"Right you are, guy."
Sean was impatient to get the welcoming organized, but Chumia was firm that he needed to be fed and dried properly. While doing that, he could still tell them what he had in mind.
"We don"t want to be rash and hurt the poor girl if she"s only running scared," Chumia said. "Perhaps her boss made her hit Adak. Maybe that other man was was her boss and she"s still tryin" to get loose from him." her boss and she"s still tryin" to get loose from him."
"You"ve seen no sign of a shuttle? Or any strangers walking in?"
Muktuk snorted at the latter and shook his head over the former.
"Well, either way," Sean said, "I need to visit the communion place."
"Sure thing, guv. Chumia, you get that end of the rug and I"ll get this." Together the Murphys pulled away the thick rug woven in shades of green and gold in a stairstep pattern. A trapdoor was revealed, opening onto well-worn steps that led to the permafrost cave Sean remembered from three former latchkays. The first time he"d come to Tanana Bay for a latchkay and had seen three villages" worth of people pouring into the O"Neills" tiny cabin, he"d been astounded, until he"d seen a line of folks disappearing into the floor.
Now he and Sinead descended the stairs carved out of stone and ice. Chumia held a lamp for them while the family cat scampered ahead, nearly tripping them. "It"ll be dark down there," Chumia said.
But it wasn"t. One entire wall of the entrance chamber was glowing with a pattern of phosph.o.r.escence similar to the sort that Sean had seen in the underriver grotto.
"My goodness, will you look at that?" Chumia clucked while the cat rubbed against the wall, then stretched so that its paws touched the lower part of the design. "You"re going to think I"m a terrible housekeeper, guy, letting mold grow in the communion place. It"s never done that before. Didn"t think it could, permafrost being ice and all."
"Never? These aren"t here from the last latchkay?"
"No, sir. What"s all these wiggles mean?"
"Looks like waves," Sinead said, peering closely. "Here and here."
"Waves..." the cave repeated. the cave repeated.
The cat chirruped as if it, too, was trying to say "waves."
"It is," Sean said, pointing to the apex. "This must be where we are now-near these waves, and this circle represents the rest of the north-then more waves outside and the outer circles-"
"Waves, circlessssss..."
"What about the lines that end in circles here?" Ignoring the echo, Sinead pointed to the spiraled figure somewhat to the left of the midpoint between the lines. "And here? This one"s clear down beyond the waves. What do you suppose it means?"
"Trouble spots?" Sean guessed. "Like before?"
This time the echo didn"t repeat itself. "Means trouble spots like before," it said distinctly.
The cat jumped as if someone had thrown water on it, and bolted back up the steps and into the house. They could hear the cat-door flap still flapping as they continued studying the diagram.
Dinah O"Neill was not happy about leaving her shuttle stranded on the ice like some sort of a monstrous sea animal.
"It"s watertight, isn"t it?" Bunny asked her, and shrugged when Dinah had to admit it was. "Then even if it falls into the water, they"re all right in there, aren"t they?"
"Sink?" Dinah cried aghast.
"Well, not really," Bunny said. There might have been some who thought she was deliberately teasing Dinah O"Neill, but she was merely thinking out loud. "Besides, I think that hole"ll freeze over as soon as it turns dark and the shuttle"ll be okay. Frozen in, of course, but safe. Speaking of freezing, we"d better get going. Yana, I"ll scout ahead. You keep the others moving, okay?"
Yana flipped her a salute. "Aye-aye, ma"am. We"re right behind you."
What Bunny didn"t say-nor did either Yana or Diego mention-was very obvious to them: the sun was westering and they hadn"t much daylight left to get where they wouldn"t freeze. Bunny struck out at a good pace toward the general direction of Tanana Bay. She would have preferred to go straight across the frozen inlet toward the main trail but that would waste time, which they didn"t have much of. So she headed toward the nearest high ground. Maybe there she could get a good look at the lay of the land and correct their path. She was also aware-though she didn"t mention it-that her little pouch of dirt was acting like a miniature hot bottle, its heat keeping her warm.
Humans were so dense and so slow. slow. Punjab didn"t know how the planet put up with them sometimes. Even drawing them a big picture wasn"t enough. Punjab didn"t know how the planet put up with them sometimes. Even drawing them a big picture wasn"t enough.
Obviously that business across the water would have to be delegated-if humans were too thick to understand, perhaps birds or walruses would have to explain it to them-but it was not a job for cats. This simple task clearly was, however.
With satisfaction, Punjab felt the snow freezing to ice with each warm touch of his heavily furred paw, as Home cooperated with its chosen messenger, the feet of the planet, as Punjab"s kind considered themselves. Confidently, he trotted on toward his quarry.
Bunny devoutly wished for her snowshoes as she blazed a trail through the two-foot-high drifts, her feet sinking through to the knees with each step. She deliberately squashed down as much snow as she could every time she made a track, but it was laborious going. After a short time, she returned to the others to encourage them and see if she could help.
Megenda was shivering so much that he staggered. She thought of giving him her jacket, since she could stand the cold better than he could. But her jacket wasn"t big enough to do him a d.a.m.n bit of good. Nor was anyone else"s. And the pouch, which was doing such a fine job of making her feel warm, also wouldn"t help the first mate.
When they reached the first copse, she considered starting a fire to dry him at, but that would take too much time out of the little daylight they had left.
Bunny gave Megenda full marks for keeping up, despite his shuddering chills. It was Dinah O"Neill who was having the worst time of it, being rather short of leg and having to take little running steps to keep up with the others. But she grimly plodded, skipped, and hopped on, and didn"t fall more than a step behind.
Diego was beginning to puff, too. Those walks about the pirate ship had not been any subst.i.tute for proper exercise. He was grumbling and annoyed that Bunny didn"t seem to be as affected as he was.
But Bunny knew she couldn"t help Diego or the others by slowing down. She trudged back up the path she had made and then began laboriously cutting through the snow once more. It was heavy work and she was soon so weary that she felt like crying, but her tears would only freeze, making her more miserable. Wouldn"t it be weird to have been freed from the pirates and finally return home, only to freeze to death before she could be found? With the new-falling snow masking the fading horizon, help could be quite close and they"d never know until they found her frozen corpse. And the others. It had happened more than once.
"h.e.l.llooo, anybody!" she called into the gathering darkness. "Slainte! It"s me, Bunny! Is anybody there? h.e.l.looo! Come and get me now!"
Then something that wasn"t supposed to be possible happened. She was right out there in the open air, not in a cave or a valley, and an echo picked up her voice, the way it had a few weeks earlier when Phon Tho visited, the way it had at Yana and Sean"s wedding.
"h.e.l.lOO, IT"S ME, ME, ME, ME..." the echo said. the echo said.
And then it blended with a somewhat smaller voice, "MEOW MEOW meow!" a cat"s mew complaining over and over again.
Bunny called back, glad to hear the cat. Did that mean that Clodagh was behind? But no, the cat was alone, appearing off to the right like a little pinpoint of orange flame at first, crying impatiently for her to hurry forward. When Bunny backtracked to get the others, the cat sat at the end of the trail she had made, waiting for them.
"We"re saved!" she told Yana. "A cat came for us!"
"Good," Megenda said. "How do you cook "em?"
"You don"t," Diego said. "You follow them."
"I"ve heard of a wild-goose chase, but this is ridiculous," Dinah said. Bunny turned her back on them and returned to the end of her trail. As soon as it saw her the cat sashayed forward, tail held low to protect the tenderest parts and brushing the snow. Single file, they slogged forward after it.
The distant lights of Tanana Bay appeared just about the time some of the party were thinking that perhaps they"d do better for a bit of a rest, despite the fact that night had already fallen and the air was growing colder by the minute, knifing through their skin until at last they were too numb to feel the pain. Only the luminous eyes of the cat guided them when it turned in its tracks to regard them with impatience. Didn"t they realize it had supper waiting and a nap to take?
The feeling in Bunny"s legs had drained away some time earlier, though she continued to piston them in and out of the snow while the others followed. Once they spotted the cabins, the cat cast her a glance, then scampered away to disappear into the town.
The welcome sight of cabins revived the flagging energies of everyone in the party. It helped that the snow closer to the settlement was already trampled into trails, and they followed one of these easily to the outermost cabin.
It was empty, though smoke still poured from the chimney. They all gratefully crowded inside to warm themselves by the fire. When Megenda would have crawled into the fireplace, Bunny hauled him back so he wouldn"t scorch himself; she grabbed a fur cover from the nearest bunk and draped it around his shoulders. He could not seem to stop the shivering. There was soup in the kettle on the hob, so Bunny ladled him out a cup, which he could barely hold in his hands without spilling.
"Don"t know how much of someone"s supper we can take without them going short," Bunny said by way of explanation when she saw the hopeful expression on Dinah O"Neill"s face as she, too, crowded in to the fireplace. Bunny was right proud that neither Diego nor Yana seemed to need the fire. Just being in out of the cold was sufficient. "No one would object to Megenda having a cup of soup to stop those shivers. You all get warm while I go see where people are." She took a parka off the peg on the back of the door. Outside, the temperature would be dropping like a stone from a height.
Tanana Bay didn"t boast half as many cabins as Kilcoole did, but Bunny had been in several empty homes before she came to the Murphys", where the cat was sitting beside the fire and cleaning the snow from between its paw pads. The cat glanced up at her, then returned to its cleaning. She saw the raised trapdoor and the open hole in the floor. Leaning over the opening, she could hear voices, excited voices, lots of them.
"Hallooo down there?"
There was no immediate response, probably because everyone was talking so loud. After waiting a moment, Bunny descended. She"d never seen a communion place entry so bright, something that would certainly have provoked a lot of discussion on any occasion.
What she didn"t expect to see was men and women armed with all kinds of homely weapons: axes, staves, nets, and pitchforks, as well as the usual bows, lances, and knives.
"What"s happening?" she cried, touching the first man by the arm.
"Glad you could make it," he said, giving her a scant look. "We got big trouble coming to Tanana Bay and we"ll need every body we can get to turn "em back."
"Turn who back?" And Bunny felt a gelid spurt of fear. What had happened while they were off-planet? Had Intergal gone back on its word?
"That pirate! Louchard!" someone else explained, leaning around the first man to put in his quarter credit.
"Hey, you don"t come from around here."
"No, I"m from Kilcoole but-"
"Buneka!" said the Voice. said the Voice.
"Buneka?" And that shout came from Sean"s throat. Bunny was so astonished to hear the Voice come out with her own name that she didn"t react until Sean had her in his arms and was whirling her about, laughing and crying.
"You"re free. You"re all right!" And he was feeling her over to be sure she was, his eyes both glad and anxious. Then he looked around her. "Yana?"
"She"s all right, too, Sean, really, she"s fine."
Sinead pushed through the crowd then and embraced Bunny as warmly as Sean had done, also asking where Yana was.
"Hold it down," Sean said in a loud voice. Everyone in the communion place was trying to understand who the newcomer was that the Voice had recognized so unexpectedly.
So it took minutes before Bunny could explain, and then minutes more before she made it clear that the pirate was not on Petaybee, only his first mate and Dinah O"Neill were. Then she had to calm Muktuk and Chumia down because they were so astonished, and gratified, that their kinswoman was right there in Tanana Bay. Immediately they were in a quandary about welcoming her if she wasn"t bringing good news about Louchard and his kidnap victims.
"A moment"s hush, please," Sean said in a loud authoritative voice. He was instantly obeyed as he bowed his head to consider what to do next. Everyone tried not to fidget.
"So"-now Sean was ready to recap-"you"ve all been released and everyone is safe?"
"Thanks to the cat upstairs," Bunny said. "I don"t know how it managed to find us-out hunting and heard me call, I suppose."
Sean and the others exchanged sheepish glances. "We all had a map," he admitted with a thumb jerked back to the still-glowing wall of the cave. "But the cat acted on it while the rest of us were gathering a force to protect ourselves from the pirates."
"The only two that are here are warming themselves nearby. There"s a couple of others on ice, you might say, about where the map says." She indicated the slowly fading spiral and line, dribbling away as the microscopic animals forming the phosph.o.r.escence deserted the map to go on to more important matters. Chumia busily sketched the whole map on the back of her hand. The portion of the map that crossed waves remained as bright and deliberate as it had been when Bunny first arrived.
"Yana talked Dinah into getting Louchard to release Marmie and Namid, too, since they"re afraid to return Marmie to Gal Three and can"t get any ransom for her."
"Wait, wait! Who"s this Namid?" Sinead asked.
"An astronomer Louchard"s also got imprisoned." Bunny didn"t explain about Namid being divorced from Dinah, because it wasn"t really an important detail. "We came in the Jenny"s Jenny"s shuttle, only the d.a.m.ned fool landed right on the edge of the ice, so they"re about to take a dive off the ice in the inlet." At Sean"s gasp of horror, she added quickly, "Oh, Yana, Diego, and me, as well as Dinah O"Neill and the first mate, got ash.o.r.e okay, but there are crewmen still inside and they can"t go nowhere right now." shuttle, only the d.a.m.ned fool landed right on the edge of the ice, so they"re about to take a dive off the ice in the inlet." At Sean"s gasp of horror, she added quickly, "Oh, Yana, Diego, and me, as well as Dinah O"Neill and the first mate, got ash.o.r.e okay, but there are crewmen still inside and they can"t go nowhere right now."
"And they"d have nowhere to go here either, so crowded we are," Sinead said sourly.
So everyone started talking at once again until Sean, in midflight up the stairs on his way to Yana, stopped and held up his hands.
"Okay now, folks, let"s just calm down. If the ship"s disabled, we can relax. There"s just two people to be considered, and I think we can handle this, Muktuk, Chumia, Sinead, and me. Go on back to your homes and your dinners. And thank you very much for being so ready to stand on the line. Sure do appreciate your support."
Then, followed by Bunny, Sinead, and the two Murphys, Sean swarmed up the steps two at a time.
"Where did you say you stashed them, Bunny?" Sean asked when they got outside.
"First cabin I came to." Bunny pointed. "Megenda was shaking so bad he needed to get warm warm!"
"Oh, that"d be the Sirgituks," Chumia said, smiling. "They won"t mind. They"re still down below. Shall I ask them to stay here, in our place, until we"ve got things all settled?"
"Would you please, Chumia?" Sean asked with an appreciative smile, but he kept right on striding toward the place where Yana was.
He was at least ten strides in front of Bunny and Muktuk when he reached the door and went in. Bunny trotted to catch up and heard a very surprised Yana call out Sean"s name. When Bunny entered the Sirgituks" cabin, Sean and Yana were locked in each other"s arms, cheek to cheek, eyes closed, rocking back and forth and not saying a word. Yana"s face was wet with tears.
Dinah O"Neill was looking Sean up and down as if she was hunting for something she wasn"t seeing, and there was a bit of a smirk to her grin. Megenda was still shivering, though not quite as violently now he had the warmth of the soup in him. Yana and Diego had removed both the pirates" clothing and their own in Bunny"s absence, and were wrapped in the Sirgituks" extra clothing and blankets. A kettle boiled on the stove.
"Dinah O"Neill, this is Muktuk Murphy O"Neill and Chumia O"Neill O"Neill, your kinfolk. And the man by the fire is First Mate Megenda of the Jenny Jenny," Bunny said.
"Greetings, kinswoman," Muktuk said, "though I think we gotta do some straight talking before anyone"s going to want to welcome you proper like. Now, let"s get this fella seen to. Whatcha think, Sinead? Give him a tot of the juice?"
Sinead had followed Muktuk in and was eyeing Dinah O"Neill with a less than charitable expression on her face. She had relaxed on seeing that Yana was well enough to cling to Sean, and now she gave the shuddering Megenda her attention.
"D"you have some of Clodagh"s juice?"
Muktuk nodded. "Always keep some handy since the time it brought my brother back to life, when he fell into the fish hole that winter."
He rummaged in one of the overhead cupboards in the kitchen corner of the house and dragged out a medium-sized brown bottle. Holding it up to the light, he twirled it, checking the level of the liquid. Satisfied, he got down a gla.s.s, poured in an exact two fingers of liquid, then handed the gla.s.s to Megenda.
"This"ll stop those shivers before you come loose at the joints."