by neetha Napew
“Are those villages one hundred percent in favor of selling out? Yana asked.
Clodagh smiled patiently. “Now, Yana. You’ve been around the universe a few times. When did you ever meet any group of people who were one hundred percent in favor of anything?”
“Exactly. So presumably there are some people there who aren’t in favor of the mining. And probably, in the remaining villages, a few who are. I think we need to know who’s fer us and who’s agin us, as they say in the Wild West vids, and maybe try to convert some of the unaffiliated. I thought everybody had the relationship with the planet you do.”
Clodagh shook her head. “Not everybody wants to. Those who have enough respect to follow the rules and live wisely survive better though, so even if they don’t acknowledge the presence of the planet, they get by as long as they keep out of the special places. The others, the foolish ones, don’t live so well or so long. Those people would much rather try to please the bosses than forces they don’t want to understand Fortunately though, around here there’s not much to do except pay attention, so the planet gets through to most folks.”
“Well, sounds to me like we need to do a little campaigning,” Yana said.
“We will make them songs so they understand,” Clodagh said.
“Cool,” Diego said. “Just like the old radical songs from Earth. Ah, if only I had a guitar.”
“What’s that?” Bunny asked.
“A musical instrument. All of the old protest singers had them. There’s some wonderful mining songs in the memory banks back—back at my old place.”
“I wish you had one then,” Bunny said loyally.
“Me, too. Except I don’t know how to play.”
“I bet you could learn.” Bunny told him. “You make better songs than some people who’ve made them all their lives.”
“Bunka,” Clodagh said sharply. “Each song is a good song if it says what the singer means it to say.”
“Course it is, Clodagh. I know that. But Diego’s sound better. He says what he means to say so everybody can understand it. That’s all I meant.”
Clodagh smiled, a slightly bawdy smile, with a wink to Sean and Yana. “That’s all right then, alannah. He does make good songs.”
In the short distance to Clodagh’s house, they discussed the finer points of what needed to be said to the villages, both those which dissented and those which Clodagh felt sure could be counted upon to support the planet.
When they reached Clodagh’s, what seemed to be the entire village was waiting outside in her yard. Yana found, looking at the yard, that she missed the snow. The village looked like a garbage dump, with its stores of winter provisions half-thawed in the snow, the trash that had been buried, the salvaged equipment lying around the yard, all of the items that had been lost throughout the long winter. Not to mention the leavings of the various dogs and cats and horses housed in the village. Also, without the snow, the roofs of the houses looked patchy, the siding worn despite its gay pastel colors. And everything and everyone was smeared and splattered with mud.
This dreary aspect didn’t seem to lessen their regard for each other in the slightest, however, and the villagers crowded as cheerfully as ever into Clodagh’s tiny house and began discussing what was to be done.
“We need to have another latchkay,” Eamon Intiak said. “We should have one and invite the people who don’t understand. Petaybee would speak to them and then they’d know.”
“You’d think they’d know already by now,” Sinead Shongili said.
“Now, Sinead,” her partner Aisling said reasonably, “such things take some folks longer. Their worries about the everyday things in their lives get in the way of understanding what’s here.”
‘We’ll each go away and think about these things and make songs,” Clodagh said. “Then we’ll go talk to the other people. Sinead, you and Sean and the Maloneys must go the farthest because you’re the best travelers. I would like to send Frank with you, Sinead, and young Diego with Liam. Yana, you go with Sean. We need you people who know about the company to make talk with the neighbors who are taken in by the promises, too.”
With that, everyone began to leave. Yana was ready to leave, too. She was tired. She wanted to rest and eat and bathe in the hot springs and make love to Sean, not necessarily in that order. But Sean laid a restraining hand on her arm and lingered a moment.
“And how about the other pole, Clodagh?” Sean asked gently. “How do we reach those people?”
“Can you not do it, Sean?” Clodagh asked.
“Sure, I could, but it’d be a long journey no matter how fast I went. The PTBs would already have been there and found out what we need to know. Besides, I hate to leave Yanaba for so long at a time like this.”
“What do you mean, Sean?” Yana asked. “I’m barely a month along. I wouldn’t even know I was pregnant if you hadn’t found out via your hot line to the planet. Other women have had babies before . . .”
“Not,” Sean said significantly, “my babies. If only my sister and Rourke had been able to map that passage.”
“Sinead?”
“No. Our sister Aoifa and her husband, Bunny’s parents. They were trying to map some of the planet’s inner passages. Bunny was barely eighteen months old—“
“And that Aoifa was pregnant again!” Clodagh said fondly. They hadn’t been named long, but that girl was a real Shongili. Not even pregnancy hampered that one, and her as curious as one of the cats!”
“What happened?” Yana asked.
Sean shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“Couldn’t you find out? From the planet, I mean?”
“You’ve been with it. The information you got isn’t usually that specific. And Aoifa and Mala had this theory that some of the special places that lead from one river and lake to the next here on the land lead under the sea in the same way. I searched but I never found them. Never even got a glimmer.”
Clodagh made a sound like “Yuh.” Then she said, “They must have gone very far. Much farther than anyone has ever gone.”
“On foot or by sled or horse maybe,” Yana said. “But there are other ways to travel and other ways to get to the south, if the planet doesn’t mind the intrusion too much. If I can reach Captain Greene or that O’Shay fellow, maybe they can give us a lift.”
“Ah, you spoiled modern woman,” Sean said with a kiss to her cheek. “I love you.”
“I know it’s not the Petaybean way, Shongili, but until you come up with a mutant bird to match your cats and horses, we have to make do with what poor mechanical means I can muster.”
“I’m workin’ on it, Yana. I am. But until then, you’re quite right. We’ll have to use company equipment to fight its masters. Now then, what say we go meditate at the hot spring and come up with something to say to these people once you finesse the pilots into transporting us?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said.
It was small; it was warm and wet and its pelt was of a most extraordinarily tattered nature, fine flapping threads and matted bits interspersed in an unkempt coat. It smelled like food, but not the superior sort.
It leaked savory blood into the water sloshing around it. The water was the problem. In order to reach the little morsel, one would have to get wet. Of course, one could reach down from the ledge with one’s claws, and if one stretched—stretched—stretched—ah! One caught a piece of the pelt and could heft it to where one could support the weight of the rest in one’s jaws and—ah-it moved. Still alive then. Good. Fresh meat was best. All it would take was biting down a bit on the neck, under the mane, and the kill would be clean, the meat fresh. There would be no necessity for leaving the relative shelter of the ledge.
One leaned forward, resting on one’s chest, and extended one’s neck to meet the bit rising on claw tip and—it slipped! It was trying to get away! The other paw lashed forward, claws extended, to help the first, and one instinctively leaned forward, one’s jaws coming into pl
ay to assist one’s claws and—and—the thing slipped again before one could sink a tooth into it. The pelt was flimsy stuff and tore out of the claws just as the other paw grabbed the morsel in a second place. The morsel let out a terrified squeal, rather like a rabbit. One was about to smack it to silence and lean forward for the fatal chomp.
Then the cave shook, the ledge broke under one’s over-balanced weight, and one tumbled tail over nose into the pool, relinquishing the morsel, which yelped again. Inconvenient and embarrassing to be so indisposed in front of the food. One climbed out of the pool and shook the water from one’s coat and began to wash before one’s meal.
The morsel began to flail frantically toward the den’s entrance. One padded nonchalantly after. The cave, the ground, the world, shook again. One knew when one was being addressed. One sat on one’s haunches and perceived.
The morsel was also arrested in mid flight. “Did you—d-do that?” it asked. “Are—are you the G-Great Monster?”
One yawned.
The world shook again and one realized that one had understood the speech of the morsel. One also understood that it was a youngling, and female.
One waded forward while the youngling waded backward, outlined in the dusk outside the mouth of the cave. One’s paws dripped water, albeit warm water. One lapped a bit. The youngling stood still.
“You’re not so terrible,” it said. “You’re nothing but a big cat.”
One had one’s dignity to maintain. One lashed one’s beautifully and delicately marked tail and growled.
And from beneath one’s sodden paws, the world growled back at one and bucked, sending a wave of water to swamp one, knocking one onto one’s back, causing one to drink more deeply of the spring than one cared to, paws over head, and be propelled backward, away from the youngling.
When one got to one’s feet, one saw that the youngling—it no longer seemed safe to think of it, no, her as a morsel—had not used the opportunity to run away. Indeed, it, too, was just arising from the water, sputtering and snorting. Ah, good. It had not seen one’s discomfiture. Dignity was preserved.
“I’m not afraid of you,” the youngling declared as one advanced—claws sheathed, teeth safely contained within one’s lips, growl little more than a polite, inquiring rumble in one’s throat. A mere purr, actually, one corrected, as the waters bubbled and sloshed ominously. I used to know a cat. A little one. I was a baby then. Shepherd Howling made my mother kill my cat. He—he tried to, anyway.
He—she wouldn’t and—and .. .” Something odd was happening to the youngling now. It began leaking again, saltiness into the fresh sulfurous water covering it. “My mother was not like Ascencion. She was brave. The Shepherd punished her for disobedience and both she and my cat went away. So—so I’m not afraid of you. You live where the Great Monster is supposed to dwell and lie in wait for the foolish superstitious minds of the flock to be warped and maddened into everlasting wickedness while our bodies are tormented by the great fires from within. But you’re not the Great Monster—you couldn’t be. Are you—are you the Guardian of the Underworld?”
One was so disgusted by her ignorance and silly misapprehension of one’s self and one’s relationship to one’s Home that one was startled into answering, I am Coaxtl. That is enough.
“I am Goat-dung, Coaxtl,” the youngling said with the cunning of her race. She knew, one saw, the power of names. She had one’s name, one had hers. She could not be food.
But one’s Home had already decreed that she could not be food, which was what Home meant with the rumbling of the ground and the raising of the waters. One knew what was done and what was not done.
Very well, Goat-dung, one said. Goat-dung is not food, but undoubtedly she eats. Therefore we must leave the Home and hunt
Chapter 3
With the river flowing freely, close to flooding, the people of Kilcoole had more water at their disposal than they were used to. Normally, even in the height of summer, the channel remained frozen at the deeper levels. Now the planet had cut additional channels from new, warmer tributaries, and there was sufficient water to drink, to wash, to bathe in if you didn’t mind a little sediment.
Since so much water was close to hand and the hot springs were a distance from town, Yana and Sean had the place to themselves.
As they rode through the brush, which was beginning to leaf out, Yana smiled at the wildflowers that peeked up from the less sodden places where they’d been buried under the snow all winter.
The hot springs were where she and Sean had first come together, where she had first had an inkling of his other nature, and where they had first made love. Beneath the waterfall was the secret subterranean chamber where the villagers gathered during the latchkay night chants to communicate directly with the planet. The mere sight of the slipping silvery waters, steaming only slightly in the warmer air, and the sweet rippling peal of the falls and streams were miraculous enough for Yana.
In this warmer weather, undressing did not have to be so hastily done. She and Sean took their time—time to undress each other, time for a kiss and a caress—before entering the waters, he with a muscular dive, she with a slow sliding from the bank, feeling the waters rise up the length of her until she stooped and allowed the liquid to cover her head. The water shut out the sounds of the birds and insects, the small animals scrabbling in the bushes, the stamping and champing of the curly-coats, and filled her ears with its own music.
Then a wet, warm silky form twisted about her and broached the surface of the water, silver eyes gleaming at her with a challenge and a sensuousness that were so perfectly “Sean” that even his selkie form did not dismay her.
“Oh you!” she said, laughing and splashing water at him. “Do you automatically change the minute you hit water?”
A pleased murmur came from the throat of Sean-Selkie as he continued to weave against her body, his furry touch arousing unusual sensations in her.
“Oh, is that all you can say?” Then Yana gave a ki-yi of amusement. “You can’t talk as a selkie? She chortled and, using both hands, sent a wave to flood him.
He dove, not to get away from the water, but to caress her where she least expected it. Startled, she tried to maneuver away from him, but his sinuous form made evasion impossible. He was the swimmer, she the paddler.
But she caught him firmly by a fold of silly wet skin and pulled him to the surface.
Look, mate, I don’t mind what form you take. I don’t even mind what you do in that form . . .” Sean-Selkie made a pleased purring sound, the silver eyes dancing, as she went on: “But listen up! It’s the man I want, not the seal. And we do have things to talk about. So, if you can’t talk in this form . . . especially if you can’t . . . well, you know what I mean .. . change back.”
The selkie nudged her, in a rather sweetly apologetic way, toward the falls, and swam sinuously alongside as she began to swim, feeling very ungraceful beside him, in the direction he indicated. He obviously restrained himself to keep pace with her. He was so graceful, so powerful, and the touch of his fine fur against her was unfairly sensual. She increased the speed of her own stroke. She couldn’t wait to get to the privacy of the place behind the falls: she couldn’t wait to get him back into a useful form.
He dove under the falls and she followed, escaping the battering of the water. They surfaced together but Sean-Selkie seemed to ooze up the bank and stood there, proud in his altered form, so that she could admire him. All of him. Then he shook himself and the transformation she had seen once before, near the cave where they had taken refuge from the volcano, began.
“I get it, Sean,” she murmured, a trifle apologetic. “You wanted me to see you in all your glory. And you are glorious,” she added, smiling as the man emerged. She went to him, stroking skin instead of fur, and twining herself around him as his selkie self had done to her in the water.
“Give me a moment to adjust, will you? he said, laughing, holding her tightly against his wet skin.
/> Yana gave a sniff. “As far as I’m concerned, you are adjusted.” She glanced down significantly.
“Ah, but a selkie makes love differently than a man,” he said, murmuring into her ear and nibbling her throat.
“How differently? I’m game.”
It was decidedly different, wildly sensual, and extremely satisfying, and took rather more time than she had assumed, knowing something of “animal” behavior. She hadn’t known nearly enough to prepare her for all of the loving possibilities of Sean’s dual nature, both animal and man, but he understood himself thoroughly and was most adept at using all of his resources to guide her into uncharted channels of pleasure. It took her a long time to slow her pulse and heart rate and come, slightly unwillingly, back to the other reason they had gone off.
“We have to do our part in this scheme, you know,” she said, looking up at Sean’s face. They were still interlocked; it was comforting and comfortable and she didn’t really want to break the mood, but the dutiful part of her character prodded her into “active duty” now that the R & R was over.
“Which scheme?” he asked, smiling lasciviously down at her. “All right, all right,” he said, easily warding off the fist she shot up at him. His hands were very strong. “First we have to find out where Johnny Greene and Rick O’Shay are. Would Fiske Junior have it in for them for their part in seeing you all got into the special place?”
She sighed. “That’s what we have to find out. If Adak’ll let me use the comm unit, I can probably roust them out of wherever they are—BOQ on SpaceBase, probably.”
“Both Johnny and Rick believe in Petaybee,” Sean said, musing aloud, his fingers playing an idle tattoo on her shoulder, “or they wouldn’t have helped us then. So, perhaps they’ll help us again. How hard would it be for them to abscond with a copter or two?”
Yana shrugged. “Both struck me as pretty clever. Copter pilots tend to be a tad devious. If they could stash enough fuel in a cache somewhere, they could help us and still appear to be on duty at the base. No matter how you slice it, it’s going to lake a few days for Marmion and that bald buzzard to organize themselves and their escort, so we have a few days. Unless Torkel clamps down on all SpaceBase activity.”
