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...
Eventually, torches lit their way to their accommodation. Yana was so weary, it took her two attempts to get one boot off. Sean's chuckle and her immediate supine posture told her that he would take care of her, so she helped as much as she could as he undressed her, and shoved her under warmed fur robes. The last thing she felt was his arms pulling her against him.
She had dreams that night, of wandering amid teeth, down tongues that were white, through bones that were like rib cages, yet she wasn't afraid in that dream, merely curious as to what she would see next. And throughout the sequence, which repeated, she kept hearing murmurous voices, like singers distant and unintelligible. Yet she knew that the song was joyful and the tune uplifting, with the odd descant of what sounded very much like a purr.
As they entered the cavern, Bunny said to Krisuk, "So this is the place where Satok speaks to the planet."
"No. This is the place where he tells us what the planet says."
"But he doesn't give anyone else a chance to talk to Petaybee?"
"Oh no," Krisuk said bitterly. "He wouldn't do that."
"What I don't understand is why, if your people have been in communication with Petaybee all their lives, this guy can suddenly come and shut them up," Diego said. "I mean, so maybe he gets his bluff in on the people 'cause they don't get around much and he's a smooth talker-okay, I can accept that. But how does he shut the planet up?"
Bunny scarcely heard his last words. As she picked her way forward in echoing darkness, she suddenly felt as if she couldn't draw a breath, as if something inside her, a presence that she always had with her, was walled away from her, withering. The sudden terrible loneliness of being without that presence was crushing. She backed away, stumbling toward the sound of Diego's voice.
He was still talking when she reeled against him, clutching at his jacket. "Bunny? Bunny! What's wrong?"
"Dead," she said. "It's-dead. Out-gotta get-out!"
Alarmed, the boys helped her out of the cave. She sat down on the path, gulping to get air in her lungs. After a dozen deep inhalations of the cold wind she looked up at Krisuk.
"How can your people stand to go in there?" she demanded.
"Why? What's wrong?"
"It's dead, that's what! Somehow that bastard has killed part of the planet."
"How could he do that?" Diego asked.
"I don't know."
"I don't much like the place," Krisuk said, "and everybody else is uncomfortable there, too. I hear the songs about the joys of singing with Petaybee, and I remember when I used to love to come here, and I don't understand it. I sort of put it down to Satok's charming personality."
Bunny shook her head. "It's more than that. I'm surprised you didn't feel it, too. Diego, did you?"
"Maybe," he said, frowning thoughtfully. "When I was a kid one time, a ship hauled a derelict back to our station. They put it in the cargo bay. I wanted to see what it was like and I snuck in. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Was that what you felt?"
"I don't know. Maybe." Having escaped the suffocating sensation in the cave, she was too drained to describe it properly. The wind and icy rain were oddly comforting.
"I'm going back in there," Diego said suddenly. "Krisuk, maybe you should stay with Bunny."
"No." the boy said. "I'll go, too. It's forbidden for any of us to go in without Satok's say-so. Some who have disobeyed have never been heard from again. But if there's any kind of proof in there that Satok's not who he says he is, then my word will carry more weight than an outsider's. I don't think my folks would give up a second kid to that creep as easy as they let Luka go."
"Will you be okay, Bunny?"
Dinah chose that moment to press her wet nose against Bunny's ear and lick it.
"Yeah," Bunny said slowly. "Maybe I could even go back in now that it wouldn't take me so much by surprise."
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Diego said, eyeing Bunny's pale face and eyes staring wide with shock and grief. "Besides, somebody should stand guard. I wish we had a light, though-
"Oh, there's lamps in there," Krisuk said. "Come, I'll show you."
Bunny heard their voices grow fainter as they penetrated farther into the cave. Her fingers folded Dinah's fur and stroked her soft, pointed ears. Dinah whined and laid her head in Bunny's lap. Bunny felt like whining herself.
The little lamp threw the boys' shadows into grotesque skeleton dances around the smooth walls of the cave room. It was a large room, but it stopped abruptly about forty feet from the entrance. "Has it always been this small?" Diego asked.
"No. There was this accident, oh, a couple of days before Satok came. It was the first latchkay we'd had here since old McConachie died. People were goin' back into the place like we'd always gone, when all of a sudden there was what sounded like an explosion, and showers of rock and dust came spewin' out after us. We all ran, but the first few people, McConachie's family, his apprentice, they were all killed. I remember my Da and the other men diggin' for bodies. I was just a little kid then. I couldn't understand where my friend Inny McConachie had gone. That was old Mac's grandson, a good mate of mine."
"That's rough," Diego said, feeling along the walls "I lost a friend not too long ago, too."
"The woman in the song.?"
"Yeah. Wait a minute. What's this?"
"What?"
Diego's fingers dipped into a notch and a panel slid open; reaching out, his hands touched only empty space.
"How long did it take them to clean up the cave-in?"
"They didn't. Nobody wanted to. When Satok came, he pretended to be real sympathetic and went in to look for bodies. He brought out a couple of pieces of clothing and insisted we all go back into the cave to give a proper memorial service. I don't know why people went along with it. Guess everybody was kind of in shock. It's got to be about the worst thing that ever happened here."
"Not quite," Diego muttered under his breath. "Bring the light over here."
Krisuk did. The fumes from the mare's-milk lamp stank, but the acrid odor was almost welcome in the sterility of the cave. As Krisuk raised the little lamp, it illuminated an area of clean stone floor and clean stone walls.
"There may've been a cave-in here," Diego said with a snort, "but someone worked real hard to tidy it all away."
"It can't be!" Krisuk said. "The cave's been blocked off for years. Nobody comes in here except with Satok. Everybody's sort of afraid of the place."
"That's too bad," Diego mumbled, the thought coming to him like a stray line of poetry. "It should be the other way around."
"What?"
"Seems like the place had more reason to be afraid of the people-"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I dunno. It just popped into my head."
"Look, my people may be mistakenly following a sleaze bag but I still don't like them being insulted by an outsider…"
"Okay, okay. I didn't mean anything by it. Come on, let's see the rest."
"There's more?" Krisuk held the light up head high, advanced a step inside the new opening, and emitted a low whistle. "There sure is."
Even in the weak light of the lamp they could see that a good-sized tunnel had been cleared through the cave-in.
The floor still was mainly stone overlain with dust, but the walls and ceiling had an odd white sheen. Krisuk ran his fingers over it and sniffed. "No smell."
Diego leaned in closer and dragged his fingernails down the wall, leaving not so much as a scratch in their wake. "No, there wouldn't be. It's bonded with Petraseal."
"What's that?"
"It's what they use in mines these days to prevent cave-ins. They bond the rock surfaces to each other with this stuff. It's very strong. Nothing gets through. I wonder where Satok got it in this quantity."