Power Lines

Chapter 6

The long multi-segmented caravan divided, then subdivided, and subdivided again. The first to leave were Sinead and Aisling, who went visiting Shannonmouth, closest to Kilcoole of the three villages on the route. Although Sinead could ride all day, Aisling did not travel as well, especially on horseback. Most of the time she preferred to walk and lead her curly-horse, chatting to the mare as frequently as she addressed Sinead, Sean, Yana, Bunny, or Diego. The mare seemed oblivious to the burdens she carried: bundles of blankets, sewing things, and decorating materials, as well as a back pack and a bale of finely tanned furs from Sinead's winter hunt.

Bunny thought it was aces traveling with this particular group. She was so used to Diego now, she'd be lost without his company, and she had liked Yana Maddock since Day One and looked forward to having her as an auntie when she and Sean got hitched. And both Sinead and Sean knew all sorts of special places where they could sleep under cover. With the people traveled Alice B, Sinead and Aisling's lead dog; Nanook, one of the track-cats who lived out at Sean's lab; and Dinah, the Maloneys' lead dog, who had taken such a shine to Diego that she preferred his company to Liam's. She also liked Bunny: when Bunny stroked her, she could even receive Dinah's somewhat frenetic communications.

After leaving Sinead and Aisling in Shannonmouth, the group continued on, following the river that snaked uphill past McGee's Pass. There the river was joined by the Iffy, so called because it was iffy if it ran or not, depending on the season, and how frozen it was or how dry the weather had been. The Iffy was in full spate now, pouring its glacial white waters into the clear Shannon; the two mingled murkily all the way to Harrison's Fjord.

As Bunny and Diego parted from Sean and Yana, Sean said, "Listen, you two. By all means, visit the Connellys and, if you can do so, find out what's going on. But, if feeling is very strong in favor of the mines, leave and come find us, and we'll all do it together. I want you to meet us at Harrison's Fjord in three days' time. It's only a day to the Fjord, so that gives you two days to suss things out.

Okay? I'd like to have more time, but with the PTBs arriving soon, Yana and I have got to catch a ride down under as soon as we've finished our business and Johnny or Rick are free."

"Can we go down under, too?" Bunny asked.

"I doubt if the aircraft will be big enough to hold four passengers," Yana said. "Using one of the smaller copters is wisest. Now, get going so you'll reach the Connellys in time to be invited for supper. Sean and I have a ways to go yet."

Later, when the adults disappeared around the base of the next hill and Bunny and Diego steered their curlies toward the pass, Bunny said, "Did you hear? They didn't say no! We might get to go down under, Diego!"

"What's it like?" he asked.

"I don't know. Never been. Different from here though I think. I've never heard of anyone coming up from the southern pole. You have to cross a whole big ocean, and that just isn't smart to do in our little boats. I guess they don't have any bigger ones down there or we'd see more of them up here. My parents were trying to prove a theory about an undersea passage from the caves near Harrison's Fjord when they disappeared. Hey! What if they got through and the passage-you know, something went wrong with it, so they couldn't come home, but when we get down there we'll find them!"

"I wouldn't get my hopes up," Diego said. "It's been how many years now?"

"I dunno. Over ten. I was real little when they left."

"I'd think in all that time they'd have found somebody to bring word back, knowing how worried everybody would be. Of course, if it was my mom," he added, his tone turning wry, "she'd get so involved with her work she'd never notice she forgot to bring me with her, but you people aren't like that."

"Well, thanks a lot. But I prefer to hope, if it's all the same to you. Or isn't anybody else supposed to? You got your father back. I guess that's all that matters."

"I didn't mean for you to take it that way, Bunny. I wouldn't have got my dad back if it wasn't for you and Clodagh and everybody, and sure I hope there's people who will help your folks down under. I'd just hate to see you get all excited and be disappointed."

"I'll be excited if I want to," she said tartly. "And I've been disappointed before."

Diego didn't say anything, and Bunny regretted being so sharp with him. He was probably just showing how much he cared about her, as Aisling would say. But he was only two years older than she was, and he shouldn't treat her like a kid.

So after that, they rode in silence until they rounded the bend at the foot of the pass and were greeted by a roaring wind funneling through the cleft and almost blowing them back down to the Shannon.

Flattening themselves against the necks of the curlies, they trudged up the trail, which was some what less muddy than the flatlands. The air was also noticeably chillier. Dinah dropped behind the horses and padded along in the shelter of their sturdy bodies.

McGee's Pass wasn't very big. Not even as big as Kilcoole, Bunny thought with surprise as they rode between the first pair of houses. There were only about eight houses, situated fairly close together, lining the wide spot in the trail that passed for a road. The road was heavily churned up and tracked into ruts, ridges, and pockmarks lightly covered with a recent sprinkling of snow, making the footing extremely slippery and uneven.

The houses were unimproved original company issue, shored up with pieces of timber, stones, mud bricks, plascrete, hides, and whatever else was handy. As in Kilcoole, the ground was littered with the refuse of many long winters and warm seasons not quite warm enough to melt the snows.

"Everybody must be inside having lunch," Bunny said of the deserted streets.

But that didn't explain the quiet. She saw no dogs, no curlies, nothing except one lone marmalade cat trying to catch what warmth it could on a plascrete roof.

Dinah wandered from house to house, object to object, sniffing and whining, barking once or twice, and sniffing and whining some more. At one place, she paused to urinate near a doorstep.

The cat looked down at her as if considering jumping on her back for a ride. Dinah jumped up, pawing the house, and barked sharply. The cat rose and stretched itself, and jumped lightly down from the roof onto a barrel and then to the ground.

After a mutual sniff, the cat sauntered up the street, its tail describing arches in the air above its back, while Dinah struggled not to run over the creature in her haste to go wherever the cat was going.

Bunny and Diego followed the dog. The cat walked out of town, which wasn't all that far to go, and up toward the pass, and then abruptly disappeared into a bush beside the trail.

Bunny and Diego dismounted. A voice came from behind the bush, then suddenly, many voices, and then the bush moved aside and a person appeared in what turned out to be the entrance to a cave.

The person, a man who looked a bit like Bunny's uncle Adak, seemed startled to see them. "Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want? he demanded, blocking the entrance to the cave.

"Slainte," Bunny said as normally as possible. After all, if these people were supporting the company instead of the planet, she wasn't surprised that they might be a little defensive. "I was looking for the Connelly family. I thought they lived around here."

"Who is it askin' after the Connellys?" a woman's voice asked from behind the man. "Krilerneg O'Malley, will you move your ass so the rest of us can get out."

"Is that you, Iva?" Bunny asked. As O'Malley did as he was bid, she saw that it was indeed Iva Connelly, or someone who looked very much like her, coming out into the daylight.

Unlike the unmannerly O'Malley, the woman cleared the doorway and came over to the horses, allowing a stream of men, women, and children to emerge behind her.

"What is it, Ma?" a boy asked. He was a tall boy, not dark like most of the people Bunny knew, but fair-haired and blue-eyed.

The woman looked puzzled herself, and for a moment Bunny was afraid she'd got the wrong person.

"Slainte, dama," she said again. "I don't know if you remember me or not, but I'm Buneka Rourke, the snocle driver from Kilcoole. This is my friend Diego Metaxos."

"That's not a Kilcoole name," the boy said in a suspicious mutter.

"Never mind that, Krisuk," the woman said. "You've had a long journey, Bunka. You must be tired and hungry."

The people parted in front of another man now, this one dressed in skins and furs, all ornamented with beads the way Aisling did the latchkay blouses. More striking than his clothing, however, was his physical appearance. He was a very large man and very handsome, his hair worn in a black mane, with a trim black beard covering his chin and a heavy black mustache guarding his mouth.

"The others not only let him pass but actually shrank from him. He carried a staff with the skull of some small animal-a squirrel perhaps, although it looked more like… No, it couldn't be a cat's skull! Nobody would do anything so gruesome as to display the skull of a cat.

She did notice, however, that the marmalade cat, who had been there a moment before, had completely disappeared.

"Iva, my child, of course this lovely creature and her friend are tired and hungry. You must bring them to my house to eat and rest." He turned to Bunny and gave her a smile that invited her to admire him, and extended his hand less to shake hers than to sign a blessing at her. "I am Satok, the shanachie. Welcome to my village."

"Slainte, Satok," Bunny said. "And thanks for the invitation. I just came bringing greetings to the Connellys from our healer, Clodagh Senungatuk, but she has spoken of you and I know she will be glad to hear that I met you."

Iva Connelly spoke to the shanachie, and Bunny thought her manner unusually timorous for someone speaking to the town's rememberer and chief singer and storyteller. "Bunka is an important woman in Kilcoole, shanachie. She is one of two people permitted to drive the company's snocles. On her mother's side she is descended from the Shongili scientists. Her uncle is Sean himself, and she was all but raised by Clodagh, the healer."

The speech would normally have embarrassed Bunny, except that she had the oddest feeling that Iva was presenting her credentials, to show that Bunny was a person worthy of respect and under the protection of important and powerful people. Satok, apparently, took the speech as an advertisement for her-her charms? He was looking at her in the way of men who were courting, except more boldly and without deference.

"Fine recommendations indeed," he said, grasping her hand. "I am so honored that you have come to my village."

"We-uh-we brought a song to the Connellys from their friends in Kilcoole," Diego said rather sharply. "Come on, Bunny. Maybe we can visit the shanachie later, if there's time. We're on kind of a tight schedule. We're being expected soon, elsewhere."

Bunny, uneasy at the burning look she was getting from the shanachie, did not mind Diego intervening in her affairs this time. Iva Connelly shot them a relieved glance and one that was apologetic to the shanachie before she hustled them, the boy, and a passel of other relatives back to a house no bigger than Clodagh's.

Iva, her husband Miuk, and their own children and grandchildren, including the blond-haired boy, all lived under this roof. It smelled musky, of closeness and constant occupation. Except for six beds and a table, the furnishings were few and the food stores did not appear to be many.

"We brought our own supplies," Bunny told Iva. "And some seedlings from Clodagh. She and Sean both think this will be an unusually long growing season."

Iva did not respond to her remark at once. "Niambh," she said to one of the granddaughters. "Put the kettle on for our guests."

She sat herself down on one bed and motioned to Diego and Bunny to sit on another. The rest of the Connellys surrounded them closely. The youngest ones had to be deflected from the saddlebags, which intrigued them.

"That was kind of Clodagh, but I doubt we'll plant much this year," Miuk said. "We'll be busy helping Intergal at the new mine sites."

Bunny tried not to act surprised. The cats' information, after all, was accurate. That marmalade rascal who had led them to the meeting cave was no doubt a useful informant.

Diego surprised her. He usually hung back in discussions, but now he leaned forward and gave Iva a penetrating look.

"And how," he asked, "does your shanachie feel about the possibility of newly opened mine sites?"

"Why, he thinks it's about time, of course. He says the planet is very offended that we refuse to accept all of its gifts. That's why the planet won't communicate with any of us anymore, but speaks only to Satok."

"What?" Bunny cried.

"Just as she says, girl, are you deaf?" Miuk said. "The planet now communicates its needs and we communicate ours to it only through Satok."

"Why? Isn't the planet 'mad' at him, too?" Diego asked, just managing not to sneer.

"You don't understand,-" Iva said. "You've had Clodagh to guide you, to keep you whole. But McConachie was old and not right in the head for a long time before he died. And no one else came forward for years. We-we lost touch. We misinterpreted things. We did wrong things. Offensive things. Until Satok came to interpret, everything got harder and harder for us. Animals didn't come to the dying places. The river didn't thaw for three summers. We couldn't grow gardens. Not until Satok came did we know what the problem was. We had angered the planet by not cooperating with the company when it wished our help to make its explorations."

"Which explorations?" Bunny asked. She wasn't aware that help had been recruited further afield than Kilcoole.

"There was one last year. Some fellas came looking for guides. They landed in a shuttle. I don't think they even went to SpaceBase. They said there was some kinda special minerals we were supposed to have here that they were lookin' for."

"There were others, too," Miuk said. "Ask Clodagh. Sometimes if what the company wanted was near Shannonmouth, people from Kilcoole would just send them on, or bring them this far and no farther. My brother Upik guided one group, but we never saw him again."

"I went out with my father and Lavelle Maloney with a group," Diego said in a quiet, intense voice. "We got into a white out. But we took refuge inside the planet. My father… well, he was bad for a while and almost died from the shock but Clodagh and Bunny and the others helped him and now he's better. That sort of thing seems to happen to a lot of company teams."

Iva shook her head. "They did not ask permission then.

As Satok says, we used to do it all wrong. He says that Miuk's brother and our other folks killed the company teams and the planet punished them-and us-because of it.

"Why does he tell you such lies?" Bunny asked. She had restrained herself long enough. Now she was really mad.

"He doesn't lie. As long as we've done what he says, made the payments he wants, things have been better."

"Payments?" Diego asked incredulously, sticking his jaw out.

"Just little things. Food, furs, some sewing for him, the best pups from the litters, and the best lead dog to train them."

"Oh, that sort of payments," Diego said in a tone of voice that Bunny had never heard him use. But she knew what he was leading up to. "And all your troubles have disappeared with his help?"

Universally solemn nods answered the query.

"And the planet doesn't mind you digging hard down into itself-Diego made a savage downward thrust with his hand, then gave a mean twist to his imaginary tool as it threw its imaginary contents onto the floor-and making big sores on its surface?"

There was a stunned rumble at his harsh words.

"You, young Diego, are a stranger, not of this planet. How can you pretend to know its wishes? How can you pretend to know our needs? You have no understanding of the planet, of us, or of how it is at Shannonmouth," Miuk said sternly, shifting his legs into an aggressive stance.

"Quite possibly I don't," Diego said, staring back at him so unafraid that Bunny was as proud of him as she was scared. "But I have a song to sing…"

Bunny breathed a secret sigh of relief. Diego was sure catching on fast. Out of inbred courtesy, everyone in the tiny house relaxed just that little bit that showed they would be receptive to a song, but not to more words that went against their shanachie. Of all the tense faces, Bunny noticed only one, that of the light-haired boy, Krisuk, that did not wear the same defensive, half-frightened look. She had mistaken Krisuk's expression for sullenness at first, but as Diego talked, the other boy's face relaxed and she saw that he was angry-and not at them. Diego, as if he'd been doing it all his life instead of just the past few months, lifted his head, half closed his eyes, and sang the song he had composed for the Kilcoole latchkay.

"Diego is no stranger to Petaybee. The planet has spoken to him," Bunny said quietly in the respectful silence that followed a true song. For she could see by their reception that the Connellys could recognize the song for what it was. "The planet speaks to few," Iva said, nodding her head.

"But here," Miuk said in a harsh voice, "the planet speaks to Satok and none other, and it is he we must obey in the name of the planet."

"Well spoken, Miuk." There were gasps of astonishment as Satok stuck his head through a carefully opened window. "Well sung, young traveler."

Iva quickly rose and opened the door. She was red with the embarrassment at the shanachie having to listen through a window to hear something going on in her house.

Immediately it occurred to Bunny that that might be how he knew so much of what went on in his village. Inside, he made straight for the bed on which Bunny and Diego sat. But Diego, acting quickly, shifted so that Satok would have to sit next to him instead of Bunny, as had been his very obvious intention.

"Then young traveler, do you think the planet says one thing for one town and something else for another?" Satok asked, his eyes glistening, his mouth set at a derisive slant.

"Your town is near mines, Kilcoole is not."

"But Lavelle was searching for mines, was she not, when your group became lost in white out?"

"We were, but well east of Kilcoole and well north of here," Diego answered calmly. Bunny thought he was much cleverer than the shanachie, who was obviously trying to catch him out.

"What else did the planet say to you that you made such a song?"

Diego looked up at the intimidating face of Satok. "The planet gave me words to sing, which I have sung. Now my mouth is dry, and we have come a long way to see Iva Connelly and thank her for gifts, bringing gifts in return."

"Bah!" Satok said with a scornful glance at the seedlings. "There will be no time for growing things when the company sends orders."

"There is time now," Bunny said, encouraged by Diego's attitude. "The days grow long enough and the soil here will soon be as ready as it is in Kilcoole. It takes nothing from the company to supply fresh food. The company only gives cans and dried stuff. Our people need fresh food."

Satok jumped to his feet. "I will tell what is good for my people, not you strangers." He whirled on Iva. "You will not accept these gifts." Iva's expression was terrified and shocked, but he ignored her. "When the planet feels that you are worthy of them, the planet will provide." Then, at his full and imposing height, he glared down at Diego and Bunny. "You were not invited." His thick fore finger pointed ominously at Diego. "You come here and try to tell my people what is proper." He pointed at Bunny, and a most curiously avid expression fleeted across his face. "The planet speaks through me, and I am the best judge of who and what is good for these people I will decide which gifts are acceptable for this portion of the planet. Your shanachie means well, but she is ignorant of our true needs. I will instruct you tomorrow, when you have rested."

With that he stalked out of the little house, pausing briefly to eye the curlies, leaving everyone nervous, staring at nothing, or actively trembling. Bunny shook with fury, and Diego had clamped his teeth down on his lip to keep from speaking. He gave Bunny one long look, and his shoulders sagged just like everyone else's did.

Iva could barely manage to be civil after that. She had been embarrassed in front of them by the shanachie's behavior, and embarrassed in front of the shanachie by theirs. She was furious with her husband, as well. She did not, however, refuse the provisions Bunny and Diego had brought in their saddlebags to augment the evening meal.

Bunny had little appetite. She was angry and, actually, somewhat shocked. She had never been so rudely treated in her life-not even by her nasty cousins. She had certainly never thought she'd see Clodagh's careful gifts spurned.

Diego was as silent and ate as little as she, and his eyes had a wary quality to them.

They bedded down that night on the floor, between the two bunks farthest from the fire. They were cold, since they had not brought their warmest winter gear with them. Back in Kilcoole, where it was so unseasonably warm, they had been unable to imagine it being quite so cold here.

Diego shivered, hugging himself and managing to look resentful as he did it.

The blond boy, Krisuk, was in one of the beds beside them, and he threw a quilt down to Diego. "Here you go," he whispered.

"Don't you need it?"

"I can put on my parka. I just wanted to tell you, it was great hearing you tell off that blowhard."

"You mean you don't think he's the heart and soul of the planet like everybody else here seems to?" Bunny whispered.

Krisuk made a rude sound, but quietly.

Just then, from outside the cabin, came a series of furious barks.

"Dinah!" Diego said, sitting straight up.

Iva and Miuk looked up, then pointedly rolled back over to sleep; the children other than Krisuk pulled their quilts up over their head. Soon the barking was replaced by scratching at the door and whining.

"She can't come in," Krisuk said. "His Highness has decreed that animals aren't allowed in the house with people."

But Diego was already at the door, unlatching it and bending over the agitated dog. Bunny rose, too, with Krisuk stealing softly behind her. Since the dog could not come in, Bunny and Krisuk joined Diego outside, where he was rubbing her fur and talking to her.

"She's trying to tell me something. I know she is," Diego said. "But she's so excited it's all scrambled."

"Darby and Cisco!" Bunny said, remembering the curlies.

"What?"

"Where are they?"

''I oh, shit!" he said.

Krisuk made a face. "At least he left the dog."

"Who?"

"You know-him," Krisuk said, pointing his chin up past where the houses ended. "He thinks anything worth having belongs to him. Besides, I saw the way he was looking at yer woman here." He nodded to Bunny. "I think he means to keep you here, as well as have the horses."

"He'll keep nothing," Bunny spat. "Including the hold he has over this village. I don't know how he's managed to do it, but I know that, if he's the only one who communicates with the planet here, there's something seriously wrong."

Diego said cautiously, "We did promise if we had cause to think this might get dangerous, we'd go meet Sean and the major first.''

"Well, we can't very well go without the horses now, can we?" Not and make it there in good time. We'd be sitting ducks for that-that-witch doctor!" She used the term she had heard some of the company men apply to Clodagh sometimes.

"Your horses are gone." Krisuk said in a hard, practical voice. "No one can have back what Satok has claimed."

Bunny put on the voice she had heard Aunt Moira use with recalcitrant children and puppies. "Don't be daft. Satok is just a man-a greedy one at that."

"Everyone says he's the voice of Petaybee."

"Everyone's gone bloody deaf then," Bunny said. "No one creature is the voice of Petaybee. In Kilcoole, anybody who wants to speaks with Petaybee. This planet is perfectly capable of making itself understood to anyone who cares to listen."

"Then why does it only speak to us through him? I hate him, but the only time anyone hears from the planet, or anything good comes to McGee's Pass, is when we go to the summonings in the cave up there."

"The one where we met you and your mother first?" Bunny asked.

"The same."

"Well, let's go back there then. I'm on good terms with the planet. I'm quite sure it won't refuse to speak to me. And besides, he might have hidden the curlies there."

"No, the horses will be up there," Krisuk said, gesturing with short jabs of his fingers, "at his house, on top of the cave, on the meadow above the ridge."

Dinah whined softly, and Diego stroked her. "You know, Bunny, I think the horses would follow Dinah, if they're not tied too tightly."

"He'd take your dog as well, or kill her."

"We'll see," Bunny said. Her chin jutted forward and her fists clenched as she marched up the road to the cave mouth. The wind was loud tonight, howling along the tree-tops and roofs, rattling doors and windows, picking up anything loose and banging it around. It occurred to Bunny that the planet was already speaking, if people would only listen, and the message was loud and clear. It was not pleased. Not pleased at all.

"Bunka, wait!" Krisuk whispered urgently. He grabbed her arm as he caught up with her.

Diego was at her other side. "We can't wait any longer. This guy already stole our horses. Who knows what he'll do next?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. She"-Krisuk nodded to Bunny-"especially shouldn't go."

"Why not?"

"You didn't meet my older sister, Luka," he said. His tone was so angry and anguished that it stopped both Bunny and Diego in their tracks. They were just beyond the last house now, about two hundred paces from the cave mouth. "She got sent over to Deadhorse by Satok. But before that, he took her."

"What do you mean he took her?" Bunny asked. "You mean raped her?"

"No. Not at first, anyway. At first, he was such an important man, she was thrilled that he had chosen her. Why shouldn't he have? Even though I say it as her brother, she was the prettiest girl in the village, and a smart, hard worker, too. When she was younger, it was thought she might be a healer like Clodagh. She was always singing, always talked to everything in the friendliest fashion. She got kinda funny when she became a woman though. I think maybe people made too much of how pretty she was and what a good catch she would make. And the local fellows-well, there weren't many in her age group, and none of them were quite right. When Satok came, he flattered her with his attention, not just because she was pretty, but he played on her shaman powers too, how close she had always been to Petaybee. If I didn't hate him so much, I guess I would have to say he's not bad-looking. He seems bigger-than the other fellows here. She was very excited. Thought she had met her match. My parents thought she would marry him, but he just moved her up there with him, not that there was that much to move."

Slowly now, and more cautiously, they were walking against the wind, their heads bent together, their hair flying in each others' faces to hear what Krisuk was so urgently trying to tell them. As they reached the cave mouth and Krisuk thrust aside the bush that guarded it, the wind quieted as if it had suddenly been extinguished. Bending low, the three of them stepped inside.