Power Lines (24 page)

“But will this one be all right?” Luka sobbed. “Satok killed all there were in McGee’s Pass, you know.”

“We’ll know if the spine has been damaged when it regains consciousness, but I don’t think Patchog would be cleansing the wound if he didn’t think the cat had a chance.”

Marmion watched the exchange with interest. Shortly after Torkel had left to investigate the arrival of the shuttle, Luka had arrived, bearing the cat’s limp body in her arms and crying. Entrusting the cat to Aisling’s tender ministrations, she had turned away from Marmion to whisper urgently with Sinead and Aigur.

Immediately Sinead had turned to Marmion. “There’s something we have to do now. I can’t tell you what or why, but Aisling will stay with you and help you, if you’ll agree to detain Fiske and any guest he might have with him when he returns for as long as you possibly can.”

“But why can’t you tell me?” Marmion had asked, a little offended.

Sinead gave her a warning look, which told Marmion enough right there. This was not something that they didn’t want her to know, but something that, for the sake of her position, she should not want to know. She had nodded agreement and quickly helped Aisling conceal the cats as the other women disappeared into the village.

Now Torkel and his companion had gone, leaving Luka, who had been weeping for many reasons, only one of them the injury to the cat. She seemed ashamed and frightened, chagrined and relieved, and wept with all of these emotions, stopping finally as her tears fell on Marmion’s soothing hand. She looked at that elegant hand on her filthy, torn dress and then up at the kindliness in the beautiful face.

She looked to Sinead and the others. Sinead, searching Marmion’s face, nodded sharply.

“All right, ma’am, I’ll tell you now,” Luka said. A sly smile curved her mouth until the recently cut lip made her wince. She snuffled, wiped her nose on the back of her hand, and then began to explain what facts she knew, repeating, evidently verbatim, conversations she had overheard.

She spoke of a man who had been one of the outcasts of Petaybee, who had never known what even Marmie had experienced in the cave, who had joined the company after turning against his own planet, and joined pirates after turning against the company, as well. Luka herself had been dazzled by him when he first came to McGee’s Pass, claiming he was there to help them over the grief following their great tragedy. “That was before I knew he was after causin’ it himself, ma’am. He as much as killed the McConachies, he did, and convinced us all, the devil, that the planet had turned against us. All the time he was takin’ from the sacred place, though I didn’t know how or why until I was well away from there, I swear I didn’t. When I started gettin’ suspicious and would have returned to my own people, he gave me to one of his bloody accomplices, as if I was a sack of beans, and that man told all in the village that I my own self was a reject, one Petaybee cast out and made
mad. All the time they were takin’ stuff out of the planet, and I learned that they was killin’ it in bits, so that it couldn’t harm them when they took from it. But I heard him say that when the little girl from Kilcoole came and he was found out, that now was the time to sell out to the company, and he brought everything to show yer man the captain. So I got the notion, even then, that maybe when the captain looked, what was in the shuttle wouldn’t be of any interest to him, but would have changed to common rock. Sinead and Aigur here helped me, as did others in this town. But I fear we were too late, for the captain already saw the real stuff.”

“Which you didn’t,” Sinead said. “So all you have is hearsay from us.”

Marmion nodded wisely. “I see.”

“But I’m that worried about what they’ll do now, ma’am,” Luka said. “For that evil man knows where more’s to be found, and if the captain believes him . . .”

Marmion nodded, waving her understanding with elegant fingertips while her mind was already leaping ahead on the problem. Fiske in unwitting collusion with pirates? How far was he prepared to go for these little mining projects? She almost wished she didn’t know as much as she did now, because the whole issue brought her into something of a conflict of interests. She felt great sympathy for the Petaybeans, but realized that her position as a nonpartisan investigator for the commission was already severely compromised.

“Ah well,” she said. “The exchange was, of course, a very clever idea, although naturally I would have been forced to forbid it, had I known. Did Aisling and I give you enough time?”

Sinead snorted at the very notion that she couldn’t organize a simple exchange like that, even if it had taken every available villager and every rock they could find in the clearing.

“I think we better start back now, dama,” Sinead said.

“I would be honored if you would call me Marmion, as my friends do,” she told Sinead, including Aisling, Luka, and Aigur in her glance.

Sinead gave her a thoughtful glance and for one dreadful moment, Marmion thought perhaps that she might not live up to the criterion Sinead Shongili expected of “friends.” Her smile was much like her brother’s and oddly shy, as if she did not give her friendship that often.

“Then we are honored . . . Marmion. May we stop at Kilcoole first, though?”

“Of course, I was going to suggest that. Clodagh and Whit will have to be informed . . . unless,” Marmion added, smiling ruefully at the still able-bodied orange cats who had slipped in to join the big cat in its attentions to their fallen brother, “they already
know
.”

“Some, but not all,” Sinead replied with a smile, as she and Aisling began to pack up their belongings.

At first light, the weather did not look too encouraging, but Yana gave Johnny an appealing look as he turned from the window, and he threw up his hands in surrender.

“Might be damned bumpy,” he told her.

“I’d risk more than that,” Yana told him.

“Me, too,” Bunny added. Diego only gave a sharp nod of his head.

Loncie insisted on packing them some food, which Johnny said he’d replenish on his next trip north.

“Ay,
de me,
and someone will go hungry here in the meantime? Off with you,
amigo,
and do not concern yourself with such details at a time like this.
Find
La Pobrecita, and
that
is more than enough.”

When they were strapped into their seats, with Nanook crouched again in the rear, enduring his discomfort valiantly, Johnny took off. Once on a southeasterly course, he handed Yana an aerial map.

“I want you to double-check something for me. It seems to me the Lacrimas River runs pretty straight from the mouth, which is almost directly opposite Harrison’s Fjord. Am I right?”

“I see what you’re getting at,” Yana said, unfolding the chart and giving it a shake as she searched it. “You think that the undersea tunnel might come up near the Vale of Tears?”

“Well, it’s more of a possibility than you might think,” Johnny said, not sure enough to mention
why
he thought it a possibility, even as he mentally matched the face of ‘Cita with Bunny sitting behind him.

He shook his head. Shongilis all had unusual bone structure, so, unless Granddaddy Shongili had warmed a few beds he hadn’t dared mention to his possessive wife, Johnny could think of only one logical conclusion.

Yana perused the map and gave a yelp of triumph as she found the two relative points; then, with a worried frown, she said, “Johnny, there’s two thousand miles between the two continents!”

“Uncle Sean thought there’d be that at least,” Bunny said, releasing her seat belt to lean over Yana’s shoulder.

“Belt up!”
Johnny said in a roar that reverberated in the small cabin and made Nanook snarl. “Sorry.”

Yana passed the map over her shoulder to Bunny.

“We made it in about a hundred and fifty miles to the cave-in . . .” Bunny began, her voice trailing off. “That isn’t very far . . . considering . . .” Her voice went on, slightly muffled as she bent down to Nanook’s head. “You did say Uncle Sean was alive, didn’t you?”

Nanook sneezed, and Bunny sighed, not completely reassured.

They traveled a long way in silence broken by Diego, who whistled odd little snatches of tunes and muttered to himself. The others respected that he might be working on a new song. Bunny looked out her window at the endless snow, shaded blues and grays and occasionally lavenders in the shadows. She could see the distant jagged teeth of spiky upthrusts and wondered which set of them rose above the Vale of Tears.

Then, just as they were approaching the general location of the Vale of Tears, they saw the glow of a huge campfire, sparks rising high above it. Bunny shouted unintelligibly, grabbing Johnny by the shoulder and pointing downward; at the same time, Nanook made a sudden attempt to squirm out from under the seat. Johnny issued loud orders for everyone to keep their places and shut their faces. Following Bunny’s screeched directions, he circled the copter to starboard. Below, it was possible to see the three figures stumbling and falling down a hill, actually rolling in one case, leaving a pattern of bloody circles on the snow. One of the figures was feline. Nanook let out an ear-piercing yowl, a sound Bunny had never before heard a track-cat utter.

To her astonished gaze, the cat on the ground looked up, and she could see its jaws opening as if to give voice to a similar cry.

“Tighten your fragging seat belts, all of you,” Johnny cried. His warning was unnecessary: his passengers could feel the turbulence he was fighting as he tried to land.

He was making a low pass to examine the dangerously uneven terrain below when Yana pointed to the bleeding man lying on the ground and cried out, “That’s Sean down there!”

“And La Pobrecita with him,” Johnny said. “I’ve still got to have a reasonably flat space to put this bird down without splintering a skid. Bear with me.”

Using the three figures as the center, Johnny circled until he spotted a suitably level place. As soon as he landed, Yana, medikit in one hand and a bundle of extra winter clothing in the other, was out of the plane, Bunny and Nanook right behind her. Just as Johnny was about to follow, Diego pulled at his shoulder and pointed to the top of the rise and the swarm of folks coming over it, brandishing an odd assortment of armaments.

Johnny motioned for Diego to take the LD-404 down from its brackets over the entrance to the cargo bay as he checked that he had clips for his hand weapon and the spare automatic he hauled out from under his seat Then the pilot and Diego followed the women and the track-cat.

Yana was kneeling beside Sean, wrapping him in the winter clothing and tending his wound. Bunny assisted in the medical chores, searching for the items in the medikit Yana demanded. The track-cats stood about six meters from each other, sniffing, tails twitching amiably enough. The child, in a fur jacket much too large for her, was huddled against the clouded cat, wide eyes in a frightened white face.

Diego caught Johnny’s arm, staring a question at him as he pointed his free hand at the child. Johnny grinned and nodded, and then turned to watch the progress of the mob slipping and sliding down the hill toward them.

“ ‘Cita, Señor Luzon is as bad a man in his own way as Shepherd Howling,” Johnny said in a gentle voice, bending down to the child. “Loncie was real upset to see you got talked into going with him. So we came to take you away, back to your own people.”

“This unworthy one has no people,” ‘Cita said, getting an even firmer grip on Coaxtl’s fur.

“That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo,” Johnny said. “Bunny, come here.
Now,
pronto!”

Both Yana and Bunny looked around, their faces showing disgruntlement at being interrupted. Both stared, and Bunny’s mouth dropped wide open.

“You must be—you can’t be anything else . . .” Bunny’s hand wandered to her cheek, her nose, her lips.

“Your mother made it through, niece of mine,” Sean said, nodding solemnly, looking from Bunny’s face to the thin gaunt one of a child who was so obviously a blood relative.

“But I am Goa—”

“Don’t you dare use that name for yourself, Pobrecita,” Johnny said, angrily shaking his finger at her. “Buneka Rourke, this is your sister, though I think we can find a better
proper
name for her than ‘Cita, or Niña, don’t you think?”

“A sister!” And Bunny was folding the startled child into her arms. “A sister of my very own! Everyone I know has at least a sister or a brother, and all I’ve ever had were cousins . . .”

“And uncles and aunts,” Sean prompted through gritted teeth as Yana yanked the bandage to make sure it was firm about the jagged arrow wound.

“Hey, we got trouble,” Diego said, staring up the hill. “If that isn’t Matthew Luzon, my name’s not Diego Metaxos, and I do know my own name!”

“And the good and reverent Shepherd Howling, too, I’ll wager,” Johnny added, noticing the man in flowing robes beside the Intergal vice-chairman.

“Oh, he’s come for me. He’ll make me marry him . . .”

“Marry him!”
burst from five throats.

“Not while
we
live!” Johnny said in a voice that sounded much like the snarls issuing from both track-cats. “Bunny, get your sister into the copter and stay there!”

“She’s my sister and I’ve the right—”

“Go,” Sean said and pointed to the copter. “Lock the doors.”

“There’s a box of flares, Bunny. Get ’em out, and if you see me circle my hand, aim ’em at that crowd.”

“Gotcha!” And, lifting her sister into her arms, Bunny sprinted back to the safety of the copter. Push come to shove, she’d fly it out of there herself—she’d watched Johnny often enough to understand the principles of the yoke and the gearing. No one was going to get
her
little sister, not when she’d just found her.

Johnny handed Yana the automatic and the clips, slapping Sean’s hand away when he tried to get the weapon.

“You handle the cats, Sean. That is, if the clouded one will take orders like Nanook will,” Johnny suggested.

Both cats growled low in their bellies, making their necks vibrate as they took positions on either side of Sean Shongili.