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...
"Verily, have I said it thusly, my brethren," Shepherd Howling said. "I have done the company's work on this forsaken rock, Brother Matthew, that I and my family may be delivered from the monster and into the grace of the company once more. I will commune with the planet here, if you will excuse me."
His absence was welcome on several counts: the obviously fresher air, and the chance for Torkel and Luzon to make plans based on their respective discoveries. Torkel listened intently to Luzon as the man talked of similar investigations he had conducted into the folkways of various planets and systems and how he had corrected mistaken concepts and behaviors. The dialogue was briefly interrupted when a bewildered and bruised Shepherd Howling was herded back at the end of their hostess's broom.
"With all respect, gentlemen, you keep this maniac away from my little girl or I'll geld him!" the woman said and stomped away.
"Sit in the sun, Brother Howling," Luzon suggested, pointing to a half-broken bench against the outside wall-downwind of them.
All the while, Torkel kept expecting Satok to arrive to guide them to the rich ore faces as he'd promised. But several hours went by with no sign of the man. Finally the sound of helicopter engines once more routed the four men from their chairs.
Two helicopters approached the village. Torkel figured one would have men and one equipment to rid the area of the bushes, but when the passengers disembarked, he was annoyed to see that there were no figures in fatigues emerging, except the pilots, O'Shay and Greene. No one useful at all, in fact. Marmion and her entourage had come, along with George and Ivan from Luzon's group. And to his further irritation, he watched as Clodagh Senungatuk was courteously helped to descend by O'Shay from his copter.
"You're on report, O Shay, for disobeying orders," he told the pilot.
"Oh, please don't punish the dear boy, Captain Fiske," said Marmion, with a flourish of fashionable fabric scarf and a charming move. "It's all my fault really. Captain Greene returned from the southern continent with Yana Maddock, Dr. Shongili, and those sweet youngsters, plus another little girl Dr. Shongili says is the sister of his other niece-"
"Goat-dung!" Shepherd Howling said. "She is mine. She is to be my wife."
"Oh. surely not," Marmion said, smiling brightly at him. "The girl's less than twelve years old. But, at any rate, our teams were in need of one of Clodagh's hearty meals and we sat listening to Yana and Sean tell us the most fantastic adventures-ah, but I needn't tell you, need I, Matthew? You were present for some of them."
Luzon inclined his head, his eyes half-hooded and dangerous.
"Well, Johnny Greene heard Captain O'Shay's message about the weeds here, and then Clodagh said that a work party wouldn't do much good and might even be in danger. But that she knew something that would work." Marmion paused, as if expecting approval, her eyes all wide and innocent. "Et viola! We have come to offer assistance."
Before anyone could say anything else she added ingenuously, "Also, Matthew, your young friends were absolutely pining for you, and I simply had to help reunite you, isn't that so, boys?"
Luzon's muscular assistants nodded-rather miserably, Torkel thought.
While everyone was standing around thinking of a response to Marmion's gabble, Clodagh Senungatuk started walking out of the village.
"Where the devil do you think you're going?" Torkel demanded.
"To make a path to the cave,' she said simply, and kept walking.
By the time she had gone five more steps, Torkel recovered from his surprise enough to tell her that she wouldn't be able to penetrate such a hedge of weed, and where were the boards and other spanning materials he had sent for? She gave no answer, plodding up the track toward the cave. The other new arrivals followed, plus half the village, which seemed to consider this expedition fine entertainment.
At the edge of the vast jungle of waist-high vines, which seemed even more impenetrable since Torkel's first look at them, Clodagh paused. She bent down and gently touched the center of one of the leaves.
So what are you doing? Asking it nicely? Torkel demanded.
"Lookin' at this white stuff. Wondering why somebody tried to paint the bushes. This is the only thing that works." She drew out a large clear flask filled with a greenish liquid, uncorked it carefully, and then inserted a sprinkler head of home manufacture. She shook the bottle a bit in front and to each side of her.
Instantly the vines retracted as if they had been mowed with a scythe, and as she moved forward, Marmion fell in step behind her, followed by Sally Point-Jefferson, who had had the good sense to put on heavy boots.
Marmion turned around and said, "Quickly, boys. I don't know how long the effect lasts. Clodagh's very mysterious about it.
They followed with alacrity. Torkel felt like a fool, trailing behind the big woman as she doused her concochon to the right, the center, and the left, like some ancient prelate dispensing holy water or preparing a pontiff's path with incense.
When they reached a wall of greenery where the vines from the meadow above the cave spilled down over into the field, she increased the area and parabola of her casting, widening the path. The vines drew back like curtains, and Torkel saw the entrance to a largish cave.
"Better use lights," Clodagh said, though she imperturbably stepped into the dimness, Marmion behind her.
"Oh!" Marmion said. "What ever has happened here?"
"Somebody tried to kill this place," Clodagh said. "But Petaybee fights back." She indicated the streamers of vines and roots extending from the ceiling.
She proceeded until, farther inside the cave, she stepped cautiously around what looked like a green hillock.
"Ah! Here. Captain," she said to Torkel, sprinkling the hillock so that the vines gradually shrank away to show the body they had encased. "Is this yer man here that you were looking for?"
The popped eyes, protruding tongue, and cyanosed face were nevertheless identifiable as those of the former shanachie. The bloodied grooves tightly scored about his neck gave ample proof of the agency that had killed him.
"He said he had a sure fire mining method," Torkel said. "Something to do with Petraseal."
Faber knocked on a piece of the roof that had remained vineless thus far. "This is Petraseal all right, but this on the cracks-" He ran his fingers over it and shone his flashlight beam on the result and on what had covered the ends of the withered vines. "Look. It's not even white. It's pale lime green and it's not Petraseal, Captain Fiske. This is exterior wall paint, and not a real high quality at that."
Shepherd Howling, visibly shaking, suddenly sprang at Matthew Luzon as if attacking him. "Get me out of here! I must escape the Great Monster before it devours us all as it devoured that man."
"Uh, Dr. Luzon," one of the assistants called nervously. "Can you come back here?" He had followed Clodagh, who was continuing to sprinkle, undeterred by her grisly discovery, farther into the cave. "We've got three more corpses."
"I demand that this woman be held for questioning and that the bottle containing her weed-killing solution be seized and analyzed," Matthew Luzon said.
Marmion Algemeine, still unhappily abstracted by the grotesque deaths of the four men, regarded Matthew with stupefaction.
"Held for questioning? Whatever for?" she demanded.
"Clodagh helped! Without her we'd never have found those poor men."
Matthew didn't exactly say "aha!" but a malicious light did glitter in his eye as he said, in a quiet voice, "And how exactly did she know that these particular vines would need her particular remedy? And how did she just happen to have it available?"