Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [108]
“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?”
Sister 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 harnesses, 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