Power Lines (25 page)

The crowd’s noise had died to a murmur. Matthew and Shepherd Howling led the pack by several strides.

“Well, Dr. Luzon, you’ve led me quite a hunt,” Johnny called when the men were near enough to hear him.

“While you, Captain Greene, did not reappear as you promised.”

“Oh, I reappeared, Dr. Luzon, just as I said I would, but you’d taken off in old Scobie’s beat-up snocle. My compliments on your driving to get that snow bucket this far.”

Shepherd Howling raised one arm, his robe falling back over his bony wrist, pointing to the copter. “The child Goat-dung is one of my flock and is about to become one with me, to the salvation of her humanity. You must return her to my protection. I don’t care what error you infidels fall into or what the Great Monster does to you, but she must be returned to me, and the monster who abducted her, as well.”

“Well, now, sir, I can’t rightly do that,” Johnny said.

“Watch who you’re calling a monster, you abomination,” Sean snarled. “This child is my niece, and she is and will remain with her closest relative. I, her uncle, and male guardian, did not condone and
will not
condone a marriage for the child to anyone.”

Shepherd Howling looked from Sean’s face to the wound on Sean’s leg, and back to his face again, his eyes widening with horror. “You! You were the monster! The seal man! Then the girl—she, too, is a monster.”

“Monster?” Yana challenged, inserting herself between the injured Sean and the self-proclaimed Shepherd. “I only see one monster here, and it isn’t Dr. Shongili. Do you always throw lethal weapons at visitors, Mr. Howling?”

“He was no visitor when we first saw him,” Shepherd Howling blathered. “He looked like a seal at first and then started—growing. And he came from the underworld via the portal from which all of the damnable abominations of this planet emanate!”

“Nonsense,” Yana snapped. “He was exploring an underground passage where his pregnant sister and brother-in-law disappeared many years ago. You’re making up this incredible story to prevent further inquiry into your own abominable activities.”

“I very much doubt that,” Matthew Luzon said, smiling unctuously. “When I arrived, all of the Shepherd’s flock were exclaiming about the monster they had found and were preparing to burn it over an open fire. I didn’t see the beast myself but I was naturally trying to prevail upon the Shepherd to allow me to study it rather than destroy it, to take it back to the laboratory and run some tests. Since Dr. Shongili’s wound corresponds with that of the beast, I’d say he has some explaining to do.”

“I’d say you had more, Dr. Luzon,” Yana said in a voice so cold it made Johnny shiver, “for I’m reasonably certain you would know the paragraphs in Collective Interplanetary Societies’ regulations—which apply to Intergal as well as the rest of inhabited space—about forced or child marriages.”

“But, Major Maddock, all during her return trip to her home here in the Vale of Tears, Goat-dung—”

“Phah!” Sean exploded.

“The child,” Matthew went on, “told me how happy she was to be coming home to such an auspicious marriage.”

“How many wives have you at the moment, Shepherd Howling?” Yana demanded.

“ ‘Cita mentioned five,” Sean said icily. “Also against the customs of this planet which do not, to the best of my knowledge, sanction polygamy.”

“Now now, Dr. Shongili. We mustn’t be ethnocentric,” Matthew said with his smile still in place. “We must allow religious communities their own mores and folkways and rites, however strange they may seem to us.”

“Not with
my
niece,” Sean said.

“And how can you
prove
that you are her uncle?” Matthew demanded.

“Hell, man, that’s so obvious, it’s the stupidest question you’ve asked so far,” Diego Metaxos said, sputtering in his rage and turning the LD-404 in the Shepherd’s—and Matthew Luzon’s—direction.

“Young man,” Matthew began, “you are in grave danger of—”

“Let’s save the talk for a more appropriate time,” Yana said, noticing Sean beginning to sway with fatigue and pain. “Captain Greene came to collect you, Dr. Luzon, so we’ll do just that and leave these people to sort their sordid little folkways by themselves in whatever way they care to, so long as it doesn’t involve Dr. Shongili or his niece or any of the rest of us, for that matter.”

Matthew Luzon turned his back on her to appeal to the Shepherd, who was swelling with righteous indignation and anger. “Shepherd, you can see what the investigation is up against. These people all justify each other’s views, and no dissenting voice is allowed to be heard. If only you would appoint an apostle to lead your people while you come with me and speak to the commission on your views of the effects this planet has on people, justice would be far better served . . .”

The Shepherd’s eyes widened with interest, and he nodded as Matthew spoke.

Johnny Greene cut them off short. “If you think I’m bringing that one back in the same plane with that little girl, Dr. Luzon, I’d think again very carefully,” Johnny said. “Not to mention the fact that we’d be grossly overloaded for the fuel I have on board.”

“You can refuel at Bogota, man,” Matthew snapped back, “and you know it as well as I do.”

“I have a wounded man, Dr. Luzon, which requires me to take the straightest route back north.” Johnny jerked his head at Yana and Diego to help Sean back to the copter. “So this captain limits his passengers to those in jeopardy and those he originally ferried over. You, of course, are one, sir, but I can’t authorize another passenger. So if you don’t care to join this flight, Dr. Luzon, I’ll be happy to request that other transport collect you, and your guest, ASAP!”

“Why, you . . .” Luzon’s eyes sparked with suppressed anger.

“Captain Greene, sir, yes, sir, attached to the exclusive service of Dr. Whittaker Fiske, sir.” Johnny held the eye contact.

Suddenly, suspiciously, Luzon capitulated, saying in a deceptively pleasant tone of voice, “Then, as soon as you are airborne, you will contact SpaceBase and request the immediate departure of a copter to collect myself, my assistant, and my guest. Is that plain? Any delay in the dispatch of that request will be a matter of record and dealt with appropriately. Do I make myself clear to you, Captain Greene, in the service—for the time being, that is—of Dr. Fiske?”

“Plain as day, sir. Thank you, sir. Good day, sir. And to you, sir,” Johnny said, snapping salutes at both Luzon and the astonished Shepherd Howling.

Then with a smart about-face, he leapt over a hillock and proceeded as fast as the terrain permitted back to the copter.

He took off, aware of the moans of Coaxtl, who had never endured such an experience, and the purring reassurances of Nanook who found himself suddenly braver about flying.

No sooner was Johnny in the air than he switched channels on the comm unit, grinning as he did so. “Hey, there MoonBase, this is Bravo-Jig-Foxtrot four-two-nine-one, Captain Johnny Greene, calling in for the immediate—I repeat—the immediate dispatch of a copter to these coordinates—” He read them out. “—to collect Intergal Vice-Chairman Matthew Luzon, assistant, and guest passenger. This is top priority. Please log in request immediately as of 1940.34.30.”

“You got yourself in Luzon’s bad books, honey?” asked a female voice.

“Me, MoonBase? Not me,” Johnny replied in his most ingenuous tone. “Is that Neva Marie’s voice in my ears?”

“The very one.”

“Well, listen up, Neva Marie, because Luzon is in urgent need of transport, and I cannot seem to make contact with either SpaceBase or any airborne copters planetside. So cut loose one of those light shuttles and let one of your bush-pilots have some fun. Landing’s dicey, so tell him to be careful where he sets down. Oh, and off the record, bring a real strong deodorizer!”

“Beg pardon?”

Johnny repeated his last remark and grinned at Yana over his shoulder. “You got this request logged in proper and on the dot?”

“Like you said—and the off the record is
off
the record.”

“Neva Marie, I owe you.”

A low chuckle preceded the sign-off as the dispatch officer purred, “I’ll give a good deal of thought to that, Johnny. Over and out. Shuttle pilot scrambling as of right now. 1943.30.02.”

“Won’t he get back to SpaceBase faster than we will?” Bunny asked anxiously from the snocub, where she had strapped herself and her sister in. That way, Sean had room to stretch out his injured leg while Yana cushioned his upper body against hers. Diego sat up front with Johnny.

“Possibly,” Johnny replied carelessly. “The important aspect is that the request was logged in as we were taking off. And I
know
for a fact that all the SpaceBase copters are being used by Luzon’s men for ‘field research.’ ” He chuckled to himself and then raised his voice. “Bunny, how’s your sister traveling back there?”

“Fine, Johnny, just fine! I’m thinking what name we should give her.”

“Why not give her your mother’s, Bunka?” Sean asked in a low tone that hid much of the fatigue he was feeling from all save Yana. She could feel his body spasming and shivering from his recent ordeal and clasped him more tightly to her. “Your dad had his way with yours.”

“Aoifa Rourke!” Bunny savored the name, which she pronounced properly as “Eeefa.” “Your name, your real name, your heart’s name, is Aoifa, ‘Cita. But, if you feel safer, we will only call you ‘Cita.”

There was a sleepy mumble, and very shortly there was silence from all Johnny’s passengers, though Diego’s lips moved frequently, soundlessly.

13

Johnny landed his passengers at Kilcoole; then, once he and Diego had carried Sean into Clodagh’s house, he flew on to report to Whittaker Fiske at SpaceBase.

“That’s very interesting, son,” his boss said when Johnny had completed the debriefing. “Found the lost Rourke child and brought Shongili back, too. You didn’t happen to spot Torkel anywhere down there, did you?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.” Johnny kept private his notion that the presence of Captain Torkel Fiske would have been one burden too many. “Is he with one of the other investigative teams?”

Whit shook his head and then dismissed that problem with a wave of his hand.

They both looked up at the unmistakable rumble of a shuttle coming in to land.

“Cut it fine, didn’t you, son?” Whit grinned as he rose. “I’d best go out and see what I can do to pacify Matthew.”

“Sir, I had wounded . . .”

Whittaker Fiske nodded vigorously, raising his hand to reassure his copter pilot. “You did exactly as you should. And so did Major Maddock. The very idea of polygamy, especially for a religious purpose, with a prepubescent child is revolting in this day and age.
And
specifically against the Collective Interplanetary Societies’ Bill of Individual Rights. Better get that copter serviced, son. I want it kept ready to scramble.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows, hoping for a little off-the-record advice, but Whittaker’s expression suggested that he tend to his current orders.

Contrary to Whittaker’s expectations, he received neither call nor visit from Matthew Luzon, nor was there a complaint officially logged in against Captain John Greene. Nor, during that day, was there any message from his son or a whisper concerning his whereabouts. Only the matter of a concussed guard found at one of the side access gates to SpaceBase.

Torkel Fiske was angry enough, but Satok was livid with rage, kicking at the crates, splintering half a dozen, and paying no attention to the rocks that bounced down on his boots, as if he welcomed the pain. Torkel also listened to the invective Satok cast on the head of that slatternly Luka and what he intended to do to her when he found her again. From the brief glimpses he’d had of the girl, Torkel could not quite believe that she had had the intelligence, much less the strength, to remove all the genuine ore samples, which Torkel had himself handled and seen, in the time they’d been absent from the shuttle.

Without proof of the find, however, the commission would pay scant attention to Satok and might reach their decision before the man could gather more samples. There were other ways to assert company control of this planet, of course—the company-built and maintained roads, power plants, hospitals, and schools Torkel suggested to Marmion. All in the name of taking care of the colonists, of course. If they were better treated, more civilized, they’d be more cooperative. Especially when the planet was overrun with corps troops—not originally from Petaybee: he’d make sure of that this time—doing the building and maintaining. Especially if company doctors also made sure that the physiological aberrations peculiar to Petaybeans were studied and eliminated, and if birth control was strictly monitored so that the Petaybeans at no time grew too numerous to control. Company teachers would slant their curriculum to insure the loyalty of their students, and company communications systems would
insure that inhabitants, both original and new to the planet, accepted the company agenda and kept the company side of any dispute foremost in their minds at all times. And if they didn’t, troops could travel by company roads to make sure people remembered their manners.

And the planet? The living planet? Within himself, Torkel didn’t sneer at the idea. Petaybee was sentient. He knew it. He had felt it, seen it, heard it himself. But that didn’t mean he liked it. That Satok had stolen ores from the body of the beast itself impressed Torkel no end—but only if the man could
show
the lodes. All they had in the shuttle were common rocks and dust. The ore was no better than the fairy gold of Grandmother Fiske’s bedtime stories.

He would have preferred to play with his coin collection or dissect a roundworm before bedtime, but Grandmother Fiske, who, he supposed, was responsible for the weird streak in his father, was a great believer in the twentieth-century philosopher Joseph Campbell. She thought that children needed myths and fairy tales to inform their lives. She had never understood him, Grandma Fiske. Torkel was an explorer, a womanizer, and a developer precisely because he loathed mysteries. He liked everything well explained.

And now he and Satok both would have some explaining to do if they were going to convince the company commission that Petaybee contained secrets valuable enough for them to make the necessary investments to civilize and control the planet. At the moment, all he had to show was one green hunk of copper-bearing rock and one small gold nugget that had rolled out of the crates into a dark corner.

“That was a good trick,” he told the still-fuming Satok. “I don’t know how you treated these rocks to make them appear to be the ores I thought they were, but in this state they’ll never convince the commission.” He knew as well as Satok that the ores had been replaced by Luka and those Kilcoole women, if not by a conspiracy of the whole village of Shannonmouth, but he wanted to force Satok to reveal more. As long as the man kept his secrets to himself, they were of no use to Torkel or the company.

“There’s more where those came from,” Satok growled.

“And where, exactly, is that? McGee’s Pass?” The man had said he was shanachie there, so Torkel’s guess wasn’t that wild. Space probes had shown some ores in that general area.

But Satok shook his head. “Nah, that vein’s played out for now. But I got other sources. Only thing is, and the reason I decided to cut the company in, I need supplies. For my method.”

“Like what?”

Satok grinned for the first time since they’d discovered Luka’s treachery. “That’s right, Cap’n. When I tell you what I use, you think you’re gonna have some ideas about my method. And you will have. Only thing is, it’s somethin’ you’ve been using all along. What I need the most is Petraseal. You get some of these boys to load up the shuttle with Petraseal, and I’ll get you some more ore samples within a couple of days.”

“I go with you and you show me,” Torkel said, negotiating, “and I’ll get you all the Petraseal you want.”

But the hairy bastard had the gall to shake his head. “No way. Not till I have a contract with the company patenting my methods and with full claim to my sites.”

“You can’t get that without proof,” Torkel said.

“Well, without my help, man, you can’t get samples of ores you need for proof the planet’s worth something to Intergal, so I guess if you don’t get me my supplies, we’re both out of luck.”

“All right,” Torkel said on a long exasperated sigh. “I’ll release you the Petraseal. But go get those samples ASAP, okay? I’m not sure how long the commission is going to take to come to their conclusions.”

“Then have your boys start loadin’ my shuttle. Oh, and fuel ‘er up while you’re at it, will you?”

Torkel agreed, still seeming reluctant for the sake of verisimilitude. Actually, he would go along whether Satok agreed or not. He could easily plant a bug and track the man to his mine. He could even invite the commission along to see the results of the new mining operation firsthand, and learn something of Satok’s secret process while they were at it.

Birds—songbirds, ravens, ducks, geese, hawks, and herons—brought them, as did relays of rabbits, foxes, wolves, feral cats, tame cats, track-cats, bears, and squirrels. Each bird, each animal, carried in its mouth a cutting, a root, a shoot, of coo-berry bramble. The birds flew directly to the farthest points, to Deadhorse, Savoy, Wellington, Portage, Mirror Lake, Harrison’s Fjord, and McGee’s Pass. Following the cats’ directions, they dropped the shoots near the planet’s portals, the places where humankind could commune with Petaybee. The largest deliveries went to the places where the planet was at its most open and vulnerable, and could be most easily looted. All of these places were caves, and around the entrance of each cave and on the ground above the entrance, and all along the length of the cave, the shoots and roots and cuttings were dropped by birds and buried by the other animals, the badgers, the squirrels, the rabbits, and the foxes. Every quarter of an hour or so
for two days, fresh bits of coo-berry bush arrived, supplied by the tireless efforts of Clodagh, Whittaker Fiske, and assistants from the town and the surrounding forests and tundras of Kilcoole.

In most places, the increased and highly specialized activity of the animals was little more than a curiosity. In some places, no one even noticed what was going on. At McGee’s Pass, Krisuk Connelly and his family, who had been keeping watch on Satok’s old house, noted the odd influx of animals and, between deliveries, sneaked in to see what they could possibly be doing.

The coo-berry plant was one of the planet’s great puzzlements. Most things on Petaybee were good for many things: medicine, food, shelter, warmth. Coo-berries had never been much good for anything. They were poisonous if you ate more than a handful, and the ailment that might have been devised by the planet to cure it had yet to be discovered. The thorns were sharp and stingy, the leaves were sticky, and the blossoms were as small, and rare, as the coo-berry itself. Once they got a start on any little dab of dirt, the damned bushes were almost impossible to kill. Worse, they grew so fast you could watch them grow, which was what Krisuk spent two days doing: watching the infestation of coo-berry. While the birds were still ferrying shoots in daily, bushes sprang up from the first plantings and grew waist high overnight, their roots spreading out to cover the field between the town and Satok’s house and climbing up the house’s stone exterior and covering the outbuildings.

When that happened, Krisuk called the whole village to come and see. His mother’s mouth was set in a bitter line and her dry eyes watched the incursion despairingly.

“Now,”
she said, “
now
Petaybee
is
punishing us. For ever listening to Satok. For letting him harm it.”

Matthew Luzon resisted the urge to hold his nose. Really! The things he did for the company in the name of humanity. To say the least, Brother Howling smelled extremely gamy. Even Braddock was tempted to open the helicopter’s door to escape the stench and showed signs of wanting to divest himself of his most recent meal over the ice-speckled sea.

At least the headphones in this helicopter worked properly, and Matthew could occupy himself by listening to the pilot’s transmissions and the messages received from SpaceBase and MoonBase.

As they approached land again at Harrison’s Fjord, a crackling message came in from MoonBase.

“Captain Torkel Fiske requests that all council members get in touch with him immediately. He is currently tracking the activities of the shanachie of McGee’s Pass.”

Matthew needed to hear no more. McGee’s Pass was on the way back to SpaceBase from Harrison’s Fjord, and a break from his present company would be most welcome.

“Take us directly to McGee’s Pass, pilot,” he ordered, and the man gave him a thumbs-up signal and headed up the coast.

As they approached the pass, Matthew saw that the village was built on an incline, gradually scaling the foothills leading up to the pass itself.

“Well, for frag’s sake!” The pilot cursed as he flew beyond the village over a field heavily overgrown with vines stretching from the houses all the way to a stone farmstead about half a mile distant. “What the frag have they done to the fraggin’ helipad?”

“Set it down anywhere, man!” Matthew commanded. “The plants’ll cushion the skids.”

The pilot sounded doubtful as he said, “Well, okay. You’re the boss, Dr. Luzon.”

Finally, someone who did as he was told, Matthew thought with relief.

The pilot landed, crushing a good half meter into the surrounding vegetation. When he made no move to leave the aircraft, Matthew impatiently tore open the door and leaped out, and instantly regretted it.

His legs caught fire all the way to his crotch, and thousands of tiny needles stung through his pants, boots, and undergarments to tear at his flesh with each tiny movement.

In fact, he didn’t even have to move. The wind from the copter rotors drove the plants all around him. Involuntarily, he screamed. Braddock jumped down to help him, and he, too, began to scream.

The Shepherd Howling stood in the doorway, one hand uplifted, his mouth moving and his other hand pointing.

“What?” Luzon managed to ask as the chopper engines stopped.

“The Great Monster has thee in its grasp!” Shepherd Howling cried. “Beware!”

“For pity’s sake, man, it’s no great monster, just some sort of vine!” Matthew screeched. “Help!”

A young man sitting atop a rock that was a virtual island in the sea of stinging brambles called out, “Can I help you, sir?”

“Get us out of here!” Matthew demanded.

“Ah. Your aircraft will be the safest place for that, sir. I suggest you get back in it before the vines overgrow it.”

“What? No plant can grow that fast!” Braddock replied, doubting his own words as he unsuccessfully tried to disentangle the vines from his legs.

“The Great Monster is devious and wily and tireless in clutching for the souls and bodies of virtuous men!” Shepherd Howling declaimed.

“Indeed!” Matthew snapped at him. He turned to the boy. “If I wished to return to the helicopter I would never have landed here, young man. Please assist us out of these weeds and take us to your shanachie and Captain Fiske at once.”

“Never heard of no Captain Fiske,” the boy called back lazily, obviously enjoying their situation, “and we run the shanachie off.”

“Did you?” Matthew stood among the stinging brambles and digested that.

“You heard him, sir. Let’s get out of here,” Braddock whined.

But any inclination Matthew might have had to do just that had vanished with the boy’s words. “Now why did you do that, son?”