Part 18 (1/2)

”Oh, have we?”

Satok gestured for the girl to back out of the way to let Torkel enter.

The shuttle was in no better condition inside, but the moment Torkel saw the crates of varied shapes and colors netted safely away from the piloting area, he ignored everything else. He had studied just enough geology to be able to recognize the variety of ores known to be available on Petaybee, even if none had actually been found here. He touched greeny copper-bearing rock, grayish tin, copper-red-orange germanium; he saw the gold vein through rock, and even emeralds embedded in clay.

”I can't deny you've found a variety of very interesting items, Satok,” he said with a nonchalance that was far from the exultant surge that he was experiencing at the sight of what they had spent years trying to locate on this ice ball.

”Small as this cargo is . . .”

”This cargo's a very small portion of what's easily available-if you know where and how to look for it.”

”And you do?” Torkel challenged him.

Satok contented himself with a smug smile. ”I can show you enough lode-bearing sites to make your eyes bug out.”

Torkel jerked his head at the girl, wondering if Satok should be so blatant. Satok merely shrugged. Then his expression changed so abruptly that Torkel drew back in surprise; as Satok was raising a weapon, Torkel was already reaching for his own side arm, but Satok was not shooting at him. He was aiming out the shuttle door at small darting orange figures, and firing until the clip was empty.

”Hate them b.l.o.o.d.y orange mothers!” His face was a rictus of an intense hatred. He calmly slammed another magazine into the hand weapon, and then gave a surprised exclamation. ”What the . . .”

Torkel looked around to see the slatternly girl racing toward the cover of the trees, her sobs trailing back like the sounds of a lost soul, a tail protruding from one side of her body. But there were no corpses of orange cats on the ground-and that surprised Torkel as much as it did Satok.

”Frag it, I can't have missed!” Satok was shouting as he stared about. He jumped to the ground to peer under the shuttle's slanting prow.

”Forget them, Satok. They're unimportant.”

”Yeah?” Satok snarled. His loss of poise gave Torkel a chance to seize control of the situation.

”Yeah! I want to see more of this sort of stuff,” he told Satok. ”And I want to see it as fast as you can get me to these mother lodes you rave about. But, first, I've got to go back to the village for a moment . . .” And Torkel cursed the necessity. He pegged Satok as an opportunist and unreliable. But if he'd come to find Torkel Fiske, he must also know that Torkel was the best officer at s.p.a.ceBase to deal with.

”Yeah, yeah, I guess so. But do we have a deal?” The man's eyes glittered with greedy antic.i.p.ation.

Torkel a.s.sumed a casual pose. ”That depends on how accessible this ore is.”

”Far more accessible than you've any idea, Captain dear,” Satok replied with the oily smile Torkel would have liked to wipe off his face.

''If that's the case, you may be sure that Intergal will be appreciative.'

”As always?” The sneer was back as Satok leaned against the door frame.

”Why don't you accompany me to town?” Torkel began, adding quickly when he saw the apprehension flash in Satok's eyes, ”There's woods enough to hide you from prying eyes while I make my farewells . . . And there's no one to hear us talk out here.” He gestured at the open clearing, the forests deserted even by small animals after the arrival of the shuttle.

Satok punched the b.u.t.ton to close the shuttle door and gestured ironically for Torkel to lead the way.

During their walk, Satok mentioned that there were sixteen different locations where ore had been collected, claiming that all the deposits were extremely rich and, furthermore, were so accessible that the company had simply over looked them time and time again. The man wouldn't be more specific, but the hold full of ore was proof in itself.

Torkel was both delighted and infuriated. If the deposits had all been there, and so accessible, why had the best geological teams of Intergal failed where this miserable excuse for a man succeeded?

He left Satok on the edge of the village while he went on, resuming his attempt to brush the mud off his clothing as he walked. This time Torkel took the boardwalks, which were noticeably empty of pedestrians, and the long way around to Aigur's house. The d.a.m.ned cats were back, he noticed. As well he'd left Satok screened from the village and the tempting display of orange cats, or the man's hatred of the beasts might have over come any sense he had.

Torkel noticed a mud sc.r.a.per on the first step of the house and dutifully used it on his shoes. He heard some odd scurryings inside the house, and it seemed to him that he also heard a faint hissing over head. Too late now. He rapped on the door: courtesy was always appreciated.

When the door opened to him, he wasn't so sure about that from the stony looks he received.

”I'm extremely sorry, Marmion, but an emergency's come up and the shuttle has come to collect me,” he said with a disarming smile. ”I really hate to abandon you like this.” He turned to Aisling, and only then noticed that Marmion and the large woman were the only two in the place.

”Oh dear,” Marmion said, ”I had hoped to have longer . . .”

”I don't see why you can't, dear lady,” Torkel said, smiling at Aisling. ”Is it possible Sinead could guide Madame Algemeine back to s.p.a.ceBase, or would it upset her schedule too much?”

”Oh, and isn't it a shame, with you in a hurry, and Sinead not here to ask, but sure I couldn't speak for her and me, I'm hopeless in the out-of-doors,” Aisling said, gus.h.i.+ly, twitching her fingers through the fabric of her voluminous dress. ”She won't be that long, and you've hardly had a chance to finish your coffee. Let me just heat it up a bit for you.” She had already taken the cup and was lifting the kettle lid to check the water. ”Ah, and that will be more pleasant to drink . . .”

”Really-” Torkel held up his hand, trying to forestall the courtesy. ”I absolutely must return immediately to the shuttle and-”

”Good heavens, Torkel, did you fall in the mud?” Marmion asked. ”Is there a brush about, Aisling?” She'd taken up a kitchen towel and was advancing on him. ”A stiff one, so we can get the rest of this off. You don't want to ruin your reputation by appearing back at s.p.a.ceBase looking like something a cat dragged in, do you, Torkel?”

Torkel tried to rea.s.sure her that he could change the moment he returned, and anyway, it had dried out and wasn't a problem, but this did not suit Marmion de Revers Algemeine. Controlling his temper, Torkel was forced to submit to their ministrations. He hoped that Satok didn't take it into his head to disappear.

It took a long time to get him neat enough for Marmion's satisfaction, and by that time Sinead had returned from her errand immediately, she agreed that she and Aisling had better return to Kilcoole and could certainly guide Marmion back to the s.p.a.ceBase.

Torkel was nearly quivering with rage and frustration by the time he was allowed to leave. As if to deliberately delay him further, Marmion thought of a message she'd better send to keep others from worrying about her. It took time to find paper and a stub of a pencil Aigur used for making pattern drawings. but in the end, with the note in his cleanly brushed pocket, he was allowed to leave.

”Where the frag have you been?” Satok demanded. ”I didn't expect you to take the rest of the day to get back to me.” His hirsute face turned even slyer than before. ”You didn't make some private deal for yourself in there with the company on a private comm unit, did you?”

”Don't be stupid,” Torkel snapped, striking out toward the clearing and the shuttle. They walked in tense silence for the twenty minutes or so it took to reach the shuttle. Torkel banged the Open b.u.t.ton, then swung into the shuttle and took the pa.s.senger seat while Satok closed the door and a.s.sumed the pilot's place. They took off and headed northward.

Back in Aigur's cabin, Marmion looked sadly down at the limp body of the orange cat. Her throat was tight; she really wanted to weep at the sight of the beautiful intelligent little animal laid low by such a savage attack. A track-cat was gently licking the graze wound across the smaller creature's spine. She and Aisling had s.h.i.+elded the cats from Torkel's view by hiding them behind the covered loom frame, but now the big cat tended its smaller cousin while the girl who had first brought it to Aigur's house looked on agitatedly.

”Can't we do more for the poor thing?” she asked, wringing hands covered with rock dust and bleeding from sc.r.a.pes and scratches.

”Now, now, the cat's already getting the best treatment possible, really, Luka,” Sinead told her. Sinead's hands, like Aigur's, were covered with dust, sc.r.a.pes, and bruises. She'd had to keep them in her pocket while Torkel was present. ”Takes a lot to kill one of these cats, and the others all escaped without injury.”

”But will this one be all right?” Luka sobbed. ”Satok killed all there were in McGee's Pa.s.s, you know.”

”We'll know if the spine has been damaged when it regains consciousness, but I don't think Patchog would be cleansing the wound if he didn't think the cat had a chance.”

Marmion watched the exchange with interest. Shortly after Torkel had left to investigate the arrival of the shuttle, Luka had arrived, bearing the cat's limp body in her arms and crying. Entrusting the cat to Aisling's tender ministrations, she had turned away from Marmion to whisper urgently with Sinead and Aigur.

Immediately Sinead had turned to Marmion. ”There's something we have to do now. I can't tell you what or why but Aisling will stay with you and help you, if you'll agree to detain Fiske and any guest he might have with him when he returns for as long as you possibly can.”

”But why can't you tell me?” Marmion had asked, a little offended.

Sinead gave her a warning look, which told Marmion enough right there. This was not something that they didn't want her to know, but something that, for the sake of her position, she should not want to know. She had nodded agreement and quickly helped Aisling conceal the cats as the other women disappeared into the village.

Now Torkel and his companion had gone, leaving Luka, who had been weeping for many reasons, only one of them the injury to the cat. She seemed ashamed and frightened, chagrined and relieved, and wept with all of these emotions, stopping finally as her tears fell on Marmion's soothing hand. She looked at that elegant hand on her filthy, torn dress and then up at the kindliness in the beautiful face.

She looked to Sinead and the others. Sinead, searching Marmion's face, nodded sharply.

”All right, ma'am, I'll tell you now,” Luka said. A sly smile curved her mouth until the recently cut lip made her wince. She snuffled, wiped her nose on the back of her hand, and then began to explain what facts she knew, repeating, evidently verbatim, conversations she had overheard.

She spoke of a man who had been one of the out casts of Petaybee, who had never known what even Marmie had experienced in the cave, who had joined the company after turning against his own planet, and joined pirates after turning against the company, as well. Luka herself had been dazzled by him when he first came to McGee's Pa.s.s, claiming he was there to help them over the grief following their great tragedy. ”That was before I knew he was after causin' it himself, ma'am. He as much as killed the McConachies he did, and convinced us all, the devil, that the planet had turned against us. All the time he was takin' from the sacred place, though I didn't know how or why until I was well away from there, I swear I didn't. When I started gettin' suspicious and would have returned to my own people, he gave me to one of his b.l.o.o.d.y accomplices, as if I was a sack of beans, and that man told all in the village that I my own self was a reject, one Petaybee cast out and made mad. All the time they were takin' stuff out of the planet, and I learned that they was killin' it in bits, so that it couldn't harm them when they took from it. But I heard him say that when the little girl from Kilcoole came and he was found out, that now was the time to sell out to the company, and he brought everything to show yer man the captain. So I got the notion, even then, that maybe when the captain looked, what was in the shuttle wouldn't be of any interest to him, but would have changed to common rock. Sinead and Aigur here helped me, as did others in this town. But I fear we were too late, for the captain already saw the real stuff.”