Powers That Be

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Fresh air, freezing temperatures, and no microbes to attack their disabled immune systems.” Torkel shrugged. “That should be easy enough.”

  “If that’s all there is to it,” she said darkly. “That’s what I know now, and I’m only scratching the surface. Please go carefully here.”

  “Oh, we’re being careful okay. Since you’re so concerned, you’ll be glad to know that my father has been following all of the events here, too, and he’s seen the Maloney woman’s autopsy report, as well. Since he understands the brief evolution of this planet better than anyone, he’s decided to personally conduct an investigation to rule out any malfunction in this planet’s development resulting from the terraforming process as a cause for the aberrant occurrences you mention. That’s Dad—nothing if not conscientious. And he likes nothing better than a new scientific mystery. Me, I’m a simple, practical kind of guy. I think the explanations for all of this are probably traceable to fairly uncomplicated sources.”

  There was a knock on the door. Torkel stood and walked over to it, stepped into the hall, had a few low words, then opened the door wider.

  Giancarlo stood there, along with Terce, the snocle driver. Torkel shrugged.

  “I’m sorry, Yana. And very disappointed to have to say this to you. However, Terce here corroborates Giancarlo’s suspicions that you’ve entered into a secret pact with the guerillas and betrayed the company. I’m afraid we’re going to have to hold you for questioning, pending complete physical and psychological examinations and testing, as well as the standard interrogation.”

  “Torkel—” she began. “Captain Fiske. That young man is one of the fai—”

  “In light of our conversation,” Torkel said, cutting her off midword, “I’ll see to it that the investigation is conducted here on Petaybee for as long as possible, but it may be necessary to move you to more sophisticated facilities.”

  She stood and did an about-face, forbearing to tell him that being moved would probably not harm her in the same way it would the Petaybeans.

  Giancarlo glared as she started past him. She kept her eyes straight ahead, focusing slightly over his left shoulder, as if he weren’t there. With a hand jarring against her shoulder, he stopped her in her tracks, his expression guarded but hostile.

  “We’re also looking for Dr. Shongili, Major Maddock. You could save yourself an extra charge of obstructing investigations if you’ll give us some idea where he might be found.”

  She said nothing.

  Bunny Rourke’s snocle was her dearest prerogative, if not possession, but she didn’t bat an eyelash when she saw it was gone from the place where she had parked it.

  She had been all set to take Diego and Steve Margolies back to the village, to let Steve meet Clodagh and the others and talk with them about what had happened to the Metaxoses. Steve had the same specialty as Dr. Metaxos and, if only he could be convinced to keep an open mind, that would give them one more ally to avert what Bunny knew in her gut was going to be a catastrophic change in Petaybean lives.

  She had felt it in the cave during the night chant—just the least tremor, nothing someone unacquainted with the planet, like Yana, would notice, but the planet was worried, fearful. Sean had felt it, too, she knew, but she was also sure he had been clearing his mind of any negativity to help Yana. They were waiting for Steve to finish talking with Dr. Metaxos’s doctor, so she and Diego had gone to start the snocle while they waited.

  “I’ve got to go now,” she said, turning to Diego. “They’ve taken my snocle, but I think you and Steve should get the first ride to Kilcoole you can.”

  “Maybe the major can get one for us from her buddy, that Fiske guy,” Diego said, not understanding.

  Bunny shook her head even as she pulled away from him. “No. If the major was okay, my snocle would still be here.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Diego still didn’t get it.

  “I have to go on foot. You’d freeze.”

  “Nah, it’s warm today. I—”

  “No. Meet me later. Bring Steve and we’ll introduce him to Clodagh. I got to go before they catch me, Diego. Bye.”

  She didn’t hear whether or not he returned her goodbye as she ducked between the buildings, behind piles of unassembled equipment, her white-and-gray rabbit-fur parka blending with the snow as she circled around to the river and headed back toward Kilcoole. There, she would pick up Charlie’s dogs and go somewhere: Sinead’s old trapper’s cabin, maybe, the one Sinead had lived in before she had hooked up with Aisling. The PTBs wouldn’t know the location of that one.

  She hoped Diego would tell Yana what she had done, and then she realized that what she had told Diego was true: Yana wasn’t okay. That redheaded captain, the nice one, either hadn’t been able to help her or hadn’t been as nice as he seemed. All the more reason she needed to get back to the village and try to get help. Behind her she heard more shuttles landing and smelled the fumes from the hot housings on the spacecraft as they touched down. There were so many of these company people with their machinery and equipment and all of Intergal’s resources. The company men acted as if her people had to do anything they said, and for the first time, she was scared that they might be right.

  She didn’t run: running attracted attention. She tried to move with the rhythm of the wind and the snow, except that today the snow wasn’t blowing, it was melting. Diego was right. It was a very hot day. She shed her parka as soon as she thought she was safely out of sight of SpaceBase and the river road.

  She could hear the roar of the snocles on the river; an altered sound now, sort of muted, wet, splashy, accompanying the sound of the engines and the swish of snocle skis on ice. The day was really very warm. Warmer than it ever got even during the middle of the short Petaybean summer, when most of the snow was gone and it was no longer necessary to have a fire in the house. But how could that be? Actual breakup usually didn’t come for weeks, and then usually gradually, a crack in the ice one day, a soft spot the next, and then the ice began to move. Never was it this hot so early in the season.

  In the distance, the sound of an explosion was muffled but audible. She wasn’t surprised. She had seen the explosives loaded in corps snocles setting out from Kilcoole in a northerly direction earlier in the day. They claimed to be “exploring,” which meant they were blowing sores on the face of the planet.

  Though the explosion sounded distant, the shock waves made the ground beneath her feet shudder.

  Her boots were made of hide, suitable for dry snow. She had another, waterproof pair she wore for early and late winter, but she hadn’t thought about changing into them yet. She could have used them now. The soft moosehide soles of her boots were soaking up icy wetness from the melting snow. If she didn’t reach Kilcoole by nightfall, when, despite the unseasonable warmth of the day, the temperatures were likely to drop below freezing again, her feet would freeze. Maybe she should have stuck closer to the river. But she thought that it would be quicker, and safer, to cross country to where Uncle Seamus was ice-fishing. She planned to ride the rest of the way home with him.

  A breeze blew against her, but it was a warm breeze, soft and friendly. She took off her hat and mittens and stuffed them in her parka pocket, unbuttoning her outer sweater as she walked.

  There was another distant explosion, and the ground bucked under her feet as if the whole planet had writhed in agony. Why did they have to do that? It occurred to Bunny that somehow the planet was generating the unusual heat, the early breakup, in response to the assault on it. Such a thing had never happened in Petaybee’s inhabited history, but then, that history was relatively short.

  The ground continued to tremble as she walked, more cautiously now, through the woods. Here she could keep close enough to the riverbanks to avoid getting lost. Where the snow hadn’t drifted too deeply against the riverbanks, she even caught glimpses of the snocles through the trees.

  How long had it been since she had taken Yana out to SpaceBase? Only a few ho
urs, surely, and already the river had changed. The ice looked patchy now, long blue streaks showing where the runners had carved their tracks. And it didn’t look like the rest of the ground anymore. It was shiny, with a glaze of melted snow over the top. She didn’t remember the river ice ever melting so fast, but then, she didn’t remember ever seeing as much traffic on the river, either. All that friction and weight surely added to the melting process. And this was the warmest day for this time of year she could recall in her whole life.

  She was across the river from where Seamus usually set up his ice-fishing tent when she heard the sharp Crack! as if someone had fired a pistol right beside her head.

  Some of the people in the speeding snocles were trying to brake on the ice, others slowing, veering in confusion. Yet others who had experience with such treacherous conditions were trying to pilot.

  She ran closer to the bank, plunging into the snow up to her knees. Seamus was running from his tent, at first moving wildly about, then stopping, staring at the ice, and finally darting out in front of the snocles waving his arms, urging them toward the banks. Two yards beyond where he stood, between him and the oncoming snocles, the ice parted in a foot-wide gap, the side nearest town already buckling under the weight of the snocles that had just passed over it.

  “Get off! Get off!” Seamus was yelling to the snocle drivers. “Drive onto the banks!”

  A giant icy chunk broke off and plunged into the blue water bubbling up between the slabs. The ice, which had been substantial enough on the drive to SpaceBase with Yana, looked glass-thin! Along the edges of the river, it was creaking and she saw cracks forming there, too. The level of the river seemed to be rising.

  One driver, either not understanding or not believing Seamus, zoomed straight for him, and plunged nose-first into the crack, the snocle runners and windshield submerged in the swirling water and wedging the crack even wider.

  Seeing the tail sticking up out of the river alerted the next few drivers, but unfortunately not before three more, two coming from SpaceBase and one from Kilcoole, skidded out of control. The one from Kilcoole ran into a snowbank on the edge of the river. Bunny plowed through the snow to reach it, hopping over a two-inch-wide crack in the ice, feeling the surface, which only hours before had been solid, bouncing under the sopping soles of her boots.

  The other two snocles had both torn into the back of the partially submerged vehicle, sending it deeper into the river. Fortunately, snocles had reinforced cabins and the drivers of the two that still had their runners on the ice scrambled unhurt from their seats. But Seamus was leaning across the crack, trying to pry open the sinking vehicle’s door to extricate the driver.

  Bunny pushed the snocle on her side of the crack back toward the center of the river. The vehicle slid easily on the ice, even laden as it was with equipment. Bunny knew the trick of it, having had to haul hers from deep snow or off black ice.

  The driver clumsily wrenched open the door and spilled onto the ice, scrambling ineffectively to gain his feet.

  “Get back in!” Bunny yelled to him. “Go get help from town!”

  “No way am I gettin’ back in that thing, babe!” the soldier yelled at her and ran for the bank.

  More snocles were jamming to a stop just short of the crack, which was widening by the minute as pieces crumbled into the river. The drivers crowded toward the crack, trying to help Seamus save their comrade.

  “Lie down! Form a chain!” one driver yelled—the first smart thing one of them had done, Bunny thought.

  Torn between climbing in the snocle to drive to the village for help and going to the aid of her uncle and the driver, Bunny chose the latter. She dove into a belly flop, skidding across the ice faster than any of the other would-be rescuers could walk, and grabbed one of Seamus’s ankles just as he managed to snag open the door of the imperiled snocle. The driver half jumped, half fell out of the vehicle and into the river just before the ice cracked wider. A piece of ice broke off, and the turbulent waters enveloped the rest of the snocle, the outstretched arms, head, and upper torso of the driver on the other side of the crack, and all of Seamus except the ankle to which Bunny was clinging.

  His momentum dragged her forward but she held on, flailing in the water with her other hand, trying to grasp some other portion of him. She knew her actions might be holding his head underwater, but at least she could keep him from being pulled under the ice.

  Something grabbed at her hand then and she caught her uncle’s arm, letting go of the ankle to grab his forearm with both hands. It was then that she suddenly realized that the water was warm! Not ice cold, as it ought to be, but almost hot. She had no time to think about what had caused that, because Seamus’s head broke the surface just as Bunny felt the ice under her chest loosen.

  “Here! Over here!” cried the soldier on the other side of the crack. By then they had already hauled the driver of the sunken snocle out, and some of the other soldiers were hurrying him up the bank. “Come over here, old man, that little gal can’t handle you.”

  Seamus, nodding in agreement, lunged away from Bunny and over to the soldier, who was immediately joined by a second man. Together they pulled Seamus from the river.

  Bunny slithered backward until she felt more solid ice under her. She slid until she came up against the abandoned, still-running snocle. Levering herself onto the driver’s seat, she gunned the snocle down the softening ice so hard it flew across the gap at the side of the river and up onto the bank. She kept to the woods on the way back to Kilcoole to warn the village of the unseasonably early breakup, all the time wondering how that had happened.

  After Bunny’s precipitous departure, Diego Metaxos and Steve Margolies headed back to their quarters.

  “So, what is it with you and this girl?” Steve asked in a kidding tone. “Are her intentions honorable?”

  Diego felt himself flushing uncomfortably. He had thought once Steve got here everything would be okay, but even with Steve, he felt edgy and uncertain. The only time he had felt good was that day in the village, when he had chanted his poem and all of the people had understood it. After he had met Steve, and Steve had spent some time at Dad’s bedside, Steve, Captain Fiske, and Colonel Giancarlo had spent hours closeted together, and that bothered Diego. The last couple of days, except for short visits with Frank at the hospital, Steve was occupied in organizing what he called his expedition.

  Diego hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about that and seized the moment.

  “What are you planning to do when you go back out there?” he asked Steve when they were safely back in their quarters.

  “The same thing your dad was trying to do, only with more support. Locate the deposits, mark the spot, take samples.”

  “Must make you feel good, taking over from Dad,” Diego said. His voice contained a bitterness he hadn’t known he felt—at least not toward Steve.

  “Hey, son.” Steve stopped stuffing articles in a bag and turned to face him. His brown eyes looked wounded. “It’s not like that. I’d like nothing better than for Frank to be well and leading the expedition, but he’d want me to carry on his work, now, wouldn’t he?”

  Diego shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever think that maybe he’s like he is because he didn’t want to keep on?”

  “What? You mean, he willed himself into the state he’s in now”—Steve was clearly incredulous—“because he didn’t do a good job the first time? Diego, my boy, that is not clear thinking.”

  Diego shrugged again, a disgusted lifting and dropping of his shoulders. It hurt to think about Dad. It hurt to think about Lavelle. He didn’t even want to think about losing Steve the same way and he realized he was pulling a number on him, trying to guilt-trip or scare him into not going.

  “I don’t know, Steve. Maybe the mission isn’t such a good idea, huh? What are they going to do if you find the stuff?”

  “You’ve been too much in the c
ompany of Bunny and the villagers, Diego. Be sensible. The company has a lot of bucks invested in this planet.”

  “You haven’t given it a chance,” Diego shot back. “I thought you would take care of Dad when you got here but all you’ve been doing is taking over his job. You’re just like all the other company geeks. You don’t give a damn about us, this planet, or anything else except the fraggin’ company!”

  “Diego . . . son.”

  “I’m not your son,” Diego said hotly, storming toward the door. “Good-bye. I’m going to see my dad. And hey, if you come back in the same shape he’s in, I’ll get you an adjoining bed!”

  When green-coated men and women decide to give you a going over, you let them get on with it, cooperating when you have to. Especially when hovering over the proceedings is a block-shaped marine with piggy, close-set eyes: the kind you just know likes to twist arms and has some mighty painful nerve blocks he’s dying to practice on a live and wriggling body. So Yana went along with the procedure, privately resenting every intrusion, draining, pricking, probe, and order. When she could, she sneaked glances at the scans, trying to remember from all-too-recent experience if she could detect any alterations, improvements, or changes in the results. She did better with X rays, and could even find the thickening around her innumerable repaired broken bones. Then one of the medics, the skinny woman with the jaw like a vise, altered the screens so she couldn’t see the ones of her lungs—the ones she most wanted to check out.

  “It’s my body,” she said in a growl of complaint. “I got the right to look!”

  They ignored her, as they had done since she had been ordered into their presence. She did catch terms like “unusual remission,” “minimal scarring,” “regenerative,” and “improvement”: the last two words she liked hearing very much, but she would have liked to know where the improvement and regeneration had happened. Actually, she didn’t need them to tell her that her lungs were sound again—lungs that she had been told would never completely heal from the gas she had inhaled on Bremport. Petaybee had done that for her. Would they believe it had been the planet? Probably not!