Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [87]
Bunny devoutly wished for her snowshoes as she blazed a trail through the two-foot-high drifts, her feet sinking through to the knees with each step. She deliberately squashed down as much snow as she could every time she made a track, but it was laborious going. After a short time, she returned to the others to encourage them and see if she could help.
Megenda was shivering so much that he staggered. She thought of giving him her jacket, since she could stand the cold better than he could. But her jacket wasn’t big enough to do him a damn bit of good. Nor was anyone else’s. And the pouch, which was doing such a fine job of making her feel warm, also wouldn’t help the first mate.
When they reached the first copse, she considered starting a fire to dry him at, but that would take too much time out of the little daylight they had left.
Bunny gave Megenda full marks for keeping up, despite his shuddering chills. It was Dinah O’Neill who was having the worst time of it, being rather short of leg and having to take little running steps to keep up with the others. But she grimly plodded, skipped, and hopped on, and didn’t fall more than a step behind.
Diego was beginning to puff, too. Those walks about the pirate ship had not been any substitute for proper exercise. He was grumbling and annoyed that Bunny didn’t seem to be as affected as he was.
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. “Sláinte! 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