"We'll have to locate a working unit," he told Bunny.

"Wait. Maybe-shouldn't we do something to the shuttle, maybe? Disable it? So they can't get away with this?" She sounded angry now, which put more color in her face.

"Buns,garito!" Diego said, throwing up his arms in a dramatic gesture. "They're on a shipping deck. There's plenty of other vehicles here they could use. We've just got to keep them from breaching the security of other levels. Or whatever they're on this station to do. You coming?" "Sure," she said, but the hatch refused to reopen.

"The last time I saw them, they were watching the collies bring in a derelict," Millard told Marmion.

"Yes," Sally said, "that's right. But they were told they'd have to wait for Charmion and Bailey."

"Right," Yana said drolly. "And kids always do as they're told, don't they? Look, never mind. They're my responsibility. Just tell me how to get to the repair bay."

"I'll show you, Yana," Marmion said. "I'm sure they're fine. Sally, go put in a page for them, will you, dear? And Millard, if you would let Faber and the others know to meet us in my salon in three-quarters of an hour, that would expedite matters considerably."

Millard looked dubious and started to say something, but just then Macci strode up to them, looking less languid than Yana had ever seen him before. He visibly relaxed when he saw her, as if he'd been searching for her and her alone.

"Macci, dear, I don't suppose you've seen the youngsters, Diego and Bunny, around anywhere, have you?" Marmie asked.

"As a matter of fact, I have, entering Bay Sixteen."

"Which one would that be?" Marmie asked.

"It would be my pleasure to escort you there."

Millard still looked anxious, but Marmion waved him away. "How considerate of you, Macci, but then you always are, and you're the perfect escort. Millard, you can then go ahead and get the meeting arranged for me, will you? Thanks."

Yana was treated to a view of Macci's splendid back and the smiles of encouragement he tossed over his shoulder as he led them down the corridors. They passed a number of people in the first few levels of their descent. On reaching the docking area, Macci led them on a twisting, turning route until they found themselves in a long silvery tunnel, the kind of passage that always reminded Yana of being in the guts of a large worm. At the far end of the tunnel, several figures approached clad in white helmeted suits of the type one wore for making ship's repairs or effecting an exterior ship-to-station link.

"Now, there hasn't been a leak anywhere, has there?" Marmion asked, surprised.

"Oh, we'd've been denied access to this area if there was, but I'll just check it out, ladies," Macci said, and sprinted athletically toward the men. Marmie and Yana increased their strides so they were not far behind him.

Yana and Marmion could hear him speaking, though not what he said. Then, suddenly, he crumpled to the floor. The men stepped over him, blocking him from the women's view. The leading figure was holding a weapon pointed at Marmie and Yana. Instantly Yana flung herself into Marmie, knocking her to the floor. She heard no projectile zinging toward them, no snake's-strike hiss of laser, only a sort of slow whine. She looked up, her nose filling with a sweet perfumy fragrance. A pink cloud blossomed between her and the men, obscuring them and enveloping her and Marmie.

"Shit," she said, remembering to hold her breath and wondering what she could do to stop being gassed again. That's when she remembered the alarm Marmion had given her. She got her fingers to the buttons and pressed what she hoped would be the right ones before she lost consciousness. Her last thought was: Not some kind of fraggin' gas again.

Kilcoole

Sinead didn't worry about making her "guests" comfortable.

"They can bed down with the dogs," she told Aisling. "Maybe if they have close acquaintance with some animals, they'll acquire a little more respect for them."

"Now, alannah..." Aisling's soft reproof carried out of the blanket chest from which she was busily flinging bright woolly throws onto the bed. "They're offworlders, and freeze-up has begun. Even if they were poachin', sure it won't look good if they freeze to death their first night here. What are you cookin'?" Aisling was always suspicious when Sinead cooked. Aisling Senungatuk was a very good cook, but Sinead's repertoire was limited to spitted small game over a campfire. And that she was likely to get half-done if she was too hungry, or incinerate if she became preoccupied. "Fox," she said.

"Fox?"

"They killed it, they're gonna eat it."

"But nobody eats fox," Aisling said.

"Not as a rule. But they don't need to know that."

"At least let me add a few spices."

"Not a one," Sinead said with an evil grin.

"Well, take them out a few of these blankets. They'll need "em."

"What? With all those warm pooches around? Nah, I don't think so."

"Sinead..." Aisling let her voice take on the tone her partner would recognize as signaling impending doom.

"Oh, all right. But you worked so hard making those pretty blankets and they're gonna end up smelling like dog."

"Then you can help me wash them later. Call those men in to eat now."

"No, we'll eat out front."

"Sinead."

"There's not enough room in here, Aisling. Come on out and join us. You can give the fox-killer advice on how to sew up the pelt so it won't show the holes he made skinnin' it."

The next morning, before first light, Liam Maloney and Seamus arrived to a howled greeting from the dog team. The clamor from the dogs woke their guests, who rose painfully, stretching stiff joints and complaining of the cold. Dr. Ersol was scratching.

"If I turn out to be allergic to fleas, madame, I'll have you before the company court," he told Sinead.

"There aren't any fleas on Petaybee," Aisling told him. "Too cold. But if there were, you could've as easily got them from the fox, so don't go blaming the dogs. Sinead takes better care of them than she does herself sometimes."

"We won't be after botherin' the dogs this mornin', though, sure we won't," Sinead said in the broad brogue she put on with outworlders who annoyed her. "No snow for them, y'see. No, Mr. Maloney here and Mr. Rourke and me will be takin' the curlies. I'm afraid you fine gentlemen will need to walk." She eyed the three men Liam and Seamus had brought with them. She was not impressed, despite all the fine equipment and special clothing they were sporting.

Seamus looked at her as if she were daft. To the men he said, more jovially than anyone had addressed them since they'd arrived on Petaybee, "Ah, that girl missed her callin', sure she did. She shoulda been a general in the company corps, she's that hard."

"Them as abuses animals can do without their services, I say," Sinead defended herself.

But Liam said, "True enough, but they'll only be slowin' us down if they walk, cheechakos that they are. They can use Mother's Sidhe and Da's Oosik.

"Come to that," Aisling said, "one of 'em could use Darby. She's gentle."

"Fine then," Sinead said. "You three newcomers can take the curlies first shift. The poachers here can walk for a spell."

After rounding up the horses in question, the eight of them rode-and walked-away into the sunrise. Two hours later Sinead was forced to relent. The two poachers had suffered hard treatment at her hands the day before. Neither of the outworlders had been able to sleep well among the dogs, at first because the men feared the dogs, and later because as soon as the dogs stopped licking their visitors' faces or sniffing their behinds, they managed to steal the blankets. When the poachers began to stumble and fall more often than they walked, Sinead had two of the newcomers dismount and allowed the walkers to ride.

A short time later, they came to the first culling place she was willing to show them. She had disarmed Ersol and de Peugh of their high-tech weapons the previous day, and though she, Liam, and Seamus all carried daggers, short thrusting spears, and bows and arrows, the other three- Mooney, Clotworthy, and Minkus-had not been allowed even those.

"Frag, there must be ten or fifteen rabbits in there," Ersol said, seeing the hole where the rabbits sat or lay, waiting for them.

"Probably. There have been about that many since spring," she answered.

"So, you gonna stab 'em, or shoot 'em with your bow?" one of the others asked.

"Neither," she said. Gently she lifted one rabbit by the scruff of its neck and, avoiding the mouth, twisted its head, saying, "Thank you, little brother, for giving your life that we can live, for your flesh to feed us and your fur to keep us warm. We honor you."

"Excuse me?" Nigel Clotworthy, systems analyst, looked at his companions in a puzzled fashion.

"She was talking to the rabbit, not you, buddy," de Peugh answered.

"We gotta talk to rabbits?"

"Yeah. Hey, Sinead, baby, what if Harvey there says he doesn't want to get his neck wrung and he's not so crazy about being your earmuffs either. Do you let him go, say 'Sorry, my mistake'?"

"They're here," she said, pausing to wring another neck with an emphatic crack and murmur the same prayerful thanks before she continued her explanation to the hunters, "because they want to be killed. Rabbits tend to overproduce. These will be the sick ones, the old ones, the extra bucks or does who couldn't find a place. Rabbits are very sensitive, actually, and they get depressed if they're not wanted. They know we have a use for them, so they come here. It's like that with all the animals in the culling places, only more so with rabbits."

"What about foxes?" Ersol asked, meeting her black look steadily.

"Foxes," she said, "don't get depressed. But sometimes they do get sick, or too old. Or there's not enough food and they decide to become culls."

"Sounds unnatural to me. I mean, it's survival of the fittest and all that, but everybody wants to live, as a rule."

"Yes," she said. "As a rule. So it's sure a shame to kill something that doesn't want to die, isn't it?" Her glacial blue gaze caught and froze his.

"It's not very sporting though, is it?" observed Minkus, one of the other hunters.

"Killing is serious business," Sinead said, with a shrug. She handed him the rabbit she had just picked up. "Here, you try this. Make sure the break is clean, and say part of the thanks before you finish him so he knows you're doing it."

"Lady, I never try to hurt anything any more than it takes to do the job, but you people have gone over the top. This anthropomorphism shit is crazy. The whole universe is going to have a big belly laugh at your expense. First you try to tell us the planet is sentient, and then you want me to believe you're intimate with the psychology of bunny rabbits and foxes." Minkus snapped the rabbit's neck in anger.

First Sinead said thanks to the rabbit. Then she had words for the hunter. "You don't think we just made all this up, do you? We learned a long time ago that the animals are willing to come to these places to die as long as we are courteous and grateful for their sacrifice. But if we forget our manners, there'll be no rabbit, no moose, no caribou, bear, or fowl, and we'd better hope the vegetable crop was good in the summer because the long and the short of it is, there'll be no meat at all. It's the same with the sea creatures."

"Come on, you people have only been here a couple hundred years," de Peugh said.

"Yessir, that's right, we have," Seamus put in. "By the time we came, our ancestors back on Earth on the Inuit side had taken to outside ways and didn't listen to the animals no more. And you know what? Them animals got extinct-at least as far as men knew, for they never came near 'em no more. Except for the polar bears, that is." Seamus grinned. "They just turned the huntin' round the other way. You boys manage to snag a polar bear, I want to warn you for your own good, be real polite to the one you take or his kinfolk will take exception."

"Your turn, Seamus," Sinead said.

After there was a rabbit apiece, duly dressed and skinned, she motioned for them to move on.

"How about all your little friends in there wanting to die?" de Peugh asked.

"There are more folks in Kilcoole than just us ones," Liam said.

In two more hours, the trail led to a kidney-shaped lake, clear as crystal and full of lily pads. The curlies became restive.

"Whoa, boy," Clotworthy said, leaning forward and patting the curly's neck to reassure it.

"Darby's a mare," Liam offered.

"Girl, then. What's wrong with her?"

"They want to go swimming," Sinead said, hopping down from her mount. "And unless you want to go, too, I'd suggest you dismount and remove her tack. You others do the same." Liam and Seamus already had their saddles and bridles off.

Minkus and Mooney, who had been walking, decided to join the horses. The freeze of the previous night had cooled the water only slightly. The day had been sunny and warm after the snowfall, and the lake, like most Petaybean waterways, was partially fed by hot springs.

Sinead was hot and tired, too. She wasn't naturally cranky, but she was at a loss how to impress on these oafish offworlders the seriousness of the relationship between the species on Petaybee. She had heard in stories and songs how it had been on Earth before her great-great-grandparents left; how the animals were no different from made things, how the world was something you walked on and nothing more. Maybe it was because Petaybee was alive that the relationship between hunter and hunted was a special, privileged one; maybe it was not like that on old Earth; maybe it wasn't like that anywhere else in the universe, except...

The old songs and stories her ancestors' ancestors had handed down as curiosities long after they had any meaning in their day-to-day lives reflected that once the animals were thought of as sisters and brothers, just as they were on Petaybee; that once they talked with people even more easily than they did now. Maybe this new batch of crazies had the right idea. Maybe you had to pretend that living things were something to be worshiped, instead of doing as Petaybee and its inhabitants had always done and having a bit of friendly give-and-take. But maybe it took religious awe to get bozos like these blokes to respect anything.

She waded in after the men and horses and plunged her hands, then her head, into the lake's waters, surface diving, opening her eyes to see the swaying stems of the lilies. The curlies' feet churned up mud, but soon they, too, were swimming-curlies were good swimmers. The mud settled and she could see their hooves working away underwater. Then, as if by agreement, all six of them dived at once.

Lily roots were a great delicacy for curlies, one of their favorite foods, and she could feel their gaiety as they closed off their noses, lowered their extra eyelids, and dove like seals for the bottom, their tails streaming out behind them like mermaid's hair as their lips and teeth pried loose the lily roots. Once the roots were captured, the curlies turned snouts up, pumped with their front legs, and were back on the surface, munching their catch.

The men were all in the lake now, as well. Sinead climbed out, dried herself, and dressed. Seamus had emerged before her, and Liam followed shortly after. The curlies made three or four more dives.

"Looks like them fellas are more interested in horseplay than the curlies are," Seamus said, watching the hunters dive and splash each other and try to catch the curlies' tails.

One of them was busily trying to uproot lilies, hoping to curry favor, no doubt, Sinead thought with a wince at her own unspoken pun.

Liam said, "Their feet probably hurt and they know well enough that once they're out of there, they'll have riders back on 'em."

Seamus grinned. "Ah, Sinead, it's a cruel taskmaster you are."

"Maybe so," she said. "But I don't seem to be gettin' through to them, now do I?"

"I always thought it was simple," Liam said. "All my life, everybody I know, any time they wanted anything, just listened to what was wanted and did it and they were taken care of. It's not like it's difficult or anything. But these fellas just don't seem to think that way."

Seamus whistled for his curly, and the others automatically followed. The men playing in the water either didn't see or pretended they didn't.

"Ah, we've worried them enough, Sinead," Seamus said with a wink. "They've no guns to do great harm with now. I say we take our curlies and leave them on their own a bit."

Sinead returned his wink. "An excellent idea. Perhaps without us looking on they'll figure things out for themselves."

9

Clodagh looked over the four white-robed figures and shook her head. "I don't know what Sean thinks I'm going to do with all of you. There's only me at the house, but I don't think there's enough stretching space for all of you."

"Please, Clodagh," Sister Igneous Rock said. "We don't want to put you out. But we have learned that the Beneficence manifests itself to you in certain caverns warmed by its blessed blood and breath. We could ask for nothing better than to be allowed to live there."

The others nodded eagerly, but Clodagh shook her head. "The caves aren't living places. It's okay to take shelter there if you're caught out in the weather, of course, and it's okay for animals. Not for people."

"Forgive my ignorance, Clodagh, but why is that, would you say?" Brother Shale asked.

Clodagh shrugged. "We talk to the planet most directly in the caves. If someone's living there, it wouldn't be polite to go in and have a chat with their house. And on the other hand, how would you like someone setting up housekeeping inside your mouth?"

Sister Agate beamed. "Oh, she is so wise. They said you were wise, and you really are just as wise as they said. Isn't she wise, brothers and sisters?"

"Indeed. But might we, at least, become acquainted? Would you introduce us to the planet?"

Clodagh shrugged. "You're standing on k. But I don't see why not. Only thing is, we just had one latchkay, and there's not another one s'posed to happen till Snowdance. And a latchkay is really the best time.

But things are happenin' so fast, maybe we should have another one sooner."

"How soon is the next one?" Brother Shale asked. "Two-three months. Depending." "Oh," Sister Igneous Rock said. "But that won't do." "Why not?"

"We had hoped to come and worship and return home to spread the Word within the next month."

"Hmph," Clodagh said. "If you go that soon, you'll miss most of the winter."

"Well, yes," Brother Shale said. "It is said that the exterior temperature gets down below minus two hundred Fahrenheit, and I have rather poor circulation to endure that sort of cold."

"Never mind that," Sister Igneous Rock said staunchly. "Now, Clodagh, I appreciate your importance as the nominal high priestess of the Beneficence, but I really don't understand why we should wait for a latchkay. Brother Granite told us that significant communication had taken place quite extemporaneously when people wandered into or were taken to the caves by one of you. That is what we wish."

Clodagh said, "Okay, but I'm not any kind of priestess. I guess I better take you tonight, and we all can sleep there. This once."

"Fine," Brother Shale said. "Now then, what will the Beneficence perceive as an appropriate sacrifice?"

De Peugh was the first of the hunters to notice that something was missing. "Damn!" he said, slapping the water.

"Damn what?" Clotworthy asked, shaking the water out of his ears.

"The Great White Huntress and her native bearers have deserted us and taken the transportation!"

"Oh dear," Minkus said, "I'm afraid he's correct. I do hope she left our clothing. My winter togs came from Herod's on Nilus Two and they were hideously expensive." He flung this last bit back over his bony white shoulder while wading to shore. "Ah!" he said, once there. "It's all right, chaps! Our kit is all accounted for."

"Great," Ersol said. "So it'll take us much longer to freeze to death this way." A fat black cloud chose that moment to cross the path of the low-hanging sun, and a teasing wind chased wavelets up to wet the back of his legs as he danced around on the sharp stones scattered along the shore.

The first one to finish dressing was Mooney, who, looking to the far side of the lake, pointed and said, "She didn't take all the horses with her! Look, there's one of them over there!"

"First one to catch it gets to ride!" Clotworthy said, and started running. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite finished putting on his boots, and tripped and fell facedown in the shallows, wetting his water-resistant parka and muddying and scratching his face.

Ersol, a more experienced hunter, proceeded calmly into the lumpy undergrowth sprouting beneath the sparse, skinny trees.

"I see it," he hissed back to the others, and stalked it. Meanwhile, Clotworthy stood and picked up a bow and arrow; he was followed by Minkus, brandishing a spear, and Mooney, who held the dagger in his teeth so he would have both hands free to grab the curly's mane if necessary. De Peugh took the time to hoist the quiver of arrows onto his shoulder and test the bowstring before following his fellows. He also, prudently, stuck a rabbit in one of the forty-seven capacious pockets of his hunting vest.

The curly looked as if it was amenable to being caught, standing quietly, drinking from the lake, until Ersol was almost within touching distance of it. Then it lifted its head and looked at him.

"Holy horseshit, will you look at that!" he said.

The curly-coat shook its shaggy head at him, its newly sharpened single horn glinting, and trotted off a safe distance. It blinked at him, once.

"It's a fraggin' unicorn!" Ersol called back to the others.

"Well, don't just stare at it, shoot it!" de Peugh growled, coming up behind him and drawing his own bow. "You can bet your retirement fund those things don't get depressed and go lay in holes waiting to die."

"No one," Minkus said, "will ever believe this."

"Not unless we take the head back with us." De Peugh let his arrow fly.

The arrow was just a bit behind the animal, which galloped off, not in fear, it seemed to Minkus, but as if it had suddenly thought of a previous appointment.

"Missed!" Ersol said, and sent his arrow flying, too.

They were not stupid men, on the whole, and it didn't take them too long to decide that they hadn't a prayer of catching the heretofore mythical creature, so they stopped chasing it.

Thoroughly winded and disgusted, they turned back to where they had left the rest of their winter gear and the rabbits Sinead had left behind for them.

Something new had been added. What looked like an enormous calico housecat, the base of its tail thin, the tip bushy, was licking the last of the last rabbit from its mouth. Behind it lurked the curly-corn, quite as if, Minkus thought, the two beasts were conspiring against the hunting party.

Minkus was inclined to remonstrate with the beasts, but de Peugh had worked his way into a leadership position and hushed the lot of them with a finger to his lips.

The cat sauntered toward the curly-corn, and the two of them ambled off into the woods. With a stealthy wiggle of his fingers, de Peugh motioned the others to follow.

Together they crept after the elusive beasts as quietly as five men unaccustomed to Petaybean ground cover could creep. The animals managed to stay just out of range, but did not seem to notice their arrows.

"You can tell nothing here is used to being hunted," Ersol whispered. "They aren't taking anything fired in their direction personally."

With another gesture from de Peugh, the men spread out and came toward the animals from five different angles. This time, when Ersol fired his arrow, it glanced off the flank of the curly-corn, which whinnied and began to run. The cat chased it, as if in a game. The men broke into a run, too.

Suddenly the curly-corn reared, his chest looming over Minkus. Now was the time to use the spear-or never. But the cat evaded Mooney's dagger by springing straight across the shaft of Minkus's spear, knocking it aside.

Minkus, who fancied himself no mean hand at springing himself, threw himself at the cat at precisely the same time as the other four men. The cat's fur brushed his hands as his feet landed, tangling with eight other feet, and the lot of them plunged through the underbrush and down, down, bruisingly down into a deep, dark hole.

Landing on that part of himself best suited for abrupt seating, Minkus was showered with debris from above. Looking up, he saw the faces of the cat, its teeth bared in a wide grin, and the curly-corn, staring down at himself and his companions. Perhaps there was something to this anthropomorphism after all, he thought. He could have sworn that both animals wore expressions of profound satisfaction.

"I think I broke my jaw," Mooney mumbled. Or that was what Minkus understood him to say. Mooney's actual statement was obscured by what seemed to be the echo of his last word, distorted into "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."

After sending Liam and Seamus on to the other culling places, Sinead and the extra curlies turned back to where she'd last seen the cheechakos.

It had started snowing in the time they took to make their plans, and a light coating of snow masked the lakeshore and its surroundings. She missed the spot at first, for there was no longer any clothing or weapons or any remains of the dead rabbits.

"I know I left 'em around here somewhere," she said, dismounting and looking for signs that would enable her to start tracking the men. Brushing aside some of the snow, she uncovered the vestiges of sets of tracks, two sets leading away from the site and one leading back. There was also one clear set of the pawprints of a track-sized cat. She began calling, but her cries were not answered, and after trying to tell one broken bush from another, she gave up and decided to find Liam and Seamus instead and send Seamus back to Kilcoole for help while she and Liam, the best tracker of the three of them, continued to search.

Clodagh was beginning to realize why religious congregations were sometimes called "flocks." The ones following her to the hot springs had less sense than sheep and were noisier than magpies.

They insisted on walking to the hot-springs cave barefoot, even though she warned them about the coo-berry brambles that still guarded the cave entrance from the unwary and uninvited. The coo-brambles had settled back into being ordinary weeds again, their extraordinary growth curtailed once the brambles had penetrated and removed all of the Petraseal and most of the people who had painted the sealant in four of the planet's communion caves. The brambles had been cut back, poisoned, and burned, but there was still a thriving growth at the hot springs. You just had to know how to avoid it.

Clodagh did avoid it. But the newcomers insisted on walking straight through the brambles, and she had an awful time getting them loose again, finally having to resort to the little mist bottle of coo-repellent she had thankfully remembered to carry with her.

Then the newcomers wanted to enter the cave by prostrating themselves and crawling in like worms, but Clodagh pointed out that since the entrance was through the waterfall, they could drown that way, and really, truly, the planet didn't care a bit how they came in as long as they didn't have any Petraseal with them.

They did insist on groveling and kissing the cave floor the moment they entered, though.

After genuflecting six or seven times, Sister Igneous Rock threw her outstretched arms into the air and cried, "Speak to us, O Beneficence.

All they got was an echo, not of the last word, but of the O. It sounded like, "No, no, no..."

"Tell us what you would have us do! How can we dedicate our miserable lives to your service? How can we redeem the error of humankind to your greater glory? How can we demonstrate that, though unworthy, we are more than willing to do your bidding? How can we convince you to show us your will?"

"How?" echoed the others. "Tell us how."

Clodagh sighed. They could start by shutting up. Even if it had something to say today, which it apparently didn't, not even the planet could get a word in edgewise the way these folks carried on.

After a time, they did stop babbling. Clodagh had half fallen asleep by then.

Lazily, she roused herself. "You all done now?"

But just then, Brother Schist collapsed back down to his knees and yelled, "Halleluja! I just heard voices!"

"What? Where? Why should it talk to you and not to the rest of us? What did it reveal to you?" cried Sister Agate.

"It said, 'Fraggitall, these things have thorns.' "

"Uh huh," Clodagh said, and stepped over them to the cave's entrance, sliding between the waterfall and the cliff face.

Portia Porter-Pendergrass and Bill Guthrie were tangling themselves to shreds in coo-brambles.

Clodagh took her spray-mist bottle from her apron pocket, spritzed her way to them, and tried to help.

"Get away from me!" Portia shrieked. "Guthrie, what kind of a man are you? Make this-this witch-let go of me!"

"I thought you came to talk to me," Clodagh said, genuinely puzzled. "Sean said you folks wanted to."

"Pay no attention to her, Dama," Bill Guthrie said. "She's hysterical. She became addicted to one of her company's own tranquilizers-sad case, really. I wanted to talk to you about the pharmaceutical potential of some of the materia medica you have discovered on your charming planet, but Portia thought we should just begin taking samples. Unfortunately, the samples seem to have taken us."

"Sure looks that way," Clodagh said. "Dama, if you just stand up and pick off the ones stuck to your clothes, I think you're free now. It's startin' to snow anyway. Coo-brambles shrink when it snows. Come on over to the spring and let's wash and treat those scratches. You got some pretty deep ones."

The easiest place to give the distraught Portia and Guthrie a dry, bramble-free place to sit while washing and treating their wounds was the inside of the cave. The "rock flock," as Clodagh was beginning to think of the white-robed pilgrims, eagerly assisted in "ministering" as they called it.

"What did you want samples of anyway?" Clodagh asked Portia Porter-Pendergrass, just to distract her from screeching in the ear of her rescuers whenever Clodagh daubed a little sting-bush leaf on a scratch.

"That stuff you're putting on me now, for starters," she said. Her face and hands were a mess, and one thorn had narrowly missed her left eye. Clodagh felt bad for her.

"That's okay then, alannah," she said as if to a child, being as gentle as she could with a very deep scratch on the leg. "You can have the rest of this when we're done here. You'll need it anyway to make those scratches go away."

"How about me?" Bill Guthrie asked plaintively.

"You, too," Clodagh said, patting his knee. "Just be brave and hold on till I'm finished here, and I'll gather some more for you to take home."

"And that cough medicine you gave Yanaba Maddock?" Portia asked.

"Why? You got a cough?"

"Oh, yes," she said, giving a forced hack.

"Me, too," Bill Guthrie said.

"That stuff you sprayed on the bushes," Portia began as pitifully as she could.

But she got no further, for Sister Agate threw herself between the two coo-bramble victims and Clodagh.

"Do not barken to the false words of these infidels, Mother Clodagh..."

"I told you, I'm not your mother!"

"Clodagh, she's right," Brother Shale said, taking her shoulders and attempting to pull her away from the pharmaceutical reps. "These people are out only to exploit the Beneficence. They want to strip it of its miracles and synthesize its wonders for base motives of pecuniary profit."

"They'll desecrate the Beneficence," Sister Igneous Rock howled.

"Be quiet," Clodagh said.

"You mustn't-" Sister Agate began.

"They're crazy," Bill Guthrie said, shaking off Brother Shale.

But both were drowned out by a booming echo of Clodagh's voice, rebounding through the cave: "QUIET!! QUIET! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!.. Et!.. Et... Et!... Et..."

"It spoke!" Sister Igneous Rock whispered, clasping her heart.

"That was an echo, you idiot!" Portia Porter-Pendergrass snarled.

"QUIET, IDIOT!" the echo said just once. And this time nobody spoke.

Finally, Clodagh said, "You people quit fighting and stop being so silly. You lot-" She nodded at the rock flock. "The planet isn't a Creator any more than any of you. It's part of creation-the Powers That Be at Intergal even helped make it how it is now, though they only woke it up, they didn't create its life."

"But how do you know, Clodagh?" Brother Agate asked. "You are but a mere mortal, though favored..."

"I know 'cause the planet told me so, of course," she said. "And if you want it to tell you anything, you're gonna have to get rid of some of your funny ideas long enough to make room for what it's got to say. As for you folks," she added, nodding to Portia and Bill, "you can have any medicine you need and welcome to it."

"They'll Analyze it," Sister Agate moaned.

"They'll Synthesize it," Brother Shale groaned.

"So?" Clodagh asked. "If there's sick folks needing medicine and they can make up stuff like we got here to cure them, that's a good thing."

"You don't understand!" Sister Igneous Rock wailed. "We've seen it happen before on other worlds! Our own worlds! We even aided in the desecration, may the Beneficence forgive us, before we realized what we had wrought and saw the light. Brother Shale was a geologist for the intergalactic energy rapists, and I myself engineered plants with which they could steal the treasures of other worlds. Even when I learned there were Better Ways I could not convince my masters. They want only to destroy. Oh, believe me, Clodagh, for I have seen how they work. We have all seen it. They'll build factories here and pollute the waters, clog the voice of the Bene-the planet, they'll strip it bare of its healing plants and minerals!"

"It'd just be a small factory," Bill Guthrie said, holding up his thumb and forefinger with an inch spread between them to show how small the factory would be.

"And if we took all of the mature plants, well, they're plants, they'll grow back, right? We call it a renewable resource, Clodagh," Portia said, as if she were talking to someone dumb enough to go out in midwinter without a coat on. "It's a growing thing."

"So's your skin," Clodagh said, shaking her head. "But if the coo-brambles stripped it all off you, it wouldn't grow back-at least not enough fast enough to keep you alive. Petaybee's just like you. You take off its skin and it'll be back to what it was-not dead maybe, but not awake, neither."

"But, don't you see, there are real lives, human lives, being wasted for want of the cures Petaybee has to offer. You owe it to them..." As if in support of that argument, the cave began to echo with the cry, "Help! Help, please! Somebody help us."

10

Gal Three repair bay

Bunny tried to get the ship's computer to sound an alert while Diego attempted to persuade the hatch to reopen. His bracelet didn't do the job, nor did any amount of trying different button combinations on the pad located beneath a smooth metal panel. Finally, something clicked-he wasn't sure what-and the panel irised open. He heard footsteps in the corridor and looked to see where they were coming from.

"Bunny, quick, we've got to hide!" he said. "The white suits are coming back. They're carrying things. More bodies, it looks like."

"Can we run for it?"

"You can't outrun a laser."

"Diego, they've all got on the pressure suits. If they open the outer hatch while we're here, we're goners."

"That, too, although with them carrying stuff, they aren't likely to have free hands to pull the lasers on us."

"Come on, Diego. If we stand here arguing about it, we're goners for sure."

"They're too close!" he said. He saw them clearly now, the white-suited figures carrying two women-Yana and Marmie! One of the figures, a tall man, wore the helmet but no white suit. Diego was pretty sure he hadn't been with them earlier.

"Let's go," Bunny said, and pushed him out the door. They were halfway down the corridor when a cloud of sweet-smelling pink gas overtook them.

Yana awoke coughing so hard she thought for a moment her life of the last few months had been a dream and she was still in the infirmary following the Bremport massacre. She had a sickly-sweet taste in her mouth and a constriction about her chest, which, she found when she stopped coughing, was caused by another body lying across her. She reached out and her hand was full of face-smooth, unlined face and a tangle of hair.

A chorus of coughing, not as violent as her own, erupted all around her, and then Bunny's voice grumbled in a sleepy-headed childish tone, "Ouch, your finger's in my eye."

Bunny wriggled away, provoking an "ouch" in turn from someone else. "Sorry, Diego," she said. "It's a little crowded in here."

"Yana..." Marmion's voice was faintly slurred, and she, too, began coughing, but daintily. "Was that party of Ples's much better than I thought it was?"

"I don't think so, unless she uses pink perfumed gas on her guests afterward," Yana said, coughing again.

"Merde alors! Is that what it was? Where are we?"

"I don't know." Cough. "It's dark."

Then suddenly it wasn't, and a chirpy voice said, "Oh, good, our guests are awake. Tell me, none of you have any food allergies, do you? Anyone a vegetarian?"

Yana blinked fast and focused on the small port where a pert face dimpled in at them. Yana had seen hundreds of faces like that pushing everything from shampoo to specific spacecraft for flights to anywhere you cared to mention.

"What's it to ya?" Bunny asked, surprisingly pugnacious on such short notice.

"Now, honey, that's no way to be. Just because you have to be our guests for a while doesn't mean the experience has to be unpleasant. Sorry to crowd you all in like that, but we thought you'd feel reassured to find each other nearby when you woke up. I'm afraid the boys were a little careless how you landed. So, let's try again, shall we? Any food allergies?"

The tangle on the floor sorted themselves out. "I demand to know where we are and why we've been detained in this fashion," Marmion said.

"I'll be glad to explain, but really, the crew is going to be cross if they don't get their dinners on time, so could you please answer my question first?" the person at the port said with a trace of irritation.

"I would dislike causing your crew any inconvenience," Yana said in a trenchant tone. "None of us is a vegetarian but I-" She paused for a coughing fit. "-am sensitive to any sort of gas!" • "Fine, good. Wonderful. Back in a jiff," the person said, and left.

"Marmion," Yana said sotto voce, and when she had Marmion's attention in the dimly lit room, she gestured to where she had hidden her alarm. It was gone now; she'd have been surprised if it had still been there; that would have been a gross oversight on their captors' part.

Marmion gave the most imperceptible of nods and a sly smile. So, Yana thought, both of them had had a chance to send signals. Help ought to be on its way. Wherever they were.

"Macci's not here," Marmion said suddenly. "What have they done with him, do you suppose? There's just us four."

"Oh!"

Then Pert-face, as good as her word, was back. When she opened the hatch, she had two armed guards with her and the three of them stayed outside the room. The guards wore orange coveralls with no identifying patches. Pert-face wore a bodytight in green, with an aqua tunic of what appeared to be crocheted lace. Her hair was light brown, with lynxlike gray tufts at the ears and in a diamond pattern at the crown, extending into the fringe of hair accenting earnest brown eyes.

"I'm Dinah O'Neill," she introduced herself. "I represent Louchard Enterprises-"

"As what?" Yana asked.

"Oh, Public Relations, Legal, Administrative, what have you. I'm the representative. And you, I take it, must be Colonel Yanaba Maddock?"

Yana nodded but declined to shake her hand.

"And the famous Marmion de Revers Algemeine!" Dinah O'Neill said, the stars practically dancing in her eyes. "I'm thrilled to meet you."

"I wish I could say the same," Marmion said.

"Now, now, Madame Algemeine, I'm sure you've been unvoidably detained for business reasons before. Think of this little interlude as another minor delay. And these lovely youngsters must be-let's see, Diego Metaxos? Right? Right! And Buneka or Bunny-my, that really suits you -Rourke. I can't tell you how delighted I am to have you here."

"I'll bet," Yana said, coughing again.

"And where is Macci Sendal?" Marmion asked. "He was with us when we were gassed."

"Ah, yes, that glamorous one. As far as I know he's all right, but really, I felt the four of you would be crowded enough in here despite misery loving company so much."

"There's a reason for all of this nonsense?" Marmion asked, totally unamused.

"The reasons are rather complicated and really nothing you need to worry about now. You're all safe and well, and that's the important thing, isn't it? Except that poor Colonel Maddock seems to be catching cold." Yana had launched into another paroxysm.

"It's not a cold," Bunny said, wrapping her arm protectively across Yana's hunched shoulders while she coughed. "She's only just over a gas poisoning at Bremport, and you-you can't just go around indiscriminately gassing people!"

"I'm so sorry," Dinah O'Neill said. "The boss fancied a disabling laser bolt through the knees, but I suggested that gas provides less wear and tear on the cargo-I mean, the guests. I do apologize." She snapped her fingers at one of the guards, who had a tray in one hand and a four-liter bottle in the other. "Here's your dinner. Quite nourishing, I assure you. And just what the captain ordered. Enjoy!"

The guard laid these supplies on the floor and backed away.

"I have a dog named Dinah," Diego said softly to no one in particular. "She's a nice bitch!"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, youngster." There was an edge to Pert-face's bubbly tone. The door clanged shut.

Marmion lifted up the tray and peered at its contents. "Nutritional bars and some vitamin cubes."

"What was all that crap about allergies and vegetarianism then?" Diego wanted to know.

"Here, Yana," Marmion said, passing over the water bottle. "See if it'll soothe your throat."

Yana gratefully swigged a big mouthful and let it trickle down her dry throat.

"What are you doing?" she asked Bunny, who was now audibly sniffing, turning her head to smell each corner of the small room.

"Wherever we are, we're still on the space station," Bunny said.

"How ever can you arrive at that conclusion?" Marmion asked, surprised and skeptical.

"Air," Bunny said, and grinned. "I'm a good sniffer, and this is the same air that we were breathing on Gal Three. Your launch had different-smelling air. But this"-she sniffed again-"is the same as Gal Three."

"You know, she might be right," Marmion said.

"I devoutly hope she is," Yana said with an inobtrusive gesture to her bra.

Marmion considered this. "I wonder... You could be right, Bunny."

"D'you think they do have Macci next door or someplace?" Diego asked.

"You mean, could he be in this with our dear Dinah?" Marmion asked. "Really, Diego. Macci's Rothschild's, not a pirate."

"Is that who's kidnapped us? Pirates?" Bunny was torn between astonishment and dismay. Then her expression changed into a disgusted grimace. "Water! I chewed that cube, and it's one you've got to swallow. Urgh."

They finished their repast, swigging water to wash down the last of the dry bars and cubes, and then arranged themselves about the small room. They sat two on a side, facing each other, their legs meeting in the center of the small space.

"Now what?" Bunny asked in a brave voice that had only a slight tremor in it.

Yana scratched at her shoulder, in an unobtrusive gesture toward where the alarm pad had been. Surely there'd been enough time to trace their whereabouts-that is, if they were on the station, as Bunny felt they should be. And where was the unseen eye that Marmion had mentioned in her launch that would be watching out for their safety?

She started coughing again. Bunny handed over the water, but Yana couldn't stop coughing long enough to take a sip.

"Dinah? Dinah O'Neill?" Bunny cried, rising and pounding on the hatch with both fists. "The colonel needs a doctor. She's coughing blood! Damn it! Answer me!"

The hatch was hauled open so abruptly that Bunny lost her balance; then she lurched back away from the angry faces that looked in at them: the two men who had brought the "food."

"Let's see the blood," one of them demanded.

Yana was barking so hard and painfully that she was bent over her knees, trying to ease the spasms that racked her belly. She was hoping that coughing wouldn't provoke a spontaneous miscarriage. That thought made her clasp her belly protectively as the compulsive tickle kept up its irritation and she kept up her coughing.

"You see! You see!" Bunny cried, outraged. "Get her a doctor. She's no good to you dead!"

The hatch shut with a resounding clang.

"She'll be all right?" Diego asked, his voice taut. "She won't lose the baby or anything?"

Yana shook her head, denying that to him as well as to herself. And kept right on coughing, gasping for breath, her ribs aching from the exercise.

"We must be able to do something!" Bunny cried, pounding on the hatch. She had pounded twice when it opened again and a soulful face, long and aristocratic, framed with silvery hair and a well-trimmed beard, looked in briefly. He was pushed aside by Dinah O'Neill.

"What's this? What's this? Blood?"

"She can't stop coughing from all that gas you poured into us," Bunny said angrily. "Do something."

"This is Dr. Namid Mendeley," Dinah began.

"I'm a doctor of astronomy, not medicine, Ms. O'Neill," he said contritely. "But your infirmary must have some sort of linctus. Even pirates get coughs..."

"Privateer," Dinah O'Neill corrected primly. She spoke over her shoulder. "Bring the first-aid kit."

"That's for injuries-"

"Get it."

"Codeine stops the cough reflex," Diego said helpfully. "Most first-aid kits have something of that sort in them. Mild. Useful."

"What she needs is to get back to Petaybee, and Clodagh's syrup," Bunny said.

"Ah, yes," Privateer Dinah O'Neill said brightly. "Well, we can see our way clear to do that, after certain basic arrangements have been made."

"Ransom demands, you mean," Marmion said stiffly.

Dinah O'Neill twinkled at her as if she'd said something very witty. "First, we really must do something to stop that coughing, or we won't be able to get her to agree to anything."

Yana violently waved both arms, trying to indicate that despite her coughing she wasn't about to agree to anything. Then the guard returned and was thrusting the first-aid container, a sizable one, too, at Dinah, who sidestepped so that the box went to Dr. Mendeley.

"Please," Bunny said, supporting the weakening Yana against her. "Find something!"

"I'm really an astronomer, not a medical-"

"Anything!" Bunny's anguished cry was punctuated by Yana's painful barking.

"Ah, codeine!" Namid Mendeley held up a vial in triumph, and then his expression changed to one of doubt. "But how much?"

Marmion held out her hand for the vial, then looked at it. "The spray," she said authoritatively. When she had received that, she filled it and then released the drug into Yana's throat. Almost magically, it seemed to everyone in the small room, the paroxysm eased and Yana lay, exhausted, against Bunny.

"And look, an herbal linctus?" Mendeley passed that over to Marmion, who also read its label.

She broke the seal on the cap, opened the bottle, and passed it to Yana, who let the thick liquid flow into her mouth and down her throat, lining it in a soothing fashion. She recapped the bottle, clutching it to herself, her lungs heaving to reduce the oxygen debt the coughing had caused.

Dinah O'Neill clicked her fingers at Marmion, who still held the hypo-spray and the codeine vial. Marmion handed them over.

"So?" Marmion asked the privateer in a deeply significant tone. "Now what?"

"Can you walk, Colonel?" Dinah asked, peering down at Yana.

"If a walk means we can settle this nonsense sooner, I'll make it."

"Ever the valiant colonel," Dinah replied, dimpling at her. "I do admire your resolution and intrepidity."

"Thanks," Yana said, exhaling wearily. That coughing had taken a lot out of her, but she mustn't indicate just how much.

"Good. Then Megenda, the first mate, will escort you to the captain's cabin. I have other duties to attend."

"Macci?" Marmion asked, hopeful of an answer.

"Now, that would be telling, wouldn't it?" Dinah said, mildly reproving, and went off. The doctor of astronomy followed her, and then a larger figure loomed in the hatch opening.

First Mate Megenda was a tall, muscular black man who probably had ended up a pirate-privateer because he looked the part so completely. One eye was a cyber-implant that was only slightly less grotesque than an eyepatch. He had cut the sleeves out of his orange coverall and wore a striped jersey beneath it and a flowered red bandanna around his shaven skull. Really, Yana thought, grasping at any diversion, the man had been watching far too many swashbuckling holovids.

He gestured peremptorily for them to follow him, and an equally large and threatening-looking fellow, olive-green rather than black, fell in behind Diego, who was last to leave their prison. Yana managed another swig of the linctus-just the act of getting up made the tickle return to her throat-and then they were led through corridor after endless corridor, past supply locks and repair bays and what looked like weapons rooms and cybersleep facilities, storage bay after storage bay. Some of them, Yana could have sworn, they passed by more than once. They walked until her feet hurt and her cough was ceaseless, but still their captors led them on through more corridors. The captain evidently controlled business on the ship via remote most of the time, because the captain's quarters certainly appeared to be hard to reach. Most of the commands that didn't come via computer were probably relayed by the O'Neill woman and the first mate.

But the captain made the first mate look normal. The chamber into which Megenda led them was theatrical in the extreme, resembling an opulent captain's chamber from an ancient sailing vessel, with swags of rich material, hard-copy navigational charts, antique compasses and sextants and things that would be of very little use in space, plus a computer console and a few other contemporary touches disguised in what appeared to be real wooden settings.

Behind a large carved desk, the top of which was an immense star chart, sat the infamous Onidi Louchard. Yana had wondered what this pirate chieftain would be like. She'd heard that Louchard was a woman. Hard to tell. To the world, the captain appeared as an Aurelian-a six-armed, vaguely humanoid creature with a craw full of fangs that would have stretched from ear to ear had the creature had ears, and an optical slit that circled its entire cranial prominence. This was a holocover. Even if the wavy aura weren't discernible, which it was, though only slightly, an Aurelian, even an Aurelian pirate-an unlikely occupation for a peaceful sea-dweller with a language similar to that of Earth's aquatic mammals- even an Aurelian who could live outside its normal environment would have no conceivable use for the gadgetry displayed in that room.

Also, this particular Aurelian dry-environment-dwelling pirate spoke pretty good English, through some sort of distorting device.

"I had no idea you had a sense of humor, Louchard," Yana stopped coughing long enough to say.

"Enough. You will record the messages as they are written for you on these sheets. You, Madam Algemeine, will have all of your liquid credits transferred in the manner described here. In addition, you will sell your interest in the following concerns for the price given to the first buyer approaching your broker. The entire transaction, needless to say, will be kept completely confidential if you wish to remain alive, alert, articulated, and anatomically complete. These transactions will take place in time-controlled sections so that any security measures on the part of your people will be detected and you will, I guarantee, suffer for them.

"As for you, Colonel Maddock, in addition to the demands we list there, I suggest that you have your husband send along some of the famous Petaybean cough syrup that cured you the first time. Signing over the patent to the party we suggest, of course. I warn you that any resistance or reluctance on your part will result in unfortunate consequences for the young people accompanying you, as well as for yourself. It will also prolong your stay with us, and we are not equipped with any provisions for delivering babies. I trust when you record your messages, you ladies will endeavor to sound sincere and very, very convincing... Begin."

11

Kilcoole

Sean Shongili was awakened by Adak, who had just received word via Johnny Greene that stragglers from the shuttle containing the first group of hunters showed up in Harrison's Fjord, suffering from exposure and demanding to make contact with their attorneys. He was still sorting that out when Una Monaghan located him in Clodagh's cabin, dragged him down the road to Yana's, and pointed at the comm link. Yana's voice transmission was staticky, but the words appearing on the screen were unmistakable. "We've been kidnapped, Sean-me, Marmion, Bunny, and Diego- and this is what the ransom is," she began as his knees, suddenly unable to support him, folded and his butt hit the seat of the chair. "They don't intend to let us go until the ransom's all paid." "But we don't have any credit!" Sean began in protest. "We're apparently in possession of a valuable planet-" Yana began coughing. "Yana? Are you all right?" "She is not all right," another voice said. "She coughs much and bloodily and-" The transmission was abruptly cut off. Sean stared at the comm unit, then tapped it, thinking the connection had merely been interrupted. But after a few more moments of useless tinkering, he had to admit that wasn't the case. "And the ransom is Petaybee?" And just how did the kidnappers expect him to hand over a planet? A planet that certainly wasn't his to give!

"Sean?" Una had popped her head around the door.

"Una! Get Johnny and find out how we can reestablish contact with the parties who've kidnapped Yana, our baby, Bunny and Diego, and Madame Algemeine!"

"Kidnapped?" Una's voice broke. "Johnny! Yes, I'll get Johnny. He'll know."

Johnny didn't, but he opened a channel to the space station and Dr. Whittaker Fiske. Whit, recovering nobly and quickly from the shock of the news, said that he'd find out or die trying.

Sean was unable to attend to any of even the most pressing duties. Una and the other offworlders who were being assigned to useful services for the benefit of the emerging Petaybean government carried on as best they could. Though the true nature of the problem was not mentioned to anyone but Johnny Greene, very shortly everyone in Kilcoole knew that Yana, Bunny, Diego, and Marmion had been kidnapped.

Nanook crept in to occupy a corner, saying nothing but keeping his amber eyes softly on Sean. Coaxtl, minus 'Cita, arrived shortly and stationed herself on the opposite side. Orange cats appeared briefly in the doorway and disappeared as Sean sat and stared at the comm link, willing it to work and provide good news. Good news only!

In his head thoughts went round and round on a mental carousel: Yana and his unborn child were kidnapped; Bunny, Diego, and Marmion, too. By whom? For what reason? He had no right to give a planet as security! Not to anyone! Only the planet could say what it would or wouldn't do. Maybe that was the answer. The best thing to do with the problem was turn it over to the planet. But he couldn't leave the office, not until that bedamned, unworking comm link awoke with some news. Would he see Yana alive again? Would they ever see their baby? Kidnappees did not often return unharmed, alive or compos mentis. Who knew in what condition they'd be returned, if they were returned? Anything could happen to them-maiming that was not just physical, but mental and emotional, as well. He'd heard rumors of hideous mind-wiping devices that could totally destroy personalities.

How had Marmion let an abduction occur? She'd promised they'd all be safe for that "short time" it would take to satisfy the CIS Committee about the nature of Petaybee. They'd been gone long past the original estimates. So the kidnappers could set it all up? And start swamping the planet with drug merchants, hunters, religious orders, orphans, homeless relatives, and all sorts of human flotsam and jetsam? And no facilities to handle such an influx!

The comm link buzzed and Sean pounced on it like a hungry mink on a roosting chicken.

"Sorry to tell you this, Sean," Whittaker Fiske said, "but the kidnapper has been identified as Onidi Louchard, a well-known and clever pirate with a well-equipped outfit and a base no law-enforcement agency's ever been able to discover. Louchard is ruthless, and has formidable resources."

"Do they have a medic?" Sean demanded savagely, the sound of Yana's coughing echoing in his ears. Damn! She'd only just gotten over the aftereffects of the Bremport gassing. How could she be subjected to another episode?

"Huh?" Whit was taken aback by the unexpected question.

"Yana's got a cough again, bad enough so they use it to threaten me with."

"They lose her as hostage and they've no leverage..."

"Damn it, Whit, what d'you mean by that?"

"That if she's sick, they'll bloody well see she gets better! Of course. What'd you think I meant?"

Sean murmured something but Whit went on: "The commander of Gal Three's organized a massive search of and contact with every vessel that left the docks since before Yana, Marmion, and the kids went missing. They're leaving nothing to chance." Whit gave a groan. "But it's going to take time. That's one of the busiest stations in the whole Intergal net. I've also had a word with Anaciliact, and he's none too happy with that PTS group. He's going to get an injunction against them to prevent any further unauthorized trips to the surface. I'm going one better. I'm getting permission for you to have a representative in the SpaceBase control tower, so you can trace any drops they might make before that injunction is served. We gotta find them first." Whit made a noise of total disgust and annoyance at the obstacles. "We don't need any of this right now!"

"Precisely why we have it," Sean said bitterly. "Can you spare Johnny to watch the screen?"

Whittaker shook his head regretfully. "Much as I'd like to, he's far more useful elsewhere than sitting on his duff looking at a screen for hours on end."

"Yeah."

"Get Una to see what she can come up with."

That was a good notion: Una possessed a knack for finding people with unusual and useful talents. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it.

"I'll ask her."

"I'll keep in touch, Sean, and see what else I can learn that's going on at Gal Three."

"Find out where Luzon is," Sean said dourly.

"I did. He's doing intensive therapy in some fancy spa to get active again."

"Again? He's never stopped being active-against Petaybee."

"If we could prove that, Sean," Whit said in a savage and none-too-hopeful tone, "we'd do Intergal a big favor."

"Count on me."

As soon as the link broke, Sean explained to Una what was needed and why.

"One of my first group, I think, had some station-keeping experience," she said after a long moment's thought. "I thought it very odd indeed that we were landed so far from any place civilized..."

Sean burst out laughing. She regarded him in some surprise.

"You do my heart good, Una. You consider Kilcoole civilized?"

"Comparatively speaking," she said with a slight grin, gratified that she had eased the haunted look on Sean's face. She had come to admire him very much in the short time she'd been working with him, helping him with impossible burdens-not the least of which was this continuous influx of unnecessary people, especially the commercial types who seemed so eager to raid whatever wealth this planet held. "We were told that the SpaceBase had been destroyed so we would have to be landed at a distance from the nearest community..."

"Only the exact distance wasn't specified."

"That's it. Had I known what I know now..."

"Tell me, Una, exactly what were you told and by whom?"

She paused, organizing her thoughts: Sean had discovered that organization was her strong suit.

"Well, first there was the bulletin about Petaybee being a sentient planet. So I tagged the word on my terminal for any further information, knowing, you see, that some of my family had been sent here. Petaybee" -she gave him a little smile-"was suddenly much in the bulletins, and then the advertisement appeared, offering safe and quick transport facilities to the surface of the planet."

"Just like that?"

"Well, about three weeks after the first mention of Petaybee. I had

enough frequent-flyer hours to my credit to get to the Intergal Station easily enough. And the cost of getting to Petaybee's surface was not all that much, considering. In fact, rather cheap."

"Cheap enough to attract passengers, huh?"

"I suppose so."

"Go on."

"When I got to the Intergal Station, the transit desk told me to book in at the Mallside hostelry, where all Petaybean passengers had to register. When I checked in, I had to deposit the fare and then I was given a departure time."

"Just like that?"

"Yes."

"By whom?"

"The clerk at Mallside. Oh, I got a stamped passage chit, or believe you me, I wouldn't have handed over most of the last credits I had to my name."

"You wouldn't happen to remember the number of the account to which you credited the fare?"

"I do. BM-20-2334-57." She repeated it so that Sean could jot it down. "The next morning I was given a time to assemble in the hotel lobby. I must say I was a little surprised at the... diversity of my fellow passengers. And relieved to find that there were other folks trying to find their Petaybean relatives."

"What did your courier look like?"

"There wasn't one. When I arrived... a little ahead of time, I admit, because I was so eager to be on time. Some small link transports don't wait so it's wiser to be on time," she told Sean in her earnest manner. He nodded and she continued. "There was a printed notice that we were to proceed to the departure gate. Anyone not on time would forfeit their fare." She paused. "The only thing that reassured me was that the transport was so obviously new-one of the other passengers said it was even state-of-the-art."

"Would you have forfeited your fare if it had been a ramshackle vehicle?" Sean asked.

She gave a little laugh. "No, I'd sold up to get here. But to the business at hand, Sean, it's Simon Furey who might stand watch for you at SpaceBase. He's the one who noticed how new the transport was."

"Where's he right now?"

"We can ask Wild Star. She's teaching in the latchkay shed."

Wild Star was certain that her husband Simon would be quite willing to help Sean out. Simon seconded that when they found him. In the first place, he'd love to get his hands on the guy who had dumped them down in the middle of nowhere. If it hadn't been for 'Cita, they could have frozen to death their first night on the planet. In the second place, he had two badly blistered hands from chopping wood, which was the chore he'd been assigned in Kilcoole.

"I don't mind doing my share, like," he said, displaying the bloody signs of his industry, "but I'd rather a chance to toughen up more gradually, like. Ya know what I mean?"

He said he'd stood enough watches on the mining vessels he'd worked over the past twenty years so that he felt himself able to do what Sean wanted.

"Just don't mess the guy up so much we can't get civil answers out of him, will you?" Sean asked wryly.

The shuttle was due to make its weekly descent to Petaybee within the next thirty-two hours, and Simon was able to plot from its trajectory where it would touch down: in the forest nearer Shannonmouth than Kilcoole. There was no pilot to remonstrate with or wring information from. A highly sophisticated remote-control module guided it to and from Petaybee.

This Simon Furey discovered when he barged past the disembarking passengers and attempted to get into the pilot compartment. He'd come prepared with a device that would disable electronic locks, so he got into the forward cabin.

"If I'd had just a little more time, I could have bollixed up the remote so the shuttle couldn't take off again. But it'll come back, won't it? I didn't mess up the panel, like, disabling the lock." He looked at Sean for reassurance.

"As long as whoever's running this show doesn't realize the lock was tampered with... What would you need to bollix the controls?"

Simon grinned. "It don't take so much, really, if you know what to do. I'll have another look through the refuse skips at the SpaceBase. They're jettisoning an awful lot of useful stuff."

"They are?" Seamus and Adak chorused together.

"Thanks, Simon," Sean said, clapping the older man gratefully on the shoulder. "We'll take any salvage you can hoist."

"Figured."

"Now," Sean said, his expression altering from amusement to anxiety, "let's see where we can stash this bunch of pilgrims!" For there were more robed figures huddling in the miserable knot of the disembarked passengers. Clodagh was still in the Kilcoole cave with the first bunches of Rock Lovers, or whatever the religious seekers called themselves.

Shannonmouth agreed to shelter the seven who were looking for their families. Nine of the religious had rock and stone names and demanded to be taken to Brothers Shale and Granite. So Sean took them back to Kilcoole to commune with their brothers and sisters. Three more hunters and another drug company representative made up this passenger complement. They, too, had to come back to Kilcoole, though Sean didn't know where he'd be able to stash them. Now, if Simon should be successful in aborting the transport's return to the Intergal Station, maybe this would be the last group he'd have to worry about. But with winter closing in, he'd have to sort the whole kaboodle real fast. At least the problem of trying to spread the burden of extra numbers on the already stretched economy kept his mind off Yana.

12

Gal Three

The "unseen eye," aka Charas Parclete, who had been instructed to keep a close one on Yana, had followed the target subject and her escort through the maze and down to the cargo bay area. Since it was obvious the two women were in the company of a more-than-capable-appearing male-and someone the "eye" had better get some gen on if he was to be much in their company-the eye remained covert. In fact, the target subject and her companions were out of sight a good deal of the time, as Charas had to remain unseen. Suddenly there was a bit of confusion ahead, and when the cover watcher moved to a better viewing position, a whiff of the gas wafted across her face. Gagging and trying not to breathe while still attempting to clear her lungs gave the watcher a bit of trouble-especially as the Mayday reached the mastoid implant linked to Marmion's alarm-pad just when the gas effected a very short period of unconsciousness. Struggling to regain full use of her senses, Charas staggered around the crates and cartons and saw only one body on the ground. Pressing the emergency signal for help, she dashed to the body.

"Fat lot of help you were as escort." Charas resisted the temptation to kick the unconscious man for his dereliction of duty. There were other more pressing matters-like following the faint whiff of the gas through the maze of installations and cargo bays. This was a downtime in the cargo bay, when all but the most urgent jobs were suspended. Some ship was being loaded on the far side of the dock, but it might as well have been on another planet as far as crowd protection went. The time had been well chosen. And the abductors had had access to the intramural passages that separated cargo areas. Alternately sniffing for the trail of gas and choking on the residue, the eye continued until there was no smell at all. She backtracked to where vestigial traces remained, used her special key to open the panel, and stepped out in a workshop area-empty, of course.

"I must have been out longer than I thought," the operative murmured, keying into the security board in Commander an Hon's office. "Charas here. There's an unconscious man at Sector 45-Z-2, Cargo 30, and Marmion de Revers Algemeine and her guest, Colonel Maddock-Shongili, appear to have been kidnapped."

"What did you say?"

Charas sighed and repeated the message.

"Are you sure?" This time it was the commander himself asking.

"Yes. Stop all outgoing vessels."

"No implant messages?"

"Only the Mayday," Charas said grimly.

"We're instigating stop and search procedures."

"Good. First check what was logged in at Bay 30-47-N."

There was a brief pause. "A damaged pleasure yacht to be repaired, with a hole the size of a shuttle..." Some rather inventive cursing followed. "And a shuttle is registered as pulling out of that sector."

"Have the corvette pick me up here."

"Since it's only a shuttle, can do," said the commander.

"And send someone to collect that idiot who was escorting them." Charas gave the location. "I want a tape of the rescue. First impressions are invaluable. He may know something he doesn't know that we can use."

Charas waited impatiently until the corvette docked at the air lock through which the abductors had taken their victims. There was only the faintest whiff of the gas left.

The Security corvette was fast. Surprisingly, so was the escaping shuttle.

"I don't believe these speeds," the corvette captain said. "Everyone on board must be out!"

"Some of 'em are," Charas said grimly.

The shuttle proved to be nearly as agile in space as the corvette and led them a chase through the storage pens that circled Gal Three at a distance: anything from recyclable debris to cold storage.

"We'll get the buggers now," the corvette captain said as the shuttle cleared the last of the obstacles. He signaled the helmsman for more thrust, and the corvette steadily gained on the shuttle. "Must have souped-up engines to do this. Halt and prepare to be boarded!" he announced over the comm link.

The corvette was matching speed and position, edging closer and closer when the shuttle exploded. The corvette was skewed sideways; any crew member not strapped down to something bounced about like a wad of plastic. The corvette had taken a broadside and would limp back on navigational thrusters alone. But the worst part of it-or maybe it was the best part of it-was that the implant in Charas's mastoid bone had not rung the death knell of the person she had thought she was about to retrieve from the kidnappers.

"That shuttle was a decoy," Commander an Hon told Charas when she got to his office.

"And Stop and Search has produced nothing?" she asked, slumping in the chair an Hon had gestured for her to take. She was very weary, and the effects of the gas, despite a marginal inhalation, could still be felt.

"Not yet, but there were damned near thirty ships leaving Gal Three within the target hour. You're sure Marmion de Revers Algemeine is still alive?"

"Yes." She touched the mastoid bone. "What about that faller?"

"Hmmm, yes," the commander said. "Machiavelli Sendel-Archer-Klausewitch..."

"Say what?"

There was a twitch of a smile on his lips when an Hon repeated the name. "Recently appointed as CEO of a Rothschild's subsidiary based here on Gal Three. Pharmaceuticals, mainly, but with broad powers. I've sent for background gen-an in-depth study, more than was initially received when he was assigned to the Gal Three offices. But let me just play back that rescue tape."

That made Charas sit up and she rearranged her weary body in the conform chair. Such tapes were generally used to affirm treatment on emergency calls, more to protect the Samaritan than the victim but helpful in establishing little details when a victim would not be as compos mentis as s/he would like.

Charas watched and then, smiling ever so slightly, turned to an Hon, who was blandly anticipating her reactions.

"Oddly enough I don't believe he was as thoroughly gassed as he appeared."

She knew exactly how one felt coming out of that sort of encounter. The tape showed the rescue team advancing on the body and going through the whole routine of administering oxygen to counteract the effects. The too-handsome man went through the gagging, the disjointed motions, and the lingual distortions the gas caused. The medteam administered a hypospray to reduce the nausea. But something about the performance suggested to Charas that it was a performance.

"And the lungs?"

"They showed only a minute residue of gas-not a full measure. Certainly not one that would have rendered him unconscious so long. He also had the ransom note!"

"Well, what about that?" she asked.

"Yes, what about it?"

"I think we watch this-what's his name again? Never mind. He'll be Mac in my books."

"Indeed we will. Here's the note!" And the commander passed over the slip as gingerly as if he expected it to explode in his face.

On the pirate ship

When the voice contact with Sean had been summarily curtailed by Megenda, Yana was close to lashing out with her fists at the big first mate and the monstrous hologram of Captain Louchard. Either would have been a foolish waste of time, and as it was, another paroxysm of coughing racked her.

"Haul the female to Dr. Mendeley. She can't be dying on us, or we lose our bargaining position with the planet," Louchard growled.

Doubled up as she was, Yana was bundled out of the cabin, and after a very short distance down the corridor-which confirmed her notion that they'd been deliberately routed along every deck of the vessel in order to confuse them-she was pushed into a considerably larger accommodation. It had bunks along three sides, a narrow table with benches under it in the center, and two narrow doors that she would later discover led to the sanitary facilities: the shower behind one door, and the "head" behind the other. She half staggered, half crawled to the nearest bunk and lay down upon it, coughing, gasping, hacking, and wondering if she'd have anything left of her normal throat lining.

She was only marginally aware of the panel whooshing open and shut again. Then a cool hand soothed her forehead, and someone urged her to sit up long enough to "Drink this." A mug was pressed to her lips.

The beverage was cold, tart, and soothing, and she managed to still the cough reflex long enough to take a good swallow.

"Cookie let me rummage in her stores for the ingredients," said the rich voice of the astronomer, Namid Mendeley. "It's what I think was in my grandmother's recipe, plus a little codeine, which does depress the cough reflex."

Yana hesitated. "C-codeine?" she gasped. "What-about-the- b-baby?"

Mendeley raised his eyebrows and gave a slight uneasy shrug. "I wouldn't think there'd be much risk to the fetus at this stage, but I'm no obstetrician. However, I think it's a safe bet, if the cough continues to be this violent, that you could miscarry."

She nodded, pausing only a moment to bark again. She was panting from the effort of trying to suppress the cough long enough to keep from choking on the drink. She took the mug from him and sipped slowly; the liquid seemed to be coating her throat, and it didn't taste bad, either.

"It might sting going down," Namid said anxiously, "because pepper is one of the ingredients."

"Oh." Yana kept sipping. She didn't care if it contained pepper or eye of newt and toe of frog, so long as it stopped her coughing. She got into a more comfortable position, propped against one end of the bunk, crouching just a bit to avoid banging her head on the bottom of the upper bunk. "I think it's helping. Thank you. You're very considerate and kind."

"I'm neither of those, but I told Dinah I wouldn't cooperate any further if she didn't let me help you." Namid perched tentatively on the edge of the table and looked around, sighing deeply.

"What's the matter?" Yana asked.

He grimaced, shrugged, and held out one hand in a helpless gesture. "Nothing new," he said in a resigned tone. "In fact," he added, as he continued to look around, "this is slightly better than my previous quarters."

"Oh?" Yana said encouragingly. He didn't look at all the sort of person to associate with privateers, even one as patently sensual and domineering as Dinah O'Neill.

"I was married to Dinah O'Neill." Another sigh, one expressing the folly of such a union. "She doesn't take the divorce seriously."

"In short, you're now permanently on board this ship?"

As he folded his arms across his chest, he had a slight twinkle in his eye and a rueful smile on his face. "We met under considerably different circumstances. It was a whirlwind romance. I'd never met anyone quite like her before. I'd just returned from a two-year stint studying two new variables and..."He shrugged.

"Any female would have seemed delightful?" Yana couldn't help twitting him, and then went back to sipping his brew.

"Exactly. And, to give the devil her due, she was everything I'd ever dreamed of. We had a glorious six months, although her business took her away periodically."

"Then you discovered what her business was?"

"Quite by chance. Of course, I filed for divorce immediately, as my professional reputation would have been seriously flawed if it became known I'd had any associations with such a..."

"Unsavory occupation?"

"Exactly. I received official notice of the termination-and so did she. Only, I failed to recognize how she might take such a step. And the next thing I knew, I was aboard this ship and here I've remained. I must say, since you seem to be incarcerated, too, that it's marvelous to have intelligent company again."

They both heard the noises in the corridor outside, and then the panel whooshed open. First Bunny was propelled inside; Marmion followed in a more dignified entry, while Diego's limp body was launched from the doorway onto the bunk opposite Yana, his head connecting hard with the wall. The panel closed with a snap and Bunny, crying out in protest, went to Diego.

"Yana? Are you all right?" Marmion asked, going around the table so she would not have to touch Mendeley.

"I'm much better for Namid's brew," Yana said, trying to convey to Marmion that the astronomer deserved her pity, not her censure. "But what have those bastards done to poor Diego?"

"One of the men bringing us here goosed Bunny," Marmion said angrily. "She hit him, too, but that first mate just clobbered Diego as a lesson." She was so furious she was shaking and, with a look that could have pierced steel, she glared at Namid. "Are we to be spied upon every moment we're together, in addition to the other indignities?"

"Come off it, Marmie," Yana said. "He's as much a prisoner as we are."

"Are you being ransomed, too?" Marmion asked, her manner toward the tall astronomer instantly more amenable.

"There's no one to pay one for me," he said, and his statement was not a bid for pity. "I forgot to block Dinah's access to my credit account."

"How's Diego?" Yana asked Bunny, who had pushed the boy's body into a more comfortable position.

"He'll come round. Any water?" she asked, looking about her.

Yana pointed to the narrow doors. "Behind one of them?"

Bunny investigated, found a towel, wet it from the spigot above a miniature hand basin, and returned to mop Diego's brow.

"You know," Mendeley began, "I've never figured out why Dinah bothered to go through a formal marriage ceremony. I mean, she could have contracted a short-term arrangement. Or none at all. But she went to such lengths to get me to marry her."

"Really?" Marmion said in some surprise. "She doesn't seem the marrying type."

"That's what I thought, but we got married. Not that I minded..."

"You're an astronomer?" Marmion asked, eyeing him more kindly than she had before. When he nodded, she went on. "Did she ever get you to talk about your specialty?"

A flush spread across Namid's sallow face and his expression became decidedly chagrined. "Constantly. I was, as you can well imagine, quite flattered. Why?"

"What area of astronomy?"

"What do you mean?"

"Types of star systems, planets..."

"Planets, yes, she was fascinated about the formation of planets."

Marmion, Yana, and Bunny exchanged glances.

"And she seemed really interested," he added, confused.

"Perhaps sentient planets?" Marmion asked.

He laughed then. "Really, Madame Algemeine, sentience in a ball of matter thrown out by a cooling primary? Come now, I know you're an intelligent woman."

"And intelligent enough to recognize sentience when I see, feel, and hear it."

Namid leaned toward her, his incisive green eyes capturing her gaze as he transferred his arms from his chest to a tight hold on the table edge. Yana could almost see his thought processes trying to catch up with the sincerity of Marmion's tone.

"You're in earnest, aren't you?"

"Deadly earnest," Marmion said in an edged voice.

"And you were abducted because of a..."He paused, still dubious. "A sentient planet?"

"Surely Dinah has made mention of Petaybee in your presence?"

"The name has come up frequently of late," he began, frowning. Then he made a little warning gesture of his fingers and looked meaningfully at the corners of the room, apprising them that the room was probably bugged, which Yana had already guessed. "But I did not realize it was the name of a planet."

"It is," Yana said. "Planet Terraform B, or Powers That Be, or Pee-tay-bee."

"I see." He paused another beat, shook his head. "No, I don't see." He placed his fingers on his forehead, as if the contact would stimulate understanding.

"Frankly, nor do I," Yana said, beginning to feel as if her throat might withstand the effort of conversation. She hadn't had so much as a tickle all during the last few minutes. "The ransom for me seems to be Petaybee."

Marmion and Bunny gasped; Namid looked confused.

"I think your... erstwhile colleagues, Marmion, have made a bad tactical error in suggesting"-Yana paused significantly as she stressed the word-"that Petaybee has untold riches which it has refused to divulge to Intergal. In fact, Namid, an Earth-type planet of its girth and density has only minimal mineral resources which would prove-"

"Have proved," Bunny said in a flat, angry voice.

"-impossible to produce due to the intemperate weather conditions on the planet's surface. It does have-and on this basis, we may yet be able to come to some arrangement with one, and one only, drug company -renewable valuable plants. But such an enterprise would not be a snatch-and-strip process: rather one that will accrue profit slowly and only when the planet has paid back to Intergal the expenses the company has already incurred in the terraforming and maintenance. What Petaybee has is intangible wealth, not readily salable valuables."

"And the planet is... somehow... controlling its future?" Namid asked, still struggling to believe the initial concept.

"The planet controls its surface rather well," Marmion said with a wide grin. "It counteracts the use of explosives by making volcanoes just where miners wish to dig. It rescinds the use of a flat surface for spacecraft by extruding a ziggurat that covers the exact center of the landing field and unsettles all the peripheral buildings. It either melts prematurely or conjures up diabolical weather patterns to preserve what resources it has. A formidable opponent, and a desirable friend."

"I've lived there all my life," Bunny added, "and life is good on Petaybee."

"But not to everyone's taste," Yana added drolly. "Still, the air's pure and unpolluted, and the soil is rich enough to produce food crops in their season-and marvelous herbs and plants which are made into the most efficacious potions and syrups. And while it's a hard life, it's a good one, if you accept the planet on its terms and it's willing to accept you on the same grounds."

"The only planet in the galaxy to require an entrance exam from inhabitants," Marmion said, giggling as much at the expression of total disbelief on Namid's long face as her choice of expression.

Diego began to groan and twist on the narrow bunk, and Bunny instantly was all attention.

13

Kilcoole

Sean found that he literally couldn't stand to live in his own skin, he was so distraught about the kidnapping. "Una, I have to get out," he said. "If there's any news, any change at all, send Marduk for me. He'll be able to find me. I'm going to the river."

"Send Mar-Sean! What if there's another ransom..." Her voice trailed behind him.

He knew she was right. He should stick around the office in case there were new developments; in case Yana or Marmion's people made contact again. But the last week or two had been just the sort of thing that wore him down until this final shock made his head reel. He was used to working outdoors, working with animals, swimming the long watery corridors of the planet and drawing strength and calm from the water. All these papers and offworld people... trying to figure out what was fair, what was right, where they fit in, where to be liberal and responsive to their needs and where to draw the line. He had every confidence in himself that he was a good man. He just wasn't that particular kind of a good man. And now, with the possibility that Yana might not return, that what he did or said, or what he could or could not do, would mean life or death to her, to Bunny and Diego, to Marmion, who had been so kind, to the future he and Yana had looked forward to-he had to get away, had to think, had to let the water flow over him. He felt as if his alter-form was a whale or a dolphin rather than a seal; that, like them, he would itch himself right out of his skin if he didn't get it wet and changed soon.

He barely managed to reach the cover of the woods before shucking off his clothing and diving into the river waters. The rippling, bubbling, soothing, slithery soaking poured over his head as he changed utterly, man into seal, twenty feet down in the deeps of the river.

Usually he made his changes at the hot spring or farther from home, because his transformation had been a secret from all but his closest friends and family in the past. But a few times he had needed to swim this river and had done so. Eventually, like all rivers, it dumped into the sea. And like most Petaybean rivers, it received transfusions from various hot springs along its route, making it warm. He swam furiously out toward the sea, and then furiously back again, because he didn't want to be too far in case Yana needed him. But the mere sight of land made him feel wild with grief and anxiety and he dove, deeper and deeper.

The reasonable man in him told his seal self to be careful, not to go too far, not to become injured or trapped, because then he wouldn't be able to help Yana if needed, but his seal self swam recklessly and restlessly- and began noticing things about the riverbanks and riverbed it hadn't noticed before.

Petaybee's recent seismic activity had changed the channel of the river slightly and had changed the feeder springs: several underwater grottos now opened under the banks, and as Sean dove, he saw that they tunneled deeply under the riverbanks. He swam into one of them, taking its twists and turns until he found he was no longer swimming, but pulling himself out of a wellspring and up onto the floor of another of Petaybee's subterranean corridors. Once on land again, he resumed his man shape, the river water streaming from his skin.

The swim had not helped as much as he hoped. Now to his other anxieties was added the fact that he longed to stay here, safe from intrusion, safe from having to decide everything for everyone, and yet, he had to leave soon in case he was needed. Even Marduk couldn't find him here.

But he needed to be here, within the planet, at one with it. It had always been his greatest inspiration and his greatest comfort-when his parents died, when his sister Aoifa was lost, and when, at first, he wondered if Yana would accept him.

"What am I going to do?" he asked the cave walls. "I suppose people have always had to ask that at some point or the other. Do I betray my home by letting others take it from me? Or do I betray my family by endangering them? I can't find it in me to do either, even if I knew how. What are we going to do?" He tasted salt in the water running from his hair and knew that it wasn't river water, even as it flowed back into the stream. "I need help."

"Help!" the echo screamed back at him. "Help!"

It sounded like another person entirely, not an echo of himself-the echo at the wedding had used the same tonality. In spite of his pain, he sat up straighter and looked and listened. Then he said aloud, "That's right. We need help. Yana's been taken by more people who want to tear you to pieces. Yana needs help."

"Help Yana! Help Yana! HELP YANA! YANA! YANA!.'"

Her name echoed around the cave until Sean was about to jump into the water to escape it. Then suddenly the echo changed again.

"Help! Help us!" And suddenly the slight phosphorescence that was always in these caverns organized itself into a straight line and grew and grew.

For a moment, Sean just stared. The purposeful echo, the purposeful line of the phosphorescence-neither of these had ever been manifested by Petaybee before. But after all, Petaybee was a young planet, still discovering its own abilities, and it had recently been exposed to new stimuli. Its responses were becoming more and more interesting.

He followed the phosphorescent track, trying to keep up with it, until he was back in the river and found himself in the midst of a vast school of fish-every kind offish-all swimming with purpose and determination in a single direction.

Aboard the pirate ship

Yana was awakened out of a deep sleep by the sensation of warmth and vibration at the base of her throat. It seemed to emanate from the little bag of dirt around her neck as if it held some tiny animal instead of merely dirt. She clutched it, comforted, and as she did so a picture sprang into her mind of Sean, calling for her, so that her own name rang in her mind, as clearly as if someone in the same room were speaking to her. The voice sounded so anguished she wished she could offer some comfort, but before she could form any sort of reply, she felt the tickle that prefaced a coughing fit.

She clutched harder at her talisman, as Petaybee and Sean continued calling her, a voice in her mind crying her name. The cats talked to other cats and Clodagh, the dogs to their humans, and everyone talked to the planet. Why shouldn't the mighty voice of a planet be able to call across the cosmos if it set its mind to it? Interesting thought, one that tumbled around and around as the image of Sean and the tickle evaporated, and the voice faded.

She lay awake for a long time, fondling the bag, wondering if she had just dreamed the warmth and the powerful mind-echo. Because it was tremendously reassuring to think, even for a moment, that Petaybee was somehow on her psychic wavelength, she wanted it to be true. In the past when she had dreamed someone was calling her name, they often had been, and it was the captain or the drill sergeant or the corps commander. This time she was alone in the bowels of wherever they were, and the only sounds were the sleeping restlessness of her fellow prisoners.

Then they were all abruptly aroused as the door of their prison burst open to be filled at once with a brawny crewman, the ever-ominous Megenda, and Dinah O'Neill, who seemed to be using all of the strength in her petite frame to restrain Megenda. Megenda clanged something hard against the metal of the doorframe: a laser pistol. "Get off your butts, you lazy lot of worthless harlots."

Part of Yana thought, Uh-huh, I was right. He does fancy himself as an old-style pirate. Who used the word "harlot" anymore, really?

But he looked very fierce indeed, and Dinah O'Neill appeared to be all that stood between them and his wrath. When the other sleepers woke, looking about them in dismay and disorientation, he planted fists on the ammo belt slung around his hips and glared at them.

"Megenda, stop! Not yet! We have to give them a chance!" Dinah O'Neill cried, tugging at him.

"Quiet, woman. I say we start sending them home in pieces now."

Yana cocked an eyebrow at Dinah, as if Megenda needed an interpreter. "What's he on about?"

"Please, please don't antagonize him any more. The captain reprimanded him, and Megenda's extremely sensitive. And it was so unfair. Calm down, Megenda! Everyone knows it isn't your fault. It isn't anybody's fault but those callous and uncaring people in your company, Madame Algemeine, and on your planet, Colonel Maddock. I admit, I'm as surprised as anyone. I thought with all of Madame Algemeine's credits and you newly wedded to your planet's coadministrator, Colonel, that surely everyone would have been tripping over themselves to pay the ransom. I even sent a little follow-up note, just as a reminder. But so far, we haven't even had the courtesy of a reply, much less a payment. The captain is so annoyed that there's no living on the same ship with him. Down, Megenda!"

"I didn't know," Yana heard herself remarking, "that his species was capable of annoyance."

Megenda swung on her, his eyes glinting malevolently, and Dinah O'Neill gave a small squeak as she was dragged forward on his massive arm.

"Colonel Maddock, please. This is no laughing matter," Dinah cried.

"I know it isn't," Yana said quite soberly. "But when the good captain asked me to request the planet for my ransom, he couldn't know that I have absolutely no control over the planet..."

"Now, now, you're being much too modest. We've been told that if you really want to, if you're really motivated, you and your new groom have the power to assign its mineral and ore deposits-"

"I can't assign anything for an entity I don't own, possess, dominate, order," Yana snapped back. "Nobody even knows what there is to assign."

Megenda made a move toward her.

"Megenda, just let me talk to these people, please," Dinah O'Neill said. "They're reasonable, and they don't want to be hurt. I know it's been months since you've seen real action, but please be patient."

Megenda glowered and loomed.

Dinah O'Neill continued. "I hope you aren't making the mistake of underestimating our organization, Colonel. We have had agents on your planet before, and we know very well that there are deposits of valuable ores available. We also have a good idea how you could obtain them. Nothing makes Megenda more cross than having someone lie to him."

Yana shook her head carefully, keeping the cough at bay. Now was not a good time to be rendered inarticulate. "If you mean Satok and those other sham shamans, they never were able to mine enough ore to make it lucrative enough to buy their way off the planet, much less provide booty of the magnitude that would really interest Louchard. Of course, I don't think they had the time, or the opportunity-" Yana was very sure of that, since the demise of the fake shamans had been precipitously effected by the coo-berries-"since the planet evolved some unusual natural defenses to their mining methods. Sounds to me like your captain is just trying to recoup a bad investment since he's lost their services as illegal miners. Even the company had to see that it's no use trying to mine Petaybee for something it's not willing to give up."

"Let go of me, woman," Megenda said, trying to shake off Dinah's tiny beringed hand. "She's useless. Might as well make her walk the plank."

"We don't have planks anymore, Megenda."

"Yah, but space is a lot bigger than any puny puddle. We could put her in a suit so she'd have hours to float around and think about what she could have done to make the cap'n happy."

Yana's arguments had obviously gone over Megenda's head, but his attitude only reinforced her feeling that he wasn't the only one who didn't understand the nature of the entity he was dealing with. If even the company, which had developed Petaybee, had been unable to grasp the situation without a great deal of persuasion, Louchard was no doubt as confused as everyone else on what could or could not be extorted from a whole sentient planet.

"Belay that, Megenda," Dinah said with a little slap that didn't seem to affect the large muscle of Megenda's forearm at all. "You and the colonel are both being irrational."

"Irrational?" Yana began hotly. "Lady, I'm not sure if I'm going to live through this. I'm not sure if any of us are. I'm sick. And I hesitate to mention this in the presence of your 'sensitive' first mate for fear of giving him sadistic ideas, but I'm also pregnant. Everyone on Petaybee was worried about letting me go on this mission to begin with because my kid, like these kids, is bonded with the planet. It needs, through me, the same things we're all lacking here: fresh air, real food, not the plascene cubes you have here. I'd've thought a pirate of Louchard's caliber and resourcefulness would have a replicator that can produce proper food instead of all that pulverized dust!" Yana was well and truly fed up. There was no way she could do anything, and the sooner Louchard realized that, the better. Maybe not the better for her, but any resolution was more acceptable than this confinement. "I want proper meals, I want exercise facilities, I want-"

"Will you listen to the lady officer and her list of demands," sneered Megenda, his expression vicious as he took another step into the room and drew one hand back, ready to pound it into Yana's midsection.

Yana did not so much as bat an eye as she shifted to the side to take the blow with her braced forearms, at the same time balancing herself- somewhat wobbily-to deliver a karate kick. She was not about to let him kill her baby without a fight.

Neither was Marmion, who stepped determinedly between Yana and Megenda's fist. Yana relaxed, but remained watchful.

"Touch any of them and you won't even get what I had already decided to give you," Marmie said in a silky voice that carried both promise and threat.

Dinah swatted at Megenda's fist and he lowered it as she said, with just a touch more irritation and calculation in her own voice, "But Madame Algemeine, your people haven't responded to the ransom demands either."

Marmion shrugged. "Nor will they," she said with a smile that was just the right side of smugness. "You can't imagine that I would leave my organization vulnerable to this sort of thing, can you?" A wave of her elegant hand dismissed the ship, the pirates, and her situation. "My people have orders to ignore extortions-"

"Even when we start returning you to them a piece at a time?" Megenda asked with a leer.

Dinah O'Neill's voice was casual and professional as she replied. "Naturally, I have counseled Captain Louchard that you should be returned undamaged, but he's getting a little put out by the delays."

"Gee, that's tough," Bunny said.

This time, before Dinah could move, Megenda lashed out and knocked Bunny flat with a backhanded blow that spun her back against the bunk frame. Roaring, Diego lunged at Megenda, but Namid and Marmion caught him: the brawny crewman already had his laser pistol aimed right at the boy's forehead.

"My, the natives are restless," Dinah said with a sigh. "I'm sorry but I can't restrain them..."

"That's nonsense, Dinah, and you know it," Namid said, as if the words had been forced out of him. "What's the matter with you? Have you finally gotten so greedy you've lost your own survival instinct? You know damn good and well those men don't go to the head without your approval, so stop this stupid game and tell them to quit beating innocent children or I'll-I'll-"

"You'll what, Namid?" she asked coldly. "Leave me? A hollow threat, darling."

"This isn't about us-it's about what you call business," Namid said, still struggling to hold Diego back. "You used to pride yourself that you'd listen to reasonable arguments."

"And?" Dinah's expression dared him to present one.

"I could have told you that people in Marmion's level of society have strictly adhered to an enforced no-ransom policy. Or don't you remember the case of the Amber Unicorn? Of those who were held for ransom, two died under torture begging their organizations to break through the restrictions put on them, to cut the red tape to save them, but the organizations were absolutely prohibited by law, which tied up all the assets in legalities so that they couldn't be liquidated. The families pleaded and offered all sorts of personal assurances, but in the end, the two captives died and no ransom was ever paid. The others suicided, apparently also by prearrangement. I suspect Marmion is prepared to take similar- measures-to insure that her capture or death will profit no one." When Namid looked in her direction, Marmion nodded, a faint proud smile on her lips.

"There's no way at all that any funds will be released before I am," Marmion agreed. "However, I am prepared to offer-let us call it 'passage money' for a safe return, and I'm quite willing to make the 'fare' a substantial amount..." She gracefully gestured to include everyone in the cabin, including Namid. "But there is no way that my people will liquidate holdings on my signature"-and she drawled the next few phrases in the most resolute of soft voices Yana had ever heard this formidable woman use-"even if I had to hold the stylus with my teeth to sign."

"Damn that Fiske!" Dinah said in the first unrehearsed and spontaneous utterance Yana had heard from her so far. "He said this was a sure thing." Somehow Yana was not totally surprised to learn that Torkel was involved in this fiasco.

"And I thought you were cynical enough to realize there's no such commodity as a sure thing." Namid regarded her sardonically. "You didn't do enough homework on this batch of victims, Dinah. Maybe it's time you gave it up if you're getting careless."

"Well, I certainly wish you'd told me all this sooner before I wasted so much time. That's it, isn't it?" she asked with a wounded expression, scanning the faces of her captives and her ex-husband. "You were stalling for time! Oh, really! Just because you're in legitimate business instead of a marginalized one like us, you think our time is not as valuable as yours. I knew I should have stuck with cargo and not branched out into passengers but-but there is gold on that wretched ice world," she insisted, her fists clenching at her sides. "There are gemstones, there is germaniun. gengesite..."

"In small quantities," Yana said. "Just what sort of deposits were you shown?" she added, wonderingly.

Dinah O'Neill said nothing, but kept eye contact with Yana.

"Have you ever been on the surface of Petaybee?" Yana asked.

A flicker in the privateer's eyes and a slight smile indicated that she had.

"In the winter, or what passes for summer there?" Yana continued, keeping up the pressure.

"Both."

"And just what did you report to Captain Louchard that has made him so determined to strip that poor world?"

For just a second O'Neill's eyes flickered again, doubtfully this time.

"I'm sure you've heard this one before," Yana began, taking a deep breath, "but if you let us go, we will not press charges." She glanced at Marmion, who nodded. Dinah's expression was contemptuous, Megenda's the epitome of cynical amusement. "I really do think you've been misled. Something Satok was good at..."

"He was Petaybean and he knew..."

"He knew doodfy," Bunny said, still nursing her face with one hand while blood from the cut that Megenda's finger ring had made on her cheek trickled through her fingers. "He hadn't been on the planet since he signed on to the company, and he got discharged from that right smart. He wasn't even very useful when he was growing up. He just talked big."

Dinah smiled as she turned her eyes on Bunny, a sort of half-congratulatory smile at the girl's spunk.

"You tell that captain of yours that he won't get anywhere threatening Yana or Sean, or me or Diego here," Bunny went on in a level voice. "He wants to make a deal involving Petaybee, he comes to Petaybee and talks it over with the planet."

"Talks it over with the planet?" Namid's astonishment was complete and, openmouthed, he looked from Bunny to Dinah and back again to Bunny.

Dinah gave her a pitying look. "Talk to the planet?"

"Go see your relatives," Namid said, startling every one, including Dinah. "Well, you always told me that some of your relations, way back, were exiled to Petaybee."

"That was the rumor I was raised with. Which, I might add, I checked out on the company computer," Dinah said, then shrugged. "I'm not at all sure I'd trust their records. Or anything about the planet."

"O'Neill? There are O'Neills at Tanana Bay," Bunny said, regarding Dinah with a keener interest.

So swiftly did Dinah O'Neill withdraw then that the heavy door panel had whooshed shut before they realized her intention. Megenda and the crewman followed smoothly, and the captives were left alone.

"Now you've done it," Diego said accusingly to Bunny. "We had her..."

"I think Bunny may well have done it," Marmion said quietly and respectfully.

"It'll take time for Dinah to absorb the fact of her error," Namid said thoughtfully. "But she's extremely intelligent and very flexible. She'd have to be to survive so long in this business. She's usually able to influence Louchard..."

"You think she'll try to talk him into letting us go?" Bunny asked wistfully, her face crumpling into tears. Diego cradled her in his arms, stroking her hair and murmuring little endearments in Spanish.

Marmion dampened the one towel they had in the room and handed it to him to place over the cut on Bunny's cheek just as Yana began once more to cough.

14

Petaybee Sean swam with the single-minded fish schools until they reached the lake, where the fish all at once made a silver river into another of the underwater caves. Sean followed. When the water grew too shallow, the fish turned back, and Sean found himself in another dry grotto. As he was changing form, he saw the phosphorescence once more organize into a straight line, this time pointing inland. Once his feet were under him again, he followed it. Though Sean had swum the waterways of Petaybee all his life, these caves and passages were new to him, no doubt a result of the most recent seismic activity. The line of luminescence led him toward the cries for help that at first were only echoes like the one he had heard near Kilcoole, but soon became the faint cries of real voices. When he turned a corner and saw the five hunters, he almost laughed at the expressions of terrified anger and frustration on their faces. One of them-de Peugh, he thought-had developed a distinct twitch, and his hair had a great deal more white in it than Sean remembered, as well as a tendency to stand straight up. Minkus was gibbering to himself, and Ersol kept looking around the cave and up at the opening they had fallen through as if it were about to eat him. The wooden bows, arrows, and lances that Sinead had substituted for their high-tech rifles were piled together in a little heap, that someone had tried to set on fire for warmth, he supposed, all but the dagger Mooney clutched in his fist as he pointed to Sean and yelled. "You're another damned hallucination! Go away! Nobody walks around bare-assed in this weather."

"We have nothing for you, honestly," Minkus cried, cringing away. "We gave the rabbit de Peugh had in his pocket to the cat. It would have eaten us otherwise. Please, please don't harm us!"

Sean glanced apologetically down at his own now-human flesh. "Harm you? What with? I thought you lads wanted help."

"Oh, we do, we do!" Minkus cried. "We've been down here days, weeks, months. It's been the most horrible nightmare. The walls shift and melt and little lights come on and sometimes I see little volcanoes exploding and then when I look again there's nothing..."

Sean shook his head. "You can't have been down here more than a few hours. Where're my sister and the others?"

"They abandoned us to be eaten by wild beasts," Minkus said.

"Well, we do have a saying here on Petaybee that some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you, but mostly it's not to be taken literally. Shall we find a way to get you out of here?"

"We'll follow you back the way you came," Mooney said.

Sean grinned. "Not unless you can hold your breath for a very long time. How'd you get down here?"

"We fell!" Ersol pointed to the hole, far above them. With the arrival of someone who was probably able to extricate them from their captivity, his dignity was restored. "We were lucky we weren't bloody killed. We could sue..."

Sean laughed harder. "Sue what? The planet? You are, to all legal intents and purposes, trespassing on private property. Very private property."

"Private... vat... vat... vat..." The walls echoed.

"But we applied for hunting licenses," Minkus complained shrilly.

"Which were not yet granted, I must warn you. Nor would they have been. However, follow me."

Sean had spotted the dotted line that Petaybee had illuminated to guide him and now struck out through the remainder of the underground passage leading away from the lake.

"Hey, man, how come you're not wearing anything?" Ersol asked, staring at him.

"I, er, was swimming when I heard you yelling for help," Sean said.

"Why aren't you freezing?" Minkus demanded. Clotworthy was also staring in disbelief at their savior.

"Oh." Sean shrugged, looking down himself as if he might have changed shape since he last looked. "Adaptation to Petaybee. And it's not all that cold down here, you know. You wouldn't have frozen to death by any manner or means."

"No, just died of starvation," Mooney said, licking his lips.

"Not that either," Sean said, "but I'm sure we can find you something to eat when we get where we're going."

"Where are we going?"

All five had fallen in a single line behind him as he strode purposefully through the passage, the little line of phosphorescence popping out just ahead of them. Petaybee was full of new tricks these days, he thought with no small degree of wonder. New passages, new ways of communicating direction, and that extremely idiosyncratic and erratic echo.

"All I know for right now is that we're getting out of here. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine," Sean said.

"Now... guess... guess."

"Oh, frag, there it is again. That voice! Once it sounded like it was crying some woman's name. Listen. What is it?" Mooney demanded on a semihysterical note. He crouched down, brandishing his dagger, his eyes showing whites all the way around like a spooked curly's.

"Petaybee," Sean replied amiably, without breaking stride. The others rushed to keep up with him. He really must discover how to bring clothing with him when he went selkie-ing. Despite his disclaimer, the temperature was not all that high in these tunnels.

"Does it do that often? Echo you?"

"It wasn't echoing me."

"It wasn't?" Ersol lost his pomposity again.

"If it wasn't," Minkus said with the edge of fear in his voice, "who's speaking?"

"I told you-Petaybee."

"Petaybee!"

"Now, see here, Shongili, that was an echo."

"Was it?"

"Petaybee."

"Oh, my gawd!" Ersol said, his voice quavering badly. "Lemme outta here!"

"It can't be far now. The passage is getting narrower and sloping up- we should be reaching the surface soon," Sean said encouragingly.

And they did. Walking up an incline, they emerged from the side of a hill into a cool snow-laden wind; Sean required all his physical control to resist visibly shivering.

"Hey, Shongili, I don't care what you say, your goose bumps just got goose bumps. Here-" Ersol threw a sweater around Sean's shoulders. "You got some spare pants in your pack, don't you, Clotworthy? Mooncy, break out a pair of socks, at least."

They paused long enough to put Sean into minimal coverings and thien continued down the slope. They emerged onto a small height and a clurnp of wind-raked bushes to stare down at the lake, its edges now frozen, <on the other side of where Sinead had left them.

"Hey, isn't that your sister?" Ersol cried, pointing to some figures ion the verge.