Power Lines

Chapter 2

"Well?" Bunny Rourke asked breathlessly as the elders and the company friends of the Petaybeans filed out of the building. She handed the reins of the curlies to each rider. "How'd it go?"

Clodagh shrugged. "Like usual. They pretended we weren't there, and if we were, that we'd nothin' sensible to say. They're sendin' down more investigators."

Yana sighed. She'd known it wouldn't be easy, but something else was disturbing her. As they rode back through the woods to Kilcoole, she asked, "I don't get it. Torkel was with us. He felt the planet, too. He knows about it. If he had really rejected it, he'd be like Frank Metaxos was."

"Denial," Diego said, drawing on his own counseling experience. "He knows, okay, he just can't stand to admit it. He's not a complete creep, after all. You and he used to be friends, didn't you, Yana?"

"Friendly, at least," Yana said. "Or I thought so. But he's been so unreasonable…"

"Maybe irrational's a better word," Sean said. "He might not have had the reaction Frank did, but it strikes me that Fiske isn't sledding on both runners anymore, if he ever was. Maybe his unwilling contact with the planet has done him more harm than shows on the surface."

"At least it's that lady coming to investigate," Moira Rourke said with some relief.

"Yes, but I don't like the look of that bald fella," Clodagh said.

"Nor do I," Yana agreed. "At the risk of sounding like the conspirator Torkel thinks me to be, I suggest that all of you avoid any direct contact with Luzon and save your explanations strictly for Madame Marmion. He is known to… twist… anything he's told."

As they neared the village, they were met by a pride of cats, all of them striped bright rusty orange and all of them meowing and purring and twining dangerously around the large snowshoe-sized hooves of the shaggy, curly-coated horses.

"What a welcoming committee!" Yana said as Marduk, or at least she assumed it was he, hopped up behind her and rubbed his head against her back briefly before hopping down again. "Did you call them, Clodagh?"

Clodagh shook her head. "No, but I was worried, before we left, about how committed the other villages were to the planet. So far the PTBs have only questioned us, but I figured they'd get around to asking some of the others sometime soon. These little ones scattered as soon as we left, and here they are back again." She tilted her head as she looked down at the cats.

"What's got 'em so antsy?" Bunny asked.

Clodagh reined her curly-coat to a halt. Immediately the cats converged on her, stropping the legs of the pony, who regarded this activity with mild surprise and didn't so much as twitch a muscle.

"You'll get muddy doing that," she told the cats, since the pony was coated up to and including his belly with good Petaybean wet earth. With a groan, she heaved one leg over the saddle and dismounted, ignoring the fact that her skirts immediately became as dirty as the pony's legs. "Now, what's all this?" she asked, hands on her hips, looking from one upturned cat face to the next.

Clodagh's special relationship with her cats was known-or at least suspected-by everyone in Kilcoole. So the other villagers, except for Sean, Bunny, and Yana, rode politely around the cats and pretended not to notice anything more than a woman being greeted by overly fond pets.

Frank Metaxos, in whose healing process the cats had had a rather unusual role, remained behind, too, along with his son Diego. The two were returning to Kilcoole without Frank's partner, Steve Margolies, who, still on the company's payroll, had stayed on at SpaceBase.

Both cats and Clodagh waited for the rest of the village to parade past before the mewing and chirruping began.

Ordinarily the cats would have sat down to impart what was evidently a long story, but the mud offended their dignity. So they prowled around her, twitching their tails high, as they communicated their messages. The humans waited patiently.

Sparks of uncharacteristic anger flickered in Clodagh's eyes as she looked up at Sean and Yana "We got all kinds of trouble now." She gave a disgusted snort. "Seems like some villages want Intergal to come down and mine, while the mining's good and they can get paid for working."

Sean frowned and Yana told her heart to stop racing. "How many dissidents? she asked.

"Four towns that the cats know of." Clodagh's usually merry face was solemn.

"Which ones?"

"Deadhorse, McGee's Pass, Wellington, and Savoy."

Sean let out a burst of sour laughter. That figures." Clodagh had named villages which in recent years spurned contact with the others. He sighed deeply. "Have the cats any good news?"

"Yes, out the bad news is they haven't had a chance to check everyone out. If four villages oppose us…"

"How many more might be disaffected and looking to please Intergal for the sake of wampum? Sean asked.

"So, the good news? Yana prompted with a sigh.

"Well, we do have at least twelve communities behind us solid. Tanana Bay, Shannonmouth, New Barrow, Twin Moon Village, Little Dublin, Oslo Inlet, Harrison's Fjord, Kabul, Bogota, Machu Picchu, Kathmandu, and Sierra Padre."

"Most of the closest ones," Sinead said, looking encouraged.

"And the ones," Clodagh went on with a pessimistic expression, "that have the most Petaybean boys and girls in company service."

"What bothers you about that?" Yana asked. "Wouldn't they be on their folks' side in this?"

"Might be, if they weren't required to lean on their folks to do what the company asks," Clodagh said gloomily.

"Oh!" Yana sighed Dirty tricks department Farringer Ball and Matthew Luzon would pull every one they needed out of storage to see that their interpretation became the official one. "Could you be wrong about which side of the blanket the Petaybean troops would fall on? The pilots, O'Shay and Greene in particular, gave us some support during the volcanic crisis."

Clodagh shrugged her broad shoulders. "You can always be wrong about anything. Sure, I think a lot of them would feel loyalty for us and for the planet. But they've been out there"-she nodded toward the heavens-"for a long time. They're used to the kind of stuff you're used to. Some of 'em have prob'ly forgot how to cook, too, like you, and how to hunt. How to take care of themselves. And if the company decided to punish them and us by dumping them here and pulling out support, well, that'd be pretty hard on them, pretty hard on us, and pretty hard on the planet. I figure if all the Petaybee troops still working for Intergal got sent back here, it'd triple our population. At the least! I don't know how many kids those troops have had. Course they'd be welcome and the planet would provide, but it might be as hard on it as some kinds of mining operations."

Frank cleared his throat. The ecosystem in these icy regions is quite fragile."

"You know it and I know it, but Intergal seems oblivious to the fact," Sean said.

"Are those villages one hundred percent in favor of selling out? Yana asked.

Clodagh smiled patiently. "Now, Yana. You've been around the universe a few times. When did you ever meet any group of people who were one hundred percent in favor of anything?"

"Exactly. So presumably there are some people there who aren't in favor of the mining. And probably, in the remaining villages, a few who are. I think we need to know who's fer us and who's agin us, as they say in the Wild West vids, and maybe try to convert some of the unaffiliated. I thought everybody had the relationship with the planet you do."

Clodagh shook her head. "Not everybody wants to. Those who have enough respect to follow the rules and live wisely survive better though, so even if they don't acknowledge the presence of the planet, they get by as long as they keep out of the special places. The others, the foolish ones, don't live so well or so long. Those people would much rather try to please the bosses than forces they don't want to understand Fortunately though, around here there's not much to do except pay attention, so the planet gets through to most folks."

"Well, sounds to me like we need to do a little campaigning," Yana said.

"We will make them songs so they understand," Clodagh said.

"Cool," Diego said. "Just like the old radical songs from Earth. Ah, if only I had a guitar."

"What's that?" Bunny asked.

"A musical instrument. All of the old protest singers had them. There's some wonderful mining songs in the memory banks back-back at my old place."

"I wish you had one then," Bunny said loyally.

"Me, too. Except I don't know how to play."

"I bet you could learn." Bunny told him. "You make better songs than some people who've made them all their lives."

"Bunka," Clodagh said sharply. "Each song is a good song if it says what the singer means it to say."

"Course it is, Clodagh. I know that. But Diego's sound better. He says what he means to say so everybody can understand it. That's all I meant."

Clodagh smiled, a slightly bawdy smile, with a wink to Sean and Yana. "That's all right then, alannah. He does make good songs."

In the short distance to Clodagh's house, they discussed the finer points of what needed to be said to the villages, both those which dissented and those which Clodagh felt sure could be counted upon to support the planet.

When they reached Clodagh's, what seemed to be the entire village was waiting outside in her yard. Yana found, looking at the yard, that she missed the snow. The village looked like a garbage dump, with its stores of winter provisions half-thawed in the snow, the trash that had been buried, the salvaged equipment lying around the yard, all of the items that had been lost throughout the long winter. Not to mention the leavings of the various dogs and cats and horses housed in the village. Also, without the snow, the roofs of the houses looked patchy, the siding worn despite its gay pastel colors. And everything and everyone was smeared and splattered with mud.

This dreary aspect didn't seem to lessen their regard for each other in the slightest, however, and the villagers crowded as cheerfully as ever into Clodagh's tiny house and began discussing what was to be done.

"We need to have another latchkay," Eamon Intiak said. "We should have one and invite the people who don't understand. Petaybee would speak to them and then they'd know."

"You'd think they'd know already by now," Sinead Shongili said.

"Now, Sinead," her partner Aisling said reasonably, "such things take some folks longer. Their worries about the everyday things in their lives get in the way of understanding what's here."

'We'll each go away and think about these things and make songs," Clodagh said. "Then we'll go talk to the other people. Sinead, you and Sean and the Maloneys must go the farthest because you're the best travelers. I would like to send Frank with you, Sinead, and young Diego with Liam. Yana, you go with Sean. We need you people who know about the company to make talk with the neighbors who are taken in by the promises, too."

With that, everyone began to leave. Yana was ready to leave, too. She was tired. She wanted to rest and eat and bathe in the hot springs and make love to Sean, not necessarily in that order. But Sean laid a restraining hand on her arm and lingered a moment.

"And how about the other pole, Clodagh?" Sean asked gently. "How do we reach those people?"

"Can you not do it, Sean?" Clodagh asked.

"Sure, I could, but it'd be a long journey no matter how fast I went. The PTBs would already have been there and found out what we need to know. Besides, I hate to leave Yanaba for so long at a time like this."

"What do you mean, Sean?" Yana asked. "I'm barely a month along. I wouldn't even know I was pregnant if you hadn't found out via your hot line to the planet. Other women have had babies before…"

"Not," Sean said significantly, "my babies. If only my sister and Rourke had been able to map that passage."

"Sinead?"

"No. Our sister Aoifa and her husband, Bunny's parents. They were trying to map some of the planet's inner passages. Bunny was barely eighteen months old-"

"And that Aoifa was pregnant again!" Clodagh said fondly. They hadn't been named long, but that girl was a real Shongili. Not even pregnancy hampered that one, and her as curious as one of the cats!"

"What happened?" Yana asked.

Sean shrugged. "We don't know."

"Couldn't you find out? From the planet, I mean?"

"You've been with it. The information you got isn't usually that specific. And Aoifa and Mala had this theory that some of the special places that lead from one river and lake to the next here on the land lead under the sea in the same way. I searched but I never found them. Never even got a glimmer."

Clodagh made a sound like "Yuh." Then she said, "They must have gone very far. Much farther than anyone has ever gone."

"On foot or by sled or horse maybe," Yana said. "But there are other ways to travel and other ways to get to the south, if the planet doesn't mind the intrusion too much. If I can reach Captain Greene or that O'Shay fellow, maybe they can give us a lift."

"Ah, you spoiled modern woman," Sean said with a kiss to her cheek. "I love you."

"I know it's not the Petaybean way, Shongili, but until you come up with a mutant bird to match your cats and horses, we have to make do with what poor mechanical means I can muster."

"I'm workin' on it, Yana. I am. But until then, you're quite right. We'll have to use company equipment to fight its masters. Now then, what say we go meditate at the hot spring and come up with something to say to these people once you finesse the pilots into transporting us?"

"I thought you'd never ask," she said.

It was small; it was warm and wet and its pelt was of a most extraordinarily tattered nature, fine flapping threads and matted bits interspersed in an unkempt coat. It smelled like food, but not the superior sort.

It leaked savory blood into the water sloshing around it. The water was the problem. In order to reach the little morsel, one would have to get wet. Of course, one could reach down from the ledge with one's claws, and if one stretched-stretched-stretched-ah! One caught a piece of the pelt and could heft it to where one could support the weight of the rest in one's jaws and-ah-it moved. Still alive then. Good. Fresh meat was best. All it would take was biting down a bit on the neck, under the mane, and the kill would be clean, the meat fresh. There would be no necessity for leaving the relative shelter of the ledge.

One leaned forward, resting on one's chest, and extended one's neck to meet the bit rising on claw tip and-it slipped! It was trying to get away! The other paw lashed forward, claws extended, to help the first, and one instinctively leaned forward, one's jaws coming into play to assist one's claws and-and-the thing slipped again before one could sink a tooth into it. The pelt was flimsy stuff and tore out of the claws just as the other paw grabbed the morsel in a second place. The morsel let out a terrified squeal, rather like a rabbit. One was about to smack it to silence and lean forward for the fatal chomp.

Then the cave shook, the ledge broke under one's over-balanced weight, and one tumbled tail over nose into the pool, relinquishing the morsel, which yelped again. Inconvenient and embarrassing to be so indisposed in front of the food. One climbed out of the pool and shook the water from one's coat and began to wash before one's meal.

The morsel began to flail frantically toward the den's entrance. One padded nonchalantly after. The cave, the ground, the world, shook again. One knew when one was being addressed. One sat on one's haunches and perceived.

The morsel was also arrested in mid flight. "Did you-d-do that?" it asked. "Are-are you the G-Great Monster?"

One yawned.

The world shook again and one realized that one had understood the speech of the morsel. One also understood that it was a youngling, and female.

One waded forward while the youngling waded backward, outlined in the dusk outside the mouth of the cave. One's paws dripped water, albeit warm water. One lapped a bit. The youngling stood still.

"You're not so terrible," it said. "You're nothing but a big cat."

One had one's dignity to maintain. One lashed one's beautifully and delicately marked tail and growled.

And from beneath one's sodden paws, the world growled back at one and bucked, sending a wave of water to swamp one, knocking one onto one's back, causing one to drink more deeply of the spring than one cared to, paws over head, and be propelled backward, away from the youngling.

When one got to one's feet, one saw that the youngling-it no longer seemed safe to think of it, no, her as a morsel-had not used the opportunity to run away. Indeed, it, too, was just arising from the water, sputtering and snorting. Ah, good. It had not seen one's discomfiture. Dignity was preserved.

"I'm not afraid of you," the youngling declared as one advanced-claws sheathed, teeth safely contained within one's lips, growl little more than a polite, inquiring rumble in one's throat. A mere purr, actually, one corrected, as the waters bubbled and sloshed ominously. I used to know a cat. A little one. I was a baby then. Shepherd Howling made my mother kill my cat. He-he tried to, anyway.

He-she wouldn't and-and…" Something odd was happening to the youngling now. It began leaking again, saltiness into the fresh sulfurous water covering it. "My mother was not like Ascencion. She was brave. The Shepherd punished her for disobedience and both she and my cat went away. So-so I'm not afraid of you. You live where the Great Monster is supposed to dwell and lie in wait for the foolish superstitious minds of the flock to be warped and maddened into everlasting wickedness while our bodies are tormented by the great fires from within. But you're not the Great Monster-you couldn't be. Are you-are you the Guardian of the Underworld?"

One was so disgusted by her ignorance and silly misapprehension of one's self and one's relationship to one's Home that one was startled into answering, I am Coaxtl. That is enough.

"I am Goat-dung, Coaxtl," the youngling said with the cunning of her race. She knew, one saw, the power of names. She had one's name, one had hers. She could not be food.

But one's Home had already decreed that she could not be food, which was what Home meant with the rumbling of the ground and the raising of the waters. One knew what was done and what was not done.

Very well, Goat-dung, one said. Goat-dung is not food, but undoubtedly she eats. Therefore we must leave the Home and hunt