“Why should I help him?” Diego asked.
“You guaranteed safe conduct,” Dinah reminded Yana.
“I didn’t mean against natural disasters,” Yana said. “He’d be no great loss to me.”
“He’s still a human in trouble on my planet,” Bunny said, down on her stomach and ready to give assistance. “Diego, Namid, hold on to my ankles!”
Marmion hesitated only a moment before extending the link by grabbing Diego’s ankles.
“Oh, very well,” Yana said, and started to flop down on the ground, but Namid shoved her away and took her place, holding Marmion’s ankles.
“You must think of your child, Colonel,” he told her.
“Here, Megenda! Take my hands,” Bunny told the pirate. “We can pull you out, but you’re going to have to turn loose of the shuttle first. Swing your body this way.”
Megenda let go of the shuttle and grabbed Bunny’s arms so quickly that she screamed in pain. Next he got a hold of her long hair, pulling himself half out of the freezing water.
The ice cracked ominously under the load it now bore and the edge disintegrated abruptly so that Bunny hung facedown into the opening, looking into black water while the pirate hoisted himself over her legs to Diego, whose grip on Bunny’s ankles slipped as she tilted downward.
When Megenda hauled himself onto the secure bank, Yana walloped him on the jaw with Dinah’s laser pistol.
“Get off those kids, you ass!” she commanded. He slumped sideways, relinquishing his hold on Diego’s arms. Dinah and Yana scrambled forward on their knees to haul the girl out of the hole.
Yana collapsed in the snow, coughing and panting, while Diego and Bunny nursed various bruises and strains the big pirate had inflicted.
Dinah crept forward and peered over the edge of the hole, then considered the precarious cant to the shuttle.
“I don’t suppose they can just fly out of there, can they?” Yana asked.
Dinah shook her head. “One skid is caught under the edge of the ice. They’re off balance.”
“On the bright side, at least the shuttle seems to be able to float.”
Bunny said, “Yana, we gotta get out of here. I can feel the temperature dropping, and this gear of theirs isn’t good for more than minus seventy-five.”
“It gets colder than that this early?” Dinah asked, appalled.
Bunny nodded. “I’d be all right, I expect, but the rest of you are in trouble unless we get to shelter pretty quick.”
“Have you got a clue where the town is, Bunny?” Yana asked.
“If we’re right on—almost in—the bay, it’s got to be over that way,” Bunny said, pointing to what looked to Yana like an identical piece of the snow-covered terrain all around them. “Sorry. I usually come by dogsled along the trail and don’t need to pass this way. I’ve no landmarks here, except the mountains, so we’ll have to head that way until I can get my bearings. And we do have to move or you’re all going to freeze.”
“Right,” Yana said. “How about the communion place? Do you know where that is from here?”
Bunny shook her head. “It’s within the town someplace is all I know. When it was their turn to give the latchkay, I was sick and couldn’t go.”
“Okay, then,” Yana said, “let’s move out. On your feet, you,” she commanded, using her toe to nudge Megenda, who groaned but remained limp.
“You shouldn’t have hit him so hard,” Dinah said.
“I should have let him drown,” Yana told her. “And he’ll be the first to freeze, wet as he is. So come on, Namid, Diego, you’re strong! Let’s get him up and head on out of here.”
Gal Three
Dr. Matthew Luzon, striding along the corridor from the shuttle that had brought him back to his head offices on Gal Three, was feeling very good. Assiduous application of the physiotherapy exercises, careful diet, and self-discipline had completely restored him to the level of physical fitness that he deemed necessary for a man with his responsibilities.
He had been reviewing applicants for the positions left open by the defection of the highly paid and supposedly loyal assistants who he had brought with him on the disastrous Petaybee investigation. Those who had survived the initial stages of security clearances were awaiting him in his office. He was going to start afresh on the many tasks awaiting him as he looked ahead, for bigger and better things.
A gaggle of people coming from the passenger lounge were advancing on him in a solid phalanx. Frowning, he gestured with his right hand for them to clear to the side to allow him to pass. But then he saw the reason for such a mass: an invalid vehicle, one of the newest types, was in the midst of the people, its occupant turning from left to right as he issued a stream of orders, which were being recorded. To Matthew’s intense surprise, the man in the chair was none other than Farringer Ball, Secretary-General of Intergal: the one man he cared less about seeing than any other in the galaxy; the very one whose intransigence had resulted in the wretched planet being adjudged sentient and autonomous, ruining all Luzon’s careful plans for its future.
“Why, Farringer,” Luzon said in his heartiest voice, tingeing it with concern and sympathy, “whatever has happened to you?”
“Luzon?” Farringer’s voice was a wispy croak, and Luzon was genuinely shocked at the man’s condition. The chair obviously contained life-support devices; Luzon was now close enough to see the tubes running from the man’s body to a machine under the seat of the chair. “Recovered from your injury?”
“Indeed, and I could wish you the same good fortune. Whatever has reduced you to this sorry state?” Not that Luzon wasn’t delighted to see that justice was being served. “On your way to Petaybee, are you? For one of their miracle cures?” Luzon smiled graciously.
“To Petaybee?” Farringer Ball’s wheeze went up an octave, and he stared at Luzon in surprise. “Why should I go there, of all places?”
“Why, hadn’t you heard? Since the board so nobly decided that Intergal should withdraw and allow Terraform B its autonomy, every drug company in the galaxy is trying to sign up the exclusive rights to the therapeutic treatments only available there.” Partially true, of course, since representatives were on the planet, although, according to Luzon’s informants, none of them had reported back to their head offices, or anywhere, on the results of their missions.
“What therapeutic treatments?” Ball snapped, and half of the crowd around him looked expectantly at Luzon for the answer.
Luzon then realized that medics of various sorts made up most of the groupies around the secretary-general.
“Why, I thought you’d have heard. You always know what’s going on in the medical field.” Luzon could afford to be slightly condescending: poor health was Ball’s true reward. “There is something about the pure air and organically grown food products on Petaybee, not to mention the ambience, that absolutely changes a man!”
“It does?” Ball wheezed. “How?” He peered suspiciously up at the obviously robustly healthy Luzon. “You only broke your legs . . .” His tone implied that a pair of broken legs didn’t take much healing.
“True.” Luzon leaned down conspiratorially. “But then I didn’t need the special sort of healing that only Petaybee provides. We really shouldn’t have let the planet out of our control, you know. You’d be glowing with health again if you’d taken the cure there.”
“Taken the cure? What cure?”
“Now, that I don’t know in any particulars, I’m afraid,” Luzon replied, knowing that he had Ball just where he wanted him. “Of course, now that Intergal no longer has any rights on the planet, its administrators—if you can call such novices by that term,” he added, permitting a belittling sneer to color his voice, “are of course setting up a monopoly on the surface. I really feel that one cannot put a price on such natural benefits, and one certainly shouldn’t restrict those who are chosen to receive the cure to such a narrow category . . .”
“What category? What monopoly? What natu
ral benefits?” Ball’s agitation made his wheeze worse and he started coughing, a dry, hard, rasping sound despite the fact that he was also spraying spit around him.
Luzon moved a discreet step to one side. “Well, I’m no longer au courant to the latest developments, but they have been amazing. Truly amazing. I wonder that none of your medical advisers have suggested the Petaybean Cure to you. It’d make a new man of you, I’m sure.” From the avid expression in Ball’s eyes, Luzon knew that his little spiel had had the desired effect. “Do hope you’re feeling better real soon, Farrie. Nice to have seen you. Must rush.”
As soon as he had left the gaggle behind him, Luzon indulged in a smugly satisfied chuckle. The transport business he had backed to get as many people to Petaybee’s surface as possible might have come to a crashing halt, but there were other ways of overloading the planet and proving that it could not take care of itself and/or its inhabitants, much less any visitors. CIS would have to step in and alter the current arrangement. Planets could not, should not, go about managing themselves, not in a well-organized intergalactic civilization. Citizens of the galaxy had the right to pursue commercial ventures whenever these were possible. Citizens were also guaranteed certain basic rights—rights that Petaybee jeopardized by its very existence.
And then there was the matter of Marmion de Revers Algemeine. Luzon had heard nothing on the news media, about the kidnapping. “Nothing” on that situation was the best news he could possibly imagine. That took care of her—permanently. When was it he and Torkel Fiske were to meet? He tapped up his engagements on his wrist pad. Ah, this evening. Very good. They had a lot to talk about. Petaybee might not be a lost world after all.
21
Tanana Bay
Muktuk and Chumia had been home ten days when Sinead arrived on skis. As she was delivering her message while wrapped in warm blankets and sipping from the hot tea Chumia brewed for her, one of the men on sea watch reported that a very funny-looking seal had just beached itself off the ice pack.
“Sean!” Sinead cried. She threw off her blankets, pulled on her still snow-wet coat, and headed out the door, the others behind her.
“Sean?” Chumia asked, open-mouthed. “Your brother Sean?”
“Bring clothes!” Sinead yelled back over her shoulder to Muktuk, but Chumia had already shoved Muktuk’s latchkay snowpants and parka into his arms.
“By all the powers that be, if it ain’t the guy himself!” Muktuk said when he saw Sean striding briskly toward them, sanguine, purposeful, and naked.
“Nobody mentioned this was a dress occasion,” Sean said, grinning. “Sis, I’m glad to see you. Have you told them what’s up?”
“She said somethin’ about that pirate kinswoman of ours maybe comin’ for a visit,” Muktuk said.
“That’s right,” Sean said, pulling on the snowpants. “And we want to make sure she has a warm reception, don’t we? We’ll need to get as many folks as possible armed with whatever they have.”
“We told her if she lost her job she should come,” Muktuk said reluctantly. “Greeting her with an armed mob doesn’t seem real hospitable.”
“Not a mob, a posse,” Sean said. “She and one of her henchmen hit Adak O’Connor over the head and stole that aerial map Whittaker Fiske gave us to get them here. I don’t think she’s coming here to settle, Muktuk. I’m hoping she’s ready to do a deal for Yana, Bunny, and the others. I doubt she’ll come without a suitable escort of her own, so we’ll need a suitable one, too.”
“Right you are, guy.”
Sean was impatient to get the welcoming organized, but Chumia was firm that he needed to be fed and dried properly. While doing that, he could still tell them what he had in mind.
“We don’t want to be rash and hurt the poor girl if she’s only running scared,” Chumia said. “Perhaps her boss made her hit Adak. Maybe that other man was her boss and she’s still tryin’ to get loose from him.”
“You’ve seen no sign of a shuttle? Or any strangers walking in?”
Muktuk snorted at the latter and shook his head over the former.
“Well, either way,” Sean said, “I need to visit the communion place.”
“Sure thing, guv. Chumia, you get that end of the rug and I’ll get this.” Together the Murphys pulled away the thick rug woven in shades of green and gold in a stairstep pattern. A trapdoor was revealed, opening onto well-worn steps that led to the permafrost cave Sean remembered from three former latchkays. The first time he’d come to Tanana Bay for a latchkay and had seen three villages’ worth of people pouring into the O’Neills’ tiny cabin, he’d been astounded, until he’d seen a line of folks disappearing into the floor.
Now he and Sinead descended the stairs carved out of stone and ice. Chumia held a lamp for them while the family cat scampered ahead, nearly tripping them. “It’ll be dark down there,” Chumia said.
But it wasn’t. One entire wall of the entrance chamber was glowing with a pattern of phosphorescence similar to the sort that Sean had seen in the underriver grotto.
“My goodness, will you look at that?” Chumia clucked while the cat rubbed against the wall, then stretched so that its paws touched the lower part of the design. “You’re going to think I’m a terrible housekeeper, guy, letting mold grow in the communion place. It’s never done that before. Didn’t think it could, permafrost being ice and all.”
“Never? These aren’t here from the last latchkay?”
“No, sir. What’s all these wiggles mean?”
“Looks like waves,” Sinead said, peering closely. “Here and here.”
“Waves . . .” the cave repeated.
The cat chirruped as if it, too, was trying to say “waves.”
“It is,” Sean said, pointing to the apex. “This must be where we are now—near these waves, and this circle represents the rest of the north—then more waves outside and the outer circles—”
“Waves, circlessssss . . .”
“What about the lines that end in circles here?” Ignoring the echo, Sinead pointed to the spiraled figure somewhat to the left of the midpoint between the lines. “And here? This one’s clear down beyond the waves. What do you suppose it means?”
“Trouble spots?” Sean guessed. “Like before?”
This time the echo didn’t repeat itself. “Means trouble spots like before,” it said distinctly.
The cat jumped as if someone had thrown water on it, and bolted back up the steps and into the house. They could hear the cat-door flap still flapping as they continued studying the diagram.
Dinah O’Neill was not happy about leaving her shuttle stranded on the ice like some sort of a monstrous sea animal.
“It’s watertight, isn’t it?” Bunny asked her, and shrugged when Dinah had to admit it was. “Then even if it falls into the water, they’re all right in there, aren’t they?”
“Sink?” Dinah cried aghast.
“Well, not really,” Bunny said. There might have been some who thought she was deliberately teasing Dinah O’Neill, but she was merely thinking out loud. “Besides, I think that hole’ll freeze over as soon as it turns dark and the shuttle’ll be okay. Frozen in, of course, but safe. Speaking of freezing, we’d better get going. Yana, I’ll scout ahead. You keep the others moving, okay?”
Yana flipped her a salute. “Aye-aye, ma’am. We’re right behind you.”
What Bunny didn’t say—nor did either Yana or Diego mention—was very obvious to them: the sun was westering and they hadn’t much daylight left to get where they wouldn’t freeze. Bunny struck out at a good pace toward the general direction of Tanana Bay. She would have preferred to go straight across the frozen inlet toward the main trail but that would waste time, which they didn’t have much of. So she headed toward the nearest high ground. Maybe there she could get a good look at the lay of the land and correct their path. She was also aware—though she didn’t mention it—that her little pouch of dirt was acting like a miniature hot bottle, its heat keeping her warm.
Humans were so dense and so slow. Punjab didn’t know how the planet put up with them sometimes. Even drawing them a big picture wasn’t enough.
Obviously that business across the water would have to be delegated—if humans were too thick to understand, perhaps birds or walruses would have to explain it to them—but it was not a job for cats. This simple task clearly was, however.
With satisfaction, Punjab felt the snow freezing to ice with each warm touch of his heavily furred paw, as Home cooperated with its chosen messenger, the feet of the planet, as Punjab’s kind considered themselves. Confidently, he trotted on toward his quarry.
Bunny devoutly wished for her snowshoes as she blazed a trail through the two-foot-high drifts, her feet sinking through to the knees with each step. She deliberately squashed down as much snow as she could every time she made a track, but it was laborious going. After a short time, she returned to the others to encourage them and see if she could help.
Megenda was shivering so much that he staggered. She thought of giving him her jacket, since she could stand the cold better than he could. But her jacket wasn’t big enough to do him a damn bit of good. Nor was anyone else’s. And the pouch, which was doing such a fine job of making her feel warm, also wouldn’t help the first mate.
When they reached the first copse, she considered starting a fire to dry him at, but that would take too much time out of the little daylight they had left.
Bunny gave Megenda full marks for keeping up, despite his shuddering chills. It was Dinah O’Neill who was having the worst time of it, being rather short of leg and having to take little running steps to keep up with the others. But she grimly plodded, skipped, and hopped on, and didn’t fall more than a step behind.
Diego was beginning to puff, too. Those walks about the pirate ship had not been any substitute for proper exercise. He was grumbling and annoyed that Bunny didn’t seem to be as affected as he was.
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