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  If Dinah could give him any mitigating circumstances—beyond what he already knew of her tragic early life and hard treatment—maybe he could do some kind of a deal. She had been such a loving and affectionate wife: merry, occasionally even frivolous, and often childlike in her enthusiasms during their married life. It was inconceivable to him that she could also be a ruthless, corrupt outlaw. Maybe she was a split personality, and that complexity, once proved, would reduce the sentence. The very thought of Dinah encased in a space coffin, waiting for the air supply to end, appalled him. He was determined to find some way out for her. Marmion was a kind and understanding person. Perhaps she might drop her own criminal charges against Dinah—if she knew of factors which could mitigate the offense. Dinah hadn’t actually pulled the trigger that had killed anyone. Her crew had murdered, that was true, but she had assured him, when he first found out whom she claimed to work for, that the pirates were under strict orders to fire at others only when they were being fired upon themselves. Of course, they were being fired on legally for attempting illegal activities, and self-defense, accordingly, could not be claimed. Oh, my stars and sparkles, Namid thought, I’m arguing like a modern-day Gilbert and Sullivan.

  He took a deep breath and opened the inner door to the communion chamber. Warm mist obscured everything, making him feel as if he had stepped into a steam bath, and he immediately felt a strong presence that had nothing to do with Dinah or her crew. Well, he had been assured by sane and intelligent people that the planet definitely had a persona.

  “Good morning,” he said, feeling just a trifle foolish, but if the planet understood, then it would appreciate normal courtesies, too. “And it is morning and I expect that you’ve had a busy time of it lately, but I did wish a few words with you.”

  “Few words.”

  Was that permission? Or limitation? Namid wondered.

  “They might be more than a few, actually,” Namid went on, smiling. “I’ve so many questions to ask.”

  “Many questions.”

  Again Namid wondered if that was permission or limitation. But it had sounded, to his untutored ear, as if the speaker was slightly amused by his presumption.

  “I’m told that you do communicate, or rather go into a communion phase with . . . what should I call it? With supplicants? No, that’s much too religious a word. Communicants? Ah, yes, I think that is best. Now, first, is there anything I can do to assist you right now? Remove the occupants that spent the night here? I can’t see them for the fog but . . .”

  Namid had—not quite stealthily, but slowly—felt his way farther into the cavern. Before he took another step, however, the fog suddenly sucked itself back into the farthest reaches of the cave and vanished, leaving him awestricken and speechless for several moments as he watched the gentle play of light and color across the surfaces of the cave.

  “You are rather stunning in appearance, you know,” he said in a hushed voice. The shifting colors of the walls were coruscations of complex blendings and wave designs. He rather suspected he could spend hours following the patterns as they made their way deeper and deeper into the cavern. The path was level now, where before it had been on a slight downward incline. “Am I well into this communion place now?”

  “Now!”

  “Ah, then,” Namid said, “I’m an astronomer, you see. I have spent my life observing the anomalies of stellar matter, with particular emphasis on variables. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  “Talk.”

  “Well, now, I’m certainly willing to, although I am not a lecturer by training. Still, to talk to a planet, the satellite of a rather . . . ah . . .”—not ordinary, Namid said to himself, not wishing to offend Petaybee—“. . . an excellent example of a G-type star . . . well, it’s an extraordinary experience, if you know my meaning.”

  “Know meaning. Talk.”

  “I’ve seen many stars, constant, dwarf, variable, binary systems, everything so far astronomically categorized, but speaking to a planet is highly unusual.”

  Namid, aware that nervousness was making him more garrulous than was natural, thought he heard a whispery laugh.

  “Unusual planet.”

  At that sally, Namid did laugh. “You have a sense of humor, don’t you? I think we shall get on very well together.”

  “Very well. Talk”

  A low moan that ended on a piteous sob interrupted any further talk at that juncture. The moan had echoed quite near, and Namid, being a compassionate person, was compelled to investigate. Just beyond the bend in the passage, he saw the figure of Dinah, looking smaller and, indeed, when he turned her over in his arms, almost wizened of face. Her hair had turned completely white. She was breathing regularly, and although her pulse was slow, it was strong enough to reassure him. All the questions that had brimmed to his mind to ask Petaybee—could it speak with its primary? with its sister planets? communicate with its moons, and how?—went out of his head along with the questions he had framed to ask Dinah. She was patently in no condition to answer—even to her own name.

  A guttural “eh” made him investigate farther down the corridor, where he saw three more figures, each of them curled in a tight fetal position and giving off odors of excrement and vomit that made Namid glad that he had eaten nothing yet in his haste to seek Dinah.

  Megenda and the two crewmen had succumbed to Petaybee’s justice. But Namid felt that Dinah had not. He carried her up the stairs and banged on the trapdoor to be readmitted into the cabin; he found the room crowded with Marmion, Bunny, Diego, and the Murphys.

  “Oh, dear, what has happened to her?” Marmion asked, reaching out compassionate hands to Namid’s limp burden.

  Muktuk took her from Namid and carried her to the bed he and Chumia shared. “Petaybee’s happened to her,” he said with the resigned tone of someone who has accepted justice, fair or undeserved.

  “I found a portable holo projector that produces an image of the pirate we all thought was Louchard,” Marmion told him. “It was in Dinah’s pocket. She was Louchard all along.”

  Muktuk stroked the white hair back from Dinah’s face, and Chumia took her hand.

  “Poor lass,” Muktuk said. “But us kindred of Handy Red have all got a wild streak.”

  “Hitch the team, Muktuk,” Chumia said. “She’s beyond my skill. Clodagh in Kilcoole is best at this.”

  Namid turned away from them and left the cabin, still agitated but reassured that here Dinah would receive, maybe not just what she deserved, but what she had needed all along.

  25

  Sometime in the middle of the blizzard, Nanook clawed at the shuttle hatch until Yana opened it wide enough for him to jump the drift blocking it and land with a thud on the deck. He seemed to have brought half of the great outdoors in on his coat and paws. But Sean reported good news as he rubbed the cat dry.

  “Coaxtl says the youngling and the others are in shelter. Nanook can lead us there after the storm.”

  Nanook did. They landed the shuttle in a snowbank, awakening the polar bears, who unhumped themselves, rose, and lumbered off without a backward glance. Yana and Sean disembarked and started for the cave entrance now unblocked by bears, but Nanook barred their way, growled, and preceded them.

  Yana had thought to bring a laser lantern. It burned brightly enough to show the most eclectic gathering of Petaybean wildlife she had ever seen curled, draped, stacked, lying, sitting, standing, washing, yawning, and sleeping just inside the cave entrance.

  Nanook growled warningly, but before they took another step, Coaxtl sauntered toward them, yawning. The other cats ignored the humans.

  ’Cita was right behind her friend, and ran to Sean to embrace him. “Did you bring anything to eat?”

  Loncie Ondelacy and Pablo Ghompas and their community followed. “Yana, Sean, glad you came. But there are casualties, and we all need to eat.”

  Wading deeper into the cavern, Yana looked at the twisted, mumbling people lying on the floor all around.
“I’m glad we came, too. But now what do we do?”

  “Whatcha drivin’ ?” Johnny Greene asked. Yana told him. “Not big enough,” he said. “We need serious transportation. Can you get help from Intergal?”

  Sean shook his head. “They won’t lift a finger to help us because of our ‘disloyalty.’ Instead they’re dumping every problem they can find like garbage onto the face of this world and leaving us to drown in it.”

  “Well, I can see why they wouldn’t want this lot back,” Johnny said, with a jerk of his thumb at what was left alive of those on the floor. “But it’s only human to try to do something for them. Is there no way at all?”

  “Nothing we can do from here,” Yana said. “We came because Coaxtl called and we thought you and ’Cita were in danger.”

  Johnny shook his head. “No more. Them though . . .”

  Loncie Ondelacy said, “Well, I for one don’t blame Intergal a bit. If we don’t want them to rule us, we can’t expect them to jump every time we holler. And whether they caused this problem or not, we can expect more of the same. We have got to figure out a way to solve our own problems if we want to be autonomous. Yana and Sean, why don’t you give Johnny a lift back to his bird, along with some of the council members to help dig it out and make a run back to Bogota for food, blankets, and medical supplies. Also to organize a dogsled evacuation here, although it’d be better if they could be flown out, given the shape they’re in. You could take ’Cita, too.”

  But ’Cita shook her head. Her voice was small, but her eyes were shining with excitement. Children did tend to love a crisis, Yana reflected—especially somebody else’s. “Though I may be much in the way and a bother, Coaxtl is needed to keep Nanook informed and the other beasts from deciding that these ones”—she indicated the ravaged bodies around them—“are easy prey. Since Coaxtl honors me by speaking to me, I should remain to pass messages between her and my elders and betters.”

  Sean nodded. “You can come back with Johnny when he returns north, then. I’m sure you’ll be a big help to Loncie and Coaxtl.”

  They ferried Johnny and five of the councilmen back to the helicopter. The soft new snow had drifted deeply around it, and it took them some time to dig it out again. Once its runners were free and Johnny and the others were airborne, Sean and Yana returned to the cave and carried out six of the most severely damaged among the illegal harvesters, Zing Chi and the father of Yo Chang among them, and returned to Tanana Bay.

  The dog teams were being hitched as they landed. The dogs set up a fierce howl when the shuttle set down, and the whole village came running to investigate.

  Back at the Murphys’, Yana and Sean saw for themselves the state of Dinah and the other pirates, who had had to be taken from the communion cave and cleaned before being bundled into the shuttle.

  On seeing Dinah, Sean said, “Maybe we’ll have to rethink letting the planet dispense its own justice. It’s fair enough, but we can’t handle the casualties. Bad enough that people have to remain badly maimed or die because we don’t have the technology to get them to help, but when we have it, just not enough of it, it fairly breaks your heart.”

  “It does,” Muktuk agreed. “Even when it’s such as them.”

  “I’m most concerned about Dinah,” Yana said.

  “Perhaps you’ll be less so when we tell you what we found on her,” Marmion said acerbically. “Do you want to do the honors, Namid?”

  He fished in his pocket and suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by the ugly Aurelian visage of Onidi Louchard. “I am the pirate Louchard,” said a voice that sounded exactly like the pirate Louchard’s. “Who are you and why do you seek me?”

  Yana, Bunny, and Diego all jumped away from the piratical image.

  Muktuk began to laugh. “You mean that little bitty gal pretended to be that thing to control all those big ferocious pirates? Ah, Sean, your governorship, sor, you’ve got to save her, you do. She’s purest O’Neill stock through and through, that one.”

  “You wouldn’t be so crazy about her if you’d been on the pirate ship with her,” Bunny told him angrily.

  “We’ll do our best to save her, Muktuk,” Sean said. “If you’ll bring along one of our current passengers, that will make room for her . . .”

  “We could come by dogsled, too,” Diego said. “It’ll be good to feel like part of Petaybee again, won’t it, Bun?”

  “Sure will,” Bunny said. “’Sides, I got somethin’ important to talk to you about.”

  Diego looked extremely uneasy at that and was sorry he’d offered. Marmion and Namid rode in the shuttle, as well.

  Once they were under way and had sent a radio message to Adak to transmit to Clodagh that they had the beginnings of a serious casualty situation on the way to Kilcoole, Yana was unusually quiet and, Sean thought, rather sad.

  “What’s the matter, alannah?”

  She gave him a painful smile. “Since seeing the holo, I have a plan. I wish I didn’t almost, but I do.”

  “To do what?”

  “Nail the pirates, Luzon, and Torkel Fiske, and get them all out of Petaybee’s hair for good.”

  “That sounds worthwhile. What’s the catch?”

  “It would involve taking the holo, returning with this shuttle to the pirate ship, and posing as Louchard. Since I’m the only possible shuttle pilot who qualifies, it means I’ll have to leave Petaybee again, and the very thought ties me in knots. Still . . .”

  “Why do you have to do that?”

  “To take the ship back to Gal Three where it and the crew can be taken into appropriate custody. Meanwhile, as Louchard, I’ll confront Fiske and Luzon and make damned sure there’s an incriminating record of what transpired between them.”

  “I can’t let you take that risk, Yana. Especially not in your condition.” Sean sounded sterner than he meant to.

  “I don’t see much choice, not if the pirates are to be put out of commission, and Luzon and Fiske stopped from interfering with us once and for all.”

  “It’s a good plan,” Marmion interjected. “Excellent, in fact. It needs to be done. Only, may I make one small suggestion?”

  Sister Igneous Rock was with the orange cats and the debilitated hunters, de Peugh and Minkus, when Adak burst into Clodagh’s cabin, which she had turned into a temporary clinic and pharmacy.

  “Sean and Yana are bringin’ in a bunch of folks that got Petaybeed, up at Tanana Bay and over by Bogota,” he said. “They’re in a pretty bad way, according to Yana. She says some of them might not live, though she reckons they’re none of ’em any worse than Frank Metaxos was when he first got here.”

  “Oh, dear. Clodagh is off with Mr. Ball, I’m afraid. She took him to the springs for therapy,” she said. But almost before the words were out of her mouth, two of the orange members of the nursing staff tore out the door Adak had left slightly ajar: Clodagh was on her way.

  The shuttle landed just as Clodagh showed up with Ball in his wheelchair strapped into the basket of Liam Maloney’s dogsled. Dr. von Clough skied along beside them. He looked very tired. Brothers Shale and Schist, looking somewhat bemused, followed a disgusted-looking orange cat who seemed outraged at their lack of efficiency. Sister Agate hastily adjusted her robes to their usual decorous length. While Ball had been undergoing his therapy in the waters of the hotsprings, she had been inside the grotto, engaged in deep consultation with Aidan Yulipilik about the therapeutic uses of Petaybee’s mildly intoxicating drink, blurry. The blurry was apparently not all that was intoxicating. Sister Agate was quite flushed from the attentions of the dashing Aidan, who made drums, snowshoes, dog harnesses, and skis for the entire village and many other parts of Petaybee. He also had twinkling slanted blue eyes and a physique that might be envied by many twenty-year-olds.

  That could not be said of the poor people whom Sean and Namid began carrying or helping out of the shuttle. Most looked geriatric, astonished, and bitterly unhappy.

  “There’s not room enough at your pl
ace, Clodagh,” Sean said. “Oh, this is Namid Mendeley, a friend of Marmion’s. We’ll use the meeting hall for now; we’ll need to use the school cube, as well. There are still more patients to be evacuated from Bogota. We only brought the worst ones this time.”

  One of the poor souls was a woman, small and perhaps once pretty, with totally white hair and sunken cheeks. She was a pitiable object and moaned and cried out often. Four of the men died before they could be treated. Clodagh said if they could have arrived sooner, they might have been saved, but that it was the planet’s will.

  Sister Igneous Rock had the quite heretical thought that perhaps the planet might have willed something else if it had been aware of other options—like more fast transportation, easier access to intravenous fluids, just a few basic medical necessities. Clodagh’s medicines could work wonders of recuperation, once the patients got past the critical stage, but fast transit, a source of not-quite-so-spiritual power, and convenient plumbing could do a lot toward remedying many sorts of emergency situations.

  And here was all that geothermal energy the planet had to spare. It seemed a shame and a bit of a waste, really. But who was she to say?

  She felt less modest about it within the next forty-eight hours, as the shuttle flew back and forth to the South until it was finally grounded for lack of fuel. Meantime, it had fetched patients from the south and taken fuel to Johnny Greene so he could also assist in the airlift. Even though everyone in Kilcoole helped, all of the water carrying, wood chopping, water boiling, heating of irons, lighting of lamps and candles, carrying and disposal of wastes, changing and washing linen—especially since most of it was not linen or anything resembling it, but wool or fur or someone’s down sleeping bag and not that easily washed—left her totally exhausted.

  Indeed, under such hard conditions, it took her, along with Agate, Schist, Shale, Clodagh, and Dr. von Clough, who never ceased complaining about the conditions, every waking hour for three days to save two-thirds of the patients. The man who had been the foreman of the work crew in the South died, as did the father of a lost-looking young boy who cried into the coat of a young wildcat while little ’Cita patted him on the back.