Powers That Be

by Anne McCaffrey

  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 herself. 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 fingers 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 Sean 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 try
ing 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.

  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 wa
y 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.”