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...
"Huh?" was Diego's stunned response.
"Now," Fingaard said, taking charge, his roughened scale-scarred finger making circles on the wooden table, "we have an enemy who needs watching. We have a cave that has been damaged. Can this Petraseal be dissolved?"
"Yes, but the chemical compound of such a solvent is not available at SpaceBase," Sean said.
"It'd take barrels of solvent," Diego said, widening his eyes as he estimated the area to be resurrected. "An awful lot."
''Yes," Sean said. "Any solvent strong enough to dissolve Petraseal might very well be more harmful to Petaybee than the Petraseal is."
"If this has been done at McGee's Pass where the people are just like us, only vulnerable from not having a shanachie for so long," Ardis said, frowning in concern, "can it have been done elsewhere, too? Is it so easy for this Satok to mislead people so they can fail to hear the planet?
"That thought had also occurred to me," Sean said and sighed heavily. "We came here with a specific purpose…"
Fingaard's great hand came down on Sean's shoulder "There is much we can do now that we know what has happened, my friend, and you can pursue your personal quest which, I have come to feel, is as important as this new problem."
"Then you believed that Aoifa and Mala were right that there'd been an undersea passage to the south from the ford caves? If they were right, we could establish communications, maybe even a trade route, with the southern continent without company technology for air travel or ice-breaking ships."
Fingaard nodded solemnly several times. "In my father's time creatures emerged from the caves that were born on land, and not undersea, and not here in the north. Mala sent his track-cat back, but she had been badly injured. Only the great loyalty these creatures have for those they love could have kept the beast going until it reached us. We searched, as you know, as far as we could, but the cavern roof had collapsed and our way was blocked." This time his nod was full of sorrowful regret. "But we also saw nothing of Aoifa or her track-cat, Ugraine, so perhaps they were able to go further."
Sean laid his hand on Fingaard's arm, looking up at the large, concerned face. Now that I've seen the site, I think there's a chance that might have happened. I was going to come here and look before, but the accident took us all by surprise and I was delayed, what with arrangements to be made for Bunka and all-and then, when we held a night chant in their honor in our village, I got a definite sense that both of them were gone. Feeling that, I couldn't bring myself to come. Now that I have seen the tunnel, however, I get a little different sense of things. Someone could have got out, got to the other side. I owe it to myself and to the family to explore that possibility."
They were all startled by an unearthly screeching that penetrated the thick wall of the stone house. It rose and fell, deepened and split into savage howls. Growling deep in his throat, Nanook lifted his head from his paws, and his expression was one of offended dignity and disgust. Sean started to laugh, a tuneful descant to the cacophony outside.
"Why does that awful caterwauling make you laugh, Sean Shongili?" Yana demanded. The noise was earsplitting.
Ardis gave a disgusted expression. "The village toms are courting, not that I ever remember them making that much noise before."
Wiping tears from his eyes, Sean managed to control himself enough to explain.
"It's Shush." He turned to Bunny and Diego. "The McGee's Pass cat."
"Shush made it here?" Delighted, Bunny started to rise, only to have Sean push her firmly back into her chair.
"Don't interfere with her right now, honey. She wouldn't appreciate it." And he started to rock with laughter once more.
"Sean Shongili, that's not enough of an explanation!" Yana complained.
Unable to speak, Sean waggled his hand at Nanook who, with great condescension, spoke to Bunny. Once she got the message straight, she started to giggle, too.
"Not the pair of you!'' Yana said. She felt she could use a laugh right now with the rest of them.
"Shush was the last cat in McGee's Pass," Bunny said, -and there were no toms for her. I think she's making up for a lot of lost opportunities!"
"Do they have to do it here, and now?" Ardis protested.
''Now, lass,'' Fingaard said, grinning as he pulled his wife close to him, "you've sounded somewhat like that yourself a time or two when I've returned from a long voyage."
Half-irate, Ardis tried to push her huge spouse away from her, batting vainly at his hands while everyone joined in the laughter. "Never like that. you big oaf!"
One more excruciating cry jarred their eardrums, and then there was blessed silence.
"Well, then," Sean said, "let's turn in and get a good night's sleep. We've an expedition to start…" He turned queryingly to Ardis.
"Oh, Johnny brought all the gear you need, and rations for twice the distance," Ardis said, flicking her hand to the outside storage shed. Then she rose, gathering plates up as she did so. Yana and Bunny were instantly on their feet, followed almost immediately by Diego.
The cottage was very shortly occupied by sleepers, so no one noticed the small orange-striped cat who crept in wearily but utterly fulfilled and curled up near the hearth.
Johnny Greene was not at all happy to leave Geedee-how could anyone lumber a child with a disgusting name like Goat-dung-anywhere in the vicinity of Matthew Luzon, though he had perfect faith that she would be safe with Lonciana Ondelacy and her family.
He was especially worried because the child seemed far too content to be in Luzon's presence, looking up eagerly when he spoke and tripping all over herself to answer his every question. Who the frag had ever said that kids could tell scoundrels from saints?
And Luzon, the old hypocrite, was a real smoothie when reassuring the poor frightened and self-deprecating kid, while conveying at the same time how fortunate she was that he wanted to talk to her. Frag, she practically apologized for breathing the same air they did.
Johnny hadn't wanted to take Matthew along when he went to look up his old shipmate Loncie, now a grandmother and one of the community leaders of Sierra Padre. But Matthew had pompously declared that he was determined to do his duty as ranking company official in seeing that the girl had "a suitable placement," and Geedee had looked up at him with wide eyes and clung to his hand.
In the twenty years or so since Loncie had retired and returned to Petaybee, she had acquired quite a bit of weight, an air of authority far exceeding that she had wielded as a chief petty officer, and an incredibly large family. Now almost as round as she was tall, she wore her thick black hair, still only lightly threaded with silver, in an array of braids, secured to her head with an intricately carved and immensely valuable-Johnny saw Matthew looking at the artifact covetously-ivory comb that had not come from any creature supposedly native to this planet.
"Ah, pobrecita!" Lonciana cried when she saw the girl. She barely acknowledged Johnny's cautious introduction of Matthew Luzon and his assistant. Instead, she lifted and clasped to an ample bosom the startled, wide-eyed, scrawny waif. "Que lastima! What has life been doing to you?" Her black eyes snapped with anger directed at Matthew.
"Easy, now, Loncie," Johnny said. "We found her on the flats. She says she's from some hell hole called the Vale of Tears."
Loncie sucked her breath in between her teeth and her eyes narrowed angrily.
"We have heard of such a place," she said. "Tsering Gonzales's boy, who was never right in the head, he said he was going there. He had heard of the place from someone who came trading poorly made cloth for supplies-the man had a boy with him. The boy ran away and long after Jetsun left, Tsering heard tales the boy had told the family that took him in. It is a terrible place. They beat and frighten the children with the most outrageous superstitious nonsense and call it religion! Or so I've heard tell."