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...
Marmion raised an eyebrow and he desisted. "Anyway, I can't and won't interrupt my work to go. But Matthew's done some crack investigating before, and Marmie will bring back the goods. I'll be guided by their evidence."
"That's a relief," Whit snapped. "You sure as hell haven't shown any inclination to be guided by mine, or that of Metaxos and Margolies."
"Of course I have. I read the reports and I haven't evacuated the place and stripped it back to rock yet, have I?"
"Sir," Torkel Fiske said. "What about the additional troops? And I insist that Major Maddock face an official inquiry and possible court-martial for her actions."
"We're already talking about an official inquiry, Captain, or hadn't you been paying attention? If the inquiry determines that there's been subversion or sabotage, I doubt Maddock will have gone far, and she may he able to assist the investigators. Now then. There'll be an escort with Madame Marmion and Dr. Luzon, of course, and additional technical personnel. If we decide to evacuate, we'll call in more then. Meanwhile, you've got enough manpower on hand already, I should think. It's not like an army's going to be any help stopping earthquakes and volcanoes. This meeting is concluded."
Goat-dung knew that she was evil, willfu1, spiteful, malicious, and would someday, if she didn't mend her wicked ways, be prey for the creature from the bowels of the planet. She had been told so often enough, as the welts from the Instrument of Goodness impressed the lessons on her backside.
For her crimes, she usually got the hardest, dirtiest work to do of any girls her age; but when the warming came, melting the ice falls on the sides of the cliffs and turning the floor of the Vale into a great lake, the rest of the community joined her in scrabbling up the sides of the Vale to higher ground, carrying with them the teachings of the Shepherd Howling and all of his sacred implements, plus what food, clothing, and housing materials they could salvage. All of the greenhouse gardens were lost and many of the animals had drowned.
For days the waters rose up the icy walls of the Vale, creating slush and even mud underfoot and also a steaming mist that made it impossible to see. Goat-dung and the other children, packs strapped to their backs, climbed the walls of the canyon and carried dripping parcels to the adults, then splashed back down in the bright cold water to try to retrieve other articles.
Bad as she was, even Goat-dung was so used to obeying the will of the community, the will of the Shepherd Howling, that she failed to see the possibilities for escape in the situation.
She'd just climbed up again after falling three times back into the water. Shivering with cold, muddy, scraped and bruised, half-naked, she huddled by the fire and ate the bowl of thin soup she had at last been permitted to ladle out for herself. The soup was mostly cold, and the fire, a pitiful stinking thing of still-damp animal dung, was nothing but a slightly sultry draft that failed to chase the ache and chill. It didn't banish the goose bumps, never mind the frigidity in her bones.
For once, no one else was better off than she, however. The one hundred or so followers of the Shepherd huddled along the rim of the steaming Vale of Tears, their lives and homes inundated by the Great Flood the Shepherd claimed had been sent to try them.
The monster seeks to subjugate us to its will in this fashion," the Shepherd said over and over again. "We shall not succumb. When the waters subside, we'll return to our Vale and continue to defy that which would corrupt us."
The Shepherd, instead of staying within his offices and superior quarters, was now among the flock organizing, counseling, exhorting-and observing. Feeling the disapproving eyes of the rest of the flock on her was bad enough, but twice Goat-dung looked up from her misery to see the Shepherd himself watching her, and his regard made her colder than the waters in the Vale.
She rested from her last climb, as the short day drew to a close and the mists from the Vale crept up over the edge of the encampment. She heard soft footsteps approach and Conception, her belly as flat as it had been before the Shepherd married her and her name was still Swill, squatted beside her.
"Good news, little sister," she said.
Goat-dung said nothing. Until she knew what Conception wanted, silence was safest.
The other girl, a bare four years older than Goat-dung, held forth a piece of metal. "You've been chosen," she said simply, and rose to go.
Goat-dung stared at the piece in her hand. It was cut into the shape of a heart. The Shepherd had chosen her to be his wife.
"What? When?" she called after Conception.
Tonight," the older girl called back and was lost in the mist.
And that was when she did the worst thing she had ever done in all of her wicked days. She ran.
The mist covered her trail and the slush muffled the sound of her steps. She ran as hard and as long as her exhausted, undernourished body could. She had no idea where she was going. She had known no other people but her own, though sometimes the Shepherd made allusions to others, outsiders, those who had fallen into error. They were horrible people, the Shepherd said, who would sacrifice girls like her to the Great Monster.
Better that than be a dutiful wife to the Shepherd, like Swill-Conception and Nightsoil, now known as Assumpta. Wives of the Shepherd, though they were no older than children, were given adult names, usually related to the Teaching.
Assumpta, once a rosy-cheeked, titian-haired angel of a girl, full of childish agility and grace, was now old at thirteen. She had lost four children to a bleeding disease and had been beaten after losing each one. She no longer walked very well.
Conception, on the other hand, was still barren at fifteen, and she was beaten for that, as well. Their own mother, Ascencion, was another of the wives, and supervised the beatings herself.
Goat-dung's mother had also been the Shepherd's wife, although Goat-dung was not one of his own lambs. One reason she was so wicked, the others told her, was that her parents had been outsiders. She had been too small when her mother died to realize it, but it was said that her mother had been an extremely unrepentant outsider who had not wanted to be the Shepherd's wife and had been prevailed upon to accept the blessings of union with him only through the firm kindliness of the flock. No one among them had met Goat-dung's father, who had died in ignorance and error and slavery to the Great Monster.
Goat-dung ran and ran, splashing through slush, hot with her effort as long as light remained in the sky, then ran to keep from freezing as the night swallowed the planet. The moons came up and she stumbled on by their light. She ran on and on, down and down, as if into another Vale. Looking back, by the moonlight, she saw the peaks of the mountains behind and above her: the monster's back, its snout, its teeth.
She dragged herself farther. Down here the slush gave way to mud in places, and a stream ribboning down the mountain steamed just as the water in the valley floor did. As she drew near it, it gave forth warmth, and when she touched it, it was as hot as if it had been heated in a pan and only cooled slightly.
She eased her way into it. It was deeper than it looked and had quite a current. It buffeted her along, lapping her with warmth, until it ran into a kind of tunnel, carrying her with it.
She was too tired, too full of lassitude from the water, to avoid being swept into the side of the mountain, and remembered, just before she hit her head on a rock and all became blackness, that the Shepherd taught that this was the very sort of place never to be caught.
Chapter 2
"Well?" Bunny Rourke asked breathlessly as the elders and the company friends of the Petaybeans filed out of the building. She handed the reins of the curlies to each rider. "How'd it go?"