by neetha Napew
Half-irate, Ardis tried to push her huge spouse away from her, batting vainly at his hands while everyone joined in the laughter. “Never like that. you big oaf!”
One more excruciating cry jarred their eardrums, and then there was blessed silence.
“Well, then,” Sean said, “let’s turn in and get a good night’s sleep. We’ve an expedition to start .. .” He turned queryingly to Ardis.
“Oh, Johnny brought all the gear you need, and rations for twice the distance,” Ardis said, flicking her hand to the outside storage shed. Then she rose, gathering plates up as she did so. Yana and Bunny were instantly on their feet, followed almost immediately by Diego.
The cottage was very shortly occupied by sleepers, so no one noticed the small orange-striped cat who crept in wearily but utterly fulfilled and curled up near the hearth.
Johnny Greene was not at all happy to leave Geedee—how could anyone lumber a child with a disgusting name like Goat-dung—anywhere in the vicinity of Matthew Luzon, though he had perfect faith that she would be safe with Lonciana Ondelacy and her family.
He was especially worried because the child seemed far too content to be in Luzon’s presence, looking up eagerly when he spoke and tripping all over herself to answer his every question. Who the frag had ever said that kids could tell scoundrels from saints?
And Luzon, the old hypocrite, was a real smoothie when reassuring the poor frightened and self-deprecating kid, while conveying at the same time how fortunate she was that he wanted to talk to her. Frag, she practically apologized for breathing the same air they did.
Johnny hadn’t wanted to take Matthew along when he went to look up his old shipmate Loncie, now a grandmother and one of the community leaders of Sierra Padre. But Matthew had pompously declared that he was determined to do his duty as ranking company official in seeing that the girl had “a suitable placement,” and Geedee had looked up at him with wide eyes and clung to his hand.
In the twenty years or so since Loncie had retired and returned to Petaybee, she had acquired quite a bit of weight, an air of authority far exceeding that she had wielded as a chief petty officer, and an incredibly large family. Now almost as round as she was tall, she wore her thick black hair, still only lightly threaded with silver, in an array of braids, secured to her head with an intricately carved and immensely valuable—Johnny saw Matthew looking at the artifact covetously—ivory comb that had not come from any creature supposedly native to this planet.
“Ah, pobrecita!” Lonciana cried when she saw the girl. She barely acknowledged Johnny’s cautious introduction of Matthew Luzon and his assistant. Instead, she lifted and clasped to an ample bosom the startled, wide-eyed, scrawny waif. “Que lastima! What has life been doing to you?” Her black eyes snapped with anger directed at Matthew.
“Easy, now, Loncie,” Johnny said. “We found her on the flats. She says she’s from some hell hole called the Vale of Tears.”
Loncie sucked her breath in between her teeth and her eyes narrowed angrily.
“We have heard of such a place,” she said. “Tsering Gonzales’s boy, who was never right in the head, he said he was going there. He had heard of the place from someone who came trading poorly made cloth for supplies—the man had a boy with him. The boy ran away and long after Jetsun left, Tsering heard tales the boy had told the family that took him in. It is a terrible place. They beat and frighten the children with the most outrageous superstitious nonsense and call it religion! Or so I’ve heard tell.”
Matthew Luzon looked as if someone had just given him a gift and opened his mouth to speak, but Loncie had returned to her new charge. “Never mind, pobrecita, you are safe here with Lonciana Ondelacy.”
Johnny didn’t want Loncie to take a wily bastard like Luzon too lightly, and flashed her a rather urgent glance, which she caught and immediately understood. Turning to Luzon, she radiated her own considerable charm.
“Do be seated, most gracious Senior Luzon and rescuer of this little scrap of humanity. Pablo, have you not brought the wine? Carmelita, you and Isabella see to the needs of this little one.”
She put the child on her feet and gently pushed her toward two daughters who would undoubtedly rival their mother for size and beauty. They smiled winningly at the child, who was nearly catatonic with such unwarranted treatment.
“And how is the nina called, Juanito?” she asked Johnny.
It took him a long moment to answer, but with Loncie looking at him so hard, he had no escape.
“She says her name is Goat-dung!”
“Ay, de mio!” And Lonciana’s hands went heavenward. “Tsering did say that they name their young in such a way, to shame and humiliate them, but it is beyond my lips to form such a name in front of the innocent ears of my own children “
“But, mamacita, we know that goats make dung,” Carmelita said, giggling.
“Goats do not make los ninos wear such names. Pobrecita we will call you, little one. Take her, bathe her, and see what of your sisters’ clothing will clad her decently. I will come and see to her injuries while—Pablo, where is the wine? Ah, here, and biscuits. Oh, you are so clever, mi esposo!” And she beamed on the wiry little man who was entering the room, carrying yet another beautiful artifact to astound Luzon.
This was a silver tray, some of its fine etching cleaned to the copper below the plating, covered with a fine white lace cloth, with a glass decanter and some very plebeian shot glasses of the type to be seen in any Intergal bar.
Senior Pablo, whose last name Johnny didn’t catch—it probably wasn’t Ondelacy, since that was the name he had known Loncie by when she was a senior chief—was a perfect foil for his wife. He was as quiet as Loncie was verbose, and he showed to Matthew Luzon the deference and respect due to any sneaky and poisonous creature. Pablo gravely insisted that Don Matthew must take the heavy armchair, so incongruous among the rest of the utilitarian furnishings, and gave him first pick of the refreshments.
In his turn, Matthew seemed intrigued by Pablo, who sported a distinguished silvered goatee and sideburns. He was reminded of an extremely valuable painting that he had seen once in a museum on old Terra.
Though Matthew sipped suspiciously at the beverage served him, Johnny enjoyed the resinous flavor that was minor fire in his mouth and left a not—unpleasant after taste.
The biscuits were lighter than Johnny had expected, and sort of cheesy in flavor, which made sense, since there were goats in a pen in the back of the house.
He saw Luzon’s gaze roving around the room, taking in a number of uncommon objects, like the flute and the beribboned guitar hung over a fine white fur: both well above the reach of small hands. Another object, that Johnny at first assumed to be a goat skin drinking bag with various lengths of pipe stuck from it, was actually a musical instrument, too, as Pablo explained when he caught Johnny’s curious gaze: the Basque bagpipes.
However, none of them said much, since the noise of Goat-dung’s attendants made any conversation difficult, even if Senior Pablo had been so inclined. Braddock looked better after his first sip of the liquor and was casting a judicious eye on the furs that covered the walls and floor. Lonciana kept exclaiming over this and that, arguing over items of clothing and demanding others until Matthew began to wonder just how long it took to clean one scrawny child and dab ointment on a few scratches. He was totally unprepared for Lonciana’s dramatic re-entrance with the clean and not only neatly but flatteringly clothed child.
Johnny Greene sat bolt upright in his chair as if he were seeing a ghost.
“This nina,” declared Lonciana, fists planted on her broad hips, “has been constantly beaten with rods. Her ribs have been cracked on several occasions and I distinctly feel the thickening of several bones in both arms and legs where she has had fractures. She has obviously been starved all her life—if she has had the misfortune to live in that Vale of Tears”—Loncie spat to one side—“that is not unlikely.”
Washed and attractively clothed, t
he child looked even more wan and under nourished.
“Now we eat,” Lonciana stated. At a clap of her hands, more children appeared from the unseen regions of this incredible house, each bearing elements of the meal and the utensils with which to eat it. Seating La Pobrecita beside her, Lonciana herself fed the child, who did not seem to know what to do with either spoon or fork.
Loncie’s maternal presence was too overwhelming not to be threatening to Luzon, who began coaxing the girl into describing her home and her companions.
“Don Matthew, perhaps it is not wise to remind the nina of such matters,” Pablo ventured deferentially, but Luzon swept aside his objections.
“Nonsense, my dear man. Do you know nothing of psychotherapy? Why, the very best thing for the child is to discuss her traumas and her feelings about them, to speak out fully of everything which disturbed her. Only then can she be purged of her fears. Confrontation is the very best medicine in cases like this.”
Lonciana and the daughters who had tended the child were stunned as she fairly blossomed under his interrogation. Black eyes snapped with concern as Luzon deftly elicited information from the girl. On his side of the table, among the Ondelacy boys, Johnny lost his appetite watching Luzon, who, despite all of his protests of horror and sympathy, obviously was being fed exactly the kind of dirt he had hoped to dredge up. The man’s ill-concealed relish of the child’s story turned Loncie’s savory meal into bile in his mouth.
Well, he’d done what he could and found the child safe harbor. Luzon could question all he wanted, but he wouldn’t be able to force the child away from Loncie and her family any more easily than he would be able to force her away from Johnny. Johnny was tempted to pick the kid up and take her back north with him anyway, but he figured he would do better to high tail himself back north and make his report to Dr. Fiske, collect Sean and Yana, and fully cover his own ass. But he did want them to see this kid. There was something about her—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Anyway, if he was to do any real good, he would need reinforcements.
He stood, bowed elaborately to his former chief petty officer, her spouse and brood, gave the child a bit of a salute—which Luzon returned, the ass, with a sharp dismissive one—and returned to his copter. He didn’t enjoy flying it half as much on the way back as he expected. Quite aside from the lingering stench of Braddock’s puke, it felt contaminated.
Although this southern continent should have been deep into the autumnal season and its ground surfaces well frozen up for smooth snocling, the Big Freeze had not yet occurred, a matter which caused considerable concern among the Sierra Padreans. This bunch were of very mixed ethnic origins; some, like Loncie, were of Central and South American origin, mainly from the Andes, and over time they had mixed with the few volatile high-mountain Basques, the combination tempered by a great many of the imperturbable Sherpas. Pablo, despite his resemblance to one of the characters in a painting by Goya, was half Sherpa, half Basque. While Loncie, as a retired corps member, kept her birth name of Ondelacy, the family name was actually Chompas.
All of this information Matthew Luzon and Braddock skillfully extracted from the family after the meal was over and Johnny Greene had departed, a very good thing since his presence definitely interfered with the rapport Matthew wished to establish with this family and, in particular, the girl they now called ‘Cita.
One thing that particularly excited Matthew was that the girl in no way resembled any of the Chompas/Ondelacy family. Nor could he see her gray eyes and light hair as placing her among the African or Afghani residents of this sector. No, she belonged to a different ethnic group than he had seen down here thus far, and he was eager to learn if others at the Vale of Tears were as different—both in appearance and outlook—as she seemed to suggest.
He took polite leave of them that night, and spent all the next day, with only Braddock to help him, trying to find alternative air transport. Finally he settled for a snocle. He was warned that, since the thaws of autumn had lasted unusually late this year and winter was not yet fully upon the continent, they might require many detours.
“Planet should be colder in the high country though,” granted the man who rented them quite a battered machine. Luzon suspected that the man had no right to have access to one at all and, to add insult to injury, he charged them a Large enough deposit to buy a small space station. Matthew smiled sourly but paid, knowing he could easily confiscate the machine if he so desired. But just now he desired to keep a low profile.
In his preparations. he had already gathered that Sierra Padre would be as fruitless as Bogota in his quest for those who didn’t speak of “the planet” or “Petaybee” as if it were a friend or neighbor or possibly a close relative. Such superstitious idiocy! He had high hopes for the girl’s Shepherd Howling, however, whose nonsense was no less superstitious but in a more useful vein for Matthew’s purposes.
Once provisions and other appropriate gear had been acquired and stowed in the machine, Matthew awaited the moment to acquire the final piece in this phase of his investigation.
The girl played right into his hands. While the other children in the huge woman’s huge family played at building a snow fort from the new snow of the night before, Goat-dung—he, at least, would give her the proper name bestowed upon her by her culture—sat alone beside a spindly birch next to the pen containing goats. Maybe there was more to her name than just a convenient identity.
Matthew strolled up to her casually, saying, “Goat-dung. I require your assistance.”
“Sir, I am told my name is now ‘Cita.”
“By those who mean it kindly but do not know the significance of your true name, yes. But you and I know that their kindness is nevertheless a falsehood, do we not? You were given your name for a reason.”
She dropped those pale calf-eyes of hers and said in a tiny voice, “Yes, sir.”
“I wish to speak to this Shepherd Howling.”
“I won’t go back there!” she said with more spirit than he thought she had left. “I won’t!”
“Of course not, of course not, my dear child. I understand your feelings. You are deeply ashamed to have left the community under a cloud, to have been unable to measure up to the simple things your shepherd required of you. But I’m sure he will forgive you and allow you to separate from the community once I explain to him that you are more valuable out here, to me.”
“To you, sir” she asked, the hysteria fading from her voice and being replaced by awe.
“Why, yes,” he said. “I need a research assistant who is native to this planet, and who better than yourself? If you work out, I will adopt you as my daughter.”
“Your daughter, sir? This unworthy one?”
“Through hard work and appropriate behavior, you may yet become worthy. But first you must be very brave. Come along and I will show you what is required.”
She got to her feet and took his hand, with only one backward glance at the house of her erstwhile guardian. He knew very well what he was doing. By replacing the feared figure of the Shepherd Howling in her mind with himself, someone stronger, probably better spoken, and certainly more rational, he placed himself in the role of both master and protector. Oh yes, she would certainly obey him as un-questioningly as she had ever obeyed her—he smiled at the quaint crudity of the primitive notion—betrothed.
On the way back north, Johnny radioed in a coded report to Whittaker Fiske, along with an inquiry about the clouded big cat that had kept Geedee company. It wasn’t like any track-cat he’d ever seen. He received a terse acknowledgment. “Received and acknowledged. I designed no such cat. Ask Shongili, Happy buzzard-watching. W.F.
When Johnny finally stretched his legs at Harrison’s Fjord, Sean, Yana, Bunny, Diego, and Nanook had already started on their journey down the cave that had swallowed up Bunny’s parents twelve years before. The presence of Liam Maloney’s lead dog sleeping by the fire in the Souniks’ house naturally resulted in Johnny being brought
up to date on all that had happened at McGee’s Pass.
“Satok used Petraseal to block the planet off!” Something very cold descended Johnny’s backbone. “Frag it, Fingaard. Do you know how much of that stuff is stocked at SpaceBase? Have you any idea what could happen if anyone, Matthew Luzon in particular, found out what Petraseal can do to our caves?”
Ardis’s face was stricken. “The boy, Diego, has made a song of it.”
“Well, let’s just bloody hope he doesn’t sing it.”
“He already has. What he had finished of it, at least,” Fingaard said in a deep bass whisper.
“Frag!” was Johnny’s explosive response. He was pensive for a long moment and then, with one blink of his eyes, became the affable, carefree copter pilot they knew so well. “I’d better get back and report in. Gotta get refueled, and then I just gotta come back this weary way again. See ya!” He tipped his peaked cap at Ardis and strode back to the copter, hands in his pockets, whistling.
With Nanook padding along in front of them, occasionally taking a short tangent before coming back, the four of them made forty klicks down into the cave at Harrison’s Fjord. Within the first hour they had swung away from the path that led to the fjord’s planet place and started descending. The slope was fairly steep at first, but soon began to have an easier gradient. Once the luminescence lit their way, they had no need of the artificial hand beams and carefully stowed them away.
“This isn’t at all like the other caves I’ve been in,” Diego remarked when they reached the easier gradient.
“I doubt you’ll find two even vaguely similar,” Sean said with a smile.
“Have you been in all of them?”
“No, I haven’t. That’d take a lifetime, I think,” Sean replied with a grin. “My grandfather found the first one, more of a cleft in the rock than a real cave. He knew, of course, that there were cave systems just under the surface. That’s the way Terraform B works, but his finding the cleft was pure chance.”
