Part 20 (1/2)
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 Pa.s.s.”
Matthew needed to hear no more. McGee's Pa.s.s was on the way back to s.p.a.ceBase from Harrison's Fjord, and a break from his present company would be most welcome.
”Take us directly to McGee's Pa.s.s, pilot,” he ordered, and the man gave him a thumbs-up signal and headed up the coast.
As they approached the pa.s.s. Matthew saw that the village was built on an incline, gradually scaling the foothills leading up to the pa.s.s itself.
”Well, for frag's sake!” The pilot cursed as he flew beyond the village over a field heavily over grown 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 fragging helipad?”
”Set it down anywhere, man!” Matthew commanded. ”The plants'll cus.h.i.+on 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, crus.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sist 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?”
”He was a wicked man, sir. Tryin' to make us think the planet wanted one thing when it wanted the other.”
”I'd very much like to talk to you about that, son. Please get us out of here.” Matthew, despite the stings, turned on the force of his not inconsiderable charisma.
The boy shrugged and disappeared. Matthew and Braddock shoved Shepherd Howling back and sat in the copter while a crew of villagers arrived with various stones and pieces of board to make a path for them. Matthew was somewhat surprised that they hadn't brought machetes or sickles to hack the weeds down. Before he could ask about that, the boy ran across the stones and grabbed him by the arm.
”You'd best hurry, sir, or the coo-brambles will be a-growin' over these, too, like.”
”You will be rewarded by the company, my son,” Shepherd Howling said, pus.h.i.+ng Matthew aside to sprint over the stones with the agility of a mountain goat. The speed with which he took advantage of the temporary path and his nimbleness in avoiding questing bramble tendrils caused Matthew to re-evaluate the man's degree of insanity.
Matthew followed quickly, Braddock somewhat more reluctantly. The pilot opted to remain with his s.h.i.+p.
With the boy leading them, Shepherd Howling on his heels, and Matthew followed more slowly by Braddock, they reached the nearest of the hovels. There they were joined by a man and woman and a pack of whooping children. The rest of the village crowded in after them.
Shepherd Howling slowed to hover noisomely by Matthew. ”This is possibly a wholesome place, Brother Luzon. None of the orange minions of the underworld one sees in many of the heathen towns are visible. And nowhere did I see the monster's yawning maw waiting to be fed by the ignorance of the unenlightened.”
”That is good news,” Matthew said tersely, and turned to their adolescent guide. He was far more interested in what the villagers had to say.
”Now, my boy, you must explain something to me, for I am a bit confused. I was supposed to meet Captain Fiske and the shanachie of this village here. Now you tell me you've banished the shanachie. Being a stranger to this planet, but one very interested in your customs, have I indeed been brought to McGee's Pa.s.s?”
”That's where you are, sir,” said the woman of the house, undoubtedly the boy's mother, pus.h.i.+ng herself to the front. ”And the best way to explain, sir, is by singing you the song we made.”
Groaning inwardly at the prospect of another of the Petaybean songs, Matthew arranged his features in an engaging and interested smile.
”We sing it together,” explained the man who seemed to be the woman's husband and the boy's father. ”Because it happened to us all.”
”We were all duped, he means,” the boy said.
A 1ittle girl said, ”All but Krisuk. He wasn't fooled.”
”Please sing,” Matthew said, trying to cut to the performance if he had to hear it to learn what they were talking about.
”You start, Krisuk,” the mother said.
The boy stood stock-still, arms at his sides, not a foot from Matthew, and began to chant in an eerie singsong style: ”One day the roof of the world fell It killed our friends, our cousins It killed the heir to its wisdom For days we dug, too numb to cry.
Our world had ended.
Aijija!”
The other villagers joined in, some crying loudly, some mumbling, all reciting the nonsense words at the end of the verses as if they were expletives.
”A stranger came among us to dig He came among us, he said, to teach Sure he was.
Strong he was.
He knew what to do.
He knew where to dig.