by neetha Napew
“The company needs my testimony?” the Shepherd asked. Goat-dung would have suspected he’d be delighted. After all, in his teachings, the company was the great force that had changed all of their lives and cast them into anguish at the mercy of the Great Monster. He seemed to be weighing his words when he answered, “This gives me much to ponder. I will do a teaching this evening. You may attend. But there is another matter between us. This girl . . .”
“She told me of your teachings, Shepherd. She’s impressed me very much, and I would like to retain her as my research assistant.”
“That is impossible. We are betrothed. Tonight will be our deferred wedding night. After the teaching, there will be a feast, and then she shall cleave unto me even as her mother did.”
Matthew turned to Goat-dung with a mockery of happy surprise on his face. “Why, Goat-dung! Congratulations.”
She hung her head.
Ascencion came forward and took her in charge and led her away to the makeshift tent—shed that was the newly rebuilt wedding hut, while her self—proclaimed rescuer ignored her plight to court her chief tormentor. As she shuffled along behind Ascencion, however, she heard the Shepherd tell Matthew, “After the wedding, she will no longer be Goat-dung. Everyone must address her, as befits my wife, by her new name, Dolores.”
Dolores: Full of woe. What could be more appropriate for her? Goat-dung thought. No, in her mind, she would think of herself as ‘Cita.
She allowed herself to be dressed in the ceremonial “Taking Gown,” the cloak-like gown that all of the chosen women wore when the Shepherd took them to wife. Once garbed. she was left alone to wait hopelessly for her wedding—until there were shouts from the far end of the Vale and in her mind she heard Coaxtl’s voice saying:
Another one comes! Fear him not but treat him well and care for his wounds. On his safety depends your own and mine, and that of all the people, for the Home loves this one well.
Chapter 11
Yana, Diego, and Bunny were recovering from their often treacherous uphill climb back to the cave entrance at Harrison’s Fjord. Ardis told them they had missed Johnny Greene’s return, so they spent two more days anxiously waiting before his copter set down again. They ran out to meet him, ducking under the still-whirling rotors. He looked very tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
When the noise of the blades stopped, he said, “I know I’m late, but there was something I had to get done, pronto, schnell, fast. And I got news, too.” He hauled his backpack from under the pilot’s seat. “First let me have a hot bath and get eight hours.”
“Where’re you fitting a decent meal in?” Ardis asked, scowling at him.
“While I’m bathing, Ardis, love, and anything you have ready’ll suit me fine,” he said with his charismatic smile. “You’re back soon, or did you go?” he asked Yana as she, Diego, and Bunny started back down to the Sounik house. “Oh,” he added, noticing the sudden tears form in Bunny’s eyes, and he threw a comforting arm about her shoulders.
“My father,” Bunny said in a choked voice.
“Cave-in,” Yana added.
“My sympathies, Buneka,” Johnny said formally.
“It’s not as if I knew him as a father,” she said and gave a little shrug.
‘Sean’s gone on, hoping to find traces of Aoifa!” Yana said.
Then Johnny grinned with pure mischief. “Marmion Algemeine took her folks and the five assistants Matthew made the mistake of leaving behind to the cave where the planet spoke to us after the volcano erupted.”
“What?”
He grinned again at the astonished chorus that comment elicited “Yup.”
“And?” Diego demanded.
“Well, they were gone thirty hours . . .” Johnny said, and paused, his eyes twinkling as he deliberately lengthened the telling of his story. “And Seamus Rourke and Rick O’Shay said it was one of the nicer visitations they’ve ever had.”
“Yes, but what happened to Luzon’s guys? And Marmion? And Sally and . . .”
“Marmion took Millard and Sally. Faber was off doing some other errand,” Johnny supplied when Yana faltered.
“Seamus swears there-s been very subtle changes in all of them. Can’t see it myself, but Seamus is more in tune with the planet’s ways than I am. Says their hearts are altered even if they don’t think their minds have been, and we’ll have to wait and see what happens. As far as they’re concerned, they spent only a half hour or so in a misty cavern and lost thirty working hours.” Johnny’s grin was as broad as it could get, his eyes almost lost in the folds of his cheeks. “I’ll have to trust him on this one. This is one time the planet’s too sly even for me.”
“Nothing at all noticeable? They didn’t have the dream?”
Yana asked. The dream—actually, a sort of experiential emotional history of what the planet had undergone during its relatively short lifetime—that she had shared with Johnny, Sean, the Whittakers, and others shortly before they were rescued would have been quite a revelation for Matthew’s physically fit boyos. She would have liked to have heard that they’d got the full treatment so they’d know beyond a shadow of a doubt how the planet felt about what was being done to it.
“I wouldn’t worry, Yana,” Johnny said, and Bunny, still closely embraced, nodded wisely, too.
“I just hope so. Because . . .”
Johnny shook his head, released Bunny, and stopped. “Lemme get a bath, some food, and some sleep, and we’ll talk when my head’s clearer. Okay?”
So they relented and tried to find other things to do to occupy themselves while Johnny slept, so tired that Ardis swore he didn’t move arm or leg from the moment he lay down on the bed.
The curly-coats needed grooming, which took a good hour and a half while Nanook sunned himself on the terrace. That seemed to be the focal point for all the felines of Harrison’s Fjord. Even Shush the Survivor was there, the recipient of many rubbings and strokings and lickings.
Yana, easing back muscles for a moment as she was tackling the matted underbelly of her pony, wondered at the attentions Shush was receiving.
“Do they do that to every newcomer? she asked Bunny.
Shush had put on a good deal of flesh in the scant week she’d been at the Fjord and no longer looked like a rack of orange-skinned bones and pathetic eyes.
Bunny looked over and grinned. “Naw, they’re educating her. Nanook said something was necessary since the poor cat’d had no one to teach her how to pass on messages. Her mother got killed before she could, so she’s being brought up to speed with the rest of Clodagh’s cats. And—“ Bunny frowned, because there were far more cats there than there should have been. “There must be messages coming in.” She put down the body brush she’d been vigorously using on her pony and walked over to Nanook.
“What’s up?” she asked, sitting down beside him in a space made available by a resettlement of many orange bodies.
Liam Maloney is not pleased at what happened to Dinah, Nanook told her. The cat sat perfectly still and stared into Bunny’s eyes through his own wide golden ones, the message rumbling into her mind as all of the more complicated messages did. The cat’s vocalizations were limited to the few short human terms within the range of its speech centers. These longer communications needed a bit more concentration, especially with a neophyte recipient such as Bunny or Yana Maddock. With Sean Shongili it was a different matter altogether. Talking to Sean was second nature.
Bunny sighed. “I knew Liam would be upset but he does know she’s recovering and is being very well treated?”
Nanook licked a front paw briefly to indicate the affirmative. He passes on that there is trouble at Deadhorse like what you found at McGee’s Pass. Trouble also waits at Wellington and Savoy.
Bunny thought about that. These were the four towns most remote from Kilcoole, and each of them had been reported by the cats as being in favor of mining. She couldn’t help but wonder if each of the towns had also had recent changes in their shanach
ies. She gave a convulsive shudder. If there were any more like Satok, the trouble was bigger than she’d ever conceived it could be. And if all four of those villages had had their caves coated in Petraseal . . . She shuddered again.
“What else?” she asked, sensing that Nanook was waiting for her to absorb that information.
Satok has been visiting these other villages. Satok has friends in all of them. The reports, by the way, are from track-cats and feral cats. No more like Shush live in those villages.
“The hell he has!”
“What’s the matter, Bunny?” Yana asked, startled by Bunny’s loud, angry outburst.
“But what can we do about it?” Bunny asked quickly, waving to Yana to keep on with what she was doing.
Nanook licked the tip of his tail thoughtfully. Clodagh has been informed of all. There is more. When the pilot man goes south, we must go with him.
“Sean’s not in danger, is he?”
Nanook blinked. We go south, too. Then he stretched his long body out across the sun warmed stone of the wall, and Bunny knew he had finished talking to her.
She went back to Darby and picked up where she left off.
“What was that all about?” Yana asked. leaning against Darby’s rump.
“Nanook says we’d better go south with Johnny.” She added hastily, “No, Nanook doesn’t think Sean’s in trouble, but he does think we should go south.”
Johnny Greene did, too.
“I’d have to go back even if I didn’t want to check up on the kid,” he said. “Whit wants me to keep an eye on Luzon. Actually, I was supposed to pick him up at Sierra Padre a couple of days ago.” Johnny grinned unrepentantly. “Had engine trouble.”
Bunny cocked an eyebrow at Johnny.
“Oh, I’ll have a real one for Dr. Luzon,” Johnny said, brushing aside her skeptical reaction. “But I had a sudden premonition, like, and since I’ve rarely had one that strong before that didn’t turn out that I should have listened more closely, this time I did. So I called in a few favors and sorted the problem out. Just in case.” Then he grinned with all the abandon of a boy who had just pulled the best practical joke in the world on his worst enemy and there’d be no way of assigning guilt to him.
“What have you done, Captain Greene?” Yana asked, resuming her military attitude.
“Nothing, Major sir, to bother your head about.” He laid a finger alongside his nose and winked at her. But for all the amusement in his eyes, his expression told her she’d get no more out of him and to let the matter be.
She nodded. “Something which will no doubt please me in days to come?”
“I devoutly hope so, considering the effort I’ve put into it. Now, since I’ve had my bath, food, sleep, and more food, let’s load up. Nanook wants you south, he gets you south. Ah, and you’re coming along with us, are you, Nanook?” The black and white track-cat had strolled up to the copter and was peering inside it. “He doesn’t much like flying, you know,” Johnny added. “Looking won’t change the flight process, pal.”
Nanook crawled under the second row of passenger seats, tucked his tail tight against his body, and laid his head on his paws. His whole attitude was one of patient resignation to an inevitable fate.
“Well, he’s stowed. Get yourselves aboard.” Johnny gestured for Bunny and Diego to sit over Nanook, while Yana took the other front seat. Then he handed around headphones so they could all communicate during the long journey south
They knew something was wrong the moment Loncie carne to the door.
“Luzon?” Johnny asked simply, and got a stream of Andean invective that was both colorful and inventive, the gist of it being that the son of a scabrous tarantula had stolen La Pobrecita. Pointed inquiry around Sierra Padre by the entire Ondelacy/Chompas clan had brought forth the information that the vomitus spewings of an excrement—devouring long extinct reptile which would eat its own mother without shame or serious second contemplation had taken the only snocle in all of Sierra Padre, Lhasa, or any place this side of Bogota, which was, as Juanito knew, a very long journey, especially at this uncertain time of year.
“When did all this happen?” Johnny asked quickly.
“The day after you left, Juanito. I thought she would be safe playing with my own ninos! I was a fool! A fool!”
Johnny was too angry to say anything more. Mostly he was angry at himself. He should have known Luzon would stop at nothing. At least the man hadn’t hurt Loncie or one of her family in the kidnapping—not that they’d ever be able to prove it was a kidnapping. He nearly, but not quite, regretted the two days he had taken to make his private arrangements. One thing was certain: They’d have to move, and move fast, if they were to get the girl away again. This time he was leaving her nowhere near Luzon.
“Didn’t she scream? Or—or anything?” Bunny asked, pushing herself out from behind Johnny’s back.
“She went willingly, from what my children know of it,” Loncie said. “She feared the man, one could see that, but he was the sort she would follow because he is what she is used to, what she has been taught to love. Well, perhaps not love, but someone who acts as she expects people to act. She cannot imagine anything else and so allows him to return her.”
“She didn’t accept it, though, did she?” Bunny demanded, not just of Loncie but of all the adults and Diego. “She ran away, didn’t she? We’ve got to help her!”
Yana put her arm reassuringly around the girl’s shoulders. “That’s what we’re here to do, Rourke. All the lady is saying is that the poor kid had been so brainwashed, she rejected happiness because the concept was so unfamiliar that it was scary.”
“Ah!” And Lonciana nodded vigorous1y. “You have said it. But, come, enter. The evening meal is prepared and you must eat. You will never find this secret place from which she comes in the darkness. Also, you must tell us all that is happening to bring such a planet-defiling dung-sucking leech as this Luzon to our world, and we must sing together.”
“Our timing’s great, kids,” Yana said, trying to inject a little bravado into the currently demoralizing state of affairs. “We may have a song or two to pass along ourselves. Was anyone from this village at Bremport?”
Loncie’s eyes brimmed suddenly, and Yana understood the term “dolorous” as she never had before. The woman’s chins trembled and her mouth contorted with sudden grief. Yana would have touched her arm, but Pablo was there already, his small frame supporting his wife’s larger one like steel scaffolding.
“Our second son, Alejandro.”
To Yana’s count that made the last of those from Petaybee who had died in that incident. She heaved a sigh of relief and allowed herself to be escorted into the house.
“Hey, a guitar!” The exclamation burst from Diego’s lips and then he flushed, realizing that his excitement was not quite suitable following mention of those who died at Bremport.
“You like guitar?” Lonciana asked, her whole expression brightening.
“Do I like guitar? I’ve been trying to make one.” Diego reached into his backpack and brought out the neck he had been so patiently shaping.
“Que hombre!” Lonciana embraced him as if he were a long-lost friend. Diego, momentarily engulfed by her, grinned—more with acceptance of her enthusiasm than embarrassment.
They ate first, of course, and various young Ondelacy-Chompases were sent to inform the entire village that there would be a special singing this evening: too late to make it a latchkay, but certainly there would be blurry and a bite or two to go down with it.
“I thought blurry was Clodagh’s specialty,” Yana commented as she washed up before dinner.
Johnny grinned. “The north doesn’t have a corner on the market of all good things, Yana. Had you come up from the ranks as I did, instead of training at an officer’s academy with so few Petaybean candidates, you’d have learned something of the joys of comparative Petaybean blurry drinking. Every time Loncie returned from leave, she used to bring back a stash: Old Armad
illo is what we nicknamed her recipe, because it armors you so well against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The spice she uses gives it a little more kick than the mulled-cider kinda thing you get up north.”
Bunny, who was watching Pablo demonstrate to an enraptured Diego first the techniques of playing the guitar and then the sound made by the bagpipes, said, “They have more than a few things down here that we don’t have up north.”
Lonciana did something with a mess of beans that Yana, sensitive now to such subtleties, would have given her right big toe to discover. It was tasty and filling, satisfying even their hearty appetites.
Immediately afterward, the table was dismantled and taken out of the main room, and chairs, benches, stools, and odd crates were placed about the room. The guitar came off the wall again, and Yana identified one round object with jingling bits fastened in its lip as a tambourine.
Lonciana was busy in the kitchen end of the house, mixing the blurry with the help of her eldest daughters, while Pablo, Johnny, and the older Ondelacy boys began to greet the visitors as they began to pour in.
Once again Yana wondered at the way a small Petaybean house could seem to expand infinitely to contain so many people. Eventually there was only a small space around the high stool that had been placed in the center of the room for the singers—of which Yana was one, and probably the first. Bunny and Johnny both kept her mug as well as Diego’s full of blurry once Diego announced that he had his song, too.
Yana missed Sean desperately, but Johnny took her to the stool and settled her on it, taking the mug when she drained the last of the blurry.
“This is Major Yana Maddock, who was at Bremport and who is now one of us,” Johnny began simply. “She has a song for you.”
Silence has different qualities, Yana knew, from the absolute one she’d not heard on her few space walks to that of expectancy, either a hopeful or happy one, or a mean and miserable show-us-your-stuff kind. This was expectant and almost reverent. That startled her so much that she began to sing to stop what her ears weren’t hearing.
