Part 16 (1/2)

”Anyway, we never had a problem with coo-berries here before. And coo-berries are a problem. Just about impossible to destroy and they'll go through anything. You see what I'm getting at?”

”I think I do. You're sure it'll work?”

She shrugged, then directed him where to pull. The berries had sharp thorns. ”After we get a bunch pulled up, we wrap 'em in leaves and our bigger, faster friends here will see that they get delivered.” She nodded at the animals.

It was Whit's turn to shrug as he b.u.t.toned down his sleeves and started pulling.

Satok had no problem eluding the trackers from McGee's Pa.s.s. For one thing, he was wily, with a lot of friends and resources. For another thing, one of those resources was a shuttle hidden in a secret camouflaged shed about a half hour from his house, close enough that he could get to it in a hurry, and far enough away from the center of things that it was unlikely to be found.

He flew first to Deadhorse, then Wellington and Savoy. There former s.h.i.+pmates of his, all of whom he had set up as replacements for the recently expired shanachies, were in various stages of converting the people in the towns to their version of ”what the planet wanted.”

”I don't see what the problem is,” said Reilly, Savoy's new headman, as he sat drinking with Satok. ”These people believe anything they're told. Just tell 'em the people at McGee's Pa.s.s have gone nuts or something.”

”Your problem is you don't think far enough ahead, Reilly,” Satok said. The brats got away. The McGee's Pa.s.s people scattered to a lot of places. They know about the cave. Now, the problem is not so much what they think of us as the possibility of compet.i.tion. Using the Petraseal was my idea. Finding out how to use the Petraseal without the planet freaking us out of our fraggin' minds was my idea. I want credit and credits. You boys will get yours, as well, of course. But if this committee that's investigating things sees the Petraseal before we claim our finders' fee, Intergal will have everything and there'll be nothing for anybody else.”

”So what do you need from us?”

”Ore samples, of course, and a low profile until I can show up with some company big wig to buy our method.” He snapped his fingers for the slattern who was serving the booze to bring another round. This was stronger stuff than the blurry, even considering the effect this stupid planet had of neutralizing intoxicants with every other native beverage or food consumed. Fortunately, Satok had had little else to eat or drink for a couple of days. The girl looked familiar-one of his cast offs, no doubt. Sure had let herself go, though. Moped around with down cast eyes, ugly shapeless clothes, dirty lank hair, sallow skin mottled with bruises. Some women just had no self-respect. If she'd looked like that when he first came to the village, he'd never have touched her.

”Okay, so when do you need the samples?”

”Now,” Satok growled. ”Or haven't you been listening? I want the shuttle loaded with the best you've got.”

”How do we know you won't just take it and take off?”

”Because there's a lot more to be made here than what we could gouge out of the ground by ourselves. You have to think big. Besides, I'll need some of you along to help me unload.”

”So where are you taking this stuff?”

He shrugged. ”s.p.a.ceBase, for a start.”

The cold of the icy waters was more of a shock than usual because Sean had just been so warmly wrapped about Yana. But it was always the first part of him to enter the water that experienced the trauma. Despite the almost stupefying cold, he forced himself to drop into the freezing dark waters. The change occurred more abruptly than ever: self-preservation at its highest level.

Once the waters closed over his altering head, the sounds he hoped to hear pinged back and forth. He sent out his call and felt the stir of water as a tube whale responded. The brush of the huge mammal against him in human form would have been crus.h.i.+ng, but the selkie was less vulnerable. Stroking one flipper on the firm flesh of the whale, Sean-Selkie floated forward until he came to the proportionally small whale eye. One flipper-hand reaching as high up on the skull above the eye as possible, Sean communicated his need.

Do you remember the place before it fell?

Yes.

Take me to the other side.

As you wish.

Sean-Selkie had time to secure a hold on the side fin before he was propelled forward at amazing speed. For what seemed a very long dark time in this lightless medium, Sean-Selkie clung there. Finally the tube whale halted, so abruptly that he was sent flipping end over end, past the whale's bright unblinking eye and skidding up the icy slope of a tunnel that gaped open onto the sub-arctic seas.

You have been of great a.s.sistance and have my grat.i.tude.

You are known and your needs considered.

Then the whale departed, once more singing its weird song, one that Sean-Selkie heard faintly, distantly answered. In that direction the tube whale now swam. Sean-Selkie watched until the churning of its flukes was no longer visible in the dark sea. He climbed up into the maw of this section of the underground link between the continents, with its luminous walls and slightly misted footing.

He had gone no more than a few hundred meters before he knew that both Aoifa and her track-cat had managed to get this far. A neat pile of animal dung, frosted over but identifiable, lay in a little hole, claw marks around it to show that the track-cat had not lost its sense of propriety despite its inability to cover its feces. And four paces beyond the cat's were human excretions. Sean-Selkie sighed with relief and lumbered on up the long slope, through immense caverns and more upward corridors. He saw other signs-fish skeletons-by lakesides and, diving into the same places, found food for himself to keep strong for this long and lonely journey. He saw the crumpled envelopes of travel rations, too.

How far and how long the journey took, Sean-Selkie could not gauge. He traveled more safely and economically as a selkie; having no clothes for his human manifestation was the best reason to continue as he was.

When he eventually emerged into daylight, the sun dazzling him, he had no warning of the danger into which he had blundered. He was always particularly vulnerable as he changed, the transition altering his senses-especially his eye sight and heating. The first arrow took him in the thigh while it was still elongating from a flipper, still covered with spotted fur; the second would have been fatal but for the fact that a feline knocked him to one side. Snarling, the feline guarded him, facing the ragged humans who surrounded the mouth of the cave, one paw, its claws unsheathed, raised against their advance.

Thanks, clouded one. I owe you a life.

Can you run with me?

Must finish transition first. Can't run or swim, not as is, not wounded in the leg. You go. There is a rifle aimed now at you. Go quickly. They think me helpless.

Giving one last forward leap, which sent the ragged creatures screaming backward though the armed man did not move, the feline whirled and sped back into the cave and disappeared from sight.

”Don't bother with the cat. They're a half credit the dozen. Secure that monster! He mustn't escape!”

So Sean-Selkie, neither man nor seal at this point, endured the indignity of being bound limb to limb and the agony of having the arrow yanked out of his flesh. Even a selkie can faint.

When Sean recovered consciousness, he wished he had not, for he seemed to be lying in a pile of slushy cold water in a dank-smelling and dark place. His enhanced selkie vision told him that he was alone with some bundles and crates, in a tent made of badly cured skins; the air stank of that, as well as of the mold of continued damp. He had been pegged down, and the wound in his haunch ached.

Continuing the transformation to human would not be useful, Sean realized, for his limbs as a seal were thinner and more graceful. The bindings would be tighter on human wrists and ankles. He wallowed in the water beneath him, trying to wet himself enough to encourage the full transformation to seal, despite his wound, but it was useless. The melted slush was too shallow and he remained half-transformed, with his lower legs and his arms those of a man, while most of him remained seal.

Exterior sounds began to filter through to his awakened senses. He could smell fire, a big one, and had a horrible premonition of what a big fire might mean for a captured ”monster.” He could hear sounds of quite a few people moving about without much energy, and two male voices, which seemed to punctuate the muted noises of the others with orders, too m.u.f.fled for him to understand.

It was while he was trying to decipher the noise into conversations and understand the orders that he heard other small noises and then felt something sawing at the bindings of his feet.

”I'm cutting you free, monster,” a frightened whisper told him above the sawing. ”Coaxtl said I must free you. That you are not a true monster but a proper creature, and you can save me. Coaxtl was my friend and kind to me. They are not kind to me here. There was a small hiccup and sob, and suddenly the efforts of the frightened whisperer were rewarded and the thong parted. Fumbling fingers unwrapped the rest of the wet leather from Sean-Selkie's feet. ”Please don't eat me, monster. I must help you.”

I won't eat you, little one, Sean said, for if she had been talking to Coaxtl, whom he had now identified as the clouded leopard that had saved him, she would hear him speak. I am grateful to Coaxtl. I am also no monster who harms those who rescue him.

”Shepherd Howling says they are going to roast you in the fire.” Another piteous sob broke from the child's lips as she snaked herself along his length to his hands. ”And Dr. Luzon is trying to talk him into surrendering you for scientific study. I think that means cutting you up. Dr. Luzon said he would adopt me, but instead, he's given me over to the Shepherd Howling. When Dr. Luzon is gone, I will be punished and then I will be married. If Shepherd Howling prevails, you may be my wedding supper. I would hate to see you suffer. Coaxtl says that if you die, other monsters will avenge you, and the flock would suffer. I know life is supposed to be suffering, but we suffer very much already and I think it is enough. More would be too much.”

Enough is too much, Sean-Selkie said, trying to a.s.sist her sawing efforts by holding his bound wrists as far apart as possible to strain the leather thong. She had to be using the dullest knife in the world to take so long at her job, but he blessed her arrival and her attempts at rescue.

The wrist thong snapped and he inadvertently slapped her face. She gave a little gasp but no more than that, and it occurred to Sean that she was accustomed to blows. The thought infuriated him.

My apologies, little one, for my clumsiness in striking the one who frees.

'No apologies are needed for one so unworthy as I, for I am sworn by Coaxtl to rescue you.”

The dominant male voices were getting loud, and there seemed to be more noise outside the tent.

We must leave.

”This way.” She scrambled backward with a speed he was unable to emulate, stiff and sore as he was, with the wound in his haunch hurting even more. But the threat of discovery was a great spur, and blocking the pain in his leg, Sean-Selkie reached the place where she had entered the tent. But his rescuer was a good deal smaller than he. Frantically digging with his hands, he managed to make a large enough opening in the slush to allow him to pa.s.s under the edge of the tent. Then, carefully, he reached back inside and, as well as he could, scooped the slush back over the hole.

”Coaxtl waits,” the girl said, and rising to a crouch. beckoned him to follow.

Are there man clothes nearby? The arrow wound will not let me run as quickly as I should.