Power Lines

by Anne McCaffrey

  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 overlooking 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 Wisdoms 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 windbubble—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 be 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 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 cloaklike 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.

  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.”