died completely.

 “This is Major Yanaba Maddock,” he announced, turning slowly to take in everyone patiently waiting. “You all know her. She will sing.” Then, with an oddly formal bow, he gestured for Yana to sit on the single chair that was now centered on the stage.

 She sank limply to the chair, feeling the hard seat grind into her tailbone. Sing? She was supposed to sing now?

 A soft beat registered, and she saw Scan, the bodhran in one hand, gently fingering sound from the skin. She blinked and suddenly began the chant that had come to her. She hadn’t rehearsed it since that day, weeks before, when Scan had coaxed the words from her. But they were there, on her tongue, and in the proper order, in the precise rhythm of the drumbeat, and her voice was saying them. She was unaware of anything else because her mind was back there, in Bremport for those few surrealistically macabre and devastatingly helpless and horrible minutes, and she wondered that she could enunciate any words for the pain in her chest, the constriction in her throat, and the unwept tears that pressed against her eyelids. She wished she were even more blurred than she knew she had to be, to let go like this. To perform, as if by rote, any duties that had not been drill-inspired over centuries of practice.

 She heard, from a distance, her own voice, and she had never realized she could sound like that: a husky rich contralto that dipped and rose. She wasn’t really aware of what she was singing until she got to the final lines.

 “I was sent here to die, too, here where the snows live The waters live, the animals and the trees live, And you.”

 As the last of that vowel drifted into nothingness, she bowed her head, tears streaming down her cheeks and falling into her hands. She couldn’t move and didn’t know what she was supposed to do next. Maybe Scan would liberate her.

 Then a pair of work-roughened hands slid across hers, pressed gently, and withdrew only to be replaced by another set of hands. By the third pair she looked up, for their touch was like a benison, healing her grief, staunching her tears. She could even smile as yet another set of parents laid hands on hers to mutely offer their appreciation. Seeing the tears in their eyes-tears of an odd sort of sublimated sorrowing-hers began to ease, along with the constriction in her chest, the tight bands about her heart.

 The little ceremony completed, Scan collected her and brought her wordlessly to Clodagh’s bowl, where the woman herself ladled a cup for her and solemnly inclined her head in a regal bow of approval as the cup was handed from Clodagh to Sean and then to Yana.

 Then Sean put his arm about her shoulders and drew her to sit in a space that magically appeared on a bench against the wall. His shoulder touched hers, his hip and thigh brushed hers. She felt drained but exultant, no longer sad but infinitely relieved. She sipped the punch, keeping her head down, unwilling to make eye contact with anyone as she savored what was, as Sean had said, a healing.

 The little susurrus of soft voices, expectant, made her look up to see Bunny leading Diego to the stage.

 “This is Diego Metaxos,” Bunny said, arms above her head and turning around slowly to the audience just as Sean had done. “He must sing.”

 Yana hoped that she had shown as much composure as Diego did. He sat down with more grace than she had, his hands splay-fingered on his knees.

 “I am new come, in storm, here. , A storm of heart and mind and soul. I sought and found storm with Lavelle She saved me when the sled crashed down. With the heat of her body she saved me. With the wit of her mind she saved my father, too. Saved me to see the cavern that all say I didn’t see.”

 His tone was rich in irony and his tenor young and surprisingly vibrant though Yana suspected he had never sung before audience either.

 “But I saw the caverns and the water and the carving of wind and water.

 I saw the gleaming snow, like jeweled cloth.

 I saw the branches waving, the water talking,

 The ice answering, the snow laughing.

 I saw The animals of water and earth and they were talking, too.

 They were kind to me and answered all my questions

 But I do not know what questions I asked.

 I do not know what answers I heard.

 I know the cavern, the branches, the talking water,

 The speaking ice and the laughing snow. I know

 That you know it, too. So hear my song

 And believe me. For I have seen what you have seen.

 And I am changed. Hear my song. Believe me.”

  

 He threw his head back as his last passionate note died away, and threw out his arms, entreating their response.

 It began as a very low murmur of approval, growing as more folk entered the answering chorus, as more people began to drum their feet on the floor, as a crescendo of sound beat on Yana’s ears until she almost put her hands over them. But if she had, she would not have heard the answer.

 “We believe! We believe! We believe!”

 She had jumped up and was shouting along with everyone else. Because she could not doubt the boy. Everyone, at the same instant, swarmed across the floor toward him. Bunny was on the platform, hugging him, and suddenly he was crying, with the same sense of relief that Yana knew she had just felt.

 Singing the Inuit way had much to recommend it.

 Yana was still caught up in the emotion surrounding Diego’s song when a voice spoke in her ear. “Now that was very moving.”

 The voice belonged to Torkel Fiske, who prevented her from turning with a light touch on her shoulders. Sean was no longer beside her. “Very touching. I’m so glad I convinced Giancarlo to let the boy come here today. Obviously he needed to vent his emotions and I do find it curious that when he insists here, in his poetic mode, that the nonsense his father has been babbling was real, the villagers agree with him.”

 “Maybe,” Yana replied in a sardonic tone, “that’s because the villagers are more observant than the company.”

 “Oh, but the villagers are the company, too. Perhaps a branch that’s had insufficient attention in the past.”

 “Ooh, that sounds ominous,” she said as lightly as she could.

 “Maybe a little prophetic,” he admitted, breathing into her hair. “I hope nobody will mind that I came. I just had to see for myself about this party you and Diego were so excited about. Could I talk you into a dance, or are you able?”

 “I seem to be managing,” she said, looking around for Sean. “And there’s no dance music playing,” she pointed out, feeling ridiculous, standing there in her homemade blouse, uniform pants and stocking feet like something out of a gothic novel. “Look, Torkel,” she said, shaking off his hands to turn in his arms. “You’ve been a godsend and I’m very glad to see you, and I’m flattered by your interest. Under ordinary circumstances I’d be very tempted, but, well . . .”

 “Oho!” he said, his eyes smiling down at her while his mouth twisted with mock disappointment. “I’m not the only one to appreciate you, huh? I was hoping the locals would be too backward to notice. My estimation of this place increases by the minute.”

 Thank God his ego was strong enough that she didn’t have to worry about losing his friendship-and his assistance-by declining to play. She kissed his cheek. “Asshole.”

 He prolonged the contact with a hug that ended with sagged shoulders. “Oh well, so much for the reasons I was looking forward to coming.”

 About that time Aisling approached them and held out her arms for a hug, too, giving Yana a graceful way to extricate herself from Torkel. “Yana, I just had to tell you how beautiful your song was, how much it meant to me and everybody else.”

 “Thanks, Aisling. And thanks again for making this gorgeous blouse.”

 Aisling flushed with pleasure. “That’s okay. It looks beautiful.” She glanced at Torkel inquisitively and with just a tad of something Yana took to be-well, not hostility, but suspicion.

 “This is an old shipmate of mine, Aisling, Captain Torkel Fiske. He arranged for me to get the material and for Diego to be here today.”

 “Oh, that was real nice of you, Captain,” Aisling said, sticking out a long-fingered hand for him to shake. Torkel, typically, raised it to his lips instead.

 “Hey, Yana.” Sinead appeared behind her partner and stuck her hand out to Torkel, too. “Tell this guy for me that Aisling and I share everything,” she said.

 Again, the tone was friendly but the undercurrents were guarded and, in this case, more markedly hostile-but not because Torkel was kissing Aisling’s hand. Yana thought perhaps Sinead might be being possessive of her on Scan’s behalf.

 “Torkel, Sinead Shongili.”

 The two regarded each other like fencers assessing each other’s strengths; then he kissed Sinead’s hand, after which she surprised him by kissing his, then licking her lips.

 “Um, hairy knuckles. My dad had hairy knuckles.”

 “I like her,” Torkel said, turning to Yana and pointing to Sinead.

 “Me, too,” Aisling said, putting her arm around Sinead’s shoulders.

 “Listen,” Torkel said confidingly, taking in not only Yana but Aisling and Sinead, “maybe you women can help me with something I’ve got to do which is going to be real hard. Maybe you’d even know if I ought to do it now or wait until this party is over.”

 “Sure, Torkel,” Aisling said.

 “What’s the matter, man?” Sinead asked.

 “I need to find out who is next of kin to a woman named Lavelle Maloney.”

 “Lavelle!” Sinead said. “Has something happened to her? Where is she?”

 Torkel gritted his teeth and patted the open air with his hand in a calming gesture. “I really think I should tell the next of kin before I tell anybody else, don’t you? But, well, I think they’ll need your support when I’ve finished talking to them.”

 “Oh, no . . .” Aisling said.

 Sinead touched her partner’s forearm gently. “Why don’t you go tell Clodagh and Scan they’re needed and I’ll take Torkel and Yana to get Liam.” To Torkel she said, “Lavelle’s husband has been sick a long time. He didn’t come today. We’ll get her boy Liam to come with us back to her house to tell his da. Her daughter lives at Tanana Bay, and her other son is in the Space Corps, stationed on Mukerjee Three.”

 Yana saw Scan then, one arm around Bunny and the other around Diego, hording the kids toward her, speaking earnestly to Diego. Close behind him came Clodagh, and Sinead stopped as she met them.

 Clodagh held up her hand and twiddled her fingers impatiently, as if staving off Sinead’s news. Then she, too, headed toward Yana and Torkel.

 She knows, Yana thought as Clodagh sailed toward them like a liner through an asteroid belt. She already knows. But how?

 Torkel was intercepting Sean and the kids. “Diego, son, you have great talent,” he said.

 Torkel looked so handsome and fatherly congratulating Diego, Yana thought. He had wisely chosen not to wear a uniform, despite the apparently official nature of his visit. He wore instead a heavy sweater patterned with moss green, rust, and cream that set off his hair and eyes to good advantage, and a pair of rust-colored woolen trousers. He was bigger than Sean, she saw, and more stockily built, and of course their coloring was very different; one russet, the other silver, like fire and ice. Except, she remembered with an inward blush, there had been nothing icy about Sean Shongili thus far in their acquaintance.

 “Sean,” Sinead was saying, “this man is here because something has happened to Lavelle.”

 Sean squeezed his eyes shut and his lips thinned with pain, but that was nothing compared to Diego’s reaction.

 “What? What’s happened to her?” the boy demanded of Torkel, his eyes blazing and his fists clenched. “What did you dorks do to her?”

 Torkel looked genuinely pained. “Nothing, son. We’re not sure what happened, and won’t know until we get the autopsy report.”

 Sean’s head snapped up. “Autopsy?”

 “I take it she is dead then?” Sinead drawled with a contemptuous roll of her eyes.

 Torkel blew a deep and frustrated sigh. “Please. Let’s tell the relatives first.”

 “Sinead,” Clodagh said softly, and the woman plunged into the crowd.

 Diego, who at first had seemed moderately pleased to see Torkel, suddenly blew a gasket. “Goddamn you guys, you killed her!” he cried. Sean had hold of him, which was a good thing, because Diego was lunging for the captain and spitting with anger. “You guys just kept after her and kept after her and wouldn’t believe her or us or anybody. So you fraggin’ tortured her to death or something! Damn you. Why couldn’t you let her alone? Why can’t you let us all alone? You don’t know the truth when you hear it. She told you what happened. Dad and I told you what happened, and you beat her up because you didn’t believe her and she died.”

 “No, son, I-“

 “If you didn’t have my dad there, I’d never go back to that place. Never! Let us go. You’re too dumb to-“

 Clodagh was interrupting him with soothing noises, but she didn’t really know the boy.

 Neither did Yana, but she knew the reaction. The boy had simply had one too many profound traumas in a short space of time. His singing had been a highly emotional probing for him, opening a deep wound for healing. Before the healing could take place, Torkel’s revelation had assaulted him with a new pain on top of the other.

 “Metaxos, listen to me,” she said in a calm but very firm voice. “We can find out the truth. There’ll be a report. They’ll return her body. I’ll go back with you to SpaceBase personally and find out what happened if I have to go retrieve Lavelle myself.”

 Diego jerked his head to turn his scaring glare on her. “You’re one of them. How can 1 trust you?”

 “Oh, Diego, come on,” Bunny said.

 Just then Sinead arrived with a stony-faced young man in low. “Captain Fiske, this is Liam Maloney, Lavelle’s son.”

 “My mum’s dead, isn’t she?” Liam asked Torkel. In contrast to Diego, Liam seemed outwardly very calm. Almost as if he’d been expecting this, Yana thought.

 “Well, yes. I wanted to tell you and your father together.”

 “No offense, Captain, but I don’t think Dad wants to see any of you people right now. I’ll tell him.” He turned to Clodagh, who put her arm around him as if he were still a baby, and as they moved away, he buried his head against her massive breast.

 “Okay, Captain, now that you’ve done your duty, I think the rest of us need to know what’s going on,” Scan said.

 “Come on back to my place,” Yana said quickly, including Scan, Bunny, Diego, Sinead, and Aisling in her invitation and finally, with a sympathetic glance at Torkel, adding, “I’ll make us some real coffee.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 10                                                                             

 How did she die?” Scan asked.

 “We can’t be sure yet. The autopsy report ‘wasn’t in when I left SpaceBase,” Torkel said. “Probably delayed effects of exposure. Acted like respiratory failure, apparently. The medic suspected she may have frostbitten her lungs while she was out there and nobody realized it until she had already been transferred via shuttle to headquarters. The old man isn’t doing so hot either, although the girl, Brit, doesn’t seem to be suffering any ill effects. They’re to be transferred to Andromeda medical facility for further observation.”

 “Don’t,” Scan said. “Send them back here. Keep them at SpaceBase if you have to, but they will soon sicken and die if you send them offplanet. They’re adapted to this planet and these conditions. They’ll die elsewhere. Bring them back.”

 “I’m not sure I can do that,” Torkel said, just a hint of belligerence creeping into his voice. He didn’t say it, but Yana could feel the resentment building in him: here he was trying to be such a great guy and let the locals in on what was happening, and they tried to tell him how to do his job.

 “Why not?” Diego demanded angrily. “Are you having too much fun questioning them?”

 Torkel heaved an exasperated sigh. “Son, I’m trying to be patient with you because I understand how upset you must be about your father. Your dad’s partner is on the way down to look after you and should be arriving on one of the first troop shuttles. But I’ve had about enough crap out of you. You’ve been raised by Intergal. Surely you know that we don’t use rough stuff on our own people . . .”

 He appealed to Yana, but she said nothing. The terrorists from Bremer had been interrogated. They had, at one time, been Intergal’s own people.

 Sinead said diplomatically, “It’s just that we’re a very close-knit community here, Captain Fiske. People will worry about Sigdhu and Brit even more now with what’s happened to Lavelle. I’m not saying it was the company’s fault, but you know, we’re used to a different kind of atmosphere here than what you have on the stations and ships. Our air is fresh, even if it’s cold, not endlessly reprocessed.”

 “Glad you enjoy it,” Torkel said with an ironic lift of his eyebrow. “The company provided all of the amenities of this planet.”

 “We need our own back here on the surface, man,” Scan said, and Yana realized that he was at a disadvantage not knowing who Torkel was. “My family has been accommodating the species of this planet to its peculiarities for four generations now and between you and me, the company hasn’t provided a lot of what’s here. There are major adaptation problems for our people . . .”

 “And you are, sir?” Torkel asked politely, but with an edge in his voice to match the one in Sean’s. They stood across the room from each other, each with his feet spread and his arms poised, like a pair of gunfighters squaring off. •

 The cat, which had been lounging on the middle of the table washing its underside, suddenly leapt up, sprang to the door, and meowed urgently to go out. Yana crossed between the men to open the door, and when she turned back, they had relaxed so that they were merely glaring at each other, but no longer posturing. She stepped quickly between them, gesturing to each to come closer.

 “Captain Torkel Fiske, descendant of the terraforming Fiskes, this is Sean Shongili, descendant of the genetic-engineering Shongilis,” she said quickly, as if officiating at a hailing party for newly recruited officers. “You guys want to go to opposite corners and come out flashing credentials?”

 They didn’t seem to hear her for a moment; then Torkel suddenly grinned fondly at her and reached out to squeeze her shoulder.

 “Trust you to try to defuse a situation, Yana. God, I’ve missed you. Shongili, I am actually extremely pleased to meet you. Excuse me if I came on a little strong, but we were all shocked by that poor woman’s death when she had been so instrumental in saving young Diego here and his father.”

 “I think I can help, Torkel,” Yana intervened again. “Let me see that autopsy report when it comes in. And please, I think there’s been enough evidence gathered so far to show that Petaybee is not exactly what the company ordered, and Sean may be right about the adaptive failures.”

 Torkel shook his head. “That doesn’t make much sense, Yana, when half the existing Intergal force was recruited from Petaybeans originally.”

 Yana shrugged and held out a cup of coffee, wishing she had acquired more cups from the BX. He took the cup in one hand, and then took her hand in his other.

 “The recruits are young, Captain,” Sean said. “Their growing isn’t over, nor full maturation reached when they leave Petaybee to join Intergal.”

 “That’s as may be, Shongili. Yana, we’ll talk about this later. I can see now that everybody’s too upset to listen to reason.”

 “I can take you and Diego back, sir,” Bunny volunteered. Yana noticed that her young friend had very wisely kept her mouth shut throughout the conversation, retaining an enviably neutral-at least as far as Torkel was concerned-stance.

 “Thanks, young lady, but 1 brought my own,” Torkel said. He turned to Diego as if to say something, but Diego’s black scowl made him think better of it.

 They were pulling on winter gear when there was a knock at the door. Yana opened it, and there was the cat, sitting squarely in the middle of the doorstep, and Clodagh, in only a light jacket, stocking cap, and knitted scarf, right behind.

 “I’m glad I caught you, Captain, Diego,” she said, with a slightly softer look at the boy. “Adak just got a message in and brought it to the latchkay looking for you. Dr. Margolies is at SpaceBase now.”

 Torkel nodded his thanks and started to turn to Diego, but Clodagh stopped him.

 “Captain, I was thinking maybe, you know, if your doctors think Dr. Metaxos won’t get any better, maybe he and Diego could come here to live with us? Dr. Margolies, too, if the company wanted to station him here. Maybe he could do the work you need better if he lived with us?”

 Yana wondered what Clodagh was thinking of. She knew the villagers had responded well to Diego at the latchkay, but in many close-knit communities, Dr. Metaxos would have been held indirectly responsible for Lavelle’s death. Maybe these people were just unusually generous, but she couldn’t imagine they would welcome a known company agent on the premises. On the other hand, theoretically Scan was a company man, too.

 Torkel looked as flummoxed as she was by Clodagh’s offer and said with his customary charm, “That’s very kind of you people, and I’ll certainly suggest it to Dr. Margolies and to Colonel Giancarlo. It might indeed be convenient to have Dr. Margolies based here in Kilcoole, at least for the time being, and good for young Diego to be around people his own age again. At least until the company comes up with some permanent solution for his problem.”

 Clodagh shrugged. “It’s no problem to us, Captain. You might not realize it, but what happened to Dr. Metaxos has happened to quite a lot of people on Petaybee. This planet can be kinda hard on certain folks.”

 “Thank you for your concern, ma’am.”

 Yana had her coat on before he stepped a foot out the door. Hooking her arm in his, she said, “Tell you what, Torkel. How ‘bout if Bunny takes Diego back to base and I keep you company on the way out and ride back with her?”

 “I’d like nothing better,” he said.

 With somewhat forced heartiness Scan said, “Well, back to the latchkay for the rest of us. Bunka, make sure you girls are back in time for the night chants. Major Maddock will want to hear those.”

 For someone who had appeared so ardent earlier, Torkel Fiske was strangely silent during much of their two-hour snocle ride to SpaceBase. The river trail was wide and flat, streaks of clear ice showing black where the snow had drifted away, the moons gleaming white, mirroring the planet’s surface. As the snocle cleared the trees and approached SpaceBase, white, blue, and red lights in the sky shot skyward or fell like multicolored snowflakes toward the landing pads.

 “Looks like Kilcoole’s not the only place there’s a party going on,” Yana said jokingly to Torkel.

 “Hmm,” he said, and in the closeness of the warmed air in the snocle, she could smell the musky cologne he wore. The man who has everything, she thought as she admired his classically handsome profile. She ought to be more moved, she told herself. She really ought.

 “Yana? I thought you were medically retired here. Yet there doesn’t really seem to be anything wrong with you that 1 can detect. Has it occurred to you that you needn’t cut your career so short? I could arrange for light duty for a while, until you get back in the swing of things.”

 “What kind of light duty did you have in mind, Torkel? To tell you the truth, it’s not bad here.”

 He snorted. “You could have fooled me. But actually, I thought maybe as long as you were here and you have the rank and the ‘in’ with the people, you could relieve Giancarlo. He’s really blown it by letting that woman die while she was offplanet. It’s that kind of stupidity that triggered the Bremport massacre.”

 “You’ve been reading my mail on that one,” she said. “That guy has zero finesse.”

 “Exactly. Now, I don’t have to tell you that at times you need a pretty heavy whip hand if you’re going to accomplish a mission that people may not understand the rationale behind, or that may cause some temporary inconvenience. People hate change. But I think someone who already gets along with them ...”

 “I see,” she said. And she did. Someone who already got along with them was in a better position to betray their trust and kindness. Still, she might be able to help ease any transitions, which would not be a concern of Giancarlo’s.

 “And we could work together again. I need a strong superior officer to keep me on the right track, you know,” he said, reaching over and squeezing her knee.

 “Hoo boy, you were serious about that whip-hand business, weren’t you?”

 He was negotiator enough to know when to drop the subject and give her time to think about it, which she did as they slid into SpaceBase, the lights from the landing and departing shuttles spreading multicolored pools across the snow for the miles surrounding the base.

 While a holiday air had prevailed at Kilcoole, it was definitely business even-more-than-usual at SpaceBase, where parka-clad soldiers scurried from the landing pads to a row of prefab warehouses that had not been there on Yana’s previous visit. In fact, other troops were still assembling three more of the structures, while heavy machinery moved crates into the existing buildings.

 “What’s all this?” Yana asked. “Looks like an invasion.”

 “Watch your mouth,” Torkel said, “if you want to be a positive influence for change. This is the expeditionary force I told you about. We’re using SpaceBase as a supply depot for this continent. My father will be coming down later to supervise the more technical aspects of the operation but basically, from here, we’ll launch probes and set up base camps close to the points we’ve identified from space as having the greatest potential for the resources we’re seeking.”

 “Is this going on planetwide?”

 “Not at the moment. Look, love, I can’t say any more unless you choose to renew your active-duty status and your security clearance, okay? So think about it. And, by the way, come in for a physical so I can shove your status-change papers through in a hurry. You look pretty good for someone with banjaxed lungs and a medical discharge.”

 “It’s all this clean air and country living,” she said breezily.

 “Great,” he said, with a touch of grimness. “But don’t be surprised if there are more traffic jams than usual around quaint and charming Kilcoole in the near future.”

 He plowed into an infirmary parking place willy-nilly and was out of the snocle and around to open the door for her before she could undo her seat belt. Bunny’s snocle was already there, and she and Diego looked to be engrossed in urgent dialogue inside the vehicle.

 “Can I meet Margolies without a security clearance?” Yana asked sweetly. “Just so 1 can reassure the populace as to Diego’s family situation?”

 “Of course,” Torkel said. “I imagine he’ll be in visiting Metaxos.”

 Bunny and Diego emerged, looking expectantly in their direction.

 “We might as well form a welcoming committee,” Torkel said with an overly hearty grin at the kids. “Come on.”

 Diego spotted Steve Margolies the moment they walked into the infirmary. He sprinted the length of the hall to embrace the older man, heedless of the presence of the medics, Torkel, Bunny, Yana, and even that of his father, lying on a hospital bed open-eyed and propped into an upright position with pillows. The room had only three other patients, and the ward on the opposite end of the corridor showed an unbroken line of empty beds.

 Margolies, balding, bearded, and not quite portly, looked as glad to see Diego as the boy did him. “I came as quickly as I could, Diego,” he said.

 “I knew you would, Steve. I knew it.”

 Torkel stuck out his hand. “Torkel Fiske, Dr. Margolies. I had you sent for as soon as I learned of you from young Diego and this lady. This is Major Yanaba Maddock, currently retired and, uh-“

 “Hi, I’m Bunny,” Bunny said, also soliciting a handshake. “I hope you and Diego and his dad can come and live with us in the village.”

 “That’s very kind of you,” Margolies said, startled but amiable. “But right now I think Francisco needs the care he can get here.”

 “Have you found quarters yet?” Torkel asked.

 “No. I came straight here after inprocessing.”

 “Well, then, look, Colonel Giancarlo and I are going to have to have a more extensive conversation with you later but I think right now the thing for me to do is to go make sure you are lodged at least in the same building with Diego. Yana, Bunny, I think we should leave this family alone, don’t you?”

 The infirmary corridors were teeming with new personnel and new equipment, and the building itself had been enlarged with newly attached modules at either end. Technicians were feeding data to computers, and medical personnel were stocking shelves and unpacking boxes. Yana wondered briefly why, with a half-empty infirmary, they were adding to it. She didn’t like the look of that, actually. They must be expecting a great many more troops-and casualties.

 They said their farewells, Torkel taking leave with just a hint of a lingering look in his eye for her as he strode off to do whatever it was he was going to do. Which Yana had a pretty good idea was not confined to simply seeing that the Margolies-Metaxos boys were comfy.

 She and Bunny climbed in the snocle just as he turned around and waved, and Yana waved back until he was out of sight.

 Then, as Bunny started the engine, Yana said, “Develop a mechanical problem, Bunny. I’m going to go back in there for a bit. If anyone challenges you, or stops to help you, drive off and come right back on base after a few minutes. I shouldn’t be long.”

 Bunny gave her a hard, measuring look, then shrugged. “Okay, but whatever you’re up to, be careful.”

 Yana flipped her an abbreviated salute and headed into the clinic.

 For the first time since her release, Yana felt fortunate to have spent so long in a large medical facility. She walked back in as if she knew exactly where she was going. Purposefully, she pushed back thoughts of what would happen if she was discovered and her presence in the facility officially queried: Torkel might not even be able, much less wish to, bail her out, and she could easily lose her pension with Integral and face time in a detention center. But right now was the best time for her to obtain a copy of Lavelle’s autopsy-before anyone thought to doctor it up for official reasons.

 She entered the Staff Only lounge, which was as empty as it was bound to be with so much activity going on outside, pulled off her new blouse, and hung it on a hook beneath a patient gown. Pulling on a scrub top and a paper cap, and paper shoes in place of her cold-weather boots, she hung a surgical mask around her chin and, taking a deep breath-without a hint of a cough, she noted distantly-to ease the tension in her guts, padded briskly back down the hall.

 At Andromeda, as at most company infirmaries, convalescing patients did routine, nondemanding chores to save the professional staff work. Even officers did it, and were glad of it, for it helped stave off the boredom of being separated from their own work and their own lives. During her own convalescence, Yana had spent considerable time helping in medical records, requesting and transmitting data from central files. She could at least see if the autopsy had been performed on Lavelle yet-and if it had become a classified file or not.

 She walked straight into the vacant ward opposite the one containing Diego’s father, careful to keep her back to the boy and his guardian, and sat out of sight, around the corner, at the nursing-station computer. She typed in the access code she remembered from her days in the hospital-no longer than six weeks ago, which seemed incredible, considering how well she felt and how far she had come. She breathed a sigh of relief as the code worked. In a closed system, where for the most part only company troops and employees had access to the facility, the need for security was not as tight as it would have been on a world containing a variety of corporate or military entities. On shipboard, space station, or wholly owned planetary subsidiary, Inter-gal was the only game in town.

 Then the machine purred along for a moment and she punched in AUTOPSY REPORT, and suddenly the screen filled with data. She hit PRINT, scanning while the document printed.

 The lungs had been congested, so Lavelle had indeed had pneumonia, but that was not listed as cause of death. Her immune system had suddenly and fatally collapsed, unable to cope with half a dozen systemic viral infections. The autopsy noted that this alone was surprising, since tissue samples-muscle, blood, skin, and bone marrow-all indicated that she had been in the physical shape of a woman half her chronological age. Also, a small inexplicable node had attached to the medulla oblongata. That was strange enough, but the autopsy report also cited the presence of an unusually large and highly developed lump of “brown fat” weighing an astonishing 502 grams: its blood vessels had ruptured. A footnote by the examining physician explained that while two hundred grams of brown fat were normally present in human babies at birth-to ensure NSHP, nonshivering heat production- the substance atrophied when babies grew big enough to adjust their own temperatures to cold. It was odd enough to find the brown fat active, and far odder to find it so enlarged. There was also a thin subcutaneous layer of a dense fatty tissue. A minor mutation to protect inhabitants against the cold? Then she remembered seeing a similar fatty layer, thin but present, in the animals she had skinned after the trapping expedition.

 Reading on, she was vastly relieved to see that there was no sign of any external injuries or evidence of drugs in the system that might have indicated that Lavelle had been tortured or abused in any way during interrogation. Stuffing the printout in her pants pocket, she shut off the computer, rose, wiped her eyes like any machine-weary tech, and made herself shuffle back down the corridor to the lounge to change again into her latchkay blouse before rejoining Bunny in the snocle.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 11                                                                               

 How do we know that this is for real?” Bunny asked when Yana showed the autopsy report to Sean, ‘Sinead, and Clodagh.

 “It is,” Sean said unequivocally.

 “Then you know about this brown fat stuff, the node, and the anomalous fatty layer?” Yana asked.

 Sean nodded and Clodagh’s eyes glistened.

 “It’s why only the young can go off Petaybee,” Clodagh said.

 “Their brown fat hasn’t developed the same mass that adults’ have?” Yana asked.

 There was a long pause while Sean, Clodagh, and Sinead exchanged secretive, and almost embarrassed, glances. Bunny just looked from one to the other, perplexed and hoping to find an answer in their faces.

 Finally, Sean nodded. “Something like that, Yana. It’s pretty complicated, and frankly nobody, including me, understands all of the functions of the adaptations. You may have noticed my research facilities for anything much beyond simple animal husbandry are a bit limited. A lot of it the planet simply seems to do on its own. I haven’t found anything about deliberately introducing such changes as the brown fat and the node in any of the notes my predecessors left behind, but I do know they exist from examining the corpses of other Petaybeans.”

 “I can understand how you might not know how the changes got here or what they consist of if you’re not responsible for them, but there are still a few things I think you can explain,” Yana told him.

 Had she not grown up on space stations and ships, where humans were the dominant life-form but by no means the only life or even the only sentient life, she might have been a little more shocked by what they were implying, that humans were being altered by a planet to suit itself. As it was, she was vaguely annoyed with herself that she was reminded of old vids of aliens who took over the bodies of innocent earthlings.

 She took a deep breath and began confronting the issues that disturbed her concerning Lavelle’s physiology. “Let me get this straight. You folks here on Petaybee are all Earth stock, right?”

 “That’s right,” Clodagh said. “My ancestors were sent here from County Clare, County Limerick, County Wicklow, and Point Barrow, Alaska. Scan’s and Sinead’s are from Kerry and Dublin and northern Canada.”

 “You know all that?”

 “If you’ll remember right, Yana, I told you most of us can’t read or write. It’s part of my job here to remember these things.” Clodagh grinned. “An old Irish profession.”

 “Well, tell me this: if you’re Earth stock, like me and like most of the company corps, how come only you people can’t be moved from where you were sent? I mean, even if the young can go and the older ones can’t, it hasn’t always been that way, has it? Why is that brown fat stuff affecting you now and it didn’t to begin with? Surely at first the company occasionally recruited people who were a little more . . . mature.”

 It was Scan’s turn to look perplexed-and somewhat worried. “Yes, they did. But mostly they’ve preferred to recruit the youngsters, and it’s never seemed to do them more harm than military service does anyone, that we know of. And you have to understand, Yana, that our people have been adjusting to the planet and the planet to us for a couple of hundred years now. The physical changes found in Lavelle’s body were adaptive changes to this world. Some people adapt more readily and more completely than others-and the more exposure they have, the longer the period they have to become accustomed to something, the greater the chance of a profound adaptation. Lavelle was very much a woman of this planet. She lived most of her life outdoors, she ate only what she caught or grew, like many of us, and she was well into her fifties. Here, she was very tough. But her body was used to cold weather, Petaybean midwinter cold, far colder even than you’ve experienced so far, to clean air and pure water and real food. I’m afraid she had lost whatever resistance she had to other conditions in the process of becoming suited to the extremes of Petaybee. Our peculiar weather conditions would never have killed her, but in exchange for that protection, her body relinquished certain other immunities. Besides which, she had a very strong emotional attachment to her home place.”

 “I hardly think emotional attachment alone could have caused her death,” Yana said.

 “It’s possible, Yana,” Clodagh said. “It’s possible. It’s hard to explain to you when you’ve been here such a short time but maybe when you witness the night chants, you’ll understand a little better. With Lavelle being the kind of woman she was, I knew, Sean knew, really all of us knew, that she was as unlikely to survive away from Petaybee as that colonel would out in the mountains without a parka. If we’d known that they’d planned to take her offplanet, we’d have protested, tried to stop them somehow.”

 “Lavelle would have protested,” Sinead said in a bitter voice, her small rough hands knotted at her sides. “She must have told them. She didn’t need to know what her insides looked like lo know she would die offplanet.”

 Yana gave a gusty sigh. “And much as 1 hate to say so, she could’ve told them till the sun turned cold and they wouldn’t have believed her.”

 “Now they do?” Clodagh asked, her face impassive.

 Yana shook her head, in anger, frustration, and a whole lot of other conflicting and negative emotions. She was tired. She was confused and disappointed and even somewhat disillusioned, something she had never thought would be possible again. This had seemed to be such a simple, happy place, and now it had a secret. All she wanted was to get some rest.

 “It’s time to go now,” Sean reminded the others as he tucked his hand under Yana’s elbow. “You haven’t missed the chanting, Yana. It will revive you.”

 Feeling the familiar surge of attraction for him mingle with all of the doubts, fears, and unanswered questions rolling through her mind, she wondered if he could be lying, if in spite of his protestations he was somehow tampering with these people’s genes so that they would never be able to leave. She had the oddest feeling that he was definitely hiding something, and that worried her more than any of the other secrets Petaybee held. Was Sean responsible for the problems Giancarlo had mentioned when she had first arrived? And if these people knew they were being changed, as some of them seemed to believe, why did they put up with it?

 Yana regarded Sean for a long moment as his silver eyes appealed to her. Gazing up at him, she tried to see him as some sort of psychopath mad-scientist monster, and all she could think of was how wonderful it had been to dance with him tonight, and before that, their encounter at the hot springs. His expression grew less sad and serious as he watched her face, and she knew he could see her resolve to stay detached melting.

 Then, with her voice wavering with unaccustomed indecision as much as weariness, she said, “Oh, frag, Scan. I’m really bushed. Nothing short of eight hours’ sack time is going to revive me.”

 A sly smile kindled in his eyes and curved his lips. “Wanna bet?”

 Clodagh unexpectedly touched her shoulder, her eyes gentle with sympathy. “You come, Yana. You’ll see.”

 The cat came out with an authoritative “meh!,” provoking Yana to an exasperated laugh. She rubbed her forehead with an impatient gesture.

 “You guys are bent on brainwashing me into a proper Petaybean, too, aren’t you?”

 “Something like that,” Scan said in very good humor. He knew he had won. If he hadn’t exactly convinced her, she would at least let her wishful thinking override her better judgment for the time being. With a deft movement he closed the opening of her jacket, flipped her parka hood onto her head, and started pushing her hands into her gloves.

 “Lemme do that,” she said, feeling a surge of almost childish rebellion. She didn’t want to feel completely manipulated just because she was willing to be reasonable. But she didn’t resist as he guided her along, following Bunny, Clodagh, Sinead, and Aisling back to the hall, which was still resounding with the sounds of merriment within.

 Outside the door, a girl stood chatting with a man who was stirring the contents of a huge metal drum, set up over a small, fierce fire. As they passed, the man nodded, smiled, and smacked his lips appreciatively at the odors wafting up from the delicious-smelling concoction, soup or stew, in the big barrel. Clodagh took an exaggeratedly deep sniff, fanning the aroma toward her with both mittens.

 When they entered the meetinghouse, Yana had to pause to adjust to the temperature-and the odor-of the hall, which had been packed solid with energetic folk for the past eight or nine hours.

 If these dancing, singing, talking, gesticulating, laughing, crying people were really the cruel victims of a malign curse that doomed them forever to bondage to a hostile planet, they were either blissfully unaware of it or they plainly didn’t give a rat’s ass.

 And suddenly, neither did she. She liked this lot better than the whole Intergal company corps and the board of directors put together, and if there was something wrong with them, well, she had been told to investigate and that was what she was doing. Sort of.

 The room was hot, but she didn’t mind; it was redolent with food, sweat, and other odors, but there was also a sensation that defied a name, although she thought it had something to do with the great good humor, the fun, the joy these people were projecting. How they had kept it up the whole time she had been gone, she didn’t know. But patently they had! She grinned up at Scan and saw that he was sweating; she felt the first moisture beading her brow, too.

 As if their entrance were a signal, the music ground to a wheezing stop and the dancing couples stood looking toward them expectantly. Clodagh, Scan, and the others stripped off their parkas, and Yana removed hers. In a corner of the room a bodhran rumbled like marching thunder and a banjo began playing in a minor key. Someone began singing in a husky tenor, as if his throat had endured too many cold winds and the smoke from too many fires. He sang a lonely, homesick sort of song about the green fields of planet Earth, then followed with a rollicking, humorous parody contrasting Earthbound living to life on Petaybee. The next song was a similarly silly one about the last man on the planet who could read, which Yana knew was an exaggeration since at least the company-sponsored people read memos and orders and such.

 That song changed the mood of the evening, and every instrument but the drum stilled. The drum slowed from the bouncing beat of bodhran to the steady muted thump of a heartbeat.

 Without exchanging another word with anyone, Clodagh began singing the song she had sung for Yana over dinner the first night.

 Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

 The drum pounded in even, measured time as Clodagh was joined by everyone else as soon as she had sung the first line.

 Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. The air swirled with smoke from the fire, on it riding the evaporated breath and sweat of the two or three hundred people cramming the hall. Yana felt them so strongly around her that it was as if they all wore the same skin; the drum was the beat of their collective heart.

 As the last droning word of Clodagh’s song died away, someone else took up a new song, one that Yana had not heard before.

 “Lost the song, lost the words, lost the tongue

 Lost the skill to read our own tracks.

 Lost the skill to mark our trail.

 Lost the symbols to read the spoor of others.

 Lost the pictures that once replaced them.

 Lost the voices that told us we did not need them.

 Lost the earth for want of the songs. Ajija.”

  

 The voices swelled around Yana as several more drums took up the beat, so that the walls of the lodge itself seemed to pulse with the tempo. Sean’s voice sang in her right ear, Bunny’s in her left, Clodagh’s in front of her, and Aisling’s behind her. She found it difficult to think of the report, difficult to think of anything, in fact, except exactly what was happening all around her, inside her. She breathed in the air that the others had breathed before her, she swayed to the beat of the drum, and although she didn’t know these songs, she realized that her own mouth was opening with all those other mouths. This was a sort of spiritual communion, with those around her, that had nothing whatever to do with a religion, or a ritual of any sort. Happening, that’s what it was. A Happening. It was happening just as much to everyone else in the hall as it was to her. Words were irrelevant: feeling was important. She just had to be singing something as the song continued, a new voice leading it.

 “The new song stained the soles of our shoes

 The new song bathed us.

 We drank the new song.

 We breathed it, taking it into ourselves for life

 And for life to the song giving forth breath.”

  

 And another voice, older, cracked, sang:

 “The new song spoke to us in the new tongues.

 The howl of a dog, the curly-coat’s whinny,

 The fox’s bark.

 The new song walked on the feet of the cat.

 It spoke of its secrets in the death-squeal of the rabbit.

 It sings its secrets from its own mouth

 To the ears of those who can listen.

 Let’s not leave it to sing alone any longer

 But go to the center and add our voices

 To keep it company for a while

 And learn from it new harmonies. Aja ji.”

  

 Yana had no idea how long or how often the song had been repeated, but suddenly everyone was putting their parkas on and, to the continued beat of the drum, filing through the door, out into the night. A brilliant band of light snaked overhead, punctuated occasionally by small dots of colored lights descending. More traffic at SpaceBase, she realized. It seemed incongruous and unreal after the chanting to think about ships landing.

 Scan was nudging her forward, sandwiched between himself and Clodagh. “Is it over now?” she asked.

 “Not yet.”

 “Where are we going?”

 “To the hot springs. We chant as we walk. You’ll see. It’s very beautiful.”

 He squeezed her shoulders encouragingly, and she was not at all surprised, for some reason, to find that she was no longer tired.

 With the beat sustaining her, and everyone else, they marched on; totally unlike any Christian soldiers, she thought irreverently. She was surprised when they reached the hot springs in what seemed like a very short time. She had thought the springs were much farther away from Kilcoole. The rising steam occluded any details that daylight might have illuminated. The procession- no, procession was not the right word any more than “ritual” or “religion.” Okay, she thought, this informal early-morning-after-the-night-before gathering made its way around the spring and seemed to disappear. Startled, she blinked, felt Scan’s fingers tighten in reassurance, and then realized that the line led under the waterfall. She hadn’t suspected before that there was any access there. But then with the steam and the sheeting of down-spilling water, she hadn’t looked.

 There was just sufficient space for a body, knowing where to go, to sidle past the actual cascade of water without getting more than a dusting of spray. Then she had to adjust her vision to a curious lambent light that was both soft and clear. She could see the walls of a passage curving gradually downward, and the bobbing of heads as people descended. The air was remarkably fresh and invigorating.

 The downward movement continued, with people silently merry. Yana tried to figure out why those words seemed so appropriate: “silently merry.” But they all were glad to be here, together, and moving toward whatever destination lay down there. She became aware that Scan was giving her occasional quick glances, as if reassuring himself that she was accepting this “happening.” She didn’t know what else she could have done but go along with everyone else, if only to discover what she could of the hidden places of Petaybee, and its secretive inhabitants. Yet . . . the palpable merriness of everyone around her denied the prospect of threat or harm. And she felt so good about coming!

 How long the downward slope wound its way, she couldn’t tell, for the soft rhythmic beat of the bodhrans urged them onward, yet the drum sound did not echo, but was oddly absorbed by the walls. Then, suddenly, they were there! In a vast luminous cavern, all blues, greens, soft pastel variations of those hues in serrated layers, streamers, bands, patterns. She wished she could ask Diego if all of this looked familiar to him. She was certain she was in the cavern he had described-if not the same one, then a similar one. For there was the water he had mentioned, the odd formations that did look like natural vegetation in their apple green, and ice-sculptured animals in weird and bizarre shapes. People were seating themselves in random groups, murmuring pleasantly, merrily, to each other, with an air of expectation about them.

 Clodagh moved to the right of those in front of her and Scan guided Yana in that direction. Sinead, Aisling, and Bunny veered, too. Clodagh went beyond any other group, to a sort of promontory of pale sea green ice, and plumped herself down, cross-legged, a position that Yana found both remarkable and enviable in a woman of such proportions. Clodagh settled herself solidly and smiled as Scan, propelling Yana in front of him, moved beyond and above her. He motioned for Yana to be seated. She was somewhat surprised to find that the surface wasn’t the least bit cold. Scan folded himself down beside her, close enough so that their shoulders were touching. She wondered about his constant tactile contact with her: she had never noticed him being touchy-touchy with anyone else. She didn’t know if she was offended- no, she wasn’t. Not at all. When he wasn’t being just plain reassuring, even possessive, she found she liked Scan touching her for any reason. She had always maintained a physical aloofness with most people, male or female, saving touch for caress, rather than for identity or possession. When Bry turned touchy-touchy, she knew what would soon follow. She folded her arms about her legs and hooked her knees up to her chin. Sean assumed a similar posture, as close to her as possible. He grinned and gave her a totally impious wink.

 The surface under her buttocks seemed to get warmer. She wiggled, realized the heat was all over, and undid her parka, only then noticing that everyone else had already done the same. A steam or mist seemed to be rising all around them, hiding the people on the other end of this crescent. She didn’t think the body heat of even so many people could have such an effect on this huge cavern.

 Sean was watching her, a half smile curving his lips as if he expected, and was pleased by, her actions.

 “So? What now?” she asked, leaning into his strong shoulder so that only he heard her.

 “Relax, Yanaba. Just take it easy, and take it all in. We’re including Petaybee in the latchkay and introducing you. In a moment the planet will respond-just accept it, okay?” His lips barely moved, but she heard each word distinctly. His fingers flicked out in a subtle gesture.

 That was when she became aware of the change in the lighting. Whether it was a trick of the mist or not, the lambency had taken a deeper, golden hue, and through her tailbone she felt a vibration. Conversations died off, and a respectful silence spread. Clodagh seemed to elongate from coccyx to poll. Bunny, too, straightened her spine. Much as she wanted to, Yana could not turn her head to see if Scan was responding, for she herself was caught up in whatever it was. And what was it? she asked herself, as she felt each vertebra in her back stiffening. Vibration and warmth pulsed up her spine to her brain stem. Then she was taking deep breaths, inhaling from the gut, filling her lungs-lungs that could now expand to full capacity with neither pain nor wheeze.

 She had the weirdest sensation that her brain was expanding, too, the scalp lifting from her head bones-not at all an uncomfortable feeling; more as if she was lightening up all over. Of their own accord her eyes closed-so that she could concentrate on these internal expansions. She was aware, too, of her blood flowing in her veins, juices moving throughout her organs, as if some agency was cleansing her inside out-the way one inflated a mattress, a survival bubble tent, or the tire of a ground-effects machine. There was no pain or discomfort involved-only this sense of being filled in every physical crevice and bodily cavity, this lightening.

 She was then inexplicably aware of a different sensation: one of completeness, one of belonging, one of perception and acceptance beyond her physical self. She fought that briefly, lost, and was rewarded with a euphoria she had never experienced even in her closest moments with Bry. It was like, yet unlike, orgasm; inexpressibly satisfying and rewarding. She exhaled slowly-for the lightening feeling had apparently occurred during the course of her one deep inhalation. Immediately she pulled air into her lungs again, wishing to achieve that almost vertiginous state of full extension, that delicious lightening, that . . . quasi-mystic belongingness.

 Something very gentle, like a feather flicking dust from a delicate surface, flowed across her mind, chiding her for being greedy. All she really needed would be given.

 Yana blinked her eyes open, for the thought was alien to her: it had been implanted in her mind. She blinked again. The mist had dissipated. And so had the people who had accompanied her to the cavern. Clodagh was gone, Bunny and Diego, Sinead and Aisling! Before she could panic, there was pressure against her right shoulder.

 “I’m here,” Sean said, a ripple of laughter in his low voice. When she turned her head, his silver eyes caught hers and then he nodded. Exhaling a totally worldly sigh, she let herself sag, no longer upheld by whatever had had her in its thrall. She felt a shaft of regret for what was no longer in touch with her.

 “How long?” she asked Sean, gesturing about her.

 “How long did it feel?” he asked, taking her hand in his warm one.

 “Like one deep breath.”

 He nodded again, his eyes slightly hooded, but his smile was full of satisfaction. Then he held her hand up, examining it closely before he turned it palm up and kissed it. She could not control the shudder that crackled up her spine. He laid her palm against his warm cheek and made eye contact.

 “It was more than one breath, wasn’t it?” she asked.

 He nodded, and she could tell from his caution that the time that had passed had been much longer than he felt it safe to admit, before gauging her reaction.

 Slowly, carefully, sorting through her memory of the experience and her reactions, reaching the logical conclusion of something that defied logic, she asked, “You people weren’t just being poetic when you said Petaybee is alive, were you? It is, isn’t it? And it-it hypnotizes you or puts you in a trance or something. Like Diego?”

 Sean nodded. “Most of the time it’s like it was for you and for Diego, but for those too rigid to accept the possibilities, it can be extremely traumatic-induce shock, madness, even death. Not just with outworlders. You may have noticed young Terce, the other snocle chauffeur?”

 Yana nodded. She hadn’t seen much of Terce since she had arrived, but she remembered Bunny saying the boy wasn’t too bright.

 “He didn’t react well to this experience. Most children easily accept it, but Terce ... Maybe he just had too linear a turn of mind or something, but it terrified him and he’s never tried again. He sometimes lurks on the edge of the latchkays but he won’t join in. But there was no malice involved-just a ... lack of communication.” He shrugged. “There’s much more to this planet than instrumentation can detect, Yanaba. You’ve experienced a central part of it tonight.”

 “A rite of passage?” She wanted to sound skeptical or cynical or even facetious, but that wasn’t the way her words sounded even in her own ears. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I passed?”

 Scan laughed with such real mirth that she had to grin. Then he pulled her against him, arms tightly cradling her body to his chest, rocking both of them back and forth.

 “What do you think?” he asked teasingly.

 “I don’t know what to think. I’m not exactly the religious type . . .”

 “Religion has nothing to do with it, Yana. We weren’t worshiping. The planet is alive. It’s only courteous to communicate. There’s-a relationship involved,” he said, quite lightly and happily. She realized that he was more relieved than he cared to admit that she had come through her-introduction-without trouble. He continued his rather nonchalant explanation while draped around her, nibbling her ear. “The company wants us to think that everything on the planet came from them, but that’s not the case.

 This planet has a mind, and has developed resources, of its own. Living here, most of us know that and accept the gifts, the protection, and in return, we offer it companionship and-I don’t know, expression, I suppose.”

 “But why? Why does it not only accept you but give you so much? If it really is a living, thinking being, it could as well resent you for occupying its surface. What does the planet get out of you-us-being here?”

 He smiled lazily again and ran his finger the length of her spine. “Scientifically speaking? I haven’t a clue. But I do have a theory: I think that the reason probably is-maybe-that Petay-bee likes us.”

 “That’s it? It provides for you, lets you live here and allows you this . . .” She searched for a word. “This blissful form of communication just because it likes you?”

 “That’s about the size of it.” He nodded. “And it protects us from its own extremities as well, don’t forget, with the adaptations.” He gave her a delicate nibble on the back of her neck to punctuate his remark.

 “That didn’t ultimately provide enough protection for La-velle,” she reminded him, trying to sound rational when all she wanted to concentrate on was how to twist in order to nibble him back.

 “It can only protect its people here, Yana. Miracles are seldom things.”

 “Will I grow the adaptations? The-what was that ugly term?-brown fat and the protective layer under the skin?”

 “If you need them.”

 She pressed a thumb roughly across his bare forearm and gave him a quizzical look.

 “Oh, yes I have it,” Scan said comfortably. “And a few other accommodations you’ll just have to find out for yourself. Some of us are more fully adapted than others. I, for instance, am even more a creature of Petaybee than Lavelle.”

 “I don’t believe it! You don’t look different. And you don’t carry an extra ounce of flesh anywhere,” she said, almost accusingly. She was remembering his body all too vividly.

 “Are you sure?” he said in a teasing voice, and his hands began to wander across the skin of her back and arms.

 That was the first moment she realized that she was as naked as he was. When had that happened? Yet their nudity did not surprise her, seeming as natural as if they had just shared a sauna- and she had wanted to see his finely muscled body again. Did this damned planet grant three wishes? Had she taken hers without knowing what she really wanted?

 Of their own accord, her hands began to caress his warm silky flesh, the muscles excitingly firm beneath her fingers. Then Sean added the persuasions of his lips to those of his hands, and Yana responded with an ardor she thought she had lost too long ago to ever regain it. He was so silky, so strong, so agile, suddenly so demanding, and she found she had a few demands of her own. His chuckle seemed to beat against her diaphragm and against her breasts, forcing an echo from her as he rolled himself into her with a speed and skill she had to admire. He filled her as she had never been filled before, and the ascent into ecstasy was almost more than she could bear ... than they could bear, for Sean, in mind and body, was subtly, and impossibly, linked to her in a way that she had never experienced before. She was herself, matching the urgency of his rhythm; she was him, sheathing and unsheathing with a power that he, too, had never encountered in a long life of couplings.

 They both called out at the same time, in the same voice of joy that was colored with an agony of regret for so ephemeral a moment. As they clung to each other, breathless, unbelieving, that moment seemed uncannily elongated-and all too brief.

 “Yana!” Sean murmured in her ear, his tone reverent.

 “Oh, Sean!” With strengthless arms, she pressed him against her, burying her face in his neck. The million things she wanted to tell him remained unsaid, for words would shatter the sense of bonding and she felt she had to preserve it, extend it.

 For the first time in her adult life, sleep overcame her after sex. Sometime later, Sean shook her gently by the shoulder, kissing the corner of her mouth.

 “Hmmmm.” She didn’t wish to move. She wanted more of him and put her hand out to pull him back to her. But he was dressed. That effectively brought her fully awake.

 “We must leave now, Yanaba,” he said, his eyes tender and his hand gentle as he began to dress her.

 That, too, was a novel experience, being dressed by a lover. She helped him even though she didn’t want to.

 When she was jamming her boots on, he took her hand, pressing it against his leg, and with his free hand, tilted her chin up so she met his eyes. She had to catch her breath against the lovingness in their silvery depths. He stroked her cheek with a touch that reminded her of another one.

 “Sean, if you were taken off-planet-if they hauled you in for questioning like Lavelle? Would you die, too? Torkel was-“

 He put a finger to his lips. “I know. And I can’t stay here-“ And she knew he meant Kilcoole, not just this cavern. “But I will return to you”-and the slight emphasis made her heart bump- “whenever I can, Yanaba Maddock.” He dropped his hand to her breast, over her heart, and pressed in hard. “Am I in yours as you are in mine?”

 “Yes.” Why she could admit it so easily she didn’t know. Except that it was true. And it didn’t matter if he never did return to her. She would love Sean Shongili for the rest of her life.

 His lips brushed hers as gently as he had stroked her cheek.

 “Come, we have to hurry.” He turned abruptly and led the way out.

 As they moved up the slope, it seemed to her that the light behind them gradually dimmed. It was dawn when they ducked out from under the cascade. Dawn of which day, Yana wondered.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 12                                                                                           

 Yana was still pleasantly disoriented from the experience in the cave and bemused by lovemaking as they walked back to the village. She was not exactly sure how far they had come from the hot springs when Scan pressed her hand in farewell and disappeared into the trees. Considering their conversation and his sudden insistence that they leave the cave, she was hardly surprised.

 The sky resembled a healing bruise, staining the morning with yellow-brown haze and, even out here in the woods, smelling like a spaceport, which was unusual. Mostly the smells about Kilcoole were delicate and crisp, refined by the cold to mere essences, but now the stench of hot ship-shielding filled the air and cast a pall over the woods. How many troops had landed since she left SpaceBase?

 As she walked out of the woods and into the long clearing preceding the village, one of Clodagh’s cats-the one who lived in her own cabin? she could never be sure-trotted up to her, and a short time later Clodagh appeared.

 Her beautiful smile livened her face as she embraced Yana and kissed her cheek. “Welcome, neighbor. I knew there would be no problem for you.”

 “Scan’s gone, Clodagh.”

 “Very wise. You should find somewhere to go, too, Yana. The soldiers are all over the village now. They came the morning we returned from the chant.”

 “When was that, Clodagh?”

 “Yesterday. Don’t worry. It didn’t take you long for an offworlder. Giancarlo has gone up to Sean’s place with the others, but he was asking for you, too.”

 “I need to find Torkel Fiske before Giancarlo finds me. Is he here, too?”

 “I don’t think so. Bunny will know.”

 “Where is she?”

 “Somewhere between here and SpaceBase. They been keepin’ her and Terce and Adak all awfully busy. Adak will know where she is though.”

 As it turned out, they didn’t need to go to the snocle shed. They met Bunny, accompanied by another of the cats, coming down the street toward them through a village that had changed during the time Yana had been in the cave. Snocles ferried uniformed and parka-clad figures up and down the streets, and similar figures wandered between the houses, trying to look as if they were patrolling something. Snocles were parked willy-nilly along the streets. Many of the vehicles were loaded with equipment, and Yana saw two trains of the machines heading away from the village. Several houses farther on, winter-uniformed corps members were slapping together another of the prefab buildings.

 “As you can see, we’ve been invaded,” Clodagh said. “Slainte, Bunny.”

 “Slainte, Clodagh. Yana! Oh, Yana, you did great. Isn’t it wonderful?” Yana was momentarily confused all over again as Bunny gave her a welcoming hug, then realized that the girl’s words referred strictly to the earlier portion of Yana’s encounter with the cave, not to the more private events occurring afterward.

 Still, the relief behind Bunny’s joy reinforced Yana’s recognition that not everyone found the communion wonderful, or even pleasant. The cave-no, the planet-could and did damage those it rejected, or those who rejected it; she wasn’t sure quite what the criterion was. She was just immensely glad to have been found satisfactory.

 She grinned back at the girl. “That it was. Even more wonderful than you can possibly imagine. But right now, Bunny, I need to find Torkel Fiske fast.”

 “That’s dead easy,” Bunny said. “He just left the station for SpaceBase. I’ll take you out there. I’m trying to be there when Colonel Giancarlo is here, and here when he’s there, so he doesn’t remember his threat to take away my license.”

 The usually silent riverbed was now a high-speed thoroughfare, vehicles skiing back and forth, passing each other. The ride to SpaceBase was nerve-racking, because it was obvious, even before Bunny began to veer out of the way of poorly driven snocles, that not every driver was as capable as she was on such a treacherous surface.

 Bunny dropped Yana at the headquarters building and drove off even more cautiously through a great deal of snocle traffic, toward the infirmary, where, she told Yana, she hoped to find Diego.

 As opposed to the bustle outside, headquarters was quiet- stripped of personnel, Yana thought. The door to an inner office stood open, and through it she could see Torkel’s bronze hair shining in the light from his console.

 “Hello, Yana,” he said when she strode in, closed the door behind her, and sat down. He barely looked up at her, which under most circumstances would have been a rather refreshing change from his pronounced attentiveness of the past few days. “I’m on comm line with my father. I’ll be right with you.”

 She waited while he returned to his conversation.

 “Great, Dad, see you soon. Over and out,” he said aloud, tapping the final key. He was still smiling as he turned expectantly to Yana and asked, “What can I do for you?”

 “You offered me Giancarlo’s job. I want it.”

 He grinned. “Is it my turn to say, ‘But this is so sudden’?” “Torkel, he’s making a balls of the whole thing. Listen, we have got to talk seriously about what’s going on here on Petaybee and the company’s interface with the natives

 “Yana, let me remind you of a point that others seem to be forgetting: the natives are transplants of barely two hundred and fifty years ago from Earth. Johnny-come-latelies as our projects go. And from my conversation with your buddy Shongili, it seems to me they’re awfully damned possessive for sharecroppers on company property.”

 “That’s because you only know part of what’s been happening. Look, Torkel, Giancarlo told me to find out what’s been going on with Petaybee and the unauthorized life-forms, and I think I have. Both the natives and my own experience confirm my conclusions. I think you’ll agree, after we’ve talked, that the mining operations can’t be started precipitously, and any mass transfer of I he inhabitants of this planet is out of the question.”

 “Excuse me, Yana. Dear. The company makes the decisions; not you, not me, and certainly not the illiterate dregs the company was kind enough to resettle here.” He gave her his best company-negotiator’s poker face. The set-to with Scan had either done some serious damage to his goodwill, or that goodwill had been an act.

 “Torkel. Dear. At least hear me out, okay? You did ask.”

 He relaxed again. “Okay. Shoot.”

 “Before you slap my wrist, let me remind you that I was retained by the company to investigate, and I took that as my authorization to do so, not only in what’s happening here on Petaybee, but also in company records pertaining thereto.”

 “You accessed Lavelle Maloney’s autopsy file?” He asked with a one-wolf-to-another-wolf grin.

 “That’s a roger.”

 He shrugged. “I would have preferred you to go through channels, but I see your point. And if you can explain to her friends that birth defects caused her death, rather than our interrogations, so much the better.”

 “They weren’t birth defects, Torkel.”

 “No?”

 “No. According to Shongili and the others, they were anatomical adaptations engendered by contact with Petaybee.”

 “Really? Is there any proof of this?”

 “Tests on any mature Petaybean will yield similar anomalies, Scan says.”

 “I see. We can run the tests on Sigdhu and the other woman then, I suppose.”

 “You can, but you need to bring them back to Petaybee ASAP and run the tests here. From what I understand, the adaptive mechanisms making the inhabitants suitable for a cold planet of this type would make them exceedingly uncomfortable in temperatures you find normal. And recycled air would contain viruses and bacteria which their immune systems couldn’t handle. That’s what actually killed Lavelle Maloney, and what may soon kill the other two if they aren’t returned here.” Before he could say anything, she continued. “Torkel, until the company can figure out a way of adjusting these peoples’ highly sensitive immune systems to all of the free-spinning viruses and bacteria on satellites or other planets, the kind of move you say the company’s proposing would amount to genocide.”

 “That’s a fairly dramatic statement to extrapolate from the autopsy of one off-planet Petaybean, Yana. Besides, it’s the Petaybeans themselves who are making this necessary, with their guerilla sabotage against our geographical and mining exploration expeditions.”

 Yana cocked a cynical eyebrow at him. “There’re no guerillas on Petaybee, Torkel, no sabotage! If anything, it’s the other way round.”

 “How so? The company owns the planet. The company terraformed the planet. It has the right to extract mineral deposits.”

 “The company might own the right to inhabit the surface of the planet, Torkel, and under normal circumstances, it might have the right to harvest certain resources the terraforming process sowed. But owning the planet itself?” She slowly shook her head. “This planet was here way before Intergal was formed or terraforming was invented. You don’t own this planet.”

 Torkel gave a scornful snort. “If the company doesn’t, who does? Not the inhabitants that the company put here.”

 She awarded him a pitying glance. “No, they just occupy it. The planet owns itself. It’s sentient, Torkel. A living entity.”

 “Now you sound like Metaxos and his boy.” Torkel threw up his hands in exasperation.

 “That’s because I’ve seen what they saw. Or, rather, ‘seen’ isn’t exactly the right word. Felt it, experienced it, heard it, been touched by it. Whatever. The locals say it’s a way of communicating with the planet, and you have to be willing to be touched by it or you can become disoriented enough to be in the same shape as Metaxos. Or, like some of the other missing teams, if you’re too far from help, die as a result.”

 He regarded her a long moment. “And Metaxos aged in this process?”

 “That’s a possibility. The phenomenon can take a lot out of someone who resists it.” Something occurred to her suddenly. “Do I ... look any older to you than I did the last time you saw me, Torkel?”

 “No. Younger if anything. There’s a glow about you that, if you had ever given me any encouragement would make me jealous.” He briefly dropped his lids over his eyes.

 She smiled like one of Clodagh’s cats after a snootful of fish. “Other than that?”

 “No. So you contend that you’ve been through the same thing as Metaxos? And didn’t fight it, so came out revived? So where did this happen? In one of these illusive mineral deposits?”

 “I didn’t find any deposits.” Yana was unsettled by that shot. “I-found-myself in a quite ordinary cave formation, same kind I’ve seen other places occurring naturally under hills. According to the spatial map I received with my briefing, the cave isn’t in one of the spots where your instruments have detected mineral wealth.” She tried another tack. “Look, the locals accept me to a greater degree than you, Giancarlo, or anyone else. That makes me the best qualified to organize this operation in a way that won’t be harmful to the natives or the planet.”

 Torkel gave her one of his suave smiles, which she had begun to find infuriatingly smug and condescending. “Yana, get real! We own the planet, and the natives are technically nothing more than employees. Also, it seems to me that you’re treading-you should pardon the expression-on thin ice here. Are you really offering to do this job, or have you, in fact, gone over to the side of the people you were supposed to be investigating?”

 “Why does it have to be sides?” she asked, leaning forward and willing him to keep making eye contact with her. “If this is a company planet and the inhabitants are company employees, isn’t the company interested in the potential above and beyond the usual? This may be something entirely new here, Torkel. Something that would be useful without the expense of reterraforming a planet.” She could see that “expense” was a key word, and he was definitely mulling over the “entirely new” notion. “At any rate, we’ll need to delay any evacuation or even the transfer of a single Petaybean until we’ve developed some means to compensate for their dependency on the planet.”

 “Fresh air, freezing temperatures, and no microbes to attack their disabled immune systems.” Torkel shrugged. “That should be easy enough.”

 “If that’s all there is to it,” she said darkly. ‘That’s what I know now, and I’m only scratching the surface. Please go carefully here.”

 “Oh, we’re being careful okay. Since you’re so concerned, you’ll be glad to know that my father has been following all of the events here, too, and he’s seen the Maloney woman’s autopsy report, as well. Since he understands the brief evolution of this planet better than anyone, he’s decided to personally conduct an investigation to rule out any malfunction in this planet’s development resulting from the terraforming process as a cause for the aberrant occurrences you mention. That’s Dad-nothing if not conscientious. And he likes nothing better than a new scientific mystery. Me, I’m a simple, practical kind of guy. I think the explanations for all of this are probably traceable to fairly uncomplicated sources.”

 There was a knock on the door. Torkel stood and walked over to it, stepped into the hall, had a few low words, then opened the door wider.

 Giancarlo stood there, along with Terce, the snocle driver. Torkel shrugged.

 “I’m sorry, Yana. And very disappointed to have to say this to you. However, Terce here corroborates Giancarlo’s suspicions that you’ve entered into a secret pact with the guerillas and betrayed the company. I’m afraid we’re going to have to hold you for questioning, pending complete physical and psychological examinations and testing, as well as the standard interrogation.”

 “Torkel-“ she began. “Captain Fiske. That young man is one of the fai-“

 “In light of our conversation,” Torkel said, cutting her off midword, “I’ll see to it that the investigation is conducted here on Petaybee for as long as possible, but it may be necessary to move you to more sophisticated facilities.”

 She stood and did an about-face, forbearing to tell him that being moved would probably not harm her in the same way it would the Petaybeans.

 Giancarlo glared as she started past him. She kept her eyes straight ahead, focusing slightly over his left shoulder, as if he weren’t there. With a hand jarring against her shoulder, he stopped her in her tracks, his expression guarded but hostile.

 “We’re also looking for Dr. Shongili, Major Maddock. You could save yourself an extra charge of obstructing investigations if you’ll give us some idea where he might be found.”

 She said nothing.

 Bunny Rourke’s snocle was her dearest prerogative, if not possession, but she didn’t bat an eyelash when she saw it was gone from the place where she had parked it.

 She had been all set to take Diego and Steve Margolies back to the village, to let Steve meet Clodagh and the others and talk with them about what had happened to the Metaxoses. Steve had the same specialty as Dr. Metaxos and, if only he could be convinced to keep an open mind, that would give them one more ally to avert what Bunny knew in her gut was going to be a catastrophic change in Petaybean lives.

 She had felt it in the cave during the night chant-just the least tremor, nothing someone unacquainted with the planet, like Yana, would notice, but the planet was worried, fearful. Sean had felt it, too, she knew, but she was also sure he had been clearing his mind of any negativity to help Yana. They were waiting for Steve to finish talking with Dr. Metaxos’s doctor, so she and Diego had gone to start the snocle while they waited.

 “I’ve got to go now,” she said, turning to Diego. “They’ve taken my snocle, but I think you and Steve should get the first ride to Kilcoole you can.”

 “Maybe the major can get one for us from her buddy, that Fiske guy,” Diego said, not understanding.

 Bunny shook her head even as she pulled away from him. “No. If the major was okay, my snocle would still be here.”

 “I’ll come with you.” Diego still didn’t get it.

 “I have to go on foot. You’d freeze.”

 “Nah, it’s warm today. I-“

 “No. Meet me later. Bring Steve and we’ll introduce him to Clodagh. I got to go before they catch me, Diego. Bye.”

 She didn’t hear whether or not he returned her good-bye as she ducked between the buildings, behind piles of unassembled equipment, her white and gray rabbit-fur parka blending with the snow as she circled around to the river and headed back toward Kilcoole. There, she would pick up Charlie’s dogs and go somewhere: Sinead’s old trapper’s cabin, maybe, the one Sinead had lived in before she had hooked up with Aisling. The PTBs wouldn’t know the location of that one.

 She hoped Diego would tell Yana what she had done, and then she realized that what she had told Diego was true: Yana wasn’t okay. That redheaded captain, the nice one, either hadn’t been able to help her or hadn’t been as nice as he seemed. All the more reason she needed to get back to the village and try to get help. Behind her she heard more shuttles landing and smelled the fumes from the hot housings on the spacecraft as they touched down. There were so many of these company people with their machinery and equipment and all of Intergal’s resources. The company men acted as if her people had to do anything they said, and for the first time, she was scared that they might be right.

 She didn’t run: running attracted attention. She tried to move with the rhythm of the wind and the snow, except that today the snow wasn’t blowing, it was melting. Diego was right. It was a very hot day. She shed her parka as soon as she thought she was safely out of sight of SpaceBase and the river road.

 She could hear the roar of the snocles on the river; an altered sound now, sort of muted, wet, splashy, accompanying the sound of the engines and the swish of snocle skis on ice. The day was really very warm. Warmer than it ever got even during the middle of the short Petaybean summer, when most of the snow was gone and it was no longer necessary to have a fire in the house. But how could that be? Actual breakup usually didn’t come for weeks, and then usually gradually, a crack in the ice one day, a soft spot the next, and then the ice began to move. Never was it this hot so early in the season.

 In the distance, the sound of an explosion was muffled but audible. She wasn’t surprised. She had seen the explosives loaded in corps snocles setting out from Kilcoole in a northerly direction earlier in the day. They claimed to be “exploring,” which meant they were blowing sores on the face of the planet.

 Though the explosion sounded distant, the shock waves made the ground beneath her feet shudder.

 Her boots were made of hide, suitable for dry snow. She had another, waterproof pair she wore for early and late winter, but she hadn’t thought about changing into them yet. She could have used them now. The soft moosehide soles of her boots were soaking up icy wetness from the melting snow. If she didn’t reach Kilcoole by nightfall, when, despite the unseasonable warmth of the day, the temperatures were likely to drop below freezing again, her feet would freeze. Maybe she should have stuck closer to the river. But she thought that it would be quicker, and safer, to cross-country to where Uncle Seamus was ice-fishing. She planned to ride the rest of the way home with him.

 A breeze blew against her, but it was a warm breeze, soft and friendly. She took off her hat and mittens and stuffed them in her parka pocket, unbuttoning her outer sweater as she walked.

 There was another distant explosion, and the ground bucked under her feet as if the whole planet had writhed in agony. Why did they have to do that? It occurred to Bunny that somehow the planet was generating the unusual heat, the early breakup, in response to the assault on it. Such a thing had never happened in Petaybee’s inhabited history, but then, that history was relatively short.

 The ground continued to tremble as she walked, more cautiously now, through the woods. Here she could keep close enough to the riverbanks to avoid getting lost. Where the snow hadn’t drifted too deeply against the riverbanks, she even caught glimpses of the snocles through the trees.

 How long had it been since she had taken Yana out to SpaceBase? Only a few hours, surely, and already the river had changed. The ice looked patchy now, long blue streaks showing where the runners had carved their tracks. And it didn’t look like the rest of the ground anymore. It was shiny, with a glaze of melted snow over the top. She didn’t remember the river ice ever melting so fast, but then, she didn’t remember ever seeing as much traffic on the river, either. All that friction and weight surely added to the melting process. And this was the warmest day for this time of year she could recall in her whole life.

 She was across the river from where Seamus usually set up his ice-fishing tent when she heard the sharp Crack! as if someone had fired a pistol right beside her head.

 Some of the people in the speeding snocles were trying to brake on the ice, others slowing, veering in confusion. Yet others who had experience with such treacherous conditions were trying to pilot.

 She ran closer to the bank, plunging into the snow up to her knees. Seamus was running from his tent, at first moving wildly about, then stopping, staring at the ice, and finally darting out in front of the snocles waving his arms, urging them toward the banks. Two yards beyond where he stood, between him and the oncoming snocles, the ice parted in a foot-wide gap, the side nearest town already buckling under the weight of the snocles that had just passed over it.

 “Get off! Get off!” Seamus was yelling to the snocle drivers. “Drive onto the banks!”

 A giant icy chunk broke off and plunged into the blue water bubbling up between the slabs. The ice, which had been substantial enough on the drive to SpaceBase with Yana, looked glass-thin! Along the edges of the river, it was creaking and she saw cracks forming there, too. The level of the river seemed to be rising.

 One driver, either not understanding or not believing Seamus, zoomed straight for him, and plunged nose-first into the crack, the snocle runners and windshield submerged in the swirling water and wedging the crack even wider.

 Seeing the tail sticking up out of the river alerted the next few drivers, but unfortunately not before three more, two coming from SpaceBase and one from Kilcoole, skidded out of control. The one from Kilcoole ran into a snow bank on the edge of the river. Bunny plowed through the snow to reach it, hopping over a two-inch-wide crack in the ice, feeling the surface, which only hours before had been solid, bouncing under the sopping soles of her boots.

 The other two snocles had both torn into the back of the partially submerged vehicle, sending it deeper into the river. Fortunately, snocles had reinforced cabins and the drivers of the two that still had their runners on the ice scrambled unhurt from their seats. But Seamus was leaning across the crack, trying to pry open the sinking vehicle’s door to extricate the driver.

 Bunny pushed the snocle on her side of the crack back toward the center of the river. The vehicle slid easily on the ice, even laden as it was with equipment. Bunny knew the trick of it, having had to haul hers from deep snow or off black ice.

 The driver clumsily wrenched open the door and spilled onto the ice, scrambling ineffectively to gain his feet.

 “Get back in!” Bunny yelled to him. “Go get help from town!”

 “No way am I gettin’ back in that thing, babe!” the soldier yelled at her and ran for the bank.

 More snocles were jamming to a stop just short of the crack, which was widening by the minute as pieces crumbled into the river. The drivers crowded toward the crack, trying to help Seamus save their comrade.

 “Lie down! Form a chain!” one driver yelled-the first smart thing one of them had done, Bunny thought.

 Torn between climbing in the snocle to drive to the village for help and going to the aid of her uncle and the driver, Bunny chose the latter. She dove into a belly flop, skidding across the ice faster than any of the other would-be rescuers could walk, and grabbed one of Seamus’s ankles just as he managed to snag open the door of the imperiled snocle. The driver half jumped, half fell out of the vehicle and into the river just before the ice cracked wider. A piece of ice broke off, and the turbulent waters enveloped the rest of the snocle, the outstretched arms, head, and upper torso of the driver on the other side of the crack, and all of Seamus except the ankle to which Bunny was clinging.

 His momentum dragged her forward but she held on, flailing in the water with her other hand, trying to grasp some other portion of him. She knew her actions might be holding his head underwater, but at least she could keep him from being pulled under the ice.

 Something grabbed at her hand then and she caught her uncle’s arm, letting go of the ankle to grab his forearm with both hands. It was then that she suddenly realized that the water was warm! Not ice cold, as it ought to be, but almost hot. She had no time to think about what had caused that, because Seamus’s head broke the surface just as Bunny felt the ice under her chest loosen.

 “Here! Over here!” cried the soldier on the other side of the crack. By then they had already hauled the driver of the sunken snocle out, and some of the other soldiers were hurrying him up the bank. “Come over here, old man, that little gal can’t handle you.”

 Seamus, nodding in agreement, lunged away from Bunny and over to the soldier, who was immediately joined by a second man. Together they pulled Seamus from the river.

 Bunny slithered backward until she felt more solid ice under her. She slid until she came up against the abandoned, still-running snocle. Levering herself onto the driver’s seat, she gunned the snocle down the softening ice so hard it flew across the gap at the side of the river and up onto the bank. She kept to the woods on the way back to Kilcoole to warn the village of the unseasonably early breakup, all the time wondering how that had happened.

 After Bunny’s precipitous departure, Diego Metaxos and Steve Margolies headed back to their quarters.

 “So, what is it with you and this girl?” Steve asked in a kidding tone. “Are her intentions honorable?”

 Diego felt himself flushing uncomfortably. He had thought once Steve got here everything would be okay, but even with Steve, he felt edgy and uncertain. The only time he had felt good was that day in the village, when he had chanted his poem and all of the people had understood it. After he had met Steve, and Steve had spent some time at Dad’s bedside, Steve, Captain Fiske, and Colonel Giancarlo had spent hours closeted together, and that bothered Diego. The last couple of days, except for short visits with Frank at the hospital, Steve was occupied in organizing what he called his expedition.

 Diego hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about that and seized the moment.

 “What are you planning to do when you go back out there?” he asked Steve when they were safely back in their quarters.

 “The same thing your dad was trying to do, only with more support. Locate the deposits, mark the spot, take samples.”

 “Must make you feel good, taking over from Dad,” Diego said. His voice contained a bitterness he hadn’t known he felt-at least not toward Steve.

 “Hey, son.” Steve stopped stuffing articles in a bag and turned to face him. His brown eyes looked wounded. “It’s not like that. I’d like nothing better than for Frank to be well and leading the expedition, but he’d want me to carry on his work, now, wouldn’t he?”

 Diego shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “Did you ever think that maybe he’s like he is because he didn’t want to keep on?”

 “What? You mean, he willed himself into the state he’s in now”-Steve was clearly incredulous-“because he didn’t do a good job the first time? Diego, my boy, that is not clear thinking.”

 Diego shrugged again, a disgusted lifting and dropping of his shoulders. It hurt to think about Dad. It hurt to think about Lavelle. He didn’t even want to think about losing Steve the same way and he realized he was pulling a number on him, trying to guilt-trip or scare him into not going.

 “I don’t know, Steve. Maybe the mission isn’t such a good idea, huh? What are they going to do if you find the stuff?”

 “You’ve been too much in the company of Bunny and the villagers, Diego. Be sensible. The company has a lot of bucks invested in this planet.”

 “You haven’t given it a chance,” Diego shot back. “I thought you would take care of Dad when you got here but all you’ve been doing is taking over his job. You’re just like all the other company geeks. You don’t give a damn about us, this planet, or anything else except the fraggin’ company!”

 “Diego . . . son.”

 “I’m not your son,” Diego said hotly, storming toward the door. “Good-bye. I’m going to see my dad. And hey, if you come back in the same shape he’s in, I’ll get you an adjoining bed!”

 When green-coated men and women decide to give you a going over, you let them get on with it, cooperating when you have to. Especially when hovering over the proceedings is a block-shaped marine with piggy, close-set eyes: the kind you just know likes to twist arms and has some mighty painful nerve blocks he’s dying to practice on a live and wriggling body. So Yana went along with the procedure, privately resenting every intrusion, draining, pricking, probe, and order. When she could, she sneaked glances at the scans, trying to remember from all-too-recent experience if she could detect any alterations, improvements, or changes in the results. She did better with X rays, and could even find the thickening around her innumerable repaired broken bones. Then one of the medics, the skinny woman with the jaw like a vise, altered the screens so she couldn’t see the ones of her lungs-the ones she most wanted to check out.

 “It’s my body,” she said in a growl of complaint. “I got the right to look!”

 They ignored her, as they had done since she had been ordered into their presence. She did catch terms like “unusual remission,” “minimal scarring,” “regenerative,” and “improvement”: the last two words she liked hearing very much, but she would have liked to know where the improvement and regeneration had happened. Actually, she didn’t need them to tell her that her lungs were sound again-lungs that she had been told would never completely heal from the gas she had inhaled on Bremport. Petaybee had done that for her. Would they believe it had been the planet? Probably not!

 The medics were deep in consultation for a long while after the last of the examinations had been completed. One or another kept glancing at her as if she had grown tentacles or oozed slime or perhaps turned into a new sort of humanoid specimen they could dissect for the good of Mankind.

 Ignoring the tension in her guts, Yana forced herself to relax-as much as anyone could on the hard examination table. She succeeded well enough so that she was jerked out of a doze by a rough hand.

 The one she had come to think of as “Ornery-eyes” indicated, with a grunt and a jerk of his thick thumb, that she was to accompany him. The medics didn’t pause in their discussion to observe her departure. Then she noticed that Ornery-eyes was sweating, great circles under his armpits and down his shirt back. Out in the corridor she could appreciate why: they must have turned the heat up as high as it would go. He jerked his thumb in the direction they were to take.

 Automatically she memorized the turnings as he prodded her left or right, or straight ahead, and down the stairs. She wished she’d had a chance to see a layout of the SpaceBase complex. It was ingrained in her that she should never waste the opportunity to dekko a place, even if she might never need the info. Then she felt a series of concussive shocks through her paper-slippered feet, and she winced. That wasn’t from any hard landings-unless someone was being awfully careless with shuttle vehicles.

 Her escort grabbed her arm, pulling her back a pace and jamming her right up against a door. The thumb indicated she was to enter. She pondered briefly about knocking, but when the thumb jerked threateningly again, she shrugged and opened the door.

 A man of medium age, medium build, and medium coloring, with the unmedium insignia of a bird colonel on his collar, sat at a small desk, studying the small screen. To her surprise, he looked up the moment she entered, waved the marine out of the room, and beckoned for her to be seated on the only other piece of furniture in the nondescript office. He also turned off the screen.

 “Major Maddock, I’m Colonel Foyumi Khan, that’s K-H-A-N,” he said with a trace of a smile.

 “Psych?”

 He nodded. “Routine reassignment testing,” he said in a manner designed to reassure-but somehow she wasn’t. “You appear to be in excellent physical shape considering your condition just six weeks ago. This planet seems to suit you.”

 “It would be more accurate to state that I suit it.” -

 His eyes widened just slightly. “Oh?” he asked encouragingly. “How do you construe that?”

 “My improved health, of course,” Yana said, trying for innocence. This shrink was altogether too smooth. She was almost flattered that Intergal had assigned her an interrogator of his quality. “Great place for R and R.”

 Through her feet she felt another of those distinct tremors. Khan noticed it, too, and he frowned slightly, glancing down, then back up at her. She returned his regard quizzically, though she had already decided that the quakes were not being caused by someone crashing a shuttle onto the landing field. Somewhere blasting was going on, and Petaybee was wincing away from Intergal’s latest assault on its mineral wealth. Damn Torkel! He hadn’t heard a word she had said.

 “And you feel that this ... ah ... planet is totally responsible for your improved physical condition?”

 “Well, breathing fresh air that hasn’t been recycled for who knows how long with what additives from however many stations it’s been serviced in is a good start when you’ve burned lungs. Then there’s regular hours, clean living, a natural diet free from technological additives, winter sports, and stress-free companionship. Those’re surefire prescriptions for renewed vitality.”

 “I see. And this stress-free companionship? It means a lot to you?”

 Yana shrugged. “I’m a company employee. I go where I’m told, do what I’m told, and when it’s pleasant duty with nice folk, I’m grateful.”

 “Grateful enough to sell out the company to retain the nice folk?”

 She chuckled then, noting the evenness of his return gaze, the blandness of his face. Behind those sat a very smart man.

 “Why should I sell out a company which has provided me with what I need? Especially when I’m trying to convince the company that they’re about to throw the baby out and recycle the dirty bathwater.”

 “The bathwater?”

 “Colonel, I was sent out to see what I could learn. I learned something that Captain Fiske finds unacceptable. He’s evidently quite ready to take the word of the man he originally intended I would replace and a short-witted snocle driver with a beef against me. All because he’s run smack dab into something he can’t understand.”

 “And you understand it?”

 “No, not at all. But I do concede that it’s happened, along with my”- She chuckled. -“inexplicable return to health.”

 “So you’re grateful to the planet for this?”

 She could see him grappling with that notion and nodded. “The planet is more than Fiske is willing to accept.”

 “But you do?”

 “I do. And, if he’ll only credit an old shipmate with the sense to tighten bolts when she sees ‘em loose, he’d do himself, the company, and me a stupendous favor.”

 “Which is?”

 “He-and Intergal-can gain a lot more from Petaybee than consumable minerals!”

 “And what can they gain?”

 “Working knowledge of a new sentient life-form.”

 “Which is?”

 “This planet.”

 He brought his chin forward in a nod that ended abruptly. He looked at her and smiled: not a really reassuring smile, but the kind one might give someone who might not be playing with a full deck. Yana raised an eyebrow and deliberately laid one arm on the desk, hand relaxed on the surface, as she hooked the other arm along the back of the chair, assuming as indolent and relaxed a position as she could. She had given enough of the psych tests she knew were upcoming to know how to act: open, relaxed, easy, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She even hauled her right ankle up to her left knee, as if to leave herself completely open. This room was hot, also, and she didn’t want to show any perspiration-even if the bird colonel was.

 He shot the expected questions at her and she gave him back the answers, pausing briefly now and then to consider-as was wise of her to do-but not pausing long enough for him to consider it an evasion or hesitation. It was working, with him and with her, because the more complicated the shrink-questions, the more she relaxed, since she knew exactly the sorts of answers required. They hadn’t really looked at her records, had they?

 Suddenly, in the middle of posing a question designed to reveal any sexual aberrations she might have, he stopped and stared at her-as if seeing her for the first time.

 “You know all the parameters of the answers, don’t you?”

 “Wondered when you’d figure that one out, Colonel.”

 He leaned back as far as the uncomfortable chair would let him, crossing his arms on his chest. “So what’s behind all this? Give me a straight answer.”

 “I already did, Colonel. I’ve known Captain Fiske a long time. He asked me to do some nosing about for him since I was billeted in a Petaybean village. I did. I gave him my report. He doesn’t care to believe it.” She shrugged at such vagary. “It’s not the first time commanders have refused to believe reconnaissance reports and taken more comfortable rear-echelon theories.” She shrugged again, reaching up to scratch her head as if puzzled by such irrationality. She was sweating, and that wasn’t the way to put across her point of view. Except that the colonel was sweating more profusely than she. “Hey, did they turn up the heat around here just so I wouldn’t get a chill in my paper wrapping?”

 Now the colonel was free to take out a cloth and mop his face and neck. “Heat’s been rising steadily. I thought this was the cold season down here.”

 “The locals are already taking bets on the exact day and time the ice on the river will crack and be carried away downstream.”

 He gave her a side look, then grinned. “How’d you bet?”

 “Me?” She chuckled. “I don’t have enough money to waste on foolish bets, Colonel. But the earliest of those dates chalked up is weeks away.” They felt another rumble underfoot, one considerably more authoritative than any of the others.

 The colonel clutched at the edge of the desk as the monitor rattled on its stand. In the same second, Yana grabbed the side of the desk.

 “Someone’s planting too much semtex,” the colonel said with a frown.

 Yana grinned, having thought of another answer to the whammy they had just felt.

 “Spill what you know, Major,” the colonel advised, “while there’s still a chance for you to get straightened out on this. Unless, of course, you think the planet’s fighting back?”

 “If, that is, I was a bettor, Colonel, I think my money’d be on the planet.”

 Just then the door burst open-resisting a little, for it was slightly off kilter from the last quake-and Fiske came in, his eyes narrowed in anger. Behind him were Giancarlo and Terce.

 “All right, Yanaba, where is he? How’s he doing this?”

 Yana took great satisfaction in maintaining her calm while three sweaty, angry perturbed men threatened to overwhelm her. “I assume that the ‘he’ you refer to is Dr. Shongili?”

 “You know it is.” Fiske, jaw out, took the necessary step to loom over her in the chair.

 “I don’t know where Dr. Shongili is, Captain Fiske. How could I since I’ve been . . . involved . . . here for the past four or five hours.”

 “He’s somewhere on this planet ...”

 “I hope so,” Yana murmured.

 “. . . And I’m going to find him and find out how he’s doing this.” Fiske flicked his fingers at the ground.

 Yana did not have to pretend surprise. “You think he’s blowing his planet up to thwart you?” She actually had trouble suppressing her laughter. “He’s got no explosives. The company has ‘em all. And why would he want to blow his planet up?”

 “I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s responsible.”

 “Using what?” Yana fired back at him. “Or, maybe,” she said, turning devious, “he’s told the planet to resist, to hamper, to impede your efforts to strip it of its natural resources.”

 Fiske jutted his jaw out again, clenching his teeth over whatever it was he wanted to blurt out in frustration. Instead, he transferred his feelings to the grip of his fingers on her arm as he roughly hauled her up from the chair.

 “You’re coming with me!” And he began to frog-march her out of the room.

 “Like this?” she asked. Part of her paper skirt, soaked with her perspiration, had been left on the seat of the chair. She had also lost one of her paper shoes in his haste to get her moving.

 “Captain!” the colonel barked in a tone that could not be ignored, even by Torkel Fiske. “You will permit the major to dress before she leaves this installation.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 13                                                                                                                                                          

 No doubt in an effort to humiliate, harass, or annoy her, Giancarlo signaled Ornery-eyes to stay in the room where Yana was to dress herself. It would take a lot more than Ornery-eyes to perturb Yana. She was slightly flattered that Giancarlo thought it would! Ignoring her audience, she took advantage of the dressing-room shower to enjoy a quick wash before she dressed. She smiled as she noticed that she had been given ordinary-issue clothes, not winter gear. Torture could take many subtle forms: freezing wasn’t a common one.

 When Ornery bustled her down the corridor to the assembly point, Yana was reasonably sure she’d had the best of that deal. For when they got outside, it was nearly as warm as the facility had been-and she was far more comfortable, in the lighter garments, than any of the others were.

 She was shoved, just ducking her head in time to keep from cracking it on the doorframe, into a ground vehicle, which was already inhabited by several squads, sweating in their winter gear. They were conveyed out to the field where a troop copter waited. She caught a glimpse of other air-assault vehicles and some big land cruisers. She also saw two dark circles, one of considerable size, where the field, plascrete and all, had subsided. She wondered if the planet knew what to target or if it just pulled the plug where the terrain made it easiest.

 They had barely gotten settled when the bulky vehicle tilted to one side.

 “Lift! Lift! Lift!” Torkel yelled as the pilot made as if to investigate the damage.

 Yana privately enjoyed the planet’s antics very much, though she was crammed in the backseat between Giancarlo and Ornery-eyes’s massive torso. The latter had folded his arms over his chest and was staring straight ahead, ignoring the almost- 180-degree view afforded by the bubble-shaped Plexiglas windshield. Yana, however, took the scene in eagerly.

 Craters pocked the surface of the great field. As the vehicle came around and headed north-northeast toward Kilcoole, she saw the village below; then, as the copter angled off toward the mountains, she gasped as she caught glimpses of the river, seamed with dark, steaming cracks. Its surface was littered with snocles, either capsized into the cracks or stranded on larger blocks of ice. A few, back toward SpaceBase, were being off-loaded by men stripped down to their shirts, while farther ahead men and women scrambled to save each other from drowning and pulled each other ashore. A couple of snocles were attempting to find snow firm enough for the runners to ski on while one soldier broke trail, planting markers to show where the snow had not yet turned to slush.

 Yana hoped that Bunny’s snocle wasn’t out there among the stranded, or that the girl hadn’t been arrested when Yana was. She also wondered just where Scan was, but one thing was sure: he wouldn’t be where this copter was taking them.

 It landed in the pasture that had once held the curly-coats. She thought she caught sight of one of the dark ones, hiding in the copse, but it could have just been a big brown-branched bush the height of a curly-coat. The house, when the troopers entered it, weapons drawn, had the feeling of a deserted place. At least that was what Yana sensed from the still, cool air inside. Not so much as a whisker of one of Sean’s unusual big cats, either. Torkel led the way down the link to the laboratories, Giancarlo with him, Ornery hauling her along in their wake.

 “I want every disk, file, paperwork, notebook, everything,” Torkel called over his shoulder to the lieutenant in charge of the squads. “Everything taken back to the base. I want this place under strict surveillance and rigged to catch anyone who steps inside.”

 “The animals are all gone,” Giancarlo said savagely. “He obviously got back here to let them all loose. We could have learned something from them.”

 Yana could see from the condition of the pens that they hadn’t been occupied for a while. That must have been the first thing Scan had done when he had separated from her.

 “You certainly didn’t expect to find them here, did you, Colonel, tamely waiting for us?” Torkel asked, resuming his pose of amused condescension.

 “Dammit, Fiske, I told you we should have moved in on him earlier, right after that all-night binge the natives had.”

 “But I thought that was too good a chance for my undercover operative to miss,” Torkel said, leaning against the wall. Just where Scan had leaned, Yana thought, the first day they had met. “Is that where everyone got their orders, Yana? Is that where you switched sides?”

 “I haven’t switched sides, Captain Fiske. I’m still a company woman, trying to help the company all I can.”

 Giancarlo raised both fists, and she stared back, daring him to carry through his threat.

 “You both wanted me to see what I could find out. I did just that,” Yana went on. “Not my fault I can’t tell you what you want to hear. No one’s told me what that is.”

 “Terce said you’d sold out,” Giancarlo shouted. “He saw you go with the others, to plot treason.”

 “Where’d he see us go?” she asked, hoping her hunch was correct. “We were in the hall until daybreak and then most of ui went to the hot spring to clean up.”

 “That fat woman, the one with all the cats, is the ringleader.”

 “Clodagh?” Yana allowed her incredulity and astonishment full rein and laughed. “If that’s what Terce told you, Colonel, you must be the only one on Petaybee who doesn’t know that he isn’t playing with a full deck.”

 Just then the comm unit bleeped, and Torkel toggled it on. He listened, and in the next moment, disbelief, consternation, and finally horror swept across his face.

 “Back! Back to the copter!” His arm swept them before him with great urgency. “Shuttle’s crashed!”

 Yana wondered from Torkel’s reaction if his father, old Whit-taker Fiske, had been due to arrive in that particular shuttle. Briefly she considered departing in the confusion. Ornery was up ahead of her in the corridor: she could slip away very easily right now. But she was certain she had weakened Giancarlo’s accusation. She could do more if she hung about. Maybe, with a little luck, she might get Torkel to listen to what she was saying. And, if his father wasn’t dead, maybe she could beat some sense in that old man’s head. She would certainly prejudice the case she had been making by doing a flit right now. Petaybee ought to have one advocate in the company’s court. Sauntering, she caught up with Ornery just as he realized she wasn’t nearby.

 “Miss me, big boy?” she asked, and walked past him, out to the waiting copter, where she slid in next to Giancarlo, leaving Ornery to compress his mass into the space between her and the copter’s bulkhead. Ignoring the commotion and Torkel’s demand for more information on the accident from the copter pilot, she was perhaps the only one looking out past Ornery toward the river, newly freed from ice thrall. She sat up straight, unable to believe her eyes, as a dark object that she first thought was a boulder turned into a seal and suddenly moved with astonishing speed and grace to slip into the water.

 Now, how long had that been there? Had it actually been watching the house? Or was her imagination working overtime?

 The regeneration is all the more remarkable as it’s so totally improbable,” the medic was saying to his companion as they preceded Diego down the hospital corridor. “Never saw anything like this. And in such a short time. Woman was hacking her lungs out and not likely to live the year out.”

 The man beside him asked a question that Diego could not hear, but he figured they had to be talking about Yana.

 “No, no, can’t be a transplant. I’d believe that more than a natural remission but there’re no scars: not even a ‘scope hole.”

 They turned to the right at the next corridor and he went on, thinking hard. Bunny had mentioned that Yana’s health had improved since her arrival on Petaybee. He snorted. His father’s sure hadn’t. What if ... And he halted in his tracks for a long moment. Then he was jolted out of his reverie by tremors underfoot- which reminded Diego of other half-understood remarks by Bunny. Why wasn’t she around when she was needed? Why had she skitted out of the base as if something was after her?

 More than anything now, he wanted to get Dad to Kilcoole and Clodagh. Petaybee had messed his dad up and now Petaybee could damn well cure him, like it had Yana!

 It was, as Diego had hoped, slack time in the ward. Dad was sitting up in his chair, and dressed, which might have been a battle. Diego had stuffed another parka under his own, a real drag with the heat so high. Even his dad was sweating a bit. Diego got (he wheelchair and, for the benefit of the other men in the ward, started his chatter.

 “Dad, you wouldn’t believe the weather out today, so I’m goin’ to take you for a little stroll. See if we can’t chase the cobwebs out of your head. Here now, easy, you just sit tight, huh?”

 His father, as usual, didn’t acknowledge his words with so much as a lifting of the eyes.

 Diego wheeled him out of the ward, down the hall, and onto the ramp outside the infirmary.

 For the first time he became acutely aware of how noisy it was at SpaceBase, of the change in the temperature and the air. Snocles that had once zipped down the snowy paths between buildings were racing their engines to escape being mired in slushy, melting snow. New vehicles, forklifts and track-cats, toiled to move the tons of equipment freshly delivered to the loading docks. One of the smaller track-cats was trying to shift a snocle entrenched in a snow bank.

 Suddenly the ground bucked, the boardwalk collapsed at one end, and the wheelchair jerked from Diego’s grasp and rolled down onto the ground.

 Diego jumped down and caught it before it turned over and dumped his dad in the slush. People ran past him, ducking for cover, as another jarring crash from somewhere nearby shook the ground. When he looked up, he saw that both the track-cat and the mired snocle, engines still running, had been abandoned by their drivers. The track-cat was just a few yards away, but the wheel-chair was stuck in the slush.

 “Come on, Dad, you’re going to have to help me,” Diego said, his fingers fumbling to unstrap the wheelchair’s safety belt. He placed his father’s arm around his own shoulders and tried to haul him to his feet, but Francisco was dead weight. Diego looked from the aged, uncomprehending face to the alluring track-cat.

 He changed tactics. He slid his father back into the chair and darted for the track-cat. It couldn’t be much different from driving anything else, and he already knew how to drive hovercrafts and had watched Bunny drive her snocle. He released the tow chain and flung himself into the driver’s seat, fumbling for the throttle.

 After a little experimentation, he managed to get it into reverse and backed it over to where his father sagged in the chair. Leaving the snocle idling, he hopped down beside his dad, pulling the limp and unresponding arm back across his shoulders and attempting to hoist the older man up once more. This was hopeless! Dad just hung limply and could do nothing. In another minute the driver would return, or someone would pass by and see them, and then this perfect chance would be lost.

 “What the hell are you trying to do?” someone said suddenly behind him.

 Diego nearly jumped out of his skin, then recognized Steve’s voice just as his father’s partner stepped in front of him.

 “I’ve been searching all over for you. I heard the explosions . . .”

 “We’re fine,” Diego said hotly. “And we’d have been even finer if you hadn’t caught us. I’ve got to get Dad out of here and I will somehow.” He raised his chin defiantly and stared Steve straight in the eye.

 Steve stared back, looking at Diego as if he were crazy; then all of a sudden he shrugged. “Okay, Diego, it’s your call. But I go, too.” And he picked Diego’s dad up in his arms as if the stricken man were a baby and climbed up on the companion seat in the track-cat.

 Diego scrambled into the driver’s seat and, after a try or two, shifted the cat into forward gear and headed toward the village.

 Bunny roared into the snocle shed. Adak was red in the face

 and waving his hands, arguing with a uniformed soldier, but she had no time to be polite about interrupting them.

 “Adak, quick, we’ve got to rouse the village! The river’s breaking up way early, and a lot of snocles are trapped on the river. Seamus fell into a crack bigger than a tree saving one of the drivers, and the others pulled him out.”

 “You run and tell Clodagh, Bunka. She’ll let the village know, and I’ll get on the radio for help.”

 “I told you, sir, I’m relieving you of duty,” the soldier said.

 “Good. Then you get on the radio,” Adak said. “And I’ll use this vehicle to try to rescue the stranded drivers.”

 “You can’t do that, sir. That’s a company-issue snocle, and not a private vehicle,” the soldier said. “Besides, I don’t know how to work this thing,” he added, staring at the microphone.

 “Fine, then I will, and you go help the drivers, but keep your snocle off the river and for pity’s sake stop standing about arguing, man,” Adak snapped.

 Bunny grinned as, without further argument, the soldier climbed into the snocle and gunned it back down the tracks it had just made. Bunny sprinted out of the shed as Adak was pulling on his headphones and picking up his microphone.

 Whatever he was saying over the radio was lost, however, because all over town the sled dogs had begun to howl with the plaintive screams of tortured souls. As Bunny passed by Lavelle’s place on her way to Clodagh’s, she was even more surprised at the antics of Lavelle’s dogs. Still tethered to their kennels, some were standing on the roofs and howling; others were lying on the ground, whining and baying in turn. Dinah, the lead dog, had become a frantic canine acrobat. She raced to the end of her chain, then back and forth and in frenzied circles until her lead was tangled in her legs and around her collar, and her neck would soon be rubbed raw from the friction. Bunny stopped to untangle her.

 Poor Dinah. She really missed Lavelle, Bunny thought, but then, when she stopped to touch her, she got an urgent flash of hot, panting thought: The boy, the boy, gotta go, gotta go, gotta get the boy, oh let me get him, gotta go, needs me, friend, friend, needs me, needs me needs me, gotta go, go go nowoooo . . .

 “Shh, Dinah, shhh,” Bunny said. It didn’t feel strange to be talking to a dog: she did it all the time. But it did seem odd that the dog seemed to be talking, too. “Diego’s okay, Dinah. I just left him. Look, tell you what, you come with me and we’ll find Clodagh, okay? Don’t run off now when I unsnap you. Maloneys have had enough pain without losing you, too.”

 The more of Dinah she untangled, the more the dog calmed, tail wagging cooperatively; but when the dog was at last free, she snatched herself out of Bunny’s grasp and bounded off toward the river.

 Holy cow, sir, where did that volcano come from?” the pilot asked Torkel as the copter sped toward the westerly crash-site coordinates provided by SpaceBase. They were still a good distance away when he pointed to the port side.

 Since his comments had crackled through the headsets everyone was wearing, Yana looked, too. The fiery glow, the pall of the ash hanging in the air, was plainly visible. The air was still full of turbulence from the initial eruptions, and the lightweight copter shook and tossed about like a Ping-Pong ball.

 Beneath them the ground rolled and fissured while ash and smoke pumped from the newly blown cone, born on one of the low mountains to the west. Visibility was poor with airborne smuts that were beginning to build up on the ground. Yana realized that some of the quaking she had felt back at the clinic must have come from this eruption.

 Sandwiched as she was between Giancarlo and Ornery, Yana had a clear view between the pilot and Torkel, riding in copilot position. She wasn’t at all reassured by the panorama. It looked like someone’s terraforming gone wrong, and she thought they would be smarter to make tracks from rather than to.

 As the copter drew nearer to the new volcano, a thin line of people emerged from the grayness beneath them and started waving frantically.

 Torkel picked up the copilot’s microphone. “This is Flying Fish. We have you in sight. Please identify yourselves. Is Dr. Whittaker Fiske with you? Over.”

 Rather to Yana’s surprise, a response came back immediately. “Flying Fish, this is Team Boom Boom. We see you. We have two severely injured people in our party. That’s a big Mayday. Please transport to SpaceBase pronto. Over.”

 The pilot clicked the transmission button on his own microphone. “This is Flying Fish, Boom Boom. Gotcha. We’re setting down one-zero-zero meters due east of you. Over.”

 But Torkel clicked on the copilot’s mike again before the stranded team could respond. “Boom Boom, this is Captain Torkel Fiske on the Flying Fish. Is Dr. Whittaker Fiske or any member of his team with you? Over.”

 “Negative, Cap’n Fiske. Petaybee blew its top about the time the shuttlecraft was landing. The turbulence from the volcano blew the craft off course and we had to initiate evacuation procedures before we could search for survivors. Sorry, sir. Over.”

 “Boom Boom, Flying Fish here. I’m sorry, too, but you’ll have to hang on while we radio SpaceBase for another craft to retrieve you. We need to look for the survivors soonest.”

 “I can’t fly into that, sir,” the pilot said, glancing anxiously at Torkel. “It’d clog the jets. Let me pick up the wounded and get ground support.”

 “Finding my father is number-one priority,” Torkel told the pilot in a command tone. Yana couldn’t see his face. She wondered briefly if Torkel wanted to save his father because of his importance to the mission, or simply because Dr. Fiske was his father.

 “Flying Fish, you can’t leave us here. Our wounded are in bad shape and the rest of us are having trouble breathing from the ash. It’s smothering in there, sir. Please, at least pick up the wounded. Boom Boom over.”

 The pilot, heedless of Torkel’s commands to fly into the face of the billowing ash clouds, began circling to land. Yana saw Torkel reach for his sidearm, but the pilot had anticipated a problem.

 “Sorry, sir,” the pilot said, pointing a pistol at Torkel, “but you and the others will have to get out while we load the wounded. I’ll call for another aircraft and some ground support for you as soon as we’re in the air.”

 Ornery started to draw his weapon, but his attention was on the pilot, not on Yana. With a well-placed chop to his wrist she numbed his hand and relieved him of his weapon before either he or Giancarlo could react. She stuck the muzzle of the gun under Giancarlo’s ear with one hand and extracted his sidearm from his holster with the other in a series of rapid movements that would have made her hand-to-hand combat trainer beam with pride. Ornery leaned menacingly toward her, but his numbed hand wasn’t following orders. She shook her head and jabbed Giancarlo meaningfully with the gun.

 “This section of the aircraft is secured, pilot,” Yana said into her mouthpiece.

 The pilot gave her a thumbs-up and said to Torkel, “I’ll take your sidearm, too, sir. And just in case you gentlemen want to claim this is mutiny or anything, I’m sure superior-officer types like yourselves are aware that, by chain of command, I am the pilot of this craft. I am therefore the temporary CO. Thanks to you, ma’am.”

 He set the copter down and the stranded people surged toward it. He lifted a foot and kicked Torkel’s door open. “Out you go, Cap’n. You there, Corporal, open your own damn door and disembark. You too, Colonel. Under the circumstances, we’ll belay the ladies first shit.”

 When the others had jumped out of the copter and the pilot turned to watch her go, Yana saw that he was a warrant officer, a green-eyed, lean-jawed man with curly black hair, broad prominent cheekbones, and the slight tilt to his eyes she had begun to identify with people from Petaybee. His nametag said O’SHAY.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 14                                                                                                                                              

 The track-cat lumbered down the riverbank and into the trees, surely and slowly-much too slowly to suit Diego. What if someone caught them and tried to take them back? What would happen to them then? Would they send Dad off-planet? Would they split them up? Would he be charged with the theft of the track-cat?

 Hours seemed to pass as the vehicle rolled, slowly but staunchly, up small hillocks and forded freshets of water and melting snow running toward the river.

 The track-cat was open to the air, too, so it was a good thing the day was exceptionally warm or they all might have frozen. Diego’s dad lay inert against Steve, who clung tightly to his clothes to keep him from bouncing out of the vehicle.

 The slushy, icy terrain was tough going even for the track-cat. Diego nursed it up a hill and down over the other side, only to lodge with one edge of the track in a ditch.

 “Try rocking it,” Steve hollered. “Forward, reverse, forward, reverse! Let it dig its own way out.”

 But the tracks could not bite or budge. Diego put it in neutral and climbed down to see exactly what the problem was. That was when he heard the noise from the other side of the trees and realized they weren’t the only ones in trouble.

 He pointed to show Steve where he was going and, leaving the vehicle running, trudged through the slush until he was clear of the trees.

 The snowy road that the snocles had been so blithely using had become separated from the bank by a foot of open, steaming water. A soldier waved his parka to keep oncoming traffic from adding to the twenty or thirty vehicles already slewed crazily over what remained of the iced river. Beneath snocles and the feet of the drivers, huge steaming cracks yawned and pieces of ice broke off and floated in the blue-black water.

 As Diego watched, the ice broke and a snocle shifted, unbalancing its ice raft so that it and one of the men both slid slowly into the river.

 Groaning at this new emergency, Diego raced back to the track-cat just as Steve slid out from under Francisco and fastened the safety harness around the flaccid body.

 “What the devil’s going on over there?” Steve demanded as he sprinted toward Diego.

 “The ice is breaking, and there’s people stranded on it,” Diego told him, panting and pointing urgently toward the river. “They need a lot of help and fast. We’ve got to let the village know right now.”

 But Steve had to see for himself and swept past Diego to crash through the brush and look at the river. Diego followed uncertainly, torn between the crisis on the river and his father’s helpless body left alone in the snocle.

 On the fracturing ice, maybe a half-dozen people now lay on their bellies, hands and feet linked, forming a human chain to fish for the man who had fallen into the river. He still had a perilous hold on the ice floe, which bobbed about, having tipped free of the snocle.

 Steve stood poised on the bank for just a moment before he took a grip on Diego’s shoulder. “Get your father to the village on the double, Diego, and send back help. I’ll lend a hand here.”

 “But, the track-cat’s stuck,” Diego reminded him.

 “Deal with it,” Steve commanded in the same kind of gruff tone Diego had heard him use to talk to shipboard staff. Diego glared at him, resentfully. Steve, seeing his face, added, “That’s our expedition team down there. See? The big fellow with the red bandanna? That’s Sandoz Rowdybush. And I think the guy on the ice is Chas Collar. Your dad and I have worked with them for ten years. I’m not about to desert them.”

 “No, but you’ll desert Dad.”

 Steve took a deep breath. “He’s got you, too. Go back to the cat. If you can’t get it moving, stick with your father till I can come for you. If you make it to the village, tell them this river is having a serious meltdown problem and we’ll need all the help they can muster.”

 Not quite mollified but having no other option, Diego sloshed back to the track-cat. Sure the guys on the ice needed help, but what if help from SpaceBase came and found Diego’s stuck track-cat? Then Dad would never get the help Diego was now convinced was his only hope. There were plenty of other guys out on the ice already-why did Steve think they needed him more than Dad did? Angrily, Diego kicked at the brush surrounding the track-cat-which gave him an idea on how to free the vehicle. He tore into the vehicle’s locker, strewing a number of items on the floor until he found a hatchet, which he used to lob off enough branches to cushion the treads and give them some traction. Then he cleaned the mud out of the tracks as well as he could, all the while muttering to himself, as much to keep his own spirits up as to vent his frustration and anger.

 Just about the time he had the cat ready to go, he had reached the conclusion that Steve had really had no other option but to go rescue his friends. On the other hand, there was no way Diego was going to wait tamely here. Not when he risked being found by the company corps, who might resent his appropriation of their vehicle. More importantly, they would take Dad back to the clinic, where nothing was being done for him, and Diego knew with a certainty he couldn’t have explained even to himself that he had to get his dad to the village, and away from the company. The people in Kilcoole understood what had happened to his dad, and they could cure him. He knew they could. They had to.

 He didn’t realize how tense he had been until he broke the track-cat free of the mud. Hoping his spontaneous shout of relief had been inaudible among the shouts and cries coming from the river, he immediately changed directions, driving across the gully and back into the woods. Now he steered away from the riverbank, keeping to the trees, avoiding anyone who might be struggling ashore and also avoiding surveillance by airborne rescue parties.

 Half an hour later, with the light beginning to wane, he was far enough from the river that, when the ice finally completely gave way, all he heard was a dull roar, like a far-off crowd cheering some sporting event. And he heard that only because the engine of the track-cat, which had been left running day and night since the vehicle had been commissioned, had run out of fuel.

 He stopped and listened to the distant roar, tasted smoke and ash on the air mingling with the released ozone smell of open water, felt the ground trembling beneath the track-cat as if it, too, would break open at any time. Birds screeched through the trees as if crying warnings.

 His father’s inert body looked uncomfortable in the harness that was keeping it upright on the seat beside him. Diego tenderly rearranged the passive limbs into less grotesque positions. He didn’t think his father could have been hurt by the rough journey, but he really hated to see his dad, once so athletic and fit, collapsed like a disconnected android.

 With no more fuel, the vehicle was useless. Diego let out a deep sigh. Despite his detours, he couldn’t be that far from the village at this point. He glanced around, sniffing and finally noticing the odd smells in the air: acrid, oily, definitely nonregulation. Usually by now the air started to chill off, but it was still as warm as it had been all day. Strapped as he was in the seat, Dad wouldn’t be in any real danger from chilling for at least another half hour, Diego estimated. He reached for the coat he had removed during his exertions to get the track-cat moving again and tucked it around his father, patting it in place, remembering his father doing the same service for him when he was smaller. Maybe he shouldn’t leave his father here. There were wild animals on Petaybee, wild animals strong enough to break into the track-cat, maybe. Would they be more afraid of the machine smell than they would be hungry? Suddenly Diego wasn’t sure he could take the risk. Not with his father so helpless.

 But he couldn’t just sit here, halfway to nowhere. Fretting more than ever, he turned to rummage through the track-cat’s locker, hoping there might be something useful in it. There was nothing: nothing to use to build a fire, no emergency rations, not even a canteen of water, but then the cat had been used around the SpaceBase, where such supplies had always been at hand. It wasn’t as if the motor pool had anticipated the cat being stolen for a cross-country escape. Totally demoralized, Diego flopped down on the driver’s seat, wondering how he was going to cope now. If Steve did keep his promise to come after him, he wouldn’t be there anymore. Would Steve be able to come looking for them? What could he do? He’d only wanted to help his father!

 As if to seal his depression, the first keening howl sounded through the evening.

 Bunny didn’t have to alert the village: the dogs’ wailing did it for her. People poured out of their houses to see what was wrong. She didn’t have to tell them the river had broken up. Anyone born on Petaybee and raised with Kilcoole’s long winters could smell breakup in the air, could feel the change in the pressure, and if that wasn’t enough, the ice melting from the roofs and the slush seeping through the soft soles of their boots made it all too evident.

 Bunny ran up to Lavelle’s door first. Liam opened it. “Liam, the river’s breaking early and people in snocles are trapped.”

 “The planet take them, then.” Liam shrugged angrily and started to shut the door in her face.

 “Seamus is out there helping, and Dinah’s got loose and ran off toward the river. Please, Liam, if you won’t help, at least spread the word!” When he reached for his parka on the hook by the door, she caught his hand, grinning. “You don’t need it. Come on.”

 She didn’t wait to see if he followed but ran straight to her Aunt Moira’s. Moira and her three oldest sons, Nanuk, Tutiak, and Tim, were already hitching up Charlie’s dogs while Maureen and ‘Naluk, the oldest girls, carried blankets and other provisions to the sleds. “Auntie Moira, the river’s breaking up-“

 “I know, Bunka. Don’t just stand there! Help us! Seamus is out there on that river.”

 “He’s okay for now, Auntie. The soldiers pulled him out. But they all need help.”

 Tutiak growled at her. “What do you think we’re trying to do?”

 “No need to be rude to your cousin, Tutiak,” Moira said, slapping at him. “He’s sorry, Bunka. We’re taking Charlie’s dogs to go help now. Okay with you?”

 “Fine,” Bunny said. “I have to go tell Clodagh.”

 “Hmph,” Tim grunted. “As if anyone ever needed to tell Clodagh anything.”

 Bunny paused at Aisling and Sinead’s, first noticing that the dogs were missing from the yard, then that the long daylight was finally waning. The door opened on her first rap to reveal Aisling wearing her waterproof breakup boots, with her arms full of blankets.

 “Breakup’s come early, Aisling, and-“

 “I know.”

 “How?”

 “Alice B heard from the other dogs. Sinead and the dogs are on the way.”

 “It’s getting too slushy for dogs even. We’re going to need the curlies.”

 “Have you asked Adak to call Scan?”

 Bunny felt something inside her wrench suddenly. “No! I- Aisling, the soldiers kept Yana. I think Sean’s in trouble.”

 “Warn Clodagh,” Aisling said. “I’ll tell anybody else who hasn’t figured it out yet and meet you there.”

 With a wave, Bunny ran on through the dusk to Clodagh’s house. Clodagh was holding a lamp when she opened the door. None of the cats were in sight; then one appeared, taking immediate advantage of the open door to brush past Bunny and jump up on the table, where it began mewing piteously.

 “Marduk says Yana hasn’t been home to feed him,” Clodagh translated.

 Breathless, Bunny collapsed in a sprawl on Clodagh’s bed. “She was goin’ to try to reason with Captain Fiske for us, but it mustn’t have worked. Clodagh, the river’s breaking-“

 Clodagh nodded with some satisfaction. “Of course it is. The river ice has been Space Base’s quickest connecting route to us. The planet’s protecting us-and itself.”

 “Seamus almost drowned trying to help one of the soldiers,” Bunny said, without asking how Clodagh knew what the planet knew, or was trying to do. She just did, that was all. She always did.

 “That Seamus,” Clodagh said, shaking her head. “Of course he would try to help. Is he okay?”

 “He’s out on the ice with the others. They’re all still stranded. And not only that, Clodagh, but when 1 stopped by Lavelle’s to untangle Dinah from her harness, Dinah-well, it was like she talked to me. She was all upset about some boy. And that has to be Diego, but he should be safe at the SpaceBase. What are we going to do, Clodagh? Everything’s coming to pieces.” This last came out of Bunny almost like the howl of one of the dogs. That made her realize that she was very tired and keyed up to the highest possible pitch. She would give anything to be able to sleep for a week-if only someplace felt safe enough to sleep in! Even Clodagh seemed different somehow, her eyes glittering and her customary expressions underlain with agitation and a hard anger that had nothing to do with Bunny. Clodagh, Bunny felt, was actually glad about the river and wouldn’t have minded if everyone-well, not Seamus, but everyone else-had drowned. Bunny suddenly realized that she, too, wouldn’t mind if they all drowned, if all of SpaceBase suddenly sank into the planet and disappeared and the company moon vanished from the sky. They were bound and determined to ruin Petaybee. Everything Bunny cared about and counted on was changing, coming apart the way the ice, usually as much to be depended upon as the ground this time of year, had broken away beneath her.

 Even Clodagh’s house no longer felt like the haven of comfort and reassurance it had been for Bunny ever since her parents had died and she realized she could no longer live among her cousins.

 “Bunka,” Clodagh said, touching her shoulder.

 “Why couldn’t they leave us alone, Clodagh? Why couldn’t they leave Petaybee alone? Did they have to ruin everything?”

 “They’ve ruined nothing yet, Bunka. Oh, they set a few charges about here and there, and sent soldiers out to the mountains. But until they stop and pay attention, they’re not likely to learn anything about Petaybee worth the knowin’. And meantime, the planet has means to protect itself.”

 “Clodagh, have you ever been to SpaceBase?” Bunny asked. It hadn’t occurred to her before that she had never seen Clodagh outside the village except for a time or two on journeys to Sean’s house. Clodagh couldn’t possibly understand the power the company had.

 “Of course not, alanna, now why would I want to go there?”

 “They have thousands of soldiers there right now. Yana says they mean to evacuate us. By force! Just without a by-your-leave make us all go into space someplace. Then they’ll keep blowing up things on Petaybee until they get all the minerals and stuff they want. Clodagh, I’ve seen the shuttles and the ships. I know lots of the soldiers. They can do it if they want to. They own Petaybee.”

 “Nonsense, Bunka. Nobody owns Petaybee but Petaybee.”

 Bunny was about to argue the point when something landed with a heavy thud on the roof.

 Marduk, the cat who had been living with Yana, stood on his hind feet and pedaled his front paws at the ceiling, chittering and mewing as if looking for a rafter to jump onto.

 From outside the house came a sound like a well caving in, a roar with a deep echo to it. Bunny recognized it at once as the voice of one of Sean’s big cats.

 She, Clodagh, and Marduk were at the door all at once, but before they could go outside, a huge shape landed softly in front in the doorway. The black and white bewhiskered face of the big cat regarded them quizzically.

 Marduk, far from being frightened by the larger feline, stepped forward to rub noses with it. Each brushed scent glands on the side of his face into the other cat’s fur.

 Clodagh stood away from the door, and the big cat padded inside, leapt to the bed, and circled about on her handmade quilt to make a nest for himself. Marduk hopped on top of the larger creature’s back and chirruped autocratically. Clodagh produced a pair of thawed fish and a pan of water for the cats to lap. While they ate, Clodagh sat beside them on the edge of the bed and stroked their backs.

 She crooned especially to the big cat, and it looked up from its meal with narrowed eyes and purred thunderously back at her. Marduk, annoyed at being left out, butted her hand with his head before he continued to eat.

 “Do you suppose it knows where Sean and Yana are?” Bunny asked. “When I petted Dinah, I felt as if she was talking to me.”

 “Come here, Bunka,” Clodagh said, and put Bunny’s hand on the cat’s head. “Have you an answer for Bunka, Nanook?”

 Why else would I bother coming? the cat asked her in a velvety, rumbling voice.

 The words weren’t spoken; but Bunny heard them nevertheless, inside her head, the way she had heard Dinah’s. Nanook’s diction was much better than the dog’s.

 Clodagh regarded Bunny speculatively.

 “It talked to me,” Bunny told her, blinking rapidly.

 “This cat is a he, not an it,” Clodagh told her. “He talked to you because you can understand him. Marduk, also, is a he. In fact, on our whole planet, there are no its. Some things have no gender, but they are not without names. It’s only polite to learn those names.”

 Bunny shrugged. “Well, I guess I knew that.” She had played with the big cat since he had been a kitten, actually, every time she had gone to visit Sean. She petted him again. “Sorry, Nanook, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

 Having cleaned his chops of fish residue, Nanook began to tidy up the white fur of his chest. The house suddenly shook, and-from under the counter came the sound of crashing glass. Marduk jumped down, and Nanook stretched beneath Bunny’s hand.

 Bean’s gone swimming, he said. Yana came with soldiers, but their chop-chop bird squawked and the soldiers took her away again. They do not have good feelings for her. They have even less good feeling about Sean, They did not like those of us who live with Sean and tried to find us, to take us away with them. We were not found. Then the ground shakes and I smell smoke-that-is-not-cooking. And shedding time is early. What are people doing to our place?

 The last thought was accompanied by a plaintive roar that sent a blast of fishy breath into Bunny’s face.

 Diego found a sturdy branch, though he knew it wouldn’t be much good as protection against wild animals. Hefting it in his hand made him feel somewhat less vulnerable, however. He could hear the river roaring, along with a crunching and grinding of the ice that set his teeth on edge. He prayed Steve would be done with his rescuing of other people and remember he had a duty to rescue his own family. Darkness was closing in.

 The distant howling picked up again and became separate sounds: keening, howling, and plain crying, like the ghost of an all-too-familiar memory. Diego glanced over at his father. For a moment he thought he had seen a flicker in his dad’s eyes, but the older man sagged against the harness as limply as ever.

 Another howl, much closer now, was answered by several others, still distant. Diego swung his stick like a baseball bat, placing himself between the track-cat and the hostile woods. As an afterthought, he reached inside and switched on the lights, grateful that the battery wasn’t drained yet. Then the lights picked up a ring of shining eyes in the woods, closing in on him.

 The howling took on a triumphant note, and suddenly something dashed from the woods and straight at him.

 Cocking the stick to make his first blow count as much as it could, Diego released it at the top of his swing as the lights picked up the red fur of the dog. Dinah crushed him against the grill of the track-cat with the weight of her body. She licked his face and the hands he tried to protect his face with and whined her relief.

 He couldn’t have said how he knew the dog was Dinah instead of any other, except that Dinah had done this sort of thing I before. And behind her came answering whines and howls and a ? man’s voice crying “Whoa! Down, dogs.”

 Diego freed himself from Dinah’s embrace in time to see a sled pulled by four dogs break through the trees into the lights of the track-cat.

 The man driving the sled wore no coat and frowned when he saw Diego, but Dinah ran frantically between the cat and the sled until the man relaxed.

 “You’re the boy who was with my mother, aren’t you?” the man asked.

 “Your mom was Lavelle?” The guess wasn’t hard, with Dinah bouncing between them.

 “That’s right.”

 “Then please help us. I have to get my dad to Clodagh’s. He’s been dying at SpaceBase like Lavelle died when they took her off-planet.”

 The wind blew and the planet shook, whether in fear or anger or both Bunny couldn’t tell, but inside Clodagh’s house a phenomenon was taking place that Bunny would have only partially understood the day before.

 A taciturn Liam Maloney, whined and howled into submission by Dinah and the other sled dogs, had delivered Diego Metaxos and his father to Clodagh’s just after dark. Now Diego nursed a cup of tea, while his father sat tied into Clodagh’s rocker.

 Liam had returned home to feed the dogs, although Dinah had whined and made her peculiar “oooo ooo” sound when pulled away from Diego. Bunny wondered what she would hear the dog say if she stroked her. She wondered if Diego could hear Dinah yet, but thought he probably couldn’t. After all, she had lived fourteen years on Petaybee, and she had always known communication existed between certain aspects of the planet and its people. Come to that, she had communicated with the planet like everyone else during the hot-springs interfaces at the end of every latchkay.

 Everyone knew that some people, like Clodagh and Scan, could talk to most of the animals. Others, like Lavelle, could certainly understand their own lead dogs. Bunny had always talked to the animals, all of them, having been brought up to think it was only polite to do so. But today was the first time the animals had ever struck up what could be called a conversation with her. Maybe it was because she had bonded with her snocle instead of to dogs or cats or curlies, or maybe Dinah was just an unusually telepathic dog. Anyway, although Dinah was evidently tuned in to Diego, the dog had talked to Bunny first, and underlying all the worry and trouble, Bunny felt a marvelous elation about that.

 The big cat, Nanook, had bounded past her as she held the door open for Liam and Diego to carry Francisco Metaxos into Clodagh’s house. Bunny had caught a flutter of thought, Wonder what’s happening out there now . . ., as the cat passed by.

 Darkness blanked the windows and the wind blew fiercely, carrying the scent of ash and fresh water, thawing earth and smoke. It howled around the house like a team of hungry dogs and rattled the roof. Inside, the stove kept the house almost stiflingly warm as it kept Clodagh’s caribou stew simmering in her biggest pot.

 Diego was wolfing down his second bowlful and Bunny making short work of hers while Clodagh stirred fresh ingredients into the pot.

 “Want to have enough for when people come in off the river,” she said. “Some of them are bound to stop by.”

 The cozy domesticity of the scene was reinforced by Clodagh’s cats, who had returned from whatever business they had been about when Bunny had first arrived.

 Diego had one on his lap, while another, Bearcat, napped on Bunny’s knees. And, of course, one of the more enterprising members of the pride twined around Clodagh’s ankles as she cooked. Marduk and the remaining five seemed fascinated by Francisco Metaxos.

 Marduk sat on the scientist’s lap, kneading and purring and gazing raptly through narrowed eyes up into his face. Another cat sat on the scientist’s shoulders, its rust-striped cheek and white whiskers snuggled against the man’s right ear, front paws pedaling his shoulders while the ringed tail curled possessively around Metaxos’s neck from the other side. Two more cats flanked Metaxos on either arm of the chair, licking his fingers and hands and grooming him, while another pair alternately wove about his feet and settled across them like house slippers.

 You’d have thought the man was made of catnip the way the silly animals were carrying on, Bunny reflected. Whether it was coincidence or communication, at the moment the thought formed she drew an indignant dig from the cat in her lap.

 “Can I have a bowl of stew for Dad, please, Clodagh?” Diego asked. “But maybe it’d be better-“ He broke off and looked at Clodagh’s back imploringly.

 She turned and gave him an impassive half smile. “Yes?”

 “If you’d feed him? Bunny says you’re good at taking care of people and things and, to tell the truth, he never eats very well for me.”

 Bunny, who had watched Diego feed his father a couple of times, suspected that half the problem was that Diego found spoon-feeding his once-brilliant and vigorous father a disgusting process. She knew it made him sad and angry: that would be the way she would feel, she knew. Unnerving, too, to have to shove food into the mouth of a grown man as if he were an infant.

 Clodagh regarded Diego with understanding and sympathy. She looked at the bowl she had filled and then handed it to him with a kind smile.

 “No, it’s better if you do it, son. Someplace inside your da he still knows you and loves you. If he’ll eat for anybody, it’ll be you.”

 “I guess so,” Diego said dispiritedly, and pulled a chair opposite his father. Bunny noticed he was careful not to disturb any cats, though Marduk raised a paw as if to snag the spoon carrying food to Metaxos’s mouth.

 Grimacing, she looked away as the spoon neared the man’s lips: that was the disgusting part, when stuff fell ‘off the spoon and down the chin and had to be wiped off before it messed up the shirt. At least Diego didn’t have to actually pry open his father’s lips to get the food in. But, as she was turning her head, Diego suddenly said, “Hey, Dad. All right! That was great. Try another bite.”

 When Bunny looked back at them, Diego had a grin of satisfaction on his face: his father, eyes still dull, face otherwise slack, was chewing the soft diced bits in the stew. Encouraged, Diego replenished the spoon with more bits; the cat on his father’s shoulders sniffed as the spoon passed his nose, but didn’t try to snag it. Dr. Metaxos’s eyes even looked a little more focused when he chewed, Bunny thought. Food was the best thing he could concentrate on right now; maybe he was even tasting it. She hoped so: it was a shame to waste a good Clodagh stew on someone who couldn’t appreciate the fine taste of it.

 Just then the door burst open and Aisling swirled in like a one-woman typhoon, followed closely by Steve Margolies. Through the door behind Steve, Bunny saw Sinead talking into the ear of one of the curly-coat horses that stood around about the house.

 “Clodagh,” Aisling called cheerfully, “Sinead and the cur lies did some right fine towing work at the river, getting snocles out of trouble. Everyone’s out now and on their way back here. We left all the snocles at Adak’s, but he’s so busy, I thought I’d see if you had something cooked up for him to eat. He’s going to be there all night. And it’s not just the river breaking up early, either. You know all that smoke we’ve been after seein’ and the ground shaking? Well, that’s from a volcano eruption over by where Odark found Lavelle and Siggy with your lad here and his da.” She grinned at the expressions of disbelief and amazement. “And the miners and engineers and company men that went out that way to start work, they got caught right under that volcano.” She grinned so broadly at the effect of that news that she had to lick her lips.

 Of them all, Clodagh didn’t seem surprised.

 “And, there’s a shuttle down, almost right on top of the volcano, to hear Adak tell it, and the survivors yelling like stuck pigs for help. Well, that smooth redheaded captain who was sniffin’ after Yana took her and Giancarlo and some other soldier to go see if anyone got out of the shuttle. They made it to the miners and then”-Aisling’s expression changed to indignation- “that captain wanted to leave behind the injured miners and all, right where they were being bombarded with ash and hot mud, so’s he could search for the shuttle. Can you believe the man’s sand that he’d abandon wounded, his own people, mind you? And crazy enough to want to make a copter fly into all that heat and ash and smoke? But as luck would have it, and such good luck I can scarcely believe myself, the pilot was Rick, you remember Orla O’Shay’s oldest boy that went into the service fifteen years ago? He and Yana Maddock made the captain and the colonel and the other bloke with them get out and load the wounded. He radioed back for a pickup for them and the other survivors, and Adak was just talking to him as we came in. Sinead says she has it from her sources that Scan’s gone missin’, too, and she’s that worried about himself and Yana. The O’Shay boy says Yana disarmed the colonel and his lad neat as you please and not a moment too soon. Dr. Steve here wants to rustle up some transport. He feels he’s got to get out there to eyeball that volcano while it’s growing.”

 She paused to take a deep breath and then, with a grin, added, “Seems like Petaybee’s not supposed to have volcanoes in that spot.”

 “Bunka, take a bowl of stew over to Adak and see if there’s any more news, will you?” Clodagh said in a tone that was not a request.

 “Sure, Clodagh,” Bunny said.

 “You’re the one I’m to ask about transport?” Steve Margolies asked, looking perplexedly at the big woman.

 “Eat first,” Clodagh said hospitably, and handed him a bowl before filling a bigger one for Bunny to take to Adak. “You need good food after that stuff at the river, and for anything else you want to do.”

 Steve dragged a tired hand across his face as if he had only just remembered an essential like eating. He accepted the bowl and found a spot to sit, then took a good look around the room.

 “Frag!” Steve Margolies exclaimed, his eyes wide with astonishment. “Look at Frank. He’s petting that cat.”

 “Sure, it’s fine exercise for his fingers,” Clodagh was saying matter-of-factly. “Everyone knows animals are good for distressed folk.”

 Bunny was grinning, too, as she carried the stew bowl out the door on her way to Adak.

 Despite the lid to keep the heat in, she had to walk carefully to keep from spilling the stew. It would keep hot long enough, however, for her to make a few short stops on her way to Adak’s.

 She slipped in at her own place, where she traded her soaked and stiffened hide boots for her breakup muckers and put on a kettle of food for her dogs. She looked in at Moira’s window. The cousins and the dogs must have come and gone again, for Seamus was sitting large as life by the stove, shoveling Moira’s soup and bread into his face. Moira was busy cooking. Now that Bunny knew that Seamus had made it back okay, she could continue with an easy heart.

 Passing Maloney’s again, she was greeted by Dinah’s unhappy howl. She would pet and reassure the dog on the way back. Right now, not only was Adak’s stew cooling but also a clever dog like Dinah might try to have first grabs at it. So she simply clucked reassuringly at the dog and kept going.

 Six or seven snocles sat parked outside Adak’s shed, but they had not been cleaned, serviced, or fueled, and were still covered with melting slush, water, and mud. Inside, Adak, headphones over his ears and microphone at his lips, was hunched over the radio. Bunny slid into a chair beside him and shoved the stew in his direction. He looked a little startled to see it appear in front of him, but accepted it without question. Lines were etched deeply into his face and his eyes looked hollow, but his whole body was taut with nervous energy. Early breakup and a new volcano a-borning might be considered catastrophes, but the end result was that today had produced the most excitement Kilcoole had seen since the first expeditionary team had been lost in a tsunami down on the southern edge of the ice pack.

 “Well, I’m sorry about that, SpaceBase,” Adak was saying with a certain amount of agitation, “but until the next hard freeze, the snocles aren’t reliable as transportation for a trip clear out there. Over.” He managed to spoon some stew into his mouth. “Oh, sure and they’ll run on the snow, that’s not the problem. The problem is the rivers, you see, and if you don’t believe me, you can ask yer lads as got fished out of them today. Over.

 “Is that so? Well, I’m sorry to hear that, too. It’s a shame about Dr. Fiske’s shuttle crashin’ and to be sure we do understand the urgency and all. Over.” He hurriedly ate some more.

 “No, of course flyin’ over it is impossible if the ash and smoke are as thick as you say. My suggestion would be to get yourself some of them crane-copters and have them hoist the snocles to the edge of the affected area and then see if the snocles’ll drive at all in the ash. You’re still going to be havin’ the same problem with slushy going as we have here though. Over.

 “The rivers of course, man! Petaybee has more rivers and lakes than you can shake a stick at, and who knows which ones are thawin’ this early? Normally the high country would stay frozen longer, but a volcano, now, that’s a chancy thing. I’m not a scientific man like yerself, but it seems to me such a thing would warm the country considerable. Over.

 “Like I said, air-hoist a snocle to where O’Shay picked up the wounded. I’ll wager Yana Maddock can drive it even if your two officer lads don’t know how. Over.

 “They what! When? How’d you find out? Uh-very well, over.

 “Yes, then, I do see the urgency. Look here, I’ll try to get some of the local folk on it in the meantime. The point is, machinery just doesn’t do awfully well in some of the conditions we have hereabouts right now. That’s why we use animals. I’ll get back to you. Right. Over.”

 “What,” Bunny asked impatiently, “was that about Yana?”

 “Well, seems O’Shay radioed for help as soon as he was airborne and the other copter passed him at the halfway point. He was almost to SpaceBase when they radioed back that they were bringing in the rest of the survivors, but that Fiske, Giancarlo, and Corporal Levindoski overpowered Major Maddock and forced her to go with them into the flow area to look for Dr. Fiske. The higher-ups are that frantic to be after them, but the ash would clog any machines they got and it’s not that good for the beasts either.”

 “I’ll bet the curlies can do it, if anything can,” Bunny said staunchly. “They were bred for sand and snow back on Earth, and they can close off their nostrils if they need to, and their eyes have a protective lid.”

 “Maybe so,” Adak said, taking a slurp of stew. “Hard to figure why anybody’d want to risk a good curly to go after some company bigwig, though.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 15                                                                                                                                                 

 Gun in hand, Yana held off Giancarlo, Torkel, and Ornery until the wounded were loaded. Torkel had relented enough to help, while Ornery and Giancarlo stood by, glaring malevolently at Yana. The last thing O’Shay did before he slammed the door shut was to fling out a red-and-white-striped rectangle. Picking it up, Yana identified it as an emergency rations pack and blessed the pilot’s thoughtfulness. The four remaining survivors of the expedition were suffering from shock, and the high-energy rations would do much to revive them.

 “If he thinks that’s going to save him from a court-martial, he’s got another thing coming.” Giancarlo snorted as the copter lifted off. To Ornery-eyes he barked, “Don’t just stand there, Levindoski. Commandeer that pack. We’ll need those supplies on our search and rescue of Dr. Fiske and his party.”

 “Uh-uh,” Yana said. “Not so fast, Colonel. You’re not commandeering shit just yet. These folks need to chow down first.” She pointed to the nearest survivor, a gaunt-faced man whose pocket nametag was half burned off. “Connelly?” she said, reading what was left. “Why don’t you distribute? You’ll want the yellow ones-they’ll replace electrolytes and boost your energy levels.”

 Keeping one eye on her and the gun she held, Connelly retrieved the sack. With a pang of pity Yana saw that he was sufficiently fatigued so that it took him three yanks to break the labs, and half the bars and drink packets spewed over the ground. She stepped back and motioned for the others to help.

 “Wait!” Torkel cried with a tinge of desperation. Yana turned to him. His eyes, watching the survivors scoop up the supplies, reflected a struggle with his emotions for the sort of control and charm that had always been a hallmark of his command personality. “Yana, please be reasonable. You know we’re going to need those . . .”

 “Torkel, if I was you I’d shut the frag up,” Yana said, waving the gun at him. “You didn’t exactly cover yourself with glory trying to take the copter away from the wounded and you’re not improving things by trying to prevent the distribution of emergency rations to these survivors. As for me, I ate a while back.”

 Connelly, who had been handing the packets out to the others, contemptuously threw four at Torkel’s feet. “Sorry, buddy. Didn’t know you’d missed your bloody lunch.”

 “It’s not that,” Torkel said, wisely leaving the packets alone for the moment. “She’s distorting this incident to make us look bad in your eyes, hoping you’ll aid her.”

 “Which you are now doing by eating those rations,” Giancarlo said sternly. “If you value your careers, you’ll listen to Captain Fiske here and cooperate with our mission.”

 “Careers!” said another man, whose ashy parka bore the name “O’Neill.” “Sure now, Colonel darlin’,” he went on, his face angry, his words soft, and the Irish in his accent dangerously broad, the way the Petaybean accent became when mocking the stupidity of ; higher-ups. “We’re that worried about our careers havin’ just outrun yer volcano there. Seems to me that if it’s our lives we’re after valuin’, the dama’s the one to be listenin’ to.” He deliberately and defiantly chewed and swallowed a large hunk of his ration bar.

 “Colonel Giancarlo, please,” Torkel said. “I know you mean well but you’re playing into her hands.”

 Watching his face, in which the desperation she had seen before was now suppressed, she saw him begin to calculate the effect of each word and attitude on the survivors. He was smart enough to know that he had alienated them initially, and smart enough to know that if he wanted to regain control of the situation he was going to have to have them on his side. “Folks, you’ll have to forgive Colonel Giancarlo. He doesn’t mean to sound callous but he’s absolutely right. Our mission is one of the utmost priority and this woman has sided with the Petaybean insurgents creating this catastrophe!”

 His arm swept across the devastation behind the survivors, the pulsing mud in the valley at their heels, the glow of the volcano visible even through the ashy miasma cloaking the area.

 “Right,” Connelly said, “one skinny little woman, with or without help, caused a volcano? I’m a mining engineer, Captain. Pull the other one.”

 The third man coughed both to clear his lungs and to get attention. “They might have set strategic charges that triggered the volcano.”

 “Th-that’s right,” the last survivor, a woman, stammered. Until she had eaten her ration bar, she had been trembling so violently that she had looked on the verge of convulsions; now her fearful glance centered on the presence of the authorities as represented by Torkel, Giancarlo, and Ornery. “Teams have disappeared here before. It can’t all be natural.”

 “Damned right it’s not,” Torkel said, following up his advantage. “We were interrogating Maddock here, trying to get information from her to head off this disaster, when it blew up in our faces. Meanwhile, my own father, Dr. Whittaker Fiske, was coming to join a team in your vicinity to suss out the situation.”

 “In case you don’t know who Dr. Fiske is,” Giancarlo put in, “he’s assistant chairman of the board, direct descendant of the man who developed the terraforming process that transformed the rock into a viable planet, and is the company’s top expert on the environmental development and stability of all of Internal’s terraformed holdings.”

 “He’s the one man who can save this project and everybody involved with it, which is why you must help me find him,” Torkel said, adding with a catch in his voice that could have even been genuine, “and he’s my father. That’s why we tried to supersede your need to move your wounded and effect your own rescue. Another copter would have been here for you immediately, of course, but this woman”-he jerked his thumb at Yana-“took advantage of the pilot’s humanitarian instincts to turn the situation against us. But if one of you will guide me to where the shuttle came down, she won’t be able to stop me from going in after my dad and saving this rock.”

 “Okay, who’s it going to be?” Giancarlo demanded. “We need to move here and move fast. You heard Captain Fiske. We need volunteers to take us to the crash site.”

 “Say what?” O’Neill asked, not believing what he heard. “We come out of that”-he waved to the steaming valley.-“by the skin of our teeth and you’re after us to risk our necks again? You’re bloody nuts!”

 The third man just shook his head tiredly. His shoulders were stooped under the weight of a variety of cameras and other instrument packages, as well as under the weight of the terror and pain he had just lived through. The straps kept Yana from seeing all of his name but “Sven” was part of it.

 Torkel shook his head firmly, staring O’Neill down. “No. I’m not nuts. I’d never ask you to risk yourselves except that this it absolutely vital. It is imperative to the well-being of this planet and the personnel on it that we find my father with all possible dispatch.”

 “Find him? In that?” Sven demanded in a voice rasped harsh by smoke.

 “There’s no alternative, man!” Torkel was getting agitated, as he looked from Sven to Connelly and then to the other two, the stocky O’Neill and the stammering woman. “You did see the shuttle go down, right?”

 Sven and Connelly both nodded.

 “Well, where did it go down? Point me out the direction from here. I’ve coordinates, but they’re only good in a copter.”

 Sven gave Connelly a long look and then, angling himself, he faced in a west-northwest position. “Near as I can remember it. We were scrambling ourselves by then.”

 “Why bother?” O’Neill asked, a trace of exasperation in his voice. “Captain, the shuttle was trying to land just as the volcano blew. The shock wave hit it like a ton of fraggin’ bricks. I saw the craft knocked out of the sky with my own eyes. There’s nobody could survive that.” He obviously felt his own survival was miracle enough for one day.

 “That’s not true!” Torkel said, his voice suddenly wild with denial as he grabbed O’Neill’s coat front and began shaking him. “My father has to have survived, you bloody idiot!” Then he realized what he was doing and loosed O’Neill with one more plea. “Don’t discourage me, man. Help me, for pity’s sake.”

 Yana had been watching this, also making certain that neither Giancarlo nor Ornery made any sudden moves toward her. She thought maybe Torkel’s emotional display was genuine, but the man was devious-it could as well be a diversionary tactic. She couldn’t take any chances. “Chill out, Torkel,” she said. “These people are exhausted and in shock. They’re not going to be fool enough to risk their lives going back in there.”

 But if Torkel was acting, he was doing it with enough conviction that he ignored her waving the gun. “You didn’t actually see the volcanic blast destroy the shuttle, did you?” he demanded of O’Neill.

 “No,” O’Neill said tiredly. “It was intact when the force of the blast blew it off course.”

 “Ah, but it blew it away from the path of the debris, right?”

 “Well, yes. It was debris, too, as far as the volcano was concerned,” O’Neill told him.

 “But there could have been survivors of the crash?”

 Connelly, who Yana sensed was slowly being convinced by Torkel’s insistence, told him in a weary but not unsympathetic voice, “That was three hours ago, Captain, and that volcano’s been raining down and spitting mud out . . .”

 Torkel heard the sympathy in the man’s voice and pounced on it. “Will you guide me?”

 But he had pushed too hard. Connelly withdrew and favored him with a disbelieving look, shaking his head. “The only one I’m guiding is me, out of here, when the copter gets back.”

 “Listen up, Connelly, and the rest of you, too,” Giancarlo said. “Captain Fiske is not just any military captain. As son of Board member Fiske, he also holds the position of ranking executive on this planet at this time. Failure to cooperate with him and with this mission will have serious repercussions on your career.”

 “So,” Connelly said, “will death. I’m not sticking around here waiting for that mountain to blow again for the chairman of the board. Besides, in these flying conditions”-he waved his hand off to the north-“no copter, any copter, would stay airborne for more than ten, maybe fifteen minutes.” He snorted. “You’d do better using your feet.”

 When Giancarlo started toward him angrily, Yana spoke up again.

 “I wouldn’t, were I you, Colonel,” she said. “They’ve done enough just making it here. And you both should know,” she added, flicking a glance at Torkel, “how useless it would be to fly a copter in there!”

 “Then, by all that’s holy”- Abandoning his frantic make-‘em-see-reason attitude, Torkel drew himself up into a noble-against-adversity stance. -“I’ll make it on foot. Your packs there,” he said, pointing to the pile slowly accumulating a cover of ash, “can be replaced at company expense when you get back to base. They won’t be of much future use to you considering their present condition, but I would very much appreciate being able to scrounge what I need from them.”

 Connelly and Sven exchanged looks and shrugged. The woman, with an anxious look at Yana’s gun hand, darted over and extracted a small sack from the pile, skittering back to the protection of her colleagues.

 “Might as well. There’s not that much there,” Connelly said, “and if the company’ll make good . . .”

 “Of course, the company will make good,” Giancarlo snapped. “Your equipment was company issue to begin with. Who else do you think would replace it?”

 “I promise you it won’t be debited from your pay,” Torkel said quickly. “And any personal effects you’ve lost will be replaced, as well. The company takes care of its own.”

 O’Neill flicked him a resentful glance. “The way you were going to take care of the wounded?”

 “Frag it all, O’Neill, I’m not some kind of a monster,” Torkel said, even as he gestured for Giancarlo and Ornery to help him collect the packs. “I told O’Shay to radio for another bird for your wounded and for yourselves. A few minutes would have made no difference to them. You’ll all get out safely. My father, and the crew of that shuttle, are still out there in that inferno.”

 Yana couldn’t believe Torkel’s gall, trying to guilt-trip the survivors. He sure was a company man: give with one hand, shuffle the shells, and take with the other! But she had no objections to him going after his father, as long as he didn’t fore* anyone else to do it, too.

 “Knowing how important it is, won’t even one of you guide us?” he implored one more time as the air began throbbing with the sound of an approaching copter.

 “Captain,” Connelly said, “we really couldn’t help you. All landmarks will have been destroyed by now, and none of us saw where your father’s craft actually crashed. You’ve got the compass and the coordinates of where it was originally supposed to land.” He scanned the sky anxiously with reddened eyes. “I hope you find him.”

 The unmistakable sound of the approaching copter grew louder: it was a Sparrowhawk, if Yana read the sound of it right. Those usually had room to seat the crew members and three more, but there was ample room for others to sit on the floor. Maybe, with a little luck, she could just manage to squeeze herself on board, too.

 She relaxed her guard just enough to glance up at the sky, and that was when she was jumped. She had been so busy watching Torkel, Giancarlo, and Ornery that she hadn’t paid any attention to the survivors, and Sven used the distraction of the chopper to grab her gun hand and twist. Before she knew it, she was on the other side of the weapon, nursing a numb wrist.

 “Good man!” Torkel cried, leaping forward to relieve Sven of the gun, only to be waved to a standstill.

 “He is that,” O’Neill said. “Too good to let you get the drop on us again and try to get this helicopter away from us as well, for all the good it would do you.”

 Sven was evidently in agreement, for he backed over to the rest of his colleagues in a show of solidarity.

 “I wouldn’t have let them do that,” Yana told Sven. “I made them surrender the other copter, didn’t I?”

 Sven grunted and shook his head, waving her back to the others.

 “We’re sorry, dama,” O’Neill said. “You did help before and we’re that grateful, but maybe you were only doin’ it to get clear of them? Maybe you’d be after commandeerin’ this bird for yourself to make your getaway. We can’t chance it, and we don’t need any more trouble today.”

 “At least take me with you,” Yana urged.

 But at that moment Giancarlo hooked her left arm and whipped it around and up under her shoulder blade, leaving her far more occupied with pain than argument.

 “You’re not going anywhere, Maddock,” he murmured in her ear. “We haven’t finished with you yet.”

 O’Neill and Connelly looked as if they were about to jump in and defend her, but Torkel spoke up again.

 “You people go on. Take the copter, but leave her with us. She knows more than she’s telling, and maybe when she sees what her rebel friends have unleashed, she’ll have the good sense to help us save this planet.”

 “If she knows where other charges are planted, we’ll get it out of her,” Giancarlo said grimly.

 “It is true that there wasn’t supposed to be any natural seismic activity where we were setting up the mine,” Connelly replied cautiously, with a glance first at Sven and then at the approaching copter.

 “Right!” Torkel said, yelling over the copter’s noise. “Everything that’s happened is unnatural. You tell them at SpaceBase that there’s a massive conspiracy afoot on Petaybee, and that Mad-dock’s changed sides. She’s in league now with the perpetrators. If you hadn’t disarmed her, she would have gotten away, and who knows what trouble she would have caused.”

 The copter was slowly settling to the ground a discreet distance from the knot of humans. The survivors began backing toward it, Sven keeping the weapon trained on the company tableau of Torkel, Giancarlo holding Yana prisoner, and Ornery,

 “They’re nuts,” Yana yelled, appealing to O’Neill. “You said yourself, nobody can jumpstart a volcano!”

 O’Neill shot her a guilty glance, and he and Connelly exchanged looks, but the woman laid her hand fearfully on Sven’s arm and he shook his head.

 “No,” he hollered. “We’ve risked our butts enough for one day. I’m not risking my job any further for someone in trouble with the management. You got into this mess, dama; you get yourself out without our help. You people sort it out among yourselves.”

 When the survivors were aboard the copter, Torkel leaned in the open door to yell at the pilot.

 “You tell them at SpaceBase that I said this volcanic eruption is part of a plot to undermine our investigation and to kill a member of the board. And you get them to send out ground transport as soon as possible. Get it to the volcano site! We’ll meet them there! Tell them that my father, Dr. Whittaker Fiske, is out there and it’s vital we rescue him. Absolutely vital!” The pilot began lifting off and Torkel jumped down and backed off slightly, but repeated himself, yelling through cupped hands. “Tell them we’ve gone ahead to rescue my father. They’re to follow us!”

 The pilot gave him a thumbs-up signal and waved him away from the rising aircraft.

 They all watched as the copter whisked away, disappearing into a maelstrom of wind, ash, and smoke. Giancarlo released Yana abruptly when it was out of sight, and she fell to her knees. As she rose, she gingerly worked her shoulder to be sure Giancarlo’s enthusiasm hadn’t wrenched muscles. As near as she could tell, she was still in good functioning order-at least for now.

 Without so much as an eye blink, Torkel tossed her one of the packs he had been filling.

 “Grab the rest of those ration bars, Maddock,” he ordered.

 She didn’t mind. It gave her the chance to get something in her own belly. She couldn’t fault the survivors, but she sure hoped they didn’t believe the crap Fiske had been shoveling in their ears: that she was “in league with the perpetrators,” “had caused all these unnatural phenomena.” Trouble was, she thought with a snort, those poor devils were shocked enough to believe every word. Rather ungrateful of them, though, especially when O’Shay had made it plain that she was the only reason the copter had been able to land to pick up their wounded. Whatever! Torkel had turned them against her sufficiently to banjax her one chance of getting free. Free-and she had a private grin-to foment riot and rebellion back at the SpaceBase, or even with all those dangerous allies she had joined forces with.

 She hoped they were all right at Kilcoole. Then Giancarlo brought her back to the present with a shove in the direction of the valley filled with blistering mud and smoking ash. Torkel was leading, then Ornery with Giancarlo behind her: not exactly where she preferred him, but she was in no position to make requests, was she?

 Although there were still safe places to walk where the mud hadn’t yet spread, Yana wondered how far in toward the volcanic site they could get, where the damage was fresh and the flow still boiling hot. If the planet decided to set off its new volcano again, they would be right under it. Actually, she thought, smiling to herself, the planet was doing such a complete job of dividing and routing the “enemy,” that she wouldn’t mind going under to such an admirable opponent.

 “We’ll be okay,” Torkel said to no one in particular as he trudged forward. “But Dad won’t if we don’t reach him soon.”

 His voice was still taut with anxiety, though it projected less heart-wrenching filial devotion than it had when he had spoken to the survivors. Yana wondered why he was really risking their necks-but the answer was fairly obvious. Torkel was a pretty good company spy and a fair administrator, but he was not a creative scientist like his father, and without the elder Fiske, he was not apt to carry the same weight in the corporate structure. Of course he wanted to find old Whittaker. He was once again protecting his interests.

 She was thinking about that as she kept a close eye on where she was putting her feet. She tried not to cough in the ash-laden, sulfury-smelling smoke. She hadn’t had her lungs healed just to mess them up again inhaling this sort of crud. She tore off a piece of her shirttail and tied it across her mouth. The others did likewise, but cloth was a flimsy filter against the thickly laden wind, unlike the protective masks the company would have issued if such conditions had been anticipated.

 Their progress was slow. They could not see the sun at all, and when Yana checked her watch, she had to rub the face clear of clinging ash to read it, but even then the face remained dark and empty; the ash no doubt had worked its way into the mechanism and clogged it. Fortunately, the compass was better shielded and more reliable. For hours, they picked their way forward through the maze of paths that terminated abruptly in mudflow, forcing them to double back and find a new path, then following that one forward until it, too, gave out. Occasionally the volcano would spew forth a gout of fiery red and orange matter, giving them a terrible beacon to their progress. The air was also getting closer, hotter, and that slowed them down, too. All were perspiring heavily, and the three men had torn shirttails into sweat bands around neck or forehead.

 Just about the time Yana was beginning to wonder if the crash site was a myth to lure them into the certain death of the volcano field, Giancarlo yelled and pointed. There, ash-dusted and protruding from what looked like an ocean of the gray muddy guck, was unmistakably a delta wingtip that had to be part of the downed shuttle. They rushed forward, stopping just on the edge of the bubbling mud.

 Yana looked up at Torkel and saw his eyes harden and his mouth twist in pain. That sort of anguish was not generated by a career anxiety alone, she realized. Whatever personally pragmatic motives he might have for this search, he truly did care for his father.

 They had to spend a long time circling the crash site, looking for any sign that someone might have escaped. Torkel circled and paced like a crazy man, trying to find a way across the mudflow to that protruding wingtip, though what good that would do, Yana didn’t know. They had no rope or cable to secure the tip to keep it from sliding farther into the mud, and the four of them certainly couldn’t have pulled it, and the rest of the shuttle, free. Then Torkel obviously realized that this activity was futile and began methodically inspecting every inch of what solid ground there was for traces that survivors had exited the shuttle before the mud had drowned it.

 The world was silent, except for the men’s harsh breathing, and even that was muffled. Yana tried not to hold her breath, but she hated every ounce of contaminated air she had to drag into her lungs. When would Torkel give up this useless search? If there had been survivors, they ought to have had sense enough to get out of this vicinity with all possible speed. The likeliest explanation for the lack of traces leading away from the crash site was that there had been no one to make them. Surely Torkel had to admit that possibility. And it was equally unlikely that their tracks would be discernible with mud and ash constantly falling to cover such traces. Meanwhile, conditions were deteriorating from minute to minute as the mud and ash built up. If they weren’t awfully careful, someone was going to take the wrong step and end up mud-baked.

 She felt the ground flutter beneath her feet and took a step backward.

 And quite unexpectedly she found herself touched by an amazing sensation. It was similar to what she had felt in the cave: staunch, reassuring, welcoming. She swiveled around, not knowing what she might find in such an unlikely place. There was only the giant boulder she had just stepped around. It was shaped like an enormous top, the point plunged deep into the ground. Its mass had separated the flow of the mud, leaving a wide, clear, somewhat sheltered space.

 The mud around her gave a mighty heave and she shot an apprehensive glance at the boulder for fear it might topple over onto her. But it didn’t move an inch. Was that what the planet had been reassuring her about? That the boulder was safe? Then Ornery shouted, and whipping around, she was just in time to see the wingtip slowly sinking out of sight into the mud. Torkel, standing a few paces beyond her, yelled in anguish and reached out as if to grab the wing. He was off balance when the surface heaved once more, and he was thrown sideways. Instinctively, she leapt forward, catching the fluttering edge of his torn shirt with one hand. With a second desperate lurch, she caught hold of his pack strap with the other and hauled him into the shelter of the top-shaped boulder.

 The tremors were the prelude to another eruption of the volcano. Particles of ash rained down faster, ever faster, rapidly developing into a deluge of red-hot flying stones. Then, with a roar much louder than a ship blasting from a launchpad, scalding mud, scouring ash, and rock-strewn dust flew past them. Yana cried out, whipping her left arm under cover as the downpour ignited the fabric of her sleeve. She beat out the sparks and crouched down as tightly as she could against what protection the boulder gave. Beside her, Torkel let out a yowl as his vulnerable right side was also lashed by burning embers. The hot ash was pervasive, and there seemed to be no way to avoid it. In desperation, she unslung her pack and covered her head with it. Squeezing tight against the boulder, she felt the ground tremble again. Fleetingly she wondered about the advisability of clinging to a boulder, no matter what the planet suggested. At any moment the huge stone could roll over and crush them. But alternatives were not available. She let the pack slip farther down to protect her back from the hot and painful dusting.

 Every muscle taut and every nerve stretched, she endured, as Torkel did beside her. She really should have made her escape at Scan’s, she decided. That was her first mistake! She could have used one of the curlies or the comm unit or something to get her back to the village. Her second, she thought grimly, was not watching the miners and letting one of them take her weapon. Again, if she had played her cards better she could have been safely back at Kilcoole, where she knew she had friends and where she would have had a chance of finding Sean. If half of what people said about him was true, if what she felt about him was true, he would know what this was all about.

 Then, miraculously, the roaring abated, a gust of side wind blew some of the smoke and ash away, and a light rain began to fall.

 Maybe, Yana thought with small hope, it would rain harder, clear the air a bit, and cool the mud off enough so they could walk out of there.

 When at last she dared to peel herself off the boulder, she did a damage report on herself. Burns stung, rock scrapes ached, she was covered with ash, blood speckled here and there. Then she looked at Torkel, who looked much the same way she felt. Only . . . her hand went to her head and she was relieved to find that she had more hair left than he did. Torkel had lost quite a swath, including his eyebrows, down his right side. And most of his shirt.

 The back of his fatigue pants, made of a supposedly indestructible material, looked more like mesh drawers. His right arm was a mass of tiny blisters, and her left one was in no better shape. Both packs were smoking, riddled with burn holes. She was putting the remains of the pack out where the rain could douse the final sparks when she saw Giancarlo lying unconscious, half-buried in the runnel of mud. He must have been trying to make it to the shelter of the boulder, too. There was no sign of Ornery-eyes.

 The copters and other aircraft were grounded by falling ash, the snocles could not run over rivers and muddy slush, the tracked vehicles were too slow, and the runners of the sleds would not slide over broken ground. Rivers had changed their courses so that travel by water was unreliable to the point of insanity.

 Therefore, the little string of sturdy curly-coats, each bearing either passenger or pack, traveled alone across the vast emptiness of the uninhabited northwestern sector of Petaybee, toward the mountains stretching up from the plains on one side; on the other, down onto the ice pack to the north and on to the open sea.

 The lead curly, Boru, carried Sinead, while the next, the largest and the sturdiest of the beasts, carried Clodagh, wrapped in a poncho that covered both her and her mount so that she looked like a mountain on hooves. Behind her traveled Bunny, then Diego Metaxos, who was still fretting about leaving his father in Aisling’s care. He had been badly torn between the honor of being asked to join the rescue party and his responsibility to supervise his father’s steady improvement. He had left his father absently stroking one of the several cats, who had continued to adhere to the man like leeches. Both Clodagh and Aisling had assured him that this was a very good sign and told him to let matters proceed at their own pace. Diego couldn’t hurry the healing process but he had extracted a promise from Aisling that she would take his father down to the hot springs as soon as possible. Steve Margolies had insisted on coming along as the “technical” observer to the phenomenon. He carried the only concession to modem technology, a comm unit, for contacting Adak in Kilcoole and SpaceBase.

 Bunny thought it was the most ill assorted rescue party imaginable, but, what with all the injured being tended at Kilcoole, these five had been the only ones available. Sinead would have gone by herself, if no one else had accompanied her to rescue Yana, hoping to find her brother, too. No sooner had Bunny told Clodagh what Adak had said about Yana being in trouble and the shuttle crashing than Sinead had barged into the cabin, muttering that Yana was in trouble and she had to go help.

 “Sean send for you?” Clodagh had asked, her gaze unusually piercing.

 “Not just Sean,” Sinead had answered, biting her words off. She glanced about, measuring the occupants for suitability to her need. “This is it, Clodagh!”

 Clodagh had nodded once and brought her meat cleaver down so hard that it quivered, stuck, in the board. “I go with you!”

 “You?” Bunny couldn’t believe her ears, but Clodagh was already taking off her apron, striding to the litter of parkas and boots by the door, and searching through them for her own gear.

 Her statement had galvanized the others. Nothing would have kept Bunny from following Clodagh, though her insistence astounded Steve. But he repeated his assertion that he had to make observations of the phenomenon. When Diego vacillated, obviously distressed, wanting to go, yet unwilling to leave his father, Aisling had volunteered to look after Francisco.

 As they went outside to select curly-coats from the herd Sinead had rounded up, another volunteer made it plain that he was coming along: Nanook. A quick smile lit Sinead’s anxious face, and she laid her hand in a brief gesture of gratitude on the animal’s black and white head.

 Dinah joined them, too, using drastic measures to get her way. Seeing them ride out of the village, she had howled so piteously and continued to yelp at such an earsplitting volume that Herbie must have given in and ordered Liam to let her loose. She came charging up to Diego just as they dipped down in the valley northwest of the town, and she maintained a position beside his mount throughout the trek.

 Nanook had taken it as his right to lead the expedition and ranged way beyond Sinead, now and then padding back to them as if hoping he could speed up their progress. But the slush and mud made the going slow, and even the clever curly-coats got trapped now and then in melting drifts.

 On the first day, when the ground shook again, Clodagh lifted her hand to signal a halt. Laboriously she dismounted and slowly lay down, arranging herself flat on her belly, her right cheek pressed onto the snow-packed ground. After a long time, she rose, wiping her face clean before she pointed west. “That way.”

 Clodagh also had other means of communication and Bunny watched, fascinated, as she employed them. She sang. Using tone-like sonar, she sang to the birds and the rocks and the plants:

 “Friends, have you seen our friend, Yanaba? “

 She met the enemy and was taken into battle with him.

 See that she comes to no harm.”

  

 If the addressee was a raven, it promptly flew away; if it was an animal, it ran purposefully off; a stream, it kept about ill business, but Bunny swore that the ripples changed pitch; and if it was the ground beneath the hooves of the horses, it simply absorbed the songs, listening. Clodagh listened, too, and then she would alter their direction a compass point or two. They would continue for a while on the new course until she found something else to sing to.

 In this way, despite Margolies’s demanding explanations of this quixotic form of directions, they traveled for two days and two nights and half a day again. They got what sleep they could in their makeshift saddles, stopping only to feed the horses, and for ten minutes in every two hours to rest their mounts’ backs. The horses kept moving tirelessly, mostly at a walk but occasionally, where the terrain had been swept free of snow, breaking into their smooth little canter.

 Very early on the rescuers had to cover their mouths with pieces of cotton cloth that rapidly became clogged with dust and ash and had to be shaken often. Even the food they ate during their brief halts tasted like more of the same. Soon everyone’s eyes went from stinging to being red and swollen. When they could dig down to clean snow during the rest halts, they bathed their faces, trying to relieve the irritation.

 Everything was mud gray-the sky, the ground, the air- and the people and animals moved like big ashy lumps in front and behind. Bunny was so tired and so full of ash and smoke that only her sore tailbone let her know that she was not traveling in a dream. Then Nanook began racing forward and back to them until they quickened their progress in anticipation of what he might have found. He led them to a place where the snow and ash still bore faint indentations of human feet, the long flat marks of copter skids, and a pile of discarded effects, all but the metal reduced to scraps of melted or fused material. Fingers of cooling, hardening mud crept up the side of a canyon wall.

 Nanook leapt the few feet from the edge of the canyon to the mud, and Bunny caught her breath, fearful that Nanook might be risking injury. But the cat was far from stupid, and he landed and solemnly stretched out on a surface that was apparently comfortably warm. He began licking his filthy paws as if he were back in Sean’s laboratory.

 “Trust him to find the perfect spot to relax,” Clodagh said, amused.

 Dinah also settled down to lick her paws clean. She had trotted dutifully by Diego’s mount, her red coat barely visible under its ashen cover.

 They slipped the saddle blankets and hackamores from the horses and fed them. They munched trail rations as they unstrapped the snowshoes that they hoped would give them better footing over the ash-covered mud and snow. While they made a final check of their packs, Steve Margolies called their position in to Adak. Bunny only hoped the transmission was better than the reception. All they could hear was a hiss and crackle a little louder than the wind, which was blowing steadily east.

 “I hope they got all that,” Steve told the others. “I didn’t hear exactly what they said but, having done a personal on-the-spot review of conditions, I think they said this is a no-go area. There was also some gibberish about there being no one in command to give orders.”

 Clodagh gave a contemptuous sniff and, with a groan, once more began to spread herself flat on the ground. The others stood about for what seemed a very long time-at least the curly-coats had moved a good distance away in search of any grass the mud and ash hadn’t buried-before she moved again.

 She hauled herself up, mopped the ash from her face and neck, brushed it off the front of her clothes, and then pointed. ‘That way.”

 “The volcano’s that way,” Steve protested, pointing elsewhere.

 Clodagh moved her arm slightly toward the north. ‘The volcano is that way.” Then she dropped her snowshoes to the ground and stepped into them. Scooping up her pack and twitching her shoulders so that it settled on her back, she started off in the direction she had indicated.

 Bunny looked at Diego and shrugged. Sinead jerked her head at the perplexed Steve, and very shortly, all were following her down into the valley, Dinah sticking right at Diego’s heels. In several leaps, Nanook caught up and passed the humans. Clodagh took particular notice of where he put his paws. For all her bulk, she moved with unexpected agility as she followed the cat’s tracks.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 16                                                                                                                                      

 Yana and Torkel dragged Giancarlo back to the uncertain safety of the boulder, the three of them hostage to the hot mud surrounding them. Yana bound up Giancarlo’s pulped arm and leg, but the heat of the mud and flying rock had pretty well cauterized the wounds inflicted by the blast-or so she would have to hope, she thought ruefully. The colonel would be lucky to live long enough to get infections.

 Torkel had taken a worse beating than she, for although her back was pretty well skinned, her hair hadn’t been as badly singed and her scalp hadn’t been peppered with ash because she’d had sense enough to protect her head. Torkel’s face was scored and swollen where rock had hit it before she had pulled him down, and he was ravaged with grief besides.

 She had had to prod him painfully to get him to move enough to help her with Giancarlo.

 “Look, Torkel,” she said in her best bracing tone. “If your dad survived the crash and the first blast, it’s likely he survived I he second one, as well. At any rate, we can’t do anything about it one way or the other unless we survive. Here, eat this so we do!” She thrust a battered ration pack at him, somewhat amazed that the wrapping was still intact. It seemed years ago that she had stuffed them in the front of her shirt.

 She wasn’t sure when she slept, but she knew that sometime within that interminable period, the searing heat from the mud dissipated and the sunless air grew cold again. She and Torkel Fiske put the unconscious Giancarlo between them and hunched over him, sharing their warmth with him. In her sleep she dreamed that she was holding Scan rather than Torkel, and he was bathing her wounds with water from the hot springs, telling her, “I’m here, Yana. Trust me. Nothing of this world means you harm. Listen to its voice. Remember now . . .”

 The dream and others like it repeated as she slept or half dozed, shivering, clinging to the warmth and life in the two other bodies for more time than she could count or was conscious of.

 Then, without knowing how or when it happened, she woke from the dream of Scan, feeling warm again. She smelled a freshening in the air and realized that her hand was touching something cool, hard, and smooth; and, rousing, she found that she was touching the once scalding mud.

 Torkel was still sleeping, and Giancarlo moaned in a fever. Yana sat up and placed both palms against the mud. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant. It still retained some warmth, but was otherwise hard and seemed stable. Standing, she tested other areas, pressing her fingers into the layer of ash overlying the previously steaming rivulet. It gave with a slight hiss and a hint of smokiness, but once the crust was broken, solid hard mud was only an inch or two down. She carefully hauled herself up on top of the flow and found that it held her weight.

 The air was clearer. She could definitely smell and see the difference at this height. A strong wind whipped at her, blowing the ash back away from them and over to the north and east. Torkel sat up and blinked lashless eyes at the sudden change. Yana rubbed cautiously at her arms, avoiding the burn blisters but needing to increase blood circulation and reduce hypothermia. She was glad of the visibility, glad of the ability to travel again, if only they knew where they were going. Then she opened the remaining ration pack, twisted it into two more or less equal halves, and let him choose.

 “We’ll have to drag Giancarlo,” she told Torkel when they had finished their scanty meal.

 “He’ll slow us down,” Torkel said.

 “You want to leave him?” she asked. She didn’t like being directly responsible for anyone’s death. On the other hand, if she was to be responsible for someone dying here, she wouldn’t much mind if it was Giancarlo.

 Torkel looked down at the colonel, then shrugged and bent to hoist him by the arms up the wall of mud, where Yana helped support the unconscious man.

 “We’d better get him back to where a copter can land, I hen.” Yana said.

 But he shook his head stubbornly, unreasonably. “Dad may still be out here.”

 “You can come back afterward,” she insisted.

 But just then a fresh gust of wind from the west carried a raven toward them. The bird swooped, diving so low that its wing brushed Yana’s hair.

 Its cry was no doubt only the usual raucous caw, but to her, wounded, shocked, and probably a little delirious, it seemed to be saying “ ‘ana, ‘ana,” or maybe it was “Sean, Sean.” Then it made an abrupt turn and flew back the way it came. Abruptly she recalled Sean’s dream message.

 “Okay, you win,” she told Torkel. “But we spell each other dragging the son of a bitch and you get first shift.”

 She was pleased when the crow’s west eventually turned out to be the right direction. Even so, both she and Torkel were at the end of their strength from dragging Giancarlo’s heavy and unresponsive body when she caught the first gleam of open water. She hadn’t realized how parched she was until that moment. Then her throat took over, reminding her that she was so dehydrated it didn’t know if it would ever come unstuck. Up closer, Yana saw that the water was a little stream, running from one edge of the mud and on into the side of a hill. Yana fully expected the water to be milky with ash and mud and clogged with debris, but in fact it was so clear she could see the stones at the bottom. Somehow this stretch had escaped all of the ravages of the volcano. Where the stream emerged from the hill, she could make out a deep, cavelike opening, into which her crow guide disappeared as she watched.

 Judging by the way the ash had drifted, Bunny thought that the wind had been westerly for some time, possibly the entire two and a half days it had taken them to make it this far. Nanook even began to touch down on the mud from time to time, and when the humans walked on it, they felt only a tolerable warmth through the soles of their boots. It certainly wasn’t hot enough to damage the snowshoes, which were proving their worth through the heavier ash deposits.

 They were moving steadily to one side of the smoldering cone. Smoke or steam was windborne away from them to the east, so that the air was not so clogged with ash and sulfur stench.

 Seen from this safe distance, the volcano didn’t, to Bunny’s way of thinking, look all that dangerous. It was actually not very big.

 “It doesn’t have to be big to be dangerous,” Steve said when she voiced her observation. “I’m no expert on vulcanism-Petaybee is not supposed to be labile,” he added in a sourly amused tone, “but, on a world which does have considerable activity, a volcano can rise up one day and disappear the next. After raining ash, lava, rock, or whatever all across a landscape. We’re just lucky this is only an ash-and-mud type. Some rise for the one blowoff and then remain dormant.”

 “Is this one dormant now?” Bunny asked, eyeing it nervously.

 “We hope,” Steve said with a grin.

 “Clodagh?” Bunny persisted.

 Clodagh shrugged and plowed on tirelessly. Nanook skirted a vast lake of hardening mud that steamed more than did most of the rivulets and puddles of the stuff.

 The volcano was almost out of sight behind them, obscured by the foothills, when Nanook suddenly picked up the pace, from an amble to a working lope. Then, abruptly, he halted at a fast-running stream to lap up the clear water. The others were glad to follow his example.

 Clodagh did more than drink: she immersed her face in the stream. She was so long about it that Bunny got worried, but when she finally lifted her dripping head, she wore a broad smile.

 “That way,” she said, pointing uphill in a more northerly direction as she wiped her face, leaving dark gray smudges on her forehead and down her cheeks.

 Ash clung to all their clothing and rendered their complexions ghostly gray.

 “Let me see if I can get a message through, Clodagh,” Steve said, starting to unsling his radio equipment.

 “Not now,” she said, shaking her head, and began to follow the stream. Steve shrugged and resettled the radio equipment.

 The stream disappeared into a narrow opening at the bottom of the first terrace of the cliff. When Clodagh indicated that they would have to climb, they discarded the snowshoes. Bunny marveled that Clodagh calmly prepared herself to climb, hitching her skirts high enough so that her sturdy legs, clad in woolen pants knitted in a variety of quite lively colors, were visible. She was slow, true enough, but she made certain progress upward. Nanook reached the top of the terrace in three graceful leaps, Dinah scrabbling close behind him. Fortunately they didn’t have all that far to go. On the second terrace, Nanook turned to his right and led them around an escarpment, ducked into a hole in the stone, and disappeared from sight. Only then did Clodagh groan, for she would have to go down on hands and knees to follow the big cat. She did.

 Once inside, they could all stand up again. Clodagh paused, leaning against the wall to catch her breath. Bunny thought the pace was telling on the large woman. It was certainly beginning to wear Bunny down a bit, and she was much more used to running about than Clodagh.

 “Hey, this is like the other place,” Diego said, looking about him. A curious luminescence gave enough light for them to see.

 “Quite a few subterranean networks did appear on the last scan that was made of this planet,” Steve was saying as he examined the rock walls, wiping off a light film, which he rubbed between his fingers. “They weren’t on previous ones, but they do account for the subsidences. Or do they? Most unusual. I wish Frank had been well enough to travel with us. He’s more familiar with such geological anomalies than I am.” He walked on a few more strides before he stopped completely, forcing Diego, walking behind him, to hurriedly step aside. “Or perhaps there was a flaw in the original terraforming that has produced unforeseen long-range crustal defects. A shame that Dr. Fiske was killed on the shuttle crash.”

 “We don’t know that for certain,” Bunny said. “Only that Captain Fiske was going to try to find his father, so he could still be alive.”

 “Is Fiske’s father the company big shot who’s supposed to know more about Petaybee than anyone else?” Clodagh asked, pausing to lean against the stone.

 “Yes,” Steve said. “He’s Dr. Whittaker Fiske, grandson of the Dr. Sven Whittaker-Fiske who developed the Whittaker Effect, the process that perfected the accelerated terraforming technique used to make Petaybee habitable.” When Clodagh gave Steve a long and thoughtful look, he corrected himself. “Or at least he thought he had perfected it.”

 “Why didn’t he name it the Fiske Effect then?” Bunny asked.

 “He named it for his mother, Dr. Elsie Whittaker. I guess he thought it was appropriate, considering the generative nature of the project.”

 Clodagh gave a satisfied grunt and, pushing herself off the wall, was about to move forward again when she stopped, holding her hand up for silence. “Listen!”

 The sounds were muted but obviously human. Bunny and Sinead dashed forward, Diego, with Dinah at his heels, just behind them. The voices had suddenly risen in excitement, and as Bunny turned the next bend, she stopped in surprise. Nanook had found Yana and was attempting to lick any part of her he could!

 “Yana! You’re alive!” Bunny cried, but she had taken no more than one step before she realized that Yana was not the only inhabitant of the large, low cave. And judging by the way the camp had been set up, Yana and her companions had been here a few days. “Who’re all of you?” she demanded.

 A sturdy man in a torn uniform and a bandage covering almost all his black hair stood up by the fire, where he had been stirring a pot. “Captain John Greene of the shuttle Sockeye,” he said with a wry smile. “Who’re you?”

 “Buneka Rourke of Kilcoole,” Bunny said in stunned courtesy.

 “From Kilcoole? Of all the bloody luck,” groaned a disgruntled voice, and a battered, blistered, half-naked, filthy man barely recognizable as the dapper Torkel Fiske rose painfully from his seat on the ground. He placed himself protectively between the rescue party and an older man, who had one arm bound across his chest.

 Before either Bunny or Sinead could respond to Torkel’s hostile reaction, Steve Margolies, and Diego, and an excitedly barking Dinah rushed into the cavern, followed more slowly by Clodagh.

 To the man behind him, Torkel said, “Just keep calm, Dad. I’ll handle this. These are the rebels I was telling you about. The ones who brainwashed Maddock into helping them.”

 “Nonsense, son,” the older man said, stepping gently but firmly past his tottering son. “That’s Steve Margolies there, and Frank Metaxos’s boy, Diego. They’re no more rebels than I am.”

 “Dr. Fiske,” Steve exclaimed, rushing toward the older man and pumping his good hand excitedly. “I can’t believe you survived.”

 “Neither can I,” the older Fiske replied in a droll voice.

 “Dr. Fiske, in the past few days, Diego and these people have showed me the most amazing developments. You simply won’t believe what I have to tell you . . .”

 “I’ll be the judge of that,” Dr. Fiske said. “Stop posturing for a moment, son, and sit down before you fall down.” He gently pushed Torkel back to the floor. “And for the love of Mike let these people clean you up and dress your wounds. You’re no damned good to me dead. You, young Diego, lend me a hand here to clean up my son’s wounds before they fester. I’ve only got the one that’s useful now, myself. I’ll debrief Dr. Margolies.”

 “Yes, sir,” Diego said, taking over the bowl of water and the cloth. Having learned a few things from caring for his father, Diego went about the duty both gently and conscientiously, cleansing the portions of Torkel’s body that Torkel couldn’t have reached. The captain wearily protested every dab, as if Diego were deliberately trying to inflict more pain than was absolutely necessary. Diego’s private opinion was visible on his face: the captain was acting like a big baby.

 Dr. Fiske settled down to one side of Torkel, and Steve hunkered down and began talking in a rapid-fire explanation full of words Bunny didn’t understand even when she could make them out.

 Yana caught Clodagh’s eye and urgently beckoned the healer over, indicating Giancarlo’s bundled figure on the ground by her feet.

 Clodagh examined the colonel’s terrible burn wounds briefly, pursing her lips at the irremedial damage.

 “I can do something to make him comfortable, no more,” she said, shaking her head. “Intergal may know something.” She started to work, pulling various unguents and potions, bandages and splints from her knapsack.

 Yana would never have expected to be sorry for a man like Giancarlo, but she was. Hurting as badly as he was, he had not uttered a sound.

 For herself, Yana was so glad to see Clodagh and the others from Kilcoole that she could have cried. She and Torkel had made it to the cave several hours before, and she had been unutterably relieved to see the shuttle crash survivors. However, once Torkel had reassured himself that his father was safe, he began ranting about Yana’s treachery and warning the shuttle crew to ignore anything she might say and to watch her. Considering the fact that Yana had obviously taken on most of the physical burden of dragging Giancarlo, as well as supporting Torkel, as they staggered into the cave, the shuttle crew didn’t pay much attention to his ravings. Still, the atmosphere had been extremely tense. Even the cave itself seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for something. The calm before the storm? Yana wondered. A lull before the mountain blew again? It didn’t feel exactly like that, and she was too tired to analyze the feeling, but it definitely added to the tension.

 Once Clodagh finished ministering to the unconscious Giancarlo, she rounded on Yana, clucking over the scabby sores crusting Yana’s left arm and over her appearance in general.

 “When did you eat last, girl?” Clodagh demanded.

 “I had a piece of ration bar just before we got here,” Yana said.

 “You look like you could eat a whole moose by yourself and sleep for a month. You were skinny as a skeleton when you got to Kilcoole, but we fattened you up good. Now you look like a lame doe after a hard winter again.”

 Yana jerked her arm away from Clodagh. “Don’t fuss over me. I’m all right. There are others who could really use your help, Clodagh.” She nodded beyond her to others wearing makeshift bandages. “The shuttle survivors have been here for three days, and they’ve had zip to look after themselves with. All they could do for Dr. Fiske was immobilize his arm and wash off his wounds.”

 “Is that him over there Steve’s talkin’ to?” Clodagh asked. When Yana nodded Clodagh said wryly, “He looks better off than Torkel to me.”

 Sinead joined the two women then, her face anxious. “Have you seen him?” she asked Yana. “I thought he’d be with you.”

 “No, if you mean Scan,” Yana said with an odd smile. “But I’ll tell you both something. We didn’t find them”-and she gestured to the crash victims-“we were led to them.”

 Hope bounced back into Sinead’s eyes. “Led to this place?”

 Yana nodded. “What’s more, they swear they were led here, too. I can only think of one person not here at the moment who might have engineered this rescue, and I’ve been wondering, Sinead, how the hell he did it.” Her eyes were keen on the other woman’s face. “Dr. Fiske told Torkel he believes that there’s an underground network of rivers. That’s why there were so many subsidences when the mining charges weakened subterranean supports. If there’s a network, one river flowing into another, then someone who knew his way around could go from one end of the system to the other without ever being seen-couldn’t he?”

 Sinead gave Yana a long look. “If there was such a network, that’s possible, I suppose. I don’t go underground much. 1 like horizons.” Then she reached to heave her pack off her back and began rummaging in it. “I’ve got spare clothes you can use. And some stuff Clodagh will want.”

 “No one looked beyond this cavern?” Clodagh asked with quiet urgency.

 Yana shook her head. “We’d enough to do without going exploring!”

 “That’s as well,” Clodagh said with a satisfied snort, and asked Yana who was the worst of the injured. She cleansed, stitched, anointed, and listened as gradually the two separate incidents were reported in detail.

 The shuttle had been on the point of landing when the volcano blast had caught it, throwing the vehicle heavily to its side. Nine passengers had not survived the impact, but the others, hastily mobilized by the resourceful young pilot, Captain Greene, had got the living out of the shuttle before the air locks were submerged. They had managed to leave the area, the hot mud only centimeters from their heels as they plunged out of the western end of the valley. They had paused only to distribute supplies and attend to burns, scalds, and broken bones, before force-marching themselves as far from the erupting volcano as their strength would take them. The wind was easterly: they had picked the only safe direction to flee. And that had been only by chance, since the pilot had thought he was directing them toward the mining site that had been their destination, but a knock on the head, from the crash landing, had skewed his sense of direction.

 “Remarkable that we were all led to this particular spot,” Steve Margolies said. “This appears to be the opening of a vast system of caves. The two parties could have ended up in widely separated spots. Are there other entrances to this particular cavern?” he asked, glancing toward the back of the cavern.

 Greene shrugged. “Could be. We didn’t need to explore with that fresh stream right outside.”

 “We’ll return later, properly equipped, and do a thorough investigation,” Dr. Fiske said in a firm command tone. “Right now, we’d better report these coordinates and get our wounded back to SpaceBase. I believe this may be one of the places for which our teams have been searching all these years. Dr. Margolies, I trust you brought some means of communication with the base, didn’t you?”

 “Of course, of course,” Steve said. He jumped to his feet. “We’ll have to go outside and get some height for the best possible signal-“ Then he stopped, as Torkel latched on to the comm set at his belt and hauled himself wearily to his feet, using Steve to balance himself.

 “I initiate any communications,” Torkel said curtly. Then he caught his father’s frown and managed a ghost of his old diplomatic smile for Margolies. “That is, I’ll report in while you and my father continue the debriefing.”

 Captain Greene nodded to the least injured of his crewmen, a short black man, who helped Steve and the rumbling Torkel untangle the comm set from Steve’s belt.

 “And while you’re exercising your jaw, Dr. Fiske, I’ll just see to your arm,” Clodagh told the scientist. She crouched down in front of him and began untying the sling.

 “Dama, I’ve waited this long,” Fiske said with great dignity, resisting her ministrations. “I can certainly- Ouch! How did you do that?” He stared at his newly set arm and then at Clodagh, eyes wide with respect.

 “It’s a knack I’ve developed,” she said. Then she dipped a length of bandage in a pot of her boneset potion and quickly and deftly wrapped the area about the break. By the time she had done that and rinsed her hands off, the bandage had hardened. “This will be more comfortable for you until you get back.”

 “But this hardened ... I don’t believe this,” Fiske said, tapping the shell experimentally.

 Gently but firmly taking his arm again, she replaced it in the sling and tied it across his chest. Then she began to undo the blood-soaked bandage on his thigh.

 “This wants stitching,” she said, examining the gaping wound.

 “It’s been cleaned and dressed,” Fiske said testily, inhaling quickly at the sight of his parted flesh.

 “That was well done,” Clodagh agreed, and let a handful of a moist salve slip onto the wound.

 Fiske started to hiss and then stopped in surprise. “That didn’t hurt.”

 “Medicine need not hurt, or taste bad, to be effective. Never did know who started that stupid old superstition,” she said with all the scorn of an experienced practitioner. From another packet she took a needle already threaded and began to make neat sutures.

 Despite an initial distaste, Fiske gradually became fascinated by her swift movements. “Where did you get your training?” he asked respectfully.

 “Living on Petaybee teaches you many useful things,” she said serenely, and tied off the last stitch. “Not perhaps what your medical folk might use, but it works. That’s all we ask of any medicine, isn’t it?” she added. “Anywhere else?”

 He had a less serious laceration farther down the leg, and she put in two neat sutures to close that. Then she applied a wet aromatic compress to the swollen, bruised flesh of his ankle.

 While Torkel and the crewman called for a copter and Clodagh fussed over Dr. Fiske, Yana helped Bunny warm up some of the provisions the rescue party had brought with them. By the time a rich meaty stew had been reconstituted with water and was simmering in a flight helmet stripped of its lining, Clodagh had finished administering to Whittaker Fiske. Yana offered the old man some of the stew, and he thanked her without a hint of his son’s surliness.

 Yana had tood for Clodagh, as well, and put it into the healer’s hands with a firmness and a look in her eye that told Clodagh that she had better eat or else!

 “Is it just that I am very hungry and tired of energy bars, or is this really as good as it tastes?” Whittaker Fiske asked amiably.

 “Hunger is a good sauce,” Clodagh said. “Here’s a spot of seasoning that’ll add an extra zap to it.” From her capacious medicine bag, she took an herb bottle and sprinkled some powder into his bowl and hers, then offered it to Yana.

 Settling down beside her, Yana grinned around her spoon. “Clodagh’s far too modest, Dr. Fiske. Food generally tastes better on Petaybee because most of it’s fresh! Even the frozen stuff.”

 “I thought the growing season was a little short for that,” Whittaker Fiske said, chewing thoughtfully.

 “Yes,” Clodagh said. “But we get more daylight than usual during our growing season, so things get big fast. And the fishes and animals we eat grow all year round.”

 “And maybe you have a lot of access to hydroponic gardens on the space stations, Dr. Fiske,” Yana said, “but to me anything that hasn’t been freeze-dried and stored in a food locker for several ship-years tastes downright ambrosial.”

 They had just finished eating when Torkel and the crewman returned to the cavern, Torkel’s step somewhat more confident than it had been.

 “All right, everyone, gather what you want to take with you,” he began.

 “Not much of that,” one of the crash survivors muttered.

 “There’s a jumbo copter on the way with medical staff,” he continued, frowning as he tried to identify the wit. Then he saw that Yana was sitting next to his father. “Maddock, you’re to consider yourself under arrest.”

 Yana looked up at him quizzically.

 “Oh, come now, Torkel,” his father said with some asperity. “Surely you can’t hold any of these people, least of all Major Maddock, responsible for Petaybee’s geological vagaries! I tell you quite frankly your allegations have no scientific foundation.”

 “Sir, you manage the planet and I’ll manage the investigation. Maddock’s turned against the company and is actively aiding the-“

 “Who, you say, make their headquarters in Kilcoole?” Fiske asked in a mild tone, looking up at his son who towered over him. “The same town that organized this very efficient, if unorthodox”-and he smiled at Clodagh-“rescue party? I find that hard to believe.”

 Clodagh chuckled, and Torkel gave a deep, disgusted sigh and sank down beside his father.

 “You wanted me to get to the bottom of the team disappearances . . . sir,” Torkel said with exaggerated patience in a hoarse weary voice, “and the biological anomalies on this planet. You saw that big cat that came with these people, the one that’s even now sunning itself on the ledge outside this cave? And keeping watch, I wouldn’t doubt. That cat’s one of those same anomalies. It’s one of Shongili’s little pets, and there’ll be no mention of such a breed in your files. Major Yanaba Maddock’s been thick with Shongili since shortly after she arrived here, and I believe she’s fallen under his influence and become his accomplice. I don’t have Shongili, but I do have Maddock, and with her in custody I’ll get my hands on Shongili, too.”

 Fiske raised his hand to silence Torkel, but he looked directly into Yana’s eyes.

 “Are you guilty as charged, Yanaba Maddock?”

 “Me, sir? No, sir,” Yana replied with a wry smile. “Trouble is your son didn’t like hearing what I had to report.”

 “Sir, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the situation,” Torkel continued in a low, strained tone, his eyes boring into Yana as if his stare could force her to silence. “It’s not what it seems!”

 “I’ll go along with that,” Yana said fervently.

 “Sometimes when you create life, it does not fit the form you chose for it,” Clodagh said with an enigmatic smile at Whittaker Fiske.

 “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dr. Fiske asked, frowning.

 “You’ll be given to understand that soon.” She rose, putting an end to that subject. “Come, Yana, we must speak to Sinead. She, and perhaps Bunny, better drive those curly-coats back. They won’t find much to eat around here now that volcano’s finished.”

 “The volcano’s finished erupting? How can you know that?” Fiske tried to get up, but he was stiff from sitting so long and couldn’t stop her.

 “She’s bad as the rest of them, Dad,” Torkel said, looking rather pleased that Clodagh had damned herself out of her own mouth.

 “Bad?” Whittaker Fiske exclaimed. “Bad doesn’t come into this, son! Margolies, a word with you!” He limped over to Steve, who, with Diego, was helping get some of the injured ready for transfer.

 Yana remained near Clodagh. Captain Greene snagged Torkel to organize an orderly transfer of the survivors from their cave refuge to the nearest possible copter landing site, and that kept the captain occupied. There was a flurry of activity when the copters arrived, stretcher bearers whipping back and forth, people getting loaded. Yana noticed Clodagh in deep conversation with Sinead, Greene, and Bunny, but she thought nothing of it. She just made damned sure she stayed out of Torkel’s way, a task made easier

 when Greene strong-armed the exhausted man aboard the copter while insisting on giving him a preliminary report.

 “I left my medicine bag in the cave,” Clodagh said just as the last folk were waiting to load up.

 “Sure thing,” Yana said, turning back to the cavern entrance. But inside, she found Sinead, apparently gathering up the last of the debris. Sinead smiled at her, an odd sort of smile, and then Yana heard voices in the passageway.

 “It is something that you must see right now, Dr. Fiske,” Clodagh was saying as she entered the cavern, the scientist limping impatiently beside her, “to begin to understand what Petaybee is beneath the surface you folk gave it.”

 “Beneath the-what are you talking about, woman?” Fiske, anxious to return to SpaceBase, was getting grumpy. “Are we going to miss the copter?”

 “It will wait,” Clodagh said easily, and Yana realized that the big woman had come on a mission that had an urgent purpose extending beyond the initial search and rescue.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 Chapter 17                                                                                                           

 Trailing behind Clodagh and Fiske, Yana heard the copter lift off. She paused, listening until the sound was barely audible, then turned back to follow Clodagh. As she started walking, she became aware that the atmosphere inside the cave had subtly altered and lightened: the whole cavern was flooding with a sense of release-the exhalation of the breath she had felt it holding since she had first arrived.

 At the same time something splashed and she swiveled, but she could see nothing, and decided that the sound must have come from outside the cave. Backtracking, she peered out along the little stream that flowed into the cavern, through the low, dark opening. Something was rising from the stream out there. Sparkling droplets of water splashed around a long, silver-brown body energetically shaking itself dry as it rose from the water. Yana watched in fascination as the droplets flew, clearing a finely sculpted head with ears flat against the skull and bright eyes that seemed to search the entrance of the cave. Then the moisture was gone and the head seemed to, well, fluff out, she supposed, and the body lengthened into that of a man-a man who seemed to be wearing a fine silky pelt of hair. Or, perhaps, a gray wet suit. But as he walked closer to her, she saw with joyful surprise that the man was Scan, clad in nothing at all save volcanic ash, which he must have been trying to wash off in the spring before coming inside.

 “You always travel that way?” she called out, not quite trusting what she thought she had seen and hoping that either he would explain sometime soon or she could somehow find a subtle way to ask.

 He grinned down at her. “Not always, but it’s very convenient if you know how.” He looked down at himself. “Can get a little drafty once I’m out of my element, though.”

 The cave was littered with bits of uniform that had been discarded by survivors as not worth transporting. Scan rifled through them until he found a flight suit riddled with holes. He pulled it on, and it served as a social covering.

 “Ashes as disguise and swimming as transport? Clever of you,” she said, making a wild guess.

 “More or less,” he said, coming to stand very close to her and putting his hands on her shoulders.

 She wasn’t quite ready yet to be distracted by his touch, still bewildered and intrigued by the way he had appeared and by what she felt surely had to be her perfectly ridiculous perceptions of it. “You know - I was wondering about that raven that guided us here - I sort of had a sense of you then. You don’t by any chance own a black wet suit and hang glider, do you?” she asked, lifting her brows in a query that practically demanded that he confide in her.

 He remained amused and enigmatic. “And make myself small, as well? Gracious no, I couldn’t do that. I don’t go in for wings. I’ve a definite water affinity. But I do have friends in high places.”

 Yana decided to pursue that mystery later and concentrate on more urgent matters for the time being. She laid a hand on his arm and said, “Sean, I’d better brief you as to what’s happening here. Torkel Fiske is ready to court-martial me for trying to defend

 Petaybee and Clodagh’s taken Torkel’s father into the cavern-“

 “I know, Yana, I know. And I’ll explain as soon as there’s time. Right now we’ll do better to help Dr. Fiske and Clodagh.”

 His hand made a reassuring warm spot on the middle of her back as he guided her toward the passageway.

 Yana became suddenly aware that the sound of the helicopter, which had grown faint by the time she had found Scan, was suddenly louder again. Instinctively she lengthened her stride. Sean heard it, too, and increased his pace to match hers until both were well within the passage.

 The luminescence was brightening, and ahead of them she could hear Clodagh saying soothingly, “. . . someone who wants to meet you, Dr. Fiske.”

 The copter thud grew louder and louder, then suddenly began fading again, but from behind, Yana heard quick footsteps entering the cave.

 “Come out with your hands up, Shongili, Maddock! I saw you rendezvous!” Torkel yelled. “And my father had better be unharmed or-“

 “Are you with me?” Sean asked Yana quickly. She nodded, and they stood, one on either side of the passage, flush against the wall, while Torkel, forgetting all training in his agitation, barreled into their ambush. Yana disarmed him easily and caught him in a wristlock, while Sean, on the other side, did something that made Torkel sag against them. Other footsteps could be heard in the outer cave then, but Sean ignored them as he dragged Torkel onward. Yana stepped forward to help, and together they steered him through the passage and into the inner cave, where Clodagh, Bunny, Sinead, Nanook, and Dinah surrounded Dr. Fiske.

 A warm mist was already rising from the rivulets running down the cavern walls and along the sides of the floor. It was scented with earth, ozone, plant life, both green and decaying, and the faintest hint of the perfume of exotic flowers. The mist trickled along the floor and twined up the knees of the people in the cavern, gently tugging them down.

 The luminescence on the cavern walls danced with shadow play as if lit by firelight; the walls themselves seemed to pulse. The mist thickened and rolled up around them, veiling their faces: heavy, warm, scented mist; the distilled essence of the caves, the ground, the water, the air, moving in and out of their bodies with each breath they took.

 Feet shuffled briefly behind Yana, and the disturbance in the air pressure told her that yet others had entered the room. They said nothing, and when she could bring herself to glance over her shoulder, she saw that the late arrivals were cloaked by the mist as well, their nostrils and mouths and lungs and hearts adding to the rhythm with which the cave pulsed.

 Every sound was magnified, the trickle of the water rattling like rain on a roof or rustling leaves, a whispered accent to the measured throb in the cave.

 Suddenly Torkel writhed in Yana’s hands, and she felt him wake, heard his ragged breathing tear against the fabric of the thing that was happening here.

 “No!” he cried. “No, stop! This is how they brainwash you. Dad, don’t listen!”

 Dr. Fiske’s voice sounded muffled and distracted as he answered, “ ‘M fine. Don’t be such a horse’s ass.”

 And Clodagh murmured encouragingly, “You’re both just fine, just fine.”

 From behind Yana, other hands joined hers on Torkel and other arms wrapped around him-in reassurance, not restraint.

 “Don’t fight, Captain,” Diego’s voice whispered. “Please don’t fight. Listen. It doesn’t mean to hurt you, it just wants you to listen.”

 “I’m here, Captain Fiske,” Steve Margolies whispered in a less solicitous tone. “I’m a scientist, and so is your father. If this is all bull, we’ll know. You’re safe with us. Greene and the other pilot just joined us. You’re safe.”

 “You’re safe and well and here because Petaybee has much to tell the sons of those who first woke the planet to life,” Clodagh said.

 Torkel started to struggle again, and the whole cave suddenly vibrated with a thumping tremor that repeated over and over to the beat it had established from their breathing. The walls swirled with images, and Yana once more felt the jolt of contact running up her spine, exploding in her nervous system with blossoms of pure joy as she experienced a greater unity than she had ever known. A part of her heard Torkel gasp as he was infused with it, too, and then others became included. Contact was made with them now, each touching another; warm skin or warm cave, warm mist or warm breath, all were mingled in the heavy beat of the planet’s great heart.

 In the cold cave floor she felt the ice-and-rock shell that had once imprisoned that heart. Then a shock rocked through her, over and over again, the world’s greatest orgasm, this world’s great orgasm. She was so full of life and joy that her body could not contain it all and lovely things began growing from her skin, her hair, her eyes and mouth and ears and nose, her womb and anus and fingers and toes and hair, giving birth to thousands of new beauties every second, flowering things and furred things, winged things and hoofed things, soft dense creeping mosses and towering trees with undulating sweet-scented fronds. And through each thing, with no more than a whim of a try, she could speak and sing, act and dance, love and laugh and live. Even dying was a kind of life, and she felt that, too, with regret but no grief.

 Lovely things sent shivers over her skin, caressed her surfaces, brought warm pleasure to her orifices, dove and swam through her blood, nourished her. And all was well and all was one and she was glad of life.

 Then a little pain started-just a small one, near her heart. At first it only troubled her once in a while. It grew worse when some of the things that grew from her were removed, though she could bear even that at first. But it grew worse and worse as time passed and other, sharper, deeper pains shot through her, as if someone had suddenly plunged a knife into her. She seized up and screamed and tried to cry out through the things growing on her, and some heard and cried for her and some were scorched by the force of her cries. Panting, she waited for the pain to pass and it did, until the next time.

 Then the first pain, the main pain, the central pain, a pain much like the start of the ecstatic release that had freed her from her ice and rock, intensified, deepened, drove through her until she could stand it no more. At last she lanced her own boil by applying more and more pressure, sending blood and the strength of her muscle and bone, igniting nerves until the area blew, and she lay bleeding, but relieved. The things that nourished her surface rushed over her and centered on the spot to console her, and she felt the consolation, the oneness, the comfort of releasing her pain through those who had first released her.

 Gradually the images of a volcano erupting on her left breast dissolved into the image of the pain flowing through the pores of her skin and out. That image dissolved into one of herself accepting Petaybee’s pain from within it and releasing it through herself, until she lay spent on the floor, Torkel Fiske sobbing on one side of her with Diego between them, Scan and Steve Margolies on the other side.

 The mist had vanished now, and Dr. Fiske sat looking up at the luminous walls, tears coursing down his cheeks, his bad arm draped awkwardly across Clodagh’s back and the other one around Bunny.

 Slowly they rose and left the cavern. O’Shay and Greene, as last in, were first out to reboard the waiting helicopter. Yana hauled herself aboard and crowded in next to Giancarlo’s stretcher, where Nanook lay stretched lengthwise next to the colonel, purring and doing the job usually reserved for his marmalade brethren. Then Sean squeezed in on her other side, and they made the journey in silence.

 What was terraformed, Dr. Fiske, was a sentient entity which just happened to be a planet,” Sean said when they were comfortably reassembled in Clodagh’s house.

 “Scientifically, I find that very hard to believe,” Dr. Fiske said, sitting as erect as possible on Clodagh’s bed.

 Clodagh, meanwhile, was stirring up another batch of medicine for the abrasions and burns suffered by Torkel and Yana. Giancarlo had been delivered to the hospital at SpaceBase. O’Shay had taken off again, neglecting to mention to the receiving officer that he had several other passengers, passengers who were attempting to digest a great quantity of new information. He landed the copter at Kilcoole, and those who had been present for Petaybee’s revelations disembarked.

 Torkel was slowest to revive from the experience, remaining extremely quiet and contemplative when he did. But he also quietly and contemplatively used Steve Margolies’s comm unit to order from the contingent of soldiers stationed in Kilcoole an armed guard around Clodagh’s house.

 He was confused, Yana thought, and she didn’t much blame him. She was a little confused herself, and at the same time much more enlightened as to the nature of the bond between this planet and its people. She had, after all, directly experienced in microcosm everything the planet had experienced.

 “Scientifically, there probably is no explanation,” Sean said, calmly agreeing with Whittaker Fiske. “And I’ve spent most of my boyhood and all my adult years examining the pertinent sciences with little success and no ... scientifically acceptable . . . answers. I just know that Petaybee works for us, and for itself, in a unique symbiosis.”

 “Yes, it could be a form of symbiosis, at that,” Whittaker Fiske said, nodding as he absently stroked a marmalade cat. “A most remarkable one. Definitely unique. However, I would still very much like to have more details: Was your grandfather aware of the planet’s sentience and reactions? Did he establish whether or not its sentience occurred during, or after the terraforming process? How did you become aware of its sentience, and most of all, what protocol is now involved? I don’t believe that Intergal has ever encountered such a phenomenon in any system it has explored to date. I do, at least I think I do, understand now why our totally unprepared and scientifically oriented teams could not psychologically cope with their-shall I call it ... psychic initiation to Petaybee’s sentience? Poor Francisco Metaxos is a good scientist, but he has always been extremely didactic.”

 “He’s better, by the way, Whit,” Clodagh told the man. “Better all the time and now, I think, he’s more accepting.”

 A curious, affectionate sympathy had grown up between Clodagh and Whittaker since the event in the cave. Dr. Fiske had held Clodagh’s hand all the way back to the copter. The pair had sat together, staring out the copter window, now and then exchanging long searching looks. Yana would have liked to exchange similar searching looks with Scan-but not with a crowd of people around.

 “Aisling will bring Frank over,” Clodagh went on, “soon’s they’ve finished feeding and grooming the curly-coats. Any chance of bringing Colonel Giancarlo to Kilcoole, too, when he’s stable? Being contrary the way he is, he’d never have survived the cave in his weak condition, but strengthen him up a bit and introduce him to Petaybee gradual like, he might even come to understand a bit.”

 Whittaker nodded, though Yana thought Clodagh was being uncharacteristically and unrealistically charitable toward Giancarlo and far too hopeful about his adaptability. The man was as rigid as the company rulebook.

 “I’ll tell you what I can, Dr. Fiske,” Scan said, leaning forward to plant his elbows on his knees. “And what I’ve learned about Petaybee. First, we’ve never tried to keep anyone deliberately in the dark about this, but as you can imagine, it’s a little hard to explain and make anyone believe us. All we know is this: when your great-grandfather’s terraforming process had been completed and the planet ready for occupation, a proper ecological mix was determined by the Intergal specialists.”

 Sean had washed off the last of the ash and was wearing pants and a gray cable-knit sweater borrowed from Sinead. With his silver eyes and silvery hair, he reminded Yana of the way she had seen him on the shores of the little stream when she had mistaken him for a seal. She ran her hand softly down his arm from elbow to wrist, and he captured the hand in his own and squeezed, as he continued speaking. “My grandfather, as the Intergal biogeneticist, was asked to make what biological changes were necessary to adapt animals who could function in this planet’s harsh climate and be useful to inhabitants where machinery and technology would prove inadequate. He did so, supplying us with an ecological chain that includes plants, trees, grain, food beasts, and those that could be used in a variety of tasks, such as the sled dogs, curly-coats, moose, deer, the other small food and fur animals, birds, insects: all viable on this cold, snowbound planet. All of us here, the vegetation and we more movable creatures, were influenced by his work.”

 “But he went much further than he should have,” Torkel said, less belligerently; more in dismay.

 “Not deliberately. He was, like yourselves, a scientist, and he didn’t reckon on the planet being a part of his equation. Once awakened, it had its own agenda and entered into the spirit of the changes-taking the ones Grandda made and improving on them now and then, when it felt these alterations were necessary. Those of us who have lived out our lives on Petaybee, like Lavelle, are more affected by those changes than the young people who volunteer for service off-planet. I have never left Petaybee. I know I never can.” He smiled with great charm. “I don’t wish to leave Petaybee. It has made me part of it, the way it is part of me.”

 Torkel shook his head, half denying, half agreeing. “That’s not enough for me, Shongili. What happened to us in there? It wasn’t brainwashing-not as I know it,” he added, puzzled.

 “The planet was telling you how it felt about what you’ve been doing to it,” Scan said.

 Torkel twitched, grimacing, seemingly unable yet to accept that explanation. “Well, I still don’t understand how you got the planet to do what it’s been doing over the past few days. Starting volcanoes, earthquakes, breaking up the rivers six weeks too soon ...”

 Scan shrugged. “I didn’t get it to do anything, Fiske. It planned its own defense. I’ve done nothing but see that its messages are delivered.”

 “Which only you can interpret?”

 Scan shook his head. “You and I had the same experience there in the cavern, Fiske. You can interpret it as well as I can, if you just stop trying to deny what you felt. You can’t deny what you personally experienced, can you? If you had rejected it as completely as you’re trying to, you’d be in the same shape as Frank Metaxos. All I did-all any of us did-was to try to protect you from your own stubborn idiocy and put the right people in the right place at the right time for Petaybee to deliver its own message. It did that in the cave.”

 “And what, exactly, was the message that we both received, as you understand it?” Whittaker Fiske asked, his face full of lively curiosity rather than challenge.

 “The message is that Petaybee is a living and sentient entity, Dr. Fiske,” Scan answered imperturbably. “It does not wish to have its skin blown open, its flesh dug and taken away, its substance reduced, its children hunted, harried, or removed against their will. It is pleased to have been awakened, and it is more than willing to share itself: including, I might add, some valuable processes, which can benefit you and your superiors, that you’re not even aware exist on this planet.”

 “Like Clodagh’s medicines,” Yana chimed in. “I’d think the company would have a lot of use for a cough medicine that can actually heal lungs as badly damaged as mine were.”

 Torkel regarded her with surprise, then turned thoughtful while his father nodded sagely.

 “Not to mention that boneset stuff,” Dr. Fiske added, running his fingers across the hardened cast. “Simple things that have multiple applications and no side effects. Go on, Shongili.”

 “Petaybee has been particularly distressed,” Sean said, “by the increase of traffic at the SpaceBase. The planet was able to buffer the area under SpaceBase to allow a certain amount of necessary comings and goings, but that amount has now exceeded the safety margin and must cease. Petaybee does not wish to have to feed and supply the numbers now massing in the SpaceBase, as these numbers would be a burden on its resources, especially this time of year, before the growing season.”

 “It was glad to see that some of us who left here as kids have come home, at least to visit, though,” John Greene said. He and O’Shay had been wolfing down a casserole Aisling brought over earlier. “I was given a real welcome in the cave. Didn’t know it remembered me.”

 “You and O’Shay have a lot to answer for, Captain,” Torkel said. “Like why you didn’t place everyone under arrest when you saw that we were being detained in the cavern.”

 O’Shay shrugged. “Like the man says, Cap’n, we’re native-born. We got more sense than to interfere when a latchkay’s starting.”

 “You’re natives?” Torkel stared at them. “No wonder I didn’t get the support I required.” He rounded on Sean then with a resurgence of his old belligerence. “Did you arrange that, too, Shongili?”

 Sean shrugged. “You give me more credit than I deserve. The presence of Captains Greene and O’Shay is pure serendipity, Fiske. No harm’s come to you, so I don’t see that the personnel involved matters.”

 “I don’t put anything past you, Shongili,” Torkel said, and striding to the door, he opened it and beckoned a guard inside. “I want one of those portable comm links from headquarters. Bring it here on the double. We’ll just check out a thing or two about the disposition of Petaybeans on this project.”

 The guard snapped a salute, and Yana thought she saw a little smile playing at the edges of his mouth. Yana wondered about that, and began to suspect what Torkel would find about the disposition and composition of Intergal troops currently on duty in Petaybee. She noticed that Steve Margolies was looking exceedingly thoughtful: he kept glancing from Torkel to Sean to Dr. Fiske, but whatever was worrying him he kept to himself.

 “You keep speaking of these adaptations, son,” Dr. Fiske said to Sean, with an air of getting back to important matters. “Just what do they consist of?”

 “The most important,” Sean said, his voice filled with the sort of excitement that the other two scientists, more than anyone else in the room, were best equipped to understand and share, “is how Petaybee-not I or my grandfather-improved, beyond their previous capabilities, the perceptions of some of the more intelligent species.”

 “Like the pussycats here with Frank?” Steve Margolies asked.

 “Yes, and like this,” Scan said, and lifted his hand and closed his eyes. In a moment there was a scratching at the window and a whining at the door. One of the guards opened the door to admit Dinah, who was leading a weakly smiling Francisco Metaxos, followed by Aisling. Clodagh opened the window to admit Nanook, who jumped down across the sill in one fluid motion, walked calmly over to Whittaker Fiske, put one saucer-sized paw on the man’s uninjured arm, and said “Meh,” quite clearly.

 “My word!” Dr. Fiske leaned away, staring at the cat. “You asked it to come and do this?”

 Scan nodded while Nanook gave a burst of purr, marched to Torkel, and repeated the performance.

 Torkel started to shove Nanook away but stopped, giving Sean a puzzled look. “It’s telling me that Giancarlo is resting well, thanks to it.”

 “Him,” Sean said. “Nanook is male. And he likes his ears scratched. Most of the felines here have the ability to soothe troubled, or sick, minds. They’ll carry messages, lead people across dangerous terrain, and hunt when that’s necessary.”

 Dinah, tongue lolling from her open mouth, waited until Metaxos was safely deposited in a chair between Diego and Steve, then pranced up to Fiske. She gave a bit of a whine before she pushed her nose at his arm and held it there a moment.

 “Talking cats and dogs?” Dr. Fiske asked, eyes round with amazement.

 “Telepathic, actually,” Sean said. “When they choose to be. Dinah, as a lead dog, had no trouble communicating about trail conditions and finding her way across frozen wastes. She had bonded most effectively with Lavelle, the woman who died when

 Captain Fiske and Colonel Giancarlo had her removed from Petaybee. Nanook has a close bond with me, but is actually a pretty |j| social creature.”

 “And Clodagh’s cats-“ Yana began, but Clodagh shot her a look and she subsided. No need to tell the offworlders everything. Not more than they needed to convince them. Not just yet. So Yana made no mention about unicorned curly stallions, intelligent seals, and trained ravens. Scan’s hand dropped to the back of her neck and kneaded it gently as he watched the reaction of the Fiskes and Margolies.

 “Telepathic sled dogs and felines .. .” Dr. Fiske said, shaking his head.

 ‘Tour granddad was one busy guy.” Torkel snorted. Nanook dug his claws into Torkel’s leg, ever so slightly. “Ouch!”

 “Grandfather developed several types of large felines and canines suitable to this icy climate, but, as I said, Petaybee improved on his work many times over the years. Give Petaybee a chance, and it will improve on anything you ask it to. Isn’t that much better than blasting the planet apart for mere minerals and ores which the company can surely find on lifeless asteroids and planets?”

 Dr. Fiske sighed. “Ah, now I suppose we come to the crux of all this. If I understood it correctly, Petaybee is extremely grateful for its life, but not grateful enough to endure our resource development plans? That’s why the teams have disappeared or been killed?”

 Frank Metaxos cleared his throat and said in a rusty voice, “It wasn’t intentional, Whit. I-freaked out, as Diego would say, what with the blizzard followed by that intense psychical input. I understand now that what I sensed in the cave was only this same explanation. And-incredible as it seems-something of an apology. Perhaps Petaybee could adjust its climate a bit for those of us who aren’t used to such extreme conditions.”

 “Actually, Petaybee’s extremely hospitable, if you’re willing to take the hospitality on its own terms,” Clodagh told him. To Dr. Fiske she added, “Petaybee offers you more than you could ever take from it by force. This doesn’t have to be a fight.”

 “That’s right,” Yana said, leaning forward and talking with all the persuasion at her command. “The company’s just been trying to develop the wrong things so far. This planet offers absolutely unique opportunities to study its inner life-providing you can find some extremely dedicated people able for the challenge. And that’s the resource the company most needs to develop-the people.”

 “I suppose we could send scientists down to instruct them in the proper procedure,” Dr. Fiske said slowly.

 “You send them,” Clodagh said, nodding. “We’ll teach proper procedure. But you’ll see, it will work.”

 “We’ll send equipment-comm units, computer linkups.”

 “Some maybe,” Clodagh said. “But not too many. Too noisy. Petaybee wouldn’t like it. Just send a couple of teachers who don’t mind the cold and can teach us reading and writing. That’s quieter.”

 Just then the guard returned with the comm link Torkel had sent for. Torkel accepted the equipment and set it on his knees.

 “Now then, we’ll see what’s going on here,” he said. “Computer, I want files on O’Shay . . .”

 “Richard Arnaluk, sir,” O’Shay helpfully provided.

 “And Greene . . .”

 “John Kevin Intiak Greene the Third, sir,” Greene told him. “My crew members were Corporal Winona Sorenson, deceased, Specialist Fourth Class Ingunuk J. Keelaghan, deceased, Lieutenant Michael Huyukchuk, wounded in action-“

 “Wait a minute,” Torkel said. “These names sound Petay-bean.”

 O’Shay shrugged. “They are-native-born or Petaybean stock. Same’s true, I think, for most of the replacement troops shipped down with me. And the survivors we picked up near the volcano.”

 “Computer, access personnel list for troops transferred to planet Petaybee, code name Operation Mop-Up. Cross-reference by planet of origin or descent and provide statistical data of composition of total numbers.”

 After a moment of frantically scanning the screen, Torkel looked up suspiciously at Scan. “This can’t be right. Unless your planet can manipulate troop movements by remote control.” “Why? What does it say?”

 “Eighty-eight percent of the troops deployed here for Mop-Up are of Petaybean origin.”

 Scan gave a low whistle. “Imagine that. I didn’t know we’d sent so many people away. Did you, Clodagh?” “I sure didn’t.”

 “Computer, audio, please. Explain how such a large percentage of personnel assigned to Operation Mop-Up are of local origin.”

 “This system cross-indexed physical and psychological requirements necessary for ground duty on an arctic-type planet. The personnel selected were the best qualified to function at appropriate levels on such a planet.”

 “Torkel,” Yana said, leaning forward and slightly to the side to watch the screen. “While we’re on the subject of the quantity of Petaybean troops involved, why don’t you check statistical data concerning the service records of those with Petaybee as planet of origin as compared to those of the corps as a whole?”

 “Computer?” Torkel asked, and gave it the data request.

 “Petaybean personnel on the average receive seventy-five percent more commendations, sixty percent more bonuses, and eighty-nine percent more decorations than troops of other places of origin. However, they are promoted through the ranks ten point five times slower than other personnel, and only twenty-one point eight-nine-five percent of Petaybeans become senior officers.

 Yana lifted her eyebrows at Torkel and permitted herself a small, smug smile. “See? These people are definitely worthwhile to the company, and definitely worth developing.”

 Torkel raised an eyebrow back at her. “As long as they’re never removed from the planet to do what they’re worth developing for?”

 Sean broke in. “Many of our people are perfectly happy to serve the company and see the universe. You just have to recruit them early.”

 “And I think if the company worked with Petaybeans on the research, compensatory devices could be used to offset the incompatibility between Petaybean adaptive characteristics and space travel,” Yana said. “That is what I was trying to tell you before.”

 Torkel shut down the comm link with a snap, and Sean grinned broadly.

 “It’s okay, son,” Dr. Fiske told Torkel.

 But Torkel shook his head uneasily. “It’s not okay, Dad. We’re in an intolerable situation, disadvantaged. There’re not only more of them, they’re the company’s best troops but, being here, their loyalty is compromised. We’re at their mercy.”

 “Fortunately for you, Captain,” Clodagh said, handing him a cup of hot drink and a hunk of bread, “we’re extremely merciful around here. Sprinkle a little of this on your bread. You’ll see how tasty it is.” She passed over an herb jar and, unusually compliant, Torkel shook it over his bread.

 Dr. Fiske smiled at his son as one of the marmalade cats jumped into Torkel’s lap and began purring. For a moment, Torkel stiffened, wavering briefly between rejection and acceptance. He took a sip of the drink and a bite of the bread. After several more sips and bites, he gave a deep resigned sigh and finally relaxed, leaning back in his chair, the cat firmly in charge.

 “Look here,” O’Shay began tentatively, appealing to Clodagh, “if there’re that many Petaybeans come home to roost, d’you think we could have a latchkay to celebrate?”

 “The very thing,” Aisling agreed happily.

 “Now that,” Scan said, “is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in days. It would undoubtedly settle a lot of qualms and answer some of the questions you haven’t thought of yet, Dr. Fiske, Steve.”

 “Well,” Yana said, rising, “since confusion has died down to mere chaos, I’d really appreciate a decent bath and change of clothes.” She looked askance at the riddled remainder of her shirt.

 “I’m not exactly as clean as I’d like to be either,” Scan said. Also rising, he took Yana by the arm and began leading her to the door. Then he stopped. “You wouldn’t mind dismissing that guard now, would you, Captain Fiske?”

 “I will,” said Whittaker Fiske, rising and doing exactly that.

 Yana could not believe the relief that washed over her as she and Sean stepped out into the fresh air. The whilom guard had dispersed like snowmelt on a hot day. She inhaled, half expecting the previous days’ exertions to result in a paroxysm of coughing.

 “You won’t have that trouble ever again,” Sean said as he guided her toward the path to the hot springs.

 “Wait, I’ll need clothes,” she said, half towing him in the direction of her house.

 “There’s always something left about at the springs,” he said, and pulled her back to his side, grinning with a boyishness that surprised her.

 Laughing, she let herself be held. “Is it wrong of me to want to wash some of Petaybee off?” She asked, buoyant with relief and with his presence.

 “You can never wash Petaybee off completely, Yanaba Mad-dock. Not now! You’re stuck with us, love.” And then he threw back his head and gave an odd call.

 Two curly-coats broke out of a nearby copse and trotted up to them.

 “Local transport,” Scan said. When the curlies stopped beside them, he lifted Yana to the back of one before he vaulted astride the other.

 “You just called and they came?” Yana asked, bubbling with laughter, as she laced her fingers tightly into the mane. She knew little about riding, but she felt no fear.

 “Sure thing,” Scan said, grinning like a fool. “Let’s go!”

 To her surprise and delight, Yana found the curly-coat’s rocking gait to be extremely comfortable, its fur soft on bare skin. She tried not to see how fast the terrain sped by as they went hell-for-leather down the forest track to the hot springs.

 They reached their destination in moments, sliding off the mounts, who then wandered away as amiably as they had come. Sean was discarding his clothing and stood before her, sleek, faintly silvery-tan, waiting for her to shuck off the tatters she wore. Then she held out her arms toward him.

 Smiling with luminosity to his silver eyes that made her breathless, he enfolded her in his arms, pressing her head into his chest so that she could hear the beating of his heart.

 “You’ve heard what Petaybee had to say. Now hear what I have to say to you, Yanaba Maddock.” He tipped her head back to look at him. “You are courage, you are beauty, you are honor, you are strong and kind. You are also loved. By more than I.” He bent to kiss first one eye and then the other, then her forehead. “Petaybee healed you because it had need of you. I have my own need of you, and of the child you carry for both of us.” He touched her breast then, gently but as if in benediction.

 “Child?” She tried to struggle free, appalled and aching with hurt and disappointment. If he wanted a mother for his children, he would have to find someone else and she couldn’t bear that thought. “Sean, I’m past all that. It may have escaped your notice, but a person doesn’t become a senior company officer until middle age. My body is just not-“

 “Well, love, as long as we’re talking about what bodies are and are not, I think you should be aware of a thing or two about mine. So much has happened, I didn’t want to spring it on you all at once, but back in the cavern, when we were all joined with Petaybee, I knew . . .”

 “Knew what? Sean? Scan!”

 But he dove into the water, and as it sluiced over his skin, instead of the gray-brown ashy color subsiding, it deepened, blurring his skin so that she felt she was looking at him through mist. Sean rolled himself into a ball, dove under the water, and when he surfaced again, his silver-brown hair covered not just his scalp but his face-and his form had changed!

 Before she could say anything, the seal who was Sean climbed back out, playfully flipped her with the water on his sleek hide, and unfolded once more into her lover.

 She took one involuntary step backward, then stepped toward him. “What-exactly-happened there?”

 “My grandfather did, as Torkel suggested, go a little far. Actually, a lot far. There are some special notes in his personal diaries, which I have hidden in a safe place. He was fascinated by old Native American and Celtic tales of men who could change their shapes to protect themselves and suit their environment-of course, these were magical tales, but he always maintained they were just an extreme form of adaptation. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to experiment on people at all-he didn’t realize at the time that the planet was already producing substantial adaptive alterations in us-but he did do a bit of manipulation on himself that has carried down in my chromosomes, so that I, at least, adapt-er, quite a lot more drastically-than others on the planet. I ‘adapt’ or actually, in most ways, transform, at times into the marine animal most suited for this climate. I’m what they call in the old Celtic folklore a selkie; a man on land, a seal in the sea, or in my case, in the water.”

 “And your sister?” Yana asked. “Does she transform, too? I wondered why she bit my head off when I mentioned seal hunting.”

 He shook his head. “Not that I know of, and I think she would have told me. She’s the only one who’s actually seen me change, except for you, though Clodagh knows. As you saw, the seal shape can be very useful when it’s necessary to navigate the underground riverine network.” He gave her a half-uncertain, half-rakish smile. “Clodagh and Sinead even seem to feel it makes me one of the more versatile individuals on the planet. But the woman whose opinion on the subject matters the most to me is you and-I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it, which is why I hesitated to make love to you the first time we came here, although I wanted to very badly. I meant to tell you all of this before we made love after the latchkay but ...”

 She laid her hand on his cheek, and he caught it and held it as if she were throwing him a lifeline. He took another deep, ragged breath. Obviously confiding this secret to her scared him as none of the dangers they had braved together had done.

 “I-hope-that after what you’ve seen, you can see that it’s this dual nature of mine that gives me my particular special bond with Petaybee. And that because of it, when we were all joined with the planet, I sensed that within our common union there was an extra person present, the child you carry. Our child.”

 “But I can’t have a child,” she said, still trying to absorb his astonishing revelation. A little dizzy with all the changes taking place, she leaned against his water-slick body, her cheek damp against his shoulder. “I can’t.”

 “You can and are having our child,” Sean said in such a fiercely tender voice that she melted against him. “Petaybee healed that part of you, too, because our children will be even closer to it than most. The planet wants your children-and mine.” He turned her in his arms, and again she saw the anxiety-no, fear- cloud his silver eyes. “Or do you not want mine?”

 Yana gulped. “I think . . .” she began unsteadily; then she cleared her throat so what she could manage to say was audible. “I think that first 1 need a bath. After that, anything you want, I want, too!”

 “Then you don’t mind?”

 “Being pregnant? No, I thought I’d never get the chance.”

 Relief mingled with the anxiety in his face now. “Then you do want the baby? You don’t mind that I sometimes . . . change into a seal?”

 She searched his face, so strong and full of integrity, intelligence, and humor. She thought of their lovemaking and his strength and kindness through everything they had endured together. She shook her head slowly, rather amazed to find that in the face of all of that-in the face of her love-she had damn few fears, and even fewer doubts. She put her arms on his shoulders, looked into his face with a quizzical little smile, and gave a small shrug of nonchalance.

 “A seal? A man? Whatever,” she said. “Nobody’s perfect.”

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 ABOUT THE COLLABORATION

 The inspiration for the arctic background of Powers That Be came several years ago when Hugo and Nebula award-winning bestselling author Anne McCaffrey visited Fairbanks, Alaska, at that time the home of (future) Nebula-winner Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. When the two weren’t working on a writers-in-the-school project for the Fairbanks Arts Association, Scarborough saw to it that McCaffrey tasted the adventures Fairbanks in the winter had to offer: a dogsled ride, the northern lights, a movie about dogsled racing, and (thanks to her friend Hilda’s hospitality) moose spaghetti.

 In the beginning of 1992, McCaffrey invited Scarborough to Ireland to conduct some folk music research. Inevitably, the two writers talked about writing, and folk music and the Irish, and the idea for Powers Thai Be “just growed” despite McCaffrey’s busy schedule and Scarborough’s exploration of Irish music. The manuscript bounced back and forth down the hall at McCaffrey’s new home in County Wicklow, with story conferences occurring over the breakfast table before the milkman arrived. The two took turns writing and rewriting the manuscript to make the transitions smooth, each section being written in turn by whoever was most excited about that particular passage. The book was completed before the end of Scarborough’s ‘92 visit, and McCaffrey’s editor, Shelly Shapiro, who was visiting at the time, promptly put dibs on the joint project for Del Rey. The story will continue in two more volumes, which are to be written in the next two years on subsequent visits.

 ABOUT THE AUTHORS

 Anne McCaffrey shuttles between her home in Ireland and the United States, where she picks up awards and honors and greets her myriad fans. She is one of the field’s most popular authors.

 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is the 1989 winner of the Nebula Award for her novel The Healer’s War. She has also written twelve (and a half) other novels. Scarborough, whose other great passion is folk music, lives in a log cabin in the Puget Sound area of Washington State with her three cats.

  

 Power Lines

 by:

 Anne McCaffrey

 And

 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

  

 copyright 1994

  

 Chapter 1

 SpaceBase occasionally still rumbled underfoot, as if to remind everyone that Petaybee planet was by no means pacified. The riders from Kilcoole village had kept well to the wooded trails farthest from the steaming, freshly thawed river, now merely rimmed with ice like a frosting of salt along the top of a glass. Several times on their journey, the planet shook and shifted, as if telling them of the urgency of their mission, but by now the Petaybeans calmly accepted the planet’s new mood.

 Major Yanaba Maddock, Intergal Company Corps, Retired—well, mostly retired, anyway—looked around at the faces of her lover and her new friends and neighbors. Their own mood was both happy and expectant as they dismounted in front of the SpaceBase headquarters building. Clodagh Senungatuk, Kilcoole’s healer and one-woman information center, dusted her divided skirts while her curly-coated horse gazed impassively as flurries of its freshly shed hairs floated on the unseasonably warm air.

 Sinead Shongili, Yana’s own beloved Sean’s sister, assisted Aisling, Clodagh’s sister, from the saddle while Buneka Rourke held the reins of her Uncle Seamus’s and Aunt Moira’s horses as they dismounted. The churned mud that formed the roads at SpaceBase was dotted with stones and boards and pieces of metal to be used as steps. Hopping from one of these to the next, the party of Petaybeans made their way into the building.

 They all had such high hopes for this meeting, Yana thought, almost with irritation. Personally, she hated meetings. Always had. Most of them provided no more input than could be contained in a two-second burst on a comm link. Waste of time, ordinarily. She took a deep breath and neatly tucked in the shirt tails of the uniform blouse that Dr. Whittaker Fiske had suggested might be the politically tactful costume for the occasion. Partisan as she was, she was the most neutral person attending the meeting. While the company she kept announced her leanings, the uniform would remind the bosses of her long-standing affiliation with Intergal.

 Sean Shongili, sensing her tension, reached up briefly to knead the back of her neck, and she gave him a nervous smile. As the chief geneticist for this area of the planet, Sean was a key member of the Petaybean delegation. He and the others seemed to think that it was predestined that the company men would see reason and accede to the requirements of their planet and its people. Sean, who despite his profession was no more experienced at being a prospective parent than she was, had already suggested that her premeeting trepidation was in part at least a hormonally stimulated response. He was wrong, but as he had been born and bred on the planet, she could hardly expect him to understand.

 Petaybeans gathered only to entertain themselves and each other or to discuss a problem and arrive at a consensus for solution. Company meetings were far more often power plays where the issue was secondary to whose view prevailed. But then, Yana had never before been to any meeting where the issue was the survival of a sentient planet and its people.

 Two deep breaths, and she followed Sean into the building and on into the conference room. As the Petaybeans and Yana entered, Dr. Whittaker Fiske stood, forcing the other dignitaries to do likewise. Here most of the cracks from the earthquakes had been sealed. The screens along the walls were still slightly askew on their brackets but functional. There wasn’t enough seating for all the Petaybeans who had been invited, but the major players ringed the beautiful table, hand crafted from native Petaybean woods.

 As nominal chairperson, Whittaker Fiske sat in the center with his son, Captain Torkel Fiske. Yana, Sean Shongili, Clodagh, and the Petaybean survivors of the last ill-fated exploratory mission sat to the left of the Fiskes; Francisco and Diego Metaxos and Steve Margolies were placed to the right, along with various other company dignitaries. The latter looked considerably more confused than the Petaybean group, who were, to a person, optimistically resolute.

 A bare half hour later, when the comm link with Intergal Earth had been established, the optimism on many faces had been replaced with disgust and dismay at the unreasonableness of certain officials.

 “And you actually have the unmitigated gall . . .” declared the occupant of the main screen, Farringer Ball, the secretary-general of Intergal’s Board of Directors, “to tell me that the planet is making these demands on us! His round, fleshy face had taken on a reddish orange hue.

 Yana thought some of that color had to be generated by the faulty connection or the disrupted innards of the comm screen. No human flesh could turn such a shade.

 “Yes, Farrie, that’s what I’m saying,” Whittaker Fiske replied, smiling gently as a fond parent might to an erring child. “And I’ve proof enough that I haven’t lost my marbles or melted my circuits or any damned thing else you can think up to account for such a—“ Whittaker Fiske paused and grinned before he added, “delusion. Delusion it isn’t!” He said that with no smile whatever and a very solemn expression. “We may not have encountered such a phenomenon before, Farrie, but we have now, and I don’t need my nose rubbed in it any more than it has been. So let’s get on with—“

 “We’ll get on with nothing, Fiske,” Farringer Ball said explosively, and a thick finger rose from the bottom of the screen, followed by a hand that was shaking with anger. ‘I’m sending a relief company down immediately, with a squad of medics to check out every single—“

 “Just be sure none of the company or the medics happen to have Petaybee as their planet of origin,” Torkel interrupted.

 “Huh? What’s that, Captain?” The secretary-general shifted his scowl slightly to Torkel.

 “It’ll be hard to do, Secretary Ball, since most of your best men and women come from this planet.”

 “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.” Farringer turned away from the camera to address others on his end of the communications channel. “We’ve got a planet issuing orders, respected scientists gone barmy, and now captains telling secretary-generals how to choose reinforcements! This situation is now Class Four!”

 “You never were reasonable, Farrie,” Whittaker Fiske remarked in an amiably placatory tone, “when you come up against something remotely unusual.”

 “Remotely? Unusual?.”

 “Like I said . . .” Whittaker glanced around the screens at the other people who were attending the conference from a distance. “You can’t handle what isn’t in the book. This isn’t. I came here myself to sort out what looked like a minor glitch. And it’s the majorest one I’ve ever encountered. However, keeping both mind and options open, I’d still like to get on with the substance of this conference. Take a trank, Farrie, and listen, will ya? I’ll explain if you stop interrupting me.”

 “We do owe Whittaker the courtesy of hearing him out, Farringer,” said one of the other board members, a woman of elegant bearing and composure. She had a beautiful countenance, sculpted on classic lines that owed nothing to surgical skills. Her black hair waved back to frame her heart-shaped face; even the harsh colors of the comm unit could not hide the porcelain fairness of her complexion, or the clear, bright blue of her eyes. Her makeup was discreet, and the only hint of her high rank was the exotically set firestones that she wore as earrings. Marmion de Revers Algemeine had made several fortunes on “hearing people out.” I rather fancy the idea of a planet knowing what it wants, and doesn’t want! Sentience on a vast scale.” She leaned forward, elbows on the surface in front of her, and rested her chin on her fists. “Besides, Whittaker never gives boring reports.”

 She flicked her glance sideways, but as the speakers were in different offices, at widely separated locations, it was impossible to tell if she was looking at someone in her vicinity or one of the other attendees.

 This won’t be the least bit boring, Marmie,” Whittaker said, grinning. “Torkel sent me an urgent call that there was a breakdown in the terraforming on this planet—we used Terraform B, the Whittaker Effect, which has never before broken down—so I figured that a simple adjustment would suffice, but I certainly wanted to be on hand . . .”

 “Yes, yes, we know your grandfather developed that program,” Ball said testily, flicking his fingers impatiently.

 “The point, then, my impatient friend, is that no break down has occurred. Unless one counts evolutionary development of a quite extraordinary nature as breakdown.” Whittaker said the last triumphantly, and Yana saw some of the Petaybean contingent nodding in agreement and looking relieved.

 “Am I missing something here?” Ball demanded. “Have you found a way to extract the minerals we require after all? Or located the missing members of the teams?”

 “No, but one surviving team member, who has made quite a spectacular recovery, is sitting here in this room. Dr. Metaxos?”

 “Secretary-General Ball.” Francisco Metaxos nodded to the screen. Metaxos’s hair was now spectacularly white, but otherwise he looked much younger than he had when he was first found, closer to his true age of forty-some-odd years. When Yana had first seen him, she’d thought him a man of seventy or so. The only change that hadn’t reversed was the hair. It had been, when he landed, as black as his son’s, or so Diego had said.

 Marmion Algemeine suddenly smiled. “Frank! We heard you were . .”

 “I was,” Metaxos said, returning her smile. “But as happens with many maladies, once the cause of mine was made clear, the appropriate treatment was administered and I’m fine now.”

 “Why is everybody talking in riddles?” Ball asked, almost plaintively.

 “If you’ll allow me, sir,” Torkel cut in, I think I have the explanation. It seems that all of us, myself included, have been under some sort of massively induced hypnotic illusion. It is quite strong, quite real—seeming. Under this illusion, one becomes certain that this terraformed rock on which we stand is actually a sentient being. That is, of course, impossible, a bit of superstitious nonsense, but I assure you the quality of the illusion is exceptional. I feel that it is induced primarily through two of the inhabitants of this area, the woman called Clodagh and this man, Dr. Sean Shongili. Even our own Intergal agent, Major Maddock here, has fallen under their influence and—“

 “None so blind as the man who will not see, son,” Whittaker Fiske said sadly.

 “Even my father has been taken in, sir.”

 “Excuse me,” Yana said. “I thought we were here to present evidence, to talk over solutions. There is the evidence of Lavelle Maloney. The autopsy report is objective enough. There were physiological changes in Lavelle’s body that the doctors couldn’t explain. Dr. Shongili here can. Whether or not the company accepts the explanation is another matter but you should at least hear Dr. Shongili out.”

 Ball waved a dismissive hand. “We’ve seen the reports and the treatise he sent in with its highly imaginative explanation of Petaybean adaptation. Still smacks of obstructionism. Besides, Shongili is one of the ringleaders down there, if certain parties are to be believed.”

 The Petaybeans cast resentful eyes on Torkel Fiske, who smiled, a wronged man vindicated.

 The elegant Marmion spoke again in her slow, considered way. Tell me, Doctor Shongili, Ms. Senungatuk, are your perceptions that the planet is sentient shared by other Petaybeans, planet wide?”

 Clodagh nodded, but Sean looked dubious. “We aren’t in direct contact with the southern land mass,” he said.

 “Not directly,” Clodagh said, shrugging. “But they know.”

 “You seem so sure.”

 “How could they not know a thing like that! Clodagh asked. Yana had the distinct impression that Clodagh was hedging, unwilling, for some good reason, to divulge more just then. Knowing Clodagh, that would not be out of character. The woman was like the planet: round, subtly active, and full of mysteries. In Yana’s experience, they were mostly comfortable, benign mysteries, but mysterious nonetheless.

 Marmion let that drop for the moment, but another member of the committee, whose balding, ponytailed head had been turned to the comm screen, turned to face them. His eyes were a beautiful celestial blue, but his mouth was a thin hard line, the upper lip beaking over the lower like a snapping turtle’s.

 “We must ask them, certainly,” he said. “We must conduct a survey all over TBeta and inquire of its inhabitants what their beliefs are concerning the planet and what experiences they have had there. It is a study long over due.” His speech contained a slight lisp and an odd intonation, an accent perhaps, mostly erased.

 Yana thought Marmion and Whittaker Fiske might find support in the man’s suggestion, but instead, Whittaker visibly scooted his chair farther from the table and the comm screen, and Marmion let the tip of her tongue show against her upper lip before answering carefully. “An excellent suggestion, Vice-Chair Luzon. I shall go personally.”

 “And I, as well, will go, Madame Marmion,” Luzon said. “I am most interested in the belief patterns and customs of colonial peoples, especially those who have been without the benefit of extensive company contact over the years.”

 “I’m sure you’ll find Petaybee a fountain of information, Matthew,” Whittaker Fiske said with a somewhat strained attempt at his customary amiability.

 Matthew Luzon. Yana had heard the name often before, she realized suddenly—and not in a positive light.

 “Your investigations and attempts to correct the thinking of colonists are well known, if not widely appreciated,” Whittaker said. “But I think an actual fact-finding expedition, led by Marmion here, is in order now. Her delegation could take advantage of the warm weather to use audiovisual recording equipment generally too sensitive for the climate on this planet. I think the more subjective material could wait until later.”

 Luzon allowed the corners of his mouth to curl in his version of a smile. “Oh, no. I think my presence will be of great assistance. Come, come, Dr. Fiske. I do not take up so much room. I will accompany Madame Marmion.”

 The floor trembled beneath their feet and the screen wobbled on its brackets for a few moments. Yana glanced at Clodagh and saw that the big woman was watching the image of Matthew Luzon with a certain studied wariness that Yana had never seen on her face before. It wasn’t fear exactly; dread, perhaps. That was when it hit Yana who Luzon was. And she was instantly appalled to learn that he had risen to such prominence in the company.

 Luzon was trained in cultural anthropology, a discipline that should have made him more broad-minded and accepting of others. Instead he had the reputation of using his eminence to condemn the ‘less civilized” or “unenlightened” peoples, using their cultural differences as cause to withdraw or withhold company support or cooperation. Saved the company a lot of money, she supposed. His name had been bandied about when the inhabitants of the central continent of a world called Mandella had been herded into tenements so the jungles and bogs they had formerly inhabited could be tapped for fossil fuels. The tenements had not been well built, and the reeducation program had not included instruction in the use of the modern implements in the new homes, including the sanitation devices. Those Mandellans not killed in the great fire that raged through the tenements died of the communicable diseases that swept through later. Luzon’s reports had been what allowed the company to sidestep its responsibility when dealing with the Universal Court. In fact, Yana thought she recalled hearing something once about Luzon being; under consideration as a judge for the court.

 And now the man was proposing to come looking down his nose at Petaybee!

 “Well, I’m not coming down there,” Farringer Ball was saying. “Lot of damned nonsense. I have a company to run here. Can’t go traipsing around to every backwater bush planet whose colonists get a little peculiar. Hell, if they weren’t peculiar, they’d be in the corps or out in space.”

 Marmion raised an eyebrow and he desisted. “Anyway, I can’t and won’t interrupt my work to go. But Matthew’s done some crack investigating before, and Marmie will bring back the goods. I’ll be guided by their evidence.”

 “That’s a relief,” Whit snapped. “You sure as hell haven’t shown any inclination to be guided by mine, or that of Metaxos and Margolies.”

 “Of course I have. I read the reports and I haven’t evacuated the place and stripped it back to rock yet, have I?”

 “Sir,” Torkel Fiske said. “What about the additional troops? And I insist that Major Maddock face an official inquiry and possible court-martial for her actions.”

 “We’re already talking about an official inquiry, Captain, or hadn’t you been paying attention? If the inquiry determines that there’s been subversion or sabotage, I doubt Maddock will have gone far, and she may he able to assist the investigators. Now then. There’ll be an escort with Madame Marmion and Dr. Luzon, of course, and additional technical personnel. If we decide to evacuate, we’ll call in more then. Meanwhile, you’ve got enough manpower on hand already, I should think. It’s not like an army’s going to be any help stopping earthquakes and volcanoes. This meeting is concluded.”

 Goat-dung knew that she was evil, willfu1, spiteful, malicious, and would someday, if she didn’t mend her wicked ways, be prey for the creature from the bowels of the planet. She had been told so often enough, as the welts from the Instrument of Goodness impressed the lessons on her backside.

 For her crimes, she usually got the hardest, dirtiest work to do of any girls her age; but when the warming came, melting the ice falls on the sides of the cliffs and turning the floor of the Vale into a great lake, the rest of the community joined her in scrabbling up the sides of the Vale to higher ground, carrying with them the teachings of the Shepherd Howling and all of his sacred implements, plus what food, clothing, and housing materials they could salvage. All of the greenhouse gardens were lost and many of the animals had drowned.

 For days the waters rose up the icy walls of the Vale, creating slush and even mud underfoot and also a steaming mist that made it impossible to see. Goat-dung and the other children, packs strapped to their backs, climbed the walls of the canyon and carried dripping parcels to the adults, then splashed back down in the bright cold water to try to retrieve other articles.

 Bad as she was, even Goat-dung was so used to obeying the will of the community, the will of the Shepherd Howling, that she failed to see the possibilities for escape in the situation.

 She’d just climbed up again after falling three times back into the water. Shivering with cold, muddy, scraped and bruised, half-naked, she huddled by the fire and ate the bowl of thin soup she had at last been permitted to ladle out for herself. The soup was mostly cold, and the fire, a pitiful stinking thing of still-damp animal dung, was nothing but a slightly sultry draft that failed to chase the ache and chill. It didn’t banish the goose bumps, never mind the frigidity in her bones.

 For once, no one else was better off than she, however. The one hundred or so followers of the Shepherd huddled along the rim of the steaming Vale of Tears, their lives and homes inundated by the Great Flood the Shepherd claimed had been sent to try them.

 The monster seeks to subjugate us to its will in this fashion,” the Shepherd said over and over again. “We shall not succumb. When the waters subside, we’ll return to our Vale and continue to defy that which would corrupt us.”

 The Shepherd, instead of staying within his offices and superior quarters, was now among the flock organizing, counseling, exhorting—and observing. Feeling the disapproving eyes of the rest of the flock on her was bad enough, but twice Goat-dung looked up from her misery to see the Shepherd himself watching her, and his regard made her colder than the waters in the Vale.

 She rested from her last climb, as the short day drew to a close and the mists from the Vale crept up over the edge of the encampment. She heard soft footsteps approach and Conception, her belly as flat as it had been before the Shepherd married her and her name was still Swill, squatted beside her.

 “Good news, little sister,” she said.

 Goat-dung said nothing. Until she knew what Conception wanted, silence was safest.

 The other girl, a bare four years older than Goat-dung, held forth a piece of metal. “You’ve been chosen,” she said simply, and rose to go.

 Goat-dung stared at the piece in her hand. It was cut into the shape of a heart. The Shepherd had chosen her to be his wife.

 “What? When?” she called after Conception.

 Tonight,” the older girl called back and was lost in the mist.

 And that was when she did the worst thing she had ever done in all of her wicked days. She ran.

 The mist covered her trail and the slush muffled the sound of her steps. She ran as hard and as long as her exhausted, undernourished body could. She had no idea where she was going. She had known no other people but her own, though sometimes the Shepherd made allusions to others, outsiders, those who had fallen into error. They were horrible people, the Shepherd said, who would sacrifice girls like her to the Great Monster.

 Better that than be a dutiful wife to the Shepherd, like Swill-Conception and Nightsoil, now known as Assumpta. Wives of the Shepherd, though they were no older than children, were given adult names, usually related to the Teaching.

 Assumpta, once a rosy-cheeked, titian-haired angel of a girl, full of childish agility and grace, was now old at thirteen. She had lost four children to a bleeding disease and had been beaten after losing each one. She no longer walked very well.

 Conception, on the other hand, was still barren at fifteen, and she was beaten for that, as well. Their own mother, Ascencion, was another of the wives, and supervised the beatings herself.

 Goat-dung’s mother had also been the Shepherd’s wife, although Goat-dung was not one of his own lambs. One reason she was so wicked, the others told her, was that her parents had been outsiders. She had been too small when her mother died to realize it, but it was said that her mother had been an extremely unrepentant outsider who had not wanted to be the Shepherd’s wife and had been prevailed upon to accept the blessings of union with him only through the firm kindliness of the flock. No one among them had met Goat-dung’s father, who had died in ignorance and error and slavery to the Great Monster.

 Goat-dung ran and ran, splashing through slush, hot with her effort as long as light remained in the sky, then ran to keep from freezing as the night swallowed the planet. The moons came up and she stumbled on by their light. She ran on and on, down and down, as if into another Vale. Looking back, by the moonlight, she saw the peaks of the mountains behind and above her: the monster’s back, its snout, its teeth.

 She dragged herself farther. Down here the slush gave way to mud in places, and a stream ribboning down the mountain steamed just as the water in the valley floor did. As she drew near it, it gave forth warmth, and when she touched it, it was as hot as if it had been heated in a pan and only cooled slightly.

 She eased her way into it. It was deeper than it looked and had quite a current. It buffeted her along, lapping her with warmth, until it ran into a kind of tunnel, carrying her with it.

 She was too tired, too full of lassitude from the water, to avoid being swept into the side of the mountain, and remembered, just before she hit her head on a rock and all became blackness, that the Shepherd taught that this was the very sort of place never to be caught.

  

 Chapter 2

 “Well?” Bunny Rourke asked breathlessly as the elders and the company friends of the Petaybeans filed out of the building. She handed the reins of the curlies to each rider. “How’d it go?”

 Clodagh shrugged. “Like usual. They pretended we weren’t there, and if we were, that we’d nothin’ sensible to say. They’re sendin’ down more investigators.”

 Yana sighed. She’d known it wouldn’t be easy, but something else was disturbing her. As they rode back through the woods to Kilcoole, she asked, “I don’t get it. Torkel was with us. He felt the planet, too. He knows about it. If he had really rejected it, he’d be like Frank Metaxos was.”

 “Denial,” Diego said, drawing on his own counseling experience. “He knows, okay, he just can’t stand to admit it. He’s not a complete creep, after all. You and he used to be friends, didn’t you, Yana?”

 “Friendly, at least,” Yana said. “Or I thought so. But he’s been so unreasonable . . .”

 “Maybe irrational’s a better word,” Sean said. “He might not have had the reaction Frank did, but it strikes me that Fiske isn’t sledding on both runners anymore, if he ever was. Maybe his unwilling contact with the planet has done him more harm than shows on the surface.”

 “At least it’s that lady coming to investigate,” Moira Rourke said with some relief.

 “Yes, but I don’t like the look of that bald fella,” Clodagh said.

 “Nor do I,” Yana agreed. “At the risk of sounding like the conspirator Torkel thinks me to be, I suggest that all of you avoid any direct contact with Luzon and save your explanations strictly for Madame Marmion. He is known to . . . twist . . . anything he’s told.”

 As they neared the village, they were met by a pride of cats, all of them striped bright rusty orange and all of them meowing and purring and twining dangerously around the large snowshoe-sized hooves of the shaggy, curly-coated horses.

 “What a welcoming committee!” Yana said as Marduk, or at least she assumed it was he, hopped up behind her and rubbed his head against her back briefly before hopping down again. “Did you call them, Clodagh?”

 Clodagh shook her head. “No, but I was worried, before we left, about how committed the other villages were to the planet. So far the PTBs have only questioned us, but I figured they’d get around to asking some of the others sometime soon. These little ones scattered as soon as we left, and here they are back again.” She tilted her head as she looked down at the cats.

 “What’s got ‘em so antsy?” Bunny asked.

 Clodagh reined her curly-coat to a halt. Immediately the cats converged on her, stropping the legs of the pony, who regarded this activity with mild surprise and didn’t so much as twitch a muscle.

 “You’ll get muddy doing that,” she told the cats, since the pony was coated up to and including his belly with good Petaybean wet earth. With a groan, she heaved one leg over the saddle and dismounted, ignoring the fact that her skirts immediately became as dirty as the pony’s legs. “Now, what’s all this?” she asked, hands on her hips, looking from one upturned cat face to the next.

 Clodagh’s special relationship with her cats was known—or at least suspected—by everyone in Kilcoole. So the other villagers, except for Sean, Bunny, and Yana, rode politely around the cats and pretended not to notice anything more than a woman being greeted by overly fond pets.

 Frank Metaxos, in whose healing process the cats had had a rather unusual role, remained behind, too, along with his son Diego. The two were returning to Kilcoole without Frank’s partner, Steve Margolies, who, still on the company’s payroll, had stayed on at SpaceBase.

 Both cats and Clodagh waited for the rest of the village to parade past before the mewing and chirruping began.

 Ordinarily the cats would have sat down to impart what was evidently a long story, but the mud offended their dignity. So they prowled around her, twitching their tails high, as they communicated their messages. The humans waited patiently.

 Sparks of uncharacteristic anger flickered in Clodagh’s eyes as she looked up at Sean and Yana “We got all kinds of trouble now.” She gave a disgusted snort. “Seems like some villages want Intergal to come down and mine, while the mining’s good and they can get paid for working.”

 Sean frowned and Yana told her heart to stop racing. “How many dissidents? she asked.

 “Four towns that the cats know of.” Clodagh’s usually merry face was solemn.

 “Which ones?”

 “Deadhorse, McGee’s Pass, Wellington, and Savoy.”

 Sean let out a burst of sour laughter. That figures.” Clodagh had named villages which in recent years spurned contact with the others. He sighed deeply. “Have the cats any good news?”

 “Yes, out the bad news is they haven’t had a chance to check everyone out. If four villages oppose us . . .”

 “How many more might be disaffected and looking to please Intergal for the sake of wampum? Sean asked.

 “So, the good news? Yana prompted with a sigh.

 “Well, we do have at least twelve communities behind us solid. Tanana Bay, Shannonmouth, New Barrow, Twin Moon Village, Little Dublin, Oslo Inlet, Harrison’s Fjord, Kabul, Bogota, Machu Picchu, Kathmandu, and Sierra Padre.”

 “Most of the closest ones,” Sinead said, looking encouraged.

 “And the ones,” Clodagh went on with a pessimistic expression, “that have the most Petaybean boys and girls in company service.”

 “What bothers you about that?”     Yana asked. “Wouldn’t they be on their folks’ side in this?”

 “Might be, if they weren’t required to lean on their folks to do what the company asks,” Clodagh said gloomily.

 “Oh!” Yana sighed Dirty tricks department Farringer Ball and Matthew Luzon would pull every one they needed out of storage to see that their interpretation became the official one. “Could you be wrong about which side of the blanket the Petaybean troops would fall on? The pilots, O’Shay and Greene in particular, gave us some support during the volcanic crisis.”

 Clodagh shrugged her broad shoulders. “You can always be wrong about anything. Sure, I think a lot of them would feel loyalty for us and for the planet. But they’ve been out there”—she nodded toward the heavens—“for a long time. They’re used to the kind of stuff you’re used to. Some of ‘em have prob’ly forgot how to cook, too, like you, and how to hunt. How to take care of themselves. And if the company decided to punish them and us by dumping them here and pulling out support, well, that’d be pretty hard on them, pretty hard on us, and pretty hard on the planet. I figure if all the Petaybee troops still working for Intergal got sent back here, it’d triple our population. At the least! I don’t know how many kids those troops have had. Course they’d be welcome and the planet would provide, but it might be as hard on it as some kinds of mining operations.”

 Frank cleared his throat. The ecosystem in these icy regions is quite fragile.”

 “You know it and I know it, but Intergal seems oblivious to the fact,” Sean said.

 “Are those villages one hundred percent in favor of selling out? Yana asked.

 Clodagh smiled patiently. “Now, Yana. You’ve been around the universe a few times. When did you ever meet any group of people who were one hundred percent in favor of anything?”

 “Exactly. So presumably there are some people there who aren’t in favor of the mining. And probably, in the remaining villages, a few who are. I think we need to know who’s fer us and who’s agin us, as they say in the Wild West vids, and maybe try to convert some of the unaffiliated. I thought everybody had the relationship with the planet you do.”

 Clodagh shook her head. “Not everybody wants to. Those who have enough respect to follow the rules and live wisely survive better though, so even if they don’t acknowledge the presence of the planet, they get by as long as they keep out of the special places. The others, the foolish ones, don’t live so well or so long. Those people would much rather try to please the bosses than forces they don’t want to understand Fortunately though, around here there’s not much to do except pay attention, so the planet gets through to most folks.”

 “Well, sounds to me like we need to do a little campaigning,” Yana said.

 “We will make them songs so they understand,” Clodagh said.

 “Cool,” Diego said. “Just like the old radical songs from Earth. Ah, if only I had a guitar.”

 “What’s that?” Bunny asked.

 “A musical instrument. All of the old protest singers had them. There’s some wonderful mining songs in the memory banks back—back at my old place.”

 “I wish you had one then,” Bunny said loyally.

 “Me, too. Except I don’t know how to play.”

 “I bet you could learn.” Bunny told him. “You make better songs than some people who’ve made them all their lives.”

 “Bunka,” Clodagh said sharply. “Each song is a good song if it says what the singer means it to say.”

 “Course it is, Clodagh. I know that. But Diego’s sound better. He says what he means to say so everybody can understand it. That’s all I meant.”

 Clodagh smiled, a slightly bawdy smile, with a wink to Sean and Yana. “That’s all right then, alannah. He does make good songs.”

 In the short distance to Clodagh’s house, they discussed the finer points of what needed to be said to the villages, both those which dissented and those which Clodagh felt sure could be counted upon to support the planet.

 When they reached Clodagh’s, what seemed to be the entire village was waiting outside in her yard. Yana found, looking at the yard, that she missed the snow. The village looked like a garbage dump, with its stores of winter provisions half-thawed in the snow, the trash that had been buried, the salvaged equipment lying around the yard, all of the items that had been lost throughout the long winter. Not to mention the leavings of the various dogs and cats and horses housed in the village. Also, without the snow, the roofs of the houses looked patchy, the siding worn despite its gay pastel colors. And everything and everyone was smeared and splattered with mud.

 This dreary aspect didn’t seem to lessen their regard for each other in the slightest, however, and the villagers crowded as cheerfully as ever into Clodagh’s tiny house and began discussing what was to be done.

 “We need to have another latchkay,” Eamon Intiak said. “We should have one and invite the people who don’t understand. Petaybee would speak to them and then they’d know.”

 “You’d think they’d know already by now,” Sinead Shongili said.

 “Now, Sinead,” her partner Aisling said reasonably, “such things take some folks longer. Their worries about the everyday things in their lives get in the way of understanding what’s here.”

 ‘We’ll each go away and think about these things and make songs,” Clodagh said. “Then we’ll go talk to the other people. Sinead, you and Sean and the Maloneys must go the farthest because you’re the best travelers. I would like to send Frank with you, Sinead, and young Diego with Liam. Yana, you go with Sean. We need you people who know about the company to make talk with the neighbors who are taken in by the promises, too.”

 With that, everyone began to leave. Yana was ready to leave, too. She was tired. She wanted to rest and eat and bathe in the hot springs and make love to Sean, not necessarily in that order. But Sean laid a restraining hand on her arm and lingered a moment.

 “And how about the other pole, Clodagh?” Sean asked gently. “How do we reach those people?”

 “Can you not do it, Sean?” Clodagh asked.

 “Sure, I could, but it’d be a long journey no matter how fast I went. The PTBs would already have been there and found out what we need to know. Besides, I hate to leave Yanaba for so long at a time like this.”

 “What do you mean, Sean?” Yana asked. “I’m barely a month along. I wouldn’t even know I was pregnant if you hadn’t found out via your hot line to the planet. Other women have had babies before . . .”

 “Not,” Sean said significantly, “my babies. If only my sister and Rourke had been able to map that passage.”

 “Sinead?”

 “No. Our sister Aoifa and her husband, Bunny’s parents. They were trying to map some of the planet’s inner passages. Bunny was barely eighteen months old—“

 “And that Aoifa was pregnant again!” Clodagh said fondly. They hadn’t been named long, but that girl was a real Shongili. Not even pregnancy hampered that one, and her as curious as one of the cats!”

 “What happened?” Yana asked.

 Sean shrugged. “We don’t know.”

 “Couldn’t you find out? From the planet, I mean?”

 “You’ve been with it. The information you got isn’t usually that specific. And Aoifa and Mala had this theory that some of the special places that lead from one river and lake to the next here on the land lead under the sea in the same way. I searched but I never found them. Never even got a glimmer.”

 Clodagh made a sound like “Yuh.” Then she said, “They must have gone very far. Much farther than anyone has ever gone.”

 “On foot or by sled or horse maybe,” Yana said. “But there are other ways to travel and other ways to get to the south, if the planet doesn’t mind the intrusion too much. If I can reach Captain Greene or that O’Shay fellow, maybe they can give us a lift.”

 “Ah, you spoiled modern woman,” Sean said with a kiss to her cheek. “I love you.”

 “I know it’s not the Petaybean way, Shongili, but until you come up with a mutant bird to match your cats and horses, we have to make do with what poor mechanical means I can muster.”

 “I’m workin’ on it, Yana. I am. But until then, you’re quite right. We’ll have to use company equipment to fight its masters. Now then, what say we go meditate at the hot spring and come up with something to say to these people once you finesse the pilots into transporting us?”

 “I thought you’d never ask,” she said.

 It was small; it was warm and wet and its pelt was of a most extraordinarily tattered nature, fine flapping threads and matted bits interspersed in an unkempt coat. It smelled like food, but not the superior sort.

 It leaked savory blood into the water sloshing around it. The water was the problem. In order to reach the little morsel, one would have to get wet. Of course, one could reach down from the ledge with one’s claws, and if one stretched—stretched—stretched—ah! One caught a piece of the pelt and could heft it to where one could support the weight of the rest in one’s jaws and—ah-it moved. Still alive then. Good. Fresh meat was best. All it would take was biting down a bit on the neck, under the mane, and the kill would be clean, the meat fresh. There would be no necessity for leaving the relative shelter of the ledge.

 One leaned forward, resting on one’s chest, and extended one’s neck to meet the bit rising on claw tip and—it slipped! It was trying to get away! The other paw lashed forward, claws extended, to help the first, and one instinctively leaned forward, one’s jaws coming into play to assist one’s claws and—and—the thing slipped again before one could sink a tooth into it. The pelt was flimsy stuff and tore out of the claws just as the other paw grabbed the morsel in a second place. The morsel let out a terrified squeal, rather like a rabbit. One was about to smack it to silence and lean forward for the fatal chomp.

 Then the cave shook, the ledge broke under one’s over-balanced weight, and one tumbled tail over nose into the pool, relinquishing the morsel, which yelped again. Inconvenient and embarrassing to be so indisposed in front of the food. One climbed out of the pool and shook the water from one’s coat and began to wash before one’s meal.

 The morsel began to flail frantically toward the den’s entrance. One padded nonchalantly after. The cave, the ground, the world, shook again. One knew when one was being addressed. One sat on one’s haunches and perceived.

 The morsel was also arrested in mid flight. “Did you—d-do that?” it asked. “Are—are you the G-Great Monster?”

 One yawned.

 The world shook again and one realized that one had understood the speech of the morsel. One also understood that it was a youngling, and female.

 One waded forward while the youngling waded backward, outlined in the dusk outside the mouth of the cave. One’s paws dripped water, albeit warm water. One lapped a bit. The youngling stood still.

 “You’re not so terrible,” it said. “You’re nothing but a big cat.”

 One had one’s dignity to maintain. One lashed one’s beautifully and delicately marked tail and growled.

 And from beneath one’s sodden paws, the world growled back at one and bucked, sending a wave of water to swamp one, knocking one onto one’s back, causing one to drink more deeply of the spring than one cared to, paws over head, and be propelled backward, away from the youngling.

 When one got to one’s feet, one saw that the youngling—it no longer seemed safe to think of it, no, her as a morsel—had not used the opportunity to run away. Indeed, it, too, was just arising from the water, sputtering and snorting. Ah, good. It had not seen one’s discomfiture. Dignity was preserved.

 “I’m not afraid of you,” the youngling declared as one advanced—claws sheathed, teeth safely contained within one’s lips, growl little more than a polite, inquiring rumble in one’s throat. A mere purr, actually, one corrected, as the waters bubbled and sloshed ominously. I used to know a cat. A little one. I was a baby then. Shepherd Howling made my mother kill my cat. He—he tried to, anyway.

 He—she wouldn’t and—and .. .” Something odd was happening to the youngling now. It began leaking again, saltiness into the fresh sulfurous water covering it. “My mother was not like Ascencion. She was brave. The Shepherd punished her for disobedience and both she and my cat went away. So—so I’m not afraid of you. You live where the Great Monster is supposed to dwell and lie in wait for the foolish superstitious minds of the flock to be warped and maddened into everlasting wickedness while our bodies are tormented by the great fires from within. But you’re not the Great Monster—you couldn’t be. Are you—are you the Guardian of the Underworld?”

 One was so disgusted by her ignorance and silly misapprehension of one’s self and one’s relationship to one’s Home that one was startled into answering, I am Coaxtl. That is enough.

 “I am Goat-dung, Coaxtl,” the youngling said with the cunning of her race. She knew, one saw, the power of names. She had one’s name, one had hers. She could not be food.

 But one’s Home had already decreed that she could not be food, which was what Home meant with the rumbling of the ground and the raising of the waters. One knew what was done and what was not done.

 Very well, Goat-dung, one said. Goat-dung is not food, but undoubtedly she eats. Therefore we must leave the Home and hunt

  

 Chapter 3

 With the river flowing freely, close to flooding, the people of Kilcoole had more water at their disposal than they were used to. Normally, even in the height of summer, the channel remained frozen at the deeper levels. Now the planet had cut additional channels from new, warmer tributaries, and there was sufficient water to drink, to wash, to bathe in if you didn’t mind a little sediment.

 Since so much water was close to hand and the hot springs were a distance from town, Yana and Sean had the place to themselves.

 As they rode through the brush, which was beginning to leaf out, Yana smiled at the wildflowers that peeked up from the less sodden places where they’d been buried under the snow all winter.

 The hot springs were where she and Sean had first come together, where she had first had an inkling of his other nature, and where they had first made love. Beneath the waterfall was the secret subterranean chamber where the villagers gathered during the latchkay night chants to communicate directly with the planet. The mere sight of the slipping silvery waters, steaming only slightly in the warmer air, and the sweet rippling peal of the falls and streams were miraculous enough for Yana.

 In this warmer weather, undressing did not have to be so hastily done. She and Sean took their time—time to undress each other, time for a kiss and a caress—before entering the waters, he with a muscular dive, she with a slow sliding from the bank, feeling the waters rise up the length of her until she stooped and allowed the liquid to cover her head. The water shut out the sounds of the birds and insects, the small animals scrabbling in the bushes, the stamping and champing of the curly-coats, and filled her ears with its own music.

 Then a wet, warm silky form twisted about her and broached the surface of the water, silver eyes gleaming at her with a challenge and a sensuousness that were so perfectly “Sean” that even his selkie form did not dismay her.

 “Oh you!” she said, laughing and splashing water at him. “Do you automatically change the minute you hit water?”

 A pleased murmur came from the throat of Sean-Selkie as he continued to weave against her body, his furry touch arousing unusual sensations in her.

 “Oh, is that all you can say?” Then Yana gave a ki-yi of amusement. “You can’t talk as a selkie? She chortled and, using both hands, sent a wave to flood him.

 He dove, not to get away from the water, but to caress her where she least expected it. Startled, she tried to maneuver away from him, but his sinuous form made evasion impossible. He was the swimmer, she the paddler.

 But she caught him firmly by a fold of silly wet skin and pulled him to the surface.

 Look, mate, I don’t mind what form you take. I don’t even mind what you do in that form . . .” Sean-Selkie made a pleased purring sound, the silver eyes dancing, as she went on: “But listen up! It’s the man I want, not the seal. And we do have things to talk about. So, if you can’t talk in this form . . . especially if you can’t . . . well, you know what I mean .. . change back.”

 The selkie nudged her, in a rather sweetly apologetic way, toward the falls, and swam sinuously alongside as she began to swim, feeling very ungraceful beside him, in the direction he indicated. He obviously restrained himself to keep pace with her. He was so graceful, so powerful, and the touch of his fine fur against her was unfairly sensual. She increased the speed of her own stroke. She couldn’t wait to get to the privacy of the place behind the falls: she couldn’t wait to get him back into a useful form.

 He dove under the falls and she followed, escaping the battering of the water. They surfaced together but Sean-Selkie seemed to ooze up the bank and stood there, proud in his altered form, so that she could admire him. All of him. Then he shook himself and the transformation she had seen once before, near the cave where they had taken refuge from the volcano, began.

 “I get it, Sean,” she murmured, a trifle apologetic. “You wanted me to see you in all your glory. And you are glorious,” she added, smiling as the man emerged. She went to him, stroking skin instead of fur, and twining herself around him as his selkie self had done to her in the water.

 “Give me a moment to adjust, will you? he said, laughing, holding her tightly against his wet skin.

 Yana gave a sniff. “As far as I’m concerned, you are adjusted.” She glanced down significantly.

 “Ah, but a selkie makes love differently than a man,” he said, murmuring into her ear and nibbling her throat.

 “How differently? I’m game.”

 It was decidedly different, wildly sensual, and extremely satisfying, and took rather more time than she had assumed, knowing something of “animal” behavior. She hadn’t known nearly enough to prepare her for all of the loving possibilities of Sean’s dual nature, both animal and man, but he understood himself thoroughly and was most adept at using all of his resources to guide her into uncharted channels of pleasure. It took her a long time to slow her pulse and heart rate and come, slightly unwillingly, back to the other reason they had gone off.

 “We have to do our part in this scheme, you know,” she said, looking up at Sean’s face. They were still interlocked; it was comforting and comfortable and she didn’t really want to break the mood, but the dutiful part of her character prodded her into “active duty” now that the R & R was over.

 “Which scheme?” he asked, smiling lasciviously down at her. “All right, all right,” he said, easily warding off the fist she shot up at him. His hands were very strong. “First we have to find out where Johnny Greene and Rick O’Shay are. Would Fiske Junior have it in for them for their part in seeing you all got into the special place?”

 She sighed. “That’s what we have to find out. If Adak’ll let me use the comm unit, I can probably roust them out of wherever they are—BOQ on SpaceBase, probably.”

 “Both Johnny and Rick believe in Petaybee,” Sean said, musing aloud, his fingers playing an idle tattoo on her shoulder, “or they wouldn’t have helped us then. So, perhaps they’ll help us again. How hard would it be for them to abscond with a copter or two?”

 Yana shrugged. “Both struck me as pretty clever. Copter pilots tend to be a tad devious. If they could stash enough fuel in a cache somewhere, they could help us and still appear to be on duty at the base. No matter how you slice it, it’s going to lake a few days for Marmion and that bald buzzard to organize themselves and their escort, so we have a few days. Unless Torkel clamps down on all SpaceBase activity.”

 “How can he do that when the place is in such a mess? They’ve still got folks to rescue from mud slides and stuff.”

 “Good point, Sean, so the sooner we get in touch with Johnny and Rick, the better. We can provide for our expeditions before Torkel knows we’re setting them up.”

 “Fiske Junior doesn’t strike me as a forgetful man. Would he have thought of that, and slapped a hold on all unauthorized copter runs?”

 Yana thought. “If he has, Whittaker still carries more clout than Junior. I know Whittaker will help as much as he can.” Then she laughed, her chest heaving against his. “Junior! Don’t ever call Torkel that in his hearing, Sean.”

 Sean’s eyes sparkled with malice. “No? When we need every advantage we’ve got?”

 The expression on his face, her current position, and the word “advantage” warned Yana that she’d better curtail this session right now or they’d lose a lot more time. She hoped they hadn’t dallied too long already. But it had been . . . remarkable. Resolutely she pushed him away and got to her feet.

 “Adak is our first stop, Sean,” she said in a don’t—contradict—me tone.

 “Yes, ma’am, no, ma’am. As you say, ma’am.”

 She gave him one long look in her sternest mode before she realized that this respite might have to last both of them a long time.

 She went into his arms. “Oh, Sean Shongili Selkie, I do love you so much!”

 “I, you, alannah,” he said softly and kissed her. But it was a kiss of exceeding gentleness and no passion what so ever. He, too, accepted the inevitable.

 “We can do a lot together,” she offered as a token apology.

 “We already have,” he said, laughing. But his hand her back guided her firmly out of their private retreat.

 Coaxtl must be a very bad animal, Goat-dung realized, or he would have devoured such a wicked person as herself instead of sharing his catch of small game with her as if she were a cub. Maybe Coaxtl wasn’t male. Goat-dung sneaked a look. It was hard to tell. The cat was extremely furry, with extra tufts on the ears and a thick, bushy tail. Its coat was dense and very soft-looking; the coloring white with large spots of different sizes, according to the muscle they were on: long rectangular ones on the neck, big circular ones on the shoulders, smaller, more regular ones on the abdomen, all shaded from gray to black, blurred and clouded by the length and thickness of the fur. The paws were also extremely large, though the face was sweet, with large golden eyes and a black nose and black-lipped mouth that seemed to be perpetually smiling. The cat looked female enough to Goat-dung, and there was nothing obvious showing under the belly to convince her otherwise, so she decided that she knew the reason why the cat hadn’t eaten her. It was because Coaxtl was a mother cat, and probably she had lost her kittens and was willing to accept Goat-dung as a substitute. That must be why. The cat certainly showed no compunction about killing anything else.

 With a mighty leap and a swipe of a muscular foreleg, a deft hook of the paw and a single economical crunch, the cat had bagged each victim—three snow geese and a brace of rabbits. When the final kill was made, Coaxtl sat with the rabbits at her feet and looked expectantly at Goat-dung, who took it she was being invited to partake.

 “I—I can’t eat raw meat,” she said. Even hungry as she was, she really didn’t think she could. Life was hard in the flock, but they plucked their birds and skinned their animals before cooking. She looked around at the awful open-ness of the mountain meadows and thought of the Shepherd Howling and the beating she would get if she was found—and, worse, having to be the Shepherd’s wife and all that meant. “Besides, I don’t want to be in the open. Can’t we go back to the cave?”

 Coaxtl gave her a long golden-eyed stare. Goat-dung wished the cat would speak to her again—not that the beast spoke actual words out loud. But Goat-dung heard words in her mind, and while the big cat’s conversation was terse, it was conversation, and it was not angry or accusatory, which was the sort Goat-dung was used to. It wasn’t that the cat liked her precisely, but Coaxtl did not so far appear to dislike her. Of course, people in the flock never said that they disliked her. On the contrary, they all claimed to love her and said they were pointing out the error of her ways so that she would not become a victim to the evils of the world, but they did indicate, by deed and word, that they thought the task of trying to save her was quite hopeless.

 She followed the cat back along the swollen stream bed to the cavern. The snow had not all melted by any means, and now, suddenly, the air was colder, and the light drizzle that had been falling throughout the day turned to sleet, then snow. Only partially dressed in wet rags, Goat-dung began shivering so hard that she had difficulty walking.

 The cave was warmer, perhaps warmed by the water pooling in its center. But it was not warm enough to combat the temperature dropping as night approached. She needed a fire to keep her from freezing as well as to cook her food.

 Coaxtl took the rabbits in her mouth and hopped lightly onto the ledge, looking down at Goat-dung, who stood knee deep in the pool on the floor. The birds were clutched in her hand.

 Coaxtl had already torn the head off one of the rabbits. Goat-dung looked back up defiantly.

 “Well, I’m sorry, cat, but this water leaves me no place to stand and no place to eat the birds even if I wanted to eat them uncooked with all the feathers on. I know I’m spoiled and selfish, but I’m also cold, and I think if I don’t have a fire I really will die.”

 This time the cat did speak. Youngling—I will not call you Goat-dung if you are in my charge. That is no fit name for a cub. Names are important and having yours, I am charged not to eat you, but really, who would want to eat someone named Goat-dung anyway? You must choose another name. I digress . . . Youngling, you seem to have trouble making up your mind what will kill you. Out on the plains you feared the openness. In here you say you are cold and cannot take the water. Probably beyond in the cave it is warmer. You could explore, like any other cub, and leave me in peace to finish the meal I have so graciously provided.

 “Beyond lies the Great Monster,” Goat-dung said, and then realized that she didn’t care. “Very well, I will go alone, but it is dark back there and I may become lost and die, as well.”

 You are inconveniently frail, the cat growled, abandoning the bird to hop down from the ledge with a splash. Follow me. I will not endure this string of constant complaints.

 Goat-dung knew she was disgusting and whining and weak, but at least Coaxtl had not yet cuffed her, even with sheathed claws, much less bitten or clawed her. That was an improvement over the Shepherd and his flock.

 The cat padded rapidly ahead, and for a time Goat-dung could follow by the splashing of the big paws in the pool; but then her own, now bare, feet touched dryness, and the cat’s pads were nothing but a whisper that soon disappeared. “Coaxtl! Where are you?” she called. “I can’t see you.”

 Can you not? Silly cub. I’m right in front of your eyes.

 “Yes, but I can’t see in the dark.”

 Can you not? the cat asked, her voice in Goat-dung’s head genuinely surprised. No fur; a stupid name, no claws, puny teeth that can’t bite through feathers, and half-blind as well. You would have been better off if I’d eaten you, child.

 “I—I suppose so,” Goat-dung said. “I know I’m a terrific bother but if you are going to help me, and you don’t know how stupid and weak I really am, then I thought you wouldn’t know how . . .” She floundered, at a loss for words, realizing she didn’t deserve help, that she should have gratefully accepted any tiny thing the cat offered her, and that all of her talk only proved that what the flock said about her was absolutely right. But really, she had no idea at all what to do with the birds, and the Shepherd had always been very specific about the dangers of eating uncooked meats.

 There’s no help for it then, the cat said. Take hold of my tail, but don’t pull, or I may kill you without thinking about it.

 Coat-dung groped with outstretched hands and felt a brush of air go by her twice before her palm encountered a sturdy furred appendage, less like the flexible tail of a smaller beast and more like a child’s arm in a fur coat. She gently took hold of the end of it, and the cat proceeded at I a slower pace.

 How long they walked, she had no idea. They descended, twisted in the corridors, and climbed, only to descend again on the uneven flooring. Several times she bumped into large columns, some coming up from the floor, some hanging low enough to bang her head, and she cried out for the cat to stop. In order to keep from pulling the tail, she had to let go of it.

 Those are the teeth of the cave, the cat explained. They rise up from the bottom or clamp down from the top. Fortunately, the cave bites very, very slowly and we moving creatures are quite fast by comparison, so we never get eaten.

 “Never?”

 Not in my lifetime anyway, or that of my mother or my mother’s mother or in her memory.

 “Then you know that the cave is a Great Monster, too?”

 The cave and all caves are Home, the cat said simply. And Home has what one needs. If we keep looking, we will find what you need here, too.

 And much later, Coaxtl sat down and said, Ah. When the cat sat down, Goat-dung was forced to drop the tail, but that didn’t matter then, because the cave was filled with a light of its own, and a warmth as well, that seemed to emanate from fissures in the wall.

 Goat-dung recoiled and the cat turned and glared at her with eyes bright and hot as fires, shining like the jewels the Shepherd adorned himself with on his birthday. Coaxtl looked extremely fierce then, but all she said was, If you’re not going to cook those birds after all this, then give them to me and I will eat them.

 “No, I will eat them, once I cook them,” Goat-dung said, clasping the geese to her and turning slightly so the cat couldn’t swipe them away with one big paw.

 Despite her fears, despite her sure knowledge that she was in the belly of the Great Monster, Goat-dung felt less afraid than she had before. Here it was warm and light with a soft glow. A small circle of rock in the center of the floor kindled briefly into a true flame. Maybe it would open beneath her feet and devour her. Perhaps it was a trap, but it reminded her of the cookfires and that she was truly very hungry indeed, and tired, as well. She walked to it, sat down, and began plucking the geese, while Coaxtl fell asleep beside the fire, her breath rumbling contentedly.

 Goat-dung gutted and roasted the bird on the rocks beside the fire. Looking down into it, she could see no coals, no bottom to the hole in fact, and that frightened her; but the rock was very warm by the fire, and the bird cooked slowly, so she ate the outer bits a little at a time. Then she crawled over to the cat and fell asleep, dreaming the sweetest dreams she could remember having: of her mother and of her father’s voice and another cave.

 She dreamed on and on, almost fearing to wake, until the soft furry support beside her was withdrawn and she slipped back against the cave floor with a thump. When she sat up, she realized that Coaxtl, too, was sitting up, listening to the voices that seemed to emanate from the walls of the cave.

  

 Chapter 4

 Mud is a great leveler and, although the military had put down plastic boardwalks so people could get around the muddy streets of Kilcoole, mud did provide a disguise of sorts. One mud-spattered person looked like any other, local or imported. As plastered with this camouflage as everyone else, Yana and Sean had no trouble reaching Adak’s snocle shed. His precious vehicles were now in the loft, and one battered antique 4x4 was parked outside.

 “It’s not an official one,” Yana said, peering at the sides for any SpaceBase markings.

 “It’s Adak’s, all right. I hate to think when they last made those, or what Adak traded to get a hold of one, but somehow he keeps it running,” Sean said, and, his hand on her back again, he propelled her quickly toward the mechanic’s crawl—through set in the main door. He paused only briefly, listening. The only voice within earshot was Adak’s, so they pushed through and into the smell, now redolent with oil and fuel and mud.

 Adak turned from his comm station to see who his visitors were and his face lit up.

 “Yes sir, I got the message. Only official communications. Right ye be! Over.” He lifted the ear piece and rubbed exaggeratedly. “My, that man does go on. Slainte, Sean, Yana. Good to see you; what can I do to help? He glanced down at the comm unit and sniffed expressively.

 Thanks, Adak,” Sean said, grinning as he recognized the man’s tacit willingness to disobey the orders he had just been given.

 “We need to get in touch with Johnny Greene and Rick O’ Shay.”

 “They’re airborne,” Adak said. Special missions.”

 Sean and Yana exchanged glances.

 “What frequency are they on?” Yana asked.

 Adak grinned more broadly. “Happen I just got word of ‘em.” He settled the ear piece again and held his finger over the keyboard. “Who’ll I get ya first? Johnny or Rick?

 “I’d say Rick,” Sean replied.

 Yana and Sean took turns explaining to Rick what was going down, what they wanted him to do, and how they thought he could accomplish it. Rick had already heard enough rumors to know almost as much as they did—and he was willing to help.

 “Hell, all I’m doing right now is figuring out what roads are passable. A lot of equipment might need to be moved,” he said, his voice taking on a gloomy tone. “Johnny’s up and doing the same thing to the west. We’ve both had to swear allegiance and die-for-it oaths to Intergal, but shit, we crossed everything we could while taking it.’ The customary lilt was back in Rick’s voice. “Lemme get Johnny in on this where there aren’t any ears to hear us.”

 “They’ve been monitoring you, then?” Yana asked, not too surprised.

 “Not on this frequency, and I did a little twiddling with the bug they put in the cabin so you don’t have to worry. Soon’s Adak came on, I disconnected a wire. Shouldn’t leave it loose much longer. But I’ll leave word with Adak when Johnny and I’ve done what’s needful. Might even get in one trip tonight if I can finagle it.”

 “You’re top of the finaglers at SpaceBase,” Adak said approvingly. “Code it?”

 “Better. When I come on, ask me the mud level on the road to Tanana Bay. If I say it’s ankle deep, that means Yana and Sean can meet me where Uncle Seamus collects water. If I say it’s knee high, I’m having trouble. I’ll get back to you soon’s I can. Over and out.”

 “Hell,” Adak said, rubbing his ear thoughtfully, “it’s more than ankle deep and knee high everywhere. And I don’t mean just the mud.”

 “Keep yourself out of trouble if you can, Adak. We need you at the comm unit,” Sean said.

 Adak laughed. “Those new guys don’t know doodly about this here comm unit. It don’t take kindly to rough hands and always goes all static and wheeing.” He grinned. “Only old Adak knows its ways.”

 “We’ll stop in at Clodagh’s now, if you should need us,” Sean said, guiding Yana toward the back exit.

 The less-frequented paths actually showed some sturdy grass growth as they made their way behind houses and detoured back into the forest to avoid the new Intergal housing. One of the cats met them halfway to Clodagh’s, and the tone of its greeting suggested that it was pleased to see them.

 “No trouble?” Yana asked, not quite sure she was interpreting the creature accurately.

 Sean grinned, but he kept looking at the ground as they went from mud to snow to the new grass. “No, no trouble. Except . . .” He frowned. “We might just have the longest growing season ever and we’ve got to plan, also, to take advantage of that! It could prove crucial.”

 Yana felt a shiver up her spine and agreed with him whole heartedly at the word “crucial,” knowing that Sean and the others were concerned about what would happen if Intergal cut the planet off from outside supply lines entirely. Though Petaybee was largely self-sufficient, the growing season usually was too short to provide enough fruits and vegetables and other plant-derived products. A longer growing season would mean less reliance on outside sources—and yes, that certainly could be crucial.

 Evening was closing in as they approached Clodagh’s house. They could hear banging and pounding and the sound of boards being shifted, and Yana grinned: someone was doing some of the much—needed repairs of a structure that had been held together by ice in the winter but needed nails and mortar now that the weather was warmer. All over the village people were engaged in similar pursuits. Yana peered around the corner of the house where all the banging was, to tell Clodagh they were there, but as Sean opened the door, she saw that Clodagh was inside. From the look of the interior, the big woman had also been thinking along the same lines as Sean.

 The kitchen was even more filled than usual with good smells, but these did not emanate from the pot that normally sat simmering on her stove. Instead, the earthy odors came from tiers of warming trays raised above the stove and stacked with stones. On the trays were tiny clay pots holding shoots of greenery, and it was from these the smells came. The kitchen table was also covered with little pots and soil and bundles of dried flowers and piles of seeds.

 “Slainte, Sean, Yana,” she said, looking up from where she sat spread-legged on the floor, her skirts hiked up above her moon-shaped pale while knees and colorful hand-knit stockings. Between her knees and her feet and all around her were more pots, more seed packets, and trays of potting compost. Inspecting with critical sniffs all the interesting items laid out to be worked on were various members of the orange-marmalade cat battalion. Two had curled up to sleep in one potting tray not quite large enough for their bulk: they spilled over like immense orange alien plant-forms. “Did you two think of any songs?”

 “Quite a few,” Sean said, fondly leering at Yana.

 ‘Nothing we could repeat in polite company though,” Yana said. “How about you?”

 I got a couple. Mostly though, I thought I ought to make these plants ready to send out to the other villages, and see if while we’re sendin’ folk around, they could collect starts from other places.”

 “I was just commenting that we’ll have a longer than usual growing season,” Sean said.

 “Prob’ly,” Clodagh said. “Unless Petaybee has other ideas.”

 Bunny poked her head in the door. “Slainte, Uncle Sean. Slainte, Yana and Clodagh. For cat’s sakes, Clodagh, don’t most people garden outside?”

 “Only some of this is for my garden, Bunka. The rest will be presents. But right now, help me clean this up or there won’t be room for anybody to stand when the rest of the village gets here.”

 “Okay. C’mon, Diego,” the girl said. Diego stepped shyly inside. In one hand was a piece of wood, in the other a knife. He closed and pocketed the knife and set the billet down by the door.

 “It’s very considerate of you to bring your own firewood, lad, but I’m not usin’ so much these days as to need it.”

 “That’s going to be his guitar,” Bunny said.

 “Oh, really?” Clodagh asked, widening her eyes in mild query.

 “Only part of it,” Diego said.  At sixteen, he was a shy dark boy with beautiful eyes and an unruly lock of black hair that kept falling over them. When he had first come to Petaybee, he’d suffered from the skin blemishes common to young adolescents, but the planet’s dry air had cleared them up. His voice had already changed to a most satisfactory baritone, and he was rapidly becoming gorgeous. “This wood—Uncle Seamus said it was well-seasoned cedar—probably will be good for the neck. I haven’t found anything for the body, but . . .”

 “The planet will come up with something, don’t you worry,” Clodagh told him, beaming up at him with that wide sunny smile that, along with the cascade of wavy black hair now tied back with a thong, was her other greatest beauty. “Come now, give me a hand.”

 From the doorway came another familiar voice. “I can take some of those outside for you now, Clodagh, if you’re ready.”

 Yana turned to see the eminent Dr. Whittaker Fiske, major company stockholder and board member, sticking a hammer back in the heavy webbed belt he wore strapped over dark gray fatigue pants. Clodagh’s bone-knit medicine and the modern ministrations available to company elite had, in the last six weeks, largely healed his broken arm and injured leg: now he merely wore a light bandage for support and walked with the slightest of limps. He wore a navy blue rib-knit sweater and a matching light stocking cap rather rakishly perched over one ear and stood with his hands on his hips, grinning widely and looking immensely pleased with himself.

 “Dr. Fiske!” Yana exclaimed. “How’d you get here?”

 “Walked,” he said. “Great therapy, walking. I used to walk the hills around Trondheim all the time when I was stationed back on Earth. Takes years off you.”

 Sean cast a sidelong glance at Fiske, though his own smile didn’t leave his face. He knew the doctor well enough to know he was on the side of Petaybee, but Whit Fiske was, nevertheless, an outsider in the employ of the opposition. If Clodagh had no problem with him, Yana hardly thought anyone else would object, but there was tension in the air that hadn’t been present before.

 “Dr. Fiske,” Yana said, taking his arm, “I had no idea you were so handy.”

 “We world builders are versatile men,” he said.

 “There was a little matter I wanted to discuss with you privately,” she said.

 “After the meeting then,” he told her, rather to her surprise. He patted her hand and disengaged her arm. “Clodagh asked me particularly to stay. If I am going to represent the company interest in utilizing Petaybee’s assets to the fullest while maintaining the integrity of the planet and the autonomy of the inhabitants, then I need to be working with the locals on every aspect of the operation.”

 “Well, if Clodagh feels that it’s a good idea and you don’t think it’s a conflict of interests . . .” Yana said. “In that case, can you help secure enough fuel to get a plane to the southern pole?”

 “I think I could do that, yes,—he said, with a wink over his shoulder as he went to give Clodagh a hand to get to her feet.

 Bunny and Diego cleared all the seedlings to the sides of the room just before people began steadily to arrive and crowd into Clodagh’s tiny house, twenty squeezing into a space that would comfortably accommodate about a dozen. Clodagh explained to the villagers what the cats had imparted to her. Nobody questioned her, being accustomed to Clodagh and knowing that her information tended to be reliable, however she got it.

 “So,” she said. “I think maybe it would be good if we started off in big groups together. Then folks can break off as we reach the villages they want to get to. When we’ve done what we’ve set out to do, we can join up again on the way back. That way if anybody gets lost or gets into some kind of trouble, there’ll be somebody to notice.”

 The crowd voiced assent.

 Sinead said, “Aisling and I will take Shannonmouth, since there’s trading we want to do there anyway.”

 “I can’t believe McGee’s Pass is going against us,” Bunny said. “Remember how grateful the Connellys were to you, Clodagh, when you sent them that medicine for their dogs? After the dogs got well, they drove all the way up here to bring you that parka Iva Connelly made for you.”

 “That was a few years ago, Bunka, back before they got the new shanachie,” Clodagh reminded her.

 “That shouldn’t change gratitude any! I promise I’ll be very respectful of the new shanachie, just like I was with old McConachie. I’d like Diego to meet the Connellys and, anyway, they’d be the best ones in McGee’s Pass to tell us what’s going on.”

 Clodagh paused. Sending youngsters to one of the trouble spots worried her until Sean said, “Yana and I will go with them and then on to Harrison’s Fjord. I’d like Buneka to join us there, so she can see the place where Aoifa and Mala began their expedition.”

 “Good.”

 The other assignments were made. Liam Maloney agreed to go to Deadhorse, then chanted a new song about the death of his mother while she was away from the planet being questioned by Intergal.

 “Dog-woman, snow-woman, run-with-the-wind-woman

 Mother-woman with the steaming springs

 Streaming in her veins

 Woman to whom the birds sang

 Woman whose voice was soft with snow

 Woman so warm, so warm

 No ice could freeze her

 No avalanche stop her breath

  

 “Her feet were stilled when they left the ground.

 Her breath was stopped in closed rooms

 Where the wind never blows

 She turned cold in hot rooms

 Her steaming blood all bubbled away

 Her voice stilled where no birds sang

 Only the croaking of carrion-crows.

 Aijijai.”

  

 During the recital Liam had looked straight ahead, his eyes closed, his mouth twisting around the words with a mixture of tenderness and bitterness. When he finished his song and his eyes opened, they were full of pain and defiance, and when his mouth closed, his jaw set tightly.

 Diego glanced down and away, and Yana saw that Bunny was holding his hand in a fierce, comforting grip. One of Lavelle’s last guide jobs, the one she was being questioned about when she died, had been to rescue Diego and his father from a blizzard. Diego had become very close to Lavelle during the trip and resented her unnecessary death almost as much as her family did.

 ‘That is a good song, Liam,” Eamon Intiak said. “I have one I’m making to sing to everyone about how the company men snatched us up from the Earth and put us on Petaybee because they wanted our lands on Earth and now they want to take Petaybee.”

 “Wait a minute, son,” Whit Fiske said, standing apart from Clodagh for a moment. His chin was raised a little defensively as he spoke, although his tone was as genial as ever. “I think most of you know me and know that I have a lot of feeling for what you folks are up against. But the company is a fact of life here, and let’s not make it worse than it is already.”

 “You just say that because your granddad put us here Liam accused.

 “No, son, I don’t.”

 “I’m not your son. Your people killed my mother.”

 “His name is Liam Maloney, Whit,” Clodagh said.

 “Thanks, Clodagh. No offense intended, Mr. Maloney. You’re partly right. My grandfather was partially responsible for choosing Petaybee to Terraform, and for the process that made the planet fit to live on, but he didn’t actually put anybody here. The resettling was done by another branch of the company. And yes, they had certain ulterior motives: at the time, those lands on Earth were very much prime real estate. But there were other reasons, too. So, before you folks decide the company is responsible for all your troubles, I think a little reminder of historical fact is needed. Does anybody have any idea what I’m talking about?”

 Yana groaned inwardly. Fiske, with what she was sure were good intentions, had put his foot squarely in his mouth. For a diplomatic man, he had lousy timing. People here didn’t read and write, and their songs tended to be about personal events or about the conditions they survived on the planet: at least, she’d never heard any historical ballads. Should she speak up and give Fiske some support?

 Would it do any good? She wasn’t a native Petaybean, either.

 “You’re talking about the War for Unification, Whit?” Sean asked.

 “Among others,” Whittaker answered, trying not to show how relieved he was. “Half the ancestors of those here in Kilcoole would have died if we hadn’t evacuated to Petaybee the faction they were part of—the ones who were getting their asses kicked.”

 “And those doing the kicking?” Bunny asked, cocking her head in a semi-critical fashion.

 “Went to other habitable planets. We weren’t about to settle ancestral enemies together,”—Whittaker said with a snort. “The company figured that, with warring factions split up, enough new land to go around, and no traditional enemies to fight, their energies would be put to good use and there’d be enough of them left to hand down the good traits they had submerged to fight. Then the company could restore the fought-over and very battered real estate on Earth. Everyone would end up with more than they would have had otherwise. Most importantly, they’d end up alive.”

 “Ah, sure and I’m moved to tears, Doctor darlin’, to hear how kind you’ve been to us poor savages,” Adak surprised Yana by saying with his brogue-deepened sarcasm.

 “I’m not trying to white wash the company or its decisions,” Whittaker said. “But there were some altruistic and ethnic preserving reasons operating at the time. Company people aren’t all bad, any more than everyone on this planet is all good. The sociologists who designed the population balance tried not only to mix people used to cold weather with those who weren’t, but also to mix groups who might get along with each other and share characteristics that would make for a more successful adjustment to the environment.”

 “Yes, and we turned out very well, Whit, thank you,” Clodagh said, and tugged on his webbed belt for him to return to her side, exhibiting her approval of what he had explained. It was a good point to make. What we want to do is to stand together and tell the company what we want what Petaybee wants. Just makin’ somebody else to blame isn’t gonna help the planet. We got to get people to understand, and you can’t do that while you’re shoutin’. Now then, Eamon, why don’t you go speak to the folks up at New Barrow?”

 When everyone had a destination, Clodagh handed out the seedlings, good will gifts for the hoped-for long growing season. Some people were using the trips as an excuse to visit relatives they hadn’t seen in a while, and by the time everyone left, the venture had lost its bitter edge and was infused with something of a holiday spirit.

  

 Chapter 5

 Merde alors! thought Marmion de Revers Algemeine as she looked out the shuttle window at a piebald landscape covered half with mud, half with dirty ice and snow. What have I gotten myself into this time? Oh, well, I promised Whit! No one in their right mind would want Mad Matt to make a unilateral decision on anything, up to and including when people should be allowed to use the sanitary facilities.

 Vice-Chairman Matthew Luzon had already started his program,” Marmion suspected, when he insisted that the shuttle pilot divert to the site of “this so-called” volcano the planet was supposed to have—extruded? No, the word was erupted. They were also to swing past the area where Whittaker Fiske and everyone were supposed to have had their senses taken over by this so-distant “sentient” planet.

 Marmion rather liked the notion of a planet with a mind of its own. So few people could boast that sort of decisiveness. Especially Mad Matt. She chided herself for using that term: who knew when she might tactlessly blurt it out by mistake? Her tongue sometimes didn’t wait for mental censorship anymore. Did that show she was getting some sense? Or losing what she had?

 No, she wasn’t losing an iota of her good sense, she told herself firmly, remembering the fiscal coup she had just contrived with three supposedly moribund technical companies. They’d each had something the others needed, and none of their CEOs had had the sense to compromise an inch in a takeover, hostile or friendly. So, last year, she’d instructed one of her holding companies to buy out all three. Banging the right heads together and leaving the sensible ones in charge had resulted in such a whopping great net profit after taxes that she’d soon have to form yet another holding company to hide that financial triumph. No matter how Mad Matt—no, no, no, Matthew—boasted of his own recent successes, she’d done better than he had by several billions. But she wasn’t one to brag.

 “You can’t really deny that that’s one of the shapes volcanoes assume,” she said, having heard what Matthew was muttering to one of his numerous assistants.

 “And, my dear, how ever did you know there are various types of volcanoes? Matthew asked in that smarmy voice of his. His assistants smiled fatuously at him and superciliously at her.

 ‘Because I have a master’s degree in geology,” she said, smiling sweetly at all of them.

 ‘But it’s not doing anything now,” Matthew remarked, and pointed out the square window that gave a good view of the “dimple” of the cone as the shuttle circled. Not so much as a wisp of smoke or a belch of ash was visible, but for kilometers around the land was shades of gray from cooling lava or wet, mud-streaked ash.

 “If you’ve seen enough, Dr. Luzon,” the pilot said over the intercom, “I’ll proceed to the cave-site coordinates.”

 Matthew flicked a hand at one of his assistants, who immediately issued the actual order.

 “Are we going to land and investigate the cave, Matthew?” Marmion asked ingenuously.

 “I just wanted to orient myself for the purpose of further on-the-spot investigations.”

 “Wise.”

 He made a big show of peering down at the site when they reached it minutes later. Marmion needed only to confirm that the rocky up thrust of the cliff was visibly a limestone formation and most certainly riddled with caves. Since Whittaker Fiske was unlikely to fall for illusions, much less delusions, she’d take the rest of his report as valid until she had substantial reason to doubt it. Whit was not one to jeopardize either his position with Intergal or his reputation with wild and unprovable statements.

 “This is the right place?” Matthew asked, his expression bland, but Marmion knew not to trust that.

 “We’re right over the coordinates I was given, Dr. Luzon,” the pilot said. “The stream is visible and the ledge, and my scanner’s picking up the copter footprints on the nearest possible landing surface. Several footprints, and different size copters.”

 “Can’t deny the evidence, can we?” Matthew said. “All right. Proceed for an aerial pass over that town that young Fiske mentioned Kil . . something.”

 “Kilcoole, Matthew,” Marmion said helpfully, as if aiding someone with a faulty memory. There was not a thing wrong with Luzon’s memory, it had proved far too accurate too often. Perhaps not honest, or properly evaluating the memories, but the details were always indisputably proffered. Details were Matthew’s chief weapons—the details that others might forget or misremember. Then he’d pounce with that deadly and devious accuracy of his.

 Kilcoole, as seen through the shuttle windows, was a hodgepodge of widely spaced roofs, some merely darker patches under well-branched trees, with narrow brown tracks, bordered by muddied boardwalks. Not many people were about, though she saw some industrious souls making repairs, and a few others digging up garden-size squares behind their houses. She approved of such occupations. She enjoyed taking care of the extraterrestrial flowers and plants she nurtured in a cleverly connected succession of domes, set at the required temperatures, gravities, and air mixtures that the exotics required. She had fond memories of once being able to get hands and nails dirty, mucking in the small garden of the first house she and Ulgar Algemeine had bought. How young they had been!

 She mentally shook those fond memories away and listened to what Matthew was saying.

 “Crude in the extreme. How long has this—this place,” he asked, managing to pour a great deal of contempt into the one word, “been established—if you can possibly call that huddle of huts ‘established’?” His assistants did not answer and Marmion had no intention of interrupting him. “And this . . . place harbors the dissidents? Kilcoole, indeed. Kill cool is what we shall do to such pretensions.”

 “Are you sure of that?” Marmion asked in a languid tone. “I feel we are perhaps a tad over civilized at times. Matt, dear. We’ve lost the common touch—“

 “Thank God,” Matthew said explosively.

 “—that would permit us to evaluate the struggle against climate and conditions. I do find it appealing that amid all the snow and mud, they’re already starting gardens!”

 Matthew snorted. “Gardens? More than square-meter plots are required to adequately feed even this indolent population. They can’t expect Intergal to continue to support them with expensive importation’s of subsistence rations.”

 Marmion raised one hand in a gesture of indolent appeal. “I don’t believe rations are imported to Petaybee, Matthew. Do check, one of you,” she said, flicking her fingers at his assistants, “because I have the oddest recollection that they are actually self-sufficient.”

 “Not with the quantities of fuel and—“

 ‘Fuel is for vehicles, not humans, Matthew. Haven’t you got those figures for me yet?” Her attitude remained indifferent, but the slight edge to her tone made the skinny one of Matthew’s sycophants tap with greater rapidity at his notepad.

 “No, sir, ma’am, no rations are imported for the indigenous population.” Then he gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbling up and down.

 Marmion had to look away. The poor dear Matthew would probably taunt him about that when he was in one of his moods. And the other young men—Matthew only had young men as assistants, which rather gave away something, at least to Marmion, that Matthew would probably rather not have known—were all reasonably attractive and looked fit and able for anything physically taxing. Trust Matthew to make the most of comparisons.

 “Thank you, dear,” Marmion said to the skinny lad. “And do tell me your name again . . . my memory, you know.”

 In point of fact, Matthew had not bothered to introduce any of the assistants, although she had pointedly introduced Sally Point-Jefferson, her personal secretary; Millard Ephiasos, her research assistant; and Faber Nike, whose position on her staff she had not designated. Too many people presumed that Faber’s large muscular frame and quiet deference marked a deficient intelligence and lack of personality. Too many people were wrong. Especially those who thought Faber was a bed mate. Marmion made a habit of hiring versatile, multi-talented people. It saved money and engendered loyalty and discretion.

 “My name is Braddock Makem, madam,” was the reply, couched in the lowest possible audible tone.

 “Thank you, Mr. Makem.” She smiled. It never hurt, and for all she knew it might gain her a discreet ally on Matthew’s staff.

 “Stop trying to charm my staff,” Matthew said testily, giving Makem a piercing glare. Makem’s apple did an unhappy series of perpendicular maneuvers.

 “I’ve given up on that score long ago, Matthew,” she lied shamelessly. “You really do know how to incur loyalty among your staff. I could use a little of that genius.” Then, because she was near to laughter at the expression on all those startled earnest faces, she abruptly focused her eyes on the passing landscape. “Ah, the river that suddenly de-iced itself. My, it is turbulent,” she said. “And overrunning its banks, too. Flood control apparently is another local lack. But, oh, glance over toward the clear fields, Matthew. Someone’s out there doing something to the ground. Plowing? Is that what you call it? And what on earth would you call the beasts they have harnessed to that queer device?” She had everyone on her side of the shuttle to see this archaic activity. “Well, isn’t that nice, Matthew. They heard you.”

 Matthew favored her with a sour glare. She could almost see the phrase “they’ll hear me loud and clear” coming out in a bubble from his tightly shut lips. Certainly that was the expression evident in his glare.

 A little noise, like a suppressed cough, issued from the seats behind her. Faber, more than likely, she thought. He’d never said as much, of course, but she knew he despised Matthew Luzon. Almost as much as she did, and Sally and Millard for that matter. She’d chosen this team very well indeed.

 Then the shuttle was within sight of SpaceBase and its ridiculously colored auxiliary buildings. Who had the tastelessness to use such awful colors? Marmion wondered. Probably every color of paint rejected throughout Intergal had ended up here, on the walls of this eye sore.

 She did not, however, as Matthew did at length, comment on the condition of the landing field, with its craters and cracks and the blocks of plascrete that had been elevated by the seismic activity. As they seemed localized on the field, Marmion was quite charmed by the notion of a sentient planet that could so specialize its internal effects to cause the most discomfort to the inhabitants it did not wish to remain on its surface. A most considerate friend and formidable enemy, such an entity would be, if it was possible.

 And who was to say it was not? Marmion shrugged. She had a fondness for mysteries in this over analyzed universe in which she lived. Enigmas attracted her curiosity, and solving them gave her a chance to stretch her mind and resources. How wonderful if this truly proved to be the enormous and complex puzzle the report promised! Whether it was quite what the locals claimed or not, however, there had to be more here than the prosaic scene below, or the official explanations of the uncanny events detailed in the reports, no matter how disparaging the “logical” explanation. Or accurately detailed. She was quite delighted she had come, and should this planet prove to be a sentient entity, she would be even more delighted to make its acquaintance. She hoped, rather whimsically, that the planet would respond as well to her and not judge her too harshly by the company she kept.

 There was, of course, much fan fare as the shuttle landed on one of the few level portions of the field. A proper welcoming committee was there, and if no red carpet had been spread, the plascrete had obviously been scrubbed clean of the mud and goo that was smeared over most of the rest of the landing area. The ground vehicles gleamed with a high wax finish in the clear sunlight.

 Her lungs took in the spring—crisp air in great gulps. She was almost dizzy with the intoxication of undeniably fresh air.

 “Oh, my word, air! Give me air like this wherever I go,” she said dramatically, one hand on her heaving chest.

 Matthew shot her a disgusted glance. “Marmion, the air may appear to be fresh, but you cannot be sure it isn’t filled with bacteria and microbes that will have a deleterious effect on your health. Which we must preserve!” he added with that dreadful smile he affected when he was pretending to be solicitous while really hoping the person he was talking to would fall over dead.

 By quickly linking her arm in Faber’s, she neatly avoided contact as Matthew held out a hand to help her down the scrupulously clean stairs. Faber escorted her deftly to the ground, but Sally and Millard had to wait until Matthew and his minions had disembarked. Maybe Sally would be able to make some sort of impression on one of the handsome, physically fit young assistants. She usually managed. She’d have to be very clever with Matthew’s boys, but that’s what Sally was: clever, astute, discreet, and exceedingly intelligent.

 Once more into the fray, dear friends, Marmion thought as she observed Captain Torkel Fiske in full flash uniform, standing just slightly ahead of his father—rather naughty of Torkel, she thought. Whittaker was dressed far more casually, but she’d never seen him look so fit and happy. Happy, she thought, wondering that that adjective should spring to mind. Who had time to be “happy” in the Intergalactic society of which she, Whittaker, and Matthew were part? In any event, she smiled at Whittaker, as he neatly elbowed his son out of the way to be first to greet her.

 “Is your arm all healed? And the leg wound?” she asked solicitously as they embraced. He wore a support bandage on his arm and she’d noticed just the faintest hint of a limp as he moved.

 “Of course, Marmie. You can’t keep an old dog like me down. I not only had Intergal’s best medicos working on me, but the best immediate and convalescent medical care available here. I’ll say that for this planet—good for your health,” Whittaker said. Releasing her—a trifle reluctantly, she felt—he turned to shake hands, showing just the right deference and enthusiasm, with Matthew. “You are welcome, Matthew. Your input will be invaluable.”

 Liar, Marmion thought, but she smiled vacuously as the two men went through the courtesies.

 Matthew introduced his gaggle of ganders to Whittaker, adding the provenance of each and their area of expertise. That is, he introduced all but poor Adam’s Apple.

 “And this is Braddock Makem,” she said, smiling brightly first at Matthew, then at Whit, and finally at poor startled Makem. “You remember Sally, I’m sure, Whit. And Millard and Faber, who are my staunch henchmen.”

 Whit shook hands with her assistants and then waved everyone to the waiting vehicles. The travel bags had already been unloaded and were on their way to whatever accommodations this depressing place might have for people of her and Matthew’s prestige.

 “We’ve laid on a fine meal for you, Marmie,” Whit said, making sure he sat beside her in the large personnel transport. Its seats, hard as they were, had been re-covered with rather fine furs.

 “How kind of you,” Marmion replied, and then, feeling the soft texture of the covers, she said, “And are these locally produced?” She did not have to pretend her enthusiasm, for she had seldom felt such beautifully cured natural pelts.

 “Yes,” Torkel Fiske answered from the double seat behind her. “It’s the one thing they do very well here.”

 “Really?” she asked, managing to keep the irony out of her rejoinder. “How interesting! You must show me more,” she said languidly. “I really could use some new stoles. Maybe a muff or two for when I have to stand in freezing airlocks and transfer stations.”

 “Better let young Fiske buy for you, Marmion,” Matthew said. “The moment they heard your off world accent, they’d quadruple the price.”

 “No, we do that!” Whittaker said at his drollest.

 Marmion snuggled against him, wrapping her fingers about his arm and squeezing them slightly. “It’s so good to see you, Whit! Whatever’s been going on down here, it’s really brightened you up. I do believe you were getting office—bound.”

 Whittaker chuckled and jerked his head at the very upright, disapproving back of Matthew Luzon sitting in front of them.

 Marmion squeezed his arm again. “A field trip is what we’ve all needed to get the juices flowing and the lungs filling with good clean air.” Luzon’s shoulders twitched, and Marmion felt Whittaker’s ribs moving in silent laughter. “We’ll all put our minds to this little problem and sort it out in next to no time. Won’t we, Matthew?”

 His terse answer was lost in a screech of badly worn brake pads, as the carrier halted in front of a building, freshly painted in an aggressively bright yellow.

 “Sorry about the color, Marmion,” Whittaker said when he saw her wince. “All that’s left in Stores, but at least it’s clean and bright.”

 This time Matthew’s snort of disgust was plainly audible. As he walked to the door, his body language spoke of displeasure, resentment, and aggravation.

 “Oh, dear, we’re in for it,” Marmion murmured so that only Whittaker heard her. “I believe we are,” he responded as quietly.

 “Fore warned is fore armed,” she added, and then rose to walk as gracefully as ever down the aisle and up the steps and into the incredibly yellow building.

  

 Chapter 6

 The long multi-segmented caravan divided, then subdivided, and subdivided again. The first to leave were Sinead and Aisling, who went visiting Shannonmouth, closest to Kilcoole of the three villages on the route. Although Sinead could ride all day, Aisling did not travel as well, especially on horseback. Most of the time she preferred to walk and lead her curly-horse, chatting to the mare as frequently as she addressed Sinead, Sean, Yana, Bunny, or Diego. The mare seemed oblivious to the burdens she carried: bundles of blankets, sewing things, and decorating materials, as well as a back pack and a bale of finely tanned furs from Sinead’s winter hunt.

 Bunny thought it was aces traveling with this particular group. She was so used to Diego now, she’d be lost without his company, and she had liked Yana Maddock since Day One and looked forward to having her as an auntie when she and Sean got hitched. And both Sinead and Sean knew all sorts of special places where they could sleep under cover. With the people traveled Alice B, Sinead and Aisling’s lead dog; Nanook, one of the track-cats who lived out at Sean’s lab; and Dinah, the Maloneys’ lead dog, who had taken such a shine to Diego that she preferred his company to Liam’s. She also liked Bunny: when Bunny stroked her, she could even receive Dinah’s somewhat frenetic communications.

 After leaving Sinead and Aisling in Shannonmouth, the group continued on, following the river that snaked uphill past McGee’s Pass. There the river was joined by the Iffy, so called because it was iffy if it ran or not, depending on the season, and how frozen it was or how dry the weather had been. The Iffy was in full spate now, pouring its glacial white waters into the clear Shannon; the two mingled murkily all the way to Harrison’s Fjord.

 As Bunny and Diego parted from Sean and Yana, Sean said, “Listen, you two. By all means, visit the Connellys and, if you can do so, find out what’s going on. But, if feeling is very strong in favor of the mines, leave and come find us, and we’ll all do it together. I want you to meet us at Harrison’s Fjord in three days’ time. It’s only a day to the Fjord, so that gives you two days to suss things out.

 Okay? I’d like to have more time, but with the PTBs arriving soon, Yana and I have got to catch a ride down under as soon as we’ve finished our business and Johnny or Rick are free.”

 “Can we go down under, too?” Bunny asked.

 “I doubt if the aircraft will be big enough to hold four passengers,” Yana said. “Using one of the smaller copters is wisest. Now, get going so you’ll reach the Connellys in time to be invited for supper. Sean and I have a ways to go yet.”

 Later, when the adults disappeared around the base of the next hill and Bunny and Diego steered their curlies toward the pass, Bunny said, “Did you hear? They didn’t say no! We might get to go down under, Diego!”

 “What’s it like?” he asked.

 “I don’t know. Never been. Different from here though I think. I’ve never heard of anyone coming up from the southern pole. You have to cross a whole big ocean, and that just isn’t smart to do in our little boats. I guess they don’t have any bigger ones down there or we’d see more of them up here. My parents were trying to prove a theory about an undersea passage from the caves near Harrison’s Fjord when they disappeared. Hey! What if they got through and the passage—you know, something went wrong with it, so they couldn’t come home, but when we get down there we’ll find them!”

 “I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Diego said. “It’s been how many years now?”

 “I dunno. Over ten. I was real little when they left.”

 “I’d think in all that time they’d have found somebody to bring word back, knowing how worried everybody would be. Of course, if it was my mom,” he added, his tone turning wry, “she’d get so involved with her work she’d never notice she forgot to bring me with her, but you people aren’t like that.”

 “Well, thanks a lot. But I prefer to hope, if it’s all the same to you. Or isn’t anybody else supposed to? You got your father back. I guess that’s all that matters.”

 “I didn’t mean for you to take it that way, Bunny. I wouldn’t have got my dad back if it wasn’t for you and Clodagh and everybody, and sure I hope there’s people who will help your folks down under. I’d just hate to see you get all excited and be disappointed.”

 “I’ll be excited if I want to,” she said tartly. “And I’ve been disappointed before.”

 Diego didn’t say anything, and Bunny regretted being so sharp with him. He was probably just showing how much he cared about her, as Aisling would say. But he was only two years older than she was, and he shouldn’t treat her like a kid.

 So after that, they rode in silence until they rounded the bend at the foot of the pass and were greeted by a roaring wind funneling through the cleft and almost blowing them back down to the Shannon.

 Flattening themselves against the necks of the curlies, they trudged up the trail, which was some what less muddy than the flatlands. The air was also noticeably chillier. Dinah dropped behind the horses and padded along in the shelter of their sturdy bodies.

 McGee’s Pass wasn’t very big. Not even as big as Kilcoole, Bunny thought with surprise as they rode between the first pair of houses. There were only about eight houses, situated fairly close together, lining the wide spot in the trail that passed for a road. The road was heavily churned up and tracked into ruts, ridges, and pockmarks lightly covered with a recent sprinkling of snow, making the footing extremely slippery and uneven.

 The houses were unimproved original company issue, shored up with pieces of timber, stones, mud bricks, plascrete, hides, and whatever else was handy. As in Kilcoole, the ground was littered with the refuse of many long winters and warm seasons not quite warm enough to melt the snows.

 “Everybody must be inside having lunch,” Bunny said of the deserted streets.

 But that didn’t explain the quiet. She saw no dogs, no curlies, nothing except one lone marmalade cat trying to catch what warmth it could on a plascrete roof.

 Dinah wandered from house to house, object to object, sniffing and whining, barking once or twice, and sniffing and whining some more. At one place, she paused to urinate near a doorstep.

 The cat looked down at her as if considering jumping on her back for a ride. Dinah jumped up, pawing the house, and barked sharply. The cat rose and stretched itself, and jumped lightly down from the roof onto a barrel and then to the ground.

 After a mutual sniff, the cat sauntered up the street, its tail describing arches in the air above its back, while Dinah struggled not to run over the creature in her haste to go wherever the cat was going.

 Bunny and Diego followed the dog. The cat walked out of town, which wasn’t all that far to go, and up toward the pass, and then abruptly disappeared into a bush beside the trail.

 Bunny and Diego dismounted. A voice came from behind the bush, then suddenly, many voices, and then the bush moved aside and a person appeared in what turned out to be the entrance to a cave.

 The person, a man who looked a bit like Bunny’s uncle Adak, seemed startled to see them. “Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want? he demanded, blocking the entrance to the cave.

 “Slainte,” Bunny said as normally as possible. After all, if these people were supporting the company instead of the planet, she wasn’t surprised that they might be a little defensive. “I was looking for the Connelly family. I thought they lived around here.”

 “Who is it askin’ after the Connellys?” a woman’s voice asked from behind the man. “Krilerneg O’Malley, will you move your ass so the rest of us can get out.”

 “Is that you, Iva?” Bunny asked. As O’Malley did as he was bid, she saw that it was indeed Iva Connelly, or someone who looked very much like her, coming out into the daylight.

 Unlike the unmannerly O’Malley, the woman cleared the doorway and came over to the horses, allowing a stream of men, women, and children to emerge behind her.

 “What is it, Ma?” a boy asked. He was a tall boy, not dark like most of the people Bunny knew, but fair-haired and blue-eyed.

 The woman looked puzzled herself, and for a moment Bunny was afraid she’d got the wrong person.

 “Slainte, dama,” she said again. “I don’t know if you remember me or not, but I’m Buneka Rourke, the snocle driver from Kilcoole. This is my friend Diego Metaxos.”

 “That’s not a Kilcoole name,” the boy said in a suspicious mutter.

 “Never mind that, Krisuk,” the woman said. “You’ve had a long journey, Bunka. You must be tired and hungry.”

 The people parted in front of another man now, this one dressed in skins and furs, all ornamented with beads the way Aisling did the latchkay blouses. More striking than his clothing, however, was his physical appearance. He was a very large man and very handsome, his hair worn in a black mane, with a trim black beard covering his chin and a heavy black mustache guarding his mouth.

 “The others not only let him pass but actually shrank from him. He carried a staff with the skull of some small animal—a squirrel perhaps, although it looked more like . . . No, it couldn’t be a cat’s skull! Nobody would do anything so gruesome as to display the skull of a cat.

 She did notice, however, that the marmalade cat, who had been there a moment before, had completely disappeared.

 “Iva, my child, of course this lovely creature and her friend are tired and hungry. You must bring them to my house to eat and rest.” He turned to Bunny and gave her a smile that invited her to admire him, and extended his hand less to shake hers than to sign a blessing at her. “I am Satok, the shanachie. Welcome to my village.”

 “Slainte, Satok,” Bunny said. “And thanks for the invitation. I just came bringing greetings to the Connellys from our healer, Clodagh Senungatuk, but she has spoken of you and I know she will be glad to hear that I met you.”

 Iva Connelly spoke to the shanachie, and Bunny thought her manner unusually timorous for someone speaking to the town’s rememberer and chief singer and storyteller. “Bunka is an important woman in Kilcoole, shanachie. She is one of two people permitted to drive the company’s snocles. On her mother’s side she is descended from the Shongili scientists. Her uncle is Sean himself, and she was all but raised by Clodagh, the healer.”

 The speech would normally have embarrassed Bunny, except that she had the oddest feeling that Iva was presenting her credentials, to show that Bunny was a person worthy of respect and under the protection of important and powerful people. Satok, apparently, took the speech as an advertisement for her—her charms? He was looking at her in the way of men who were courting, except more boldly and without deference.

 “Fine recommendations indeed,” he said, grasping her hand. “I am so honored that you have come to my village.”

 “We—uh—we brought a song to the Connellys from their friends in Kilcoole,” Diego said rather sharply. “Come on, Bunny. Maybe we can visit the shanachie later, if there’s time. We’re on kind of a tight schedule. We’re being expected soon, elsewhere.”

 Bunny, uneasy at the burning look she was getting from the shanachie, did not mind Diego intervening in her affairs this time. Iva Connelly shot them a relieved glance and one that was apologetic to the shanachie before she hustled them, the boy, and a passel of other relatives back to a house no bigger than Clodagh’s.

 Iva, her husband Miuk, and their own children and grandchildren, including the blond-haired boy, all lived under this roof. It smelled musky, of closeness and constant occupation. Except for six beds and a table, the furnishings were few and the food stores did not appear to be many.

 “We brought our own supplies,” Bunny told Iva. “And some seedlings from Clodagh. She and Sean both think this will be an unusually long growing season.”

 Iva did not respond to her remark at once. “Niambh,” she said to one of the granddaughters. “Put the kettle on for our guests.”

 She sat herself down on one bed and motioned to Diego and Bunny to sit on another. The rest of the Connellys surrounded them closely. The youngest ones had to be deflected from the saddlebags, which intrigued them.

 “That was kind of Clodagh, but I doubt we’ll plant much this year,” Miuk said. “We’ll be busy helping Intergal at the new mine sites.”

 Bunny tried not to act surprised. The cats’ information, after all, was accurate. That marmalade rascal who had led them to the meeting cave was no doubt a useful informant.

 Diego surprised her. He usually hung back in discussions, but now he leaned forward and gave Iva a penetrating look.

 “And how,” he asked, “does your shanachie feel about the possibility of newly opened mine sites?”

 “Why, he thinks it’s about time, of course. He says the planet is very offended that we refuse to accept all of its gifts. That’s why the planet won’t communicate with any of us anymore, but speaks only to Satok.”

 “What?” Bunny cried.

 “Just as she says, girl, are you deaf?” Miuk said. “The planet now communicates its needs and we communicate ours to it only through Satok.”

 “Why? Isn’t the planet ‘mad’ at him, too?” Diego asked, just managing not to sneer.

 “You don’t understand,—“ Iva said. “You’ve had Clodagh to guide you, to keep you whole. But McConachie was old and not right in the head for a long time before he died. And no one else came forward for years. We—we lost touch. We misinterpreted things. We did wrong things. Offensive things. Until Satok came to interpret, everything got harder and harder for us. Animals didn’t come to the dying places. The river didn’t thaw for three summers. We couldn’t grow gardens. Not until Satok came did we know what the problem was. We had angered the planet by not cooperating with the company when it wished our help to make its explorations.”

 “Which explorations?” Bunny asked. She wasn’t aware that help had been recruited further afield than Kilcoole.

 “There was one last year. Some fellas came looking for guides. They landed in a shuttle. I don’t think they even went to SpaceBase. They said there was some kinda special minerals we were supposed to have here that they were lookin’ for.”

 “There were others, too,” Miuk said. “Ask Clodagh. Sometimes if what the company wanted was near Shannonmouth, people from Kilcoole would just send them on, or bring them this far and no farther. My brother Upik guided one group, but we never saw him again.”

 “I went out with my father and Lavelle Maloney with a group,” Diego said in a quiet, intense voice. “We got into a white out. But we took refuge inside the planet. My father . . . well, he was bad for a while and almost died from the shock but Clodagh and Bunny and the others helped him and now he’s better. That sort of thing seems to happen to a lot of company teams.”

 Iva shook her head. “They did not ask permission then.

 As Satok says, we used to do it all wrong. He says that Miuk’s brother and our other folks killed the company teams and the planet punished them—and us—because of it.

 “Why does he tell you such lies?” Bunny asked. She had restrained herself long enough. Now she was really mad.

 “He doesn’t lie. As long as we’ve done what he says, made the payments he wants, things have been better.”

 “Payments?” Diego asked incredulously, sticking his jaw out.

 “Just little things. Food, furs, some sewing for him, the best pups from the litters, and the best lead dog to train them.”

 “Oh, that sort of payments,” Diego said in a tone of voice that Bunny had never heard him use. But she knew what he was leading up to. “And all your troubles have disappeared with his help?”

 Universally solemn nods answered the query.

 “And the planet doesn’t mind you digging hard down into itself—Diego made a savage downward thrust with his hand, then gave a mean twist to his imaginary tool as it threw its imaginary contents onto the floor—and making big sores on its surface?”

 There was a stunned rumble at his harsh words.

 “You, young Diego, are a stranger, not of this planet. How can you pretend to know its wishes? How can you pretend to know our needs? You have no understanding of the planet, of us, or of how it is at Shannonmouth,” Miuk said sternly, shifting his legs into an aggressive stance.

 “Quite possibly I don’t,” Diego said, staring back at him so unafraid that Bunny was as proud of him as she was scared. “But I have a song to sing . . .”

 Bunny breathed a secret sigh of relief. Diego was sure catching on fast. Out of inbred courtesy, everyone in the tiny house relaxed just that little bit that showed they would be receptive to a song, but not to more words that went against their shanachie. Of all the tense faces, Bunny noticed only one, that of the light-haired boy, Krisuk, that did not wear the same defensive, half-frightened look. She had mistaken Krisuk’s expression for sullenness at first, but as Diego talked, the other boy’s face relaxed and she saw that he was angry—and not at them. Diego, as if he’d been doing it all his life instead of just the past few months, lifted his head, half closed his eyes, and sang the song he had composed for the Kilcoole latchkay.

 “I am new come, in storm, here.

 A storm of heart and mind and soul.

 I sought and found storm with Lavelle.

 She saved me when the sled crashed down.

 With the heat of her body she saved me.

 With the wit of her mind she saved my father, too.

 Saved me to see the cavern that all say I didn’t see.

  

 “But I saw the caverns and the water and the carving

 Of wind and water.

 I saw the gleaming snow, like jeweled cloth.

 I saw the branches waving, the water talking.

 The ice answering, the snow laughing. I saw

 The animals of water and earth and they were

 Talking, too.

 They were kind to me and answered all my

 Questions

 But I do not know what questions I asked.

 I do not know what answers I heard.

 I know the cavern, the branches, the talking water.

 The speaking ice and the laughing snow. I know

 That you know it, too. So hear my song

 And believe me. For I have seen what you have seen.

 And I am changed. Hear my song. Believe me.”

  

 “Diego is no stranger to Petaybee. The planet has spoken to him,” Bunny said quietly in the respectful silence that followed a true song. For she could see by their reception that the Connellys could recognize the song for what it was. “The planet speaks to few,” Iva said, nodding her head.

 “But here,” Miuk said in a harsh voice, “the planet speaks to Satok and none other, and it is he we must obey in the name of the planet.”

 “Well spoken, Miuk.” There were gasps of astonishment as Satok stuck his head through a carefully opened window. “Well sung, young traveler.”

 Iva quickly rose and opened the door. She was red with the embarrassment at the shanachie having to listen through a window to hear something going on in her house.

 Immediately it occurred to Bunny that that might be how he knew so much of what went on in his village. Inside, he made straight for the bed on which Bunny and Diego sat. But Diego, acting quickly, shifted so that Satok would have to sit next to him instead of Bunny, as had been his very obvious intention.

 “Then young traveler, do you think the planet says one thing for one town and something else for another?” Satok asked, his eyes glistening, his mouth set at a derisive slant.

 “Your town is near mines, Kilcoole is not.”

 “But Lavelle was searching for mines, was she not, when your group became lost in white out?”

 “We were, but well east of Kilcoole and well north of here,” Diego answered calmly. Bunny thought he was much cleverer than the shanachie, who was obviously trying to catch him out.

 “What else did the planet say to you that you made such a song?”

 Diego looked up at the intimidating face of Satok. “The planet gave me words to sing, which I have sung. Now my mouth is dry, and we have come a long way to see Iva Connelly and thank her for gifts, bringing gifts in return.”

 “Bah!” Satok said with a scornful glance at the seedlings. “There will be no time for growing things when the company sends orders.”

 “There is time now,” Bunny said, encouraged by Diego’s attitude. “The days grow long enough and the soil here will soon be as ready as it is in Kilcoole. It takes nothing from the company to supply fresh food. The company only gives cans and dried stuff. Our people need fresh food.”

 Satok jumped to his feet. “I will tell what is good for my people, not you strangers.” He whirled on Iva. “You will not accept these gifts.” Iva’s expression was terrified and shocked, but he ignored her. “When the planet feels that you are worthy of them, the planet will provide.” Then, at his full and imposing height, he glared down at Diego and Bunny. “You were not invited.” His thick fore finger pointed ominously at Diego. “You come here and try to tell my people what is proper.” He pointed at Bunny, and a most curiously avid expression fleeted across his face. “The planet speaks through me, and I am the best judge of who and what is good for these people I will decide which gifts are acceptable for this portion of the planet. Your shanachie means well, but she is ignorant of our true needs. I will instruct you tomorrow, when you have rested.”

 With that he stalked out of the little house, pausing briefly to eye the curlies, leaving everyone nervous, staring at nothing, or actively trembling. Bunny shook with fury, and Diego had clamped his teeth down on his lip to keep from speaking. He gave Bunny one long look, and his shoulders sagged just like everyone else’s did.

 Iva could barely manage to be civil after that. She had been embarrassed in front of them by the shanachie’s behavior, and embarrassed in front of the shanachie by theirs. She was furious with her husband, as well. She did not, however, refuse the provisions Bunny and Diego had brought in their saddlebags to augment the evening meal.

 Bunny had little appetite. She was angry and, actually, somewhat shocked. She had never been so rudely treated in her life—not even by her nasty cousins. She had certainly never thought she’d see Clodagh’s careful gifts spurned.

 Diego was as silent and ate as little as she, and his eyes had a wary quality to them.

 They bedded down that night on the floor, between the two bunks farthest from the fire. They were cold, since they had not brought their warmest winter gear with them. Back in Kilcoole, where it was so unseasonably warm, they had been unable to imagine it being quite so cold here.

 Diego shivered, hugging himself and managing to look resentful as he did it.

 The blond boy, Krisuk, was in one of the beds beside them, and he threw a quilt down to Diego. “Here you go,” he whispered.

 “Don’t you need it?”

 “I can put on my parka. I just wanted to tell you, it was great hearing you tell off that blowhard.”

 “You mean you don’t think he’s the heart and soul of the planet like everybody else here seems to?” Bunny whispered.

 Krisuk made a rude sound, but quietly.

 Just then, from outside the cabin, came a series of furious barks.

 “Dinah!” Diego said, sitting straight up.

 Iva and Miuk looked up, then pointedly rolled back over to sleep; the children other than Krisuk pulled their quilts up over their head. Soon the barking was replaced by scratching at the door and whining.

 “She can’t come in,” Krisuk said. “His Highness has decreed that animals aren’t allowed in the house with people.”

 But Diego was already at the door, unlatching it and bending over the agitated dog. Bunny rose, too, with Krisuk stealing softly behind her. Since the dog could not come in, Bunny and Krisuk joined Diego outside, where he was rubbing her fur and talking to her.

 “She’s trying to tell me something. I know she is,” Diego said. “But she’s so excited it’s all scrambled.”

 “Darby and Cisco!” Bunny said, remembering the curlies.

 “What?”

 “Where are they?”

 “I oh, shit!” he said.

 Krisuk made a face. “At least he left the dog.”

 “Who?”

 “You know—him,” Krisuk said, pointing his chin up past where the houses ended. “He thinks anything worth having belongs to him. Besides, I saw the way he was looking at yer woman here.” He nodded to Bunny. “I think he means to keep you here, as well as have the horses.”

 “He’ll keep nothing,” Bunny spat. “Including the hold he has over this village. I don’t know how he’s managed to do it, but I know that, if he’s the only one who communicates with the planet here, there’s something seriously wrong.”

 Diego said cautiously, “We did promise if we had cause to think this might get dangerous, we’d go meet Sean and the major first.”

 “Well, we can’t very well go without the horses now, can we?” Not and make it there in good time. We’d be sitting ducks for that—that—witch doctor!” She used the term she had heard some of the company men apply to Clodagh sometimes.

 “Your horses are gone.” Krisuk said in a hard, practical voice. “No one can have back what Satok has claimed.”

 Bunny put on the voice she had heard Aunt Moira use with recalcitrant children and puppies. “Don’t be daft. Satok is just a man—a greedy one at that.”

 “Everyone says he’s the voice of Petaybee.”

 “Everyone’s gone bloody deaf then,” Bunny said. “No one creature is the voice of Petaybee. In Kilcoole, anybody who wants to speaks with Petaybee. This planet is perfectly capable of making itself understood to anyone who cares to listen.”

 “Then why does it only speak to us through him? I hate him, but the only time anyone hears from the planet, or anything good comes to McGee’s Pass, is when we go to the summonings in the cave up there.”

 “The one where we met you and your mother first?” Bunny asked.

 “The same.”

 “Well, let’s go back there then. I’m on good terms with the planet. I’m quite sure it won’t refuse to speak to me. And besides, he might have hidden the curlies there.”

 “No, the horses will be up there,” Krisuk said, gesturing with short jabs of his fingers, “at his house, on top of the cave, on the meadow above the ridge.”

 Dinah whined softly, and Diego stroked her. “You know, Bunny, I think the horses would follow Dinah, if they’re not tied too tightly.”

 “He’d take your dog as well, or kill her.”

 “We’ll see,” Bunny said. Her chin jutted forward and her fists clenched as she marched up the road to the cave mouth. The wind was loud tonight, howling along the tree-tops and roofs, rattling doors and windows, picking up anything loose and banging it around. It occurred to Bunny that the planet was already speaking, if people would only listen, and the message was loud and clear. It was not pleased. Not pleased at all.

 “Bunka, wait!” Krisuk whispered urgently. He grabbed her arm as he caught up with her.

 Diego was at her other side. “We can’t wait any longer. This guy already stole our horses. Who knows what he’ll do next?”

 “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She”—Krisuk nodded to Bunny—“especially shouldn’t go.”

 “Why not?”

 “You didn’t meet my older sister, Luka,” he said. His tone was so angry and anguished that it stopped both Bunny and Diego in their tracks. They were just beyond the last house now, about two hundred paces from the cave mouth. “She got sent over to Deadhorse by Satok. But before that, he took her.”

 “What do you mean he took her?” Bunny asked. “You mean raped her?”

 “No. Not at first, anyway. At first, he was such an important man, she was thrilled that he had chosen her. Why shouldn’t he have? Even though I say it as her brother, she was the prettiest girl in the village, and a smart, hard worker, too. When she was younger, it was thought she might be a healer like Clodagh. She was always singing, always talked to everything in the friendliest fashion. She got kinda funny when she became a woman though. I think maybe people made too much of how pretty she was and what a good catch she would make. And the local fellows—well, there weren’t many in her age group, and none of them were quite right. When Satok came, he flattered her with his attention, not just because she was pretty, but he played on her shaman powers too, how close she had always been to Petaybee. If I didn’t hate him so much, I guess I would have to say he’s not bad—looking. He seems bigger—than the other fellows here. She was very excited. Thought she had met her match.  My parents thought she would marry him, but he just moved her up there with him, not that there was that much to move.”

 Slowly now, and more cautiously, they were walking against the wind, their heads bent together, their hair flying in each others’ faces to hear what Krisuk was so urgently trying to tell them. As they reached the cave mouth and Krisuk thrust aside the bush that guarded it, the wind quieted as if it had suddenly been extinguished. Bending low, the three of them stepped inside.

  

 Chapter 7

 “Coaxtl, wake up. I think they’ve found me,” Goat-dung said into the wispy fur of the cat’s left ear.

 Coaxtl stretched and yawned. Who has found us, youngling?

 “The Shepherd Howling and the flock. They’re coming to take me back.”

 Coaxtl rolled over and sat up on her haunches, front feet propping her erect as she listened to the low voices speaking in words that were not quite intelligible. After listening for a moment, the cat lay back down again.

 Fear not, child, it is nothing but the voice of home.

 The Shepherd Howling had spoken of the Great Monster, who seemed to be the same being the cat called Home, and how the monster had a voice, though the Shepherd always described it as a growl or a roar or a gnashing of teeth or spewing of spittle or something equally nasty. He said the Great Monster had its counter part in all of the tales of Earth, of the under world guarded by the bones of dead men and of terrible devouring fires and tortures. When he had her or any of the other members of the flock punished, he reminded them that if they didn’t mend their ways, the Great Monster would do much worse to them when they died still in sin and error, uncorrected by his teachings.

 Horrible serpents and worms and flame-belching beasts were supposed to guard the Great Monster, or be aspects of it. The underworld held all of these bad things, according to the Shepherd. Goat-dung wondered if she would see them. So far, she had only met Coaxtl.

 The cat’s unconcern should have lulled her back into exhausted relaxation from her adventures of the past two days. But she found that the voices—and the possibility of returning to the flock—had frightened her so much that she couldn’t sleep.

 “Did you ever hear,” she asked the cat idly, “what it used to be like on Earth back in the olden days, before we were moved for our heinous crimes and sins to this cold place and put at the mercy of the Great Monster?

 Goat-dung awaited the cat’s answer with sleepy anticipation, for in spite of all of the things that she had hated about living in the Vale of Tears, and as much as she had feared the Shepherd Howling, she liked the stories that he and everyone else told constantly. They told stories of why it was good to cook one way and not another. Stories of why a house should be built in one way and not another. Stories of how horrible it had been in their homes before they came to the Vale of Tears. Stories of how they had first met the Shepherd. Although some of the stories were frightening and the pictures they made in her head filled her with revulsion, she missed the stories. She missed having them told to her. The stories were a respite from beatings and made work go faster. A lot of them were ones like those she had just been remembering, about how the Great Monster devoured people and twisted their lives, but some were nice, about the olden days on Earth. These were told mostly to make everybody feel sad for how much they had lost through their sins, but Goat-dung liked hearing them anyway.

 Oh yes, the cat said. My grandam told my dam and said the tale was passed to her by an old, old male who was passing through on his way to die. But I don’t think such stories are fit for cubs myself.

 “What do you mean?”

 The olden days were bad ones. First all of the things that make life good went away. Then for a time everything was sterile and made of not—real materials. Trees had leaves on them that were not alive and bark on them that was not alive, and they did not grow from the ground, for it was not alive either. Underfoot was hard and unyielding stuff, and between one and the sky were barriers. At first, some real air was allowed to pass through them but later, only light, and sometimes that light was not real, either. This was bad enough while it was clean and free of any tiny living things, but in time, the Earth became filthy, as well as dead. Finally, one of our kind had the sense to make certain that she and a male of her acquaintance were included in the manifest when creatures were chosen from our lands.

 “What an odd story,” Goat-dung said, and added severely, as the women did to her when she told them something they thought to be a lie, “That is not how the Shepherd Howling talks of old Earth.”

 The Shepherd Howling, the cat said, washing her long sharp claws one by one, eats his young.

 Goat-dung considered this for a moment. True. Go on. Did the old male give your ancestress any details at all?”

 Yes. I will tell it to you as it was told to her. Coaxtl gave a slight cough that was half a growl and began.

 Long ago, in the time when our ancestors wore tawny coats, we lived in the mountains, not mountains like these all jagged and icy cold, but smooth mountains with hot and fragrant jungles most of the way up their ridges. In that time, the skies were filled with layers of leaves and fronds in which to hide.

 “What’s a jungle?” Goat-dung asked.

 A place of great heat and many trees, sometimes much rain and bright flowers.

 “Like summer in the lowlands?”

 No, for this is much hotter and lasts year-round. You would not be able to stand such heat and neither would I. Many kinds of animals and plants existed then that no longer exist, at least not here. Not yet.

 “What do you mean, not yet?”

 Our Home, the cat said, has plans.

  

 *    *    *    *    *

  

 “What’s the matter, Sean?” Yana asked about the fifth time she caught Sean looking back over his shoulder. Nanook had done so twice, as well.

 “I dunno,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders and giving her a sheepish grin. They should be safe enough with the Connellys. And we’d better get moving if we want to sleep warm tonight.” His grin broadened. “Air’s cooler up here than it is down below. I’d forgot that not everywhere would be enjoying the unseasonable warmth that Kilcoole is.”

 Once out of the forest and on slopes covered with lichen like plants and mosses, they had to dismount and lead the ponies over several stretches where the narrow pathway daunted Yana, even habituated to rough going as she had been prior to her injury at Bremport. The curly-coats seemed oblivious to any danger, though it gave her some comfort to note that their ears wig-wagged constantly, their tails sometimes acted like propellers—for balance, the way Nanook used his-and they snorted frequently, as if exchanging information.

 They got over the rocky top and down into forest again by the time it was full dark. The forest was denser than the one around Kilcoole. and the trees larger, with thicker trunks. The branches dripped constantly from the melting snow, so that it might as well have been raining. Yana was very tired, so Sean made her tend the little fire he started while he saw to the horses and then skinned the rabbits Nanook caught. The cat ate his raw, but with such relish that Yana could barely wait till theirs was cooked. At last, with Sean on one side of her and Nanook on the other, she slept warmly and dreamlessly. She awakened the next morning to the smell of coffee under her nose and the sight of a cup with its handle turned toward her. Sean slipped back into the bag, grinning at her, and they both suppressed chuckles at Nanook’s soft snores.

 The morning was well advanced when, abruptly, they reached the plateau that tilted toward the other half to the Fjord. It was as if a giant ax had neatly bisected the cliff to allow the waters through a narrowing cut to the main body of the continent. The split sloped abruptly down, where a river ended its path to the sea and tumbled in a graceful, medium-sized waterfall into the end of Harrison’s Fjord.

 “Who was Harrison?” Yana asked as they made their way down the incline toward smoke that rose from unseen chimneys, Nanook bounding on ahead.

 “Harrison? He was one of grandfather’s old buddies. Retired here from the Dear knows where,” Sean said. “He had a droll sense of humor and loved early space adventure stories.”

 “Oh?”

 “The name of the place,” Sean explained, looking over his shoulder as if Yana should instantly comprehend his reference. When she obviously didn’t, he shrugged and continued his briefing. “Folks are mainly Eskirish-fishermen and boat builders.”

 “Boat builders?” Yana was amazed: they’d left the forested slopes behind when they’d crossed over the pass from McGee’s and the other side of the fjord was just as bare as this one. Builders of anything would have to go miles for timber.

 “More than wood makes good boats,” he said.

 “By the way, Sean love,” Yana began, taking her opportunity while she had it, “how many people know you’re a selkie?”

 “As few as possible.” But he grinned at her. Many people have seen a selkie. It can’t always have been me, because I know I wasn’t anywhere near there at that particular point in time, and so far as I know nobody else has my—er—versatility. Some Petaybeans have great imaginations.”

 “I’d noticed.”

 “I thought you might. We can ride now, and I’d rather we made the last leg of our journey before we lose the good light.”

 They mounted and proceeded at the marvelously easy pacing gait the curly-coats did so effortlessly at various speeds. Yana’s little mare kept her nose right against Sean’s gelding’s tail. The pace was rather breath taking, but she wasn’t as nervous about this as she had been on the narrow uphill climb.

 Curly-coats could also stop—like right now! Only the bunching of the forehand muscles under her legs gave her warning enough to tighten her hold on the thick mane. One moment they’d been flying along, the next, dead stop! Yana measured the length of her torso on the mare’s neck before she struggled upright. Then she dismounted when she saw that Sean had . . . and was leading his pony right over the edge? No, she realized as she caught her breath. Nanook’s head was just visible to the right, and Sean was turning in that direction, too, and the trio proceeded down.

 Sighing at a reluctance to repeat down what she had only recently gone up, Yana was agreeably surprised to find a broad, rutted grassy road leading down in an easy gradient, switching back and forth down the side of the cliff to the village that was Harrison’s Fjord. This trail had to have been man-made. Nanook, tail tip idly twitching, padded on ahead of them, acting advance guard as usual.

 “Harrison,” Sean said. “He hated climbing, had problems with balance. I don’t know who he bribed of the original TerraB group, but he got the road done and the village settled, the harbor carved the way he wanted it.”

 “Where did your sister and her husband enter caves—“ Yana broke off, seeing that the rock formation along the road side did not lend itself to caves.

 As Sean pointed toward the waterfall, Yana was surprised to see Nanook look in the direction he was pointing and sneeze. “Near that, slightly to the left on the far side, is where the fjord cave opens.”

 Suddenly dogs began to bark and, while Yana made a private bet with herself, several orange cats wandered up to greet them, lifting themselves to their hind legs to exchange sniffs, nose to nose. She won. The cats immediately moved on to greet the travelers, who had undoubtedly been vouched for by Nanook.

 “Wherever we go? she asked Sean, who was bending to run a hand down an orange back. Yana could hear the purr from where she was, seven paces behind.

 “Not everywhere,” Sean said, lightly stressing the first word, “but they get about.” He stroked another one and then fondled the ears of a shaggy black dog, with light brown and white face markings, who presented itself for similar attentions.

 Going from purr to full voice, the first cat stropped itself about Yana’s ankles, and she had the oddest feeling that she was welcomed for herself and not just as Sean’s companion. She bent to scratch the cat under the chin and heard the vibrations of a renewed purr. More barking dogs came trotting up to greet them, weaving an adroit and skillful way among the cats.

 “Who comes?” called a rasping bass voice.

 “Sean Shongili and Yanaba Maddock!” Sean shouted back.

 “Sean, is it? And his lady, no less? Thrice welcome!

 Hurry on down! A glass of the warm awaits you!”

 There was no way to “hurry” down, with cats and dogs insisting on sniffing, receiving caresses, and generally impeding their progress. Nanook had leapt down and disappeared, a movement that caused Yana to scrutinize the odd arrangement of the houses: each of the twelve or fourteen had been carefully inserted on an earthen terrace, with the cliff for a back wall, and the terrace jutting out far enough to provide a small garden or yard complete with benches. The houses were perched on each side of the road as it ribboned down to the final broad terrace, which was wharf, as well—and high above the fjord water. Boats were neatly propped up on racks; nets hung from racks of high poles, drying in the last of the sun. At the farthest end of this wide terrace there was a large wooden hall where, Yana supposed, boats could be built. But the water looked an awfully long way down to make Harrison’s Fjord a practical fishing port.

 “Low tide,” Sean said to her when he heard her exclamation of surprise. “When the tide turns, the water comes up here like a herd of running moose. Everything had better be stored high, dry, and safe. Ah, Fingaard, good to see you!” And suddenly Sean, who was no small man, was engulfed in the embrace of one of the largest men Yana had seen on this planet.

 “And I, you, Shongili!” the man replied, grinning over Sean’s shoulder at Yana. “This is your woman?” And he swung away, to advance on Yana. She held her ground but had to keep looking up and up as the giant approached, until she was in danger of falling backward.

 Suddenly he bent his knees so his face was on her level and placed pitchfork-sized hands on her shoulders with remarkable gentleness. He peered into her eyes, with as kindly and searching a gaze as Clodagh’s, and smiled. “Ah, yes, of course.”

 With one movement, he had taken the reins of the curly-coat from her, and placed his huge hand on her back like a prop against which she could safely lean during the rest of the switch back way to the village.

 By then, others had emerged from their houses. Every house seemed to have its own set of stairs to reach the roadway, and another, she discovered, to get down to the next level.

 “We heard you’d be coming,” Fingaard said jovially. “You can tell us how to help Petaybee!”

 “Fingaaaaaard, where are your manners, you great oaf?” A woman, nearly the size of him, clambered up to the road-way, smiling at Yana before she continued to berate her husband. “Drink, first: eat, second, and you’ve all the night to talk and get the needful done. Don’t mind him, missus. He means well.” This was directed at Yana. A hand, not quite as large as Fingaard’s, was shoved at Yana, who gripped it, steeling herself for a viselike crush; but the fingers only pressed gently and withdrew. “I’m Ardis Sounik, and wife to Fingaard. Welcome, Yanaba Maddock.”

 It was no surprise to Yana to see the cats clustering around Ardis’s feet, somehow avoiding being trampled on or swept away by the leather skirts the woman wore. They were beautiful1y tooled with remarkable patterns, all inter-linked in a way that looked so familiar to Yana that she tried to remember what the design was called.

 She didn’t have much time for coherent thought after that, because the rest of the village and there seemed to be far more people than twelve, fourteen, or even forty houses could accommodate comfortably—gathered about them. The ponies were led away, while the dogs and cats disposed themselves in places particular to them under benches, and on ledges. Sean and Yana were seated on the longest bench and given a cup of the “warm” to drink.

 Her first surreptitious sniff told her this was nonalcoholic, and not at all similar to Clodagh’s “blurry”. Her first sip filled her mouth with flavor so skillfully blended that she couldn’t name any one taste, but the overall effect made for one of the most satisfying drinks she had ever drunk. She sipped as Sean did, sipped and savored, and tried to remember the names of the folk introduced to her. They were so glad to have visitors, so glad it was the Shongili himself who had come to tell them how to help in this emergency, for even here the planet had told them that their help was needed and they would be shown what could be done.

 Yana cast a sly glance at Sean to see how he was taking that news, but he nodded as wisely as if he had been well briefed. Probably he had. So she kept on sipping.

 Then there was eating. Trestle tables appeared like magic, and torches were set around so that even as daylight faded, the hastily prepared banquet remained well lit. Yana had never seen so many ways to prepare fish: poached, grilled, spread with spicy sauces, deep fried with a coating that was seasoned to perfection, pickled in a sharp liquid, a chowder with potatoes and vegetables—“the last of dried from the year gone out but well kept.” And then sweets—made of fish jelly and flavored by Herb’s—and a funny thick paste that dissolved in the mouth. And more “Warm” drink.

 Singing began, and before she had a chance to dread it, Yana was asked to sing her song of the debacle of Bremport, for one of the boys from Harrison’s Fjord had been there, too. Whether it was all the “warm” or not, Yana just lifted her head and sang her song, and this time she had no trouble meeting the eyes of the parents of the lad lost when she had nearly died, too. This time she knew she eased their hearts, and that eased hers, too. Maybe there would come a day when the awful nightmare of Bremport would be no more than the words of a heart-sung song.

 Eventually, torches lit their way to their accommodation. Yana was so weary, it took her two attempts to get one boot off. Sean’s chuckle and her immediate supine posture told her that he would take care of her, so she helped as much as she could as he undressed her, and shoved her under warmed fur robes. The last thing she felt was his arms pulling her against him.

 She had dreams that night, of wandering amid teeth, down tongues that were white, through bones that were like rib cages, yet she wasn’t afraid in that dream, merely curious as to what she would see next. And throughout the sequence, which repeated, she kept hearing murmurous voices, like singers distant and unintelligible. Yet she knew that the song was joyful and the tune uplifting, with the odd descant of what sounded very much like a purr.

 As they entered the cavern, Bunny said to Krisuk, “So this is the place where Satok speaks to the planet.”

 “No. This is the place where he tells us what the planet says.”

 “But he doesn’t give anyone else a chance to talk to Petaybee?”

 “Oh no,” Krisuk said bitterly. “He wouldn’t do that.”

 “What I don’t understand is why, if your people have been in communication with Petaybee all their lives, this guy can suddenly come and shut them up,” Diego said. “I mean, so maybe he gets his bluff in on the people ‘cause they don’t get around much and he’s a smooth talker—okay, I can accept that. But how does he shut the planet up?”

 Bunny scarcely heard his last words. As she picked her way forward in echoing darkness, she suddenly felt as if she couldn’t draw a breath, as if something inside her, a presence that she always had with her, was walled away from her, withering. The sudden terrible loneliness of being without that presence was crushing. She backed away, stumbling toward the sound of Diego’s voice.

 He was still talking when she reeled against him, clutching at his jacket. “Bunny? Bunny! What’s wrong?”

 “Dead,” she said. “It’s—dead. Out—gotta get—out!”

 Alarmed, the boys helped her out of the cave. She sat down on the path, gulping to get air in her lungs. After a dozen deep inhalations of the cold wind she looked up at Krisuk.

 “How can your people stand to go in there?” she demanded.

 “Why? What’s wrong?”

 “It’s dead, that’s what! Somehow that bastard has killed part of the planet.”

 “How could he do that?” Diego asked.

 “I don’t know.”

 “I don’t much like the place,” Krisuk said, “and everybody else is uncomfortable there, too. I hear the songs about the joys of singing with Petaybee, and I remember when I used to love to come here, and I don’t understand it. I sort of put it down to Satok’s charming personality.”

 Bunny shook her head. “It’s more than that. I’m surprised you didn’t feel it, too. Diego, did you?”

 “Maybe,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “When I was a kid one time, a ship hauled a derelict back to our station. They put it in the cargo bay. I wanted to see what it was like and I snuck in. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Was that what you felt?”

 “I don’t know. Maybe.” Having escaped the suffocating sensation in the cave, she was too drained to describe it properly. The wind and icy rain were oddly comforting.

 “I’m going back in there,” Diego said suddenly. “Krisuk, maybe you should stay with Bunny.”

 “No.” the boy said. “I’ll go, too. It’s forbidden for any of us to go in without Satok’s say-so. Some who have disobeyed have never been heard from again. But if there’s any kind of proof in there that Satok’s not who he says he is, then my word will carry more weight than an outsider’s. I don’t think my folks would give up a second kid to that creep as easy as they let Luka go.”

 “Will you be okay, Bunny?”

 Dinah chose that moment to press her wet nose against Bunny’s ear and lick it.

 “Yeah,” Bunny said slowly. “Maybe I could even go back in now that it wouldn’t take me so much by surprise.”

 “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Diego said, eyeing Bunny’s pale face and eyes staring wide with shock and grief. “Besides, somebody should stand guard. I wish we had a light, though—

 “Oh, there’s lamps in there,” Krisuk said. “Come, I’ll show you.”

 Bunny heard their voices grow fainter as they penetrated farther into the cave. Her fingers folded Dinah’s fur and stroked her soft, pointed ears. Dinah whined and laid her head in Bunny’s lap. Bunny felt like whining herself.

 The little lamp threw the boys’ shadows into grotesque skeleton dances around the smooth walls of the cave room. It was a large room, but it stopped abruptly about forty feet from the entrance. “Has it always been this small?” Diego asked.

 “No. There was this accident, oh, a couple of days before Satok came. It was the first latchkay we’d had here since old McConachie died. People were goin’ back into the place like we’d always gone, when all of a sudden there was what sounded like an explosion, and showers of rock and dust came spewin’ out after us. We all ran, but the first few people, McConachie’s family, his apprentice, they were all killed. I remember my Da and the other men diggin’ for bodies. I was just a little kid then. I couldn’t understand where my friend Inny McConachie had gone. That was old Mac’s grandson, a good mate of mine.”

 “That’s rough,” Diego said, feeling along the walls “I lost a friend not too long ago, too.”

 “The woman in the song.?”

 “Yeah. Wait a minute. What’s this?”

 “What?”

 Diego’s fingers dipped into a notch and a panel slid open; reaching out, his hands touched only empty space.

 “How long did it take them to clean up the cave-in?”

 “They didn’t. Nobody wanted to. When Satok came, he pretended to be real sympathetic and went in to look for bodies. He brought out a couple of pieces of clothing and insisted we all go back into the cave to give a proper memorial service. I don’t know why people went along with it. Guess everybody was kind of in shock. It’s got to be about the worst thing that ever happened here.”

 “Not quite,” Diego muttered under his breath. “Bring the light over here.”

 Krisuk did. The fumes from the mare’s-milk lamp stank, but the acrid odor was almost welcome in the sterility of the cave. As Krisuk raised the little lamp, it illuminated an area of clean stone floor and clean stone walls.

 “There may’ve been a cave-in here,” Diego said with a snort, “but someone worked real hard to tidy it all away.”

 “It can’t be!” Krisuk said. “The cave’s been blocked off for years. Nobody comes in here except with Satok. Everybody’s sort of afraid of the place.”

 “That’s too bad,” Diego mumbled, the thought coming to him like a stray line of poetry. “It should be the other way around.”

 “What?”

 “Seems like the place had more reason to be afraid of the people—“

 “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 “I dunno. It just popped into my head.”

 “Look, my people may be mistakenly following a sleaze bag but I still don’t like them being insulted by an outsider . . .”

 “Okay, okay. I didn’t mean anything by it. Come on, let’s see the rest.”

 “There’s more?” Krisuk held the light up head high, advanced a step inside the new opening, and emitted a low whistle. “There sure is.”

 Even in the weak light of the lamp they could see that a good-sized tunnel had been cleared through the cave-in.

 The floor still was mainly stone overlain with dust, but the walls and ceiling had an odd white sheen. Krisuk ran his fingers over it and sniffed. “No smell.”

 Diego leaned in closer and dragged his fingernails down the wall, leaving not so much as a scratch in their wake. “No, there wouldn’t be. It’s bonded with Petraseal.”

 “What’s that?”

 “It’s what they use in mines these days to prevent cave-ins. They bond the rock surfaces to each other with this stuff. It’s very strong. Nothing gets through. I wonder where Satok got it in this quantity.”

 “You think he did this?”

 “Who else?”

 The other boy gave a quavering groan. “Oh, no. I can’t believe he did this.’

 “What?” Diego asked, peering in the direction Krisuk was looking with a transfixed stare. Then he saw the outlines of skulls, large and small, and all sizes and lengths of bones, jumbled in with the rock, like so many fossils.

 “Bastard! He could have brought them out for a decent burial!” Krisuk said.

 “Looks like they’re still half-crushed by the rocks,”

 Diego said fairly. “Maybe he couldn’t get them out without bringing down another cave-in. So he just sealed them up.”

 “Without even a proper song?”

 “You did say there was a memorial service for them in the cave.”

 “Yes, but. . .”

 “Look, I’m not trying to defend the guy, but the bonding wasn’t put on until they were already skeletons. My guess is that it took him a while to dig this out and seal it up. Would have had to. Come on, let’s see how far this goes.

 “I was only a tad, mind you,” Krisuk said, swallowing convulsively, “but it seems to me like the cave was really long. The floor sloped down because it was a hard walk up when we came back out: Mum used to have to carry me. I also remember that the cave used to have little teeth farther on.” Krisuk pointed to the darkness ahead, beyond the reach of the light.

 ‘You mean stalactites and stalagmites?” Diego asked. “Pointy things dripping down from the ceiling or sticking up from the floor like anthills?”

 “Yeah. I never saw an anthill like them, but you got the idea.”

 They walked back farther, their footsteps at first scuffing on the grit across the floor, then sounding with a ringing echo as the floor, too, became coated with the Petraseal and metal grates had been placed along the corridor. For a time the floor sloped down, as Krisuk had remembered, but then another corridor, of fresh, jagged rock, still sharp through the sealant, branched off and twisted upward.

 “That wasn’t there before!” Krisuk said and turned into the new passage.

 Diego followed him up for a few feet, enough to see that the Petraseal covered the floor and from the ceiling dangled the roots of trees and bushes, preserved for all time in death-glossy bones.

 Diego shuddered, in spite of himself. “This probably leads to Satok’s place, if he lives above the cave, like you said “

 “He did all this stuff ?” Krisuk asked. “How could he?”

 Diego shrugged. “It’s not that hard with the right tools. I just wonder where he got them. Come on. I’ll bet if we look further we’ll find out why he’s doing all this.”

 They didn’t find out why, but they did find out what it was he was doing when they took the descending path into the lower cavern Krisuk remembered.

 Lower, farther from the entrance, everything was not covered with the stone bonder. But where the stalactites and stalagmites had been were only round craters, and sometimes small tunnels, like the holes of giant snakes, burrowed deep into the rock walls.

 When she was finally able to retire from the elaborate welcoming dinner Torkel Fiske had arranged, Marmion asked Faber to arrange transport for her the next morning to see Kilcoole from ground level.

 “Ask Sally and Millard to see what they can hear round and about, too, would you, dear Faber?” she added, allowing herself the luxury of a yawn she didn’t have to stifle.

 “Shall I pull rank if I run into obstruction? Faber asked. He was a bird colonel, currently detached to her service on a long loan basis.

 “Hmmm, I’d rather you saved that for later, if at all possible. Torkel did mention somewhere in the gabble at dinner that we could make use of any facilities we needed in our investigations. So we will.”

 She was up and out at what would have been considered by many of her peers an obscenely early hour. She wasn’t as surprised to see Whittaker Fiske as he was to see her emerging from her apartment.

 “Why, Whit, what on earth are you doing up at this hour?”

 He chortled. “The question applies more to you than me, Marmie.” He bowed gracefully over her hand with a real skin-touching kiss. “Early birding?”

 She smiled, and the arrival of Faber driving the antiquated rattletrap 4x4 vehicle spared her the necessity of replying to the obvious.

 “Can we give you a lift?” she asked.

 “Depends on where you’re bound.”

 “Kilcoole. Didn’t see very much from the air yesterday, and it seems the best place to start.”

 Whit cocked his head at her, laugh lines crinkling at the comers of his amused eyes.

 “It’s safe today,” he said, handing her up the first high step to the passenger seat.

 “Oh, your leg!” Marmion said, starting to get down.

 “Don’t mind me.” Opening the rear door, he agilely swung himself into the back.

 “What’d you mean by ‘it’s safe today,’ Whit, dear?” Marmion asked as she snapped on her seat belt and Faber pulled the vehicle away.

 The ride was going to be bumpy over the mangled plascrete, but later she would have exchanged that for the slip and slide of the mud-track to Kilcoole.

 “Ah, well, Matt had his boys up before breakfast, scurrying about the place, accessing all kinds of records and reports so he’d ‘have the overall picture and the demographic levels’ and stuff like that.” Whittaker snorted. “No chance of your running into him today out at Kilcoole.”

 Marmion smiled. She had hoped to do her research first without stumbling over those physically fit types. As the vehicle hit a particularly large bump, she clung to the handle above her head. She could feel Whittaker taking a firm grip on the back of her seat.

 “Should still be able to use snocles this time of year,” Faber said. “Thaw caught everyone off guard.”

 “So much so,” Whit said with a chuckle, that no one came close to winning the Pool.”

 “The Pool?” Marmion asked, clinging tightly to her handle.

 “The betting pool the locals have on when the river breaks up. The thaw was so early this year it took everyone by surprise. See?” he said, pointing to the river at their left, where soldiers were working at the water’s edge. “Still retrieving sunk snocles from their watery grave.”

 From what Marmion could see as they drove by, the soldiers were having trouble: the tires of the tow truck were slipping on the muddy bank, unable to find enough traction to pull the vehicle on the end of its cable out of the fast-running river.

 “Faber,” Whit said, leaning forward to point over the driver’s shoulder to the woods, “see that opening? I’d take that route were I you. Make much better time. I usually walk.”

 Both Marmion and Faber were happy they’d taken his advice, for the narrow track gave a much smoother ride than the churned mud by the river.

 “Oh, it is pretty here,” Marmion said, breathing in the rich damp-earth smells. “Trees are budding out!” she added in exclamation. “Almost overnight it seems.”

 “I don’t think Petaybee’s keeping to schedule this year,” Whittaker said, sounding enormously pleased with himself. “I’d advise you to do the same, Marmie. You’ll get where you’re going faster.”

 “Then where do you advise I go first, Whit?”

 “Where I am,” he said, sitting back. “Just keep on this track, Faber, and when you reach the town, hang a right.”

 Kilcoole, despite its mountains of once-snow-covered paraphernalia, had an air of desertion. Marmion remarked on it, nobly refraining from commenting on its appearance.

 “Oh, a lot of folks have taken advantage of the thaw to visit relatives and exchange garden plants.”

 “How wise. They’re ahead of schedule, too!”

 “They did get the hint. And don’t be misled by all the stuff you see outside, Marmie. No one throws anything away that might be useful.” He pointed to several lads who were carefully moving machinery parts in the side yard of one house, obviously looking for a particular one.

 Marmie caught their running commentary as the vehicle rolled by: “I know it was here ‘fore the first snow. And I know it was at this end.” “Well, my father was looking for stuff, and he might have just pulled the pile to pieces looking. You know how he is.” “Then try underneath.”

 Faber braked suddenly as a trio of orange-striped cats jumped out in the middle of the road just ahead of them.

 “My word, do they often commit suicide that way?”

 “My fault,” Whit said sheepishly. “Should’a told you to stop at that house on the left. That’s where I’m working and where you should start.”

 “But if you’re working there, Whit, I don’t want to intrude . . .”

 “I’m working outside, Marmie,” Whittaker said, opening the door of the vehicle. The cats emerged from under the ancient 4x4, prrrowing to him; two of them propped front paws up on his knees to be petted. The third spoke to him, then turned to wait at the passenger door. “You’re invited inside,” he added. “That’s good, believe me.”

 “I’m always agreeable to invitations,” Marmion replied, signaling for Faber to descend, as well. “What a marvelous shade of orange,” she said directly to the cat. When it turned, tail tip idly swaying high above its body, she followed. “Mirandabelle Turvey-West would give her eye teeth for a hair dye that shade, just wouldn’t she!” she murmured under her breath.

 The cat shot up the muddy steps. Marmion, eschewing Faber’s out held hand, managed to place her booted feet carefully in the drier spots.

 The door opened as they reached the porch and one of the largest, most impressive-looking women Marmion had ever seen, with a complexion to die for and a smile that was the most beautiful thing so far about Kilcoole, stood in the opening.

 “Slainte, Whittaker, Miz Algemeine, Colonel Nike, grand morning for a ride, is it not? I’m Clodagh Senungatuk. I’m that pleased to meet you. Come in. I’ve fresh coffee and some decent baking just out of the oven.”

 Warmed by the welcome, Marmion held out her hand, to have it briefly but kindly shaken and given back slightly floured. Then Faber was met with the same cordial treatment.

 “The new shingles got here first light, Whit” Clodagh said, “but you’ve time for a bite and a sup first.”

 “Hey, that’s good,” Whit said with more enthusiasm than Marmion remembered him showing. “I can probably finish the roof today. Maybe I’ll just get started, Clodagh, and grab a bite later.”

 With a nod to the other two. he tramped to the edge of the porch and hopped off. A brief explosive exhalation reached the others.

 “Leg’s not good enough yet to be jarred by leaping as if he was young again,” Clodagh said, tsking-tsking as she shooed her bemused guests inside.

 Marmion’s first shock at the interior dissolved with the scent of spicy warm bread and her instant realization that this small home—and home it definitely was—was actually highly organized and astonishingly neat if you looked past what might be cursorily dismissed as “clutter.” There were, however, more cats inside who, one after the other, strolled over to make personal evaluations of the newcomers.

 “Did we pass? Marmion asked as Clodagh gestured her to the rocking chair and motioned Faber to a sturdy bench.

 Clodagh delayed answering until she had served her guests coffee and freshly baked hot cinnamon rolls, and placed a pitcher of milk and a huge bowl of sweetener before them. Refilling her own cup, she sat across from Marmion, her elbows on the table, placidly smiling.

 “I’ve always had a lot of cats around,” she began.

 “All of them orange?” Marmion asked. “Or are they a singularly unique Petaybean breed?”

 ‘You could definitely say that.”

 “I just did. My, these rolls are delicious,” Marmion said, lightly changing topics. “And thank goodness you know how to make proper coffee. Doesn’t she, Faber?”

 “Yes, indeed, you do, Miz Senungatuk,” Faber said, smiling in that unexpectedly charming fashion that had disarmed many folk more worldly than Clodagh. Clodagh grinned and winked at him for his accurate pronunciation of her last name. That was another trait Marmion admired in Faber Nike. “Are you able to get regular supplies?”

 Clodagh grunted. “Whit got this batch. Said it was a bleeding shame what SpaceBase did to unprotected coffee beans.” She nodded to a corner of her crowded workspace. “I grind them myself when I need them, and keep them frozen till I do.”

 “Wouldn’t that be a bit difficult to do right now?” Marmion asked delicately.

 “Nah. Even the thaw doesn’t affect the permafrost cache much.”

 “Ah, yes!” Marmion said. “I have read, of course, of the permafrost layer that is so like frozen rock, but I had not appreciated until now its practical applications.”

 “Well, usually we only use it in summer,” Clodagh said.

 “So then good coffee is as much a treat for you as it is for us,” Marmion said and took another grateful sip. The milk in the pitcher had been fresh, too, cream rising to the top. Judging by various-sized lumps, the sweetener had also been home-ground.

 “That it is,” Clodagh said.

 Marmion felt something press against her lower leg and dropped one hand to touch a furry skull, which she obediently scratched.

 “Your cats survive the extremes of Petaybee’s temperatures?”

 “Bred for it. A course, they’re smart to begin with, and they use their instincts, too.”

 “As do most of you living here on Petaybee, I’d say,” Marmion remarked, getting closer to the purpose of her visit.

 Clodagh folded her arms in front of her and said emphatically, “We’ve learned to live here. I wouldn’t much want to live anywhere else.”

 As shrewd a woman as she’d ever encountered, Marmion decided approvingly.

 “I shouldn’t like to see you anywhere else but here in your home, dispensing superb hospitality to those lucky enough to find their way here, Miz Senungatuk,” Marmion went on. “It’s so rare these days to find people content with what they are and where they are.”

 Clodagh regarded her for one long moment, taking in Marmion’s practical but elegant outfit, as well as her expressive face.

 “Not knowing who you are or where you belong can cause a person a lot of problems. This planet’s not an easy place to live, but it’s what we’re all used to and we manage fine.”

 Hovering in the air were the unspoken words: when we’re left alone to get on with our lives as we want to live them.

 “Would you have enough coffee left in the pot for me to have another half cup, Miz Senungatuk?” Marmion asked, fingers laced about her cup so she wouldn’t appear to expect the extra indulgence.

 Clodagh’s face lost the tension it had been displaying and suddenly softened into a smile. “Please call me Clodagh. I’m more used to it.”

 “Marmion is what my friends call me. Even Marmie’s allowed.” And the very wealthy, very clever Dame Algemeine held her cup out as unassumingly as any supplicant.

 “You, too, Faber Nike? Clodagh asked when she had filled Marmion more than halfway.

 “Don’t mind if I do . . . Clodagh.”

 Clodagh poured him some more coffee, then passed the rolls around again.

 “I had hoped to meet more of the people of Kilcoole, Clodagh,” Marmion said, her tone brisker now. “I’m here as I believe Whit will have told you, to investigate the unusual events which the planet seems to be taking the blame for.”

 “Planet’s not taking any blame, Marmion,” Clodagh said with a grin and a dismissive wave of her hand. “Planet’s doing what’s needful, too. Showing folks what it will and will not allow done to it. Same’s you wouldn’t want a lot of holes dug in your front yard or pieces of your garden blown up. Whittaker got that message loud and clear, but that son of his didn’t. Nor some others—but the ones who did understood real well.”

 “You know the planet did this on its own cognizance?” Faber asked, his voice gentle, the way he spoke when he didn’t want to scare misinformation out of people.

 “If you mean did the planet do it without us helping it, yes. Not that anybody could help a planet if it’s got its own mind made up and is perfectly capable of making that known.”

 “The problem we face,” Faber went on, “is establishing that the planet is the source of the unusual occurrences.”

 Clodagh gave him a momentary blank stare. “And what else could be doing such amazing things? Do you know how long it takes to melt a pail of ice over a fire? Do you think we”—her unusually graceful hand circled an area over the table that signified Kilcoole—“could have caused the melt so early? Or pushed up a volcano? Or shaken the land as I would crumbs from this table?” Her tone was not argumentative; it sounded slightly surprised at such thick-wittedness from an apparently intelligent man. She shook her head. “No, the planet decided all by itself that there had been too many diggings of holes and plantings of explosives and such, and it wants those stopped.”

 “The planet is, in your opinion, sentient?” Marmion asked.

 “The planet is itself, alive, and,” Clodagh said, turning to Faber with mischief in her eyes, “totally cognizant of what it’s doing.”

 Marmion rested her head against her propped arm and, with her free hand, turned the coffee cup around and around by its handle, absorbing this message. Frankly, she was now far more worried for Clodagh’s sake than the planet’s. The woman truly believed it—Marmion was half-way to believing it herself—and Matthew Luzon would make mincemeat of her.

 “Is there any chance that the planet’s intelligence can be proved? Without scientific doubt?”

 “Early spring, volcanoes, and earthquakes aren’t proof enough?” Clodagh asked.

 I am not the only person investigating the unusual occurrences on Petaybee, Clodagh,” Marmion began slowly. “Is there someplace, someone you could visit, somewhere inaccessible? For a week or so?”

 “What for?” Clodagh stared at Marmion as if she’d lost her mind, then rose indignantly half out of her seat. “Why should I leave? When Kilcoole needs me the most it’s ever?” She plumped down again, her jaw set, spreading her fingers possessively and protectively on the table’s surface. “No, ma’am. I stay! I stay here! No one’s moving me from my home!”

 “No, I don’t guess that would be easy, Clodagh, but impossible it is not, I fear.” Marmion leaned across the table to the healer. “If somehow, I could . .. experience . . . the planet myself . . .”

 “Like Whit and the others did in the cave?” Clodagh asked, relaxing a bit more but crossing her arms firmly across her formidable bosom.

 “Yes, something subjective so that I can come down as heavily on your side as possible.”

 “Ah!” Clodagh said. “So you can stand for us against whats-is-name, the one Yana calls the buzzard.”

 “His name’s Matthew Luzon, Clodagh,” Whittaker Fiske said with a not-quite-reproving grin as he appeared in the doorway. He paused to wipe the clods of mud off his boots, mopping his sweaty forehead as well, before he entered. “Do I smell cinnamon buns? I do.” Snaking a cup from the many hanging underneath the wall cabinet, he sat down at the table, angling the chair so he didn’t have his back to Faber. He poured coffee and took two big bites out of the cinnamon roll from the plate Clodagh passed him. “We’re lucky you decided to come, Marmie. You’ve got more common sense in one strand of your hair than Luzon has in that egg head of his, But—“ and Whit emphasized that with a pound of his fist on the table.

 Marmion noted the crumbs jumping on the surface. How would a planet do such a thing on a larger scale? Shift tectonic plates? but those shifts were minute and occurred under specific conditions . . . She turned her attention back to Whit.

 “But . . . the one we have to contend with is Matthew Luzon, and you know what he’s like. He’s never been one to let the truth, even if his nose is rubbed in it, stand in the way of his preconceived notions. If you hadn’t come, Marmie, I’d’ve—no, by God, I wouldn’t have left Petaybee.” The fist came down again.

 “If, however, Whit, we—Faber and I, plus Sally and Millard can be convinced, we are a united force on your side.”

 Whit inhaled deeply, obviously mulling over the arguments for and against. “They’d say you’d flipped, Marmie.”

 “Ha! I’ve too many PIHP—that stands for persons in high places, Clodagh—for even Matthew to succeed . . . But it is He who has to be convinced.”

 “Convincing that man will take considerable effort, time, and probably a miracle, although we’ve had the next best thing to one, and that doesn’t seem to have impressed him either.” Whit paused, his shoulders slumping in momentary defeat. He saw Clodagh’s eyes on him and straightened up, his attitude once more decisive. “We’ll just have to outwit him.”

 “Or,” Faber put in, turning to Clodagh, ‘let the planet do it?”

 She pulled at her lower lip. “A man doesn’t hear what he doesn’t want to hear. Your son’s like that, too, Whit, sorry as I am to say it to your face.”

 “I’m sorry, as well, Clodagh, but for your sake, not mine.”

 “Matthew’s not begun his investigations,” Marmion said, breaking off pieces of another cinnamon bun and chewing to aid her thoughts, “so we’ve a little time in hand. He loves to have plenty of hard copy to support his claims even before he makes them. He’s got all those physically fit young men running about SpaceBase. I wonder . . .” She turned to Faber. “I wonder if they’d be the place to start. And as soon as possible. We’ll leave Braddock Makem till last. I thought at first I might win him over, but since then I’ve noticed that he apparently rather relishes Matthew’s brand of management, instead of resenting it as one would expect. Indeed, of all of the minions, he appears to be the most in accord with Matthew and the least open-minded. Doing the others first will slow Matthew down to a crawl.” She began to smile at everyone around the table as she popped the last of her roll into her mouth and happily chewed it down. “Well, let’s get started. Clodagh?”

  

 Chapter 8

 Dinah heard the noise before Bunny, footsteps coming down from the hill above. The dog strained forward, listening, doing the whine—yip, whine—yip that preceded her full-throated “woo-wooing” cry.

 Bunny, still feeling queasy from her experience in the cave, held on to a handful of brush to pull herself to her feet. She heard Dinah scrabbling up the path, icy rock slipping under her paws.

 “What is it, girl?” Bunny began, turning toward the sound of the dog. But about then, Dinah yipped and fell silent.

 “Dinah?” Bunny whispered into the dense shadows, reaching for the comforting warmth of the dog’s coarse thick fur “Dinah?”

 Her out stretched hand was suddenly clasped in a vise and Satok stepped out of the shadows.

 “Slainte, pretty Shongili snocle driver. How sweet of you to come and meet me. Where’s your boyfriend?”

 “What have you done to Dinah?” she hollered at him. “Let go of my hand.”

 Instead, he captured the other one. “The dog? I knocked her fraggin’ skull shut. She should know better than to bark at the shanachie. The other dogs learned. Go ahead, scream. I’m waiting for your boyfriend to come to the rescue, and then I can send him to keep his dog company.” Bunny did scream, and kicked, and hollered, but the whole time he dragged her up the path to his house, no lamps lit in the darkness of the village below, no faces peered out windows or doors to see what the commotion was about. Not at the Connellys’, nor anywhere else.

 As he dragged her away, her hand brushed against Dinah’s still warm fur, sticky with what could only be the faithful dog’s blood.

 But the boys must have heard her. They must have.

 Once, she thought she saw the shine of coppery eyes from one of the surrounding rocks, but otherwise, there was no witness to her abduction at all.

 When they were well above the village and beyond the cave mouth and no help appeared, she decided to save her strength for later, and allowed herself to be led with only token resistance to the man’s house.

 Several outbuildings dotted the rocky mountain meadow where the sturdy stone house stood. It was the finest Bunny had ever seen, without a bit of scavenged material in its makeup. Thick stone walls, a roof of some sturdy material Bunny recognized from her trips to SpaceBase as similar to the stuff on the barracks buildings, and real windows of thick plasglas, heavily draped.

 A high corral fence contained many curlies, among them Diego’s Cisco and Bunny’s Darby. A team of dogs, snarling and snapping and for all their red fur as unlike the gentle and intelligent foxhounds of Kilcoole as they were unlike caribou, were tied in the open, a short distance from the house. She could smell the filth of their leavings even through the icy wind.

 Satok misinterpreted her lack of struggle and perusal of his holdings.

 “Ah, so you’re impressed, eh? Well, girl, all this comfort and luxury can be at your disposal if you’re nice and do as you’re told. Come in now, while the night is still young.”

 She tried to struggle again, but he was very much stronger and she was in the wrong position. She knew that once he got her indoors, her chances of escape and her danger from him were much greater, but she also thought that perhaps the secret of his hold over these people who wouldn’t come help a girl when she was screaming bloody murder was inside this fine house.

 She was surprised at herself, at how analytical and calculating she was being. Her anger at what he had done to Dinah, to the planet, and to these people had turned to cold calmness, as cold as the profound loneliness she had felt in the cave. It was even lonelier here, with a man who had to be crazy to even attempt to do this to the planet. Bunny knew that she needed to keep her wits about her, if she was going to learn what she needed to and keep him from killing Diego and Krisuk as ruthlessly as he had murdered Dinah.

 He hauled her indoors. She didn’t give up all show of reluctance, feeling that that would alert him, and indeed, she had trouble suppressing the panic she felt at being alone with him in his house.

 The first thing she thought was it was no wonder he wanted a woman there. The place was a mess. The second thought she had was that it was an interesting mess. She hadn’t known there was this much technical gear on Petaybee outside of SpaceBase and, maybe, Sean’s lab.

 Two computers and a vast array of hand tools scales, and rock samples were interspersed with bones, a couple of small skulls, feathers, and desiccated bits of animals. She noted that there was a wide choice of objects that would make good weapons.

 The tools were spread across several makeshift tables, but there was no proper eating table, and no chairs, though there were cooking facilities—greasy and covered with dirty utensils—and a large mattress spread on the floor.

 Once inside, Satok released her and she edged as far away from that mattress as possible, though she’d had enough run-ins with her pubescent cousins to know that a mattress was not strictly required for her to be in deep dog shit.

 Before he could say anything, she decided how to act in the same deliberate way she decided what to do when she was stranded on her snocle, or she and her dogs were attacked by a moose. She wouldn’t provoke him until necessary. In fact, if he thought she was stupid just because she was a girl, she was prepared to let him go on thinking that for a while.

 “Wow!” she said, with a nervous giggle she hoped didn’t sound too forced. “What a place!”

 “What’s the matter, little Dama Shongili? Not good enough for you?” he sneered, setting his staff by the door and shedding a couple of layers of clothing.

 “No, it’s great,” she said, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t calling her by her own name. She wasn’t sure she wanted her name in his filthy mouth, much less any of the rest of her. “I’ve never been anywhere except SpaceBase where they had two computers. Are they both yours?”

 “Yeah,” he said.

 “Gosh, where’d you get them?”

 “They were part of my retirement benefits,” he said and started for her, but she danced away and picked up another piece of equipment. It was fairly heavy and made of steel.

 “What’s this?” she asked.

 “Come off it. You’re not interested in that stuff. I got something to show you over here,” he said, and grabbed his crotch.

 She pretended not to notice while she was examining the heavy object more closely. I am too interested in this stuff. I take mining expeditions out all the time and they always have the most interesting stuff. Usually they disappear before I get to see it work, though.”

 “Don’t worry, baby, I’m not about to disappear. I know this planet’s ways, and I’m way too smart to fall into its traps.”

 He started walking toward her and she put one of the many work benches, little more than two saw horses and a flat piece of junk, between her and the self-proclaimed shanachie.

 “How do you do that, really?” she asked. casually, though the very thought of what he could have possibly done to the cave made her furious. But not afraid. She couldn’t afford to be afraid. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

 “I was born on this planet, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “I know about the caves. I also know that’s the easiest access to the goodies Intergal and other companies are ready to pay big dinero for.”

 “Looks like you know all about how to get those goodies too, huh?” Bunny asked with her impression of girlish enthusiasm, an imitation of her boy-crazy cousin Nuala. The technique featured opening her eyes very wide and looking a little like a rabbit that’d been suddenly blinded by the lights of an oncoming snocle. “How’d you learn to do something like that if you’re from Petaybee?”

 “In the company corps, how else?” he said. I did the standard hitch until I got in trouble. Lucky for me I managed to find more lucrative employment before my court-martial.”

 “Here, you mean?”

 “No, this came later, when I was ready to settle down with a good woman.”

 Bunny made something that she hoped could be construed as a cooing noise. She thought it was very strange that he hadn’t found this at odds with her struggle on the way up here, but she did know that where girls were concerned, some fellows didn’t consider that logic or even thinking entered into their behavior. He probably thought she had been protesting out of form, but now that she was here she was as overwhelmed by all this stuff and his manly charms as she pretended to be.

 She gave him Nuala’s one-shouldered shrug and asked hesitantly, “Well, yeah, but where then?”

 “Intergal’s not the only one who can do business, baby. I joined up with an independent firm engaged in the import-export business. Ever heard of Onidi Louchard?”

 Bunny shrugged again. As long as she could keep him talking, maybe he’d say something useful. The conversation also gave her a chance to tuck something as pointed as an ice pick into the back of the band of her pants.

 “Maybe,” she said in a semi-interested tone of voice to keep him talking. “I think maybe some of the soldiers mentioned that name—not a businessman though . . .”

 He laughed, showing a lot of his yellowed teeth—kept strong and even by company dentistry, no doubt.

 “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, baby. Onidi knows supply and demand like no woman in the world.”

 He seemed to be drifting off into a reverie of his own. Bunny noticed that, oddly enough, there was a rug spread across a small area of the unswept desolation of the house’s floor.

 “Ah!” Bunny said. “Yeah, I remember now. She’s sort of a pirate, isn’t she . . . a black marketeer? Didn’t they say she’d supplied the gas and the arms to the rebels at Bremport?”

 He seemed pleased at the recognition. “That’s her, okay.”

 “Wow, you worked with her? That must have been so exciting. I’ve never been off—this planet—myself,” she said, managing to sound regretful.

 “Oh, that can be arranged, baby. I’ll teach you a few things. Then I know lotsa people who’d be glad to show a cute little thing like you around.”

 “What’s it like—out there?” she asked wistfully.

 She thought she could hear sounds beneath the floor, fortunately muffled and indistinct, for Satok didn’t seem to hear them.

 He picked up a bottle; not Petaybean blurry like Clodagh made, but off-planet stuff that Bunny could smell clear across the room. He locked the front door from the inside, something she had never seen anyone do before except herself when she’d had to barricade herself against her cousins. He settled down on the mattress alone with the bottle.

 “You wouldn’t appreciate most of it,” he said with a lewd grin, then shrugged and gave her a hideous wink. “Or who knows, by the time I’m finished with you, maybe you will.”

 Bunny suppressed a shudder and continued to inspect his tools and computer screen while he told her about whore-houses on planets in several different galaxies, not excluding the impressive tricks he’d seen performed by humanoid alien exotic entertainers with a wide variety of sex organs and practices.

 The subject made her a little queasy, especially the lip-licking relish with which he related it and the way he kept eyeing her as if she were already undressed. She realized he was in no hurry at all. In fact, he seemed to be relating these stories with the expectation that she might want to try some of the things he was talking about. They did give her a good excuse to make loud, shocked exclamations, which covered up the noises coming from beneath the rug. Still trying to appear fascinated, she worked her way backward while he swigged from his bottle until she shoved a corner of the rug back with her foot. A rectangular trapdoor was concealed beneath it.

 Maybe the lout would drink himself to sleep.

 No such luck though. Having exhausted the topic, he kept patting the mattress, then hoisted himself up, his expression growing ugly again.

 “So,” Bunny said quickly. “What made you decide to give up something as glamorous as shipping with Onidi Louchard to come back to Petaybee?”

 He was less steady on his feet now than he had been and his next words were slurred. “When my shipmates found out I was from Petaybee, they told me what idiots we all were to be sitting on the biggest cache of raw ores in the known universe and pretending it wasn’t there. I told ‘em the company kept us all barefoot and pregnant, so to speak, which is what I heard all the time I was growing up here. Then I realized I’d bought into the whole Petaybee trip ever since I was a kid: how the planet doesn’t want us to take this and the planet doesn’t want us to take that.” His voice slipped into a mocking whine. “So I thought, screw the planet. The company’s going to do it sooner or later, so how about me? I knew how the planet and the people get around the company, and how the company could get around the planet and the people if it had the balls to come down and take what it wants, so I ‘borrowed’ a little company technology, showed up in one village or another on foot, parking my shuttle out on the tundra, looking wise and finding out who might be in need of a shaman. McGee’s Pass had come in for a few of the planet’s less benign tricks and they had no shaman. I did a little recon, set up my base, and arranged for a disaster in the local communing place.”

 Bunny strove to keep her voice steady and sound shocked instead of simply furious as she asked, “W—why? Why did you do that?”

 “Because, the first time I saw the way raw ore looks before it comes out of the ground, I realized I’d seen it back when I was a kid and the planet was scaring the shit out of me for not being real interested in all the little mind tricks it plays on people around here. Don’t you get it? There’s a good reason your so-called elders feed you all this bunk about the communing places that makes you scared to go in there without them.”

 Bunny thought he must have had a much different elder than Clodagh to think that anyone was barred from talking to Petaybee any time they felt like it, but most times people just got by on what was offered on the surface until it was time for everybody to go visiting.

 “The communing places are also the entry way to the planet’s goodies. Frag it, girl, you don’t even have to dig very deep or blast your own tunnel in the surface. Ore’s right there staring at you every time you go talk to the rocks.”

 “Really?” she asked. But she was running out of things she wanted to know and trying to think of what to ask next to keep him talking. “Well, I’ve got another question. Why take me? Aren’t there local girls . . .”

 “That’s just the problem. They’re local. You’re from a powerful family in Kilcoole, and they think you’re special because you drive a snocle Your family and friends in Kilcoole shoot their mouths off a lot about how mines are so evil for the planet. Maybe if they know mining the planet is in your best interests, they’ll be a little quieter. Really,” he said. “It’s been real nice chatting with you, baby, but now that we know each other better, I want to get to know you real well. So are you going to come over here to me, or are you going to tempt me to get a little rough? Both ways are fine with me.”

 Bunny backed away from him, and he rose and lunged across the table she’d been using as a shield.

 She dodged and ran, but was as trapped as she’d ever been. She knew she couldn’t elude his grasp forever, and even though she had the weapon, he was bigger and stronger than she and not much out of shape either. She knew she had no chance against him in a fight, but she could keep out of his way as long as possible. She jumped back to where the trapdoor was and risked slowing long enough to pull at the ring. She pulled the door partially open, hoping against hope that she could slide down into it before he caught her.

 The door was heavier than she thought, and he was quicker. He grabbed her hair and jerked her across the open door, as she screamed and beat at him with one hand while reaching for the ice pick with her other.

 The planet had not been Petrasealed to death in the lower cavern, but it had been gouged and blasted. There was a pool there, too, foul from chemicals and dense with residue from the damage that had been done.

 Diego touched the scars and felt as if he were seeing the wreck his father had been all over again: he was so full of sadness and pain.

 Krisuk, who had grown up with this particular place, but grown gradually accustomed to its death through Satok’s machinations over the years, touched the blasted areas once and reeled back as if he’d been punched.

 Both boys stood at the juncture to the corridor, shaking.

 “How could you let him do that?” Diego accused.

 “We didn’t know he was doing anything in here!” Krisuk said. “We thought it was all buried, like he said. You forget there’s a wall between this and the outer cave, and a lot of tunnel between. There’s got to be. We feel the mountain shake sometimes, but it’s not like you hear anything.”

 The truth of the last statement was sharply illustrated for the boys as they stepped from the Petrasealed inner cave into the meeting room and through the bush, out into the cold wind whipping down the pass. The rock Bunny had been sitting on was empty.

 “Bunny?” Diego asked. “Dinah?”

 A whimper rode down the wind from the path above them.

 Diego scrambled up the path, almost tripping over Dinah’s prostrate form. He began feeling the dog all over, which was difficult because there was a lot of blood. She was terribly still when he first began, but her respiration’s picked up a bit as he handled her.

 Then he called for Bunny and called again, but he didn’t see her. Meanwhile, Krisuk ran back down the hill to his own house and flung the door open.

 Diego picked Dinah up in his arms and stumbled down the hill after him. Krisuk had a lamp lit. The family was not in bed but hunched together around the table, staring guiltily toward the door.

 Diego entered the house and carried Dinah’s body to the table. He knew from the expressions of the Connellys that they knew exactly what had happened to the horses, the dog, and Bunny.

 “What kind of people are you anyway?”

 “Don’t ask them anything,” Krisuk said disgustedly. “She’s at Satok’s. You can bet on it. He took her.”

 “Then I’m going to get her,” Diego said.

 “You can’t!” Iva said. “He can kill you—kill us all—he might turn the planet against us again, make it swallow us up. He’s too powerful for any of us to fight.”

 “He sure is if you just sit there,” Diego said. “And the planet has no reason at all to like him. If you looked a few yards beyond the ends of your noses, you’d know that.”

 “You’re not going alone,” Krisuk said.

 “No?”

 “No. Come on, Da, Mother. You kids,” Krisuk added addressing his younger brothers and sisters.  “You go wake the neighbors. Bring them to the meeting cave.” His siblings looked up at him as if they’d been stunned, unmoving till his five-year-old sister, Marie, jumped to her feet.

 “I’ll go!”

 “Me, too,” one of the younger brothers said.

 Diego had stripped one of the quilts from the beds to cover Dinah, while one of the older sisters began cleaning the dog’s wound.

 Seeing that the dog was in good hands, Diego grabbed a knife from its hook above the stove and ran out the door again and up the path.

 “Wait!” Krisuk said. “Diego, not that way. You’ll be too good a target.”

 “I’m not going to just let him have her because you’re all scared of him,” Diego shouted back, never shortening his stride though the wind battered him. He didn’t hear what Krisuk said in response.

 Diego was about to pass the cave entrance when Krisuk caught up with him and pulled him back.

 “Look, you can’t just go confront him,” he hollered above the wind. “But remember the upper passage? I’ll bet it leads up to his house.”

 Diego paused for a moment. He had read a lot of hard-copy books, and many of his favorites had secret passages and tunnels in them, something he had previously related only to the ventilation systems in ships and space stations. “Maybe so,” he said. “But if it doesn’t, we lose a lot of time. We don’t know how much we’ve lost already.”

 Krisuk said, “According to Da, they heard Bunny hollering about an hour ago. Look, I can get them to follow me into the cave. I want to show them what Satok’s done. But they’re too scared to go to his house. It’s a strong house and he’s armed.”

 Diego shook his arm loose. “If you want to go that way, then you go that way. I’m going straight to the house. I’m not going to risk Bunny’s life again because your folks don’t want me to stand up to Satok.”

 “Okay then, I’ll try the cave and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll come up and help you, so take it easy, okay? Unless you see he’s actually—well, unless she really needs you right then, don’t jump in until I get there “

 Diego was already striding forward. “I’ll handle it,” he said, and began to climb up the hill leading to Satok’s.

 The house was visible from the top of the path, a stone building about a half a mile away set back in a meadow. The windows were lit, and as Diego approached, a banshee chorus of howls heralded his arrival.

 Satok pinned Bunny to the mattress and snatched at the band of her trousers. She tried to kick him, but he’d pinned one of her knees down with one of his own. Her right arm, stuck between her back and the mattress, groped for her weapon, which was digging into her hip.

 All of a sudden the dogs began to howl. Satok swore and rose, grabbing a weapon as he turned toward the door. Almost as an afterthought, he turned on Bunny. As he struck her open handed across the face, her teeth bit into her cheeks with an explosion of pain.

 “Don’t move,” he said, waggling his finger with mock playfulness.

 Of course, she did move the moment he threw the bolt on the door. It was hopeless to dart past him into the night, and the trap door was too far away, but at least she was able to pull out her ice pick.

 “Shut up, you lazy pack of mutts, or you don’t eat for another week!” he bellowed out the door. The howling quieted to a whine. He took a long look around, then turned back to Bunny.

 Fresh out of more subtle tricks, she jumped up and ran back to the trap door. She was smart enough not to show her weapon.

 “Don’t you touch me again, mister,” she said, lisping a little through her cut lip.

 The dogs began howling again, but this time Satok refused to be diverted. He reached Bunny in two seconds flat, and Bunny, backing up, found she was against a wall with nowhere to run, not a good position for any animal to be in. Further more, Satok was standing on the trap door as he closed in on her, his hands going for her throat.

 The front door slammed open, flooding the room with strong icy wind.

 Bunny punched upward with her ice pick and felt the pointed tip sink into meat. Satok’s grip on her loosened, but he had twisted away from her to face the front door and her weapon didn’t make the lethal strike she intended. She was trying to loosen her neck from his arm and her weapon from his wound when another body crashed into them, almost strangling her as the impact drove Satok’s arm against her wind pipe.

 As Satok whirled to meet the new attacker, Bunny dove out of the way, searching for another weapon.

 Diego was riding the big man’s back, punching at him with a dagger, but Satok reached back and wrested the dagger from the boy’s hand as if he were taking a rattle from a baby. Bunny groaned. Diego was good with books and computers—he wasn’t a fighter.

 She picked up a wrench and danced around the two of them, trying to get in a lick here and there but she was afraid of hitting Diego.

 Satok looked annoyed, but hardly worried. Still standing on the trap door, he reached back and grabbed Diego’s head in both hands and started pulling him over his shoulder.

 Bunny dropped to her knees, threw herself forward, and whacked the big man hard with the wrench, first on the knees, then the shins. He whirled around, still holding Diego’s head in a vise, and she slammed the wrench against the backs of his knees. He fell to the ground with a crash that swept Diego’s legs against the computer table and toppled the machine to the floor.

 But when he and Diego fell forward, they cleared the trap door, and the pounding under the door that had been obscured by the sounds of the fight became clear. Bunny crawled to the door and pulled up the ring. Through the widening crack, Krisuk’s arms and head appeared, and with a shove he pushed the door back across Satok’s calves.

 Satok was slamming Diego’s head against the floor.

 Gaining confidence at the sight of Krisuk climbing out of the hole, followed closely by his father, Bunny dove toward Satok’s head and brought her wrench down over it. Again, the man twisted at a crucial point, and Bunny’s wrench only tore loose the back of his ear just as a third person emerged from the secret passage.

 Satok grabbed the injured ear, staggered to his feet, and ran, Krisuk and the others after him.

 Bunny knelt beside Diego. “Are you okay?” she asked.

 He blinked at her twice, rubbed the back of his head, and said ruefully, “I came to your rescue.”

 She kissed him, bloody nose and all. “You sure did. Are you hurt bad?”

 His hand came away bloody “Not bad. I think. My dad always said my skull was the hardest part of me.”

 Iva was kneeling beside them now. “Come on and I’ll bandage that for you.” she said. “We’ve seen what Satok did to the planet. Some talk he had! The others will catch him and he’ll tell his lies no more.”

 “No,” Diego said. “We’ve got to get to Sean and Yana and tell them what Satok’s done.”

 “How did you know he was a pirate?” Bunny said.

 “If we go back through the cave, you’ll—“ Diego stopped and stared at her. “What do you mean, pirate? As in pirate pirate?”

 “He’s one of Onidi Louchard’s shipmates,” Bunny said. “I think he’s still working with them to loot Petaybee.”

 “Frag! We gotta warn the others!”

 “Shh,” Iva Connelly said. “You’re not going anyplace till I bandage your wounds. You, too, young lady.”

 Diego and Bunny insisted on leading the curlies back down to the village. Meanwhile Krisuk and some of the others returned, empty-handed.

 “Satok got away. Kev Nyukchuk and his sons are trying to trace Satok by the tracks and blood in the dark,” Krisuk told them.

 “Where’s your father?” Iva asked.

 “He stayed to feed the dogs. You remember Satok taking Tarka’s pups?”

 “Yes.”

 “They’re half-starved and mean now, but Da recognized them and he’s going to try to tame them again. The curlies were in bad shape, too, and we found more cat skulls . . .”

 The next morning at first light, Bunny and Diego, carrying a carefully bandaged and bundled Dinah, were back out on the trail away from the river, the Petaybean wind at their backs, pushing them toward the Fjord.

 Matthew Luzon was as amused as he was capable of being that Marmion Algemeine thought she was controlling him by contradicting his theories, cultivating the enemies of the company, and trying to seduce his staff away from him. Of course, she was incapable of understanding a man like him. She was nothing but an over aged debutante whose inherited greed made her good at acquiring more wealth. She couldn’t begin to understand someone like him, someone motivated not by money or personal aggrandizement, but by a strong, totally altruistic commitment to truth and the scientific process.

 Others laughed when he called himself a scientist, but Matthew was devoted to science in a way that few were. A literal-minded man, he was nevertheless fascinated by the lies people were fond of telling themselves about the universe in which they lived, despite all of the evidence pointing to the fact that the average human being was powered by electro-chemical impulses in the same way that computers were powered by electronic ones, and the universe itself was a large, marvelous accident.

 Most of the scientists and troops within the company believed as Matthew did, but few had his zeal not only for believing the truth, but for exposing the lies and self-deceptions that weakened the sentient mind, every inhabited sector of the universe, and the company, as well.

 There was a sort of brain fever that people contracted once they left civilization. Matthew had seen it again and again, not just among the inhabitants of colonial outposts like this, but also on space stations and ships too long away from port. People encountered a few mysteries that had not yet been properly investigated, and they suddenly decided that even the things they understood had some sort of strange causation. They started believing in myths, anthropomorphized machinery, and nonsentient life-forms; they talked to plants and animals. Ridiculous, but there it was. Matthew considered himself to be something of a deprogrammer/reformer/reformationist.

 Usually, he had found, there was a ringleader, or maybe more accurately, an opinion maker, generally someone suffering from the borderline schizophrenia that passed for “creativity.” These people had to be stabilized and adjusted, or eliminated. Elimination was not the preferred option, simply because one such person would invariably be replaced by another leader, whereas if one used the power they had already built up among their fellows for one’s own purposes, results were much quicker.

 As an anthropologist, he had made a particular study of the sort of beliefs people were apt to indulge in, and from what he’d heard of Petaybee, their mass illusion was not an especially unusual one.

 They thought their planet was sentient. Quite likely all these seemingly remarkable incidents of meteorological and geological shifting were merely coincidental, possibly a delayed reaction to the TerraB process—and he faulted Whittaker Fiske for not remarking on that probability. Certainly these natural occurrences should not be attributed to some gigantic powers or some sort of immense alien life-form, dabbling in so-called adaptive changes.

 He was no fool. He had studied the autopsies and all of the Kilcoole group’s other “evidence.” He was more inclined to think that the claims were more in the nature of a local belief than a planet wide one. The “adaptive changes,” which bordered on extremes, were no doubt mutations from some latent toxins contained by this world which had previously gone undetected. They would, of course, need to be eliminated—or the inhabitants removed, which would suit Intergal’s purposes quite well.

 But the commission wouldn’t do so on his unsupported opinion. His wisest course was to find other opinion leaders who held beliefs different from those of the people in Kilcoole, to demonstrate to the commission that local superstition on the Fact of one group should not be allowed to be taken as a planet wide condition.

 To that end, he ordered a helicopter for his own use while Marmion was out and busy charming the locals. He was told that a pilot named Greene could be made available to him.

 “Destination, sir?”

 “I wish to travel to the settlements on the southern hemisphere,” Matthew said. “I will need transport and accommodations for myself and three assistants.”

 “I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said with an apologetic wince. The only craft now available has room for the pilot and two other people.  That’s all.”

 “Then make another craft available. Do you think my work is so trivial it can be performed unaided?”

 “You said that, sir, not me.”

 “What is your name?” Matthew sputtered.

 “Rhys-Hall, sir. Captain Neva M. Rhys-Hall, communications officer. No offense intended, sir. If it’s the pilot’s name you’re wanting, sir, it’s John Greene. He’s scheduled for Harrison’s Fjord anyway at 1220 hours, can refuel there and take you southward. If you can be ready and at the field by then, you’ll save time and be there before dark.”

 “And accommodations?”

 “You’re on your own there, sir. Up till recently, the company never considered this planet worth two depots and command centers. I’d take a sleeping bag and a survival tent, if I were you.”

 “Thank you for the advice, Captain. I will not forget it.” Or you, you impertinent bitch, he told himself.

 One assistant, then? The decision was not difficult to make. Braddock Makem, a man who thought much as Matthew himself did, was the most trusted and resourceful of his assistants. He found Braddock in his spartan quarters, studying the various reports, and told him what was required of him, in perfect confidence that the gear and Braddock would be ready at the appointed time.

  

 Chapter 9

 When Marmion arrived at the building—which was painted a really awful murky dark green—where Matthew Luzon had set up his office, she found only his five minions, all industriously tapping out commands while their screens showed curves and graphs and columns of figures. She didn’t approve of statistics of any kind: they only proved what the statistician wished them to. Credit reports and prospectuses were, of course, in an entirely different category.

 They had the good manners to stand when she entered the room, so she smiled at them while she made a show of peering about.

 “I don’t see Dr. Luzon, and I did so wish to have a word with him,” she said, beaming at the nearest of the lot. “You are . . .” She struggled to remember Sally’s tips on how to distinguish them one from another. “Ivan, aren’t you?”

 “Yes’m.”

 “And where is Dr. Luzon?” Marmion noted the absence of one—Braddock Makem—and began to realize she might have underestimated Matthew’s devious zealotry. How embarrassing. “Has he gone off into the wilds on adventure and left you here, slogging away at the tedious details?”

 One after another of the physically fit young men cleared their throats.

 “Ah, I see that he has, and it’s very much too bad of him, as I’d arranged for Captain O’Shay to take all of us to that so—mysterious cave for an on-site investigation. Matthew’s so keen to do on-sites,” she put in, managing a little move of disappointment, “and this is one of the most important ones, so Whittaker Fiske assured me.” She paused to consider her disappointment. Then, brightly, she smiled around at them. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t come with me, since it’s so hard to get a big enough copter to take us all. In fact, just us will take up all the room. So, come on, now. Save those important programs, laddie bucks, grab your anoraks and let’s be off . . .” When another of them—ah, yes, the very blond one was Hans—started to object, she said, “Now, now, I won’t hear any excuses from you, Hans. This is as important as all those figures, because it’s subjective, not objective, and it will certainly show the commission how diligent you are in examining every facet of this investigation.”

 Sally and Millard had deftly slipped in behind her and were handing out outer wear to the men, who were so accustomed to obeying authority that they automatically complied. They were out the door and in the personnel transport and on their bumping way across to the big copter before they knew what had happened.

 Rick O’Shay hurried them aboard, directing the seating in order to balance the load. “Real glad you fellows could make the time for this side trip, because you don’t see much from a shuttle. Blink your eyes and you’re past the interesting points. Miz Algemeine, you’re up front .  . . Hey, where’s Dr. Luzon? Rick looked around, surprise and disappointment on his face. I thought he was the one wanted so much to come.”

 Marmion could have kissed the young man—he was very attractive, anyway—because Ivan and Hans were obviously having second thoughts about the advisability of this sojourn.

 “Hell’s bells.” Rick shook his head, a lugubrious expression on his face. Then he brightened up and took a deep breath. “Well, you guys can give him a full report on what he’s missing. That’s it, now buckle up.”

 The big copter swung up and headed north by east, barely troubled by the turbulence.

 Sally was wedged between Hans and Marcel, with Millard at the window and facing Ivan, George, Jack, and Seamus Rourke, whom Marmion had introduced as their expedition guide. Seamus had been Clodagh’s suggestion. “He’s as good, bar Sean or myself, as you’d want or need,” Clodagh had assured her.

 “You’ve often been to this cave site, Mr. Rourke?” Sally asked conversationally when she saw the first hint of “should we really be here?” anxiety on Jack’s well-tanned, handsome face. With Marmion out of earshot in the front, Sally felt responsible for keeping things running smoothly in back.

 “Not this particular one, Miz Sally,” Seamus said affably, twiddling his thumbs: sitting down, doing nothing while traveling a long distance was new to him. “Been in most on the east coast, whenever the folk there invite us to a latchkay. We exchange hospitality like, us in Kilcoole and them on the coast, once a year. Good things, latchkays,” he went on when he saw her look of inquiry. “Gets folks from nearby and as far away as the weather permits figurin’ out how to solve any problems that’ve come up since the last one. And we get some fine singing done. Too bad you weren’t all here for the last one we had. Fine songs from Major Maddock and young Diego. Kind of songs that ease the heart and mellow the soul. Maybe we could fix it that we have another one, sort of to welcome you all to Petaybee,” he added. “What with the early thaw, we couldn’t’ve planned another short of June, but I don’t see why we can’t show you lads a bit of Petaybean hospitality while you’re here. You do like dancing, don’t you?” He asked that with such skepticism that one of Luzon’s men had to reply.

 “I think we all do, sir,” Hans told him.

 “We wouldn’t expect you to sing a’ course, unless,” Seamus hastily added, not wishing to insult anyone, “you had a song you wanted to share with us.”

 Luzon’s men looked totally out of their depth. Sally and Millard managed to keep their expressions merely receptive. but they dared not look at each other.

 “Ah well, you can always listen,” Seamus said, “and eat some real good chow, and a’ course, Clodagh makes the best blurry on Petaybee.”

 “Blurry?” Hans jumped on the word.

 Everyone turned toward Seamus.

 “Blurry’s a tradition here,” Seamus said, warming to his subject. “Drink it cold, warm, hot, and it soothes the cockles of the heart. Doesn’t take a man’s senses from him like al-ki-hall-ics do—“ He frowned, “ and no one’s ever had a hangover like the SpaceBasers get from that rot gut they drink. You could say . . .” He considered his next words carefully. “. . . that it’s a tonic for what ails you. Give it to the kids when they’re feeling puny, and next day they’re up and out again. ‘Bout the only thing it can’t cure is frostbite, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Clodagh’ll figure out how to do that soon, too.”

 Sally and Millard exchanged significant glances. Marmion Algemeine would have to hear every detail of this.

 “Is this blurry of yours good for indigestion?” Sally asked, seizing on the common complaint as the safest.

 “Sure it is, and as good for labor pains as it is for flatulence, heartburn, and yer all-purpose bellyache,” Seamus assured her, turning his face toward her so that she alone saw the broad wink

 ‘Do you use many . . . Local remedies here, Mr. Rourke?” Ivan asked, his eyes sharp on the old man’s face.

 “We’ve not much else to use, laddie,” Seamus said, hitching his hands up under the slight sag of his belly on his thighs. “And I’m not criticizing SpaceBase folk if they keep their own medicine for their own people. We got ours and it works for us. Petaybee takes care of us real well, you know.”

 “That’s exactly what we’re here to decide,” Hans said, setting his jaw at an obstinate angle.

 Inwardly Sally groaned. Maybe kidnapping these young men out from under Matthew’s rigid authority had not been such a good idea after all. Certainly having Seamus Rourke as a guide was turning disastrous, since he had already implied the existence of one questionable substance in the “blurry.” The wink had indicated that perhaps he was simply having a joke on them, but people like Matthew Luzon had no sense of humor, and Sally knew that Luzon would be delighted to learn of blurry’s “miraculous” properties and suggest the possibility of “drug-induced hallucinations.” First thing she would do when they returned to SpaceBase would be to get herself some blurry and run it through exhaustive tests, just to be safe. Sometimes even innocuous elements, when combined, produced potent, if not lethal, results.

 A glance at Millard told her he was thinking the same thing.

 Fortunately, before any other dangerous subjects could be raised, the helicopter went into hover mode and began its descent. The cliff loomed over them higher and higher, rock crags like upturned claws avoided by inches as Rick Amaluk O’Shay neatly put the skids in the footprint of his previous landing.

 There was the bustle of disembarkation, with Rick and Millard distributing hand torches, a blanket—“to sit on during the show”—and a packet of rations, so that Sally didn’t have a chance to report to Marmion. When Seamus enthusiastically urged them to follow him into the cave, there was no option to refuse or hang back, especially with Rick acting as rear guard.

 One of Luzon’s lads was talking into a handheld recorder, but when Sally got close enough to hear him, he was merely mumbling about the composition of the rock surfaces and reminding himself to look up examples of luminescent rock types.

 Suddenly they were in a cavern that stretched incredibly far in all directions, with Seamus chivvying them to find themselves a comfortable spot, in case they had to wait a bit.

 “What? No blurry?”’ one of the lads murmured.

 “You don’t need no blurry in a cave, boy,” Seamus said severely. With a sniff of disgust, he found himself a comfortable knob to settle on.

 “What’s this ‘blurry’?” Marmion asked Sally.

 “It’s a native drink,” Sally began. Then she noticed the mist rising from the water, and started taking note of their surroundings. “Why, Marmion, this is just like—“

 Marmion’s hand on her arm stopped her surprised exclamation. “Exactly what Whittaker Fiske and that doubting Thomas of a son of his reported .. . We’ll talk later.”

 Marmion always sat upright and managed to do so even on the hard surface of the cave, crossing her legs and resting her hands lightly on her knees. Sally felt that the ancient meditational position was quite suitable and copied it as the mist began to thicken and swirl around them.

 She remembered sniffing deeply, wondering if there was some sort of hallucinogenic in the very air they were breathing, but if there was, it was nothing she had ever encountered anywhere. And she had been just about everywhere Intergal went.

 Everyone heard the thwump-thwump of the copter echoing back and forth across the fjord. Yana rushed out of the kitchen where she’d been helping cut veg for the evening meal. Shielding her eyes against the westering sun, she saw the flash of sunlight off the rotors.

 Fingaard and some of the other men were rushing down the switch back road to the wide terrace of the wharf area. Sean had gone out with the fishermen that morning. Turning her back on the incoming copter, Yana looked down the long high-walled fjord for a glimpse of returning fishing boats. She’d been appalled when she’d seen how insubstantial the curraghs were: no more than hides bound to a larchwood framework with a wide slat, bored through the center so a slim mast could be stepped into the hole and a small sail attached. The current carried them out with the tide and in with the tide; otherwise it was a long, hard paddle up the Fjord unless the wind was just right to use the sail.

 She breathed a sigh of relief to see black blobs on the horizon raise small white triangles of sails as they made their way up the fjord. Then she turned again to head in the direction of the approaching copter. She had her foot on the first step when Nanook casually barred her way.

 “C’mon now, I need a word with Johnny, Nanook!”

 From the big black-and-white cat issued a noise that was half snarl, half voice command. Bunny had said Nanook could speak to those he chose to have listen to him. This comment didn’t need words. Nanook’s warning was too clear.

 “Something’s wrong with the copter, Nanook?” Yana asked.

 Nanook sneezed and sat down, barring her way up the steps.

 She peered more intently and saw two men in the front of the copter. And only one of them was someone she wanted to see.

 “Ooops!” She turned and hurried back into the house. Nanook followed. That did surprise her. “I won’t go out if you don’t want me to,” she told him.

 He sneezed again and settled himself by the hearth.

 “Ardis, is there any way you can hint to Johnny Greene that I’m here, and Sean’s out with the curraghs? They’re on their way in.”

 “Sure, if that’s what’s needed,” Ardis said, grinning as she hauled off her apron. “Johnny might just have a letter for me from my sister up New Barrow way. She’s expecting—again.”

 The last cat in McGee’s Pass was named Shush, because in her youth she had been a noisy kitten. Those days were long past. Shush was not the last cat left in the pass because she lacked discretion. She was silent as smoke, quick as a spark, and very, very discreet. She had learned discretion shortly after Satok came to live among the people. The skull on his staff had once graced her father’s shoulders.

 It was she who had sent word to the Kilcoole cats that the people of McGee’s Pass would vote to mine, as Satok had been urging them to do. Frankly, she didn’t know if they would or not, but saying so could have brought someone to challenge Satok. Stupid cats of Kilcoole to send only two half-grown kittens! And now Satok had taken one of them. Perhaps soon her skull would be an ornament for him, as well.

 Shush’s family had been murdered. More critically from her viewpoint, all the toms had been murdered. She had gone through heat after heat alone, risking death in the woods to keep her cries from reaching the ears of Satok. Krisuk Connelly commiserated with her occasionally, but everyone else had been told the cats were spies; which, of course, they were, since it was only natural to lurk and spy and satisfy one’s curiosity.

 Until she had heard from the Kilcoole cats, in fact, she had imagined herself the last cat on Petaybee.

 Well, the last proper cat anyway. There were lynxes, of course, and bobcats, and she had once or twice heard the hunting cry of a track-cat, but her mother had told her that those sorts of creatures, if you caught them on a bad day or when they had nothing in particular to socialize about, would eat you as soon as look at you.

 So Shush stayed solitary for years, living off her wits, spying on the village and making herself invisible whenever Satok was around. It had taken a great deal for her to lead the Kilcoole cats’ people to the cave, but she had in mind that somehow, being from elsewhere, these ones might not succumb to Satok.

 When the girl was taken there was no one to cry to. The dog lay stricken, as Shush’s own family had been stricken, by Satok’s cruel staff. Krisuk and the Kilcoole boy were in the dead place. Not even to save a litter of her own would Shush brave that place.

 Instead she bounded off in the opposite direction, down the road and out of town, back tracking the hoofprints of the big horses, already nearly lost in the snow. When she was tired, she rested, licked the snow from her feet, and thought. The Kilcoole cats had contacted her, but she didn’t know how they had done it. She had been trying to flush out a rabbit at the time, pawing at the half-thawed ground, when a voice spoke to her in her own tongue, within her mind. She asked the voice who it was, thinking it was perhaps the ghost of one of her relatives, asking if it was safe to spend another life there, but the voice replied that although it was, like herself, a cat, it was from the village of Kilcoole.

 The voice belonged to a tom. She was sure of that. The question was not highly detailed. It wanted to know if the people of McGee’s Pass would mine for the company or not. She said they would if they were told to, which had been her experience of them. They weren’t bad people, but Satok had taken away their partnership with the planet and creatures like herself and turned it to his own purposes and against them.

 The tom had said nothing about people coming, but Shush sensed that there would be visitors. They had come! And now Satok was dividing them and destroying them as he had so much in the village.

 So Shush left, having nothing more to wait for. She leaped from one horse track to another. She sniffed when the track disappeared; she felt the howling wind roughing her fur the wrong way.

 Late that night she found where the horse and dog tracks met with other tracks, including those that made her lift her lips in recognition. A track-cat, quite likely a Kilcoole cat, since the people had come from Kilcoole. A large one. And more horse tracks, like those of the people. She clawed at the cat tracks, rubbed her head against them, marked them with her scent. From the other scents mingled with the big cat’s, he had been among others of her kind and probably was unlikely to eat her.

 Thinking that these new folk might be camped just ahead, she followed the tracks. But she was small and the trail was long, and Satok had won again. She yowled for the Kilcoole cats to answer her, but none did.

 Finally, at daybreak, she slept for a few hours, then began moving again, though the tracks were older and much harder to follow. What other choice did she have?

 Matthew Luzon felt aggrieved and aggravated by the pilot’s attitude. He had felt from the first that this Captain Greene did not take him and his mission with sufficient gravity. He did not exude a positive attitude. He also appeared to be an uncommonly bad driver, hitting every pocket of turbulence no matter which altitude he attained, flying far too close to mountain tops at times and into cloud banks at others.

 And that was after they were finally on their way. The man had dawdled an unconscionably long time loading various items into the cargo net behind the seats. In fact, the copter would have been quite large enough for all of Matthew’s assistants, had it not been for this cargo.

 “Here, can’t you leave that behind?” he’d demanded at one point when his patience was strained, but the pilot just smiled and said, “No can do, sir. The villagers at the Fjord need this stuff. Be with you in a jiff.”

 Then had come the dreadful flight and Braddock regurgitating all over the floor, so they’d had to smell it during the entire first leg of the trip.

 When they landed at Harrison’s Fjord, a pretty little place, he disembarked from the aircraft to allow Braddock to clean up his mess and found himself a boulder to occupy up wind, where he could continue his annotations. The pilot opened all the windows and doors to flush out the rest of the stench.

 “Gotta unload, Dr. Luzon,” the man said, although Matthew had assumed an attitude that few would have bothered to interrupt. “And refuel. Might as well take on some grub now.” Then he lowered his voice so that his words would not carry to Braddock, lying on a mossy stretch of ground, legs drawn up to his aching belly. “They do good fish fries.” Matthew waved his hand dismissively at the mention of such greasy fare. “And,” the pilot went on, indicating Braddock, “get him an air sickness pill. He ought to have mentioned the problem before we took off.”

 Matthew nodded, wondering why the pilot had not had the courtesy to inquire before they took off from SpaceBase. Then the village folk arrived to help unload, and the pilot turned to greet the one woman in the group. She was a slightly different rustic type from those Matthew had seen in Kilcoole. She chatted affably with the pilot as he and some of the men unloaded the helicopter. Matthew wrote down the iniquities of the flight he had just endured to be sure they were entered onto the pilot’s record. He noticed that someone had given Braddock a blanket to keep off the chill of wind stirred by the idly rotating propeller blades.

 Scanning the village, Matthew assumed that the chief industry was fishing. No doubt this would present a fruitful sub-culture to study, since coastal peoples occupying somewhat more temperate areas undoubtedly had customs, mores, and folkways that differed from those in the interior. He made a note, since Braddock was in no position to take dictation, to return for a proper investigation later.

 When he made one more sweeping scan of the village before reboarding the newly lightened copter, he was surprised to notice, sunning itself in the doorway, a very large cat. About the size of a panther, he supposed, except that it did not have the conformation of one of those sleek, predatory, and now almost extinct beasts. Though large, it was more like an immense domestic feline, with rather common black and white markings. Possibly one of the track-cats he had heard so much about: one of the miraculous beasts said to have aided in the rescue of the Fiskes and to have been instrumental in the healing of Frank Metaxos.

 He stood up, closing his notepad and wondering if it was wise to approach the beast. It did not seem to be under anyone’s control. If it happened to be a stray, perhaps he could acquire it for the laboratory and extensive examination. He was about to order the pilot to have the beast caged until he could return for it when the pilot beckoned urgently to him and unceremoniously boosted him back aboard. Braddock was already belted in, thankfully looking more sleepy than nauseated. Before Matthew could mention the cat or protest their precipitous departure, the rotors were whirling and the aircraft was up over the deep waters of the fjord, well above the masts of some primitive sailing craft.

 Oddly, the flight to the southern continent was markedly absent of the turbulence they had encountered over land. Matthew attempted to shout over the noise in the cabin, a query about the village they had just left. He finally resorted to touching Greene’s shoulder to get his attention. The man merely smiled affably. tapping his earphones, and shrugged. Matthew subsided in his seat and tightened his seat belt—then had to loosen it slightly or risk cutting off the circulation in his torso. He did not like being isolated by the exigencies of travel and wondered why there was only one headset. So he made a tremendous effort to contain himself during what was likely to be a very dull and long journey. Fortunately the cold air and the smells of machine oil covered the faint residue of Braddock’s indiscretion.

 Every time Matthew flew in one of these vehicles, he resolved to take flying lessons, for the procedures seemed ridiculously simple, but he never seemed to find the time for the formal course. Once, a long—gone member of his bevy of assistants, a perhaps too easily influenced young man, had showed an aptitude for flying. Unfortunately, as soon as he had learned to fly, his personality changed, and he no longer demonstrated the qualities of unswerving loyalty and unquestioning obedience Matthew insisted upon in an assistant.

 He suspected that the man flying the copter was not of the caliber required in an aide either. Matthew’s opinion was confirmed when he retrieved a report from his case and noticed, stowed under his seat, the headphones that should immediately have been offered to him by Greene. At once, he plugged these into the socket on the armrest and placed them over his ears. A burst of static poured through them that made him wrench them off.

 Tapping the pilot authoritatively on the shoulder, he pointed at the headset. Grinning, the pilot shook his head, moved his mouth piece aside, and leaned over to say, “Don’t work!”

 Matthew’s reactions included amazement, anger, frustration, and total disgust with the inefficiency and indifference shown by the inhabitants of this world. People were scattered all over the universe, some of them living in highly sophisticated, totally engineered environments, all scrupulously maintained by Intergal. He ended up on an incredibly primitive world with a headset, similar to hundreds he had used before, that failed to work due to what was surely an easily remedied technical difficulty.

 Of course, this sort of aircraft was only slightly improved over its ancient counterpart. The old ones had had neither speed nor range and had been limited in the altitudes they could achieve. This particular one, with its incidental malfunctions, was by no means state-of-the-art: it hadn’t the power to lift out of the planet’s atmosphere, and was excruciatingly noisy.

 However, it required very little space to land, could hover, and could set down safely, if necessary, at night unaided by light from the ground. That ability, he reflected, as he studied the map printout on his wrist unit, was a necessary requirement.

 He wanted to ask the pilot if flights to the southern continent were frequent. Surely they must be. This planet north and south, had long been used for troop recruitment, an occupation the so-called sentient world did not seem to obstruct. Ah, and he qualified that as he remembered his notes. It was the young who answered recruitment drafts: those who had not yet been mutated by whatever toxins in their soil produced the glandular deformity and the deposit of “brown fat” that supposedly allowed older members of the population to survive the extreme temperatures.

 The nearest city to Harrison’s Fjord on the southern continent was Bogota, at the mouth of the Lacrimas River. The sizable peninsula on which the city was situated extruded like a big, clumsy thumb into the sea. He had, of course, scrutinized the maps of this region, now entering its winter season. Most of the population centers—one could hardly call them cities—were situated on the coastal plains near the major rivers: Bogota on the Lacrimas, Kabul on the eastern fork of the New Ganges, and Lhasa on the Sierra Sangre. Another village called Sierra Padre was located farther up the Sierra Sangre at the foot of the Sierra Padre Mountains. A settlement known as Kathmandu was isolated within yet another mountain range, optimistically dubbed the Shambalas.

 Kathmandu seemed a likely place to look for culture uncontaminated by the crackpot pseudo-mystical theones of the natives of the north. Bogota, being the largest and most accessible population center, was the most likely to have been influenced.

 For hours after they left the warm harbor of Harrison’s Fjord, flanked by the ice-packed coast of the rest of the northern continent, they skimmed the cold gray of the ocean, which didn’t particularly depress Matthew, as cold gray was one of his favorite colors. Huge chunks of ice floated in these waters, as large as islands or small continents themselves. Initial reports had suggested that the southern edge of the northern continent had many glaciers which constantly calved into the unobstructed oceans that girdled the planet.

 The sun struck sapphires from the clefts in the ice, and the gray of the clear salt waters was sequined with darting fish. Schools of dolphins followed the copter’s shadow across the breast of the sea. Matthew was oblivious to them, as he was to the blowing and sounding of the Petaybean tube whales: so called because their ancestors had been bits of cells frozen and later incubated in test tubes. Brought to maturity in controlled environments, the large, strong mammals had then been released into the planet’s newly formed ocean. The whales, like the dolphins, seemed attracted by the novelty of the copter.

 At last, toward evening, they were within sight of the southern coast, a sight so spectacular that even Matthew was forced to admire its grandeur.

 Though the harbor, like its counterpart at Harrison’s Fjord, contained water warmed by the geothermal springs and rivers the planet seemed to have in abundance, the rest of the coastline was glacial. Huge cliffs of ice glittered white and crystal: deepest indigo in the recesses. and a rich bright cobalt where the setting sun struck the crevasses. Glaciers calved, huge chunks splintering off, plummeting into the sea with a roaring crack, surfacing through a rush of displaced waters, displaying new surfaces. On other floating chunks, seals and otters and big tusked walruses basked and swam in the frigid sea.

 As the copter drew nearer the southern continent, the sun began setting, burning across the water to recast the scene in shades of mauve and tangerine.

 Nearer yet, they saw herds of caribou race across the coastal plains, huge white bears lumbering across the ice or swimming in the lakes that studded the plains like chips of coral.

 From those spectacular vistas, the sight of Bogota was a massive let down.

 It contained a double row of barracks-type buildings, no more than a kilometer in length, a landing pad with a pile of fuel cans perilously near, and a number of small hide boats not dissimilar to the ones Matthew had seen at Harrison’s Fjord. As they over flew the town, they were close enough to observe those inhabitants who were lounging about. The native costume seemed to consist of cast-off uniform pieces from the company corps. The copter’s arrival caused no particular excitement: few heads even turned up to observe its passage.

 With great delicacy, the pilot set the copter down right beside the fuel cans, shut off the engines, and without a word, climbed out and began to refuel. Oddly enough, no one came to check, though Matthew could see people less than a hundred meters away watching the process. While Greene fueled up, Matthew disembarked, demanding a few answers now that the man could not pretend he didn’t hear him.

 “Shouldn’t someone be logging you in or something, Greene?”

 “Why? They knew the copter, and they know it’s the one I fly. If I had something to deliver here, I’d have flashed my lights and someone would have come to make a pickup.”

 Matthew digested that explanation—yet another example of the nonchalance and indifference that were so rife on this planet and that would be rectified.

 “Is this all there is to this town?” He gestured about the landing area and toward the two rows of dwellings.

 “Bogota? Yes, sir. Nobody much lives in Bogota.”

 “Why not?”

 “It’s unstable, sir. You saw the glaciers. They make sure that the earth always moves for you, that’s one thing. You get rocked to sleep every night, though some rockings ‘re harder than others. Then there’s the bears.  They mostly live on fish, but they’ll take anything that’s handy, including human beings if they’re hankerin’ for a change of menu.”

 Braddock, looking nauseated again now that the effect of the pill had worn off, had exited the copter. With an effort, he tried to assume some of his usual assistance duties, his expression carefully neutral. “Do you suggest that we use this place as a base headquarters?”

 The pilot scratched his head, pushing his cap forward over his forehead. “Well, this place is as good as any on this continent. It ranks as a depot, not that it has all the amenities SpaceBase offered. Mostly it’s a drop point to collect recruits and to return soldiers from these parts who are demobbing. I haven’t done a lot of flying around here except to Bogota, to tell you the truth, and Sierra Padre. The warm rivers make the ground swampy in the summer and create powerful turbulence the rest of the year, and you don’t go far before you get into the mountains. Sierra Padre is a little bigger, a little more comfortable, and the place a lot of southern folks call home. Of course, you understand, lots of people aren’t settled real permanent but move from hunting camps to fish camps and back again, according to the season.”

 “Thank you, Captain Greene,” Matthew said. “In that case, we have no time to lose in reaching Sierra Padre before we run out of daylight. Let us climb back aboard and continue on.”

 Braddock did not quite stifle a groan, and Matthew gave him a reproving glare. Really, he had thought his chief assistant was made of sterner stuff.

 “Well, sir, I got to tell you,” Johnny Greene said. “This is going to get me in trouble back at headquarters. I’ve got another mission to fly soon’s I get back.”

 “May I remind you that I am your mission right now Captain, and my business has the highest possible priority.”

 “Yes, sir, so let’s get going right now and I’ll tuck you in at Sierra Padre before I take off again.”

 “I was expecting you to stay and act as our transport during this vital research mission, sir.”

 “My orders were just to fly you here, sir, and return north for my next mission. Tell you what, though. It shouldn’t take very long. Why don’t you gents settle in at Sierra Padre, get the lay of the land in the snocle, talk to a few folks, and I’ll be back in a few days to collect you?”

 “I’d prefer you to be more specific than that, Captain.”

 “Yeah, me too, sir. But everything’s pretty unsettled right now. You’ve got a portable comm unit with you, haven’t you?”

 “Braddock does. Naturally.”

 “Then if you don’t see me by the time you’re ready to go on to one of the other villages, you just ring up to the station and they’ll give me a holler or dispatch someone else.”

 “In case of emergency, I will go to that extreme inconvenience, Captain Greene. However, it is your responsibility and your sole responsibility to see that I have transport to my next destination within three days. If I am at all discommoded by your absence, you will find yourself busted back to flying paper aircraft. Do I make myself clear?”

 “Oh, yes, sir, I know how foolish it would be to get crossways of an important man like yourself, sir,” Greene said with not quite enough humility to suit Matthew.

 Braddock suddenly came to life. “Wait a moment. Greene? What is your first name?”

 “Why. it’s Johnny, dear heart. What’s yours?” Greene replied, batting his eyelashes in a way that was mocking and impertinent in the extreme.

 “Sir, Braddock said, turning to Matthew. “Wasn’t there a Captain John Greene piloting the copter carrying Dr. Fiske when he crashed in the volcanic blast area?”

 Matthew was relieved. His judgment in bringing Braddock was vindicated. The boy might whine and puke, but his mind was unaffected by his physical discomforts.  Matthew himself should have referenced the name but had been too preoccupied in gathering new data.

 Before he could formulate the questions he wanted to ask, the captain went on.

 “Yes, sir, that’s me, and to tell you the truth, Dr. Fiske sort of loaned me to you as a courtesy. Normally I’m attached to his exclusive service.”

 Matthew smiled. “Ah well, then, Captain Greene. Please thank my old friend Whittaker for his kindness and tell him that I wish to deprive him of you for a while longer to assist me with my inquiries. If you’ll please drop us at Sierra Padre, we can at least make use of our time there to further our investigations. But make sure that you do return!”

 Greene snapped him a salute.

 Shush awoke, killing and devouring a vole before she set out on the trail once more, following the spoor of the curlies and the track-cat of Kilcoole.

 She was far from her territory, among wild things that would kill her and eat her as casually as she had killed and eaten the vole, and yet, the farther from the pass she traveled, the better she felt. The very mud and snow beneath her paws seemed to put spring in them, to make her step lighter and her gait swifter.

 Shortly after she began walking again, she found the used campsite of the people: cold ashes, churned snow and mud, grasses scattered on the ground from the horse’s meals, and a few small bones from the track-cat’s. A tentative, fearful sniff relieved her mind that these were rabbit bones, not cat. She sniffed the track-cat’s sign and trotted onward.

 She thought of Satok, of her massacred race, and of the girl as she walked, but she had to be careful not to drift too long into reverie. Once she noticed barely in time that a wolf was watching her from the bushes. Fortunately, wolves could not climb trees and she could. She slept in a tree that night, and in the morning walked on.

 That night, as she stalked a squirrel, she pounced and somersaulted in the air just in time to catch the whiff of the fox a spare few feet away. Her distraction caused the squirrel to bolt for its hole in the tree roots and she bolted after it, squeezing in the tip of her tail just as the fox’s nose appeared at the hole.

 As she lay there panting, heedless of the squirrel, which had burrowed deeper, she wanted to wail. This was too hard. It was too far. There were too many things that wanted to eat her and she was all alone, and further more, she felt as if she just might be going into heat again.

 I am all alone, she cried, and something said, But I designed you to be alone.

 Not all the time, she said and it said, No.

 I am afraid, she cried. A man would kill me, beasts would eat me, and the Kilcoole cats are far away and their people are Satok’s prey.

 Did someone speak of the Kilcoole cats? a voice—a different voice—asked. A big voice, a cat voice, a tom voice, but a big voice. Who are you, little sister?

 I am Shush, the last of my race at McGee’s Pass, she said. Who are you?

 Nanook. What do you know of the people protected by the Kilcoole cats?

 I know they strayed into danger. Satok will kill them, as he killed us. He took the girl. He will surely kill the boy or make him submit, as he made all of those under my protection submit.

 Ah. And the dog? There was a dog? For a dog, she was good.

 She is dead. Are you—far? she asked.

 Two days’ lope from where we left the boy and girl.

 I have traveled two days.

 Your legs are short.

 I am afraid. I am alone.

 I am coming, Nanook’s voice said. And as an after-thought it added, And no, I do not eat my small cousins.

 Bunny and Diego saw the cat tracks in the snow but were too preoccupied to pay them much attention. Both of them had slept badly, but once out of the village, Diego brooded and Bunny couldn’t stop talking.

 Diego was just attuned enough to her to notice that her hands trembled on the reins. Her face, like his, was scraped and bruised, her mouth swollen so that she kept biting her lip. He didn’t know if she had the pounding headache he had. She talked a lot, but she hadn’t said anything about a headache, or her aches and pains. Mostly, she was angry, raving about how those people could have let Satok get away with what he had! How had he been able to do that to them, and how could he do that to the planet?

 Diego didn’t answer. He listened with part of his mind to what she said, and with the other part, he was composing a song. Again, he longed for an instrument, wishing to make a song with angry music which even the biggest drum could not emphasize strongly enough.

 When they camped for the night, he began writing his song down, while sunny looked on curiously, still talking.

 Her voice was like rain falling now, or the drone of a ship’s engine. He nodded and grunted, but the song was at the front of his consciousness.

 Buried alive, screaming,

 The stone smothered

 The roots strangled

 The soil smothered

 White death like

 Your snow-skin

 From one like

 But unlike

 A son.

  

 Diego stopped writing. The planet should have a song for that murdered part of it, but this was not complete, not right. It needed a better song than this. He sang it to Bunny and she thought it was good, but then, the critical side of his nature reminded him, she was also proud of her jingle about her snocle license. This song must be the very best that could be sung, for it was of terrible injuries that must be healed.

 The next morning, riding toward Harrison’s Fjord, they were silent.

 You are not a cub and you cannot live forever with me in the Home, Coaxtl told Goat-dung.

 “I understand why you would not want me,” Goat-dung said, “for I am nothing and no one. But if I cannot live with you, then go ahead and eat me now, for I’d rather be eaten by a friend than by strange beasts, and I will not return to Shepherd Howling.”

 Did I say that you should, foolish youngling? But there are others in the village at the mouth of this river.

 “They’ll make me go back,” she said, full of fear, but Coaxtl said she would wait, and if they tried, she would kill them and take her to a farther village.

 So there was nothing for it. She submitted to the will of the cat as she had submitted to the will of others eventually on every occasion but one. Coaxtl walked with her for a way; but on the open plains, where only cold waters fed the river, she lay along Coaxtl’s back, hands locked in her mane, knees pressing against the cat’s ribs, so that they could cross to cover more quickly.

 The sky was still pale pink from the setting sun when they heard the beating heart of one of the company’s hummingbird airships. Coaxtl wanted to run away, but the plain was vast and the airship faster even than the big cat’s great strides.

 Goat-dung watched with awe as the airship approached. She had seen other aircraft in the sky, and the Shepherd had told them those were the Guardian Angels of the Righteous, sent by the company to over see them. She had seen a hummingbird ship only once before, however, when it delivered supplies to the Vale one hopeless winter when a team of the men had walked into Bogota seeking relief. The Shepherd Howling had agreed to this only reluctantly, for she heard him arguing with his advisers: but they knew they would starve without assistance. When the airship came, it was wonderful. Food, more food than they had had in months, and even warm clothing and toys for the children.

 So Goat-dung was not afraid when the airship hung above them, close enough that she could see two men arguing through the glass bubble that formed the hummingbird’s single eye.

 She climbed off Coaxtl’s back, feeling the soft warmth of the cat’s fur through the rents in her clothing. Her feet were bound up in uncured rabbit skins now, fur side in; the skins stank, but they kept her feet warm. Stunned with fascination, she watched the airship set down.

 “Isn’t it wonderful, Coaxtl?” she asked the cat. When there was no reply, she turned to see the cat bounding back across the tundra.

 A thought whispered back to her across the distance. Your own are here. Good hunting and warm sleeping places, youngling.

 “Good hunting and warm sleeping places, Coaxtl,” she whispered back, under her breath, but already she was watching the handsome pilot emerge from the aircraft and the tall, thin man with the high forehead and long white tail of hair walking toward her. Another man lingered in a second doorway in the back of the airship.

 “Remarkable!” the white-haired man said, staring at her. “Look at her clothing! Why, she should be freezing. And here alone except for a wild animal which would probably have eaten her when hunger overcame it. Amazing! I would have liked a closer look at that cat, though. It seems totally unlike any of the others I’ve noticed.”

 The pilot didn’t respond to what the elder said but came forward to kneel before her. Before her and so unworthy for such an honor! He even looked her in the eye and spoke in a kind voice that almost made her weep.

 “You look a long way from home, alannah. Are you lost? Was that big ol’ kitty what you folks down here use for a track-cat?”

 Goat-dung sank to her knees before him and bowed her head. “Please forgive the companion of this ignorant and despicable child, O Captain of Angels. Coaxtl befriended me out of pity, but now that my own kind are here, she has fled from fear of the righteous. For are not all animals to be meat and fur for the company men?”

 “Where did you hear such drivel?” the captain replied in a disgusted tone of voice. Goat-dung did not expect that.

 “Did I get it wrong?” she asked fearfully. “Forgive me if I misquoted the Shepherd Howling. I am the stupidest of girls, as has often been said of me.”

 “If you ask me, you’re the luckiest of kids,” the pilot said. “And we’re lucky to have found you before you froze to death. Now come aboard, darlin’, and stop cringin’. Sure, no one will hurt you now.” And he looked back at the tall white-haired man with an expression Goat-dung could not see in the descending shadows.

 “Of course they won’t, my child,” the white-haired man said. And while the pilot had quite correctly refrained from touching such filth as she, the white-haired man took her hands in his and raised her in his arms, carrying her to the plane.      “You will come with us to Sierra Padre.”

 “You won’t make me go back to the Vale of Tears?”

 “Not if that’s how they teach you to talk about yourself. Especially if you have run away from all those bruises and cuts I see on you, no, we won’t take you back,” the pilot said.

 “What and where is this Vale of Tears?” the white-haired man asked.

 “You won’t make me go back there, sir? I don’t deserve to. I fled from being the bride to the Shepherd Howling.”

 “Bride? You’re no more than a baby!” The pilot sputtered with outrage.

 But the white-haired man said, “We go now to Sierra Padre, where I will begin my work, and you, my dear, will have a hot bath, clean clothing, a decent meal, and a good night’s sleep.”

 “She certainly will,” the pilot said. “An old shipmate of mine, Lonciana Ondelacy, lives in Sierra Padre with her kids and grandchildren. Loncie will be glad to take this little one in.”

 The white-haired man smiled at her, helping her climb into the big plane beside the other man, who did not smile.

 This reassured her more than anything the pilot had said because, of course, it was only right since she did not deserve to be smiled upon. Then, with a great deal of noise and wind, the Captain of the Angels and the white-haired patriarch sent the hummingbird ship aloft, where, for that night, all was miraculously as wonderful as they had said it would be.

  

 Chapter 10

 Marmion, led by Seamus Rourke, flanked by Sally and Millard and followed more slowly by Matthew’s five assistants, emerged into early-morning sunlight. Rick O’Shay was the last to leave the cave.

 “My word! It is the next day?” Marmion exclaimed. She turned to Seamus, who grinned, a smile that had little to do with the day or anything else immediately obvious to Marmion.

 “Sure is, missus.”

 “But we weren’t in there long . . .” Sally began, glancing down at the digital on her wrist. Her eyes widened. “Good heavens.”

 “The next day?” Ivan grabbed her wrist to peer at her digital before checking his own. The other four men apprehensively conferred over this unexpected loss of time. “But we’ll be behind in our work . . .” Ivan wheeled accusingly on Seamus. “You had no right to take us away from our work for a whole day.”

 “This cave is a mere hour’s flight from SpaceBase,” Hans said, his expression decidedly aggressive and his anger focused on Seamus Rourke, because he didn’t dare accuse Marmion.

 “How could we have lost so much time . . . sitting in mist?” That aggravated him even more.

 “Why, I found it—“ Marmion stopped, cocked her head, and then regarded Sally and Millard. “You know, I’m not sure I found anything.”

 Seamus let out a mighty guffaw. Mischief, as well as satisfaction, twinkled in his eyes.

 “You got ‘found’ anyway, missus. Now, let’s not lose more time.” He made a whooshing gesture at Rick to start back to the copter.

 ‘How could I get ‘found,’ Mr. Rourke, when I haven’t been lost?”  Marmion asked, a quaver in her voice as she allowed Rick and Millard to take her arms as they made their way across the uneven terrain.

 “Oh, I ‘spect it’ll come to you, missus.” Seamus chuckled again.

 “Mr. Rourke, nothing at all of the nature described by Dr. Metaxos, his son, or even Major Maddock and Dr. Fiske occurred to us,” Sally said in an even voice that held just a hint of carefully controlled surprise and disappointment.

 Seamus eyed her, his lips curving slightly: she was a very attractive young woman, and he could still appreciate looking.

 “Sure hope you wouldn’t now the planet’s calmed down with no one gouging and blasting holes in it. But you were spoken to,” he assured her.

 “That’s utter nonsense,” Hans said. Rick made a noise that sounded like a patronizing rebuke, and Hans whipped around. “I experienced nothing once the mist rose to obscure everything. And then it cleared. You’d have us believe that this—this show took nearly thirty hours?”

 “Seems to have done,” Seamus replied affably, helping Marmion up onto the copter’s high passenger level. “Think on it awhile. It’ll come to you.”

 “Outrageous,” George said, his face contorted into a sneer. “Waste of valuable time.”

 “I’m not sure how we’ll explain our defection to Dr. Luzon,” Marcel said dismally, the first sentence Marmion had heard him speak.

 “Ah, but you don’t have to, my dears,” she said, buckling her seat belt. “I shall assume all responsibility for this expedition, and I’m sure such industrious young men as yourselves will be able to complete your assigned tasks well before Dr. Luzon returns.”

 “Do you mean to imply, ma’am,” Hans said, eyeing her suspiciously, “that we should conceal our dereliction of duty from Dr. Luzon?”

 “Heavens no, Hans dear,” Marmion said soothingly, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “I wouldn’t conceal a thing from Matthew Luzon,” she added drolly. “It just isn’t done! But I shall assure him that I dragooned you, as necessary escorts, on a personal, and possibly dangerous, inspection of the so-called remarkable cave where everyone else seems to have had most incredible experiences.” She made a move of disappointment and turned to Seamus. “Really,” she said, and she stretched out the next two words to express her disillusion, “nothing happened.”

 “We lost thirty hours,” Hans said in an implacable and unforgiving tone. “It’ll be dark by the time we get back to SpaceBase.”

 “Well, there’ll be a little time before you have to have dinner,” Marmion said.

 “We’ll work tonight,” Hans said, making eye contact with his associates. “We’ll catch up that way.”

 “Oddly enough,” Millard remarked, “I feel totally refreshed, with an unusual sense of well-being. Anyone else?”

 Sally made a small “oh” of surprise. “I do, too. And I don’t think I was asleep . . .”

 Marmion did not remark on the fact that she, too, felt unusually alert and energetic: as if she could dance all night long and still put in a full day’s work tomorrow.

 It occurred to her that maybe the planet had a totally unexpected and exploitable facet—for rest cure facilities. However, she intended to go very slowly on that one, since this party seemed to be the only one to have enjoyed that aspect. Had they just been lucky? Had the planet, as Seamus had suggested, settled down after its aberrant behavior? Even so, she felt almost . . . almost effervescent. And she hadn’t experienced that buoyancy in a long, long time.

 As soon as Yana saw the little curraghs nearing the wharf, she raced as fast as she dared down the steps to tell Sean the news.  Ardis Sounik had confirmed that much of what Johnny Greene had off-loaded was the fuel they would need and Sean’s special supplies for his journey. And that Johnny had gone on to Bogota with Luzon, who was up to no good at all. Johnny had hinted broadly that Luzon was bad news. Nanook, who had vanished from the village for some time, suddenly reappeared, fur full of mud and burrs, to bound alongside her. He seemed about to explode with news, too. He licked her hand at one point while she watched the curraghs approach, rubbed his handsome face against her shoulder, and looked deeply into her eyes. She sensed he was trying to talk to her, but she just didn’t know how to listen. But, as they descended, all the other cats of the settlement started hurrying in the opposite direction.

 “What on earth?” Yana began.

 Bunny, something said quite clearly in her head.

 “Did you speak, Nanook?” He gave her a resigned look and a sort of growly purr. “I don’t mean to be difficult to communicate with, Nanook. Nod your head if Bunny’s safe and coming?” Nanook solemnly inclined his head.

 “That is such a relief.” Yana stroked his fine pelt in appreciation. “Maybe one day, we’ll hold a meaningful conversation,” she added, emboldened by her relief.

 Soon.

 “Oh!”

 Just then Sean appeared over the edge of the high harbor wall and she ran into his arms, burbling to tell him that Johnny had managed to leave off fuel here in the Fjord. Even with Sean smelling to high heaven of fish oils and brine, it was good to have his arms about her and see his smile of delight at her enthusiastic welcome. Then Nanook, who had sat in dignified patience, obviously spoke to Sean, who smiled broadly and fondled the track-cat’s ears.

 “Bunny and Diego are on their way here, and Shush, the one cat who survived at McGee’s Pass, is just a ways behind them. Nanook rendezvoused with her to reassure her and protect her most of the way, but he left to return to us so we wouldn’t worry about the kids anymore. He says the village must be good to Shush. She needs to be safe again.”

 “She’s not the only one. When does he expect them all to arrive, Sean? I’ve been getting quite worried.”

 Sean shrugged. “Probably by nightfall.” His arm tightened about her. “No point in wasting energy backtracking. Nanook says they’re okay.”

 “Run that past me again, Sean, about one cat, surviving at McGee’s Pass? Only one? What happened to the others? I thought the cats were cared for in all the villages, the way Clodagh looks after the ones in Kilcoole—“

 And they look after her. Yes, that’s very serious news to me. too. A village with only one surviving cat is a village in very serious trouble.”

 “Sean, what did we let those children in for?”

 “We’ll know soon enough,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders in comfort and reassurance. “The fact that Nanook has stayed here means they’re okay, no matter what else. See what I brought you for your dinner, love?” And he held up the pair of rainbow-scaled fish as long as his forearm and considerably thicker.

 “Oh, good, Ardis has some potatoes left, and we thawed carrots and onions. Bunny and Diego’ll be hungry when they get here.”

 “Yes, and we, too, for their news.”

 When Bunny and Diego, who was carefully supporting the wounded Dinah in his arms, arrived at dusk, the evening meal was ready but remained uneaten while more important matters were attended to.

 Bunny nodded once at the six place settings at the table. “How did you know we were coming?” she asked. “Oh, I know. Nanook, of course. He started to run past us, stopped long enough for a sniff, and ran away. We didn’t see him return though.”

 “He saw you, though,” Sean replied. “He was going to the aid of an orange cat from McGee’s Pass. I don’t suppose you saw her on the way?”

 But Bunny didn’t answer; shook her head, preoccupied. Her attention had been captured by watching the movements of Ardis’s gentle hand sewing up Dinah’s wounds, setting the five broken ribs and the hind leg bone. She splinted the tail, too, but feared that all nerve connections might have been severed. Dinah had managed to convey to Diego that after the man had clubbed her with his staff, he’d caught her by the tail and slammed her against the nearest tree.

 Diego had been a thundercloud ready to burst until Ardis had reassured him that, except for the possible damage to her tail, the lead dog would completely recover from her mistreatment. While this was going on, Bunny gave a quick resume of the situation of the cowed and subjugated folks at McGee’s Pass, Satok’s activities, and the unthinkable sealing of the cave.

 “What Bunny doesn’t say,” Diego began, as Fingaard gently transferred Dinah to a thick blanket near the hearth, “was what that Satok damned near did to her.”

 “It’s what he’s done to the planet that’s more awful,” Bunny contradicted him with a fierce look, and tears started in her eyes. “I could escape, but oh, Uncle Sean, he’s made it impossible for anyone to talk to the planet at McGee’s Pass.”

 “He was going to rape you!” Diego said, almost shouting.

 “He’s already raped our planet!” Bunny yelled back, fists on her waist, body inclined angrily toward Diego.

 “Bunny! Diego!” Sean said, snapping out their names in a quiet but very firm voice. “Now that Dinah’s safe, you can take turns while we all eat, giving us a complete telling of what happened at McGee’s Pass.”

 “Quite right,” Ardis said, pushing first one and then the other young person to a seat at the table while Fingaard brought over the baked fish. Yana quickly added the vegetable bowls to the table, and order was restored as appetites were attended to.

 “Diego’s making a song about it, too,” Bunny said.

 Diego glared at her, a mix of irritation, pleasure, and artistic indignation. “It’s nowhere near ready.”

 “It’ll be some song when it is, I can tell you that,” Bunny said, beaming at him.

 “We’ll listen very closely whenever the song is ready. Diego,” Ardis said reassuringly.

 “Now, step by step, please,” Sean said, bringing them back to the report.

 None of the adults interrupted the two youngsters, as they gave a very credible narration of all that had happened, each giving due credit to the other and to Krisuk’s efforts. Both Sean and Fingaard had them repeat several points, such as the question of the Petraseal and how far it extended into the cave, and all the details of Satok’s background that Bunny had so cleverly wheedled out of him.

 “You sly and clever puss,” Sean had said, ruffling her hair with affectionate approval. When he saw Diego scowl darkly, he ruffled the boy’s, too, laughing when Diego pulled away. “She is my niece, lad. You’re lucky I’m willing to share her company with you!”

 “Huh?” was Diego’s stunned response.

 “Now,” Fingaard said, taking charge, his roughened scale-scarred finger making circles on the wooden table, “we have an enemy who needs watching. We have a cave that has been damaged. Can this Petraseal be dissolved?”

 “Yes, but the chemical compound of such a solvent is not available at SpaceBase,” Sean said.

 “It’d take barrels of solvent,” Diego said, widening his eyes as he estimated the area to be resurrected. “An awful lot.”

 “Yes,” Sean said. “Any solvent strong enough to dissolve Petraseal might very well be more harmful to Petaybee than the Petraseal is.”

 “If this has been done at McGee’s Pass where the people are just like us, only vulnerable from not having a shanachie for so long,” Ardis said, frowning in concern, “can it have been done elsewhere, too? Is it so easy for this Satok to mislead people so they can fail to hear the planet?

 “That thought had also occurred to me,” Sean said and sighed heavily. “We came here with a specific purpose . . .”

 Fingaard’s great hand came down on Sean’s shoulder “There is much we can do now that we know what has happened, my friend, and you can pursue your personal quest which, I have come to feel, is as important as this new problem.”

 “Then you believed that Aoifa and Mala were right that there’d been an undersea passage to the south from the ford caves? If they were right, we could establish communications, maybe even a trade route, with the southern continent without company technology for air travel or ice-breaking ships.”

 Fingaard nodded solemnly several times. “In my father’s time creatures emerged from the caves that were born on land, and not undersea, and not here in the north. Mala sent his track-cat back, but she had been badly injured. Only the great loyalty these creatures have for those they love could have kept the beast going until it reached us. We searched, as you know, as far as we could, but the cavern roof had collapsed and our way was blocked.” This time his nod was full of sorrowful regret. “But we also saw nothing of Aoifa or her track-cat, Ugraine, so perhaps they were able to go further.”

 Sean laid his hand on Fingaard’s arm, looking up at the large, concerned face. Now that I’ve seen the site, I think there’s a chance that might have happened. I was going to come here and look before, but the accident took us all by surprise and I was delayed, what with arrangements to be made for Bunka and all—and then, when we held a night chant in their honor in our village, I got a definite sense that both of them were gone.  Feeling that, I couldn’t bring myself to come. Now that I have seen the tunnel, however, I get a little different sense of things. Someone could have got out, got to the other side. I owe it to myself and to the family to explore that possibility.”

 They were all startled by an unearthly screeching that penetrated the thick wall of the stone house. It rose and fell, deepened and split into savage howls. Growling deep in his throat, Nanook lifted his head from his paws, and his expression was one of offended dignity and disgust. Sean started to laugh, a tuneful descant to the cacophony outside.

 “Why does that awful caterwauling make you laugh, Sean Shongili?” Yana demanded. The noise was earsplitting.

 Ardis gave a disgusted expression. “The village toms are courting, not that I ever remember them making that much noise before.”

 Wiping tears from his eyes, Sean managed to control himself enough to explain.

 “It’s Shush.” He turned to Bunny and Diego. “The McGee’s Pass cat.”

 “Shush made it here?” Delighted, Bunny started to rise, only to have Sean push her firmly back into her chair.

 “Don’t interfere with her right now, honey. She wouldn’t appreciate it.” And he started to rock with laughter once more.

 “Sean Shongili, that’s not enough of an explanation!” Yana complained.

 Unable to speak, Sean waggled his hand at Nanook who, with great condescension, spoke to Bunny. Once she got the message straight, she started to giggle, too.

 “Not the pair of you!” Yana said. She felt she could use a laugh right now with the rest of them.

 “Shush was the last cat in McGee’s Pass,” Bunny said, —and there were no toms for her. I think she’s making up for a lot of lost opportunities!”

 “Do they have to do it here, and now?” Ardis protested.

 “Now, lass,” Fingaard said, grinning as he pulled his wife close to him, “you’ve sounded somewhat like that yourself a time or two when I’ve returned from a long voyage.”

 Half-irate, Ardis tried to push her huge spouse away from her, batting vainly at his hands while everyone joined in the laughter. “Never like that. you big oaf!”

 One more excruciating cry jarred their eardrums, and then there was blessed silence.

 “Well, then,” Sean said, “let’s turn in and get a good night’s sleep. We’ve an expedition to start .. .” He turned queryingly to Ardis.

 “Oh, Johnny brought all the gear you need, and rations for twice the distance,” Ardis said, flicking her hand to the outside storage shed. Then she rose, gathering plates up as she did so. Yana and Bunny were instantly on their feet, followed almost immediately by Diego.

 The cottage was very shortly occupied by sleepers, so no one noticed the small orange-striped cat who crept in wearily but utterly fulfilled and curled up near the hearth.

 Johnny Greene was not at all happy to leave Geedee—how could anyone lumber a child with a disgusting name like Goat-dung—anywhere in the vicinity of Matthew Luzon, though he had perfect faith that she would be safe with Lonciana Ondelacy and her family.

 He was especially worried because the child seemed far too content to be in Luzon’s presence, looking up eagerly when he spoke and tripping all over herself to answer his every question. Who the frag had ever said that kids could tell scoundrels from saints?

 And Luzon, the old hypocrite, was a real smoothie when reassuring the poor frightened and self-deprecating kid, while conveying at the same time how fortunate she was that he wanted to talk to her. Frag, she practically apologized for breathing the same air they did.

 Johnny hadn’t wanted to take Matthew along when he went to look up his old shipmate Loncie, now a grandmother and one of the community leaders of Sierra Padre. But Matthew had pompously declared that he was determined to do his duty as ranking company official in seeing that the girl had “a suitable placement,” and Geedee had looked up at him with wide eyes and clung to his hand.

 In the twenty years or so since Loncie had retired and returned to Petaybee, she had acquired quite a bit of weight, an air of authority far exceeding that she had wielded as a chief petty officer, and an incredibly large family. Now almost as round as she was tall, she wore her thick black hair, still only lightly threaded with silver, in an array of braids, secured to her head with an intricately carved and immensely valuable—Johnny saw Matthew looking at the artifact covetously—ivory comb that had not come from any creature supposedly native to this planet.

 “Ah, pobrecita!” Lonciana cried when she saw the girl. She barely acknowledged Johnny’s cautious introduction of Matthew Luzon and his assistant. Instead, she lifted and clasped to an ample bosom the startled, wide-eyed, scrawny waif. “Que lastima! What has life been doing to you?” Her black eyes snapped with anger directed at Matthew.

 “Easy, now, Loncie,” Johnny said. “We found her on the flats. She says she’s from some hell hole called the Vale of Tears.”

 Loncie sucked her breath in between her teeth and her eyes narrowed angrily.

 “We have heard of such a place,” she said. “Tsering Gonzales’s boy, who was never right in the head, he said he was going there. He had heard of the place from someone who came trading poorly made cloth for supplies—the man had a boy with him. The boy ran away and long after Jetsun left, Tsering heard tales the boy had told the family that took him in. It is a terrible place. They beat and frighten the children with the most outrageous superstitious nonsense and call it religion! Or so I’ve heard tell.”

 Matthew Luzon looked as if someone had just given him a gift and opened his mouth to speak, but Loncie had returned to her new charge. “Never mind, pobrecita, you are safe here with Lonciana Ondelacy.”

 Johnny didn’t want Loncie to take a wily bastard like Luzon too lightly, and flashed her a rather urgent glance, which she caught and immediately understood. Turning to Luzon, she radiated her own considerable charm.

 “Do be seated, most gracious Senior Luzon and rescuer of this little scrap of humanity. Pablo, have you not brought the wine? Carmelita, you and Isabella see to the needs of this little one.”

 She put the child on her feet and gently pushed her toward two daughters who would undoubtedly rival their mother for size and beauty. They smiled winningly at the child, who was nearly catatonic with such unwarranted treatment.

 “And how is the nina called, Juanito?” she asked Johnny.

 It took him a long moment to answer, but with Loncie looking at him so hard, he had no escape.

 “She says her name is Goat-dung!”

 “Ay, de mio!” And Lonciana’s hands went heavenward. “Tsering did say that they name their young in such a way, to shame and humiliate them, but it is beyond my lips to form such a name in front of the innocent ears of my own children “

 “But, mamacita, we know that goats make dung,” Carmelita said, giggling.

 “Goats do not make los ninos wear such names. Pobrecita we will call you, little one. Take her, bathe her, and see what of your sisters’ clothing will clad her decently. I will come and see to her injuries while—Pablo, where is the wine? Ah, here, and biscuits. Oh, you are so clever, mi esposo!” And she beamed on the wiry little man who was entering the room, carrying yet another beautiful artifact to astound Luzon.

 This was a silver tray, some of its fine etching cleaned to the copper below the plating, covered with a fine white lace cloth, with a glass decanter and some very plebeian shot glasses of the type to be seen in any Intergal bar.

 Senior Pablo, whose last name Johnny didn’t catch—it probably wasn’t Ondelacy, since that was the name he had known Loncie by when she was a senior chief—was a perfect foil for his wife. He was as quiet as Loncie was verbose, and he showed to Matthew Luzon the deference and respect due to any sneaky and poisonous creature. Pablo gravely insisted that Don Matthew must take the heavy armchair, so incongruous among the rest of the utilitarian furnishings, and gave him first pick of the refreshments.

 In his turn, Matthew seemed intrigued by Pablo, who sported a distinguished silvered goatee and sideburns. He was reminded of an extremely valuable painting that he had seen once in a museum on old Terra.

 Though Matthew sipped suspiciously at the beverage served him, Johnny enjoyed the resinous flavor that was minor fire in his mouth and left a not—unpleasant after taste.

 The biscuits were lighter than Johnny had expected, and sort of cheesy in flavor, which made sense, since there were goats in a pen in the back of the house.

 He saw Luzon’s gaze roving around the room, taking in a number of uncommon objects, like the flute and the beribboned guitar hung over a fine white fur: both well above the reach of small hands. Another object, that Johnny at first assumed to be a goat skin drinking bag with various lengths of pipe stuck from it, was actually a musical instrument, too, as Pablo explained when he caught Johnny’s curious gaze: the Basque bagpipes.

 However, none of them said much, since the noise of Goat-dung’s attendants made any conversation difficult, even if Senior Pablo had been so inclined. Braddock looked better after his first sip of the liquor and was casting a judicious eye on the furs that covered the walls and floor. Lonciana kept exclaiming over this and that, arguing over items of clothing and demanding others until Matthew began to wonder just how long it took to clean one scrawny child and dab ointment on a few scratches. He was totally unprepared for Lonciana’s dramatic re-entrance with the clean and not only neatly but flatteringly clothed child.

 Johnny Greene sat bolt upright in his chair as if he were seeing a ghost.

 “This nina,” declared Lonciana, fists planted on her broad hips, “has been constantly beaten with rods. Her ribs have been cracked on several occasions and I distinctly feel the thickening of several bones in both arms and legs where she has had fractures. She has obviously been starved all her life—if she has had the misfortune to live in that Vale of Tears”—Loncie spat to one side—“that is not unlikely.”

 Washed and attractively clothed, the child looked even more wan and under nourished.

 “Now we eat,” Lonciana stated. At a clap of her hands, more children appeared from the unseen regions of this incredible house, each bearing elements of the meal and the utensils with which to eat it. Seating La Pobrecita beside her, Lonciana herself fed the child, who did not seem to know what to do with either spoon or fork.

 Loncie’s maternal presence was too overwhelming not to be threatening to Luzon, who began coaxing the girl into describing her home and her companions.

 “Don Matthew, perhaps it is not wise to remind the nina of such matters,” Pablo ventured deferentially, but Luzon swept aside his objections.

 “Nonsense, my dear man. Do you know nothing of psychotherapy? Why, the very best thing for the child is to discuss her traumas and her feelings about them, to speak out fully of everything which disturbed her. Only then can she be purged of her fears. Confrontation is the very best medicine in cases like this.”

 Lonciana and the daughters who had tended the child were stunned as she fairly blossomed under his interrogation. Black eyes snapped with concern as Luzon deftly elicited information from the girl. On his side of the table, among the Ondelacy boys, Johnny lost his appetite watching Luzon, who, despite all of his protests of horror and sympathy, obviously was being fed exactly the kind of dirt he had hoped to dredge up. The man’s ill-concealed relish of the child’s story turned Loncie’s savory meal into bile in his mouth.

 Well, he’d done what he could and found the child safe harbor. Luzon could question all he wanted, but he wouldn’t be able to force the child away from Loncie and her family any more easily than he would be able to force her away from Johnny. Johnny was tempted to pick the kid up and take her back north with him anyway, but he figured he would do better to high tail himself back north and make his report to Dr. Fiske, collect Sean and Yana, and fully cover his own ass. But he did want them to see this kid. There was something about her—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Anyway, if he was to do any real good, he would need reinforcements.

 He stood, bowed elaborately to his former chief petty officer, her spouse and brood, gave the child a bit of a salute—which Luzon returned, the ass, with a sharp dismissive one—and returned to his copter. He didn’t enjoy flying it half as much on the way back as he expected. Quite aside from the lingering stench of Braddock’s puke, it felt contaminated.

 Although this southern continent should have been deep into the autumnal season and its ground surfaces well frozen up for smooth snocling, the Big Freeze had not yet occurred, a matter which caused considerable concern among the Sierra Padreans. This bunch were of very mixed ethnic origins; some, like Loncie, were of Central and South American origin, mainly from the Andes, and over time they had mixed with the few volatile high-mountain Basques, the combination tempered by a great many of the imperturbable Sherpas. Pablo, despite his resemblance to one of the characters in a painting by Goya, was half Sherpa, half Basque. While Loncie, as a retired corps member, kept her birth name of Ondelacy, the family name was actually Chompas.

 All of this information Matthew Luzon and Braddock skillfully extracted from the family after the meal was over and Johnny Greene had departed, a very good thing since his presence definitely interfered with the rapport Matthew wished to establish with this family and, in particular, the girl they now called ‘Cita.

 One thing that particularly excited Matthew was that the girl in no way resembled any of the Chompas/Ondelacy family. Nor could he see her gray eyes and light hair as placing her among the African or Afghani residents of this sector. No, she belonged to a different ethnic group than he had seen down here thus far, and he was eager to learn if others at the Vale of Tears were as different—both in appearance and outlook—as she seemed to suggest.

 He took polite leave of them that night, and spent all the next day, with only Braddock to help him, trying to find alternative air transport. Finally he settled for a snocle. He was warned that, since the thaws of autumn had lasted unusually late this year and winter was not yet fully upon the continent, they might require many detours.

 “Planet should be colder in the high country though,” granted the man who rented them quite a battered machine. Luzon suspected that the man had no right to have access to one at all and, to add insult to injury, he charged them a Large enough deposit to buy a small space station. Matthew smiled sourly but paid, knowing he could easily confiscate the machine if he so desired. But just now he desired to keep a low profile.

 In his preparations. he had already gathered that Sierra Padre would be as fruitless as Bogota in his quest for those who didn’t speak of “the planet” or “Petaybee” as if it were a friend or neighbor or possibly a close relative. Such superstitious idiocy! He had high hopes for the girl’s Shepherd Howling, however, whose nonsense was no less superstitious but in a more useful vein for Matthew’s purposes.

 Once provisions and other appropriate gear had been acquired and stowed in the machine, Matthew awaited the moment to acquire the final piece in this phase of his investigation.

 The girl played right into his hands. While the other children in the huge woman’s huge family played at building a snow fort from the new snow of the night before, Goat-dung—he, at least, would give her the proper name bestowed upon her by her culture—sat alone beside a spindly birch next to the pen containing goats. Maybe there was more to her name than just a convenient identity.

 Matthew strolled up to her casually, saying, “Goat-dung. I require your assistance.”

 “Sir, I am told my name is now ‘Cita.”

 “By those who mean it kindly but do not know the significance of your true name, yes. But you and I know that their kindness is nevertheless a falsehood, do we not? You were given your name for a reason.”

 She dropped those pale calf-eyes of hers and said in a tiny voice, “Yes, sir.”

 “I wish to speak to this Shepherd Howling.”

 “I won’t go back there!” she said with more spirit than he thought she had left. “I won’t!”

 “Of course not, of course not, my dear child. I understand your feelings. You are deeply ashamed to have left the community under a cloud, to have been unable to measure up to the simple things your shepherd required of you. But I’m sure he will forgive you and allow you to separate from the community once I explain to him that you are more valuable out here, to me.”

 “To you, sir” she asked, the hysteria fading from her voice and being replaced by awe.

 “Why, yes,” he said. “I need a research assistant who is native to this planet, and who better than yourself? If you work out, I will adopt you as my daughter.”

 “Your daughter, sir? This unworthy one?”

 “Through hard work and appropriate behavior, you may yet become worthy. But first you must be very brave. Come along and I will show you what is required.”

 She got to her feet and took his hand, with only one backward glance at the house of her erstwhile guardian. He knew very well what he was doing. By replacing the feared figure of the Shepherd Howling in her mind with himself, someone stronger, probably better spoken, and certainly more rational, he placed himself in the role of both master and protector. Oh yes, she would certainly obey him as un-questioningly as she had ever obeyed her—he smiled at the quaint crudity of the primitive notion—betrothed.

 On the way back north, Johnny radioed in a coded report to Whittaker Fiske, along with an inquiry about the clouded big cat that had kept Geedee company. It wasn’t like any track-cat he’d ever seen. He received a terse acknowledgment.      “Received and acknowledged. I designed no such cat. Ask Shongili, Happy buzzard-watching. W.F.

 When Johnny finally stretched his legs at Harrison’s Fjord, Sean, Yana, Bunny, Diego, and Nanook had already started on their journey down the cave that had swallowed up Bunny’s parents twelve years before. The presence of Liam Maloney’s lead dog sleeping by the fire in the Souniks’ house naturally resulted in Johnny being brought up to date on all that had happened at McGee’s Pass.

 “Satok used Petraseal to block the planet off!” Something very cold descended Johnny’s backbone. “Frag it, Fingaard. Do you know how much of that stuff is stocked at SpaceBase? Have you any idea what could happen if anyone, Matthew Luzon in particular, found out what Petraseal can do to our caves?”

 Ardis’s face was stricken. “The boy, Diego, has made a song of it.”

 “Well, let’s just bloody hope he doesn’t sing it.”

 “He already has. What he had finished of it, at least,” Fingaard said in a deep bass whisper.

 “Frag!” was Johnny’s explosive response. He was pensive for a long moment and then, with one blink of his eyes, became the affable, carefree copter pilot they knew so well. “I’d better get back and report in. Gotta get refueled, and then I just gotta come back this weary way again. See ya!” He tipped his peaked cap at Ardis and strode back to the copter, hands in his pockets, whistling.

 With Nanook padding along in front of them, occasionally taking a short tangent before coming back, the four of them made forty klicks down into the cave at Harrison’s Fjord. Within the first hour they had swung away from the path that led to the fjord’s planet place and started descending. The slope was fairly steep at first, but soon began to have an easier gradient. Once the luminescence lit their way, they had no need of the artificial hand beams and carefully stowed them away.

 “This isn’t at all like the other caves I’ve been in,” Diego remarked when they reached the easier gradient.

 “I doubt you’ll find two even vaguely similar,” Sean said with a smile.

 “Have you been in all of them?”

 “No, I haven’t. That’d take a lifetime, I think,” Sean replied with a grin. “My grandfather found the first one, more of a cleft in the rock than a real cave. He knew, of course, that there were cave systems just under the surface. That’s the way Terraform B works, but his finding the cleft was pure chance.”

 “Did it lead into something like this?” Yana asked, glancing about her with the wonder and sense of welcome she always felt in a Petaybean cave.

 “Not directly, according to granddad’s notes, but he didn’t have as much chance to explore as he’d liked, since he was busy doing what he could to make it easier on the animals Intergal decided would adapt well to this climate.” Sean gave a snort at Intergal’s needless arrogance “Grandmother located the hot springs at Kilcoole and went looking for others, with my father strapped to her back to hear him tell it, and my oldest aunt—the one my sister, Aoifa, was named for—either on a sled or strapped to a curly-coat’s back. Grandmother really liked a decent hot bath every day and took one no matter how far she had to tramp to indulge herself.” Sean grinned nostalgically, as he had been a part of those forays. “I know she taught me how to swim . . .” He glanced quickly at Yana and winked. “My father and his two younger brothers found and mapped many of the caves we now know and use. I think I learned their where-abouts before I learned to spell.”

 “What happened to all your relatives?” Diego asked, rather amazed that anyone could have so many.

 Bunny tried to shush him, but Sean shook his head. “What else? My younger uncles joined Intergal, and my father continued his father’s work as I continue his.”

 “And the other Aoifa?” Diego was persistent.

 Sean drew his brows together. “We never did find out. She went off on one of her solo trips—she did a lot of hunting with her track-cats. About a year later, someone found the fur and bones of one of the cats, but we couldn’t tell how it had come to die. That was all we ever found of her.”

 When they made camp for the night, Diego went off into what Bunny was beginning to call his “creative trance.” His lips moved now and then and odd sounds blurted out, but he offered no performance. One respected a singer’s concentration.

 They traveled two more days, steadily downward, past lakes bordered by strange shapes, some like trees dipped in silver or gold, leaves, flowers, and all. Occasionally a mist would rise to accompany them, flowing around their feet as they moved and then, as abruptly as it had risen, disappearing. Twice they had to find their way to the narrowest parts of rushing rivers and, with Sean throwing the hook and line to some high point, swing over to the farther shore.

 The fourth day down they came to a thick barrier of fallen stalagmites and stalactites, jumbled willy-nilly on top of each other like unstacked firewood. Sean recognized this from Fingaard’s description as the cave-in area. Beyond was a boom and a whooshing that suggested that the sea might have flooded in after the collapse. Sean and Diego tried to work their way over and around the various broken pieces, hacking occasionally at the molded limestone. Only Diego’s quick thinking kept Sean, in the lead, from tumbling headlong into the dark waters held back by the obstacles they had managed to pass. For a long moment, while Diego recovered his breath at Sean’s near escape from a dunking, Sean looked out across the waters, searching for some glimmer of a distant shore.

 They vaguely heard the shrill voices of the women and Nanook’s odd snarl.

 “We’re all right!” Sean yelled, cupping his hands, and his cry reverberated. Then he looked chagrined when they both heard the thunder of a rock slide. “Most likely an ice calf,” Sean said in a moderate tone. “Let’s get back. They’re not in trouble, but something’s upset them.”

 They found the others near one of the rock piles at the outer edge of the cave. Yana stood, hands clasped behind her back, looking down, her face bleak.

 “Nanook found it,” she said, nodding to where Bunny was kneeling over some object. Yar a stepped aside so that Sean could see the sobbing girl, who suddenly prostrated herself in a paroxysm of grief to touch with shaking, tear-wet fingers the heel of a booted foot. The sole of another stuck out from under a boulder of ice. Scored across the ice in all directions were the ruts of the claws of Gonish the track-cat who had vainly tried to dig the man out of his tomb. Frozen blood, still red, stained many of the deeper grooves.

 Sean knelt beside Bunny, one arm around her as his other hand reached out to touch the boot; he ran his fingers along the sole and what could be seen of the ankle. The leather had long since frozen to the hardness of stone.

 Finally, distressed by his silent grieving, Yana touched his shoulder. He looked up at her, tears running down his cheeks.

 “We could dig . . .” she began.

 Sean shook his head and rose, his arms hanging down by his sides. “He already rests in the planet.”

 “Which killed him,” Diego blurted out, and then stepped backward from the look on Sean’s face.

 Sean sighed deeply, his expression repentant as he stepped forward to touch Diego’s arm. “No, it is not a question of ‘kill’ here.”

 Bunny rose then, rubbing her wet cheeks against her arms. Diego immediately went to hold her in a close embrace. She relaxed against him, her body still shaken with sobs.

 “I do know that,” Diego said over her bent head to Sean. “Bunny’s showed me that even though Petaybee can be a hard planet, it s fair. I understand, Bunny, I really do,” he said to the top of her head. “When you hear my song, you’ll know.”

 “And mine,” Sean said softly.

 Diego’s eyes widened in respect. “I’d like to hear you sing, sir.” Almost absently, he smoothed Bunny’s disheveled hair back from her face in a way that touched Yana deeply. Sean didn’t miss it, either.

 “Uncle,” Bunny asked in a very tentative voice, “does that mean . . . my mother . . .”

 Sean looked to the big cat, who scratched around the site, sniffing, then brushed hard against Sean’s leg and hand.

 “Nanook says no,” Sean said finally and the track-cat emphasized that with a clear no and a sneeze.

 Yana held her arms wide in helplessness. “So what do we do now?”

 “Well, I,” Sean said, “go on. It’s possible for me. You three go back.” He clasped Diego’s shoulder firmly when the boy would have argued. “You three can help spread the word of what happened at McGee’s Pass. We can’t have that happening anywhere else. Or, if it has”—Sean’s expression turned even bleaker than it had when he accepted the death of his brother-in-law—“keep the problem from spreading. Yana, could you find out what dissolves Petraseal? Something has to. We’ve got to clean up McGee’s Pass’s cave system.”

 “I’ll find someone who knows how, but—“ Yana caught back the thought at first, until Sean’s querying eyes made her continue. “What if Luzon finds out what Petraseal can do to the planet?”

 “All the more reason for us to know how to clean it up, but the people, especially those who are with us already, must be warned so they can protect their places. With their lives, if necessary.”

 “You can count on us, Uncle Sean,” Bunny said, standing upright in Diego’s embrace, her face stern with resolve.

 “I know that. Now, let’s eat and get some rest,” he said, adroitly guiding everyone away from the ice mausoleum.

 Sometime during an uneasy sleep that night, Yana felt Sean’s lips on her cheek and forehead, his hands stroking her, pausing on her gravid belly. When she woke the next morning, his clothing, empty of his body, was arranged against her as if he still occupied it.

 When the others woke, Yana had had time to bundle up Sean’s things so that Diego wouldn’t ask unanswerable questions. The boy was appalled enough to think that Sean Shongili had gone on all by himself.

 “He’s mad. How could he possibly survive in an arctic ocean? I don’t understand you, Bunny. How can you just sit there eating breakfast as if this was just another day, when your own uncle—“

 “My own uncle has ways not possible for us,” she said equably.

 “What’d he do? Call a tube whale for a ride?” Diego asked sarcastically.

 Yana and Bunny exchanged glances.

 “Something like that,” Bunny said, gnawing on her jerky meat.

 “I’ve seen him do it,” Yana said, seeing that Diego was working himself up into quite a state. “You know he’s got a way with animals.”

 “Yes, but he’s left Nanook here.”

 Nanook gave Diego a long and measuring look and a soft soothing sound started deep in the track-cat’s belly, half purr, half reassurance.

 “I just don’t understand you people!” Diego said, throwing his hands up in the air in resignation.

 “You’re getting closer, though,” Bunny said. She smiled up at him and patted the rock beside her. “Sit and eat. We’ve a ways to go today. And you’ve got to finish your song before we get back to Harrison’s Fjord.”

 “You’ve one to do, too, you know,” he snapped at her.

 “Diego!” Yana snapped right back as she would to an insolent trooper.

 “Sorry,” he muttered, and sat down and gnawed his anger away on his own strip of jerky.

 Coaxtl did not entirely desert her youngling. The airship was similar to other machines she had expertly dodged before. They often held people who had proved dangerous to her kind. She followed it on swift paws, venturing perilously near to a human-place, and there, on a hillock over looking the habitations, she found herself a place where she and the Home seemed as one, and watched and waited.

 She did not see where the youngling went, but she saw when the airship flew into the sky again, carrying only one of the men with it.

 A night passed, a day, and another night, and still Coaxtl waited, and she saw a land machine that could run very fast, and which she liked no better than the flying kind, scuttle toward a den. A man climbed out of it and she recognized him as the white-tailed one of the bad scent. He walked to a place where young ones were playing and there, so still that even Coaxtl’s searching eyes had not spotted her, sat the youngling, small and still as the tree against which she waited while the other human cubs frolicked in the snow.

 After a time, the youngling rose and followed the white-tailed one to the land machine, which Coaxtl saw contained another man already and many objects. The machine sped out of the town, past the hillock where Coaxtl waited, and back out toward the plains. Coaxtl knew, without knowing how she knew, that the man was taking the youngling to that place from which she had escaped.

 This seemed foolish to Coaxtl. Foolish of the white-tail to take the youngling back to where she obviously did not want to be, and foolish of the girl to go. It did not make sense to Coaxtl why the girl would return to the bad place she had fled. Therefore, since it did not make sense, it could not be true. Therefore, the child did not wish to go back. Therefore, the men did not have the youngling’s best interests in mind, and such interests were once more protected only by Coaxtl. Therefore, Coaxtl followed, keeping to cover when she could and traveling faster and more quietly than the cloud shadows she resembled.

 Luzon headed in the direction of the Vale of Tears, right into the rising sun, which, despite the snow-glare goggles he wore, made driving very difficult.

 The girl had been very little help, being too ignorant to know the use of a map. She could simply point out the general direction she had been traveling when he had first seen her with the cat. He hoped she would be of more use later.

 The child spoke not at all now, crouching in the pull-down jump seat behind him, her ragged-nailed fingers clutching the safety webbing as if her life depended on its protection. That annoyed Matthew, who considered himself an extremely capable driver. He fixed his gaze on the so-called track he had to follow, while Braddock kept his eyes glued on the compass when the terrain made it necessary to detour about obstacles even the sturdy snocle couldn’t run over. Only once did the girl make a sound: a sort of half-stifled cry of relief.

 “What was that all about, little one?” he asked, trying to sound as benign as he could.

 “Nnnunununn nothing, gracious sir,” she said, and he had the vague impression that she had to turn her head back to the front to answer him. He glanced in the mirror but could see nothing but snowy plains and patchily covered mountains behind them.

 “It must have been something. You haven’t said a word since we left. Are you not happy in my company?”

 “You are gracious, sir.”

 “Then share your thoughts with me.”

 “Oh, sir, I’m most definitely not worthy to share anything with anyone. It was only that I saw a pretty shadow . . .”

 Matthew immediately knew that for a prevarication, as he could see nothing anywhere that might qualify as a pretty shadow.” Because he didn’t wish to drive the timorous girl so far into her shell that she would be even less communicative than she was already, he let the matter drop.

 It took four days by snocle to reach the Vale. Goat-dung rode in misery and, when she was allowed, in silence. The journey was much for her as sleep had been in the Vale—a respite, a brief time away, but always with the knowledge that she would wake within the Vale.

 She was not traveling with Dr. Luzon because of his promises to free her, to adopt her. No, she knew better than to hope for such things, and besides, she was not the sort of person that anyone thought important enough to keep their promises to. She rode with him because she knew, as she had always known, with a dull, dreading certainty, that sooner or later she would wake up, end up, back in the Vale. When she had been with Coaxtl in her Home, she had for a time hoped to be free. With Coaxtl, who was free above all else, it had seemed reasonable to hope for freedom. As soon as she was back among people, even happy, laughing, squabbling people, people who were too ignorant to know that she did not deserve their pity, people who surely lied to pretend they were able to care about her, as soon as she was with them, she knew she was destined to return to the Vale.

 And who better than Dr. Luzon, who was like and yet unlike the Shepherd Howling, to take her there? He did not strike her or try to touch her dirty secret places. He did not, in fact, seem interested in her at all. The only harm he did was to batter her ears constantly with questions about the Vale, about the Shepherd, about the Wisdom’s and the Great Monster. He battered her about Coaxtl, too, but she would say nothing of the big cat, even to Dr. Luzon.

 During the day, mile after mile of snow sped past the snocle’s wind bubble—snowy hills, snowy plains, snowy valleys, snowy hills again. They sped past half-frozen rivers and slushy places they had to detour around, through forests and over land too high for forest to grow, past rabbit tracks and moose tracks and the tracks of horses. She wondered if these horses wore horns, like one she had glimpsed long ago. At first, it was exciting to travel over land so fast, but the excitement soon paled when she realized how quickly she was returning to the one place she did not want to be!

 Nights were bad because that’s when the questions began, so that she had the Shepherd’s teachings ringing in her ears as she fell asleep, just as she always had in the Vale

 Only one piece of knowledge made all bearable, something only she knew, that just behind the hill, or hunkered down in a nearby bush, or back in the trees, or watching from the rim of a valley, a lone clouded shape vigilantly followed and stood guard at night. And when she woke at night sweating in her new warm winter clothing, she would hear a purr inside her mind, from out of the darkness, and the song of Coaxtl would lull her to sleep again.

 Sleep, youngling

 Sleep and dream

 Of when your eyes will open

 Sleep, youngling

 Sleep and dream

 Of the day when your tail will he long

 Sleep and dream

 Sleep and dream

 Safe in the Home you’ll be throbbed into slumber

 Safe in the Home you’ll be crooned to all day

 Sleep, youngling

 Sleep and dream

 At twilight we two will go hunting.

  

 When this happened, sometimes the bad dreams did not return; sometimes she woke without fearing the daylight.

 Such a night had passed before the day when they reached the Vale. Panic rose and choked off her breath as she looked down into the Vale, which now was muddy, but without water, and with a new coat of ice and snow.

 She wanted to say “Stop!” to Dr. Luzon, but he would not have listened. Instead, he called to Braddock to drive recklessly down into the Vale, whereupon they were immediately surrounded by the Faithful.

 Most of them had never seen a snocle before. Some cried out in alarm, “The Great Monster!”

 Others said, “No, an angel of the company.”

 But when they saw her, people didn’t know what to think. Ascencion, whom she saw on the edge of the crowd, gave her a hard look and then turned, to appear a short time later with the Shepherd himself.

 The Shepherd looked smaller, somehow, and rather ordinary, not larger than life as he usually appeared. His chin was smooth, to show his purity over other men, who must wear whiskers. His hair was cut short for the same reason, although the women were never, ever to cut theirs unless they were being shamed for some wrong.

 He did not, at first, look very friendly to Dr. Luzon, though he retained that air of peaceful detachment and complete calm he carried with him at all times when he wasn’t preaching—until he fell into a terrible rage. But now he spoke softly. “We are a solitary and forsaken people, living apart on the hideous monster that is the back of this world. Why have you disturbed us?”

 Matthew Luzon said, a slight yearning entering his tone that Goat-dung had not heard there before, “Why, we have come to you for wisdom, of course, good Shepherd. I am Dr. Matthew Luzon, an investigator for the company, and this is my assistant, Braddock Makem. The child you know.”

 “I know her,” the Shepherd said, his calmness turning cold as his eyes touched Goat-dung’s face. “She is a traitor who has run from the light. What business has a company investigator got with her or with me?”

 “I am a special sort of investigator, Shepherd,” Matthew explained. “It is my job to purge the company’s holdings of lies that corrupt and mislead the people. Many on this world lie about its nature, seek to make us believe it is not merely a planet, but a sentient organism, whose natural events have intent and intelligence behind them. The girl told me of your teachings. I believe you know the truth and would learn it from you. I would have you testify before the company about this truth, as well.”

 “The company needs my testimony?” the Shepherd asked. Goat-dung would have suspected he’d be delighted. After all, in his teachings, the company was the great force that had changed all of their lives and cast them into anguish at the mercy of the Great Monster. He seemed to be weighing his words when he answered, “This gives me much to ponder. I will do a teaching this evening. You may attend. But there is another matter between us. This girl . . .”

 “She told me of your teachings, Shepherd. She’s impressed me very much, and I would like to retain her as my research assistant.”

 “That is impossible. We are betrothed. Tonight will be our deferred wedding night. After the teaching, there will be a feast, and then she shall cleave unto me even as her mother did.”

 Matthew turned to Goat-dung with a mockery of happy surprise on his face. “Why, Goat-dung! Congratulations.”

 She hung her head.

 Ascencion came forward and took her in charge and led her away to the makeshift tent—shed that was the newly rebuilt wedding hut, while her self—proclaimed rescuer ignored her plight to court her chief tormentor. As she shuffled along behind Ascencion, however, she heard the Shepherd tell Matthew, “After the wedding, she will no longer be Goat-dung. Everyone must address her, as befits my wife, by her new name, Dolores.”

 Dolores: Full of woe. What could be more appropriate for her? Goat-dung thought. No, in her mind, she would think of herself as ‘Cita.

 She allowed herself to be dressed in the ceremonial “Taking Gown,” the cloak-like gown that all of the chosen women wore when the Shepherd took them to wife. Once garbed. she was left alone to wait hopelessly for her wedding—until there were shouts from the far end of the Vale and in her mind she heard Coaxtl’s voice saying:

 Another one comes! Fear him not but treat him well and care for his wounds. On his safety depends your own and mine, and that of all the people, for the Home loves this one well.

  

 Chapter 11

 Yana, Diego, and Bunny were recovering from their often treacherous uphill climb back to the cave entrance at Harrison’s Fjord. Ardis told them they had missed Johnny Greene’s return, so they spent two more days anxiously waiting before his copter set down again. They ran out to meet him, ducking under the still-whirling rotors. He looked very tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

 When the noise of the blades stopped, he said, “I know I’m late, but there was something I had to get done, pronto, schnell, fast. And I got news, too.” He hauled his backpack from under the pilot’s seat. “First let me have a hot bath and get eight hours.”

 “Where’re you fitting a decent meal in?” Ardis asked, scowling at him.

 “While I’m bathing, Ardis, love, and anything you have ready’ll suit me fine,” he said with his charismatic smile. “You’re back soon, or did you go?” he asked Yana as she, Diego, and Bunny started back down to the Sounik house. “Oh,” he added, noticing the sudden tears form in Bunny’s eyes, and he threw a comforting arm about her shoulders.

 “My father,” Bunny said in a choked voice.

 “Cave-in,” Yana added.

 “My sympathies, Buneka,” Johnny said formally.

 “It’s not as if I knew him as a father,” she said and gave a little shrug.

 ‘Sean’s gone on, hoping to find traces of Aoifa!” Yana said.

 Then Johnny grinned with pure mischief. “Marmion Algemeine took her folks and the five assistants Matthew made the mistake of leaving behind to the cave where the planet spoke to us after the volcano erupted.”

 “What?”

 He grinned again at the astonished chorus that comment elicited “Yup.”

 “And?” Diego demanded.

 “Well, they were gone thirty hours . . .” Johnny said, and paused, his eyes twinkling as he deliberately lengthened the telling of his story. “And Seamus Rourke and Rick O’Shay said it was one of the nicer visitations they’ve ever had.”

 “Yes, but what happened to Luzon’s guys? And Marmion? And Sally and . . .”

 “Marmion took Millard and Sally. Faber was off doing some other errand,” Johnny supplied when Yana faltered.

 “Seamus swears there-s been very subtle changes in all of them. Can’t see it myself, but Seamus is more in tune with the planet’s ways than I am. Says their hearts are altered even if they don’t think their minds have been, and we’ll have to wait and see what happens. As far as they’re concerned, they spent only a half hour or so in a misty cavern and lost thirty working hours.” Johnny’s grin was as broad as it could get, his eyes almost lost in the folds of his cheeks. “I’ll have to trust him on this one. This is one time the planet’s too sly even for me.”

 “Nothing at all noticeable? They didn’t have the dream?”

 Yana asked. The dream—actually, a sort of experiential emotional history of what the planet had undergone during its relatively short lifetime—that she had shared with Johnny, Sean, the Whittakers, and others shortly before they were rescued would have been quite a revelation for Matthew’s physically fit boyos. She would have liked to have heard that they’d got the full treatment so they’d know beyond a shadow of a doubt how the planet felt about what was being done to it.

 “I wouldn’t worry, Yana,” Johnny said, and Bunny, still closely embraced, nodded wisely, too.

 “I just hope so. Because . . .”

 Johnny shook his head, released Bunny, and stopped. “Lemme get a bath, some food, and some sleep, and we’ll talk when my head’s clearer. Okay?”

 So they relented and tried to find other things to do to occupy themselves while Johnny slept, so tired that Ardis swore he didn’t move arm or leg from the moment he lay down on the bed.

 The curly-coats needed grooming, which took a good hour and a half while Nanook sunned himself on the terrace. That seemed to be the focal point for all the felines of Harrison’s Fjord. Even Shush the Survivor was there, the recipient of many rubbings and strokings and lickings.

 Yana, easing back muscles for a moment as she was tackling the matted underbelly of her pony, wondered at the attentions Shush was receiving.

 “Do they do that to every newcomer? she asked Bunny.

 Shush had put on a good deal of flesh in the scant week she’d been at the Fjord and no longer looked like a rack of orange-skinned bones and pathetic eyes.

 Bunny looked over and grinned. “Naw, they’re educating her. Nanook said something was necessary since the poor cat’d had no one to teach her how to pass on messages. Her mother got killed before she could, so she’s being brought up to speed with the rest of Clodagh’s cats. And—“ Bunny frowned, because there were far more cats there than there should have been.  “There must be messages coming in.” She put down the body brush she’d been vigorously using on her pony and walked over to Nanook.

 “What’s up?” she asked, sitting down beside him in a space made available by a resettlement of many orange bodies.

 Liam Maloney is not pleased at what happened to Dinah, Nanook told her. The cat sat perfectly still and stared into Bunny’s eyes through his own wide golden ones, the message rumbling into her mind as all of the more complicated messages did. The cat’s vocalizations were limited to the few short human terms within the range of its speech centers. These longer communications needed a bit more concentration, especially with a neophyte recipient such as Bunny or Yana Maddock. With Sean Shongili it was a different matter altogether. Talking to Sean was second nature.

 Bunny sighed. “I knew Liam would be upset but he does know she’s recovering and is being very well treated?”

 Nanook licked a front paw briefly to indicate the affirmative. He passes on that there is trouble at Deadhorse like what you found at McGee’s Pass. Trouble also waits at Wellington and Savoy.

 Bunny thought about that. These were the four towns most remote from Kilcoole, and each of them had been reported by the cats as being in favor of mining. She couldn’t help but wonder if each of the towns had also had recent changes in their shanachies. She gave a convulsive shudder. If there were any more like Satok, the trouble was bigger than she’d ever conceived it could be. And if all four of those villages had had their caves coated in Petraseal . . . She shuddered again.

 “What else?” she asked, sensing that Nanook was waiting for her to absorb that information.

 Satok has been visiting these other villages. Satok has friends in all of them.  The reports, by the way, are from track-cats and feral cats. No more like Shush live in those villages.

 “The hell he has!”

 “What’s the matter, Bunny?” Yana asked, startled by Bunny’s loud, angry outburst.

 “But what can we do about it?” Bunny asked quickly, waving to Yana to keep on with what she was doing.

 Nanook licked the tip of his tail thoughtfully. Clodagh has been informed of all. There is more. When the pilot man goes south, we must go with him.

 “Sean’s not in danger, is he?”

 Nanook blinked. We go south, too. Then he stretched his long body out across the sun warmed stone of the wall, and Bunny knew he had finished talking to her.

 She went back to Darby and picked up where she left off.

 “What was that all about?” Yana asked. leaning against Darby’s rump.

 “Nanook says we’d better go south with Johnny.” She added hastily, “No, Nanook doesn’t think Sean’s in trouble, but he does think we should go south.”

 Johnny Greene did, too.

 “I’d have to go back even if I didn’t want to check up on the kid,” he said. “Whit wants me to keep an eye on Luzon. Actually, I was supposed to pick him up at Sierra Padre a couple of days ago.” Johnny grinned unrepentantly. “Had engine trouble.”

 Bunny cocked an eyebrow at Johnny.

 “Oh, I’ll have a real one for Dr. Luzon,” Johnny said, brushing aside her skeptical reaction. “But I had a sudden premonition, like, and since I’ve rarely had one that strong before that didn’t turn out that I should have listened more closely, this time I did. So I called in a few favors and sorted the problem out. Just in case.” Then he grinned with all the abandon of a boy who had just pulled the best practical joke in the world on his worst enemy and there’d be no way of assigning guilt to him.

 “What have you done, Captain Greene?”  Yana asked, resuming her military attitude.

 “Nothing, Major sir, to bother your head about.” He laid a finger alongside his nose and winked at her. But for all the amusement in his eyes, his expression told her she’d get no more out of him and to let the matter be.

 She nodded. “Something which will no doubt please me in days to come?”

 “I devoutly hope so, considering the effort I’ve put into it. Now, since I’ve had my bath, food, sleep, and more food, let’s load up. Nanook wants you south, he gets you south. Ah, and you’re coming along with us, are you, Nanook?” The black and white track-cat had strolled up to the copter and was peering inside it. “He doesn’t much like flying, you know,” Johnny added. “Looking won’t change the flight process, pal.”

 Nanook crawled under the second row of passenger seats, tucked his tail tight against his body, and laid his head on his paws. His whole attitude was one of patient resignation to an inevitable fate.

 “Well, he’s stowed. Get yourselves aboard.” Johnny gestured for Bunny and Diego to sit over Nanook, while Yana took the other front seat. Then he handed around headphones so they could all communicate during the long journey south

 They knew something was wrong the moment Loncie carne to the door.

 “Luzon?” Johnny asked simply, and got a stream of Andean invective that was both colorful and inventive, the gist of it being that the son of a scabrous tarantula had stolen La Pobrecita. Pointed inquiry around Sierra Padre by the entire Ondelacy/Chompas clan had brought forth the information that the vomitus spewings of an excrement—devouring long extinct reptile which would eat its own mother without shame or serious second contemplation had taken the only snocle in all of Sierra Padre, Lhasa, or any place this side of Bogota, which was, as Juanito knew, a very long journey, especially at this uncertain time of year.

 “When did all this happen?” Johnny asked quickly.

 “The day after you left, Juanito. I thought she would be safe playing with my own ninos! I was a fool! A fool!”

 Johnny was too angry to say anything more. Mostly he was angry at himself. He should have known Luzon would stop at nothing. At least the man hadn’t hurt Loncie or one of her family in the kidnapping—not that they’d ever be able to prove it was a kidnapping. He nearly, but not quite, regretted the two days he had taken to make his private arrangements. One thing was certain: They’d have to move, and move fast, if they were to get the girl away again. This time he was leaving her nowhere near Luzon.

 “Didn’t she scream? Or—or anything?” Bunny asked, pushing herself out from behind Johnny’s back.

 “She went willingly, from what my children know of it,” Loncie said. “She feared the man, one could see that, but he was the sort she would follow because he is what she is used to, what she has been taught to love. Well, perhaps not love, but someone who acts as she expects people to act. She cannot imagine anything else and so allows him to return her.”

 “She didn’t accept it, though, did she?” Bunny demanded, not just of Loncie but of all the adults and Diego. “She ran away, didn’t she? We’ve got to help her!”

 Yana put her arm reassuringly around the girl’s shoulders. “That’s what we’re here to do, Rourke. All the lady is saying is that the poor kid had been so brainwashed, she rejected happiness because the concept was so unfamiliar that it was scary.”

 “Ah!” And Lonciana nodded vigorous1y. “You have said it. But, come, enter. The evening meal is prepared and you must eat. You will never find this secret place from which she comes in the darkness. Also, you must tell us all that is happening to bring such a planet-defiling dung-sucking leech as this Luzon to our world, and we must sing together.”

 “Our timing’s great, kids,” Yana said, trying to inject a little bravado into the currently demoralizing state of affairs. “We may have a song or two to pass along ourselves. Was anyone from this village at Bremport?”

 Loncie’s eyes brimmed suddenly, and Yana understood the term “dolorous” as she never had before. The woman’s chins trembled and her mouth contorted with sudden grief. Yana would have touched her arm, but Pablo was there already, his small frame supporting his wife’s larger one like steel scaffolding.

 “Our second son, Alejandro.”

 To Yana’s count that made the last of those from Petaybee who had died in that incident. She heaved a sigh of relief and allowed herself to be escorted into the house.

 “Hey, a guitar!” The exclamation burst from Diego’s lips and then he flushed, realizing that his excitement was not quite suitable following mention of those who died at Bremport.

 “You like guitar?” Lonciana asked, her whole expression brightening.

 “Do I like guitar? I’ve been trying to make one.” Diego reached into his backpack and brought out the neck he had been so patiently shaping.

 “Que hombre!” Lonciana embraced him as if he were a long-lost friend. Diego, momentarily engulfed by her, grinned—more with acceptance of her enthusiasm than embarrassment.

 They ate first, of course, and various young Ondelacy-Chompases were sent to inform the entire village that there would be a special singing this evening: too late to make it a latchkay, but certainly there would be blurry and a bite or two to go down with it.

 “I thought blurry was Clodagh’s specialty,” Yana commented as she washed up before dinner.

 Johnny grinned. “The north doesn’t have a corner on the market of all good things, Yana. Had you come up from the ranks as I did, instead of training at an officer’s academy with so few Petaybean candidates, you’d have learned something of the joys of comparative Petaybean blurry drinking. Every time Loncie returned from leave, she used to bring back a stash: Old Armadillo is what we nicknamed her recipe, because it armors you so well against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The spice she uses gives it a little more kick than the mulled-cider kinda thing you get up north.”

 Bunny, who was watching Pablo demonstrate to an enraptured Diego first the techniques of playing the guitar and then the sound made by the bagpipes, said, “They have more than a few things down here that we don’t have up north.”

 Lonciana did something with a mess of beans that Yana, sensitive now to such subtleties, would have given her right big toe to discover. It was tasty and filling, satisfying even their hearty appetites.

 Immediately afterward, the table was dismantled and taken out of the main room, and chairs, benches, stools, and odd crates were placed about the room. The guitar came off the wall again, and Yana identified one round object with jingling bits fastened in its lip as a tambourine.

 Lonciana was busy in the kitchen end of the house, mixing the blurry with the help of her eldest daughters, while Pablo, Johnny, and the older Ondelacy boys began to greet the visitors as they began to pour in.

 Once again Yana wondered at the way a small Petaybean house could seem to expand infinitely to contain so many people. Eventually there was only a small space around the high stool that had been placed in the center of the room for the singers—of which Yana was one, and probably the first. Bunny and Johnny both kept her mug as well as Diego’s full of blurry once Diego announced that he had his song, too.

 Yana missed Sean desperately, but Johnny took her to the stool and settled her on it, taking the mug when she drained the last of the blurry.

 “This is Major Yana Maddock, who was at Bremport and who is now one of us,” Johnny began simply. “She has a song for you.”

 Silence has different qualities, Yana knew, from the absolute one she’d not heard on her few space walks to that of expectancy, either a hopeful or happy one, or a mean and miserable show-us-your-stuff kind. This was expectant and almost reverent. That startled her so much that she began to sing to stop what her ears weren’t hearing.

 After the first few lines got past her teeth, she actually began to enjoy the act of singing, not that she would ever truly enjoy the song that she must sing. Maybe one day soon, as Sean had suggested, she’d find joy in making a song.

 “I was sent here to die, too, here where the snows live, The waters live, the animals and trees live. And you And now I live.”

 The last words came out before she realized she had added them to the song.

 Then Lonciana and Pablo made their way to her and took her hands, holding them to their cheeks, their tears moistening the backs of her fingers. Each of the Ondelacy children, smiling shyly with their misty eyes, touched her hands. too.

 Other voices lifted in appreciation of her song and she was able to get down off the stool without any help.

 Bunny led Diego to the stool. There was a purpose in the young man’s eye now, Yana noticed, that hadn’t been there before. He was growing into his true manhood, and what had happened at McGee’s Pass had tempered him.

 “This is Diego Metaxos, who was with me at McGee’s Pass and risked his life to save me,” Bunny said, giving Diego’s hand a squeeze before she released it. “He has a song that all must hear.”

 Diego tipped his head back, closed his eyes to slits, and rested his hands on his thighs with his feet hooked on the lower stretcher of the stool.

 “Deep is the place of communion

 Where mist and ice and stone are warm

 With what is more than friendship,

 More than father or mother love,

 With nurturing and understanding.

 We all treasure this place of communion.

 It is our place, our place, our place.”

  

 His voice, now firmly baritone, raised to the top of his range and intensified as he repeated the phrase. Then his tone altered to that of a story teller who is forced to relate truths that disturb him.

 “There are others who do not believe that our place

 Is ours and has been since men and women came here.

 They were once of us, and knew of communion.

 They left and in their years of leaving learned

 Much of evil and selfishness and unsharing, uncaring, un-

 kind, self-seeking, self-helping self-first and always.

 Having knowledge of things that bind and score and cover

 They have returned to make evil what was good”

 Again his voice changed, colored with a bitterness that made Yana twitch uneasily, a bitterness that roused all his listeners.

 “Why steal what is ours for no purpose but to keep it for

 only one?

 Why deprive the many of communion and hope and peace

 in times of worry?

 Why bury truth?

 Why bury our planet alive!”

  

 Gasps of horror greeted that phrase, but Diego did not falter.

 “For it has been buried alive, screaming unheard

 At McGee’s Pass.

 The stone smothered,

 The roots strangled,

 The soil smothered

 White death like

 Your snow-skin

 From one like

 But unlike

 A son.

 What son wishes death to his father?

 What son demands honor unearned?

 Women raped and villages frightened

 And deprived of their place of communion

 And the gentle mists that heal,

 The gentle touch that soothes,

 The spirit that nurtures us. All of us!”

  

 Diego’s song roused the indignation of every listener that evening. Bunny was so proud of his song and his singing she almost vibrated. Then, when he had rested from the exertions of his singing, both young people related what had happened at McGee’s Pass, and described Satok’s treachery.

 Well and truly blurred, Yana was still quite conscious of some of the discussion that went on late into the night, to the accompaniment of guitar, fiddle, flute, tambourine, maracas, and castanets. But she, Loncie, and Johnny—possibly Bunny, too, at one point—had decided that the most important thing they could now do was rescue La Pobrecita from Shepherd Howling.

 From Lonciana’s description, the man was worse than Satok, but only marginally, if he insisted on marrying a pre-pubescent child when he already had four or five wives. Yana had been well drilled in leaving alone the customs and mores of indigenous populations, but she was not indigenous, and the whole concept of forced wife-hood was abhorrent. That night they pieced together what La Pobrecita had said and came up with a fair idea of where the Vale of Tears might be, judging from where she had been found, how long she said she’d been traveling, and from what direction. By Johnny’s reckoning, the place should be a valley set in the Sierra Padres somewhere near the head of the Lacrimas River. Given decent weather, they should have no problem flying right to the place. And if they met Luzon, at least two of them could give chase on the snocub, a two-person snocle that Johnny had fit handily in the cargo net.

  

 Chapter 12

 Dr. Whittaker Fiske received the coded messages from Johnny Greene with concern and no little dismay—particularly the second one, the one Johnny sent him after he first returned to the north. He had quickly approved the pilot’s scheme and given him all due assistance. By calling in a few personal favors owed the pilot and promising the supply sergeant R&R to the tropical planet of her choice, he had ensured that all Petraseal available at and to SpaceBase had been urgently requisitioned elsewhere. At Johnny’s suggestion, the Petraseal cans had been emptied into a single tank for immediate shipment, while the empty containers still labeled “Petraseal” had been filled with the last consignment of white paint, which was rarely used on Petaybee except for camouflage purposes. However, between implementing Johnny’s scheme and work at SpaceBase, he had been too fully occupied to be able to return to Clodagh to warn her of the grave implications of what had taken place at McGee’s Pass.

 He was concerned about how Clodagh would take it. She was an amazing woman, unconventionally beautiful, intelligent, wise, and kind, but she felt everything that happened to Petaybee personally. Maybe if everybody did the same, there wouldn’t be any problem, but even after his experience in the cave, he still retained a detachment that kept him from that sort of bond with what he had once thought of as the creation of his family. He did, however, feel a bond with Clodagh—a closer one than he had with anyone in a long time—including, maybe especially, his own son.

 He walked into Kilcoole the morning after Greene’s second transmission. The river was down a bit now that much of the initial thaw had already taken place, but it was still full and fat with water.

 He knew Clodagh wasn’t at home before he knocked on the door. No cats in the windows, on the rooftop, or perched on the various objects in the yard. He peeked through the open door into the neat, empty house and looked down Kilcoole’s one muddy street. The town seemed even more deserted than it had before. He called Clodagh a couple of times, but when he received no answer, he strolled down to Yana Maddock’s place. There, at least, her cat Marduk sat on the stoop, and sprang up as if it had been waiting for him. Well, knowing these cats, maybe it had been.

 At that point, the door of the house across the street opened and Frank Metaxos poked his prematurely white-haired head out. The man’s speech was still a little slow, but he was a far cry from the wreck he had been only a few weeks earlier.

 “How’s it going, Frank?” Whit asked.

 “I hate being stuck here,” Frank told him. “You heard anything of my boy?”

 “Matter of fact, I did,” Whit replied affably. “He’s doing fine. Been a great help to everybody. Say, you haven’t seen Clodagh, have you?”

 “She went out to the springs, I think. Marduk there”—Frank nodded at the cat—“knows the way. Though you’ll have to walk. All the curlies are carrying the people to visit the neighbors.”

 “Visiting the neighbors” was the term the Kilcoole people were using to describe their mission to the other villages. Whit wasn’t overly surprised. After all, these people were half-descended from the Irish who had described their own centuries-old guerrilla conflict as “the Troubles” and a massive international war as “the Emergency.”

 He followed Marduk through knee-high weeds that had been lying in ambush under the snow, waiting for the thaw.

 Birds sang and dived overhead, both small, pretty song-birds and swooping, squawking ravens. Small creatures rustled the underbrush; a red fox darted across his path. Marduk scurried up a tree when the fox passed, and hissed and spit at the silvery wake the creature cut in the tall grass.

 Whit found Clodagh beside the springs, surrounded by not only her cats but all sorts of animals, including a large, strong curly-coat. They stood, lay, or sat and watched her as she pulled and separated, pulled and separated a profusion of plants growing rampant around the hot-springs banks. Her bountiful wavy black hair was braided and coiled on top of her head; sweat ran down her face and neck as she worked.

 “Slainte, Whittaker,” she said without looking up.

 “Slainte yourself, my dear. What the devil are you trying to do?”

 “I’m pullin’ weeds,” she said.

 “So I see,” he responded dryly. “Are you just pulling these particular weeds around the springs, or did you plan to personally defoliate the entire area between here and Kilcoole?”

 She stood up, hands planted on her broad back. “Just these,” she said, smiling. “I could use a hand. I’m kinda in a hurry.”

 “Be glad to. I’m afraid, however, that I’ve come as the bearer of bad tidings.”

 “You going to tell me about that guy that sealed up some of the communion places? Silenced the planet and fooled all those people at McGee’s Pass and so on?”

 “Well, yes.”

 “Yeah, well, I heard about that.”

 “You did?” he asked, dumbfounded at first and then shaking his head as understanding set in. “Of course. I suppose your usual informants told you.

 “Kinda. It took the cats a long time to find out, because he killed all but one of ‘em. But that one got word out to mine and they told me. They say he put some white junk on the inside of the cave that fuses the rock—stuff they use to shore up walls in mines.”

 “Yes. Petraseal. Johnny Greene also reported that to me. It’s very bad news, Clodagh. If our adversaries at Intergal learn that there is something that can defeat your communication with the planet, they’re apt to go overboard on using it.”

 “Yeah,” she nodded gravely. “That’s what I thought. I was pretty worried about it, too, so I came out here to talk to Petaybee.”

 “I don’t suppose it’s very happy about all this.”

 “It’s sure not.”

 “Did it have any ideas?”

 “Well, not in so many words. Except, I just started wondering, what if this stuff doesn’t always work? What if there’s something stronger than it is, that can go through it? And you know, all of a sudden, I looked down and saw where this coo-berry bramble was growin’ right up through the floor of the cave, and when I came out here, why I noticed what I hadn’t seen before. You know how that is?”

 “I do,” Whit nodded.

 “Anyway, we never had a problem with coo-berries here before. And coo-berries are a problem. Just about impossible to destroy and they’ll go through anything. You see what I’m getting at?”

 “I think I do. You’re sure it’ll work?”

 She shrugged, then directed him where to pull. The berries had sharp thorns. “After we get a bunch pulled up, we wrap ‘em in leaves and our bigger, faster friends here will see that they get delivered.” She nodded at the animals.

 It was Whit’s turn to shrug as he buttoned down his sleeves and started pulling.

 Satok had no problem eluding the trackers from McGee’s Pass. For one thing, he was wily, with a lot of friends and resources. For another thing, one of those resources was a shuttle hidden in a secret camouflaged shed about a half hour from his house, close enough that he could get to it in a hurry, and far enough away from the center of things that it was unlikely to be found.

 He flew first to Deadhorse, then Wellington and Savoy. There former shipmates of his, all of whom he had set up as replacements for the recently expired shanachies, were in various stages of converting the people in the towns to their version of “what the planet wanted.”

 “I don’t see what the problem is,” said Reilly, Savoy’s new headman, as he sat drinking with Satok. “These people believe anything they’re told. Just tell ‘em the people at McGee’s Pass have gone nuts or something.”

 “Your problem is you don’t think far enough ahead, Reilly,” Satok said. The brats got away. The McGee’s Pass people scattered to a lot of places. They know about the cave. Now, the problem is not so much what they think of us as the possibility of competition. Using the Petraseal was my idea. Finding out how to use the Petraseal without the planet freaking us out of our fraggin’ minds was my idea. I want credit and credits. You boys will get yours, as well, of course. But if this committee that’s investigating things sees the Petraseal before we claim our finders’ fee, Intergal will have everything and there’ll be nothing for anybody else.”

 “So what do you need from us?”

 “Ore samples, of course, and a low profile until I can show up with some company big wig to buy our method.” He snapped his fingers for the slattern who was serving the booze to bring another round. This was stronger stuff than the blurry, even considering the effect this stupid planet had of neutralizing intoxicants with every other native beverage or food consumed. Fortunately, Satok had had little else to eat or drink for a couple of days. The girl looked familiar—one of his cast offs, no doubt. Sure had let herself go, though. Moped around with down cast eyes, ugly shapeless clothes, dirty lank hair, sallow skin mottled with bruises. Some women just had no self-respect. If she’d looked like that when he first came to the village, he’d never have touched her.

 “Okay, so when do you need the samples?”

 “Now,” Satok growled. “Or haven’t you been listening? I want the shuttle loaded with the best you’ve got.”

 “How do we know you won’t just take it and take off?”

 “Because there’s a lot more to be made here than what we could gouge out of the ground by ourselves. You have to think big. Besides, I’ll need some of you along to help me unload.”

 “So where are you taking this stuff?”

 He shrugged. “SpaceBase, for a start.”

  

 The cold of the icy waters was more of a shock than usual because Sean had just been so warmly wrapped about Yana. But it was always the first part of him to enter the water that experienced the trauma. Despite the almost stupefying cold, he forced himself to drop into the freezing dark waters. The change occurred more abruptly than ever: self-preservation at its highest level.

 Once the waters closed over his altering head, the sounds he hoped to hear pinged back and forth. He sent out his call and felt the stir of water as a tube whale responded. The brush of the huge mammal against him in human form would have been crushing, but the selkie was less vulnerable. Stroking one flipper on the firm flesh of the whale, Sean-Selkie floated forward until he came to the proportionally small whale eye. One flipper-hand reaching as high up on the skull above the eye as possible, Sean communicated his need.

 Do you remember the place before it fell?

 Yes.

 Take me to the other side.

 As you wish.

 Sean-Selkie had time to secure a hold on the side fin before he was propelled forward at amazing speed. For what seemed a very long dark time in this lightless medium, Sean-Selkie clung there. Finally the tube whale halted, so abruptly that he was sent flipping end over end, past the whale’s bright unblinking eye and skidding up the icy slope of a tunnel that gaped open onto the sub-arctic seas.

 You have been of great assistance and have my gratitude.

 You are known and your needs considered.

 Then the whale departed, once more singing its weird song, one that Sean-Selkie heard faintly, distantly answered. In that direction the tube whale now swam. Sean-Selkie watched until the churning of its flukes was no longer visible in the dark sea. He climbed up into the maw of this section of the underground link between the continents, with its luminous walls and slightly misted footing.

 He had gone no more than a few hundred meters before he knew that both Aoifa and her track-cat had managed to get this far. A neat pile of animal dung, frosted over but identifiable, lay in a little hole, claw marks around it to show that the track-cat had not lost its sense of propriety despite its inability to cover its feces. And four paces beyond the cat’s were human excretions. Sean-Selkie sighed with relief and lumbered on up the long slope, through immense caverns and more upward corridors. He saw other signs—fish skeletons—by lakesides and, diving into the same places, found food for himself to keep strong for this long and lonely journey. He saw the crumpled envelopes of travel rations, too.

 How far and how long the journey took, Sean-Selkie could not gauge. He traveled more safely and economically as a selkie; having no clothes for his human manifestation was the best reason to continue as he was.

 When he eventually emerged into daylight, the sun dazzling him, he had no warning of the danger into which he had blundered. He was always particularly vulnerable as he changed, the transition altering his senses—especially his eye sight and heating. The first arrow took him in the thigh while it was still elongating from a flipper, still covered with spotted fur; the second would have been fatal but for the fact that a feline knocked him to one side. Snarling, the feline guarded him, facing the ragged humans who surrounded the mouth of the cave, one paw, its claws unsheathed, raised against their advance.

 Thanks, clouded one. I owe you a life.

 Can you run with me?

 Must finish transition first. Can’t run or swim, not as is, not wounded in the leg. You go. There is a rifle aimed now at you. Go quickly. They think me helpless.

 Giving one last forward leap, which sent the ragged creatures screaming backward though the armed man did not move, the feline whirled and sped back into the cave and disappeared from sight.

 “Don’t bother with the cat. They’re a half credit the dozen. Secure that monster! He mustn’t escape!”

 So Sean-Selkie, neither man nor seal at this point, endured the indignity of being bound limb to limb and the agony of having the arrow yanked out of his flesh. Even a selkie can faint.

 When Sean recovered consciousness, he wished he had not, for he seemed to be lying in a pile of slushy cold water in a dank-smelling and dark place. His enhanced selkie vision told him that he was alone with some bundles and crates, in a tent made of badly cured skins; the air stank of that, as well as of the mold of continued damp. He had been pegged down, and the wound in his haunch ached.

 Continuing the transformation to human would not be useful, Sean realized, for his limbs as a seal were thinner and more graceful. The bindings would be tighter on human wrists and ankles. He wallowed in the water beneath him, trying to wet himself enough to encourage the full transformation to seal, despite his wound, but it was useless. The melted slush was too shallow and he remained half-transformed, with his lower legs and his arms those of a man, while most of him remained seal.

 Exterior sounds began to filter through to his awakened senses. He could smell fire, a big one, and had a horrible premonition of what a big fire might mean for a captured “monster.” He could hear sounds of quite a few people moving about without much energy, and two male voices, which seemed to punctuate the muted noises of the others with orders, too muffled for him to understand.

 It was while he was trying to decipher the noise into conversations and understand the orders that he heard other small noises and then felt something sawing at the bindings of his feet.

 “I’m cutting you free, monster,” a frightened whisper told him above the sawing. “Coaxtl said I must free you. That you are not a true monster but a proper creature, and you can save me. Coaxtl was my friend and kind to me. They are not kind to me here. There was a small hiccup and sob, and suddenly the efforts of the frightened whisperer were rewarded and the thong parted. Fumbling fingers unwrapped the rest of the wet leather from Sean-Selkie’s feet. “Please don’t eat me, monster. I must help you.”

 I won’t eat you, little one, Sean said, for if she had been talking to Coaxtl, whom he had now identified as the clouded leopard that had saved him, she would hear him speak. I am grateful to Coaxtl. I am also no monster who harms those who rescue him.

 “Shepherd Howling says they are going to roast you in the fire.” Another piteous sob broke from the child’s lips as she snaked herself along his length to his hands. “And Dr. Luzon is trying to talk him into surrendering you for scientific study. I think that means cutting you up. Dr. Luzon said he would adopt me, but instead, he’s given me over to the Shepherd Howling. When Dr. Luzon is gone, I will be punished and then I will be married. If Shepherd Howling prevails, you may be my wedding supper. I would hate to see you suffer. Coaxtl says that if you die, other monsters will avenge you, and the flock would suffer. I know life is supposed to be suffering, but we suffer very much already and I think it is enough. More would be too much.”

 Enough is too much, Sean-Selkie said, trying to assist her sawing efforts by holding his bound wrists as far apart as possible to strain the leather thong. She had to be using the dullest knife in the world to take so long at her job, but he blessed her arrival and her attempts at rescue.

 The wrist thong snapped and he inadvertently slapped her face. She gave a little gasp but no more than that, and it occurred to Sean that she was accustomed to blows. The thought infuriated him.

 My apologies, little one, for my clumsiness in striking the one who frees.

 ‘No apologies are needed for one so unworthy as I, for I am sworn by Coaxtl to rescue you.”

 The dominant male voices were getting loud, and there seemed to be more noise outside the tent.

 We must leave.

 “This way.” She scrambled backward with a speed he was unable to emulate, stiff and sore as he was, with the wound in his haunch hurting even more. But the threat of discovery was a great spur, and blocking the pain in his leg, Sean-Selkie reached the place where she had entered the tent. But his rescuer was a good deal smaller than he. Frantically digging with his hands, he managed to make a large enough opening in the slush to allow him to pass under the edge of the tent. Then, carefully, he reached back inside and, as well as he could, scooped the slush back over the hole.

 “Coaxtl waits,” the girl said, and rising to a crouch. beckoned him to follow.

 Are there man clothes nearby? The arrow wound will not let me run as quickly as I should.

 “Man clothes?”

 Yes, and the quicker the better, dear child, Sean-Selkie said, hearing the noises converging on the tent.

 “This way.”

 The child changed direction, and Sean completed the transformation to his human form as he limped as fast as he could after her. The wound hurt more in his human form. At last she stopped and thrust a pile of filthy clothing at him. The pants were for a much shorter man, but the leather jacket and fur jerkin would be sufficient.

 The girl had disappeared again. While he was struggling with the clothing, wishing he had something to cover the wound before it turned septic from the dirt impregnated in the pants, she returned and thrust some loose wrappings at him.

 “Wrap these about your feet so that—oh! But you have real feet. Are you not really a monster?”

 “Not really, little one. And as a human I am much safer right now among people who are looking for a monster”

 “Oh, but you are not one of us, and everyone would see that you are a stranger.”

 “At night and in the dark?”

 “This night the fire is very bright. Coaxtl said that she would hide you. You are safer with her.”

 “If I could reach her, yes, but the arrow wound slows me down.”

 “Yes, of course it would. How stupid of this unworthy one . . . Come with me. There is one place where you will be safe. At least for a little while.” She giggled. “And even hot water to clean the wound.”

 “There is?”

 “Yes, I was given hot water in which to bathe myself since I am to be made wife to Shepherd Howling—“ Her voice broke.

 Rage suffused Sean so that for a moment he couldn’t speak; he almost cut off the circulation at his ankles as he wound the foot covering on.

 “I must be back there, at my tent. Ascencion said a maiden must be private to bathe on her wedding night.”

 Poor terrified mite, Sean thought, as he cautiously followed her in a crouch that put more strain on his wound. He could feel fresh blood seeping down his leg. They were, however, going away from the noise and the excited mob about to discover that their quarry had disappeared. When they reached their destination, the child struggled with a tent peg so that Sean would not have to crawl again. He took it from her hand and heaved it loose from the slush, and they both entered easily. Fumbling, he managed to get the peg back into place from the inside.

 In the dim light from a small lamp, Sean could see steam still rising from a copper tub, large enough for a good-sized body. He could also look at the pitiful little waif who was going to be forced into an unwanted marriage. Maybe if he could just dress the wound, he’d take her with him to wherever Coaxtl could hide them both.

 A savage ululation startled both of them, and the child grew rigid with fear.

 “You were just in time, my dear . . . what is your name?”

 “I am Goat-dung, lowliest—“

 “You are what?” Sean exclaimed, quite forgetting that there might be someone beyond the partition. Her wide, frightened eyes regarded him with embarrassment.

 “I am called—“

 “Not by me. Turn your back, little one, while I dress my wound. Then we are both leaving this place, and they will be minus one monster for roasting and one maiden for . . . well. We’ll both go.”

 As he was washing the blood from his leg, he heard a tearing noise and a little hand came from around him, holding out a clean white strip. He turned his head over his shoulder and saw her industriously tearing up what must have been either her wedding dress or, more probably, her night gown. Maybe both.

 “Can you spare several more strips, little one?” he asked.

 “All can be yours, man-monster.”

 Since they were going to escape together, he figured he could risk telling her his name now. “I am called Sean Shongili, little one.”

 Once he had cleaned the wound in the warm water, he had made two thick pads of the first strips, listening all the time to the frenzied outrage of the disappointed monster-burners. Then he wound more strips until he had a secure bandage on his leg.

 Suddenly, the noise changed its direction and came toward them.

 “Oh! They will search everywhere for you. That is why you ought to have gone to Coaxtl,” she cried.

 “Get undressed and into that tub, child,” Sean ordered, “and throw your things over the stool against the wall. I can crouch half in and half out, and they won’t be looking for me here, now will they?”

 Courage the child did not lack, and between them, they arranged her clothing so that its folds afforded shadows where he could hide. Unless someone with very bright lanterns searched the entire little cubicle, he doubted he would be seen.

 The child’s screech was warning enough, and he huddled even more closely in on himself as the blanket across the opening was thrown open and a variety of bodies stepped in.

 “Well, it couldn’t have got this far with that wound,” said a voice that Sean instantly recognized as Matthew Luzon’s. The shock of hearing that voice in this environment kept him frozen motionless.

 “It must have had help,” snarled an angry voice. “It can’t have gnawed through leather like that . . .”

 “Ah, but Brother Howling, these monsters are capable of many things mere mortals cannot imagine.”

 So, Matthew has found a soul mate, Sean thought, and the very kind he could best use against us.

 Goat-dung kept on screeching, a sound that occasionally became a gargle as she tried to keep as much of herself beneath the water as possible.

 “Be quiet. You are not in danger, Goat-dung. Wait here. The monster has escaped. You are not to move until Ascencion comes for you. Hear me?”

 “I hear and obey,” the child said in a gargle. Sean heard the blanket being replaced; the intruders made a noisy exit out of the tent, going off in yet another direction.

 Before Sean could even make his suggestion, the child was out of the bath and reaching for the scrap of a towel. She had discreetly turned her back on him, which gave him an even better view of the bruising and welts that marked her back from shoulders to buttocks, and even down to the calves of her tiny legs.

 He handed her her clothing, and she was dressed and jamming her feet into boots with astonishing speed.

 They exited the same way as Howling and Luzon, Goat-dung’s hand curled trustingly in Sean’s. They ran in a crouch, seeking the shadows whenever possible, past the last of the tents that comprised the new locations of the Vale of Tears, and into the night.

 Johnny explained as politely as possible that Lonciana could not accompany them to rescue La Pobrecita.

 “Then Buneka must, for she will know her” Lonciana said.

 “Well you’re not leaving me behind if I have to ride on top,” Diego said staunchly. “If Bunny goes, I go, too.”

 No one even tried to deny him.

 Carmelita and her sisters had told Bunny enough about La Pobrecita that Bunny was quite willing to help rescue her.

 “Look, worst comes to worst,” Bunny said, peering into the copter. “The Major has every reason to be down here, too, checking folks out, same as Matthew Luzon. And if Luzon doesn’t help us get ‘Cita out of the clutches of that pervert, he certainly won’t want all his fine friends knowing he went along with a vile thing like that, now will he?”

 Johnny looked at Yana, not as certain as Bunny that Luzon could be shamed into helping free Pobrecita just because she was in a tough spot and it was the right thing to do. From what Johnny had seen, Luzon was unacquainted with shame. Probably Luzon’s friends, if he had any, were no more disturbed by doing “vile things” than he was.

 “There is a CIS rule about forcing prepubescent children into marriage,” Yana said. “Are we sure she is pre-puberty? She looked at Lonciana.

 “She has no breasts, but that, starved as she was, is not the final test,” Lonciana said with a scowl. “But she knows nothing about her courses, though she knows that there is a bleeding sickness and that some girls remain barren. She knows too much of the wrong things, La Pobrecita!”

 “Okay, I’m game,” Johnny said. “Checking up on Luzon’s current whereabouts ‘cause he’s—late to our rendezvous is within the scope of my orders from Dr. Fiske.”

 Precious time was spent in gathering the ore and loading it onto the shuttle so it could be hauled to SpaceBase. First Satok had to take the shuttle out to each village and set down in a remote area, make contact with the shanachie, and wait for the stuff to be brought and loaded. He certainly couldn’t show his face at this stage, since the people of McGee’s Pass had been turned against him by those outsider kids and half the village was trailing his ass with murder on their minds. He had to keep alert not only for human trackers but also for any of the spying, slinking felines that he knew carried information back and forth between the villages, though he’d never learned how they did it. Ought to have vivisected one of the sneaky buggers and tried to figure it out, he thought.

 He ended up back at Savoy for the last load, and as the faded woman—Luka, that was her name; frag, you’d never know she was the same neat piece he’d first had—loaded the last of the ore on the shuttle, he thought of how much work it would be and announced to Reilly that he was taking her with him. “We’ll look like a regular mom—and—pop placer mining team then,” he told Reilly. “Besides, I need someone to help me unload the ore and do the grunt work.”

 “You’re welcome to her,” Reilly said. “Work’s about all she’s good for anymore, though she’s a lazy slut and never lifts a finger without a beating.”

 “I’ll bear that in mind,” Satok told him, as he raised a mock—threatening fist to Luka, who cringed away from him as she obediently climbed into the shuttle.

 It took four hours to fly to SpaceBase under ordinary circumstances, and with the craft loaded with ore, it took six. The base, which had always before been open, now boasted a fence and a gate, just beyond the bend in the swollen river that used to be the road to Kilcoole. The shuttle was an unauthorized one, and the ore was too valuable to simply put it within reach of the fingers of any passing soldier, so he set the craft down in the strip between the gate and the woods, where trees and underbrush had been recently cleared and burned—for security reasons, he suspected. The company seemed to be taking these hicks seriously. He left a cowering Luka locked in the shuttle and strode to the gate as if he were a bird colonel, at least.

 The MP at the gate took in Satok’s furs and leathers and his long hair, his shaman’s feathers, and the cat skull, and shook his head while using a firm, sweeping motion of his forearm and index finger to indicate that Satok should go back the way he came.

 “No unauthorized personnel allowed on base, sir. Orders of Captain Fiske.

 The officious little jerk was more helpful than he meant to be. “Yeah. but that’s who I came to see Captain Fiske. Tell him Lance Corporal James Satok is here to see him about his mining operations.” What the hell. He had been a lance corporal in the corps once

 “A little old to be a corporal, aren’t you?” the kid asked, not bothering to add “sir” this time. “And I’d say you were way out of uniform.”

 “Is that what you’d say, lad? Is it really?” Satok leaned forward confidentially, his arm resting casually on the window of the gate house. “Well, now, that may all be very true, but I was a lance corporal just as you’ll soon be if you’re smart and don’t interfere with me. I’ve a load of raw ores of just the sort the company has been looking for, and I can tell your Captain Fiske where the company can get more of them here.”

 “Oh, sure,” the kid said with a sneer.

 “Hey, if you don’t believe me, come and look for yourself.”

 “I can’t leave my post, and if you’d ever been in the corps, you’d know that.”

 “Son, I was in the corps long enough to know that playing by the rules too strictly can get you in as deep a pile of shit as not playing by them at all. The ore’s in my vehicle, just over by the trees there. You can keep one eye on the fraggin’ gate all the way. Just come and look and you’ll see why you have to tell Fiske I’m here. Look, I might even be able to cut you in .. .”

 Without a word, the guard unfastened the door and followed him to the shuttle.

 “Now, the ore is back here,” Satok said, pointing to the cargo area. The moment the guard turned, he hit him over the head with a thick lump of ore he’d set aside for such a use. Then he stripped him of his uniform and put it on. He also took the badge and weapon, which might come in handy. Throughout all this. Luka said nothing. As soon as Satok had the uniform and the weapon, he shook the boy awake.

 “Now then, asswipe. How do I find this Captain Fiske?”

 The boy, in thermal underwear only, looked about sixteen and his eyes were a little crossed. “He’s not on the base,” he said.

 Satok turned the boy’s weapon on him. “I’m tired of playing games with you. punk. You will answer at length and in depth. Where is Fiske and how do I get to see him?”

 “But he ain’t here. He’s gone to Shannonmouth to meet with the special investigative team from the company. They’re probably at the village meeting house.”

 “You’ve been so helpful,” Satok said. He almost blasted the kid, then thought that if his sell out was going to lead to his being a solid citizen, maybe a fresh homicide wasn’t the best way to begin his new life. So he tapped him with another piece of ore, gently but at the physiologically correct point to insure long unconsciousness, and left him in the woods.

 Torkel Fiske danced attendance on Marmion de Revers Algemeine, giving her the complete lady-killer treatment, much to her well-concealed amusement. Though he looked much as Whit had looked at his age, and was really quite a charming boy, Marmion decided that he was totally lacking in his father’s finesse. There was a some what febrile boyish quality about him that was not unappealing. However, it was coupled with a certain calculation and a certain lack of . . . depth? Soul? She wasn’t sure.

 She had prevailed on him to escort her to Shannonmouth because Sinead Shongili, sister of Sean, and Aisling Senungatuk, sister to Clodagh, were still there and she did want a chance to chat with them, as well as visit another of the small communities. She suspected they would be all much the same, but she couldn’t present an in-depth report without some comparison.

 There was something to be said about a landscape that was still a landscape, fresh-smelling and softly chartreuse as trees and shrubs responded to the precipitated springtime. There wasn’t even that much mud on the trail to Shannonmouth: maybe “trace” was the better word, for the way they followed could barely be called a “road.”

 “Why aren’t there connecting roads between the communities, Torkel?” she asked as her curly-coat delicately made its way.

 Torkel regarded Marmion with something like open-mouthed surprise, but the smile that followed gave her an uneasy feeling. “The very thing, Marmion, the very thing. I do believe we have short changed the locals by keeping them in virtual isolation.” And he continued to smile until the houses of Shannonmouth appeared where the trace became wide enough to be termed a road, muddy and churned as it was, with rough board walks and stepping-stones connecting the houses and forming bridges from one side to another.

 They could hear the dogs barking long before they caught sight of any humans, though there were curly-coats browsing here and there. Marmion was certain she saw the flick of an orange tail or two disappearing in the under-brush. She must get one of Matthew’s boys—they did so like to do graphs and charts and reports—to do a census of the cat population of this planet, if the cats would stay still long enough in one place to have their orange noses counted. And dogs. And curly-coats.

 With the animal “early-warning system” in excellent working order, most of the population had turned out by the time the visitors arrived. Marmion was delighted, but Torkel seemed less than pleased, especially as Sinead Shongili stood, feet braced as official welcoming committee, partially eclipsing Aisling Senungatuk.

 “Slainte, all. I do hope you don’t mind us coming down here,” Marmion said, smiling a greeting first to Sinead and Aisling and passing it around the circle of people. “But Shannonmouth is so close, and Clodagh didn’t think you’d mind if we visited. Torkel was kind enough to show me the way, though I think now I could have found it on my own. The cats, you know. They wouldn’t have let me make a wrong turn, nor Curly here.” She affectionately slapped the pony’s neck. Curly’s ears twitched back and forth at the sound of her voice, but pricked forward again as it turned to Sinead.

 Sinead’s lips curved in a smile. “Slainte, Marmion. You were expected and are welcome.” She gave only a curt nod to Torkel. “Dismount here and Robbie’ll take care of your curlies.” She signed for a gawky youngster to come forward.

 When both Marmion and Torkel had swung down onto the boardwalk, Sinead put one hand on Marmion’s shoulder.

 “This is Marmion de Revers Algemeine, of whom we have spoken, and you all know Captain Fiske,” she said and there was a murmur of slaintes and hesitant smiles “Come.” And with that Sinead turned on her heel and led the way.

 Torkel muttered something under his breath about primitive manners and looked pointedly away from the swaying backside of Aisling. The villagers fell in behind the guests.

 “Did all the plants survive the journey?” Marmion asked.

 “Oh, yes, they did,” Aisling said, bubbling with pleasure. “And Aigur and Sheydil have some for us to take back. It’ll be such a marvelous summer for plantings. One of the best we’ve had.”

 “To that point,” Torkel said, striding to Aisling’s side and smiling broadly, something Dama Algemeine mentioned, you know, I think Intergal really should see to building good roads between villages, and proper greenhouses so you don’t have to wait until full spring to have your gardens started.”

 “Really?” Sinead stopped in her tracks to stare at him. Aisling nearly ran into her before she did, Sinead was once more striding forward, or, rather, stretching to meet the next board on the haphazard walkway. “How nice!”

 Marmion saw Torkel Fiske flush at such an unenthusiastic reaction to what was, for him, an extraordinary concession. She thought she approved of Sinead’s patent skepticism. However, before Torkel could get himself in deeper or prejudice the notion completely, Sinead was marching up the porch steps of a house that had cats sunning themselves all over its patchwork roof of recently replaced shingles, their orange coats an odd contrast to the raw wood. Lounging on the sunny end of the porch were two intertwined track-cats. Marmion saw Torkel give a little shudder. They were large, Marmion realized, but so intelligent. She could see it in the eyes of the one whose head was toward them: open only to slits, but the expression looked deliberate. The cats had probably known when she and Torkel had set out from SpaceBase, she mused.

 “You’ll be hungry,” Sinead said, opening the door into a house that was rather sparsely furnished even by the Petaybean standards Marmion had observed thus far.

 Then she saw the huge loom that took up most of the available floor space. Benches and chairs hung from nails on the walls; other things were up off the floor, too, to allow easy access to the loom. A woman was working shuttle and batten with a deftness that made the individual motions a blur—only the clack-clack as she changed combinations of harnesses provided any noise. She looked up from her work, nodded, smiled, and continued to concentrate on what she was doing.

 “We brought provisions,” Marmion said. “Oh! How silly of me not to grab my—“

 The door opened again and the gawky youngster lowered the saddlebags to the floor and departed so swiftly that Marmion had to shout her thanks to the closing door. She then glanced apprehensively at the intent weaver to be sure she hadn’t distracted the woman.

 Sinead smiled. “That was good of you, but I think our larder can stand two extra mouths tonight.”

 “But I insist that you have the use of our supplies, Sinead. Clodagh said you were probably out of five—spice and—oh, what was the name of the other seasoning?” Marmion made for the saddlebags and began pulling out the bottles and sacks, and the dried foods that Clodagh had told her would be acceptable to any host. When she added the five-kilo sack of sugar, she said meekly, “I take so much sugar in my tea that I insist you have this. I promise not to use it all up. because there’ll be berries to conserve so very soon now.”

 “That is very welcome indeed, Dama,” the weaver said. “For we’ll have a fine crop, and soon, and there’s nothing like a bit of jam to make pan bread a real treat.”

 “Aigur, this is the Dama I told you about, and Captain Torkel Fiske.”

 Marmion’s quick mind mused over the implication that no one had talked about Torkel at all, but then, her appearance would be more unusual than his. Still, she could see by the twitch of his lips that he caught the subtle insult. Really, the Shongilis were a delight, Marmion thought. A pity to have to spoil them. For that matter, why should they be spoiled? They were marvelous just as they were.

 Tea was brewed and drunk, sweetened by Marmion’s gift. Marmion brought Aigur’s cup to her loom so that she could have a closer look at the intricate pattern. She couldn’t resist fingering the texture and exclaimed at its softness.

 “Curly-coat,” Aigur told her.

 “It’s such an amazing pattern. Some special order?”

 “My daughter’s marrying and this will be for their wedding bed,” Aigur said proudly.

 “Oh, it is stunning, but—“ Marmion cut off the rest of her intended remark about how much weaving of this beauty and intricacy would bring in the sophisticated shops of her usual environment. “—such a labor of love,” she concluded, smiling.

 The problem with coming from her usual ambiance to this one was that even the most mundane items were unusual, from and of this world, and that was where they should stay. She should not contribute to the despoiling of Petaybee. She was becoming more and more certain of that.

 “As I said, Sinead,” Torkel was saying, “we should really look into a network of roads between settlements, particularly over the passes.”

 “Oh?” Sinead raised her eyebrows in polite surprise. “Then Intergal has come up with an all-weather surface that can survive the temperature, wind-chill factors, perma-frost sinkholes, and ice intrusion?”

 Torkel ducked his head, smoothing his hair. “We will. We will. It’s only a matter of time, Sinead, but a road system would certainly help.”

 “SpaceBase folks, perhaps, while you’re ‘investigating’ Petaybee, but snocles in the winter suit us fine and can go many places you couldn’t put a road that’d last a year or two, and the curly-coats manage slush, mud, and summer hard tracks. No, Captain Fiske, though we will all appreciate the thought, I don’t think any road works are necessary. ‘Sides which we don’t have the personnel you’d need to construct them.”

 “The company has enough manpower and machinery for that and all it takes is convincing the board to spend the money to solve the surfacing problem, Sinead,” Torkel repeated, and Marmion thought his voice just a trifle sharp. “Meanwhile, you wouldn’t say no to teachers, and schools, and libraries, and viewers.

 Aisling’s mouth made a perfect O. “Oh, books would be marvelous, and schools for the children.”

 “They learn what they need to learn from their parents about how to live here,” Sinead said bluntly.

 “There is such a wide world out there,” Marmion put in. Surely knowing more about the inhabited galaxy wouldn’t really harm the children; it would merely give them other interests than the limited ones of this planet, however beautiful and diverse.

 “Which they see soon enough if they join the company,” Sinead finished blightingly.

 “But, Sinead, there’s more in books about how to do our things differently. And more stories . . . “

 “And old songs from many ethnic traditions,” Marmion put in. “And different instruments to play on . . .”

 “We could sure use a few more decent fiddles,” Aigur remarked, and then continued hesitantly, “and I’d like to know how to read and write. That way I’d be able to figure out some of the old patterns my great-great brought with her.”

 “Schools, teachers, reading, writing, arithmetic,” Torkel said emphatically. “We’ve not paid sufficient attention to your needs.” And he bowed smilingly at Aigur, whose eyes still shone with the prospect of being able to read.

 Aisling leaned across the table and appealingly touched her partner’s arm. “That would be good to know, Sinead dear. For everyone, and not having to join the company to get the learning.”

 “You must ask Clodagh,” Marmion said firmly. She ignored the look Torkel shot her.

 Sinead gave Marmion a long searching look. “We all admire and respect Clodagh, make no mistake, but something like this is decided by all the shanachies, not just one.”

 It was Marmion’s turn to lean with an air of gentle petition to Sinead. “It is, however, a way of spreading this news to all the other villages for them to make up their minds, isn’t it?” Marmion didn’t smile at Sinead, but let her eyes dance with challenge.

 To her surprise, Sinead threw back her head and laughed out loud, shaking her head and refusing to explain.

 “Schools and elementary education, and power stations, too,” Torkel went on, slowly building his case.

 “Power stations?” Sinead was immediately antagonistic. “What for? To break down in a blizzard, to crash down on our homes in the high winds?”

 “We’ve more sophisticated power sources than pylons, my dear,” Torkel began.

 “I’m not your dear, and we’d have no use for such power.”

 Torkel gave back as good as she gave, with raised eye-brows and a mocking expression. “No use for lighting that doesn’t stink like sour milk? No use for power tools that cut your work load, could drive the harnesses of that big loom and save Aigur hours, heat your houses, water, so you could have a hot bath in your own home without having to trudge two miles to the volcanic springs?”

 A silence fell in the room—even the cats on the roof ceased to move about—for one long moment while Sinead, face utterly expressionless, regarded Torkel. Marmion took good note of the shock, surprise, and consternation on the other two faces. Then suddenly Sinead shrugged, grinned, and made a good attempt to toss off her reaction.

 “The hot springs are sort of social, Captain, and we don’t have the need for power tools as you do at SpaceBase. Too expensive for us to buy, even with what trade items we have, but the matter is something for the villages to decide for themselves, the way we always decide what is good for us, and for our planet.”

 The sound of an air shuttle over flying the village distracted everyone.

 “What the . . .” Torkel was on his feet and to the nearest window, craning his neck to get a view of what he knew had to be an unauthorized flight. Sounded like a light shuttle, too, and there shouldn’t have been any of that type vehicle down here.

 “’Scuse me,” he called over his shoulder and was out the door before he heard a response.

 He caught a good glimpse of the battered rear end, of the craft and its trajectory. Frag it! The loon was landing just outside Shannonmouth. As he plowed a direct course across the mud road, ignoring the boardwalks, he also caught just a flick or two of orange tails. Turning to look back over his shoulder, he saw that there wasn’t a single cat on any of the roofs. The next thing he knew, he had tripped over a rock in the mud and measured his length in the thick gooey mud.

 This did nothing to improve his humor. He got to his feet, scraping off as much as he could with his bare hands, then with a branch he savagely broke from a shrub, and finally with handfuls of moss from the trunks of trees. In a way, he realized, the accident had just helped him frame what he would say to the misbegotten ass hole fly boy who had illegal possession of an illegal-size vehicle and—He stopped dead at the clearing where the craft had landed, and at the man sauntering across the bracken toward him, unshaven, despite the clean guard uniform he wore and the badge that identified him as SpaceBase personnel.

 “Captain Torkel Fiske?” the man asked, and the voice somehow set off a memory in Torkel’s mind: the voice, the stance, the swaggering insolence of a man in a common soldier’s uniform.

 “What in hell do you think you’re doing, soldier? In an illegal vehicle, and here at a village site against the strictest orders . . .”

 Take it easy, Captain, I’ve got something on board this shuttle that you’ve been after for a long time.”

 “I doubt it.” Torkel said. Then, before he could continue to outline the penalties and fines the man had already accrued against specific regulations, he saw a slatternly female figure appearing to lean casually against the frame.

 “What the frag!”

 “Oh, I don’t mean her,” the man said, dismissing, the woman with a wave of his hand, “but I’ve heard you can’t find ore on this planet, not no way and no how.”

 Torkel had started moving toward the man and the shuttle again for the purpose of ending this farce when the man’s taunting offer made him falter a stride or two. If he’d found ore on this bleeding planet .  . .

 “You have?” Torkel moved forward again, aware that his unkempt state was being observed by the man, who was now grinning. “Don’t—mention—it,” Torkel warned, with a pause between each word.

 “Why should I care if you tripped and fell in the mud?” the man said, shrugging his shoulders and lifting his hands high, but he had the wisdom to remove the smile as Torkel approached him.

 “You are . . .” Fiske paused for the man to identify himself.

 “Satok . . . shanachie of McGee’s Pass.” The man narrowed his eyes at Torkel, immediately resuming his cocky manner. Then be pulled out a fold of the clean uniform he was wearing by way of explanation for his present garb. “Needed to find out where you were. You’re a hard man to contact.”

 “The ore, man . . .”

 “Trouble’s been, you Intergal guys been going about your searching all wrong, and looking in the wrong places.”

 “Oh, have we?”

 Satok gestured for the girl to back out of the way to let Torkel enter.

 The shuttle was in no better condition inside, but the moment Torkel saw the crates of varied shapes and colors netted safely away from the piloting area, he ignored everything else. He had studied just enough geology to be able to recognize the variety of ores known to be available on Petaybee, even if none had actually been found here. He touched greeny copper-bearing rock, grayish tin, copper-red-orange germanium; he saw the gold vein through rock, and even emeralds embedded in clay.

 “I can’t deny you’ve found a variety of very interesting items, Satok,” he said with a nonchalance that was far from the exultant surge that he was experiencing at the sight of what they had spent years trying to locate on this ice ball.

 “Small as this cargo is . . .”

 “This cargo’s a very small portion of what’s easily available—if you know where and how to look for it.”

 “And you do?” Torkel challenged him.

 Satok contented himself with a smug smile. “I can show you enough lode-bearing sites to make your eyes bug out.”

 Torkel jerked his head at the girl, wondering if Satok should be so blatant. Satok merely shrugged. Then his expression changed so abruptly that Torkel drew back in surprise; as Satok was raising a weapon, Torkel was already reaching for his own side arm, but Satok was not shooting at him. He was aiming out the shuttle door at small darting orange figures, and firing until the clip was empty.

 “Hate them bloody orange mothers!” His face was a rictus of an intense hatred. He calmly slammed another magazine into the hand weapon, and then gave a surprised exclamation. “What the . . .”

 Torkel looked around to see the slatternly girl racing toward the cover of the trees, her sobs trailing back like the sounds of a lost soul, a tail protruding from one side of her body. But there were no corpses of orange cats on the ground—and that surprised Torkel as much as it did Satok.

 “Frag it, I can’t have missed!” Satok was shouting as he stared about. He jumped to the ground to peer under the shuttle’s slanting prow.

 “Forget them, Satok. They’re unimportant.”

 “Yeah?”  Satok snarled. His loss of poise gave Torkel a chance to seize control of the situation.

 “Yeah! I want to see more of this sort of stuff,” he told Satok. “And I want to see it as fast as you can get me to these mother lodes you rave about. But, first, I’ve got to go back to the village for a moment . . .” And Torkel cursed the necessity. He pegged Satok as an opportunist and unreliable. But if he’d come to find Torkel Fiske, he must also know that Torkel was the best officer at SpaceBase to deal with.

 “Yeah, yeah, I guess so. But do we have a deal?” The man’s eyes glittered with greedy anticipation.

 Torkel assumed a casual pose. “That depends on how accessible this ore is.”

 “Far more accessible than you’ve any idea, Captain dear,” Satok replied with the oily smile Torkel would have liked to wipe off his face.

 “If that’s the case, you may be sure that Intergal will be appreciative.’

 “As always?” The sneer was back as Satok leaned against the door frame.

 “Why don’t you accompany me to town?” Torkel began, adding quickly when he saw the apprehension flash in Satok’s eyes, “There’s woods enough to hide you from prying eyes while I make my farewells . . . And there’s no one to hear us talk out here.” He gestured at the open clearing, the forests deserted even by small animals after the arrival of the shuttle.

 Satok punched the button to close the shuttle door and gestured ironically for Torkel to lead the way.

 During their walk, Satok mentioned that there were sixteen different locations where ore had been collected, claiming that all the deposits were extremely rich and, furthermore, were so accessible that the company had simply over looked them time and time again. The man wouldn’t be more specific, but the hold full of ore was proof in itself.

 Torkel was both delighted and infuriated. If the deposits had all been there, and so accessible, why had the best geological teams of Intergal failed where this miserable excuse for a man succeeded?

 He left Satok on the edge of the village while he went on, resuming his attempt to brush the mud off his clothing as he walked. This time Torkel took the boardwalks, which were noticeably empty of pedestrians, and the long way around to Aigur’s house. The damned cats were back, he noticed. As well he’d left Satok screened from the village and the tempting display of orange cats, or the man’s hatred of the beasts might have over come any sense he had.

 Torkel noticed a mud scraper on the first step of the house and dutifully used it on his shoes. He heard some odd scurryings inside the house, and it seemed to him that he also heard a faint hissing over head. Too late now. He rapped on the door: courtesy was always appreciated.

 When the door opened to him, he wasn’t so sure about that from the stony looks he received.

 “I’m extremely sorry, Marmion, but an emergency’s come up and the shuttle has come to collect me,” he said with a disarming smile. “I really hate to abandon you like this.” He turned to Aisling, and only then noticed that Marmion and the large woman were the only two in the place.

 “Oh dear,” Marmion said, “I had hoped to have longer . . .”

 “I don’t see why you can’t, dear lady,” Torkel said, smiling at Aisling. “Is it possible Sinead could guide Madame Algemeine back to SpaceBase, or would it upset her schedule too much?”

 “Oh, and isn’t it a shame, with you in a hurry, and Sinead not here to ask, but sure I couldn’t speak for her and me, I’m hopeless in the out-of-doors,” Aisling said, gushily, twitching her fingers through the fabric of her voluminous dress. “She won’t be that long, and you’ve hardly had a chance to finish your coffee. Let me just heat it up a bit for you.” She had already taken the cup and was lifting the kettle lid to check the water. “Ah, and that will be more pleasant to drink . . .”

 “Really—“ Torkel held up his hand, trying to forestall the courtesy. “I absolutely must return immediately to the shuttle and—“

 “Good heavens, Torkel, did you fall in the mud?” Marmion asked. “Is there a brush about, Aisling?” She’d taken up a kitchen towel and was advancing on him. “A stiff one, so we can get the rest of this off. You don’t want to ruin your reputation by appearing back at SpaceBase looking like something a cat dragged in, do you, Torkel?”

 Torkel tried to reassure her that he could change the moment he returned, and anyway, it had dried out and wasn’t a problem, but this did not suit Marmion de Revers Algemeine. Controlling his temper, Torkel was forced to submit to their ministrations. He hoped that Satok didn’t take it into his head to disappear.

 It took a long time to get him neat enough for Marmion’s satisfaction, and by that time Sinead had returned from her errand immediately, she agreed that she and Aisling had better return to Kilcoole and could certainly guide Marmion back to the SpaceBase.

 Torkel was nearly quivering with rage and frustration by the time he was allowed to leave. As if to deliberately delay him further, Marmion thought of a message she’d better send to keep others from worrying about her. It took time to find paper and a stub of a pencil Aigur used for making pattern drawings. but in the end, with the note in his cleanly brushed pocket, he was allowed to leave.

 “Where the frag have you been?” Satok demanded. “I didn’t expect you to take the rest of the day to get back to me.” His hirsute face turned even slyer than before. “You didn’t make some private deal for yourself in there with the company on a private comm unit, did you?”

 “Don’t be stupid,” Torkel snapped, striking out toward the clearing and the shuttle. They walked in tense silence for the twenty minutes or so it took to reach the shuttle. Torkel banged the Open button, then swung into the shuttle and took the passenger seat while Satok closed the door and assumed the pilot’s place. They took off and headed northward.

 Back in Aigur’s cabin, Marmion looked sadly down at the limp body of the orange cat. Her throat was tight; she really wanted to weep at the sight of the beautiful intelligent little animal laid low by such a savage attack. A track-cat was gently licking the graze wound across the smaller creature’s spine. She and Aisling had shielded the cats from Torkel’s view by hiding them behind the covered loom frame, but now the big cat tended its smaller cousin while the girl who had first brought it to Aigur’s house looked on agitatedly.

 “Can’t we do more for the poor thing?” she asked, wringing hands covered with rock dust and bleeding from scrapes and scratches.

 “Now, now, the cat’s already getting the best treatment possible, really, Luka,” Sinead told her. Sinead’s hands, like Aigur’s, were covered with dust, scrapes, and bruises. She’d had to keep them in her pocket while Torkel was present. “Takes a lot to kill one of these cats, and the others all escaped without injury.”

 “But will this one be all right?” Luka sobbed. “Satok killed all there were in McGee’s Pass, you know.”

 “We’ll know if the spine has been damaged when it regains consciousness, but I don’t think Patchog would be cleansing the wound if he didn’t think the cat had a chance.”

 Marmion watched the exchange with interest. Shortly after Torkel had left to investigate the arrival of the shuttle, Luka had arrived, bearing the cat’s limp body in her arms and crying. Entrusting the cat to Aisling’s tender ministrations, she had turned away from Marmion to whisper urgently with Sinead and Aigur.

 Immediately Sinead had turned to Marmion. “There’s something we have to do now. I can’t tell you what or why but Aisling will stay with you and help you, if you’ll agree to detain Fiske and any guest he might have with him when he returns for as long as you possibly can.”

 “But why can’t you tell me?” Marmion had asked, a little offended.

 Sinead gave her a warning look, which told Marmion enough right there. This was not something that they didn’t want her to know, but something that, for the sake of her position, she should not want to know. She had nodded agreement and quickly helped Aisling conceal the cats as the other women disappeared into the village.

 Now Torkel and his companion had gone, leaving Luka, who had been weeping for many reasons, only one of them the injury to the cat. She seemed ashamed and frightened, chagrined and relieved, and wept with all of these emotions, stopping finally as her tears fell on Marmion’s soothing hand. She looked at that elegant hand on her filthy, torn dress and then up at the kindliness in the beautiful face.

 She looked to Sinead and the others. Sinead, searching Marmion’s face, nodded sharply.

 “All right, ma’am, I’ll tell you now,” Luka said. A sly smile curved her mouth until the recently cut lip made her wince. She snuffled, wiped her nose on the back of her hand, and then began to explain what facts she knew, repeating, evidently verbatim, conversations she had overheard.

 She spoke of a man who had been one of the out casts of Petaybee, who had never known what even Marmie had experienced in the cave, who had joined the company after turning against his own planet, and joined pirates after turning against the company, as well. Luka herself had been dazzled by him when he first came to McGee’s Pass, claiming he was there to help them over the grief following their great tragedy. “That was before I knew he was after causin’ it himself, ma’am. He as much as killed the McConachies he did, and convinced us all, the devil, that the planet had turned against us. All the time he was takin’ from the sacred place, though I didn’t know how or why until I was well away from there, I swear I didn’t. When I started gettin’ suspicious and would have returned to my own people, he gave me to one of his bloody accomplices, as if I was a sack of beans, and that man told all in the village that I my own self was a reject, one Petaybee cast out and made mad. All the time they were takin’ stuff out of the planet, and I learned that they was killin’ it in bits, so that it couldn’t harm them when they took from it. But I heard him say that when the little girl from Kilcoole came and he was found out, that now was the time to sell out to the company, and he brought everything to show yer man the captain. So I got the notion, even then, that maybe when the captain looked, what was in the shuttle wouldn’t be of any interest to him, but would have changed to common rock. Sinead and Aigur here helped me, as did others in this town. But I fear we were too late, for the captain already saw the real stuff.”

 “Which you didn’t,” Sinead said. “So all you have is hearsay from us.”

 Marmion nodded wisely. “I see.”

 “But I am that worried about what they’ll do now, ma’am,” Luka said. “For that evil man knows where more’s to be found, and if the captain believes him . . “

 Marmion nodded, waving her understanding with elegant fingertips while her mind was already leaping ahead on the problem. Fiske in unwitting collusion with pirates? How far was he prepared to go for these little mining projects? She almost wished she didn’t know as much as she did now, because the whole issue brought her into something of a conflict of interests. She felt great sympathy for the Petaybeans, but realized that her position as a nonpartisan investigator for the commission was already severely compromised.

 “Ah well,” she said. “The exchange was, of course, a very clever idea, although naturally I would have been forced to forbid it, had I known. Did Aisling and I give you enough time?”

 Sinead snorted at the very notion that she couldn’t organize a simple exchange like that, even if it had taken every available villager and every rock they could find in the clearing.

 “I think we better start back now, Dama,” Sinead said.

 “I would be honored if you would call me Marmion, as my friends do,” she told Sinead, including Aisling, Luka, and Aigur in her glance.

 Sinead gave her a thoughtful glance and for one dreadful moment, Marmion thought perhaps that she might not live up to the criterion Sinead Shongili expected of “friends.” Her smile was much like her brother’s and oddly shy, as if she did not give her friendship that often.

 “Then we are honored .  . . Marmion. May we stop at Kilcoole first, though?”

 “Of course, I was going to suggest that. Clodagh and Whit will have to be informed . . . unless,” Marmion added, smiling ruefully at the still able-bodied orange cats who had slipped in to join the big cat in its attentions to their fallen brother, “they already know.”

 “Some, but not all,” Sinead replied with a smile, as she and Aisling began to pack up their belongings.

 At first light, the weather did not look too encouraging, but Yana gave Johnny an appealing look as he turned from the window, and he threw up his hands in surrender.

 “Might be damned bumpy,” he told her.

 “I’d risk more than that,” Yana told him.

 “Me, too,” Bunny added. Diego only gave a sharp nod of his head.

 Loncie insisted on packing them some food, which Johnny said he’d replenish on his next trip north.

 “Ay, de me, and someone will go hungry here in the meantime? Off with you, amigo, and do not concern yourself with such details at a time like this. Find La Pobrecita, and that is more than enough.”

 When they were strapped into their seats, with Nanook crouched again in the rear, enduring his discomfort valiantly, Johnny took off. Once on a south easterly course, he handed Yana an aerial map.

 “I want you to double-check something for me. It seems to me the Lacrimas River runs pretty straight from the mouth, which is almost directly opposite Harrison’s Fjord. Am I right?”

 “I see what you’re getting at,” Yana said, unfolding the chart and giving it a shake as she searched it.  “You think that the undersea tunnel might come up near the Vale of Tears?”

 “Well, it’s more of a possibility than you might think,” Johnny said, not sure enough to mention why he thought it a possibility, even as he mentally matched the face of ‘Cita with Bunny sitting behind him.

 He shook his head. Shongilis all had unusual bone structure, so, unless Granddaddy Shongili had warmed a few beds he hadn’t dared mention to his possessive wife, Johnny could think of only one logical conclusion.

 Yana perused the map and gave a yelp of triumph as she found the two relative points; then, with a worried frown, she said, “Johnny, there’s two thousand miles between the two continents!”

 “Uncle Sean thought there’d be that at least,” Bunny said, releasing her seat belt to lean over Yana’s shoulder.

 “Belt up!” Johnny said in a roar that reverberated in the small cabin and made Nanook snarl. “Sorry.”

 Yana passed the map over her shoulder to Bunny.

 “We made it in about a hundred and fifty miles to the cave-in . . .” Bunny began, her voice trailing off. “That isn’t very far . . . considering . . .” Her voice went on, slightly muffled as she bent down to Nanook’s head. “You did say Uncle Sean was alive, didn’t you?”

 Nanook sneezed, and Bunny sighed, not completely reassured.

 They traveled a long way in silence broken by Diego, who whistled odd little snatches of tunes and muttered to himself. The others respected that he might be working on a new song. Bunny looked out her window at the endless snow, shaded blues and grays and occasionally lavenders in the shadows. She could see the distant jagged teeth of spiky up thrusts and wondered which set of them rose above the Vale of Tears.

 Then, just as they were approaching the general location of the Vale of Tears, they saw the glow of a huge campfire, sparks rising high above it. Bunny shouted unintelligibly grabbing Johnny by the shoulder and pointing downward; at the same time, Nanook made a sudden attempt to squirm out from under the seat. Johnny issued loud orders for everyone to keep their places and shut their faces. Following Bunny’s screeched directions, he circled the copter to starboard. Below, it was possible to see the three figures stumbling and falling down a hill, actually rolling in one case, leaving a pattern of bloody circles on the snow. One of the figures was feline. Nanook let out an ear-piercing yowl, a sound Bunny had never before heard a track-cat utter.

 To her astonished gaze, the cat on the ground looked up, and she could see its jaws opening as if to give voice to a similar cry.

 “Tighten your fragging seat belts, all of you,” Johnny cried. His warning was unnecessary: his passengers could feel the turbulence he was fighting as he tried to land.

 He was making a low pass to examine the dangerously uneven terrain below when Yana pointed to the bleeding man lying on the ground and cried out, “That’s Sean down there!”

 “And La Pobrecita with him,” Johnny said. “I’ve still got to have a reasonably flat space to put this bird down without splintering a skid. Bear with me.”

 Using the three figures as the center, Johnny circled until he spotted a suitably level place. As soon as he landed, Yana, medi-kit in one hand and a bundle of extra winter clothing in the other, was out of the plane. Bunny and Nanook right behind her. Just as Johnny was about to follow, Diego pulled at his shoulder and pointed to the top of the rise and the swarm of folks coming over it, brandishing an odd assortment of armaments.

 Johnny motioned for Diego to take the LD-404 down from its brackets over the entrance to the cargo bay as he checked that he had clips for his hand weapon and the spare automatic he hauled out from under his seat. Then the pilot and Diego followed the women and the track-cat.

 Yana was kneeling beside Sean, wrapping him in the winter clothing and tending his wound. Bunny assisted in the medical chores, searching for the items in the medi-kit Yana demanded. The track-cats stood about six meters from each other, sniffing, tails twitching amiably enough. The child, in a fur jacket much too large for her, was huddled against the clouded cat, wide eyes in a frightened white face.

 Diego caught Johnny’s arm, staring a question at him as he pointed his free hand at the child. Johnny grinned and nodded, and then turned to watch the progress of the mob slipping and sliding down the hill toward them.

 See ‘Cita, Senior Luzon is as bad a man in his own way as Shepherd Howling,” Johnny said in a gentle voice, bending down to the child. “Loncie was real upset to see you got talked into going with him. So we came to take you away back to your own people.”

 “This unworthy one has no people,” ‘Cita said, getting an even firmer grip on Coaxtl’s fur.

 ‘That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo,” Johnny said. “Bunny, come here. Now, pronto!”

 Both Yana and Bunny looked around, their faces showing disgruntlement at being interrupted. Both stared, and Bunny’s mouth dropped wide open.

 “You must be—you can’t be anything else . . .” Bunny’s hand wandered to her cheek, her nose, her lips.

 “Your mother made it through, niece of mine,” Sean said, nodding solemnly, looking from Bunny’s face to the thin gaunt one of a child who was so obviously a blood relative.

 “But I am Goa—“

 “Don’t you dare use that name for yourself, Pobrecita,” Johnny said, angrily shaking his finger at her. “Buneka Rourke, this is your sister, though I think we can find a better proper name for her than ‘Cita, or Nina, don’t you think?”

 “A sister!” And Bunny was folding the startled child into her arms. “A sister of my very own! Everyone I know has at least a sister or a brother, and all I’ve ever had were cousins . . .”

 “And uncles and aunts,” Sean prompted through gritted teeth as Yana yanked the bandage to make sure it was firm about the jagged arrow wound.

 “Hey, we got trouble,” Diego said, staring up the hill. “If that isn’t Matthew Luzon, my name’s not Diego Metaxos, and I do know my own name!”

 “And the good and reverent Shepherd Howling, too, I’ll wager,” Johnny added, noticing the man in flowing robes beside the Intergal vice-chairman

 “Oh, he’s come for me. He’ll make me marry him . . .”

 “Marry him!” burst from five throats.

 “Not while we live!” Johnny said in a voice that sounded much like the snarls issuing from both track-cats. “Bunny, get your sister into the copter and stay there!”

 “She’s my sister and I’ve the right—“

 “Go,” Sean said and pointed to the copter. “Lock the doors.”

 “There’s a box of flares, Bunny. Get ‘em out, and if you see me circle my hand, aim ‘em at that crowd.”

 “Gotcha!” And, lifting her sister into her arms, Bunny sprinted back to the safety of the copter. Push come to shove, she’d fly it out of there herself—she’d watched Johnny often enough to understand the principles of the yoke and the gearing. No one was going to get her little sister, not when she’d just found her.

 Johnny handed Yana the automatic and the clips, slapping Sean’s hand away when he tried to get the weapon.

 “You handle the cats, Sean. That is, if the clouded one will take orders like Nanook will,” Johnny suggested.

 Both cats growled low in their bellies, making their necks vibrate as they took positions on either side of Sean Shongili.

 The crowd’s noise had died to a murmur. Matthew and Shepherd Howling led the pack by several strides.

 “Well, Dr. Luzon, you’ve led me quite a hunt,” Johnny called when the men were near enough to hear him.

 “While you, Captain Greene, did not reappear as you promised.”

 “Oh, I reappeared. Dr. Luzon, just as I said I would, but you’d taken off in old Scobie’s beat-up snocle. My compliments on your driving to get that snow bucket this far.”

 Shepherd Howling raised one arm, his robe falling back over his bony wrist, pointing to the copter. “The child Goat-dung is one of my flock and is about to become one with me, to the salvation of her humanity. You must return her to my protection. I don’t care what error you infidels fall into or what the Great Monster does to you, but she must be returned to me, and the monster who abducted her, as well.”

 “Well, now, sir, I can’t rightly do that,” Johnny said.

 “Watch who you’re calling a monster, you abomination,” Sean snarled. “This child is my niece, and she is and will remain with her closest relative. I, her uncle, and male guardian, did not condone and will not condone a marriage for the child to anyone.”

 Shepherd Howling looked from Sean’s face to the wound on Sean’s leg, and back to his face again, his eyes widening with horror. “You! You were the monster! The seal man! Then the girl—she, too, is a monster.”

 “Monster?” Yana challenged, inserting herself between the injured Sean and the self-proclaimed Shepherd. “I only see one monster here, and it isn’t Dr. Shongili. Do you always throw lethal weapons at visitors, Mr. Howling?”

 “He was no visitor when we first saw him,” Shepherd Howling blathered. “He looked like a seal at first and then started—growing. And he came from the underworld via the portal from which all of the damnable abominations of this planet emanate!”

 “Nonsense,” Yana snapped. “He was exploring an under-ground passage where his pregnant sister and brother-in-law disappeared many years ago. You’re making up this incredible story to prevent further inquiry into your own abominable activities.”

 “I very much doubt that,” Matthew Luzon said, smiling unctuously. “When I arrived, all of the Shepherd’s flock were exclaiming about the monster they had found and were preparing to burn it over an open fire. I didn’t see the beast myself, but I was naturally trying to prevail upon the Shepherd to allow me to study it rather than destroy it, to take it back to the laboratory and run some tests. Since Dr. Shongili’s wound corresponds with that of the beast, I’d say he has some explaining to do.”

 “I’d say you had more, Dr. Luzon,” Yana said in a voice so cold it made Johnny shiver, “for I’m reasonably certain you would know the paragraphs in Collective Interplanetary Societies’ regulations—which apply to Intergal as well as the rest of inhabited space—about forced or child marriages.”

 “But, Major Maddock, all during her return trip to her home here in the Vale of Tears, Goat-dung—“

 “Phah!” Sean exploded.

 “The child,” Matthew went on, “told me how happy she was to be coming home to such an auspicious marriage.”

 “How many wives have you at the moment, Shepherd Howling?” Yana demanded.

 “’Cita mentioned five,” Sean said icily. “Also against the customs of this planet which do not, to the best of my knowledge, sanction polygamy.”

 “Now now, Dr. Shongili. We mustn’t be ethnocentric,” Matthew said with his smile still in place. “We must allow religious communities their own mores and folk ways and rites, however strange they may seem to us.”

 “Not with my niece,” Sean said.

 “And how can you prove that you are her uncle?” Matthew demanded.

 “Hell, man, that’s so obvious, it’s the stupidest question you’ve asked so far,” Diego Metaxos said, sputtering in his rage and turning the LD-404 in the Shepherd’s—and Matthew Luzon’s—direction.

 “Young man,” Matthew began, “you are in grave danger of—“

 “Let’s save the talk for a more appropriate time,” Yana said, noticing Sean beginning to sway with fatigue and pain. “Captain Greene came to collect you, Dr. Luzon, so we’ll do just that and leave these people to sort their sordid little folk ways by themselves in what ever way they care to, so long as it doesn’t involve Dr. Shongili or his niece or any of the rest of us, for that matter.”

 Matthew Luzon turned his back on her to appeal to the Shepherd, who was swelling with righteous indignation and anger. “Shepherd, you can see what the investigation is up against. These people all justify each other’s views, and no dissenting voice is allowed to be heard. If only you would appoint an apostle to lead your people while you come with me and speak to the commission on your views of the effects this planet has on people, justice would be far better served.”

 The Shepherd’s eyes widened with interest, and he nodded as Matthew spoke.

 Johnny Greene cut them off short. “If you think I’m bringing that one back in the same plane with that little girl, Dr. Luzon, I’d think again very carefully,” Johnny said. “Not to mention the fact that we’d be grossly overloaded for the fuel I have on board.”

 “You can refuel at Bogota, man.” Matthew snapped back, “and you know it as well as I do.”

 “I have a wounded man, Dr. Luzon, which requires me to take the straightest route back north.” Johnny jerked his head at Yana and Diego to help Sean back to the copter. “So this captain limits his passengers to those in jeopardy and those he originally ferried over. You, of course, are one, sir, but I can’t authorize another passenger. So if you don’t care to join this flight, Dr. Luzon, I’ll be happy to request that other transport collect you, and your guest, ASAP!”

 “Why, you . . .” Luzon’s eyes sparked with suppressed anger.

 “Captain Greene, sir, yes, sir, attached to the exclusive service of Dr. Whittaker Fiske, sir.” Johnny held the eye contact.

 Suddenly, suspiciously, Luzon capitulated, saying in a deceptively pleasant tone of voice, “Then, as soon as you are airborne, you will contact SpaceBase and request the immediate departure of a copter to collect myself, my assistant, and my guest. Is that plain? Any delay in the dispatch of that request will be a matter of record and dealt with appropriately. Do I make myself clear to you, Captain Greene, in the service—for the time being, that is—of Dr. Fiske?”

 “Plain as day, sir. Thank you. sir. Good day, sir. And to you, sir,” Johnny said, snapping salutes at both Luzon and the astonished Shepherd Howling.

 Then with a smart about face, he leapt over a hillock and proceeded as fast as the terrain permitted back to the copter.

 He took off, aware of the moans of Coaxtl, who had never endured such an experience, and the purring reassurances of Nanook, who found himself suddenly braver about flying.

 No sooner was Johnny in the air than he switched channels on the comm unit, grinning as he did so. “Hey, there MoonBase, this is Bravo-Jig-Fox-trot four-two-nine-one, Captain Johnny Greene, calling in for the immediate—I repeat—the immediate dispatch of a copter to these coordinates—“ He read them out. “—to collect Intergal Vice-Chairman Matthew Luzon, assistant, and guest passenger. This is top priority Please log in request immediately as of 1940.34 30 “

 “You got yourself in Luzon’s bad books, honey? asked a female voice.

 “Me, MoonBase? Not me,” Johnny replied in his most ingenuous tone. “Is that Neva Marie’s voice in my ears?”

 “The very one.”

 Well, listen up, Neva Marie, because Luzon is in urgent need of transport, and I cannot seem to make contact with either SpaceBase or any airborne copters planetside. So cut loose one of those light shuttles and let one of your bushpilots have some fun. Landing’s dicey, so tell him to be careful where he sets down. Oh, and off the record, bring a real strong deodorizer!”

 “Beg pardon?

 Johnny repeated his last remark and grinned at Yana over his shoulder. “You got this request logged in proper and on the dot?”

 “Like you said—and the off the record is off the record.”

 “Neva Marie, I owe you.”

 A low chuckle preceded the sign-off as the dispatch officer purred, “I’ll give a good deal of thought to that, Johnny. Over and out. Shuttle pilot scrambling as of right now. 1943.30.02.”

 “Won’t he get back to SpaceBase faster than we will?” Bunny asked anxiously from the snocub, where she had strapped herself and her sister in. That way, Sean had room to stretch out his injured leg while Yana cushioned his upper body against hers. Diego sat up front with Johnny.

 “Possibly,” Johnny replied carelessly. “The important aspect is that the request was logged in as we were taking off. And I know for a fact that all the SpaceBase copters are being used by Luzon’s men for ‘field research.’” He chuckled to himself and then raised his voice. “Bunny, how’s your sister traveling back there?”

 “Fine, Johnny, just fine! I’m thinking what name we should give her.”

 “Why not give her your mother’s, Bunka?” Sean asked in a low tone that hid much of the fatigue he was feeling from all save Yana. She could feel his body spasaming and shivering from his recent ordeal and clasped him more tightly to her. “Your dad had his way with yours.”

 “Aoifa Rourke!” Bunny savored the name, which she pronounced properly as “Eeefa.” “Your name, your real name, your heart’s name, is Aoifa, ‘Cita. But, if you feel safer, we will only call you ‘Cita.”

 There was a sleepy mumble, and very shortly there was silence from all Johnny’s passengers, though Diego’s lips moved frequently, soundlessly.

  

 Chapter 13

 Johnny landed his passengers at Kilcoole; then, once he and Diego had carried Sean into Clodagh’s house, he flew on to report to Whittaker Fiske at SpaceBase.

 “That’s very interesting, son,” his boss said when Johnny had completed the debriefing. “Found the lost Rourke child and brought Shongili back, too. You didn’t happen to spot Torkel anywhere down there, did you?”

 “No, sir, I didn’t.” Johnny kept private his notion that the presence of Captain Torkel Fiske would have been one burden too many. “Is he with one of the other investigative teams?”

 Whit shook his head and then dismissed that problem with a wave of his hand.

 They both looked up at the unmistakable rumble of a shuttle coming in to land.

 “Cut it fine, didn’t you, son?” Whit grinned as he rose. “I’d best go out and see what I can do to pacify Matthew.”

 “Sir, I had wounded . . .”

 Whittaker Fiske nodded vigorously, raising his hand to reassure his copter pilot. “You did exactly as you should. And so did Major Maddock. The very idea of polygamy, especially for a religious purpose, with a prepubescent child is revolting in this day and age. And specifically against the Collective Interplanetary Societies’ Bill of Individual Rights. Better get that copter serviced, son. I want it kept ready to scramble.”

 Johnny raised his eyebrows, hoping for a little off-the-record advice, but Whittaker’s expression suggested that he tend to his current orders.

 Contrary to Whittaker’s expectations, he received neither call nor visit from Matthew Luzon, nor was there a complaint officially logged in against Captain John Greene. Nor, during that day, was there any message from his son or a whisper concerning his where abouts. Only the matter of a concussed guard found at one of the side access gates to SpaceBase.

 Torkel Fiske was angry enough, but Satok was livid with rage, kicking at the crates, splintering half a dozen, and paying no attention to the rocks that bounced down on his boots, as if he welcomed the pain. Torkel also listened to the invective Satok cast on the head of that slatternly Luka and what he intended to do to her when he found her again. From the brief glimpses he’d had of the girl, Torkel could not quite believe that she had had the intelligence, much less the strength, to remove all the genuine ore samples, which Torkel had himself handled and seen, in the time they’d been absent from the shuttle.

 Without proof of the find, however, the commission would pay scant attention to Satok and might reach their decision before the man could gather more samples. There were other ways to assert company control of this planet, of course—the company—built and maintained roads, power plants, hospitals, and schools Torkel suggested to Marmion. All in the name of taking care of the colonists, of course. If they were better treated, more civilized, they’d be more cooperative. Especially when the planet was over run with corps troops—not originally from Petaybee: he’d make sure of that this time—doing the building and maintaining. Especially if company doctors also made sure that the physiological aberrations peculiar to Petaybeans were studied and eliminated, and if birth control was strictly monitored so that the Petaybeans at no time grew too numerous to control. Company teachers would slant their curriculum to insure the loyalty of their students, and company communications systems would insure that inhabitants, both original and new to the planet, accepted the company agenda and kept the company side of any dispute foremost in their minds at all times. And if they didn’t, troops could travel by company roads to make sure people remembered their manners.

 And the planet? The living planet? Within himself, Torkel didn’t sneer at the idea. Petaybee was sentient. He knew it. He had felt it, seen it, heard it himself. But that didn’t mean he liked it. That Satok had stolen ores from the body of the beast itself impressed Torkel no end—but only if the man could show the lodes. All they had in the shuttle were common rocks and dust. The ore was no better than the fairy gold of Grandmother Fiske’s bedtime stories.

 He would have preferred to play with his coin collection or dissect a roundworm before bedtime, but Grandmother Fiske, who, he supposed, was responsible for the weird streak in his father, was a great believer in the twentieth century philosopher Joseph Campbell. She thought that children needed myths and fairy tales to inform their lives. She had never understood him, Grandma Fiske. Torkel was an explorer, a womanizer and a developer precisely because he loathed mysteries. He liked everything well explained.

 And now he and Satok both would have some explaining to do if they were going to convince the company commission that Petaybee contained secrets valuable enough for them to make the necessary investments to civilize and control the planet. At the moment, all he had to show was one green hunk of copper-bearing rock and one small gold nugget that had rolled out of the crates into a dark corner.

 “That was a good trick,” he told the still—fuming Satok. “I don’t know how you treated these rocks to make them appear to be the ores I thought they were, but in this state they’ll never convince the commission.” He knew as well as Satok that the ores had been replaced by Luka and those Kilcoole women, if not by a conspiracy of the whole village of Shannonmouth, but he wanted to force Satok to reveal more. As long as the man kept his secrets to himself, they were of no use to Torkel or the company. “There’s more where those came from!” Satok growled.

 “And where, exactly, is that? McGee’s Pass?” The man had said he was shanachie there, so Torkel’s guess wasn’t that wild. Space probes had shown some ores in that general area.

 But Satok shook his head. “Nah, that vein’s played out for now. But I got other sources. Only thing is, and the reason I decided to cut the company in, I need supplies. For my method.”

 “Like what?”

 Satok grinned for the first time since they’d discovered Luka’s treachery. “That’s right, Cap’n. When I tell you what I use, you think you’re gonna have some ideas about my method. And you will have. Only thing is, it’s somethin’ you’ve been using all along. What I need the most is Petraseal. You get some of these boys to load up the shuttle with Petraseal, and I’ll get you some more ore samples within a couple of days.”

 “I go with you and you show me,” Torkel said, negotiating, “and I’ll get you all the Petraseal you want.”

 But the hairy bastard had the gall to shake his head. “No way. Not till I have a contract with the company patenting my methods and with full claim to my sites.”

 “You can’t get that without proof,” Torkel said.

 “Well, without my help, man, you can’t get samples of ores you need for proof the planet’s worth something to Intergal, so I guess if you don’t get me my supplies, we’re both out of luck.”

 “All right,” Torkel said on a long exasperated sigh. “I’ll release you the Petraseal. But go get those samples ASAP, okay? I’m not sure how long the commission is going to take to come to their conclusions.”

 “Then have your boys start loadin’ my shuttle. Oh, and fill ‘er up while you’re at it, will you?”

 Torkel agreed, still seeming reluctant for the sake of verisimilitude. Actually, he would go along whether Satok agreed or not. He could easily plant a bug and track the man to his mine. He could even invite the commission along to see the results of the new mining operation first-hand, and learn something of Satok’s secret process while they were at it.

 Birds—songbirds, ravens, ducks, geese, hawks, and herons—brought them, as did relays of rabbits, foxes, wolves, feral cats, tame cats, track-cats, bears, and squirrels. Each bird, each animal, carried in its mouth a cutting, a root, a shoot, of coo-berry bramble. The birds flew directly to the farthest points, to Dead Horse, Savoy, Wellington, Portage, Mirror Lake, Harrison’s Fjord, and McGee’s Pass. Following the cats’ directions, they dropped the shoots near the planet’s portals, the places where humankind could commune with Petaybee. The largest deliveries went to the places where the planet was at its most open and vulnerable, and could be most easily looted. All of these places were caves, and around the entrance of each cave and on the ground above the entrance, and all along the length of the cave, the shoots and roots and cuttings were dropped by birds and buried by the other animals, the badgers, the squirrels, the rabbits, and the foxes. Every quarter of an hour or so for two days, fresh bits of coo-berry bush arrived, supplied by the tireless efforts of Clodagh, Whittaker Fiske, and assistants from the town and the surrounding forests and tundra’s of Kilcoole.

 In most places, the increased and highly specialized activity of the animals was little more than a curiosity. In some places, no one even noticed what was going on. At McGee’s Pass, Krisuk Connelly and his family, who had been keeping watch on Satok’s old house, noted the odd influx of animals and, between deliveries, sneaked in to see what they could possibly be doing.

 The coo-berry plant was one of the planet’s great puzzlement’s. Most things on Petaybee were good for many things: medicine, food, shelter, warmth. Coo-berries had never been much good for anything. They were poisonous if you ate more than a handful, and the ailment that might have been devised by the planet to cure it had yet to be discovered. The thorns were sharp and stingy, the leaves were sticky, and the blossoms were as small, and rare, as the coo-berry itself. Once they got a start on any little dab of dirt, the damned bushes were almost impossible to kill. Worse, they grew so fast you could watch them grow, which was what Krisuk spent two days doing: watching the infestation of coo-berry. While the birds were still ferrying shoots in daily, bushes sprang up from the first plantings and grew waist high overnight, their roots spreading out to cover the field between the town and Satok’s house and climbing up the house’s stone exterior and covering the out-buildings.

 When that happened, Krisuk called the whole village to come and see. His mother’s mouth was set in a bitter line and her dry eyes watched the incursion despairingly. “Now,” she said, “now Petaybee is punishing us. For ever listening to Satok. For letting him harm it.”

 Matthew Luzon resisted the urge to hold his nose. Really! The things he did for the company in the name of humanity. To say the least, Brother Howling smelled extremely gamy. Even Braddock was tempted to open the helicopter’s door to escape the stench and showed signs of wanting to divest himself of his most recent meal over the ice-speckled sea.

 At least the headphones in this helicopter worked properly, and Matthew could occupy himself by listening to the pilot’s transmissions and the messages received from SpaceBase and MoonBase.

 As they approached land again at Harrison’s Fjord, a crackling message came in from MoonBase.

 “Captain Torkel Fiske requests that all council members get in touch with him immediately. He is currently tracking the activities of the shanachie of McGee’s Pass.”

 Matthew needed to hear no more. McGee’s Pass was on the way back to SpaceBase from Harrison’s Fjord, and a break from his present company would be most welcome.

 “Take us directly to McGee’s Pass, pilot,” he ordered, and the man gave him a thumbs-up signal and headed up the coast.

 As they approached the pass. Matthew saw that the village was built on an incline, gradually scaling the foothills leading up to the pass itself.

 “Well, for frag’s sake!” The pilot cursed as he flew beyond the village over a field heavily over grown with vines stretching from the houses all the way to a stone farmstead about half a mile distant. “What the frag have they done to the fragging helipad?”

 “Set it down anywhere, man!” Matthew commanded. “The plants’ll cushion the skids.”

 The pilot sounded doubtful as he said, “Well, okay. You’re the boss, Dr. Luzon.”

 Finally, someone who did as he was told, Matthew thought with relief.

 The pilot landed, crushing a good half meter into the surrounding vegetation. When he made no move to leave the aircraft, Matthew impatiently tore open the door and leaped out, and instantly regretted it.

 His legs caught fire all the way to his crotch, and thousands of tiny needles stung through his pants, boots, and undergarments to tear at his flesh with each tiny movement.

 In fact, he didn’t even have to move. The wind from the copter rotors drove the plants all around him. Involuntarily, he screamed. Braddock jumped down to help him, and he, too, began to scream.

 The Shepherd Howling stood in the doorway, one hand uplifted, his mouth moving and his other hand pointing.

 “What?” Luzon managed to ask as the chopper engines stopped.

 “The Great Monster has thee in its grasp!” Shepherd Howling cried. “Beware!”

 “For pity’s sake, man, it’s no great monster, just some sort of vine!” Matthew screeched. “Help!—“

 A young man sitting atop a rock that was a virtual island in the sea of stinging brambles called out, “Can I help you, sir?”

 “Get us out of here!” Matthew demanded.

 “Ah. Your aircraft will be the safest place for that, sir. I suggest you get back in it before the vines overgrow it.”

 “What? No plant can grow that fast!” Braddock replied, doubting his own words as he unsuccessfully tried to disentangle the vines from his legs.

 ‘The Great Monster is devious and wily and tireless in clutching for the souls and bodies of virtuous men!” Shepherd Howling declaimed.

 “Indeed!” Matthew snapped at him. He turned to the boy. “If I wished to return to the helicopter I would never have landed here, young man. Please assist us out of these weeds and take us to your shanachie and Captain Fiske at once.”

 “Never heard of no Captain Fiske,” the boy called back lazily, obviously enjoying their situation, “and we run the shanachie off.”

 “Did you?” Matthew stood among the stinging brambles and digested that.

 “You heard him, sir. Let’s get out of here,” Braddock whined.

 But any inclination Matthew might have had to do just that had vanished with the boy’s words. “Now why did you do that, son?”

 “He was a wicked man, sir. Tryin’ to make us think the planet wanted one thing when it wanted the other.”

 “I’d very much like to talk to you about that, son. Please get us out of here.” Matthew, despite the stings, turned on the force of his not inconsiderable charisma.

 The boy shrugged and disappeared. Matthew and Braddock shoved Shepherd Howling back and sat in the copter while a crew of villagers arrived with various stones and pieces of board to make a path for them. Matthew was somewhat surprised that they hadn’t brought machetes or sickles to hack the weeds down. Before he could ask about that, the boy ran across the stones and grabbed him by the arm.

 “You’d best hurry, sir, or the coo-brambles will be a-growin’ over these, too, like.”

 “You will be rewarded by the company, my son,” Shepherd Howling said, pushing Matthew aside to sprint over the stones with the agility of a mountain goat. The speed with which he took advantage of the temporary path and his nimbleness in avoiding questing bramble tendrils caused Matthew to re-evaluate the man’s degree of insanity.

 Matthew followed quickly, Braddock somewhat more reluctantly. The pilot opted to remain with his ship.

 With the boy leading them, Shepherd Howling on his heels, and Matthew followed more slowly by Braddock, they reached the nearest of the hovels. There they were joined by a man and woman and a pack of whooping children. The rest of the village crowded in after them.

 Shepherd Howling slowed to hover noisomely by Matthew. “This is possibly a wholesome place, Brother Luzon. None of the orange minions of the underworld one sees in many of the heathen towns are visible. And nowhere did I see the monster’s yawning maw waiting to be fed by the ignorance of the unenlightened.”

 “That is good news,” Matthew said tersely, and turned to their adolescent guide. He was far more interested in what the villagers had to say.

 “Now, my boy, you must explain something to me, for I am a bit confused. I was supposed to meet Captain Fiske and the shanachie of this village here. Now you tell me you’ve banished the shanachie. Being a stranger to this planet, but one very interested in your customs, have I indeed been brought to McGee’s Pass?”

 “That’s where you are, sir,” said the woman of the house, undoubtedly the boy’s mother, pushing herself to the front. “And the best way to explain, sir, is by singing you the song we made.”

 Groaning inwardly at the prospect of another of the Petaybean songs, Matthew arranged his features in an engaging and interested smile.

 “We sing it together,” explained the man who seemed to be the woman’s husband and the boy’s father. “Because it happened to us all.”

 “We were all duped, he means,” the boy said.

 A 1ittle girl said, “All but Krisuk. He wasn’t fooled.”

 “Please sing,” Matthew said, trying to cut to the performance if he had to hear it to learn what they were talking about.

 “You start, Krisuk,” the mother said.

 The boy stood stock-still, arms at his sides, not a foot from Matthew, and began to chant in an eerie singsong style: 

 “One day the roof of the world fell

 It killed our friends, our cousins

 It killed the heir to its wisdom

 For days we dug, too numb to cry.

 Our world had ended.

 Aijija!”

  

 The other villagers joined in, some crying loudly, some mumbling, all reciting the nonsense words at the end of the verses as if they were expletives.

 “A stranger came among us to dig

 He came among us, he said, to teach

 Sure he was.

 Strong he was.

 He knew what to do.

 He knew where to dig.

 The world still spoke to him,

 He said.

 Aijija!

  

 He said if we followed him we could win back the world.

 He said if my sister lay with him she would be one with

 creation

 She went with him

 He said if we gave him the best pups of the litter

 His team would carry the spirit of our village to the world’s

 corners

 And it would know us once more

 We gave him the pups

 He said that the planet’s orange feet carried tales against

 us to other villages

 He said if we were to heal, the feet must be killed.

 This, to our shame, we allowed. “

 And here, quite alarmingly, people began to tear their hair. All of the villagers sang the next verse loudly and lamentingly.

 “To our shame we didn’t hide them

 To our shame we didn’t feed them

 To our shame we heard his blows

 To our shame we heard their cries

 To our shame we did nothing

 Until only Shush

 Shush the silent and swift

 Survived. Shush who led us back into the world

 Shush who brought our neighbors to us

 Shush who left us at last

 Footless in a world

 Whose voice had been strangled

 Whose tongue had been blown away

 By the one we called

 Satok shanachie.

  

 Where is our sister now?

 Gone to a bad man in a distant village.

 Where are our best pups?

 Starved and broken in spirit.

 Where are our cats, the world’s orange feet?

 No longer walking, bones except for Shush

 And when our world speaks to us again as we have

 Hoped and dreamed?

 It screams.

 Aijija.”

  

 “Oh, dear,” Matthew said when they had finished. “And all this because of your shanachie, eh?”

 “Yes, sir,” the boy said. “He took all of our best for himself and betrayed everyone.”

 Matthew could scarcely keep from rubbing his hands together with glee. “Oh, that’s terrible. Terrible indeed. Right, Brother Howling?”

 Howling’s lips twitched with a smile. “That’s what comes of trafficking with monsters.”

 “You can say that again, mister,” the woman said. “Can you stay and eat, sir?” she asked Matthew, but he waved a negative.

 “I’m sorry, dear lady, but your story distresses me so much that I really think our best course is to resume our journey and seek to bring justice to you and people like you who are taken in by those who would mislead you. I hope I can count on you to repeat your song before the council when I call on you!” he added, addressing the boy, who had sung every word in a voice unexpectedly good, loud, and clear.

 “I’d be honored, sir,” the boy said, although he sounded puzzled and wary.

 The villagers had to throw fresh stepping-stones and logs over the brambles for Matthew’s party to return to the helicopter. Even then, the pilot had to climb out and hack at the vines with a machete before he could free the copter’s skids. The vines were tight against the belly of the ship, strands attempting to encircle the narrow stern. Matthew thought that such fast-growing vegetation would also bear scrutiny. George, he rather thought, had some botanical knowledge. He’d send him to get a sample—if one could be contained long enough.

 Satok landed the shuttle, loaded with barrels of Petraseal, at Savoy. His three assistant “shanachies” were still there, drinking and talking.

 “Where’s Luka?” Reilly asked.

 “Ran off,” Satok replied. “Don’t worry. I’ll get her back, and when I do, I’ll make her sorry she was ever born. The fraggin’ bitch stole the ore samples and put rocks in their place.”

 “So you didn’t get to make a deal with the company?”

 “Course I did! Guy named Fiske saw them first before Luka switched ‘em, but he wants to have genuine samples to show off.”

 “It was hard enough getting together what we did without you letting it get snitched,” Reilly complained. He liked easier work than mining.

 “Hold it! All we gotta prove is that there is genuine ore available. We’ll use the one here, and who’s to know if we don’t tell ‘em, huh? Fiske gave me some more Petraseal, so Reilly and I will mine the earlier veins while you two paint us a path back.”

 “Shit! I hate doing that,” Soyuk grumbled. “Damn caves give me the creeps.”

 “Stop bellyachin’,” Satok told him. “If we make this deal with the company, you’ll have enough money to go off-planet permanently.”

 They climbed onto the Petraseal-laden shuttle and flew to the cave mouth, which was inconveniently distant from the village. In Satok’s absence, the location had grown even more inconvenient.

 “Where the hell did these weeds come from?” he demanded, astounded by the sea of tangling vines choking the cave mouth and cloaking the cliff and mountain meadow where they usually landed.

 Reilly shrugged. “I dunno. They weren’t here a coupla weeks back, but the season’s gone nuts. We can torch ‘em?”

 “Not enough time. The fraggin’ cave would fill with smoke and we’d never get at the ore.”

 “We could try the site back at my place,” Soyuk suggested.

 “No, hell, we’ll hack ‘em back and splash ‘em with Petraseal as we go. We only need to get inside the cave.”

 The stalks were amazingly tough and the stinging vines clung to the men with fierce tenacity, but they hacked and splashed until they reached the entrance of the cave.

 “Just hack this crap away from the front here, and it’ll all be clear back where the Petraseal is, boys,” Satok directed.

 The way was not as clear as he had hoped. They had to make several trips to lug the vats of Petraseal into the cave. Left on his own while the others pumped the Petraseal in, Satok wondered how the weeds had managed to penetrate right through the ceiling of the cave. Had the latest tremors shaken a hole in the roof? Roots and tendrils of vines drooped from the ceiling.

 When Soyuk, Clancy, and Reilly returned, he sent the first two on ahead to paint where they could excavate, and told Reilly to start patching farther back in the cave. In order to listen for Fiske’s copter, Satok took the area nearest the entrance—he wanted to make sure the captain didn’t see too much of the operation.

 He hacked and daubed and hacked and daubed. The interior of the cave, now insulated by the cover of vines, seemed hotter than it ever had before. The light grew dimmer and greener as he worked, almost as if he were working underwater.

 He thought at one point he heard some scuffling, and the others seemed noisier than they had been for a while, hollering and swearing as they worked. Getting stung, no doubt, he thought with a grin, but that noise was soon masked by the steady chop and daub of his own work. The beat of his own heart, the rasp of his own breath, was all he heard.

 In this new rhythmic silence, he worked and sweated, the faint drip of his perspiration landing on the cavern floor the only other sound he heard as he strained to listen for the engines of Fiske’s copter.

 He didn’t notice when he first heard the slithering sound, a soft rustle followed by a dry whispering crackling noise, as if paper had fallen—or leaves.

 Then it came to him, just as he felt something slide across the toe of his boot and curl to brush his pant leg, that he had heard nothing from the others for some time. The thought crossed his mind just before the thorns bit into his leg as the vine tendril tightened.

 “Reilly!” he hollered. “Soyuk!”

 For an answer, another rustle, another slither. It was darker now, and as he turned toward the doorway, he saw that a thick net of greenery had replaced what they had hacked away a bare hour before. More alarmingly, some of the greenery bore splashes of white. He tried to kick off the vines clinging to him, but succeeded only in embedding the thorns deeper into his ankles. Feeling an edge of panic, he switched on the flashlight he’d brought along.

 It seemed to attract the plants, as if they couldn’t tell the difference between the light and sun. First roots, then more tendrils dropped from the roof, opening leaves as they slid.

 This shouldn’t be happening, Satok thought. This couldn’t be happening! The Petraseal should have impeded any new growth, reduced it to dust. Where he had painted so industriously, he now realized that the Petraseal was marbled with cracks, fine in places, broadening in others to allow the plants to burgeon forth. Even the swath he had just painted had opened to emit tendrils.

 And all of them seemed to be sliding toward him. From its sheath on his belt, he took his machete and hacked himself free, running to the rear of the cave as fast as he could without tripping over the vines.

 He found Reilly first, hanging upside down by his ankles, which were pinned to the upper part of the wall. The vines twined down his legs and wrapped his arms tightly to his sides. His machete lay useless on the floor. The end of the vine—or maybe the first part to catch him—had wrapped around his neck five or six times, very tightly. Tender green shoots grew out of his mouth, nose, and ears.

 Satok wasted no more time looking for Soyuk or Clancy. He didn’t even worry about why the Petraseal hadn’t worked. He jumped, hopped, and ran for the entrance, hacking and slicing.

 He went at such a speed that he dropped his flashlight. That’s why he didn’t see the root looping down from the ceiling, to lash itself around his throat while another knocked him to the floor.

 He didn’t scream for long as the stinging, snatching vines overwhelmed him. As the sound died in his throat, he seemed to hear from the cave a low grumbling hum. As oxygen was cut off from his brain and optic nerve and his sight failed, the light from the setting sun pierced the leaves, lighting the greenery in the cave’s entrance like the watchful eyes of a thousand gloating cats.

 Marmion and her entourage had returned to Kilcoole, bringing with them Luka and an injured cat for the attention of Kilcoole’s fat witch doctor, leaving Rick O’Shay’s bird available to fly Torkel to Savoy to meet Satok.

 Torkel was not actually rubbing his hands together with glee, but he felt like it. O’Shay had received a radio message that Matthew Luzon, his assistant, and an unspecified passenger had just cleared the coast at Harrison’s Fjord. Torkel considered Luzon his staunchest ally, and he quickly sent a message asking Matthew to meet him and the McGee’s Pass shanachie at Savoy.

 “Hope they got that clear, Captain,’ O’Shay said, shaking his head. “Terrible amount of static lately.”

 When they circled the Savoy settlement, Torkel thought nothing of the brambles growing some distance outside the town until he saw the gleam of metal beneath them. Even then he thought it was some piece of cast-off machinery a local had allowed the vines to overgrow.

 When he inquired in the village for the shanachie, he was told that the man had been conferring with his fellow shanachies for days and yesterday had made a visit to the cave and had not yet returned.

 “Important gentlemen such as yourself should be sittin’ and restin’ and havin’ a cuppa, and not go worryin’ after the shanachies. Sure they was all together and they’ll be after makin’ powerful decisions and discussions and such like out to the cave. I shouldn’t like to be the one to interrupt them.” This advice came from a middle-aged woman in raggedy clothes.

 Why did Torkel get the feeling that there was something spurious about her rustic humility? Perhaps it was because he had lately had occasion to hear many Petaybeans speak. They seemed to use that broad colorful accent only when addressing company officials.

 So he was uncharacteristically curt with her as he said, ‘Take me to this cave at once. Shanachie Satok’s business is with me and I’ve come to meet him.”

 “Ah, well, sir, I’m too old a woman to take you on that sort of a hike, sure I am. But my son now, he’d be after takin’ ya on his way up to the fields with the sheep like.”

 “Then let him take us, but let’s go,” Torkel snapped.

 A boy appeared abruptly, a human island in a white woolly sea. He shook his head when Torkel wanted to use the copter to get them there. “Coo-berries’ll take that, too. C’mon!”

 It irritated Torkel no end that Rick O’Shay had the time to relax, drink tea, and exchange gossip with the woman while he traipsed after the boy. About a mile from the end of the vil1age, the boy started swinging in a wide arc around the lake of weeds.

 “Just where is this cave, son?” Torkel asked him, panting slightly at the uphill climb. He’d have to get back into working out again at the station.

 “Over there, sir, but you won’t want to go there, sir. Only shanachies go there.”

 “Are all you people nuts? I already told your mother I have business with the shanachies. Now then, how do we get through this shrubbery and into the cave?”

 “Ah, sure and I couldn’t be doin’ that, sir. Coo-berries is dead poison to sheep, and they’ve not sense enough to keep from eatin’ them. Worse, I’d never get the stickers and thorns out of the wool.”

 “Then don’t take the sheep, son. Did that ever occur to you?”

 “But like, what would I do with ‘em then, sir?”

 Torkel was about to make a suggestion when he heard the engine of another copter. Seeing it over fly their position and head for the village, he abandoned the boy and sprinted back down the hill to intercept it.

 He arrived winded, back where he’d started from, in time to see the pilot shut down the copter and jump down, followed by the imposing figure of Vice-Chairman Matthew Luzon; one of his entourage, who looked a bit pale; and an individual dressed in ragged leather and fur. As Torkel approached, his nose twitched at the rancid stench that exuded from the creature.

 “Dr. Luzon, thank you for coming. I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a delay, however.”

 Luzon smiled knowingly. “Ah, yes, the vines. I encountered the same problem when I serendipitously ended up at McGee’s Pass on my way to meet you. It’s a small problem, but a bit tricky, Captain. You simply enlist the aid of the villagers to throw boards and stones on top of the weeds to form a path. We found that worked fine when we landed in the middle of a patch ourselves.”

 ‘You went to the cave at McGee’s Pass?”

 “Cave? Ah, was that what the locals were singing about? No, we didn’t examine the cave. When we discovered that you were, in fact, here, we came as soon as that . . . ah . . . song was over. I did, however, make a quite satisfying discovery during our brief stay which I’ll discuss with you later. Now then, where’s this fellow we were supposed to meet?”

 “He’s in the cave,” Torkel said. “Beyond the weeds. Though I’m damned if I know how he got through.”

 “Easy enough if you think about it,” Matthew said superciliously. He turned to the villagers who had gathered to watch the company men confer. “I want a work party to gather boards, stones, sheets of plasglas, anything that can be thrown across the weeds for a path. Now, step quickly, will you! We must reach the cave.”

 “Sure, carryin’ enough things to get back there, that’s a week’s work you’re talkin’ about, sir,” said a local man with the broad weathered face of an Eskirish cross, scratching his head at the prospect.

 “We’ve used all that sort of stuff we had building bridges across the streams when they flooded,” the woman said. “There’s not a scrap left hereabouts.”

 “Then we’ll send back to SpaceBase,” Torkel said with a curt nod to O’Shay. “You radio for a team.”

 O’Shay got on the radio, and in a moment he emerged and said, “None of the other copters are at SpaceBase, sir, or even available later today.”

 “Then one of you fly back and pick up help and material,” Torkel said, vastly annoyed at all of the delays and rather surprised that Satok, who’d had twenty-four or more hours to work ore, had not been on hand to guide them.

 “It will have to be your pilot, Captain Fiske,” Luzon said. “I require the full time services of my own.”

 Torkel nodded to O’Shay, who climbed back aboard and restarted his engine. By now it was well into the afternoon.

 “Why do you suppose we haven’t heard from your shanachie?” Torkel demanded of the woman as the noise of the copter faded in the distance.

 “Cave’s a powerful ways back, sir.”

 “How did he and the others get there, then?” Torkel demanded. “We could try the same thing.”

 “Ah, sure, sir, shanachies has their ways as wouldn’t be known to others.”

 Matthew Luzon nodded to Braddock, who hastily made a note of that remark.

 “Yet more misguided souls in league with the Great Monster,” wailed the unwashed man.

 “Ah, Captain Fiske, this is a particularly valuable . . . acquaintance. From the southern continent. Brother Howling, meet Captain Torkel Fiske, who has spearheaded the effort to have this planet fully investigated. Captain Fiske, the Shepherd Howling, a major spiritual leader from the Vale of Tears. A most influential man.”

 Torkel gave the scruffy man an impatient look and limited his response to a mumbled “Delighted.”

 While they accepted the dubious hospitality of the village, Torkel gave the commissioner the details of his meeting with Satok and the ore samples he had himself handled and identified. To his relief, Luzon did not appear at all skeptical about the authenticity of the ores. He knew the planet was ore-rich: every space probe had verified that, even pin pointing the exact sites from space. Finding the precise locations on the surface had proved to be impossible.

 Howling had apparently been listening carefully and now he nodded wisely. “The monster is treacherous. Perfectly capable of transforming gold into stone, winter into summer, harmless plants into murderous serpentine weapons. Time and again I have warned my flock they must rise up and subdue the monster with no hint of capitulation, but they were weak and faltering.”

 Torkel glanced at Luzon, appreciating what merit the lunatic could provide in discrediting the Kilcoole interpretation of the planet’s behavior. He smiled at Luzon. “We need a few more new . . . acquaintances like this good and wise Brother Howling, don’t we?”

 Matthew wore a smug expression while Brother Howling said gravely, “Thank you, my son.”

 Matthew mentioned to Torkel, in an amused tone, what the villagers had sung of Satok at McGee’s Pass.

 “We’ve constantly been given the impression here that shanachies are universally respected and their views reflect those of their communities. At McGee’s Pass, this was not so.”

 “I see. Discrediting what we have been told of the whole system. Yes, definitely, Dr. Luzon, we will need to have testimony from McGee’s Pass at the hearing. And Brother Howling here, too, will represent a unique viewpoint at odds with the Kilcoole party line.”

 “My thoughts, exactly. Although Brother Howling also falls into the error of believing this planet to be sentient, his view is that the planet, far from being a benefactor and friend, is in fact a great monster. He believes that the colonists were brought here by the company as banishment for misbehavior elsewhere and that one day, if they do well and obey his teachings, the company will redeem them.”

 “Verily, have I said it thusly, my brethren,” Shepherd Howling said. “I have done the company’s work on this forsaken rock, Brother Matthew, that I and my family may be delivered from the monster and into the grace of the company once more. I will commune with the planet here, if you will excuse me.”

 His absence was welcome on several counts: the obviously fresher air, and the chance for Torkel and Luzon to make plans based on their respective discoveries. Torkel listened intently to Luzon as the man talked of similar investigations he had conducted into the folkways of various planets and systems and how he had corrected mistaken concepts and behaviors. The dialogue was briefly interrupted when a bewildered and bruised Shepherd Howling was herded back at the end of their hostess’s broom.

 “With all respect, gentlemen, you keep this maniac away from my little girl or I’ll geld him!” the woman said and stomped away.

 “Sit in the sun, Brother Howling,” Luzon suggested, pointing to a half-broken bench against the outside wall—downwind of them.

 All the while, Torkel kept expecting Satok to arrive to guide them to the rich ore faces as he’d promised. But several hours went by with no sign of the man. Finally the sound of helicopter engines once more routed the four men from their chairs.

 Two helicopters approached the village. Torkel figured one would have men and one equipment to rid the area of the bushes, but when the passengers disembarked, he was annoyed to see that there were no figures in fatigues emerging, except the pilots, O’Shay and Greene. No one useful at all, in fact. Marmion and her entourage had come, along with George and Ivan from Luzon’s group. And to his further irritation, he watched as Clodagh Senungatuk was courteously helped to descend by O’Shay from his copter.

 “You’re on report, O Shay, for disobeying orders,” he told the pilot.

 “Oh, please don’t punish the dear boy, Captain Fiske,” said Marmion, with a flourish of fashionable fabric scarf and a charming move. “It’s all my fault really. Captain Greene returned from the southern continent with Yana Maddock, Dr. Shongili, and those sweet youngsters, plus another little girl Dr. Shongili says is the sister of his other niece—“

 “Goat-dung!” Shepherd Howling said. “She is mine. She is to be my wife.”

 “Oh. surely not,” Marmion said, smiling brightly at him. “The girl’s less than twelve years old. But, at any rate, our teams were in need of one of Clodagh’s hearty meals and we sat listening to Yana and Sean tell us the most fantastic adventures—ah, but I needn’t tell you, need I, Matthew? You were present for some of them.”

 Luzon inclined his head, his eyes half-hooded and dangerous.

 “Well, Johnny Greene heard Captain O’Shay’s message about the weeds here, and then Clodagh said that a work party wouldn’t do much good and might even be in danger. But that she knew something that would work.” Marmion paused, as if expecting approval, her eyes all wide and innocent. “Et viola! We have come to offer assistance.”

 Before anyone could say anything else she added ingenuously, “Also, Matthew, your young friends were absolutely pining for you, and I simply had to help reunite you, isn’t that so, boys?”

 Luzon’s muscular assistants nodded—rather miserably, Torkel thought.

 While everyone was standing around thinking of a response to Marmion’s gabble, Clodagh Senungatuk started walking out of the village.

 “Where the devil do you think you’re going?” Torkel demanded.

 “To make a path to the cave,’ she said simply, and kept walking.

 By the time she had gone five more steps, Torkel recovered from his surprise enough to tell her that she wouldn’t be able to penetrate such a hedge of weed, and where were the boards and other spanning materials he had sent for? She gave no answer, plodding up the track toward the cave. The other new arrivals followed, plus half the village, which seemed to consider this expedition fine entertainment.

 At the edge of the vast jungle of waist-high vines, which seemed even more impenetrable since Torkel’s first look at them, Clodagh paused. She bent down and gently touched the center of one of the leaves.

 So what are you doing? Asking it nicely? Torkel demanded.

 “Lookin’ at this white stuff. Wondering why somebody tried to paint the bushes. This is the only thing that works.” She drew out a large clear flask filled with a greenish liquid, uncorked it carefully, and then inserted a sprinkler head of home manufacture. She shook the bottle a bit in front and to each side of her.

 Instantly the vines retracted as if they had been mowed with a scythe, and as she moved forward, Marmion fell in step behind her, followed by Sally Point-Jefferson, who had had the good sense to put on heavy boots.

 Marmion turned around and said, “Quickly, boys. I don’t know how long the effect lasts. Clodagh’s very mysterious about it.

 They followed with alacrity. Torkel felt like a fool, trailing behind the big woman as she doused her concochon to the right, the center, and the left, like some ancient prelate dispensing holy water or preparing a pontiff’s path with incense.

 When they reached a wall of greenery where the vines from the meadow above the cave spilled down over into the field, she increased the area and parabola of her casting, widening the path. The vines drew back like curtains, and Torkel saw the entrance to a largish cave.

 “Better use lights,” Clodagh said, though she imperturbably stepped into the dimness, Marmion behind her.

 “Oh!” Marmion said. “What ever has happened here?”

 “Somebody tried to kill this place,” Clodagh said. “But Petaybee fights back.” She indicated the streamers of vines and roots extending from the ceiling.

 She proceeded until, farther inside the cave, she stepped cautiously around what looked like a green hillock.

 “Ah! Here. Captain,” she said to Torkel, sprinkling the hillock so that the vines gradually shrank away to show the body they had encased. “Is this yer man here that you were looking for?”

 The popped eyes, protruding tongue, and cyanosed face were nevertheless identifiable as those of the former shanachie. The bloodied grooves tightly scored about his neck gave ample proof of the agency that had killed him.

 “He said he had a sure fire mining method,” Torkel said. “Something to do with Petraseal.”

 Faber knocked on a piece of the roof that had remained vineless thus far. “This is Petraseal all right, but this on the cracks—“ He ran his fingers over it and shone his flashlight beam on the result and on what had covered the ends of the withered vines. “Look. It’s not even white. It’s pale lime green and it’s not Petraseal, Captain Fiske. This is exterior wall paint, and not a real high quality at that.”

 Shepherd Howling, visibly shaking, suddenly sprang at Matthew Luzon as if attacking him. “Get me out of here! I must escape the Great Monster before it devours us all as it devoured that man.”

 “Uh, Dr. Luzon,” one of the assistants called nervously. “Can you come back here?” He had followed Clodagh, who was continuing to sprinkle, undeterred by her grisly discovery, farther into the cave. “We’ve got three more corpses.”

 “I demand that this woman be held for questioning and that the bottle containing her weed-killing solution be seized and analyzed,” Matthew Luzon said.

 Marmion Algemeine, still unhappily abstracted by the grotesque deaths of the four men, regarded Matthew with stupefaction.

 “Held for questioning? Whatever for?” she demanded.

 “Clodagh helped ! Without her we’d never have found those poor men.”

 Matthew didn’t exactly say “aha!” but a malicious light did glitter in his eye as he said, in a quiet voice, “And how exactly did she know that these particular vines would need her particular remedy? And how did she just happen to have it available?”

 “And I,” Torkel said sternly, “only requested materials and manpower to reach the cave.”

 Marmion was not to be confounded. “Why, I would suppose that plants as aggressive as these might be a fairly common nuisance. Is that how you knew, Clodagh?”

 Clodagh shrugged but didn’t defend herself.

 A woman from Savoy spoke up quickly. “And how wouldn’t she know that? Sure, coo-berries has never been this bad before. It’s that hard to root them out wherever they grow, but they never strangled anybody before this. Still, it’s been an uncommon early spring, and everything is growin’ the like of which I’ve never seen before in all my life.”

 “So you would say, would you, madam,” Matthew said “that the weather was unusual and the plants are unusual? Tell me, if what Ms. Senungatuk used on the coo-berries was an ordinary remedy for their sting, why didn’t the rest of you use them?”

 “Sure, why should we?” she asked. “Coo-berries wasn’t botherin’ us any, were they? And only ‘cos you come, did we know they was up at the cave. And another thing,” she went on, winding up to unburden all her complaints, “back before Shanachie Reilly arrived, people used to come here for latchkays and have a chat with the planet, like. Only then Reilly gave us to understand that a lot of our problems, the floods, the avalanche, the quakes, were on accounta we were too pig-ignorant to understand properly what it was the planet was sayin’ to us. After the time lightnin’ struck the meeting hall and burned up all them people, just before Reilly came to us, we let him do the talkin’ and I would say things have been pretty peaceful since.” She paused and said, “But for all that many folk thought Reilly knew best, he never did learn the remedies like Kilcoole’s Clodagh. Our old healer died two winters back and we’ve been wanting to get someone new trained up, ‘cos I’ve known about her since we was both younglings. Village even had a promising girl child ready to go ‘prentice’ herself to Clodagh, iffen Clodagh Senungatuk’d have her, but Reilly wouldn’t allow it.”

 “Thank you, madam, for the testimonial.” Matthew said.  “We’ll let you know if you’ll be needed to repeat your statement at the hearing. Meanwhile, I must insist Ms. Senungatuk be placed into company custody and her flask seized for analysis, along with the contents of the barrels the deceased had with them in the cave. Autopsies must be performed on the bodies and the entire area sealed.”

 ‘No worries on that score, sir,” Ivan told him. They were standing just outside the field of coo-berries, and Ivan’s nod indicated the place where Clodagh’s path had been. It was once more covered with twining brambles.

 Two weeks later, the investigation was finished and all the data collected had been entered by Luzon’s overworked computer men and hard copies made for presentation.

 First, however, at Shepherd Howling’s insistence, he was sent off-planet on the same shuttle that carried the bodies. He couldn’t have been on the MoonBase for more than an hour before angry messages arrived from first MoonBase command, then the hospital facility on Bethany Station, which indicated that the Shepherd was urgently proselytizing on a broad scale for converts to his just cause of trying to raise an army to fight the monster, which must be over come before the planet could be truly holy. He had a real knack for spouting his cant to the already disaffected, the misfits, and those in the lower ranks who were more easily swayed by his rhetoric. Within the first three days, he came close to single-handedly instigating a mutiny.

 Such complaints made Matthew thankful that the man was out of the way so that he would not be part of the group greeting the remaining commissioners. They were soon to arrive on the planet’s somewhat seismic-shaken surface to read and evaluate the information prior to the final hearing. He wished there had been someplace he could have immured Marmion Algemeine and her assistants, but her absence would have caused embarrassing questions even if he had thought of a way to rid her, however temporarily, of her three constant attendants.

 Torkel Fiske was invaluable in helping Matthew and his committee. It was he who suggested that they should also interview newly arrived colonists in the most recently formed villages far from the influence of such people as Shongili and the Senungatuk woman, or even families such as the brood that had entertained Matthew in the south.

 The new people, it was hoped, would be more objective and scientific in their outlook. When Matthew noted that the influx had come from the Mariana Islands and the Scottish highlands, where large deposits of deutronium and molybdenum had recently been located, and some resettled from the disastrous colonies of Bremer, he was equally ready to cancel that idea if the initial interviews proved negative. He resolved to read each of the collected reports before permitting them to be admitted as evidence. Meanwhile, his assistants and Marmion’s vied with each other to be the first to record the testimonies of people from the villages of the four murdered shanachies.

 Matthew himself had made a special, personal effort to reach Goat-dung and persuade her to tell the truth about her part in the sudden disappearance of “the monster” who had been injured by members of Howling’s community—an injury rather too similar to the one from which Shongili was recovering. Matthew also had placed a strong letter of reprimand in the file of Captain John Greene, who had certainly exceeded his authority by removing the girl from Matthew’s custody at a critical time.

 Now no one seemed to know where either the girl or Shongili was. Shongili’s mannish sister and her girlfriend were also nowhere to be found. Through Marmion’s influence, Clodagh Senungatuk, much to Matthew’s dismay, remained in her own home, under nominal “house arrest,” and still ran the village. And the whole planet, as far as he knew—including Whittaker Fiske, who actually seemed to have the poor taste to be besotted with the fat cow—paused to gossip to her through her windows. Unstoppably, of course, those damned cats went in and out as they pleased.  Discreet efforts to capture any of them—either by the lure of choice cuts of meat or by chasing them with otherwise savage canines—had met with abysmal failure. They had spurned the food and terrified any dog set on their spoors.

 He had tried to insist that Shongili and Clodagh both be sent off-planet in detention cells pending the hearing. Whittaker Fiske and Marmion Algemeine had immediately blocked that, just as they’d quashed the off world reassignments he tried to engineer for captains Greene and O’Shay.

 He let himself be consoled by the fact that it was only a matter of time for all their little petty tricks to come tumbling down about their ears. Once he presented his evidence at the hearing and it was seen how these two-bit shamanistic charlatans were preying on the people’s fears and hopes to influence them against the company, Shongili and Clodagh and all their helpers would be evicted from their cushy company homes and Maddock, Greene, and O’Shay would be busted back to KP duty.

 The workload was overwhelming. While he seemed able to gain momentum in his search for truth, his assistants, who had previously seemed so promising, had grown unaccountably bumbling and incompetent. Their reports did not have bottom-line conclusions that satisfied his requirements. And then the computers kept developing break downs and suffering from sporadic erasures.

 The locals, including company troops, were hostile; the working conditions were appallingly primitive, and the weather—how he loathed wild weather—was unspeakable. Lashing rains and electrical storms alternated with spitting snow and heat far above the comfort zone. The SpaceBase facility was constantly quaking with unexpected convulsions on land that had originally been tested as geological

 stable. Matthew longed for the sane and sanitary shipboard ambiance, one engineered for human comfort by rational minds such as his own. No mold grew there, as it did on the walls of his lavatory despite the repeated scrubbings of some low-ranking corpsman. No thunderclaps disrupted his concentration, and despite the fact that one was always moving in space, one never experienced sensations of bobbing like bubbles in a test tube as buildings bounced.

 To make matters worse, another volcano erupted, ten klicks to the northwest, sending ash into every crack and crevice. This emergence occurred in a meadow, near nothing else, and didn’t even cause copters to falter over flying it. However, a seaquake of 9.3 on the Richter scale had a mid-ocean epicenter that caused tsunamis in every direction and quite devastated the small facility at Bogota.

 The company would simply have to face facts. This planet was not working out. The terraforming was faulty, the terrain had not fully stabilized, the whole place should be evacuated, scraped clean, and either abandoned or reformed with more modern techniques. It would put an end to all this talk of sentience and settlements.

  

 Chapter 14

 Yana couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding, something she would not give voice to, even to Sean. At least his wound was closing with extraordinary rapidity, thanks to a poultice and Clodagh’s expert attention. That bit of doctoring had happened before Matthew Luzon’s asinine notion of putting Clodagh under “house arrest.” That wasn’t as bad as Luzon’s original orders to send both off-planet. Sean had been immediately hidden in Bunny’s snocle, which had been decommissioned for the “summer” and stored in Adak O’Connor’s garage. Clodagh had shrugged off the threat and maintained it wouldn’t come to that. Which it hadn’t, with the forceful help of Marmion and Whittaker Fiske. Only someone totally ignorant of the situation on Petaybee, as most of the company brass were, or someone so hostile as to be beyond reason, as Luzon was, would think that putting Clodagh and Sean in any sort of detention made sense.

 Yana couldn’t quite believe, or hope, that Luzon had failed to realize the function of the cats in Clodagh’s and the planet’s—communications network. Torkel knew. She wondered why he didn’t try to round up the cats and put them under house arrest as well. It would have been just about as ridiculous.

 When they knew the order was for house arrest rather than transfer off-planet, Sean, with his customary imperturbability, emerged from hiding like a bear from hibernation and smilingly chose Yana’s as the “house to be arrested in.” She was glad to have him near for several reasons. Although the wound was healing so well, the arrow had torn muscles and almost severed one tendon. She could keep an eye on it and him better if she didn’t have to worry about concealment. She knew it was unrealistic to think she could single-handedly protect him from the company if they tried to take him, but she would do what she could. And now that she was well again, she could do quite a bit. With her years of training and experience, she was not without resources. And quite aside from that, it just helped having him there. He calmed her. Here his world was on trial and he was able, with a look. a smile, or a joke, to soothe her fears.

 She needed that. Even with the “off-planet threat dissolved, tension vibrated in the air like off-key music whether it was in sympathy with Clodagh, or apprehension of what the Powers That Be would try to do to them next.

 Not that everything in Kilcoole came to a stand still: everyone carried on, gardening and planting all hours of the lengthening days. But the smart ones were frightened, as they should be, with Matthew Luzon coming on so strong. At least that loony, Howling, had been shipped out, which gave the planet one score against the Powers That Be, as the locals called the company in all its omniscience. She wondered if the MoonBase had smelled him coming. She’d had the first laugh in days when Adak reported that Howling had the base command howling complaints.

 Adak said he had ears the size of flapjacks from listening in on his radio, trying to make sense of orders misheard through the static. He usually brought a summary of what he had heard to Yana so that she could convey the information to Clodagh. Like everybody else, she just went to the windows and chatted. If the guard was new, and didn’t know her—as the guards often were, since Torkel was obviously afraid Clodagh would bewitch her jailers as he seemed to feel she had his father—Yana cleverly disguised herself as what she had been, a major in the company corps, collected a smart salute from the trooper on duty, and walked into the house. This worked only if the guard hadn’t already been posted on her house to guard Sean, but she slipped past all of them an amazing number of times just by putting her hair up in a fatigue cap when she wanted to be a ranking officer, and throwing one of Aisling’s hand woven blanket jackets over her uniform and letting her hair down when she didn’t. Nevertheless, she had to keep a fairly low profile when she did this, lest Torkel or one of the other brass who knew her catch on and prohibit her specifically from visiting Clodagh. They hadn’t thought of it yet, which was not an oversight that Yana would have permitted had the mission been under her command, but fortunately, it wasn’t. Whittaker Fiske visited Clodagh often, openly and casually. The first time Yana had walked into the house to see him sitting at Clodagh’s table having tea, she had been wary, until his wink reassured her. “We would appreciate a knock next time though, Major,” he said, squeezing Clodagh’s hand. Clodagh had surprised Yana by responding with an actual blush and a mischievous bawdy chuckle.

 But Yana was at home, in multi with her hair streaming, talking to Sean, when Adak, who was also still officially a company corps employee, knocked briefly and entered without waiting for permission. Sean, who had been slowly walking around the room to supple up his abused leg muscles, stopped just short of the abruptly opened door. Yana had been listing the issues and arguments concerning them that were likely to come up at the hearing, and practicing succinct answers. That always impressed committees: this witness had all facts in order and did not hesitate in answering.

 “Sean, oops, sorry, Yana, the static’s getting worse but the committee’s ship has landed. That Luzon fella was transmitting orders to the crew for the last couple of hours about how the committee was supposed to be taken to his board room for a private briefing first, but somehow”—Adak gave a good imitation of an ingenuous shrug for a fifty-five-year-old man—“Dr. Fiske and Dama Algemeine found out and beat him to the landing pad.”

 “Sure, now, and wasn’t that lucky for us?” Sean mused, slyly deepening the faint trace of Irish lilt in his voice and lifting his left eyebrow in an amused, quizzical way. “Did these same mysterious circumstances that alerted Whit and Marmion also warn Clodagh?”

 “Didn’t need to,” Adak said. ‘The cats were already on the job. Least wise, that clouded one padded by me on my way here and leapt right in the window neat as you please, and that black and white fella, who lies on the roof and snarls at the guards when they get too close, slithered in after her.” Adak grinned maliciously.

 “Well, then, since the cursor’s up on Matthew’s screen, let’s hope all this waiting’s over,” Sean said, and gave a convulsive shrug of his shoulders, one of the few manifestations of his own anxiety Yana had observed. He shot a wry grin in her direction. “So the waiting’s over now. Love, and the dance begins. Ready?”

 She nodded solemnly and held up the coffee pot. “Have time for a cup, Adak?”

 “Sure do, Yana,” Adak said, closing the door behind him.

 He strode over to the table, which had been enlarged from a small square to a large circle, with one section covered by Yana’s notes and pad and a long-handled wooden spoon that Sean was whittling. Sean had needed some occupation while he was recuperating: Yana now had four chairs instead of one. She’d helped, but she’d done more watching of his clever hands than working.

 Yana put three cups and some of the sweet biscuits Sean had made on the table. Sean joined them; as usual, turning his chair round so he could lean his arms across the back of it. That chair he had made to his own specifications.

 “There was also some report,” Adak went on, “came in for that fella with all funny words . . .”

 “Ah, the analysis,” Yana said, leaning forward hopefully. “Can you remember any of the words?”

 “Of course I can. Who do you think teaches the youngsters the corps glory songs and the company manual songs to keep them from harm when they’re first spaced? My memory’s good as Clodagh’s.” He gazed roof ward, eyes almost turned completely up, mouth open, and then recited: “Plant juices of an unknown alkalinity of unusual strength and a small amount of an unidentifiable animal protein. The combination is unusual and most likely derived from indigenous elements not yet included in botanical or biological records, which are unusually brief for Planet Terraform B. On the subject of the so-called coo-berry bramble thorn plant, the vegetation showed virulent growth even under controlled laboratory conditions.  It secretes acid from leaf surface, thorn, and stem of such potency that it permeated Petraseal, as suspected, and etched deeply into every metal sample presented. Coo-berry sample destroyed before its mass imploded the triple plasglas container. Antidote is still under going testing. Could be useful against other alien plant-forms of similar toxicity and rapid growth. Request quantity and availability of ingredients.” Adak dropped his head, and his eyes returned to a normal position in their sockets.

 “Well done, Adak,” Sean said with a laugh, and gave the old radio operator a friendly clout on his arm.

 “And they want to set up a school so’s we can learn reading and writing,” Adak muttered scornfully. “What’s wrong with training a memory to remember what it’s heard ‘steada having to look it up in books all a time?” He took a long swig of the coffee, smacking his lips. “Mind you, more of this on a regular basis wouldn’t be hard to take.”

 “You have to be careful what you accept from the company,” Yana said urgently, extending her hand across the table toward Adak. “Teaching the people to read and write again is essential if we’re to keep the buzzards off this planet indefinitely, but we have to choose our own material.”

 “Don’t need to tell me that, Yana. It’s the younger kids need the caution.”

 Yes, that was the problem, Yana thought. It was the kids who would only see the advantages of the perks Torkel was so eager to load on them. Krisuk, who had never had much and wanted to make something of himself. And those like Luca, who had been abused all her life. She gave a wry grin. Not Bunny, she thought, nor even ‘Cita, who still thinks three meals a day is sinful.

 They had sent the girl with Bunny, who wouldn’t let her sister out of her sight, and Aisling and Sinead to Sinead’s old cabin, deep in the woods. Diego sneaked out at night, Dinah limping along in escort, to bring supplies and news. ‘Cita seemed to go into shock when she was told that Shepherd Howling had left the planet. Diego had reported that the day after she seemed to relax for the first time and had spontaneous questions for him: Was Coaxtl all right? And was Sean healing, and what was happening to all those left at the Vale of Tears without leadership? Diego said he’d have to find out. Which reminded Yana to ask Adak.

 “Well, I got the odd word or two from Loncie that when they’d gone out to collect Scobie’s snocle, some woman—Ash-sen-see-on,” he said, stumbling over the name, “was more or less in charge. But she was gettin’ a lot of argument from folks who said the Shepherd didn’t like women bosses.”

 “Out of the deep freeze and into the permafrost,” Sean groaned.

 “That was before the tsunami, a’ course,” Adak added. “Some of the people left of the Bogota group might resettle in the Vale. I hear it’s freezing up proper again now.”

 Then all three fell silent, each wondering privately if there would be resettling along the lines that had worked so well for Petaybee so far.

 “Any more surveys on that equatorial island chain that’s emerging?” Sean asked, the light of mischief dancing in his silver-gray eyes.

 Yana wondered briefly if he’d known that would happen.

 “Ah, yes,” Adak drawled, grinning to show all his even strong white teeth. “There’s copters up, and Johnny and Rick and that other bozo flitting down, doing runs. Right smart-sized islands blossomin’ like fireweed, and where it’s warm, too. Don’t ‘spect that was in anybody’s plans, now was it?” Adak looked sharply into Sean’s face, which wore a bland expression, except for the twinkle in his eyes.

 “Well, with volcanoes emerging here in the north, it’s possible that there’d be a reaction elsewhere. Though speaking scientifically, the odds are low of so much crystal activity occurring.”

 “But Petaybee is an unusual planet,” Yana said equably, her expression matching Sean’s, “so we can expect just about anything!”

 “Shouldn’t wonder. Won’t, either,” Adak said, and drained the last of the coffee. Rising, he gave a quaint little bow in Yana’s direction, grinned at Sean, and then paused at the door. “What should I be listenin’ for now, Shongili?”

 “The names of our latest visitors.”

 In point of fact, it wasn’t Adak who brought Yana and Sean that news but Marmion Algemeine, her poise shaken, and Whittaker Fiske, looking glum.

 “It couldn’t have been a worse selection, really, it couldn’t,” Marmion said, making for one of the chairs at Yana’s table as if her legs would support her no further. With an agitated flourish of one hand, she went on. “I’ve got my aides checking every man jack of them. And it is every man, too. I was so hoping Metuska Karianovic of KCCE would elect to come, but she’s off having some sort of rejuv treatment. Wouldn’t you just know!”

 “Who did come?” Yana asked as she poured coffee all around.

 “Mostly Matthew’s palsies,” Marmion said with a raising of her arched eyebrows. She pouted her lips. “Though Chas came: Charles Thraves-Tung. He’s always reasonable, I’ll say that for him. And he does think. He’ll appreciate a reasoned argument, which is more than I can say for Bal Emir Jostique.” She gave a little shudder of revulsion. “Greasy old man. He’d enjoy having prepubescent girls as wives: as many as he could get.”

 “He has ‘em already, doesn’t he?” Whittaker said, regarding her with mild surprise.

 “He’ll never have enough, but even he has to wait until they’re fourteen!” She gave another little spasm of her elegant shoulders, clad today in a soft, dull brown leather. She raised her hand to tick off names. “So we’ve you, me Chas Tung against Matthew, Bal, that old bag of bones Nexim Roberts Shi-Tu, with Farringer Ball on the monitor acting as chair again.”

 Whittaker raised his eyebrows. “Do you know that Chas is with us?”

 “How could l? You saw how Matthew scrambled his broad young men between us and the new arrivals so we didn’t have a chance to say more than ‘hello, safe trip’ before Matthew whisked them away on his ‘survey tour’? Nor was there room for one of us to go or send someone.”

 Whittaker gave a bark of laughter. “I wouldn’t have wanted to go on that trip! And I don’t think Matthew won any points by insisting on flying them over the equator. Turbulence was fierce, and neither Nexie nor Bal like their innards disturbed any more than the indigestion their fancy foods give them. Speaking of which, did you notice what was being unloaded from the shuttle for their delectation?”

 Marmion made a grimace, which then became a hopeful grin. “Yes, and the chefs who’d know what to do with such provender. Take no offense, Sean, Yana, because I have enjoyed the unusual tastes and texture that only Petaybee can provide, but I’m likely to be the only one, bar Whit here, who would. Terribly spoiled the others are as far as their palates are concerned.” Then she frowned again. “Did you notice, too, Whit, that all Matthew’s boys look absolutely pooped? He’s had them running around night and day. Poor Braddock Makem looks transparent. Does he never let people have time off?”

 “Where’re yours, Marmie? Whit asked, cocking an eye-brow at her.

 She winked. “I don’t work them half as hard, but they find out twice as much. And,” she said on a sigh, “we’ll need every smitch of help we can find with Farringer the tie breaker.” Adak burst through the door. 

 “He’s dead!”

 “Who’s dead,” everyone demanded simultaneously.

 “That smelly Shanachie Howler!”

 “Of what?” Sean asked.

 “Smelling himself in a MoonBase cubicle, probably!” Yana quipped.

 “Nah! Not a bit of it.” Adak shook his head and waved his hands in his excitement. “Get this! He was done in by the same thing as killed Lavelle!”

 Yana locked eyes with Sean.

 “There’s more, too!” Adak was almost spitting in his effort to get the second message out. “Satok had . . .” He turned his eyes to the roof again and recited, “An atrophied node in the cerebellum, only four hundred twenty-three grams of brown fat, and all his vitals was poisoned. Soyuk Ishunt, Clancy Nyangatuk, and Reilly also had atrophied nodes and poisoned organs.”

 “Was the node in Howling’s case mentioned?” Sean asked.

 Adak looked down, wrinkling his leathery brown face in deep thought. “Hmmmm . . . think it was, but it wasn’t atrophied none.” He took another breath. “And they’re sending some special medical equipment down. CAT scanner.”

 Yana couldn’t help inhaling at that news and glanced at Sean for reassurance. He cocked an eyebrow in response, but his unworried attitude and relaxed posture still did not relieve her fears that his shape-changing abilities would somehow be revealed by scanning.

 On the other hand, Marmion burst out laughing. “One thing sure,” she managed to gasp out, “there isn’t one built to accommodate Clodagh Senungatuk!”

 That observation did provoke chuckles, and the tension in the room went down a few notches.

 “But that’s probably the only good thought I can express,” Marmion went on, “as Nexie’s a biochemist and has”—she paused, her expression darkening—“ ‘other methods’ more intrusive and certainly unpleasant.”

 “We’ll see about that,” Whittaker said, his eyes narrowing. “Neither Clodagh Senungatuk nor Sean Shongili have committed any crimes against Intergal regulations. Even this house arrest is farcical. Integal cannot subvert CIS civil rights except in circumstances of armed conflict, and Clodagh’s squirt bottle doesn’t appear on any list of weaponry I’ve ever seen modern or ancient. Adak, you still got the secured channel?”

 “Ah, hmm, well . . .” Adak looked wildly around the room at everyone except Sean, but somehow saw the brief nod.

 “C’mon then,” Whittaker said, urging Adak to the door and laying an arm across the man’s shoulders as they departed. “Be back in a nano.”

 Marmion looked considerably more cheerful. “Let’s hope he can get a message through all the static to the proper authorities. At first, I thought the pilots were just saying that to be obstructive. But it’s real now. Do you know what’s causing so much interference, Sean?”

 “Sure,” he replied good-naturedly. “Atmospheric anomalies and the stratospheric turbulences caused by the crustal activity with some vigorous sunspots.” Then he paused and creased his brows a little. “Coaxtl told Nanook that the ‘home was changing.’ According to Bunny, Coaxtl also told that to ‘Cita when she was in her charge. But none of the track-cats, nor Clodagh’s, for that matter, are the least bit worried.”

 “They never are,” Marmion said wryly.

 “Oh, they have been,” Sean replied in mild reproof.

 Marmion leaned forward, resting one hand lightly on his forearm. “How does she?”

 She broke off at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Whittaker and Adak returned, neither looking very pleased. Whittaker almost slammed the door.

 “Could barely get the call letters out clear enough to be recognized,” Whittaker said, frowning with frustration.

 “Message was short and maybe too sweet for the kind of action we might need to have available. Got hold of Johnny, too, and asked him to send next time he’s above turbulence. Damned planet’s messing us all up, and we’re the ones trying to help!” He turned on Sean, who seemed unaffected by the communications failure.      “Boy, how long can you live on a space station with no immunity?”

 “Four, five days.”

 Yana felt her heart skip a beat and surreptitiously placed one hand over her still-flat belly. How could he announce his life expectancy so calmly?

 “Clodagh?”

 “Same, but it won’t come to that, Whit. Believe me.”

 Dr. Whittaker Fiske cocked his head toward his right shoulder, planted both fists on the belt that circled his thin waist, and demanded, “If I could believe you, Dr. Shongili, I’d sleep a lot easier, and so would all your friends.”

 “Believe me, and that’s bankable!”

 “It is?’ Marmion perked up, her fiscal senses alerted.

 “Look.” Sean splayed one hand, folding a finger down for each point he made. We’ve got to prove the planet is sentient? We can and we will! We’ve got to prove that it’s in the company’s interest to let the settlements remain because they can prove economically profitable, too, ugh not necessarily as predicted from the original surveys. We’ve got to prove that our ways”—and he gestured to Adak, Yana, who managed a little smile at the compliment, and out the window toward Clodagh’s house—“protect an environmental entity from abuse and misuse in the best interests of itself and the company which awakened it.” He nodded at Whittaker. “We also have to prove that the charges of malfeasance, misconduct, insubordination, and fraud, which Matthew Luzon’s about to level against some of us and/or the entire population, are as ludicrous as Shepherd Howling.”

 “And smell just as bad,” Adak added with a sharp nod of his head.

 “Sacre bleu!” Marmion exclaimed. “We’re not asking for much, are we?” Then, sighing, she shook her head slowly from side to side. “We got a lot of heavy metal men against us in that crew Matthew’s brought down.”

 “But they’re on our turf,” Sean said with one of his most charismatic and enigmatic smiles.

 “And Matthew’s doing his best to predispose them against Marmie and me because we’ve been so obviously ‘taken in’”—Whittaker made the bracket signs with his hands—“by the natives.”

 “Indigenous personnel, Whit, please,” Marmion said in mock petulant correction. “However, I can prove readily enough that I haven’t lost my wits or been mesmerized by local sharmans.” She rose. “I shall demonstrate it this evening.” She gave a little chuckle. “I happen to know that Bal and Nexie lost a few trillions on an enterprise which —and she placed one hand with elegant grace on her chest—“had the good sense to forgo. So we’ll leave you.” She linked arms with Whittaker and led him out of the house. Just at the door she paused and looked back over her shoulder at Sean, her lovely eyes anxious. “You’re positive, Sean, that neither you nor Clodagh are in danger of being removed from this planet!”

 He nodded, smiling. “Positive!”

 When the door closed on the two, Yana and Adak turned on Sean.

 “Positive!

 “Positive!” he said, but his mouth had a particularly grim set as he said it.

  

 Chapter 15

 To her amazement, Marmion de Revers Algemeine found that her taste had altered during her weeks on Petaybee. The elaborate and extensive array of courses set before the committee members at dinner that evening—an evening fortunately free of tremors, shudders, or shakes—did not suit her palate, much less her mood. She really did prefer the simpler, sharper tastes of Petaybean foods: a rabbit stew would have been far more satisfying than the overly subtle coulis, sauces, and dressings that accompanied each dish. She saw Whittaker making as slow a progress through the banquet as herself, but at least she could cry off on the grounds of watching her diet.

 Matthew and Torkel cleared every plate, bowl and platter set before them, but Marmion slyly noticed that like her own three aides, some of Matthew’s pretty boys were less than enthusiastic about the rich food. Chas. Bal, and Nexim had no problems, though twice Bal called the head steward over to make muttered complaints and reject a dish after one bite. Maybe his new stomach was developing the same ulcers the old ones had, Marmion thought to herself. A body could have certain dispositions no matter how many parts of it were replaced with functional substitutes.

 She did have a chance to obsequiously inquire of Nexie’s latest investment projects. That gave her a chance to make a passing reference to the Omnicora Steel Venture, which she had decided was not properly based to make any sort of a profit back on the original investment. She had raised her voice just enough for Matthew to over hear her comments. That would remind him, too, that she had lost none of her acumen. She discussed with Bal the possibility of investing in one of his schemes, which she had recently investigated, though she pointed out one or two organizational problems that should be addressed before she could consider the project. By the fleeting expression on Bal Emir Jostique’s face, she had hit the very weak points he must have discovered. That should take care of that, then, if Matthew chose to call her gullible.

 She was exhausted with smiling and waxing charming by the time she and Sally could leave the “gentlemen” to whatever it was gentlemen insisted on doing without female company in this stratum of interplanetary society.

 “Any luck, dear?” she asked Sally as they both made for their quarters in the wing of the livid yellow building.

 “We may need more than luck,” Dama,” Sally said with a sigh. “Dr. Luzon has got some twists that a Spican contortionist would envy.”

 “Ah, but we knew he would.”

 “My report’s on your desk, but I really think, ma’am, you need a good night’s sleep more. Bad news keeps.”

 “Thank you, dear. I’ll take your advice only if you’ll take it yourself.”

 Sally sighed, for the first time since the start of the tedious dinner party allowing her own fatigue to show, and nodded. “I think I’d best if I’m to be sharp up to the mark tomorrow for you. At least, we have all our facts in hard copy and not innuendoes.”

 “Sleep well, then.”

 Others did not. And, later, both Faber and Millard, who had stayed on as courtesy required, admitted that they had not seen the discreet accord that must have been reached during that interval by Matthew, Torkel Fiske, Bal Emir, and Nexim Shi-Tu. They knew that the four must have made a deal during that time, because not even Luzon would have dared to take the draconian measures that followed without the support of Fiske and the other two board members. Marmion blamed herself for having taunted Bal, but she had been pursuing another course of action entirely.

 At midnight, the several shuttles that had brought the other commissioners from their separate capitals silently lifted from SpaceBase on their assigned missions. None of the crew or troopers had ever heard of Petaybee before, though what they’d seen of it hadn’t impressed them at all. They’d had no rest or more than a hasty meal of hard rations while they erected the detention cells that had been sent along at Luzon’s request.

 As soon as the soundproofed, windowless two-by-one-meter cells had been erected in one of the empty storage facilities, the shuttles took off for their destinations. Squads had trank guns and orders to use them if any of the detainees resisted arrest. They were also ordered to secure local felines, with a bonus for each one caught.

 “Whaddaya think they want cats for? muttered one enlisted man, only to be sharply reprimanded by his troop leader “If they want cats, they get ‘em.”

 The shuttles separated to pick up their passengers at the Vale of Tears. Ascencion was collected, and Lonciana and her husband were dragged out of their beds and barely given a chance to clothe themselves. Loncie protested as loudly and vehemently against such an unwarranted intrusion as only a former chief petty officer could, demanding to see the detention order, while Pablo gave quick and decisive household instructions to Carmelita. At Kabul, Shanachie Chau Xing was collected; at Portage, one of the newer settlements, an irate McDouall swore eloquently that, if this was the sort of cooperation Intergal wanted on Petaybee, they’d had the last of his! At Savoy, they made three pickups: Luka, the out spoken woman, and the man, identified as Eamon Shishmareff, who had been so uncooperative in helping Luzon and Torkel Fiske get across the coo-berry forestation. Fingaard and Ardis Sounik were collected from Harrison’s Fjord. It was there that a trooper got a lucky shot into an orange cat and, throwing the stunned carcass over his shoulder, grinned at the thought of the bonus he’d get.

 “You shot Shush?” The Harrison’s Fjord woman was too indignant to be cowed by the huge trooper.

 “Jeez, lady, I just tranked him,” the trooper said, backing a step away from the woman, who was nearly as tall as he. But he didn’t interfere when she removed the limp cat from his shoulder; she cuddled it in her arms on the way back to SpaceBase and glared at him the entire trip.

 Another shuttle picked up the Connellys—father, mother, and Krisuk—at McGee’s Pass; Liam Maloney, still visiting at Deadhorse Pass; and then the shanachies of Little Dublin, New Barrow, and Mirror Lake. The third started at Tanana Bay, went on to Shannonmouth, where they collected Aigur and Sheydil, and got to Kilcoole before the fastest cat had had a chance to get halfway there.

 Since Adak was among the first taken and the cats had scattered when pursued, Clodagh, Aisling, Sinead, ‘Cita, Yana, and Sean were caught unprepared.

 “Major Maddock, to you, Lieutenant,” Yana had protested furiously, wrapping the bed quilt around her while Sean swung his feet over the side of the bed and unconcernedly pulled on his pants and boots. “Now get out of here while we dress.”

 “Orders, ma’am, not to let you out of my sight.”

 “About face, Lieutenant, and I’m not kidding!”

 “Neither am I,” he said, shifting his weapon threateningly. But to avoid her scathing glance, he stared straight forward, as if at attention.

 “Okay then, fine, have it your way, you prurient bastard,” Yana said. She stood up and dropped the quilt, straight and proud in her nakedness and inordinately relieved that she was now accustomed enough to the Petaybean temperatures that her flesh did not rise up in embarrassing bumps. Sean moved between her and the offending soldier, but she was not mollified.

 “We’ll meet again, Lieutenant, under other circumstances,” she said softly, and had the pleasure of seeing him flush.

 Sean did nothing but stand, leaning slightly in favor of his good leg, between her and the guard, but only when she had pulled on the dress uniform she had folded so carefully in the back of the small clothespress did he drop back beside her to clasp her hand. Then, silently, they were escorted outside.

 Outside, the predawn morning was brooding, fog sifting on the sun to keep it from rising to brighten the sky. Suddenly, from the edges of the buildings visible, a black and white bolt flew past.

 “No, Nanook!” Sean shouted, and as the troopers, all eager to claim the cat bonus, turned to find their target, they were rewarded with a snarl of such malice that, hardened though this squad was by encounters on many strange planets with many strange beasts, they looked anxious.

 The lieutenant recovered first and detailed half his squad to fan out and see if they couldn’t get a shot at the creature. Out of the corner of her eye, Yana saw the slight smile on Sean’s face. No one was likely to catch Nanook. Coaxtl? She would have been at Sinead’s, guarding her person, ‘Cita. Yana fretted over that as they passively followed their guards to the shuttle. She could also sense that everyone in the village was awake and watching. That was all they could do with such a superior force.

 When Yana saw the range of her fellow captives, her heart sank. Clodagh was as composed as usual, even though she was surrounded by nets of her potions and salves and medications. Hadn’t witch-hunts gone out three centuries ago? Yana wondered numbly. Sinead looked furious, lips tightly compressed, while tears ran down Aisling’s face, making her oddly more appealing than ridiculous. ‘Cita was terrified and clung to Bunny, who had taken her cue from Clodagh and was holding her head proud. Adak looked frightened, as frightened as probably everyone else felt. He had always been the one in the know, the community’s link with the base, as well as being a responsible company employee. Now he was just another ip, an “inconvenient person,” as Bunny called herself and her fellow Petaybeans. Poor Adak seemed to shrink in on himself when he saw first Yana and then Sean pushed into the shuttle. Then he seemed to gather himself and twitched his shoulders to sit more erect on the hard metal seat.

 As Yana was pushed down, she wondered if Diego, Frank, and Whittaker—naw, they wouldn’t dare remand a company director, would they?—were missing from the roll of those Matthew considered dangerous dissidents. Then a large male body crowded in between herself and Sean. Looking around, she saw that every Petaybean was separated from another by a trooper—a big, heavily armed trooper.

 She grinned broadly. What a back handed compliment.

 “Wipe that grin off your face,” the nameless lieutenant ordered.

 “Son, I outrank you and I’ve five times as many first-drop bars as you do,” Yana said, sounding quietly amused but putting commander-steel in her voice and narrowing her eyes at him. “You can barge into my private quarters and arrest me without due process, but by all that’s holy, don’t you dare try to deny me the right to react to this whole ridiculous operation!”

 The lieutenant, all too aware that she had outfaced him once before and determined not to let her get under his skin again, laughed. “Nothing’s ridiculous about this operation and you’d better start believing it now . . . Major!”

 “You mean, it isn’t ridiculous that it took two squads of heavily armed non-Petaybean troopers transferred from Omnicron Three, Plexus-Four, and Space Station One-Thirty-One to arrest unarmed citizens of a backward, low-tech world.”

 With a snarl, the lieutenant had gone as far as drawing his hand back when a voice from the cockpit abruptly ordered him forward.

 Yana was proud that she had not so much as tensed to take the immininent blow and that her smile had stayed in place. No one spoke, of course, neither Petaybean nor alien trooper, but ‘Cita and Aisling stopped weeping, and Clodagh’s lips turned up just that little bit.

 The moment the shuttle took off, Yana’s courage seemed to leak out of her and fear pressed against her guts. She noticed that Clodagh’s smile vanished and her lips were set. Bunny, too, looked more apprehensive. It wasn’t until the shuttle landed a familiarly short distance away, where the heavy fog was pierced by a great quantity of bright lights of the kind employed only at SpaceBase, that her courage returned. Ah, but she was once more in touch with the planet. Somehow, some way, as yet inexplicable, the planet was aware: and Yana saw that Clodagh’s smile had returned.

 Yana’s apprehensions returned, doubled, the moment they were marched out of the shuttle, which had landed right by an anonymous block of temporary housing. Though it was hard to see more than a few feet beyond her, Yana could tell from the only glance she had time for that they were at the far end of SpaceBase. It wasn’t that large a facility by company standards, but being at the far end would place them at an awkwardly long distance from the administrative area and any help from Marmion Algemeine or Whittaker Fiske, if he was still at large.

 Inside the building, bare corridors were brightly lit, and lined with doors, depressingly close together. That made this, she thought glumly, a temporary detention center: small cells, no amenities, and no communication between the reluctant residents.

 A sergeant with a clipboard merely pointed a stylus to the right and they were led that way. Yana was thrust in the second room, and the door closed behind her with the odd thunk of a noise-proofed construction. A single strip of bright lighting, a blanket, a toilet, and a washbasin completed the furnishings. The temperature would have been chilly to those accustomed to space stations, but Yana was comfortable in it. Score one! She used the toilet, washed her face with her hands, and dried herself on one edge of her blanket. She took off her boots, tunic, and pants and laid them neatly on the rough carpet, then rolled up in the blanket and told herself to go back to sleep.

  

 Chapter 16

 “It’s a cat, common domestic Terran-type feline, female weighing just above a kilo, which makes it somewhat larger.” the veterinary surgeon said after doing every test he could think of on the limp orange-striped body that had been brought in. “Scanner shows no unusual organs, average brain size, average everything, except a dense fur of several layers, probably a requirement to survive in the temperatures you say exist in winter on this planet. It does have large ears, with more fur growing across—doubtless to prevent snow getting in—and a phenomenal length of whiskers. It does have heavily callused paw pads, with hair growing between the toes, and a long-haired tail, but I’ve never seen a healthier animal. And I can’t find anything out of the ordinary about it, given its environment. For instance, the hair between the paws would make it easier to travel over snow.”

 “You have the report?” Ivan asked. The vet tapped one key of his handheld pad, and a narrow, long sheet inched its way out of the paper slot. He handed it to Ivan. ‘Thank you.”

 “What do I do with that cat?”

 Ivan hesitated. He knew what Matthew had ordered, but what had the cat done to him? “Keep it under observation. Maybe awake, it will show some deviations.”

 The vet shrugged and gave a small snort. “Cats are deviant, and devious, by nature. Exactly What sort of aberrant behavior is this one supposed to exhibit when conscious? I mean, give me a clue to know what to watch out for.”

 “Maybe one isn’t enough,” Ivan muttered under his breath, then added louder, “No other squad caught one?”

 “No other’s been brought in to me.” The vet stifled a yawn.

 Another was brought in two hours later, only it wasn’t a cat: it was a crossbreed feline that the vet couldn’t find mention of in his files. It was nearly the size of the lions that had once roved Africa, had a thick coat of dense fur with a clouded-spot design, had the fangs and retractable claws of a tiger, and had to be tranked again before the vet and the four troopers struggling with the half-aware creature could put it under the scan.

 Awed by its size, beauty, and uniqueness, the vet, when Matthew Luzon himself came for his report, could only verify that this was an unusual breed of feline.

 “In what way?” Matthew asked with an edge to his voice that put the vet on the alert.

 “Size, color, density of fur, condition, in that most feral animals are less well nourished,” he answered, shrugging.

 “No unusual organs? The size of the brain?”

 “Normal for the size of the skull certainly.” Suddenly the vet decided not to mention that that was the one particular in which the animal varied from any other specimen in the genus: its skull was larger, to accommodate the larger brain.

 “Destroy it,” Matthew said. “And do an autopsy. I’m looking for a scientific explanation of the so-called communication link these creatures have with the humans here. Implants, maybe.”

 “Sir, for that sort of information wouldn’t behavioral observation be more—“

 “Destroy it! Do I have to give orders twice?”

 “No, sir.” The vet wheeled around and made a show of filling a syringe and plunging the sterile water into the back of the neck. There were certain orders he would not obey, not with the oath he had taken as a young idealist who planned to catalog marvelous new alien life-forms. “Takes about twenty minutes, sir, with an animal this size.”

 But Matthew Luzon had already left the surgery and the vet wondered where the hell he could safely dispose of a sleeping animal this size without being noticed. He was still running through alternatives a half hour later when a major with two soldiers, one a massive man and the other a mere slip of a lad, appeared at the door, saying they had orders to collect a dead animal. Reluctantly, he showed them the unconscious beast and desperately hoped that the second trank would wear off soon enough that the creature could escape being buried alive. Sometimes the favors one tried to do could boomerang.

 He was very unhappy with what had seemed like a routine mission. None of the animals that had passed through his facility that day had been unusual except for their obvious adaptations to the climatic conditions of this peculiar place—although the purpose of that extra bony layer on the nose of the curly-coated stallion still puzzled him. The interior nasal flap was listed as a characteristic of the breed and kept icy winds from penetrating to their lungs. And now Luzon was intimating that the creatures might be—well, psychic! He never willingly destroyed an animal wantonly. and certainly not a psychic one!

 Utterly depressed, he went to the cubicle allotted to him and tried to sleep. He woke up, even more depressed, for his dream had been about a clouded leopard running across a snowy waste, its effortless stride as graceful as it was powerful.

 Awake. Coaxtl found, one had a dreadful thirst. One’s body was slightly sore with pricks, scrapings, and bruisings, and one’s senses were dull. Rolling over, one ducked one’s head because of the low bushes under which one lay. A sniff brought no useful information as to one’s location. The pursuers, men who rattled as they ran and shouted, were gone, though Coaxtl seemed to remember them being close enough to pounce. No mind. Now they were gone,

 Unfortunately, the youngling was gone as well, still, and if Coaxtl had escaped the men, they had triumphed in preventing Coaxtl from finding the youngling.

 Coaxtl had seen the little female forced into a huge bird machine, bigger than the terrible creature that had carried Coaxtl, the youngling, the seal-man, and his mate to this land where the youngling was to live with her kin. Where the black-and-white Nanook had been interested in one as a mate. Nanook had had much to tell Coaxtl, who had listened with growing wonder. More than “Home” was changing, it would seem. “Home” had indeed altered, if one could be so robbed of sense and then dumped unceremoniously under a thicket.

 There was, however, some snow still left in the center of the shrubbery, and Coaxtl licked at it. The cool silvery water relieved the nasty, stinging taste and dryness in one’s mouth, while the cold snow and the water seeping into one’s fur revived one further.

 Food would be a good thing. One lifted one’s head and sniffed, sneezed. Too many humans, too many bad smells. Nothing appetizing nearby. Through the wind and the distant man—made noises came the rush of water. Water always held fish, and fish were edible. Yes, one could quite easily snag many fish on clever, swift claws and relieve one’s hunger. Then one could plan what to do next. Finding Nanook would be best. This was his territory. He would know where to seek the youngling.

 As dawn broke over the low hills and the new volcano, Coaxtl scooped the fourth large fish from the icy river waters, then continued standing, motionless until more unsuspecting aquatic shapes passed nearby. Coaxtl had eaten well by the time the sun was up.

 Marmion did sleep well, but more because of Sean’s infallible confidence than Sally’s reassurance about demonstrable facts. When she woke the next morning, she was more than ready for the battle about to ensue.

 She was not ready for Sally bursting into her room, her eyes wide with fright.

 “They did it. Gathered up every one of the people Luzon calls ‘renegades and traitors,’ using the commissioners’ shuttles and troops we didn’t even suspect were on board them,” she said in a spurt. “They’ve got them in detention cells on the far side of the field.”

 “Whittaker? Marmion experienced an unusual pang of fear. Had she outsmarted herself last night? Whittaker would never have gone along with that sort of a ploy.

 “No, he’s free, and so are Frank and Diego Metaxos, and I told Faber to stay with them. Millard’s dogging Whittaker, who is furious!”

 Marmion bit her lower lip, ranging through alternative plans. Who, exactly, did they seize in such a highly irregular procedure?”

 “Only half the damned planet, including the wildlife,” Sally said. By the time she had completed the list, Marmion found herself grinding her teeth.

 She launched herself out of her bed toward the bathroom. “Get me my usual, and buckets of coffee, and what channel are we using this morning on our personal units?”

 Sally gave her the frequency. “And I’m making your breakfast with my own hands,” she said as she departed.

 That made Marmion pause at the threshold of her bath. Surely Matthew . . . No, he wouldn’t, but Bal wouldn’t be beyond it. The ploy of detaining the persons the commission would call before them was a matter she could—and would—protest, since none of them could be proven guilty of any action against Intergal, unless a passive resistance was now considered a crime. All the active resistance had come from the planet. And Intergal doubted that this world had a mind of its own! She allowed herself a rather ruthless smile, one that had many times alarmed business colleagues who opposed her, as the hot shower water completed the process of waking her up. She was already clothed and discreetly made up by the time Sally arrived with a laden tray.

 “Place is in an uproar, Dama,” Sally reported, her usually cheery demeanor rather forced today.  “All of Matthew’s lovelies running about with streamers of hard copy, all of which seems to upset them for some reason. I saw Braddock Makem taking one of the others to task for coming up with results that were the opposite of what Luzon had ordered. Couldn’t find out much more. The place is as well guarded as a first-touchdown camp, and more troops were shuttled in from, I think, the CISS Prometheus.”

 Marmion paused in the act of pouring her first, badly needed cup of coffee. She stared at Sally, aghast. “They’ve called in a CISS cruiser? But they’re not authorized to call in CIS until this matter has gone through committee and up the chain of command. Otherwise, of course, I’d have preempted them and already called in CIS myself.”

 “You might remember, Dama, that the captain of the Prometheus is a nephew of Vice-Chairman Luzon.”

 “Scuttled, are we?” Challenge only made Marmion sharper. “We’ll just see about this!”

 “I must also inform you, Dama—“ Sally’s face was sad and angry. “I heard that a large clouded feline was seen being wheeled into the veterinary surgery early this morning.”

 “Ah, not Coaxtl!” Marmion took a deep breath and, eyes glittering, added fiercely, “It’s bad enough that the humans of this world have to be mauled and pushed around like pawns, but when the beautiful animals are . . . Well, there’s a thing or two Patrick Matthew Olingarch-Luzon will not want to hear as public gossip back at Space Station One-Thirty-One!” She downed the coffee in one gulp, poured another cup, and then went to the work desk and her terminal.

  

 Chapter 17

 Yana was roughly aroused by an imperative hard shaking and looked up to see two of the Omnicron troopers, truncheons in their hands. One of them gestured for her to get up. When she went toward her clothes, they each caught an elbow. She shrugged, as much as she could in their grip, and did her best to match their long strides down the hall to the end and an open door, through which she was pushed with sufficient strength to propel her several meters into the room. The smell and the appurtenances told her it was medical. A male orderly swung through the open door on the right, a paper shift in his hands. He gave it to her and gestured to the screen.

 She took it with a flicker of a smile. The silent treatment continued as she stepped out from behind the screen and was marched, strong fingers gripping her elbow, through the open door.

 CAT scan, she thought as she saw the huge cylinder, and she nearly burst out laughing, remembering Marmion’s observation that Clodagh would never fit in that, though the circumference of the equipment was wide enough for most human bodies.

 She endured the prodding and probing, took the jars and produced the specimens, and had rather a lot of blood samples taken. She was crowned with the metal band of one of the more sophisticated brain-function devices she’d ever seen and sat through that while her reflexes were tested and she was pricked with more needles and had patches slapped on and pulled off. The doctor who performed the gynecological examination did a double take when he realized she was pregnant—at her age!—but murmured automatic reassurances that the fetus seemed to be in good shape. She was put up on a treadmill; and as it moved, she had to run faster and faster to keep from falling. When they stopped that test, she was barely puffing—and rather pleased that she was so fit. She waited passively, while the various medics had a huddle. The oldest of them, and he couldn’t be more than her own age, finally gestured to the orderly and she was taken back to collect her underwear and then marched back to her cell.

 She reckoned the examination had taken approximately an hour. As she put her underwear back on, she grinned, thinking of the CAT scan and the treadmill, which wouldn’t accommodate either Clodagh or Aisling. She put the medical gown on again, rolled up in the blanket, and tried to get more sleep. She hoped the others, no doubt undergoing the same procedures, weren’t unnerved by the silent treatment, which was supposed to demoralize the recipient. She wondered who else had been grabbed in the midnight snatches and finally fell asleep listing them in her head.

 An earsplitting siren hooted her awake and she dressed quickly, not wishing to be caught again. A ration bar and a plastic cup of water were delivered by a silent guard while another watched, idly tapping his left hand with the truncheon. She said nothing as she accepted the food. She did, however, sniff the water before taking a sip to roll around in her mouth; but it was good Petaybee water, and the ration bar was standard Intergal in its original wrapping, complete with bar-coding. To her practiced eye, she read an expired date, but that oddly reassured her that nothing had been “treated.”

 She was sitting cross-legged, doing some relaxation exercises, when she felt the rumble under her buttocks: faint but definitely a seismic tremor.

 “Good ol’ Petaybee, you’re not letting them get away with this, are you!”

 “No talking!” The command was issued from a hidden speaker.

 Yana reprimanded herself for not thinking to look for a bug, but of course they’d be listening in on all their prisoners, testing the efficacy of the silent treatment on the various personalities.

 “Whatever!” she murmured, just to be contrary.

 Commissioner Matthew Luzon had been awakened at two o’clock by Braddock as the first of the medical reports was presented. They proceeded to spew out of the remote printer in his office at regular intervals. He noted that Major Yanaba Maddock was two months pregnant and wondered just how he could use that fact to best advantage. He ignored the fact that she was in excellent physical health, no sign of the lung-tissue damage that had discharged her from active service. That was a harder issue to make viable to his needs.

 Sean Shongili, too, was in excellent physical shape. The scan showed the largest of the cerebral nodes yet noticed, also, the largest brown fat concentration and an enlarged pancreas. His toes and fingers were abnormally long but could not be considered either an adaptation or a mutation; the slight increase in digital webbing was odd, but not entirely exceptional. They had been unable to get clear readings of his internal organs—the medic claimed that slight earth tremors prevented him from being able to calibrate the machine properly the whole time Shongili was being tested—but these were evidently functioning normally according to other forms of testing.

 Matthew, who knew what he had seen at the Vale of Tears, had his suspicions about the internal organs, but realized he might have to win his case before he could take Shongili off-planet where sufficiently extensive invasive tests could be performed. He knew the man was not normal, but none of the tests he could legally conduct here provided enough data. Just little things: a slight anomaly in configuration noted that Shongili’s torso was inappropriately longer than his legs. If his leg bones had grown in proportion to his body, he would have been several inches taller. This was not considered unduly important, but his unusual lung capacity was, along with a high metabolic rate while his blood pressure was on the low side of normal.

 They had been unable to scan the woman, Clodagh Senungatuk, and had barely managed to fit her sister, Aisling, in the device. While obese in medical terms, the women were also in excellent health and, since Aisling Senungatuk had a well-developed node and five hundred grams of brown fat, it could be concluded that her unscanable elder sister was similarly endowed.

 Analysis was continuing on the various liquids and powders found in Clodagh Senungatuk’s house, but so far they tested as herbal, with some minerals, mineral salts, and occasional animal-protein additives. Nothing toxic or poisonous had yet been found. When questioned on the usage of various items, the subject had answered willingly and at some length, describing preparation when asked and the places where she obtained the ingredients. The biochemists in charge of this aspect of the investigation were clearly impressed by the almost sophisticated pharmaceuticals available in such a primitive society. In the course of questioning her, it was learned that Senungatuk’s great-grandparents had been the resident biochemists during the initial seeding of flora and fauna on Terraform B, working with the elder Dr. Shongili. Senungatuk had an exceptional memory and, although she reeled off by rote long passages of biochemical procedures, she obviously understood the material she recited.

 Matthew Luzon excised that section from the report. In fact, if the medical procedures hadn’t also been intended to demoralize the renegades, he would have stopped the examinations as a waste of time. The “splendid physical health” was not at issue and was not to last long in the conditions to which he intended to send them all—if what Maddock had told Torkel was true: and Shepherd Howling’s unexpected demise upheld his theory. He was rubbing his hands together in pleasure when he felt the rumbling under his feet. That gave him a moment’s pause. But only a moment. Seismic activity was no proof of sentience, as Whittaker and some others claimed. It only proved that the Terraform B program had developed unforeseen problems. On the other hand, he now had plenty of proof of subversion and sabotage among the inhabitants and a premeditated homicide in the deaths of the four shanachies. He also had proof that the belief in the sentience of this rock was not at all universal.

 “Braddock,” he called. The young man appeared immediately. “Find out how widespread this seismic activity is and how long it will last. I don’t want it affecting the conference time slot.”

 Braddock gave him a startled look, then said an obedient “Yes, sir” and ducked away.

 Matthew then turned to some of the other reports his minions had been organizing. The demographics were not what he had anticipated. The first settlers had been from mixed Eskimo-Irish, Scandinavians, Sherpans, Andean Indians, Slavs, Somalis, Afghans, and a handful or two of other inconvenient people who had had to be removed. Most of those he considered “renegades” were Eskirish, a really absurd combination in terms of melding violence and resourcefulness. Whatever had the original Intergal committee been thinking of to allow such interbreeding!

 The most recent colonists, whom he had hoped would be untouched by the local superstitions, so resented their resettlement that they had been remarkably uncooperative. They would prove hostile witnesses even if they hadn’t fallen under the mass hallucination that the planet was self-aware. They were not interested in working in mines, even at the wages Matthew, in the name of Intergal, had offered: they were interested in either getting off Petaybee or, failing that, in surviving the next year. He must find out why George, Ivan, and Hans had completely ignored the possibilities in that wish. Not like them to miss an opportunity. If he’d had a little more time, he might have used the wedge to his advantage. He did have a Scotsman on hand, antagonistic or not, and Ascencion—now that she had been thoroughly bathed and properly clothed—as witnesses that not all settlements believed as the people of Kilcoole did. But the time spent gathering most of these reports had been wasted. He tossed them aside and picked up the files dealing with the four recently deceased shanachies.

 This was more like it. Each of them, Satok, Reilly, Soyuk, Clancy, and Shepherd Howling, had been leaders of their communities and actively trying to find the ores that Intergal knew lay below the surface of the planet. Torkel could verify that Satok had showed him rich samples. Satok had also found an ingenious way to neutralize the “mesmeritic” effect of the caves by the use of Petraseal, before his work had been sabotaged by what Matthew suspected was the deliberate planting of coo-brambles, which had not only broken through the Petraseal, but had murdered Satok as well. Clearly an attempt to discredit the technique, as well as silence its innovator.

 Not that that murder had worked! Matthew grinned. That woman would be punished. And it had only proved that the metals were there, in these so-called “communion” caves. Of course, it was entirely typical of primitive peoples, or regressed ones, to designate valuable areas as somehow “taboo” to scientific study and use. But such thinking was backward and counter productive on a company facility such as this planet. Part of Matthew’s mission was to expose such cultural backwardness’ for what they were and suggest reform programs to re-educate the natives while helping the company make maximum use of the resources.

 Usually he felt no personal involvement whatsoever, merely a sense of satisfaction at a mission well done. But Petaybee—Terraform B—irritated him. If he had any influence at all, and he did have—a nephew captaining the CISS Prometheus specifically—no matter what any one of these primitives said or did or claimed that the planet said or did, it would be mined of every ounce worth even a half credit.

 He’d sent Torkel Fiske to find at least one vein of ore—anything would do, copper, iron, manganese, silver, gold, platinum, germanium—in the underground passages to prove that the indigenous people had deliberately kept Intergal scientists and engineers from locating the ores; that there had been a long-standing passive resistance and discreet sabotage to prevent Intergal from reaping the financial rewards of its investment in the terraforming process. He had also sent a team to Shannonmouth with metal detectors to find where the traitors had hidden the ores they had clandestinely taken from Satok’s shuttle. He would heavily emphasize how long these Petaybeans had been bilking Intergal of its rightful gains.

 That sort of accusation would strike a punitive chord in the minds of men like Bal Jostique and Nexim Shi-Tu, and quite likely affect Chas’s known soft heartedness. Marmie’s little supercilious smirk last night over their bad investment had not endeared her to Bal and Nexim.

 His nephew was standing by in the CISS Prometheus. All the troops on SpaceBase now were strangers to this planet and incorruptible, and the Petaybee-born troops that Torkel had unwittingly ordered in before had been rounded up and confined to barracks. The two arrogant copter pilots were incarcerated as well for their obstructionism and would face a court-martial for their crafty dodges. The only drawback to his revenge on O’Shay and Greene was that they wouldn’t suffer from immune deficiencies as much as the other Petaybeans soon to be removed from their “beloved” planet.

 Marmion, too, felt the rumbling through the thick carpet and smiled. Just what could the planet do to impress the unimpressable, who had seen it all, done it all? Only they hadn’t, had they? She gave a light laugh, although she could not ignore the cramping of her stomach muscles as the time for the meeting approached.

  

 Chapter 18

 The committee convened at 10:00 promptly. Matthew had had even smaller, padded detention cells set up in an annex by the temporary boardroom. All prisoners were present and accounted for, although the sergeant in charge had reported that the medics had insisted that the child, Goat-dung, be placed with her sister or they wouldn’t take responsibility for her sanity when it came time for her to be questioned. Matthew shrugged that off. An eleven-year-old was not necessary, not really. The testimony of Shepherd Howling’s senior wife, Ascencion, would be more than sufficient.

 He looked about for Torkel, who had had time enough to locate at least one viable ore site. Not seeing the captain among those in the anteroom, he told Ivan to locate the man and have him come, with or without samples. As a well-respected officer of Intergal, Fiske’s word would be sufficient.

 As he entered the committee room, Chas, Bal, and Nexim were standing by the windows, watching the thick mist left over from the night rolling across the cracked concrete landing field of SpaceBase. Matthew frowned. The met report had been that the fog would burn off and that they would have clear weather and temperatures slightly above normal for Petaybee this time of year—still too bloody cold, in Luzon’s opinion, for civilized people—but nothing had been said about ground fog continuing right into the day. With an unusual burst of imaginativeness, he realized that he considered this fog to be unnatural, sneaking and insidious in the way it moved, stifling in the way it muffled sound and prevented a clear field of vision.

 Shaking off such thoughts, he grabbed Braddock, walking a pace behind him, arms full of notes and documentation, and told him in a low voice to close the blinds. He didn’t want any distractions during the proceedings.

 Marmion arrived at the dot of the appointed hour, smiling charmingly to everyone, with just that tall bitch of hers in attendance. She looked pleased about something. Well, that would change! And swiftly, Matthew thought with great satisfaction. As chair person of this commission, her ladyship grandly invited all to be seated.

 The blankness of the main screen altered swiftly to an image of the secretary-general of Intergal, Farringer Ball, seated at his desk, tapping the end of a stylus on the finely grained wood surface.

 “Well, let’s not dally. I’ve other matters to attend this morning.” A spray of “snow” across the screen coincided with a rumbling that all could feel, judging by their reactions, as Matthew did, through the soles of their feet and the vibration of their chairs. “What the—I’m losing reception. Get your technicians to stabilize it!”

 Matthew signaled for George to do so. “Local interference, Farringer, nothing to worry about. This is, as you know, a very primitive planet and the equipment all but obsolete. Generally adequate enough for the purpose, especially considering the time and investment already expended on this wretched place.”

 “Let’s cut to the bone: Can this planet be made profitable?”

 “Yes, actually it can,” Marmion said, pouncing in ahead of Matthew. “As chair person of this committee, in case you’d forgotten, I have no doubts about that, Farrie.” She gave him her saccharine smile.

 “You’ve found the ores then?” secretary-general Ball asked hopefully.

 “Petaybee is more important to Interga1 for a heretofore unexplored source of renewable wealth,” Marmion said firmly, “that will require no further capital expenditure while it offers gainful employment to permit the indigenous a decent standard of living as well as a profit for Intergal, and will attract no retaliation from the sentient being who is the planet.”

 “Oh, come now, Marmion, you can’t prove that,” Matthew said scornfully, “and you know you can’t.”

 “The pharmaceutical wealth of Petaybee?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Why, the reports from your own team of biochemists are quite clear on that point, Matthew. This planet is a treasure trove of diverse and easily harvested medical components.”

 Seething, Matthew managed a weak smile. How had Marmion Algemeine got hold of those reports? He had told the head of the team to release information to no one but himself. But then, his team had seriously let him down, their performance declining ever since he had left them alone while he flew to the southern continent. Usually they and their computers were masterful at manipulating statistics to show the results he desired. Since his return, almost every report he looked at reflected data supporting conclusions the opposite of those he wished drawn. More than Petaybean heads would roll when this conference was over.

 And where the hell was Torkel Fiske?

 “Pharmaceuticals? What pharmaceuticals?” Farringer Ball demanded, looking decidedly interested.

 Matthew inwardly writhed. Everyone knew that the secretary-general experimented in consciousness stimulation’s and was still searching for longer-lasting mood adjusters with no side effects.

 “Yes, Farrie, some really marvelous concoctions and remedies, guaranteed pure and free of toxic additives and remarkably no discernible side effects,” Marmion went on. “Preparations which, if merchandised properly—that Nova Bene Drug Company you’ve an interest in,” she added, hesitating only briefly over that allusion, —could promote them in an interplanetary campaign—will substantially reduce the debt incurred by the earlier, and unacceptable, purpose of Intergal on this planet. Indeed, we have every reason to believe the planet will assist us in this venture, provided harvesting is carried out in a responsible and prudent manner.”

 “As it assisted the murders of four shanachies who had discovered the vast metal and mineral wealth of this rockball?” Matthew asked.

 “Murders? What murders?” Farringer looked from one to the other.

 “Five, in fact,” Matthew said challengingly, “since the shanachie of the Vale of Tears was so convinced that he would be the next victim that I naturally afforded him asylum on MoonBase.”

 “Five? Four? He’s dead, too? Of what?” Farringer Ball was again confused.

 “He unfortunately succumbed to a virulent respiratory infection three days ago,” Matthew said quickly, and then pointed behind him, in the direction of the detention cells, “but his death, as well as the murders of the four shanachies, is directly attributable to the concerted program of sabotage, misdirection, and treason perpetrated by the leaders of this conspiracy against Intergal.”

 “Who?” the secretary-general asked, more confused by Matthew’s rhetoric than ever.

 “By the woman, Clodagh Senungatuk—“

 “The Kilcoole biochemist and healer of considerable expertise,” Whittaker Fiske interposed amiably.

 “Who, before witnesses, admitted to knowing the toxic quality of the plant which was instrumental in the deaths of the four shanachies!” Matthew snapped back, trying to keep his growing frustration under control. “And the so-called doctor Sean Shongili, the reputed genetic scientist who has in fact, aided and abetted Senungatuk in her program of sabotage, subversion, and the estrangement of the population from their natural protectors, Intergal!—

 “What a load of cod’s wallop!” Whittaker said, shaking his head and raising his eyes skyward at Matthew’s accusations.

 “Not only that!” Matthew went on, “I find that Captain Torkel Fiske’s request for a court-martial of Major Yanaba Maddock, formerly an agent of Intergal, has adequate grounds on charges of treason and counter espionage. She’s in league with Senungatuk and Shongili and, further more, two months pregnant by someone or other!” He said the last four words scathingly.

 “I thought Major Maddock was discharged to this planet in a terminally disabled physical condition,” Chas Tung said as he peered at his own note pad. “She’s certainly well over the customary age to conceive a child.” He looked around for an explanation.

 “Which is more proof that the healing powers of this planet’s pharmaceutical wealth are most unusual,” Whittaker Fiske said, chortling, “and worth a packet to Intergal.”

 “Rubbish! Ridiculous!” Matthew replied. “The true value of this planet is, after evacuating the immigrant population, the minerals and resources Intergal has invested in during its development and has every right to ship from it, until it is nothing but the core of ice and rock it was when the company first set eyes on it. Once we have extracted what is rightfully ours, we can leave it all by itself again.”

 “Ha!” Whittaker jabbed a finger at Matthew. “You said it yourself. You believe it’s sentient, too. “Leave it all by itself!” See, Luzon admits sentience.”

 “I admit nothing of the sort! Rock can’t have sentience! That can’t be proved.”

 Everything on the table began to rattle; on the screen, Fallinger Ball’s livid, baffled countenance dissolved and reformed several times.

 “It just was proved by that tremor, Luzon,” Whittaker Fiske said.

 “The esteemed doctor has lost his esteemed mind, sir, you see?” Matthew crowed over Fiske’s softer voice. “He now interprets every perfectly natural phenomenon as some sort of statement by the ground he walks upon.”

 Fiske didn’t even change expressions as he continued, when Matthew ran out of breath. “Furthermore”—Fiske pointed to a thin mist oozing through the seams of the building, floor, walls, and ceiling—“you may be about to partake of the ‘mass hallucination,’ as my dear son called it, as proof positive of our claims of sentience.”

 “What’s hap’ing . . . there?” the secretary-general demanded, the ‘ snow” and static interfering on both sides. “How . . . I possibly un . . stand what’s going on when I . . . even . . . clearly. Luz . . . what’s . . . matter?”

 Matthew was irritated not only by the poor reception but also by the mist seeping in under the doors and the supposedly tightly sealed window fittings. He was further distracted by the note handed him by Braddock that told him that Torkel was unable to locate SpaceBase in the thick mist and his pilot, one of the Prometheus’s flight lieutenants, would not risk his craft and his passengers when he couldn’t see where to land.

 The secretary-general banged a gavel fiercely. “Fix that . . . screen. Stop . . . fusing issues. Marm . . . on, can you clar . . . matters?”

 “I have, Farrie. And we’re working on the reception here. The technician should have things cleared up in a moment. Please raise your hand if you can’t hear me. The planet’s worth more as a pharmaceutical source, renewable in perpetuity, than as another strip-mining operation,” she said. “I have had cooperation from all sides and professions on this planet. The indigenous population are hardy, industrious, resourceful people—they have to be to survive in what is a harsh environment. But for four generations they have coped and provided Intergal with strong, healthy recruits who have been a credit to the service and their planet. They have sabotaged nothing, even though the company has given them precious little assistance. This planet, however, registered a complaint which Whittaker Fiske and Torkel—if he’d admit it, have heard, and this committee is in response to that complaint. Petaybee, the planet, has refused to be exploited in a brutal and ecologically senseless fashion. Its complaint is not only valid but points us in the more feasible and useful direction of considering alternative sources of profit. Why ruin a world for crass metal when its wealth in renewable products is by far greater and longer lasting? I have myself experienced the total communication with it that Whittaker here and most of the population have enjoyed, and hallucination it is not, as Whittaker has already testified.”

 At that point, the door opened, admitting an Omnicron officer who, despite Matthew’s scowl, presented him with a large green rock, veined deeply in orange, and a note.

 “Aha!” Matthew sprang to his feet, flourishing the rock toward the screen. “The ore samples that were removed from Satok’s craft have been found by metal detector in the woods at Shannonmouth, where they were illegally removed from his vessel and hidden: yet another example of the sabotage that is almost planetwide. This is high-grade copper, according to this quick assay.”

 “Copper? Is that the best you can do, Matthew? Copper?” Nexim Shi-Tu demanded. “Not gold, or platinum . . .”

 “Lieutenant, did you see any gold or platinum among the samples? Matthew asked, his eyes gimleting the Omnicron man.

 “Sir, I wouldn’t know either in the raw state. I was told to bring this to you because it’s the purest of the lot we found.”

 “Pure copper is not to be sneezed at,” Marmion said without a trace of sarcasm, “but hardly in the same category as a respiratory remedy that cures damaged lung tissue, now is it?” A technician bent and spoke to her and she said to the screen, which was still fuzzy but not so noisy “Is that better now, Farrie?”

 “Yes, I believe it is. Continue.”

 “D’you have something for immaculate conceptions, too?” Bal asked slyly.

 “By whom is Major Yanaba Maddock pregnant, Marmion?”

 She shrugged. “Let’s not digress from the purpose of this commission, gentlemen. Major Maddock’s personal life is not at issue in this hearing and should not be at issue in any other hearing as long as she has obeyed her orders.”

 “Aha!” And Matthew once more jumped to his feet. “That’s just it. She hasn’t obeyed orders.”

 “But she did,” Marmion replied firmly. “As she was instructed by Colonel Giancarlo, she became a part of the society of Kilcoole and set about learning as much as she could about Petaybee. She learned a great deal, although it was not, perhaps, what her superiors had expected her to discover.”

 “Where is she?” Barringer Ball asked, looking around the room. “She was the uniformed one from our first conference, wasn’t she?”

 “I believe she has been detained on Vice-Chairman Luzon’s orders,” Marmion said, turning to Matthew with a suddenly implacable expression on her composed, elegant face, “another breach of the civil rights of Intergal officers.” And that’s for the record, Farringer,” she added sternly. “Even an Intergal commissioner cannot go about denying officers their civil rights.”

 “Of course I had her detained,” Matthew almost shouted back, “as an unrepentant renegade ally of the Kilcoole Group. As a matter of course, I had medical tests run on all the renegades—“

 “Why?” Whittaker cracked that one word out. “What right had you to impose a restriction on any one of the citizens of this world? I’ve told you once and I’ll keep on telling you: They are not sabotaging Intergal. Intergal is sabotaging itself on Petaybee.”

 “Oh, come now!” Matthew said, his voice dripping with scorn and the indignation that, rather to his surprise, he found he was actually shaking with. Or was that indignation causing him to shake? It seemed to be shaking everyone else, too, and the table, as well.

 Fiske was continuing, heedlessly. “By denying the demonstrable proof that the pharmaceutical wealth will be a long-term and highly profitable use of Petaybee. So what did your needless medical tests prove?” Typical of the man, he had no sooner asked the question than he answered it himself. “Not a damn thing except they’re the healthiest bunch of people your tame medical staff has seen in a hunk of years. So they’ve a few spare parts that help them adapt to Petaybee’s climate. So what? Nothing mysterious.”

 “Vice-Chairman Luzon has been so busy he hasn’t seen the obvious, Farrie,” Marmion said with a hint of sympathy for the misguided Luzon. “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement to extract some ores when they don’t involve disturbing invasions of Petaybee’s integrity. Open-pit mining is as disfiguring as deep-pit mining is—is—“

 “You’re saying the damned planet feels mining operations?” Farminger Ball demanded, staring with round eyes at Marmion.

 “Just as much as you’d feel a bone drill for a marrow sample: an archaic example, but then most mining methods verge on the archaic, as well as the destructive,” Marmion remarked. “Certainly it’s like peeling skin from an appendage, or suffering first-degree burns, and even you can appreciate how painful that would be.”

 “Marmion de Revers Algemeine,” Farringer Ball began at his most pompous, “do you actually subscribe to the theory that this planet is sentient?”

 “I most certainly do. And so do Sally Point-Jefferson, Millard Ephiasos, and Faber Nike, and you know very well, Farrie, that none of them are the least susceptible to ‘illusions’ or ‘hallucinations,’ not with the reports they have submitted to you on various occasions which I need not specifically mention.”

 Matthew interrupted with a contemptuous gesture and his silkiest tone. “Madame Algemeine is a beautiful, intelligent woman, quite talented at making money, well adapted to survive under civilized circumstances, but she is used to dealing with people of the same sensibility. Here, I fear that she has fallen under the influence of the same primitive passions that claimed the major’s good sense and caused her to cast disrepute on her previously outstanding military record. A lady of such refinement as our chairperson . . .” Matthew shrugged, but was gratified by the rising color flooding across the delicate flesh on Marmion’s aristocratic cheekbones and slender neck. “In the best interest of Intergal, I’m requesting—no, demanding—a purge of all residents on this colony planet due to their almost unanimous obstructive behavior, the deliberate sabotage of Intergal expeditions, and subversions too numerous to list. And I charge Major Yanaba Maddock with treasonable activities; captains O’Shay and Greene for deliberate acts of sabotage and treason to this investigation; Dr. Sean Shongili for willful acts, including homicide, against the best interests of Intergal, whom he has contracted to serve; Clodagh Senungatuk for—“ He paused to look down at his list.

 “Oh, great stars in the sky, Matthew,” Marmion said, with a laugh, “how many people did you steal away from their homes in the middle of the night to remand on such ridiculous, trumped-up charges?”

 “Don’t laugh too soon, Marmion,” Matthew said severely. “Not when community leaders have been slain to prevent them from disclosing local lodes to Intergal officials.”

 Unfortunately, his long list had given Marmion time to recover her composure and her rather deplorable sense of humor. “And please remember to indict whoever it was you allege seduced me to primitive passions, Matthew.” She winked at him in a childish way, then added disparagingly, “Do be sensible, Matthew, and face the facts you’ve helped gather. The autopsy reports clearly state death by misadventure—“

 “A highly toxic plant was purposefully allowed to infest the ore locations—“

 “To spring up overnight? That’s quite a green thumb, Matthew!” Marmion snapped back. “How can anyone, other than by actual planting and nourishing over a considerable period of time, tell a plant where to grow? Besides which, you’ve been so busy quizzing innocent folk about all kinds of misdemeanors that you never took a look at the records of four of those ‘murdered’ men. James Satok, James Unidak Reilly, Clancy Nyungaruk, and Soyuk Ishunt were dishonorably discharged from Intergal for fraud and black-market activities involving Intergal supplies.”

 “No such report reached my desk,” Matthew said, turning to Braddock. The younger man shrugged, but his startled face expressed guilt and chagrin.    “Moreover, I have proof positive that that highly toxic coo-berry bramble thorn was deliberately placed in the caves at four or more different settlements to prevent entry and discovery of rich ore-bearing seams!”

 “Wait a minute!” Farringer Ball said, banging a fist on the table. “All this is beside the point, Matthew. Especially if Marmion says we can harvest pharmaceuticals and get at least some ores . . . which ones, Marmion?”

 “That is to be decided,” Marmion replied, “but drills, excessive use of explosives—“

 “secretary-general Ball!” Matthew all but roared. “You cannot believe the aberrant notion put forth by Chairperson Algemeine that this planet is sentient?”

 “No, I believe in cutting losses and getting what we can out of a place that’s causing far more fuss than it’s worth,” Farringer replied.

 “It’s a ball of rock, an inanimate object . . .” Matthew was pounding the table with one fist and almost bouncing on his feet in his protest.

 Suddenly he was catapulted onto the table, face down, his nose spurting blood, as seismic activity produced a havoc that had everyone in the room either grabbing their chairs to stay in them or being bounced about the committee room. Grinding sounds were so loud that people clapped hands to their ears, as the building shook and more mist poured in from the cracked seams of floor, walls, and ceilings.

 “Under the table!” Whittaker Fiske shouted, practically dragging Marmion after him as the two of them, closely followed by the other committee members, hogged the most sturdily built piece of furniture in the room. Before Matthew could join them, they were joined by Marmion’s over qualified secretary, and there was literally no room for another body to squeeze in. Or so he thought, until he spied one far corner unoccupied and dove for it, only to be knocked away by Braddock Makem, the sniveling coward.

 “Get out of there at once, Braddock!” Matthew commanded, or he meant to sound commanding. He was appalled at how his normally controlled decibels elevated into panicky—sounding squeals. “Where’s your sense of priorities? I’m the commissioner here.”

 The guards stationed in the room and others—he wasn’t sure who—seemed to be trying to beat in the door, or break out a window, permitting the mist to flow more freely through the shambles of a committee room A loud crash suggested that the main screen had fallen victim to the earthquake.

 Matthew heard someone screeching for help and to his chagrin realized the voice was his own. Never mind. This was an emergency and he had been deserted by his colleagues. No time for niceties. “Help!” he screamed again.

 “Try apologizing to the planet, Matthew!” Marmion bellowed over the crashings, splinterings, bangings, and other sounds of rending wood, plastic, and plaster. Ha! Easy enough for her to taunt him when she was protected by the table.

 “Tell it you believe, Matthew!” Whittaker Fiske hollered as well. It was the last thing Matthew heard as the entire building convulsed; he felt wetness warm the crotch of his trousers and slide down his leg, and, as the sound of the tumult was drowned out by a roar that came from within his own head and the snow from the comm screen seemed to be affecting his eyesight, he followed his own urine onto the floor.

 Whittaker Fiske nearly choked because he had been trying to yell to Luzon and laugh at the same time. The floor abruptly canted to the far end of the committee room. The table and those it sheltered were willy-nilly propelled downhill. Whittaker, one arm crooked around the table leg nearest him, managed to grab hold of Marmion, who caught Sally by the shoulder. Bal, Chas. and Nexim helplessly slid downward. Losing his footing, Luzon was rolled lengthwise against the table’s sturdy legs and caught there. A tangle of uniformed limbs pressed him even harder against the table legs, and he began shouting warnings and dire imprecations against those who had him unwillingly pinned against the furniture.

 The grinding noises increased, drowning out all other sounds, and then, with a mighty swooshing sound, the walls and roof of the commissioners’ room collapsed over the table, which stolidly bore the extra weight, though some of the surface veneer audibly cracked.

 The ensuing silence, as the swirling mist settled on everyone, was almost worse than the horrific bombardment of noise had been. Then a breeze, most peculiarly scented with floral aromas, wafted through the damaged room, settling the dust caused by the building’s collapse and dispersing the mist.

 “Marmion?” Whittaker asked, shaking his head to clear it from both the tumbling he had endured and the residue of the mist.

 “I’m fine, shaken, but not bruised, thanks to your quick grab.” she said, though her skirt was ripped and her blouse torn. “Sally?”

 “Okay, I think!”

 Whittaker completed the roll call; the names he called out were answered by either groans or curses.

 “Matthew?” Whittaker asked with some anxiety. It would be awfully awkward if the planet had inadvertently caused the death of Vice-Chairman Matthew Luzon. That could be considered vengeful, not that he didn’t deserve it with his notion of removing all the Petaybeans and cutting the planet into bits.

 “He’s alive, sir, but unconscious,” a deep male voice said. “I think it’s all over and—oh, my God!”

 “What? What’s the matter?” Marmion asked, duly concerned by the awe and respect in that slowly enunciated epithet. She looked about her for a way out from under the table, but the walls and roof seemed to have collapsed to cover everything except for the spot kept open by Matthew’s unconscious body.

 She moved that way, gesturing for Whittaker and Sally to follow her. There was just enough room for them to crawl under the table top and over the limp Matthew, whose aroma was decidedly not floral, where he had been caught, chest and thighs, by the two table legs. Hands helped them to stand in a relatively free space, crowded though it was by uniformed bodies and the splintered remnants of the original door into the room. Oddly enough, that wall was standing.

 Then Marmion turned in the direction the officer was staring.

 “My word!” Her jaw dropped as she gazed out at the massive rock structure that had been punched through the surface that had once been the landing field of SpaceBase. “No, it’s not quite a ziggurat,” she murmured to herself, trying to remember where she had seen a very similar formation, like building blocks, or stepping-stones in some unfathomable pattern, rising high above them. Yet even as her amazed eyes took in the scope of the elevated area, she could see how one could fairly easily climb to the top, if one were daring. Once the last of the mists had cleared, what a splendid view one would have, too, to see what Petaybee had done to prove Matthew’s assumption wrong.

 People were emerging from upended and broken buildings all around this extrusion, dust-covered, quite likely amazed to have escaped with their lives.

 “Is anyone hurt down here?” a familiar voice called from the corridor.

 “Yana! Yanaba Maddock, is Clodagh with you? I think Matthew may be hurt,” Marmion called back.

 “Luzon?” There was a definite edge to Yana’s tone, but then Marmion scarcely blamed her. “Is anyone else hurt?”

 “I—I don’t think so,” Marmion said, twisting around to see Chas Tung, Bal Jostique, and Nexim Shi-Tu getting to their feet and dusting themselves off. Then they, too, caught sight of what had been elevated on the landing field and just stared at it.

 Do them good, Marmion thought, for doubting!

 “Are you all right? And everyone with you?” Marmion called.

 Then Yana poked her head through the door while Sean carefully broke off the splintered wood of the door frame before it could do any harm.

 “Clodagh’s still counting noses, but we had the benefit of padded cells during the rough bit,” Yana said with an irrepressible grin, “and the door locks released when the power went off.” She gave a snort at the inadequacy of the security as she clambered over the door and knelt beside Matthew, feeling the pulse at his throat. “Well, he’s alive—but you’re bleeding, soldier. And Sergeant, that looks like a broken arm to me. Sit down here, against the wall. If it hasn’t fallen before, it won’t come down now. Ah, Bunny, find some water and see if you can find a medic running around loose.”

 “The usual medical facility is just down that corridor and to your right,” Whittaker said. “I’ll show you.” He stepped over the remaining door frame to lead Bunny—and also to add his authority to any request she’d make of dazed or possibly reluctant personnel to assist her.

  

 Chapter 19

 It took the rest of that day to assess damages, but these were actually rather limited, despite the wreckage of the, conference wing and its temporary detention cells. The ones, on the far end of the field had also been demolished, but there had been no loss of life and only a few minor broken limbs, lacerations, and bruises. There were plenty of outraged dignities and addled wits. Some of the Omnicron and the other imported soldiers spoke of hearing a voice in the mist, though they hadn’t a clue what it was saying, other than somehow reassuring them.

 Halfway through Johnny Greene’s and Rick O’Shay’s attempts to re-establish communications with the MoonBase, a disheveled and enraged Torkel Fiske arrived on foot with the copter pilot, both of them lugging jury-rigged back-packs full of ore samples. He insisted on seeing Matthew Luzon, and “don’t give me any excuses,” so he was duly shown the bandaged but still unconscious commissioner.

 “Massive bruising on the chest,” the almost apologetic medic told him, “and he’s got two broken legs.”

 “Who did that? I don’t see any of you wearing bandages,” Torkel said, belligerently glaring around at those who were working in the temporary incident room set up in one of the half-empty warehouses on the perimeter of SpaceBase.

 “I told Matthew to get under the table,” Whittaker cheerfully lied, “but he never did pay a blind bit of attention to sensible suggestions. Ask Captain Urambu! over there! He was one of the bunch that rammed into Matthew.”

 Torkel’s accusatory stare relaxed slightly when he took in the huge frame of the Omnicron captain and the others in his group. They did, at least, have some noticeable face and hand cuts, and probably some bruises they would ignore. The captain was speaking into a hand held, evidently repeating everything he said, for he wore a resigned look of strained patience.

 “At what point in the meeting did the earthquake happen, Dad?” Torkel asked, his manner and tone far less belligerent.

 “About the time Matthew was banging the table and insisting the planet couldn’t be sentient.” Marmion said. “Oh, by the way, Whit, Coaxtl was released from durance vile by Frank Metaxos, Diego, and Faber, dressed up in uniforms and looking very officious. The poor vet turned Coaxtl over without a word, and she was last seen by Liam Maloney swiping fish out of the river at dawn.”

 “Thank God for that!”

 “Coaxtl?” Torkel looked from one to another in puzzlement.

 “Yes, of course, Coaxtl was one of the plotters Matthew wished to indict,” Marmion said in the tone one used when speaking to someone of deficient intelligence. “Along with a little bitty skinny pregnant orange kitty cat. Quite subversive for felines, or so Matthew was going to try to prove.”

 “Dr. Fiske?” Braddock Makem said with considerably more vibrancy in his voice than he had ever used in addressing his employer. “That earthquake was local, the epicenter the exact center of the landing field. Only those three small aftershocks, and no more expected.”

 “Thank you, Makem,” Whittaker said, smiling. “Now, Torkel, where did you find the samples you brought back with you?”

 “In one of the passages of the cavern we were all rescued from after your shuttle came down,” he said, and a look of disgust passed over his face. He made a fist. “We were right there, not more than ten meters from one of the biggest veins of pure gold I have ever seen, and these Petaybeans—“

 “I’ve had enough of that from you, Torkel, to last the rest of our mutual existence,” Whittaker said, abandoning his homespun manner and straightening up so abruptly that Torkel backed off a step in surprise at his father’s sudden authoritative manner. “Company policy has shifted from exploitation of the mineral wealth of this planet to its pharmaceutical—“

 “And renewable,” Marmion interposed, touching Whittaker’s arm in reminder.

 “And renewable pharmaceutical wealth.”

 “Its what?”

 Torkel glared at his father, who stared him down, and then glanced about the room to spot any Petaybean on whom he could vent his frustrated anger.

 “Colonel Yanaba Maddock and Dr. Sean Shongili,” his father began, noticing his discomfort, “will share a joint governorship of the planet Petaybee, under the auspices of Intergal and Nova Bene Drugs to develop a local industry of fine Petaybean pharmaceuticals—“

 “—Ah, just a moment if you please,” said a light baritone voice.

 Everyone turned to see the man who had discreetly appeared amidst them in the temporary incident room. He was wearing the distinctive gray and silver-trimmed uniform of a high-ranking official of the Collective Interplanetary Societies.

 “I’ve just managed to land here, via the Prometheus, on a matter of gravest urgency,” he began. “Oh,” he added, smiling apologetically, “my name is Phon Tho Anaciliact. I seem to have come at a bad moment. I understand there has been a hearing under way today to determine the findings of an investigative committee. Who is the chairman of that committee?”

 “I am.” Marmion creased her brows slightly in surprise.

 “Madame, excuse me if I seem to over rule your authority, but I have taken it upon myself to investigate circumstances here. I have been hospitalized at the Intergal Infirmary Station for a virus I contracted on my last assignment in the Fuegan Galaxy. While at the hospital, I could not help but overhear a denizen of this planet, supposedly a witness for this committee, I learned upon inquiry, demand his conjugal rites with someone he referred to as an “ungrateful child.” He claimed that she had been seduced away from him and his family of other wives by some monstrous sentient life-form that apparently lives within this world. As you can imagine, much of what he had to say deeply disturbed me, and so I prevailed upon the captain of the Prometheus, who was bound for orbit here, to transport me, as well. I’m sure Intergal is aware that while they may govern humanoid life in accordance with CIS regulations—which this witness apparently was not following-on their incorporated worlds, new life-forms are specifically the concern of the CIS. They are, in fact, specifically the concern of my department and myself.”

 Torkel looked about to explode, Whittaker’s face was wreathed in smiles, and Braddock Makem almost fainted.

 “Not a monstrous sentient life-form”, Messer Anaciliact, but most certainly a sentient being.” Marmion corrected him with a smile, hardly daring to believe the good luck that had brought not only CIS, but Phon Tho in particular, to them at this time. And they had Matthew and his nephew to thank for the man’s prompt arrival! It was a mercy to Matthew that he wasn’t here. The knowledge would probably seriously impede his recovery. She continued, “The sentience is not a monstrous one. That was a perception entertained only by the witness and the people he forcibly influenced. He was the monster.”

 “I shouldn’t doubt that a bit,” Anaciliact said, remembering vividly his distaste for the witness in question. “I stand corrected.”

 “You also stand on this supposed sentient being,” Torkel snapped, jabbing his index finger at the floor.

 The dark arching eyebrows in Anaciliact’s dusky-complected face rose high in his forehead. “Do I take it you mean the planet is sentient?”

 “It most certainly is,” Whittaker and Marmion said in firm chorus. Then Marmion, seeing Yana and Sean close by, gestured urgently for them to come to her.

 “And this is the finding of the committee?”

 “Most decidedly,” Bal Jostique said, with a nervous glance at the piled stone skyscrapers looming where Intergal’s runway and the streets and buildings of SpaceBase had been.

 “We were interrupted before formal adjournment, messer,” Chas amended, “but I think if you check with Farringer Ball you will find that Intergal has decided to . . .”

 Anaciliact held up his hand, his expression counseling silence. “Intergal has overstepped its bounds in deciding anything without consultation with CIS. And your statement, Dr. Fiske, that two persons have been appointed governors of this . . . living body . . . is totally out of order. No sentient creature may be coerced, only negotiated with.”

 “That’s been my argument all along,” Yana said, having been close enough to hear the last statement.

 “The problem has been trying to get Intergal to accept that this planet is sentient,” Sean Shongili said, standing close enough to Yana to hold one of her hands discreetly behind him. “Now that we have re-established contact with the secretary-general of Intergal, Farringer Ball, he seems to be willing to believe the proof.” He gestured in the direction of the singularly elevated field.

 “That is as well, I suppose,” Anaciliact said suavely, “for the . . . ab . . . extrusion seems to have limited itself in a most unusual fashion and in the most clear terms that it wishes this facility evacuated. So that I may commune with the sentience, I will also require the removal of even the indigenous personnel—“

 He was interrupted by a rumbling that seemed to make the solid floor underfoot ripple from one end to the other.

 “Messer Anaciliact,” Marmion said, waggling a finger at him, “I believe the planet just said ‘No.’ It likes the people who live here; it protects them in ways that cause them to die very quickly when removed from its custody.”

 The CIS representative’s expression had altered as he staggered to keep his balance. “It cannot so quickly perceive—‘

 Another rumble, quicker, so that it appeared to be more emphatic.

 “We weren’t supposed to get any aftershocks,” Braddock Makem murmured, thoroughly dismayed.

 “Messer Anaciliact,” Sean began, smiling and with a little conciliatory bow, “I think it would be best if we took you to one of those special places where the planet communicates with us in its unique fashion. I believe it is quite ready to discuss the terms of its . . . use as a habitation and the uses to which its gifts may be put.”

 “Don’t, I beseech you, Messer Anaciliact,” Torkel said, on the point of grabbing the hands of the CIS representative, who deftly avoided him, “go into one of those misty caves! It’s all hallucinogenic. You’ll believe anything.”

 “Captain . . .”

 “Fiske, Torkel Fiske.” The man’s handsome features were contorted with the urgency of his entreaty. “You’ll end up like them!” He gestured toward his father, Yana, Marmion, and Sean.

 “My dear Captain Fiske, I am conditioned to reject any hallucinogenics and drugs, and trained to perceive illusions or spells of any nature,” Anaciliact replied with imperturbable and gentle reassurance. “I assure you I am well able to probe the substance of sentience in all forms of creatures to the exact degree of self-awareness and percipience. Now, if we may just proceed to wherever it is I may start my investigations?”

 “This way,” Sean said, gesturing toward the door through which the CIS investigator had recently entered. “It’s a short distance from here but I believe—ah, Johnny, did your copter survive?”

 “It did, Sean.” Johnny eyed Sean’s companion. “And it’s even fueled and ready to go.”

 “Yana, where’s Clodagh? Sean asked, looking around the busy incident room. Then he noticed orange cats prowling discreetly or observing from the tops of piled cartons. “Never mind. She’ll be there.”

 When they reached the outskirts of Kilcoole and Johnny circled the copter to land it close to the warm springs, Coaxtl and Nanook bounded out of the forest to await their descent.

 They sat back on their haunches when they saw Phon Tho Anaciliact step down. He turned, slightly startled, then bowed with a touch of reverence in the motion.

 “You are messengers?” he asked.

 Occasionally that is our function, Nanook said. But we do as we please.

 “As your breed always has,” Phon Tho said with another respectful bow.

 You may follow us. The way has been cleared.

 “Sean, the coo-berry . . .” Yana said as she saw Phon Tho following the track-cats toward the warm springs.

 “Why did you think Clodagh, Sinead, Bunny, and Diego skived out of SpaceBase as fast as they could?” he asked her, taking her hand as he landed lightly on his feet beside her. “Coming, Johnny?”

 “Sure am!” Johnny had helped Marmion, Whittaker, and Sally descend from the other side of the packed copter and now they all followed the leaders.

 Dried stalks lined the path, but not a single live coo-berry tendril remained. Some might have been killed by Clodagh’s antidote, Yana thought, but the rest seemed to have simply . . . been swallowed up by the planet’s crust.

 Oh well. Anywhere else that would have been incredible, but as always, Petaybee played by its own rules.

 The track-cats deftly trotted across the stepping-stones to enter the gap between cliff side and cascade, the CIS arbitrator not a step behind them as they disappeared into the Kilcoole access area.

 Mist was already forming by the time all had gathered, for Clodagh, Sinead, Aisling, Bunny, and Diego were waiting in the cave, having cleared the way. Clodagh smiled and gestured for Phon Tho to seat himself nearby, and he immediately assumed the very difficult lotus meditation position, back erect, hands with thumbs and index fingers meeting. Marmion settled herself with Sally and Whittaker. Sean and Yana seated themselves so that they faced Phon Tho.

 That gentleman had a good long look at the wondrous colors and forms that were shortly obscured by the thickening mist, A slight smile curved his finely molded lips, and then he closed his eyes.

 Sean and Yana, shoulders and thighs touching, experienced an overwhelming sensation of relief and total relaxation, of reassurance and goodwill: a sense of great achievement, although relief was the dominant feeling.

 When the mist dissolved at last, leaving the ambient glow of the rocks in their splendidly delicate coloration’s visible, the relief still remained. Then all the participants turned their attention to Phon Tho Anaciliact.

 He rose from his lotus position with the special gracefulness of someone well accustomed to such a maneuver and smiled at them.

 “This planet is self-aware in a manner I have never before encountered. It is an entity, a being with consciousness, and as such deserves the protection which is my prerogative. While it insists that it is no longer indentured to Intergal, it honors the obligation of life and will redeem itself in due course.” Then he turned to Clodagh. “You are named as one minister to its needs, and you, Sean Shongili, are another.” Then he looked curiously around, first at Sinead, then Bunny, until his glance settled on Yana. “Ah yes, it is you, Colonel Yanaba Maddock, whom I take with me to the headquarters of CIS to verify certain particulars in my report. As soon as communications are repaired, I shall give an interim report to my superiors, but in the meantime, I am authorized to evict the incumbent authority as inimical to the Subject Sentience. You who have lived long on Petaybee are requested to remain. I fear there may be some hardships yet for you to undergo until a proper authority can be framed to deal with such an unusual Sentience and the needs of its inhabitants.” His lips curved with wry humor. “But you are welcome, it would seem,” he said, smiling at Clodagh, Sinead, Aisling, Whittaker, Johnny, and Sean, “For without you, the Sentience would never have become truly aware of its potential.”

 “And just what is that potential, Messer Anaciliact?” Marmion asked with one of her more radiant smiles.

 He gave a shrug, opening his hands. “It is—boundless, it is—unchartable, it is—unfathomable, it is—“

 Yana’s pent-up nerves of the last few weeks released in a short guffaw. “I think what Messer Anaciliact is trying to say is, ‘whatever’!”

 The Sentience gave a tremor that might have been a laugh but certainly concluded the current interview.

 “What songs we’ll make of this, huh, Bunny?” Diego whispered as people turned to file reverently from the cavern. Bunny smiled in agreement, just as a peculiar echo rang through the cavern. It repeated not the last words of Diego’s sentence, nor the first word, but the middle ones. As they turned to listen, the cavern played rainbows on its reflective surfaces and the echo sang back to them. in a voice neither Diego’s nor Bunny’s nor that of any human being they knew, “Songs we’ll make, songs we’ll make . . .”

  

 1

 Outside Kilcoole

  

 Yanaba Maddock and Sean Shongili held hands in a darkness illuminated only by the glowing eyes of hundreds of animals and the flames of hundreds of candles. The drumming had stopped now, replaced by the sweet lapping of sliding water, the beat of many hearts and the breathing of many creatures. One pulse was louder than all the drums had been, one breath a wind that guttered and flared the candles with each respiration.

 ‘So how do we do it here?’ Yana whispered nervously to her love and the father of her unborn children. ‘Does the planet give me away or what?’

 Sean smiled and winked, ‘No-one has that right but you, love. Let’s just say that the planet acts as witness and honorary best being.’

 ‘…best being,’ an echo sang from the cavern walls, ‘best being…’

 He stopped walking and she stopped beside him. All she knew was that they were getting married, Petaybean-style.

 She’d been so busy with her new duties as Petaybee’s administrator over the last two months that she hadn’t had enough time to enquire as fully as she would have liked into the rite or folkways of the Petaybean marriage ceremony before it was upon her. Sean’s niece, Bunny Rourke, one of Yana’s chief informants on matters Petaybean, had told her that it was a special sort of latchkay with a night chant at the hotsprings. Yana had attended the break-up latchkay when she first arrived. This occasion differed in that the night chant was at the beginning of the latchkay instead of at the end. As at all latchkays, there would be much singing, although probably more at this particular one. Both Sean and Yana were to prepare a song for each other. Songs were how Petaybeans celebrated or commemorated all their most noteworthy experiences. The mode was mostly either a rhyme scheme to some ancient Irish air or a free-verse poem chanted Inuit style to the accompaniment of a drum. Yana, whose heart was full but whose mind was too crowded with administrative details while her body was having to make physical accommodations to her pregnancy, had finally created her song. Other than that, she simply hoped that things would go well and allowed herself to be led through the proceedings by the people she had trusted more than once with her life.

 Two hours earlier Kilcoole’s premiere couturiere, Aisling Senungatuck, had arrived with the gown she had created for Yana - rabbit hides crocheted together with woollen yarn in a long, panelled design with a flared skirt, scooped neck and long sleeves. The crocheted lace inserts were heavily decorated with beads made from scavenged wire and the little Petaybean pebbles found in certain streams. Tumbled, polished, and drilled, the stones were lovely and translucent. The gown was yellow, the Petaybean wedding colour, Aisling explained, &lsquot;Because most of the plants make yellow dye.&rsquot; The rabbits were contributed from the collecting places of all the village hunters. Sean’s vest was a darker shade of the yellow, trimmed with beaver fur and blue and white beads.

 Now the motes of light formed a circle around the two, and Clodagh Senungatuck, Aisling’s sister and village healer, stepped into the centre with Sean and Yana. Yana noted with some amusement that as many of Clodagh’s orange striped cats as could crowd around her feet did so, their eyes eerie and iridescent in the candleglow.

 ‘Sean Shongili and Yanaba Maddock, we’ve come here because we understand you got somethin’ to say to all of your friends and kin here where the planet hears you best, is that right?’

 ‘It is,&rlquo; Sean said. ’I have a song to sing for you all.’

 ‘Sing for us,’ soft voices said from the shadows, accompanied by an underlying rumble of throaty feline purrs, the whicker of the curly-coats, and the affirmative yips of the dogs.

 ‘Sing,’ the echo said.

 Yana had no idea how many bodies were clustered into the cave that day. The line seemed to stretch clear back to the village and included every man, woman and child, horse, cat, the larger track cats, everybody’s dog teams. She could have sworn that she saw wild game emerge from the brush and join in the procession just before Clodagh led them into the darkness of the cave behind the hotsprings waterfall.

 Sean cleared his throat. The candleflame shadowed the chiselled planes of his face and softened the outline of his mouth as he began speaking.

 ‘Yanaba, she met the enemy

 Coming to us, she met friends as well And honoured them.

 She met me, and I met love.

 Aijaiji.

 ‘With her friends, here around her

 With her lover, I who take her hand,

 For these people and this world embracing us

 She met the enemy again and again.

 It is in her name to do so.

 Aijaija.

 ‘Yanaba, who knows my aspects

 Yanaba, who has my heart

 Yanaba, who honours my world and my people

 Yanaba, who carries our future in her body

 Yanaba, you are already part of my life

 Yanaba, you already possess my heart

 I tell you this here, with our world as witness,

 I want you with me for ever.

 Ajai.’

 Yana’s mouth went suddenly dry. Something soft and furry rubbed against her bare ankles. Her stomach gave a heave and she wondered could the baby be moving so soon, pushing her to speak. She took Sean’s hands as much for support as encouragement and clung to them so tightly that she was afraid she’d leave bruises, except that he returned the strong grip. That gave her the courage she needed. She felt suddenly light-headed and needed to hold on to him to keep from floating to the top of the cave.

 ‘Sean Shongili, my truest friend and love.

 Here I am, a woman whose only song

 Was of war and death.

 How can I sing what I feel for you?

 You gave me life when I was dying,

 A home when I had known none in

 Many years of wandering,

 A family when all of mine is dead,

 A life to bear

 When I thought I could give only death.

 You showed me a new world and

 Invited me to make it my own.

 ‘And I do.

 In old songs by better singers

 They say, “You are all the world to me.”

 I say so too.

 Sean Shongili, you are all the world to me

 And the world to me is you.

 I love you. Take me as I take you.

 As they used to say on Earth, “I do.”

 Sean took her in his arms then, and kissed her, letting his body rest against her belly which, although firm and a bit fuller and rounder than usual, wasn’t that noticeable yet.

 Then Clodagh clapped her hands and everyone dispersed leaving Yana and Sean alone in the cave but not in darkness. As the candles departed, a warm soft glow pulsed throughout the cavern and he eased her to the rock which seemed to melt into a comfortable bed as she and Sean made love. They always enjoyed that occupation but here, now, in the cave, where the planet was also part of this communion, she felt as if she had never before been so consumed by the passion that always fired up between them in the act of love. Sean felt it too, for his hands were tender, possessive in a fashion she would once have resented, exciting in ways she had never experienced. The climax was so extraordinary that she wept and knew, from the wetness of the cheek he pressed hard against hers, that he also had been rocked by the intensity of their consummation. For a moment, she thought she had died.

 This time they did not sleep afterwards or dress as they left the cave to join the throng waiting outside at the thermal pools.

 Cheers and laughter greeted them from the people and animals in the springs’ three pools. Overhead the stars and moons, real and man-made, lit the sky while the candles planted along the sides of the pool garlanded it with ribbons of light. The big cats sported rather clumsily in the water while the dogs fetched various things thrown by their masters. The smaller cats sat disdainfully on the edge of the pool. Yana laughed when one of the curly-coats took a running jump and dived into the pool making a whale-sized wave that swamped the shore and wet several disgusted felines who began furiously to lick themselves dry.

 Then Sean pushed her in and a moment later, a seal appeared among the splashing, laughing, naked company. This activity continued till daylight and was the merriest, raunchiest festivity she had ever attended. Periodically, someone would hoist themselves out of the water and run bare-assed to the baskets beyond the candles to fetch something to cram into their mouths before diving back into a pool. Fortunately, all the food had been prepared in bite-sized portions, was easily chewed and swallowed, or was fruit that wouldn’t be harmed if it got wet.

 At daylight, everyone went ashore and dressed and walked limply home except Sean and Yana, who rode double on one of the curlies while Bunny led the village girls who spread flower petals and seeds on the path before them.

 ‘I’m starving,’ Yana muttered up into Sean’s chin.

 He nuzzled the top of her head. ‘Good, you’ll like this part then. The feast was prepared before we left. But don’t eat so much or you’ll be too full to dance with me afterwards.’

 ‘Dance? You have to be joking! My legs feel like noodles. Umm, noodles. Do you suppose Clodagh made hers? The ones with the smoked fish and dried tomato sauce?’

 ‘I have it on good authority that she did. Is all you think of your stomach?’

 ‘I’m eating for two!’

 ‘So you are. Forgive me,’ he said, lifting her down from the curly-coat’s back.

 During the feasting, she had ample chances to rest and gaze into Sean’s eyes and messily feed him and receive food from him, also part of the wedding protocol. The food was arrayed in the middle of the meeting house, and Sean and Yana as well as the other adults sat on benches along the wall while Bunny led the youngsters of Kilcoole in offering them food.

 Meanwhile, everyone occupied themselves by singing the songs they had written for Sean and Yana. Bunny sang of her first meeting with Yana and their wild ride down the river. Sean’s sister, Sinead, told how she knew Yana would be one of them from the time she went on her first hunt. Adak sang of the hiding of Sean in the snocle shed with Yana, and making frequent clandestine trips which the powers that be did not know anything about.

 Even Steve Margolies, now residing in Kilcoole with his partner, Frank Metaxos, and Diego, sang of how Yana and Sean had reunited him with his family. And Yana’s neighbour across the street had a hilarious pantomime song about Yana throwing Colonel Giancarlo out of her cabin with the burned fish. That was one of the few songs rhymed and sung to an old Irish air instead of chanted to drums. Clodagh said she believed the tune went originally to a song called ‘The Charladies’ Ball’.

 As the other young people began to clear away the empty serving plates, Diego took his newly crafted guitar and joined the drummers, Old Man Mulligan on his whistle, and Mary Yulipilik on her handmade concertina. All together, they wheezed up a quite respectable dance tune.

 Sean took Yana’s hands in his, led her out onto the floor and then swung himself opposite her at the top of the cleared hall. Two by two came Dr Whittaker Fiske, who had returned especially to dance at the wedding, partnering Clodagh, followed by Sinead with Aisling, Moira and Seamus, Bunny and her sister Cita, Frank Metaxos and Steve Margolies, Liam Maloney and Bunny’s cousin Nula to form a complete reel line. Captain Johnny Greene, who had extended his shore leave for the occasion, had Captain Neva-Marie Rhys-Hall from SpaceBase as his partner for the dance in another reel line while his fellow copter pilot, Rick O’Shay, gallantly led old Kitty Intiak on to the floor. Orange cats tiptoed daintily to the food which had been put on the side for them, while the dogs went home to their kennels to eagerly await scraps from the feast. Track cats lounged by the doors and on top of the roof and the curlies grazed in the last of the green fields left by the unusually long, warm summer, now turning to fall.

 Somewhere in the middle of the third dance, Terce, who was minding the snocle shed, tapped Adak on the shoulder and he in turn tapped Johnny on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. The two men left, accompanied by Captain Rhys-Hall, and returned in time to rescue Yana from a fifth dance.

 Marmion de Revers Algemeine and two Company corpsmen in dress white uniforms were with them.

 Yana and Sean stopped dancing to greet their friend, elegant as usual in a royal blue tunic with a purple underdress, the top heavily embroidered in jade and silver, matching Marmie’s earrings and rings.

 ‘Marmie! How wonderful that you could come!’ Yana cried and Marmion kissed both her cheeks, then Sean’s.

 ‘Yes, and in addition to your wedding present, I’m afraid I’ve come to take you away from all this. The CIS court is reconvening a week from now and your testimony will be necessary to augment Commissioner Phon Tho Anaciliact’s decision on Petaybee. I thought you’d want to do it yourself, since going off-planet would be lethal to native Petaybeans.’ She glanced down briefly at Yana’s middle and a look of consternation flowed over her classic features. ‘Oh, my. Time flies, doesn’t it?’

 Yana smiled. ‘It does indeed. But I see no reason…’

 ‘I don’t think it’s wise for you to go off-planet this far into your pregnancy, Yana,’ Sean said, his hand on her shoulder tightening protectively.

 Others in the room had joined them by now. Clodagh and Whit Fiske also greeted Marmie with kisses on the cheeks and Bunny pushed her way through to them, trailed closely by Diego, who had stopped playing and slung his guitar across his back as soon as he saw the newcomers arrive.

 ‘How long does she need to be gone, Marmie?’ Clodagh asked.

 ‘Not long, I should think. Counting the journey, two weeks your time, three at the most.’

 ‘Huh,’ Clodagh said. ‘I’d never last that long. Sean neither.’

 ‘I mean to be there too, Yana, though as an Intergal board member,’ Marmion said, ‘my testimony is assumed to be biased and self-serving in one of those peculiarly bureaucratic fashions that people can’t really explain anyhow. It’s too bad there’s no qualified native Petaybean to testify.’

 ‘I qualify and I think I could go too,’ Bunny said, pulling at her sleeve. ‘I’m young enough to go off-planet without any ill effects and I know everything that’s happened. I could sing them the song I made about it. Though Diego’s songs are better.’

 ‘If you’re going, I’m going,’ Diego said. ‘Now’s my chance to show you all those technical things you keep telling me couldn’t possibly work! Besides, I wouldn’t want your head getting turned by all those guys in uniform. And I could see my mom,’ he added with a glance at Marmion, as if the more conventional reason might sway her where his desire to be with Bunny might not.

 ‘We need Colonel Maddock - or is it Shongili now?’ Marmie asked with a twinkle.

 ‘I think for courtroom purposes I’d better remain Maddock for the time being,’ Yana said.

 ‘Yana, you’re four months pregnant,’ Sean said. ‘With my child.’ The emphasis, Yana knew, was not merely possessive. Because of Sean’s dual nature as man and seal, he was concerned just how many of his traits his children would inherit and how deeply an off-planet experience would affect them.

 ‘Matty women are on duty right up until delivery now, Sean,’ she said, dropping her hand to his arm and giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘And you heard Marmie, it will only be three weeks. If I have Bunny along…’

 Clodagh touched Sean’s hand. ‘It should be OK that long, Sean. And Petaybee needs her to do this.’

 ‘I suppose so. I only wish I could accompany her.’

 ‘I’d take good care of her, Uncle Sean. You know I would,’ Bunny said, throwing her arms around his waist.

 ‘And I’d take care of both of them, Dr Shongili,’ Diego said, with a challenging look at Marmion.

 Marmion smiled at him and said, ‘With you as adult guardian, I see no problem in Bunny and Diego accompanying you, Yana. In fact, I’m sure CIS Anaciliact would appreciate all the support he can get. I don’t suppose little Cita…?’

 But Sean denied that choice with a firm shake of his head. ‘After all she’s been through she’s much too fragile in my opinion. Cita stays here. Besides, Coaxtl frets herself into moulting mountains of hair if the girl is out of sight for any extended period.’

 ‘I can tell what needs to be told, to anyone who asks,’ Bunny said at her staunchest.

 ‘Sean,’ Yana said, turning to look into his dear, worried face. ‘Duty does have a way of calling regardless of personal convenience, love.’

 ‘I wouldn’t stop you from doing what you think you need to do, even if I thought I could get away with it, Yana.’ His grin was slightly strained and anxious and so were his eyes. She understood his concern, and maybe more than just ‘understood’ after their union in the cave. ‘But be careful.’

 Two hours later they were ready to depart, though Yana deeply regretted the necessity of leaving her new husband so precipitously. She consoled herself with the knowledge that what they had between them would keep, on the ice and in the heat, come what may.

 Clodagh gave each of them an almost ritualistic kiss and embrace, putting a little leather bag on a thong around their necks.

 As she hung Yana’s around her neck, Yana asked, ‘What’s this?’

 ‘It’s dirt,’ Clodagh said simply.

 ‘Dirt?’

 ‘Yes. Petaybee wants you to have something to remember it by. The dirt’s from the cave.’

 Not long before, Yana would have been stymied how to receive such a statement, but now she squeezed Clodagh warmly in an embrace of her own. ‘This makes me feel a lot better.’

 Then Sean clasped her in a farewell embrace and she, Bunny and Diego boarded the Company shuttle that would take them to Marmion’s executive space-liner, waiting in orbit. In Yana’s carryall was Sean’s wedding vest, to sleep with, and a hastily made town recording to Petaybean relatives in Company service. Bunny carried a frozen fish for her cousin Charlie from his parents and a basket of pemmican from the wedding feast for homesick Petaybeans. Diego carried letters from his father to his mother and a basket of his favourite Petaybean foods plus nutrients to keep himself and Bunny healthy on the journey.

 Once aboard the spaceliner, Sally Point-Jefferson, Marmion’s aide, tenderly placed Charlie’s fish in the freezer. Bunny remained glued to the viewscreen, watching Petaybee shrink into a tiny point of light in the vastness of black space. She bent and unbent her fingers against the port in farewell as her home disappeared altogether.

  

 2

 Shipside

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Bunny turned away from the window, a little gasp of dismay escaping her throat, her eyes misty with suppressed tears.

 ‘I never thought I’d see the last of Petaybee,’ she said in such a mournful tone that Diego immediately took her into a warm embrace, murmuring reassurances and some of the silly names that he had created for her.

 ‘Now, gatita,’ he said, the name meaning ‘little cat’ or ‘kitten’, ‘it’s not as if you won’t be coming back, or anything. It’s only for a little while. And I bet that no-one from Kilcoole has ever seen Petaybee from space like you just did. Looks like one of those stones Aisling polishes up, the bluey ones with the white bands.’

 ‘Yes, I guess it does at that,’ Bunny said, sniffling until Marmion handed her a tissue. ‘Oh, sorry. Didn’t bring anything to blow into.’

 ‘What the well-appointed vessel has in quantity - things you don’t remember to bring with you,’ Marmion said kindly. ‘I forget how hard it is to leave a place you love. Only think how excited you’ll be to see it in the viewscreen on your way back. The better view!’

 Marmion then organized everyone into doing things: like settling into their cubicles, getting food, getting comfortable. ‘I’ve had Sally acquire clothing for you or you’ll all be over-warmly dressed where we’re going. It’s also very important, I think, that we choose garments that will seem appropriate to our mission.’

 ‘What’s wrong with what we’re wearing?’ Bunny wanted to know for she was wearing the beautiful Gather Blouse Aisling had made out of the material Yana had gifted her with. The blouse made her feel very elegant and adult, and Diego said it was the nicest thing he’d seen her in.

 ‘I’m not suggesting you change your style, dear,’ Marmion said in a conciliatory tone, ‘and that blouse is certainly lovely but you can’t appear every day in it. So Sally and I scrounged around to see what would be you as well as ah… not too conspicuously different. Oh,’ and she gave an exasperated sigh as she saw the defiant look on Bunny’s face, ‘for all I’m supposed to be so diplomatic, I’m not putting this in the right words, am I? But then, where we’re going, one is not often judged by what they are, but what they seem to be. You know what I’m talking about, Colonel Yana dear, don’t you?’ And Marmion appealed to Yana on more than the one count she was trying to explain.

 ‘I do, indeed, Marmion…’ Yana tried to pull a fold over her belly from the material of her one-piece suit and failed with a laugh. Til need a size larger, I know.’

 ‘Oh, you’re easy to do, Yana,’ Marmion said. ‘Wasn’t she, Sally?’

 The aide laughed and nodded. ‘With trouser pleats for expansion,’ she said. ‘And a tunic tailored just that little bit fuller across the… ah… hips.’

 ‘It isn’t my hips that worry me,’ Yana said with a grin, hoping to clear Bunny’s troubled expression.

 ‘Diego, we’ve ordered you the very latest,’ Marmion went on and then giggled in one of those displays of amusement which charmed her friends. ‘In fact, the whole operation was a great deal of fun. Why don’t you and Bunny go see what’s in your wardrobes? We’ll still have time to discard what you really can’t possibly be seen in before you have to be seen in it.’

 Diego escorted Bunny firmly to the cabins they’d been assigned. Only when the panel had slid shut behind them did Marmion’s expression alter to one of concern.

 ‘You do know what I mean, Yana?’

 ‘Oh, yes, Marmion. I know precisely what you’re trying to do and so does Diego. He knows the drills. So do I. So, now what? Or do we wait for the others to return before you tell us the bad news?’

 ‘How ever did you know there is some?’

 ‘Because you’re taking such especial pains to make us seem normal, look normal and yet different enough so we’ll still be “original” as well as acceptable.’

 Marmion, hands loosely clasped in her lap, considered that. ‘It will not be smooth sailing, although I have every confidence that common sense, at least this once, will prevail. Intergal, as well as other holding companies that have vast numbers of star systems held in fief as Petaybee is, will be watching. The scientifically acute are fascinated by the idea of a sentient planet. You must know that, with all the paper that’s flooded your desk since they got a name to send messages to.’

 Yana nodded ruefully. ‘No kidding. There’s been so much of it I haven’t even begun to read it all, much less answer it. Sean’s been doing a lot of the footwork, I suppose you’d call it, and that leaves Diego as the only other literate person in the north, other than his father and Steve Margolies, who are busy enough with their own work. Loncie Ondelacy is able to do some in the South. Diego’s been teaching Bunny to read and write but, fast as she is, she can’t learn enough in a couple of months to do more than help with alphabetical filing. Most of the letters seem to be from people who want to come to Petaybee for some reason or other - I can’t believe there’s so many out there all of a sudden when the planet’s been so quiet for years. ‘We’ve had several enquiries from drug companies too and I have no idea how Clodagh’s cures can be reproduced at this point. Even with a good growing season this year, the planet so far has provided just about enough to keep native Petaybeans supplied - if we’re actually going to try to farm some of Clodagh’s plants and produce her cures for a wider population we’ll have to do it in some way that doesn’t overtax Petaybee. Clodagh’s not even sure, at this point, if some of the ingredients can live off-planet. I knew this was going to take a lot of work, but it seems to me that someone’s been broadcasting outside the committee a lot of what ought to be classified information about the planet’s sentient nature. It’s pushing us to go much faster than we’re equipped to do at present.’

 Marmion said, ‘I understand your concern, and discretion certainly has been urged on all parties where Petaybee is concerned. I’m afraid what you’re dealing with now is only, if you’ll pardon the expression, the tip of the iceberg. Some of our board members are expressing concern that other colonized worlds might try to claim similar status. They’re worried that Petaybee will set a precedent. If there were some way to reassure them that this is a one-off case of planetary sentience…’ and she cocked her head hopefully at Yana.

 ‘You expect me to be able to answer that, Marmion? I can barely cope with the knowledge that there’s one . . .’

 ‘And that’s exactly the attitude you ought to take, if I may make such a suggestion. Reaffirming it whenever asked just as you did to me now.’

 ‘But suppose Petaybee isn’t a one-off…’ Yana liked to know she was telling the truth, inadvertently or otherwise.

 Marmion sighed. ‘All the more reason, from the board’s standpoint, for keeping information about Petaybee hush-hush. They’d just as soon not give inhabitants of other terraformed planets any ideas but, at the same time, I expect CIS is going to want some sort of poll to try to determine if other worlds formerly considered habitats are indeed sentient beings.’

 She gave a gusty sigh. ‘It all seemed so easy back there,’ and she flicked her fingers in the general spatial direction of Petaybee. ‘Lots of things seemed easy back there.’

 ‘Mostly because there weren’t so many things to cloud perceptions,’ Yana said.

 ‘Well, that’s item one, Yana,’ Marmion went on briskly. ‘We have no way of knowing if there are more sentient planets so we’ll pretend Petaybee’s an exception. As such, it will make our job that much easier. I think.’

 ‘What’s item two?’

 ‘Matthew Luzon is recovering from his injuries and…’

 ‘Determined to somehow make us all pay for the indignities he suffered?’ Yana supplied when Marmion hesitated.

 ‘Yes, not to refine too much on it. That’s why I’ve put some precautions in train. Sally…’ and she gestured to her aide who immediately handed Yana a slim device which had a variety of depressible keys. ‘This is precaution number one. Carry it with you at all times and as inconspicuously as possible. It’ll fit nicely in your brassiere. Put it on the left, depression side up and memorize the positions of the various function keys so you can just…” and she placed a casual hand over her left breast ‘… signal what’s needed.’ She grinned. ‘As you’ll see, it’s got a sensitive recorder and a few off-stage tricks that can be implemented. Rather handy.’

 ‘Have you needed such a device?’ Yana examined it, noting the icons as well as the abbreviations like REC and MAY which were self-explanatory.

 ‘Not “needed” precisely,’ Marmion allowed, ‘but I always felt more… secure… when I was in unknown space as it were, with that gadget in place. Then I’ve also appointed you “assistants”,’ and now she did look slightly embarrassed.

 ‘Assistants?’ Yana cocked her head at Marmion.

 ‘Yes, well, everyone who is anyone has them…’

 ‘And I must appear to be “everyone” or “anyone”… And who’s my assistant?’

 ‘You have three, Sally and Millard Ephasios for show, and someone you don’t need to have named as undercover guardian,’ Marmion explained, finishing with her charmingly ingenuous smile immediately counteracted by a sly wink. ‘And you won’t know who that is.’

 ‘Hmm. All these subversive measures’

 ‘Discreet, my dear Yana,’ Marmion corrected her.

 ‘Are necessary, you feel?’

 ‘I don’t like the weather report,’ Marmion said.

 ‘Have you minders for Diego and Bunny?’

 ‘I do and I know they’ll suit right down to the ground.’

 ‘Are you giving Bunny one of these?’ Yana held up the slim device, which was no more than two fingers long and two knuckles wide. ‘She loves gadgetry.’

 ‘No, their bracelets should be adequate. As I’m sure you noticed, Bunny’s unsettled enough about the venturing forth. I don’t want to upset her further. She’s naturally shrewd anyway and what she doesn’t know about human nature, Diego knows about space-faring ways.’

 ‘This trip will do her understanding of the galaxy a world of good,’ Yana remarked and, when Marmion gave her a startled look and started to laugh at her choice of words, she joined in. ‘Where’s the galley on this boat? You’d think the way I eat, I hadn’t seen food since break-up!’

 ‘You go with Sally to see your wardrobe and I’ll just fix a little something to tide you over to dinner time,’ Marmion said.

 ‘You? Cook?’ Yana said.

 Marmion smiled a trifle archly. ‘Actually I’m rather good, aren’t I, Sally?’ And when her aide nodded affirmatively, ‘But I only do it for very special people.’

 ‘So you get to bear-lead me, huh, Sally?’ Yana said as she followed Sally to her cabin.

 They passed the ones assigned to Diego and Bunny and heard the spirited discussions within.

 ‘And people wear things like this? I’d freeze…’

 ‘You’re not going to be on Petaybee and it’s a great colour for you, gatita…’

 ‘Well, I dunno about the way it clings…’

 ‘Trust me,’ Diego said, ‘it’s terrific.’

 Yana grinned to Sally as they passed.

 The selection made for Yana quite took her breath away. She’d never had many occasions to dress up and the extent of the apparel displayed for her approval ranged from severely tailored to rich formal attire.

 ‘Whenever would I wear something like this?’ she asked Sally, holding out a gore of the garnet synthi-silk full skirt, even as she was mentally trying it on. Then she noticed the decorations - copying Petaybean designs - on the neck and sleeve bands.

 ‘There will be one or two formal occasions when you’ll need to be extra elegant,’ said Sally, taking another fold and holding it up to Yana’s face. ‘Yes, I thought this would be a good colour for you.’

 ‘I’ve never had anything so… so soft and…’ She couldn’t resist stroking the fine fabric against her cheek.

 ‘Feminine?’ asked Sally. ‘About time, then.’ Then she went to the more tailored semi-uniform garments. ‘You’ll have more use of these and’

 ‘Oh,’ and Yana’s wondering fingers caught at the Petaybean designs discreetly worked into the pocket flaps.

 ‘Marmion was so taken with the Petaybean designs when we first arrived on the planet that we asked Aisling to do us some treatments. Subtle but noticeable and definitely smart. That woman has an excellent clothes sense. Too bad it’s been limited to rabbit skins and handwovens, not that’ - and Sally hastily corrected the impression that she might be disparaging -‘those haven’t been handsome fabrics - just more… ah… practical than you’d need on Station.’

 ‘Which are we going to, by the way? Marmion didn’t say.’

 ‘Oh,’ and Sally tossed out this bombshell as nonchalantly as she could, ‘Gal-Three, of course.’

 Yana gulped and her mind raced from one consideration to another: it was the largest of the Space

 Cities, certainly in this sector of inhabited space, the headquarters of half a dozen of the more massive and prominent diversified enterprises as well as CIS, Gallegal, Gal-naval and other galactic agencies. It was immense and was constantly updating its facilities with state-of-the-art technologies. Bunny would be totally overwhelmed and Yana understood why Marmion was going to such lengths to dress them - clothes can give you confidence just as uniforms can bestow anonymity at times - and why they would need hidden alert devices and ‘assistants’. Yana hoped that Diego knew something about Gal-3 - at least its reputation.

 ‘Baptism into civilization by total immersion?’ she quipped at Sally to cover her uneasy chagrin.

 ‘She’ll be well protected, Yana.’ Sally was deadly serious.

 ‘Then who’ve you got riding herd on her?’

 ‘Riding herd? Oh, yes. Good term.’ Sally grinned. ‘Marmion has roped -‘ Sally grinned to ease Yana’s tension, ‘- a pair of her young relatives… not too young, though, and very knowledgeable… to help out. And a very competent person as the discreet guard. She’ll have fun, too. This is going to be quite a learning experience.’

 ‘Not just for her,’ Yana said with a sigh.

 ‘Well, do you approve?’ Marmion asked, coming in to the cabin with a loaded tray.

 ‘I’ll never be as well dressed again,’ Yana said, on the end of a sigh. ‘Oh, that smells divine…’

 ‘Good natural foods always do. This is earth chook.’

 ‘Chicken?’

 ‘Prepared from a much coveted family recipe known to The famille de Revers as the Colonel’s Southern Fried Chicken,’ said Marmion, snatching off the cover of the main dish with a dramatic gesture. ‘The colonel was my many-greats ancestor who fought in some sort of early war on Earth.’

 ‘Ohhh,’ and Yana, sniffing deeply, made no more concessions to courtesy but sank down on the chair by the table and served herself from the large platter.

 ‘What smells so good?’ Bunny asked, Diego right behind her, sniffing with his not so small proboscis.

 ‘Yummy!’

 ‘There’s enough for all and more that can be hotted up if anyone has an appetite,’ Marmion said with understandable pride as the young people pulled chairs up to the table.

 Marmion and Sally exchanged glances at the success of their agenda.

  

 3

 SpaceBase

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Sean forced himself back to work after seeing Yana off. He had hoped that they would have had a little time to spend together. He’d arranged his investigations in the south so that they could. Damn CIS. But he had to trust Marmion de Revers Algemeine. She was awake on every count and more than able to handle whatever the ungood Captain Torkel Fiske and ex-chairperson Dr Matthew Luzon could be up to. Sean did not doubt for a moment that they had plans underway to discredit Marmion, Yana, Bunny and Diego, perhaps even to discredit Anaciliact - though he would be the hardest person to compromise of the lot of them that had gone so bravely forth today. Sean just didn’t see either Torkel Fiske or Matthew Luzon forgetting the indignities both had suffered on Petaybee, well deserved though they had been.

 Luzon may have broken legs but with new healing techniques those injuries wouldn’t put him out of action much longer. And nothing had broken his brains any more than they already were or altered the sense of outrage the man had sustained when all his calculations had backfired. Of course, he had lost credibility with Farringer Ball, the secretary general of Intergal, but that would only make him more anxious to retaliate.

 The Company too, was retaliating, apparently intent on drowning the newly appointed interim joint governors of affairs Petaybean, himself and Yana, under a mountain of paperwork.

 At SpaceBase, most of the several tons of paper that was stacked ceiling high in Yana’s little cabin would have been electronically transmitted. So far Kilcoole had no electrical power, nor did it want to acquire any in the near future. The generator which ran Adak’s radio was inadequate for the volume of communication the Company suddenly found necessary to transmit. The battery-powered comunits weren’t up to the job either. So couriers were sent several times a day via two of the hovershuttles that had been sent down to aid in the repair of SpaceBase.

 Three weeks after the planet had destroyed the landing fields and many of the surrounding buildings by extruding massed rock up through the centre of the facility, SpaceBase had been all but evacuated. Meanwhile, troops were busily relocating buildings around the old cleared perimeter and salvaging what they could until small shuttles could ferry enough material to build a new landing pad. Before the first shipment could arrive, however, the planet gave the Company another demonstration of its power.

 Sean and Yana were riding the curlies towards SpaceBase and were just in sight of the standing stones the planet had made of the landing field. Suddenly both curlies shied and whinnied. About the same time, the trees began to shimmy, the river alongside the trail churned as if stirred by millions of giant fish, and the ground shuddered. Both curlies abruptly sat down, Sean and Yana still astride them.

 ‘Earthquake!’ Yana yelled but Sean had found himself grinning back at her and pointing.

 For the standing stones were tumbling. The planet, with a mighty swallow followed by several small sips, was retrieving the stones and earth with which it had made such an impression on Intergal’s principal Petaybean outpost.

 Yana grinned back at him through the cloud of gritty dust and the grinding roar and slam of the planet’s machinations.

 ‘Well, isn’t that something?’ she said when the tremors subsided. The curlies rose to their feet. The soldiers working around the edge of the base crept back to survey the damage done when the structures the planet had hoisted aloft suddenly settled back to ground level again, though not exactly in their former places or conformation. ‘And what, do you suppose, was that all about?’

 ‘Scientifically, I suppose this subsidence probably has something to do with the volcanic and seismic activity happening near the equator - since it’s busy building up layers in the sea there. Maybe it needed this bit elsewhere. What it looks like, however, is in light of the Company’s agreement to be sensible, Petaybee is showing that it’s willing to let bygones be bygones.’

 Now he was wishing his planet was not so forgiving.

 Though repairs and replacements had only brought SpaceBase back to about a fourth of its former capacity, it seemed to have plenty of power to generate the damned paperwork which only Sean and Yana were available or able to handle. Frank Metaxos and Steve Margolies, though literate and willing to be helpful, were still Company employees and as such kept far too busy with their own work to assist in administrative chores.

 ,’ really must get a literacy programme going as soon as possible, he reflected ruefully.

 Until now he hadn’t really been aware of the volume of work, since he had been out canvassing the planet, trying to find out which needs the people wanted met, how they perceived the planet’s wishes in their areas, what sort of interaction they desired with the Company. He also assisted Clodagh in finding new areas where the plants for her cures grew and generally tried to obtain a feeling for what was needed beyond Kilcoole. Fortunately, Lonciana Ondelacy, a former Company Corpswoman, was also literate and she was able to do much of the work in the South. Unfortunately, all of the paperwork still had to be processed at SpaceBase before that destined for the South could be sent to Loncie. Portage, the southern continent’s landing base, wasn’t equipped for a large volume of traffic or anything much larger than a shuttle. Whittaker Fiske had been helping transfer relevant documents to Loncie by loaning Petaybee’s new administration the services and copter of his personal pilot, Johnny Greene.

 Now Sean picked up a piece of paper, this one from the Ambassador of someplace called Petra 6. ‘To whom it may concern,’ it began.

 We have recently been apprised of information leading us to believe that relatives of some of our settlers reside on Planet Terraform B. Our people would like to know how to comply with the visa process on your world in order to be reunited with their estranged family members.

 Yrs Truly,

 Alphonsina Torunsdotter, Ambassador.

 Before he could think of a reply, the door to the cabin banged open and a pair of battered men, bound tightly with sinew rope and each wearing a dead animal around his neck, fell into the room. They were closely followed by the fuming form of Sean’s sister, Sinead, who slammed the door shut.

 ‘You won’t believe what I caught these two, these two murderers doing, Sean!’ Sinead said.

 ‘I believe exhibits A and B might already be tied around their necks, Sis,’ Sean said mildly.

 ‘Yes, but they didn’t claim this fox or this wolf from any of the culling places. They went into the woods and using their so-called civilized weapons -‘ she slapped two laser rifles atop a tottering pile of papers, causing an avalanche which all but buried the prisoners ‘- simply slaughtered these perfectly healthy creatures without so much as a by-your-leave or a thank-you!’

 ‘MMMhmmm,’ Sean said, eyeing the prisoners. ‘And what do you have to say for yourselves?’

 ‘Well,’ the bearded one began, ‘we did ask weeks ago how to apply for a hunting licence on Petaybee, after some Corps buddies of ours told us about all the game here, but we never got an answer so we figured, backwater planet, wide open, anything goes.’

 Sinead grabbed him by the hair and pulled his face back so that he could only see her cross-eyed glare. ‘You figured wrong, wormbreath.’

 ‘You should’, Sean told the men, ‘have been patient. How did you get here anyway? SpaceBase is only transporting official personnel these days.’

 ‘We - uh - we caught the shuttle.’

 ‘What shuttle?’

 ‘The PTS shuttle our soldier buddies told us about.’

 ‘Excuse me,’ Sinead said.

 ‘Stands for Petaybean Tourist Service,’ the man whose hair she had hold of said quickly. ‘Looks like it’s brand new - arrived on MoonBase a few hours before we did.’

 The other man said, ‘I demand that you and this -this amazon of yours’

 ‘The lady’, Sean said, ‘is my sister.’

 ‘That you and your sister untie us and inform us of what laws we have broken and notify our Ambassador at once. I am Dr Vincent de Peugh, vice-president in charge of resource utilization for Intergal’s Terra Section Delta and this is my colleague, Dr Raymond Ersol, vice-president in charge of air quality control. We do not intend to spend our vacations being victimized by your government on some trumped-up charges.’

 Sean rose from behind the paperwork, lifted several sheets from the head and shoulders of Dr Ersol and neatly replaced them on the desk, which he then leaned against, ankles and arms crossed.

 ‘Well, gentlemen, I can see that you’ve been misled. You’ve broken no written law, as such, since we have yet to write any. Quite simply, the people who live here know that one hunts only to live on Petaybee and one takes only the game which offers itself. What I would like to see from you is your authorization to be here at all. As far as I know, at this time, only official personnel and designated settlers approved and transported by Intergal are allowed to be here - not off-world employees looking for what you consider recreation. What we, as Sinead has so tactfully explained, consider wanton murder of an allied species. You see, and as a resource manager, Dr Peugh, I’m sure you’ll understand this, we of Petaybee, people, animals, plants and planet, have a system 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,’ and he gestured 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 again.

 Sean sighed. It didn’t look like 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.

 Shipside

 Yana, Bunny, Diego and Marmion were all together in the forward viewing lounge as the great sprawling array of interlocking circles that was Gal-3 grew from a glittering spot of light to its real majestic splendour. 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 level was for executives and company chairpersons, the next level was general for the Gal-3 resident population, housing recreation and mercantile areas, the middle one was probably all accommodation, transients and residents, while the fourth was devoted to repair, environmental controls, and so on, and the fifth storage, while the blobs on top and bottom were restricted to Federation personnel, defence 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 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 but they are such charming youngsters that I know you won’t object to their company.’

 Yana could see Diego wincing and Bunny’s blink of astonishment.

 ‘They really do know their way around,’ Marmion went on firmly to squelch incipient rebellion. ‘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 for such serendipity 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 athletic for a girl in her social position.’ Marmion sighed and, having delivered her message, turned to watch the docking. Now, smoothly aiming at the second horizontal group of circles, the far from insignificantly sized spacelaunch became a mote as it was received into the small docking area which catered to the vessels of people of rank similar to hers. Yana began to agree with Sally, that proper clothes would lend confidence: not much else would.

 A melodious chime rang through the launch and so did the verbal announcement that all docking procedures had been completed and the passengers might now disembark.

 A cluster of people stood politely awaiting their arrival. ‘Bots, attached to grav floats, scurried on board to collect luggage - Bunny followed their progress with round eyes. Yana noticed her hands twitching at her sides as if she wanted to take one apart and see what its innards were like.

 Bailey and Charmion were easy to pick out of the group: they were the youngest: the boy with long black hair in a clever clip and the girl with a head of very blond curls that framed a face appropriately enough as ‘charming’ as her name. They were also a very good-looking pair, fashionably clad in some of the very colours that Bunny had protested about. They also looked intelligent and welcoming, with no trace of the stylish boredom so many young aristocrats affected. Charmion was obviously fond of her aunt and called out a stream of greetings as Marmion disembarked her launch.

 Beyond Charmion and tall Bailey, Yana saw the imposing figure of Millard Ephasios, one of the aides Marmion had had with her on Petaybee, and decided that the tall, attractive, grey-haired gentleman with the patient expression on his face was one of Marmion’s suitors and the older woman her social secretary. The woman was impeccably dressed and had an organizational air about her, like a rear echelon officer. Rentnor Bavistock was her secretary and Cynthia Grace was Marmion’s financial adviser. Marmion murmured that Cynthia would be a good person to talk to on how to set up small businesses on Petaybee so that people like Clodagh, who’d be gathering and processing Petay-bee’s pharmaceutical wealth, could set themselves up properly. Yana sighed, not really wanting to impose ‘modern’ anything on her friends. She also discovered that things weren’t really what they appeared to be on Gal-3.

 Residence permits, in the form of metal bracelets’to be worn at all times’ said Rentnor firmly, were immediately clamped around each wrist.

 ‘Don’t even take them off when you shower,’

 Marmion added, taking hers from Rentnor and noting that Sally was already wearing one. ‘Loss can cause the most remarkable problems in getting about the facility.’

 ‘You wouldn’t believe!’ Bailey said, rolling his eyes and grinning at Bunny and Diego.

 The last member of the welcoming committee wore an official-looking outfit, tailored to his spare figure, with collar tabs Yana didn’t recognize but which were sufficiently intricate to denote high rank. He was swarthy, with a close-shaven pate of black hair, an oddly asymmetrical countenance which made his large nose seem to divide the disparate sides. His black eyes were patient and he had a slight lift to one corner of a wide mouth. Like a well-trained or very polite official, he waited until the initial exchange of introductions, news and urgent messages had been accomplished before he stepped forward to take and kiss the hand Marmion held out to him.

 ‘Oh, Commander, how good of you to take the time,’ Marmion said and then introduced Commander Nal an Hon. ‘I’ve told my friends to be very careful of their ID bracelets.’

 ‘Indeed, a caution worth repeating frequently,’ he said. Then, turning to the newcomers, ‘While the bracelets will admit you to every level but Nadir and Zenith, you would be wise not to explore or you may find yourself missing a hand.’

 Bunny gasped and protectively clasped her braceleted hand to her chest.

 ‘Now, Nal, I won’t have you frightening my young friends simply because they’re dirtfoots,’ Marmion said with a little reassuring laugh.

 ‘It’s because they’re dirtfoots that I do,’ he said with no apology and caught Yana’s gaze, nodding to mean that his warning was for her as well. Yana raised an eyebrow at him. And to think, six months ago she might have said something similarly preposterous to someone like herself. ‘Having said that, I would be happy to escort your friends into Zenith Ring for The Tour.’

 ‘How kind of you, Nal. When we’ve had time to settle in, I’ll take you up on that offer,’ and Marmion twinkled flirtatiously at the Commander.

 ‘Then I shall await your call, madame,’ he said and with a courteous bow withdrew.

 ‘And you will tell me what that was all about, won’t you, Rentnor, Cynthia?’ Marmion said in an undertone and with no single sparkle of amusement.

 ‘Hmmm. But it will take an hour or so, Marmie,’ Cynthia said. ‘Meanwhile, let’s get to your suite.’ She gave a little convulsive shudder. ‘It’s so open out here.’

 Bailey and his cousin Charmion immediately moved to bracket Diego and Bunny. ‘We’ll lead on, Aunt Marmie,’ Bailey said.

 And Yana had Sally on one side and Millard on the other while Rentnor and Cynthia partnered Marmion as they made their way out of the docking bay. When the lock doors closed with a satisfactory clank, Cynthia uttered a little sigh of relief.

 ‘Agoraphobic?’ Yana asked Sally.

 ‘Definitely. Her launch only has a viewscreen in the pilot’s compartment,’ Sally said. ‘It can take you like that, you know.’

 ‘I thank the stars that I don’t,’ Yana replied. ‘You’ve been well, Millard?’

 ‘Tolerably, thank you, Colonel Maddock-Shongili.’

 ‘I’ve been Yana to you before, Millard,’ Yana said repressively.

 ‘I’m practising, Yana,’ Millard said with a mischievous grin that seemed out of place on his serious face.

 ‘For what?’

 ‘For making it very plain to even casual observers,’ and Millard paused significantly,’ that you are not just a transient or insignificant dirtfooter!’

 ‘Oh?’ Yana asked, amused that he too had noticed. ‘And what do you suppose gives anyone that impression? The Colonel or the hyphenated surname?’

 ‘Either,’ replied Millard imperturbably, idly glancing at those passing them in the corridor. Taking a long step, he got on the walkway - the- four young people were well ahead of them now on that transportation -and turned to hold out a hand for Yana.

 She had a half-formed notion to remind him that she was scarcely infirm when a nudge from Sally behind her made her accept the proffer of courteous assistance. Feeling slightly regal, Yana accepted with a smile and a nod to Millard.

 ‘You’re doing just great, Yana,’ Sally murmured in her ear.

 ‘Will you be colonelling me, too?’ Yana whispered back.

 ‘No, but I’m another woman and patently your companion, while Millard has been booted into the role of escort.’

 ‘Oh!’

 When they reached the main concourse, Yana was sorry that Bunny was in front of her. She would have liked to see the girl’s expression when she beheld the mechanical and commercial splendours of the Second Level. Not only was there a ceiling monorail in operation but four levels of shops on this part of the concourse and belt steps at regular intervals to get you easily from one level to another. Some of the shops were blasting passersby with their sounds, smells, and sensual outputs… assaults to which the residents were now immune but which would stun Bunny as they did Yana, who had only heard about such concourses. The lower-level facilities she had infrequently patronized as an officer were considerably more primitive than these.

 ‘You will notice, Colonel,’ Millard was saying,’ that there are location diagrams at convenient intervals by the belt-lifts.’ And he indicated the one they were passing. ‘Your quarters are located at Interface Three, that’s two circles right of our present position, Three-L-110. Please memorize that and record.’

 Yana’s hand was halfway to her belt for the recording device which had so often been part of her basic equipment when she remembered Marmion’s gift. She had drilled herself on the position of the keys and now, with a brush of her hand, opened the recorder and spoke Three-L-110, Interface Three.

 ‘Handy gadget,’ she murmured, turning her head over her shoulder to Sally.

 ‘They are.’

 They continued to the turn, the panels sliding open at the wave of a wrist to admit them and closing behind them, shutting out the frenetic noise of the concourse.

 ‘The walkway is on the portside,’ Millard said, ‘or you can walk for the exercise.’

 ‘I need the walk. Oh, is it safe?’ Yana replied.

 ‘Safe enough, Colonel.’

 ‘That’s going to unnerve me,’ Yana said between her teeth.

 ‘It’s supposed to have the opposite effect,’ Millard murmured back, and she saw the glint of mischief in his eyes.

 The living accommodations were on two levels, with belt-lifts again to take the upper-level residents to their doors. Obviously the second level was more secure. There was also an air of refined elegance in the floor covering, the discreet non-stimulating murals and decor. Brass territory, Yana thought to herself. And also thought she could stand a bit of this right now, especially with Petaybee’s winter on its way when she returned to the planet.

 Marmion’s quarters were on the upper level and seemed to take over one whole quadrant of the circle. Each wristband had to be presented before the panel would admit another body. Yana had lost track of the luggage ‘bots, but when she arrived in her room everything was there, so she suspected a service access and wondered if the ‘bots got their IDs checked, too.

 In a state of shocked bemusement, Bunny was peering around the sumptuous main lounge of Marmion’s quadrant. And it was a quadrant, Sally told her with a grin.

 ‘Marmion rents four of the five levels to Gal-Three,’ she added.

 ‘And the fifth?’

 ‘That’s environment and another company owns it and the equipment. Marmion does have a share in the company but only a small one.’

 ‘Oh!’

 ‘This way, Bunny, Diego,’ she added, taking the newcomers on a small tour while Marmion went off with her business colleagues, and Bailey and Charmion deliberated exactly how to entertain Bunny and Diego when they returned to the lounge.

 ‘We’re all on the guest side,’ Sally explained. ‘Marmion’s got a complete office here so she can keep up with her investments.’

  

 4

 Outside Kilcoole

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Youngling, you are troubled, the rumble of the clouded snow leopard’s concern brushed soothingly against the painful thoughts and feelings attacking Cita’s spirit.

 ‘Coaxtl,’ the girl reached up and put her arm around the neck of the great cat, burying her face in fur. ‘Oh, Coaxtl, I am nothing but trouble. I have been weak and foolish and now my new family, my sister and her mate and my beautiful new aunt, have left me behind and my kind uncle is so displeased with me he seldom speaks to me any more. I am indeed unworthy to be included in the activities here, too stupid to help, too needy, too…’

 Too long dwelling in the false caves of men, Coaxtl said with a cough of disdain. Too long away from the clean cold snow. Come, let us go to the mountains together and chase each other’s tracks and find a rabbit who wants to die. It will be like the old days, before the men brought you here.

 Goat-dung wailed and hugged the cat harder. ‘Oh, poor, poor Coaxtl, I know you have stayed here away from your home just because I am too stupid to look after myself and you are a very kind cat…’

 Hush that! And stop thinking of yourself as Goat-dung, Youngling. The others have given you good names - the name of your dam, Aoifa, and the name of your sire and your litter-mate, which is Rrrrrourrrrke! Coaxtl took great pleasure in roaring the name. Or they call you Cita, which is a better name than La Pobrecita, the poor little one, or Goat-dung. This one would drop all of those kitten names and simply call oneself Rrrrrourrrrke!

 ‘I wish I were your kitten, Coaxtl.’

 Well, you aren’t, but we can pretend. Come. Though you’ve gained some weight since you’ve been here, still you are not too large for one to carry on one’s back pan-way. One smell’s snow and one wants to rrrroll!

 Goat-dung, no, Cita, no, The Rrourrke Youngling, climbed on to the back of her friend, and together they bounded away from the river and the town, from all the bustling people, away from the memories of the terrors of the SpaceBase, and out into the forest with its showers of rust-coloured needles and bright golden leaves. Rabbits, squirrels and birds scattered before them as Coaxtl raced through the red underbrush, her paws crackling on the carpet of old leaves which sent up a delicious, spicy smell with the cat’s every step.

 Before they reached the edge of the forest, Coaxtl suddenly laid down and rolled over. Youngling Rrourrke tumbled into the leaves and laughed as Coaxtl mock-pounced her, all four paws landing clear of the girl while the furry face gazed into hers.

 ‘Your breath smells like dead meat!’ the girl cried.

 Yours smells like you’ve lived among men too long! Coaxtl answered. What are you lying there for, lazy Youngling? It’s your turn to carry me!

 ‘And how should I do that, crazy cat?’ she asked, scrambling out from under the creature’s underbelly, where twigs and leaves dangled from the silky fur. The girl opened her mouth wide and pretended to go for the back of the cat’s neck. ‘Shall I carry you in my mouth, like a mama cat?’

 Don’t be impertinent! Coaxtl said, and bounded off into the brush. Bet you can’t track me!

 Goat-dung ,’ Pobrecita ,’ Cita ,’ Aoifa ,’ Youngling Rrrrrourrke roared her name and plunged through the brush after her friend. Every time she paused, bewildered when the cat seemed to be nowhere around, she heard a laughing thought just ahead of her and saw the quiver of a bush or the flash of silver fur which was not awfully good camouflage in the brightly coloured forest, and she was on the trail once more.

 And then, without warning, she ran out of the forest onto the edge of the muskeg-humped plain, and there was no Coaxtl, not anywhere.

 Hsst, the cat’s voice cautioned. Hide. A man-thing comes.

 ‘What? Where? Coaxtl, I can’t find you. Where are you?’ she asked, and rustled the brush trying to find sight of the cat. But while her back was turned, she suddenly smelt what must have alerted the cat long before, and saw a small flat vessel, not like the copters she had once known as Company Angels but what Bunny had referred to as a’shuttle’. It had letters on the side. Bunny had been showing her stupid sister letters before she left. She thought the names of those letters were P, like Petaybee or Pobrecita, which began with such a letter, and I - no, the table on top - that was it! Bunny had said that a ‘I had a table on top -PT… S like snake or serpent - PTS. That was what it said on it.

 She was so proud of herself for puzzling this out that she didn’t think to hide. She had become somewhat easier among people since her move to Kilcoole, and more accustomed to what Coaxtl called man-things. The Shepherd Howling had not cared much for such things unless they were bringing supplies, so machinery played little part in the terror of her life among the Flock before she met Coaxtl.

 So mostly she was curious and watched the shuttle land, despite many hissings from Coaxtl. She had no idea that such an important-looking craft or the people from it would take any notice of someone like her.

 One by one they climbed out and sank promptly into the squooshy hillocks of muskeg. Their lower clothing and legs and feet would be very wet, she knew. Some of them carried long metal sticks and some of them had long white skirts, others wore short skirts and high fur boots and leaned on the arms of companions. Still others wore shiny pants. All of them were much too warmly dressed in layers and layers of fur and down, mittens, boots, coats, mufflers, and hats.

 ‘Aha!’ one of the ones in a skirt cried. ‘There’s one!’

 ‘One what?’ asked a woman’s bored voice.

 ‘An aboriginal Petaybean.’

 ‘There’s no such thing,’ another protested.

 ‘Ah, you sir, as a businessman, obviously do not understand the spiritual nature of the relationship between the Petaybean native and his or her Great Benefactor. It has been explained to me and my brethren, however, by an expert on the subject.’ And without waiting for further argument, the man in the white skirt slogged forward, squooshing up to his knees with every step. ‘You there?’

 ‘Brethren.’ He had said ‘Brethren’. Shepherd Howling talked that way, and Dr Luzon. They were not very nice but she had learnt to mind them. Half of her wanted to shrink back into the brush but she stood as if rooted while the man approached and waited for him to demand that she do something she didn’t want to.

 ‘Oh, little girl, yoo hoo!’ another white skirt, this one a woman, called.

 ‘Yes, you!’ the man said. ‘You are an indigenous native of this glorious being upon which we stand?’

 ‘Well,’ the girl began.

 Youngling… Coaxtl’s voice whispered.

 ‘Well, yes, I guess so.’

 ‘Ah!’ the man’s nervous smile broadened into a wide grin and he beckoned to those waiting behind the shuttle. ‘She is! Come along, it’s all right then.’

 The others surged forward as awkwardly as the first, carrying their bags and their metal sticks and baskets.

 The woman in the white skirt was the first to arrive. ‘Brother Shale, you’ve been too hasty as usual and frightened her.’ The woman pulled back her hood to reveal a shaven head, and took off her mitten to stick out a hand. ‘Hello, honey. I’m Sister Igneous Rock. Take us to your leader.’

 Ponopei II

 Torkel Fiske had disguised himself before leaving his shuttle. He didn’t care to be recognized by any of his father’s cronies. A dark colourwash and a quick weave altered his hairstyle to shaggily long with a parting instead of his usual cropped red cut. A false dark moustache which looked utterly convincing, a pair of dark glasses well suited to the climate of the resort moon Ponopei II, a white synlin suit and a Caribbe seascape-designed shirt that were unlike anything he ever wore anywhere else, woven sandals, no socks and the sort of jewellery he normally wouldn’t be caught dead in at his wrists, fingers, neck and one ear completed his ensemble. He chemically altered his skin colour with the substance designed to keep shipsiders from feeling out of place where sun and sea worship were the norm. Running an allview holo to check his appearance, he didn’t recognize himself. He looked like a pirate on vacation himself.

 Good. Onidi Louchard wouldn’t take him for a rich, regimented fool then, a Company flunky who had risen to power on his father’s reputation. More and more he was starting to feel that people around him did view him in that light and he hated it.

 Fortunately, he had had cause to disguise himself before on Company business. A little fiddling with the computers altered the identity codes to provide him with yet another persona. His shuttle was an Intergal rental registered to M’sser J. LaFitte, a gem dealer from Burroughs Canal, Mars.

 He had come to Ponopei II often enough that he knew his way around and was known, so he was gratified when none of the docking officials recognized him, nor the florist where he bought his leis, one for himself and one to seal the deal with Louchard. The maitre d’ at his favourite restaurant failed to recognize him as well, but said, on consulting the reservation, ‘Ah, M’sser LaFitte, your companion has not yet arrived, but your chamber is ready. This way, sir.’

 Torkel spent the next fifteen minutes sizing up the people who entered after him, wondering which one could be Louchard. After watching three men in shorts and sandals, another in a yellow business suit similar to his own, five giggling young girls and one slightly older, petite, demure looker, dressed to kill - a society trophy wife, he guessed - he thought he had been stood up-Then the trophy wife in the soft lavender and blue sarong dress turned her snappy high-heeled sandals his way. Her legs were very nice, he noted. Pity women seldom showed them in public any more - except here, of course, where they showed everything. In taking in her appearance, he saw that she was somewhat older than he had assumed at first, her dark blond hair tufted at the ears and crown with silver. Then he realized she was wearing a blue frangi-pangi behind one ear. Louchard’s communique had melodramatically mentioned a blue flower and that he was to bring leis.

 The woman with the blue flower smiled and extended a tiny, beringed hand. All the rings had gems that matched her dress except for a prodigious stack of gold ones on the ring finger of her right hand. He admitted her to the chamber, and shut out the sights and sounds of the soft pink sands of the beach, the lime-green waters, and the multicoloured gardens by closing the hatch of the privacy bubble behind her and drawing the beaded curtains.

 ‘It’s Captain LaFitte, surely, isn’t it?’ the woman enquired, sliding neatly across from him.

 ‘It’s Captain Fiske, as your organization was told,’ he said. ‘And I was told I would negotiate with Louchard.’

 ‘Louchard couldn’t make it,’ the woman said with a charming show of teeth in a pink lipsticked mouth. ‘I represent the organization. We understood you had business to discuss and I am the business manager, Dinah O’Neill.’

 ‘I see,’ he said, and he did. She was no more a business manager than he was Jean LaFitte. The appearance of Onidi Louchard was a carefully guarded secret, but he had heard that the pirate was female. And this lady’s eyes were as cold and calculating a’s he always fancied himself to be. They understood each other quite well already. ‘The deal is simply this. I recently met some gentlemen in business with Louchard on the planet known to the locals as Petay-bee. It’s a treacherous world that refuses to give up its secrets to outsiders, but seems to have a fondness for certain people who live there. Three of those people are now on Gal-Three. The one I’m concerned with is a former Company Corps officer, Yanaba Maddock. She and her paramour, a suspicious local named Shongili, have manoeuvred themselves into being named coadministrators of the governmental affairs of Terraform B. They’re the ones who threw a monkey wrench in your operation on the planet and they’re now the ones in charge of future resource use. Maddock is pregnant. Her husband is, for a variety of complicated reasons, unable to leave the planet. The teenagers accompanying her are a boy of no particular consequence and a girl who is the husband’s niece. But the important one is Maddock.’

 ‘I can see where holding her would give you a certain… leverage. But I fail to see where there’s any profit in that for us,’ said Dinah O’Neill.

 ‘I really should have spoken to your leader then,’ Torkel said. ‘He would have understood at once. Petaybean mineral wealth is still waiting to be mined. Captain Louchard has seen this…’

 She shrugged. ‘That is true. But it’s also true, Captain, that there are many other worlds to mine. Petaybean ore and gems are top quality but are proving… costly to extract. In addition to losing four men and the supplies invested in their operation you now want us to kidnap some settlers? That planet doesn’t yield its largesse to them either and they’re all poor as dirt. Sounds to me like you’ve got a personal problem with these people, Captain. We’re not terrorists, we’re business people.’

 ‘So is the woman who is hosting Yana Maddock and the children. I’m sure as a “business person” you’ll be familiar with the name Marmion de Revers Algemeine?’

 ‘Naturally, though regrettably she has never shown an inclination to avail herself of our services. If the parties you’re interested in detaining are in her care, however, I must tell you that such an operation would be so difficult it would be no more cost-effective than your other proposal.’

 ‘Even if detaining Algemeine as well as Maddock is possible? I would think that the lady would command an extremely high ransom.’

 The woman shook her head and looked at him pityingly. ‘So would the board of directors of Intergal, but we do know our limits, Captain.’

 He leaned over and boldly took her hand. ‘So do I - on my own. You don’t think I’d suggest this unless I knew I could expedite access to the targets, do you? Just say yes and we can make this happen.’

 She smiled and covered his hand with her other one. The rings bit into the back of his knuckles. ‘I never could resist a smooth-talking man who wears more jewellery than I do. Expedite away, Captain, and have your people get in touch with our people. You know how.’

  

 5

 Outside Kilcoole

 Contents - Prev/Next

 After asking to be taken to Cita’s leader, whoever that was, the white-robed Sister Igneous Rock continued to look at Cita expectantly while the others chimed in.

 ‘A very good idea, oddly enough, considering the source,’ one of the women in very short skirts said. ‘Do take us to your leader. I’d like to speak to whoever is in charge. I represent BIEX, the galaxy’s leading pharmaceutical concern and…’

 ‘Come off it, Portia,’ said one of the men in shiny pants. ‘She’s just a kid. Doesn’t even look like she speaks English.’

 ‘Petaybeans don’t need to speak English,’ Sister Igneous Rock told the man sternly. ‘They communicate instinctively with the Beneficent Source. Please take us there, dear. Can you give us a name, perhaps?’

 ‘This unworthy one has been called Goat-dung,’ Cita began timorously, awed by the presence of such strange, if apparently ignorant, ones.

 ‘Not by me,’ Sister Igneous Rock said indignantly, wrinkling her nose as if Cita smelled like her namesake. ‘Really, dear, while natural names are pleasing to the Beneficence, I would not dream of calling the first actual denizen of Petaybee I meet by such a demeaning name as “Goat-dung”.’

 ‘Mostly I answer to Cita.’

 Sister Igneous Rock nodded and seemed gratified but the rest once more began talking as if Cita was not there.

 ‘Coaxtl, what shall I do?’ she asked softly, hoping the big cat could hear her, for she could no longer see her friend. ‘Who is it they wish to see? It is too far to take them back to Uncle Sean before nightfall and the ones in the short clothes will freeze after dark…’

 ‘I don’t want to see any damned leader,’ one of the men with the metal sticks was saying. ‘They had plenty of time to answer our applications for hunting permits. That fellow I talked to said they had cats here big as horses with pelts that would fetch thousands, and unicorns that if you cut off their horns and drank them in a powder would let you do it as many times a night as you wanted.’

 Do not tell them I am here, Youngling, Coaxtl said.

 ‘There’s no need to bother this child at all,’ an older woman said. ‘Once we find my family, they can help us all sort out our problems. Honey, do you know a family named Monaghan? We got separated when the Company resettled us during the Troubles. I’ve been living on Coventry all these years and I just now heard that some of the folks from my village were settled here.’

 Cita shook her head. The woman looked nice and Cita wanted to help her but this was all very confusing. ‘I haven’t lived in Kilcoole long, but we could ask my Uncle Sean, if he’s not too busy. Or Clodagh. I guess they’re leaders.’

 ‘No, no, child,’ Brother Shale said. ‘We don’t mean human leaders, we want to make the acquaintance of the Beneficence. We want to offer up our service and adoration…’

 ‘In all due humility, of course,’ added a third white-robed figure. Behind him was a fourth that Cita had not previously noticed.

 ‘Brothers Shale and Schist are correct,’ this new person, a woman, added. ‘We have no use for human leaders. I am Sister Agate, and I personally would like to state,’ and as she said this, she turned about this way and that to shout over the heads of all of the people, including Cita,’ that I am delighted to be here and will assist the Beneficent Entity in any way I possibly can.’

 ‘Hush, Agate. We all will. It’s not right to put yourself forward like that,’ Sister Igneous Rock said.

 ‘I don’t know about any Beni - whatsis,’ Cita said, ‘or that family either. But I’m very young and ignorant. They’d know in Kilcoole. Except it’s almost night now and it’ll be dark before we can get there and I’m afraid I’m too stupid to find my way in the dark.’

 ‘That’s where the Government is supposed to be,’ the woman called Portia said. ‘How far is it?’

 ‘Many klicks,’ Cita said after trying to figure out how to explain distances on Petaybee.

 ‘Coaxtl, where can I take them to spend the night?’ she asked while they argued among themselves. But the big cat didn’t answer. She was all alone with these strangers. Finally, she drew them into the woods, where they would not get snowed upon, and with the help of the white-robed ones, who could be most insistent, got them to bundle together beds of leaves and needles and lie close together, the most warmly dressed to the outside.

 ‘Ah, rocked to sleep by the breeze of the Beneficence,’ Sister Agate said through chattering teeth, as she curled near Portia Porter-Prendergrass, who kicked her viciously.

 The men with the metal sticks refused to obey and sat with their backs to trees, shivering despite their winter clothing, holding their sticks menacingly in front of them. When they fell asleep, in spite of themselves, Cita crept over to them and took the sticks from their hands and buried them beneath bushes.

 Brother Schist muttered constantly under his breath and the man in the shiny pants tried to snuggle Sister Igneous Rock.

 Cita huddled alone in the dark, searching for a particular touch in her head, a particular pair of eyes kindling in the darkness. She had actually dropped off to sleep when she felt a familiar warmth against her side.

 Help comes, Coaxtl said simply. That was when Cita noticed that Coaxtl’s warmth was joined by another, smaller purring bundle.

 An orange cat rubbed herself against Coaxtl who rumbled a low growly remark.

 Clodagh is on her way to us with the curly-coats. She will be here soon.

 Cita was so relieved she could almost cry. She was so incompetent and everyone was always helping her out of the problems she seemed to find.

 Do not bow your head, Youngling, Coaxtl rumbled. You have done exceedingly well, as the Clodagh person will tell you, even as her messenger does. You have saved the furred and feathered ones from the men with the metal sticks, and the men with the metal sticks from the wrath of the Home. You have also saved these puny others from wandering unguided in lands which are unfamiliar to them and which they are unfit to travel. Clodagh is pleased with you. Then Coaxtl sighed. Even if we must return to the false caves of men.

 ‘Oh, Coaxtl! And you are so miserable…’

 How can one be miserable when there are warm places to lie, food to eat, snow to roll in, and a youngling to lick into shape? Coaxtl interrupted her. One may prefer the inner chambers but wherever one sets one’s paws they touch the Home. Coaxtl raised her head and lapped at a snowflake, the first of several now drifting from the sky. Ah! See you, Youngling? The Home, knowing that we sought snow and were prevented from reaching it, sends it to us. We are rewarded. You have brought honour to the pride and snow to us both. This is a good thing, yes?

 Cita nodded, still uncertain. ‘I can see that it’s working out well. And it is a good thing to achieve honour even if I did it accidentally. Still, is it not better to achieve honour by being in the right place at the right time?’

 Coaxtl blindsided her with a massive lick to her face. This is no time to ponder on the mysteries of life, Youngling. Now compose yourself for what sleep you may achieve with all this noise. The great clouded cat settled herself and curled about Cita’s body when the girl obeyed. To Coaxtl’s amusement, Cita slept, despite the snores that filled the air.

 Having delivered its message, the orange cat had already disappeared.

 When Cita opened her eyes again, the sky through the trees was ivory with snow and she was covered with a light coating of it. Coaxtl was not to be seen but her side where the cat had lain against her was still warm.

 The people from the shuttle stirred restlessly under a thin blanket of snow.

 One of the would-be huntsmen awoke with a start and reached for the weapon that wasn’t there, and a moment later the head of a curly-coat appeared through the brush.

 ‘Clodagh!’ Cita called with relief. And behind Clodagh were Uncle Seamus and three of the grown

 Rourke cousins, leading what looked like every curly-coat in the village.

 ‘Coaxtl tells us you’ve been hunting, Aoifa Rourke,’ Clodagh said. ‘I hope you caught game enough to feed all of these while you were at it.’

 Watching the newcomers trying to mount the curlies made Cita feel as though she was not the only one who was ignorant and clumsy. The woman Portia had to leave her scantily clad legs open to the snow while her short skirt rode up to her waist as she mounted, a detail not lost on the male Rourke cousins.

 The men who came with metal sticks were angry when they found their sticks gone, especially when Coaxtl and Nanook appeared alongside the curlies to guide them.

 ‘I told you!’ one of the men said to the other. ‘Cats as big as horses! I told you. That’s what that fellow said and it’s true. Wouldn’t that pelt make a magnificent rug?’

 Coaxtl coughed and Clodagh said, ‘No, Coaxtl, they’re guests.’

 ‘Did it talk to you?’ the third man said.

 ‘Oh, yes. Coaxtl and Nanook and the other track cats can be very eloquent, but sometimes not very nice.’

 ‘What did it say?’ Brother Schist asked. Cita, who understood Coaxtl very well, thought that the cat had merely coughed.

 But Clodagh said to the hunter, ‘Coaxtl says your pelt is too thin and hairless to be good for much of anything.’

 It took a long time to return to Kilcoole, what with having to make sure everyone stayed mounted. Poor curlies! Cita thought. She’d have to go and gather some of the late carrots from everyone’s gardens to give them a treat after this.

 ‘Are you the mayor or the governor or whatever of this town we’re going to?’ the man who didn’t like Portia asked Clodagh.

 ‘I’m Clodagh.’

 ‘Clodagh!’ Portia stopped groaning. ‘You’re the one I wanted to speak to, then. The medicine woman, right?’

 Clodagh shrugged.

 ‘Look, I’m prepared to make you an offer for your formulas and all the ingredients you can supply. That’s just for now, of course, while we’re in the development stage. Later on, when we’ve located the sources, we’ll need to know the best places to set up our operations.’

 ‘Are you sick?’ Clodagh asked.

 ‘No, of course not, though I’m getting sick of being on this stupid horse but…’

 ‘You are the planet’s handmaiden!’ Sister Igneous Rock screeched, interrupting Portia and scaring the horses. She jumped down from hers, and ran forward to Clodagh’s curly-coat and grabbed Clodagh’s hand in both of hers and began weeping over it. ‘Oh, how I have longed to meet you since first we were given word of this miraculous place!’

 ‘When was that?’ Clodagh asked.

 ‘About six weeks ago,’ Brother Shale said. ‘And believe me, since then Sister Igneous Rock has worked wonders forming our order. Why, she came straight away and told me and the others and we all knew at once that Petaybee was just what we’d been looking for. We had a little study group before, you know, about the evils of the universe and how to get back to what was natural and real - we tried talking to Terra, but it wasn’t very responsive. Then, when Brother Granite told us about the Beneficence and how it caused ruin to the abominations wrought upon it by the Unworthy, well, we had to come and see for ourselves.’

 ‘When can we see the evidence of Petaybee’s wrath, Mother Clodagh?’ Brother Schist asked.

 ‘Scuse me,’ Clodagh said with a snort. ‘I don’t have any kids.’

 ‘Please pardon our brother,’ Sister Igneous Rock said. ‘We mean that you are the spiritual mother of our order. Brother Granite told us of your wondrous bond with the Beneficence.’

 ‘What’s that?’

 ‘I think they mean the planet, Clodagh,’ Cita offered. People called it so many different things. The Shepherd Howling had reviled the planet and called it The Great Beast and said it was a man-eating monster, Coaxtl simply called it The Home, and Uncle Sean and Clodagh called it Petaybee, for the initials Pee, Tee, Bee which also stood for Powers That Be, the local name for Intergal, the Company which first settled the planet. Cita thought that, of all of the names, Coaxtl’s made the most sense.

 ‘Why didn’t they say so, then?’ Clodagh asked. At once, all the white robes dismounted, loudly apologising and begging forgiveness, prostrating themselves on the ground so that Clodagh’s curly-coat almost stepped on them. They were coated with another layer of snow by the time the Rourke cousins got them to their feet and onto their ponies again.

 Clodagh just shook her head. ‘Cheechakos,’ she said.

 ‘What’s that?’ Cita asked. Her own Flock had many Spanish words and Asian words in their language, but here in Kilcoole, the people used some words in the old Irish tongue and some in the Inuit and Native American tongues of their ancestors.

 ‘A cheechako is a newcomer, child.’

 ‘Like me?’

 ‘No, because you’re from Petaybee. You’re used to the cold and all. A person is a cheechako until they’ve lived here from freeze-up to thaw. If they live through the winter, they know if they want to stay or go away.’

 ‘But the Beneficence helps you get through winters, doesn’t it, Moth - Clodagh?’ Sister Agate asked, a tad anxiously. ‘It surely doesn’t kill anyone. From what Brother Granite said, it provides for all!’

 Clodagh rolled her eyes and said to Cita, ‘This could be a real long winter.’

 Sean Shongili was tempted to say ‘Look what the cat’s dragged in,’ when Clodagh, Cita and the Rourkes, with curlies and feline in escort of the most recently landed visitors, stopped in front of Yana’s cabin that afternoon.

 The newcomers, when sorted, turned out to be representatives of two rival pharmaceutical firms whose requests for interviews were allegedly somewhere in the stack of paperwork, three more hunters, four members of what seemed to be a newly formed religious cult wishing, sight unseen, to worship Petaybee, and eleven other people who claimed to believe they had long-lost family members living on the planet somewhere.

 Sean sent Cita after Sinead, who came and took the hunters in tow to put them with the others she had previously captured. He told the drug representatives firmly that they would have to go through company channels for any patents on medicines. As Intergal had first terraformed and settled Petaybee, it had prior claim to any economic windfalls the planet might generate. Any credits, that is, left over from what Intergal might decide to charge the planet for what had already been done to ‘improve’ it up to Intergal standards - whatever they were. The religious cult and the so-called relatives required different handling.

 ‘There are Monaghans living over at Shannon-mouth,’ Sean told the lady who had asked. ‘I can send word to them that you’re here and maybe they’ll come to see you in a couple of weeks.’

 ‘Two weeks! But I only have two weeks!’ she said. ‘I’ve already taken a week of my vacation getting here.’

 Sean just told her he’d do what he could, and privately decided to have a word with Whit about having Johnny Greene stop off to leave word with the Monaghans the next time he was over Shannonmouth. But with the other relative seekers listening, he didn’t want to make a promise aloud.

 ‘Just show us the way to the hotel and we’ll find our own transportation tomorrow,’ said the man who was looking for the Valdez family.

 ‘There’s no hotel,’ Sean said.

 ‘Well, then, where are we supposed to stay?’ the drug representative, Portia Porter-Pendergrass, demanded.

 He took two deep breaths before answering. ‘Don’t you think you should have taken that up with the people who provided you transportation to the surface?’

 She shrugged off what he considered a very pertinent question and answered with what he recognized as a bald-faced lie of convenience. ‘They indicated there should be no problem. It’s not as if we can’t pay.’

 ‘That’s not the issue,’ he told her and gestured grandly around the paper-engulfed cabin. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is the governor’s mansion, if you will. The other houses are no bigger. SpaceBase is still out of commission from the quake, or I’d send you there. I’m afraid no house in Kilcoole can accommodate more than two of you at a time, and even that’s going to crowd folks. It’s not too cold yet though, so there’re probably extra blankets enough to go round and floor space by the fire.’

 ‘Very well,’ Portia said. Til stay with Clodagh.’

 ‘Not so fast,’ said Bill Guthrie, from the rival drug company. ‘If you stay with her, so do I.’

 ‘You will both stay where I tell you to,’ Sean said severely. ‘My niece, Buneka, isn’t using her shack right now. You, Mr Guthrie, and you, Mr Valdez, can stay there. Seamus, if you wouldn’t mind staying over at the Maloneys’, I’ll bunk Miss Porter-Pendergrass in with Moira and the kids.’

 The male Rourke cousins looked very cheered at that.

 ‘You gentlemen’, he nodded to the five men who claimed to be looking for relatives named Tsering, Romancita, Menendez, Furey and O’Dare respectively, ‘can stay with Steve Margolies and Frank Metaxos. There’s only the two of them with Diego gone and they’ve got more floor space than most because they haven’t been here long enough to fill it up yet. As for you ladies,’ he looked rather hopelessly into the apprehensive faces of the women who introduced themselves as Una Monaghan, Ilyana Salvatore, Dolma Chang, Susan Tsering and Furey’s wife, Wild Star, ‘I’ll have to see.’

 ‘Excuse me, Governor Shongili.’ Una Monaghan stuck up her hand like a schoolchild.

 ‘Dama?’

 ‘Well, it seems to me we’re causing you a lot of trouble. I never meant to actually. It was just when that man suggested that I might find some of my people… Well, I’m an orphan, you see, and my family line on Terra D died out and, well, what I mean to say is, it looks like you could use help here and I am a file clerk and if it’s going to be an awfully long wait well’

 ‘Me too,’ Susan Tsering said. ‘I can file too. You look like you need help with this office.’

 ‘I don’t suppose any of you people are teachers?’ Sean asked hopefully.

 ‘I am,’ Wild Star Furey said. ‘I’ve been company librarian on Minnehoma Station for the last nine years and I’ve helped Petaybean and other colonial recruits learn the basics when they come on active duty.’

 Sean smiled for the first time. ‘Then, ladies, I will find a place to stay myself and you may take over the gubernatorial mansion.’

 There was a meow from the top of a stack of papers. ‘With the help of the resident paperweight. This is Marduk. He lives here.’

 ‘What a nice kitty!’ Una Monaghan said.

 ‘But Governor Shongili, what of us? When shall we, how shall we, where shall we meet with the Beneficence?’ asked Sister Igneous Rock. Sean had to hand it to the white robes. They had been very patient and quiet throughout the proceedings.

 ‘You’re the ones who should stay with Clodagh,’ he decided, knowing that he was probably going to regret it.

  

 6

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Brother Granite did not have to go far to find the believers he sought. Many people were already searching for something better, something they didn’t have, something to lift them out of the ordinariness of their lives, to put them in touch with greatness.

 What could be greater than an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-embracing planet? Even Dr Luzon, who had been very difficult for Petaybee to convince, recognized that precept now. That was why Dr Luzon had sent him forth, to spread the news to those in need of hope.

 ‘Braddock, my boy, I was in error,’ Dr Luzon had said from his hospital bed. ‘That planet is indeed sentient. I mocked it and it rose up against me.’

 ‘Oh, Doctor, I’m so glad you agree,’ Braddock had said with considerable relief. ‘I - er - came to the same conclusion.’

 ‘Well, of course you did. You’re a very perceptive fellow. That’s why you have my trust. And you do have it, son. In fact, now that we know the truth about Petaybee, hallowed be its name, it occurs to me that our doubts may have been for a very special reason, that we may have been where we were, when we were, for a very special purpose.’

 ‘Protecting the Company’s interests…’

 A look of annoyance momentarily crossed the doctor’s high brow and ascetic mouth. His expression changed so quickly that Braddock felt that the doctor had probably suffered a twinge of pain. After all, he had been severely injured in the earthquake. ‘No, my boy, I mean an even higher purpose. We were doubters and we were made to believe in the positive force of Petaybee. I see now that we were put on the spot as witnesses. It is our duty now to go forth among other worlds and spread this news to others. Indeed, it is up to us to make sure that others are able to contact Petaybee and Petaybee can expand its influence beyond those few insular settlers we met.’

 ‘But, sir, I didn’t get the impression that any more people were wanted.’

 ‘Not by the settlers, perhaps. They wish to keep the wonder to themselves, to have Petaybee serve them alone. As for the planet, because its people are selfish, it has had little opportunity to expand its influence to others. That is our purpose.’

 ‘Ours, sir?’

 ‘As I have lain here, reviewing all that happened to us on Petaybee, I have reached some inescapable conclusions, besides those I have just imparted to you. One is that I must use my resources and facilities to help in as selfless a way as possible to expiate my sin to Petaybee. However, my physical condition’, and he waved his hand at his legs, stretched before him on the bed, ‘prevents me from taking as active a part as I would like. There is also the fact that my name and my connection with the Company might be construed as a conflict of interests in what I propose we do. Therefore, so that association does not stand in the path of my expiation, I must begin by firing you.’

 ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand, sir,’ Braddock said cautiously. Normally, if the doctor was unhappy with him, he had no problem figuring out exactly how he had failed his employer. But the doctor had not given him any indication that would cause Braddock to think he was going to be fired. Why, even the beaming, kindly expression on his intelligent face did not look like the expression of someone who was firing someone else.

 ‘Only so that you will no longer be associated with me, of course,’ Dr Luzon said hastily, noticing Braddock’s confusion. ‘In fact, I don’t even want it known that I am setting you up in a business that will facilitate our mutual desire to help people discover the magic of Petaybee.’

 Braddock gawked at his erstwhile employer.

 ‘You see, Braddock, I am going to set you up in business. The transport business. So that you can travel easily throughout this star system and all others controlled by the Company.’

 ‘You are, sir?’ Then, the light slowly dawned on him. ‘Ah! So that I can tell others about the planet, sir?’

 ‘That’s it, Braddock. Absolutely correct. You will form a company which will enable you to help those searching for the nirvana which only Petaybee can provide to reach the planet. A transport company. Now then, I know a thing or two about how people’s minds work, how to discreetly encourage them to do the right thing. Some people we will be able to attract simply by appealing to what interests them. The wealth of animal life on the planet, for instance, should appeal to sportsmen. And of course, there will be financiers hoping to benefit by the Company’s necessary withdrawal. We are not playing favourites here. We’ll carry anyone who can pay the fare. But there are others who will want to come because they have relatives there, from whom they were separated during the Company’s relocation programmes following land purchases after the various Terran wars. But many, Braddock, will simply hunger for a greater truth, a higher purpose, than any they have known. They must have a leader they can follow. You, Braddock, will become that leader, but not as Braddock Makem…’

 Thus the PTS transport company was conceived.

 Thus Brother Granite received his name and his instruction in the sort of language to use in bringing the truth about Petaybee to other worlds.

 And it was good.

 Gal-3 - Several days later

 This whole CIS thing wasn’t working out the way Diego had thought it would, but he was glad he’d come along anyway, just to keep Bunny’s head straight if nothing else. Marmie was a nice lady and all that, but he could have done without the niece and nephew. The nephew was way too nice to Bunny and the niece kept trying to get her to act and dress like shipside girls. Diego liked her the way she was already.

 He had looked forward to her reactions to the advanced gadgetry that was part of shipboard life and had imagined her repairing something she hadn’t known existed until then, but every time he started pointing something out, Charmion got bored and suggested going to the fancy gymnasium where Bailey impressed Bunny and depressed Diego - who had never been a jock - with his gymnastic prowess.

 And he couldn’t really say anything about it to Bunny. She was like some little kid who’d never seen candy before. He, of course, was already pretty familiar with all this stuff, though neither of his parents ever inhabited the same lofty circles as Marmion Algemeine. But Bunny, who couldn’t imagine doing anything athletic in less than sixteen layers of down and fur, was easily swayed and tried very hard to learn what Bailey and Charmion had been doing all their lives.

 Meanwhile, Marmion and her crew were keeping the colonel entertained and as busy as possible, but Diego could tell that Yana was getting a little antsy when they’d been there a week and the CIS hearing still hadn’t convened. Every day he got up thinking, today we’ll do what we came here for. Yana will tell them how it is and Bunny will speak for the planet and maybe I’ll sing them my song, then we’ll go home. He should have known better. His dad was always complaining about how long it took the brass to move on anything significant.

 There was one delay after another. Anaciliact was away on another assignment and Farringer Ball, who represented the Company’s interests, had been stricken with a mysterious illness that was sweeping through the upper echelons of the power structure on other stations. Ball normally inhabited Gal-3 but had been away conferring with the leaders of other terraformed colonies when the illness struck.

 That was the scuttlebutt anyway - the details were being kept fairly hush-hush. Not that Diego cared, except for the inconvenience it was causing him. While his father’s recent illness made him pity anyone who was very sick, Farringer Ball had never seemed particularly human to him. Trust a bigwig to show his only signs of humanity just when it would royally screw it up for everyone else. Diego wondered what would happen next to detain them.

 The colonel was anxious, too, he could tell. One day she and Sally swung by to collect Bunny on the way to the doctor. Yana was getting checked for her pregnancy and she wanted to see if Bunny was having any problem being cut off from the planet.

 When she returned, Bunny was oddly quiet and fingered the little bag of Petaybean dirt that now looked so incongruous with her modern fuchsia and teal striped bodytight.

 ‘How’d it go, Bun?’ he asked her.

 ‘OK,’ she said. ‘The doctor says my immune system should hold up a few more years and my brown fat deposit isn’t large enough yet to make me uncomfortable off-planet. After I’m about twenty or so, though, I won’t be able to leave for very long, ever, or I’ll end up like Lavelle.’

 ‘So what? You don’t want to leave Petaybee anyway, do you?’

 ‘Not for good, no, but Charmion asked me to come to her family’s chalet in the Strigian Alps sometime to help her set up a dog team and ski. She showed me pictures and it’s really beautiful there - all these beautiful houses and there’s flowers all the time, even when the mountains are covered in snow. It’s not that I want to leave Petaybee, really. It’s just that I want to be able to if- you know, if I want to.’

 ‘Not me,’ he said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘I’ve been lots of places and Petaybee is the best.’

 ‘Sure it is,’ she said. ‘But at least you got to pick.’

 ‘You’ll get a chance to wear those formal clothes this evening,’ Marmion said, emerging from her office to the main room where her guests were lounging. They had spent the morning exploring yet another level as well as making another visit to the extensive gymnasium which fascinated Bunny. Marmion was delighted with the way Bailey and Charmion were filling their days on Gal-3 and the youngsters all appeared to like each other, though young Diego seemed rather quiet at times and for the last day or two Bunny had been less bubbly than usual.

 Once Yana and Bunny had been assured by a visit to Marmion’s personal physicians that their absence from Petaybee was causing harm to neither of them nor to Yana’s unborn child, Yana had relaxed considerably. Afterwards, Sally had induced Yana to enjoy some of the beauty treatments available on Second Level. But, even with so much to do, the continual delays in convening the CIS hearing were irritating and nerve-racking.

 Distraction on a grander scale was needed, Marmion decided.

 Calling for the attention of her guests, she waved a sheaf of messages in her hand at them all. ‘We could go to a party on every single level. How do they find out so quickly that I’m back?’ The question was rhetorical. ‘But I’ve chosen just the one for us,’ she went on. ‘A sort of welcome for a new executive in…’ she peered down at the sheet in her hand, ‘… oh, Rothschild’s. So everyone who is anybody on Gal-3 will come but that limits the attendance nicely.’

 ‘It does?’ Yana asked, raising her eyebrows in surprised amusement.

 ‘Certainly. There aren’t that many “anybodies” on Gal-Three at the moment.’ Marmion gave a trill of her delightful laughter. ‘I already checked the guest list and most of them are the sort of people I’d like you to meet anyway while you’re here. So that’s settled. We’ll leave at 2030 hours. All right? And everyone dressed in your finest.’

 Bunny and Diego groaned while Bailey and Charmion looked quite pleased.

 ‘That’ll be loads of fun,’ Charmion said and turned to encourage Bunny and Diego. ‘This’ll be much nicer than you know. More like what you were describing as a latchkay, only Gal-Three style.’

 ‘People sing?’

 ‘The ones who are paid to,’ Charmion said, ‘but if you want to join in, no-one will object.’

 ‘Could I see you a moment, Yana?’ Marmion asked, gesturing politely for Yana to join her in her office.

 The social-lady side of Marmion dropped immediately the panel slid shut behind Yana. Marmion seated herself at a desk that was neatly piled with disks and vari-coloured flimsies while three screens behind her scrolled detailed reports, graphs, and tables of figures.

 ‘Too many people know I have just returned from Petaybee,’ she said, rattling her fingers on the intricately inlaid wood of the desktop. ‘Far, far too many people have been apprised of everything - everything - about Petaybee. Anaciliact holoed in from this emergency mission of his and when I told him what’s been happening he was livid - if you can imagine that consummate diplomat in such a state.’ Marmion rose and began pacing the room, head down, one arm across her chest supporting the other as she rubbed her forehead. ‘I was right to give you that safety disk, and right to assign you guardians. All of you. I must remember to assign a few to myself,’ she said with an impish grin,’ though with the security available on Gal-Three, they might end up stumbling over each other while we’re dragged off through a service hatch or something.’ Her smile indicated how unlikely that was.

 ‘If you’re concerned about Petaybee, Marmion, don’t be,’ Yana said, hoping to relieve her unusual anxiety.

 ‘I don’t worry about Petaybee at all, Yana,’ Marmion replied. ‘It has proved well able to take care of itself. It’s all the… the types that are homing in on it. There simply aren’t the facilities to cope with them and I’m sure that’s one of the reasons they’ve been sent.’ She frowned.

 ‘You mean to discredit Sean’s abilities as administrator?’

 ‘Precisely.’

 ‘Did you happen to hear how soon the meeting we’re due at is going to convene?’ Yana, too, didn’t wish Sean inundated with problems when he had no-one trained to help. Even, and especially, Petaybee.

 ‘Not soon enough,’ Marmion said in what was for her a harsh voice. She flung up her hands in frustration. ‘I don’t think it’s all delaying tactics and, of course, Farringer Ball is quite legitimately ill, some sort of a virus he contracted, so we do have to wait on his return to good health.’ She made a little moue of concern over that delay. ‘However, Intergal has conceded - well, CIS has forced them to concede - that the planet has prior rights to its mineral and metal wealth and anything else that might be valuable. They’re pulling out - as fast as they can.’ She made a face. ‘That’s unlike them, too. But then, they’ve never had a planet to face as an opponent. Must make a difference. No bribery will work in this instance.’

 ‘Must make it very difficult for Intergal to change its modus operandi.’

 Marmion grinned and chuckled. ‘If only you knew… But then,’ she said more briskly, ‘you probably do.’

 ‘Not on the level you do, Marmion.’

 ‘Now, tonight,’ the financier went on,’ there are certain people I’d like you to talk to.’

 ‘You mean, show me off to?’

 ‘Well, that, too,’ and Marmion flicked her fingers at Yana’s qualification. ‘You’re the best spokesperson Petaybee could have.’

 ‘Not Bunny? When she’s lived there all her life?’

 ‘Her ingenuousness may be useful, to a degree, but you’re a military person with experience on many planets and situations. Your remarks will carry more weight. Also, these are the people Petaybee should get to know for the clout they have in intergalactic research and development.’ She added quickly when she saw Yana frown, ‘The good kind, not the search-and-strip type of operation. It may well constitute a challenge to them, you see, and they need challenges.’

 ‘”Life gets ted-jus, don’t it?” ‘ Yana asked with a fake yawn.

 Marmion grinned. ‘Precisely. Been there, done that, seen this.’

 ‘Care to give me a briefing?’

 ‘It’s all here,’ Marmion said, handing Yana a disk. ‘I have compiled vital statistics on all my peers. Some of them are even nice.’ Then she saw Yana’s surprised expression and made a little moue. ‘Well, they have them on me! Must keep track of the competition. Have a listen and then if you’ve any questions… Oh, blast it!’ For her screen bleeped the urgent code. Yana waved at her and left the room, a departure she sensed Marmion would appreciate.

 When Yana entered with Marmion, she gasped at the splendour of their host’s incredible lounge with its vaulting roof of clear plasglass opening on to the stars and all ‘outdoors’ as she thought of it. Behind her, she heard Bunny react to the place, but more with a trenchant disgust than amazement. She smiled to herself, thinking that Bunny would not be easily corrupted by the beauties of her new environment even if she was being more subtly wooed by its gadgetry and mechanics.

 Their hostess, so suavely elegant that Yana was more than relieved to be as well attired, undulated over to them, both hands held out to Marmion. They exchanged pecks to the air over their cheeks and then Yana was introduced to Pleasaunce Ferrari-Emool.

 ‘You might have heard of Ples’s company, Yana, Nova Bene Drugs…’

 Pleasaunce reacted more favourably to Yana than she did to her.

 ‘Only you, Marmie, could have stolen the march on that one,’ cooed Pleasaunce eyeing Yana, her cold glance taking in every fold of the ‘gown’ and the single crystal pendant that Marmie had insisted Yana wear as the crowning touch to her costume. A delicately arched eyebrow twitched and Yana wondered just how much the bauble was worth. Plenty, to judge by the cold glint in the woman’s eyes. ‘And how deee-vine to welcome you in person, Colonel Maddock-Shongili.’

 Another unexpected feature of the last few days was how easily all these Station folk seemed to pronounce double- and triple-barrelled names, giving just the right emphasis on the syllables so that the names flowed rather than stumbled out of their mouths.

 ‘How gracious of you to include us in your little party, Lady Ferrari-Emool,’ Yana replied, doing the peck in the air bit as if she had never done anything else to greet friends.

 She caught Marmion’s delighted but surprised expression out of the corner of her eye. Yana had felt damned foolish practising both the salute and the names in front of her mirror ever since Marmion had announced that they were attending this party. It paid off as any good briefing did.

 The hostess had paid attention to her social secretary, too, for she got out Diego’s suddenly doubled name of Etheridge-Metaxos and Bunny’s Rourke without a quaver. She did not, of course, greet Sally or Millard as effusively but did gracefully wave them in the direction of the vast spread of refreshments.

 ‘Now you must meet the guest of honour,’ Pleasaunce said, linking an arm with Marmion and leading the adults to the cluster of gorgeously attired men and women. She pushed her way through in such a practised way that no-one could have taken offence, though there were some querulous glances at being displaced - until the displacer was recognized. ‘Macci, darling, you simply must meet Marmion de Revers Algemeine and her guests, Colonel Yanaba Maddock-Shongili, Buneka Rourke and Diego Etheridge-Metaxos, all from that incredible new world which, it transpires, is sentient. All by itself.’

 Macci, who hadn’t exactly welcomed his hostess’s interruption - he’d been talking to two adoring young creatures - now let the full force of a Charm Nine smile break across his sculptured features. When the two girls moved slightly away, Yana could see that he wore one of the very fashionable SecondSkins, a shimmering tight-fitting garment that only the very athletically trim could wear to advantage. And he did. Though he wore a discreet - if decorative - loincloth where some of the other guests sort of let everything hang out. Despite that subtlety, he had a body almost as magnificent as Sean’s, a centimetre or two taller than her husband and broader across the shoulders: not bad, actually, she had to admit.

 ‘I know, Marmie,’ he said, giving her a paternal kiss on her forehead while his eyes were locked on to the other three.

 When he took Yana’s hand, she experienced a sort of electric shock in the contact that surprised her -hand-fasted as she was to Sean Shongili and with every intention of staying that way. But the man was unfairly laden with such charisma that Yana reached for the locket under her dress and pressed it hard. Macci - she heard Pleasaunce listing his pedigree - Macchiavelli (no less) Sendal-Archer-Klausevitch. And the woman rolled it off her tongue trippingly.

 ‘What did your parents ever have in mind when they saddled you with that mess?’ Yana heard herself saying. She knew she was being terribly gauche but she resented the effect his magnetism had on her.

 ‘Trying to win relative favour,’ Macci said, squeezing her hand in a very practised and sexy manner but he let her have it back the moment she pulled away. ‘We were the cadet branch, you see.’

 ‘Ah! Still?’

 ‘The family motto is “We Shall Contrive”,’ he replied and his deep blue eyes danced down at her.

 ‘I’d say you’re a practised hand at that,’ she said, wanting to laugh because she couldn’t believe she was playing this sort of game. Then she realized that it was a game and even if he were a much more versatile and accomplished player than she’d ever be, it could be fun!

 ‘I do my possible.’ And he laughed with her now.

 ‘Oh, dear Macci, we won’t detain you further,’ Pleasaunce said archly, and importunately drew both Yana and Marmion away from his enchanted circle.

 ‘There are so many other people who’re dying to meet you.’

 They might have been dying to meet her but she damned near died of the boredom of repeating herself: Yes, she came from Petaybee; yes, the planet was sentient; no, the planet did not ask nor answer questions; no, she hadn’t had vile nightmares and been visited by strange thoughts; yes, the planet was cold and had very little in the way of technology because the cold banjaxed equipment; yes, everyone was healthy there and lived long lives; yes, it was possible it was the healthy diet and no, she wouldn’t recommend it as a holiday resort - in the summer the insects ate you alive and in the winter you could easily freeze to death. No, that didn’t sound like a friendly place but it was, and yes, the planet really was friendly, too, despite its weather which wasn’t precisely the planet’s fault. No, the Planetary Terraform B process was not at fault. Petaybee was unique as far as planets went. It went on all night, until the smile on her face felt pasted so she was glad when Marmion signalled that they could leave.

  

 7

 Gal-3

 Contents - Prev/Next

 The next morning Yana couldn’t remember the names of any of the other people she had met with the exception of Macci: not because Macci had been that unique, although in one sense he had - he was memorable - but because the others had blended into such an identical blur. Their faces, their voices, their apparel had had a sameness that made identifying one from the other very difficult. Yana did remember the things she ate and the wines she drank but the people? And these were those who were important on Gal-3? No-one appeared to want to talk about anything remotely’significant’ considering they were persons whom Marmion had said were important for her to meet. When they weren’t questioning her avidly, they gossiped about the people who hadn’t been invited. Yana hoped that she’d never hear what was said about her or anyone else in Marmion’s group. Petaybee was coming up more and more golden and real!

 She was not the only one silent this morning. Bunny was slouched over her morning meal, and the measure of her discomfort was registered by the fact that she was wearing an outfit which Marmion had provided for her rather than some of the Gal-3 finery Charmion had urged her to purchase. She was moodily staring out of the lounge window at the comings and goings of station vehicles, tugs, and incoming traffic of all kinds.

 Yana decided not to show Bunny the corn-message from Sean which asked Yana to see if Marmion could check out a firm trading as PTS, Petaybee Transport Shuttle, which was so busily landing new problems in his lap. People were being dumped back of beyond, wanting ‘hotel’ facilities, of all things, and he was running out of places to stash them. And food to feed them. And could this influx of unwanted and generally useless self-seekers please be stopped. To which Johnny Greene, who had sent the message from the space station on Whit Fiske’s credit, had added a devout ‘amen’.

 ‘Can we find out about these yabos, Millard?’ Yana had asked although she took the tone of the message as one: amused, two: coping, and three: why was she staying away so long.

 Millard glanced at the message, made a note on his wristpad, and smiled down at her. ‘Sure thing.’

 ‘Hey, looka that,’ Diego said suddenly, pointing to where a line of drones were being shepherded by little space tugs.

 Millard smiled. ‘Ah, the collies at work.’

 ‘Why’re they called that?’ Bunny asked.

 ‘Watch how they herd the ships in,’ Millard said. ‘Their names are actually the Megabite and the Maggie Lauder but we call them Meggie and Maggie.’

 The speedy work vessels did indeed seem to be nipping at the skids of the drones, angling them into the correct alignment with their ultimate destination on the lower docking circle. But he was specifically pointing to the sleek, taper-ended vessel, clearly no drone, nearly the last one on the long drone tether. ‘I wonder what holed that.’

 ‘Meteor, probably,’ Millard replied, looking up and frowning slightly at the company the obvious space craft was keeping.

 ‘Looks big enough to have been holed by a shuttle craft,’ Diego said, ‘and a big one at that.’

 ‘Would the crew have survived such a holing?’ Bunny asked, coming out of her slump long enough to peer about.

 ‘Depends on the speed with which the crew reacted to the disaster,’ Millard said.

 ‘Cost a pretty pile of credits to fix it I’ll bet,’ Diego said.

 ‘Someone who can afford a craft that size has the credit,’ Sally said. ‘This is the biggest repair facility in the quadrant so they’d have to come here for that sort of major restoration.’

 The collies bracketed the nose of the vessel now, manoeuvring it carefully down a half degree, to the port another fraction and then slowly forwards until it moved out of sight.

 ‘Wonder what happened to it?’ Bunny said.

 ‘We could go see,’ Diego suggested.

 ‘Could we?’ she asked, brightening, and turning to Millard.

 ‘Bailey has some cronies down in the ship dock,’ Millard said. Their faces fell. ‘You really will have to wait until Bailey and Charmion are available,’ he said and then his wrist set bleeped. ‘Excuse me.’ He read the message that came in and turned to Yana. ‘This is interesting. The PTS is newly registered as a tourist transport in the civilian section of the Intergal Station. A B. Makem is listed as owner.’

 ‘B. Makem?’ Yana blinked. The name was somehow familiar but, after last night’s inundation of names, she couldn’t put the name to a face.

 ‘Braddock Makem?’ Sally asked, in a startled tone as she looked up from the report she was working on.

 ‘One of Matthew’s little men?’

 ‘He isn’t one of Dr Luzon’s men any more,’ Sally said. ‘Luzon fired him. Scuttlebutt is that when Luzon woke up with broken legs, loss of pride and that massive deflation of amuition, he fired the lot of them.’

 Yana grinned. ‘Anything else, Millard?’

 ‘Funding’s low but it’s got a waiting list and paid passages for twenty on each of three weekly scheduled flights from Intergal Station.’

 Yana gasped. ‘There isn’t room at Kilcoole for twenty extra bodies much less a hundred and twenty. What is Makem up to?’

 ‘I’d hazard Makem isn’t up to anything,’ Millard said, his eyes narrowing, ‘but I’d suspect Matthew Luzon is. Does Sean say who’s been landed?’

 Just then Marmion came into the room, a flimsy in her hand and a look of total exasperation on her face.

 ‘Once again, there can be no meeting,’ she said, waving the sheet.

 ‘But Phon Tho was coming back this morning. He said we’d hear today,’ Yana said in protest.

 ‘We did,’ Marmion said grimly, with another crisp flutter of the message, ‘but not at all what we hoped to hear. Really, I think we are just going to have to do something.’ She tapped her index finger across her lips and then brightened. ‘Of course, we will put it about that you’re leaving!’

 ‘But… but what good will that do?’ Yana said, almost wailing with disappointment. She wanted to be back with Sean, to help him with these unexpected visitors - if only to shove them off-planet as fast as they arrived. She didn’t want to have to come back here again whenever the CIS Council finally got its act together and all its members in attendance so she, Bunny and Diego could say their piece and have it done with. Mainly she wanted to be back with Sean. She was feeling’deprived’. She hadn’t finally married again to spend her time away from the man of her heart and the father of her child.

 ‘Well, as long as they think you’ll just sit about and wait for them to organize themselves, that’s what they’ll do,’ Marmion said, then paused thoughtfully, regarding the flimsy as if there were unseen lines that required decoding. ‘Though why this delay when they were so bloody eager to get you here in the first place… And we came as fast as anyone can… Hmmm. Well, they do have the depositions to work from…’

 ‘Something’s rotten in Denmark?’ Sally asked.

 ‘If it were on Denmark, I wouldn’t give it a second thought. But this is Gal-Three… And it was presented to me as an in-and-out appearance.’ Giving her shoulders a massive shrug, Marmion returned to her office.

 ‘Why,’ Yana asked the room, ‘would B. Makem want to start trouble for us on Petaybee? I thought we’d opened his eyes to that erstwhile employer of his.’

 ‘Yes,’ Millard said thoughtfully, and began to tap out codes on his terminal. ‘We’ll just see.’

 Yana began pacing restlessly, fretting about Sean. He’d have so much more to do now with who knows how many people foisted off on Petaybee. She reread the communique, her free hand going automatically to the little bag of Petaybean dirt that generally provided her with comfort as she tried to get more of Sean than the words conveyed. Even if Johnny Greene had sent the message, it was from Sean and by Sean and therefore ‘Sean’ and she gathered what comfort she could out of that contact. It was stupid of her, at her age, to need the man so desperately and yet she did. Here she was in the lap of luxury, being scrupulously cared for and pampered and wined and dined, and not liking it a bit simply because Sean wasn’t here to share the absurdities with her like Macci and his Second-Skin and loincloth. Sean would have looked just as well in such attire: probably better since he had a second skin of his own, if it came to that. The memories that thought provoked made her smile, and she nibbled at the edge of the message, until she realized what she was doing. She really was being ungrateful, especially when Marmion was going out of her way to be so accommodating and helpful. Not that she didn’t appreciate it all, except that she had managed to get accustomed to the discomforts of Petaybee. Now she’d have to learn to love them all over again. It would be snowing soon, and she’d miss it, and freeze-up and all the other wonders that Petaybee had in store for people in their first year. She resented her absence terribly and that reminded her of who might be responsible for all the delays.

 ‘Do you know where Matthew Luzon is right now?’ she asked, stopping and turning to survey those in the lounge. ‘And where are Diego and Bunny for that matter?’ she asked Sally and Millard, and asked the same question of Bailey and Charmion who entered at that critical moment.

 ‘Must be around here somewhere,’ Millard said, swivelling about as if the two had to be in the lounge, visible or invisible.

 At that precise moment, there was a request for entry.

 ‘Macci Sendal,’ was the response in a resonant voice.

 Sally and Millard exchanged astonished glances.

 ‘You made a conquest, Yana,’ Sally said, grinning. ‘Shall I admit him?’

 Yana was flustered. ‘Whatever would he want with me?’

 ‘I suspect business,’ Sally said. ‘After all, Rothschild’s have always diversified. I don’t recall them having any Pharmaceuticals…’

 ‘Yes, they do,’ Millard replied. ‘They have recently acquired a major holding in SpayDe.’

 ‘You’re quite right,’ and Sally hurried to press the door release. Til just replicate some refreshments.’

 Despite the fact the man was wearing more normal station apparel instead of the formal SecondSkin, he was as devastating as ever as he came forward to greet Yana. He had a small posy for her, smiles for Sally, Millard and Marmion’s young relatives, and he accepted Sally’s invitation for mid-morningses even as he led Yana, still holding the hand he had kissed so extravagantly, to one of the smaller seating arrangements on one side of the large room. Sally passed the refreshments and then, to Yana’s amazement, left her with him. He bent a lambent gaze on her, ravishing her with his eyes, which was disconcerting to say the least. Had he been another officer she’d have known how to handle the situation but he was too highly placed in society, as well as the financial circles, for her to use those forthright tactics.

 ‘Now, tell me more about this magical planet you come from, Yana. There was no chance to discuss anything intelligent with you last night. Especially when Pies was acting hostess.’ He caught her eyes with another of his ravishing glances - she did wish he wouldn’t - and she felt herself flushing at the ardour he was projecting. Really, it was much too early in the morning - or did she mean too late - for this sort of … foreplay. He was leaning forward towards her now and the scent he was using oughtn’t to be allowed, it was so aphrodisiac.

 She had opened her mouth to answer when the entry chime rang again. And continued to ring with each new arrival, someone else who had attended that party who now wished to discuss ‘business’ with Yana.

 Yana urgently motioned Sally and Millard to join her, and then Sally brought Cynthia and Cynthia thought that Marmion had better be involved.

 ‘You dear people, Petaybee’s only a small planet,’ Marmion said, arriving not a moment too soon and instantly assessing the scene. ‘With very limited facilities. And while it’s certainly marvellous of you to volunteer…’ That word stopped any conversation as the various representatives turned blank faces in her direction. ‘… to help the Colonel set up a modern depot.’ She smiled at the sobering effect of her little speech, for she, they - and the surprised Yana - knew that no-one had ‘volunteered’ anything. They’d all been trying to get into a best-advantage situation. ‘How good of you to offer. Mind you, who knows what a planet is willing to pay for such amenities but it is a planet that is virtually untouched. Nabatira-san, I think you need to send at least five of those marvellous structural cubes to Petaybee, just to cope with the influx. Yana, you don’t think Petaybee would mind an up-to-date self-catering hostel? No, two, I think: north and south.’

 By the time the bemused entrepreneurs got a chance to retreat, Marmion had made sure that each had signed a contract to deliver, at a cost later to be discussed with the planet, sufficient of their products to replace what Intergal was taking off-planet. And of a higher quality and more modern design.

 ‘I think that about takes care of that, Yana, don’t you?’ Marmion said when the door to her suite finally closed on Macci’s heels. ‘Macci didn’t get you to sign anything, did he?’ she asked Yana.

 Dazedly Yana shook her head. ‘But another two seconds and I’d’ve signed anything he put in front of me. Is he always like that?’

 ‘He makes a habit of it. Dangerous man,’ Marmion said, ‘but you handled him very well considering none of us expected him to appear quite so soon this morning.’ Then she made a full circuit of the room with her eyes. ‘Where did Bunny and Diego get to?’

 Sally and Millard exchanged horrified glances. Marmion, however, was looking straight at Bailey and Charmion.

 ‘Haven’t seen them, Aunt Marmie,’ Bailey said. ‘We only just woke up when the mob arrived.’

 ‘While I don’t blame them for a moment for leaving the babel…’ Marmion broke off. ‘Where are they?’

  

 8

 Gal-3

 Contents - Prev/Next

 The repair-bay light was still on by the time Diego and Bunny reached the corridor. When the light was on, the outer hatch was still opened and no unprotected personnel could enter. A skeleton crew, suited up with oxygen and grav boots, would shepherd new arrivals on board and tend to any emergency needs. Diego had observed such procedures on many stations before.

 As soon as the light went off, it meant the outer bay door was closed, the oxygen levels had returned to normal inside the bay, and it was usually OK to go in and look around, if you kept out of the way. Right now the light was staying on for what seemed an unusually long time to Diego. He hoped there wasn’t a radiation leak or some other problem that would prevent them from having a look-see. He also didn’t want Charmion and Bailey appearing, bored as usual with what was commonplace to them, and taking Bunny off before she had a chance to see what really did interest her. He knew she’d enjoy observing actual repairs to a space-going vessel but she sure wouldn’t if Charmion was there to act as if it was all so boring and so grubby while Bailey made another try at sweet-talking Bunny away from him.

 Just when he found he was getting bored by the interminable wait, the light went off. He tugged Bunny’s hand. ‘Come on. Act like you belong here.’

 At that point the inside hatch irised open and six figures, still suited and with helmets on, which was a little weird, emerged and headed down the corridor in the opposite direction from Bunny and Diego. As they disappeared, Diego said, ‘That’s funny.’

 ‘What?’

 ‘First thing folks usually do is crack open their helmets! Hmmm.’

 ‘Maybe they’re coming right back,’ Bunny said. ‘I don’t usually wear my parka and snowpants in the house either, but if I just have to go inside for a moment, it’s easier not to take off all those clothes first.’

 Diego shrugged. ‘Yeah. Maybe.’

 But he peered through the viewport first. The derelict was alone in the repair bay, the outer hatch closed. The hole in her side was big enough to drive a good-sized shuttle through. He checked the dials on the lock.

 ‘Well, there’s oxygen inside so maybe they just did go to get something, Bunny,’ he told her. ‘And no-one’s inside. So we can at least take a close look at that damage.’

 ‘Won’t we need some kind of code to get through here? Or will the bracelet give us access?’ Bunny asked.

 That was a good question. He hadn’t counted on the bay being empty. He’d planned to ask the repair crew but they’d gone off. Generally crews didn’t mind letting you look, if you asked first and kept out of the way.

 But at the door he was surprised to find that the iris still bore a pupil of space in its centre where it hadn’t completely closed. By sticking his foot through the opening he got it to enlarge enough to let a body squeeze through.

 Bunny reached around him, to one of the folds, and touched something shiny. ‘This is caught.’

 ‘Can you use it to pry the door open a little more?’ Diego asked.

 ‘I think so,’ she said and complied. Sure enough, when she had wiggled the bit around, the hatch creaked fully open. When they had both stepped through, Bunny pulled the object free and the hatch closed behind them, silently this time. There was a faint smell of singed protein in the air, the same smell Diego had noticed when the dentist drilled his teeth.

 ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done that,’ she said with a backward glance. ‘We might need it to get out.’

 ‘Nah, the crew will be back pretty soon. Come on, let’s see what holed the ship.’

 Their shoes clanked hollowly on the metal grid floor as they walked towards the lone ship squatting like a toad in the cavernous bay.

 ‘It’s a queer shape, isn’t it?’ Bunny asked, whispering. ‘It doesn’t look much like the other ones.’

 ‘Probably wasn’t manufactured by an Intergal company,’ Diego said, dropping his own voice to the same level. Though why they were whispering he didn’t know. Their footsteps were loud enough to wake the next watch; why try to sneak around? But the bay was huge, except for this - this corpse lying in state. ‘Maybe that’s why people went to such trouble to drone it in: figure out its design capabilities or something. It’s a derelict for sure.’

 Bunny was slightly ahead of him, and she peered around the corner of the hole. ‘Uh-oh. Diego?’

 ‘Yeah?’

 ‘Look.’

 He looked over her, his chin resting on the top of her glossy black crown. The interior of the hull was not empty.

 The hole sure had been big enough to fly a shuttle through and that’s just what somebody had done. A good-sized shuttle - twenty-seater at least from what he could see, crouched inside the hull, wearing it like a disguise. Beside the shuttle lay the bodies of seven people clad only in their underwear.

 Bunny turned over a woman who had been lying on her stomach. A burn hole drilled through the centre of her forehead. A gingerly examination of the other bodies showed similar burn holes, all fatal.

 ‘Frag!’ Diego breathed, and peered anxiously at the shuttle. But nobody stirred.

 ‘Diego?’ Bunny asked. ‘Why were these people killed?’ Her voice had a plaintive note to it and he thought that whatever the dangers provided by Petay-bee’s weather and conditions, mass murders didn’t happen on Petaybee - at least not yet. She looked pale under the brilliant white lights of the bay. Shock, he thought, a little numb himself.

 Then he thought, Think. ‘I’m not sure, gatita, but I’m willing to bet the guys we saw in the space suits weren’t crew. These guys were. And Gal-Three just got boarded by unfriendlies. And if the legit repair crew were wearing security bracelets, those… murderers are wearing them now. I think that we’d better tell Marmion so she can alert that Commander dude.’

 ‘You’re right, Diego. That’s what we’d better do real fast.’

 ‘There should be an alarm right here someplace…’ he said, crossing to the far wall. But where the alarm activation mechanism had been was a large hole. He turned to look for the comunit, but the screen was blank, the buttons dark.

 ‘We’ll have to locate a working unit,’ he told Bunny.

 ‘Wait. Maybe - shouldn’t we do something to the shuttle, maybe? Disable it? So they can’t get away with this?’ She sounded angry now, which put more colour in her face.

 ‘Buns, gatita,’ Diego said, throwing up his arms in a dramatic gesture,’ they’re on a shipping deck. There’s plenty of other vehicles here they could use. We’ve just got to keep them from breaching the security of other levels. Or whatever they’re on this station to do. You coming?’

 ‘Sure,’ she said, but the hatch refused to reopen.

 ‘The last time I saw them, they were watching the collies bring in a derelict,’ Millard told Marmion.

 ‘Yes,’ Sally said. ‘That’s right but they were told they’d have to wait for Charmion and Bailey.’

 ‘Right,’ Yana said in a droll tone of voice. ‘And kids always do as they’re told, don’t they? Look, never mind. They’re my responsibility. Just tell me how to get to the repair bay.’

 ‘I’ll show you, Yana,’ Marmion said. ‘I’m sure they’re fine. Sally, go put in a page for them, will you, dear? And Millard, if you would let Faber and the others know to meet us in my salon in three-quarters of an hour, that would expedite matters considerably.’

 Millard looked dubious and started to say something but just then Macci strode up to them, looking less languid than Yana had ever seen him before. He visibly relaxed when he saw her, as if he’d been searching for her and her alone.

 ‘Macci, dear, I don’t suppose you’ve seen the youngsters, Diego and Bunny, around anywhere, have you?’ Marmie asked.

 ‘As a matter of fact, I have, entering Bay 16.’

 ‘Which one would that be?’ Marmie asked.

 ‘It would be my pleasure to escort you there.’

 Millard still looked anxious but Marmion waved him away with, ‘How considerate of you, Macci, but then you always are and you’re the perfect escort. Millard, you can then go ahead and get the meeting arranged for me, will you? Thanks.’

 Yana was treated to a view of Macci’s splendid back and the smiles of encouragement which he tossed over his shoulder as he led them down the corridors. They passed a number of people in the first few levels of their descent. On reaching the docking area, Macci led them on a twisting turning route until they found themselves in a long silvery tunnel, the kind of passage that always reminded Yana of being in the guts of a large worm. At the far end of the tunnel, several figures approached clad in white helmeted suits of the type one wore for making ship’s repairs or effecting an exterior ship to station link.

 ‘Now, there hasn’t been a leak anywhere, has there?’ Marmion asked, surprised.

 ‘Oh, we’d’ve been denied access to this area if there was, but I’ll just check it out, ladies,’ Macci said and sprinted athletically towards the men. Marmie and Yana increased their strides so they were not far behind him.

 Yana and Marmion could hear him speaking, though not what he said. Then suddenly, he crumpled to the floor. The men stepped over him, blocking him from the women’s view. The leading figure now held a weapon, which was pointed at Marmie and Yana. Instantly Yana flung herself into Marmie, knocking her to the floor. She heard no projectile zinging towards them, no snake’s-strike hiss of laser, only a sort of slow whine. She looked up, her nose filling with a sweet perfumey fragrance. A pink cloud blossomed between her and the men, obscuring them and enveloping her and Marmie.

 ‘Shit,’ she said, remembering to hold her breath and wondering what she could do to stop being gassed again. That’s when she remembered the alarm Marmion had given her. She got her fingers to the buttons and pressed what she hoped would be the right ones before she lost consciousness. Her last thought was: Not some kind of fraggin’ gas again.

 Kilcoole

 Sinead didn’t worry about making her ‘guests’ comfortable.

 ‘They can bed down with the dogs,’ she told Aisling. ‘Maybe if they become acquainted with some animals they’ll acquire a little more respect for them.’

 ‘Now, alannah,’ Aisling’s soft reproof carried out of the blanket chest from which she was busily flinging bright woolly throws onto the bed. ‘They’re off-worlders and freeze-up has begun. Even if they were poachin’, sure it won’t look good if they freeze to death their first night here. What are you cookin’?’ Aisling was always suspicious when Sinead cooked. Whereas Aisling Senungatuck was a very good cook, Sinead’s repertoire was limited to spitted small game over a campfire. And then she was likely to get it half done, if she was too hungry, or incinerate it if she became preoccupied.

 ‘Fox,’ she said.

 ‘Fox?’

 ‘They killed it, they’re gonna eat it.’

 ‘But nobody eats fox,’ Aisling said.

 ‘Not as a rule. But they don’t need to know that.’

 ‘At least let me add a few spices.’

 ‘Not a one,’ Sinead said with an evil grin.

 ‘Well, take them out a few of these blankets. They’ll need ‘em.’

 ‘What? With all those warm pooches around? Nah, I don’t think so.’

 ‘Sinead…’ Aisling let her voice take on the tone her partner would recognize as signalling impending doom.

 ‘Oh, all right. But you worked so hard making those pretty blankets and they’re gonna end up smelling of dog.’

 ‘Then you can help me wash them later. Call those men in to eat now.’

 ‘No, we’ll eat out front.’

 ‘Sinead.’

 ‘There’s not enough room in here, Aisling. Come on out and join us. You can give the fox-killer advice on how to sew up the pelt so it won’t show the holes he made skinnin’ it.’

 The next morning, before first light, Liam Maloney and Seamus arrived to a howled greeting from the dog team. The clamour from the dogs woke their guests, who rose painfully, stretching stiff joints and complaining of the cold. Dr Ersol was scratching.

 ‘If I turn out to be allergic to fleas, madame, I’ll have you before the Company Court,’ he told Sinead.

 ‘There aren’t any fleas on Petaybee,’ Aisling told him. ‘Too cold. But if there were, you could’ve as easily got them from the fox, so don’t go blaming the dogs. Sinead takes better care of them than she does of herself sometimes.’

 ‘We won’t be after botherin’ the dogs this mornin’ though,’ Sinead said in the broad brogue she put on with outworlders who annoyed her. ‘No snow for them, y’see. No, Mister Maloney here and Mister Rourke and me will be takin’ the curlies. I’m afraid you fine gentlemen will need to walk.’ She eyed the three men Liam and Seamus had brought with them. She was not impressed despite all the fine equipment and special clothing they were sporting.

 Seamus looked at her as if she was daft. To the men he said, more jovially than anyone had addressed them since they’d arrived on Petaybee, ‘Ah, that girl missed her callin’, sure she did. She shoulda been a general in the Company Corps, she’s that hard.’

 ‘Them as abuses animals can do without their services, I say,’ Sinead defended herself.

 But Liam said, ‘True enough, but they’ll only be slowin’ us down if they walk, cheechakos that they are. They can use Mother’s Sidhe and Da’s Oosik.’

 ‘Come to that,’ Aisling said, ‘one of ‘em could use Darby. She’s gentle.’

 ‘Fine then,’ Sinead said. ‘You three newcomers can take the curlies first shift. The poachers here can walk for a spell.’

 After rounding up the horses in question, the eight of them rode - and walked - away into the sunrise. Two hours later Sinead was forced to relent. The two poachers had suffered hard treatment at her hands the night before. Neither of the off-worlders had been able to sleep well among the dogs; at first because the men feared the dogs, and later because as soon as the dogs stopped licking their visitors’ faces or sniffing their behinds, they managed to steal the blankets. When the poachers began to stumble and fall more often than they walked, Sinead had two of the newcomers dismount and allowed the walkers to ride.

 A short time later, they came to the first culling place she was willing to show them. She had disarmed Ersol and de Peugh of their high-tech weapons the previous day and though she, Liam and Seamus all carried daggers, short thrusting spears and bows and arrows, the other three - Mooney, Clotworthy and Minkus -had not been allowed even those.

 ‘Frag, there must be ten or fifteen rabbits in there,’ Ersol said, seeing the hole where the rabbits sat or lay, waiting for them.

 ‘Probably. There have been about that many since spring,’ she answered.

 ‘So, you gonna stab ‘em or shoot ‘em with your bow?’ one of the others asked.

 ‘Neither,’ she said, then gently lifted one rabbit by the scruff of its neck and, avoiding the mouth, twisted its head saying, ‘Thank you, little brother, for giving your life that we can live, for your flesh to feed us and your fur to keep us warm. We honour you.’

 ‘Excuse me?’ said Nigel Clotworthy, who had admitted to being a systems analyst. He looked at his companions in a puzzled fashion.

 ‘She was talking to the rabbit, not you, buddy,’ de Peugh answered.

 ‘We gotta talk to rabbits?’

 ‘Yeah. Hey, Sinead, baby, what if Harvey there says he doesn’t want to get his neck wrung and he’s not so crazy about being your earmuffs either. Do you let him go, say “Sorry, my mistake.”

 ‘They’re here,’ she said, pausing to wring another neck with an emphatic crack and murmur the same prayerful thanks before she continued her explanation to the hunters, ‘because they want to be killed. Rabbits tend to overproduce. These will be the sick ones, the old ones, the extra bucks or does who couldn’t find a place. Rabbits are very sensitive, actually, and they get depressed if they’re not wanted. They know we have a use for them. So they come here. It’s like that with all the animals in the culling places, only more so with rabbits.’

 ‘What about foxes?’ Ersol asked, and met her black look steadily.

 ‘Foxes,’ she said, ‘don’t get depressed. But sometimes they do get sick, or too old. Or there’s not enough food and they decide to become culls.’

 ‘Sounds unnatural to me. I mean, it’s survival of the fittest and all that but everybody wants to live, as a rule.’

 ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As a rule. So it’s sure a shame to kill something that doesn’t want to die, isn’t it?’ Her glacial blue gaze caught and froze his.

 ‘It’s not very sporting though, is it?’ observed Minkus, one of the other hunters.

 ‘Killing is serious business,’ Sinead said, with a shrug. She handed him the rabbit she had just picked up. ‘Here, you try this. Make sure the break is clean and say part of the thanks before you finish him so he knows you’re doing it.’

 ‘Lady, I never try to hurt anything any more than it takes to do the job, but you people have gone over the top. This anthropomorphism shit is crazy. The whole universe is going to have a big belly laugh at your expense. First you try to tell us the planet is sentient and then you want me to believe you’re intimate with the psychology of bunny rabbits and foxes.’ Minkus snapped the rabbit’s neck in anger.

 First Sinead said thanks to the rabbit. Then she had words for the hunter. ‘You don’t think we just made all this up, do you? We learnt a long time ago that the animals are willing to come to these places to die as long as we are courteous and grateful for their sacrifice. But if we forget our manners, there’ll be no rabbit, no moose, no caribou, bear, or fowl and we’d better hope the vegetable crop was good in the summer because the long and the short of it is, there’ll be no meat at all. It’s the same with the sea creatures.’

 ‘Come on, you people have only been here a couple hundred years,’ de Peugh said.

 ‘Yes sir, that’s right, we have,’ Seamus put in. ‘By the time we came, our ancestors back on Earth on the Inuit side had taken to outside ways and didn’t listen to the animals no more. And you know what? Them animals got extinct - at least as far as men knew, for they never came near ‘em no more. Except for the polar bears that is,’ Seamus grinned. ‘They just turned the huntin’ round the other way. You boys manage to snag a polar bear, I want to warn you for your own good, be real polite to the one you take or his kinfolk will take exception.’

 ‘Your turn, Seamus,’ Sinead said.

 After there was a rabbit apiece, duly dressed and skinned, she motioned for them to move on.

 ‘How about all your little friends in there wanting to die?’ de Peugh asked.

 ‘There are more folks in Kilcoole than just us,’ Liam said.

 In two more hours, the trail led to a kidney-shaped lake, clear as crystal and full of lily pads. The curlies became restive.

 ‘Whoa, boy…’ said Clotworthy, leaning forward and patting the curly’s neck to reassure his mount.

 ‘Darby’s a mare,’ Liam offered.

 ‘Girl then. What’s wrong with her?’

 ‘They want to go swimming,’ Sinead said, hopping down from her mount, ‘and unless you want to go too, I’d suggest you dismount and remove her tack. You others do the same.’ Liam and Seamus already had their saddles and bridles off.

 Minkus and Mooney, who had been walking, decided to join the horses. The freeze of the previous night had cooled the water only slightly. The day had been sunny and warm after the snowfall and the lake, like most Petaybean waterways, was partially fed by hotsprings.

 Sinead was hot and tired, too. She wasn’t naturally cranky, anyone would tell you that, but she was at a loss how to impress on these oafish off-worlders the seriousness of the relationship between the species on Petaybee. She had heard in stories and songs how it had been on Earth before her great-great-grandparents left; how the animals were no different from made things, how the world was something you walked on and nothing more. Maybe it was because Petaybee was alive that the relationship between hunter and hunted was a special, privileged one, maybe it was not like that on old Earth, maybe it wasn’t like that anywhere else in the universe, except…

 The old songs and stories her ancestors’ ancestors had handed down as curiosities long after they had ceased to have any meaning in their day-to-day lives reflected that once the animals had been thought of as sisters and brothers, just as they were on Petaybee; that once they had talked with people even more easily than they did now. Maybe this new batch of crazies had the right idea. Maybe you had to pretend that living things were something to be worshipped, instead of doing as Petaybee and its inhabitants had always done and having a bit of friendly give and take. But maybe it took religious awe to get bozos like these blokes to respect anything.

 She waded in after the men and horses and plunged her hands, then her head into the lake’s waters, surface diving, opening her eyes to see the swaying stems of the lilies. The curlies’ feet churned up mud but soon they too were swimming - curlies were good swimmers. The mud settled and she could see their legs working away under water. Then, as if by agreement, all six of them dived at once.

 Lily roots were a great delicacy for curlies, one of their favourite foods, and she could feel their gaiety as they closed off their noses, lowered their extra eyelids and dived like seals for the bottom, their tails streaming out behind them like mermaids’ hair as their lips and teeth pried loose the lily roots. Once the roots were captured, the curlies turned snouts up, pumped with their front legs and were back on the surface, munching their catch.

 The men as well were all in the lake now. Sinead climbed out, dried herself and dressed. Seamus had emerged before her and Liam followed shortly after. The curlies made three or four more dives.

 ‘Looks like them fellows are more interested in horse play than the curlies are,’ Seamus said, watching the hunters diving and splashing each other and trying to catch the curlies’ tails.

 One of them was busily trying to uproot lilies. Hoping to curry favour, no doubt, Sinead thought with a wince at her own unspoken pun.

 Liam said, ‘Their feet probably hurt and curly-coats know well enough that once they’re out of the water, they’ll have riders again.’

 Seamus grinned. ‘Ah, Sinead, it’s a cruel taskmaster you are.’

 ‘Maybe so,’ she said. ‘But I don’t seem to be gettin’ through to them, now do I?’

 ‘I always thought it was simple,’ Liam said. ‘All my life, everybody I know, anytime they wanted anything, just listened to what was wanted and did it and they were taken care of. It’s not like it’s difficult or anything. But these fellows just don’t seem to think that way.’

 Seamus whistled for his curly and the others automatically followed. The men playing in the water either didn’t see or pretended they didn’t.

 ‘Ah, we’ve worried them enough, Sinead,’ Seamus said with a wink. ‘They’ve no guns to do great harm with now. I say we take the curlies and leave them on their own a bit.’

 Sinead returned his wink. ‘An excellent idea. Perhaps without us looking on they’ll figure things out for themselves.’

  

 9

 Kilcoole

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Clodagh looked over the four white-robed figures and shook her head. ‘I don’t know what Sean thinks I’m going to do with all of you. There’s only me at the house, but I don’t think there’s enough stretching space for all of you.’

 ‘Please, Clodagh,’ Sister Igneous Rock said. ‘We don’t want to put you out. But we have learnt that the Beneficence manifests itself to you in certain caverns warmed by its blessed blood and breath. We could ask for nothing better than to be allowed to live there.’

 The others nodded eagerly but Clodagh shook her head. ‘The caves aren’t living places. It’s OK to take shelter there if you’re caught out in the weather, of course, and it’s OK for animals. Not for people.’

 ‘Forgive my ignorance, Clodagh, but why is that, would you say?’ Brother Shale asked.

 Clodagh shrugged. ‘We talk to the planet most directly in the caves. If someone’s living there, it wouldn’t be polite to go in and have a chat with their house. And on the other hand, how would you like someone setting up housekeeping inside your mouth?’

 Sister Agate beamed. ‘Oh, she is so wise. They said you were wise, and you really are just as wise as they said. Isn’t she wise, brothers and sisters?’

 ‘Indeed. But might we, at least, become acquainted? Would you introduce us to the planet?’

 Clodagh shrugged. ‘You’re standing on it. But I don’t see why not. Only thing is, we just had one latchkay and there’s not another one s’posed to happen till Snowdance. And a latchkay is really the best time. But things are happenin’ so fast, maybe we should have another one sooner.’

 ‘How soon is the next one?’ Brother Shale asked.

 ‘Two, three months. Depending.’

 ‘Oh,’ Sister Igneous Rock said. ‘But that won’t do.’

 ‘Why not?’

 ‘We had hoped to come and worship and return home to spread the Word within the next month.’

 ‘Hmph,’ Clodagh said. ‘If you go that soon, you’ll miss most of the winter.’

 ‘Well, yes,’ Brother Shale said. ‘It is said that the exterior temperature gets down below minus two hundred Fahrenheit and I have rather poor circulation to endure that sort of cold.’

 ‘Never mind that,’ Sister Igneous Rock said staunchly. ‘Now, Clodagh, I appreciate your importance as the nominal high priestess of the Beneficence, but I really don’t understand why we should wait for a latchkay. Brother Granite told us that significant communication had taken place quite extemporaneously when people wandered into or were taken to the caves by one of you. That is what we wish.’

 Clodagh said, ‘OK, but I’m not any kind of priestess. I guess I’d better take you tonight, and we can all sleep there. This once.’

 ‘Fine,’ Brother Shale said. ‘Now then, what will the Beneficence perceive as an appropriate sacrifice?’

 De Peugh was the first of the hunters to notice that something was missing. ‘Damn!’ he said slapping the water.

 ‘Damn what?’ asked Clotworthy, shaking the water out of his ears.

 ‘The Great White Huntress and her native bearers have deserted us and taken the transportation!’

 ‘Oh dear,’ said Minkus. ‘I’m afraid he’s correct. I do hope she left our clothing. My winter togs came from Herod’s on Nilus II and they were hideously expensive.’ He flung this last bit back over his bony white shoulder while wading to shore. ‘Ah!’ he said, once there. ‘It’s all right, chaps! Our kit is all accounted for.’

 ‘Great,’ said Ersol. ‘So it’ll take us much longer to freeze to death this way.’ A fat black cloud chose that moment to cross the path of the low-hanging sun and a teasing wind chased wavelets up to wet the back of his legs as he danced around on the sharp stones scattered along the shore.

 The first one to finish dressing was Mooney, who, looking to the far side of the lake, pointed and said, ‘She didn’t take all the horses with her! Look, there’s one of them over there!’

 ‘First one to catch it gets to ride!’ Clotworthy said and started running. Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite finished putting on his boots, and tripped and fell face down in the shallows, wetting his water-resistant parka and muddying and scratching his face.

 Ersol, a more experienced hunter, proceeded calmly into the lumpen undergrowth sprouting beneath the sparse, skinny trees.

 ‘I see it,’ he hissed back to the others, and stalked it. Meanwhile, Clotworthy stood, picked up a bow and arrow, followed by Minkus brandishing a spear, and Mooney holding the dagger in his teeth so he would have both hands free to grab the curly’s mane if necessary. De Peugh took the time to hoist the quiver of arrows on to his shoulder and test the bow string before following his fellows. He also, prudently, stuck a rabbit in one of the forty-seven capacious pockets of his hunting vest.

 The curly looked as if it was amenable to being caught, standing quietly, drinking from the lake, until Ersol was almost within touching distance of it. Then it lifted its head and looked at him.

 ‘Holy horseshit, will you look at that!’ he said.

 The curlycorn shook its shaggy head at him, its newly sharpened single horn glinting, and trotted off to a safe distance. It blinked at him, once.

 ‘It’s a fraggin’ unicorn!’ Ercol called back to the others.

 ‘Well, don’t just stare at it, shoot it!’ de Peugh growled, coming up behind him and drawing his own bow. ‘You can bet your retirement fund those things don’t get depressed and go lie in holes waiting to die.’

 ‘No-one’, said Minkus, ‘will ever believe this.’

 ‘Not unless we take the head back with us,’ de Peugh said, letting his arrow fly.

 The arrow was just a bit behind the curlycorn, which galloped off, not in fear, it seemed to Minkus, but as if it had suddenly thought of a previous appointment.

 ‘Missed!’ Ersol said and sent his arrow flying too.

 They were not stupid men, on the whole, and it didn’t take them too long to decide that they hadn’t a prayer of catching the heretofore mythical creature so they stopped chasing it.

 Thoroughly winded and disgusted, they turned back to where they had left the rest of their winter gear and the rabbits Sinead had left behind for them.

 Something new had been added. What looked like an enormous calico housecat, the base of its tail thin, the tip bushy, was licking the last of the last rabbit from its mouth. Behind it lurked the curlycorn, quite as if, Minkus thought, the two beasts were conspiring against the hunting party.

 Minkus was inclined to remonstrate with the beasts but de Peugh had worked his way into a leadership position and hushed the lot of them with a finger to his lips.

 The cat sauntered towards the curlycorn and the two of them ambled off into the woods. With a stealthy wiggle of his fingers, de Peugh motioned them to follow.

 Together they crept after the elusive beasts as quietly as five men unaccustomed to Petaybean groundcover could creep. The animals managed to stay just out of range, but did not seem to notice their arrows.

 ‘You can tell nothing here is used to being hunted,’ Ersol whispered. ‘They aren’t taking anything fired in their direction personally.’

 With another gesture from de Peugh, the men spread out and came towards the animals from five different angles. This time, when Ersol fired his arrow, it glanced off the flank of the curlycorn, which whinnied and began to run. The cat chased it, as if in a game. The men broke into a run too, and because of their angles, closed in on the cat.

 Suddenly the curlycorn reared, his chest looming over Minkus. Now was the time to use the spear or never. But the cat evaded Mooney’s dagger by springing straight across the shaft of Minkus’s spear, knocking it aside.

 Minkus, who fancied himself no mean hand at springing, threw himself at the cat at precisely the same time as the other four men. The cat’s fur brushed his hands as his feet landed, tangling with eight other feet, and the lot of them plunged through the underbrush and down, down, bruisingly down into a deep, dark hole.

 Landing on that part of his anatomy best suited for abrupt seating, Minkus was showered with debris from above. Looking up, he saw the faces of the cat, its teeth bared in a wide grin, and the curlycorn, staring down at him and his companions. Perhaps there was something to this anthropomorphism after all, he thought. He could have sworn that both animals wore expressions of profound satisfaction.

 ‘I think I broke my jaw,’ mumbled Mooney. Or that was what Minkus understood him to say. Mooney’s actual statement was obscured by what seemed to be the echo of his last word, distorted into ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha’.

 After sending Liam and Seamus on to the other culling places, Sinead and the extra curlies turned back to where she’d last seen the cheechakos. It had started snowing in the time they took to make their plans, and a light coating of snow masked the lake shore and its surroundings. She missed the spot at first, for there was no longer any clothing or weapons or any trace of the dead rabbits.

 ‘I know I left ‘em around here somewhere,’ she said, dismounting and looking for a sign that would enable her to start tracking the men. Brushing aside some of the snow, she uncovered the vestiges of several sets of tracks, two sets leading away from the site and one leading back. There was also one clear set of the paw prints of a track-sized cat. She began calling but her cries were not answered, and after trying to tell one broken bush from another she gave up and decided to find Liam and Seamus instead so that she could send Seamus back to Kilcoole for help while she and Liam, the best tracker of the three of them, continued to search.

 Clodagh was beginning to realize why religious congregations were sometimes called ‘flocks’. The ones following her to the hotsprings had less sense than sheep and were noisier than magpies.

 They insisted on walking to the hotsprings cave barefoot, even though she warned them about the coo-berry brambles that still guarded the entrance to the cave from the unwary and uninvited. The coobrambles had settled back into being ordinary weeds again, their extraordinary growth curtailed once the brambles had penetrated and removed all of the Petraseal, and most of the people who had painted the sealant, in four of the planet’s communion caves. The brambles had been cut back, poisoned, and burnt but there was still a thriving growth at the hotsprings. You just had to know how to avoid it.

 Clodagh did avoid it. The newcomers insisted on walking straight through the brambles and she had an awful time getting them loose again, finally having to resort to the small mist bottle of coo repellent she had thankfully remembered to carry with her.

 Then the newcomers wanted to enter the cave by prostrating themselves and crawling in like worms, but Clodagh pointed out that since the entrance was through the waterfall, they could drown that way and really, truly, the planet didn’t care a bit how they came in as long as they didn’t have any Petraseal with them.

 They did insist on grovelling and kissing the cave floor the moment they entered, though.

 After genuflecting six or seven times, Sister Igneous Rock threw her outstretched arms into the air and cried, ‘Speak to us O Beneficence…’

 All they got was an echo, not of the last word, but of the O. It sounded like Wo, no, no…’

 ‘Tell us what you would have us do! How can we dedicate our miserable lives to your service? How can we redeem the error of humankind to your greater glory? How can we demonstrate that, though unworthy, we are more than willing to do your bidding? How can we convince You to show us your will?’

 ‘How?’ echoed the others. ‘Tell us how.’

 Clodagh sighed. They could start by shutting up. Even if it had something to say today, which it apparently didn’t, not even the planet could get a word in edgewise the way these folks carried on.

 After a time, they did stop babbling. Clodagh had half fallen asleep by then.

 Lazily, she roused up. ‘You all done now?’

 But just then, Brother Schist collapsed back down to his knees and yelled, ‘Halleluja! I just heard voices!’

 ‘What? Where? Why should it talk to you and not to the rest of us? What did it reveal to you?’ cried Sister Agate.

 ‘It said, “Fraggitall, these things have thorns.

 ‘Ah-ha,’ Clodagh said, and stepped over them to the cave’s entrance, sliding between the waterfall and the cliff face.

 Portia Porter-Pendergrass and Bill Guthrie were tangling themselves to shreds in coobrambles.

 Clodagh took her spray-mist bottle from her apron pocket, spritzed her way to them and tried to help.

 ‘Get away from me!’ Portia shrieked. ‘Guthrie, what kind of a man are you? Make this… this witch - let go of me!’

 ‘I thought you came to talk to me,’ Clodagh said, genuinely puzzled. ‘Sean said you folks wanted to.’

 ‘Pay no attention to her, Dama,’ Bill Guthrie said. ‘She’s hysterical. She became addicted to one of her company’s own tranquillizers - sad case, really. I wanted to talk to you about the pharmaceutical potential of some of the materia medica you have discovered on your charming planet but Portia thought we should just begin taking samples. Unfortunately, the samples seem to have taken us.’

 ‘Sure looks that way,’ Clodagh said. ‘Dama, if you just stand up and pick off the ones stuck to your clothes, I think you’re free now. It’s startin’ to snow anyway. Coobrambles shrink when it snows. Come on over to the spring and let’s wash and treat those scratches. You got some pretty deep ones.’

 The easiest place to give the distraught Portia and Guthrie a dry bramble-free place to sit while washing and treating their wounds was the inside of the cave. The ‘rock flock’, as Clodagh was beginning to think of the white-robed pilgrims, eagerly assisted in ‘ministering’ as they called it.

 ‘What did you want samples of anyway?’ Clodagh asked Portia Porter-Pendergrass, just to distract her from screeching in the ear of her rescuers whenever Clodagh daubed a little sting-bush leaf on a scratch.

 ‘That stuff you’re putting on me now, for starters,’ she said. Her face and hands were a mess and one thorn had narrowly missed her left eye. Clodagh felt bad for her.

 ‘That’s OK then, alannah,’ she said as if to a child, being as gentle as she could with a very deep scratch on the leg. ‘You can have the rest of this when we’re done here. You’ll need it anyway to make those scratches go away.’

 ‘How about me?’ Bill Guthrie asked plaintively.

 ‘You too,’ Clodagh said, patting his knee. ‘Just be brave and hold on till I’m finished here and I’ll gather some more for you to take home.’

 ‘And that cough medicine you gave Yanaba Maddock?’ Portia asked.

 ‘Why? You got a cough?’

 ‘Oh yes,’ she said, giving a forced hack.

 ‘Me too,’ Bill Guthrie said.

 ‘That stuff you sprayed on the bushes,’ Portia said as pitifully as she could.

 But before Bill Guthrie could chime in again, Sister Agate threw herself between the two coobramble victims and Clodagh.

 ‘Do not harken to the false words of these infidels, Mother Clodagh…’

 ‘I told you, I’m not your mother…’

 ‘Clodagh, she’s right,’ Brother Shale said, taking her shoulders and attempting to pull her away from the pharmaceutical reps. ‘These people are out only to exploit the Beneficence. They want to strip it of its miracles and synthesize its wonders for base motives of pecuniary profit.’

 ‘They’ll desecrate the Beneficence,’ Sister Igneous Rock howled.

 ‘Be quiet,’ Clodagh said.

 ‘You mustn’t…’ Sister Agate began.

 ‘They’re crazy…’ Bill Guthrie said, shaking off Brother Shale.

 But both were drowned out by a booming echo of Clodagh’s voice, rebounding through the cave. ‘QUIET! QUIET! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Et! Et! Et. Et…’

 ‘It spoke!’ Sister Igneous Rock whispered, clasping her heart.

 ‘That was an echo, you idiot!’ Portia Porter-Pendergrass said with a snarl.

 ‘QUIET, IDIOT!’ the echo said just once. And this time nobody spoke.

 Finally, Clodagh said, ‘You people quit fighting and stop being so silly. You lot,’ she nodded at the rock flock,’ the planet isn’t a Creator any more than any of you. It’s part of creation. The powers that be at Intergal even helped make it how it is now, though they only woke it up, they didn’t create its life.’

 ‘But how do you know, Clodagh,’ Brother Agate asked. ‘You are but a mere mortal, though favoured …

 ‘I know ‘cause the planet told me so, of course,’ she said. ‘And if you want it to tell you anything, you’re gonna have to get rid of some of your funny ideas long enough to make room for what it’s got to say. As for you folks,’ she nodded to Portia and Bill, ‘you can have any medicine you need and welcome to it.’

 ‘They’ll Analyse it,’ Sister Agate moaned.

 ‘They’ll Synthesize it,’ Brother Shale groaned.

 ‘So?’ Clodagh asked. ‘If there’s sick folks needing medicine and they can make up stuff like we got here to cure them, that’s a good thing.’

 ‘You don’t understand!’ Sister Igneous Rock wailed. ‘We’ve seen it happen before on other worlds! Our own worlds! We even aided in the desecration, may the Beneficence forgive us, before we realized what we had wrought and saw the light. Brother Shale was a geologist for the intergalactic energy rapists and I myself engineered plants with which they could steal the treasures of other worlds. Even when I learnt there were Better Ways I could not convince my masters. They want only to destroy. Oh, believe me, Clodagh, for I have seen how they work. We have all seen it.

 They’ll build factories here and pollute the waters, clog the voice of the Bene - the planet, they’ll strip it bare of its healing plants and minerals!’

 ‘It’d just be a small factory,’ Bill Guthrie said, holding up his thumb and forefinger with an inch spread between them to show how small the factory would be.

 ‘And if we took all of the mature plants, well, they’re plants, they’ll grow back, right? We call it a renewable resource, Clodagh,’ Portia said like she was talking to someone dumb enough to go out in midwinter without a coat on. ‘It’s a growing thing.’

 ‘So’s your skin,’ Clodagh said, shaking her head. ‘But if the coobrambles stripped it all off you, it wouldn’t grow back - at least not fast enough to keep you alive. Petaybee’s just like you. You take off its skin and it’ll be back to what it was - not dead maybe, but not awake either.’

 ‘But, don’t you see, there are real lives, human lives, being wasted for want of the cures Petaybee has to offer. You owe it to them…’ As if in support of that argument, the cave began to echo with the cry, ‘Help! Help, please! Somebody help us.’

  

 10

 Gal-3 - Repair bay

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Bunny tried to get the ship’s computer to sound an alert while Diego attempted to persuade the hatch to reopen. His bracelet didn’t do the job, nor did any amount of trying different button combinations on the pad located beneath a smooth metal panel. Finally, something clicked, he wasn’t sure what, and the panel irised open. He heard footsteps in the corridor and looked to see where they were coming from.

 ‘Bunny, quick, we’ve got to hide!’ he said. ‘The white suits are coming back. They’re carrying things. More bodies it looks like.’

 ‘Can we run for it?’

 ‘You can’t outrun a laser.’

 ‘Diego, they’ve all got pressure suits on. If they open the outer hatch while we’re here, we’re goners.’

 ‘That, too, although with them carrying stuff, they aren’t likely to have free hands to pull the lasers on us.’

 ‘Come on, Diego. If we stand here arguing about it, we’re goners for sure.’

 ‘They’re too close!’ he said. He saw them clearly now, the white-suited figures, carrying two women -Yana and Marmie! One of the figures, a tall man, wore the helmet but no white suit. Diego was pretty sure he hadn’t been with them earlier.

 ‘Let’s go,’ she said, and pushed him out the door.

 They were halfway down the corridor when a cloud of sweet-smelling pink gas overtook them.

 Yana awoke coughing so hard she thought for a moment her life of the last few months had been a dream and she was still in the infirmary following the Bremport massacre. She had a sickly sweet taste in her mouth and a constriction about her chest, which she found, when she stopped coughing, was caused by another body lying across her. She reached out and her hand was full of face - smooth, unlined face and a tangle of hair.

 A chorus of coughing, not as violent as her own, erupted all around her and then Bunny’s voice grumbled in a sleepy-headed childish tone, ‘Ouch, your finger’s in my eye.’

 ‘Sorry,’ Yana muttered and Bunny wriggled away, provoking another’sorry’ from whomever she rolled into in giving Yana more space: Diego, in fact.

 ‘Sorry, Diego,’ Bunny said. ‘It’s a little crowded in here.’

 ‘Yana,’ Marmion’s voice was faintly slurred, and she too began coughing, but daintily. ‘Was that party of Ples’s much better than I thought it was?’

 ‘I don’t think so, unless she uses pink perfumed, gas on her guests afterwards,’ Yana said, coughing again.

 ‘Merde alors! Is that what it was? Where are we?’

 ‘I don’t know. (Hack) It’s dark.’

 Then suddenly it wasn’t and a chirpy voice said, ‘Oh, good, our guests are awake. Tell me, none of you have any food allergies do you? Anyone a vegetarian?’

 Yana blinked fast and focused on the small port where a pert face dimpled in at them. Yana had seen hundreds of faces like that pushing everything from shampoo to specific space craft for flights to anywhere you cared to mention.

 ‘What’s it to ya?’ Bunny asked, surprisingly pugnacious on such short notice.

 ‘Now, honey, that’s no way to be. Just because you have to be our guests for a while doesn’t mean the experience has to be unpleasant. Sorry to crowd you all in like that but we thought you’d feel reassured to find each other near by when you woke up. I’m afraid the boys were a little careless how you landed. So, let’s try again, shall we? Any food allergies?’

 The tangle on the floor sorted themselves out. ‘I demand to know where we are and why we’ve been detained in this fashion,’ Marmion said.

 Til be glad to explain but really, the crew is going to be cross if they don’t get their dinners on time so could you please answer my question first?’ the person at the port said with a trace of irritation.

 ‘I would dislike causing your crew any inconvenience,’ Yana said in a trenchant tone. ‘None of us is a vegetarian but I,’ and she paused for a coughing fit, ‘am sensitive to any sort of gas!’

 ‘Fine, good. Wonderful. Back in a jiff,’ the person said, and left.

 ‘Marmion,’ Yana said sotto voce, and when she had Marmion’s attention in the dimly lit room, she gestured to where she had hidden her alarm. It was gone now: she’d’ve been surprised if it’d still been there, a gross oversight on their captors’ part.

 Marmion gave the most imperceptible of nods and a sly smile. So, thought Yana, both of them had had a chance to send signals. Help ought to be on its way. Wherever they were.

 ‘Macci’s not here,’ Marmion said suddenly. ‘What have they done with him, do you suppose? There’s just us four.’

 ‘Oh!’

 Then Pert-face, as good as her word, was back. When she opened the hatch, she had two armed guards with her and the three of them stayed outside the room. The guards wore orange coveralls with no identifying patches. Pert-face wore a bodytight in green with an aqua tunic of what appeared to be crocheted lace. Her hair was light brown, with lynxlike grey tufts at the ears and in a diamond pattern at the crown, extending into the fringe of hair accenting earnest brown eyes.

 ‘I’m Dinah O’Neill,’ she introduced herself. ‘I represent Louchard Enterprises’

 ‘As what?’ Yana asked.

 ‘Oh, Public Relations, Legal, Administrative, what-have-you. I’m the representative. And you, I take it, must be Colonel Yanaba Maddock?’

 Yana nodded but declined to shake her hand.

 ‘And the famous Marmion de Revers Algemeine!’ Dinah O’Neill said, the stars practically dancing in her eyes as she addressed Marmie. ‘I’m thrilled to meet you.’

 ‘I wish I could say the same,’ Marmion said.

 ‘Now, now, Madame Algemeine, I’m sure you’ve been unavoidably detained for business reasons before. Think of this little interlude as another minor delay. And these lovely youngsters must be… let’s see, Diego Metaxos? Right? Right! And Buneka or Bunny - my, that really suits you - Rourke. I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have you here.’

 ‘I’ll bet,’ Yana said, coughing again.

 ‘And where is Macci Sendal?’ Marmion asked. ‘He was with us when we were gassed.’

 ‘Ah, yes, that glamorous one. As far as I know he’s all right but really, I felt the four of you would be crowded enough in here despite misery loving company so much.’

 ‘There’s a reason for all of this nonsense?’ Marmion asked, totally unamused.

 ‘The reasons are rather complicated and really nothing you need to worry about now. You’re all safe and well and that’s the important thing, isn’t it? Except that poor Colonel Maddock seems to be catching cold.’ Yana had launched into another paroxysm.

 ‘It’s not a cold,’ Bunny said, wrapping her arm protectively across Yana’s hunched shoulders while she coughed. ‘She’s only just over a gas poisoning at Bremport and you - you can’t just go around indiscriminately gassing people…’

 ‘I’m so sorry,’ Dinah O’Neill said. ‘The boss fancied a disabling laser bolt through the knees but I suggested that gas provides less wear and tear on the cargo - I mean, the guests. I do apologize.’ She snapped her fingers at one of the guards who had a tray in one hand and a four-litre bottle in the other. ‘Here’s your dinner. Quite nourishing, I assure you. And just what the captain ordered. Enjoy!’

 The guard laid these supplies on the floor and backed away.

 ‘I have a dog named Dinah,’ Diego said softly to no-one in particular. ‘She’s a nice bitch!’

 ‘Flattery will get you nowhere, youngster,’ and there was an edge on the bubbly tone Pert-face used. The door clanged shut.

 Marmion lifted up the tray and peered at its contents. ‘Nutritional bars and some vitamin cubes.’

 ‘What was all that crap about allergies and vegetarianism, then?’ Diego wanted to know.

 ‘Here, Yana,’ Marmion said, passing the water bottle. ‘See if it’ll soothe your throat.’

 Yana gratefully swigged a big mouthful which she trickled down her dry throat.

 ‘What are you doing?’ she asked Bunny who was now audibly sniffing, turning her head to smell each corner of the small room.

 ‘Wherever we are, we’re still on the Space Station,’ Bunny said.

 ‘However can you arrive at that conclusion?’ Marmion asked, surprised and sceptical.

 ‘Air,’ Bunny said and grinned. ‘I’m a good sniffer and this is the same air that we were breathing on Gal-Three. Your launch had different-smelling air. But this…’ and she sniffed again, ‘… is the same as Gal-Three.’

 ‘You know, she might be right,’ Marmion said.

 ‘I devoutly hope she is,’ Yana said with an unobtrusive gesture to where the alarm pad had been.

 Marmion considered this. ‘I wonder… You could be right, Bunny.’

 ‘D’you think they do have Macci next door or someplace?’ Diego asked.

 ‘You mean, could he be in this with our dear Dinah?’ Marmion asked. ‘Really, Diego. Macci’s Rothschild’s, not a pirate.’

 ‘Is that who’s kidnapped us? Pirates?’ Bunny was torn between astonishment and dismay. Then her expression changed into a disgusted grimace. ‘Water! I chewed that cube and it’s one you’ve got to swallow. Urgh.’

 They finished their repast and each took a long swig of water to wash down the last of the dry bars and cubes and then arranged themselves about the small room. They sat two on a side, facing each other, their legs meeting in the centre of the small space.

 ‘Now what?’ Bunny asked in a very brave voice that had only a slight tremor in it.

 Yana scratched at her shoulder, unobtrusively fingering where the alarm pad had been. She was desperately hoping that her initial use of the now missing device had got through to the security folk. Surely there’d been enough time to trace their whereabouts - that is, if they were on the station as Bunny felt they should be. And where was the ‘unseen’ eye that Marmion had mentioned in her launch that would be watching out for their safety?

 She started coughing again. Bunny handed over the water but Yana couldn’t stop coughing long enough to take a sip.

 ‘Dinah? Dinah O’Neill?’ cried Bunny, rising and pounding on the hatch with both fists. ‘The Colonel needs a doctor. She’s coughing blood! Damn it! Answer me…’

 The hatch was hauled open so abruptly that Bunny lost her balance and then lurched back away from the angry faces that looked in at them: the two men who had brought the ‘food’.

 ‘Let’s see the blood,’ one of them demanded.

 Yana was barking so hard and painfully that she was bent over her knees, trying to ease the spasms that racked her belly. She was hoping the coughing wouldn’t provoke a miscarriage. That thought made her clasp her belly protectively as the compulsive tickle kept up its irritation and she kept up her coughing.

 ‘You see! You see!’ Bunny cried, outraged. ‘Get her a doctor. She’s no good to you dead!’

 The hatch shut with a resounding clang.

 ‘She’ll be all right?’ Diego asked, his voice taut. ‘She won’t lose the baby or anything?’

 Yana shook her head, denying that to him as well as to herself. And kept right on coughing, gasping for breath now, her ribs aching from the exercise.

 ‘We must be able to do something!’ Bunny cried and had pounded twice on the hatch when it opened again and a soulful face, long and aristocratic, framed with silvery hair and a well-trimmed beard looked in briefly. He was pushed aside by Dinah O’Neill.

 ‘What’s this? What’s this? Blood?’

 ‘She can’t stop coughing from all that gas you poured into us,’ Bunny said angrily. ‘Do something.’

 ‘This is Doctor Namid Mendelsky…’ Dinah began.

 ‘I’m a doctor of astronomy, not medicine, Ms O’Neill,’ he said contritely. ‘But your infirmary must have some sort of linctus. Even pirates get coughs…’

 ‘Privateer,’ Dinah O’Neill corrected primly. She spoke over her shoulder. ‘Bring the first aid kit.’

 ‘That’s for injuries…’

 ‘Get it.’

 ‘Codeine stops the cough reflex,’ Diego said helpfully. ‘Most first aid kits have something of that sort in them. Mild. Useful.’

 Yana hesitated. ‘C-codeine?’ she gasped. ‘What about the b-baby?’

 Mendelsky raised his eyebrows and gave a slightly uneasy shrug. ‘I wouldn’t think there’d be much risk to the foetus at this stage, but I’m no obstetrician. I think it’s a safe bet, however, if the cough continues to be this violent, that you could miscarry.’

 She nodded, pausing only a moment to bark again.

 ‘What she needs is to get back to Petaybee, and Clodagh’s syrup,’ Bunny said.

 ‘Ah, yes,’ said Privateer Dinah O’Neill brightly. ‘Well, we can see our way clear to do that, after certain basic arrangements have been made.’

 ‘Ransom demands, you mean,’ Marmion said stiffly.

 Dinah O’Neill twinkled at her as if she’d said something very witty. ‘First we really must do something to stop that coughing or we won’t be able to get her to agree to anything.’

 Yana violently waved both arms, trying to indicate that despite her coughing she wasn’t about to agree to anything. Then the guard returned and was thrusting the first aid container, a sizeable one too, at Dinah who side-stepped so that the box went to Dr Mendelsky.

 ‘Please,’ Bunny said, now supporting the weakening Yana against her. ‘Find something!’

 ‘I’m really an astronomer, not a medical…’

 ‘Anything!’ Bunny cried in an anguish punctuated by Yana’s painful barking.

 ‘Ah, codeine!’ Namid Mendelsky held up a vial in triumph and then his face lost that look for one of doubt. ‘But how much?’

 Marmion held out her hand for the vial. Looked at it. ‘The spray,’ she said authoritatively and, when she received that, did the filling and then released the drug into Yana’s throat. Almost magically, it seemed to everyone in the small room, the paroxysm eased and Yana lay, exhausted, against Bunny.

 ‘And look, an herbal linctus?’ Mendelsky passed that over to Marmion who also read its label.

 She broke the seal on the cap and opened the bottle, passing it to Yana who let the thick liquid flow into her mouth and down her throat, lining it in a soothing fashion. She recapped the bottle, clutching it to herself, her lungs heaving to reduce the oxygen debt the coughing had caused.

 Dinah O’Neill clicked her fingers at Marmion who still held the hypospray and the codeine vial. Marmion handed them over.

 ‘So?’ Marmion asked the privateer in a deeply significant tone. ‘Now what?’

 ‘Can you walk, Colonel?’ Dinah asked, peering down at Yana.

 ‘If a walk means we can settle this nonsense sooner, I’ll make it.’

 ‘Ever the valiant colonel,’ Dinah replied, dimpling at her. ‘I do admire your resolution and intrepidity.’

 ‘Thanks,’ Yana said, exhaling wearily. That coughing had taken a lot out of her but she mustn’t indicate just how much.

 ‘Good. Then Megenda, the first mate, will escort you to the Captain’s cabin. I have other duties to attend.’

 ‘Macci?’ Marmion asked, hopeful of an answer.

 ‘Now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ Dinah said, mildly reproving and went off. The doctor of astronomy followed her and a larger figure loomed in the hatch opening.

 First Mate Megenda was a tall, muscular black man who probably had ended up a pirate-privateer because he looked the part so completely. One eye was a cyber-implant that was only slightly less menacing than an eyepatch. He had cut the sleeves out of his orange coverall and wore a striped jersey beneath it and a flowered red bandanna around his shaven head. Really, Yana thought, grasping at any diversion, the man had been watching far too many swashbuckling holovids.

 He gestured peremptorily for them to follow him -and an equally large and threatening fellow, olive-green rather than black, fell in behind Diego who was last to leave their prison. Yana managed another swig of the linctus, for just the act of getting up made the tickle return to her throat.

 They were led through corridor after endless corridor, past supply locks and repair bays and what looked like weapons rooms and cybersleep facilities, storage bay after storage bay. Some of them, Yana could have sworn, they passed by more than once. They walked until her feet hurt and her cough was ceaseless but still their captors led them on through more corridors. The Captain evidently controlled business on the ship via remote most of the time, because the Captain’s quarters certainly appeared to be hard to reach. Most of the commands that didn’t come via computer were probably relayed by the O’Neill woman and the first mate.

 But the Captain made the first mate look normal. The chamber into which Megenda led them was theatrical in the extreme, resembling an opulent captain’s chamber from an ancient sailing vessel, with swags of rich material, hard-copy navigational charts, antique compasses and sextants and things which would be of very little use in space, plus a computer console and a few other contemporary touches disguised in what appeared to be real wooden settings.

 Behind a large carved desk, the top of which was an immense star chart, sat the infamous Onidi Louchard. Yana had wondered what this pirate chieftain would be like. She’d heard that Louchard was a woman. Hard to tell. To the world, the Captain appeared as an Aurelian - a six-armed, vaguely humanoid creature with a craw full of fangs that would have stretched from ear to ear had the creature had ears, and an optical slit that circled its entire cranial prominence. This was a holocover. Even if the wavy aura wasn’t discernible, which it was (though only slightly), an Aurelian, even an Aurelian pirate - an unlikely occupation for a peaceful sea-dweller with a language similar to that of Earth’s aquatic mammals - or even an Aurelian who could live outside its normal environment, would have no conceivable use for the gadgetry displayed in that room.

 Also, this particular Aurelian dry-environment-dwelling pirate spoke pretty good English, through some sort of distorting device.

 ‘I had no idea you had a sense of humour, Louchard,’ Yana stopped coughing long enough to say.

 ‘Enough. You will record the messages as they are written for you on these sheets. You, Madame Algemeine, will have all of your liquid credits transferred in the manner described here. In addition, you will sell your interest in the following concerns for the price given to the first buyer approaching your broker. The entire transaction, needless to say, will be kept completely confidential if you wish to remain alive, alert, articulate and anatomically complete. These transactions will take place in time-controlled sections so that any security measures on the part of your people will be detected and you will, I guarantee, suffer for them.

 ‘As for you, Colonel Maddock, in addition to the demands we list there, I suggest that you have your husband send along some of the famous Petaybean cough syrup that cured you the first time. Signing over the patent to the party we suggest, of course. I warn you that any resistance or reluctance on your part will result in unfortunate consequences for the young people accompanying you, as well as for yourself. It will also prolong your stay with us and we are not equipped with any provisions for delivering babies. I trust when you record your messages, you ladies will endeavour to sound sincere and very, very convincing. Begin.

  

 11

 Kilcoole

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 Sean Shongili was awakened by Adak, who had just received word via Johnny Greene that stragglers from the shuttle containing the first group of hunters had shown up in Harrison’s Fjord, suffering from exposure and demanding to make contact with their attorneys.

 He was still sorting that out when Una Monaghan located him in Clodagh’s cabin, dragged him down the road to Yana’s and pointed at the comlink. Yana’s voice transmission was staticky, but the words appearing on the screen were unmistakable.

 ‘We’ve been kidnapped, Sean. Me, Marmion, Bunny and Diego and this is what the ransom is,’ she began as his knees, unaccountably unable to support him, folded and his butt fortunately hit the seat of the chair. ‘They don’t intend to let us go until the ransom’s all paid.’

 ‘But we don’t have any credit!’ Sean began in protest.

 ‘We’re apparently in possession of a valuable planet,’ and then Yana began coughing.

 ‘Yana? Are you all right?’

 ‘She is not all right,’ another voice said. ‘She coughs much and bloodily and…’

 The transmission was abruptly cut off. Sean stared at the comunit, tapped it, thinking the connection had merely been interrupted. But, after a few more moments of useless tinkering, he had to admit that this wasn’t the case.

 ‘And the ransom is Petaybee?’ And just how did the kidnappers expect him to hand over a planet? A planet that certainly wasn’t his to give!

 ‘Sean?’ Una had popped her head around the door.

 ‘Una! Get Johnny and find out how we can reestablish contact with the parties who’ve kidnapped Yana, our baby, Bunny and Diego, and Madame Algemeine…’

 ‘Kidnapped?’ Una’s voice broke. ‘Johnny! Yes, I’ll get Johnny. He’ll know.’

 Johnny didn’t, but he opened a channel to the Space Station and Dr Whittaker Fiske. Whit, recovering nobly and quickly from the shock of the news, said that he’d find out or die trying.

 Sean was unable to attend to any of even the most pressing duties. Una and the other off-worlders who were being assigned to useful services for the benefit of the emerging Petaybean government carried on as best they could. Though the true nature of the problem was not mentioned to anyone but Johnny Greene, very shortly everyone in Kilcoole knew that Yana, Bunny, Diego and Marmion had been kidnapped.

 Nanook crept in to occupy a corner, saying nothing but keeping his amber eyes softly on Sean. Coaxtl, minus Cita, shortly arrived and stationed herself on the opposite side. Orange cats appeared briefly in the doorway and disappeared as Sean sat and stared at the comlink, willing it to work and provide good news. Good news only!

 In his head thoughts went up and down on a mental carousel: Yana and his unborn child were kidnapped; Bunny, Diego and Marmion too. By whom? For what reason? He had no right to give a planet as security! Not to anyone. Only the planet could say what it would or wouldn’t do. Maybe that was the answer. The best thing to do with the problem was turn it over to the planet. But he couldn’t leave the office, not until that bedamned, unworking comlink awoke with some news. Would he see Yana alive again? Would they ever see their baby? Kidnappees did not often return unharmed, alive or compos mentis. Who knew in what condition they’d be returned, if they were returned? Anything could happen to them - maiming that was not just physical but mental and emotional as well. He’d heard rumours of hideous mind-wiping devices that could totally destroy your personality by causing permanent amnesia that severed all bonds.

 How had Marmion let an abduction occur? She’d promised they’d all be safe for that so-called’short time’ it would take to satisfy the CIS Committee about the nature of Petaybee. They’d been gone long past the original estimates. So the kidnappers could set it all up? And start swamping the planet with drug merchants, hunters, religious orders, orphans, homeless relatives and all sorts of human flotsam and jetsam. And no facilities to handle such an influx.

 The comlink buzzed and Sean pounced on it like a hungry mink on a roosting chicken.

 ‘Sorry to tell you this, Sean,’ Whittaker Fiske said, ‘but the kidnapper has been identified as Onidi Louchard, a well-known and clever pirate with a well-equipped outfit and a base that no law enforcement agency’s ever been able to discover. Louchard is ruthless and has formidable resources.’

 ‘Do they have a medic?’ Sean demanded savagely, the sound of Yana’s coughing echoing in his ears. Damn! She’d only just got over the after-effects of the

 Bremport gassing. How could she be subjected to another episode?

 ‘Huh?’ Whit was taken aback by the unexpected question.

 ‘Yana’s got a cough again, bad enough so they use it to threaten me with.’

 ‘They lose her as hostage and they’ve no leverage

 ‘Damn it, Whit, what d’you mean by that?

 ‘That if she’s sick, they’ll bloody well see she gets better! Of course. What’d you think I meant?’ Sean murmured something but Whit went on. ‘The commander of Gal-Three’s organized a massive search of and contact with every vessel that left the docks since before Yana, Marmion and the kids went missing. They’re leaving nothing to chance.’ Whit gave a groan. ‘But it’s going to take time. That’s one of the busiest stations in the whole Intergal net. I’ve also had a word with Anaciliact and he’s none too happy with that PTS group. He’s going to get an injunction against them to prevent any further unauthorized trips to the surface. I’m going one better. I’m getting permission for you to have a representative in the SpaceBase control tower so you can trace any drops they might make before that injunction is served. We gotta find them first.’ Whit made a noise of total disgust and annoyance at the obstacles. ‘We don’t need any of this right now!’

 ‘Precisely why we have it,’ Sean said bitterly. ‘Can you spare Johnny to watch the screen?’

 Whittaker shook his head regretfully. ‘No, much as I’d like to but he’s far more useful elsewhere than sitting on his duff looking at a screen for hours on end.’

 ‘Yeah.’

 ‘Get Una to see what she can come up with.’

 That was not only heartening advice but a good notion: Una possessed a knack of finding people with unusual, and very useful, talents.

 Til ask her.

 ‘I’ll keep in touch, Sean, and see what else I can learn that’s going on at Gal-Three.’

 ‘Find out where Luzon is,’ Sean said dourly.

 ‘I did. He’s doing intensive therapy in some fancy spa to get active again.’

 ‘Again? He’s never stopped being active - against Petaybee.’

 ‘If we could prove that, Sean,’ Whit said in a savage and none-too-hopeful tone, ‘we’d do Intergal a big favour.’

 ‘Count on me.’

 As soon as the link broke, Sean explained to Una what was needed and why.

 ‘One of my first group, I think, had some station-keeping experience,’ she said after a long moment’s thought. ‘I thought it very odd indeed that we were landed so far from any place civilized…’

 Since she implied that Kilcoole was civilized, Sean burst out laughing. She regarded him in some surprise.

 ‘You do my heart good, Una. You consider Kilcoole civilized?’

 ‘Comparatively speaking,’ she said with a slight grin, but inwardly she was gratified that she had eased the haunted look on Sean’s face. She had come to admire him very much in the short time she’d been working with him, helping him with impossible burdens: not the least of which was this continuous influx of unnecessary people, especially the commercial types who seemed so eager to raid whatever wealth this planet held. ‘We were told that the SpaceBase had been destroyed so we would have to be landed at a distance from the nearest community…’

 ‘Only the exact distance wasn’t specified…”

 ‘That’s it. Had I known what I know now…’

 ‘Tell me, Una, exactly what were you told and by whom?’

 She paused, organizing her thoughts: Sean had discovered that organization was her strong suit.

 ‘Well, first there was the bulletin about Petaybee being a sentient planet. So I tagged the word on my terminal for any further information, knowing, you see, that some of my family had been sent here. Petaybee’, and she gave him a little smile, ‘was suddenly much in the bulletins and then the advertisement appeared, offering safe and quick transport facilities to the surface of the planet.’

 ‘Just like that?’

 ‘Well, about three weeks after the first mention of Petaybee. I had enough frequent-flyer hours to my credit to get to the Intergal Station easily enough. And the cost of getting to Petaybee’s surface was not all that much, considering. In fact, rather cheap.’

 ‘Cheap enough to attract passengers, huh?’

 ‘I suppose so.’

 ‘Go on.’

 ‘When I got to Intergal Station, the transit desk told me to book in at the Mallside hostelry where all Petaybean passengers had to register. When I checked in, I had to deposit the fare and then I was given a departure time.’

 ‘Just like that?’

 ‘Yes.’

 ‘By whom?’

 ‘The clerk at Mallside. Oh, I got a stamped passage chit or believe you me, I wouldn’t have handed over most of the last credits I had to my name.’

 ‘You wouldn’t happen to remember the number of the account to which you credited the fare?’

 ‘I do. BM-20-2334-57.’ She repeated it so that Sean could jot it down. ‘The next morning I was given a time to assemble in the hotel lobby. I must say I was a little surprised at the… diversity of my fellow passengers. And relieved to find that there were other folks trying to find their Petaybean relatives.’

 ‘What did your courier look like?’

 ‘There wasn’t one. When I arrived… a little early, I admit, because I was so eager to be on time. Some small link transports don’t wait so it’s wiser to be on time,’ she told Sean in her earnest manner. He nodded and she continued, ‘There was a printed notice that we were to proceed to the departure gate. Anyone not on time would forfeit their fare.’ She paused. ‘The only thing that reassured me was that the transport was so obviously new and one of the other passengers said it was even state-of-the-art.’

 ‘Would you have forfeited your fare if it had been a ramshackle vehicle?’ Sean asked.

 She gave a little laugh. ‘No, I’d sold up to get here. But to the business at hand, Sean, it’s Simon Furey who might stand watch for you at SpaceBase. He’s the one who noticed how new the transport was.’

 ‘Where’s he right now?’

 ‘We can ask Wild Star. She’s teaching in the latchkay shed.’

 Wild Star was certain that her husband Simon would be quite willing to help Sean out. In the first place, he’d love to get his hands on the guy who had dumped them down in the middle of nowhere. If it hadn’t been for Cita, they could have frozen to death their first night on the planet. In the second place, he’d two badly blistered hands from chopping wood, which was the chore he’d been assigned in Kilcoole.

 ‘I don’t mind doing my share, like,’ he said, displaying the bloody signs of his industry, ‘but I’d rather a chance to toughen up more gradually, like. Ya know what I mean?’

 He said he’d s*ood enough watches on the mining vessels he’d worked over the past twenty years so that he felt himself able to do what Sean wanted.

 ‘Just don’t mess the guy up so much we can’t get civil answers out of him, will you?’ Sean said.

 The shuttle was due to make its weekly descent to Petaybee within the next thirty-two hours and Simon was able to plot from its trajectory where it would touch down - in the forest nearer Shannonmouth than Kilcoole. There was no pilot to remonstrate with or wring information from. A highly sophisticated remote-controlled module guided it to and from Petaybee.

 This Simon Furey discovered when he barged past the disembarking passengers and attempted to get into the pilot’s compartment. He’d come prepared with a device that would disable electronic locks so he was able to get into the forward cabin.

 ‘If I’d had just a little more time, I could have bollixed up the remote so the shuttle couldn’t take off again. But it’ll come back, won’t it? I didn’t mess up the panel, like, disabling the lock.’ He looked at Sean for reassurance.

 ‘As long as whoever’s running this show doesn’t realize the lock was tampered with… What would you need to bollix the controls?’

 Simon grinned. ‘It don’t take so much, really, if you know what to do. I’ll have another look through the refuse skips at the SpaceBase. They’re jettisoning an awful lot of useful stuff.’

 ‘They are?’ Seamus and Adak chorused together.

 ‘Thanks, Simon,’ Sean said, clapping the older man gratefully on the shoulder. ‘We’ll take any salvage you can hoist.’

 ‘Figured.’

 ‘Now,’ and Sean’s expression altered from amusement to anxiety, ‘let’s see where we can stash this bunch of pilgrims!’ For there were more robed figures huddling in the miserable knot of the disembarked passengers. Clodagh was still in the Kilcoole cave with the first bunch of Rock Lovers or whatever the’religious’ seekers called themselves.

 Shannonmouth agreed to shelter the seven who were looking for their families. Nine of the religious had rock and stone names and demanded to be taken to Brothers Shale and Granite. So Sean took them back to Kilcoole to commune with their brothers and sisters. Three more hunters and another drug company representative made up this passenger complement. They, too, had to come back to Kilcoole though Sean didn’t know where he’d be able to stash them. Now, if Simon should be successful in aborting the transport’s return to the Intergal Station, maybe this would be the penultimate group he’d have to worry about. And with winter closing in, he’d have to sort the whole kaboodle real fast. Trying to spread the burden of extra numbers on the already stretched economy at least kept his mind off Yana.

  

 12

 Gal-3

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 The ‘unseen eye’, aka Charas Parclete, who had been instructed to keep a close one on Yana had followed the target subject and her escort through the maze and down to the cargo bay area. Since it was obvious that the two women were in the company of a more than capable-appearing male - and someone the ‘eye’ had better get some gen on if he was to be much in their company - the ‘unseen’ remained covert. In fact, the target subject and her companions were out of sight a good deal of the time as Charas had to remain unseen. Suddenly there was a bit of confusion ahead and when the covert watcher moved to a better viewing position, a whiff of the gas wafted across her face. Gagging and trying not to breathe while still attempting to clear her lungs gave the watcher a bit of trouble - especially as the mayday reached the mastoid implant which was linked to Marmion’s alarm pad just when the gas effected a very short period of unconsciousness. Struggling to regain full use of her senses, Charas staggered unseen around the crates and cartons and saw only one body on the ground. Pressing the emergency signal for help, she dashed to the body.

 ‘Fat lot of help you were as escort,’ and Charas resisted the temptation to kick the unconscious man for his dereliction of duty. There were other more pressing matters - like following the faint whiff of gas through the maze of installations and cargo bays. This was a down time in the cargo bay when all but the most urgent jobs were suspended. Some ship was being loaded on the far side of the dock but it might as well have been on another planet as far as crowd protection went. The time had been well chosen. And the abductors had also had access to the intermural passages which separated cargo areas. Alternately sniffing for the trail of gas and choking on the residue, the eye continued until there was no smell at all, backtracked to where vestigial traces remained, used the special key to open the panel and stepped out into a workshop area: empty, of course. Pausing long enough to key in the new position to Commander an Hon’s security board, Charas proceeded into the chamber. The trail of gas could be followed to the airlock. Then quit.

 ‘I must have been out longer than I thought,’ the operative murmured, keying into the security board in Commander an Hon’s office. ‘Charas here. There’s an unconscious man at Sector 45-Z-2, Cargo 30, and Marmion de Revers Algemeine and her guest, Colonel Maddock-Shongili appear to have been kidnapped.’

 ‘’What did you say?’

 Charas sighed and repeated the message.

 ‘Are you sure?’ This time it was the Commander himself asking.

 ‘Yes. Stop all out-going vessels.’

 ‘No implant messages?’

 ‘Only the mayday,’ Charas said grimly.

 ‘We’re instigating stop-and-search procedures.’

 ‘Good. First check what was logged in at Bay 30-47N.’

 There was a brief pause. ‘A damaged pleasure yacht to be repaired, with a hole the size of a shuttle…’ Some rather inventive cursing followed. ‘And a shuttle is registered as pulling out of that sector.’

 ‘Have the corvette pick me up here.’

 ‘Since it’s only a shuttle, can do,’ said the Commander.

 ‘And send someone to collect that idiot who was escorting them.’ Charas gave the location again. ‘I want a tape of the rescue. First impressions are invaluable. He may know something he doesn’t know that we can use.’

 Charas waited impatiently for the appearance of the corvette which docked using the airlock through which the abductors had taken their victims. There was only the faintest whiff of gas left.

 The security corvette was fast. Surprisingly enough, the escaping shuttle was almost faster.

 ‘I don’t believe these speeds,’ the corvette captain said. ‘Everyone on board must be out!’

 ‘Some of ‘em are,’ said Charas grimly, aware of her own ‘working’ dishevelment in the presence of the naval neat-and-proper corvette crew. But her diminutive size allowed her to dress as a station urchin, which, in turn, allowed her to move about with more freedom than an adult could. Especially with the security bracelet in place that gave her access where even adult bodies would not fit.

 In terms of manoeuvrability, the shuttle was nearly as agile in space as the corvette and led them a chase through the storage pens that circled Gal-3 at a distance: anything from recyclable debris to cold storage. Like threading a needle through a haystack, Charas thought, having strapped herself into the chair.

 ‘We’ll get the buggers now,’ the corvette captain said as the shuttle cleared the last of the obstacles.

 He signalled the helmsman for more thrust and the corvette steadily gained on the shuttle. ‘Must have souped-up engines to do this. Halt and prepare to be boardedl’ he announced over the comlink.

 The corvette was matching speed and position, edging closer and closer when the shuttle exploded. The corvette was skewed sideways, any crew member not strapped down to something bounced about like a wad of plastic. The corvette had taken a broadside and would limp back on navigational thrusters alone. But the worst part of it - or maybe it was the best part of it - the implant in Charas’ mastoid bone had not rung the death knell of the person she thought she was about to retrieve from the kidnappers.

 ‘That shuttle was a decoy,’ Commander an Hon told Charas when she got to his office.

 ‘And stop-and-search has produced nothing?’ she asked, slumping in the chair an Hon had gestured for her to take. She was very weary and the effects of the gas, despite a marginal inhalation, could still be felt.

 ‘Not yet, but there were damned near thirty ships leaving Gal-Three at within the target hour. You’re sure Marmion de Revers Algemeine is still alive?’

 ‘Yes,’ and she touched the mastoid bone. ‘What about that faller?’

 ‘Hmmm, yes,’ the Commander said. ‘Macchiavelli Sendal-Archer-Klausevitch…’

 ‘Say what?’

 There was a twitch of a smile on his lips when an Hon repeated the name. ‘Recently appointed as CEO of a Rothschild’s subsidiary based here on Gal-Three. Pharmaceuticals, mainly, but with broad powers. I’ve sent for background gen… an in-depth study, more than was initially received when he was assigned to the Gal-Three offices. But, let me just play back that rescue tape.’

 That made Charas sit up and she rearranged her weary body in the conform chair. Such tapes were generally used to affirm treatment on emergency calls, more to protect the Samaritan than the victim, but were helpful in establishing little details when victims would not be as compos mentis as they would like.

 Charas watched and then, smiling ever so slightly, turned to an Hon who was blandly anticipating her reactions.

 ‘Oddly enough I don’t believe he was as thoroughly gassed as he appeared.’

 She knew exactly how one felt coming out of that sort of encounter. The tape showed the rescue team advancing on the body, went through the whole routine of administering oxygen to counteract the effects. The too handsome man went through the gagging, the disjointed motions and lingual distortions the gas caused. The med-team administered a hypospray to reduce the nausea. But something about his behaviour suggested to Charas that it was a performance.

 ‘And the lungs?’

 ‘They showed only a minute residue of gas - not a full measure. Certainly not one that would have rendered him unconscious so long. He also had the ransom note!’

 ‘Well, what about that?’

 ‘Yes, what about it?’

 ‘I think we watch this… what’s his name again? Never mind. He’ll be Mac in my books.’ And she didn’t give Mac the respect the name so often deserved.

 ‘Indeed we will. Here’s the note.’ And the

 Commander passed over the slip as gingerly as if he expected it to explode in his face.

 Aboard the pirate ship

 When the voice contact with her beloved Sean had been summarily curtailed by Megenda, Yana was close to lashing out indiscriminately with her fists at the big first mate and the monstrous hologram of Captain Louchard. Either would have been a foolish waste of time and as it was, another paroxysm of coughing racked her.

 ‘Haul the female to Doctor Mendelsky. She can’t be dying on us. Or we lose our leverage with the planet,’ Louchard had growled.

 Doubled-up as she was, Yana was bundled out of the cabin and, after a very short distance down the corridor (which confirmed her notion that they’d been deliberately toured every deck of the vessel to confuse them), she was pushed into a considerably larger accommodation. Not that spacious but it had bunks along three sides, a narrow table in the centre with benches under it, and two narrow doors that she would later discover led to the sanitary facilities: the shower behind one door and the ‘head’ behind the other. She half-staggered, half-crawled to the nearest bunk and lay down upon it, coughing, gasping, hacking and wondering if she’d have anything left of normal throat lining.

 She was only marginally aware that the panel whooshed open and shut again. Then a cool hand soothed her forehead and someone was urging her to sit up long enough to’drink this’.

 The beverage was cold, tart and soothing and she managed to still the cough reflex long enough to take a good swallow.

 ‘Cookie let me rummage in her stores for the ingredients,’ said the rich voice of the astronomer, Namid Mendelsky. ‘It’s what I think was in my grandmother’s recipe, plus a little of the codeine.’

 She was panting from the effort of drinking the other liquid she’d been given and trying to suppress the cough long enough to keep from choking on the drink. She took the mug with the cough syrup from Mendelsky and sipped slowly. The liquid seemed to be coating her throat. It didn’t taste bad either although there was a bite to it.

 ‘It might sting going down,’ Namid said anxiously, ‘because pepper is one of the ingredients.’

 ‘Oh.’ Yana kept sipping. She didn’t care if it contained pepper or eye of newt, toe of frog, so long as it stopped her coughing. She got into a more comfortable position, propped against one end of the bunk although she had to crouch or bang her head on the bottom of the upper bunk. ‘I think it’s helping. Thank you. You’re very considerate and kind.’

 ‘I’m neither of those but I told Dinah I wouldn’t co-operate any further if she didn’t let me help you.’ Namid perched tentatively on the edge of the table and looked around, sighing deeply.

 ‘What’s the matter?’ Yana said because there was a quality in his exhalation that sounded’sad’ as well as resigned.

 He grimaced, shrugged and held out one hand in a helpless gesture. ‘Nothing new,’ he said in a resigned tone. ‘In fact,’ and he continued to look around,’ this is slightly better than my previous quarters.’

 ‘Oh?’ Yana said encouragingly. He didn’t look at all the sort of person to associate with privateers, even one as patently sensual and domineering as Dinah O’Neill.

 ‘I was married to Dinah O’Neill.’ Another sigh, one expressing the folly of such a union. ‘She doesn’t take the divorce seriously.’

 ‘In short, you’re now permanently on board this ship?’

 As he folded his arms across his chest, he had a slight twinkle in his eye and a rueful smile on his face. ‘We met under considerably different circumstances. It was a whirlwind romance. I’d never met anyone quite like her before. I’d just returned from a two-year stint studying two new variables and…’ He shrugged.

 ‘Any female would have seemed delightful?’ Yana couldn’t help twitting him and then went back to sipping his brew.

 ‘Exactly. And, to give the devil her due, she was everything I’d ever dreamed of. We had a glorious six months, although her business took her away periodically.’

 ‘Then you discovered what her business was?’

 ‘Quite by chance. Of course, I filed for divorce immediately as my professional reputation would have been seriously flawed if it became known I’d had any associations with such a…’

 ‘Unsavoury occupation?’

 ‘Exactly. I’d received official notice of the termination - and so did she. Only, I failed to recognize how she might take such a step. And the next thing I knew, I was aboard this ship and here I’ve remained. I must say, since you seem to be incarcerated too, that it’s marvellous to have intelligent company again.’

 They both heard the noises in the corridor outside and the panel whooshed open. First Bunny was propelled inside, Marmion following in a more dignified entrance, while Diego’s limp body was launched from the doorway onto the bunk opposite Yana, his head connecting hard with the wall. The panel closed with a snap and Bunny, crying out in protest, went to Diego.

 ‘Yana? Are you all right?’ Marmion said, going around the table so she would not have to touch Mendelsky.

 ‘I’m much better for Namid’s brew,’ Yana said, trying to convey to Marmion that the astronomer deserved her pity, not her censure. ‘But what have those bastards done to poor Diego?’

 ‘One of the men bringing us here goosed Bunny,’ Marmion said angrily. ‘She hit him, too, but that first mate just clobbered Diego as a lesson.’ She was so furious she was shaking and, with a look that could have pierced steel, she glared at Namid. ‘Are we to be spied upon every moment we’re together in addition to the other indignities?’

 ‘Come off it, Marmie,’ Yana said, ‘he’s as much a prisoner as we are.’

 ‘Are you being ransomed, too?’ Marmion asked, her manner towards the tall astronomer instantly more amenable.

 ‘There’s no-one to pay one for me,’ he said and his statement was not a bid for pity. ‘I forgot to block Dinah’s access to my credit account.’

 ‘How’s Diego?’ Yana asked Bunny who had pushed the boy’s body into a more comfortable position.

 ‘He’ll come round. Any water?’ she asked, looking about her.

 Yana pointed to the narrow doors. ‘Behind one of them?’

 Bunny investigated, found a towel, wet it from the spigot above a miniature hand basin and returned to mop Diego’s brow.

 ‘You know,’ Mendelsky began, ‘I’ve never figured out why Dinah bothered to go through a formal marriage ceremony. I mean, she could have contracted a short-term arrangement. Or none at all. But she went to such lengths to get me to marry her.’

 ‘Really?’ Marmion said in some surprise. ‘She doesn’t seem the marrying type.’

 ‘That’s what I thought, but we got married. Not that I minded…’

 ‘You’re an astronomer?’ Marmion said, eyeing him more kindly than she had before. When he nodded, she went on, ‘Did she ever get you to talk about your speciality?’

 A flush spread across Namid’s sallow face and his expression became decidedly chagrined.

 ‘Constantly. I was, as you can well imagine, quite flattered. Why?’

 ‘What area of astronomy?’

 ‘What do you mean?’

 ‘Types of star systems, planets…’

 ‘Planets, yes. She was fascinated about the formation of planets.’ Marmion, Yana and Bunny exchanged glances. ‘And she seemed really interested,’ he added, confused.

 ‘Perhaps sentient planets?’ Marmion asked.

 He laughed then. ‘Really, Madame Algemeine, sentience in a ball of matter thrown out by a cooling primary? Come now, I know you’re an intelligent woman.’

 ‘And intelligent enough to recognize sentience when I see, feel and hear it.’

 Namid leaned towards her, his incisive green eyes capturing her gaze as he transferred his arms from his chest to a tight hold on the table edge. Yana could almost see his thought processes trying to catch up with the sincerity of Marmion’s tone.

 ‘You’re in earnest, aren’t you?’

 ‘Deadly earnest,’ Marmion said in an edged voice.

 ‘And you were abducted because of a…’ he paused, still dubious, ‘a sentient planet?’

 ‘Surely Dinah has made mention of Petaybee in your presence?’

 ‘The name has come up frequently of late,’ he began, frowning. Then he made a little warning gesture of his fingers and looked meaningfully at the corners of the room, apprising them that the room was probably bugged, which Yana had already guessed. ‘But I did not realize it was the name of a planet.’

 ‘It is,’ Yana said. ‘Planet Terraform B, or Powers That Be or Pee-tay-bee.’

 ‘I see.’ He paused another beat, shook his head. ‘No, I don’t see.’ He placed his fingers on his forehead as if the contact would stimulate understanding.

 ‘Frankly, nor do I,’ Yana said, beginning to feel as if her throat might withstand the effort of conversation. She hadn’t had so much as a tickle during the last few minutes. ‘The ransom for me seems to be Petaybee.’ Marmion and Bunny gasped, Namid looked confused. ‘I think your… erstwhile colleagues, Namid, have made a bad tactical error in suggesting…’ and Yana paused significantly as she stressed the word,’ that Petaybee has untold riches which it has refused to divulge to Intergal. In fact, Namid, an Earth-type planet of its girth and density has only minimal mineral resources which would prove…’

 ‘Have proved…’ Bunny said in a flat angry voice.

 ‘Impossible to produce due to the intemperate weather conditions on the planet’s surface. It does have, and on this basis, we may yet be able to come to some arrangement with one, and only one, drug company, to harvest the renewable valuable plants for their purity and quality. But such an enterprise would not be a snatch-and-strip process: rather one that will accrue profit slowly and only when the planet has paid back to Intergal the expenses the company has already incurred in the Terraforming and maintenance. What Petaybee has is intangible wealth, not readily saleable valuables.’

 ‘And the planet is… somehow… controlling its future?’ Namid asked, still struggling to believe the initial concept.

 ‘The planet controls its surface rather well,’ Marmion said with a wide grin for Namid. ‘It counteracts the use of explosives by making volcanoes just where miners wish to dig. It rescinds the use of a flat surface for spacecraft by extruding a ziggurat that covers the exact centre of the landing field and unsettles all the peripheral buildings. It either melts prematurely or conjures up diabolical weather patterns to preserve what resources it has. A formidable opponent, and a desirable friend.’

 ‘I’ve lived there all my life,’ Bunny added, ‘and life is good on Petaybee.’

 ‘But not to everyone’s taste,’ Yana added drolly. ‘Still, the air’s pure and unpolluted, the soil is rich enough to produce food crops in their season - and marvellous herbs and plants which are made into the most efficacious potions and syrups. And while it’s a hard life, it’s a good one if you accept the planet on its terms. It’s willing to accept you on the same grounds.’

 ‘The only planet in the galaxy to require an entrance exam from inhabitants,’ Marmion said, giggling as much at the expression of total disbelief on Namid’s long face as at her choice of expression.

 Diego began to groan and twist on the narrow bunk and Bunny instantly was all attention.

  

 13

 Kilcoole

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 Sean found that he literally couldn’t stand to live in his own skin, he was so distraught about the kidnapping. ‘Una, I have to get out,’ he said. ‘If there’s any news, any change at all, send Marduk for me. He’ll be able to find me. I’m going to the river.’

 ‘Send Mar - Sean! What if there’s another ransom…’ Her voice trailed behind him.

 He knew she was right. He should stick around the office in case there were new developments; in case Yana or Marmion’s people made contact again. But the last week or two had been just the sort of thing that wore him down until this final shock made his head reel. He was used to working outdoors, working with animals, swimming the long watery corridors of the planet and drawing strength and calm from the water. All these papers and off-world people, trying to figure out what was fair, what was right, where they fit in, where to be liberal and responsive to their needs and where to draw the line. He had every confidence in himself that he was a good man. He just wasn’t that particular kind of good man. And now, with the possibility that Yana might not return, that what he did or said, or could or could not do would mean life or death to her, to Bunny and Diego, to Marmion who had been so kind, to the future he and Yana had looked forward to - he had to get away, had to think, had to let the water flow over him. He felt as if his alter form was a whale or a dolphin rather than a seal, that, like them, he would itch himself right out of his skin if he didn’t get it wet and changed soon.

 He barely managed to reach the cover of the woods before shucking off his clothing and diving into the river waters. The rippling, bubbling, soothing, slithery soaking poured over his head as he changed utterly, man into seal, twenty feet down in the deeps of the river.

 Usually he made his changes at the hotspring or farther from home, because his transformation had been a secret from all but his closest friends and family in the past. But a few times he had needed to swim this river and had done so. Eventually, like all rivers, it dumped into the sea. And like most Petaybean rivers, it received transfusions from various hotsprings along its route, making it warm. He swam furiously out towards the sea, and then furiously back again, because he didn’t want to be too far in case Yana needed him. But the mere sight of land made him feel wild with grief and anxiety and he dived, deeper and deeper.

 The reasonable man in him told his seal-self to be careful, not to go too far, not to become injured or trapped, because then he wouldn’t be able to help Yana if needed, but his seal-self swam recklessly and restlessly - and began noticing things about the riverbanks and bed it hadn’t noticed before.

 Petaybee’s recent seismic activity had changed the channel of the river slightly and had changed the feeder springs - several underwater grottos now opened beneath the banks, and as Sean dived, he saw that they tunnelled deeply under the riverbanks. He swam into one of them, taking its twists and turns until he found he was no longer swimming, but pulling himself out of a wellspring, up onto the floor of another of Petaybee’s subterranean corridors. Once on land again, he resumed his man shape, the river water streaming from his skin.

 The swim had not helped as much as he hoped. Now to his other anxieties was added the fact that he longed to stay here, safe from intrusion, safe from having to decide everything for everyone, and yet, he had to leave soon in case he was needed. Even Marduk couldn’t find him here.

 But he needed to be here, within the planet, at one with it. It had always been his greatest inspiration and his greatest comfort - when his parents died, when Aoifa was lost, and when, at first, he wondered if Yana would accept him, his home had always been his solace and greatest support.

 ‘What am I going to do?’ he asked the cave walls. ‘I suppose people have always had to ask that at some point or the other. Do I betray my home by letting others take it from me? Or do I betray my family by endangering them? I can’t find it in me to do either, even if I knew how. What are we going to do?’ He tasted salt in the water running from his hair and knew that it wasn’t river water, even as it flowed back into the stream. ‘I need help.’

 ‘Help!’ the echo screamed back at him. ‘Help!’

 It sounded like another person entirely, not an echo of himself - the echo at the wedding had used the same tonality. In spite of his pain, he sat up straighter and looked and listened. Then he said aloud, ‘That’s right. We need help. Yana’s been taken by more people who want to tear you to pieces. Yana needs help.’

 ‘Help Yana! Help Yana! HELP YANA! YANA!

 YANA,’ f Her name echoed around the cave until Sean was about to jump into the water to escape it. Then suddenly the echo changed again to ‘HELP! Help us!’ and suddenly the slight phosphorescence that was always in these places organized itself into a straight line and grew and grew.

 For a moment, Sean just stared. The purposeful echo, the purposeful line of the phosphorescence, neither of these had ever been manifested by Petaybee before. But after all, Petaybee was a young planet, still discovering its own abilities, and it had recently been exposed to new stimuli. Its responses were becoming more and more interesting.

 He followed the phosphorescent track, trying to keep up with it, until he was back in the river and found himself in the midst of a vast school offish - every kind of fish - all swimming with purpose and determination in a single direction.

 Aboard the pirate ship

 Yana was fast asleep in her bunk when she was awakened by the sensation of warmth and vibration at the base of her throat. It emanated from the little bag of dirt around her neck as if it held some tiny animal instead of merely dirt. She clutched it, comforted, and as she did so a picture sprang into her mind of Sean, calling for her, so that her own name rang in her mind as clearly as if someone in the same room was speaking to her. The voice sounded so anguished that she wished she could offer some comfort but before she could form any sort of reply she felt the tickle that prefaced a coughing fit.

 She clutched harder at her talismanic morsel, as Petaybee and Sean continued calling her, a voice in her mind yelling her name. The cats talked to other cats and Clodagh, the dogs to their humans, and everyone talked to the planet. Why shouldn’t the mighty voice of a planet be able to call across the cosmos if it set its mind to it? Interesting thought, one that tumbled around and around as the image of Sean and the tickle evaporated, while the voice faded.

 She lay awake for a long time, fondling the bag, wondering if she had just dreamt the warmth and the powerful mind-echo. Because it was tremendously reassuring to think, even for a moment, that Petaybee was somehow on her psychic wavelength, she wanted it to be true. Usually when she dreamt someone was yelling her name, they were and it was the captain or the drill sergeant or the corps commander. This time she was alone in the bowels of wherever they were, and the only sound was the restless sleep of her fellow prisoners.

 Then they were all abruptly roused as the door of their prison burst open to be filled at once with a brawny crewman, the ever-ominous Megenda, and Dinah O’Neill, who seemed to be using all of the strength in her petite frame to restrain Megenda. Megenda clanged something hard against the metal of the door-frame: a laser pistol. ‘Get off your butts, you lazy lot of worthless harlots.’

 Part of Yana thought, Uh-huh, I was right. He does fancy himself as an old-style pirate. Who used the word ‘harlot’ any more, really?

 But he looked very fierce indeed, and Dinah O’Neill appeared to be all that stood between them and his wrath. When the other sleepers woke, looking about them in dismay and disorientation, he planted fists at the ammo belt slung around his hips and glared at them.

 ‘Megenda, stop! Not yet! We have to give them a chance,’ Dinah O’Neill cried, tugging at him.

 ‘Quiet, woman. I say we start sending them home in pieces now.’

 Yana cocked an eyebrow at Dinah, as if Megenda needed an interpreter. ‘What’s he on about?’

 ‘Please, please don’t antagonize him any more. The Captain reprimanded him and Megenda’s extremely sensitive. And it was so unfair. Calm down, Megenda! Everyone knows it isn’t your fault. It isn’t anybody’s fault but that of those callous and uncaring people in your company, Madame Algemeine, and on your planet, Colonel Maddock. I admit, I’m as surprised as anyone. I thought with all of Madame Algemeine’s credits and you newly wedded to your planet’s co-administrator, Colonel, that surely everyone would have been tripping over themselves to pay the ransom. I even sent a little follow-up note, just as a reminder. But so far, we haven’t even had the courtesy of a reply, much less a payment. The Captain is so annoyed there’s no living on the same ship with him. Down, Megenda!’

 ‘I didn’t know’, Yana heard herself remarking,’ that his species was capable of annoyance.’

 Megenda swung on her, his eyes glinting malevolently and Dinah O’Neill gave a small squeak as she was dragged forward on his massive arm.

 ‘Colonel Maddock, please. This is no laughing matter,’ Dinah cried.

 ‘I know it isn’t,’ Yana said quite soberly, ‘but when the good Captain asked me to request the planet for my ransom, he couldn’t know that I have absolutely no control over the planet’

 ‘Now, now, you’re being much too modest. We’ve been told that if you really want to, if you’re really motivated, you and your new groom have the power to assign its mineral and ore deposits’

 ‘I can’t assign anything for an entity I don’t own, possess, dominate, order,’ Yana snapped back. ‘Nobody even knows what there is to assign.’ Megenda made a move towards her.

 ‘Megenda, just let me talk to these people, please,’ Dinah O’Neill said. ‘They’re reasonable and they don’t want to be hurt. I know it’s been months since you’ve seen real action but please be patient.’

 Megenda glowered and loomed.

 Dinah O’Neill continued. ‘I hope you aren’t making the mistake of underestimating our organization, Colonel. We have had agents on your planet before and we know very well that there are deposits of valuable ores available. We also have a good idea how you could obtain them. Nothing makes Megenda more cross than having someone lie to him.’

 Yana shook her head carefully, keeping the cough at bay. Now was not a good time to be rendered inarticulate. ‘If you mean Satok and those other sham shamen, they never were able to mine enough ore to be able to buy their way off the planet, much less provide booty of the magnitude that would really interest Louchard. Of course, I don’t think they had the time, nor the opportunity,’ and Yana was very sure of that since the demise of the fake shamen had been precipitously effected by the coo-berries, ‘for the planet evolved some unusual natural defences to their mining methods. Sounds to me like your captain is just trying to recoup a bad investment since he’s lost their services as illegal miners. Even the Company had to see that it’s no use trying to mine Petaybee for something it’s not willing to give up.’

 ‘Let go of me, woman,’ Megenda said, trying to shake off Dinah’s tiny beringed hand. ‘She’s useless. Might as well make her walk the plank.’

 ‘We don’t have planks any more, Megenda.’

 ‘Yah, but space is a lot bigger than any puny puddle. We could put her in a suit so she’d have hours to float around and think about what she could have done to make the Cap’n happy.’

 Yana’s arguments had obviously gone over Megenda’s head but his attitude only reinforced her feeling that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand the nature of the entity he was dealing with. If even the Company, who developed Petaybee, had been unable to grasp the situation without a great deal of persuasion, Louchard was no doubt as confused as everyone else on what could, or could not, be extorted from a whole sentient planet.

 ‘Belay that, Megenda,’ Dinah said with a little slap which didn’t seem to affect the large muscle of Megenda’s forearm at all. ‘You and the Colonel are both being irrational.’

 ‘Irrational? Lady, I’m not sure if I’m going to live through this. I’m not sure if any of us are. I’m sick. And I hesitate to mention this in the presence of your “sensitive” first mate for fear of giving him sadistic ideas, but I’m also pregnant. Everyone on Petaybee was worried about letting me go on this mission to begin with because my kid, like these kids, is bonded with the planet. It needs, through me, the same things we’re all lacking here: fresh air, real food, not the plascene cubes you have here. I’d’ve thought a pirate of Louchard’s calibre and resourcefulness would have a replicator that can produce proper “food” instead of all that pulverized dust!’ Yana was well and truly launched and, though she knew she shouldn’t take such a strong line, she was fed up. There was no way she could do anything and the sooner Louchard realized that, the better. Maybe not the better for her, but any resolution was more acceptable than this confinement. ‘I want proper meals, I want exercise facilities, I want…’

 ‘Will you listen to the lady officer and her list of demands?’ sneered Megenda, his expression vicious as he took another step into the room, and drew one hand back, ready to pound it into Yana’s midsection.

 Yana did not so much as bat an eyelid as she shifted to the side to take the blow with her braced forearms, at the same time balancing herself- somewhat wobbily - to deliver a karate kick. She firmly intended to deal her own blow to the big man where it would do him the most harm, even if her weakness caused her to fall on her ass afterwards. She was not about to let him kill her baby without a fight.

 Neither was Marmion, who stepped determinedly between her and Megenda’s fist. Yana relaxed, but remained watchful.

 ‘Touch any of them and you won’t even get what I had already decided to give you,’ Marmie said in a silky voice that carried both promise and threat.

 Dinah swatted at Megenda’s fist and he lowered it as she said, with just a touch more irritation and calculation in her own voice now, ‘But Madame Algemeine, your people haven’t responded to the ransom demands either.’

 Marmion shrugged. ‘Nor will they,’ she said with a smile that was just the right side of smugness. ‘You can’t imagine that I would leave my organization vulnerable to this son of thing, can you?’ A wave of her elegant hand dismissed the ship, the pirates and her situation. ‘My people have orders to ignore extortions…’

 ‘Even when we start returning you to them a piece at a time?’ asked Megenda with a leer.

 Dinah O’Neill’s voice was casual and professional as she replied. ‘Naturally, I have counselled Captain Louchard that you should be returned undamaged, but he’s getting a little put out by the delays.’

 ‘Gee, that’s tough,’ Bunny said.

 This time, before Dinah could move, Megenda lashed out and knocked Bunny flat with a backhanded blow that spun her back against the bunk-frame. Roaring, Diego lunged at Megenda but Namid and Marmion caught him because the brawny crewman had his laser pistol aimed right at the boy’s forehead.

 ‘My, the natives are restless,’ Dinah said, with a sigh. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t restrain them…’

 ‘That’s nonsense, Dinah, and you know it,’ Namid said, as if the words had been forced out of him. ‘What’s the matter with you? Have you finally gotten so greedy you’ve lost your own survival instinct? You know damn good and well those men don’t go to the head without your approval so stop this stupid game and tell them to quit beating innocent children or I’ll - I’ll’

 ‘You’ll what, Namid?’ she asked coldly. ‘Leave me? A hollow threat, darling.’

 ‘This isn’t about us - it’s about what you call business,’ Namid said, still struggling to hold Diego back. ‘You used to pride yourself that you’d listen to reasonable arguments.’

 ‘And?’ Dinah’s expression dared him to present one.

 ‘I could have told you that people in Marmion’s level of society have strictly adhered to an enforced no-ransom policy. Or don’t you remember the case of the Amber Unicorn? Of those who were held for ransom, two died under torture begging their organizations to break through the restrictions put on them, to cut the red tape to save them, but the organizations were absolutely prohibited by law which tied up all the assets in legalities so that they couldn’t be liquidated. The families pleaded and offered all sorts of personal assurances, but in the end the two captives died and no ransom was ever paid. The others suicided, apparently also by pre-arrangement. I suspect Marmion is prepared to take similar… measures… to ensure that her capture or death will profit no-one.’ When Namid looked in her direction, Marmion nodded, a faint proud smile on her lips.

 ‘There’s no way at all that any funds will be released before I am,’ Marmion agreed. ‘However, I am prepared to offer - let us call it “passage money” - for a safe return, and I’m quite willing to make the “fare” a substantial amount…’ and she gracefully gestured to include everyone in the cabin, Namid too, ‘but there is no way that my people will liquidate holdings on my signature,’ - and she drawled the next few phrases in the most resolute of soft voices Yana had ever heard this formidable woman use - ‘even if I had to hold the stylus with my teeth to sign.’

 ‘Damn that Fiske!’ Dinah said in the first unrehearsed and spontaneous utterance Yana had heard from her so far. Somehow or other, Yana was not totally surprised to learn that Torkel was involved in this fiasco. ‘He said this was a sure thing.’

 ‘And I thought you were cynical enough to realize there’s no such commodity as a sure thing.’ Namid regarded her sardonically. ‘You didn’t do enough homework on this batch of victims, Dinah. Maybe it’s time you gave it up if you’re getting careless.’

 ‘Well, I certainly wish you’d have told me all this sooner before I wasted so much time. That’s it, isn’t it?’ she asked with a wounded expression, scanning the faces of her captives and her ex-husband. ‘You were stalling for time! Oh, really! Just because you’re in legitimate business instead of a marginalized one like us, you think our time is not as valuable as yours. I knew I should have stuck with cargo and not branched out into passengers but… But there is gold on that wretched ice-world,’ she insisted, her fists clenching at her sides. ‘There are gemstones, this is germaniun, gengesite…’

 ‘In small quantities,’ Yana said. ‘Just what sort of deposits were you shown?’ she added, wonderingly.

 Dinah O’Neill said nothing but kept eye contact with Yana, as if hoping to penetrate to the truth.

 ‘Have you ever been on the surface of Petaybee?’ Yana asked.

 A flicker in the privateer’s eyes and a slight smile indicated that she had.

 ‘In the winter or what passes for summer there?’ Yana said, keeping up the pressure.

 ‘Both.’

 ‘And just what did you report to Captain Louchard that has made him so determined to strip that poor world?’

 For just a second O’Neill’s eyes flickered again, doubtfully this time.

 ‘I’m sure you’ve heard this one before,’ Yana began, taking a deep breath, ‘but if you let us go, we will not press charges…’ and she glanced at Marmion who nodded. Dinah’s expression was contemptuous, Megenda’s the epitome of cynical amusement. ‘I really do think you’ve been misled. Something Satok was good at…’

 ‘He was Petaybean and he knew …”

 ‘He knew doodly,’ Bunny said, still nursing her face with one hand while blood from the cut that Megenda’s finger ring had made on her cheek trickled through her fingers. ‘He hasn’t been on the planet since he signed on to the Company and he got discharged from that right smart. He wasn’t even very useful when he was growing up. He just talked big.’

 Dinah smiled as she turned her eyes on Bunny, a sort of half-congratulatory smile that Bunny was spunky enough to contradict her.

 ‘You tell that Captain of yours that he won’t get anywhere threatening Yana or Sean, or me or Diego here,’ Bunny went on in a level voice. ‘He wants to make a deal involving Petaybee, he comes to Petaybee and talks it over with the planet.’

 ‘Talks it over with the planet?’ Namid’s astonishment was complete and, open-mouthed, he looked from Bunny to Dinah and back again to Bunny.

 Dinah gave her a pitying look. ‘Talk to the planet?’

 ‘Go see your relatives,’ Namid said, startling everyone, including Dinah. ‘They’d be more trustworthy than that Satok fellow. Well, you always told me that some of your relatives, way back, were exiled to Petaybee.’

 ‘That was the rumour I was raised with. Which, I might add, I checked out on the company computer,’ Dinah said, then shrugged. ‘I’m not at all sure I’d trust their records. Or anything about the planet.’

 ‘O’Neill? There are O’Neills at Tanana Bay,’ Bunny said, regarding Dinah with a keener interest.

 So swiftly did Dinah O’Neill withdraw then that the heavy door-panel had whooshed shut before they realized her intention. Megenda and the crewman had followed smoothly, however, and the captives were left alone.

 ‘Now, you’ve done it,’ Diego said accusingly to Bunny. ‘We had her…’

 ‘I think Bunny may well have done it,’ Marmion said quietly and respectfully.

 ‘It’ll take time for Dinah to absorb the fact of her error,’ Namid said thoughtfully. ‘But she’s extremely intelligent and very flexible. She’d have to be to survive so long in this business. She’s usually able to influence Louchard…’

 ‘You think she’ll try to talk him into letting us go?’ Bunny asked wistfully, her face crumpling into tears. Forgetting his flash of resentment, Diego cradled her in his arms, stroking her hair and murmuring little hispanic endearments.

 Marmion dampened the one towel they had in the room and handed it to him to place over the cut on her cheek. Perversely enough, the tickle returned to Yana’s throat and she was unable to stop the reflex. She tried very hard but a spasm racked her again. Namid hastily poured a dose of the medicine for her and she managed to stop hacking long enough to swallow it.

  

 14

 Petaybee

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Sean swam with the single-minded fish schools until they reached the lake, where the fish all at once made a single silver river into another of the underwater caves. Sean followed and when the water grew too shallow, the fish turned back, but he was in another dry grotto. As he was changing form, he saw the phosphorescence once more organize into a straight line, this time pointing inland. Once his feet were under him again, he followed it. Though Sean had swum the waterways of Petaybee all his life, these caves and passages were new to him, the most recent seismic activity. The line of luminescence led him through passages towards the cries for help that were first only echoes like the one he had heard near Kilcoole, but soon became the faint cries of real voices.

 When he turned a corner and saw the five hunters, he almost laughed at the expressions of terrified anger and frustration on their faces. One of them, de Peugh he thought, had developed a distinct twitch and his hair had a great deal more white in it than Sean remembered as well as a tendency to stand straight up. Minkus was gibbering to himself and Ersol kept looking around the cave and up at the opening they had fallen through as if it was about to eat him. The wooden Petaybean weapons Sinead had substituted for their high-tech rifles were piled together in a little heap that someone had tried to set on fire for warmth, he supposed, all but the dagger Mooney clutched in his fist as he pointed to Sean and yelled.

 ‘You’re another damned hallucination! Go away! Nobody walks around bare-assed in this weather.’

 ‘We have nothing for you, honestly,’ Minkus cried, cringing away. ‘We gave the rabbit de Peugh had in his pocket to the cat. It would have eaten us otherwise. Please, please don’t harm us!’

 Sean glanced apologetically down at his own now-human flesh. ‘Harm you? What with? I thought you lads wanted help.’

 ‘Oh, we do, we do!’ Minkus cried. ‘We’ve been down here days, weeks, months. It’s been the most horrible nightmare. The walls shift and melt and little lights come on and sometimes I see little volcanoes exploding and then when I look again there’s nothing…’

 Sean shook his head. ‘You can’t have been down here more than a few hours. Where’re my sister and the others?’

 ‘They abandoned us to be eaten by wild beasts,’ Minkus said.

 ‘Well, we do have a saying here on Petaybee that some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you, but mostly it’s not to be taken literally. Shall we find a way to get you out of here?’

 ‘We’ll follow you back the way you came,’ Mooney said.

 Sean grinned. ‘Not unless you can hold your breath for a very long time. How’d you get down here?’

 ‘We fell!’ Ersol pointed to the hole, far above them. With the arrival of someone who was probably able to extricate them from their captivity, his dignity was restored. ‘We were lucky we weren’t bloody killed. We could sue…’

 Sean laughed harder. ‘Sue what? The planet? You are, to all legal intents and purposes, trespassing on private property. Very private property.’

 ‘Private… vat… vat… vatapplied for hunting licences,’ Minkus complained, his voice shrill with hysteria.

 ‘Which were not yet granted, I must warn you. Nor would they have been. However, follow me.’

 Sean had spotted the dotted line which Petaybee had illuminated to guide him and now struck out through the remainder of the underground passage leading away from the lake.

 ‘Hey, man, how come you’re not wearing anything?’ Ersol asked, staring at him.

 ‘I… er… was swimming when I heard you yelling for help,’ Sean said.

 ‘Why aren’t you freezing?’ Minkus demanded. Clot-worthy was also staring in disbelief at their saviour.

 ‘Oh,’ and Sean shrugged, looking down himself as if he might have changed shape since he last looked, ‘adaptation to Petaybee. And it’s not all that cold down here, you know. You wouldn’t have frozen to death by any manner or means.’

 ‘No, just died of starvation…’ Mooney said, licking his lips.

 ‘Not that either,’ Sean said, ‘but I’m sure we can find you something to eat when we get where we’re going.’

 ‘Where are we going?’

 All five had fallen into a single line behind him as he strode purposefully through the passage, the little line of phosphorescence popping out just ahead of them. Petaybee was full of new tricks these days, he thought with no small degree of wonder. New passages, new ways of communicating direction, and that extremely idiosyncratic and erratic echo.

 ‘All I know right now is that we’re getting out of here. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine,’ Sean said.

 ‘Now, guess, guess.’

 ‘Oh, frag, there it is again. That voice! Once it sounded like it was crying some woman’s name. Listen. What is it?’ Mooney demanded on a semi-hysterical note. He crouched down, brandishing his dagger, his eyes showing whites all the way around like a spooked curly’s.

 Tetaybee,’ Sean replied amiably, without breaking stride. The others rushed to keep up with him. He really must discover how to bring clothing with him when he went selkying. Despite his disclaimer, the temperature was not all that high in the tunnels.

 ‘Does it do that often? Echo you?’

 ‘It wasn’t echoing me.’

 ‘It wasn’t?’ Ersol lost his pomposity again.

 ‘If it wasn’t,’ Minkus said with the edge of fear in his voice, ‘who’s speaking?’

 ‘I told you - Petaybee.’

 ‘Petaybee!’

 ‘Now, see here, Shongili, that was an echo.’

 ‘Was it?’

 ‘Petaybee.’

 ‘Oh, my gawd!’ Ersol said, his voice quavering badly. ‘Lemme outta here!’

 ‘It can’t be far now. The passage is getting narrower and sloping up - we should be reaching the surface soon,’ Sean said encouragingly.

 And they did. Walking up an incline, they emerged from the side of a hill into a cool snow-laden wind that required all Sean’s physical control to resist shivering.

 ‘Hey, Shongili, I don’t care what you say, your goosebumps just got goosebumps. Here,’ and Ersol threw a sweater around his shoulders. ‘You got some spare pants in your pack, don’t you, Clotworthy? Mooney, break out a pair of socks, at least.’

 They paused long enough to put Sean into minimal coverings and then continued down the slope. They emerged onto a low ridge and a clump of wind-raked bushes to stare down at the lake, its edges now frozen, on the other side of which Sinead had left them.

 ‘Hey, isn’t that your sister?’ Ersol cried, pointing to figures on the verge.

 Somehow ‘your sister’ sounded like a nasty epithet. Sean ignored the tone, knowing that Sinead could be a trifle difficult at times and these men, particularly, needed the kind of lesson only she could teach on Petaybee.

 Sean put both hands to his mouth and uttered the ululating call they always used to cover long distances. One figure responded, straightening up, and looking around.

 ‘SINEAD!’

 The sound of her name reverberated under her feet. Then a piercing distant whistle from the far side of the lake indicated that Sinead had not only heard, but seen them.

 ‘Let’s go.’

 ‘Isn’t there anywhere we can go besides near her?’ Minkus asked plaintively.

 Sean chuckled to himself as he led the way down the slope. Somehow this encounter had restored him in a way not even the swimming could. Or maybe it was a case of both. The planet healing and then revealing what it was he had to do: organize the influx and protect Petaybee as best he could.

 He was reminded again of the influx as, halfway back to Kilcoole, they met Clodagh leading the white-robes like a mother duck with her ducklings behind her. The white-robes broke formation, however, and hurried forward to fuss.

 ‘You poor men, we heard your cries!’

 ‘You couldn’t’ve,’ Mooney said. ‘We weren’t that loud.’

 ‘It was awful,’ Clotworthy said to Sister Agate. ‘I can’t stop shaking.’

 ‘It’s the cold, poor dear.’

 The hunters confided to the other off-worlders about the cat, the unicorn, and their injuries.

 ‘Poor Mr de Peugh,’ Brother Shale fretted. ‘Whatever is wrong with him?’

 Clodagh shrugged. ‘Looks to me like he lost an argument with Petaybee.’

 ‘The Beneficence?’ Brother Shale asked. ‘The Beneficence did this to these poor men?’

 ‘Oh surely not,’ Brother Schist said nervously. ‘That wouldn’t be very… benevolent… would it?’

 ‘Sin,’ said Sister Igneous Rock firmly. ‘He sinned against the planet and it smote him.’

 ‘Now you just cut that out!’ Clodagh said. The hunters weren’t the only frustrated people that day. ‘Petaybee hasn’t invented sin yet.’

 Luzon’s Headquarters

 ‘They did what? Dr Matthew Luzon said in a volume that blasted the eardrums of the party on the end of the comlink.

 ‘The PTS transporter licence has been revoked and the vehicle impounded.’

 ‘That can’t be donel’ Why, Luzon thought, angrily stamping the cane he still had to use into the thick carpet, there weren’t nearly enough people down on the planet’s surface yet and he hadn’t been able to infiltrate enough of his agents to effect the sort of damage he had planned on creating. Makem hadn’t reported in since he landed, either, and so Luzon had no idea if the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company had reached the surface. They had been so eager to slay the unicorns for their horns, long believed to have aphrodisiac and healing powers, to acquire the whiskers of the orange cats, which they had been told had similar powers as well as life-extending properties. He had also given them a list of therapeutic plants and lichens, which incidentally included all the vegetation so far catalogued on the planet’s surface. The way those fellows worked, a forest could be hewn, chopped into splinters and removed, quicker than one of those disgusting felines could blink. The’renewable wealth’ of Petaybee would be past history.

 ‘Perhaps, but it has been done. The remote device was removed from the cockpit and there’s one of those propulsion unit clamps that would blow the vessel into trash if someone tried a manual take-off. That ship is grounded.’

 ‘But that’s a totally prohibited perversion of basic commercial venture rights. All the proper forms have been accepted by…’

 ‘They’ve just been dis-accepted, Luzon. The credit account has had its assets frozen and mail, messages or credit transfers addressed to PTS are being returned to sender.’

 Matthew Luzon, fuming and sputtering and sorely tempted to send the comunit across the room into the mock-marble fireplace, was trying to figure out how the carefully constructed and protected PTS operation could have been discovered and blocked. Who? Unless that twit-brained Makem had been corrupted down on the planet’s surface? The noise of his room buzzer penetrated his fury.

 ‘YES?’ Even Luzon was astonished at the snarl in his voice and moderated his tone. ‘Yes?’

 ‘Torkel Fiske to see you,’ said the sexy-voiced receptionist of this exclusive health resort.

 ‘Ah, the very man.’ Matthew’s ire settled almost as instantly as it had flared. ‘Enter. Enter. My dear Captain Fiske, how good of you to spare some time to visit the convalescent.’

 Fiske came in, suavely dressed and smiling, with a touch of smug satisfaction that was visible to the shrewd eye of his observer. Matthew began to feel that his unexpected visitor was going to cheer him no end and prolonged that pleasure until he had seen Fiske suitably supplied with the drink of his choice and some of the enticing tidbits that the resort offered its distinguished clientele.

 ‘I came, Doctor Luzon, because I felt that you might not have heard the news,’ Fiske said, still smiling unctuously. He took another sip, chose one of the little canapes to eat.

 ‘I fear the medics have required me to suspend my usual activities until my injuries are completely healed,’ Luzon said, ‘so I’ve not kept up with general news. If anything is bad enough, someone always manages to inform the galaxy,’ and he smiled condescendingly over such a foible.

 ‘Then I was right. You haven’t heard about the kidnapping.’

 ‘Kidnapping?’ And Luzon leaned towards his guest, his heart pounding in the suspense of waiting to hear the names of the victims.

 ‘Yes, kidnapping. And from Gal-Three where, as you may know, they have such a tight security system.’ Fiske smiled at Luzon, a smile deprecating the machinations of a security system that failed to secure.

 ‘Really? How very alarming.’

 ‘Yes, and everyone is astounded. I mean, who would have thought that Marmion de Revers Algemeine had a single enemy in the galaxy.’

 ‘Not her!’ Luzon could scarcely contain his joy though he expressed a horror which caused Fiske to grin more broadly.

 ‘And… you’ll never guess who was kidnapped along with her?’

 ‘No, indeed I cannot, so do tell me.’ Luzon was all but bouncing about on the seat of his electronic mobility device.

 ‘Colonel Yanaba Maddock-Shongili…’

 ‘Not the doughty Colonel?’

 ‘And…’

 ‘Oh, not more victims! How appalling!’

 ‘Buneka Rourke and young Diego Etheridge-Metaxos too.’

 Luzon raised his eyes ceilingward. ‘There is justice in the universe. Truly, there is!’ He bowed his head. Then peered up at the grinning Fiske. ‘Who perpetrated this atrocity?’

 ‘The infamous Captain Onidi Louchard!’

 ‘Oh! Famous… I mean, infamous. I’ve heard the pirate was clever but to breech Gal-Three Security, I’m truly speechless. And?’

 ‘And what?’

 ‘Have the bodies been returned?’

 ‘You are bloodthirsty, Doctor,’ Fiske said, his glance tinged with censure. ‘The ransom has been set…’

 ‘On Algemeine?’ Luzon snorted with scorn. ‘It’ll never be paid.’

 ‘What do you mean?’ Fiske sat forward, concerned.

 Luzon waved his hand at such folly. ‘My dear Fiske, Marmion Algemeine is one of the top financiers in the known galaxy. She would adhere to the Code out of principle, unlike the cravens on the Amber Unicorn.’

 ‘What Code do you mean?’ Fiske repeated, now seriously agitated.

 ‘Why, the Anti-Extortion Code, of course. Surely you’re aware that the really rich have the most stringent laws against the payment of ransoms? To prevent wholesale kidnappings and the payment of vast sums of ransom monies? A wise move and no-one has tested the Code since the spectacular and highly publicized failure of the Amber Unicorn ploy over a hundred years ago.’

 ‘But… but… Louchard is smart and ruthless. He’ll figure a way around it.’

 ‘Not if he was fool enough to choose Marmion de Algemeine, he won’t,’ Luzon said, dismissing the matter with a snort. ‘Why, what’s the matter?’

 For his handsome guest had turned quite pale under his space tan.

 ‘Then Maddock and those kids will die too?’

 ‘Of course. They’ve no assets… unless…’ and now Matthew rubbed the carved jade head of his cane against his lips. The coolness of jade was so soothing and helped him think. ‘Unless Louchard can figure out a way to get concessions out of Petaybee.’ Immediately the words were out of his mouth, Luzon cancelled that possibility - until he glanced at Fiske again. ‘Don’t tell me that was your master plan, Fiske?’ he asked scornfully. ‘Tell me - what was Louchard like?’

 ‘I never met Louchard,’ Fiske said, his expression set, his tone distracted, like that of a man, Luzon recognized, who is thinking very fast about something else entirely.

 ‘But didn’t you mention to me the fact that Louchard was involved in the smuggling of those miserable quantities of ore that were extracted from the planet?’

 Actually both men knew that Fiske had mentioned no such thing and Louchard’s involvement was speculation. Still, that would account for the pirate being willing to kidnap that wretched trio in the hope of being able to obtain concessions no-one else had had from Shongili. Luzon would never believe it was the planet: therefore the mind behind all his misfortunes on Petaybee had to be the very human one of the man who stood to lose most - Sean Shongili.

 ‘He might just do something to protect that unborn bastard of his, at that,’ Luzon mused. ‘Where are you going, Fiske? You bring me such interesting news.’ But Luzon’s words did not pass the door that Torkel Fiske had slammed behind him.

 It was a considerably more cheerful Luzon who began tapping out numbers on his comlink.

  

 15

 Aboard the pirate ship

 Contents - Prev/Next

 ‘I don’t mean to pry or open a very sore subject, Namid,’ Marmion said when they had all rehashed, parsed and argued over the latest visit from their captors, ‘but have you any more relevant information about your ex-wife that we might use to advantage?’

 Namid pointed to the corner of their room where he thought the listening device was planted. Then he continued speaking in such ringing, dramatic tones that they understood he wanted every word to be overheard by their unseen monitor, particularly if that monitor was the object of Marmion’s enquiry. It occurred to Marmion that perhaps since the man had been unable to communicate effectively directly with Dinah, he was using the opportunity of talking about her more or less publicly to try to make an impression on her instead.

 ‘They say,’ and he sighed,’ that we never really know the people we love. When I first met Dinah, I thought I had never been so close to anyone. Not only was she attractive, intelligent and interested in my work, but she had a great deal of drive, a lot of passion that I’m afraid I misconstrued at the time. Love blinds us, or something like that. We talked for hours. I told her about my work and she was quite honest about her early years: the death of her parents when she was far too young to be alone; her first marriage at sixteen to a wealthy, ruthless man who left her an interest in certain enterprises - of which I suspect this is one. She was quite frank about her other marriages, most of them for convenience and empire building, until ours. I genuinely believe it was a love match on her side as well, at least at first.

 ‘She so desperately wants connections, you know. Her family was among those scooped up by Intergal when they were buying up wars and other inconvenient impasses on Earth to populate their experimental colony planets. Your Petaybee was one of the early ones, of course. Since the “colonists” were divided in the interest of breaking up political factions, many families were split and settled in different places. Dinah’s great-great-grandfather came from a long line of sea-faring people and had worked with the paramilitaries. She seems to believe he was some sort of great patriot, but he apparently adapted well enough to spacing and became one of Intergal’s top cryptographers. At some point he married a fellow exile who had also chosen a Company career over colony life.

 ‘Dinah says that most of their progeny were prevented from advancing in the Company because of IntergaFs nepotism, but I think she might be a bit prejudiced. Surely none of them became wealthy and when her parents died, Dinah had a rough time supporting herself. She told me candidly that she used her looks at first. Then, when she met the right people, her intelligence got her jobs as messenger, despatching, and freelance computer hacker, which was what she was doing when she met her first husband. She looks at her involvement as protecting her inheritance and investments, I believe. But I had absolutely no idea she was connected with piratical acts until she brought me aboard.’

 ‘Didn’t you know anything about her business?’ Marmion asked.

 ‘Oh, yes, I knew she was involved in “shipping” as cargo-master’ Diego interrupted him with a snort. ‘Or should I say “purser”,’ Namid added in a show of humour that made Marmion give him one of her genuinely warm smiles. He had to pause but went on. ‘That explained her absences and odd schedule. She was so interested in my work: variables and what star systems were likely to spin out ore-laden planets and well, all the practical applications of astronomy. It all seemed so harmless, so natural.’ He hunched his shoulders in frustration. ‘And she is, you must admit,’ he now addressed the remark to Diego, ‘a very attractive person.’

 ‘Ha!’

 ‘And clever as she can stare,’ Bunny said with slightly sour admiration. ‘That nice guy,’ bad guy ploy she and Megenda were pulling is so old it’s got whiskers longer than Uncle Seamus.’

 ‘Unfortunately, we end up falling for it because we don’t know when farce and fact meet,’ Yana said.

 ‘Oh, how I’d like to get that Megenda inside Petaybee for just five minutes…’ Bunny said, fingers going to the scab on her face.

 ‘Let’s not be vindictive. We know he was only playing a part and may be a very nice fellow off-duty, aside from an unfortunate tendency towards child abuse,’ Marmion said, glancing at the bruises on her young friends’ faces.

 ‘”When a felon’s not engaged in his employment, his employment…” ‘ Namid sang in such a rich baritone that Marmion regarded him with amazement. ‘ “Or concocting his felonious little plans.” Gilbert and

 Sullivan’s little operettas are as cogent today as they ever were…’

 ‘Go on,’ Marmion urged, her eyes wide with delight.

 ‘”His capacity for innocent enjoyment, ‘cent enjoyment, is just as great as any honest man’s.”’

 Marmion laughed and laughed and laughed and Yana found herself smiling at such contagious mirth. Even Diego grinned.

 ‘I like the tune,’ Bunny said diplomatically but her confusion was obvious.

 ‘It’s not exactly latchkay type singing and music,’ Diego said, relaxed for the first time since their capture. ‘I’ve some disks, I think. You might just like G&S.’

 ‘G&S?’

 ‘Later,’ Diego said.

 Namid’s mobile face fell into solemn lines. ‘Dinah liked G&S.’ Then he added more briskly, ‘But this isn’t Penzance and she wasn’t indentured as a little lad, brave and daring. I do believe that there is a core of…’

 ‘Wait a minute,’ Bunny said, sitting bolt upright and just missing the underside of the upper bunk with her pate. She began sniffing and sniffing.

 ‘What?’ Diego said and Yana echoed the query.

 Bunny sniffed deeply again. ‘We’re no longer on Gal-Three-type air.’

 ‘We’re not?’ Yana asked. Bunny’s previous mention of her olfactory impression hadn’t really registered. Well, Yana had been a bit preoccupied. The air on the shuttle would have been imported from the station’s ventilation system during the time the shuttle was in dock. But come to think of it, there was no reason she could think of why the air aboard the pirate vessel should ever have had any connection with the station. Or was there? Bunny seemed very certain and her senses, trained in the Petaybean outdoors, were extremely keen. Yana looked at Bunny, sorting through the implications of the girl’s observation. Intriguing possibilities now presented themselves. Nor was she the only one to be thinking along those lines.

 ‘Indeed,’ Marmion said, softly, her eyes dark with thought and she leaned into Namid who put a reassuring arm about her shoulders.

 ‘Indeed indeed,’ Namid said. ‘And don’t forget to breathe!’

 Kilcoole

 Three days after returning to Kilcoole with the hunters, who booked the first Intergal shuttle back since PTS was no longer in service, Sean received a second communique from the kidnappers.

 Dear Dr Shongili,

 I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I was sent the following message by the criminals who abducted Colonel Maddock-Shongili, your niece and young Etheridge-Metaxos along with Madame Algemeine. I suppose they chose to send their demands to me, as CEO of my own company, since previously I had been unaccountably released to deliver the initial message. I had the great opportunity and rare pleasure of meeting your lovely wife and speaking with her briefly while she was still here on Gal-3: she was, is, a very special lady and a competent, caring officer. The children accompanying her were a delight to us all. I fervently hope that, between the efforts of the security team here on Gal-3 and your good self, you will all be reunited soon.

 On behalf of all of us here on Gal-3, Macchiavelli Sendal-Archer-Klausevitch

 Dear Dr Shongili,

 We were most concerned to learn from your wife that there might be some difficulty with her pregnancy if she isn’t back on Petaybee soon. She is very ill and could certainly use more of that Petaybean cough syrup that cured her the first time. Also, young Metaxos has sustained minor injuries due to his own youth and inexperience. Unfortunately, we are currently between medical officers, since our last one was discharged -regrettably out the hatch and into space - for mutiny.

 Surely you must realize that your family’s lives depend upon your immediate response and compliance to our demands. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

 Most sincerely,

 Dinah O’Neill, representing Captain Onidi Louchard aboard the Pirate Jenny

 The office was filled with people when the communique arrived and all Sean could do was sit there, stricken, when he finished reading.

 ‘What is it, Sean?’ Una Monaghan asked.

 Cita, who was also there along with several other children and their parents, and Wild Star Furey, put her arm around him and asked, ‘What is it, Uncle? Is it about my sister? What does it say?’

 He held it up to her and she took it. But, of course,

 Cita couldn’t read so she turned to Wild Star who took it out of her hand and read the note aloud. The stunned silence now affected every listener.

 ‘Oh dear, I ought to have read it first to myself,’ she said, ‘before I broadcast such news.’

 Sean shook his head. ‘It’s everybody’s business.’

 ‘Well, yes, but in front of the children - especially those who’ve just arrived from the other villages to go to school. Too much of the bad side of civilization all at once, I fear.’ She continued to look guilty and cast a nervous smile at her pupils and their parents.

 Since she had taken up her post as Kilcoole teacher, Sean had learned a few facts about Wild Star Furey. She had had sufficient experience with the bad side of civilization. Her ancestors had been an Amerind tribe stubbornly clinging to a valuable piece of Terran real estate. Her husband’s family were descended from Irish travelling people who were finally removed from the planet for refusing to settle on any given piece of real estate.

 ‘It concerns Petaybee, Wild Star,’ Sean said. ‘And it’s got nothing to do with civilization. Pirates aren’t famous for being civilized.’

 ‘Pardon me, Doctor, sir,’ said a man who had arrived in Kilcoole a scant half hour before. Sean knew Muktuk Murphy slightly. He was from Tanana Bay. ‘Could the lady read that last bit again, please?’

 ‘Which part was that, Muktuk?’ Sean asked. ‘That lady’s name, sir, mentioned just before that awful pirate’s name’

 ‘Dinah O’Neill?’ Wild Star asked. Muktuk cast a significant glance at the small, round-faced woman beside him who had a wealth of curly black hair and typical Eskirish slanted blue eyes. Those eyes were dancing with excitement as she tugged her husband’s sleeve.

 ‘That would be it, Dama, thank you. Do you suppose me and the wife could send a message along with yours, sir, when you reply to the pirates?’

 Sean shrugged. ‘What did you want to say?’

 ‘Well, it’s a bit hard to organize it right now, sir. It’ll take me and the missus some thinking.’

 ‘Perhaps I should help you write it down then,’ Wild Star offered.

 ‘Ah, now that would be very kind of you, Dama,’ said Muktuk.

 ‘Very kind indeed,’ said Mrs Murphy. ‘I’m sure all my people will appreciate it and we’d all like to come to your school along with the children, please and thanks very much.’

 Aboard the pirate ship

 When Dinah O’Neill returned to the Captain’s quarters, she found a message from Macci Sendal waiting on her comunit.

 ‘Dama O’Neill,’ Sendal’s voice said, ‘this came in last night in response to your follow-up ransom message to the Petaybean administration. At first my stupid assistant didn’t think it was important and almost discarded it. It’s from Shongili’s office but it seems to be in some sort of code, hence the mistake. I do hope it will be good news - for both your captain’s organization and my own.’

 There was no voice message involved, just print on the screen.

 Dear Dama O’Neill of the pirate ship,

 We learned of you when your boss’s note came to Dr Sean Shongili’s office. Your name caught our ears right away and we were wondering if maybe you might be related to the County Galway O’Neills taken from Ireland at the height of the Reunification? We had a grandfather from that area and time period who, despite raising a large family here on Petaybee, never forgot his brother, Rory, who was known locally as Handy Red O’Neill, he that was involved in the battle aboard the Rosslare Ferry and was then lost from the rest of the family when the country was so-called evacuated by the powers that be.

 We know some good songs about the family you might like to hear and we were wondering if you might have some from your family as well, whether or not you’re of the same family as us.

 We were glad to learn about you but sorry to hear you are having to work for pirates. If it’s food or a place to live that you’re needing, we’d be happy to have you come to live with us here on Petaybee if you can quit your job. We would love to have you and your family, if you have one.

 Regards,

 Chumia and Muktuk of the Tanana Bay Murphys on Petaybee

 P.S. Could you please put in a word with your boss and ask that Sean’s wife and relations and the nice Company lady are kindly treated as we’re all very worried about them?

 Then, in another hand altogether, a second note.

 There is nothing a person can do in regard to ransom here. SS

 Dinah O’Neill ran the message through several times. This was not going the way it should have. Not in any way, shape or form. She hated to take Namid’s accusation to heart - that she was losing her touch: she preferred the Yana-woman’s suggestion that she had been badly informed.

 She pondered the brief sentence from Shongili - for who else would be ‘SS’. Nothing a person could do, huh? Well, that was certainly in line with Yana’s allegation. Wouldn’t the anxious husband of a newly wedded pair try to bargain? Not, Dinah came to the reluctant conclusion, if he had no control over this planet entity, this sentient world. Then she turned to the bulk of the message - so innocent and naive. If she could get out of her job as a pirate? What ingenuousness. Part of Shongili’s ploy? No, the words had the ring of truth.

 Further to that, which the Tanana Bay O’Neills couldn’t have known at all, was that she was a descendant of that Rory O’Neill, Handy Red O’Neill who had been so proud of fighting that battle on the Rosslare Ferry: the last stand of the Virtuous, he’d called it. And he’d composed a roaring saga which was one of the few memories she had of her own red-headed father: bellowing out the chorus to the many stanzas of that saga. Oh, she’d have a family song to sing to these O’Neills of Tanana Bay, she would indeed.

 Abruptly she clicked on the holo-shield control set in one of her rings dnd depressed another button to summon Megenda.

 ‘Yes, Captain Louchard?’ the first mate said when he reported to his ‘Aurelian’ captain.

 ‘It’s time to leave. We’re going to Petaybee, Megenda.’

 The man’s broken teeth showed in a grin. ‘Aye-aye, Cap’n.’

  

  

 16

 Kilcoole

 Contents - Prev/Next

 ‘Sean?’ Simon Furey came charging into the governor’s mansion. ‘I got someone here from…’ and Furey frowned down at the plasfilm sheets trying to curl around his gloved hand from the static in the cold air that he brought in with him, ‘… Nabatira Structural Cubes?’

 ‘Never heard of them.’

 ‘I have!’ Furey said, impressed.

 Sean reached for the film and they both had trouble unwinding it to the point where the consignment note and the invoice could be separated and read. ‘I don’t know a thing about this,’ he added, shaking his head, especially over the fat letters of the ‘NO CHARGE’ stamped on the invoice.

 Furey jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the junked cabin room. ‘They’d be damned good things to have, y’know.’

 Sean looked about him, snorting at the confusion of tiers of boxes on every available space, boxes into which Una and her helpers filed the stuff that every shuttle brought down to dump in his already stuffed premises.

 Adak came in just then, waving more plasfilm. ‘The most humungous slabs just arrived, Sean. They gotta be unloaded and put up and, I dunno,’

 Adak’s eyes were wide in his round face. ‘What are they?’

 ‘Climatically resistant and atmospherically adjustable additional autonomous units, complete with all facilities, can be erected instantly and with little or no site preparation,’ said the rangy redheaded individual who had followed Adak in. ‘But I gotta tell ya, man, we gotta fix and run or we miss the next delivery and that’s not company policy. We only got three days to site these things and you’re lucky to get delivery so quickly, considering how far in advance clients usually gotta book Nabatira Cubes. So where do we put ‘em?’

 ‘Them?’

 The redhead flicked fingers at the film in Sean’s suddenly limp fingers.

 ‘Four of ‘em,’ and the redhead held up four gloved fingers. That seemed to be his only concession to Petaybean weather although the outfit he wore was probably one of the lightweight thermal beauties which Minkus had brought with him from Herod’s. Now the Nabatiran emissary looked about him. ‘This the governor’s mansion?’ he asked incredulously, assessing the clutter in a single not quite contemptuous glance. ‘How big are these cubes?’

 The redhead snorted. ‘Hell, man, you could put six of this bitty place in one and still get a rattle.’

 ‘Then I want one right beside this,’ Sean said, suddenly decisive. ‘Adak, get some axes and…’

 The redhead held up a restraining hand. ‘No sweat, mate. Oscar O’Neill, the Great O. O., will take care of that detail. Like we claim, little or no site preparation is needed.’

 ‘What wouldja do with them trees, then?’ Adak demanded, his head protruding from his parka like a turtle’s.

 ‘You need the wood? We keep the wood,’ the Great O. O. said amiably.

 ‘That’s one down, Governor Shongili…” and Oscar O’Neill paused to receive Sean’s disposition of the others.

 ‘Make a much better school than the longhouse does…’ Simon Furey suggested appealingly.

 ‘Done!’

 ‘School’s to be near by?’ O. O. asked.

 ‘Just up the road,’ Simon replied eagerly, pointing in the right direction.

 ‘Road?’ O. O. asked condescendingly.

 ‘Road,’ Sean said firmly and wondered what to do with the others. Sometimes gifts can be more embarrassing than helpful - especially ‘free’ ones.

 ‘Kin I make a suggestion, mate?’ O. O. said and when Sean nodded, ‘Well, I spent a good deal of good daylight e-rection time trying to find you. Wouldn’t have found you at all if not for Cap’n Greene and his flyin’ machine. He came along just as I was about to mark this lot “Return to sender”. Why not install one cube at that so-called SpaceBase of yours to direct incoming traffic and take…’ he looked around him again,’ some of the paperwork outa here.’

 Sean couldn’t have agreed more though the ‘No charge’ aspect of this largesse could not be explained by O. O. All he knew ‘was what was on the dockets, man’, and ‘no charge’ meant just that, and who were they to argue with Head Office? By the time the necessary decisions were made, Sean had a new office block adjacent to the marital cabin; awed Kilcoole had a new school; Petaybee Admin had its own - if empty - premises on the edge of the SpaceBase, and Lonciana was going to find herself to be the recipient of the fourth Nabatira Structural Cube. If she was having half the trouble Sean was in the management of the Southern Continent, she needed the space to do it in too.

 As abruptly as O. O. and his men had appeared, they left.

 ‘He was as good as his word, wasn’t he?’ Una said, standing in the newfallen snow in front of the cube while the governor’s’staff’ took stock of their new premises. ‘It’s just forty-eight hours since they arrived.’

 ‘So it is,’ Sean said, totally bemused by the speed with which this had all been accomplished. O. O. and his men hadn’t even paused when snow whipped around so that at one point it had been very hard to see despite the banks of heavy-duty lights that had been put up so they could work through the night.

 The building had also been sunk into the ground, neatly placed behind a screen of Kilcoole’s conifers so that it didn’t even seem to be an intruder. A unanimous decision had voted for an outer coating of a bark-like paint so that it resembled - at least in colour - the other cabins along the road. Of course, the upper level did tower above the neighbouring buildings but there were trees behind it that were taller still. It was empty, of course, for no-one had had time to transfer anything.

 ‘What a difference a few days make!’ Sean said.

 Cautiously approaching the new building, Marduk let out a little snarl. He was pacing along the front of it, sniffing here and there and usually sneezing at the chemical smells clinging to the newly erected building, pawing at the one or two mounds of disturbed dirt left over.

 Well, no good standing around out here, is there? he said and took the three entrance steps in one.

 Gal-3

 ‘I tell you, Louchard’s real ship only just left,’ Charas vehemently insisted to Commander Nal an Hon. Once more dressed in the gear of a station brat, there was nothing of the child in her manner as she leaned across the desk, hands gripping the edge, her white knuckles demonstrating the intensity of her belief in what she said. ‘That’s why you never found the kidnapped victims in any of the ships that had disembarked.’

 ‘Your instrumentation could be faulty, Charas,’ the Commander said patiently although he knew that the diminutive operator was the best surveillance officer money, and loyalty, could buy. In this case, the loyalty was the prominent factor since Marmion Algemeine seemed to instil that virtue in anyone who worked for her. He could have used a bit of that himself, though he tried to be as tolerant and fair-minded as he could, dealing with all sorts of psychologies and temperaments as Commander of Gal-3.

 ‘Faulty my aunt’s left toenail!’ She swung away from the desk and began pacing. ‘My instruments registered the original mayday from both Madame Algemeine and the Colonel. I followed them to Cargo Bay 30…’

 ‘And followed the shuttle…’

 ‘So I did, but the shuttle seemed the obvious escape vehicle… and we were going so fast… My implant returns only life-sign readings past a certain distance…” Charas shook her head: they all had been sure the shuttle had the victims. ‘But the signal from the implant suggests that Madame Algemeine is still on Gal-3. I got the strongest response in the Cargo Bay: only there’s some sort of a scrambler system that diffuses so one can’t accurately locate the source.’ She held up a hand when the Commander started to interrupt her, ‘Until just this past half hour. Operations say that only five ships have requested clearance in the past hour… hours, that is,’ and her smile was grim,’ since it’s taken me longer to reach you with this information. Freighters, all of them, incapable of moving at any great speed.’

 ‘Look, I want Madame Algemeine back as much as you do, but I’ve only so many forces to handle search and recover operations…’

 ‘Madame Algemeine will, of course, reimburse your costs. What are you waiting for, Commander?’

 ‘Nothing,’ he said, abruptly, recognizing that he had been tardy in assimilating her information. Depressing the alert pad, he issued instructions, detailing the descriptions and numeric IDs of the five ships to be stopped and boarded.

 ‘Ingenious, you must admit,’ Charas said, relaxing now she had got him to act,’ remaining on Gal-Three while the first of the search and boards were being initiated. But then we know that Louchard uses state-of-the-art technology. This abduction was very carefully planned.’

 She sighed, rubbing her face, for she’d been working with only catnaps to refresh her ever since she’d received the first mayday: prowling about the immense cargo bay, checking every single ship in the facility, time and time again, trying to locate exactly which of the hundred or so ships hid the victims. But her locator, despite being state-of-the-art, displayed so many ‘echoes’ even when placed against a hull, that she had been unable to pinpoint the target ship. Fortunately, her disguise had saved her from retaliation by some of the ships’ personnel: aliens in particular were apt to take offence if you were seen hanging about their vessels for no apparent purpose.

 At the outset of this incident, she’d seen the women in the company of Macci Klausevitch so she hadn’t been as close on Yana’s heels as she normally would. For that she blamed herself. Getting slack in her middle years: have to quit this kind of work if she was going to be less than top efficient all the time.

 So the pair waited. Commander an Hon courteously supplied her with a meal and then a shower in his private facilities while fresh clothing was procured for her. She was adrenalin-poor at this point, having pushed herself for days in her vigil. She had almost nodded off when the first reports came in. The slowest of the five vessels had been apprehended and it was, as it was supposed to be, a drone grain carrier and all its components checked out as they should. The second was carrying only two holds of cargo, to the captain’s disgust, and he was in no fit mood to be stopped on such a spurious charge. The third was also innocent and the fourth, but of the fifth all they found were large fragments of the hull.

 ‘Wasn’t blown apart, wasn’t hit by any spaceflot, wasn’t burned or melted or anything, Commander. Just like the hull had been a weevy-fruit, split open down the axis.’

 An Hon and Charas exchanged despairing looks.

 ‘Damn that Louchard!’

 Charas felt as near to tears as she had the day her mother died when she’d been eight years old.

 ‘Any residuals to track?’

 ‘We’re searching, sir, but they could have just used the drift to take ‘em the way they wanted to go and, begging your pardon, it could take weeks to do a search pattern and we’d still not be sure we got the right trail.’

 ‘Return to base, Captain, and thank you.’ Grimly, Commander an Hon looked at Charas. ‘You still have a life signal from Madame Algemeine, don’t you?’

 Charas touched the point on her mastoid bone and inclined her head positively. Madame Algemeine was the only client for whom she would permit such an invasion of her personal privacy but she ‘owed’ her for her life and sanity so Charas was willing to do anything to protect this client.

 ‘We can check with Sally Point-Jefferson, too,’ she said.

 When a death occurred, those carrying the implant tuned to that person experienced an unforgettable blast.

 The tall lean Commander waved aside that suggestion with a twitch of his lips. ‘If she got the blast, so would you!’

 ‘Now what? The kidnappers didn’t leave a final warning of any kind, did they?’

 ‘Nothing past the last one M’sser Klausevitch passed on to us.’

 ‘Klausevitch,’ Charas murmured and locked eyes with the Commander. ‘Odd man to be chosen as messenger. And Madame herself cancelled Millard and Sally as bodyguards?’

 ‘Hmmm.’ An Hon shrugged for the whimsies of the rich. He’d’ve had an operative with Yana in the head, her tub, under her bed but who would have thought a kidnapping of someone of Madame Algemeine’s status would occur in this day and age after the Amber Unicorn fiasco! True, there were occasional incidents involving lesser lights like merchants, captains, executives and enough freaks eking out a marginal living on any big station like this to account for GBA and ‘accidents’ as well as extortionist intimidation but nothing on the scale of this felony. ‘Madame Algemeine had some critical meeting or other that they had to prepare for and doubtless she felt that she was well-enough known - with the Klausevitch along - to inhibit any confrontation.’

 ‘And who let the two kids loose?’

 ‘That has already been dealt with,’ the Commander said in a hard voice for the unseen eye supposed to follow the young folk had somehow missed their departure from the Algemeine apartments. His licence had been revoked and he was currently looking for any work he could get.

 ‘That Klausevitch fellow,’ Charas said, returning to one aspect of this whole affair that nagged her like a damaged nerve. ‘What else have you discovered about him?’

 ‘I got a repeat of the original clearance. He certainly wouldn’t have been hired by Rothschild’s if there was anything suspicious about him. But I’ve asked again for a comprehensive.’

 ‘He was sure green-e-o at the Algemeines’ first thing that morning. And I heard he doesn’t usually rise until midday.’

 ‘That is true.’

 ‘Or is he just hot for pregnant women?’ Charas asked with feminine cynicism.

 ‘There was that case…’ an Hon paused, rubbing his chin speculatively, ‘… where a salesman with an impeccable record was convicted of grand larceny following an investigation of his accounts. He admitted falling under the spell of this Louchard personage. It is a possibility,’ an Hon admitted. ‘As the Great Sleuth remarked, “When you discount the improbable and only the impossible remains, that will be the answer.”’

 ‘You’ve got surveillance on him?’

 ‘You may be sure of that, and on anyone else even remotely involved in this affair, up to and including our society hostess, Pleasaunce Ferrari-Emool.’

 ‘Yeah, her!’

 ‘She’s been known to associate with some unlikely characters.’

 ‘Hmmm.’

 ‘Get some sleep, Charas. You’re not good to anyone in your present state, though you cleaned up better than I thought you would.’

 Charas managed a grin. ‘Any place here I can catch a few winks?’ she said, rising. ‘Don’t want to be far away if you need me. And I’m not all that sure I could make it to my digs.’

 When Madame Algemeine had imported Charas as her Gal-Three unseen eye, she had naturally introduced the woman to Commander an Hon. She had ‘assisted’ him from time to time when her principal client was absent from the station so he had a high degree of respect for her capabilities, the present situation notwithstanding. He himself showed her to one of the cabins reserved for unexpected visitors of the desirable kind. She lay on her side, positioned her legs comfortably and immediately her breathing went into a deep sleep pattern. He activated the comlink and left.

 He should be getting some gen back on Klausevitch and he couldn’t imagine why it took so long to be linked in to Gal-Three. Because of the prestige of their special residents, Gal-Three had priority clearance up to top secret levels. Surely Klausevitch was not above that category.

  

 17

 Aboard the pirate ship

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 ‘There!’ cried Diego. ‘I can feel the vibrations now. Can’t you?’ and his tone was slightly accusatory.

 ‘Yes, actually, I can,’ Yana said, her fingers splayed on the bulkhead.

 ‘And the air has definitely changed,’ Marmion said, sniffing. ‘I’ve never noticed before how different air can smell.’

 ‘You would if you lived where it’s pure,’ Bunny said somewhat condescendingly, ‘and then had to breathe the muck. Oh, your launch had good air but some places on Gal-Three it was… well, it was downright stinky. Like the stuff that hovers over SpaceBase back home.’ The last few words came out in a tone that everyone recognized as homesick. But Bunny made an effort, inhaled the bad air, and turned resolute.

 ‘We’ll get back to Petaybee, gatita, I know we will,’ Diego said soothingly.

 ‘Hell’s bells,’ Yana said, ‘for all we know we may be heading there right now.’ She looked queryingly at Namid.

 He shrugged his helplessness. ‘Louchard is known to be devious but rarely direct. He likes to hunt, stalk his prey and then snatch.’

 ‘He makes a practice of kidnap?’ Marmion asked, startled, and for the first time fear coloured her eyes.

 ‘Not that I know of,’ Namid said as soothingly as Diego had spoken to Bunny. ‘Now don’t you worry yourself, Madame…”

 ‘I thought we’d reached the first-name basis, Namid,’ and Marmion emphasized his name.

 ‘Thank you, well, let me repeat. No, Louchard tends to deal in inanimate cargo which is why I’m really surprised to see him turn to abduction.’

 ‘Cargoes being unable to testify in court, right?’ Yana remarked in a cynical tone.

 ‘Exactly, and once sold on can rarely be traced since so often they are the raw materials which are turned into different goods entirely.’

 ‘Tell me,’ and Yana had difficulty controlling a sudden surge of mirth,’ does Louchard then steal those goods and sell them on?’

 Namid’s face and eyes lit with answering amusement. ‘I really haven’t been with this happy band of free-souls long enough to have observed that.’ Then he sobered. ‘I can only extrapolate from what Dinah used to tell me. And, of course, I’d no idea that she was generally transporting stolen goods.’ He sighed unhappily and now it was Marmion’s turn to console him.

 ‘But you do agree that we’re breathing a different kind of air right now, don’t you?’ Bunny insisted as if that little concession was more important than any of the other topics with which they had whiled away their incarceration.

 ‘I do,’ Marmion said and the others nodded. ‘Clever of you to have noticed, Bunny. Although why the pirate ship remained so long at Gal-Three…’

 ‘That’s the easiest part to guess,’ Bunny said, impatient with Marmion. ‘Who’d look on the station for us?’

 ‘A good point,’ Marmion said magnanimously. ‘Your pirate captain is indeed a devious man.’

 ‘I wonder if he’s an orphan,’ mused Namid, trying vainly to cheer himself up.

 ‘An orphan?’ Bunny exclaimed in surprise: she’d been one most of her life and had never found the condition easy. Of course, she nearly lost Namid’s response because thinking about being an orphan reminded her that if the pirate should waste them all, Cita would be all alone again and lose what precious little self-confidence she’d gained since knowing she was Bunny’s sister and a Rourke.

 ‘Yes, an orphan,’ Namid went on briskly. ‘To further the analogy of the pirates I mentioned earlier.’

 Bunny forced her mind off sad thoughts and listened while, with such music and words as he remembered from the score of The Pirates of Penzance, he regaled them and thus passed the hunk of time till their next meal as pleasantly as their circumstances allowed.

 Petaybee

 ‘They call this “spring”?’ asked Zing Chi, chief representative of the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company Limited, as he glanced round the desolate sweep of the broad valley, soggy with melt, yet burgeoning with insect life and the blooming of plants which the insects were helping to pollinate. He was thoroughly disgusted and wanted to leave when they’d only just managed to get to Petaybee South. The transport service on which he had booked his team had been terminated and their monies returned, but the refund alone was barely sufficient to bribe their way to the planet’s surface, and at that, comparatively unsatisfactory, setdown point. The southern pole of the planet contained some of the botanicals listed, but the northern continent was the documented source of what he had been assured were riches of herbal gold - and those elusive qualities in unicorn horns and cats’ whiskers for which his company could charge their oldest customers (and, of course, only the oldest needed such help) vast fortunes, whether or not there were any discernible results to the intake of Petaybean products.

 Zing Chi was one of the best field operators, able to strip acres of plants by bloom, leaf, stem and root in no time at all. Some of the vegetation in sight looked familiar and was supposed to be plants which had been brought to Petaybee during the initial terraforming so they could adapt to this new world. But the nearest were only ground cover, cultivated to keep topsoil from being blown away.

 He had been given no warning that his entire team would have to do all of their collecting on foot. They had seen no villages so far, no cities, no place to purchase transport of any sort. Zing Chi began to fear that there was none to purchase.

 Fortunately, his people were very good walkers and walk they did, gathering, stripping, and neatly cataloguing anything vaguely resembling the plant materials listed, even those available elsewhere.

 After five days, they had laid bare a strip approximately fifteen miles long and half a mile wide. It took all the animals they could find to feed them, for this time of year there were no berries or nuts of any sort remaining. Zing Chi’s team consisted of a hundred and fifty people and they required much food.

 One day, the son of one of his senior men, Lu Han, brought a small spotted lion cub in his arms.

 ‘Which whiskers do we need, boss?’ he asked Zing Chi. ‘This little fellow will need some of them for his balance and space sense. He won’t mind losing a couple though, I think. He’s a good cub.’

 ‘Do as you’re told and the animal will have no need for whiskers. We haven’t enough to eat. Kill it, take the whiskers, and skin it. The rest is for the soup pot. Our clients have specified that they want the whiskers of orange cats only, but since they do not seem to know enough to assist us in reaching that which we need to harvest, I do not suppose they will know the whiskers of an orange cat from those of this cub. The bounty will be the same.’

 ‘But boss

 ‘Do as I say.’

 The boy nodded and the cub, as if sensing that the decision had gone against him, began to wiggle in his arms.

  

 18

 Petaybee

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 Cita caught Johnny Greene as he boarded his copter for the trip south to help O. O. and his men install Loncie Ondelacy’s cube. Coaxtl padded behind. The cat did not think highly of flying machines.

 Birds are for eating, the cat protested. Riding in them makes one feel that one is a youngling being carried in the beak of a prey-bird for the feeding of her chicks. One does not like this feeling,

 ‘Stop complaining,’ Cita said. ‘You’ll like being in the South again. Hi, Captain Johnny!’

 ‘Cita! How are you and your fine furry friend this morning?’ the pilot asked, grinning down at her.

 ‘I am far better than I have any right to expect, though I worry for the sake of my sister and Aunty Yana and Diego. But this one’, she pointed to Coaxtl, ‘longs to see her old caves again. A week ago she said she was fine but suddenly she growls in her sleep and talks only of going home. I heard you were taking one of these big houses to Loncie and Pablo, and I hoped that we might burden you with ourselves. I would like to show Carmelita and Isabella what I’ve learnt in school. I have many new songs to sing, however poorly, for those who were so kind to a foolish stranger before I came here.’

 ‘What does your uncle say?’

 ‘He doesn’t mind. He says you are making regular trips now and could perhaps bring us back in a day or two? So we will not trouble Loncie for too long?’

 ‘Sure, if it’s OK with Sean. I know Loncie and Pablo and the kids will be glad to see you again. They’re not going to believe how you’ve filled out in just a few months!’

 All of these words had to be shouted over the roar of the copter’s great engines, but at last Cita made herself comfortable in the back and Coaxtl grumblingly curled up in a tight ball at her feet.

 Cita enjoyed the trip very much. She liked watching as O. O’Neill’s special jet-crane hoisted the great boxes in the air and flew with them dangling, just so, so that the weight did not upset the aircraft. Johnny’s aircraft carried lighter cargo, in addition to herself and Coaxtl - more administrative paperwork bundled by Una Monaghan to go to Loncie Ondelacy.

 Cita loved it when they reached the sea and she could see that the ice was already beginning to thicken off the northern coast. Whales and seals danced in the shadow of the aircraft, and dolphins leapt high, as if trying to touch the dangling cargo with their noses before diving again.

 Gradually the water began to change, from grey-green to brighter, jade-green to pale grey-blue and to the deep bright blue of the glacier crevasse, then back again to blue-green, and almost lime. The air clouded with steam and below, the water boiled and hissed. Off to the right, a little island stuck up above the water, probably not even a mile wide yet, but it seemed to grow even as Cita watched, and already parts of it were seamed with green. Beyond, stretched other such islands, and Cita wondered how long it would take them to touch and make one big one.

 Coaxtl was sleeping and didn’t seem to be wondering about anything, but she growled and sometimes snarled and her paws curled and uncurled. Cita wished she knew what the cat was dreaming but Coaxtl only spoke to her in her head on purpose - Cita was still too stupid and insensitive to read the great cat’s mind.

 Then they were beyond the steam and the islands and back into the iceberg-clogged waters near the southern coast. Breakup was just beginning there, even as winter was beginning in the North, and great rushes of water spumed in the air as the icebergs broke free and calved from the icepack. She saw a white bear jump from one piece of ice to the other, trying to reach shore. The bears were very hungry and ate people, but still she hoped he made it. He was trying so hard.

 They didn’t even stop and refuel at Portage but flew straight on to Sierra Padre where Loncie and Pablo and their family lived.

 But as they passed over the broad plane between rivers and mountain ranges, they saw a strange sight. The ground was as bare for miles around as if it had been closely grazed by some animal, and many people were bent over, harvesting what looked like weeds. Cita could see no reason for it.

 Johnny flew low, buzzing the people playfully, but also curiously, Cita thought. These might be like the hunters and the funny people in white robes and the serious business people she had seen before.

 Whatever they were, Coaxtl didn’t like them. Without so much as a warning, the cat sprang to her feet and threw herself against the door.

 ‘Coaxtl, no! We’re high up! You would be killed.’ Coaxtl scratched long rents in the steel of the door, snarling. One will go out. NOW.

 Cita ran to throw her arms around the cat and was dragged to the window as the copter canted to the right, and she suddenly found herself looking into the face of a boy a few years older than herself, with features that reminded her somewhat of Pablo’s. He had been holding something and his arms were still stretched towards it, where it cut a swath through the untouched undergrowth.

 Coaxtl’s scratching grew less as Johnny circled the area twice, thoroughly confusing the Nabatira Company cranecopter, which hovered uncertainly before flying slowly forwards, waiting until Johnny finished his survey. The people on the ground below looked up. They were not well dressed for winter.

 When the people were at last far behind them, Coaxtl heaved a great sigh and jumped up on the seat Cita had occupied, parts of her hanging over the edges. Cita plopped down within the overhang of the cat’s giant paws and scrunched the thick soft fur of her friend’s belly with her fingers.

 Coaxtl did not speak for the remainder of the flight, though she rumbled contentedly from time to time as Cita stroked her. Cita would have spoken but the roar of the copter jets was too loud and besides, she did not know what to say.

 As soon as the copter landed and the door was open, Coaxtl streaked out and bounded away.

 ‘Wait!’ Cita cried.

 The Home is in need, Coaxtl’s voice told her. Bring help.

 Johnny jumped down from the copter and helped Cita down. ‘Looks like your friend had an urgent appointment.’

 ‘She said the Home needed help,’ Cita told him.

 ‘Yes,’ Johnny said. ‘I can see that. Don’t worry, Cita. As soon as we’ve had a word with Loncie and Pablo and O. O. knows where she wants him to install his cube, we’re outta here and I think we need to pay our respects to the planet’s newest guests and ask them what the frag they’re doing here. I have a hunch we’ll find Coaxtl there.’

 ‘You are wise, Captain Johnny. Surely that is where Coaxtl will go for she opposed their presence.’ Cita pointed to the long rents in the steel door.

 Johnny groaned. ‘That’s not going to be easy to explain to the Company.’

 But there was no need to explain to Loncie and Pablo, beyond telling them of the barren swath the newcomers were cutting. Loncie told O. O. to put the cube behind the house, and ran out the door just ahead of her husband, who grabbed both of their coats and summoned several neighbours. All of them crowded into the helicopter, each pushing Cita away to climb in before her.

 She knew they were adults and much wiser and stronger than she. She knew she was being wicked and disobedient to crowd her way aboard. But Coaxtl was her friend and did not speak to others here.

 She stuck out her chin and lowered her brows and tried to look defiant and invisible at the same time, but felt a pair of hands lift her over the heads of the adults seated on the floor, and found herself dragged into Loncie’s lap.

 ‘So you come with us, eh, Pobrecita?’

 ‘Si,’ Cita said. ‘I do.’

 ‘Bueno,’ Loncie said, patting her back.

 The copter set down and the doors opened. People poured out. Not many, compared to the people on the ground. Only seven, plus Cita and Johnny.

 The newcomers stayed well back of the rotor blades until Johnny shut them down. Then they pushed forward, a handsome golden-skinned man with black hair and black hooded eyes at the fore. All of the people were carrying things Cita couldn’t see clearly.

 ‘Slainte,’ Johnny said. ‘This lady is Lonciana Ondelacy, the regional administrator of the Southern Continent. This is her husband, Pablo Ghompas, and these here are what you might call the County Council.’

 The man made a slight bow in the direction of Pablo and Loncie. ‘How kind of you to greet us.’

 Loncie inclined her head slightly, cautiously. ‘What brings you here, senor?’

 ‘A mission of mercy, madame. My name is Zing Chi. I am of the Asian E and E Company Limited. We have been sent to collect certain substances to heal the sick and ease the ravages of age. Many of these things are obtainable only here. But we had no transportation until you arrived, and no way of finding what we seek. You can help us?’

 Cita did not like his smile and hung behind Loncie’s broad back.

 ‘We’ll be pleased to, honoured guest,’ Pablo said, before anyone else could say anything. ‘If only you will tell us what you seek.’

 Zing Chi reached into his pocket and pulled forth a written list. Pablo accepted it, handing it to Loncie, who had been in the Company and thus could already read, unlike Petaybeans.

 ‘What is this?’ Loncie asked, anger rising in her voice as she read. ‘The whiskers of orange cats? Unicorn horns?’

 ‘Oh, my goodness me,’ Pablo said, before she could tell them what she thought of their list. ‘What does it all mean? Gentlemen, whatever would you use such things for?’

 ‘Unicorn horn is well known as an aphrodisiac and a preventer of poisonings, good sir,’ Zing Chi said with another bow. ‘Most valuable. The whiskers of the orange cats are said to prolong youth and good health.’

 Pablo shook his head. ‘Not here, I’m afraid. Someone has misled your informant.’

 ‘Is that true?’

 ‘Oh, my goodness, yes. The unicorn horn you find on Petaybee is no good at all for aphrodisiacs.’

 ‘Is it not?’ Zing Chi asked politely. The other townspeople and Loncie watched Pablo as if he were their teacher. Obviously they held him in great respect, as they should.

 ‘You have been misled,’ Pablo said. ‘That is understandable, sir, since undoubtedly your information could not have come from anyone who actually had harvested the worthless horn of one of the northern curly stags in the winter. The horns are good for cutting ice, which is what the curlycorn uses it for. No more than that.’

 ‘Are you absolutely certain?’ Zing Chi asked with apparent courtesy but his eyes said that he did not believe what he was told.

 Pablo sighed and hung his head. ‘You may ask my wife.’

 Loncie shook her head sadly. ‘It is true. We had Captain Greene fly us down the horn of a curlycoat killed in an avalanche so that Pablo could try the cure but, alas, it was no good. Nothing did any good, in fact, until he ate the polar bear balls.’

 ‘Polar bear balls?’ several of the men gasped enquiringly.

 ‘Ah, si. When I finally recovered, I was muy macho in a way that only the polar bear balls of Petaybee can make a man who has lost his will to…’ Pablo made what was often considered a rude or lewd gesture.

 ‘I will add that to the list, then, sir,’ Zing Chi said.

 ‘Of course, with all Petaybean remedies, there is a secret in the gathering as well as in the mixing, you understand,’ Pablo said.

 ‘What secrets would those be, kind sir?’ Zing Chi asked.

 ‘If I told, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?’

 ‘We are willing to pay special… informants… handsomely for research information,’ Zing Chi said.

 ‘Oh, did you hear that, Pablo?’ Johnny asked. ‘They’ll pay us handsomely. I could get my copter door repaired and you and Loncie could reinsulate your hacienda.’

 ‘I don’t know, Captain Johnny,’ Pablo said, shaking his head. ‘Once the secret is sold, it is no longer a secret, and it is very dangerous.’

 Loncie grabbed her husband’s arm. ‘We could build new bedrooms for our fourteen youngest offspring, corazon,’ she said.

 Cita looked up at her curiously. Loncie and Pablo had only Carmelita and Isabella.

 ‘That is true,’ Pablo said. ‘Very well. But we are Petaybeans, remember, and you gentlemen perhaps should not risk your lives professionally. It must be said that taking polar bear balls is done only when one has dire personal need, as I did. The secret, you see is’ He beckoned the man forward and whispered fairly loudly in his ear. ‘The polar bear must be alive when you take his balls. You sneak up behind the bear and quickly tie a string around his balls. Then you must follow him around until they drop off.’

 ‘Why not just kill the bear and harvest the balls?’ Zing Chi asked, not whispering.

 Johnny pretended to be shocked. ‘You didn’t tell him that part, did you, Pablo? Well, I guess as long as the bear’s out of the bag, you ought to know. My great-grandad, when he first came to Petaybee, needed bear balls but he was in a big hurry and he killed the bear. He got what he wanted OK but only used it once before he dropped dead in bed. Did die happy though.’

 ‘And have we the correct ingredient for youthful-ness?’

 Johnny looked at the list sideways and smirked. ‘Cat whiskers? Who was the joker who made this list out anyway? No, mate, cat whiskers are no good to anybody but the beastie what wears ‘em most of the time. The way I figure it, your informant felt something sticky and figured it must be cat’s whiskers without checkin’ his source. What they use for prolonging youth and health up north is coo-berry thorns. And I’ll tell you the secret to that for free. You got to get the protected ones, in the middle of the patch, to get the best results.’

 ‘Thank you,’ Zing Chi said with a bow, extending his hand and pointing the object in it at Johnny. ‘What you see in my hand, and in the hands of my workers is a laser harvester, which is capable of flaying a man as easily as a tree. With the use of these implements, we will gladly take your suggestions under advisement and procure the items you suggest in addition to those we seek. First, however, we require transportation to the sources of these things. This you will provide us while the County Council, as you call them, stay here as the guests of my Company.’

  

 19

 On the ‘Pirate Jenny’

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 ‘We’ve stopped,’ Bunny said, suddenly sitting up straight on the edge of her bunk. She’d been leaning against the bulkhead and watching Namid write down the lyrics of the patter song. Some of the words Namid was transcribing - like Major General - were new words to her but it helped to watch him put them down. She could sound out the syllables, as he’d been teaching her to do, and then later, when they were allowed out to walk the corridors - Louchard’s latest relaxation of the rules of their incarceration - he would teach her the proper pronunciation. Sometimes words didn’t sound the way they looked which only made the chore of reading them harder. She had complained bitterly that words should look like they sounded.

 ‘Whaddya mean, we’ve stopped?’ Diego demanded, laying his hand, palm flat against the metal wall. ‘I still feel vibrations.’

 ‘Yeah, but they’ve changed,’ Bunny said.

 ‘Yeah, and how much space flight have you done?’

 ‘Enough!’

 ‘Children,’ Marmion said, in her most reasonable, let-us-not-quibble-over-trivia tone.

 She’d had to use a lot of that lately as the confinement became less and less bearable. Even learning The Pirates of Penzance and the other Gilbert and Sullivan operettas that Namid knew was beginning to pall. At first it had been great fun; entertaining and engrossing. Marmion had a lovely light soprano voice and had been cast as Mabel, while contralto Yana had managed a creditable Ruth, Diego a decent Frederic and Bunny, aided and abetted by Namid, became chorus and all the other parts. Bunny liked the piratical chorus best and was learning the part of the Pirate Captain - since he was an orphan - as she gleefully discovered at the end of the show. Between learning the lines and the lyrics, many an hour had been passed.

 ‘Look, Diego, you may have been brought up on a high-tech station,’ Bunny said, ignoring Marmion’s attempt at pacification, ‘but you sure aren’t good at reading signs. I’ve had to or I’d’ve been buried under avalanches and snow slides and all kinds of other hazards…’

 ‘All planetary…’

 ‘Well, a ship is a small planet, isn’t it? And the vibrations have just altered! I was right about the air, wasn’t I? Why can’t I be right about the vibrations?’

 ‘She may be, you know,’ Namid interposed with a wry grin. ‘The Jenny’s got speed in her and it’s been three days since the air source altered. That’d be about the necessary travel time from Gal-Three to Petaybee, wouldn’t it, Marmion?’

 ‘Yes, it would,’ Marmion said, exhaling. This experience was not unlike a boardroom wrangle and as intense as any take-over or merge struggle and she was finding her tolerance and understanding stretched to the limit. If it hadn’t been for Namid’s presence and diversionary tactics, she was sure there would have been fairly nasty squabbles, due simply to the pressures of so much proximity. Even with the most fiercely contested of her financial deals, she’d always been able to ‘leave’ the premises and cool down. She was fond of Bunny and Diego: she genuinely liked Yana who was bearing up nobly. She was more than a little fascinated by the complex personality of the astronomer who had such divergent interests and informations: she’d never met any one else so catholic in his tastes and so accomplished - in the nicest possible way. Maybe she had dwelt too much in the rarefied atmosphere of her social sphere. One could become too specialized. Her time on Petaybee had opened that door and this experience was showing her a vast panorama she hadn’t known existed - the panorama and pertinences of enforced idleness.

 Dinah O’Neill had managed to gain them more privileges: better food, the daily tour of the corridors as exercise. Putting their heads together one night, Marmion and Namid had discussed the size of the ship. He had been on the Jenny somewhat longer than they had, but he admitted that generally he was far more interested in things light years distant than he was in his immediate surroundings. Still, he agreed that they had had to have been on a larger ship than the Jenny when they’d been marched into Louchard’s presence that first time. Bunny, who could describe the different types of snow to be found in a three-mile area with distinction and accuracy, was able to describe the seemingly identical corridors with the same eye for minutiae. The Jenny’s captain’s quarters, for instance, were adjacent to the crew’s quarters, separated only by one passageway - the ups and downs suggested auxiliary corridors connecting the Jenny to a larger craft.

 ‘Deliberately confusing us as to the size and type of vessel,’ Marmion had said.

 ‘Two ships, then,’ Namid said, scratching his whiskers.

 ‘Had to be,’ Marmion agreed.

 While Diego and Bunny had told the others about the shuttle, this was no shuttle they were on. It was much larger than Marmion’s launch, which was compact but larger than the shuttle the two youngsters had seen in the hulled vessel that had originally attracted them to Cargo Bay 30, and ended up with their kidnapping. The two had apologized for their escapade, profusely and with much self-castigation. And the ‘its’… If they hadn’t been curious, if they hadn’t skived off on their own, if they hadn’t put Marmion and Yana to the trouble of coming after them…

 That brought up the other question: what was Macchiavelli Sendal-Archer-Klausevitch’s role in all this - apart from being tagged as messenger-boy for the piratical ransom demand?

 ‘Pies Ferrari-Emool might know more about him,’ Marmion had said, ‘but I didn’t. He was the newly appointed CEO of a Rothschild’s subsidiary and would certainly have had an in-depth security check done on him to get to such a rank. I mean, how could he possibly have alerted the pirates that we were in Cargo Bay 30? What I’d very much like to know is where was Charas during all this?’

 ‘Charas?’

 ‘Never mind, Namid,’ Marmion said, smiling and quickly changing the subject. ‘And why hasn’t Commander an Hon been able to track us? The security on Gal-Three is supposed to be state-of-the-art.’

 As Marmion had fretted over this factor many times, Namid sighed quietly.

 ‘We’ll know when this is all over, my dear.’ And he’d patted her nervous hands.

 His touch did soothe her, Marmion realized, even as she also accepted the fact that it was useless to review the events that had led to this impasse. It was better to think ahead, and practise meditation. Namid had had a few new tips on quiet contemplation modes. They’d all learnt them, as a way of both keeping sanity and to pass the heavy time of captivity and inaction.

 Had the time of inaction passed? Marmion now wondered, if the ship’s vibrations had changed.

 ‘Well, the engines are still very definitely on,’ Diego said, both his hands on the bulkhead. In fact, everyone had been attempting to assess the change.

 ‘We could be in orbit,’ Yana said and her hand went to the little pouch of Petaybean dirt.

 Bunny and Diego followed suit. Marmion had not worn the little pouch the day they were kidnapped but she didn’t think the planet would care much what happened to her. She was responsible to and for herself.

 Bunny watched Yana. Then she shrugged as the Colonel did.

 ‘No change, huh?’ Bunny asked with a wry grin.

 Yana shook her head. ‘It might not be Petaybee we’re orbiting.’ There was an edge of depression and pessimism to her voice.

 ‘Where else?’ Diego demanded, stridently. ‘It’s the planet she wants to plunder, isn’t it?’

 ‘I had hoped she’d realized that there is no way to do that,’ Yana said, again in that bitter tone.

 She’d been away from Sean over four weeks now -a whole month in the development of their child. She could feel the lump in her belly now, slightly protruding from what had been a flat, well-muscled plane.

 Physically she was feeling better than she had at the outset of their imprisonment but the mental strain of uncertainty was beginning to mount, as was the tension of being restricted. Not that her long voyages on troop carriers hadn’t been restrictive, but this was restraint of a different nature. And one she bitterly resented, although she tried not to, fearing that it might mar the foetus in some bizarre fashion. Her fears had taken the form of nightmares in which her born or unborn child appeared as some sort of monster. She shuddered.

 Just then the panel opened and there was the second officer, not nearly as ferocious as Megenda, but almost as repellent in a slimy sort of way.

 ‘Time for walkies,’ he said and gestured brusquely for them to fall in and take the exercise offered.

 SpaceBase

 Adak was on duty at the SpaceBase Cube. Simon Furey had painted a sign which had been nailed above the entry:

 ‘WELCOME TO PETAYBEE!

 PETAYBEAN IMMIGRATION AND INFORMATION!’

 With the demise of PTS, the only spacecraft using the now flat, but somewhat pitted and broken, landing field were from the Intergal Station. Mostly, they were employed in lifting equipment off the planet. On the far side of the field the mounds of disembodied walls, floors and roofs marked the graveyard of the old facilities, damaged when Petaybee had erected its ziggurat complaint against the Intergal despoilation. Adak and some of the other Kilcoole residents kept a sharp eye on this debris, most of which they could repair and put to good use once Intergal officials had cleared away and left them to the salvage.

 Adak could keep track of comings and goings from the Station by the discreet tap into the Intergal Comnet, which Simon Furey had been able to make, so he knew when ships - with possible ‘invaders’ -might be landing. That left him with a lot of free time to mooch round the piles, which suited him fine. Though there was enough of a snow-cover to run the dogs through the woods, the river had only a thin crust of ice on it, not strong enough for the snocles to use as a road. The really heavy weather hadn’t set in yet but he sure hoped Intergal would settle out soon so they could get to work. With all the people coming in and nowhere to put them, they’d be right glad of any son of shelter that could be cobbled together.

 A small vessel had just set down at the Station but he hadn’t seen any passengers emerge, just the crews unloading the sort of stores that wouldn’t be harmed by sitting out in the snow on the plascrete. Yet two people were now striding up to the door: a slim little woman with light brown hair, tufted with silver, lynx-like, above her ears and on her crown, lightly sprinkled with snowflakes, and a big guy who walked like a long-time spacer.

 ‘Hello?’ Dinah O’Neill smiled her most ingenuous smile at the fur-clad round-faced little man who peered at them in round-mouthed surprise. ‘Is this the right place to find out how to get to Tanana Bay?’

 ‘It’s the only place and why would you want to be going to Tanana Bay? It’s snowing and we’ve had blizzard warnings,’ the little man said. ‘But much as it pains me to admit it, I’m after bein’ the closest thing to a bureaucrat we got here ‘cept for the Governor. Adak Rourke, immigrations officer, more or less, at your service, ma’am. And what could I do for you, exactly?’

 ‘I believe I may have some relatives here in a place called Tanana Bay,’ Dinah O’Neill said, and altered her smile to a sad expression. ‘I wanted to come and see if we really are related and if perhaps I could make a home here near them as all my other family have died out and I’ve nowhere else to go.’

 ‘You really must be hard up to come to Petaybee, then.’

 ‘Blood is thicker than water. Even frozen water,’ she added, indicating the snowfall. Privately Dinah wondered how the hell the planet could afford state-of-the-art Nabatira Structural Cubes like this one if the planet’s economy was so marginal. Still, the old man’s response had been immediate and she didn’t think him guileful. One wanted to attract folks to a planet, not send ‘em running. Or maybe they did, to keep all the wealth to themselves. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming here until just recently. I met a man who was telling me about how he’d been down with a committee investigating a so-called sentient planet settled by a lot of the people relocated by Intergal in the time of the Reunification War in Ireland, where my people come from. In the course of his work, the man I talked to had met some people he thought resembled me who shared a similar surname. So, I decided to check it out.’

 ‘And how about you, sir?’ Adak Rourke turned to Megenda, who had been standing at bored ease behind Dinah throughout the conversation. ‘I take it you and the lady here are together? Would you have relatives here too, then? Maybe some of them Andean folk on the Southern Continent?’

 Megenda cast a wild sideways look at Dinah and she said smoothly, ‘He’s an old family retainer. I can’t pay him any longer but I couldn’t convince him to leave me. He’s very protective.’

 ‘That’s real good of you, sir, to look after the lady so,’ Adak Rourke said approvingly. Megenda nodded and glowered.

 ‘Now then,’ Dinah said brightly. ‘Where can I get transport to Tanana Bay? Here?’

 ‘Here?’ And Adak Rourke crowed a laugh, then sobered. ‘Well, here’s as good a place to hear the bad news as any. Right now, all the curlies are busy with them hunters that keep swarmin’ in like summer bite-hards. The dog teams are booked up for the next two weeks.’

 ‘What about shuttles? Surely…’ and she waved vaguely at the space port.

 ‘Dama, I don’t know where you come from but there’s one copter available to this entire planet and it’s borrowed and late returning from where it went to, and no other air transport at all since Intergal reclaimed all they had.’

 ‘Really? I’ve heard this planet is full of opportunities.’

 Rourke snorted, shuffling papers around as if he knew what he was doing with things that had to be read.

 ‘Who was it exactly told you all this? Not that I mean to pry, Dama, but someone misled you proper.’

 Dinah waved vaguely. ‘I can’t recall his name. I was so excited about what he was saying. He said he’d been here with a Captain Fiske.’

 ‘Huh!’ Rourke’s eyebrows climbed in search of his receding hairline. ‘Captain Fiske ain’t exactly had Petaybee’s best interests at heart. You should be careful where you get your information, Dama. But just because Fiske’s a curly’s arse ain’t no reason you’re not welcome. You know anything about deep sea fishin’?’

 ‘Not much,’ Dinah admitted, ‘but I’m willing to learn.’

 Adak snorted again. ‘Little thing like you might have fast fingers and be good at gutting but you’re a mite light for fishin’ work.’

 ‘Is that all that happens at Tanana Bay?’

 ‘Sure, ain’t much else up that way.’

 Dinah said, ‘Nevertheless, I’d like to go, unless, of course, my information was wrong. Where could I get in touch with the town leaders and enquire about my relations?’

 ‘Short of Tanana Bay, nowhere.’

 ‘You’ve a comunit…’

 ‘Oh, that one! That only tells me when there’s spacers comin’ in. Ain’t got no link to anywhere. Not even Kilcoole.’

 ‘Kilcoole?’ Dinah paused. ‘That name sounds familiar.’

 ‘You could get to Kilcoole. Snocle’ll be back on its regular run soon. Got some mail and stuff for the Governor.’

 ‘The Governor?’ Dinah asked as innocently as if she hadn’t been sending the man ransom demands for the past few days.

 ‘Yeah, Sean Shongili,’ and now the little man seemed to swell his chest out with pride. ‘He’s even got a Cube like this one.’

 ‘Oh?’

 ‘Had to,’ Adak rattled on with a broad grin. ‘Yana’s cabin - she’s Colonel now - was so chuck full of paperwork you could barely find Sean in the middle of it all.’

 ‘Really?’

 ‘Yup, and that O. O’Neill’ He peered at her a little too closely for comfort but she couldn’t see how one man would know about the correspondence of everyone on the planet, immigration officer or no. ‘I don’t suppose you’re an O’Neill too, are you? Never met one before and now they’re comin’ out of the woodwork.’

 Dinah contained her start of surprise. She quite deliberately hadn’t given the little man her name.

 ‘O. O’Neill?’ She could also look exceedingly blank.

 ‘Oscar O’Neill of the Nabatira Structural Cube Company?’

 ‘Never heard of him. Why did you say he was here?’ And, Dinah thought to herself, how did Nabatira Cubes get to poor backwater Petaybee?

 ‘He brought in the four Cubes that we got sent.’

 ‘You mean these Cubes - they’re very expensive articles, in case you didn’t know - were just… bestowed on you?’

 ‘Sure were, ‘cos we couldn’t afford ‘em, being new at being an independent planet. Say, can you read and write?’

 ‘Yes,’ Dinah said, adding in her mind,’ doesn’t everyone?’ just as she also realized this man could do neither.

 ‘Teacher?’ and Adak leaned forward eagerly. ‘We got one at Kilcoole - Wild Star Furey, and she’s doing the job a treat. Why, two of our kids already read their-selves right through the primer they were given four weeks ago.’

 ‘Well, you’re an up-and-coming independent planet then. Big tourist trade?’

 ‘Tourist? Oh, you mean the hunters? Well, we don’t know yet how they come to know about us,’ and Adak did not approve. ‘They don’t know how to hunt proper on Petaybee. Worse, they keep getting lost and not knowing how to speak to Petaybee to find out where they are.’

 ‘Speak to Petaybee?’

 ‘Wai, some of ‘em’s not done bad. But now the whole kit and kaboodle’s here we can’t get rid of ‘em. Them and the druggists…’

 ‘What would druggists…?’

 ‘Oh, you know the sort, Dama, big shots from drug companies. They think all they gotta do is dig plants or strip leaves and make pots of stuff to sell for bags of credits.’ Adak scoffed. ‘They’ve another think coming and most of ‘em is awful slow. They eat a lot, too.’

 ‘And that’s bad?’

 ‘Wai, lucky we had a good harvest this year, long spring, good summer. Got a bumper crop, or would have if all these folks hadn’t dumped on us. Oppor-tooo-nists is what Sean calls ‘em. They sure are lousing up our opportunities.’

 ‘Maybe we should go to Kilcoole?’ Dinah suggested.

 Adak eyed her shipsuit and her neat jacket critically. ‘Wai, you ain’t dressed proper for anything but the snocle, Dama, and one of our drivers is unfortunately being held by pirates offa the planet. Sorry for the inconvenience. You can sit over there.’ He pointed to the rough benches lining the wall. ‘Won’t be too long. A coupla hours till those guys bring us whatever pile o’ junk’s going to Sean this time.’

 Dinah and Megenda exchanged glances but obediently sat themselves down. The Cube might appear windowless from outside but there was a strip of oneway plasglass all around, affording them a good view of the activity around the spacer through the light snowfall.

 ‘Captain Louchard’s not going to like us waiting about,’ Megenda murmured to Dinah.

 ‘I know, but it can’t be helped,’ she replied and crossed her slim legs. She had much to think over while she waited. At least the building was warmish. And the snow would hide the little shuttle craft she and Megenda had arrived in. She fingered the finder in her pocket which would allow them to locate the craft no matter how much snow covered it.

 Adak Rourke had turned away from them to his comunit. ‘… that Muktuk wrote…’ he was saying. ‘That’s a rogue, Una.’

 Dinah had been a pirate long enough that she didn’t care for it when someone was communicating long distance while she was in the room and without an escape route. She sauntered back up to Rourke’s desk as if bored and sat on the edge of the desk.

 ‘So tell me, Adak. I’m awfully curious about this Tanana Bay. Where is it anyway? Actually, I was wondering if there was a map of this planet or something. I can’t imagine the whole place being arctic.’

 ‘Well, it is, Dama. Doctor Fiske says that’s ‘cos we only got continents on the poles with nothin’ in the middle - well, not so far. Governor says the planet’s workin’ on makin’ middle bits but it’ll take a spell. Now then, as for a map,’ he reached into the middle drawer of a desk and drew forth a much-creased sheet of paper with a monochrome photo on it. ‘There’s not a lot but Dr Fiske give us this aerial map and showed us where Kilcoole is. I can show you where other places are if you got a bit of time.’

 She smiled sweetly. ‘From what you say, I’ve quite a bit of that. So, then, where is it?’

 ‘Right about - well, first you have to find Savoy and Harrison’s Fjord which are’

 ‘Why, when I want to go to Tanana Bay?’

 ‘Snot that simple, Dama. You have to get your reference points, like and’

 The desk was suddenly thrown into shadow as Megenda loomed as only he could. ‘Stop stalling. Give us the coordinates.’

 Sean streaked from the Kilcoole Cube in a stream of papers when Una gave him Adak’s message.

 ‘He said the lady Muktuk and Chumia wrote to was here looking for her relatives, Sean,’ Una told him. ‘Said she was an O’Neill if ever he saw one. He’ll try to keep them there.’

 ‘Are Muktuk and Chumia still in town?’

 ‘No, sir. They went home right after leaving the message.’

 ‘Send a team after them and if you can’t locate one, send Sinead on skis. She’s the fastest in the village. Damn, without the Company here, we’re going to have to organize some kind of police force.’

 ‘How about Madame Algemeine’s organization?’

 ‘Good idea. Ask Whit to get a message to Gal-Three. But no-one is to move in until we can safeguard Yana and the others.’

 ‘Where are you going, sir?’

 ‘For a swim,’ he said.

 Una shook her head as she watched him tear off his fur vest and shirt as he ran towards the river. Other people bundled up to go outdoors in this weather. Sean stripped down. She liked these people, she really did, but she doubted she’d ever understand them.

 Even in seal form, swimming as fast as his flippers could take him, Sean arrived at SpaceBase too late. Adak was on the floor of the Cube, a large bump purpling on his head. ‘Big sucker hit me,’ he said. ‘The lady was nice enough, though. They wanted a map to Tanana Bay.’

 ‘Did they now? At least we know where they’re going.’

 ‘Yeah, but I don’t think there’s any way we can get there in time.’

 ‘I can,’ Sean said grimly.

 Fortunately, the river ran close by the Cube and Sean dashed back out the door, still stark naked, dived in and disappeared under the water. Adak touched his bump gingerly. ‘Musta got him outa bed or somethin’,’ he said. ‘I coulda loaned him some pants anyway, if he’d stopped long enough…’

 Megenda was already at the shuttle’s controls and Dinah O’Neill was just about to climb in when a disturbance on the river caused her to pause. She was here to sus out this planet and its peculiarities.

 Her eye had been caught by the sight of the river-ice bursting open, frothing with bubbles, then geysering three feet into the air as a large silvery seal jumped on to the bank. She was about to turn away when the seal turned into a well-built naked man, one of her favourite tourist attractions.

 The man ran into the Cube and Dinah smiled.

 ‘You comin’?’ Megenda grunted.

 ‘In a moment,’ she said, and her wait was rewarded. After a few minutes the door to the Cube flung open, the naked man ran out, jumped back into the water and disappeared beneath the ice.

 She saw Adak Rourke standing in the doorway, scratching his head, looking slightly nonplussed, not much the worse for wear, and not terribly surprised at his visitor’s appearance. Perhaps she was being unimaginative in her assessment of the possibilities of this place.

  

 20

 Southern Continent

 Contents - Prev/Next <chapter21>

 Oh, Lordee, thought Johnny, kidnapping’s come back into vogue! This is ridiculous. ‘And so,’ he said aloud, ‘just how many d’you think you can cram in my copter?’

 Zing Chi smiled with pleasant malevolence. ‘You will call for others.’

 At that point, Loncie snorted, Pablo guffawed and Johnny just grinned.

 ‘Man, you’re looking at the sole and only copter available in this or any other Petaybean hemisphere. And I only got so much fuel left in the tanks. So stop waving that thing at me like it could argue the case for you.’

 Cita noticed that it was hard to see the men, for the light had gradually faded while they stood talking.

 Youngling, you are safe? Coaxtl’s nimbly voice was like a warm blanket.

 ‘Yes,’ she answered, automatically looking around to spot her friend.

 At the edge of the ring of armed workers she could dimly make out the shadowy form of the boy she had seen earlier from the copter. Beside him, a pair of eyes shone. Cita knew it was Coaxtl. Then she saw the next pair of eyes, lower down, and the outline of a pair of smaller tufted ears. Another pair of eyes was beside

 Coaxtl’s then, and, coming from the darkness, another and another and another.

 She was about to tug at Captain Johnny’s sleeve to point out what she saw when someone screamed and all at once, several other people did too.

 ‘Quiet!’ Zing Chi hollered. ‘Quiet, you morons! What is the matter with you?’ He strode into the crowd and smacked the first screamer he met. But when he raised his hand to smack the next, a tall man, Zing Chi’s head tilted back as his gaze travelled up and up and up, into the snarling face of a standing polar bear. The crowd suddenly grew much more dense as the hundred or so workers shrank towards the copter and the ring of Petaybean snow lions and polar bears, wolverines and wolves, and other large animals stalked slowly forward.

 Zing Chi retreated until he came up against Johnny. Johnny had taken the opportunity to draw his sidearm and now he gave Cita an enquiring glance.

 Just then Coaxtl’s voice spoke in her head. None will hurt you, Youngling. But these ones are a plague to the Home and we have come to see that they go no further.

 Cita pulled Johnny’s shoulder down and whispered this information in his ear.

 Johnny covered Zing Chi and said, ‘If those weed-whips of yours will burn, I suggest you build a fire. These critters don’t like fire very much.’

 ‘I guess you don’t want to tell them the bad news, eh, Captain Johnny?’ asked Pablo. ‘What bad news?’ Zing Chi asked. ‘We only told you what cures people make on this planet. Animals have their own remedies. A polar bear that hasn’t mated for a while, for instance…’

 Aboard the pirate ship

 Yana was lying on her bunk listening to Namid give Diego and Bunny an astronomy lesson. Bunny soaked up everything Namid had to say but Diego made a pain of himself, playing teaching assistant. Marmie was asleep.

 The door to their cramped quarters opened and Dinah O’Neill poked her head in. ‘Yana, could we talk?’

 ‘What about?’ Yana asked cautiously. Was this the part where the pirates got her off alone and tortured her?

 Dinah smiled sweetly. ‘Just a little girl-to-girl stuff. I thought you might want to. I’ve been down to see your planet. I think I may have seen your husband.’

 Yana was on her feet and at the door so quickly she almost ran Dinah down.

 ‘What did Sean say?’ she asked, recklessly grabbing the smaller woman’s arm. ‘How on earth could he meet your demands?’ Surely Sean’s loyalty to Petaybee was more urgent than even his love for her and their unborn child.

 Dinah gave her a secretive feline smile. ‘I didn’t exactly talk to him.’

 ‘But you did see him?’

 ‘Nice-looking guy who turns into a seal?’

 How had she learnt Sean’s secret? Well, since the wedding, a slightly more open secret. Yana nodded. ‘That would be Sean.’

 ‘Oh yes, I saw him - quite a lot of him actually. How does he do that?’

 For a change Dinah was not accompanied by Megenda or any other heavies. Yana toyed with the idea of overpowering her, but curiosity about what Dinah had seen on Petaybee made her decide to wait. Besides, once she overpowered Dinah, then what? Take on the rest of the pirates? She could hold Dinah hostage but pirates like Louchard weren’t known for their unswerving devotion to their friends.

 Dinah led her into a tiny room which boasted a desk and a double bed. Yana raised an eyebrow.

 ‘I didn’t realize Namid was so serious about the divorce when I brought him aboard. I thought I could get him to reconsider. What did you think? I take turns with the crew?’

 Yana said nothing but the eyebrow stayed aloft.

 ‘You did, didn’t you?’ Dinah seemed amused, but there had been an edge to her query.

 ‘What you do in bed is none of my business and I don’t think that’s why you wanted to talk to me. What’s on your mind?’

 ‘Now, Yana’

 ‘I prefer Colonel Maddock-Shongili, if you don’t mind.’

 ‘Heavens, there’s no need to be so stuffy. You’re coadministrator of a whole planet now. That makes you a politician. I’m a privateer. So you see, we have a lot in common.’

 ‘If you only brought me here to insult me, I’d like to return to my nice, convivial cell please.’

 ‘You aren’t making this easy…’ Dinah said.

 ‘Gee, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was supposed to.’

 ‘I thought you wanted to return to your planet. I’m just trying to tell you that there might be a way, but it’ll be tricky.’

 ‘Getting Louchard to agree?’

 ‘Believe it or not, the Captain will be easier to convince than the crew. If it was up to Megenda, you’d all be spaced. You have no idea the personnel problems one has trying to obtain crewmen who are rough enough to do the job but still controllable. It can be a real nightmare.’

 ‘I’m sure you didn’t ask me here to tell me how hard it is to get good help these days, Dinah. Will you get to the fraggin’ point?’

 Dinah dropped her confidential air, and became very businesslike. ‘The fraggin’ point, Colonel Maddock-Shongili, is that under certain circumstances I can use my influence to return you to the planet. One of those circumstances is that you must personally guarantee my safety and that of my crew, when and if we release you.’

 ‘I certainly won’t be able to arrange for your guarantee unless I am free to do so,’ Yana said acerbically. ‘What else?’

 ‘I have business in a place called Tanana Bay. I’ve obtained an aerial map which leaves a lot to be desired…’

 ‘How? Sean didn’t just give it to you!’

 ‘No, a cunning old devil named Adak pointed it out’

 ‘Adak is Bunny’s uncle. You didn’t hurt him?’

 Dinah shrugged. ‘Megenda had to give him a love tap but he was standing in the door of a Nabatira Cube that seemed to be functioning as an immigration office. He was alert and watching your spouse’s bare ass sink into the river when last I saw him. He’s fine. But the map is too damned indistinct - no roads, no towns, no names. We’ll need a guide to the settlement and I also want to find one of those - whaddayacallems? Communion caves?’

 ‘Wouldn’t you prefer the one at McGee’s Pass perhaps, or Savoy, to view the fruits of your previous efforts?’

 ‘After what happened to Satok and company? No thanks. Listen, I hope you’re not holding that against me too?’

 ‘It’s not me you have to worry about, mate,’ Yana said drolly.

 ‘Well, then, I have to worry about whatever it is that allegedly makes Petaybee… unusual - at least unusual enough to allow a human being to do what your husband did. Change, I mean. I hope whatever that is won’t hold Satok’s operation against me. All I knew about that business was that the men delivered such and such an ore to such and such a site and that they had developed something involving Petraseal that let them succeed at mining where the Company had been unable to.’

 Yana leaned forward and said with all the earnestness in her, ‘Dinah, if I have to personally cover every inch of ground near Tanana Bay to find the communion place for you I will do so just to watch you tell that story to the planet and hear what response you get. But what are you going to tell Louchard if the planet refuses to consider your demands?’

 Til think of something,’ she said. ‘Now, however, it’s time for us all to climb into the shuttle and take you home, don’t you think?’

 ‘And Bunny, Diego, Marmion and Namid? Bunny’s probably the best one to guide you.’

 ‘And not much good to me otherwise. Actually, Marmion has become a bit of a liability, delightful as her company has been. Had it not been for her offer of a transport fee, I’m afraid the boss might have done something drastic to… er… eliminate the danger.

 But a fee is a fee and I’d much rather drop her off on your quaint little planet than deliver her to her door on Gal-Three where I’m sure her friends and employees would all be there to greet me. And I suppose I’d best face it that it’s all over between Namid and me. Petaybee’s as good a place as any for the tasteless bastard.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘Oh, very well. You can have it all your way for now. There! It’s settled! Don’t you feel better now that we’ve talked things over? I know I do!’

 The moment the hatch opened, Bunny took a sniff and said, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, ‘Home.’

 Snow was falling against a pink and tangerine twilight, gilding the heavy snow-cover with rose and gold, a glistening sheet stretching to mountains dwarfed by the distance.

 ‘Very good, sweetie,’ Dinah O’Neill snapped. ‘But I already knew this was your home. Where exactly and specifically are we?’

 Megenda was climbing out behind Dinah, but as soon as he stepped on the narrow gangplank, the port side of the shuttle sank approximately four feet into the ground, cracking the big pirate’s chin on the ledge.

 Bunny made a face. ‘Sinkholes. From the permafrost, you know.’

 Megenda’s foot was trapped between the side of the hole and the shuttle. The other two pirates were left inside the shuttle which continued to list further into the water.

 ‘The fraggin’ hole’s filling up with water,’ Megenda bellowed. The words were just out of his mouth when the hatch closed abruptly.

 ‘Oops,’ Yana said, watching the shuttle and the pirate sink further. ‘I don’t think that’s a sinkhole after all, Bunny. I think we may have landed on ice and it broke through under the shuttle’s weight.’ She called down into the hole, ‘Hope you can swim, Megenda.’ Dinah stepped to the edge of the hole to help the first mate but the ice broke under her foot. Had Namid not grabbed her, she, too, would have fallen in the black and freezing water. As the hole broadened, Megenda lurched with his hands to find a hold on the exterior of the shuttle and managed to catch one of the security hooks, his heavy body precariously dangling now from the one hand.

 ‘Help him!’ Dinah said, reaching for her laser pistol which Namid had deftly extracted from her belt when he kept her from falling into the hole. ‘Damn!’ and she clenched her fists in frustration at its loss. ‘Why should I help him?’ Diego asked. ‘You guaranteed safe conduct,’ Dinah reminded

 Yana.

 ‘I didn’t mean against natural disasters,’ Yana said.

 ‘He’d be no great loss to me.’

 ‘He’s still a human in trouble on my planet,’ Bunny said, down on her stomach and ready to give assistance. ‘Diego, Namid, hold on to my ankles!’

 Marmion hesitated only a moment before extending the link by grabbing Diego’s ankles.

 ‘Oh, very well,’ Yana said, and started to flop down on the ground, but Namid shoved her away and took her place, holding Marmion’s ankles.

 ‘You must think of your child, Colonel,’ he told her. ‘Here, Megenda! Take my hands,’ Bunny told the pirate. ‘We can pull you out but you’re going to have to turn loose of the shuttle first. Swing your body this way.’ Megenda let go of the shuttle and grabbed Bunny’s arms so quickly she screamed in pain. Next he got a hold of her long hair, pulling himself half out of the water, literally climbing over her to get out of the freezing water.

 The ice cracked ominously under the load it now bore and the edge disintegrated abruptly so that Bunny hung face down into the opening, looking into black water while the pirate hoisted himself over her legs to Diego, whose grip on Bunny’s ankles slipped as she tilted downwards.

 When Megenda hauled himself on to the secure bank, Yana walloped him on the jaw with Dinah’s laser pistol which Namid had passed over to her.

 ‘Get off those kids, you ass!’ she commanded. He slumped sideways, relinquishing his hold on both Diego’s arms. Dinah and Yana both scrambled forward on their knees to haul the girl out of the hole.

 Yana collapsed in the snow, coughing and panting, while Diego and Bunny nursed various bruises and strains the big pirate had inflicted.

 Dinah crept forward and peered over the edge of the hole and then considered the precarious cant to the shuttle.

 ‘I don’t suppose they can just fly out of there, can they?’ Yana asked.

 Dinah shook her head. ‘One skid is caught under the edge of the ice. They’re off balance.’

 ‘On the bridge side, at least the shuttle seems to be able to float.’

 Bunny said, ‘Yana, we gotta get out of here. I can feel the temperature dropping and this gear of theirs isn’t good for more than minus seventy-five.’

 ‘It gets colder than that this early?’ Dinah asked appalled.

 Bunny nodded. ‘I’d be all right, I expect, but the rest of you are in trouble unless we get to shelter pretty quick.’

 ‘Have you got a clue where the town is, Bunny?’

 Yana asked.

 ‘If we’re right on - almost in - the Bay, it’s got to be over that way,’ Bunny said, pointing to what looked to Yana like an identical piece of the snow-covered terrain all around them. ‘Sorry. I usually come by dogsled along the trail and don’t need to pass this way. I’ve no landmarks here, except the mountains, so we’ll have to head that way until I can get my bearings. And we do have to move or you’re all going to freeze.’

 ‘Right,’ Yana said. ‘How about the communion place? Do you know where that is from here?’

 Bunny shook her head. ‘It’s within the town someplace is all I know. When it was their turn to give the latchkay I was sick and couldn’t go.’

 ‘OK, then,’ Yana said, ‘let’s move out. On your feet, you,’ she commanded, using her toe to nudge Megenda, who groaned but remained limp.

 ‘You shouldn’t have hit him so hard,’ Dinah said.

 ‘I should have let him drown,’ Yana told her. ‘And he’ll be the first to freeze, wet as he is. So come on, Namid, Diego, you’re strong! Let’s get him up and head on out of here.’

 Gal-3

 Dr Matthew Luzon, striding along the corridor from the shuttle which had brought him back to his head offices on Gal-3, was feeling very good in himself. Assiduous application of the physiotherapy exercises, careful diet and self-discipline had completely restored him to the level of physical fitness which he deemed necessary for a man with his responsibilities.

 He had been reviewing applicants for the positions left open by the defection of the highly paid and supposedly loyal assistants that he had brought with him on the disastrous Petaybee investigation. Those who had survived the initial stages of security clearance were awaiting him in his office. He was going to start afresh on the many tasks awaiting a man of his reputation and abilities. He could look ahead now, for bigger and better things.

 A gaggle of people coming from the passenger lounge were advancing on him in a solid phalanx, leaving no space for anyone to pass. Frowning, he gestured with his right hand for them to clear to the side to allow him to pass. But then he saw the reason for such a mass: an invalid vehicle, one of the newest types, was in the midst of the people, its occupant turning from left to right as he issued a stream of orders which were being recorded. To Matthew’s intense surprise, the man in the chair was none other than Farringer Ball, Secretary General of Intergal: the one man he cared less about seeing than any other in the galaxy; the very one whose intransigence had resulted in the wretched planet being adjudged’sentient’ and autonomous, ruining all Luzon’s careful plans for its future.

 ‘Why, Farringer,’ Luzon said in his heartiest voice, tingeing it with concern and sympathy for the invalid’s condition, ‘whatever has happened to you?’

 ‘Luzon?’ Farringer’s voice was a wispy croak and Luzon was genuinely shocked at the man’s condition. The chair obviously contained life-support devices, for Luzon was now close enough to see the ubiquitous tubes attached to the man at one end and the machine under the seat of the chair on the other. ‘Recovered from your injury?’

 ‘Indeed, and I could wish you the same good fortune. Whatever has reduced you to this sorry state?’ Not that Luzon wasn’t delighted to see that Justice was being served in Ball’s case.

 ‘On your way to Petaybee, are you? For one of their miracle cures?’ Luzon smiled graciously, twisting the knife of his words into Ball’s wizened carcase.

 ‘To Petaybee?’ Farringer Ball’s wheeze went up an octave and he stared at Luzon in surprise. ‘Why should I go there, of all places?’

 ‘Why, hadn’t you heard? Since the board so nobly decided that Intergal should withdraw and allow Terra-form B its autonomy, every drug company in the galaxy is trying to sign up the exclusive rights to the therapeutic treatments available only there.’ Partially true, of course, since representatives were on the planet, although, according to Luzon’s informants, none of them had reported back to their head offices, or anywhere, on the results of their missions.

 ‘What therapeutic treatments?’ Ball snapped and half of the crowd around him looked expectantly at Luzon for the answer.

 Luzon then realized that medics of one kind or another made up most of the groupies around the Secretary General.

 ‘Why, I thought you’d have heard. You always know what’s going on in the medical field,’ and Luzon could afford to be slightly condescending: poor health was Ball’s true reward. ‘There is something about the pure air and organically grown food products on Petaybee, not to mention the ambience, that absolutely changes a man!’

 ‘It does?’ Ball wheezed. ‘How?’ He peered suspiciously up at the obviously robustly healthy Luzon. ‘You only broke your legs…’ His tone implied that that didn’t take much healing.

 ‘True,’ and Luzon leaned down conspiratorially. ‘But then I didn’t need the special sort of healing that only Petaybee provides. We really shouldn’t have let the planet out of our control, you know. You’d be glowing with health again if you’d taken the cure there.’

 ‘Taken the cure? What cure?’

 ‘Now that I don’t know in any particulars, I’m afraid,’ Luzon replied, knowing that he had Ball just where he wanted him. ‘Of course, now that Intergal no longer has any rights on the planet, its administrators… if you can call such novices by that term,’ and he permitted a belittling sneer in his voice, ‘are of course setting up a monopoly on the surface. I really feel that one cannot put a price on such natural benefits and one certainly shouldn’t restrict those who are chosen to receive the cure to such a narrow category…’

 ‘What category? What monopoly? What natural benefits?’ Ball’s agitation made his wheeze worse and he started coughing, a dry, hard rasping sound despite the fact that he was also spraying spit around him.

 Luzon moved a discreet step to one side. ‘Well, I’m no longer au courant with the latest developments, but they have been amazing. Truly amazing. I wonder that none of your medical advisers have suggested the Petaybean Cure to you. It’d make a new man of you, I’m sure.’ From the avid expression in Ball’s eyes, Luzon knew that his little spiel had had the desired effect. ‘Do hope you’re feeling better real soon, Farrie. Nice to have seen you. Must rush.’

 As soon as he had left the gaggle behind him, Luzon indulged in a smugly satisfied chuckle. The transport business he had backed to get as many people to Petaybee’s surface as possible may have come to a crashing halt, but there were other ways of overloading the planet and proving that it could not take care of itself and/or its inhabitants, much less any visitors. CIS would have to step in and alter the current arrangement. Planets could not, should not, go about managing themselves, not in a well-organized inter-galactic civilization. Citizens of the galaxy had the right to pursue commercial ventures whenever these were possible. Citizens were also guaranteed certain basic rights and Petaybee jeopardized these by its very existence.

 And then there was the matter of Marmion de Revers Algemeine. Luzon had heard nothing on the news media about the kidnapping. ‘Nothing’ on that situation was the best news he could possibly imagine. That took care of her: permanently. When was it he and Torkel Fiske were to meet? He tapped up his engagements on his wristpad. Ah, this evening. Very good. They had a lot to talk about. Petaybee might not be a lost world after all.

  

 21

 Tanana Bay

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Muktuk and Chumia had been home ten days when Sinead arrived on skis. As she was delivering her message while wrapped in warm blankets and sipping from the hot tea Chumia brewed for her, one of the men on sea-watch reported that a very funny-looking seal had just beached itself off the ice-pack.

 ‘Sean!’ Sinead cried, and threw off her blankets, pulled on her still snow-wet coat, and headed out the door, the others behind her.

 ‘Sean?’ Chumia asked, open-mouthed. ‘Your brother Sean?’

 ‘Bring clothes!’ Sinead yelled back over her shoulder to Muktuk, but Chumia had already shoved Muktuk’s latchkay snowpants and parka into his arms.

 ‘By all the powers that be, if it ain’t the guv himself!’ Muktuk said when he saw Sean striding briskly towards them, sanguine, purposeful and naked.

 ‘Nobody mentioned this was a dress occasion,’ Sean said, grinning. ‘Sis, I’m glad to see you. Have you told them what’s up?’

 ‘She said somethin’ about that pirate kinswoman of ours maybe comin’ for a visit…’ Muktuk said.

 ‘That’s right,’ Sean said, pulling on the snowpants. ‘And we want to make sure she has a warm reception, don’t we? We’ll need to get as many folks as possible armed with whatever they have.’

 ‘We told her if she lost her job she should come,’ Muktuk said reluctantly. ‘Greeting her with an armed mob doesn’t seem real hospitable.’

 ‘Not a mob, a posse,’ Sean said. ‘She and one of her henchmen hit Adak Rourke over the head and stole that aerial map Whittaker Fiske gave us to get them here. I don’t think she’s coming here to settle, Muktuk. I’m hoping she’s ready to do a deal for Yana, Bunny and the others. I doubt she’ll come without a suitable escort of her own so we’ll need a suitable one, too.’

 ‘Right you are, guv.’

 Sean was impatient to get the ‘welcoming’ organized, but Chumia was firm that he needed to be fed and dried properly. While doing that, he could still tell them what he had in mind…

 ‘We don’t want to be rash and hurt the poor girl if she’s only running scared,’ Chumia said. ‘Perhaps her boss made her hit Adak. Maybe that other man was her boss and she’s still tryin’ to get loose from him.’

 ‘You’ve seen no sign of a shuttle? Or any strangers walking in?’

 Muktuk snorted at that latter possibility and shook his head over the former.

 ‘Well, either way,’ Sean said. ‘I need to visit the communion place.’

 ‘Sure thing, guv. Chumia, you get that end of the rug and I’ll get this,’ he said and together the O’Neills pulled away the thick rug woven in shades of green and gold in a stair-step pattern. A trapdoor was revealed, and well-worn steps which led to the permafrost cave Sean remembered from three former latchkays. The first time he’d come to Tanana Bay for a latchkay and had seen three villages’ worth of people pouring into the O’Neills’ tiny cabin, he’d been astounded, until he’d seen a line of folks disappearing into the floor.

 Now he and Sinead descended the stairs carved out of stone and ice. Chumia held a lamp for them while the family cat scampered ahead, nearly tripping them. ‘It’ll be dark down there,’ Chumia said.

 But it wasn’t. One entire wall of the entrance chamber was glowing with a pattern of phosphorescence similar to the sort which Sean had seen in the under-river grotto.

 ‘My goodness, will you look at that?’ Chumia clucked while the cat rubbed against the wall then stretched so that its paws touched the lower part of the design. ‘You’re going to think I’m a terrible housekeeper, guv, letting mould grow in the communion place. It’s never done that before. Didn’t think it could, permafrost being ice and all.’

 ‘Never? These aren’t here from the last latchkay?’

 ‘No, sir. What’s all these wiggles mean?’

 ‘Looks like waves,’ Sinead said, peering closely. ‘Here and here.’

 ‘Waves…’ the cave repeated.

 The cat chirruped as if it too was trying to say ‘waves’.

 ‘It is,’ Sean said, pointing to the apex. ‘This must be where we are now - near these waves, and this circle represents the rest of the North - then more waves outside and the outer circle.’

 ‘Waves, circlessssss …’

 ‘What about the lines that end in circles here?’ and, ignoring the echo, Sinead pointed to the spiralled figure somewhat to the left of the midpoint between the lines. ‘And here? This one’s clear down beyond the waves. What do you suppose it means?’

 ‘Trouble spots?’ Sean guessed. ‘Like before?’

 This time the echo didn’t repeat itself. ‘Means trouble spots like before,’ it said distinctly.

 The cat jumped as if someone had thrown water on it and bolted back up the steps and into the house. They could hear the cat-flap still flapping as they continued studying the diagram.

 Dinah O’Neill was not happy about leaving her shuttle stranded on the ice, like some sort of monstrous sea animal.

 ‘It’s watertight, isn’t it?’ Bunny asked her and shrugged when Dinah had to admit it was. ‘Then even if it falls into the water, they’re all right in there, aren’t they?’

 ‘Sink?’ Dinah cried aghast.

 ‘Well, not really,’ Bunny said and there might have been some who thought she was deliberately teasing Dinah O’Neill but she was merely talking out loud. ‘Besides, I think that hole’ll freeze over as soon as it turns dark and the shuttle’ll be OK. Frozen in, of course, but safe. Speaking of freezing, we’d better get going. Yana, I’ll scout ahead. You keep the others moving, OK?’

 Yana flipped her a salute. ‘Aye, aye, ma’am. We’re right behind you.’

 What Bunny didn’t say - nor did either Yana or Diego mention - was very obvious to her: the sun was westering and they hadn’t much daylight left to get where they wouldn’t freeze. Bunny struck out at a good pace in the general direction of Tanana Bay. She would have preferred to go straight across the frozen inlet towards the main trail but that would waste time which they didn’t have that much of. So she headed towards the nearest high ground. Maybe there she could get a good look at the lay of the land and correct their path.

 She was also aware - though she didn’t mention it -that her little pouch was like a miniature hot-bottle and the warmth from it was keeping her warm.

 Humans were so dense and so slow. Punjab didn’t know how the planet put up with them sometimes. Even drawing them a big picture wasn’t enough.

 Obviously that business across the water would have to be delegated - if humans were too thick to understand, perhaps birds or walruses would have to explain it to them - but it was not a job for cats. This simple task clearly was, however.

 With satisfaction, Punjab felt the snow freezing to ice with each warm touch of his heavily furred paw, Home co-operating with its chosen messenger - the feet of the planet, as his kind considered themselves. Confidently, he trotted on towards his quarry.

 Bunny devoutly wished for her snowshoes as she blazed a trail through the two-foot-high drifts, her foot sinking through to the knee with each step. She deliberately squashed down as much snow as she could every time she made a track, but it was laborious going. After a short time, she returned to the others to encourage them and see if she could help them.

 Megenda was shivering so much he staggered with the shakings. She thought of giving him her jacket, since she could stand the cold better than he could, but it was far too small for him. As was everyone else’s. And the pouch which was doing such a fine job and making her feel warm wouldn’t do the first mate one damned bit of good.

 When they reached the first copse, she did consider starting a fire to dry him out but that would take too much time out of the little daylight they had left.

 Bunny gave Megenda full marks for keeping up, despite his shuddering chills. It was Dinah O’Neill who was having the worst time of it, being rather short in the leg and having to take little running steps to keep up with the others. But she grimly plodded, skipped, hopped on and didn’t fall more than a step behind.

 Diego was beginning to puff, too. He wasn’t as fit as he had been, what with lounging around Marmion’s apartment on Gal-3 and then the kidnapping. Those walks around the pirate ship had not been any substitute for proper exercise. He was grumbling and acted annoyed that Bunny didn’t seem to be as affected as he was. But he noticed that Yana was clutching at her side from time to time.

 Bunny knew she couldn’t help Diego or the others by slowing down. She trudged back up the path she had made and then began laboriously cutting through the snow once more. It was heavy work and she was soon so weary of it she felt like crying but the tears would only freeze and make her more miserable. Wouldn’t it be weird to have been freed from the pirates and finally return home, only to freeze to death before she could be found? Actually, with the new-falling snow masking the fading horizon, help could be quite close by and they’d never know until they found her frozen corpse. And the others. It had happened more than once.

 ‘Helllooo, anybody!’ she called into the gathering darkness. ‘Slainte! It’s me, Bunny! Is anybody there? Hellooo! Come and get me now!’

 Then something that wasn’t supposed to be possible happened. She was right out there in the open air, not in a cave or a valley or anything and an echo picked up her voice, like it had done a few weeks ago when Phon

 Tho visited, like it had done at Yana and Sean’s wedding.

 ‘HELLOO, IT’S ME, ME, ME, ME…’ the echo said.

 And then it blended with a somewhat smaller voice, ‘MEOW MEOW meow!’, a cat’s meow complaining over and over again.

 Bunny called back, glad to hear the cat. Did that mean that Clodagh was behind? But no, the cat was alone, appearing off to the right of her like a little pinpoint of orange flame at first, crying impatiently for her to hurry forward. When Bunny backtracked to get the others, the cat sat at the end of the trail she had made, waiting for them.

 ‘We’re saved!’ she told Yana. ‘A cat came for us!’

 ‘Good,’ Megenda said. ‘How do you cook ‘em?’

 ‘You don’t,’ Diego said. ‘You follow them.’

 ‘I’ve heard of a wild goose chase but this is ridiculous,’ Dinah said. Bunny turned her back on them and returned to the end of her trail. As soon as it saw her, the cat sashayed forward, tail held low to protect the tenderest parts and brushing the snow. Single-file, they slogged forward after it.

 The distant lights of Tanana Bay appeared just about the time some of the party were thinking that perhaps they’d do better for a bit of a rest, despite the fact that night had already fallen and the air grew colder by the minute, knifing through their skin until at last it was too numb to pain them. Only the luminous eyes of the cat guided them when it turned in its tracks to regard them with impatience. Didn’t they realize it had supper waiting and a nap to take?

 The feeling in Bunny’s legs had drained away some time ago though she continued to piston them in and out of the snow while the others followed. Once they spotted the cabins, the cat cast her a glance, then scampered away to disappear into the town.

 The welcome sight of cabins in the trees revived the flagging energies of everyone in the party. It helped that the snow closer to the settlement was already trampled into trails and they followed one of these easily to the outermost cabin.

 It was empty, though smoke still poured from the chimney. They all gratefully crowded inside to warm themselves by the fire. When Megenda would have crawled into the fireplace, Bunny hauled him back so he wouldn’t scorch himself. She did grab a fur cover from the nearest bunk and draped it around his shoulders. He could not seem to stop the shivering. There was soup in the kettle on the hob so Bunny ladled him out a cup which he could barely hold in his hands without spilling.

 ‘Don’t know how much of someone’s supper we can take without them going short,’ Bunny said by way of explanation when she saw the hopeful expression on Dinah O’Neill’s face as she, too, crowded into the fireplace. Bunny was right proud that neither Diego nor Yana seemed to need the fire. Just being in out of the cold was sufficient. ‘No-one would object to Megenda having a cup of soup to stop those shivers. You all get warm while I go see where people are,’ she said, taking a parka off the peg on the back of the door. The temperature would be dropping like a stone from a height.

 Tanana Bay didn’t boast half as many cabins as Kilcoole did but Bunny had been in several empty places before she came to the Murphys, where the cat sat beside the fire cleaning the snow from between its pawpads. The cat glanced up at her, then returned to its cleaning. She saw the raised trapdoor and the open hole in the floor. Leaning over the opening she could hear voices, excited voices, lots of them.

 ‘Hallooo down there?’

 There was no immediate response, except an echo of her call, probably because everyone was talking so loudly. After waiting a moment, Bunny descended. She’d never seen a communion place entrance so bright, which would certainly have provoked a lot of discussion on any occasion.

 What she didn’t expect to see were men and women armed with all kinds of homely weapons: axes, staves, nets, pitchforks as well as the usual bows, lances and knives.

 ‘What’s happening?’ she cried, touching the first man on the arm.

 ‘Glad you could make it,’ he said, giving her a scant look. ‘We got big trouble coming to Tanana Bay and we’ll need everybody we can get to turn ‘em back.’

 ‘Turn who back?’ And Bunny felt a gelid spurt of fear. What had happened while they were off-planet? Had Intergal gone back on its word?

 ‘That pirate! Louchard!’ Someone else explained, leaning around the first man to put in his quarter credit.

 ‘Hey, you don’t come from around here.’

 ‘No, I’m from Kilcoole but…’

 ‘Buneka!’ said the Voice.

 ‘Buneka?’ and that shout came from Sean’s throat.

 Bunny was so astonished to hear the Voice come out with her own real name that she didn’t react until Sean had her in his arms and was whirling her about, laughing and crying.

 ‘You’re free. You’re all right,’ and he was feeling her over to be sure she was, his eyes both glad and anxious, then he looked around her. ‘Yana?’

 ‘She’s all right, too, Sean, really, she’s fine.’

 Sinead pushed through the crowd then and embraced Bunny as warmly as Sean had done, also asking where Yana was.

 ‘Hold it down,’ Sean said in a loud voice because everyone in the communion place was trying to understand who the newcomer was that the Voice had recognized so unexpectedly.

 So it took minutes before Bunny could explain and then minutes more before she made it clear that the pirate was not on Petaybee, only his first mate and Dinah O’Neill were. Then she had to calm Muktuk and Chumia down because they were so astonished, and gratified, that their kinswoman was right in Tanana Bay. Immediately, they were in a quandary about welcoming her if she wasn’t bringing good news about Louchard and his kidnap victims.

 ‘A moment’s hush, please,’ Sean said in a loud authoritative voice. He was instantly obeyed as he bowed his head to consider what to do next. Everyone tried not to fidget.

 ‘So,’ and now Sean was ready to recap, ‘you’ve all been released and everyone is safe?’

 ‘Thanks to the cat upstairs,’ Bunny said. ‘I don’t know how it managed to find us - maybe it was out hunting and heard me call, I suppose.’

 Sean and the others exchanged sheepish glances. ‘We all had a map,’ he admitted with a thumb jerked back to the still-glowing wall of the cave. ‘But the cat acted on it while the rest of us were gathering a force to protect ourselves from the pirates.’

 ‘The only two that are here are warming themselves near by. There’s a couple of others on ice, you might say, about where the map says,’ she indicated the slowly fading spiral and line, dribbling away as the microscopic animals forming the phosphorescence deserted the map to go on to more important matters. Chumia busily sketched the whole map on the back of her hand. The portion of the map that crossed waves remained as bright and deliberate as it had been when Bunny first arrived.

 ‘Yana talked Dinah into getting Louchard to release Marmie and Namid too, since they’re afraid to return Marmie to Gal-Three and can’t get any ransom for her.’

 ‘Wait, wait! Who’s this Namid?’ Sinead asked.

 ‘An astronomer Louchard’s also got imprisoned.’ Bunny didn’t explain about Namid being divorced from Dinah because it wasn’t really an important detail. ‘We came in the Jenny’s shuttle, only the damned fool landed right on the edge of the ice so they’re about to take a dive off the ice into the inlet…’ At Sean’s gasp of horror, ‘Oh, Yana, Diego and me as well as Dinah O’Neill and the first mate got ashore OK, but there are crewmen still inside and they can’t go nowhere right now.’

 ‘And they’d have nowhere to go here either, so crowded we are,’ Sinead said sourly.

 So everyone started talking at once again until Sean, in mid-flight up the stairs on his way to Yana, stopped and held up his hands.

 ‘OK now, folks, let’s just calm down. If the ship’s disabled, we can relax. There’s just two people to be considered and I think we can handle this, Muktuk, Chumia, Sinead and me. Go on back to your homes and your dinners. And thank you very much for being so ready to stand on the line. Sure do appreciate your support.’

 Then, followed by Bunny, Sinead and the two Murphys, Sean swarmed up the steps two at a time.

 ‘Where did you say you stashed them, Bunny?’ Sean asked when they got outside.

 ‘First cabin I came to,’ and Bunny pointed. ‘Megenda was shaking so bad he needed to get warm’t’t’

 ‘Oh, that’d be the Sirgituks’,’ Chumia said, smiling. ‘They won’t mind. They’re still down below. Shall I ask them to stay here, in our place, until we’ve got things all settled?’

 ‘Would you please, Chumia?’ Sean said with an appreciative smile but he kept right on striding towards the place where Yana was.

 In fact, he was at least ten strides in front of Bunny and Muktuk when he reached the door and went in. Bunny trotted to catch up and heard a very surprised Yana call out Sean’s name. When Bunny entered the Sirgituks’ cabin, they were locked in each other’s arms, cheek to cheek, eyes closed, rocking back and forth and not saying a word. Yana’s face was wet with tears.

 Dinah O’Neill was looking Sean up and down as if she was hunting for something she wasn’t seeing and there was a bit of a smirk to her grin. Megenda was still shivering, though not quite as violently now that he had the warmth of the soup in him. Yana and Diego had removed both of the pirates’ clothing and their own in Bunny’s absence, and were wrapped in the Sirgituks’ extra clothing and blankets. A kettle boiled on the stove.

 ‘Dinah O’Neill, this is Muktuk Murphy-O’Neill and Chumia Murphy-O’Neill, your kinfolk. And the man by the fire is First Mate Megenda of the Jenny,’ said Bunny.

 ‘Greetings, kinswoman,’ Muktuk said, ‘though I think we gotta do some straight talking before anyone’s going to want to welcome you proper, like. Now let’s get this fella seen to. Whatcha think, Sinead? Give him a tot of the Juice?’

 Sinead had followed Muktuk in and was eyeing Dinah O’Neill with a less than charitable expression on her face. She had relaxed on seeing that Yana was well enough to cling to Sean and now she gave the shuddering Megenda her attention.

 ‘D’you have some of Clodagh’s Juice?’

 Muktuk nodded. ‘Always keep some handy since the time it brought my brother back to life, when he fell into the fish-hole that winter.’

 He rummaged in one of the overhead cupboards in the kitchen corner of the house and dragged out a medium-sized brown bottle, held it up to the light and twirled it, checking the level of the liquid. Satisfied, he got down a glass, poured in an exact two fingers of liquid, then handed the glass to Megenda.

 ‘This’ll stop those shivers before you come loose at the joints.’

 Megenda was evidently willing, at this point, to drink anything that might reduce the chill he had taken. Grasping both edges of the fur rug in one big hand, he took the glass in the other and swallowed the contents in one gulp.

 Muktuk regarded him, and Megenda looked right back, sort of superciliously, until the Juice made itself known in his gullet. Then his eyes bulged out, fit to pop from his head, and he gasped, exhaling, and even Bunny, on the far side of the room, recoiled as his exhalation reached her.

 Dinah O’Neill looked angry. ‘What did you give him?’

 ‘Just what Clodagh would have given if she was here,’ Bunny said smugly. ‘You watch. It’ll stop those shivers as if he’d swallowed a hot poker.’

 Megenda, mouth still wide open, dragged in a breath as deep as the one he had just expelled, settled it in his lungs, shook his head, and stood straight and tremorless in front of the fire.

 ‘What was in that?’ he asked in a raspy voice, letting the fur drop from his head. His observers could now see the beads of sweat standing out on his forehead. Close as he’d stood to the fire, it hadn’t been able to warm him to sweating.

 Sean grinned. ‘Clodagh Senungatuck makes it up for dogsled drivers to use in case of a ducking. Used it a time or two myself to good effect.’

 ‘When you come out of the water after a good swim?’ asked Dinah O’Neill with an odd smile on her lips as she regarded Sean, her head tilted to one side.

 He gave her a long stare. Then he smiled back at her. ‘I don’t need it on those occasions, Dama. I’m in my element then.’ He gestured to the table, pulled out one of the chairs and settled Yana in it. He hadn’t let go of her hand all this time and he continued to hold it throughout the next discussions.

 ‘That stuff keep its whammy long?’ Dinah asked, looking respectfully at the bottle as she took a seat. When Sean nodded, she asked, ‘That’s the sort of thing Petaybee does like no other culture?’

 ‘We have developed certain medications that are effective in this sort of climate, yes. That’s one. I doubt it would have much use on, say, a tropical world where the general demand would be small.’

 ‘But something that when it’s needed, there isn’t anything as efficacious?’ Dinah went on.

 Sean inclined his head. ‘Like the cough syrup that cured my wife’s…” and he gave Yana such a fond look that Dinah O’Neill blinked wistfully, ‘cough. How is it now, dear?’

 ‘I haven’t so much as sputtered since I got back into Petaybean air, Sean,’ Yana replied, squeezing his fingers.

 ‘No, you haven’t.’ Dinah O’Neill blinked again and then frowned before she gave her head a little shake. ‘No, you didn’t manufacture those coughing fits.’

 ‘No, I did not,’ Yana said firmly. ‘I definitely did not. But I’m not going to go off-planet ever again…’ and this time her free hand went to the pouch at her neck, ‘not for any reason, no matter how damned important.’

 ‘Not that Sean’d let you,’ Bunny said.

 ‘Now, Dama, what do we do?’ Sean said directly to Dinah O’Neill. ‘Have you indeed come to seek sanctuary here from your pirate captain?’

 ‘Actually,’ and now the famous O’Neill smile broke across Dinah’s pert face, ‘I’m here as spokesperson for Captain Louchard to discover what… ah, shall I say, local wealth, can be used to defray his costs.’

 ‘His costs?’ Diego said, angrily.

 ‘Well, yes, of course, he has to make some profit from what has turned out to be an ill-advised undertaking.’

 ‘Won’t restoration of the half-sunk shuttle suffice?’ Sean asked, a twitch of a smile on his lips.

 ‘Oh, dear heavens, no. The shuttle can either sink on its own or the Jenny’s tractor beam will lift it,’ Dinah O’Neill said airily. ‘No, the Captain expended a considerable amount of time and energy, plus rations and accommodations…’

 ‘Rations and accommodations…” Diego burst out.

 ‘Why, you were fed from the Captain’s table…’

 ‘I doubt that,’ Yana muttered.

 ‘Well, my table, then,’ Dinah corrected herself. ‘And fresh fruit and good meat…’

 ‘Only when we threatened hunger striking,’ Diego said irately.

 ‘Whatever,’ Dinah said, dismissing his complaint. ‘Time and effort, as well as supplies, mean some compensation must be forthcoming or I fear the Captain will do something drastic.’

 Sean cleared his throat. ‘I do know that the gentlefolk in Marmion Algemeine’s social sphere have set up certain precautions that make ransom impossible.’

 ‘She’d rather die than say yes?’ Dinah said in an arch manner with appropriate gestures of hands and eyes.

 ‘Exactly,’ Sean replied in a flat no-nonsense tone of voice. ‘None of her rank are good kidnap targets. Your captain missed a trick there.’

 ‘Captain Louchard don’t make mistakes,’ Megenda said menacingly.

 ‘Oh dear,’ Dinah O’Neill said, pretending dismay and she leaned conspiratorially across the table to Sean and Yana. ‘The first mate isn’t going to be very easy to deal with, what with all he’s gone through.’

 ‘Then he’d better be grateful we bothered to save his skin,’ Bunny said fiercely. ‘Because I’ll never do it again.’

 ‘You will find, Dama, that none of your captives are ransomable.’

 ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Dinah said sweetly. ‘You’ve already proved conclusively that this planet has products that are life-saving.’

 ‘The Juice is useful, that’s true, but let’s face it, how many hypothermic victims have you encountered in your line of work?’ Sean asked. ‘And while it doesn’t cost much to produce, there’s not what you’d call a good profit margin in Juice either.’

 ‘Ah, but there may be other items with which to pay your ransom… like your swimming… ah, shall I say, technique?’

 Sean threw back his head and laughed heartily. ‘That’s hereditary, Dama, and not many would put up with the inconveniences.’

 ‘Like running around starkers in minus-forty Celsius?’

 ‘Exactly.’

 ‘I think I need to speak to the Powers That Be on this place. You are, if you’ll pardon me, really not the final authority. Or so I’ve been led to believe.’ Dinah had cocked her head again at Sean. Then she turned abruptly to Bunny. ‘You promised to guide me to one of the communion places of this planet. Do so now.’ She rose. So did Megenda.

 ‘I will guide my kinswoman,’ Muktuk said, putting a hand on Sean’s shoulder to keep him seated by Yana.

 Dinah gave Bunny and Diego a stern look and pointed her index finger at them. Megenda took the half-step necessary to loom above them. Bunny shrugged. Diego glowered but both rose from the bench. So did Sinead, who eyed Megenda as she idly caressed the handle of her skinning knife.

 ‘Remember to listen carefully, Dama,’ Sean said and paid no more attention to the group setting out to the communion place.

 ‘Let’s go and get this over with,’ Megenda said in a growl, herding everyone before him. At the door, he looked back over his shoulder at the bottle, still visible on the worktop, and shook his head.

  

 22

 SpaceBase: Petaybean Immigration Facility (PIT)

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 Adak Rourke wanted nothing more than to take his bruised and aching head back to his cabin in Kilcoole and forget about the wider universe and all its problems. He was an amiable man, with simple tastes because he’d never had occasion to have or expect more. He enjoyed the life he had once led, as Kilcoole’s expediter, and keeping the snocles working and knowing when spaceships were coming in (which were few enough not to overburden the facilities or himself).

 Up until this morning, he’d really enjoyed being Chief Immigration Officer and Official Welcomer but, between getting conked on the head (hard) and now this, he felt inadequate. That didn’t set well. Neither did the unanswerable demands of these latest arrivals. In all his born days, he’d never seen anything like this! Though he’d heard both Sinead and Clodagh had had to manage some pretty queer persons lately,

 ‘You mean, there are no hospital facilities whatever on this planet?’ the indignant personage repeated for the umpteenth time.

 ‘I keep telling you, if someone’s sick, they stay home,’ Adak replied.

 He cast a jaundiced eye at the ‘patient’ who would have been better off staying at home, too, instead of bringing who-knew-what rare disease to Petaybee.

 Right after they’d arrived, a big orange tomcat had sauntered in, sitting down beside the sick man’s chair to wash itself. Then it had hopped up on the man’s lap, sniffed, lifted its lip in a disgusted way, and hopped down again to saunter out the door. Adak figured it was going to tell Clodagh there was someone sick and smelly here. Personally, he could only hope Clodagh would hurry. He was a little out of his depth, and Clodagh was the healer, after all. Though he was absolutely certain she wasn’t what this high and lofty group would expect to tend their patient. Mind you, if he knew Clodagh Senungatuck, and he had all his life, she’d be the very person to heal the man in the remarkable chair.

 It floated, dang it, above the floor of the Cube, as he had watched it float above snow and mud and everything else people had to plough through around Space-Base these days. And the ‘patient’ - a Very Important Personage named Farringer Ball whose helpers seemed to think that even Adak Rourke would know who he was - was hitched up by tubes to the chair.

 ‘Or,’ Adak continued,’ they call their local healer if they don’t live in Kilcoole, or Clodagh Senungatuck if they do which is what I’ve done only it’ll take her time to get here.’

 ‘Don’t you realize that in medical situations time is of the essence?’

 ‘Sure, but he ain’t bleeding and he is breathing and those’re encouraging signs,’ Adak said. ‘And he’s got all of you here to make sure he doesn’t bleed and keeps breathing so sit down, please, over there, until Clodagh gets herself here.’

 The person in his beautifully tailored, fine travel garment looked at the spartan seating arrangements and the expression on his face when he turned back to Adak was dour and condescending.

 ‘Surely there is some kind of transit lounge’

 ‘You’re in it,’ Adak said, rudely interrupting which was not his normal manner, but he was getting fed up with doing this crazy sort of word dance around the subject as if the name, once spoken, would instantly provide what the speaker truly wanted. In this case, apparently, the most expensive suite in a private hospital, the most successful and omniscient doctors who would provide instant health for the patient. ‘I done tol’ ya, Intergal pulled everything out, including their infirm’ry when they gave the planet back to itself. At that, us Petaybeans have more than we ever had before,’ and Adak gestured proudly around the Cube. It was not only clean and warm but bigger than any four of the biggest cabins in Kilcoole.

 ‘Now set yourself down and wait,’ Adak shuffled the papers in front of him, making a good show of looking for something. Then he picked up the comunit and turned his back on the medic man as if this was a very private call. The guy finally copped on and moved away from the counter.

 ‘Thavian, didn’t you tell him who I am?’ wheezed the old man in the chair, pounding the arm-rest with a hand liberally covered with liver spots.

 Surreptitiously, Adak shot him a glance. Guy didn’t look too good, at that. All sunk in on himself. If he expected Petaybee to bring him back from whatever got him that way, he was asking for a miracle. That was sure. And, as far as Adak had ever heard, you couldn’t pay for miracles: they just happened in their own good time. Like the great big mountain that

 Petaybee thrust up in the middle of the landing field… and then swallowed back up six weeks ago.

 Fortunately, just as Adak himself was getting twitchy, he spotted a trio of cats bouncing through the snow and the bulk of a fur-clad Clodagh lumbering behind them. Looking from her to the immaculately dressed medical folk - even the patient had on fine threads and was bundled in the amazingly coloured pelts that no animal on Petaybee ever grew, Adak was sadly aware of a vast difference in style and appearance between Petaybeans and visitors. Not that those fancy clothes were as warm and as suitable to Petaybee as his and Clodagh’s practical, and indigenous, garments. And he almost hated to drop this problem in Clodagh’s lap after all the ones she’d had with that Rock Flock which kept growing like some fields will grow rocks no matter how often you clear them off.

 ‘Slainte, Adak, what’s up?’ Clodagh asked as she threw open the door and let in a blast of cold air, which smelled refreshingly clean to Adak. He realized then that there was a fusty stink to the air in the Cube, due to the patient, no doubt and all the funny bottles and tubes in his floating chair.

 ‘I am Doctor Thavian von Clough,’ the person said, eyeing Clodagh disdainfully. ‘My patient is Secretary General Farringer Ball,’ and a graceful hand introduced the patient. ‘We were informed by a reliable source that mis planet has unusual therapies to assist my patient back to full health.’

 Clodagh squatted down so that her face was on a level with Ball’s. ‘Slainte, Farringer,’ she said softly. ‘You looked better on the comscreen. What’s wrong?’

 Ball wheezed and looked at Clodagh from under lowered eyebrows. ‘That’s apparently supposed to be for you to find out, young woman.’

 He looked startled at Clodagh’s laugh which was not only ripplingly young but beautiful.

 ‘Thanks for the “young” ‘ she said, patting his hand companionably.’

 ‘It wasn’t intended as a compliment,’ Dr von Clough replied stiffly, eyeing Clodagh not only with distaste but patronizingly.

 Clodagh shrugged, unconcerned. Before any of the medical team could intervene, she had her fingers on Ball’s wrist. She stooped so she could look him squarely in his lined and sad face, and tut-tutted. She pinched a flap of skin on his arm and observed the rate of its relaxation.

 ‘You’re real tired, aren’t you?’

 ‘The Secretary General is suffering from a serious PVS condition

 She nodded. ‘Real tired.’ Straightening and standing she added, ‘He should stay here awhile.’

 ‘That’s what Luzon said, though he wouldn’t say why,’ Ball wheezed.

 ‘Him?’ Clodagh snorted derisively. ‘Just goes to show you anybody can do something right once in a while. Don’t suppose he meant to. But the joke’ll be on him. How’d you all get here? Whit Fiske said the PTS was grounded.’

 ‘Why, the Secretary General has a private launch for the necessary travel he must’

 ‘On SpaceBase? Now?’

 ‘Of course it is.’

 ‘Good, then you can all stay there and I think I can find space for Mister Ball…’

 ‘But… but this… individual… said you had no hospital facilities.’ Von Clough regarded Adak accusingly.

 ‘Don’t need them. So far, folks have found the whole planet pretty healthy - good food, good air, nobody havin’ to take on more’n they can handle. Sick folks can rest when they need to, exercise if they need to. That and a bit of a tonic seems to do the trick. You might say the whole planet’s a hospital facility, only it’s so good at it, everybody stays pretty well so’s you’d never notice,’ Clodagh said, speaking slowly as if turning over the words she spoke in her own mind at the same time. ‘I never thought about it before, but now that I do, it’s true.’ She made an expansive gesture which included everything outside the Cube. ‘We got everything a human body should need to keep well or cure what’s ailing.’

 Von Clough’s eyes bulged with indignation.

 ‘Mind you, Farringer, you were a little late comin’ but I still think we can help you out.’ She eyed the apparatus with as dubious a glance as von Clough had awarded her. ‘Right now, of course, as we’re getting started, we have to make do with what we’ve got.’ She indicated the Cube. ‘We’re organizing slow but sure.’

 ‘So, where can the Secretary General go?’

 ‘The school at Kilcoole doesn’t need all the rooms in their Cube yet,’ she said. ‘We’re kinda short of places to put people since Doctor Luzon’, and Clodagh paused to grin, ‘has been so good as to send us so many unexpected guests. But we’ll find a place for Farringer, since he’s so bad off. If you wanted to help, Doctor, the men could use more hands to build more houses, unless you thought you could get some more of these for the new folks,’ she indicated the Cube,’ specially now we’re getting seasonal blizzards…’

 ‘Seasonal blizzards?’ von Clough’s eyes bulged from their sockets again as he saw what was slanting past the window area - as thick and earnest a snowfall as the season provided.

 Clodagh cocked her head at von Clough, smiling her beautiful smile. ‘Since these Cubes are probably more like the environment Farringer’s used to, you might ask the Cube-builder to send him one. Meantime, we’ll get him started mendin’.’ Low mutters of disapproval were exchanged among the lesser minions while von Clough sputtered with renewed outrage.

 ‘But, we’re in attendance on the Secretary…’

 ‘Now don’t fuss,’ Clodagh said irrepressibly. ‘You can use his space launch to come visit whenever you want.’

 Farringer Ball tried to insert a comment here but a bout of coughing required all his attention and the discreet dials on the back of his invalid chair started to dance about.

 Clodagh took a bottle from one of her capacious pockets, uncorked it, and then produced a carved wooden spoon. Before his medical advisers could protest, Clodagh had slipped a dose into Ball’s mouth. He swallowed in spite of himself. Instantly the cough subsided and weakly Ball waved a hand in gratitude.

 ‘Is this what Colonel Maddock took?’ he asked when he had regained his breath, with something of the air of a schoolboy asking his grandmother about mythical animals.

 Clodagh nodded. ‘Can’t beat it.’ Obviously swallowing his pride, von Clough executed the barest of civil bows to Clodagh and held out his hand for the bottle.

 ‘What, may I ask, are the constituents of this preparation?’

 Clodagh shrugged again. ‘This ‘n’ that,’ she said vaguely. ‘Important thing is, it works pretty fast. Long-term results take more time though.’

 Von Clough uncorked the bottle and delicately sniffed, blinking at the aromatics that caressed his nostrils. Then he looked at Ball who was still recovering from the spasm of coughing although his breathing was less ragged with every passing moment.

 ‘Amazing. Really remarkable.’ He passed the bottle to one of the minions.

 ‘We’ve been tryin’ to tell you,’ she said as if talking to a child who’d just burnt himself. ‘Petaybee’s good for most people. Hardly anybody gets sick ever. If you want health, it only makes sense to go someplace healthy.’ Her conviction and clarity in the face of so much pretension and general dogcrap made Adak want to cheer.

 ‘S’truth, too,’ he said whether anyone cared for his opinion or not.

  

 23

 Southern Continent

 Contents - Prev/Next

 ‘Neva-Marie? Looks like we got ourselves a situation here.’ Johnny Greene spoke calmly and soothingly enough to quiet any of the savage beasts who were circling. ‘We’re up to our collective arse in planet-rapers, polar bears and pumas, so to speak… How many what?… Oh, planet-rapers? Oh, a couple hundred or maybe a little less… Nope, sorry, I’m not going to count the polar bears and pumas for you. Let’s just say there’s enough, shall we?… My position is about - ummm - a hundred and fifty miles south south-west of Bogota, pretty much in the middle of nowhere special. It’s flat, it’s dark, and me, Mr and Mrs Ondelacy and the Town Council as well as little Cita Rourke got ourselves surrounded first by these planet-rapers, then somehow or other got our position reinforced by the polar bears and the pumas and other associated species. It’s dark. It’s cold. We want outta here muy pronto … I damn sure know I drive the only winged beast in the vicinity but we need help fast. I don’t care how. There’s too many here to take out and I don’t have the fuel to run a ferry service between here and Bogota and I - er - rather suspect the planet-rapers would take it ill if I tried to leave without them. Besides, goodness only knows what they’d do to the polar bears… Well,” don’t know what you’re supposed to do, sweetheart. Call Adak to call Sean and see if he’s got any bright ideas. If Oscar O’Neill hasn’t left the planet yet maybe he could lend a hand… Call Loncie’s kids and tell them to send a dogsled posse. But hurry. There’s a polar bear eyeing me lustfully even as we speak and I was saving myself for you. Out now, love. I really miss you.’

 Tanana Bay

 The dogsleds were loaded and the teams hitched and ready to go when Liam Maloney mushed in, accompanied by Dinah, his late mother’s lead dog, and Nanook, most companionable of Sean’s large track cats. Dinah, the good sled dog that she was, leapt up on Diego at once and began washing his face with a tongue that smelt like fish. Diego called her by name several times, looking over to see the effect on Dinah, but she, the human, didn’t change expression.

 ‘Kind of you to come, Liam,’ Sinead said a touch sarcastically. ‘A bit late, but welcome nonetheless.’

 ‘I was delayed,’ he said, pushing back the parka hood and running his mittens over the ice that had formed in his hair and moustache. ‘Nanook had a hairy knicker attack on the way here and wouldn’t let us proceed for quite some time. I couldn’t get it out of him what was wrong, but once he decided to move he all but left us behind.’

 Sean squatted down and held out his arms, ‘What’s the problem, Nanook?’

 ‘Don’t tell me it talks too?’ Dinah O’Neill, the person, asked.

 ‘Anything wrong with talking cats?’ Diego demanded, rubbing Dinah-the-dog’s ears.

 ‘Nothing at all. After what the darling little orange pussycat did for us, I have become a born-again cat lover, especially of Petaybean cats. I suppose export is out of the question?’

 Sean looked up and said, ‘Here’s another first. Coaxtl is sending to Nanook that her cub - by that I take it she means Cita - is in trouble with bad humans. She went down to see Loncie when Johnny and O. O. took the last Cube to Bogota.’ He stroked Nanook worriedly. ‘While I’m gratified to see that the planet is expanding its communications network to cover the whole globe, I don’t have a notion what we can do to help Cita.’

 Chumia said, ‘That was the other spot on the map in the communion place then, wasn’t it? That’s what the waves were for and the circles - there’s more trouble down south. You’re right, Sean. I’ve never known the planet to tell us anything about what was happening down there before.’

 Muktuk shook his head. ‘My dogs’d take me anywhere but they ain’t real big on winter ocean swimming.’

 ‘I’d swim it myself,’ Sean said, ‘but the mental picture I’m getting is of someplace far inland, away from any waterways. I can’t imagine how the bears came so far from the ice-pack.’

 ‘Bears?’ Bunny asked. “Polar bears? Cita’s down there with polar bears? Uncle Sean, we’ve got to save her!’

 Sean gave her a small, wry smile. ‘Funny, that’s what she said when she heard you’d been kidnapped by pirates, and you’ve come out of it well enough.’

 ‘I’d take Petaybean polar bears over pirates any time, gatita,’ Diego told Bunny, releasing one arm from the dog’s neck to hold her hand. ‘At least they have the planet to answer to. Whereas Two-Foot Dinah here only has Louchard.’

 Dinah O’Neill lifted an eyebrow and said, ‘Perhaps. But I do happen to have command of a space shuttle that could be placed at your disposal to solve this little inconvenience. That is, if it could be freed.’

 The rescue expedition was mounted forthwith and with great despatch, especially since they now had the means to rescue Cita from the polar bears. Sean, Yana and Bunny were everywhere at once, organizing. The snow had not fallen so thickly that Bunny’s trail couldn’t be retraced in the darkness and the dog sleds broadened the track. The nights were longer in northerly Tanana Bay than they were even in Kilcoole, but all the drivers and dogs were used to travelling in darkness. Fifteen sleds left the village, containing rope, chain, fishnets, winches, anything that might help free the shuttle. Dinah-Four-Feet and Nanook trotted alongside. Dinah-Two-Foot, the pirate’s representative, accompanied the rescuers, but Megenda had been locked inside the communion cave for safekeeping and to recover fully from his narrow escape from frostbite and pneumonia.

 ‘Let’s not get too close,’ Bunny called to the sleds as they neared the hole in the ice containing the shuttle. ‘It broke with just me.’

 ‘Make way, clear off the trail,’ Muktuk Murphy’s voice called from the rear. ‘Comin’ through.’

 Behind his he led a curly mare and behind her trotted three of the wild curly stallions, each sporting a businesslike horn.

 ‘Where’d you get them, Muktuk?’ Sean asked. ‘They’re beauties.’

 ‘Part of the Tanana Bay herd,’ Muktuk said proudly, with an affectionate slap on the heavy neck of the mare beside him. ‘I told her we had a job to do for the smartest so she picked her own get. They can do more for us in this season than fight with each other over who gets what filly. Not that this is the time a’ year for breedin’. That’s for springtime,’ he added with a grin.

 ‘Hmmm,’ Dinah O’Neill said under her breath just loudly enough that Yana heard her. ‘That’s quite a display they’re putting on. Didn’t know animals acted like that. Showing off like cadets who’ve just got their pilot’s licences.’

 Yana shot her an enigmatic smile, as enthralled by the rearing, bucking, biting antics of the males as Dinah. The sleds with their teams of wagging, howling dogs slewed to either side of the trail and broadened their circle around the hole while Muktuk led his mare forward.

 ‘Why don’t they just use ice-saws?’ Diego asked.

 Behind her hand Bunny said, ‘First ‘cos I think Cousin Muktuk is showing off for Cousin Dinah’s benefit, and second because it’s said that the curlycorns can judge ice so well they can play tag on the icepack during breakup and never once fall in.’

 ‘Fascinating!’ Dinah-Two-Feet said.

 Yana was both amused and appalled, watching this laughing tourist who had assisted in their kidnapping, had stood by while Megenda struck both Diego and Bunny, and, according to the kids, had been a party to the murders of the Gal-3 repair crew members. If Yana had anything to say about it, as soon as that shuttle was out of the water and the crewmen out of the shuttle, crew and Dinah O’Neill would be put on ice with Megenda. Never mind’safe passage’. Petaybee had no kind of law and order beyond that which made good sense to most people, but Gal-3 had plenty.

 Dinah O’Neill was laughing again. ‘Look at those creatures go! I’ve never seen a unicorn before, Muktuk. Is it true they only like virgins?’

 Muktuk snorted with good-natured contempt for her ignorance. ‘Curly-coats aren’t proper unicorns. They’ll mount anything. Our Sedna here is mother to all three stallions and, since she’s bell mare for the Tanana Bay herd, they mind her right good.’

 To Yana, it seemed as though the activity of the curly unicorns was frantic, driven, and no more purposeful than to break through any random chunk of ice to reach what lay beneath. The remarkable result was that the effects of their seemingly random efforts were beginning to show. They had made it into some sort of game, spurred on by Sedna who went from one to the other, like a foreman, so that every muscular ripple was a challenge to do better: every thrust and gouge of a horn was accompanied by a snort of derision for the others: every stamp of the hoof broke through a newly dislodged block of ice and sent it bouncing off the trapped shuttle into the black waters below.

 In less than an hour, during which Dinah, Diego and Yana were bundled into sleds, the shuttle floated free of the ice. It bounced out of its trap in a wobbly fashion. Then the crew forthwith fired up the engines and landed it beyond the ice at the position of the outermost dogsled.

 If a shuttle door could open timidly, this one did. Dinah O’Neill was there to greet them.

 ‘Come on out, gentlemen. Throw down your weapons. I’m afraid we’re surrounded by superior firepower.’

 A slight variation of the facts, of course, although Dinah did have her own laser pistol pointed at her.

 And truth was served when the crew, having thrown out their handweapons, found them turned purposefully on themselves as the Petaybeans augmented their harpoons, drawn bows, hunting knives and the two simple ballistic firearms with the sophisticated weaponry. With the crew in custody, Dinah began to climb the ramp but Muktuk caught one arm, Yana the other.

 ‘I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from either your crew or your newfound family when you’ve just got here, Dama,’ Yana said sweetly. ‘I’ve flown this class shuttle all over the galaxy. I’m sure Sean and I can manage. You join the others.’

 ‘Oh, curses! Foiled again, I suppose,’ Dinah muttered. ‘But, very well. Have it your way. Muktuk, Chumia, you did promise to share the family history with me and I have a bit to tell you. Shall we return to your lovely home and thaw out?’

 Southern Continent

 ‘Coaxtl says there is a storm coming, Captain Johnny,’ Cita said. ‘She says that if all will follow me, one at a time, she will lead us to a warm place of safety.’

 Zing Chi looked down at her scornfully. ‘This is no time for childish prattling. You people obviously indulge your children too much if they feel they may interrupt adults dealing with such a crisis.’

 Cita couldn’t help herself. Her wicked streak surfaced.

 ‘They do not indulge children! I should know. I have been beaten well and often as I so frequently deserve. But the words I spoke were the words of Coaxtl and

 no-one beats Coaxtl. And Captain Johnny would not have a crisis to deal with if you had not caused it! I may be unworthy and a mere child, but you are a wicked, greedy man and very impolite as well to come to the Home and take things without asking!’

 Zing Chi spat disgustedly. ‘Your pardon, Captain. I didn’t realize the child was mentally unbalanced.’

 But Captain Johnny gave him the same sort of look Zing Chi had given Cita and asked her, ‘Would Coaxtl know if it would be safe for me to fly?’

 Cita asked and reported the answer. ‘She says there will be strong winds and much snow and all will be whiteness. We must follow now to find the safe place.’

 ‘In other words, no flying. Loncie, Pablo, you heard? What do you think?’ Johnny asked.

 ‘Follow your lion, muchacha,’ Loncie told Cita approvingly. ‘We will follow you.’

 ‘We won’t,’ Zing Chi declared. ‘You think I am fooled by your notion that animals talk? That animals know things that humans don’t? Especially about flying conditions. This is a trick to separate us so we can be taken and it does not work with Zing Chi. Those animals are only waiting until we separate so that they can pick us off more easily.’

 Cita had had quite enough of this rude and grabby man. She pushed through the crowd to Coaxtl, who easily cut a swath from the outer ring of animals through the huddle of people. Behind her, Cita heard Johnny say, ‘Oh, no, Zing Chi. As far as the polar bears are concerned, larger groups are a more satisfying entree. But suit yourself. I’m following the cat and,’ he raised his voice to shout over the wind, ‘if any of you other folks want to get in out of the cold before a big storm comes, follow us, one at a time!’

 Hurry, Youngling, the place is far and time is short, Coaxtl said.

 Cita felt the warm softness of another, smaller cat brushing her legs, twisting about her ankles and then the prickle of claws on her thigh. She looked down into the gold-coin eyes of a lion cub.

 Behind her, a voice said, ‘It wants to go with you. I will too. I don’t care what the others are doing.’

 Cita looked back and saw the boy she had glimpsed from the copter. He was bending over to stroke the cub. She nodded and Coaxtl preceded her back through the throng to the copter, where Johnny, Loncie, Pablo and the others from Bogota fell in behind herself and the boy. Zing Chi was shouting at his people that it was all a trap. Not that there was another option open, for the circle of animals closed tighter and tighter around the people, funnelling them in behind Cita’s group.

 As Coaxtl reached the outer edge of the humans she stepped forward, Cita following, and marched with great unconcern between two long ranks of animals with fetid breath, white teeth, and shining eyes.

  

 24

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Yana had Louchard’s shuttle pilot - prompted by a saccharine order elicited from Dinah-Two-Foot - run her through the checklist to be sure there weren’t any surprises on this slightly less orthodox than usual vessel.

 Then Marmion, Namid, Bunny, Diego and the villagers began the trek back to Tanana Bay with their prisoners. Muktuk suggested that Marmion and Namid ride back on curly-coats, an exercise which enchanted Marmion and caused Dinah O’Neill to protest.

 ‘I don’t see why I can’t ride one of those lovely creatures,’ she cried, then with a flirtatious appeal to her new kinsman, ‘Muktuk, dear, you did say they were not the virgin-exclusive sort of mythical-beastie unicorns and I am quite a good rider.’

 ‘I’m sure you are, cousin,’ Chumia said firmly before her mate could be cajoled. ‘But since you’ve fallen in with evil companions who are known to be a bit free with other folks’ property, we’d like to get to know you better before we entrust one of our curlies to you.’

 Dinah opened her mouth and closed it again, nonplussed, and allowed herself to be bundled on to one of the sleds. She did sufficiently recover her aplomb after being so uncompromisingly confronted to complain in an exaggerated whine that a dogsled was not the same thing as a unicorn ride at all.

 Yana used the pirate comunit to monitor the Intergal satellite. Not only would it still be night for another six hours at Bogota, but the whole of the Southern Continent was wrapped in a massive blizzard, making flying anything at all inadvisable.

 ‘I could try,’ she said. ‘I hate to leave Cita in the lurch.’

 Sean thought for a moment and shook his head decisively.

 ‘No. Johnny’s there with the copter and Coaxtl won’t let anything happen to her. If those two can’t take care of her, we won’t add much to the equation, especially with you half frozen and about to drop.’

 So they bedded down on the shuttle, happily warming each other, to await a more appropriate time to start their journey. If they didn’t get to sleep immediately, they had been parted a long time for newlyweds. Nanook, who had insisted on staying with them, discreetly adjourned to the next cabin.

 When they awoke, Yana checked the comunit again, once more monitoring Intergal Station for a weather check. She had gotten out of the habit of such facilities, what with having been on Gal-Three where weather reports dealt with solar winds or worm-hole distortions. She was also still slightly disoriented after long inactivity on the pirate ship.

 Though they’d land in daylight now, the weather was no better but they decided not to delay any further. After all, they had the map which Petaybee itself had presented them with, indicating all the trouble spots. The shuttle had only the one spatial view of Petaybee - the northern quadrant that included SpaceBase and no other sites. Sean knew the location of Bogota though and its coordinates. In a shuttle of this class, it was not a long journey but their destination was lost in the swirling mass of a first-rate late spring blizzard.

 ‘I’m a good pilot,’ Yana insisted to Sean as she fought the controls which buffeted the sturdy space-worthy shuttle, ‘but I was too preoccupied to pay much attention to my surroundings the last time I was here. What am I looking for exactly?’

 ‘A cluster of buildings…’

 ‘Which I can’t see in what is virtually a white-out.’ There was a slight edge to her voice because Yana was prudently aware of her limitations. Piloting a shuttle when you could see where you were going, even if you didn’t know what you were looking for was one thing. Flying blind over unfamiliar terrain in these conditions without a beacon to set you down was another.

 ‘Put us down anywhere. Nanook’ll reconnoitre,’ Sean said understandingly.

 ‘He’ll know where we are?’

 ‘He’ll be in touch with Coaxtl. And while Coaxtl may not know where we are, he’ll know where he is, and can give Nanook directions in - er - cat terms, I suppose.’

 ‘Which you will then translate to coordinates I can follow, huh?’ Yana shook her head in doubt, glancing from the white on white outside and back to Nanook.

 Sean gave her one of his slow cryptic smiles. ‘He operates best in these conditions.’

 The shuttle sank a little further, settling into the snow. Nanook was already at the shuttle lock. He gracefully leapt out and almost instantly disappeared from view, though a thrashing of the snow in the direction he had left was visible for a while.

 Yana looked over at Sean. ‘Now what do we do?’

 Sean grinned. ‘Wait.’

 With a bit of chopping and changing, Tanana Bay folks were able to find enough warm clothing to equip Dinah, Megenda still in the communion caves, and the two pirates most recently freed from the shuttle. Their clothing was suitable only to the controlled environment on spaceship or shuttle. In helping Dinah, Marmion felt a heavy rectangle under Dinah’s light jacket and, with a sleight of hand worthy of a less respectable profession, slipped it out of the pocket. Then, with a flurry, she began to hustle Dinah and the crew down the stairs into the communion place with the sure knowledge that they could not escape. Nor did Dinah have the time to realize she was without that device, whatever it was.

 ‘That should keep them safe,’ Muktuk said, flipping the rug over the trapdoor.

 ‘And undoubtedly change their attitudes,’ Sinead said with great satisfaction. ‘With so many types coming down to see what Petaybee has to offer, maybe the first thing we ought to offer them is communion time.’

 ‘I’m hoping’, Marmion said to Namid as the table was replaced,’ this will do Dinah a world of good. She’s not all bad. She certainly tried to make things easier for us with Captain Louchard.’

 Namid gave a little laugh. ‘She’s not all bad. If half of what she confided in me is based on truth, she had the most miserable childhood and didn’t fare that well in her teens, either.’

 ‘Such impressionable stages in a life, aren’t they?’ Then she hefted the equipment. ‘A little too heavy for a comunit, wouldn’t you say, Namid?’

 He got one good look at it and pushed her hands to return the device to her pocket. ‘Later, Marmion. Later,’ he murmured urgently and then smiled broadly at the other folks in the crowded room.

 It took time to sort out who would bunk where in the small village of Tanana Bay. Ultimately, after a cup of soup to ‘warm bodies for a cold night’, Bunny and Diego went with one family, Liam and Sinead with another, while Marmion and Namid were given the Sirgituks’ cabin to themselves as everyone was of the opinion that at least the good Dama Algemeine deserved what privacy Tanana had to offer.

 When they had been installed, new furs supplied for the beds, and the fire freshened for the rest of the cold night, Marmion and Namid were left to their own devices. Namid sprang to the window and watched to be sure their hosts were all dispersed to their separate accommodations. Then, with a sigh of relief, he nodded to Marmion who gingerly deposited the heavy unit on the table.

 ‘What is it that had you in such a panic, Namid?’

 ‘I think it’s a portable holo-unit,’ he said. He hovered, looking at it from all angles, and touching the control plate with a careful fingertip. ‘I can’t imagine why…’

 His fingertip was not quite careful enough and inadvertently he activated the display. Suddenly the image of Captain Onidi Louchard solidified in and around the table. The creature just stood there, inanimate, while Marmion and Namid looked at each other, openmouthed.

 ‘It was on Dinah?’ Namid recovered enough to ask.

 ‘Dinah!’

 Tentatively, Namid picked up the broadcaster and suddenly he was enveloped in the image of Captain Louchard.

 ‘Well, what about that!’ exclaimed Marmion, delighted and appalled at the same time. ‘Why, that woman had us all hoodwinked. When I think of the

 games she played with us as Dinah when all the time she was also Louchard…’ Words failed Marmion.

 ‘Not to mention how she manipulated her crew,’ Namid-Louchard said in a deep bass voice, with an odd inflection to both tone and words. ‘No wonder no-one ever caught sight of the infamous Captain Louchard.’

 Marmion laughed, well, giggled, and sat down to enjoy her mirth. ‘Really, Namid. I never would have suspected. She’s a consummate actress.’

 ‘Among other things,’ Namid said in a sterner tone as he switched back to his own self and replaced the device on the table. ‘She never wore it in my presence but then, she wouldn’t have needed to be Louchard to her husband.’

 ‘Not unless you turned into a wife-beater.’

 ‘Oh, that had happened to her, too. I saw the scars,’ Namid replied gravely. Then he sighed, prodding the device with a finger, then waving his hand to dismiss it all. ‘So what do we do about this disclosure?’

 Marmion had obviously been pondering the same question. She tapped her cheek with one finger. ‘It will take some heavy thinking, and I’m suddenly much too tired to do any more tonight.’ She glanced wistfully at the bed. ‘And don’t suggest that you take the floor, Namid,’ she added in a firm tone but her smile was suddenly demure.

 ‘I was about to be the gentleman, Marmion,’ Namid said but his mouth and eyes smiled.

 ‘Gentle, yes, man, yes, but…’ The uplift to the final word was all the invitation Namid required to be both, in the right order.

 One could only watch and wait, and sometimes sleep, while the humans made themselves at Home.

 Through the howling winds one had brought them safely here through snow like swarms of icy insects biting into one’s eyes, ears and nose. Even with the watchfulness of the Others, some had slipped between their reluctant guardians to wander, freeze and die. They would not be found before the snows had melted once more.

 Coaxtl and the Youngling were at rest. The metal bird’s master was at rest, as were the cave dwellers of Bogota. Inside the Home, the hotspring burbled warmth throughout. Outside, the snows swathed the world with seas of snow growing deeper by the moment. At the entrance of the cave, the bears humped like living drifts away from the warmth of the inner cave. The other clouded leopards, the snow lions, the white tigers, the lynx and bobcats, waited out the storm within the cave as well, crowding the humans deep within the inner chambers of the Home.

 Some, like the young male with the cub, stared with open delight at the Home, hearing its singing in his blood, seeing its colours inside his eyes, vibrating with its rhythms. The Youngling and her kin smiled in their hard-won sleep.

 As for those others, though! The noises they made as they flailed about were so shrill and penetrating that at last one was forced to put one’s paws over one’s ears to achieve any rest.

 Namid slipped gently from Marmion’s bed, put more wood in the stove and, after a few false starts, stirred up the fire in the hearth. Then he donned his borrowed warm clothing, long underwear, heavy woollen socks, woollen pants, shirt, leather sheepskin-lined boots painted with beaver oil for water resistance, scarf, hat, mittens, and parka. Into the pocket of his parka, he slipped the holo-disk. Then with a last lingering look at his sleeping lover, opened the door and walked out into the pastel Petaybean dawn.

 He crunched down the wide track leading between the homes of Tanana Bay to the O’Neills’ cabin, and let himself in through the unlocked door. He had hoped to be alone on this mission, but he saw that young Diego Metaxos lay in a sleeping bag with his ear against the trapdoor.

 The boy awoke as the cold air entered the cabin with Namid.

 ‘Morning,’ he said, in a clear, wide-awake voice.

 Namid nodded. He didn’t feel much like conversation.

 ‘You’re up early,’ Diego said.

 ‘I need to speak to Dinah.’

 ‘I don’t think she’ll be able to talk to you,’ Diego said.

 ‘Why not? What’s happened to her?’

 Diego shrugged. ‘I dunno. But judging from how contact with the planet affected my dad at first, I think she’ll be in a pretty bad way. They were carrying on until way late last night.’

 ‘What do you mean “carrying on”? Has something hurt her?’

 ‘No worse than she’s hurt others, I expect. But for people with certain kinds of mindset, their first contact with the planet can be devastating. You might find it that way yourself.’

 ‘But you didn’t?’

 ‘No. It’s always been wonderful to me. I was just lying here, thinking of a song to write about all that’s happened. I suppose it’s safe enough for me to go down there now but I’m not sure about you.’

 Til risk it. But - no offence, I’d rather go alone.’

 ‘It’d be easier for you with one of us.’ The boy was exuding a subtle air of male challenge.

 ‘You’re not native and you’ve been all right.’

 ‘Yes, but I’m young.’

 ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll try it on my own. My mind isn’t that rigid and set in its ways yet.’

 Diego shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. But I’m going down in a few minutes anyway. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a talk with Petaybee. I may not be native, but I’ve missed it,’

 He stepped out of the way and Namid descended the stairs, not seeing the small orange cat that darted through the trapdoor at the last minute and scooted down the stairs ahead of him.

 Bunny awoke and looked around for Diego in the other sleeping bag on the floor of their hosts’ house. He was gone. Gentle snores arose from their host family.

 That was good, actually, because she didn’t want to talk to Diego this morning as much as she wanted to try to get a moment alone with Marmion. Diego might not understand. She had planned to say she was just going to help Marmie with her fire and breakfast.

 She dressed quickly and left the cabin, closing first the inner door so the cold wouldn’t reach the family, and then the outer entrance door beyond the arctic foyer where the snowshoes, skis, extra dog harness and other tools were kept.

 She knocked lightly on the Sirgituks’ door and a rather dreamy voice called, ‘Hello?’

 Marmie looked less put-together and much happier than Bunny had ever seen her. She wore the tunic jacket she had been captured in as a robe over long-handled underwear bottoms and woolly socks. She was sitting at Sirgituk’s table sipping something steamy from a cup. Her expression was bemused, to put it lightly.

 ‘Thought you might need help putting a kettle on,’ Bunny said.

 ‘Not at all. If you’ll remember, I’m rather a good cook and this stove is not so different from the one at my grandfather’s hunting lodge on Banff 2 where I sometimes spent my holidays as a child.’

 ‘Must be nice to get to live any way you like,’ Bunny said, pulling off her mittens.

 ‘Ye-es, it is. What’s the matter, Buneka dear? You sound rather sad and I just can’t bear that when I’m feeling so good myself. Have a cup of this lovely berry tea and tell me all about it and we’ll see if I can fix it.’

 ‘Thanks,’ Bunny said with a little smile. ‘The tea will be great but I don’t think there’s anything you can do about the rest of it.’

 She finished taking off her wraps, poured her tea and sat down, warming her hands on her cup and watching the steam rise between herself and Marmie. Marmie had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in the world when she was talking to you. Bunny wished she could be like that.

 ‘I wouldn’t want you to get me wrong, Dama, I love Petaybee. I never want to live anywhere else -permanently, that is.’

 Marmie nodded, encouragingly, as the words had a hard time coming out.

 ‘But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. See, the thing is, I never knew what was out there before. All we ever saw was SpaceBase and that was pretty grim and a lot of the recruits who left didn’t return and if they did, they sometimes wouldn’t even sing about it. I never dreamed there could be some place like Gal-Three or some of the stations and planets Charmion showed me holos of.’

 Marmie smiled. ‘Can’t keep ‘em down on the farm no more, huh, now they’ve seen Paree?’

 ‘Scuse me?’

 ‘Another old song. Sorry dear, it just means that once you’ve seen some of the universe, you can develop a taste for more. Is that what’s troubling you?’

 ‘That’s part of it. I suppose I might not care so much if I thought I could go other places if I wished. ‘Cept, that’s not exactly true. Y’see, there’s so much to learn out there. I saw things I think we might be able to manage for Petaybee, and not hurt anything, if only someone knew how. But I can’t learn about them here. I’ve always been mechanical, you know, and Diego showed me some gadgets that sure would improve servicing the snocles, for instance. I don’t know. I guess I’m not saying it very well. It’s just knowing that I have to leave by a certain time or I won’t be able to…’

 Marmie placed her hand on Bunny’s. ‘We all resent our limitations, dear. Actually, though, you’re starting school a little later than most do. There is no reason why you couldn’t begin long-distance studies here, and then when you find you absolutely must go off-planet to satisfy your curiosity, you can go - surely that will be before you’re twenty or so. And you can always come back, you know, whenever you like. Petaybean troops do. It’s just that I suppose you have to decide now instead of waiting till you’re… oh, forty.’

 Bunny grinned. It had all been so obvious but the idea was so new to her she hadn’t considered the really salient factors.

 ‘Furthermore, it will be my pleasure to present you with a suitable study unit and all the hard-copy books you wish. Among my inheritances are the contents of several libraries. And when you’re ready to go off-planet you can be the pilot student for the Petaybean Off-World Civilian Scholarship programme.’

 ‘I didn’t know there was one!’

 ‘That’s because I just decided to sponsor it.’

 Bunny reached across the table and gave her a hug. ‘You’re aces, Marmie!’

 ‘Likewise. Tell me, you haven’t seen Namid, have you?’

 ‘Nope. Nor Diego. But I came straight here after I got dressed.’

 ‘Then I think I’ll get dressed as well and we’ll go find them, shall we?’

 If Dinah O’Neill, aka the fearsome Captain Onidi Louchard, had known what was in store for her, she would have fought her incarceration with every one of the many combat skills she had learnt since she’d been a defenceless pre-teen. She did hear Megenda mumbling incoherencies as she was propelled down the ladder. She did notice the odd indirect lighting but she blithely ventured further into the cavern, towards the warmth she felt on her face. She thought that at least this prison was comfortably warmer than the cabin she’d just left.

 That was when she noticed the holo transponder was missing. Not that she had to worry about the Petaybeans inadvertently turning it on. But Namid would know what it was. She ought to have checked, and she berated herself for such an oversight. Captain Louchard, she grinned to herself, would have plenty to say about that when next she assumed that mantle.

 She and the two crewmen, Dott and Framer, came across Megenda then, all curled up in a foetal position on the floor of the cave, just where it opened up into a fair-sized chamber: a chamber that was oddly beautiful in its pastel shades and mottled walls. The beauty was of a strange, disorientating nature, however; the mottles rippled and the shades altered in an unnerving fashion. Walls were supposed to be stationary and their coloration was generally stable, too.

 ‘What’s the matter with him, Dinah?’ Dott asked, planting a toe on Megenda and trying to turn him on to his back so the first mate’s face would be visible. He was a rather unimaginative sort, good for routine or monotonous duties, strong and unquestioning, happy to be given orders he could follow, which he followed to the letter. ‘Thought you said he was just cold.’

 ‘I don’t like the look of him,’ Framer said, taking a step back from Megenda’s rigid body as if afraid of contagion.

 ‘He’s warm enough now,’ Dott said, grabbing one of Megenda’s hands and trying to pull it away from his face.

 ‘Hey, how can you have fog in a cave?’ Framer asked and pointed to the mist beginning to rise from the floor.

 ‘These caves are supposed to be special places,’ Dinah said as evenly as she could but the vapour rising carried an aroma to it that was unlike anything she had ever encountered. Her skin began to crawl under the warm parka she’d been given. ‘I’d like to know what’s going on here,’ she said, turning around on her heel, addressing whatever was generating all these unusual effects. She could have sworn that there’d been no mist, no odour, and no vacillating wall colours and designs when she’d first reached the cave floor. She looked behind her and the mist was closing in so that she couldn’t see the walls now.

 ‘Going on here?’ The phrase was interrogatory, not rhetorical and the voice that said the words was not an echo of hers.

 ‘Dinah?’ The unimaginative Dott’s voice quavered. ‘How do we get out of here?’

 No way out of’here.’

 ‘Keee-rist, who’s talking?’ Framer looked wildly around him. ‘Who’s talking?’

 Dinah wanted to reassure him that it was the Petay-beans perpetrating some sort of a hoax to frighten them but she absolutely knew, though she didn’t know how, that the voice was nothing caused by any human phenomenon. It penetrated her body through to the marrow of her bones.

 ‘Listen, it commanded.

 ‘I’m listening, I’m listening,’ Framer said, dropping to his knees, bringing his hands up together, probably for the first time in his life, into a prayerful position.

 Dott just sat down, hard, licking his lips. He kept his head straight but he rolled his eyes around in his head as if he didn’t quite dare to look at who, or what, was speaking back at them.

 Megenda began to jibber more wildly, writhing in and out of the foetal position as if his limbs, and torso, were attached to invisible strings.

 For the first time in her adult life, since the time she had turned a weapon on a man who had threatened her with vicious and sadistic treatment, Dinah O’Neill knew fear. She forced herself to remain standing, clenching her fists at her sides as the mist crept up over her knees, so dense now, and almost substantial in its covering, that she couldn’t see her boots. It engulfed her, a moist, permeating blanket, travelling quickly up her body until it covered her face and she could see nothing. And the sound seemed to emanate from the vapour that enveloped her: sound that cut her skin to her blood and bones: sound that was warm and vibrated through her, and filled with darkening colours, until she heard herself scream in protest at such an invasion. There were screams around her and, with an almost superhuman effort of will, she bit her lips, determined that she would not cry mercy from whatever was happening as the crewmen did. Her resolve ended when she felt the hard thwack of stone against her face and her body as she fell down. Then she whimpered and wept, as much the lonely, confused, tormented five-year-old girl who had been abandoned by all the adults who had managed her life up till that moment.

 ‘The planet has been speaking?’ the boy whispered to Cita, his hands moving restlessly on the cub’s fur as if that motion were all that protected him.

 In one sense, Cita would tell Yo Chang much later, petting the cub had protected him as he had valiantly protected the cub when in danger from Zing Chi.

 ‘Yes, Petaybee does in these places,’ Cita said in a very grown-up voice.

 ‘And it keeps this place warm for us?’ Yo Chang asked because he had to be sure. Though this girl was not much older than himself, he felt she had exhibited commendable authority and certainly bravery in walking the gauntlet of those great animals.

 ‘The Home is always warm.’

 ‘How? It was so cold on the surface. Why would it be warm down here? I could feel my ears adjusting to the air pressure so I know we are down.’ He gestured to the ground on which they were seated.

 ‘The Home protects us, Coaxtl says. It takes care of us… if’, and Cita paused to permit Yo Chang to see how important her next phrase was, ‘we take care of it.’

 ‘It isn’t taking care of them,’ Yo Chang said, rolling his eyes, and pointing to one side where the despoilers were writhing in agony and shrieking in great anguish.

 ‘I know,’ Cita said soberly. ‘I used to live with people who called it the Great Monster and feared it only. Because it can be cruel to those who take without respect and give no thanks. The Shepherd Howling was the kind of man who did that all the time so he stayed out of these caves and taught us all to fear them. But I am disobedient and selfish, and when I ran away from the flock, because they would have taken from me what I was too proud to give freely, I met Coaxtl, who called the Great Monster “Home”. I decided that if I could, I would rather be like the Great Monster than like Shepherd Howling. The Home is proud too and it obeys no-one. And it too begrudges what is taken from it against its will.’ Cita patted his hand. ‘Your people have angered the Home and it has become the Great Monster. They’ She waved her hand at the writhing bodies. She was having to shout over the noise they made, ‘need to be shown how it feels to be stripped and cut, slashed and dug, prodded and pulled and flayed.’

 To demonstrate her point - and having had a great deal of experience with such torments - Cita got a flap of skin from Yo Chang’s neck and twisted and pinched it as hard as she was able.

 ‘Hey, don’t do that,’ and Yo Chang scrambled sideways away from her, rubbing his neck.

 ‘I was only demonstrating how the planet feels. You were cutting and pulling, too, you know, and you are very lucky that Petaybee saw you save the cub.’

 Yo Chang gave her a sour, jaundiced glance, rubbing the outraged spot of the pinch. ‘You didn’t have to demonstrate so hard.’

 ‘I did because that is how we learn how the planet feels,’ she replied. ‘You’re much luckier than they are!’

 The shrieks and howls were beginning to diminish as the strength of the condemned, or the planet’s ministrations, eased.

 ‘They’re not dead, are they?’ Yo Chang asked most urgently.

 ‘I don’t think so,’ Cita said, though she couldn’t be sure. ‘Why?’

 ‘My… my… father is not a bad person. Not really,’ Yo Chang said, his round face and eyes entreating. ‘We are all forced to work hard at what we do for those who despatch us to where we must harvest plants. If we do not work hard, and if my father does not make his crew work hard, then the quotas are not filled and we do not get the rations which only hard workers deserve.’

 Neither youngster would have understood being paid in credit notes, for both had toiled long and hard hours just to get enough food to fill their stomachs.

 ‘It is hard,’ Cita agreed, nodding her head approvingly,’ to get enough to eat. Since Coaxtl found me, I have been eating so well I will soon be as fat as Clodagh.’ She patted her stomach with great satisfaction. ‘Everyone feeds me now - Coaxtl, Clodagh, my sister, my aunties and uncles and cousins in their homes. They are very fair about the distribution of food to the plate.’

 She nodded her head once more in emphasis. But thinking of the food she had shared with Sinead, Sean and Bunny reminded Cita that it had been a long time since she had eaten. She also wondered if the call for help had reached anyone. Not, she hastily corrected herself, that Petaybee had not come to their rescue. It had provided ample shelter and water although one had to be careful not to drink too much water or one could get a stomach colic which twisted the guts very uncomfortably.

 A slight snore emanated from Coaxtl and Yo Chang leant towards Cita.

 ‘Does he’

 ‘Coaxtl is a female personage,’ Cita informed him repressively.

 ‘Does she really talk to you?’

 ‘Not in loud words like you and I are using,’ Cita said, ‘but I understand exactly what she says to me.’

 Yo Chang looked down at the sleeping cub in his arms. ‘Then, if I heard the name Monti, the cub was telling me his name?’

 ‘Quite likely,’ Cita said, delighted at being an expert on such a point.

 The moans and sobbings had died down to a low enough murmur so Cita decided she could get some sleep.

 ‘We may be a while longer,’ she told Yo Chang as she rearranged herself against Coaxtl’s long warm body. ‘You’d better rest.’

 ‘Can I go see if my father’s all right?’ Yo Chang asked timidly and fearfully.

 ‘He’ll be feeling very sorry for himself, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Cita said, settling. ‘Sometimes, my Aunt Sinead says, when people are hurting they’ll lash out at anyone else to make them hurt, too.’

 Yo Chang gulped but resolutely deposited the sleeping cub by Cita before he made his way down to where the sufferers were enduring their penance. She was half asleep when she heard him return, stifling sobs.

 ‘Your father?’

 ‘Lives, but looks like a grandfather. He doesn’t seem to know me.’

 She patted his shoulder awkwardly and pulled him down, putting her thin arm over him so that he lay between her and Coaxtl and Monti the cub. She didn’t need to tell him that life was sometimes hard.

 Namid felt a pang of anxiety. Though Dinah certainly merited discipline, even incarceration for their abduction, he didn’t wish her harm. And he did need to know more about her activities, with or without the holo of Captain Onidi Louchard. Perhaps it had been Megenda who was Louchard, although the first mate had never appeared to Namid as a man of sufficient cunning and intelligence to contrive the piratical activities that had made Louchard’s name feared all over the galaxy.

 If Dinah could give him any mitigating circumstances - beyond what he already knew of her tragic early life and hard treatment - maybe he could do some kind of a deal. She wasn’t all bad. He couldn’t have loved her if she had been thoroughly corrupt and sinister. That surely would have affected her personality and she had been such a loving and affectionate wife: merry, occasionally even frivolous, and often childlike in her enthusiasms during their married life. Maybe she was a split personality, schizophrenic, and that complexity, once proved, would reduce the sentence. The very thought of Dinah, encased in a space coffin, waiting for the air supply to end, appalled him. He was determined to find some way out for her. Marmion was of such a forgiving personality that she might even drop personal charges against Dinah - if she knew of factors which could mitigate the offence. Dinah hadn’t actually pulled the trigger that had killed anyone. Her crew had murdered, that was true, but she had assured him, when he first found out who she ‘worked for’ that the pirates were under strict orders to fire only at others when they were being fired upon themselves. Of course, the ethic was that they were being fired on legally for attempting illegal activities and self-defence, accordingly, could not be claimed. Oh, my stars and sparkles, Namid thought, I’m arguing like a modern-day Gilbert and Sullivan.

 He took a deep breath and opened the inner door to the communion chamber. Warm mist obscured everything, making him feel he had stepped into a steam bath and he immediately felt a strong presence that had nothing to do with Dinah or her crew. Well, he had been assured by sane and intelligent people that the planet definitely had a persona.

 ‘Good morning,’ he said, feeling just a trifle foolish, but if the planet understood, then it would appreciate normal courtesies, too.

 ‘And it is morning and I expect that you’ve had a busy time of it lately but I did wish a few words with you.’

 ‘Few words.’

 Was that permission? Or limitation? Namid wondered.

 ‘They might be more than a few, actually,’ Namid went on, smiling as if that would be noticed. ‘I’ve so many questions to ask.’

 ‘Many questions.’

 Again Namid wondered if that was permission or limitation. But it had sounded, to his untutored ear, as if the speaker was slightly amused by his presumption.

 ‘I’m told that you do communicate, or rather go into a communion phase with… what should I call it… with supplicants? No, that’s much too religious a word.

 Communicants? Ah, yes, I think that is best. Now, first, is there anything I can do to assist you right now? Remove the occupants that spent the night here? I can’t see them for the fog but…’

 Namid had - not quite stealthily, but slowly - felt his way further into the cavern. Before he went one step further, however, the fog suddenly sucked itself back into the farthest reaches of the cave and vanished, leaving him awe-struck and speechless for several moments as he watched the play of gently singing light and colour across the surfaces of the cave.

 ‘You are rather stunning in appearance, you know,’ he said in a hushed voice. The shifting colours of the walls were corruscations of complex blendings and wave designs. He rather suspected he could spend hours following the patterns as they made their way deeper and deeper into the cavern. The way was level now whereas before it had been on a slight downward incline. ‘Am I well into this communion place now?’

 ‘Now!’

 ‘Ah, then,’ Namid said, ‘I’m an astronomer, you see. I have spent my life observing the anomalies of stellar matter, with particular emphasis on variables. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?’

 ‘Talk.’

 ‘Well, now I’m certainly willing to although I am not a lecturer by training. Still, to talk to a planet, the satellite of a rather… ah… (not ordinary, Namid said to himself, not wishing to offend Petaybee)… an excellent example of a G-type star… well, it’s an extraordinary experience, if you know my meaning.’

 ‘Know meaning. Talk.’

 ‘I’ve seen many stars - constant, dwarf, variable, binary systems - everything so far astronomically categorized, but speaking to a planet is highly unusual.’

 Namid, aware that nervousness was making him more garrulous than was natural, thought he heard a whispery laugh.

 ‘Unusual planet.’

 At that sally, Namid did laugh. ‘You have a sense of humour, don’t you? I think we shall get on very well together.’

 ‘Very well. Talk.’

 A low moan that ended on a piteous sob interrupted any further talk at that juncture. The moan had echoed quite near and Namid, being a compassionate person, was compelled to investigate. Just beyond the bend in the passage, he saw the figure of Dinah, looking smaller and, indeed, when he turned her over in his arms, almost wizened efface. Her hair had turned completely white. She was breathing regularly and although her pulse was slow it was strong enough to reassure him. All the questions that had brimmed to his mind to ask Petaybee - could it speak with its primary, with its sister planets, communicate with its moons and how - went out of his head along with the questions he had framed to ask Dinah. She was patently in no condition to answer - even to her own name.

 A guttural ‘eh’ made him investigate further down the corridor where he saw three more figures, each of them curled in tight foetal positions, the bodies also giving off excretal and vomital smells that made Namid glad that he had eaten nothing yet in his haste to seek Dinah.

 Megenda and the two crewmen had succumbed to Petaybee’s justice. But Namid felt that Dinah had not, because she had both not assumed the protective womb-position and not soiled herself. He was glad of that for she was most fastidious about her person.

 He carried her up the stairs, banged on the trapdoor to be re-admitted into the cabin, and found it crowded with Marmion, Bunny, Diego and the Murphys.

 ‘Oh, dear, what has happened to her?’ Marmion said, reaching out compassionate hands to Namid’s limp burden.

 Muktuk took her from Namid and carried her to the bed he and Chumia shared. ‘Petaybee’s happened to her,’ he said with the resigned tone of someone who has accepted judgement, fair or undeserved.

 ‘I found a portable holo-projector that produces an image of the pirate we all thought was Louchard,’ Marmion told him. ‘It was in Dinah’s pocket. She was Louchard all along.’

 Muktuk stroked the white hair back from Dinah’s face and Chumia took her hand.

 ‘Poor lass,’ Muktuk said. ‘But us kindred of Handy Red have all got a wild streak.’

 ‘Hitch the team, Muktuk,’ Chumia said. ‘She’s beyond my skill. Clodagh in Kilcoole is best at this.’

 Namid turned away from them and left the cabin, still agitated but reassured that Dinah would receive here maybe not just what she deserved but what she had needed all along.

  

 25

 Contents - Prev/Next

 Sometime in the middle of the blizzard, Nanook clawed at the shuttle hatch and Yana opened it wide enough for him to jump the drift blocking it and land with a thud on the deck. He seemed to have brought half of the great outdoors in on his coat and paws, but as Sean rubbed him dry, he reported good news.

 ‘Coaxtl says the Youngling and the others are in shelter. Nanook can lead us there after the storm.’

 Nanook did. They landed the shuttle in a snowbank which quickly turned into awakening polar bears, who unhumped themselves, rose and lumbered off, without a backward glance. Yana and Sean disembarked and started for the entrance of the cave formerly drifted over by bears, but Nanook barred their way, growled, and preceded them.

 Yana had thought to bring a laser lantern. It burned brightly enough to show the most eclectic gathering of Petaybean wildlife she had ever seen curled, draped, stacked, lying, sitting, standing, washing, yawning and sleeping just inside the cave entrance.

 Nanook growled warningly, but before they took a further step, Coaxtl sauntered towards them, yawning. The other beasts paid the humans no further mind.

 Cita was right behind her friend, and ran to Sean to embrace him. ‘Did you bring anything to eat?’

 Loncie Ondelacy, Pablo Ghompas and their com munity followed. ‘Yana, Sean, glad you came. But there are casualties and we all need to eat.’

 Wading deeper into the cavern, Yana looked at the twisted, mumbling people lying on the floor all around. ‘I’m glad we came too. But now what do we do?’

 ‘Whatcha drivin’?’ Johnny Greene asked. Yana told him. ‘Not big enough,’ he said. ‘We need serious transportation. Can you get help from Intergal?’

 Sean shook his head. ‘They won’t lift a finger to help us because of our “disloyalty”. Instead they’re dumping every problem they can find like garbage onto the face of this world and leaving us to drown in it.’

 ‘Well, I can see why they wouldn’t want this lot back,’ Johnny said with a jerk of his thumb at what was left alive of those on the floor. ‘But it’s only human to try to do something for them. Is there no way at all?’

 ‘Nothing we can do from here,’ Yana said. ‘We came because Coaxtl called and we thought you and Cita were in danger.’

 Johnny shook his head. ‘No more. Them though Loncie Ondelacy said, ‘Well, I for one don’t blame Intergal a bit. If we don’t want them to rule us, we can’t expect them to jump every time we holler. And whether they caused this problem or not, we can expect more of the same. We have got to figure out a way to solve our own problems if we want to be autonomous. Yana and Sean, why don’t you give Johnny a lift back to his bird along with some of the council members to help dig it out and make a run back to Bogota for food, blankets, and medical supplies. Also to organize a dogsled evacuation here, although it’d be better if they could be flown out, given the shape they’re in. You could take Cita too.’

 But Cita shook her head. Her voice was small but her eyes were shining with excitement. Children did tend to love a crisis, Yana reflected - especially somebody else’s. ‘Though I may be much in the way and a bother, Coaxtl is needed to keep Nanook informed and the other beasts from deciding that these ones,’ she indicated the ravaged bodies around them, ‘are easy prey. Since Coaxtl honours me by speaking to me, I should remain to pass messages between her and my elders and betters.’

 Sean nodded. ‘You can come back with Johnny when he returns north then. I’m sure you’ll be a big help to Loncie and Coaxtl.’

 They ferried Johnny and five of the councilmen back to the copter. The soft new snow had drifted deeply around it and it took them some time to dig it out again. Once its runners were free and Johnny and the others were airborne, Sean and Yana returned to the cave and carried out six of the most severely damaged among the illegal harvesters, Zing Chi and the father of Yo Chang among them, and returned to Tanana Bay.

 The dog teams were being hitched as they landed. The dogs set up a fierce howl when the shuttle set down, and the whole village came running to investigate.

 Back at the O’Neills’, Yana and Sean saw for themselves the state of Dinah and the other pirates, who had to be taken from the communion cave and cleaned before being bundled into the shuttle.

 On seeing Dinah, Sean said, ‘Maybe we’ll have to rethink letting the planet dispense its own justice. It’s fair enough, but we can’t handle the casualties. Bad enough that people have to remain badly maimed or die because we don’t have the technology to get them to help but when we have it, just not enough of it, it fairly breaks your heart.’

 ‘It does,’ Muktuk agreed, ‘even when it’s such as them.’

 ‘I’m most concerned about Dinah,’ Yana said.

 ‘Perhaps you’ll be less so when we tell you what we found on her,’ Marmion said acerbically. ‘Do you want to do the honours, Namid?’

 He fished in his pocket and suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by the ugly Aurelian visage of Onidi Louchard. ‘I am the pirate Louchard,’ said a voice that sounded exactly like the pirate Louchard’s. ‘Who are you and why do you seek me?’

 Yana, Bunny and Diego all jumped away from the piratical image.

 Muktuk began to laugh. ‘You mean that little bitty gal pretended to be that thing to control all those big ferocious pirates? Ah, Sean, your governorship, sor, you’ve got to save her, you do. She’s purest O’Neill stock through and through, that one.’

 ‘You wouldn’t be so crazy about her if you’d been on the pirate ship with her,’ Bunny told him angrily.

 ‘We’ll do our best to save her, Muktuk,’ Sean said. ‘If you’ll take one of our current passengers, that will make room for her…’

 ‘We could come by dogsled, too,’ Diego said. ‘It’ll be good to feel like part of Petaybee again, won’t it, Bun?’

 ‘Sure will,’ Bunny said.’

 ‘Sides, I got somethin’ important to talk to you about.’

 Diego looked extremely uneasy at that and was sorry he’d offered.

 Marmion and Namid rode in the shuttle as well. Once they were under way, and had sent a radio message to Adak to transmit to Clodagh that they had the beginnings of a serious casualty situation on the way to Kilcoole, Yana was unusually quiet and, Sean thought, rather sad.

 ‘What’s the matter, alannah?”

 She gave him a painful smile. ‘Since seeing the holo, I have a plan. I wish I didn’t almost, but I do.’

 ‘To do what?’

 ‘Nail the pirates, Luzon and Torkel Fiske and get them all out of Petaybee’s hair for good.’

 ‘That sounds worthwhile. What’s the catch?’

 ‘It would involve taking the holo, returning with this shuttle to the pirate ship and posing as Louchard. Since I’m the only possible shuttle pilot who qualifies, it means I’ll have to leave Petaybee again, and the very thought ties me in knots. Still…’

 ‘Why do you have to do that?’

 ‘To take the ship back to Gal-Three where it and the crew can be taken into appropriate authority. Meanwhile, posing as Louchard, I’ll confront Fiske and Luzon and make damned sure there’s an incriminating record of what transpired between them.’

 ‘I can’t let you take that risk, Yana. Especially not in your condition,’ Sean said, sounding sterner than he meant to at the idea of her not only leaving the planet again but putting herself in such danger.

 ‘I don’t see much choice, not if the pirates are to be put out of commission and Luzon and Fiske stopped from interfering with us once and for all.’

 ‘It’s a good plan,’ Marmion interjected. ‘Excellent, in fact. It needs to be done. Only, may I make one small suggestion?’

 Sister Igneous Rock was with the orange cats and the debilitated hunters, de Peugh and Minkus, when Adak burst into Clodagh’s cabin, which she had turned into a temporary clinic as well as pharmacy.

 ‘Sean and Yana are bringin’ in a bunch of folks that got Petaybeed up at Tanana Bay and over by Bogota,’ he said. ‘They’re in a pretty bad way, according to Yana. She says some of them might not live, though she reckons they’re none of ‘em any worse than Frank Metaxos was when he first got here.’

 ‘Oh dear. Clodagh is off with Mr Ball, I’m afraid. She took him to the springs for therapy,’ she said. But before the words were out of her mouth, two of the orange members of the nursing staff tore out of the door that Adak had left slightly ajar.

 The shuttle landed just as Clodagh showed up with Ball in his wheelchair strapped into the basket of Liam Mahoney’s dogsled. Dr von Clough ski’d along beside them. He looked very tired. Brothers Shale and Schist, looking somewhat bemused, followed a disgusted-looking orange cat who seemed outraged at their lack of efficiency. Sister Agate adjusted her robes to their usual decorous length. While Ball received his therapy in the waters of the hotsprings, she had been inside the grotto engaged in deep consultation with Aidan Yulipilik about the therapeutic uses of Petaybee’s mildly intoxicating drink, blurry. The blurry was not all that was intoxicating. Sister Agate was quite flushed from the attentions of the dashing Aidan, who made drums, snowshoes, dog harness, and skis for the entire village and many other parts of Petaybee. He also had twinkling slanted blue eyes and a physique that might be envied by many twenty year olds.

 That could not be said of the poor people whom Sean and Namid began carrying or helping out of the shuttle. Most looked geriatric, astonished, and bitterly unhappy.

 ‘There’s not room enough at your place, Clodagh!’ Sean said. ‘Oh, this is Namid Mendelsky, a friend of Marmion’s. We’ll use the meeting hall for now - we’ll need to use the school Cube as well. There are still more patients to be evacuated from Bogota. We only brought the worst ones this time.’

 One of the poor souls was a woman, small and perhaps pretty once, with totally white hair and sunken cheeks. She was a pitiable object and moaned and cried out often. Four of the men died before they could be treated. Clodagh said if they could have arrived sooner they might have been saved but that it was the planet’s will.

 Sister Igneous Rock had the quite heretical thought that perhaps the planet might have willed something else if it had been aware of other options - like more fast transportation, easier access to intravenous fluids, just a few basic medical necessities. Clodagh’s medicines could work wonders of recuperation, once the patients got past the critical stage, but fast transit, a source of not-quite-so-spiritual power, and convenient plumbing could do a lot towards remedying many sorts of emergency situations.

 And there was all that geothermal energy the planet had to spare. It seemed a shame and a bit of a waste, really. But who was she to say?

 She felt less modest about it within the next forty-eight hours, as the shuttle flew back and forth to the South until it was finally grounded for lack of fuel. It had fetched patients from the South and taken fuel to Johnny Greene so he could also assist in the air-lift. Even though everyone in Kilcoole helped, all of the water carrying, wood chopping, water boiling, heating of irons, lighting of lamps and candles, carrying and disposal of wastes, changing and washing linen especially since most of it was not linen or anything resembling it but wool or fur or someone’s down sleeping bag, and not that easily washed - left her totally exhausted.

 Indeed, under such hard conditions, it took her, Agate, Schist, Shale, Clodagh, and Dr von Clough, who never ceased complaining about the conditions, every waking hour for three days to save two-thirds of the patients. The man who had been the foreman of the work crew in the South died, as did the father of a lost-looking young boy who cried into the coat of a young wildcat while little Cita patted him on the back.

 The woman from Tanana Bay lived, and the big black man, though just barely, but the other two died. Clodagh said it would be a long haul for her and the other survivors.

 The Chief Engineer on board the Jenny had been uneasy for days. He could run the administrative bits of the ship, but when all the senior officers just took off like that without so much as a by-your-leave, well, what was a bloke to think? Miss Dinah usually passed on the Captain’s orders, or Megenda, or failing that Second Mate Dott but they were all gone now, weren’t they? He’d assumed, naturally, that the Captain had stayed on board and sent Miss Dinah off with Dott and Framer. But, when he himself had checked the Captain’s quarters and discovered them empty, and Louchard nowhere on board, the lads had broken into the Haimacan rum and got legless. No-one had attempted to clean up the resultant mess, despite his warning that there would be hell to pay when the Captain returned.

 And now the reckoning was due. There was the Captain on the comscreen.

 ‘Good to see you, sir. We thought you was on board wif us, sir, till we noticed you wasn’t, like.’

 ‘Very observant,’ came the Captain’s gurgly alienish voice from out of his octopus-like head with that funny eye channel runnin’ all around it. The reason he had Miss Dinah to front for him, everyone reckoned, was that too much lookin’ at the Captain woulda been bad for morale. ‘But obviously, I am not there as I am here on board the shuttle. Our mission is accomplished, but there is still the matter of payment for the Algemeine woman.’

 ‘Framer said as how them high-class people wouldn’t pay no ransom.’

 ‘Framer talked too much. Framer has paid the consequences of indiscretion. Even dignitaries have families who do not wish to see them… detained, or to suffer any… inconvenience. Besides which, outside parties had an interest in this detention. Patch through the following transmissions to these codes and rendezvous with me at the following coordinates.’

 ‘Aye-aye, sir. And may I say, sir, that it will be good to have you aboard again, sir.’

 Torkel Fiske was entertaining in his suite aboard his father’s star-yacht when the call came in on the private channel that was supposed to be available only to him and his father. It only took one glance at his caller to tell him that the transmission was definitely not from his father. He closed the door quickly so that his guest would not inadvertently catch sight of his caller. The creature on his screen was hideous. Not that Torkel hadn’t seen Aurelians before. He had, and he hadn’t liked them then either. On those occasions, they had been in appropriate places, not invading his privacy. ‘Yes?’ he asked. ‘This is a private channel. How did you gain access? You are in violation of the Inter-galactic Communications and Trade Act…’

 ‘Fiske, you two-timing maggoty imbecile. You set me up.’

 ‘I don’t believe I’ve had the honour,’ Torkel said in his stiffest military manner.

 ‘This is Louchard speaking, Onidi Louchard. Ring a bell?’

 No wonder the pirate sent Dinah O’Neill to negotiate for him! She was a damned sight easier to look at and more discreet as well. She’d know better than to try to contact clients in their own homes. This was a definite breach of professional etiquette and he didn’t intend to stand for it.

 ‘Not here, it damn sure doesn’t. I’m ending this trans’

 ‘I. Would. Not.’ The Aurelian said, and Torkel remembered that the pirate was reputed to have an efficient complement of skilled assassins who ‘eliminated’ those dissatisfied with Louchardian arrangements. ‘Now listen to me, Fiske. You completely neglected to mention the Gentlepersons’ Agreement regarding abductions when you suggested I kidnap the Algemeine woman. You knew that ransoms are never paid by people of that ilk…’

 ‘Your emissary’, and Torkel managed a sneer,’ should have been aware of it, since the Agreement’s a long-standing one. So that’s your error, not mine! I’m ending now.’

 ‘No, you’re not. You would scarcely care to entertain a visit from my termination specialists, now would you? And you will, unless you see to it that we’re compensated for our trouble in her case.’

 ‘Compensation is your business, not mine. Why should I pay for her return?’

 The pirate did something most unusual with his head, eyes and tentacles that made Torkel’s stomach heave and the noise it made was even more ghastly. Aurelian laughter? Then Louchard said, ‘There’s also the matter of Colonel Maddock-Shongili. She says…’

 ‘I don’t care what she says. I was led to believe you were competent at what you do. Obviously I was misinformed. If you can’t get your ransoms, then kill both of them for all I care. If you were as professional as you were said to be, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Out.’

 And he clicked the corn-control with great satisfaction, feeling that he’d definitely had the best of that exchange. The best of that bitch, Yanaba Maddock! And nothing to link him with her demise.

 Matthew Luzon received the call from the Aurelian as he was engaged in assisting with the enlightenment of the people of Potala, who had, before Company renovations, been so wasteful as to have nearly seventy per cent of their populace serving as celibate clerics. Potala had set up a theocracy until the Company put a stop to it, reminding the little planet that, while it might believe that killing animals was wrong and certain places were sacred, the planet was, in fact, entirely and in all respects the property of Intergal. Fortunately, so far, Potala had showed no outward inclination to join in personally on the side of its inhabitants, despite the claims of certain tenets of their religion.

 Matthew was busily reinterpreting those tenets when his comunit signalled for his attention on the Company’s priority channel. A hideous Aurelian face and waving tentacles filled the screen.

 ‘Luzon, you’ve been cutting in on enterprises that were guaranteed to us as part of our deal with you and Fiske.’

 ‘And who might you be, brother?’ Luzon asked.

 ‘I am Louchard, Captain of the Pirate Jenny. I have taken receipt of certain live cargo whose possession was supposed to guarantee me the right to exploit the assets of the world known as Petaybee, formerly an Intergal installation.’

 ‘Ah, and how is the good Colonel Maddock?’

 Louchard paused to indulge in a deep and nasty chuckle. ‘As you wished, her days are numbered. As to those associates of yours from the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company, were you aware that they have denuded vast areas of resources that should be used for her ransom? Really, Doctor Luzon, that was not well done. Tsck, tsck. I am not at all pleased to learn that you enticed other companies and individuals to move in where I believed I had been guaranteed a monopoly on such resources, poor and insufficient as they appear to be.’ Louchard chidingly waggled lateral tentacles. ‘Not the way to play the game with Captain Louchard, I assure you.’

 ‘My dear Captain, I implied nothing. Your dealings, I believe, were with Captain Fiske. Any disparity in what you were promised and what you eventually obtain should be discussed with him.’

 ‘You will not attempt to confuse the issue, Luzon. I have spoken to Fiske. He says you encouraged him to employ me to… entertain Colonel Maddock and Madame Algemeine, misleading both him and myself as to their actual value in order to indulge a personal grudge.’

 ‘I deny that. There was never any personal feeling of animosity towards either lady on my part, despite the physical and professional injuries they caused me.

 I have simply been using rather unorthodox contacts to force an issue on which I feel the Company has prematurely relinquished their rights. You understand, dear Captain, that the harvesters from the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company, the shuttle service and other fruits of the publicity I have arranged for Terraform B have simply been in the nature of covering my bets, you might say, in case you failed, as you obviously have.’

 ‘That’s a double-cross in my book, Luzon. I’m going to have to dispose of my passengers.’

 No more interfering Algemeine? No more self-righteous Yanaba Maddock? Matthew couldn’t conceal his smile as he said, ‘You must do as you see fit, Captain.’

 Ending the transmission, Yana switched off the shuttle’s comunit and the holo-image of Louchard. Sean had stationed himself with the other witnesses beyond the viewfield of the screen and now stepped forward. He put his hand on her shoulder, then leaned down to gently kiss her cheek. Marmion Algemeine and Farringer Ball, only just graduated from the hover-chair, looked extremely grim. Even Dr von Clough appeared vastly upset.

 Whittaker Fiske, whom Johnny Greene had summoned from Intergal Station to witness the transmission, was terribly shaken. Clodagh, uncomfortable in the shuttle’s space-conserving seat, sat between Whit and Farringer Ball. She handed Whit a square of cloth and he mopped his eyes and blew his nose before speaking in a choked voice.

 ‘I knew Torkel was wrong-headed about Petaybee and had a grudge against Yana, but I would never have believed this of him if I hadn’t heard it for myself.’ He turned tormented eyes to Clodagh. ‘I wish the planet had done to him what it did to those pirates and Metaxos before he debased himself in this fashion. Deliberately contacting a pirate to abduct all of you!’ Whittaker shook his head, unable to look the victims in the eye as he waved at the empty comscreen.

 Clodagh patted his hand. ‘Your son’s been a grown man for years, Whit. You can only raise ‘em, not straitjacket them. As far as his initiation to Petaybee, Sean and I shielded you both then because we didn’t want you to be blasted like those others. We were wrong, I guess, but we knew you were off-worlders and you didn’t understand. We wanted you to have as gentle a conversion as possible so you’d understand how it could be. We didn’t want you, or him, to get culled. We should have just let Petaybee sort him out.’

 ‘I guess so,’ Whit said. ‘Though that should have been my responsibility. I should have pulled Torkel up about some of his earlier escapades. If he hadn’t got away with them he’d never have tried something of this magnitude. But I felt there was good stuff in the boy. I never thought…’ He sighed, resigned, his normal ebullience dead.

 The others were quiet for a moment, then there was a knock at the open hatch and Adak stood there with Faber Nike.

 ‘Here’s the gent you was expectin’, Ms Marmion, come to take you home.’ Adak looked up Nike’s large frame, apparently satisfied that this man was appropriate for that task.

 ‘If you will excuse us?’ Marmion said to the others. Yana willingly relinquished her pilot’s seat to Faber. ‘I have arrangements to make for the CIS court to be moved to Petaybee and an incriminating recording to deliver. Faber, the Louchard holo and certain representatives of law and order have a rendezvous to keep with a pirate ship. Oh, and would you all have any use for a spare space-worthy vessel?’ Her smile was definitely mischievous as she glanced round.

 ‘What do you mean?’ Yana asked, not certain if Marmion could pull off that sort of stunt.

 ‘Well, the ship will be forfeit, but I think the authorities might just consider it a just compensation for the inconvenience, harassment, outrage, and indignities of a false incarceration of Petaybean citizens?’

 ‘You were kidnapped, too,’ Yana said while Sean chuckled.

 ‘Ah, yes, but I have my own ship and Petaybee could certainly profit by having its own navy.’

 ‘A shuttle and a spacer?’ Sean said, grinning. ‘I think we might even go into the transport business…” When he heard Clodagh’s exasperated snort, he held up his hand and added, ‘Of course, there will be a strict enforcement of immigration - to keep the undesirable element from landing on our native soil.’

 ‘An eminently sensible and honourable career for a piratical vessel,’ said Namid, who had been sitting quietly behind Marmion. He rose now and took her hand. ‘Return soon.’

 She gave him a lingering glance and a saucy smile. ‘Oh, I will. I certainly will.’ Then she dimpled at Yana and Sean. ‘But I’ll send the ship back as soon as I can talk the authorities into it.’

 ‘What do you mean?’ Dr Matthew Luzon demanded imperiously of the three officials who had presented themselves at his main office on Potala. ‘I’m under arrest? For what crime, might I ask?’

 ‘Fraudulent misrepresentation, illegal transport licensing, accessory after the fact in an instance of kidnapping’

 ‘Oh, now come off it,’ Matthew said, cutting off the charges with an irate wave of his hand. ‘That is utterly outrageous…” He caught sight of his new chief assistant trying to get his attention. ‘Well, what is it, Dawtrey?’

 ‘Sir, they’ve been through the legal department and the arrest is legal and not a single loophole that can be challenged…’

 ‘Preposterous.’

 ‘Dr Matthew Luzon, you will accompany us to the court which has issued this warrant to answer the charges, forthwith and immediately,’ the officer in charge of the deputation said in such a pompous tone that Luzon laughed.

 ‘We’ll see about this,’ he threatened and depressed a toggle to summon his security staff.

 ‘Sir, sir, Dr Luzon,’ his chief assistant said, pumping his hand in the air with the urgency of a schoolchild in desperate need of relieving himself,’ the matter has been seen to, before we’d even permit them to interrupt you.’

 ‘And?’ Luzon stood up, to give the three-man deputation the full force of his imposing stature and personality.

 ‘They are acting quite within the scope of their duties and you really will have to go with them.’

 ‘I, Dr Matthew Luzon, interrupt a busy schedule to appear in a minor court?’

 ‘It’s a major court, sir,’ the assistant said, ‘and Legal says you have no option but to accompany them without protest or…’

 ‘… A charge of resisting arrest will also be levied against you, Dr Luzon.’

 The senior official, expressionless though his face was, did seem, in Luzon’s estimation, to be enjoying his duties far more than he had any right to. The very idea that officials could barge into his office, interrupt his work day when he had an entire planet to set to rights, was preposterous. And yet, the atmosphere was rife with barely concealed emotions, almost ‘menacing’ in the tension.

 A discreet tap on his door, which his senior secretary hastened to open, resulted in the view of his entire legal staff, assembled in the outer room. Peltz, the senior adviser, caught Luzon’s eye and gave him a quick nod of the head. Luzon took that to mean that they had everything under control and this risible situation would soon be a rather bad taste in his mouth.

 ‘Very well, gentlemen, if that is the order of the court, as a law-abiding citizen of this galaxy, I submit.’ There was nothing at all submissive about Dr Matthew Luzon as he smartly passed his would-be captors on his way to the corridor and to the personal vehicle which should be waiting at his level to transport him.

 The vehicle awaiting him was not his personal one but a drab and very official one and matters proceeded downhill with astonishing speed after that.

 Nor was he at all reassured to discover that the plaintiff who had levelled these charges against him was none other than the Secretary General of Intergal, Farringer Ball, and that the warrant had originated from Intergal’s Petaybean installation.

 ‘The planet’s corrupting everyone,’ he shouted as he was led off to a holding cell. The last glimpse he had of his well-paid, highly trained and motivated legal department were their slightly bemused expressions. Bemused at his expense.

 Nor was his incarceration in any way mitigated by the fact that he was led past a cell containing Captain Torkel Fiske who was sitting in abject dejection on the spartan bed of the accommodation.

 ‘Fiske? What’s the meaning of this?’

 ‘Now, now, sor,’ said the senior officer hurrying him to the next section of the prison and his own quarters, ‘no talking. That’s not allowed to prisoners on remand.’

 What Torkel Fiske could not figure out was how he had been implicated in the Algemeine-Maddock-Rourke-Metaxos kidnappings. Unless, of course, Captain Louchard had been captured and had taken revenge on what he considered to be Torkel’s perfidy by deciding to turn Galactic-evidence to gain a reduced sentence. Kidnapping demanded a fate far worse than death - imprisonment in a space capsule which was then released beyond the heliopause of the local star system with sufficient oxygen to keep the criminal alive long enough to regret both crime and life.

 Some took as long as weeks to suffocate, depending on the amount of oxygen supplied, and there was no legal amount specified so there was no way of knowing how long you would keep on breathing. If you were claustrophobic, maybe you went mad first. If you had agoraphobia, the torture would be equally severe. No-one had ever been rescued.

 Torkel had managed to get a message off to his father although he wasn’t sure if that would do any good. Why, his father might even have told the officials where to find him: Whittaker was scrupulous about obeying the law and Marmion was an old and valued associate.

 What Torkel had counted on was Captain Louchard’s piratical expertise as well as an ignorance of the Gentlepersons’ Agreement regarding being kidnapped. There hadn’t been an abduction of someone of Marmion de Revers Algemeine’s social prominence in so many years that the Pact was no longer common knowledge. Besides, Torkel would have been happy enough with the abduction of the minor personalities, to pay back Yana, and indirectly Sean, as well as those obnoxious kids. Caveat emptor! Even a pirate should know where to draw the line in dastardly deeds.

 Odd, if Louchard was responsible for Torkel’s arrest, that there had been nothing on the net reports about the capture of pirate and crew. That would have given Torkel sufficient warning to make for parts unknown and to undergo a complete identity change. He’d some tentative plans made in that direction but he’d been taken so by surprise that he hadn’t had a chance to put them into use. He’d opened his door and there they were!

 And the complaint had originated not from Dama Marmion de Revers Algemeine but Farringer Ball. That didn’t make much sense to Torkel Fiske who had last seen Farringer Ball on a screen at SpaceBase in Petaybee. And the man was physically on that wretched iceberg now. How under the suns had he managed to end up there? Of all places in the civilized galaxy!

 The sight of Matthew Luzon also in custody did nothing to relieve Torkel’s sense of impending doom and, as if expecting his movements to be shortly confined in a space coffin, he began to pace the cell. Small as it was, he could still walk about it. Three paces up and three paces back and two back and forth… and if he went too fast, he cracked his shins on the hard plastic edge of the built-in bed or slammed his toes against the slab wall.

 The Jenny-, now registered as the Curlycom, with new papers and no history before its recommissioning and complete overhaul, made her ‘maiden’ landing at SpaceBase with a shipment of plumbing units, temporary housing units (though none as fancy as the Nabatira Cubes although adequate for the Petaybean climate), and other ‘mod cons’ which most inhabitants of the Galaxy took for granted but which sent the happy recipients on Petaybee into raptures. An accompanying note delivered by the captain, Petaybean-born Declan Doyle, newly commissioned and still stunned by his promotion and good fortune, indicated that the shipments had been purchased with the rewards for the return of many valuable and priceless items found on board the ship when she had been stopped, boarded and her crew placed in custody.

 One arrival among the others particularly pleased Sister Igneous Rock. It was a collection of texts on the theories and principles behind the application and installation of geo-thermal and hydro-electric power, the English translation from the original Icelandic, dating from several centuries before. Sister Igneous Rock discussed the windfall with Brother Shale, then on every subsequent day, she could be found at the communion cave reading bits aloud and afterwards asking pertinent questions.

 ‘What do you think? Would that work well here? Could you do a channel here and here, and still meet your other commitments? This wouldn’t hurt, would it?’

 She kept a log of her research, enquiries and the planet’s responses and was compiling a list for Sean, Yana and ultimately Madame Algemeine of equipment that would eventually be needed to assist the planet in its first venture into co-operative technology. Her intense contact with the planet considerably reduced her awe of it, but although it lost its godlike stature as a result, the planet, considering and collaborating with her for the welfare of its inhabitants, never stopped being ‘beneficent’ in her mind.

 The first out-bound voyage was to deliver to the Intergal Station the sixty survivors of the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company whose unauthorized presence on Petaybee was adversely regarded by Intergal and CIS. Intergal tried to evade the responsibility but Petaybean officials were perfectly within their rights to return the illegal aliens to their previous port of call. Their employers had been notified to collect the stranded men and women.

 The in-bound voyage was a joyous occasion, for Petaybean citizens had invited specialists in many fields to return home to provide the skills needed to develop its potential. They came willingly and with songs about how they would help Petaybee, how and where they would live, how well their children would live where the air was clear and clean, if cold, and where they could walk again with pride that they had been born on a world that knew exactly what it wanted.

 The official CIS meeting was convened in the architecturally astonishing Arrivals Hall of Petaybee Space Facility - designed by Oscar O’Neill from the bits and pieces which Intergal had not thought salvageable and some remarkable local materials donated by the planet itself. O. O. had terminated his employment with Nabatira Cubes in order to devote the rest of his life to learning about the O’Neill clan and adapting many long-held construction notions to Petaybean needs and materials.

 Farringer Ball, looking fit with a winter-tanned skin and now walking without aids, was the Chairperson.

 Although he still tired easily, he had obviously recovered his zest for living and banged the opening gavel with a firm hand.

 Phon Tho Anaciliact, thoroughly enchanted by what had been accomplished so speedily, was there as the senior representative of his organization.

 Admiral General Touche Segilla-Dove had arrived in his impressive gig with his aides and other service personnel since that arm of Galactic Management always had to have a say in such matters. Though, one orbit of his gig, with all its sophisticated sensors and investigative devices, had proved that Petaybee was in fact totally unprotected. One had to discount its navy of one ship and one medium-sized shuttle sporting the Petaybean arms of an orange cat couchant and a curlycorn rampant, both on an ice floe in the middle of what appeared to be a cave. One spacer and one shuttle could not constitute any threat to galactic peace and stability. The planet had only the one space facility if you could find it in the blizzards.

 Admiral General Segilla-Dove might not quite believe that the planet was itself a sentient being but its spokespersons certainly were. And if they claimed to be speaking on its behalf after serious and deep consultations, that was fine by him. A planet held to an orbit around its primary - that was a scientific fact - and was therefore unlikely to go about the Galaxy fomenting rebellion and upsetting the status quo.

 What he did find exceedingly odd was the bald statement that the planet was listening to every word said in these proceedings and that that was why the walls of the Arrivals Hall appeared to alter in pattern and colour, and why the floor occasionally sent wisps of mist to curl about one’s uniformed trouser legs.

 The two alien members of the Commission a Hepatode in its globe with the transcorder bobbing up and down the circumference and a Deglatite, shielded from the eyes of the Imperfect by its carapace - were acknowledged by Farringer Ball.

 He began by expressing regret that the members of the CIS had been delayed in the performance of this duty by his own physical illness but he hoped they would appreciate the visit to this newest Sentient.

 The witnesses were then called, one after another, to give evidence to the sentience of the entity on which they all stood. Clodagh Senungatuck was first and spoke quietly and authoritatively.

 Doctor von Clough, who had assisted her throughout the treatment of Farringer Ball and that of the casualties from the South as well as Dinah O’Neill, testified to the tremendous healing potential of Petay-bee. He said, however, that much study would need to be done before it could be determined which elements of Petaybean therapy could be isolated from the milieu and used off-planet. Meanwhile, he would seek permission to transport certain of his patients to Petaybee for therapy similar to that which had been used to rehabilitate Farringer Ball.

 Then Sean Shongili, as the resident eco-biologist, delivered his short address in a concise and very reassuring manner.

 Colonel Yanaba Maddock-Shongili, co-administrator for, and in the name of, Petaybee, spoke of her experiences with the entity and her knowledge, based on a long and impressive military career with Intergal itself, that sentience came in many forms and this one differed only in size, and could certainly not be assumed to be less intelligent than any others. Namid Mendelsky’s testimony was an unexpected bonus, a complete corroboration of all the others had said, but with the additional weight of his scientific acumen and his professional standing in the field of astronomy.

 The astronomer had spent every possible minute in the Kilcoole communion cave, conversing with Petaybee.

 ‘The thing we must all remember about a planet awake barely two hundred years, gentlepersons, is that it is still a baby. While necessarily volcanic in temperament,’ he paused for their laughter, ‘Petaybee shows unusual gentleness and restraint in dealing with most problems and persons. It had told me that it regards anyone on or anything that happens on its surface or inside of it as an extension of itself, and makes what it feels are the necessary adjustments. It had queried me, for instance, on the physical aspects of the rest of the universe, though the nature of the universe seems to be something it understands instinctively.’

 ‘Excuse me, Doctor,’ one incredulous juror had asked. ‘But how exactly does it tell you that?’

 ‘Six months ago, I understand, it would not have done, which is a sign of how remarkably fast it can respond to certain stimuli. With the current crises caused by the outside threat from the Company and others seeking to utilize its resources before the planet has quite discovered them, the planet rapidly developed a direct means of communication. Its mineral content contains the same substances used in storing sounds for reproduction in computer equipment. The planet has always absorbed the words of those who speak within its walls - it stores the words and, like a baby, regurgitates them as echoes at what it deems to be appropriate times. Sister Igneous Rock and I have been having daily prolonged conversations with the planet, and like any child, its vocabulary and communication skills have grown as a result. Local people have always gone to these inner spaces, they say, to include the planet in the seasonal and critical events of their lives. It should be noted, and you may question them on this matter, that when Colonel Maddock and her companions carried small talismanic bags of Petaybean soil gleaned from the inner caves, they felt not only psychological comfort, but also some form of telepathic communication with the planet. This is not hard to imagine, given the telepathic links between humans and animals, animals and other animals (as witnessed by many in the incident involving the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company on the Southern Continent), and occasionally, as in an earlier incident, plants, the planet and human and animal agencies. Such links are so close that I personally am led to agree with Petaybee that, in fact, everything that comes within its atmosphere is part of the life of a highly complex and diversified organism consisting not only of minerals and elements, but of every living thing that comes in contact with its surface. This tremendous telepathic linkage and the need for “adjustment” of initially outside organisms to the planet are why Petaybee has at times had such a devastating effect on some humans. Perhaps in time this will be modified. Anything is possible.’

 ‘Anything is possible?’ asked one of the more literal-minded jurors. ‘Is this all there is to your theory? Have you no more definite conclusions?’

 ‘I have, as well as recommendations that I think the Petaybean inhabitants will agree with. The planet has infinite potential beyond anything I’ve ever seen, experienced or heard of in my career. However, it is a growing, developing entity and it must be nurtured and encouraged in finding its own best uses and values. New immigration must be monitored and numbers controlled so as not to overwhelm the available resources and, most particularly, so that newcomers to the planet can become properly acclimatized and adjusted without harmful after-effects.’

 Admiral General Sevilla-Dove was inclined to believe Mendelsky, though the opinion was not exactly what he had expected from an astronomer. But the Admiral General had noticed how the mist seemed to thicken on the floor when the locals spoke. And the air in the Hall also was fragrant with scents he only barely remembered from his childhood.

 This meeting was really only a formality and Farringer Ball whacked the gavel that made the whole thing right and tight in just under an hour and a half, the Admiral General noted.

 Then the formal meeting was thrown open to specially invited guests and a meal of finger foods, accompanied by a local drink called ‘blurry’, were handed round in celebration.

 The ‘invited’ seemed to be everyone on the planet, which might explain why the Arrivals Hall on a barely terraformed iceball in the middle of nowhere was as large as it was. For certainly people were not thronging to visit, or even vacation, on Petaybee in numbers that would require such a massive facility.

 Then a gaggle of musicians took their places on the dais where Farringer Ball had officiated. Their music was subtly enhanced in a fashion which kept one of his aides, who was musically inclined, trying to find out where the accoustical augmentations were hidden. The Admiral General waited the customary courteous hour and then made his farewells.

 He did spend a few minutes congratulating the Shongilis on their officially acknowledged status and he hoped that the planet would prosper. (How warm air could be blown up trouser legs securely tucked into his boots, Sevilla-Dove did not know, but when it reached his crotch, he was surprised and… relieved.)

 The fact that his aides also had experienced unusual physical pleasures did not impinge on his feeling that he had been specially singled out for the attentions.

 The Admiral General and his aides were the only members of CIS who did leave. But then they wouldn’t have understood how important today’s songs would be. The Hepatode and the Deglatite might not have been able to eat or drink but they each found a corner from which to watch the curious antics of the Petay-beans.

 Marmion had arrived sometime during the investiture and had much to regale her friends about certain ‘loose ends’ she had seen tied in appropriate knots prior to her return.

 ‘Macci was all but skint, despite his excellent salary with Rothschild’s,’ she told Yana, Diego and Bunny. ‘Actually, it was Charmion, of all people, who found out that he’s a gambling addict. He gambles for and on anything that anyone will take book on. And you know how some species regard betting as the only honourable form of entertainment. He was so deeply in debt that when… oh dear, it was Dinah again who made the contact… how is she?’

 ‘Much better. Remarkably so, in fact. Except for her hair, which she calls her new platinum blond look, she looks as good as she did before the cave - better in fact. Happier, certainly. Any place else, people would resent her but apparently in Tanana Bay she’s a bit of a celebrity, and thoroughly enjoying it. Chumia says she is writing a great song about her pirating days and how Petaybee got the best of her. And men who want to replace Namid are turning up on the doorstep from as far away as Katmandu, but Dinah doesn’t seem too eager to go rushing off. I think she enjoys having family near too much and having the chance to find out who she is without always having to scramble for something. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my word on the safe passage I guaranteed her and her crew, but I did tell her all along I couldn’t speak for the planet.’

 ‘What happened to all of them was no fault of yours, Yana. It was a direct result of being who and what they were. In spite of everything, it was the good part of Dinah’s nature that preserved her.’

 ‘The planet as the ultimate character-building experience, eh? I suppose so. Still, a bit rough at times,’ Yana said. It wasn’t so much that she felt any remorse towards the pirates as that her own honour was important to her. Dinah seemed to bear no ill will, however, arid Yana had quite forgiven her now that she was so changed. ‘Muktuk and Chumia are even letting her hunt on her own these days. So Macci was the victim of his own excesses?’

 ‘And willing to clear a few debts by leading us into danger.’ The set of Marmion’s lips suggested that she wasn’t quite as forgiving as Yana. ‘Pies, I’m relieved to say, was totally innocent. Her only sin was wanting to show him off without investigating his background thoroughly. Though how he managed to delude the Rothschild Personnel Bureau is a matter under the strictest scrutiny, I can assure you. Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company is having all its activities investigated to see if there have been other ecologically unsound “harvests”. It’s been quite exciting, really. But I’m so glad to be back here,’ and she tightened her hand on Namid’s arm. ‘If you simply have to stay and talk every day to Petaybee, I guess I’ll just have to ask permission to immigrate.’

 ‘Oh, we’ll have to enquire if that’s possible,’ said Sean with a very serious expression.

 ‘Sean!’ his wife chided him. And then he laughed, giving her an affectionate kiss on the cheek, and grinned at Marmion and Namid.

 ‘As if we dared take Namid away from his educational duties with Petaybee!’ Then he pointed. ‘Ah, the best is about to begin.’

 After the custom of latchkay singings on Petaybee, Buneka Rourke accompanied Diego Metaxos to the dais.

 ‘Diego has a song to sing,’ she said with more than her customary dignity and the assembled Petaybeans settled down to listen.

 Diego’s song was different from any other Petaybean song. It was neither a chant nor an old Irish melody with new words but a tune all his own, with Irish and Spanish influences and the beat of the Inuit as well, but also hints of the music of the other peoples of Petaybee and parts beyond. It spoke of growth and change, pain and discovery, the pain that had accompanied the awakening of the planet, the near-death of his father, the actual deaths of others, the cost of too much change too quickly to Petaybee, but how good a thing the change could be if it altered someone as it had Dinah O’Neill. And lastly, it spoke of his fear of change if it meant losing Bunny. He concluded with a hope that he could be like the planet and let the changes awaken himself and his beloved to lives limitless in possibility for adventure and love.

 There was a chorus to this song, with its repetitive theme of change and growth, and on every chorus, the voices of the people were joined by another voice, a big, melodious, joyous voice that contained all of theirs in a resonance of its own.

 The kaleidoscope turns

 The patterns change

 All we learn

 That once was strange

 Some will go and some will stay

 Some will cling, some turn away

 Some will wither, some will grow

 New friends come and old friends go

 Seeds and saplings, kit and pup

 Some grow down and some grow up

 Some fly away and some touch down

 While Petaybee planet spins around…

 The ‘around’ echoed particularly long and happily throughout the rest of the latchkay.

  

  

 Epilogue

 Contents - Prev

 Oddly enough it was the word ‘come’ invading her dreamless sleep as an undeniable imperative that woke Yana. And, the rumbling purr of the orange cat, Marduk, unexpectedly sitting right beside her head on the pillow. She felt the muscles in her belly shifting, not painfully, but definitely contracting, and she woke Sean. The cat jumped off the bed and stood imperiously by the door - as if she hadn’t guessed what needed to be done.

 ‘It’s time. I’ve been called,’ she said. He was up and half dressed before she could swing her legs to the side of the bed. But then, advanced pregnancy had slowed her once quick precise movements to awkward rumblings which she sometimes resented.

 Sean grabbed up the fine polar bear rug that Loncie had given her and threw it about her shoulders. He picked up the satchel which contained the necessary items and opened the door.

 Nanook was there and Clodagh had her foot on the bottom step.

 ‘I wondered…’ she began, smiling in the dawnlight up at Yana.

 When Yana and Sean reached the ground - the path to the cave well trampled in preparation for this moment - Clodagh moved to her other side. ‘Do you feel like walking?’ Clodagh asked.

 ‘It’s good for me.’

 ‘Yes, but is it what you feel like doing?’

 ‘Well, I have to walk as far as the cave, don’t I?’

 ‘Yes,’ Sean said. ‘That you must do.’

 Looking sideways, Yana saw that Sean’s lips were tight against the anxiety he was feeling.

 ‘It’s OK, Sean,’ she said gently, patting his hand. ‘It’s really OK. Hell, we know I’ve never been fitter.’

 ‘But you are not, so Sister Iggierock says, in your first youth.’

 ‘Iggierock has learnt a great deal,’ Clodagh said with a chuckle.

 And then they were in the cave which began to glow, a soft lambent one, welcoming, soothing and the little twitch of apprehension which Yana had so vocally denied eased.

 I believe in you, she told the planet. I believe in you.

 ‘Yes, believe,’ the planet said.

 ‘Oh, I believe,’ Sean said beside her since he must have thought the planet was speaking to him.

 They reached the spot that had been previously picked and the bedding and other necessities were there. They had no need of the extra lights, for the cavern was radiant.

 Clodagh helped Yana slip out of her flannel nightgown and then the first of the strong contractions caught her.

 ‘Breathe as you’ve been taught,’ Clodagh said, waiting until the contraction had eased before she led Yana to the water’s edge.

 Sean dived in and broke the water as a selkie, came to the two women, both of whom were now in the warm comfort of the water. Yana slipped down into it, found the ledge that seemingly had been created to cushion her while Clodagh made herself secure just below Yana.

 The mist began to rise then, but only on the ground behind them. Yana inhaled deeply of the scented, comforting moist air. The next contraction was harder, yet she didn’t feel it as ‘hard’ only as a working of muscles. She could relax. Petaybee was all around her, and her husband was as he wished to be at this propitious moment in his life, this miraculous moment of hers, and Clodagh would see to everything healing as she always did.

 A furred face stroked hers from out of the mist and she laughed when she realized it was Nanook - yes, and there was Marduk, too, and the gods knew how many more purring mightily in the cave for it echoed of ‘purr’.

 Another massive contraction which Yana, for one second apprehensive, thought much too soon in a normal delivery. Then she found herself wanting to push and panted as she’d been taught.

 ‘It’s much too soon for this stage,’ she said between pantings.

 ‘Well, you never know,’ Clodagh said comfortingly. ‘We’ve been here longer than you might realize.’

 ‘But we… just… got… here.’ Clodagh chuckled again and then was very busy, between Yana’s legs underwater. The water itself was bright, so Yana was able to view her upheld legs on Clodagh’s shoulders and know that the woman was submerged. Sean’s furred flipper-hand was on her knee and then a mighty convulsion and Clodagh came up out of the water, holding her hands up and Yana saw a silvery furred baby body in the capable palms.

 ‘Your son, Shongili,’ Clodagh cried and the cats gave voice to the most musical caterwaul possible, sounds not generally considered feline or musical but were a voluntary of welcome.

 ‘Oh my god,’ and Yana’s body wanted to repeat its previous confusion.

 A naked furry wet body was thrust into Yana’s hands as Clodagh ducked under the water again while Yana, consumed with a second mighty pushing, realized she was delivering a second selkie child.

 ‘How did that happen?’ she exclaimed as Clodagh surfaced with yet another squirming baby, this one already squalling at its lack of precedence.

 ‘You’ve a fine family all in the one go,’ Clodagh said, water sheeting off her smiling face.

 ‘Did you know I’d be having twins?’ Yana exclaimed, half of her appalled that that information had been withheld while the other half of her was marvelling at the perfection of her selkie son who, minutes old as he was, was already altering his form to human now he was out of the water.

 Clodagh gave a snort, hauling herself and the baby out of the water. ‘And you as big as a whale and didn’t guess?’

 ‘How could I guess? I’ve never been around pregnant women. Oh, he’s gorgeous… oh, oh…’ and suddenly Yana realized her son was completing his alteration to a totally human baby. Then Clodagh was holding her selkie daughter out of the water and the same phenomenon was occurring on that precious body. Sean selkie was embracing her, and the children,-his silver eyes wide with wonder and blinking water.

 They made a tableau then, the mother, father, children and midwife, selkie and human. Then all were totally human as Sean lifted himself out of the water. Now Yana realized why the planet had insisted on this birthplace and how easy it had made what could have been a very difficult session for her. Petaybee was learning, too. Namid said the thing to remember about a planet only a bit over two hundred years old was that it, too, was a baby. Every time it had a conversation or experience, it learned, grew, expanded its potential. As he probed for its secrets, it had questions of its own for him on the nature of what lay beyond it.

 By the time the afterbirth had been expelled and Yana was able to emerge from the water, she was flat-bellied and lithe again.

 Holding both arms out in gratitude, she thanked Petaybee, her words coming out almost as a latchkay song.

 ‘Thank you for the birthing. It was painless.

 Thank you for my strong son and my fine daughter.

 Thank you for their changing. Thank you for everything.’

 ‘You are welcome, Yanaba. You are welcome.’

 Yana couldn’t help grinning. Twice welcome for bearing twins? This planet moved in mysterious ways and what had it in mind for her children?

 ‘Welcome!

 THE END