Power Lines

by Anne McCaffrey

  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 nightgown. 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 Pobrec
ita 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 prepuberty?” 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 gatehouse. “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 sellout 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 somewhat 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 ver
y thing. I do believe we have shortchanged 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 boardwalks 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 underbrush. 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.

  “Sláinte, 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. “Sláinte, 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.