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...
One thing that particularly excited Matthew was that the girl in no way resembled any of the Chompas/Ondelacy family. Nor could he see her gray eyes and light hair as placing her among the African or Afghani residents of this sector. No, she belonged to a different ethnic group than he had seen down here thus far, and he was eager to learn if others at the Vale of Tears were as different-both in appearance and outlook-as she seemed to suggest.
He took polite leave of them that night, and spent all the next day, with only Braddock to help him, trying to find alternative air transport. Finally he settled for a snocle. He was warned that, since the thaws of autumn had lasted unusually late this year and winter was not yet fully upon the continent, they might require many detours.
"Planet should be colder in the high country though," granted the man who rented them quite a battered machine. Luzon suspected that the man had no right to have access to one at all and, to add insult to injury, he charged them a Large enough deposit to buy a small space station. Matthew smiled sourly but paid, knowing he could easily confiscate the machine if he so desired. But just now he desired to keep a low profile.
In his preparations. he had already gathered that Sierra Padre would be as fruitless as Bogota in his quest for those who didn't speak of "the planet" or "Petaybee" as if it were a friend or neighbor or possibly a close relative. Such superstitious idiocy! He had high hopes for the girl's Shepherd Howling, however, whose nonsense was no less superstitious but in a more useful vein for Matthew's purposes.
Once provisions and other appropriate gear had been acquired and stowed in the machine, Matthew awaited the moment to acquire the final piece in this phase of his investigation.
The girl played right into his hands. While the other children in the huge woman's huge family played at building a snow fort from the new snow of the night before, Goat-dung-he, at least, would give her the proper name bestowed upon her by her culture-sat alone beside a spindly birch next to the pen containing goats. Maybe there was more to her name than just a convenient identity.
Matthew strolled up to her casually, saying, "Goat-dung. I require your assistance."
"Sir, I am told my name is now 'Cita."
"By those who mean it kindly but do not know the significance of your true name, yes. But you and I know that their kindness is nevertheless a falsehood, do we not? You were given your name for a reason."
She dropped those pale calf-eyes of hers and said in a tiny voice, "Yes, sir."
"I wish to speak to this Shepherd Howling."
"I won't go back there!" she said with more spirit than he thought she had left. "I won't!"
"Of course not, of course not, my dear child. I understand your feelings. You are deeply ashamed to have left the community under a cloud, to have been unable to measure up to the simple things your shepherd required of you. But I'm sure he will forgive you and allow you to separate from the community once I explain to him that you are more valuable out here, to me."
"To you, sir" she asked, the hysteria fading from her voice and being replaced by awe.
"Why, yes," he said. "I need a research assistant who is native to this planet, and who better than yourself? If you work out, I will adopt you as my daughter."
"Your daughter, sir? This unworthy one?"
"Through hard work and appropriate behavior, you may yet become worthy. But first you must be very brave. Come along and I will show you what is required."
She got to her feet and took his hand, with only one backward glance at the house of her erstwhile guardian. He knew very well what he was doing. By replacing the feared figure of the Shepherd Howling in her mind with himself, someone stronger, probably better spoken, and certainly more rational, he placed himself in the role of both master and protector. Oh yes, she would certainly obey him as un-questioningly as she had ever obeyed her-he smiled at the quaint crudity of the primitive notion-betrothed.
On the way back north, Johnny radioed in a coded report to Whittaker Fiske, along with an inquiry about the clouded big cat that had kept Geedee company. It wasn't like any track-cat he'd ever seen. He received a terse acknowledgment. "Received and acknowledged. I designed no such cat. Ask Shongili, Happy buzzard-watching. W.F.
When Johnny finally stretched his legs at Harrison's Fjord, Sean, Yana, Bunny, Diego, and Nanook had already started on their journey down the cave that had swallowed up Bunny's parents twelve years before. The presence of Liam Maloney's lead dog sleeping by the fire in the Souniks' house naturally resulted in Johnny being brought up to date on all that had happened at McGee's Pass.
"Satok used Petraseal to block the planet off!" Something very cold descended Johnny's backbone. "Frag it, Fingaard. Do you know how much of that stuff is stocked at SpaceBase? Have you any idea what could happen if anyone, Matthew Luzon in particular, found out what Petraseal can do to our caves?"
Ardis's face was stricken. "The boy, Diego, has made a song of it."
"Well, let's just bloody hope he doesn't sing it."
"He already has. What he had finished of it, at least," Fingaard said in a deep bass whisper.
"Frag!" was Johnny's explosive response. He was pensive for a long moment and then, with one blink of his eyes, became the affable, carefree copter pilot they knew so well. "I'd better get back and report in. Gotta get refueled, and then I just gotta come back this weary way again. See ya!" He tipped his peaked cap at Ardis and strode back to the copter, hands in his pockets, whistling.
With Nanook padding along in front of them, occasionally taking a short tangent before coming back, the four of them made forty klicks down into the cave at Harrison's Fjord. Within the first hour they had swung away from the path that led to the fjord's planet place and started descending. The slope was fairly steep at first, but soon began to have an easier gradient. Once the luminescence lit their way, they had no need of the artificial hand beams and carefully stowed them away.
"This isn't at all like the other caves I've been in," Diego remarked when they reached the easier gradient.
"I doubt you'll find two even vaguely similar," Sean said with a smile.
"Have you been in all of them?"
"No, I haven't. That'd take a lifetime, I think," Sean replied with a grin. "My grandfather found the first one, more of a cleft in the rock than a real cave. He knew, of course, that there were cave systems just under the surface. That's the way Terraform B works, but his finding the cleft was pure chance."
"Did it lead into something like this?" Yana asked, glancing about her with the wonder and sense of welcome she always felt in a Petaybean cave.
"Not directly, according to granddad's notes, but he didn't have as much chance to explore as he'd liked, since he was busy doing what he could to make it easier on the animals Intergal decided would adapt well to this climate." Sean gave a snort at Intergal's needless arrogance "Grandmother located the hot springs at Kilcoole and went looking for others, with my father strapped to her back to hear him tell it, and my oldest aunt-the one my sister, Aoifa, was named for-either on a sled or strapped to a curly-coat's back. Grandmother really liked a decent hot bath every day and took one no matter how far she had to tramp to indulge herself." Sean grinned nostalgically, as he had been a part of those forays. "I know she taught me how to swim…" He glanced quickly at Yana and winked. "My father and his two younger brothers found and mapped many of the caves we now know and use. I think I learned their where-abouts before I learned to spell."