Maelstrom

CHAPTER 26

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER STEVEN Guthe kept a channel open to Petaybee for as long as possible. Guthe was an easygoing fellow who saw humor in most situations and something to like in most people. He was not Irish but might as well have been, with his gift of gab and love of music and good times. He was adept, when he needed to be, at seeming mild as milk while stubbornly following his own agenda.

He drew the Corps specialist sent to oversee his station into conversations that would let Marmie's dirtside associates know as much as possible about what was happening. He kept alert for an opportunity to notify one of her influential offplanet friends of the situation as well.

"So, Specialist Messer, you know much about this place we're going to?"

"Gwinett? I know a lot about it. All of it bad. That lady must have pissed off a lot of people in high places."

Guthe grinned and nodded. "Well, yeah, she does that with some people, I guess.

But she's a very good lady. I'd hate to see anything happen to her, no matter what they're saying she did."

"Don't worry, buddy, you'll be in the same place so you'll be able to keep an eye on her. The whole crew is going down with her."

Guthe clucked his tongue. "My my. Well, I hope the same thing doesn't happen to you folks just for being part of all this when she's released. Because she may have a few enemies but she's got powerful friends as well. People on Petaybee will notice we're AWOL sooner or later."

Messer raised brows so blond they were almost invisible against his freckled skin.

In fact, you could see the freckles right through his eyebrows. "Maybe so, but they won't have long to wonder. Some of our contractees and the livestock are still down there, being detained by your accomplices. Colonel wanted to round her up first before she can pull any strings for that ice ball down there. Troops are on the way to reclaim what belongs to the company and arrest everyone responsible, directly or indirectly, for their removal. Sounds like a planetwide conspiracy to me.

Turns out the two kids with your boss belong to the Shongilis, who got themselves named governors of the planet. They've been a pain in the company's arse trying to hog the whole planet for themselves and a handful of other people. Your boss lady has interceded with the Federation for them but she won't be able to save them this time. I wouldn't count on her or any of you ever being released either, pal. People who go to Gwinett under this kind of circumstance usually have a way of disappearing."

"I thought Gwinett was just a holding place pending a Federation hearing and maybe trial if they decide to take the charges in question seriously," Guthe said, sounding surprised, though he had actually heard a thing or two about Gwinett in the past. Prisoners tortured to death before they even got to their cells. Sick prisoners left in filth where they died. Prisoners with open wounds made to clean cesspits or other jobs that would result in infection, amputation, death. Routine beatings by guards. It was all coming back to him now. Madame surely wouldn't have to worry about that kind of thing, though. They wouldn't dare treat her that way, would they?

As if reading his thoughts, the soldier said, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall. You can see how it might be real profitable for some folks to watch Mrs.

Algemeine fall such a long way she never came up again. And it will be a big relief to the company bigwigs and some of our esteemed Federation Council members to have the Shongilis out of the way as well."

Guthe gave a low whistle, realizing that out of the mouths of grunts came good insight into bad motives. "But they won't make the injured people, young mamas, and little kids stay there, will they?"

"Not to worry. The injured ones probably won't survive the first week. There's a special island for orphans, where we can keep an eye on them. As for the young mamas…" He waggled his thin blond eyebrows in a suggestive way that made Guthe suddenly like him even less than he was originally inclined. "We can always find something useful for them to do."

RICK HAD ALERTED Yana as soon as he received the Piaf's transmission on the copter's com. He fed it to the earphones she wore during the journey back to

Kilcoole. Yana listened to each grim word but the burst was fairly brief. Within a few minutes the interference surrounding Petaybee from the volcanic activity scrambled the signal beyond all possibility of deciphering it.

Frag it all, the PTBs never stopped their harassment, did they? For a long period,

Petaybee's autonomy had been respected and they had been allowed to guide Petaybee's affairs according to Federation guidelines. This was largely thanks to Marmie's influence. So when Marmie offended Cally by showing him up for the incompetent coward he was, the colonel had evidently interested some of her powerful enemies in trumped-up charges that would remove her and them from stewardship of the planet. By now it was well known that you couldn't take a Petaybean off Petaybee without killing them. That was no doubt fine with their enemies.

As she listened to the rest of the transmission, her teeth clenched angrily hearing the frightened, indignant questions of the young mothers and the crying of the children who sensed something was wrong. There were several bursts where the voice of First Officer Robineau asked after the comfort of her captors.

Later, as if accentuating the difference in priorities between the Piaf's crew and their captors, Robineau's voice rose amid the wails of the children. She announced that the ship's cat, Zuzu, wanted to meet them. The wailing gradually turned to snuffles and then giggles and delighted squeals while the cat entertained the frightened kids. Meanwhile, Robineau talked in a low voice with the mothers. Her voice was lost in static before Yana could tell what she was saying, but she had heard enough.

It had been snowing heavily as the copter flew across the landscape, and Kilcoole was already thickly overlaid with drifts and folds of glistening snow by the time they landed.

Yana and Sinead stopped long enough to strap on snowshoes before hurrying to the village's small but modern hospital and clinic. There, Clodagh and her assistant, Deirdre, dispensed soothing teas and herbal remedies. From the time they first arrived, the facility's physicians had accepted the help of Petaybee's native healers.

It was a direct conduit to the planet's own powerful healing properties. Though it had been mere hours since the injured were delivered, they seemed to have made considerable recovery already. However, everyone was perplexed by the Piaf's sudden departure. They didn't know enough yet to be furious or frightened.

Yana hung her parka on the rack inside the hospital's mud room before going to find Clodagh to tell her about the transmission. She heard the mobile signal buzzing behind her but it wasn't until Sinead touched her on the shoulder that the nature of the sound actually registered.

"Yana, Sean just called. He and Ke-ola are back where we left them. Ke-ola took a spill before they could reach Murel so now Sean's got to go hunt for her again.

Meanwhile, I called Perfect and they're sending out a snocle for Ke-ola and others to wait for Sean and the kids. I checked with Rick and Johnny, but the soldiers who took the Piaf emptied the fuel station before they left and we've not even enough to make a round-trip as far as the snowline in the copter."

"But there's enough to get me there, right?" Yana asked, pulling on her mukluks.

"There was enough fuel left in the tank when we returned for that, at least."

"Yes, but how will you get the copter back?"

"We won't. We'll hide it when we go to ground ourselves, along with Clodagh and her patients and anyone else the PTBs are targeting with their witch hunt. I've warned Clodagh, and Deirdre has gone out into the village to organize the evacuation to the caves."

Sinead grinned wryly. "These pests must be new to our fair planet. They don't seem to have any idea what they're messing with when they mess with Petaybee. It will be interesting to see what happens if they try to take our people out of the caves."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Yana said. "I just wish there was some way we could help the people on the Piaf. For now, I need to join Sean and the kids."

"I'm going to find Aisling," Sinead said. They both strapped their snowshoes on again. When they opened the clinic door, they were met by the rest of Kilcoole, people, track cats, dog teams, and curly coats, all laden with blankets and packs of provisions to sustain themselves and the hospital's staff and patients.

FROM WHAT THE seals had told him, Sean felt certain the kids were all right, or at least had been. The seals also claimed that the strange underwater city was not far. That was what he clung to as he battled the seas, though it could have been within a few lengths of him and he would not have known it. With the whales gone, the seals saw no reason to stay close to the lagoon or to be overly helpful.

They also had no reason to struggle with the water as he was doing. The seas had roughened considerably since Ke-ola fell into the water, and now the waves towered higher than the tallest icebergs and plummeted so low they threatened to sweep the seaweed from the ocean floor.

Sean could hardly blame the seals. Though creatures would go here and there for food, mating, giving birth, most of them most of the time would quite literally "go with the flow." The ocean was bigger than all of them and had a mind of its own that seemed distinctive even from the larger consciousness of the planet.

After Sean had been swimming what seemed an endless time, he spun around on the crest of a wave to judge his distance from shore. It looked as though he hadn't moved from the place where he put in.

Mountainous waves tossed him back and forth while the field of icebergs tumbled around him, threatening to grind him between their jagged edges and battering him as they crashed past.

He tried to search for the kids using sonar, but the icebergs and the violence of the waves created constant interference. He called and called to them both with his seal voice and his thought-voice, but he couldn't hear himself think, much less expect them to do so.

OF COURSE YOU can go home, Kushtaka assured the twins, but you can't go out in that.

But we're not far from shore, Murel assured her, and we're sea creatures.

Or's'posed to be. We can swim in rough seas, right, Ro?

It is awfully rough out there, sis, he replied dubiously. Kushtaka had dissolved the walls of the sursurvu to ensure that all surveillance devices were in place and all of her people were safely back inside the city. Kushtaka, the twins, Tikka and Sky, Mraka and Puk, surveyed the fitful seas topside while all around them business went on as calmly and matter-of-factly as usual.

But I didn't tell Mum and Da that I was coming here, Murel said. They'll be so worried.

Yes, but without justification at this point, whereas if you go out in that, all of their fears may be realized, Kushtaka told her.

Murel and Ronan stood there with the others watching as the waves scooped so low that the dome momentarily was all but exposed to the night sky. Kushtaka switched from one view to another, surveying the area where devices were recently planted, scrolling over the roaring seas.

The field of icebergs of which Murel's haven had been the handiest specimen now danced like oversized snowflakes on the pitching seas.

Kushtaka focused on that section, watching the icy structures crash together, spin apart, rise like white stars, and fall like comets.

And amid all of these was a lone seal, trying to swim but rolling over and over like a log.

Da! the twins cried together.

You can't be sure it is your father, Kushtaka said.

They were sure, however, and now that they could see him, they felt him calling them. Why else would he be out there? A regular seal would have had his herd and sense enough to be on land this close to shore.

Bring him in, Kushtaka. He'll get killed out there, Murel pleaded.

He's too far, she said. The beam can't reach him.

And so they watched him struggle, disappearing and reappearing until he finally failed to reappear at all.

They huddled together and Kushtaka watched them closely. If she still wanted revenge on them for Jeel, this was a good one.

But she looked as distressed as if seeing them lose sight of their father was like her losing Jeel all over again.

Kushtaka, let me, Mraka said, stepping in front of the leader and raising a paw. The scene shifted and she somehow caused it to pan back and forth, then shifted it again, panned again, a third time, the same procedure, calmly, as if it were a routine she performed every day. Then, Ah, there he is. A bit the worse for wear but closer. I think we have him now. Puk?

They looked around but Puk was no longer there, though they heard his thought, I know.

Da was still trying to swim but he could barely move and mostly just washed back and forth, up and down, with every massive movement of the sea. They felt him calling again, and they called back, Hold on, Da. Help is coming. We're here.

We're safe. It's okay.

Da's head, which had been drooping wearily, lifted in alarm as the horizontal whirlpool beam drilled toward him. They saw his mouth open to bark before the beam grabbed him and pulled him down.