Power Lines
- Автор: Маккефри Энн, Скарборо Элизабет
- Серия: Petaybee #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Power Lines». Краткое содержание книги:
Only solid evidence would convince the company to leave the planet alone, and for all its sentience, Petaybee's communications were highly subjective; indeed, some outsiders seemed entirely immune to its voice. So Yana and her friends would have to find some other way to prove that the planet was worth more to the company alive than dead...
Diego shivered, hugging himself and managing to look resentful as he did it.
The blond boy, Krisuk, was in one of the beds beside them, and he threw a quilt down to Diego. "Here you go," he whispered.
"Don't you need it?"
"I can put on my parka. I just wanted to tell you, it was great hearing you tell off that blowhard."
"You mean you don't think he's the heart and soul of the planet like everybody else here seems to?" Bunny whispered.
Krisuk made a rude sound, but quietly.
Just then, from outside the cabin, came a series of furious barks.
"Dinah!" Diego said, sitting straight up.
Iva and Miuk looked up, then pointedly rolled back over to sleep; the children other than Krisuk pulled their quilts up over their head. Soon the barking was replaced by scratching at the door and whining.
"She can't come in," Krisuk said. "His Highness has decreed that animals aren't allowed in the house with people."
But Diego was already at the door, unlatching it and bending over the agitated dog. Bunny rose, too, with Krisuk stealing softly behind her. Since the dog could not come in, Bunny and Krisuk joined Diego outside, where he was rubbing her fur and talking to her.
"She's trying to tell me something. I know she is," Diego said. "But she's so excited it's all scrambled."
"Darby and Cisco!" Bunny said, remembering the curlies.
"What?"
"Where are they?"
''I oh, shit!" he said.
Krisuk made a face. "At least he left the dog."
"Who?"
"You know-him," Krisuk said, pointing his chin up past where the houses ended. "He thinks anything worth having belongs to him. Besides, I saw the way he was looking at yer woman here." He nodded to Bunny. "I think he means to keep you here, as well as have the horses."
"He'll keep nothing," Bunny spat. "Including the hold he has over this village. I don't know how he's managed to do it, but I know that, if he's the only one who communicates with the planet here, there's something seriously wrong."
Diego said cautiously, "We did promise if we had cause to think this might get dangerous, we'd go meet Sean and the major first.''
"Well, we can't very well go without the horses now, can we?" Not and make it there in good time. We'd be sitting ducks for that-that-witch doctor!" She used the term she had heard some of the company men apply to Clodagh sometimes.
"Your horses are gone." Krisuk said in a hard, practical voice. "No one can have back what Satok has claimed."
Bunny put on the voice she had heard Aunt Moira use with recalcitrant children and puppies. "Don't be daft. Satok is just a man-a greedy one at that."
"Everyone says he's the voice of Petaybee."
"Everyone's gone bloody deaf then," Bunny said. "No one creature is the voice of Petaybee. In Kilcoole, anybody who wants to speaks with Petaybee. This planet is perfectly capable of making itself understood to anyone who cares to listen."
"Then why does it only speak to us through him? I hate him, but the only time anyone hears from the planet, or anything good comes to McGee's Pass, is when we go to the summonings in the cave up there."
"The one where we met you and your mother first?" Bunny asked.
"The same."
"Well, let's go back there then. I'm on good terms with the planet. I'm quite sure it won't refuse to speak to me. And besides, he might have hidden the curlies there."
"No, the horses will be up there," Krisuk said, gesturing with short jabs of his fingers, "at his house, on top of the cave, on the meadow above the ridge."
Dinah whined softly, and Diego stroked her. "You know, Bunny, I think the horses would follow Dinah, if they're not tied too tightly."
"He'd take your dog as well, or kill her."
"We'll see," Bunny said. Her chin jutted forward and her fists clenched as she marched up the road to the cave mouth. The wind was loud tonight, howling along the tree-tops and roofs, rattling doors and windows, picking up anything loose and banging it around. It occurred to Bunny that the planet was already speaking, if people would only listen, and the message was loud and clear. It was not pleased. Not pleased at all.
"Bunka, wait!" Krisuk whispered urgently. He grabbed her arm as he caught up with her.
Diego was at her other side. "We can't wait any longer. This guy already stole our horses. Who knows what he'll do next?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. She"-Krisuk nodded to Bunny-"especially shouldn't go."
"Why not?"
"You didn't meet my older sister, Luka," he said. His tone was so angry and anguished that it stopped both Bunny and Diego in their tracks. They were just beyond the last house now, about two hundred paces from the cave mouth. "She got sent over to Deadhorse by Satok. But before that, he took her."
"What do you mean he took her?" Bunny asked. "You mean raped her?"
"No. Not at first, anyway. At first, he was such an important man, she was thrilled that he had chosen her. Why shouldn't he have? Even though I say it as her brother, she was the prettiest girl in the village, and a smart, hard worker, too. When she was younger, it was thought she might be a healer like Clodagh. She was always singing, always talked to everything in the friendliest fashion. She got kinda funny when she became a woman though. I think maybe people made too much of how pretty she was and what a good catch she would make. And the local fellows-well, there weren't many in her age group, and none of them were quite right. When Satok came, he flattered her with his attention, not just because she was pretty, but he played on her shaman powers too, how close she had always been to Petaybee. If I didn't hate him so much, I guess I would have to say he's not bad-looking. He seems bigger-than the other fellows here. She was very excited. Thought she had met her match. My parents thought she would marry him, but he just moved her up there with him, not that there was that much to move."
Slowly now, and more cautiously, they were walking against the wind, their heads bent together, their hair flying in each others' faces to hear what Krisuk was so urgently trying to tell them. As they reached the cave mouth and Krisuk thrust aside the bush that guarded it, the wind quieted as if it had suddenly been extinguished. Bending low, the three of them stepped inside.
Chapter 7
"Coaxtl, wake up. I think they've found me," Goat-dung said into the wispy fur of the cat's left ear.
Coaxtl stretched and yawned. Who has found us, youngling?
"The Shepherd Howling and the flock. They're coming to take me back."
Coaxtl rolled over and sat up on her haunches, front feet propping her erect as she listened to the low voices speaking in words that were not quite intelligible. After listening for a moment, the cat lay back down again.
Fear not, child, it is nothing but the voice of home.
The Shepherd Howling had spoken of the Great Monster, who seemed to be the same being the cat called Home, and how the monster had a voice, though the Shepherd always described it as a growl or a roar or a gnashing of teeth or spewing of spittle or something equally nasty. He said the Great Monster had its counter part in all of the tales of Earth, of the under world guarded by the bones of dead men and of terrible devouring fires and tortures. When he had her or any of the other members of the flock punished, he reminded them that if they didn't mend their ways, the Great Monster would do much worse to them when they died still in sin and error, uncorrected by his teachings.
Horrible serpents and worms and flame-belching beasts were supposed to guard the Great Monster, or be aspects of it. The underworld held all of these bad things, according to the Shepherd. Goat-dung wondered if she would see them. So far, she had only met Coaxtl.
The cat's unconcern should have lulled her back into exhausted relaxation from her adventures of the past two days. But she found that the voices-and the possibility of returning to the flock-had frightened her so much that she couldn't sleep.