Power Play - Anne McCaffrey [96]
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