Powers that Be

Chapter 2

Theofficialguide-onlyasecondlieutenant,Yana noted-stood up when she entered the room. "Major Maddock," he said, saluting and flashing her quite an energetic smile. "Lieutenant Charles Demintieff, first Petaybee military liaison officer, at your service, dama."

"Relax, Lieutenant," she said. "I'm reporting to you, not the other way round."

"Yes'm. It's just that I've read your file, and we don't get many heroes back here."

"Most heroes don't make it back anywhere," she said.

He laughed as if she had said something extremely witty. 'Then we're luckier still to have you, Major. Colonel Giancarlo from SpaceBase snocled in this morning to welcome you personally. When you've had your chat with him, we'll go over the routine stuff."

Walking into the adjoining room, Yana felt as wary as if she were entering the bridge of an enemy-held ship. If the SpaceBase brass wanted to talk to her, why hadn't he done it at Inprocessing and saved himself a long, cold ride?

The colonel, in contrast to the lieutenant, did not look happy lo see her. His insignia was one she had seen only occasionally:

Psychological Operations, a euphemism for the Intelligence branch. She reported, and he waved her into a chair while he continued typing something into a terminal.

"Well, Major," he said after she had been sitting there long enough to become impatient and uncomfortable in her heavy gear. "What do you think of Petaybee so far?"

"Seems friendly," she said cautiously. He was testing her somehow, but she wasn't sure for what. "The air is clean, pretty cold. Fairly primitive technologically. New recruits from here need extensive training in the simplest equipment, and it's pretty obvious why, from what I've seen of my quarters and the village. Am I missing something?"

"If you are, you're not alone," he said, his eyes shifting from the terminal to hers and boring into them. "There shouldn't be anything here that we didn't put here. This planet was nothing but rock and ice when Intergal claimed it. The company terraformed it, upgrading it from frozen uninhabitable rock to a merely arctic climate. For the last two hundred years, it's been useful as a replacement depot for troops, a relocation center for the peoples who were being displaced by our other operations. Because the climate is rough on machinery, only SpaceBase contains much in the way of modern comforts. The transportation needs of the inhabitants are mostly supplied by experimental animals bred for the purpose."

"Experimental?" Yana asked. "Like lab animals?" She had been born on Earth but had spent her childhood being shunted with her parents from one duty station to the next. Lab rats and monkeys were somewhat familiar to her, along with a number of different alien species, but she was unfamiliar-except from pictures-with the beasts she had seen on her way here today.

"Not exactly, although I suppose their ancestors did some time in a lab-originally. The company hired Dr. Sean Shongili to alter certain existing species to adapt to this climate. That's how the resident equines, felines, and canines, and many of the aquatic mammals come to be here."

"1 see," she said, but she didn't. The dogs obviously worked as sled animals, the cats to keep down rodents. But she couldn't understand why Petaybee supported equines, too. Horses, from what little she knew of them, seemed rather inappropriate for such a climate. And considering the need for hacking and burning holes in ice to secure water, wasting such effort on domestic pets seemed totally unproductive.

"Well, Intergal doesn't, entirely," the colonel said, as if he had read her thoughts. "The animals we commissioned are here, but there have been sightings of other types that indicate perhaps Dr. Shongili and his assistants were a trifle more creative than was covered by their authorization. The current Dr. Shongili, also Sean, is certainly an odd bird, not what you'd call a team player. We've monitored his records, however, and can't find any evidence that he's been exceeding his instructions. We could, of course, move him, but this is not a research area favored by many in our employ, and the Shongilis have done so well at producing viable species for arctic conditions that we're reluctant to remove the current Shongili without more concrete evidence. Trouble is, unauthorized species are not the only anomaly. Something else is going on here-our satellite monitors have detected deposits of important minerals on this planet. When we dispatch teams, they either can't find the location of the deposits, or else they simply don't return."

"That's why psyops is interested?" she asked, relaxing a little.

"You got it." Suddenly he grinned at her, an expression that did not make him any more attractive. "That's where we can help each other, Major."

"Sir?"

"You're here this morning technically to be demobilized. You're a medical retiree due to spend the rest of your days on this iceberg, which is unfortunate for you. However, your experience as an intercommand investigator, and your earlier work with preliminary data gathering landing teams, is of some interest to us, despite your disability, as is your record of combat experience. You don't realize it yet, of course, but being a combat veteran carries considerable cachet in this place where most families have at least one, and usually several, relatives in the corps. Furthermore your genetic stock is similar to these people's." He eyed her, and Yanaba knew he was assessing the sprinkle of white in the black hair that Bry used to claim had an auburn cast under bright light, the high cheekbones, the rather bleached-out olive complexion, and the slightly tilted green-gold eyes. Her body had once been lean and athletic, but weeks of illness had reduced her to brittle gauntness at a weight she might have enjoyed had her strength not deserted her along with the extra kilos.

"How's that?" she asked, mystified.

"The people on this continent are a mixture of Irish and Eskimo-we've resettled cold-weather natives all over the planet to assist the others in assimilation. In this area it's Eskimo: in other settlements, ethnic Scandinavians and Indo-Asians."

"I don't exactly fit then," she said, smiling as tolerantly as possible.

"Well, of course, you were practically born into the company, but your father was Irish and your first name, Yanaba-"

"Yanaba," she corrected. "That's Navajo-my mother's people. It's a war name, like a lot of traditional Navajo names. Means 'she meets the enemy.' The Navajo, by the way, were desert dwellers, not snow people."

"Close enough," he said. "Desert can get damned cold midwinter." He dismissed her objection with a wave.

That told her she had made a tactical error by showing up his ignorance before she heard what he wanted. But she had a fierce loyalty to her family. All she had of them now was the history recorded in the computers for her by her parents before their deaths. It was about all she had had in her life that hadn't been Internal-issued.

"We think you can fit, Maddock," he told her. "And we want you to do just that, because we need to know what's going on. We want you to get to know the people, find out what or who exactly is responsible for these problems: if Shongili is concealing experiments in producing new life-forms on this planet, we need to know about it. If the geologic survey teams are being deliberately ambushed and eliminated, we want to know that, and we want to know whom we have to deal with. You don't have enough technical knowledge to locate the deposits yourself, but we want you to find out who's preventing our teams from locating them. If there's some kind of sabotage or incipient insurrection brewing, help us put a stop to it."

"Wouldn't it have been more effective to recruit a local informant?" she asked.

Giancarlo snorted. "There's something screwy about all of them. They all stick together all the time, and every time I've had one of them in my office for any length of time, they start sweating and turn red. Why would that happen if they're not scared, hiding something? Even Demintieff sweats like crazy every time he comes in while I'm here. This office is always freezing when I arrive, and even while I'm here, he keeps that outer office way too cold. These people also have gatherings that nobody from SpaceBase is invited to, and if you ask one of the new recruits from here about it, they just shrug."

"You haven't actively interrogated anyone yet, then?"

"No real excuse so far. What would I ask? Why do you people sweat so damned much, and how come I don't get invited lo your parties?"

Yana nodded.

He leaned forward and stabbed at the desk with his finger, as if the gesture would somehow make his words plainer. "We need someone loyal to the company to gain their confidence, find out what's going on."

"What if they just sweat because they're used to the cold, and they have orgies or something at their parties and don't want to mingle with outsiders out of embarrassment?"

"Major, perhaps I didn't make myself clear. You were injured at Bremport; you saw what happened there. I shouldn't have to tell you what swamps of insurgency these colonial planets can be. Unauthorized life forms have been spotted on this planet. Research-and-development teams have disappeared into nowhere. You can't tell me these circumstances aren't related. What you have to tell me instead is how they are connected with each other. Do you read me?"

She nodded, cautiously, and evidently mistaking her caution for hesitation he pressed on.

"You said something about your quarters. They're pretty standard for down here, but we certainly have the wherewithal to make them more comfortable. Also, you're not full retirement age yet, nor eligible for full pension."

"I have a medical discharge, sir."

"Not exactly. Not yet. Actually your disability status as of now is"- He tapped a key. -"only twenty-five percent. That won't generate much of a pension. If you were on covert active duty, however, you could do a lot better. We could even throw in hazardous-duty pay."

"Sir, with all due respect, while I wouldn't sniff at the money, the doctors back at the hospital…"

"You can't contact them from here, Maddock. And in the event you need further, fairly expensive care, the transport from here back to there would be beyond your means, unless, of course, Intergal foots the bill. I'll expect progress reports via Demintieff on a weekly basis unless, of course, something comes up that I should know about instanter. Demintieff will take you around, introduce you to people…"

Whatever this guy's specialty was, Yana reflected, it wasn't the gentle art of psychological persuasion. He was about as subtle as a photon torpedo. But she owed Intergal her life and had spent her life in its service. She wasn't going to turn them down just because this hammerhead thought he was blackmailing her. Besides, she could use the pay.

"With respect, sir, I think maybe Demintieff should do the bare minimum of guiding me around. Seems to me I'd be better off on my own. I'd be less suspect to any possible terrorists within the area if an indigenous civilian helped me acclimate rather than a uniformed professional."

"Good thinking, Maddock. This conversation never happened, of course." He dug a sheaf of old-fashioned hard copy from a case at his feet. "However, this contains a full briefing on what we know and suspect thus far. Familiarize yourself with it and burn it."

"Yes, sir."

"Enjoy your retirement, Maddock."

Bunny Rourke was sitting on the edge of Lieutenant Demintieff's desk when Yana and Colonel Giancarlo emerged. Neither Bunny nor Demintieff was perspiring unduly as far as Yana could nee, although at the sight of the colonel, Bunny fled through the doorway with barely a nod to Yana…,

"Demintieff!" the colonel snapped.

"Sir!"

"You're to report to SpaceBase. Congratulations, son, you've been chosen for duty shipside."

"But, sir…" The lieutenant, formerly so cheerfully obsequious, looked as stunned as if the colonel had suddenly kicked him in the balls. He evidently did not feel that congratulations were in order.

"Grab your gear on the double and you can ride back with me, soldier."

"Permission to say good-bye to my family, sir," Demintieff said with some difficulty.

"Permission granted as long as you can do it within the next forty-five minutes. Duty calls, son."

"Yes, sir."

"Maddock, in view of this man's reassignment, you are authorized to requisition civilian assistance during your civilian orientation process or until the position can be reassigned."

"Yes, sir. May I suggest my driver, Miss Rourke, sir?"

"Sure, Colonel, Bunny will look after the major," Demintieff put in, rather gallantly, Yana thought, in view of his own evident distress. "She's my own sister's cousin-by-marriage and a very good girl."

Seeing this side of Demintieff, and realizing how well connected he was locally, Yana cursed herself for making suggestions before she got the lay of the land. He would have done as well as Bunny from the standpoint of gaining the trust of the villagers, but now he was being sent away from home, an assignment he obviously did not relish, to provide a reason for the change in routine. Damn fool shouldn't have enlisted if he didn't want to serve shipside, she thought fiercely, but she had trouble meeting his eye. Giancarlo returned to the inner room, and Demintieff' s eyes were brimming shamelessly as he turned toward her.

"Dama, would you and Bunny mind very much givin' me a lift up to Clodagh's? My gear's there, and Clodagh'll see to it that my family in Tanana Bay get notified."

Yana could only duck her head as the lieutenant scooped up a tightly wrapped bundle from his desk, started to hand it to her, then carried it out to the snocle.

Bunny was starting the engine when Yana and Demintieff emerged from the building. She started to say something when Demintieff climbed in beside her, leaving Yana the back section, but Demintieff cut her off with "Take me to Clodagh's quick, Bunny. They're shipping me into space." In his distress, his voice had thickened into the same oddly precise brogue coloring of Bunny's and her Uncle Seamus's speech.

Brilliant start, Major Maddock, Yana told herself. Everybody on this damned planet seemed to be related to everybody else.

"Okay, Charlie, but I'll have to drop you and Yana off and take the snocle back. I'm only checked out for another fifteen minutes. I'll hitch up the dogs to take Yana home and bring you back over here."

"If there's time. Giancarlo may requisition your snocle to take us back to SpaceBase, though Terce brought him out. You'll look after my dogs, won't you, Bunny? They already think you belong lo them, and I want them to be well cared for; they've been with me since they were pups." He dug through layers of fur and found

•i wallet, then handed her a wad of bills. "Here's to help you with their food."

She released one hand from the wheel and accepted the money, stuffing it in her parka. "No problem, Charlie. I'll keep on looking after them. You didn't know about this reassignment?"

"No idea. He decided just like that."

Yana found herself leaning forward, wheezing into Demintieff s ear: "You'll be going to Andromeda Station to inprocess and for assignment. When you get there, unless he's gone now, the master sergeant in charge of deployment is Ahmed Threadgill. Tell him Yana Maddock sends her love and reminds him of the time she alerted him to the Ship Police raid. He'll know what I mean." Ahmed would know she was calling in the favor and that he was to look after her friend. It wasn't much, considering the way she had caused however so inadvertently the situation, but it could keep his hide intact.

"Yes, Major Maddock. Thank you, dama."

She clapped him on the shoulder, a little feebly, and sat back until Bunny skidded to a halt outside a house a little larger than Yana's own quarters. The morning's exertions had left her panting and trembling with fatigue, but she still took note of this house. The snow in front of it was full of huge strangely shaped lumps, and the crusted snow all around them was lightly dotted with what looked like some kind of shit, which vaguely shocked ship-bred Yana. Stiff oval nets with points at each end hung over the door, three pairs of what were unmistakably skis leaned against the side of the house, and from the back of the house issued a high-pitched keening, like a woman screaming.

"I'll take you back in a minute, Major, if that's okay," Bunny called back as Yana climbed out of the vehicle. "Besides, you'll want to meet Clodagh. She was asking after you last night at supper."

Charlie Demintieff grabbed the bundle of cloth from the snocle, and Bunny drove away.

The screams erupted again and Yana hung back, tensed, listening. Charlie, who had already taken a step toward the house, turned ponderously in his furs, saw her staring, and touched the elbow of her coat with his mitten.

"That's just the dogs," he said, his mouth spilling clouds of condensation into the air, as if his words were freezing there. "When our dogs were first made, our grandfathers called them banshee-dogs because of that sound, but they're just saying hello."

Yana nodded, hearing her own breath rasping in her ears above the screams of the dogs, and willed herself to relax and follow Charlie to the house. A feline with rust and cream markings stood on the roof above the doorway and looked down at them as if considering a pounce. On another corner of the house sat the cat's twin, resembling pictures Yana had seen of the gargoyles decorating ancient Terran architecture. Another of the creatures sat in each of the windows flanking the door.

Just as Charlie reached the door, it opened before him and was filled by the largest woman Yana had ever seen. Of course, people on shipboard were required to keep their body weight to a certain level, a requirement necessitated by the narrow passages, small hatches, and the close confinement of the rooms. Also, anyone in space had to be able to fit into the suits and, should it become necessary, the cold-sleep shells. The rigors of shipboard life plus the uninspiring quality of the nutritious but mostly tasteless rations guaranteed that regulations were easily met by all personnel.

But this woman! She was like a planet herself, or at least an ovoid meteorite, a large round entity unto herself-imposing, to say the least.

"Charlie," the huge woman said as she opened the door. "I hear you're leaving us." She threw a hard look over his shoulder to Yana, as if divining her role in the matter.

The woman fell back, and Charlie Demintieff stepped into the house, holding aside the standard-issue gray military blanket that covered the inside of the door so that Yana could enter.

Demintieff stripped off his hat, muffler, and gloves and loosened the front of his coat; Yana followed suit. The house was small and close, but not as warm as Yana would have expected. Nevertheless, as Giancarlo had indicated, the woman's upper lip and brow were dewed with perspiration. Yana wasn't sure, however, if the moisture on Demintieff's face was sweat, tears, or melting ice from his hair and eyelashes.

The woman embraced Demintieff, her caress oddly delicate and tender for such a massive being. Demintieff returned her embrace with every evidence of affection.

"Don't worry, Charlie," the woman said. "Natark is hitching his team now. He should be in Tanana Bay by tonight."

Demintieff showed no surprise that the woman had anticipated his news, but simply said, "Thanks, Clodagh. I just wanted to say good-bye. Bunny's taking my dogs."

"Good. Good. Bunny treats them well," Clodagh said, making no further attempt to comfort him but seeming to share his sadness. She offered neither a look nor a word of false encouragement that he was likely to return: they all knew he probably wouldn't.

"This is Major Maddock, Clodagh."

"Ah, the dying woman," Clodagh said. It should have sounded tactless except that her tone was vaguely ironic, indicating that she was only referring to Yana's own opinion of herself, as if they had already had a long discussion about it. A soft smile and the penetrating gaze of Clodagh's tilted blue eyes also showed that she meant no offense but simply cut straight to the heart of Yana's concerns as she had to Demintieff's.

"Come, sit, have tea. Charlie's sister and the rest of the family are on their way. Bunka will bring you to supper tonight, if you'll come, but right now we have to talk about Charlie."

Even as she spoke people began arriving, until the room was crowded with bodies that smelled of wet fur, smoke, and wet dog. Clodagh's house boasted a big table with four chairs set close to the stove. Yana, still in her parka, was soon stifling from the heat of the stove, but as the room filled up, she had no elbow room to remove her coat. One of the cats jumped up on the table and began sniffing her coat and her face. She let her hand drop to its marbled fur and it purred and took her gesture as an invitation to settle onto her thighs.

Meanwhile, furs and scarves and quilted fabric brushed by her and she wondered that people didn't singe themselves on the hot stove as they wished Charlie Demintieff farewell. Yana's debilitated lungs labored harder as the room filled, the lack of oxygen smothering her. She began deliberately taking deep breaths as first one and then another of Charlie's friends and distant relations stepped up to crowd around him near the stove, envelop him in a furry hug, and step back away to make room for the next person. Yana couldn't imagine having so much family.

Clodagh stood among them, not as tall as some of the men but distinguishing herself by the space around her. Her hair, Yana noticed, was quite beautiful, cloaking her shoulders in shining black waves, the black of a hue that somehow was not too harsh with the woman's fair skin. Her cheeks were pink with the heat now and she was perspiring freely, glowing like some benevolent "un. She didn't appear to be as old as Yana, and yet she effortlessly carried an air of the kind of authority generally conferred only by well-seasoned maturity.

Just as Yana thought she was going to have to fight her way through the crowd for air or black out, people began filing back out the door with last good-byes for Charlie, and suddenly it was the four of them again, Clodagh, Charlie, Bunny, and Yana.

"We have to hurry," Bunny told the dejected-looking young officer. "1 need to drop the major and get you back."

"Okay," he said.

Clodagh put something in his hand with a soft pat before he pulled on his mittens. As they were leaving she said, "Major Maddock, will you come to supper tonight with Bunka?"

Yana nodded and waved, and turned back toward the path between the houses to face four excitedly yapping dogs strapped to a low sled.

"Climb in, Major," Bunny said.

"You're kidding. There's not room for all of us."

"You ride, and Charlie can drive. I'll run along beside," Bunny said, "just as far as your place."

Yana looked at the low, insubstantial-looking sled and the four wriggling, whimpering dogs, who were having their pointed red ears and muzzles scratched by a kneeling, sad-faced Charlie Demintieff. Their faces looked more like those of foxes or cats than those of the dogs Yana had seen pictured. Their coats were very thick and their legs fairly long and muscular, but their paws were covered in little booties. Every time one of them could get close enough to lick at Demintieff, it did.

"How far is my place, anyway?" Yana asked. She had not formed an impression of any vast distances within this town; on the contrary, the snocle rides had been brief.

"Just down the road," Bunny said gesturing. "But you're not used to the cold and…"

"And I'm an invalid?" Yana asked, hitching her muffler up higher on her nose. "The dying woman, eh? Not dead yet, Rourke. Not by a long shot. You take Charlie back-and Charlie?"

"Dama?"

"Don't forget to look up Master Sergeant Threadgill and tell him what I told you."

Charlie nodded once, briefly, his chin set. Bunny tumbled into the sled and settled herself for transport while Charlie, one last time, whistled to his dogs, who obediently trotted off toward the company station.

Yana sighed, sending a plume of her breath up against the crisp blue sky, and began trudging in her heavy gear in the direction of her new quarters. Damn Giancarlo anyway. If he wanted her to spy for him, did he have to start off by doing something that, if the truth were known, would alienate the whole village from her? Of course, there was always the possibility that he, like Yana, had had no idea that Demintieff was one local boy who happened to be stationed close to home because he wished to be. But Giancarlo should have known before he went off half-cocked. If this assignment had any significance at all, he definitely should have had Demintieff checked before he decided to replace him. That kind of rashness could blow this mission.

Mission? This was supposed to be her new life! Not that it looked as if it was apt to amount to much. She ought to thank Giancarlo for giving her something to occupy her mind, to keep from going nuts here on this ice ball.

Feathers of smoke curled up from the houses; if there were any shops or supply stores, they were indistinguishable from the dwellings as far as she could see. Each step in her bulky primitive clothing was like walking in heavy gravity. She couldn't bend her head easily to see the path before her, or her muffler would fall down and her hood ride back on her head. But by turning her head slightly, she saw that many of the houses contained kennels full of dogs and had mysterious-looking lumps out front just like the ones she had seen in Clodagh's yard. Two of the larger places had not only houses but outbuildings, and in one of the yards two horses were zigzagging back and forth in the snow. Yana thought (here was something strange about the horses, but she couldn't quite decide what. Never mind. She'd return to her quarters and read the briefing. She needed to find out what was regular about I his place before she could determine what was irregular.

She made it to her door with only one slight mishap, when "h‹- slipped once more on the ice and had to recover from a coughing fit before rising. She hadn't hurt herself seriously otherwise. How could she, with so many layers of clothing? A passerby-impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman in those wrappings, but the person was short-stopped and waited for her toughing fit to abate, then gave her a hand up. She felt like a bloody baby, and wanted to slap the person's hand away, but as soon as she was on her feet the person said in a muffled voice, "You got to walk a little duck footed when it's slick like this."

She watched the person waddle away; then, feeling sillier than ever, she fell into a waddle gait until she reached her own door, the last one on the row.

Something bright flashed ahead of her as she opened the door, and she stiffened, until she heard a thud from the direction of the table and beheld one of the orange cats sitting upon it, nonchalantly cleaning the snow from furry paw pads.

To her relief, the log she had left burning in the stove earlier that morning was glowing coals. She wasn't sure how long such primitive material was supposed to last, but she had the impression it needed refurbishing frequently. She stripped off coat, gloves, muffler, and coverall and sat down on the chair in her uniform. She had best strip off the insignia. She sighed. That would be admitting to her present status. Whatever. She wondered what she would do for clothing here when her uniforms wore out. She had no other kind of clothing, having been shipside most of her life. Considering the assorted outerwear she had seen in Clodagh's, perhaps the locals had indigenous sources and supplies. She would have to ask Bunny where she got her furs. Meanwhile…

She spread the brief on the table, while the cat looked on inquisitively. The report contained a short history of Petaybee and its settlements, as well as maps showing the resource sites and the spots where the missing survey teams had last been seen.

Petaybee: third world from star XR798 in the Valdez system. The original evaluation team found no life forms, sentient or otherwise, on the planet: the rocky surface was largely frozen during most of the solar year. The Whittaker Effect was suggested as the best terraforming package for the planet and was inaugurated. Colonization was feasible, and procedures were initiated as the planet warmed. The only landmasses available were in the polar regions, where the climate was sub arctic, with a long extremely cold winter, temperatures frequently as low as or lower than -100 degrees F, summers barely two Terran months. Daylight is intense and almost constant during the summer, but dwindles rapidly into total darkness for most of the winter. Suitable colonists were chosen from ethnic groups accustomed to such conditions.

Knowing Intergal's ways, Yana doubted the "ethnic groups" had been asked their choice in the matter. She kept reading.

… following initial seeding, adjustments were made cm-site by company staff members among the colonists. The team determined that although the planet could support life of a primitive sort, most low-level machinery and electronics would not withstand the cold. Therefore, biological alternatives were developed. Company botanists perfected food and fodder crops, and other domesticated plant life specially designed for the Petaybean growing season. Summer thawing of rivers and shorelines is facilitated by the planet's network of subterranean hot springs, which to some extent warm the surface water, which becomes warmer as it deepens, preventing all but the shallower streams from freezing to their total depth. This deep water, along with hot springs occurring on the planet's surface and open year round, and small quantities of melted snow, provide hydration for plants, humans, and animals.

Company geneticists also altered existing animal species to conform to the requirements of the Petaybean climate. The following species were developed under company auspices: Petaybee curly horses, for nonsnow and heavy-duty transport; foxhounds, intelligent hybrid dogs for pulling sleds; domestic felines, originally for fur-bearing purposes but later to control the vermin, the development of which was not authorized. Additionally, fur-bearing species able to sustain themselves in the wild were introduced and specially adapted for the climate-wolverines, wolves, bears, lynx, as well as caribou, reindeer, wild sheep, and moose.

Sounded right to Yana. Just about what one would expect a fully stocked subarctic Earth clone to have. She had done the Service and London interactive holos as a kid. The only thing missing so far was the malamutes, as in Malamute Saloon, and the fox-hounds seemed to be standing in for them. Too bad there wasn't a continental mass along the equator that would be more temperate. But even with long-term terraforming, one couldn't always choose appropriate sites for continental masses, though she didn't know the geology involved in supporting Gaias.

She skimmed past the description of ocean and river dwellers, noting that some long-extinct species on Earth had been revived for this planet, making the terraforming valuable for that purpose if no other, in her estimation. Five kinds of whales populated the ocean: orcas, humpbacks, grays, rights, and the small so-called pilot whales, as well as dolphins, otters, seals, walruses, and all of the fish and plant life necessary to support them. The only odd thing about Petaybee was that the oceans were still many times warmer deep down than they were upon the icy surface, since considerable geothermal activity was still taking place following the terraforming. This same activity accounted for volcanos, hot springs, earthquakes, and the odd domes the Irish-Yupik-descended colonists of this continent called "fairy hills," the report noted.

Yana flipped forward. Nothing irregular here yet that she had to memorize and eat. Nothing she shouldn't know-or be able to ask about, for that matter. If it was here and it was authorized to be here, it was no doubt a matter of public record.

The next aberration she found was a notation that it had been unnecessary to develop a methane-based energy system when, by the time enough colonists had settled the planet to make such considerations a priority, it was discovered that the smallish alder trees transplanted to this planet had somehow mutated far beyond the alterations of the company botanists, into a completely new hardwood that made unusually long-burning and hot fuel. That explained why her home fires were still burning, anyway.

But in the last part of the report, she began to wonder if the computer's word processor hadn't gotten scrambled with some kid's IAH game. One of the expeditionary team members, prior to of complete disappearance, had reported via land-to-ship voice transmitter that she had seen what appeared to be a unicorn, Unicorns were definitely not among the authorized species for this planet, or any other. The official theory, the report went on to say, was that the woman had suffered from snow blindness or hallucinations induced by hypothermia. This climate was hostile to those not bred to adapt to it, the report rationalized. One team member who did return from that expedition appeared to have aged atleast a decade and had patently gone insane, babbling about hearing voices from the soil and tree roots, though the reports he.we of crystal caverns led the authorities to hope that there was some thread of reality in his ramblings.

The locals, both company employees and dependents, denied knowledge of crystal caverns or any of the other anomalies but did admit that sometimes they too suffered from cold-induced hallucinations, particularly when out on the trail with their teams.

Yana rubbed her fists through her hair and put the report in the stove. Like a lot of company paperwork, it didn't actually say much that couldn't have been conveyed in a short verbal briefing. Disgusted, she watched the papers burn, the cat poking its nose around her arm to see into the stove as well.

"I'm going to have to take you back to Clodagh's tonight, kittycat," she told it. It blinked golden eyes at her. "At least with "o many like you stalking about, she's unlikely to have missed you."

Just then there was a thump at her door, and she called out to whoever it was to come in. By the time she realized no one was coming and had closed the stove door to investigate, the area in front of the house was as empty as it had ever been-but a bundle of wood sat beside the stoop.

Yana pulled it inside, although it could as easily have remained out in the dry, freezing air. She wanted whoever had brought it to know she had found it and planned to use it, since so far she wasn't sure how she was supposed to acquire provisions and today, at least, she didn't have enough energy left to investigate. She had given the bed quilt back to Bunny, thinking she would get a new one today. Belatedly she realized that the bundle Charlie Demintieff had been carrying might have contained her thermal blanket and other authorized survival gear. In the confusion, it had been left at Clodagh's.

The cat looked up at her expectantly, and she sat back down at the table, wishing she had a console to work on. Nothing to read, write, work at, or interact with unless she wanted to put all those clothes back on and tramp about in the cold. The cat looked up at her and mewed.

"Just as well we're taking you home tonight, beast," she told it, giving it a stroke. "Otherwise I'd go buggy, landed with so much solitude all of a sudden."

As if it understood her, the cat chirruped and hopped down from the table, where it began chasing the toggle string of her parka with every evidence of great concentration and ferocity. It leapt high with front paws spread and twisted in midair to land squarely upon the coat's drawstring. Then the cat sat down, gave its paws a lick, and looked up at her expectantly. Other than the coat's drawstring, there wasn't a single thing to dangle or roll in the cabin.

Finally Yana took off her webbed uniform belt and dragged the buckle on the floor for the animal to hunt, while it did its best to entertain her. After a while, they both fell asleep by the stove, Yana with her head on the table, the cat curled by her elbow, while the winter-muffled village of Kilcoole remained unnervingly free of clanging, computer beeps, and the hive like activity of spacers. Yana's sleep was light and her dreams fragmented with scenes of a surgeon using a horn growing from his head as a scalpel, twenty young troopers convulsing while clawing at a hatch as poison gas slithered into a hold that looked something like a crystal cave, and a tiny man she knew was Charlie Demintieff being pounced at by an orange cat.

Diego Metaxos hadn't been all that thrilled about being dragged down to Petaybee to watch his old man in action as a geological surveyor. In all of his sixteen years, he had never been planet side, and he expected life on Petaybee to be as dreary and routine as life on board ship. But when he saw the place, he was glad he had come, and when he met the dogs, he was even gladder. By the time the lady let him drive her dog team, he had been convinced that this trip was the most brilliant thing that had ever happened to him.

At first he had been freaked out by the whole idea of the expedition, and with good reason. Even the shrink on his dad's ship had told him that he had had a lot to be freaked out about recently. First of all, his mom had fallen for a company exec who liked Mom fine but didn't want any other attachments. Mom, a senior astrophysicist, had never exactly been the warm type, and Diego had spent most of his life moving with her from ship to ship, or watching her come and go from various assignments while he sat in front of a teaching computer. Lots of the places Mom was assigned, there had been no one his own age, and very seldom did he find an adult who wanted to be bothered with someone else's kid. At the last couple of stations, he had begun to pal around with a few of the younger corps troops, listening to their casual conversation and admiring the hard-core way they handled themselves, but he was always conscious that he wasn't really one of them, and in case he forgot it, his mother made no bones about her displeasure in his choice of company. Then, too, about the time he started to gain a little acceptance and make one or two friends, they moved to a new station. He then had to fall back on the resources he had developed since he was a little kid, a good imagination and a quick brain. He didn't really need any friends. Both his mom and his dad were brilliant, self-sufficient people, and he was, too. All he had ever needed was computer access, and he could entertain as well as educate himself. He was good at languages, having started out speaking both Spanish and English from when he was a little kid, and he enjoyed reading actual old hard-copy stories in both languages when there was nobody he wanted to hang around with, so he got by.

He had gone to visit his dad and Steve about once every calendar year, and that was okay. He really loved his dad, even though he was a little on the perfectionistic and ultra serious side, except with Steve. Steve got him to knock it off, to relax and laugh a little. Steve was always finding neat things to share with them. He had given Diego his first hard-copy book-a Spanish-language text of Don Quixote-for Diego's ninth birthday.

"Pay close attention to Sancho Panza and Dulcinea," he had kidded Diego. "I'm a little of both." He struck a flamenco pose.

No wonder Dad and Mom hadn't gotten along. Even if Dad hadn't discovered he was gay, he and Mom were too much alike, both studious and serious and very literal-minded. So Diego didn't mind Dad and Steve's arrangement all that much; it just had never occurred to him that he might end up living with them.

He had just begun to get used to that-and he had even come to find out that Dad had wanted him all along but had been second best when it came to custody because in the eyes of company management theirs was a less-preferred sexual orientation to Mom's. Diego didn't see what difference that made. Nobody tried to tell him which way to swing, even if he had been ready to do any swinging of any kind. So far, he hadn't met anyone who instilled in him a desire to implement the procedures his manuals and texts described.

So he had just been getting used to his new situation and settling in when Steve had come down with some kind of virus just before Dad was due to take off for this mission to investigate something or other on Petaybee. That was when Dad had gotten the bright idea that Diego should come along, too, as his assistant instead of Steve, and "broaden his horizons."

In fact, he hadn't actually seen a horizon before, since he was in it, by dirtside reckoning. Pointing this out had caused Steve to rasp at him not to be a smartass and to give new experiences a chance. So he had come along, and to his surprise, the landscape of Petaybee looked more open and spacious than, well, than space.

But where space was black, Petaybee was blue and white, even when it turned dark, as it quickly did on their way from SpaceBase to the dinky little town where their guides met them. The sky was sort of dark ivory, and he could still see Petaybee's sun, like a small snowball hanging in the sky, as well as its two moons, one organic and one company-manufactured, in the sky.

Being here was sort of like being inside the moon, all pale and shining. SpaceBase was a hole and the town was ugly, but the countryside was really pretty fascinating, and the snocle ride into Kilcoole seemed all too short. The place was so much like something from his books, and yet so different that he knew he would never forget it even if he didn't decide, as his father obviously hoped, that he would become a great geologist like his old man.

Then, when they started unloading the equipment from the snocle, and a whole fleet of dogs, about fourteen to a sled, pulled up in front of the station, he started getting hooked.

The dogs were the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen. They were red as a Mars moonscape but delicately featured with foxy, intelligent faces. At first their barking scared him a little bit, but then the lady-when she spoke he could tell she was a lady-driving his sled said they were friendly and he could pet them if he liked. They were soft! The tops of their coats were a little icy, but when he took his mitten off and dug into their fur with his hand, it was as soft as anything he had ever felt, and warm enough to keep his hand from freezing before he stuck it back into the glove. As he was bending over to pull the mitten back on, the dog licked his face. "Hey, boy!" Diego said, and hugged him.

"Girl," Lavelle, the driver, said. "That's Dinah, my leader. She likes you, and she's a good judge of character."

"Leader?"

"The dog I talk to, and the one who tells me and the other dogs what's going on up ahead, what to do. As you can see from this arrangement, mostly all the other dogs see is the rear end of the dog in front of them." The dogs wagged their curled feathery tails and grinned as if that was a great joke they all shared.

He rode with Lavelle while his dad rode in the sled in front of them. The other members of the expedition, two women, one a seismographer and one a mining engineer, and the man his dad said was a soil mechanics specialist, all of them Doctor Somebody-or-other, rode in the other sleds.

It was a great ride, bundled along with the supplies into the furs on the sled, bumping and whisking over snow and ice while the dogs ran ahead, tails bouncing. But the best part was when, once they were well out of town with nothing much in the way, Lavelle let him drive.

"When you want them to go, yell to Dinah, 'Hike!' and 'Gee!' if you want them to go right, 'Haw!' to the left, 'Whoa!' when you want them to stop. Dinah will do it and see that the others do it. She's a smart pup. You stand here." She showed him the rough hair-hide strips along the runners where he could put his feet without slipping. "The brake is here. Step on it if you want to stop, but you won't stop very quick on ice."

The other sleds all passed them, but Lavelle didn't care. As soon as he had his hands on the handlebars and his feet on the treads and Lavelle had strapped on the nets made of wood and babiche-rawhide strips-he shouted "Hike!" to Dinah and off she went, the others pulling with her, whining a little at the sound of a new voice.

Dinah was, as Lavelle said, a smart dog. She wasn't about to let the other sleds stay ahead of them and passed them easily, falling in behind the first sled, the one his father was riding in.

The run to catch up was the best part, with the wind biting into his face and blowing his breath back, the whole white-and-blue world framed in the icicles clinging to his lashes and the ruff of his hood. As soon as they slowed down to fall in behind the other sled, he got cold, then bored at having to stay so far behind. Lavelle, loping beside him with a funny knee-high gait to let each cumbersome snowshoe clear the snow before she set it down again, began telling him about the great races her grandfather had told her about, the ones they used to have in the old days in Alaska, which was part of a country back on Earth.

"One of the biggest races they had back in those days developed from a dogsled relay that took emergency serum from a big city to a little town called Nome far away," she told him. "People admired the stamina and skill it took to do it, and so they made a race out of it. Whole towns sponsored dogs and their drivers, and people all over the world knew about it. Another race they had ran along the route the mail sled used to take. It spanned two countries, and drivers from all over brought their teams to compete. In both races, they still took a little mail with them to deliver at the end."

"Why did they need to send the mail by dogsled?" Diego asked. "That's silly when they could use computers."

"Some places they didn't have computers, sometimes," she shouted back. "And sometimes folks just liked to prove they could do things in the old ways and still survive like their ancestors did. They were learning to be tough like them, you know?" She grinned, a very white grin in her sun-darkened face. "Tough like us."

He grinned back, but he thought privately it was a little backward to do things the hard way instead of learning new skills. But then, he was now doing things the old hard way and he was learning new skills.

They camped that night and he listened to his father talking about rocks and stuff for a while, over rations that were much the same as what he ate on the ship. Then Lavelle slipped him a stick that smelled strong, but very spicy and interesting.

"Eat it," she said. "It's good. Smoked salmon. I caught it and smoked it myself."

He nibbled on it and she sang him a peculiar song about catching that particular fish. She said the song was her own song, though the tune was to an old Irish song her Grandmother O'Toole had taught her, "The Star of the County Down."

The chorus went:

"From SpaceBase down to Kilcoole town On out to Tanana Bay The wild fish swims but I caught him And he's our food today."

He fell asleep quickly in the heated shelter. The next morning when he woke up, looking forward to maybe driving the dogs again, soft powdery snow was sifting down from the sky. He knew, scientifically, that the snow was part of this world's ecosystem, but at the same time it seemed strange that he had spent so much time above this planet and had never been on it before. His father explained that snow was white rather than clear because it was a dense accumulation of light-reflecting frozen water crystals, but Lavelle showed him that each flake was a different, beautifully ornate design. He had to ride in the sled because Lavelle said they were nearing rougher country, and she had to be vigilant for the place the expedition was seeking. She promised to let him drive again on the way back.

He spent a lot of time lying in the sled, catching flakes on his mitten and trying to memorize the shapes before they melted.

"Maybe tonight at camp I'll make you some snow ice cream," Lavelle said, bending over him so that her breath blew icily into his face. "I've got some seal oil and dried berries with me, and a III lie sugar."

"Seal oil?" he asked.

"Yeah. Gives you instant energy on the trail. Don't knock it till you've tried it."

He pulled a face, and she pushed his ruff down over his eyes.

But the storm picked up as they moved, and twice the Petaybean guy, who seemed to be Lavelle's husband, asked Diego's d"l her and the other men if they wanted to camp, but they said to keep on, that their instruments were showing them the way. The snow no longer fell in single, beautiful flakes but in clumpy sheets, HO hard that it was all Diego could do to see the tails of the dogs In front of him, never mind the other sleds. All around him the world was white, and the sled moved more and more slowly, while Siggy, as Lavelle called the Petaybean guy, tried to break trail, keep track of the sleds, and persuade everyone to stop.

The ride had become much rougher, and although he couldn't see anything, Diego knew they had left the plains, because the dogs were tugging the sleds up and down little hills and, finally, up a long, long pull.

He heard Siggy yell something, and then he heard Dad cry out and the woman in front, Brit, whistle and call "Whoa, youmutts! Whoa! Oh, shit!" and multiple sounds of slipping, cracking, and sliding, but by that time the dogs had reached the summit and were plummeting down, too.

A man screamed, and several heavy things rolled and tumbled just as the sled was suddenly airborne, and Diego felt himself flying more surely than he had ever flown in the spacecraft he had lived in since he was a baby.

Lavelle called, "Whoa, Dinah! Back girl!" and Diego felt her hand pull on his ruff. For a moment she had him; then the sled jarred again and she fell and his hood was free, and he was falling from the sled, rolling, tumbling, into the snow, over and over, until his feet struck something soft at the same time his head struck something hard, and there was darkness.