Power Lines

by Anne McCaffrey

  “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 sláintes 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 ambience 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, permafrost 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 eyebrows and a mocking expression. “No use for lighting that doesn’t stink like sour milk? No use for power tools that cut your workload, 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 airshuttle overflying 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 asshole flyboy 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 nohow.”

  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 he 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 iceball. “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 sidearm, 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 an
ticipation.

  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 doorframe.

  “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 overlooked 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 overcome 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 overhead. Too late now. He rapped on the door: courtesy was always appreciated.