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...
'The Great Monster is devious and wily and tireless in clutching for the souls and bodies of virtuous men!" Shepherd Howling declaimed.
"Indeed!" Matthew snapped at him. He turned to the boy. "If I wished to return to the helicopter I would never have landed here, young man. Please assist us out of these weeds and take us to your shanachie and Captain Fiske at once."
"Never heard of no Captain Fiske," the boy called back lazily, obviously enjoying their situation, "and we run the shanachie off."
"Did you?" Matthew stood among the stinging brambles and digested that.
"You heard him, sir. Let's get out of here," Braddock whined.
But any inclination Matthew might have had to do just that had vanished with the boy's words. "Now why did you do that, son?"
"He was a wicked man, sir. Tryin' to make us think the planet wanted one thing when it wanted the other."
"I'd very much like to talk to you about that, son. Please get us out of here." Matthew, despite the stings, turned on the force of his not inconsiderable charisma.
The boy shrugged and disappeared. Matthew and Braddock shoved Shepherd Howling back and sat in the copter while a crew of villagers arrived with various stones and pieces of board to make a path for them. Matthew was somewhat surprised that they hadn't brought machetes or sickles to hack the weeds down. Before he could ask about that, the boy ran across the stones and grabbed him by the arm.
"You'd best hurry, sir, or the coo-brambles will be a-growin' over these, too, like."
"You will be rewarded by the company, my son," Shepherd Howling said, pushing Matthew aside to sprint over the stones with the agility of a mountain goat. The speed with which he took advantage of the temporary path and his nimbleness in avoiding questing bramble tendrils caused Matthew to re-evaluate the man's degree of insanity.
Matthew followed quickly, Braddock somewhat more reluctantly. The pilot opted to remain with his ship.
With the boy leading them, Shepherd Howling on his heels, and Matthew followed more slowly by Braddock, they reached the nearest of the hovels. There they were joined by a man and woman and a pack of whooping children. The rest of the village crowded in after them.
Shepherd Howling slowed to hover noisomely by Matthew. "This is possibly a wholesome place, Brother Luzon. None of the orange minions of the underworld one sees in many of the heathen towns are visible. And nowhere did I see the monster's yawning maw waiting to be fed by the ignorance of the unenlightened."
"That is good news," Matthew said tersely, and turned to their adolescent guide. He was far more interested in what the villagers had to say.
"Now, my boy, you must explain something to me, for I am a bit confused. I was supposed to meet Captain Fiske and the shanachie of this village here. Now you tell me you've banished the shanachie. Being a stranger to this planet, but one very interested in your customs, have I indeed been brought to McGee's Pass?"
"That's where you are, sir," said the woman of the house, undoubtedly the boy's mother, pushing herself to the front. "And the best way to explain, sir, is by singing you the song we made."
Groaning inwardly at the prospect of another of the Petaybean songs, Matthew arranged his features in an engaging and interested smile.
"We sing it together," explained the man who seemed to be the woman's husband and the boy's father. "Because it happened to us all."
"We were all duped, he means," the boy said.
A 1ittle girl said, "All but Krisuk. He wasn't fooled."
"Please sing," Matthew said, trying to cut to the performance if he had to hear it to learn what they were talking about.
"You start, Krisuk," the mother said.
The boy stood stock-still, arms at his sides, not a foot from Matthew, and began to chant in an eerie singsong style:
The other villagers joined in, some crying loudly, some mumbling, all reciting the nonsense words at the end of the verses as if they were expletives.
And here, quite alarmingly, people began to tear their hair. All of the villagers sang the next verse loudly and lamentingly.
"Oh, dear," Matthew said when they had finished. "And all this because of your shanachie, eh?"
"Yes, sir," the boy said. "He took all of our best for himself and betrayed everyone."
Matthew could scarcely keep from rubbing his hands together with glee. "Oh, that's terrible. Terrible indeed. Right, Brother Howling?"
Howling's lips twitched with a smile. "That's what comes of trafficking with monsters."
"You can say that again, mister," the woman said. "Can you stay and eat, sir?" she asked Matthew, but he waved a negative.
"I'm sorry, dear lady, but your story distresses me so much that I really think our best course is to resume our journey and seek to bring justice to you and people like you who are taken in by those who would mislead you. I hope I can count on you to repeat your song before the council when I call on you!" he added, addressing the boy, who had sung every word in a voice unexpectedly good, loud, and clear.
"I'd be honored, sir," the boy said, although he sounded puzzled and wary.
The villagers had to throw fresh stepping-stones and logs over the brambles for Matthew's party to return to the helicopter. Even then, the pilot had to climb out and hack at the vines with a machete before he could free the copter's skids. The vines were tight against the belly of the ship, strands attempting to encircle the narrow stern. Matthew thought that such fast-growing vegetation would also bear scrutiny. George, he rather thought, had some botanical knowledge. He'd send him to get a sample-if one could be contained long enough.