Murel just nodded.
A path had been cleared from the docking bay to the river, and the twins half slid, half ran down it to fling themselves at their parents.
They didn’t learn what was happening on the other ships for some time.
Next Clodagh enveloped them in a big hug. Coaxtl and Nanook almost knocked them down, saucer-sized paws on their shoulders and muzzles inspecting their faces before the rough cat tongues came out to lick their faces.
Clodagh said, “Come, there is a latchkay ready for everyone.”
“Everyone?” Murel asked in a worried voice. “The tribunal came too.”
“Everyone,” Clodagh repeated.
“For the feast and the dance,” Mum said.
Murel could have sworn every soul on Petaybee was already at the docking bay, though she didn’t see Ke-ola or Keoki when she looked for them, but delicious smells came from the longhouse, and noise, laughter, and music were pouring out of it into the snowdrifts.
When Da opened the door, she heard a scurrying, then saw people, both familiar and strange, lined up on either side of the firepit.
Though it was customary for Petaybean fancy dress to include at least one item of winter clothing, it seemed to Murel that the people before them were bundled up, their heads almost obscured by bunches of bright, knitted scarves.
“Slainté!” everyone called to the newcomers.
Then Ke-ola stepped up, kissed Murel on the cheek, took one of the scarves from his neck and put it over her head. “Aloha,” he said.
Murel and Ronan, who had been similarly treated by Leilani, Ke-ola’s older sister, said, “What?”
“No flowers,” Clodagh said.
Aunty Aisling elaborated as she put a scarf around Pet Chan’s neck. “Everybody liked the idea of meeting you with leis, but it’s winter. So we had some real fast knitting lessons. I hope Marmie brought that store-bought yarn I asked her for. We cleaned out every knitting bag on Petaybee.”
THE PARTY GAVE a friendly start to the tribunal. This was made even friendlier by the presence of the military prisoners who had been guests in Petaybean homes across the northern continent, where they had chopped wood, hauled water, fed animals, hunted, ice-fished, and were actually much too busy enjoying themselves doing basic survival tasks with their hosts to worry about escaping. There was no ship anyway. Where were they going to go?
During the dance, Murel noticed that some of the soldiers and some of the villagers had become very friendly indeed. The rather nice sergeant was introducing his Petaybean friend, Darla Oogliuk from Harrison Fjord, to his parents.
The fancy troop ship had been loaned as a conciliatory favor to Marmie, who acquired the roster of the hijacked ship and contacted the families of the soldiers involved, offering them free passage to Petaybee to meet with their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, husbands, or wives for a reunion, as her treat. “In thanks to our brave Corpsmen and -women for guarding our Petaybean friends and allies during another trying transitional period,” the politically astute Marmie had phrased it.
Ronan’s eyes widened in admiration when he saw the engraved invitation carried proudly by the cute younger sister of one of the women military “guests.” For a pretty honest lady, that Marmie can bead a moose turd with the best of them, he told Murel.
The tribunal was convened and dismissed the same day. No one would testify that any crime or even coercion had taken place. Colonel Maddock-Shongili and the others had come aboard the troop ship to warn the crew that their hull was icing over. The others stayed aboard while she went outside with the crew to supervise deicing procedures with which she, as a longtime Petaybean resident, was familiar. While her friends were still aboard the ship, it accidentally took off due to some sort of mechanical failure. By the time they corrected the failure, they had been informed by Federation officials of the situation on Gwinnet and were asked to accompany them to investigate.
Talk about beading a moose turd! Ronan said when the tribunal reached its conclusion that it was all just a big mistake and everyone involved in this incident was innocent of any wrongdoing or even ill will.
And adding a fringe as well, Murel agreed. That was a tall tale worthy of an entire latchkay worth of songs.
When all of the military, company, and Federation officials had returned to their ships and into space along with the soldiers—some of them promising tearful friends that they would return soon—and with their families, Marmie and her crew also boarded the Piaf. “I have much to do to restore my properties to the condition they were in before seizure, and my people will want to settle back into their jobs and see their other friends and family members, you understand?”
They did. They boarded with her long enough to pet Zuzu good-bye. Sky was nowhere to be found and had, indeed, been a bit subdued since the Piaf left Gwinnet. Zuzu, who was napping on the back of the chair at Adrienne’s duty station, opened one eye, stretched, yawned, and went back to sleep.
Returning to the village, they prepared for the real latchkay, the night chants at the communion cave.
As Kilcoole and its guests made the procession to the communion cave, the bright new scarves and hats worn by the returnees did indeed look like flowers against the snowy background. The setting sun cast a rosy glow on the white drifts, reflected from the magenta sky that was a sign the volcano was still busy building a home for the Kanakas.
As soon as the villagers reached the hot spring, they noticed that the water teemed with life—Honus and otters swam and dived to greet the celebrants.
Sky was among his hundreds of relatives until he climbed onto the bank to greet his friends. I have the biggest rock pile of any otter! he told them. Hundreds of rocks. Hundreds and hundreds. Females all want me to catch food for them—and other things. Males wish to hear my songs.
Of course they do, Murel said.
The whole planet wishes to hear our songs, Ronan told the otter. Let’s not keep it waiting.
About the Authors
ANNE MCCAFFREY, the Hugo Award–winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern novels, is one of science fiction’s most popular authors. She lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland. Visit the author’s website at www.annemccaffrey.net.
ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH, winner of the Nebula Award for her novel The Healer’s War, is the author of twenty-one solo fantasy novels. She has co-authored fourteen other novels with Anne McCaffrey. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Visit the author’s website at www.eascarborough.com.
BY ANNE MCCAFFREY AND ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH
Powers That Be
Power Lines
Power Play
Changelings
Maelstrom
Deluge
Deluge is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
McCaffrey, Anne.
Deluge / Anne McCaffery, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.
p. cm.—(Twins of Petaybee; bk. 3)
1. Shongili, Murel (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Shongili, Ronan (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Life on other planets—Fiction. 4. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 5. Twins—Fiction. 6. Space warfare—Fiction. I. Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann. II. Title.
PS3563.A255D48 2008
813'.54—dc22 2007033488
www.delreybooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-50505-7
; v3.0
Deluge Page 22