Power Lines (21 page)

Exterior sounds began to filter through to his awakened senses. He could smell fire, a big one, and had a horrible premonition of what a big fire might mean for a captured “monster.” He could hear sounds of quite a few people moving about without much energy, and two male voices, which seemed to punctuate the muted noises of the others with orders, too muffled for him to understand.

It was while he was trying to decipher the noise into conversations and understand the orders that he heard other small noises and then felt something sawing at the bindings of his feet.

“I’m cutting you free, monster,” a frightened whisper told him above the sawing. “Coaxtl said I must free you. That you are not a true monster but a proper creature, and you can save me. Coaxtl was my friend and kind to me. They are not kind to me here.” There was a small hiccup and sob, and suddenly the efforts of the frightened whisperer were rewarded and the thong parted. Fumbling fingers unwrapped the rest of the wet leather from Sean-Selkie’s feet. “Please don’t eat me, monster. I must help you.”

I won’t eat you, little one,
Sean said, for if she had been talking to Coaxtl, whom he had now identified as the clouded leopard that had saved him, she would hear him speak.
I am grateful to Coaxtl. I am also no monster who harms those who rescue him.

“Shepherd Howling says they are going to roast you in the fire.” Another piteous sob broke from the child’s lips as she snaked herself along his length to his hands. “And Dr. Luzon is trying to talk him into surrendering you for scientific study. I think that means cutting you up. Dr. Luzon said he would adopt me, but instead, he’s given me over to the Shepherd Howling. When Dr. Luzon is gone, I will be punished and then I will be married. If Shepherd Howling prevails, you may be my wedding supper. I would hate to see you suffer. Coaxtl says that if you die, other monsters will avenge you, and the flock would suffer. I know life is supposed to be suffering, but we suffer very much already and I think it is enough. More would be too much.”

Enough is too much,
Sean-Selkie said, trying to assist her sawing efforts by holding his bound wrists as far apart as possible to strain the leather thong. She had to be using the dullest knife in the world to take so long at her job, but he blessed her arrival and her attempts at rescue.

The wrist thong snapped and he inadvertently slapped her face. She gave a little gasp but no more than that, and it occurred to Sean that she was accustomed to blows. The thought infuriated him.

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 Pobrecita 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.