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  “Let’s go and get this over with,” Megenda growled, herding everyone before him. At the door, he looked back over his shoulder at the bottle, still visible on the worktop, and shook his head.

  22

  SpaceBase Petaybean Immigration Facility (PIT)

  Adak O’Connor wanted nothing more than to take his bruised and aching head back to his cabin in Kilcoole and forget about the wider universe and all its problems. He was an amiable man with simple tastes, because he’d never had occasion to have or expect more. He enjoyed the life he had once led, as Kilcoole’s expediter, and keeping the snocles working and knowing when spaceships were coming in.

  Up until this morning, he’d really enjoyed being chief immigration officer and official welcomer but, between getting conked hard on the head and now this, he felt inadequate. That didn’t set well. Neither did the unanswerable demands of these latest arrivals. In all his born days, he’d never seen anything like this! Though he’d heard that both Sinead and Clodagh had had to manage some pretty queer persons lately.

  “You mean, there are no hospital facilities whatever on this planet?” the indignant personage repeated for the umpteenth time.

  “I keep telling you, if someone’s sick, they stay home,” Adak replied.

  He cast a jaundiced eye at the “patient,” who would have been better off staying at home, too, instead of bringing who-knew-what rare disease to Petaybee.

  Right after they’d arrived, a big orange tomcat had sauntered in, sitting down beside the sick man’s unusual chair to wash itself. Then it had hopped up on the man’s lap, sniffed, lifted its lip in a disgusted way, and hopped down again to saunter out the door. Adak figured it was going to tell Clodagh there was someone sick and smelly here. Personally, he could only hope Clodagh would hurry. He was a little out of his depth, and Clodagh was the healer, after all—though he was absolutely certain she wasn’t what this high and lofty group would expect to have tend their patient.

  The remarkable chair floated, dang it, above the floor of the cube, as he had watched it float above snow and mud and everything else people had to plow through around SpaceBase these days. And the patient—a Very Important Personage named Farringer Ball, whose helpers seemed to think that even Adak O’Connor would know who he was—was hitched up by tubes to the chair.

  “Or,” Adak continued, “they call their local healer if they don’t live in Kilcoole, or Clodagh Senungatuk if they do, which is what I’ve done, only it’ll take her time to get here.”

  “Don’t you realize that in medical situations time is of the essence?”

  “Sure, but he ain’t bleeding and he is breathing and those’re encouraging signs,” Adak said. “And he’s got all you here to make sure he doesn’t bleed and keeps breathing, so sit down, please, over there, until Clodagh gets herself here.”

  The person in his beautifully tailored fine travel garment looked at the spartan seating arrangements, and the expression on his face when he turned back to Adak was dour and condescending. “Surely there is some kind of transit lounge—”

  “You’re in it,” Adak said, rudely interrupting. It was not his normal manner, but he was getting fed up with doing this crazy sort of word dance around the subject as if the name, once spoken, would instantly provide what the speaker truly wanted—in this case, apparently, the most expensive suite in a private hospital, the most successful and omniscient doctors who would provide instant health for the patient. “I done tol’ ya, Intergal pulled everything out, including their infirm’ry, when they gave the planet back to itself. At that, us Petaybeans have more than we ever had before.” Adak gestured proudly around the cube. It was not only clean and warm but bigger than any four of the biggest cabins in Kilcoole.

  “Now set yourself down and wait!” Adak shuffled the papers in front of him, making a good show of looking for something. Then he picked up the comm unit and turned his back on the medic man as if this was a very private call. The guy finally copped on and moved away from the counter.

  “Thavian, didn’t you tell him who I am?” wheezed the old man in the chair, pounding the armrest with a hand liberally covered with liver spots.

  Surreptitiously, Adak shot him a glance. Guy didn’t look too good, at that. All sunk in on himself. If he expected Petaybee to bring him back from whatever got him that way, he was asking for a miracle. That was sure. And, as far as Adak had ever heard, you couldn’t pay for miracles: they just happened in their own good time. Like the great big mountain that Petaybee had thrust up in the middle of the landing field . . . and then swallowed back up six weeks later.

  Fortunately, just as Adak himself was getting twitchy, he spotted a trio of cats bouncing through the snow and the bulk of a fur-clad Clodagh lumbering behind them. Looking from her to the immaculately dressed medical folk—even the patient had on fine threads and was bundled in the amazingly colored pelts that no animal on Petaybee ever grew—Adak was sadly aware of a vast difference in style and appearance between Petaybeans and visitors. Not that those fancy clothes were as warm and as suitable to Petaybee as his and Clodagh’s practical, and indigenous, garments. And he almost hated to drop this problem in Clodagh’s lap after all the ones she’d had with that Rock Flock, which kept growing the way some fields will grow rocks no matter how they’re cleared.

  “Sláinte, Adak, what’s up?” Clodagh asked, as she threw open the door and let in a blast of cold air, which smelled refreshingly clean to Adak. He realized then that there was a fusty stink to the air in the cube, due to the patient, no doubt, and all the funny bottles and tubes in his floating chair.

  “I am Dr. Thavian von Clough,” the leader said, eyeing Clodagh disdainfully. “My patient is Secretary-General Farringer Ball.” A graceful hand introduced the patient. “We were informed by a reliable source that this planet has unusual therapies to assist my patient back to full health.”

  Clodagh squatted down so that her face was on a level with Ball’s. “Sláinte, Farringer,” she said softly. “You looked better on the comm screen. What’s wrong?”

  Ball wheezed and looked at Clodagh from under lowered eyebrows. “That’s apparently supposed to be for you to find out, young woman.”

  He looked startled at Clodagh’s laugh, which was not only ripplingly youthful but beautiful.

  “Thanks for the ‘young,’ ” she said, patting his hand companionably.

  “It wasn’t intended as a compliment,” Dr. von Clough replied stiffly, eyeing Clodagh with distaste.

  Clodagh shrugged, unconcerned. Before any of the medical team could intervene, she had her fingers on Ball’s wrist. She stooped down to look him squarely in his lined and sad face, and tut-tutted. She pinched a flap of skin on his arm and observed the rate of its relaxation.

  “You’re real tired, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “The secretary-general is suffering from a serious PVS condition . . .”

  She nodded. “Real tired.” Straightening up, she added, “He should stay here awhile.”

  “That’s what Luzon said, though he wouldn’t say why,” Ball wheezed.

  “Him?” Clodagh snorted derisively. “Just goes to show you anybody can do something right once in a while. Don’t suppose he meant to. But the joke’ll be on him. How’d you all get here? Whit Fiske said the PTS was grounded.”

  “Why, the secretary-general has a private launch for the necessary travel he must—”

  “At SpaceBase? Now?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Good, then you all can stay there and I think I can find space for Mr. Ball . . .”

  “But—but this—individual—said you had no hospital facilities.” Von Clough regarded Adak accusingly.

  “Don’t need them. So far, folks have found the whole planet pretty healthy—good food, good air, nobody havin’ to take on more’n they can handle. Sick folks can rest when they need to, exercise if they need to. That and a bit of a tonic seems to do the trick. You might say the whole planet’s a hospital fa
cility, only it’s so good at it, everybody stays pretty well, so’s you’d never notice,” Clodagh said slowly, as if turning over the words she spoke in her own mind at the same time. “I never thought about it before, but now that I do, it’s true.” She made an expansive gesture that included everything outside the cube. “We got everything a human body should need to keep well or cure what’s ailing.”

  Von Clough’s eyes bulged with indignation.

  “Mind you, Farringer, you were a little late comin’, but I still think we can help you out.” She eyed the apparatus with as dubious a glance as von Clough had awarded her. “Right now, of course, as we’re getting started, we have to make do with what we’ve got.” She indicated the cube. “We’re organizing slow but sure.”

  “So, where can the secretary-general go?”

  “The school at Kilcoole doesn’t need all the rooms in their cube yet,” she said. “We’re kinda short of places to put people since Dr. Luzon”—Clodagh paused to grin—“has been so good as to send us so many unexpected guests. But we’ll find a place for Farringer, since he’s so bad off. If you wanted to help, Doctor, the men could use more hands to build more houses, unless you thought you could get some more of these for the new folks,” she added, indicating the cube, “specially now we’re getting seasonal blizzards.”

  “Seasonal blizzards?” Von Clough’s eyes bulged as he saw what was slanting past the window area, as thick and earnest a snowfall as the season ever provided.

  Clodagh cocked her head at von Clough, smiling her beautiful smile. “Since these are probably more like what Farringer’s used to, you might ask the cube builder to send him one. Meantime, we’ll get him started mendin’.” Low mutters of disapproval were exchanged among the lesser minions while von Clough sputtered with renewed outrage.

  “But—we’re in attendance on the secretary . . .”

  “Now, don’t fuss,” Clodagh said irrepressibly. “You can use his space launch to come visit whenever you want.”

  Farringer Ball tried to insert a comment, but a bout of coughing took over; the discreet dials on the back of his invalid chair started to dance about.

  Clodagh took a bottle from one of her capacious pockets, uncorked it, and then produced a carved wooden spoon. Before his medical advisers could protest, Clodagh had slipped a dose into Ball’s mouth. He swallowed. Instantly the cough began to subside and weakly Ball waved a hand in gratitude.

  “Is this what Colonel Maddock took?” he asked, when he regained his breath, with something of the air of a schoolboy asking his grandmother about mythical animals.

  Clodagh nodded. “Can’t beat it.”

  Obviously swallowing his pride, von Clough executed the barest of civil bows to Clodagh and held out his hand for the bottle.

  “What may I ask are the constituents of this preparation?”

  Clodagh shrugged again. “This ‘n’ that,” she said vaguely. “Important thing is, it works pretty fast. Long-term results take more time, though.”

  Von Clough uncorked the bottle and delicately sniffed, blinking at the aromatics that caressed his nostrils. Then he looked at Ball, who was still recovering from the spasm of coughing, although his breathing was less ragged with every passing moment.

  “Amazing. Really remarkable.” He passed the bottle to one of the minions.

  “We’ve been tryin’ to tell you,” she said, as if talking to a child who’d just burned himself. “Petaybee’s good for most people. Hardly anybody gets sick ever. If you want health, it only makes sense to go someplace healthy.” Her conviction and clarity in the face of so much pretension and general dog crap made Adak want to cheer.

  “ ‘Struth, too,” he said, whether anyone cared for his opinion or not.

  23

  “Neva Marie? Looks like we got ourselves a situation here.” Johnny Greene spoke calmly and soothingly enough to quiet any of the savage beasts who were circling. “We’re up to our collective asses in planet rapers, polar bears, and pumas, so to speak . . . How many what? . . . Oh, planet rapers? Oh, a couple hundred, or maybe a little less . . . Nope, sorry, I’m not going to count the polar bears and pumas for you. Let’s just say there’s enough, shall we? . . . My position is about—ummm—a hundred and fifty miles south-southwest of Bogota, pretty much in the middle of nowhere special. It’s flat, it’s dark, and me, Mr. and Mrs. Ondelacy, and the town council, as well as little ’Cita Rourke, got ourselves surrounded first by these planet rapers, then somehow or other got our position reinforced by the polar bears and the pumas and other associated species. It’s dark. It’s cold. We want outta here muy pronto . . . I damn-sure know I drive the only winged beast in the vicinity but we need help fast. I don’t care how. There’s too many here to take out and I don’t have the fuel to run a ferry service between here and Bogota and I, er, rather suspect the planet rapers would take it ill if I tried to leave without them. Besides, goodness only knows what they’d do to the polar bears . . . Well, I don’t know what you’re supposed to do, sweetheart. Call Adak to call Sean and see if he’s got any bright ideas. If Oscar O’Neill hasn’t left the planet yet, maybe he could lend a hand . . . Call Loncie’s kids and tell them to send a dogsled posse. But hurry. There’s a polar bear eyeing me lustfully even as we speak, and I was saving myself for you. Out now, love. I really miss you.”

  The dogsleds were loaded and the teams hitched and ready to go when Liam Maloney mushed in, accompanied by Dinah, his late mother’s lead dog, and Nanook, the most companionable of Sean’s large track-cats. Dinah, good sled dog that she was, leaped up on Diego at once and began washing his face with a tongue that smelled like fish. Diego called her by name several times, looking over to see the effect on Dinah O’Neill, but she, the human, didn’t change expression.

  “Kind of you to come, Liam,” Sinead said a touch sarcastically. “A bit late, but welcome nonetheless.”

  “I was delayed,” he said, pushing back the parka hood and running his mittens over the ice that had formed in his hair and mustache. “Nanook had a hairy knicker attack on the way here and wouldn’t let us proceed for quite some time. I couldn’t get out of him what was wrong, but once he decided to move, he all but left us behind.”

  Sean squatted down and held out his arms. “What’s the problem, Nanook?”

  “Don’t tell me it talks, too?” Dinah O’Neill asked.

  “Anything wrong with talking cats?” Diego demanded, rubbing Dinah-the-dog’s ears.

  “Nothing at all. After what the darling little orange pussycat did for us, I have become a born-again cat lover, especially of Petaybean cats. I suppose export is out of the question?’

  Sean looked up. “Here’s another first. Coaxtl is sending to Nanook that her cub—by that I take it she means ’Cita—is in trouble with bad humans. She went down to see Loncie when Johnny and O.O. took the last cube to Bogota.” He stroked Nanook worriedly. “While I’m gratified to see that the planet is expanding its communication network to cover the whole globe, I don’t have a notion what we can do to help ’Cita.”

  Chumia said, “That was the other spot on the map in the communion place, then, wasn’t it? That’s what the waves were for and the circles—there’s more trouble down south. You’re right, Sean. I’ve never known the planet to tell us anything about what was happening down there before.”

  Muktuk shook his head. “My dogs’d take me anywhere, but they ain’t real big on winter ocean swimming.”

  “I’d swim it myself,” Sean said, “but the mental picture I’m getting is of someplace far inland, away from any waterways. I can’t imagine how the bears came so far from the ice pack.”

  “Bears?” Bunny asked. “Polar bears? ’Cita’s down there with polar bears? Uncle Sean, we’ve got to save her!”

  Sean gave her a small, wry smile. “Funny, that’s what she said when she heard you’d been kidnapped by pirates, and you’ve come out of it well enough.”

  “I’d take Petaybean polar bears over pirates anytime, gatita,
” Diego told Bunny, releasing one arm from the dog’s neck to hold her hand. “At least they have the planet to answer to. Whereas two-foot Dinah here only has Louchard.”

  Dinah O’Neill lifted an eyebrow. “Perhaps. But I do happen to have command of a space shuttle that could be placed at your disposal to solve this little inconvenience. That is, if it could be freed.”

  The rescue expedition was mounted forthwith and with great dispatch. Sean, Yana, and Bunny were everywhere at once organizing. The snow had not fallen so thickly that Bunny’s trail couldn’t be retraced in the darkness, and the dogsleds broadened the track. The nights were longer in northerly Tanana Bay than they were even in Kilcoole, but all the drivers and dogs were used to traveling in darkness. Fifteen sleds left the village, containing rope, chain, fishnets, winches, anything that might help free the shuttle. Dinah-Four-Feet and Nanook trotted alongside. Dinah-Two-Feet, as the pirate’s representative, accompanied the rescuers, but Megenda had been locked inside the communion cave for safekeeping and to fully recover from his narrow escape from frostbite and pneumonia.

  “Let’s not get too close,” Bunny called to the sleds as they neared the hole in the ice containing the shuttle. “It broke with just me.”

  “Make way, clear off the trail,” Muktuk Murphy’s voice called from the rear. “Comin’ through.”

  Behind him he led a curly mare, and behind her trotted three of the wild curly stallions, each sporting a businesslike horn.

  “Where’d you get them, Muktuk?” Sean asked. “They’re beauties.”

  “Part of the Tanana Bay herd,” Muktuk said proudly, with an affectionate slap on the heavy neck of the mare beside him. “I told her we had a job to do for the smartest, so she picked her own get. They can do more for us in this season than fight with each other over who gets what filly. Not that this is the time a year for breedin’. That’s for springtime,” he added with a grin.