Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [19]
“Oh, Coaxtl! And you are so miserable . . .”
How can one be miserable when there are warm places to lie, food to eat, snow to roll in, and a youngling to lick into shape? Coaxtl interrupted her. One may prefer the inner chambers, but wherever one sets one’s paws they touch the Home. Coaxtl raised her head and lapped at a snowflake, the first of several now drifting from the sky. Ah! See you, youngling? The Home, knowing that we sought snow and were prevented from reaching it, sends it to us. We are rewarded. You have brought honor to the pride and snow to us both. This is a good thing, yes?
’Cita nodded, still uncertain. “I can see that it’s working out well. And it is a good thing to achieve honor, even if I did it accidentally. Still, is it not better to achieve honor by being in the right place at the right time?”
Coaxtl blindsided her with a massive lick to her face. This is no time to ponder on the mysteries of life, youngling. Now, compose yourself for what sleep you may achieve with all this noise. When the girl obeyed, the great clouded cat settled herself and curled about ’Cita’s body. In moments, the girl was asleep, despite the snores that filled the air.
Having delivered its message, the orange cat had already disappeared.
When ’Cita opened her eyes again, the sky through the trees was ivory with snow and she was covered with a light coating of it. Coaxtl was not to be seen, but her side where the cat had lain against her was still warm.
The people from the shuttle stirred restlessly under a thin blanket of snow.
One of the would-be huntsmen awoke with a start and reached for the weapon that wasn’t there, and a moment later the head of a curly-coat appeared through the brush.
“Clodagh!” ’Cita called with relief. Behind Clodagh were Uncle Seamus and three of the grown Rourke cousins, leading what looked like every curly-coat in the village.
“Coaxtl tells us you’ve been hunting, Aoifa Rourke,” Clodagh said. “I hope you caught game enough to feed all of these while you were at it.”
Watching the newcomers trying to mount the curlies made ’Cita feel as though she was not the only one who was ignorant and clumsy. The woman Portia had to leave her scantily clad legs open to the snow while her short skirt rode up to her waist as she mounted, a detail not lost on the male Rourke cousins.
The men who came with metal sticks were angry when they found their sticks gone, especially when Coaxtl and Nanook appeared alongside the curlies to guide them.
“I told you!” one of the men said to the other. “Cats as big as horses! I told you. That’s what that fellow said and it’s true. Wouldn’t that pelt make a magnificent rug?”
Coaxtl coughed and Clodagh said, “No, Coaxtl, they’re guests.”
“Did it talk to you?” the third man asked.
“Oh, yes. Coaxtl and Nanook and the other track-cats can be very eloquent, but sometimes not very nice.”
“What did it say?” Brother Schist asked. ’Cita, who generally understood Coaxtl very well, thought that the cat had merely coughed.
But Clodagh said to the hunter, “Coaxtl says your pelt is too thin and hairless to be good for much of anything.”
It took a long time to return to Kilcoole, what with having to make sure everyone stayed mounted. Poor curlies! ’Cita thought. She’d have to go gather some of the late carrots from everyone’s gardens to give them a treat after this.
“Are you the mayor or the governor or whatever of this town we’re going to?” the man-who-didn’t-like-Portia asked Clodagh.
“I’m Clodagh.”
“Clodagh!” Portia stopped groaning. “You’re the one I wanted to speak with then. The medicine woman, right?”
Clodagh shrugged.
“Look, I’m prepared to make you an offer for your formulas and all the ingredients you can supply. That’s just for now, of course, while we’re in the development stage. Later on, when we’ve located the sources, we’ll need to know the best places to set up our operations.”
“Are you sick?” Clodagh asked.
“No, of course not, though I’m getting