Deluge
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Скарборо Элизабет
- Серия: The Twins of Petaybee #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Deluge». Краткое содержание книги:
Meanwhile, the powerful and avaricious Company is making another attempt to take over the world of Petaybee for its resources, and the twins parents, Yana and Sean, along with the entire planet, must fight for the independence of their sentient world once and for all...
Although she was female and around the same age as the others, she felt-well, it wouldn’t be nice to say better than they were, but different from them. Very different. So far the people their own age who knew about their secret had been fine with it, but she was sure some of these girls would be unable to handle it.
To keep things interesting, she tried to tell the girls the boys’ stories, leaving out the explosions. She was a little surprised at the ferocity with which Huy and Chesney inserted their own torments for their captors.
Chesney even knew something about setting explosions. When Murel told Ronan about that later, he agreed that it was something worth notice.
They relied on these nighttime conversations to push the boredom and fear away when everyone else finally quieted for sleep. They tried to remember and prompt each other’s memories of the navigation and piloting lessons they’d had aboard the Piaf. Galactic geography and periodic tables filled more of the quiet time, then puns, then songs and more songs from the potlatches and night chants.
It’s a good thing we can thought-talk, Murel said. Otherwise I’d go bonkers from boredom. Huy and Chesney can come up with some good gossip from the station, but they don’t know many songs, and the ones they know have words that don’t tell stories. I’m supplying most of those.
Rory’s pretty interesting, her brother told her, but the other boys, even the little ones, talk about games a lot. I saw some of them on vid when we were at Marmie’s, but I can’t say I understand the excitement.
THE SCARIEST THING about the journey for the twins was when their captors decided the prisoners should have a shower. Fortunately, it turned out to be a sonic shower, so they were able to avoid the water exposure that would have forced their change into seal form. Other than that shower, they got no exercise, so it was hard to feel tired enough to sleep.
When Murel slept, however, she dreamed about the river at home with its clouds of ice overhead and the fish so plentiful all she had to do was open her mouth to catch some. Ronan was in the dream, and later, when he described his dream to her, it sounded like the same one.
THE SOLDIERS ON the troop ship being rocked in its moorings by gusts of Petaybean blizzard wind were also bored. All except Spec 4 Greta Forcet. Fascinated by what she saw on the weather map, she put in a call to the bridge. “Sir, I think you should see this,” she said.
Captain J. Wilbank replied, “What’s up?”
“This weather pattern, sir. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Yeah, this is quite a storm. I didn’t know it was possible for snow to occur at temperatures this low.”
“It’s not only that, sir. It’s where the storm is.”
“What do you mean? Never mind, I’ll come and see for myself.”
Not only the captain, but two other officers and three enlisted personnel came to see what she was talking about. The storm’s ferocity made all of them feel under siege and eager for information.
“Look here, where the worst of it is-the heaviest snow and the highest winds are all right here, at the port and in Kilcoole. It’s like we’re being specifically targeted by the storm.”
“The river would act as a funnel-” the captain began.
“Yes, but the winds are not nearly so fierce along the river, nor is the snow so heavy.”
“Hmm. So if we penetrate the barrier of bad weather around the ship, we could send out another party to search for the locals.”
Forcet raised her eyebrows but said nothing. He might be right, but she wasn’t going to volunteer for the expedition.
“I don’t know, sir,” Lieutenant Chu said. “It’s like this place is haunted and the ghost is really pissed off.”
“That’s not it,” Spec 5 Ortiz said.
“Don’t contradict me, soldier,” Chu said. He had just made rank and was touchy about his authority.
“Sorry, sir, ” Ortiz barked, saluting smartly.
“Let her talk, Lieutenant,” Captain Wilbank said. “Well, Ortiz?”
“It’s just that I served with a couple of guys from here, sir. From what they said, the problem isn’t anything dead. It’s what’s living. They say this world is alive and has a nasty temper.”
“WALK A LITTLE to the left, please, Yana,” Clodagh said as she reentered the cave. “That groove you’re wearing in the cavern floor should be wider so folk with bigger boots can still walk there.”
Yana knew her pacing was driving everyone else nuts, but once more her entire family had left her without saying where they’d gone. That drove her nuts. Waiting for news was very high on her list of things she hated to do. Or not do. It was the kind of thing her former superiors would have called “a character-building experience.” She had certainly acquired the family best designed to build her character. And now they were testing her patience by running off without a word at a time when she needed to think clearly and act without hesitation. Instead, concern for them left her feeling unable to make a decision about when to act.
Clodagh, dressed in winter gear, had been in the outer cave, holding a veritable reception for every land creature on Petaybee from the look of it. Pairs of wild eyes stared into the cave. In height they could have been anywhere from taller than a man-a bear perhaps?-to very small indeed. The only ones Yana could identify for certain were Clodagh’s gold-striped cats, who came and went as if the snowstorm was of no concern to them. Like Coaxtl the snow leopard, they had extra-wide feet; tufts of fur padded their paws like snowshoes, and similar tufts warmed their ears.
“Has the storm let up at all?” Yana asked Clodagh.
“Here it has,” Clodagh replied with the enigmatic brevity that characterized most of her utterances in general and nearly all of her answers to other people’s questions. Clodagh’s tall, round body, clad in her furry snow pants and hooded parka, mittens, and mukluks, made her resemble a comical bear. This was especially true since over her parka she wore a kusbuk, a flounced, mid-thigh-length, hooded covering worn in summer as a lightweight top and in winter over the parka to protect the precious coat from damage. The villagers loved sewing their kusbuks out of the brightest fabrics they could find, making them easier to spot in a snowstorm and adding a bit of cheerful contrast to the often-bleak winter landscape.
“How about at sea?”
“Sean and the kids will be fine, Yana. But those company folk are socked in.”
“They are?”
“The ones in the village hid in the longhouse. The ones on the ship can’t get out.”
Bunny Rourke, Sean’s niece, said, “I bet they wish we were still home to build fires for them and make them nice hot cups of rose hip tea.”
“Rrrright,” Yana growled. Johnny Green, Pet Chan, Raj Norman, and Rick O’Shay threw down the cards they’d been shoving back and forth in a desultory imitation of poker and looked at Yana expectantly. She smiled much as a wolf viewing a pen full of fat sheep might have. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said quietly, so as not to alert the other villagers, “perhaps it’s time to extend the planet’s hospitality to our guests.”
“I’m going too,” said Sinead Shongili, Yana’s sister-in-law.
“Shhh,” Yana said. She didn’t want to risk any of the native Petaybeans being captured, since an adult who had adapted to the planet would die when removed from it. But Sinead was a hunter who knew the land as well as she knew her beloved Aisling. She was the game warden for their area-a cool head and a sure shot. They could use her. “Fine, but keep back in the woods and cover us. We can’t risk you getting caught.”