Part 9 (1/2)

”You wouldn't appreciate most of it,” he said with a lewd grin, then shrugged and gave her a hideous wink. ”Or who knows, by the time I'm finished with you, maybe you will.”

Bunny suppressed a shudder and continued to inspect his tools and computer screen while he told her about wh.o.r.e-houses on planets in several different galaxies, not excluding the impressive tricks he'd seen performed by humanoid alien exotic entertainers with a wide variety of s.e.x organs and practices.

The subject made her a little queasy, especially the lip-licking relish with which he related it and the way he kept eyeing her as if she were already undressed. She realized he was in no hurry at all. In fact, he seemed to be relating these stories with the expectation that she might want to try some of the things he was talking about. They did give her a good excuse to make loud, shocked exclamations, which covered up the noises coming from beneath the rug. Still trying to appear fascinated, she worked her way backward while he swigged from his bottle until she shoved a corner of the rug back with her foot. A rectangular trapdoor was concealed beneath it.

Maybe the lout would drink himself to sleep.

No such luck though. Having exhausted the topic, he kept patting the mattress, then hoisted himself up, his expression growing ugly again.

”So,” Bunny said quickly. ”What made you decide to give up something as glamorous as s.h.i.+pping with Onidi Louchard to come back to Petaybee?”

He was less steady on his feet now than he had been and his next words were slurred. ”When my s.h.i.+pmates found out I was from Petaybee, they told me what idiots we all were to be sitting on the biggest cache of raw ores in the known universe and pretending it wasn't there. I told 'em the company kept us all barefoot and pregnant, so to speak, which is what I heard all the time I was growing up here. Then I realized I'd bought into the whole Petaybee trip ever since I was a kid: how the planet doesn't want us to take this and the planet doesn't want us to take that.” His voice slipped into a mocking whine. ”So I thought, screw the planet. The company's going to do it sooner or later, so how about me? I knew how the planet and the people get around the company, and how the company could get around the planet and the people if it had the b.a.l.l.s to come down and take what it wants, so I 'borrowed' a little company technology, showed up in one village or another on foot, parking my shuttle out on the tundra, looking wise and finding out who might be in need of a shaman. McGee's Pa.s.s had come in for a few of the planet's less benign tricks and they had no shaman. I did a little recon, set up my base, and arranged for a disaster in the local communing place.”

Bunny strove to keep her voice steady and sound shocked instead of simply furious as she asked, ”W-why? Why did you do that?”

”Because, the first time I saw the way raw ore looks before it comes out of the ground, I realized I'd seen it back when I was a kid and the planet was scaring the s.h.i.+t out of me for not being real interested in all the little mind tricks it plays on people around here. Don't you get it? There's a good reason your so-called elders feed you all this bunk about the communing places that makes you scared to go in there without them.”

Bunny thought he must have had a much different elder than Clodagh to think that anyone was barred from talking to Petaybee any time they felt like it, but most times people just got by on what was offered on the surface until it was time for everybody to go visiting.

”The communing places are also the entry way to the planet's goodies. Frag it, girl, you don't even have to dig very deep or blast your own tunnel in the surface. Ore's right there staring at you every time you go talk to the rocks.”

”Really?” she asked. But she was running out of things she wanted to know and trying to think of what to ask next to keep him talking. ”Well, I've got another question. Why take me? Aren't there local girls . . .”

”That's just the problem. They're local. You're from a powerful family in Kilcoole, and they think you're special because you drive a snocle Your family and friends in Kilcoole shoot their mouths off a lot about how mines are so evil for the planet. Maybe if they know mining the planet is in your best interests, they'll be a little quieter. Really,” he said. ”It's been real nice chatting with you, baby, but now that we know each other better, I want to get to know you real well. So are you going to come over here to me, or are you going to tempt me to get a little rough? Both ways are fine with me.”

Bunny backed away from him, and he rose and lunged across the table she'd been using as a s.h.i.+eld.

She dodged and ran, but was as trapped as she'd ever been. She knew she couldn't elude his grasp forever, and even though she had the weapon, he was bigger and stronger than she and not much out of shape either. She knew she had no chance against him in a fight, but she could keep out of his way as long as possible. She jumped back to where the trapdoor was and risked slowing long enough to pull at the ring. She pulled the door partially open, hoping against hope that she could slide down into it before he caught her.

The door was heavier than she thought, and he was quicker. He grabbed her hair and jerked her across the open door, as she screamed and beat at him with one hand while reaching for the ice pick with her other.

The planet had not been Petrasealed to death in the lower cavern, but it had been gouged and blasted. There was a pool there, too, foul from chemicals and dense with residue from the damage that had been done.

Diego touched the scars and felt as if he were seeing the wreck his father had been all over again: he was so full of sadness and pain.

Krisuk, who had grown up with this particular place, but grown gradually accustomed to its death through Satok's machinations over the years, touched the blasted areas once and reeled back as if he'd been punched.

Both boys stood at the juncture to the corridor, shaking.

”How could you let him do that?” Diego accused.

”We didn't know he was doing anything in here!” Krisuk said. ”We thought it was all buried, like he said. You forget there's a wall between this and the outer cave, and a lot of tunnel between. There's got to be. We feel the mountain shake sometimes, but it's not like you hear anything.”

The truth of the last statement was sharply ill.u.s.trated for the boys as they stepped from the Petrasealed inner cave into the meeting room and through the bush, out into the cold wind whipping down the pa.s.s. The rock Bunny had been sitting on was empty.

”Bunny?” Diego asked. ”Dinah?”

A whimper rode down the wind from the path above them.

Diego scrambled up the path, almost tripping over Dinah's prostrate form. He began feeling the dog all over, which was difficult because there was a lot of blood. She was terribly still when he first began, but her respiration's picked up a bit as he handled her.

Then he called for Bunny and called again, but he didn't see her. Meanwhile, Krisuk ran back down the hill to his own house and flung the door open.

Diego picked Dinah up in his arms and stumbled down the hill after him. Krisuk had a lamp lit. The family was not in bed but hunched together around the table, staring guiltily toward the door.

Diego entered the house and carried Dinah's body to the table. He knew from the expressions of the Connellys that they knew exactly what had happened to the horses, the dog, and Bunny.

”What kind of people are you anyway?”

”Don't ask them anything,” Krisuk said disgustedly. ”She's at Satok's. You can bet on it. He took her.”

”Then I'm going to get her,” Diego said.

”You can't!” Iva said. ”He can kill you-kill us all-he might turn the planet against us again, make it swallow us up. He's too powerful for any of us to fight.”

”He sure is if you just sit there,” Diego said. ”And the planet has no reason at all to like him. If you looked a few yards beyond the ends of your noses, you'd know that.”

”You're not going alone,” Krisuk said.

”No?”

”No. Come on, Da, Mother. You kids,” Krisuk added addressing his younger brothers and sisters. ”You go wake the neighbors. Bring them to the meeting cave.” His siblings looked up at him as if they'd been stunned, unmoving till his five-year-old sister, Marie, jumped to her feet.

”I'll go!”

”Me, too,” one of the younger brothers said.

Diego had stripped one of the quilts from the beds to cover Dinah, while one of the older sisters began cleaning the dog's wound.

Seeing that the dog was in good hands, Diego grabbed a knife from its hook above the stove and ran out the door again and up the path.

”Wait!” Krisuk said. ”Diego, not that way. You'll be too good a target.”

”I'm not going to just let him have her because you're all scared of him,” Diego shouted back, never shortening his stride though the wind battered him. He didn't hear what Krisuk said in response.

Diego was about to pa.s.s the cave entrance when Krisuk caught up with him and pulled him back.

”Look, you can't just go confront him,” he hollered above the wind. ”But remember the upper pa.s.sage? I'll bet it leads up to his house.”

Diego paused for a moment. He had read a lot of hard-copy books, and many of his favorites had secret pa.s.sages and tunnels in them, something he had previously related only to the ventilation systems in s.h.i.+ps and s.p.a.ce stations. ”Maybe so,” he said. ”But if it doesn't, we lose a lot of time. We don't know how much we've lost already.”

Krisuk said, ”According to Da, they heard Bunny hollering about an hour ago. Look, I can get them to follow me into the cave. I want to show them what Satok's done. But they're too scared to go to his house. It's a strong house and he's armed.”

Diego shook his arm loose. ”If you want to go that way, then you go that way. I'm going straight to the house. I'm not going to risk Bunny's life again because your folks don't want me to stand up to Satok.”

”Okay then, I'll try the cave and if it doesn't work out, I'll come up and help you, so take it easy, okay? Unless you see he's actually-well, unless she really needs you right then, don't jump in until I get there ”

Diego was already striding forward. ”I'll handle it,” he said, and began to climb up the hill leading to Satok's.

The house was visible from the top of the path, a stone building about a half a mile away set back in a meadow. The windows were lit, and as Diego approached, a banshee chorus of howls heralded his arrival.