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...
"What's up?" she asked, sitting down beside him in a space made available by a resettlement of many orange bodies.
Liam Maloney is not pleased at what happened to Dinah, Nanook told her. The cat sat perfectly still and stared into Bunny's eyes through his own wide golden ones, the message rumbling into her mind as all of the more complicated messages did. The cat's vocalizations were limited to the few short human terms within the range of its speech centers. These longer communications needed a bit more concentration, especially with a neophyte recipient such as Bunny or Yana Maddock. With Sean Shongili it was a different matter altogether. Talking to Sean was second nature.
Bunny sighed. "I knew Liam would be upset but he does know she's recovering and is being very well treated?"
Nanook licked a front paw briefly to indicate the affirmative. He passes on that there is trouble at Deadhorse like what you found at McGee's Pass. Trouble also waits at Wellington and Savoy.
Bunny thought about that. These were the four towns most remote from Kilcoole, and each of them had been reported by the cats as being in favor of mining. She couldn't help but wonder if each of the towns had also had recent changes in their shanachies. She gave a convulsive shudder. If there were any more like Satok, the trouble was bigger than she'd ever conceived it could be. And if all four of those villages had had their caves coated in Petraseal… She shuddered again.
"What else?" she asked, sensing that Nanook was waiting for her to absorb that information.
Satok has been visiting these other villages. Satok has friends in all of them. The reports, by the way, are from track-cats and feral cats. No more like Shush live in those villages.
"The hell he has!"
"What's the matter, Bunny?" Yana asked, startled by Bunny's loud, angry outburst.
"But what can we do about it?" Bunny asked quickly, waving to Yana to keep on with what she was doing.
Nanook licked the tip of his tail thoughtfully. Clodagh has been informed of all. There is more. When the pilot man goes south, we must go with him.
"Sean's not in danger, is he?"
Nanook blinked. We go south, too. Then he stretched his long body out across the sun warmed stone of the wall, and Bunny knew he had finished talking to her.
She went back to Darby and picked up where she left off.
"What was that all about?" Yana asked. leaning against Darby's rump.
"Nanook says we'd better go south with Johnny." She added hastily, "No, Nanook doesn't think Sean's in trouble, but he does think we should go south."
Johnny Greene did, too.
"I'd have to go back even if I didn't want to check up on the kid," he said. "Whit wants me to keep an eye on Luzon. Actually, I was supposed to pick him up at Sierra Padre a couple of days ago." Johnny grinned unrepentantly. "Had engine trouble."
Bunny cocked an eyebrow at Johnny.
"Oh, I'll have a real one for Dr. Luzon," Johnny said, brushing aside her skeptical reaction. "But I had a sudden premonition, like, and since I've rarely had one that strong before that didn't turn out that I should have listened more closely, this time I did. So I called in a few favors and sorted the problem out. Just in case." Then he grinned with all the abandon of a boy who had just pulled the best practical joke in the world on his worst enemy and there'd be no way of assigning guilt to him.
"What have you done, Captain Greene?" Yana asked, resuming her military attitude.
"Nothing, Major sir, to bother your head about." He laid a finger alongside his nose and winked at her. But for all the amusement in his eyes, his expression told her she'd get no more out of him and to let the matter be.
She nodded. "Something which will no doubt please me in days to come?"
"I devoutly hope so, considering the effort I've put into it. Now, since I've had my bath, food, sleep, and more food, let's load up. Nanook wants you south, he gets you south. Ah, and you're coming along with us, are you, Nanook?" The black and white track-cat had strolled up to the copter and was peering inside it. "He doesn't much like flying, you know," Johnny added. "Looking won't change the flight process, pal."
Nanook crawled under the second row of passenger seats, tucked his tail tight against his body, and laid his head on his paws. His whole attitude was one of patient resignation to an inevitable fate.
"Well, he's stowed. Get yourselves aboard." Johnny gestured for Bunny and Diego to sit over Nanook, while Yana took the other front seat. Then he handed around headphones so they could all communicate during the long journey south
They knew something was wrong the moment Loncie carne to the door.
"Luzon?" Johnny asked simply, and got a stream of Andean invective that was both colorful and inventive, the gist of it being that the son of a scabrous tarantula had stolen La Pobrecita. Pointed inquiry around Sierra Padre by the entire Ondelacy/Chompas clan had brought forth the information that the vomitus spewings of an excrement-devouring long extinct reptile which would eat its own mother without shame or serious second contemplation had taken the only snocle in all of Sierra Padre, Lhasa, or any place this side of Bogota, which was, as Juanito knew, a very long journey, especially at this uncertain time of year.
"When did all this happen?" Johnny asked quickly.
"The day after you left, Juanito. I thought she would be safe playing with my own ninos! I was a fool! A fool!"
Johnny was too angry to say anything more. Mostly he was angry at himself. He should have known Luzon would stop at nothing. At least the man hadn't hurt Loncie or one of her family in the kidnapping-not that they'd ever be able to prove it was a kidnapping. He nearly, but not quite, regretted the two days he had taken to make his private arrangements. One thing was certain: They'd have to move, and move fast, if they were to get the girl away again. This time he was leaving her nowhere near Luzon.
"Didn't she scream? Or-or anything?" Bunny asked, pushing herself out from behind Johnny's back.
"She went willingly, from what my children know of it," Loncie said. "She feared the man, one could see that, but he was the sort she would follow because he is what she is used to, what she has been taught to love. Well, perhaps not love, but someone who acts as she expects people to act. She cannot imagine anything else and so allows him to return her."
"She didn't accept it, though, did she?" Bunny demanded, not just of Loncie but of all the adults and Diego. "She ran away, didn't she? We've got to help her!"
Yana put her arm reassuringly around the girl's shoulders. "That's what we're here to do, Rourke. All the lady is saying is that the poor kid had been so brainwashed, she rejected happiness because the concept was so unfamiliar that it was scary."
"Ah!" And Lonciana nodded vigorous1y. "You have said it. But, come, enter. The evening meal is prepared and you must eat. You will never find this secret place from which she comes in the darkness. Also, you must tell us all that is happening to bring such a planet-defiling dung-sucking leech as this Luzon to our world, and we must sing together."
"Our timing's great, kids," Yana said, trying to inject a little bravado into the currently demoralizing state of affairs. "We may have a song or two to pass along ourselves. Was anyone from this village at Bremport?"
Loncie's eyes brimmed suddenly, and Yana understood the term "dolorous" as she never had before. The woman's chins trembled and her mouth contorted with sudden grief. Yana would have touched her arm, but Pablo was there already, his small frame supporting his wife's larger one like steel scaffolding.