But Bunny knew she couldn't help Diego or the others by slowing down. She trudged back up the path she had made and then began laboriously cutting through the snow once more. It was heavy work and she was soon so weary that she felt like crying, but her tears would only freeze, making her more miserable. Wouldn't it be weird to have been freed from the pirates and finally return home, only to freeze to death before she could be found? With the new-falling snow masking the fading horizon, help could be quite close and they'd never know until they found her frozen corpse. And the others. It had happened more than once.

"Helllooo, anybody!" she called into the gathering darkness. "Steinte! It's me, Bunny! Is anybody there? Hellooo! Come and get me now!"

Then something that wasn't supposed to be possible happened. She was right out there in the open air, not in a cave or a valley, and an echo picked up her voice, the way it had a few weeks earlier when Phon Tho visited, the way it had at Yana and Sean's wedding.

"HELLOO, IT'S ME, ME, ME, ME..." the echo said.

And then it blended with a somewhat smaller voice, "MEOW MEOW meow!" a cat's mew complaining over and over again.

Bunny called back, glad to hear the cat. Did that mean that Clodagh was behind? But no, the cat was alone, appearing off to the right like a little pinpoint of orange flame at first, crying impatiently for her to hurry forward. When Bunny backtracked to get the others, the cat sat at the end of the trail she had made, waiting for them.

"We're saved!" she told Yana. "A cat came for us!"

"Good," Megenda said. "How do you cook 'em?"

"You don't," Diego said. "You follow them."

"I've heard of a wild-goose chase, but this is ridiculous," Dinah said. Bunny turned her back on them and returned to the end of her trail. As soon as it saw her the cat sashayed forward, tail held low to protect the tenderest parts and brushing the snow. Single file, they slogged forward after it.

The distant lights of Tanana Bay appeared just about the time some of the party were thinking that perhaps they'd do better for a bit of a rest, despite the fact that night had already fallen and the air was growing colder by the minute, knifing through their skin until at last they were too numb to feel the pain. Only the luminous eyes of the cat guided them when it turned in its tracks to regard them with impatience. Didn't they realize it had supper waiting and a nap to take?

The feeling in Bunny's legs had drained away some time earlier, though she continued to piston them in and out of the snow while the others followed. Once they spotted the cabins, the cat cast her a glance, then scampered away to disappear into the town.

The welcome sight of cabins revived the flagging energies of everyone in the party. It helped that the snow closer to the settlement was already trampled into trails, and they followed one of these easily to the outermost cabin.

It was empty, though smoke still poured from the chimney. They all gratefully crowded inside to warm themselves by the fire. When Megenda would have crawled into the fireplace, Bunny hauled him back so he wouldn't scorch himself; she grabbed a fur cover from the nearest bunk and draped it around his shoulders. He could not seem to stop the shivering. There was soup in the kettle on the hob, so Bunny ladled him out a cup, which he could barely hold in his hands without spilling.

"Don't know how much of someone's supper we can take without them going short," Bunny said by way of explanation when she saw the hopeful expression on Dinah O'Neill's face as she, too, crowded in to the fireplace. Bunny was right proud that neither Diego nor Yana seemed to need the fire. Just being in out of the cold was sufficient. "No one would object to Megenda having a cup of soup to stop those shivers. You all get warm while I go see where people are." She took a parka off the peg on the back of the door. Outside, the temperature would be dropping like a stone from a height.

Tanana Bay didn't boast half as many cabins as Kilcoole did, but Bunny had been in several empty homes before she came to the Murphys', where the cat was sitting beside the fire and cleaning the snow from between its paw pads. The cat glanced up at her, then returned to its cleaning. She saw the raised trapdoor and the open hole in the floor. Leaning over the opening, she could hear voices, excited voices, lots of them.

"Hallooo down there?"

There was no immediate response, probably because everyone was talking so loud. After waiting a moment, Bunny descended. She'd never seen a communion place entry so bright, something that would certainly have provoked a lot of discussion on any occasion.

What she didn't expect to see was men and women armed with all kinds of homely weapons: axes, staves, nets, and pitchforks, as well as the usual bows, lances, and knives.

"What's happening?" she cried, touching the first man by the arm.

"Glad you could make it," he said, giving her a scant look. "We got big trouble coming to Tanana Bay and we'll need every body we can get to turn 'em back."

"Turn who back?" And Bunny felt a gelid spurt of fear. What had happened while they were off-planet? Had Intergal gone back on its word?

"That pirate! Louchard!" someone else explained, leaning around the first man to put in his quarter credit.

"Hey, you don't come from around here."

"No, I'm from Kilcoole but-"

"Bunekaf" said the Voice.

"Buneka?" And that shout came from Sean's throat.

Bunny was so astonished to hear the Voice come out with her own name that she didn't react until Sean had her in his arms and was whirling her about, laughing and crying.

"You're free. You're all right!" And he was feeling her over to be sure she was, his eyes both glad and anxious. Then he looked around her. "Yana?"

"She's all right, too, Sean, really, she's fine."

Sinead pushed through the crowd then and embraced Bunny as warmly as Sean had done, also asking where Yana was.

"Hold it down," Sean said in a loud voice. Everyone in the communion place was trying to understand who the newcomer was that the Voice had recognized so unexpectedly.

So it took minutes before Bunny could explain, and then minutes more before she made it clear that the pirate was not on Petaybee, only his first mate and Dinah O'Neill were. Then she had to calm Muktuk and Chumia down because they were so astonished, and gratified, that their kinswoman was right there in Tanana Bay. Immediately they were in a quandary about welcoming her if she wasn't bringing good news about Louchard and his kidnap victims.

"A moment's hush, please," Sean said in a loud authoritative voice. He was instantly obeyed as he bowed his head to consider what to do next. Everyone tried not to fidget.

"So"-now Sean was ready to recap-"you've all been released and everyone is safe?"

"Thanks to the cat upstairs," Bunny said. "I don't know how it managed to find us-out hunting and heard me call, I suppose."

Sean and the others exchanged sheepish glances. "We all had a map," he admitted with a thumb jerked back to the still-glowing wall of the cave. "But the cat acted on it while the rest of us were gathering a force to protect ourselves from the pirates."

"The only two that are here are warming themselves nearby. There's a couple of others on ice, you might say, about where the map says." She indicated the slowly fading spiral and line, dribbling away as the microscopic animals forming the phosphorescence deserted the map to go on to more important matters. Chumia busily sketched the whole map on the back of her hand. The portion of the map that crossed waves remained as bright and deliberate as it had been when Bunny first arrived.

"Yana talked Dinah into getting Louchard to release Marmie and Namid, too, since they're afraid to return Marmie to Gal Three and can't get any ransom for her."

"Wait, wait! Who's this Namid?" Sinead asked.

"An astronomer Louchard's also got imprisoned." Bunny didn't explain about Namid being divorced from Dinah, because it wasn't really an important detail. "We came in the Jenny's shuttle, only the damned fool landed right on the edge of the ice, so they're about to take a dive off the ice in the inlet." At Sean's gasp of horror, she added quickly, "Oh, Yana, Diego, and me, as well as Dinah O'Neill and the first mate, got ashore okay, but there are crewmen still inside and they can't go nowhere right now."

"And they'd have nowhere to go here either, so crowded we are," Sinead said sourly.

So everyone started talking at once again until Sean, in midflight up the stairs on his way to Yana, stopped and held up his hands.

"Okay now, folks, let's just calm down. If the ship's disabled, we can relax. There's just two people to be considered, and I think we can handle this, Muktuk, Chumia, Sinead, and me. Go on back to your homes and your dinners. And thank you very much for being so ready to stand on the line. Sure do appreciate your support."

Then, followed by Bunny, Sinead, and the two Murphys, Sean swarmed up the steps two at a time.

"Where did you say you stashed them, Bunny?" Sean asked when they got outside.

"First cabin I came to." Bunny pointed. "Megenda was shaking so bad he needed to get warml"

"Oh, that'd be the Sirgituks," Chumia said, smiling. "They won't mind. They're still down below. Shall I ask them to stay here, in our place, until we've got things all settled?"

"Would you please, Chumia?" Sean asked with an appreciative smile, but he kept right on striding toward the place where Yana was.

He was at least ten strides in front of Bunny and Muktuk when he reached the door and went in. Bunny trotted to catch up and heard a very surprised Yana call out Sean's name. When Bunny entered the Sirgituks' cabin, Sean and Yana were locked in each other's arms, cheek to cheek, eyes closed, rocking back and forth and not saying a word. Yana's face was wet with tears.

Dinah O'Neill was looking Sean up and down as if she was hunting for something she wasn't seeing, and there was a bit of a smirk to her grin. Megenda was still shivering, though not quite as violently now he had the warmth of the soup in him. Yana and Diego had removed both the pirate's clothing and their own in Bunny's absence, and were wrapped in the Sirgituks' extra clothing and blankets. A kettle boiled on the stove.

"Dinah O'Neill, this is Muktuk Murphy O'Neill and Chumia O'Neill O'Neill, your kinfolk. And the man by the fire is First Mate Megenda of the Jenny," Bunny said.

"Greetings, kinswoman," Muktuk said, "though I think we gotta do some straight talking before anyone's going to want to welcome you proper like. Now, let's get this fella seen to. Whatcha think, Sinead? Give him a tot of the juice?"

Sinead had followed Muktuk in and was eyeing Dinah O'Neill with a less than charitable expression on her face. She had relaxed on seeing that Yana was well enough to cling to Sean, and now she gave the shuddering Megenda her attention.

"D'you have some of Clodagh's juice?"

Muktuk nodded. "Always keep some handy since the time it brought my brother back to life, when he fell into the fish hole that winter."

He rummaged in one of the overhead cupboards in the kitchen corner of the house and dragged out a medium-sized brown bottle. Holding it up to the light, he twirled it, checking the level of the liquid. Satisfied, he got down a glass, poured in an exact two fingers of liquid, then handed the glass to Megenda.

"This'll stop those shivers before you come loose at the joints."

Megenda was evidently willing, at this point, to take anything that might reduce the chill he had taken. Grasping both edges of the fur rug in one big hand, he tossed off the contents of the glass in one gulp.

Muktuk regarded him and Megenda looked right back, sort of superciliously, until the juice made itself known down his gullet. Then his eyes bugged out, fit to pop from his head, and he gasped, exhaling, and even Bunny, on the far side of the room, recoiled as his exhalation reached her.

Dinah O'Neill looked angry. "What did you give him?"

"Just what Clodagh would have were she here," Bunny said smugly. "You watch. It'll clear off those shivers as if he'd swallowed a hot poker."

Megenda, mouth still wide open, dragged in a breath as deep as the one he had just expelled, settled it in his lungs, shook his head, and stood straight and tremorless in front of the fire.

"What was in that?" he asked in a raspy voice, letting the fur drop from his shoulders. His observers could now see the beads of sweat standing out on his forehead. Close as he'd stood to the fire, it hadn't been able to warm him to sweating.

Sean grinned. "Clodagh Senungatuk makes it up for dogsled drivers to use in case of a ducking. Used it a time or two myself to good effect."

"When you come out of the water after a good swim?" Dinah O'Neill asked with an odd smile on her lips as she regarded Sean, her head tilted to one side.

He gave her a long stare. Then he smiled back at her. "I don't need it on those occasions, Dama. I'm in my element then." He gestured to the table, pulled out one of the chairs, and settled Yana in it. He hadn't let go of her hand all this while and he continued to hold it during the next discussions.

"That stuff keep its whammy long?" Dinah asked, looking respectfully at the bottle as she took a seat. When Sean nodded, she asked, "That the sort of thing Petaybee does like no other culture?"

"We have developed certain medications that are effective in this sort of climate, yes. That's one. I doubt it would have much usage on say, a tropical world, so the general demand would be small."

"But something that when it's needed, there isn't anything as efficacious?" Dinah went on.

Sean inclined his head. "Like the cough syrup that cured my wife's"- he gave Yana such a fond look that Dinah O'Neill blinked wistfully- "cough. How is it now, dear?"

"I haven't so much as sputtered once I got back into Petaybean air, Sean," Yana replied, squeezing his fingers.

"No, you haven't." Dinah O'Neill blinked again and then frowned before she gave her head a little shake. "No, you didn't manufacture those coughing fits."

"No, I did not," Yana said firmly. "I definitely did not. But I'm not going to go off-planet ever again." And this time her free hand went to the pouch at her neck. "Not for any reason, no matter how damned important."

"Not that Sean'd let you," Bunny said.

"Now, Dama, what do we do?" Sean said directly to Dinah O'Neill. "Have you indeed come to seek sanctuary here from your pirate captain?"

"Actually"-now the famous O'Neill smile broke across Dinah's pert face-"I'm here as spokesperson for Captain Louchard to discover what, ah, shall I say, local wealth, can be used to defray his costs."

"His costs?" Diego said, angrily.

"Well, yes, of course, he has to make some profit from what has turned out to be an ill-advised undertaking."

"Won't restoration of the half-sunk shuttle suffice?" Sean asked, a twitch of a smile on his lips.

"Oh, dear heavens, no. The shuttle can either sink on its own, or the Jenny's tractor beam will lift it," Dinah O'Neill said airily. "No, the captain expended a considerable amount of time and energy, plus rations and accommodations..."

"Rations and accommodations!" Diego burst out.

"Why, you were fed from the captain's table-"

"I doubt that," Yana muttered.

"Well, my table, then," Dinah corrected herself. "And fresh fruit and good meat..."

"Only when we threatened hunger striking," Diego said irately.

"Whatever," Dinah said, dismissing his complaint. "Time and effort, as well as supplies, mean some compensation must be forthcoming, or I fear the captain will retaliate against the planet."

"What'dya think he'll do?" Diego asked. "Sue it?"

"Captain Louchard don't make mistakes," Megenda said menacingly.

"Oh, dear," Dinah O'Neill said, pretending dismay, and she leaned conspiratorially across the table to Sean and Yana. "The first mate isn't going to be very easy to deal with, what with all he's gone through."

"Then he'd better be grateful we bothered to save his skin," Bunny said fiercely. "Because I'll never do it again."

"You will find, Dama, that none of your captives are ransomable."

"I'm not so sure about that," Dinah said sweetly. "You've already proved conclusively that this planet has products that are lifesaving."

"The juice is useful, that's true, but let's face it, how many hypothermic victims have you encountered in your line of work?" Sean asked. "And while it doesn't cost much to produce, there's not what you'd call a good profit margin in juice either."

"Ah, but there may be other items with which to pay your ransom... like your swimming, ah, say I call, technique?"

Sean threw back his head and laughed heartily. "That's hereditary, Dama, and not many would put up with the inconveniences."

"Like running around starkers in minus-forty Celsius?"

"Exactly."

"I think I need to speak to the powers that be on this place. You are, if you'll pardon me, really not the final authority. Or so I've been led to believe." Dinah had cocked her head again at Sean. Then she turned abruptly to Bunny. "You promised to guide me to one of the communion places of this planet. Do so now." She rose. So did Megenda.

"I will guide my kinswoman," Muktuk said, putting a hand on Sean's shoulder to keep him seated by Yana.

Dinah gave Bunny and Diego a stern look and pointed her index finger at them. Megenda took the half step necessary to loom above them. Bunny shrugged and Diego glowered, but both rose from the bench. So did Sinead, who eyed Megenda as she idly caressed the handle of her

skinning knife.

"Remember to listen carefully, Dama," Sean said, and then paid no more attention to the group setting out to the communion place.

"Let's go and get this over with," Megenda growled, herding everyone before him. At the door, he looked back over his shoulder at the bottle, still visible on the worktop, and shook his head.

22

SpaceBase Petaybean Immigration Facility (PIT)

Adak O'Connor wanted nothing more than to take his bruised and aching head back to his cabin in Kilcoole and forget about the wider universe and all its problems. He was an amiable man with simple tastes, because he'd never had occasion to have or expect more. He enjoyed the life he had once led, as Kilcoole's expediter, and keeping the snocles working and knowing when spaceships were coming in.

Up until this morning, he'd really enjoyed being chief immigration officer and official welcomer but, between getting conked hard on the head and now this, he felt inadequate. That didn't set well. Neither did the unanswerable demands of these latest arrivals. In all his born days, he'd never seen anything like this! Though he'd heard that both Sinead and Clodagh had had to manage some pretty queer persons lately.

"You mean, there are no hospital facilities whatever on this planet?" the indignant personage repeated for the umpteenth time.

"I keep telling you, if someone's sick, they stay home," Adak replied.

He cast a jaundiced eye at the "patient," who would have been better off staying at home, too, instead of bringing who-knew-what rare disease to Petaybee.

Right after they'd arrived, a big orange tomcat had sauntered in, sitting down beside the sick man's unusual chair to wash itself. Then it had hopped up on the man's lap, sniffed, lifted its lip in a disgusted way, and hopped down again to saunter out the door. Adak figured it was going to tell Clodagh there was someone sick and smelly here. Personally, he could only hope Clodagh would hurry. He was a little out of his depth, and Clodagh was the healer, after all-though he was absolutely certain she wasn't what this high and lofty group would expect to have tend their patient.

The remarkable chair floated, dang it, above the floor of the cube, as he had watched it float above snow and mud and everything else people had to plow through around SpaceBase these days. And the patient-a Very Important Personage named Farringer Ball, whose helpers seemed to think that even Adak O'Connor would know who he was-was hitched up by tubes to the chair.

"Or," Adak continued, "they call their local healer if they don't live in Kilcoole, or Clodagh Senungatuk if they do, which is what I've done, only it'll take her time to get here."

"Don't you realize that in medical situations time is of the essence?"

"Sure, but he ain't bleeding and he is breathing and those're encouraging signs," Adak said. "And he's got all you here to make sure he doesn't bleed and keeps breathing, so sit down, please, over there, until Clodagh gets herself here."

The person in his beautifully tailored fine travel garment looked at the spartan seating arrangements, and the expression on his face when he turned back to Adak was dour and condescending. "Surely there is some kind of transit lounge-"

"You're in it," Adak said, rudely interrupting. It was not his normal manner, but he was getting fed up with doing this crazy sort of word dance around the subject as if the name, once spoken, would instantly provide what the speaker truly wanted-in this case, apparently, the most expensive suite in a private hospital, the most successful and omniscient doctors who would provide instant health for the patient. "I done toF ya, Intergal pulled everything out, including their infirm'ry, when they gave the planet back to itself. At that, us Petaybeans have more than we ever had before." Adak gestured proudly around the cube. It was not only clean and warm but bigger than any four of the biggest cabins in Kilcoole.

"Now set yourself down and wait!" Adak shuffled the papers in front of him, making a good show of looking for something. Then he picked up the comm unit and turned his back on the medic man as if this was a very private call. The guy finally copped on and moved away from the counter.

"Thavian, didn't you tell him who I am?" wheezed the old man in the chair, pounding the armrest with a hand liberally covered with liver spots.

Surreptitiously, Adak shot him a glance. Guy didn't look too good, at that. All sunk in on himself. If he expected Petaybee to bring him back from whatever got him that way, he was asking for a miracle. That was sure. And, as far as Adak had ever heard, you couldn't pay for miracles: they just happened in their own good time. Like the great big mountain that Petaybee had thrust up in the middle of the landing field... and then swallowed back up six weeks later.

Fortunately, just as Adak himself was getting twitchy, he spotted a trio of cats bouncing through the snow and the bulk of a fur-clad Clodagh lumbering behind them. Looking from her to the immaculately dressed medical folk-even the patient had on fine threads and was bundled in the amazingly colored pelts that no animal on Petaybee ever grew-Adak was sadly aware of a vast difference in style and appearance between Petaybeans and visitors. Not that those fancy clothes were as warm and as suitable to Petaybee as his and Clodagh's practical, and indigenous, garments. And he almost hated to drop this problem in Clodagh's lap after all the ones she'd had with that Rock Flock, which kept growing the way some fields will grow rocks no matter how they're cleared.

"Slainte, Adak, what's up?" Clodagh asked, as she threw open the door and let in a blast of cold air, which smelled refreshingly clean to Adak. He realized then that there was a fusty stink to the air in the cube, due to the patient, no doubt, and all the funny bottles and tubes in his floating chair.

"I am Dr. Thavian von Clougn," the leader said, eyeing Clodagh disdainfully. "My patient is Secretary-General Farringer Ball." A graceful hand introduced the patient. "We were informed by a reliable source that this planet has unusual therapies to assist my patient back to full health."

Clodagh squatted down so that her face was on a level with Ball's. "Slainte, Farringer," she said softly. "You looked better on the comm screen. What's wrong?"

Ball wheezed and looked at Clodagh from under lowered eyebrows. "That's apparently supposed to be for you to find out, young woman."

He looked startled at Clodagh's laugh, which was not only ripplingly youthful but beautiful.

"Thanks for the 'young,' " she said, patting his hand companionably.

"It wasn't intended as a compliment," Dr. von Clough replied stiffly, eyeing Clodagh with distaste.

Clodagh shrugged, unconcerned. Before any of the medical team could intervene, she had her fingers on Ball's wrist. She stooped down to look him squarely in his lined and sad face, and tut-tutted. She pinched a flap of skin on his arm and observed the rate of its relaxation.

"You're real tired, aren't you?" she asked.

"The secretary-general is suffering from a serious PVS condition..."

She nodded. "Real tired." Straightening up, she added, "He should stay here awhile."

"That's what Luzon said, though he wouldn't say why," Ball wheezed.

"Him?" Clodagh snorted derisively. "Just goes to show you anybody can do something right once in a while. Don't suppose he meant to. But the joke'll be on him. How'd you all get here? Whit Fiske said the PTS was grounded."

"Why, the secretary-general has a private launch for the necessary travel he must-"

"At SpaceBase? Now?"

"Of course it is."

"Good, then you all can stay there and I think I can find space for Mr. Ball..."

"But-but this-individual-said you had no hospital facilities." Von Clough regarded Adak accusingly.

"Don't need them. So far, folks have found the whole planet pretty healthy-good food, good air, nobody havin' to take on more'n they can handle. Sick folks can rest when they need to, exercise if they need to. That and a bit of a tonic seems to do the trick. You might say the whole planet's a hospital facility, only it's so good at it, everybody stays pretty well, so's you'd never notice," Clodagh said slowly, as if turning over the words she spoke in her own mind at the same time. "I never thought about it before, but now that I do, it's true." She made an expansive gesture that included everything outside the cube. "We got everything a human body should need to keep well or cure what's ailing."

Von Clough's eyes bulged with indignation.

"Mind you, Farringer, you were a little late comin', but I still think we can help you out." She eyed the apparatus with as dubious a glance as von Clough had awarded her. "Right now, of course, as we're getting started, we have to make do with what we've got." She indicated the cube. "We're organizing slow but sure."

"So, where can the secretary-general go?"

"The school at Kilcoole doesn't need all the rooms in their cube yet," she said. "We're kinda short of places to put people since Dr. Luzon"- Clodagh paused to grin-"has been so good as to send us so many unexpected guests. But we'll find a place for Farringer, since he's so bad off. If you wanted to help, Doctor, the men could use more hands to build more houses, unless you thought you could get some more of these for the new folks," she added, indicating the cube, "specially now we're getting seasonal blizzards."

"Seasonal blizzards?" Von Clough's eyes bulged as he saw what was slanting past the window area, as thick and earnest a snowfall as the season ever provided.

Clodagh cocked her head at von Clough, smiling her beautiful smile. "Since these are probably more like what Farringer's used to, you might ask the cube builder to send him one. Meantime, we'll get him started mendin'." Low mutters of disapproval were exchanged among the lesser minions while von Clough sputtered with renewed outrage.

"But-we're in attendance on the secretary..."

"Now, don't fuss," Clodagh said irrepressibly. "You can use his space launch to come visit whenever you want."

Farringer Ball tried to insert a comment, but a bout of coughing took over; the discreet dials on the back of his invalid chair started to dance about.

Clodagh took a bottle from one of her capacious pockets, uncorked it, and then produced a carved wooden spoon. Before his medical advisers could protest, Clodagh had slipped a dose into Ball's mouth. He swallowed. Instantly the cough began to subside and weakly Ball waved a hand in gratitude.

"Is this what Colonel Maddock took?" he asked, when he regained his breath, with something of the air of a schoolboy asking his grandmother about mythical animals.

Clodagh nodded. "Can't beat it."

Obviously swallowing his pride, von Clough executed the barest of civil bows to Clodagh and held out his hand for the bottle.

"What may I ask are the constituents of this preparation?"

Clodagh shrugged again. "This 'n' that," she said vaguely. "Important thing is, it works pretty fast. Long-term results take more time, though."

Von Clough uncorked the bottle and delicately sniffed, blinking at the aromatics that caressed his nostrils. Then he looked at Ball, who was still recovering from the spasm of coughing, although his breathing was less ragged with every passing moment.

"Amazing. Really remarkable." He passed the bottle to one of the minions.

"We've been tryin' to tell you," she said, as if talking to a child who'd just burned himself. "Petaybee's good for most people. Hardly anybody gets sick ever. If you want health, it only makes sense to go someplace healthy." Her conviction and clarity in the face of so much pretension and general dog crap made Adak want to cheer. " 'Struth, too," he said, whether anyone cared for his opinion or not.

23

"Neva Marie? Looks like we got ourselves a situation here." Johnny Greene spoke calmly and soothingly enough to quiet any of the savage beasts who were circling. "We're up to our collective asses in planet rapers, polar bears, and pumas, so to speak... How many what?... Oh, planet rapers? Oh, a couple hundred, or maybe a little less... Nope, sorry, I'm not going to count the polar bears and pumas for you. Let's just say there's enough, shall we?... My position is about-ummm-a hundred and fifty miles south-southwest of Bogota, pretty much in the middle of nowhere special. It's flat, it's dark, and me, Mr. and Mrs. Ondelacy, and the town council, as well as little 'Cita Rourke, got ourselves surrounded first by these planet rapers, then somehow or other got our position reinforced by the polar bears and the pumas and other associated species. It's dark. It's cold. We want outta here muy pronto... I damn-sure know I drive the only winged beast in the vicinity but we need help fast. I don't care how. There's too many here to take out and I don't have the fuel to run a ferry service between here and Bogota and I, er, rather suspect the planet rapers would take it ill if I tried to leave without them. Besides, goodness only knows what they'd do to the polar bears... Well, / don't know what you're supposed to do, sweetheart. Call Adak to call Sean and see if he's got any bright ideas. If Oscar O'Neill hasn't left the planet yet, maybe he could lend a hand... Call Loncie's kids and tell them to send a dogsled posse. But hurry. There's a polar bear eyeing me lustfully even as we speak, and I was saving myself for you. Out now, love. I really miss you."

. . .

The dogsleds were loaded and the teams hitched and ready to go when Liam Maloney mushed in, accompanied by Dinah, his late mother's lead dog, and Nanook, the most companionable of Sean's large track-cats. Dinah, good sled dog that she was, leaped up on Diego at once and began washing his face with a tongue that smelled like fish. Diego called her by name several times, looking over to see the effect on Dinah O'Neill, but she, the human, didn't change expression.

"Kind of you to come, Liam," Sinead said a touch sarcastically. "A bit late, but welcome nonetheless."

"I was delayed," he said, pushing back the parka hood and running his mittens over the ice that had formed in his hair and mustache. "Nanook had a hairy knicker attack on the way here and wouldn't let us proceed for quite some time. I couldn't get out of him what was wrong, but once he decided to move, he all but left us behind."

Sean squatted down and held out his arms. "What's the problem, Nanook?"

"Don't tell me it talks, too?" Dinah O'Neill asked.

"Anything wrong with talking cats?" Diego demanded, rubbing Dinah-the-dog's ears.

"Nothing at all. After what the darling little orange pussycat did for us, I have become a born-again cat lover, especially of Petaybean cats. I suppose export is out of the question?"

Sean looked up. "Here's another first. Coaxtl is sending to Nanook that her cub-by that I take it she means 'Cita-is in trouble with bad humans. She went down to see Loncie when Johnny and O.O. took the last cube to Bogota." He stroked Nanook worriedly. "While I'm gratified to see that the planet is expanding its communication network to cover the whole globe, I don't have a notion what we can do to help 'Cita."

Chumia said, "That was the other spot on the map in the communion place, then, wasn't it? That's what the waves were for and the circles- there's more trouble down south. You're right, Sean. I've never known the planet to tell us anything about what was happening down there before."

Muktuk shook his head. "My dogs'd take me anywhere, but they ain't real big on winter ocean swimming."

"I'd swim it myself," Sean said, "but the mental picture I'm getting is of someplace far inland, away from any waterways. I can't imagine how the bears came so far from the ice pack."

"Bears?" Bunny asked. "Polar bears? 'Cita's down there with polar bears? Uncle Sean, we've got to save her!"

Sean gave her a small, wry smile. "Funny, that's what she said when she heard you'd been kidnapped by pirates, and you've come out of it well enough."

"I'd take Petaybean polar bears over pirates anytime, gatita" Diego told Bunny, releasing one arm from the dog's neck to hold her hand. "At least they have the planet to answer to. Whereas two-foot Dinah here only has Louchard."

Dinah O'Neill lifted an eyebrow. "Perhaps. But I do happen to have command of a space shuttle that could be placed at your disposal to solve this little inconvenience. That is, if it could be freed."

The rescue expedition was mounted forthwith and with great dispatch. Sean, Yana, and Bunny were everywhere at once organizing. The snow had not fallen so thickly that Bunny's trail couldn't be retraced in the darkness, and the dogsleds broadened the track. The nights were longer in northerly Tanana Bay than they were even in Kilcoole, but all the drivers and dogs were used to traveling in darkness. Fifteen sleds left the village, containing rope, chain, fishnets, winches, anything that might help free the shuttle. Dinah-Four-Feet and Nanook trotted alongside. Dinah-Two-Feet, as the pirate's representative, accompanied the rescuers, but Megenda had been locked inside the communion cave for safekeeping and to fully recover from his narrow escape from frostbite and pneumonia.

"Let's not get too close," Bunny called to the sleds as they neared the hole in the ice containing the shuttle. "It broke with just me."

"Make way, clear off the trail," Muktuk Murphy's voice called from the rear. "Comin' through."

Behind him he led a curly mare, and behind her trotted three of the wild curly stallions, each sporting a businesslike horn.

"Where'd you get them, Muktuk?" Sean asked. "They're beauties."

"Part of the Tanana Bay herd," Muktuk said proudly, with an affectionate slap on the heavy neck of the mare beside him. "I told her we had a job to do for the smartest, so she picked her own get. They can do more for us in this season than fight with each other over who gets what filly. Not that this is the time a' year for breedin'. That's for springtime," he added with a grin.

"Hmmm," Dinah O'Neill said under her breath just loudly enough that Yana heard her. "That's quite a display they're putting on. Didn't know animals acted like that. Showing off like cadets who've just got their pilots' licenses."

Yana shot her an enigmatic smile, as enthralled by the rearing, bucking, biting antics of the males as Dinah. The sleds with their teams of wagging, howling dogs slewed to either side of the trail and broadened their circle around the hole while Muktuk led his mare forward.

"Why don't they just use ice saws?" Diego asked.

Behind her hand Bunny said, "First 'cause I think Cousin Muktuk is showing off for Cousin Dinah's benefit, and second, because it's said that the curly-corns can judge ice so well they can play tag on the ice pack during breakup and never once fall in."

"Fascinating!" Dinah-Two-Feet said.

Yana was both amused and appalled, watching this laughing tourist who had assisted in their kidnapping, stood by while Megenda struck both Diego and Bunny, and, according to the kids, had been a party to the murders of the Gal Three repair crew members. If Yana had anything to say about it, as soon as that shuttle was out of the water and the crewmen out of the shuttle, crew and Dinah O'Neill would be put on ice with Megenda. Never mind "safe passage." Petaybee had no kind of law and order beyond that which made good sense to most people, but Gal Three had plenty.

Dinah O'Neill was laughing again. "Look at those creatures go! I've never seen a unicorn before, Muktuk. Is it true they only like virgins?"

Muktuk snorted with good-natured contempt for her ignorance. "Curly-coats aren't proper unicorns. They'll mount anything. Our Sedna here is mother to all three stallions and, since she's bell mare for the Tanana Bay herd, they mind her right good."

To Yana, it seemed as though the activity of the curly unicorns was frantic, driven, and no more purposeful than to break through any random chunk of ice to reach what lay beneath. The remarkable result was that the effects of their seemingly random efforts were beginning to show. They had made it into some sort of a game, spurred on by Sedna, who went from one to the other, like a foreman, so that every muscular ripple was a challenge to do better; every thrust and gouge of a horn was accompanied by a snort of derision for the others; every stamp of the hoof broke through a newly dislodged block of ice and sent it bouncing off the trapped shuttle into the black waters below.

In less than an hour, during which Dinah, Diego, and Yana were bundled into sleds, the shuttle floated free of the ice. It bounced out of its trap in a wobbly fashion. Then the crew fired up the engines and landed it beyond the ice at the position of the outermost dogsled.

If a shuttle door could open timidly, this one did. Dinah O'Neill was there to greet them.

"Come on out, gentlemen. Throw down your weapons. I'm afraid we're surrounded by superior firepower."

A slight variation of the facts, of course, although Dinah did have her own laser pistol pointed at her. And truth was served when the crew, having thrown out their hand weapons, found them turned purposefully on themselves as the Petaybeans augmented their harpoons, drawn bows, hunting knives, and the two simple ballistic firearms with the sophisticated weaponry. With the crew in custody, Dinah began to climb the ramp, but Muktuk caught one arm, Yana the other.

"I wouldn't dream of taking you away from either your crew or your newfound family when you've just got here, Dama," Yana said sweetly. "I've flown this class shuttle all over the galaxy. I'm sure Sean and I can manage. You join the others."

"Oh, curses! Foiled again, I suppose," Dinah muttered. "But, very well. Have it your way. Muktuk, Chumia, you did promise to share the family history with me and I have a bit to tell you. Shall we return to your lovely home and thaw out?"

"Coaxtl says there is a storm coming, Captain Johnny," 'Cita said. "She says that if all will follow me, one at a time, she will lead us to a warm place of safety."

Zing Chi looked down at her scornfully. "This is no time for childish prattling. You people obviously indulge your children so much that they feel they may interrupt adults dealing with such a crisis."

'Cita couldn't help herself. Her wicked streak surfaced.

"They do not indulge children! I should know. I have been beaten well and often, as I so frequently deserve. But the words I spoke were the words of Coaxtl, and no one beats Coaxtl. And Captain Johnny would not have a crisis to deal with if you had not caused it! I may be unworthy and a mere child, but you are a wicked, greedy man and very impolite, as well, to come to the Home and take things without asking!"

Zing Chi spat disgustedly. "Your pardon, Captain. I didn't realize the child was mentally unbalanced."

But Captain Johnny gave him the same sort of look Zing Chi had given 'Cita and asked her, "Would Coaxtl know if it would be safe for me to fly?"

'Cita asked and reported the answer. "She says there will be strong winds and much snow and all will be whiteness. We must follow now to find the safe place."

"In other words, no flying. Loncie, Pablo, you heard? What do you think?" Johnny asked.

"Follow your lion, muchacha," Loncie told 'Cita approvingly. "We will follow you."

"We won't," Zing Chi declared. "You think I am fooled by your notion that animals talk? That animals know things that humans don't? Especially about flying conditions. This is a trick to separate us so we can be taken, and it does not work with Zing Chi. Those animals are only waiting until we separate so that they can pick us off more easily."

'Cita had had quite enough of this rude and grabby man. She pushed through the crowd to Coaxtl, who easily cut a swath from the outer ring of animals through the huddle of people. Behind her, 'Cita heard Johnny say, "Oh, no, Zing Chi. As far as the polar bears are concerned, larger groups are a more satisfying entree. But suit yourself. I'm following the cat and," he added, raising his voice to shout over the wind, "if any of you other folks want to get in out of the cold before a big storm comes, follow us, one at a time!"

Hurry, Youngling, the place is far and time is short, Coaxtl said.

'Cita felt the warm softness of another, smaller cat brushing her legs and twisting about her ankles, and then the prickle of claws on her thigh. She looked down into the gold coin eyes of a lion cub.

Behind her, a voice said, "It wants to go with you. I will, too. I don't care what the others are doing."

'Cita looked back and saw the boy she had glimpsed from the copter. He was bending over to stroke the cub. She nodded and Coaxtl preceded her back through the throng to the copter, where Johnny, Loncie, Pablo, and the others from Bogota fell in behind herself and the boy. Zing Chi was shouting at his people that it was all a trap. Not that there was another option open, for the circle of animals closed tighter and tighter around the people, funneling them in behind 'Cita's group.

As Coaxtl reached the outer edge of the humans, she stepped forward, 'Cita following, and marched with great unconcern between two long ranks of animals with fetid breath, white teeth, and shining eyes.

24

Yana had Louchard's shuttle pilot-prompted by a saccharine order elicited from Dinah-Two-Feet-run her through the checklist to be sure there weren't any surprises on this slightly-less-orthodox-than-usual vessel.

Then Marmion, Namid, Bunny, Diego, and the villagers began the trek back to Tanana Bay with their prisoners. Muktuk suggested that Marmion and Namid ride back on curly-coats, an exercise that enchanted Marmion and caused Dinah O'Neill to protest.

"I don't see why I can't ride one of those lovely creatures," she cried, with a flirtatious appeal to her new kinsman. "Muktuk, dear, you did say they were not the virgin-exclusive sort of mythical-beastie unicorns, and I am quite a good rider."

"I'm sure you are, cousin," Chumia said firmly before her mate could be cajoled. "But since you've fallen in with evil companions who are known to be a bit free with other folks' property, we'd like to get to know you better before we entrust one of our curlies to you."

Dinah opened her mouth and closed it again, nonplussed, then allowed herself to be bundled onto one of the sleds. She did sufficiently recover her aplomb after being so uncompromisingly confronted to complain in an exaggerated whine that a dogsled was not the same thing as a unicorn ride at all.

On board the shuttle, Yana used the pirate comm unit to monitor the Intergal satellite. Not only would it still be night for another six hours at Bogota, but the whole of the southern continent was wrapped in a massive blizzard, making flying inadvisable.

"I could tiy," she said. "I hate to leave 'Cita in the lurch."

Sean thought for a moment and shook his head decisively. "No. Johnny's there and the copter, and Coaxtl won't let anything happen to her. If those two can't take care of her, we won't add much to the equation, especially with you half-frozen and about to drop."

So they bedded down on the shuttle, happily warming each other, to await a more appropriate time to start their journey. They didn't get to sleep immediately: they had been parted a long time for newlyweds. Nanook, who had insisted on staying with them, discreetly adjourned to the next cabin.

When they awoke, Yana checked the comm unit again, once more monitoring the Intergal Station for a weather check. Though they'd land in daylight now, the weather was no better; but they decided not to delay any further. After all, they had the map that Petaybee itself had presented to them, indicating all the trouble spots, and Sean knew the coordinates of Bogota. In a shuttle of this class, it was not a long journey, but their destination was lost in the swirling mass of a first-rate late-spring blizzard.

"I'm a good pilot," Yana insisted to Sean as she fought the controls. The winds buffeted the sturdy spaceworthy shuttle. "But I was too preoccupied to pay much attention to my surroundings the last time I was here. What am I looking for exactly?"

"A cluster of buildings..."

"Which I can't see in what is virtually a whiteout." There was a slight edge to her voice, because Yana was prudently aware of her limitations. Piloting a shuttle when you could see where you were going, even if you didn't know what you were looking for, was one thing. Flying blind over unfamiliar terrain in these conditions without a beacon to set you down was another.

"Put us down anywhere. Nanook'll reconnoiter," Sean said under-standingly.

"He'll know where we are?"

"He'll be in touch with Coaxtl. And while Coaxtl may not know where we are, he'll know where he is, and can give Nanook directions in-er- cat terms, I suppose."

"Which you will then translate to coordinates I can follow, huh?" Yana shook her head in doubt, glancing from the white-on-white outside and back to Nanook.

Sean gave her one of his slow cryptic smiles. "He operates best in these conditions."

The shuttle sank a little farther, settling into the snow. Nanook was already at the shuttle lock. He gracefully leapt out and almost instantly disappeared from view; only a thrashing of the snow in his path indicated his direction.

Yana looked over at Sean. "Now what do we do?"

Sean grinned. "Wait."

With a bit of chopping and changing, Tanana Bay folks were able to find enough warm clothing to equip Dinah, Megenda, and the two pirates most recently freed from the shuttle. Their clothing was only suitable to the controlled environment on spaceship or shuttle. In helping Dinah, Marmion felt a heavy rectangle under Dinah's light jacket and, with a sleight of hand worthy of a less respectable profession, slipped it out of the pocket. Then, with a flurry, she began to hustle Dinah and the crew down the stairs into the communion place with the sure knowledge that they could not escape. Nor would Dinah have the time to realize she was without that device, whatever it was.

"That should keep them safe," Muktuk said, flipping the rug over the trapdoor.

"And undoubtedly change their attitudes," Sinead said with great satisfaction. "With so many types coming down to see what Petaybee has to offer, maybe the first thing we ought to offer them is communion time."

"I'm hoping," Marmion said to Namid as the table was replaced, "this will do Dinah a world of good. She's not all bad. She certainly tried to make things easier for us with Captain Louchard."

Namid gave a rueful smile. "She has her points."

Then Marmion hefted the object she had taken from Dinah. "A little too heavy for a comm unit, wouldn't you say, Namid?"

He got one good look at it and pushed her hands to return the device to her pocket. "Later, Marmion. Later," he murmured urgently, and then smiled broadly at the other folks in the crowded room.

It took time to sort out who would bunk where in the small village of Tanana Bay. Ultimately, after a cup of soup "to warm bodies for a cold night," Bunny and Diego went with one family, and Liam and Sinead with another, while Marmion and Namid were given the Sirgituks' cabin to themselves, as everyone was of the opinion that at least the good Dama Algemeine deserved what privacy Tanana had to offer.

When they had been installed, new furs supplied for the beds, and the fire freshened for the rest of the cold night, Marmion and Namid were left on their own. Namid sprang to the window and watched to be sure their hosts were all dispersed to their separate accommodations. Then with a sigh of relief, he nodded to Marmion, who gingerly deposited the heavy unit on the table.

"What is it that had you in such a panic, Namid?"

"I think it's a portable holo unit," he said. He hovered, looking at it from all angles and touching the control plate with a careful fingertip. "I can't imagine why..."

His fingertip was not quite careful enough and inadvertently he activated the display. Suddenly the image of Captain Onidi Louchard solidified in and around the table. The creature just stood there, inanimate, while Marmion and Namid looked at each other, openmouthed.

"It was on Dinah?" Namid recovered enough to ask.

"Dinah!"

Tentatively, Namid picked up the broadcaster and suddenly he was enveloped in the image of Captain Louchard.

"Well, what about that!" Marmion exclaimed, delighted and appalled at the same time. "Why, that woman had us all hoodwinked. When I think of the games she played with us as Dinah, when all the time she was also Louchard..." Words failed Marmion.

"Not to mention how she manipulated her crew," Namid-Louchard said in a deep bass voice, with an odd inflection to both tone and words. "No wonder no one ever caught sight of the infamous Captain Louchard."

Marmion laughed-giggled, actually-and sat down to enjoy her mirth. "Really, Namid. I never would have suspected. She's a consummate actress."

"Among other things," Namid said in a sterner tone as he switched back to his own self and replaced the device on the table. "She never wore it in my presence, but then, she wouldn't have needed to be Louchard to her husband."

"Not unless you turned into a wife-beater."

"Oh, that had happened to her, too. I saw the scars," Namid replied gravely. He sighed, prodding the device with a finger, then waved his hand to dismiss it all. "So what do we do about this discovery?"

Marmion had obviously been pondering the same question. She tapped her cheek with one finger. "It will take some heavy thinking, and I'm suddenly much too tired to do any more tonight." She glanced wistfully at the bed. "And don't suggest that you take the floor, Namid," she added firmly, but her smile was suddenly demure.

"I was about to be the gentleman, Marmion," Namid said, but his mouth and eyes smiled.

"Gentle, yes, man, yes, but..." The uplift to the final word was all the invitation Namid required to be both, in the right order.

One could only watch and wait and, sometimes, sleep, while the humans made themselves at home. Through the howling winds one had brought them safely here, through snow like swarms of icy insects biting into one's eyes, ears, and nose. Even with the watchfulness of the Others, some had slipped between their reluctant guardians to wander, freeze, and die. They would not be found before the snows had melted once more.

Coaxtl and the youngling were at rest. The metal bird's master was at rest, as were the cave dwellers of Bogota. Inside the Home, the hot spring burbled warmth throughout. Outside the snows swathed the world with seas of white growing deeper by the moment. At the entrance of the cave, the bears humped like living drifts away from the warmth of the inner cave. The other clouded leopards, the snow lions, the white tigers, the lynx and bobcats, waited out the storm within the cave as well, crowding the humans deep within the inner chambers of the Home.

Some, like the young male with the cub, stared with open delight at the Home, hearing its singing in his blood, seeing its colors inside his eyes, vibrating with its rhythms. The youngling and her ken smiled in their hard-won sleep.

As for those others, though! The noises they made as they flailed about were so shrill and penetrating that at last one was forced to put one's paws over one's ears to achieve any rest.

Namid slipped gently from Marmion's bed, put more wood in the stove, and, after a few false starts, stirred up the fire in the fireplace. Then he donned his borrowed warm clothing, long underwear, heavy woolen socks, woolen pants, shirt, leather sheepskin-lined boots painted with beaver oil for water resistance, scarf, hat, mittens, and parka. Into the pocket of his parka, he slipped the holo disk. Then with a last lingering look at his sleeping lover, he opened the door and walked out into the pastel Petaybean dawn.

He crunched down the wide track leading between the homes of Tanana Bay to the O'Neill's cabin, and let himself in through the unlocked door. He had hoped to be alone on this mission, but he saw that young Diego Metaxos lay in a sleeping bag with his ear against the trapdoor.

The boy awoke as the cold air entered the cabin with Namid. "Morning," he said, in a clear, wide-awake voice.

Namid nodded. He didn't feel much like conversation.

"You're up early," Diego said.

"I need to speak to Dinah."

"I don't think she'll be able to talk to you," Diego said.

"Why not? What's happened to her?"

Diego shrugged. "I dunno. But judging from how contact with the planet affected my dad at first, I think she'll be in a pretty bad way. They were carrying on until way late last night."

"What do you mean 'carrying on'? Has something hurt her?"

"No worse than she's hurt others, I expect. But for people with certain kinds of mind-sets, their first contact with the planet can be devastating. You might find it that way yourself."

"But you didn't?"

"No. It's always been wonderful to me. I was just lying here, thinking of a song to write about all that's happened. I suppose it's safe enough for me to go down there now, but I'm not sure about you."

"I'll risk it. But-no offense, I'd rather go alone."

"It'd be easier for you with one of us." The boy was exuding a subtle air of male challenge.

"You're not native, and you've been all right."

"Yes, but I'm young."

"If you'll excuse me, I'll try it on my own. My mind isn't that rigid and set in its ways yet."

Diego shrugged. "Suit yourself. But I'm going down in a few minutes anyway. It's been a long time since I've had a talk with Petaybee. I may not be native, but I've missed it."

He stepped out of the way and Namid descended the stairs, not seeing the small orange cat that darted through the trapdoor at the last minute and scooted down the stairs ahead of him.

Bunny awoke and looked around for Diego in the other sleeping bag on the floor of their host house. He was gone. Gentle snores arose from their host family.

That was good, actually, because she didn't want to talk to Diego this morning as much as she wanted to try to get a moment alone with Mar-mion. Diego might not understand. She planned to say she was just going to help Marmie with her fire and breakfast.

She dressed quickly and left the cabin, closing first the inner door so the cold wouldn't reach the family, and then the outer, entrance door beyond the arctic foyer where the snowshoes, skis, extra dog harness, and other tools were kept.

She knocked lightly on the Sirgituks' door, and a rather dreamy voice called, "Hello?"

Marmie looked less put-together and much happier than Bunny had ever seen her. She wore the tunic jacket she had been captured in as a robe over long-handled underwear bottoms and woolly socks. She was sitting at the Sirgituks' table sipping something steamy from a cup. Her expression was bemused, to put it lightly.

"Thought you might need help putting a kettle on," Bunny said.

"Not at all. If you'll remember, I'm rather a good cook, and this stove is not so different from the one at my grandfather's hunting lodge on Banff Two, where I sometimes spent my holidays as a child."

"Must be nice to get to live any way you like," Bunny said, pulling off her mittens.

"Ye-es, it is. What's the matter, Buneka dear? You sound rather sad, and I just can't bear that when I'm feeling so good myself. Have a cup of this lovely berry tea and tell me all about it and we'll see if I can fix it."

"Thanks," Bunny said with a little smile. "The tea will be great, but I don't think there's anything you can do about the rest of it."

She finished taking off her wraps, poured her tea, and sat down, warming her hands on her cup and watching the steam rise between herself and Marmie. Marmie had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in the world when she was talking to you. Bunny wished she could be like that.

"I wouldn't want you to get me wrong, Dama, I love Petaybee. I never want to live anywhere else-permanently, that is." Marmie nodded encouragingly, as the words had a hard time coming out. "But I've been doing a lot of thinking. See, the thing is, I never knew what all was out there before. All we ever saw was SpaceBase, and that was pretty grim, and a lot of the recruits who left didn't return and if they did, they sometimes wouldn't even sing about it. I never dreamed there could be some place like Gal Three or some of the stations and planets Charmion showed me holos of."

Marmie smiled. " 'How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?'"

" 'Scuse me?"

"Another old song. Sorry, dear, it just means that once you've seen some of the universe, you can develop a taste for more. Is that what's troubling you?"

"That's part of it. I suppose I might not care so much if I thought I could go other places if I wished. 'Cept, that's not exactly true. Y'see, there's so much to learn out there. I saw things I think we might be able to manage for Petaybee, and not hurt anything, if only someone knew how. But I can't learn about them here. I've always been mechanical, you know, and Diego showed me some gadgets that sure would improve servicing the snocles, for instance. I don't know. I guess I'm not saying it very well. It's just knowing that I have to leave by a certain time or I won't be able to..."

Marmie placed her hand on Bunny's. "We all resent our limitations, dear. Actually, though, you're starting school a little later than most do. There is no. reason why you couldn't begin long-distance studies here and then, when you find you absolutely must go off-planet to satisfy your curiosity, you can go-surely that will be before you're twenty or so. And you can always come back, you know, whenever you like. Petaybean troops do. It's just that I suppose you have to decide now instead of waiting till you're-oh, forty."

Bunny grinned. It had all been so obvious, but the idea was so new to her she hadn't considered the really salient factors.

"Furthermore, it will be my pleasure to present you with a suitable study unit and all the hard-copy books you wish. Among my inheritances are the contents of several libraries. And when you're ready to go off-planet, you can be the pilot student for the Petaybean Offworld Civilian Scholarship program."

"I didn't know there was one!"

"That's because I just decided to sponsor it."

Bunny reached across the table and gave her a hug. "You're aces, Marmie!"

"Likewise. Tell me, you haven't seen Namid, have you?"

"Nope. Nor Diego. But I came straight here after I got dressed."

"Then I think I'll get dressed as well and we'll go find them, shall we?"

If Dinah O'Neill, aka the fearsome Captain Onidi Louchard, had known what was in store for her, she would have fought her incarceration with every one of the many combat skills she had learned since she'd been a defenseless preteen. She did hear Megenda mumbling incoherencies as she was propelled down the ladder. She did notice the odd indirect lighting, but she blithely ventured farther into the cavern, toward the warmth she felt on her face. She thought that at least this prison was comfortably warmer than the cabin she'd just left.

That was when she noticed that the holo transponder was missing. Not that she had to worry about the Petaybeans inadvertently turning it on. But Namid would know what it was. She ought to have checked, and she berated herself for such an oversight. Captain Louchard, she grinned to herself, would have plenty to say about that when next she assumed that mantle.

She and the two crewmen, Dott and Framer, came across Megenda then, all curled up in a fetal position on the floor of the cave, just where it opened up into a fair-sized chamber-a chamber that was oddly beautiful in its pastel shades and mottled walls. The beauty was of a strange, disorienting nature, however: the mottles rippled and the shades altered in an unnerving fashion. Walls were supposed to be stationary, and their coloration was generally stable, too.

"What's the matter with him, Dinah?" Dott asked, planting a toe on Megenda and trying to turn him onto his back so the first mate's face would be visible. He was a rather unimaginative sort, good for routine or monotonous duties, strong and unquestioning, happy to be given orders he could follow, which he followed to the letter. "Thought you said he was just cold."

"I don't like the look of him," Framer said, taking a step back from Megenda's rigid body as if afraid of contagion.

"He's warm enough now," Dott said, grabbing one of Megenda's hands and trying to pull it away from his face.

"Hey, how can you have fog in a cave?" Framer asked, and pointed to the mist beginning to rise from the floor.

"These caves are supposed to be special places," Dinah said as evenly as she could, but the rising vapor carried an aroma to it that was unlike anything she had ever encountered. Her skin began to crawl under the warm parka she'd been given. "I'd like to know what's going on here," she said, turning around on her heel, addressing whatever was generating all these unusual effects. She could have sworn that there'd been no mist, no odor, and no vacillating wall colors and designs when she'd first reached the cave floor. She looked behind her and saw that the mist was closing in, obscuring her view of the walls.

"Going on here?" The phrase was interrogatory, not rhetorical, and the voice that said the words was not an echo of hers.

"Dinah?" The unimaginative Dott's voice quavered. "How do we get out of here?"

"No way out of here."

"Keee-rist, who's talking?" Framer looked wildly around him. "Who's talking?"

Dinah wanted to reassure him that it was the Petaybeans perpetrating some sort of a hoax to frighten them, but she absolutely knew, though she didn't know how, that the voice was nothing caused by any human phenomena. It penetrated her body through to the marrow of her bones.

"Listen," it commanded.

"I'm listening, I'm listening," Framer said, dropping to his knees, bringing his hands up together, probably for the first time in his life, into a prayerful position.

Dott just sat down, hard, licking his lips. He kept his head straight, but he rolled his eyes around in his head as if he didn't quite dare look at who, or what, was speaking back at them.

Megenda began to gibber more wildly, writhing in and out of the fetal position as if his limbs and torso were attached to invisible strings.

For the first time in her adult life, since the time she had turned a weapon on a man who had threatened her with vicious and sadistic treatment, Dinah O'Neill knew fear. She forced herself to remain standing, clenching her fists at her sides as the mist crept up, over her knees, so dense now that she couldn't see her boots. It engulfed her, a moist, permeating blanket, traveling quickly up her body until it covered her face and she could see nothing. And the sounds seemed to emanate from the vapor that enveloped her: sound that cut her skin to her blood and bones; sound that was warm and vibrated through her, and filled with darkening colors, until she heard herself scream in protest at such an invasion. There were screams around her; with an almost superhuman effort of will, she bit her lips, determined that she, unlike the crewmen, would not cry mercy. Her resolve ended when she felt the hard thwack of stone against her face and her body as she fell down. Then she whimpered and wept, as much the lonely, confused, tormented five-year-old girl who had been abandoned by all the adults who had managed her life up until that moment.

The planet has been speaking?" the boy whispered to 'Cita, his hands moving restlessly on the cub's fur as if that motion were all that protected him.

In one sense, 'Cita would tell Yo Chang much later, petting the cub had protected him as he had valiantly protected the cub when in danger from Zing Chi.

"Yes, Petaybee does in these places," 'Cita said in a very grown-up voice.

"And it keeps this place warm for us?" Yo Chang asked because he had to be sure. Though this girl was not much older than himself, he felt she had exhibited commendable authority and certainly bravery in walking the gauntlet of those great animals.

"The Home is always warm."

"How? It was so cold on the surface. Why would it be warm down here? I could feel my ears adjusting to the air pressure, so I know we are down." He gestured to the ground on which they were seated.

"The Home protects us, Coaxtl says. It takes care of us... if-'Cita paused to permit Yo Chang to see how important her next phrase was- "we take care of it."

"It isn't taking care of them," Yo Chang said, rolling his eyes and pointing to one side where the despoilers were writhing in agony and shrieking great anguish.

"I know," 'Cita said soberly. "I used to live with people who called it the Great Monster and feared it only. Because it can be cruel to those who take without respect and give no thanks. The Shepherd Howling was the kind of man who did that all the time, so he stayed out of these caves and taught us all to fear them. But I am disobedient and selfish, and when I ran away from the flock, because they would have taken from me what I was too proud to freely give, I met Coaxtl, who called the Great Monster 'Home.' I decided that if I could, I would rather be like the Great Monster than like Shepherd Howling. The Home is proud, too, and it obeys no one. And it, too, begrudges what is taken from it against its will." 'Cita patted his hand. "Your people have angered the Home and it has become the Great Monster. They"-she waved her hand at the writhing bodies; she was having to shout over the noise they made-"need to be shown how it feels to be stripped and cut, slashed and dug, prodded and pulled and flayed."

To demonstrate her point-and having had a great deal of experience with such torments-'Cita got a flap of skin from Yo Chang's neck and twisted and pinched it as hard as she was able.

"Hey, don't do that!" Yo Chang scrambled sideways away from her, rubbing his neck.

"I was only demonstrating how the planet feels. You were cutting and pulling, too, you know, and you are very lucky that Petaybee saw you save the cub."

Yo Chang gave her a sour, jaundiced glance, rubbing the outraged spot of the pinch. "You didn't have to demonstrate so hard."

"I did because that is how we learn how the planet feels," she replied. "You're much luckier than they are!"

The shrieks and howls were beginning to diminish.

"They're not dead, are they?" Yo Chang asked most urgently.

"I don't think so," 'Cita said, though she couldn't be sure. "Why?"

"My-my-father is not a bad person. Not really," Yo Chang said, his round face and eyes entreating. "We are all forced to work hard at what we do for those who dispatch us to where we must harvest plants. If we do not work hard, and if my father does not make his crew work hard, then the quotas are not filled and we do not get the rations which only hard workers deserve."

Neither youngster would have understood the idea of being paid in credit notes, for both had toiled long and hard hours just to get enough food to fill their stomachs.

"It is hard," 'Cita agreed, nodding her head approvingly, "to get enough to eat. Since Coaxtl found me, I have been eating so well I will soon be as fat as Clodagh." She patted her stomach with great satisfaction. "Everyone feeds me now: Coaxtl, Clodagh, my sister, my aunties and uncles and cousins in their homes. They are very fair about the distribution of food on the plate."

She nodded her head once more in emphasis. But thinking of the food she had shared with Sinead and Sean and Bunny reminded 'Cita that it had been a long time since she had eaten. She also wondered if the call for help had reached anyone. Not, she hastily corrected herself, that Petaybee had not come to their rescue. It had provided ample shelter and water, although one had to be careful not to drink too much water or one could get a stomach colic, which twisted the guts very uncomfortably.

Coaxtl emitted a slight snore, and Yo Chang leaned toward 'Cita. "Does he..."

"Coaxtl is a female personage," 'Cita informed him repressively.

"Does she really talk to you?"

"Not in loud words like you and I are using," 'Cita said, "but I understand exactly what she says to me."

Yo Chang looked down at the sleeping cub in his arms. "Then, if I heard the name Monti, the cub was telling me his name?"

"Quite likely," 'Cita said, delighting in playing the expert.

The moans and sobbings had died down to a low enough murmur that 'Cita decided she could get some sleep.

"We may be a while longer," she told Yo Chang as she rearranged herself against Coaxtl's long warm body. "You'd better rest."

"Can I go see if my father's all right?" Yo Chang asked timidly.

"He'll be feeling very sorry for himself, I shouldn't wonder," 'Cita said, settling. "Sometimes, my aunt Sinead says, when people are hurting they'll lash out at anyone else to make them hurt, too."

Yo Chang gulped but resolutely deposited the sleeping cub by 'Cita before he made his way down to where the sufferers were enduring their penance. She was half-asleep when she heard him return, stifling sobs.

"Your father?"

"Lives, but looks like a grandfather. He doesn't seem to know me."

She patted his shoulder awkwardly and pulled him down, putting her thin arm over him so that he lay between her and Coaxtl and Monti the cub. She didn't need to tell him that life was sometimes hard.

Namid felt a pang of anxiety. Though Dinah certainly merited discipline, even incarceration for their abduction, he didn't wish her harm. And he did need to know more about her activities, with or without the holo of Captain Onidi Louchard. Perhaps it had been Megenda who was Louchard, although the first mate had never appeared to Namid as a man of sufficient cunning and intelligence to contrive the piratical activities that had made Louchard's name feared all over the galaxy.

If Dinah could give him any mitigating circumstances-beyond what he already knew of her tragic early life and hard treatment-maybe he could do some kind of a deal. She had been such a loving and affectionate wife: merry, occasionally even frivolous, and often childlike in her enthusiasms during their married life. It was inconceivable to him that she could also be a ruthless, corrupt outlaw. Maybe she was a split personality, and that complexity, once proved, would reduce the sentence. The very thought of Dinah encased in a space coffin, waiting for the air supply to end, appalled him. He was determined to find some way out for her. Marmion was a kind and understanding person. Perhaps she might drop her own criminal charges against Dinah-if she knew of factors which could mitigate the offense. Dinah hadn't actually pulled the trigger that had killed anyone. Her crew had murdered, that was true, but she had assured him, when he first found out whom she claimed to work for, that the pirates were under strict orders to fire at others only when they were being fired upon themselves. Of course, they were being fired on legally for attempting illegal activities, and self-defense, accordingly, could not be claimed.

Oh, my stars and sparkles, Namid thought, I'm arguing like a modern-day Gilbert and Sullivan.

He took a deep breath and opened the inner door to the communion chamber. Warm mist obscured everything, making him feel as if he had stepped into a steam bath, and he immediately felt a strong presence that had nothing to do with Dinah or her crew. Well, he had been assured by sane and intelligent people that the planet definitely had a persona.

"Good morning," he said, feeling just a trifle foolish, but if the planet understood, then it would appreciate normal courtesies, too. "And it is morning and I expect that you've had a busy time of it lately, but I did wish a few words with you."

"Few words."

Was that permission? Or limitation? Namid wondered.

"They might be more than a few, actually," Namid went on, smiling. "I've so many questions to ask."

"Many questions."

Again Namid wondered if that was permission or limitation. But it had sounded, to his untutored ear, as if the speaker was slightly amused by his presumption.

"I'm told that you do communicate, or rather go into a communion phase with... what should I call it? With supplicants? No, that's much too religious a word. Communicants? Ah, yes, I think that is best. Now, first, is there anything I can do to assist you right now? Remove the occupants that spent the night here? I can't see them for the fog but..."

Namid had-not quite stealthily, but slowly-felt his way farther into the cavern. Before he took another step, however, the fog suddenly sucked itself back into the farthest reaches of the cave and vanished, leaving him awestricken and speechless for several moments as he watched the gentle play of light and color across the surfaces of the cave.

"You are rather stunning in appearance, you know," he said in a hushed voice. The shifting colors of the walls were coruscations of complex blendings and wave designs. He rather suspected he could spend hours following the patterns as they made their way deeper and deeper into the cavern. The path was level now, where before it had been on a slight downward incline. "Am I well into this communion place now?"

"Now!"

"Ah, then," Namid said, "I'm an astronomer, you see. I have spent my life observing the anomalies of stellar matter, with particular emphasis on variables. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?"

"Talk."

"Well, now, I'm certainly willing to, although I am not a lecturer by training. Still, to talk to a planet, the satellite of a rather... ah..."- not ordinary, Namid said to himself, not wishing to offend Petaybee- "... an excellent example of a G-type star... well, it's an extraordinary experience, if you know my meaning."

"Know meaning. Talk."

"I've seen many stars, constant, dwarf, variable, binary systems, everything so far astronomically categorized, but speaking to a planet is highly unusual."

Namid, aware that nervousness was making him more garrulous than was natural, thought he heard a whispery laugh.

"Unusual planet."

At that sally, Namid did laugh. "You have a sense of humor, don't you? I think we shall get on very well together."

"Very well. Talk."

A low moan that ended on a piteous sob interrupted any further talk at that juncture. The moan had echoed quite near, and Namid, being a compassionate person, was compelled to investigate. Just beyond the bend in the passage, he saw the figure of Dinah, looking smaller and, indeed, when he turned her over in his arms, almost wizened of face. Her hair had turned completely white. She was breathing regularly, and although her pulse was slow, it was strong enough to reassure him. All the questions that had brimmed to his mind to ask Petaybee-could it speak with its primary? with its sister planets? communicate with its moons, and how?-went out of his head along with the questions he had framed to ask Dinah. She was patently in no condition to answer-even to her own name.

A gutteral "eh" made him investigate farther down the corridor, where he saw three more figures, each of them curled in a tight fetal position and giving off odors of excrement and vomit that made Namid glad that he had eaten nothing yet in his haste to seek Dinah.

Megenda and the two crewmen had succumbed to Petaybee's justice. But Namid felt that Dinah had not. He carried her up the stairs and banged on the trapdoor to be readmitted into the cabin; he found the room crowded with Marmion, Bunny, Diego, and the Murphys.

"Oh, dear, what has happened to her?" Marmion asked, reaching out compassionate hands to Namid's limp burden.

Muktuk took her from Namid and carried her to the bed he and Chumia shared. "Petaybee's happened to her," he said with the resigned tone of someone who has accepted justice, fair or undeserved.

"I found a portable holo projector that produces an image of the pirate we all thought was Louchard," Marmion told him. "It was in Dinah's pocket. She was Louchard all along."

Muktuk stroked the white hair back from Dinah's face, and Chumia took her hand.

"Poor lass," Muktuk said. "But us kindred of Handy Red have all got a wild streak."

"Hitch the team, Muktuk," Chumia said. "She's beyond my skill. Clodagh in Kilcoole is best at this."

Namid turned away from them and left the cabin, still agitated but reassured that here Dinah would receive, maybe not just what she deserved, but what she had needed all along.

25

Sometime in the middle of the blizzard, Nanook clawed at the shuttle hatch until Yana opened it wide enough for him to jump the drift blocking it and land with a thud on the deck. He seemed to have brought half of the great outdoors in on his coat and paws. But Sean reported good news as he rubbed the cat dry. "Coaxtl says the youngling and the others are in shelter. Nanook can lead us there after the storm." Nanook did. They landed the shuttle in a snowbank, awakening the polar bears, who unhumped themselves, rose, and lumbered off without a backward glance. Yana and Sean disembarked and started for the cave entrance now unblocked by bears, but Nanook barred their way, growled, and preceded them. Yana had thought to bring a laser lantern. It burned brightly enough to show the most eclectic gathering of Petaybean wildlife she had ever seen curled, draped, stacked, lying, sitting, standing, washing, yawning, and sleeping just inside the cave entrance. Nanook growled warningly, but before they took another step, Coaxtl sauntered toward them, yawning. The other cats ignored the humans. 'Cita was right behind her friend, and ran to Sean to embrace him. "Did you bring anything to eat?" Loncie Ondelacy and Pablo Ghompas and their community followed. "Yana, Sean, glad you came. But there are casualties, and we all need to eat." Wading deeper into the cavern, Yana looked at the twisted, mumbling people lying on the floor all around. "I'm glad we came, too. But now what do we do?"

"Whatcha drivin'?" Johnny Greene asked. Yana told him. "Not big enough," he said. "We need serious transportation. Can you get help from Intergal?"

Sean shook his head. "They won't lift a finger to help us because of our 'disloyalty.' Instead they're dumping every problem they can find like garbage onto the face of this world and leaving us to drown in it."

"Well, I can see why they wouldn't want this lot back," Johnny said, with a jerk of his thumb at what was left alive of those on the floor. "But it's only human to try to do something for them. Is there no way at all?"

"Nothing we can do from here," Yana said. "We came because Coaxtl called and we thought you and 'Cita were in danger."

Johnny shook his head. "No more. Them though..."

Loncie Ondelacy said, "Well, I for one don't blame Intergal a bit. If we don't want them to rule us, we can't expect them to jump every time we holler. And whether they caused this problem or not, we can expect more of the same. We have got to figure out a way to solve our own problems if we want to be autonomous. Yana and Sean, why don't you give Johnny a lift back to his bird, along with some of the council members to help dig it out and make a run back to Bogota for food, blankets, and medical supplies. Also to organize a dogsled evacuation here, although it'd be better if they could be flown out, given the shape they're in. You could take 'Cita, too."

But 'Cita shook her head. Her voice was small, but her eyes were shining with excitement. Children did tend to love a crisis, Yana reflected -especially somebody else's. "Though I may be much in the way and a bother, Coaxtl is needed to keep Nanook informed and the other beasts from deciding that these ones"-she indicated the ravaged bodies around them-"are easy prey. Since Coaxtl honors me by speaking to me, I should remain to pass messages between her and my elders and betters."

Sean nodded. "You can come back with Johnny when he returns north, then. I'm sure you'll be a big help to Loncie and Coaxtl."

They ferried Johnny and five of the councilmen back to the helicopter. The soft new snow had drifted deeply around it, and it took them some time to dig it out again. Once its runners were free and Johnny and the others were airborne, Sean and Yana returned to the cave and carried out six of the most severely damaged among the illegal harvesters, Zing Chi and the father of Yo Chang among them, and returned to Tanana Bay.

The dog teams were being hitched as they landed. The dogs set up a fierce howl when the shuttle set down, and the whole village came running to investigate.

Back at the O'Neill's, Yana and Sean saw for themselves the state of Dinah and the other pirates, who had had to be taken from the communion cave and cleaned before being bundled into the shuttle.

On seeing Dinah, Sean said, "Maybe we'll have to rethink letting the planet dispense its own justice. It's fair enough, but we can't handle the casualties. Bad enough that people have to remain badly maimed or die because we don't have the technology to get them to help, but when we have it, just not enough of it, it fairly breaks your heart."

"It does," Muktuk agreed. "Even when it's such as them."

"I'm most concerned about Dinah," Yana said.

"Perhaps you'll be less so when we tell you what we found on her," Marmion said acerbically. "Do you want to do the honors, Namid?"

He fished in his pocket and suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by the ugly Aurelian visage of Onidi Louchard. "I am the pirate Louchard," said a voice that sounded exactly like the pirate Louchard's. "Who are you and why do you seek me?"

Yana, Bunny, and Diego all jumped away from the piratical image.

Muktuk began to laugh. "You mean that little bitty gal pretended to be that thing to control all those big ferocious pirates? Ah, Sean, your governorship, sor, you've got to save her, you do. She's purest O'Neill stock through and through, that one."

"You wouldn't be so crazy about her if you'd been on the pirate ship with her," Bunny told him angrily.

"We'll do our best to save her, Muktuk," Sean said. "If you'll bring along one of our current passengers, that will make room for her..."

"We could come by dogsled, too," Diego said. "It'll be good to feel like part of Petaybee again, won't it, Bun?"

"Sure will," Bunny said. " 'Sides, I got somethin' important to talk to you about."

Diego looked extremely uneasy at that and was sorry he'd offered. Marmion and Namid rode in the shuttle, as well.

Once they were under way and had sent a radio message to Adak to transmit to Clodagh that they had the beginnings of a serious casualty situation on the way to Kilcoole, Yana was unusually quiet and, Sean thought, rather sad.

"What's the matter, alannah?"

She gave him a painful smile. "Since seeing the holo, I have a plan. I wish I didn't almost, but I do."

"To do what?"

"Nail the pirates, Luzon, and Torkel Fiske, and get them all out of Petaybee's hair for good."

"That sounds worthwhile. What's the catch?"

"It would involve taking the holo, returning with this shuttle to the pirate ship, and posing as Louchard. Since I'm the only possible shuttle pilot who qualifies, it means I'll have to leave Petaybee again, and the very thought ties me in knots. Still..."

"Why do you have to do that?"

"To take the ship back to Gal Three where it and the crew can be taken into appropriate custody. Meanwhile, as Louchard, I'll confront Fiske and Luzon and make damned sure there's an incriminating record of what transpired between them."

"I can't let you take that risk, Yana. Especially not in your condition." Sean sounded sterner than he meant to.

"I don't see much choice, not if the pirates are to be put out of commission, and Luzon and Fiske stopped from interfering with us once and for all."

"It's a good plan," Marmion interjected. "Excellent, in fact. It needs to be done. Only, may I make one small suggestion?"

Slister Igneous Rock was with the orange cats and the debilitated hunters, de Peugh and Minkus, when Adak burst into Clodagh's cabin, which she had turned into a temporary clinic and pharmacy.

"Sean and Yana are bringin' in a bunch of folks that got Petaybeed up at Tanana Bay and over by Bogota," he said. "They're in a pretty bad way, according to Yana. She says some of them might not live, though she reckons they're none of 'em any worse than Frank Metaxos was when he first got here."

"Oh, dear. Clodagh is off with Mr. Ball, I'm afraid. She took him to the springs for therapy," she said. But almost before the words were out of her mouth, two of the orange members of the nursing staff tore out the door Adak had left slightly ajar: Clodagh was on her way.

The shuttle landed just as Clodagh showed up with Ball in his wheelchair strapped into the basket of Liam Maloney's dogsled. Dr. von Clough skied along beside them. He looked very tired. Brothers Shale and Schist, looking somewhat bemused, followed a disgusted-looking orange cat who seemed outraged at their lack of efficiency. Sister Agate hastily adjusted her robes to their usual decorous length. While Ball had been undergoing his therapy in the waters of the hotsprings, she had been inside the grotto, engaged in deep consultation with Aidan Yulipilik about the therapeutic uses of Petaybee's mildly intoxicating drink, blurry. The blurry was apparently not all that was intoxicating. Sister Agate was quite flushed from the attentions of the dashing Aidan, who made drums, snowshoes, dog harness, and skis for the entire village and many other parts of Petaybee. He also had twinkling slanted blue eyes and a physique that might be envied by many twenty-year-olds.

That could not be said of the poor people whom Sean and Namid began carrying or helping out of the shuttle. Most looked geriatric, astonished, and bitterly unhappy.

"There's not room enough at your place, Clodagh," Sean said. "Oh, this is Namid Mendeley, a friend of Marmion's. We'll use the meeting hall for now; we'll need to use the school cube, as well. There are still more patients to be evacuated from Bogota. We only brought the worst ones this time."

One of the poor souls was a woman, small and perhaps once pretty, with totally white hair and sunken cheeks. She was a pitiable object and moaned and cried out often. Four of the men died before they could be treated. Clodagh said if they could have arrived sooner, they might have been saved, but that it was the planet's will.

Sister Igneous Rock had the quite heretical thought that perhaps the planet might have willed something else if it had been aware of other options-like more fast transportation, easier access to intravenous fluids, just a few basic medical necessities. Clodagh's medicines could work wonders of recuperation, once the patients got past the critical stage, but fast transit, a source of not-quite-so-spiritual power, and convenient plumbing could do a lot toward remedying many sorts of emergency situations.

And here was all that geothermal energy the planet had to spare. It seemed a shame and a bit of a waste, really. But who was she to say?

She felt less modest about it within the next forty-eight hours, as the shuttle flew back and forth to the South until it was finally grounded for lack of fuel. Meantime, it had fetched patients from the south and taken fuel to Johnny Greene so he could also assist in the airlift. Even though everyone in Kilcoole helped, all of the water carrying, wood chopping, water boiling, heating of irons, lighting of lamps and candles, carrying and disposal of wastes, changing and washing linen-especially since most of it was not linen or anything resembling it, but wool or fur or someone's down sleeping bag and not that easily washed-left her totally exhausted.

Indeed, under such hard conditions, it took her, along with Agate, Schist, Shale, Clodagh, and Dr. von Clough, who never ceased complaining about the conditions, every waking hour for three days to save two-thirds of the patients. The man who had been the foreman of the work crew in the South died, as did the father of a lost-looking young boy who cried into the coat of a young wildcat while little 'Cita patted him on the back.

The woman from Tanana Bay lived, and the big black man, though just barely, but the other two died. Clodagh said it would be a long haul for her and the other survivors.

The chief engineer on board the Jenny had been uneasy for days. He could run the administrative bits of the ship, but when all the senior officers just took off like that without so much as a by-your-leave, well, what was a bloke to think? Miss Dinah usually passed on the captain's orders, or Megenda, or failing that Second Mate Dott, but they were all gone now, weren't they? He'd assumed, naturally, that the captain had stayed on board and sent Miss Dinah off with Dott and Framer. But when he himself had checked the captain's quarters and discovered them empty, and Louchard nowhere on board, the lads had broken into the Haimacan rum and gotten legless. No one had attempted to clean up the resultant mess, despite his warning that there would be hell to pay when the captain returned.

And now the reckoning was due. There was the captain on the comm screen.

"Good to see you, sir. We thought you was on board wif us, sir, till we noticed you wasn't, like."

"Very observant," came the captain's gurgly alienish voice from out of his octopussy head with that funny eye channel running all around it. The reason he had Miss Dinah to front for him, everyone reckoned, was that too much looking at the captain would have been bad for morale. "But obviously, I am not there, as I am here on board the shuttle. Our mission is accomplished, but there is still the matter of payment for the Al-gemeine woman."

"Framer said as how them high-class people wouldn't pay no ransom."

"Framer talked too much. Framer has paid the consequences of indiscretion. Even dignitaries have families who do not wish to see them... detained-or to suffer any... inconvenience. Besides which, outside parties had an interest in this detention. Patch through the following transmissions to these codes and rendezvous with me at the following coordinates."

"Aye-aye, sir. And may I say, sir, that it will be good to have you aboard again, sir."

Torkel Fiske was entertaining aboard his suite in his father's star-yacht when the call came in on the private channel that was supposed to be available only to him and his father. It only took one glance at his caller to tell him that the transmission was definitely not from his father. He closed the door quickly so that his guest would not inadvertently catch sight of his caller. The creature on his screen was hideous. Not that Torkel hadn't seen Aurelians before. He had, and he hadn't liked them then, either. On those occasions, they had been in appropriate places, not invading his privacy.

"Yes?" he asked. "This is a private channel. How did you gain access? You are in violation of the Intergalactic Communications and Trade Act-"

"Fiske, you two-timing maggoty imbecile. You set me up."

"I don't believe I've had the honor," Torkel said in his stiffest military manner.

"This is Louchard speaking, Onidi Louchard. Ring a bell?"

No wonder the pirate sent Dinah O'Neill to negotiate for him! She was a damn sight easier to look at and more discreet, as well. She'd know better than to try to contact clients in their own homes. This was a definite breach of professional etiquette and he didn't intend to stand for it.

"Not here, it damn sure doesn't. I'm ending this trans-"

"I. Would. Not," the Aurelian said, and Tbrkel remembered that the pirate was reputed to have an efficient complement of skilled assassins to eliminate those dissatisfied with Louchardian arrangements. "Now, listen to me, Fiske. You completely neglected to mention the Gentlepersons' Agreement regarding abductions when you suggested I kidnap the Al-gemeine woman. You knew that ransoms are never paid by people of that ilk."

"Your emissary," Tbrkel said, managing a sneer, "should have been aware of it, since the Agreement's a long-standing one. So that's your error, not mine! I'm ending now."

"No, you're not. You wouldn't care to entertain a visit from my termination specialists, now would you? And you will, unless you see to it that we're compensated for our trouble in her case."

"Compensation is your business, not mine. Why should I pay for her return?"

The pirate did something most unusual with his head, eyes, and tentacles that made Tbrkel's stomach heave, and the noise it made was even more ghastly. Aurelian laughter? Then Louchard said, "There's also the matter of Colonel Maddock-Shongili. She says-"

"I don't care what she says. I was led to believe you were competent at what you do. Obviously I was misinformed. If you can't get your ransoms, then kill both of them, for all I care. If you were as professional as you were said to be, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Out."

And he clicked the comm control with great satisfaction, feeling that he'd definitely had the best of that exchange. The best of that bitch, Yanaba Maddock! And nothing to link them with her demise.

Matthew Luzon received the call from the Aurelian as he was engaged in assisting with the enlightenment of the people of Potala, who had, before company renovations, been so wasteful as to have nearly seventy percent of their populace serving as celibate clerics. Potala had set up a theocracy until the company put a stop to it, reminding the little planet that, while it might believe that killing animals was wrong and certain places were sacred, the planet was, in fact, entirely and in all respects the property of Intergal. Fortunately, so far, Potala had showed no outward inclination to join in personally on the side of its inhabitants, despite the claims of certain tenets of their religion.

Matthew was busily reinterpreting those tenets when his comm unit signaled for his attention on the company's priority channel. A hideous Aurelian face and waving tentacles filled the screen.

"Luzon, you've been cutting in on enterprises that were guaranteed to us as part of our deal with you and Fiske."

"And who might you be, brother?" Luzon asked.

"I am Louchard, captain of the Pirate Jenny. I have taken receipt of certain live cargo whose possession was supposed to guarantee me the right to exploit the assets of the world known as Petaybee, formerly an Intergal installation."

"Ah, and how is the good Colonel Maddock?"

Louchard paused to indulge in a deep and nasty chuckle. "As you wished, her days are numbered. As to those associates of yours from the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company-were you aware that they have denuded vast areas of resources that should be used for her ransom? Really, Dr. Luzon, that was not well done. Tsck, tsck. I am not at all pleased to learn that you enticed other companies and individuals to move in where I believed I had been guaranteed a monopoly on such resources, poor and insufficient as they appear to be." Louchard chid-ingly waggled lateral tentacles. "Not the way to play the game with Captain Louchard, I assure you."

"My dear captain, I implied nothing. Your dealings, I believe, were with Captain Fiske. Any disparity in what you were promised and what you eventually obtain should be discussed with him."

"You will not attempt to confuse the issue, Luzon. I have spoken to Fiske. He says you encouraged him to employ me to-entertain-Colonel Maddock and Madame Algemeine, misleading both him and myself as to their actual value in order to indulge a personal grudge."

"I deny that. There was never any personal feeling of animosity on my part toward either lady, despite the physical and professional injuries they caused me. I have simply been using rather unorthodox contacts to force an issue on which I feel the company has prematurely relinquished its rights. You understand, dear captain, that the harvesters from the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company, the shuttle service, and other fruits of the publicity I have arranged for Terraform B have simply been in the nature of covering my bets, you might say, in case you failed, as you obviously have."

"That's a double cross in my book, Luzon. I'm going to have to dispose of my passengers."

No more interfering Algemeine? No more self-righteous Yanaba Mad-dock? Matthew couldn't conceal his smile as he said, "You must do as you see fit, Captain."

Ending the transmission, Yana switched off the shuttle's comm unit and the holo image of Louchard. Sean had stationed himself with the other witnesses beyond the viewfield of the screen and now stepped forward. He put his hand on her shoulder, then leaned down to gently kiss her cheek. Marmion Algemeine and Farringer Ball, only just graduated from the hoverchair, looked extremely grim. Even Dr. von Clough appeared vastly upset.

Whittaker Fiske, whom Johnny Greene had summoned from the Intergal Station to witness the transmission, was terribly shaken. Clodagh, uncomfortable in the shuttle's space-conserving seat, sat between Whit and Farringer Ball. She handed Whit a square of cloth, and he mopped his eyes and blew his nose before speaking in a choked voice.

"I knew Torkel was wrongheaded about Petaybee and had a grudge against Yana, but I would never have believed this of him if I hadn't heard it for myself." He turned tormented eyes to Clodagh. "I wish the planet had done to him what it did to those pirates and Metaxos before he debased himself in this fashion. Deliberately contacting a pirate to abduct all of you!" Whittaker shook his head, unable to look the victims in the eye as he waved at the empty comm screen.

Clodagh patted his hand. "Your son's been a grown man for years, Whit. You can only raise 'em, not straitjacket them. As far as his initiation to Petaybee, Sean and I shielded you both then, because we didn't want you to be blasted like those others. We were wrong, I guess, but we knew you were offworlders and you didn't understand. We wanted you to have as gentle a conversation as possible so you'd understand how it could be. We didn't want you, or him, to get culled. We should have just let Petaybee sort him out."

"I guess so," Whit said. "Though that should have been my responsibility. I should have called Torkel on some of his earlier escapades. If he hadn't got away with them, he'd never have tried something of this magnitude. But I felt there was good stuff in the boy. I never thought..." He sighed, resigned, his normal ebullience dead.

The others were quiet for a moment, then there was a knock at the open hatch and Adak stood there with Faber Nike.

"Here's the gent you was expectin', Ms. Marmion, come to take you home." Adak looked up at Nike's large frame, apparently satisfied that this man was appropriate to that task.

"If you will excuse us?" Marmion said to the others. Yana willingly relinquished her pilot's seat to Faber. "I have arrangements to make for the CIS court to be moved to Petaybee and an incriminating recording to deliver. Faber, the Louchard holo and certain representatives of law and order have a rendezvous to keep with a pirate ship. Oh, and would you all have any use for a spare space-worthy vessel?" Her smile was definitely mischievous as she glanced round.

"What do you mean?" Yana asked, not certain if Marmion could pull off that sort of stunt.

"Well, the Jenny will be forfeited, but I think the authorities might consider it a just compensation for the inconvenience, harassment, outrage, and indignities of a false incarceration of Petaybean citizens."

"You were kidnapped, too," Yana said, while Sean chuckled.

"Ah, yes, but I have my own ship, and Petaybee could certainly profit by having its own navy."

"A shuttle and a spacer?" Sean said, grinning. "I think we might even go into the transport business..." When he heard Clodagh's exasperated snort, he held up his hand and added, "Of course, there will be a strict enforcement of immigration-to keep the undesirable element from landing on our native soil."

"An eminently sensible and honorable career for a piratical vessel," said Namid, who had been sitting quietly behind Marmion. He rose now and took her hand. "Return soon."

She gave him a lingering glance and a saucy smile. "Oh, I will. I certainly will." Then she dimpled at Yana and Sean. "But I'll send the ship back as soon as I can talk the authorities out of it."

"What do you mean?" Dr. Matthew Luzon demanded imperiously of the three officials who had presented themselves at his main office on Potala. "I'm under arrest? For what crime, might I ask?"

"Fraudulent misrepresentation, illegal transport licensing, accessory after the fact in an instance of kidnapping-"

"Oh, now, come off it," Matthew said, cutting off the charges with an irate wave of his hand. "That is utterly outrageous!" He caught sight of his new chief assistant trying to get his attention. "Well, what is it, Daw-trey?"

"Sir, they've been through the legal department and the arrest is legal and not a single loophole that can be challenged."

"Preposterous."

"Dr. Matthew Luzon, you will accompany us to the court which has issued this warrant to answer the charges, forthwith and immediately," the officer in charge of the deputation said in such a pompous tone that Luzon laughed.

"We'll see about this," he threatened, and depressed a toggle to summon his security staff.

"Sir, sir, Dr. Luzon," his chief assistant said, pumping his hand in the air with the urgency of a schoolchild in desperate need of relieving himself, "the matter has been seen to, before we'd even permit them to interrupt you."

"And?" Luzon stood up, to give the three-man deputation the full force of his imposing stature.

"They are acting quite within the scope of their duties, and you really will have to go with them."

"I, Dr. Matthew Luzon, interrupt a busy schedule to appear in a minor court?"

"It's a major court, sir," the assistant said, "and Legal says you have no option but to accompany them without protest or-" "-a charge of resisting arrest will also be levied against you, Dr. Luzon."

The senior official, expressionless though his face was, did seem, in Luzon's estimation, to be enjoying his duties far more than he had any right to. The very idea that officials could barge into his office, interrupt his workday, when he had an entire planet to set to rights, was preposterous. And yet the atmosphere was rife with barely concealed emotions, almost menacing in the tension.

A discreet tap on his door, which his senior secretary hastened to open, resulted in the view of his entire legal staff, assembled in the outer room. Peltz, the senior adviser, caught Luzon's eye and gave him a quick nod of the head. Luzon took that to mean that they had everything under control and this risible situation would soon be a rather bad taste in his mouth.

"Very well, gentlemen, if that is the order of the court, as a law-abiding citizen of this galaxy, I submit." There was nothing at all submissive about Dr. Matthew Luzon as he smartly passed his would-be captors on his way to the corridor and to the personal vehicle that should have been waiting to transport him.

But the vehicle awaiting him was not his personal one. It was a drab and very official one, and matters proceeded downhill with astonishing speed after that.

Nor was he at all reassured to discover that the plaintiff who had leveled these charges against him was none other than the secretary-general of Intergal, Farringer Ball, and that the warrant had originated from Intergal's Petaybean installation.

"The planet's corrupting everyone," he shouted as he was led off to a holding cell. The last glimpse he had of his well-paid, highly trained and motivated legal department was of their slightly bemused expressions. Bemused at his expense.

Nor was his incarceration in any way mitigated by the fact that he was led past a cell containing Captain Torkel Fiske, who was sitting in abject dejection on the spartan bed of the accommodation.

"Fiske? What's the meaning of this?"

"Now, now, sor," the senior officer said, hurrying him to the next section of the prison and his own quarters. "No talking. That's not allowed to prisoners on remand."

What Torkel Fiske could not figure out was how he had been implicated in the Algemeine-Maddock-Rourke-Metaxos kidnappings. Unless, of course, Captain Louchard had been captured and had taken revenge on what he considered to be Torkel's perfidy by deciding to turn galactic evidence to gain a reduced sentence. Kidnapping demanded a fate far worse than death: imprisonment in a space capsule, which was then released beyond the heliopause of the local star system with sufficient oxygen to keep the criminal alive long enough to regret both crime and life.

Some took as long as weeks to suffocate, depending on the amount of oxygen supplied, and there was no legal amount specified, so a person never knew how long he or she would keep on breathing. If you were claustrophic, maybe you went mad first. If you had agoraphobia, the torture would be equally severe. No one had ever been rescued.

Torkel had managed to get a message off to his father, although he wasn't sure if that would do any good. Why, his father might even have told the officials where to find him: Whittaker was scrupulous about obeying the law, and Marmion was an old and valued associate.

What Tbrkel had counted on was Captain Louchard's piratical expertise, as well as an ignorance of the "Gentlepersons' Agreement" on kidnapping. There hadn't been an abduction of someone of Marmion de Revers Algemeine's social prominence in so many years that the pact was no longer common knowledge. Besides, Tbrkel would have been happy enough with the abduction of the minor personalities, to pay back Yana, and indirectly Sean, as well as those obnoxious kids. Caveat emptor! Even a pirate should know where to draw the line in dastardly deeds.

Odd, if Louchard was responsible for Tbrkel's arrest, that there had been nothing on the net reports about the capture of pirate and crew. That would have given Tbrkel sufficient warning to make for parts unknown and to undergo a complete identity change. He'd some tentative plans made in that direction, but he'd been taken so by surprise that he hadn't a chance to put them into use. He'd opened his door and there they were!

And the complaint had originated not from Dama Marmion de Revers Algemeine but Farringer Ball. That didn't make much sense to Tbrkel Fiske, who had last seen Farringer Ball on a screen at SpaceBase in Petaybee. And the man was physically on that wretched iceberg now. How under the suns had he managed to end up there? Of all places in the civilized galaxy!

The sight of Matthew Luzon also in custody did nothing to relieve Torkel's sense of impending doom. As if expecting his movements to be shortly confined in a space coffin, he began to pace the cell. Small as it was, he could still walk about it. Three paces up and three paces back and two back and forth... and if he went too fast, he cracked his shins on the hard plastic edge of the built-in bed or slammed his toes against the slab wall.

The Jenny, now registered as the Curly-corn, with new papers and no history before its recommissioning and complete overhaul, made her "maiden" landing at SpaceBase with a shipment of plumbing units, temporary housing units-though none as fancy as the Nakatira cubes-and other modern conveniences which most inhabitants of the galaxy took for granted but which sent the happy recipients on Petaybee into raptures. An accompanying note delivered by the captain, Petaybean-born Declan Doyle, newly commissioned and still stunned by his promotion and good fortune, indicated that the shipments had been purchased with the rewards for the return of many valuable and priceless items found on board the ship when she had been stopped and boarded and her crew placed in custody.

One arrival among the others particularly pleased Sister Igneous Rock. It was a collection of texts on the theories and principles behind the application and installation of geothermal and hydroelectric power, the English translation from the original Icelandic, dating from several centuries before. Sister Igneous Rock discussed the windfall with Brother Shale; then, on every subsequent day, she could be found at the communion cave reading bits aloud and afterward asking pertinent questions.

"What do you think? Would that work well here? Could you do a channel here and here, and still meet your other commitments? This wouldn't hurt, would it?"

She kept a log of her research and inquiries, and the planet's responses, and was compiling a list for Sean, Yana, and ultimately Madame Al-gemeine of equipment that would eventually be needed to assist the planet in its first venture into cooperative technology. Her intense contact with the planet considerably reduced her awe of it, but although it lost its godlike stature as a result, the planet, considering and collaborating with her for the welfare of its inhabitants, never stopped being "beneficent" in her mind.

The first outbound voyage was to deliver to the Intergal Station the sixty survivors of the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company, whose unauthorized presence on Petaybee was adversely regarded by Integal and CIS. Intergal tried to evade the responsibility, but Petaybean officials were perfectly within their rights to return the illegal aliens to their previ-

ous port of call. Their employers had been notified to collect the stranded men and women.

The inbound voyage was a joyous occasion, for spacegoing Petaybean citizens, specialists in many needed fields, had been invited to return home to provide the skills needed to develop its potential. They came willingly and with songs about how they would help Petaybee: how and where they would live, and how well their children would live, where the air was clear and clean, if cold, and a person could walk again with pride that she or he had been born on a world that knew exactly what it wanted.

The official CIS meeting was convened in the architecturally astonishing Arrivals Hall of Petaybee Space Facility-designed by Oscar O'Neill from the bits and pieces that Intergal had not thought salvageable, along with some remarkable local materials donated by the planet itself. O.O. had terminated his employment with Nakatira Cubes in order to devote the rest of his life to learning about the O'Neill clan and adapting many long-held construction notions to Petaybean needs and materials.

Farringer Ball, looking fit with a winter-tanned skin and now walking without aids, was the chairperson. Although he still tired easily, he had obviously recovered his zest for living and banged the opening gavel with a firm hand.

Phon Tho Anaciliact, thoroughly enchanted by what had been accomplished so speedily, was there as the senior representative of his organization.

Admiral-General Touche Segilla-Dove had arrived in his impressive gig with his aides and other service personnel, since that arm of Galactic Management always had to have a say in such matters. One orbit of his gig, with all its sophisticated sensors and investigative devices, had proved that Petaybee was in fact totally unprotected. One had to discount its navy of one ship and one medium-sized shuttle sporting the Petaybean arms of an orange cat couchant and a curly-corn rampant, both on an ice floe in the middle of what appeared to be a cave. One spacer and one shuttle could not constitute any threat to galactic peace and stability. The planet had only the one space facility-if one could find it in the blizzards.

Admiral-General Segilla-Dove might not quite believe that the planet was itself a sentient being, but its spokespersons certainly were. And if they claimed to be speaking on its behalf after serious and deep consultations, that was fine by him. A planet held to an orbit around its primary- that was a scientific fact-and was therefore unlikely to go about the galaxy fomenting rebellion and upsetting the status quo.

What he did find exceedingly odd was the bald statement that the planet was listening to every word said in these proceedings and that that was why the walls of the Arrivals Hall appeared to alter in pattern and color, and why the floor occasionally sent wisps of mist to curl about his uniformed trouser legs.

The two alien members of the commission-a Hepatode, in its globe with the transcorder bobbing up and down the circumference, and a Deglatite, shielded from the eyes of the Imperfect by its carapace-were acknowledged by Farringer Ball.

He began by expressing regret that the members of the CIS had been delayed in the performance of this duty by his own physical illness but he hoped they would appreciate the visit to this newest sentient.

The witnesses were then called, one after another, to give evidence to the sentience of the entity on which they all stood. Clodagh Senungatuk was first, and spoke quietly and authoritatively.

Dr. von Clough, who had assisted her throughout the treatment of Farringer Ball and the casualties from the south, testified to the tremendous healing potential of Petaybee. He said, however, that much study would need to be done before it could be determined which elements of Petaybean therapy could be isolated from the milieu and used off-planet. Meanwhile, he would seek permission to transport certain of his patients to Petaybee for therapy similar to that which had been used to rehabilitate Farringer Ball.

Then Sean Shongili, as the resident ecobiologist, delivered his short address in a concise and very reassuring manner.

Colonel Yanaba Maddock-Shongili, coadministrator for and in the name of Petaybee, spoke of her experiences with the entity and her knowledge, based on a long and impressive military career with Intergal itself, that sentience came in many forms, this one differing only in size, and certainly could not be assumed to be less intelligent than any others. Namid Mendeley's testimony was an unexpected bonus, a complete cor-roboration of all the others had said, but with the additional weight of his scientific acumen and his professional standing in the field of astronomy. The astronomer had spent every possible minute in the Kilcoole communion cave, conversing with Petaybee.

"The thing we must all remember about a planet awake barely two hundred years, gentlepersons, is that it is still a baby. While necessarily volcanic in temperament"-he paused for their laughter-"Petaybee shows unusual gentleness and restraint dealing with most problems and persons. It has told me that it regards anyone or anything that happens on its surface or inside of it as an extension of itself, and makes what it feels are the necessary adjustments. It has queried me, for instance, on the physical aspects of the rest of the universe, though the nature of the universe seems to be something it understands instinctively."

"Excuse me, Doctor," one incredulous juror had asked. "But how exactly does it tell you that?"

"Six months ago, I understand, it would not have done, which is a sign of how remarkably fast it can respond to certain stimuli. With the current crises caused by the outside threat from the company and others seeking to utilize its resources before the planet has quite discovered them, the planet rapidly developed a direct means of communicating. Its mineral content contains the same substances used in storing sounds for reproduction in computer equipment. The planet has always absorbed the words of those who speak within its walls-it stores the words and, like a baby, regurgitates them as echoes at what it deems to be appropriate times. Sister Igneous Rock and I have been having daily prolonged conversations with the planet, and like any child, its vocabulary and communication skills have grown as a result. Local people have always gone to these inner spaces, they say, to include the planet in the seasonal and critical events of their lives. It should be noted, and you may question them on this matter, that when Colonel Maddock and her companions carried small talismanic bags of Petaybean soil gleaned from the inner caves, they felt not only psychological comfort, but also some form of telepathic communication with the planet. This is not hard to imagine, given the telepathic links between humans and animals, animals and other animals-as witnessed by many in the incident involving the Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company on the southern continent-and occasionally, as in an earlier incident, plants, the planet, and human and animal agencies. Such links are so close that I personally am led to agree with Petaybee that, in fact, everything that comes within its atmosphere is part of the life of a highly complex and diversified organism consisting not only of minerals and elements, but of every living thing that comes in contact with its surface. This tremendous telepathic linkage and the need for 'adjustment' of initially outside organisms to the planet are why Petaybee has at times had such a devastating effect on some humans. Perhaps in time this will be modified. Anything is possible."

"Anything is possible?" asked one of the more literal-minded jurors. "Is this all there is to your theory? Have you no more definite conclusions?"

"I have, as well as recommendations that I think the Petaybean inhabitants will agree with. The planet has infinite potential beyond anything I've ever seen, experienced, or heard of in my career. However, it is a growing, developing entity and it must be nurtured and encouraged to find its own best uses and values. New immigration must be monitored and numbers controlled so as not to overwhelm the available resources, and most particularly so that newcomers to the planet can become properly acclimated and 'adjusted' without harmful aftereffects."

Admiral-General Segilla-Dove was inclined to believe Mendeley, though the opinion was not exactly what he had expected from an astronomer. But the admiral-general had noticed how the mist seemed to thicken on the floor when the locals spoke. And the air in the hall also was fragrant with scents he only barely remembered from his childhood.

This meeting was really only a formality, and Farringer Ball whacked the gavel that made the whole thing right and tight in just under an hour and a half, the admiral-general noted.

Then the formal meeting was thrown open to specially invited guests, and an assortment of finger foods and a local drink called "blurry" were handed round in celebration.

The "invited" seemed to be everyone on the planet, which might explain why the Arrivals Hall on a barely terraformed iceball in the middle of nowhere was as large as it was. For certainly people were not thronging to visit, or even vacation, on Petaybee in numbers that would require such a massive facility.

Then a gaggle of musicians took their places on the dais where Far-ringer Ball had officiated; the music was subtly enhanced in a fashion that kept one of his aides, who was musically inclined, trying to find out where the accoustical augmentations were hidden. The admiral-general waited the customary courteous hour and then made his farewells.

He did spend a few minutes congratulating the Shongilis on their officially acknowledged status and expressing his hope that the planet would prosper. (How warm air could be blown up pant legs securely tucked into his boots, Segilla-Dove did not know, but when it reached his crotch, he was surprised and... relieved).

The fact that his aides also had experienced unusual physical pleasures did not impinge on his feeling that he had been specially singled out for the attentions.

The admiral-general and his aides were the only members of CIS who did leave. But then they wouldn't have understood how important today's songs would be. The Hepatode and the Deglatite might not have been able to eat or drink, but they each found a corner from which to watch the curious antics of the Petaybeans.

Marmion had arrived sometime during the investiture and had much to regale her friends about certain "loose ends" she had seen were tied in appropriate knots prior to her return.

"Macci was all but skint, despite his excellent salary with Rothschild's," she told Yana, Diego, and Bunny. "Actually, it was Charmion, of all people, who found out that he's a gambling addict. He gambles for and on anything that anyone will take book on. And you know how some species regard betting as the only honorable form of entertainment. He was so deeply in debt that when-oh dear, it was Dinah again who made the contact. How is she?"

"Much better. Remarkably so, in fact. Except for her hair, which she calls her new platinum-blond look, she looks as good as she did before the cave-better, in fact. Happier, certainly. Anyplace else, people would resent her, but apparently in Tanana Bay she's a bit of a celebrity, and thoroughly enjoying it. Chumia says she is writing a great song about her pirating days and how Petaybee got the best of her. And men who want to replace Namid are turning up on the doorstep from as far away as Kath-mandu, but Dinah doesn't seem too eager to go rushing off. I think she enjoys having family near too much and having the chance to find out who she is without always having to scramble for something. I'm sorry I couldn't keep my word on the safe passage I guaranteed her and her crew, but I did tell her all along I couldn't speak for the planet."

"What happened to all of them was no fault of yours, Yana. It was a direct result of being who and what they were. In spite of everything, it was the good part of Dinah's nature that preserved her."

"The planet as the ultimate character-building experience, eh? I suppose so. Still, a bit rough at times," Yana said. It wasn't so much that she felt any remorse toward the pirates as that her own honor was important to her. Dinah seemed to bear no ill will, however, and Yana had quite forgiven her now that she was so changed. "Muktuk and Chumia are even letting her hunt on her own these days. So Macci was the victim of his own excesses?"

"And willing to clear a few debts by leading us into danger." The set of Marmion's lips suggested that she wasn't quite as forgiving as Yana. "Pies, I'm relieved to say, was totally innocent. Her only sin was wanting to show him off without investigating his background thoroughly. Though how he managed to delude the Rothschild Personnel Bureau is a matter under the strictest scrutiny, I can assure you. Asian Esoteric and Exotic Company is having all their activities investigated to see if there have been other ecologically unsound 'harvests.' It's been quite exciting, really. But I'm so glad to be back here!" She tightened her hand on Namid's arm. "If you simply have to stay and talk every day to Petaybee, I guess I'll just have to ask permission to immigrate."

"Oh, we'll have to inquire if that's possible," Sean said with a very serious expression.

"Sean!" his wife chided him. And then he laughed, giving her an affectionate kiss on the cheek, and grinned at Marmion and Namid.

"As if we dared take Namid away from his educational duties with Petaybee!" Then he pointed. "Ah, the best is about to begin."

After the custom of latchkay singings on Petaybee, Buneka Rourke accompanied Diego Metaxos to the dais.

"Diego has a song to sing," she said with more than her customary dignity, and the assembled Petaybeans settled down to listen.

Diego's song was different from any other Petaybean song. It was neither a chant nor an old Irish melody with new words, but a tune all his own, with Irish influences and Spanish and the beat of the Inuit as well, but also hints of the music of the other peoples of Petaybee and parts beyond. It spoke of growth and change, pain and discovery, the pain that had accompanied the awakening of the planet, the near-death of his father, the actual deaths of others, the cost of too much change too quickly to Petaybee, but how good a thing the change could be if it altered someone as it had Dinah O'Neill. And lastly, it spoke of his fear of change if it meant losing Bunny. He concluded with a hope that he could be like the planet and let the changes awaken himself and his beloved to lives limitless in possibility for adventure and love.

There was a chorus to this song, with its repetitive theme of change and growth, and on every chorus, the voices of the people were joined by another voice, a big, melodious, joyous voice that contained all of theirs in a resonance of its own.

The kaleidoscope turns

The patterns change

All we learn

That once was strange

Some will go and some will stay

Some will cling, some turn away

Some will wither, some will grow

New friends come and old friends go

Seeds and saplings, kit and pup Some grow down and some grow up Some fly away and some touch down While Petaybee planet spins around...

The "around" echoed particularly long and happily throughout the rest of the latchkay.

Epilogue

Oddly enough, it was the word "come" invading her dreamless sleep as an undeniable imperative that woke Yana. And the rumbling purr of the orange cat, Marduk, unexpectedly sitting right beside her head on the pillow. She felt the muscles in her belly shifting, not painfully, but definitely contracting, and she woke Sean. The cat jumped off the bed and stood imperiously by the door-as if she hadn't guessed what needed to be done.

"It's time. I've been called," she said.

He was up and half-dressed before she could swing her legs to the side of the bed. But then, advanced pregnancy had slowed her once-quick, precise movements to awkward rumblings, which she sometimes resented.

Sean grabbed up the fine polar-bear rug that Loncie had given her and threw it about her shoulders. He picked up the satchel that contained the necessary items and opened the door.

Nanook was there, and Clodagh had her foot on the bottom step.

"I wondered..." she began, smiling in the dawn light up at Yana.

When Yana and Sean reached the ground-the path to the cave well trampled in preparation for this moment-Clodagh moved to her other side. "Do you feel like walking?" Clodagh asked.

"It's good for me."

"Yes, but is it what you feel like doing?"

"Well, I have to walk as far as the cave, don't I?"

"Yes," Sean said. "That you must do."

Looking sideways, Yana saw that Sean's lips were tight against the anxiety he was feeling.

"It's okay, Sean," she said gently, patting his hand. "It's really okay. Hell, we know I've never been fitter."

"But you are not, so Sister Iggierock says, in your first youth."

"Iggierock has learned a great deal," Clodagh said with a chuckle.

And then they were in the cave, which began to glow, a soft lambent shine, welcoming, soothing, and the little twitch of apprehension that Yana had so vocally denied eased.

/ believe in you, she told the planet. / believe in you.

"I believe in you," the planet echoed reassuringly.

"Oh, I believe," Sean said beside her. He must have thought the planet was speaking to him, she reflected.

They reached the spot that had been previously picked, and the bedding and other necessities were there. They had no need of the extra lights, for the cavern was radiant.

Clodagh helped Yana slip out of her flannel nightgown, and then the first of the strong contractions caught her.

"Breathe as you've been taught," Clodagh said, waiting until the contraction had eased before she led Yana to the water's edge.

Sean dove in and broke the water as a selkie, coming to the two women, both of whom were now in the warm comfort of the water. Yana slipped down into it and found the ledge that seemingly had been created to cushion her, while Clodagh made herself secure just below Yana.

The mist began to rise then, but only on the ground behind them. Yana inhaled deeply of the scented, comforting moist air. The next contraction was harder, yet she didn't feel it as "hard," only as a working of muscles. She could relax. Petaybee was all around her, and her husband was as he wished to be at this propitious moment in his life, this miraculous moment of hers, and Clodagh would see to everything healing as she always did.

A furred face stroked hers from out of the mist and she laughed when she realized that it was Nanook-yes, and there was Marduk, too, and the gods knew how many more purring mightily in the cave, for it echoed of purr.

Another massive contraction came, which Yana, for one second apprehensive, thought much too soon in a normal delivery. Then she found herself wanting to push and panted as she'd been taught.

"It's much too soon for this stage," she said between pantings.

"Well, you never know," Clodagh said comfortingly. "We've been here longer than you might realize."

"But we-just-got-here."

Clodagh chuckled again and then was very busy between Yana's legs underwater. The water itself was bright, so Yana was able to view her upheld legs on Clodagh's shoulders and know that the woman was submerged. Sean's furred flipper hand was on her knee and then there was a mighty convulsion and Clodagh came up out of the water, holding her hands up, and Yana saw a silvery furred baby body in the capable palms.

"Your son, Shongili," Clodagh cried, and the cats gave voice to the most musical caterwaul possible.

"Oh my God!" Yana's body wanted to repeat its previous confusion.

A naked furry wet body was thrust into Yana's hands as Clodagh ducked under the water again while Yana, consumed with a second mighty pushing, realized she was delivering a second selkie child.

"How did that happen?" she exclaimed as Clodagh surfaced with yet another squirming baby, this one already squalling at its lack of precedence.

"You've a fine family all in the one go," Clodagh said, water sheeting off her smiling face.

"Did you know I'd be having twins?" Yana exclaimed, half of her appalled that that information had been withheld, while the other half of her was marveling at the perfection of her selkie son, who, minutes old as he was, was already altering his form to human now that he was out of the water.

Clodagh gave a snort, hauling herself and the baby out of the water. "And you as big as a whale and didn't guess?"

"How could I guess? I've never been around pregnant women. Oh, he's gorgeous... oh, oh..." Suddenly Yana realized her son was completing his alteration to a totally human baby. Then Clodagh was holding her selkie daughter out of the water and the same phenomenon was occurring on that precious body. Sean Selkie was embracing her and the children, his silver eyes wide with wonder and blinking water.

They made a tableau then, mother, father, children, and midwife, selkie and human. Then all were totally human as Sean lifted himself out of the water. Now Yana realized why the planet had insisted on this birthplace and how easy it had made what could have been a very difficult session for her. Petaybee was learning, too. Namid said the thing to remember about a planet only a bit over two hundred years old was that it, too, was a baby. Every time it had a conversation or experience, it earned, grew, expanded its potential. As he probed for its secrets, it had questions of its own for him on the nature of what lay beyond it.

By the time the afterbirth had been expelled, Yana was able to emerge from the water, flat-bellied and lithe again.

Holding both arms out in gratitude, she thanked Petaybee, her words coming out almost as a latchkay song:

"Thank you for the birthing. It was painless. "Thank you for my strong son and my fine daughter. "Thank you for their changing. "Thank you for everything."

"You are welcome, Yanaba. You are welcome."

Yana couldn't help grinning. Twice welcome for bearing twins? This planet moved in mysterious ways-and what had it in mind for her children?

"Welcome!"

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Anne McCaffrey shuttles between her home in Ireland and the United States, where she picks up awards and honors and greets her myriad fans. She is one of the field's most popular authors.

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is the 1989 winner of the Nebula Award for her novel The Healer's War. She has also written sixteen (and a half) other novels. Scarborough, whose other great passion is folk music, lives in a log cabin in the Puget Sound area of Washington State with her three cats, and commutes to Ireland to write with McCaffrey.

The End