Power Play

9

Clodagh looked over the four white-robed figures and shook her head. 'I don't know what Sean thinks I'm going to do with all of you. There's only me at the house, but I don't think there's enough stretching space for all of you.’

‘Please, Clodagh,' Sister Igneous Rock said. 'We don't want to put you out. But we have learnt that the Beneficence manifests itself to you in certain caverns warmed by its blessed blood and breath. We could ask for nothing better than to be allowed to live there.’

The others nodded eagerly but Clodagh shook her head. 'The caves aren't living places. It's OK to take shelter there if you're caught out in the weather, of course, and it's OK for animals. Not for people.’

‘Forgive my ignorance, Clodagh, but why is that, would you say?' Brother Shale asked.

Clodagh shrugged. 'We talk to the planet most directly in the caves. If someone's living there, it wouldn't be polite to go in and have a chat with their house. And on the other hand, how would you like someone setting up housekeeping inside your mouth?’

Sister Agate beamed. 'Oh, she is so wise. They said you were wise, and you really are just as wise as they said. Isn't she wise, brothers and sisters?’

‘Indeed. But might we, at least, become acquainted? Would you introduce us to the planet?’

Clodagh shrugged. 'You're standing on it. But I don't see why not. Only thing is, we just had one latchkay and there's not another one s'posed to happen till Snowdance. And a latchkay is really the best time. But things are happenin' so fast, maybe we should have another one sooner.’

‘How soon is the next one?' Brother Shale asked.

‘Two, three months. Depending.’

‘Oh,' Sister Igneous Rock said. 'But that won't do.’

‘Why not?’

‘We had hoped to come and worship and return home to spread the Word within the next month.’

‘Hmph,' Clodagh said. 'If you go that soon, you'll miss most of the winter.’

‘Well, yes,' Brother Shale said. 'It is said that the exterior temperature gets down below minus two hundred Fahrenheit and I have rather poor circulation to endure that sort of cold.’

‘Never mind that,' Sister Igneous Rock said staunchly. 'Now, Clodagh, I appreciate your importance as the nominal high priestess of the Beneficence, but I really don't understand why we should wait for a latchkay. Brother Granite told us that significant communication had taken place quite extemporaneously when people wandered into or were taken to the caves by one of you. That is what we wish.’

Clodagh said, 'OK, but I'm not any kind of priestess. I guess I'd better take you tonight, and we can all sleep there. This once.’

‘Fine,' Brother Shale said. 'Now then, what will the Beneficence perceive as an appropriate sacrifice?’

De Peugh was the first of the hunters to notice that something was missing. 'Damn!' he said slapping the water.

‘Damn what?' asked Clotworthy, shaking the water out of his ears.

‘The Great White Huntress and her native bearers have deserted us and taken the transportation!’

‘Oh dear,' said Minkus. 'I'm afraid he's correct. I do hope she left our clothing. My winter togs came from Herod's on Nilus II and they were hideously expensive.' He flung this last bit back over his bony white shoulder while wading to shore. 'Ah!' he said, once there. 'It's all right, chaps! Our kit is all accounted for.’

‘Great,' said Ersol. 'So it'll take us much longer to freeze to death this way.' A fat black cloud chose that moment to cross the path of the low-hanging sun and a teasing wind chased wavelets up to wet the back of his legs as he danced around on the sharp stones scattered along the shore.

The first one to finish dressing was Mooney, who, looking to the far side of the lake, pointed and said, 'She didn't take all the horses with her! Look, there's one of them over there!’

‘First one to catch it gets to ride!' Clotworthy said and started running. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite finished putting on his boots, and tripped and fell face down in the shallows, wetting his water-resistant parka and muddying and scratching his face.

Ersol, a more experienced hunter, proceeded calmly into the lumpen undergrowth sprouting beneath the sparse, skinny trees.

‘I see it,' he hissed back to the others, and stalked it. Meanwhile, Clotworthy stood, picked up a bow and arrow, followed by Minkus brandishing a spear, and Mooney holding the dagger in his teeth so he would have both hands free to grab the curly's mane if necessary. De Peugh took the time to hoist the quiver of arrows on to his shoulder and test the bow string before following his fellows. He also, prudently, stuck a rabbit in one of the forty-seven capacious pockets of his hunting vest.

The curly looked as if it was amenable to being caught, standing quietly, drinking from the lake, until Ersol was almost within touching distance of it. Then it lifted its head and looked at him.

‘Holy horseshit, will you look at that!' he said.

The curlycorn shook its shaggy head at him, its newly sharpened single horn glinting, and trotted off to a safe distance. It blinked at him, once.

‘It's a fraggin' unicorn!' Ercol called back to the others.

‘Well, don't just stare at it, shoot it!' de Peugh growled, coming up behind him and drawing his own bow. 'You can bet your retirement fund those things don't get depressed and go lie in holes waiting to die.’

‘No-one', said Minkus, 'will ever believe this.’

‘Not unless we take the head back with us,' de Peugh said, letting his arrow fly.

The arrow was just a bit behind the curlycorn, which galloped off, not in fear, it seemed to Minkus, but as if it had suddenly thought of a previous appointment.

‘Missed!' Ersol said and sent his arrow flying too.

They were not stupid men, on the whole, and it didn't take them too long to decide that they hadn't a prayer of catching the heretofore mythical creature so they stopped chasing it.

Thoroughly winded and disgusted, they turned back to where they had left the rest of their winter gear and the rabbits Sinead had left behind for them.

Something new had been added. What looked like an enormous calico housecat, the base of its tail thin, the tip bushy, was licking the last of the last rabbit from its mouth. Behind it lurked the curlycorn, quite as if, Minkus thought, the two beasts were conspiring against the hunting party.

Minkus was inclined to remonstrate with the beasts but de Peugh had worked his way into a leadership position and hushed the lot of them with a finger to his lips.

The cat sauntered towards the curlycorn and the two of them ambled off into the woods. With a stealthy wiggle of his fingers, de Peugh motioned them to follow.

Together they crept after the elusive beasts as quietly as five men unaccustomed to Petaybean groundcover could creep. The animals managed to stay just out of range, but did not seem to notice their arrows.

‘You can tell nothing here is used to being hunted,' Ersol whispered. 'They aren't taking anything fired in their direction personally.’

With another gesture from de Peugh, the men spread out and came towards the animals from five different angles. This time, when Ersol fired his arrow, it glanced off the flank of the curlycorn, which whinnied and began to run. The cat chased it, as if in a game. The men broke into a run too, and because of their angles, closed in on the cat.

Suddenly the curlycorn reared, his chest looming over Minkus. Now was the time to use the spear or never. But the cat evaded Mooney's dagger by springing straight across the shaft of Minkus's spear, knocking it aside.

Minkus, who fancied himself no mean hand at springing, threw himself at the cat at precisely the same time as the other four men. The cat's fur brushed his hands as his feet landed, tangling with eight other feet, and the lot of them plunged through the underbrush and down, down, bruisingly down into a deep, dark hole.

Landing on that part of his anatomy best suited for abrupt seating, Minkus was showered with debris from above. Looking up, he saw the faces of the cat, its teeth bared in a wide grin, and the curlycorn, staring down at him and his companions. Perhaps there was something to this anthropomorphism after all, he thought. He could have sworn that both animals wore expressions of profound satisfaction.

‘I think I broke my jaw,' mumbled Mooney. Or that was what Minkus understood him to say. Mooney's actual statement was obscured by what seemed to be the echo of his last word, distorted into 'Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha'.

After sending Liam and Seamus on to the other culling places, Sinead and the extra curlies turned back to where she'd last seen the cheechakos. It had started snowing in the time they took to make their plans, and a light coating of snow masked the lake shore and its surroundings. She missed the spot at first, for there was no longer any clothing or weapons or any trace of the dead rabbits.

‘I know I left 'em around here somewhere,' she said, dismounting and looking for a sign that would enable her to start tracking the men. Brushing aside some of the snow, she uncovered the vestiges of several sets of tracks, two sets leading away from the site and one leading back. There was also one clear set of the paw prints of a track-sized cat. She began calling but her cries were not answered, and after trying to tell one broken bush from another she gave up and decided to find Liam and Seamus instead so that she could send Seamus back to Kilcoole for help while she and Liam, the best tracker of the three of them, continued to search.

Clodagh was beginning to realize why religious congregations were sometimes called 'flocks'. The ones following her to the hotsprings had less sense than sheep and were noisier than magpies.

They insisted on walking to the hotsprings cave barefoot, even though she warned them about the coo-berry brambles that still guarded the entrance to the cave from the unwary and uninvited. The coobrambles had settled back into being ordinary weeds again, their extraordinary growth curtailed once the brambles had penetrated and removed all of the Petraseal, and most of the people who had painted the sealant, in four of the planet's communion caves. The brambles had been cut back, poisoned, and burnt but there was still a thriving growth at the hotsprings. You just had to know how to avoid it.

Clodagh did avoid it. The newcomers insisted on walking straight through the brambles and she had an awful time getting them loose again, finally having to resort to the small mist bottle of coo repellent she had thankfully remembered to carry with her.

Then the newcomers wanted to enter the cave by prostrating themselves and crawling in like worms, but Clodagh pointed out that since the entrance was through the waterfall, they could drown that way and really, truly, the planet didn't care a bit how they came in as long as they didn't have any Petraseal with them.

They did insist on grovelling and kissing the cave floor the moment they entered, though.

After genuflecting six or seven times, Sister Igneous Rock threw her outstretched arms into the air and cried, 'Speak to us O Beneficence…’

All they got was an echo, not of the last word, but of the O. It sounded like Wo, no, no…’

‘Tell us what you would have us do! How can we dedicate our miserable lives to your service? How can we redeem the error of humankind to your greater glory? How can we demonstrate that, though unworthy, we are more than willing to do your bidding? How can we convince You to show us your will?’

‘How?' echoed the others. 'Tell us how.’

Clodagh sighed. They could start by shutting up. Even if it had something to say today, which it apparently didn't, not even the planet could get a word in edgewise the way these folks carried on.

After a time, they did stop babbling. Clodagh had half fallen asleep by then.

Lazily, she roused up. 'You all done now?’

But just then, Brother Schist collapsed back down to his knees and yelled, 'Halleluja! I just heard voices!’

‘What? Where? Why should it talk to you and not to the rest of us? What did it reveal to you?' cried Sister Agate.

‘It said, "Fraggitall, these things have thorns.

‘Ah-ha,' Clodagh said, and stepped over them to the cave's entrance, sliding between the waterfall and the cliff face.

Portia Porter-Pendergrass and Bill Guthrie were tangling themselves to shreds in coobrambles.

Clodagh took her spray-mist bottle from her apron pocket, spritzed her way to them and tried to help.

‘Get away from me!' Portia shrieked. 'Guthrie, what kind of a man are you? Make this… this witch - let go of me!’

‘I thought you came to talk to me,' Clodagh said, genuinely puzzled. 'Sean said you folks wanted to.’

‘Pay no attention to her, Dama,' Bill Guthrie said. 'She's hysterical. She became addicted to one of her company's own tranquillizers - sad case, really. I wanted to talk to you about the pharmaceutical potential of some of the materia medica you have discovered on your charming planet but Portia thought we should just begin taking samples. Unfortunately, the samples seem to have taken us.’

‘Sure looks that way,' Clodagh said. 'Dama, if you just stand up and pick off the ones stuck to your clothes, I think you're free now. It's startin' to snow anyway. Coobrambles shrink when it snows. Come on over to the spring and let's wash and treat those scratches. You got some pretty deep ones.’

The easiest place to give the distraught Portia and Guthrie a dry bramble-free place to sit while washing and treating their wounds was the inside of the cave. The 'rock flock', as Clodagh was beginning to think of the white-robed pilgrims, eagerly assisted in 'ministering' as they called it.

‘What did you want samples of anyway?' Clodagh asked Portia Porter-Pendergrass, just to distract her from screeching in the ear of her rescuers whenever Clodagh daubed a little sting-bush leaf on a scratch.

‘That stuff you're putting on me now, for starters,' she said. Her face and hands were a mess and one thorn had narrowly missed her left eye. Clodagh felt bad for her.

‘That's OK then, alannah,' she said as if to a child, being as gentle as she could with a very deep scratch on the leg. 'You can have the rest of this when we're done here. You'll need it anyway to make those scratches go away.’

‘How about me?' Bill Guthrie asked plaintively.

‘You too,' Clodagh said, patting his knee. 'Just be brave and hold on till I'm finished here and I'll gather some more for you to take home.’

‘And that cough medicine you gave Yanaba Maddock?' Portia asked.

‘Why? You got a cough?’

‘Oh yes,' she said, giving a forced hack.

‘Me too,' Bill Guthrie said.

‘That stuff you sprayed on the bushes,' Portia said as pitifully as she could.

But before Bill Guthrie could chime in again, Sister Agate threw herself between the two coobramble victims and Clodagh.

‘Do not harken to the false words of these infidels, Mother Clodagh…’

‘I told you, I'm not your mother…’

‘Clodagh, she's right,' Brother Shale said, taking her shoulders and attempting to pull her away from the pharmaceutical reps. 'These people are out only to exploit the Beneficence. They want to strip it of its miracles and synthesize its wonders for base motives of pecuniary profit.’

‘They'll desecrate the Beneficence,' Sister Igneous Rock howled.

‘Be quiet,' Clodagh said.

‘You mustn't…' Sister Agate began.

‘They're crazy…' Bill Guthrie said, shaking off Brother Shale.

But both were drowned out by a booming echo of Clodagh's voice, rebounding through the cave. 'QUIET! QUIET! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Et! Et! Et. Et…’

‘It spoke!' Sister Igneous Rock whispered, clasping her heart.

‘That was an echo, you idiot!' Portia Porter-Pendergrass said with a snarl.

‘QUIET, IDIOT!' the echo said just once. And this time nobody spoke.

Finally, Clodagh said, 'You people quit fighting and stop being so silly. You lot,' she nodded at the rock flock,' the planet isn't a Creator any more than any of you. It's part of creation. The powers that be at Intergal even helped make it how it is now, though they only woke it up, they didn't create its life.’

‘But how do you know, Clodagh,' Brother Agate asked. 'You are but a mere mortal, though favoured…

‘I know 'cause the planet told me so, of course,' she said. 'And if you want it to tell you anything, you're gonna have to get rid of some of your funny ideas long enough to make room for what it's got to say. As for you folks,' she nodded to Portia and Bill, 'you can have any medicine you need and welcome to it.’

‘They'll Analyse it,' Sister Agate moaned.

‘They'll Synthesize it,' Brother Shale groaned.

‘So?' Clodagh asked. 'If there's sick folks needing medicine and they can make up stuff like we got here to cure them, that's a good thing.’

‘You don't understand!' Sister Igneous Rock wailed. 'We've seen it happen before on other worlds! Our own worlds! We even aided in the desecration, may the Beneficence forgive us, before we realized what we had wrought and saw the light. Brother Shale was a geologist for the intergalactic energy rapists and I myself engineered plants with which they could steal the treasures of other worlds. Even when I learnt there were Better Ways I could not convince my masters. They want only to destroy. Oh, believe me, Clodagh, for I have seen how they work. We have all seen it.

They'll build factories here and pollute the waters, clog the voice of the Bene - the planet, they'll strip it bare of its healing plants and minerals!’

‘It'd just be a small factory,' Bill Guthrie said, holding up his thumb and forefinger with an inch spread between them to show how small the factory would be.

‘And if we took all of the mature plants, well, they're plants, they'll grow back, right? We call it a renewable resource, Clodagh,' Portia said like she was talking to someone dumb enough to go out in midwinter without a coat on. 'It's a growing thing.’

‘So's your skin,' Clodagh said, shaking her head. 'But if the coobrambles stripped it all off you, it wouldn't grow back - at least not fast enough to keep you alive. Petaybee's just like you. You take off its skin and it'll be back to what it was - not dead maybe, but not awake either.’

‘But, don't you see, there are real lives, human lives, being wasted for want of the cures Petaybee has to offer. You owe it to them…' As if in support of that argument, the cave began to echo with the cry, 'Help! Help, please! Somebody help us.’