The Peytabee Omnibus

by neetha Napew

  ‘There’s not enough room in here, Aisling. Come on out and join us. You can give the fox-killer advice on how to sew up the pelt so it won’t show the holes he made skinnin’ it.’

  The next morning, before first light, Liam Maloney and Seamus arrived to a howled greeting from the dog team. The clamour from the dogs woke their guests, who rose painfully, stretching stiff joints and complaining of the cold. Dr Ersol was scratching.

  ‘If I turn out to be allergic to fleas, madame, I’ll have you before the Company Court,’ he told Sinead.

  ‘There aren’t any fleas on Petaybee,’ Aisling told him. ‘Too cold. But if there were, you could’ve as easily got them from the fox, so don’t go blaming the dogs. Sinead takes better care of them than she does of herself sometimes.’

  ‘We won’t be after botherin’ the dogs this mornin’ though,’ Sinead said in the broad brogue she put on with outworlders who annoyed her. ‘No snow for them, y’see. No, Mister Maloney here and Mister Rourke and me will be takin’ the curlies. I’m afraid you fine gentlemen will need to walk.’ She eyed the three men Liam and Seamus had brought with them. She was not impressed despite all the fine equipment and special clothing they were sporting.

  Seamus looked at her as if she was daft. To the men he said, more jovially than anyone had addressed them since they’d arrived on Petaybee, ‘Ah, that girl missed her callin’, sure she did. She shoulda been a general in the Company Corps, she’s that hard.’

  ‘Them as abuses animals can do without their services, I say,’ Sinead defended herself.

  But Liam said, ‘True enough, but they’ll only be slowin’ us down if they walk, cheechakos that they are. They can use Mother’s Sidhe and Da’s Oosik.’

  ‘Come to that,’ Aisling said, ‘one of ‘em could use Darby. She’s gentle.’

  ‘Fine then,’ Sinead said. ‘You three newcomers can take the curlies first shift. The poachers here can walk for a spell.’

  After rounding up the horses in question, the eight of them rode - and walked - away into the sunrise. Two hours later Sinead was forced to relent. The two poachers had suffered hard treatment at her hands the night before. Neither of the off-worlders had been able to sleep well among the dogs; at first because the men feared the dogs, and later because as soon as the dogs stopped licking their visitors’ faces or sniffing their behinds, they managed to steal the blankets. When the poachers began to stumble and fall more often than they walked, Sinead had two of the newcomers dismount and allowed the walkers to ride.

  A short time later, they came to the first culling place she was willing to show them. She had disarmed Ersol and de Peugh of their high-tech weapons the previous day and though she, Liam and Seamus all carried daggers, short thrusting spears and bows and arrows, the other three - Mooney, Clotworthy and Minkus -had not been allowed even those.

  ‘Frag, there must be ten or fifteen rabbits in there,’ Ersol said, seeing the hole where the rabbits sat or lay, waiting for them.

  ‘Probably. There have been about that many since spring,’ she answered.

  ‘So, you gonna stab ‘em or shoot ‘em with your bow?’ one of the others asked.

  ‘Neither,’ she said, then gently lifted one rabbit by the scruff of its neck and, avoiding the mouth, twisted its head saying, ‘Thank you, little brother, for giving your life that we can live, for your flesh to feed us and your fur to keep us warm. We honour you.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Nigel Clotworthy, who had admitted to being a systems analyst. He looked at his companions in a puzzled fashion.

  ‘She was talking to the rabbit, not you, buddy,’ de Peugh answered.

  ‘We gotta talk to rabbits?’

  ‘Yeah. Hey, Sinead, baby, what if Harvey there says he doesn’t want to get his neck wrung and he’s not so crazy about being your earmuffs either. Do you let him go, say “Sorry, my mistake.”

  ‘They’re here,’ she said, pausing to wring another neck with an emphatic crack and murmur the same prayerful thanks before she continued her explanation to the hunters, ‘because they want to be killed. Rabbits tend to overproduce. These will be the sick ones, the old ones, the extra bucks or does who couldn’t find a place. Rabbits are very sensitive, actually, and they get depressed if they’re not wanted. They know we have a use for them. So they come here. It’s like that with all the animals in the culling places, only more so with rabbits.’

  ‘What about foxes?’ Ersol asked, and met her black look steadily.

  ‘Foxes,’ she said, ‘don’t get depressed. But sometimes they do get sick, or too old. Or there’s not enough food and they decide to become culls.’

  ‘Sounds unnatural to me. I mean, it’s survival of the fittest and all that but everybody wants to live, as a rule.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As a rule. So it’s sure a shame to kill something that doesn’t want to die, isn’t it?’ Her glacial blue gaze caught and froze his.

  ‘It’s not very sporting though, is it?’ observed Minkus, one of the other hunters.

  ‘Killing is serious business,’ Sinead said, with a shrug. She handed him the rabbit she had just picked up. ‘Here, you try this. Make sure the break is clean and say part of the thanks before you finish him so he knows you’re doing it.’

  ‘Lady, I never try to hurt anything any more than it takes to do the job, but you people have gone over the top. This anthropomorphism shit is crazy. The whole universe is going to have a big belly laugh at your expense. First you try to tell us the planet is sentient and then you want me to believe you’re intimate with the psychology of bunny rabbits and foxes.’ Minkus snapped the rabbit’s neck in anger.

  First Sinead said thanks to the rabbit. Then she had words for the hunter. ‘You don’t think we just made all this up, do you? We learnt a long time ago that the animals are willing to come to these places to die as long as we are courteous and grateful for their sacrifice. But if we forget our manners, there’ll be no rabbit, no moose, no caribou, bear, or fowl and we’d better hope the vegetable crop was good in the summer because the long and the short of it is, there’ll be no meat at all. It’s the same with the sea creatures.’

  ‘Come on, you people have only been here a couple hundred years,’ de Peugh said.

  ‘Yes sir, that’s right, we have,’ Seamus put in. ‘By the time we came, our ancestors back on Earth on the Inuit side had taken to outside ways and didn’t listen to the animals no more. And you know what? Them animals got extinct - at least as far as men knew, for they never came near ‘em no more. Except for the polar bears that is,’ Seamus grinned. ‘They just turned the huntin’ round the other way. You boys manage to snag a polar bear, I want to warn you for your own good, be real polite to the one you take or his kinfolk will take exception.’

  ‘Your turn, Seamus,’ Sinead said.

  After there was a rabbit apiece, duly dressed and skinned, she motioned for them to move on.

  ‘How about all your little friends in there wanting to die?’ de Peugh asked.

  ‘There are more folks in Kilcoole than just us,’ Liam said.

  In two more hours, the trail led to a kidney-shaped lake, clear as crystal and full of lily pads. The curlies became restive.

  ‘Whoa, boy…’ said Clotworthy, leaning forward and patting the curly’s neck to reassure his mount.

  ‘Darby’s a mare,’ Liam offered.

  ‘Girl then. What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘They want to go swimming,’ Sinead said, hopping down from her mount, ‘and unless you want to go too, I’d suggest you dismount and remove her tack. You others do the same.’ Liam and Seamus already had their saddles and bridles off.

  Minkus and Mooney, who had been walking, decided to join the horses. The freeze of the previous night had cooled the water only slightly. The day had been sunny and warm after the snowfall and the lake, like most Petaybean waterways, was partially fed by hotsprings.

  Sinead was hot and tired, too. She wasn’t naturally cranky, anyone would tell you that
, but she was at a loss how to impress on these oafish off-worlders the seriousness of the relationship between the species on Petaybee. She had heard in stories and songs how it had been on Earth before her great-great-grandparents left; how the animals were no different from made things, how the world was something you walked on and nothing more. Maybe it was because Petaybee was alive that the relationship between hunter and hunted was a special, privileged one, maybe it was not like that on old Earth, maybe it wasn’t like that anywhere else in the universe, except…

  The old songs and stories her ancestors’ ancestors had handed down as curiosities long after they had ceased to have any meaning in their day-to-day lives reflected that once the animals had been thought of as sisters and brothers, just as they were on Petaybee; that once they had talked with people even more easily than they did now. Maybe this new batch of crazies had the right idea. Maybe you had to pretend that living things were something to be worshipped, instead of doing as Petaybee and its inhabitants had always done and having a bit of friendly give and take. But maybe it took religious awe to get bozos like these blokes to respect anything.

  She waded in after the men and horses and plunged her hands, then her head into the lake’s waters, surface diving, opening her eyes to see the swaying stems of the lilies. The curlies’ feet churned up mud but soon they too were swimming - curlies were good swimmers. The mud settled and she could see their legs working away under water. Then, as if by agreement, all six of them dived at once.

  Lily roots were a great delicacy for curlies, one of their favourite foods, and she could feel their gaiety as they closed off their noses, lowered their extra eyelids and dived like seals for the bottom, their tails streaming out behind them like mermaids’ hair as their lips and teeth pried loose the lily roots. Once the roots were captured, the curlies turned snouts up, pumped with their front legs and were back on the surface, munching their catch.

  The men as well were all in the lake now. Sinead climbed out, dried herself and dressed. Seamus had emerged before her and Liam followed shortly after. The curlies made three or four more dives.

  ‘Looks like them fellows are more interested in horse play than the curlies are,’ Seamus said, watching the hunters diving and splashing each other and trying to catch the curlies’ tails.

  One of them was busily trying to uproot lilies. Hoping to curry favour, no doubt, Sinead thought with a wince at her own unspoken pun.

  Liam said, ‘Their feet probably hurt and curly-coats know well enough that once they’re out of the water, they’ll have riders again.’

  Seamus grinned. ‘Ah, Sinead, it’s a cruel taskmaster you are.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ she said. ‘But I don’t seem to be gettin’ through to them, now do I?’

  ‘I always thought it was simple,’ Liam said. ‘All my life, everybody I know, anytime they wanted anything, just listened to what was wanted and did it and they were taken care of. It’s not like it’s difficult or anything. But these fellows just don’t seem to think that way.’

  Seamus whistled for his curly and the others automatically followed. The men playing in the water either didn’t see or pretended they didn’t.

  ‘Ah, we’ve worried them enough, Sinead,’ Seamus said with a wink. ‘They’ve no guns to do great harm with now. I say we take the curlies and leave them on their own a bit.’

  Sinead returned his wink. ‘An excellent idea. Perhaps without us looking on they’ll figure things out for themselves.’

  9

  Kilcoole

  Contents - Prev/Next

  Clodagh looked over the four white-robed figures and shook her head. ‘I don’t know what Sean thinks I’m going to do with all of you. There’s only me at the house, but I don’t think there’s enough stretching space for all of you.’

  ‘Please, Clodagh,’ Sister Igneous Rock said. ‘We don’t want to put you out. But we have learnt that the Beneficence manifests itself to you in certain caverns warmed by its blessed blood and breath. We could ask for nothing better than to be allowed to live there.’

  The others nodded eagerly but Clodagh shook her head. ‘The caves aren’t living places. It’s OK to take shelter there if you’re caught out in the weather, of course, and it’s OK for animals. Not for people.’

  ‘Forgive my ignorance, Clodagh, but why is that, would you say?’ Brother Shale asked.

  Clodagh shrugged. ‘We talk to the planet most directly in the caves. If someone’s living there, it wouldn’t be polite to go in and have a chat with their house. And on the other hand, how would you like someone setting up housekeeping inside your mouth?’

  Sister Agate beamed. ‘Oh, she is so wise. They said you were wise, and you really are just as wise as they said. Isn’t she wise, brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Indeed. But might we, at least, become acquainted? Would you introduce us to the planet?’

  Clodagh shrugged. ‘You’re standing on it. But I don’t see why not. Only thing is, we just had one latchkay and there’s not another one s’posed to happen till Snowdance. And a latchkay is really the best time. But things are happenin’ so fast, maybe we should have another one sooner.’

  ‘How soon is the next one?’ Brother Shale asked.

  ‘Two, three months. Depending.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sister Igneous Rock said. ‘But that won’t do.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We had hoped to come and worship and return home to spread the Word within the next month.’

  ‘Hmph,’ Clodagh said. ‘If you go that soon, you’ll miss most of the winter.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Brother Shale said. ‘It is said that the exterior temperature gets down below minus two hundred Fahrenheit and I have rather poor circulation to endure that sort of cold.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ Sister Igneous Rock said staunchly. ‘Now, Clodagh, I appreciate your importance as the nominal high priestess of the Beneficence, but I really don’t understand why we should wait for a latchkay. Brother Granite told us that significant communication had taken place quite extemporaneously when people wandered into or were taken to the caves by one of you. That is what we wish.’

  Clodagh said, ‘OK, but I’m not any kind of priestess. I guess I’d better take you tonight, and we can all sleep there. This once.’

  ‘Fine,’ Brother Shale said. ‘Now then, what will the Beneficence perceive as an appropriate sacrifice?’

  De Peugh was the first of the hunters to notice that something was missing. ‘Damn!’ he said slapping the water.

  ‘Damn what?’ asked Clotworthy, shaking the water out of his ears.

  ‘The Great White Huntress and her native bearers have deserted us and taken the transportation!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Minkus. ‘I’m afraid he’s correct. I do hope she left our clothing. My winter togs came from Herod’s on Nilus II and they were hideously expensive.’ He flung this last bit back over his bony white shoulder while wading to shore. ‘Ah!’ he said, once there. ‘It’s all right, chaps! Our kit is all accounted for.’

  ‘Great,’ said Ersol. ‘So it’ll take us much longer to freeze to death this way.’ A fat black cloud chose that moment to cross the path of the low-hanging sun and a teasing wind chased wavelets up to wet the back of his legs as he danced around on the sharp stones scattered along the shore.

  The first one to finish dressing was Mooney, who, looking to the far side of the lake, pointed and said, ‘She didn’t take all the horses with her! Look, there’s one of them over there!’

  ‘First one to catch it gets to ride!’ Clotworthy said and started running. Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite finished putting on his boots, and tripped and fell face down in the shallows, wetting his water-resistant parka and muddying and scratching his face.

  Ersol, a more experienced hunter, proceeded calmly into the lumpen undergrowth sprouting beneath the sparse, skinny trees.

  ‘I see it,’ he hissed back to the others, and stalked it. Meanwhile, Clotworthy stood, picked up a bow and ar
row, followed by Minkus brandishing a spear, and Mooney holding the dagger in his teeth so he would have both hands free to grab the curly’s mane if necessary. De Peugh took the time to hoist the quiver of arrows on to his shoulder and test the bow string before following his fellows. He also, prudently, stuck a rabbit in one of the forty-seven capacious pockets of his hunting vest.

  The curly looked as if it was amenable to being caught, standing quietly, drinking from the lake, until Ersol was almost within touching distance of it. Then it lifted its head and looked at him.

  ‘Holy horseshit, will you look at that!’ he said.

  The curlycorn shook its shaggy head at him, its newly sharpened single horn glinting, and trotted off to a safe distance. It blinked at him, once.

  ‘It’s a fraggin’ unicorn!’ Ercol called back to the others.

  ‘Well, don’t just stare at it, shoot it!’ de Peugh growled, coming up behind him and drawing his own bow. ‘You can bet your retirement fund those things don’t get depressed and go lie in holes waiting to die.’

  ‘No-one’, said Minkus, ‘will ever believe this.’

  ‘Not unless we take the head back with us,’ de Peugh said, letting his arrow fly.

  The arrow was just a bit behind the curlycorn, which galloped off, not in fear, it seemed to Minkus, but as if it had suddenly thought of a previous appointment.

  ‘Missed!’ Ersol said and sent his arrow flying too.

  They were not stupid men, on the whole, and it didn’t take them too long to decide that they hadn’t a prayer of catching the heretofore mythical creature so they stopped chasing it.

  Thoroughly winded and disgusted, they turned back to where they had left the rest of their winter gear and the rabbits Sinead had left behind for them.

  Something new had been added. What looked like an enormous calico housecat, the base of its tail thin, the tip bushy, was licking the last of the last rabbit from its mouth. Behind it lurked the curlycorn, quite as if, Minkus thought, the two beasts were conspiring against the hunting party.

  Minkus was inclined to remonstrate with the beasts but de Peugh had worked his way into a leadership position and hushed the lot of them with a finger to his lips.