Part 4 (1/2)
Her lungs took in the spring-crisp air in great gulps. She was almost dizzy with the intoxication of undeniably fresh air.
”Oh, my word, air! Give me air like this wherever I go,” she said dramatically, one hand on her heaving chest.
Matthew shot her a disgusted glance. ”Marmion, the air may appear to be fresh, but you cannot be sure it isn't filled with bacteria and microbes that will have a deleterious effect on your health. Which we must preserve!” he added with that dreadful smile he affected when he was pretending to be solicitous while really hoping the person he was talking to would fall over dead.
By quickly linking her arm in Faber's, she neatly avoided contact as Matthew held out a hand to help her down the scrupulously clean stairs. Faber escorted her deftly to the ground, but Sally and Millard had to wait until Matthew and his minions had disembarked. Maybe Sally would be able to make some sort of impression on one of the handsome, physically fit young a.s.sistants. She usually managed. She'd have to be very clever with Matthew's boys, but that's what Sally was: clever, astute, discreet, and exceedingly intelligent.
Once more into the fray, dear friends, Marmion thought as she observed Captain Torkel Fiske in full flash uniform, standing just slightly ahead of his father-rather naughty of Torkel, she thought. Whittaker was dressed far more casually, but she'd never seen him look so fit and happy. Happy, she thought, wondering that that adjective should spring to mind. Who had time to be ”happy” in the Intergalactic society of which she, Whittaker, and Matthew were part? In any event, she smiled at Whittaker, as he neatly elbowed his son out of the way to be first to greet her.
”Is your arm all healed? And the leg wound?'' she asked solicitously as they embraced. He wore a support bandage on his arm and she'd noticed just the faintest hint of a limp as he moved.
”Of course, Marmie. You can't keep an old dog like me down. I not only had Intergal's best medicos working on me, but the best immediate and convalescent medical care available here. I'll say that for this planet-good for your health,” Whittaker said. Releasing her-a trifle reluctantly, she felt-he turned to shake hands, showing just the right deference and enthusiasm, with Matthew. ”You are welcome, Matthew. Your input will be invaluable.”
Liar, Marmion thought, but she smiled vacuously as the two men went through the courtesies.
Matthew introduced his gaggle of ganders to Whittaker, adding the provenance of each and their area of expertise. That is, he introduced all but poor Adam's Apple.
”And this is Braddock Makem,” she said, smiling brightly first at Matthew, then at Whit, and finally at poor startled Makem. ”You remember Sally, I'm sure, Whit. And Millard and Faber, who are my staunch henchmen.”
Whit shook hands with her a.s.sistants and then waved everyone to the waiting vehicles. The travel bags had already been unloaded and were on their way to whatever accommodations this depressing place might have for people of her and Matthew's prestige.
”We've laid on a fine meal for you, Marmie,” Whit said, making sure he sat beside her in the large personnel transport. Its seats, hard as they were, had been re-covered with rather fine furs.
”How kind of you,” Marmion replied, and then, feeling the soft texture of the covers, she said, ”And are these locally produced?” She did not have to pretend her enthusiasm, for she had seldom felt such beautifully cured natural pelts.
”Yes,” Torkel Fiske answered from the double seat behind her. ”It's the one thing they do very well here.”
”Really?” she asked, managing to keep the irony out of her rejoinder. ”How interesting! You must show me more,” she said languidly. ”I really could use some new stoles. Maybe a m.u.f.f or two for when I have to stand in freezing airlocks and transfer stations.”
”Better let young Fiske buy for you, Marmion,” Matthew said. ”The moment they heard your off world accent, they'd quadruple the price.”
”No, we do that!” Whittaker said at his drollest.
Marmion snuggled against him, wrapping her fingers about his arm and squeezing them slightly. ”It's so good to see you, Whit! Whatever's been going on down here, it's really brightened you up. I do believe you were getting office-bound.”
Whittaker chuckled and jerked his head at the very upright, disapproving back of Matthew Luzon sitting in front of them.
Marmion squeezed his arm again. ”A field trip is what we've all needed to get the juices flowing and the lungs filling with good clean air.” Luzon's shoulders twitched, and Marmion felt Whittaker's ribs moving in silent laughter. ”We'll all put our minds to this little problem and sort it out in next to no time. Won't we, Matthew?”
His terse answer was lost in a screech of badly worn brake pads, as the carrier halted in front of a building, freshly painted in an aggressively bright yellow.
”Sorry about the color, Marmion,” Whittaker said when he saw her wince. ”All that's left in Stores, but at least it's clean and bright.”
This time Matthew's snort of disgust was plainly audible. As he walked to the door, his body language spoke of displeasure, resentment, and aggravation.
”Oh, dear, we're in for it,” Marmion murmured so that only Whittaker heard her. ”I believe we are,” he responded as quietly.
”Fore warned is fore armed,” she added, and then rose to walk as gracefully as ever down the aisle and up the steps and into the incredibly yellow building.
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 s.h.i.+ne 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 Pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.sengers,” 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 pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.sage from the caves near Harrison's Fjord when they disappeared. Hey! What if they got through and the pa.s.sage-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 pa.s.s 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 st.u.r.dy bodies.
McGee's Pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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, sh.o.r.ed 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.