Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1. Outside Kilcoole
Chapter 2. Shipside
Chapter 3. SpaceBase
Chapter 4. Outside Kilcoole
Chapter 5. Outside Kilcoole
Chapter 6
Chapter 7. Gal-3
Chapter 8. Gal-3
Chapter 9. Kilcoole
Chapter 10. Gal-3 – Repair bay
Chapter 11. Kilcoole
Chapter 12. Gal-3
Chapter 13. Kilcoole
Chapter 14. Petaybee
Chapter 15. Aboard the pirate ship
Chapter 16. Kilcoole
Chapter 17. Aboard the pirate ship
Chapter 18. Petaybee
Chapter 19. On the Pirate Jenny
Chapter 20. Southern Continent
Chapter 21. Tanana Bay
Chapter 22. SpaceBase: Petaybean Immigration Facility (PIT)
Chapter 23. Southern Continent
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Also by Anne McCaffrey
Copyright
About the Authors
About the Authors
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is the author of twenty-three solo fantasy and science fiction novels, including the 1989 Nebula award winning Healer’s War, loosely based on her service as an Army Nurse in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. She has collaborated on sixteen novels with Anne McCaffrey, six in the best selling Petaybee series and eight in the YA bestselling Acorna series, and most recently, the Tales of the Barque Cat series, Catalyst and Catacombs (from Del Rey). She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington (the state) with two cats.
Auspiciously born on April Fool’s Day, 1926, Anne Inez McCaffrey was the second of three children and the only daughter.
She, like so many of her time, was shaped by the two World Wars and the Depression. Her father, George Herbert McCaffrey had served as a lieutenant in the First World War and after the war helped the Polish set up their government before returning home to marry Anne Dorothy McElroy.
Anne Dorothy McElroy McCaffrey was a very talented woman with a decent touch of what the family came to call ‘the Sight’. Just before the very worst of the stock market Crash in 1929, she pulled all her money out. Her husband, less trusting of such things, did not.
When not drilling the children in the backyard or maintaining his reserve status with the Army, the ‘Kernel’ – as he called himself – indulged in gardening. He was also a great reader and one of Anne’s first memories was of him at the far end of the hallway reading Kipling’s Barrack-room Ballads while she was sick with scarlet fever.
As Anne got older, she learned to ride horses and thus began a lifelong equestrian love affair.
When the Second World War broke out, the Kernel reported immediately to the draft board, offering his services. Elder brother Hugh had already joined the Army and was stationed in Hawaii, desperately trying to get off the island and go to Officer Candidate School.
During the worst of the Battle of Britain when ‘the Few’ were all that stood between the English and imminent invasion, Anne developed a sense of rapport with the plucky young Princess Elizabeth who, with her family, endured the German ‘Blitz’ on London – Anne being just twenty days the Princess’ elder. And with that was planted the seed that would grow into Dragonflight.
Anne’s little brother, Kevin, was not expected to live. He’d contracted osteomyelitis and had, for several years, been at death’s door. Anne’s mother took charge of caring for ‘Kevie’ which left Anne herself to be sent down south to Stuart Hall School for girls. As a Yankee, and a Catholic to boot, Anne found Stuart Hall not the best of matches. She turned heads and gained the ire of the Dean by insisting on being allowed to go to the local movie theater to see Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ‘Tarzan’.
Kevin did live thanks to the newly-developed penicillin and went on to enjoy a long life. The family was reunited when ‘the Kernel’ returned from his years in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) but now a man so worn by the cares of war that his two younger children passed him by as they were searching for him among the returnees.
Anne graduated from Radcliffe College, cum laude, and while studying Slavonic languages, she’d participated in several theatre productions. It was at this stage in her life that Anne decided she really wanted to be an opera singer.
She met Horace Wright Johnson, who preferred to be called Wright. Wright, a very handsome man with a great voice, wooed her with The Beggar’s Opera to such effect that they married.
The Kernel went to Japan to help set up their government and volunteered to go along with the UN group to Korea when war broke out there. He contracted Tuberculosis and was returned to the States in 1953.
Alec Anthony Johnson was born August 29th, 1952 and was less than a year old when the Kernel returned. After her first visit to her father in hospital, it appears that little Alec caught a diminished (and treatable) form of TB but Anne was forbidden to return to her dying father for fear of a more serious re-infection. She didn’t have the heart to tell her father that his first grandchild had been infected and the Kernel was deeply hurt that she wouldn’t come see him again. He wrote her out of his Will.
Anne wrote The Ship Who Sang as her catharsis over the death of her father.
Second son Todd was born in April 1956 after a ten months’ gestation. Originally scheduled for March 23rd, young master Johnson knew when he was on to a good thing and clung to the womb for an additional month. When the doctors suggested that he might be stillborn, Anne waved them off. Still, the amniotic fluid was all gone and he was born a wrinkled, yellow baby, called ‘the Chinaman’ by the nurses on staff. They were worried and immediately started pumping him full of liquids until they could finally say, ‘Congratulations, Mrs Johnson! He peed!’
On their third try, the Johnsons produced a beautiful baby girl, Georgeanne Johnson – her name being the sum of her maternal grandparents’ names. When first seen by Uncle Hugh, he said, ‘What a gorgeous George!’ And from that was born her life-long nickname, Gigi.
Wright worked in public relations for DuPont and when his job offered him a six-month stint in Dusseldorf, Germany, the whole family went. Here Anne met up with a voice coach and worked assiduously to develop her talent as an operatic soprano. Sadly, the coach insisted upon overworking a part of her register with the result that her higher range was forever spoiled and her dreams of opera stardom dashed. Years later, she turned this bitter disappointment into a story, Crystal Singer.
Returning from Europe Anne re-established contacts within the science fiction writing community. At one point she was brought aside by James Blish who asked her why she’d stopped writing. ‘You’ve written one beautiful story, please don’t stop!’
On the way home, Anne thought to herself, ‘Jim Blish says I can write! Jim Blish says I can write! Jim Blish says I can write!’ Enthused, she returned to her writing, producing the short story, The Ship Who Mourned.
In 1965, the family moved up to Sea Cliff, Long Island, following Wright’s job. Anne started working on a novelette, Weyr Search. Her agent, Virginia Kidd, read it and said, ‘Oh, Anne! Do please finish it!’
Weyr Search was followed by Dragonrider and, also by her first full-length novel, Restoree. The ‘Ship’ stories continued and were collected into the anthology, The Ship Who Sang. Anne wrote another novel, Decision at Doona.
Betty Ballantine at Ballantine Books bought all her novels and bought Dragonflight when it was finished. Dragonflight incorporated both Weyr Search and Dragonrider plus new material.
At first, Wright was intrigued by and supportive of Anne’s success; as time went on, less so. Famously he said, ‘You’ll never pay a phone bill with your writing!’
For various reasons, their marriage slid into disarray and Anne finally decided that she had to get a divorce. But where to go? How to live?
She’d been on a trip to Ireland in 1968 with her Aunt Gladdie and loved it. Harry Harrison (of Soylent Green fame) regaled her with the lure of the Irish artists’ tax exemption. The cost of living was much lower in Ireland than on Long Island or in Los Angeles, her other possibility.
And so, with her two youngest kids – her eldest now starting college – she departed for Ireland in August 1970.
Anne and the two children lived in a rented, suburban house in south County Dublin. The kids were already enrolled in nearby Avoca & Kingston School. Once settled, Anne re-wrote Dragonquest, and finished two gothic romances, The Mark of Merlin, and Ring of Fear, and took herself and her two kids on their first journey to England and Wales over the 1971 Easter Spring Break, taking in the English Eastercon, held that year in Worcester. The convention was great, Anne made many friends and afterwards the family toured around, down to Stonehenge and through other beautiful countryside, wending back up through Wales’ scenic but seriously twisty roads.
Next year found them living in a Georgian mansion, Meadowbrook House, and Anne trying – and failing – to write the story of Menolly. ‘It just wouldn’t write!’ she complained. She did manage to complete Cooking Out Of This World and other stories – it was here that she penned The Smallest Dragonboy -but times were tight. Fortunately, her eldest son Alec came over from the United States and took up trawling. As a fisherman he could bring home a share of the catch and the family dined on Monkfish and other rarities. Still, there was a great deal of truth to Gigi’s, ‘Gee, Mom, wouldn’t it be nice to have pancakes for dinner because we wanted them?’
At Meadowbrook House, Anne finally had the room for her beloved horse, Mr Ed.
Beautiful Meadowbrook House was proceeded by Site #11, Rochestown Avenue, and then by the slightly more spacious 79 Shanganagh Vale. Anne’s mother had decided to join her daughter in Ireland and was living with the family at the Rochestown Avenue house. It was then that Anne was invited to be Guest of Honor at Boskone, the New England Science Fiction Association’s (NESFA) annual convention in Boston. They would fly her out, pay her room, and treat her wonderfully. Best yet, NESFA had a tradition that the Guest of Honor would write a short something to be published by their small press – and would she be willing to write a Dragon story for them? Money was very tight right through to 1975 so Boskone’s up-front fee was quite welcome. As an added bonus, her publisher had arranged for her first signing tour in the States.
The downside came on the home front. Anne’s mother, who had moved into her own separate apartment when the difficulties of mixing teens and tinnitus-afflicted seniors became apparent, was found one morning, collapsed – a stroke had crippled her entire left side. Anne’s mother had a second stroke and passed away. Anne was distraught, saying, ‘She wouldn’t have wanted to live that way’.
Anne could never find A Time When she could write the novelette for Boskone, and that’s how its name came about. (That story was later to form the first part of the New York Times’ bestselling novel, The White Dragon.) However, Anne did finish the story for Boskone and it sold well, and she won the prestigious E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith Award, her third major award. The signing tour was a success. Royalties flowed in – enough to turn the telephone back on.
Things started to look up. But the booster-rocket for her career came when Beth Blish, daughter of James Blish and Virginia Kidd (Anne’s agent), suggested that Anne consider writing a Young Adult book on Pern. This time, when it came to writing Menolly, Anne had a ready-made template to hand: Derval Diamond. Derval was one of a growing contingent of teenagers who Anne welcomed into her home, short of supplies though it might be. There were always enough tea bags, instant coffee, milk, and sugar to make do. Sometimes there were biscuits, too.
With Derval as a model Anne wrote Dragonsong. It was finished in 1975, and published in 1976. She and the publisher – Atheneum – quickly agreed on a sequel which became Dragonsinger. Perhaps more than any, these two books contributed to the ever-growing and always-loving fan base that surrounds Anne’s Dragonriders of Pern® series.
Buoyed by so much and distracted by the fact that the lovely rental home of 79 Shanganagh Vale was discovered to be suffering from a severe structural failure (the middle wall running the length of the house was built on nothing), Anne decided to reach for her biggest dream – a home of her own.
She found it in a marvellous four-bedroom bungalow house in what was then the wilds of County Wicklow, in Kilquade. She is buried not far from there. Anne named her home Dragonhold, and it was there that she finished The White Dragon, picking up from where she’d left off with A Time When. Michael Whelan’s gorgeous cover sold that book and put it on the New York Times bestseller list.
In 1984, Anne bought a farm, Ballyvolan Farm and established Dragonhold Stables there, which Derval managed. Anne decided that her farm was too far from her home and so, with typical directness, she decided to build a home – to her design – on lands of the farm. It required a certain ‘finesse’ with the county planning board, including a fair bit of excavation so that the house wouldn’t mar the view (according to the county council) and thus it acquired its name, Dragonhold-Underhill.
There Anne lived the rest of her life, becoming a grandmother to four grandchildren and remaining a ’universal mum’ to many men and women, young and old, near and far. Between writing and living, Anne travelled abroad to promote her works or gain more awards, including the prestigious SFWA Nebula Grandmaster Award, induction in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Literary Achievement Award for Young Adult Literature, and a further slew of honors too lengthy to recall but all gratefully received by the green-eyed Dragonlady.
YANABA MADDOCK AND Sean Shongili held hands in a darkness illuminated only by the glowing eyes of hundreds of animals and the flames of hundreds of candles. The drumming had stopped now, replaced by the sweet lapping of sliding water, the beat of many hearts and the breathing of many creatures. One pulse was louder than all the drums had been, one breath a wind that guttered and flared the candles with each respiration.
‘So how do we do it here?’ Yana whispered nervously to her love and the father of her unborn children. ‘Does the planet give me away or what?’
Sean smiled and winked, ‘No-one has that right but you, love. Let’s just say that the planet acts as witness and honorary best being.’
‘Best being,’ an echo sang from the cavern walls, ‘best being.’
He stopped walking and she stopped beside him. All she knew was that they were getting married, Petaybean style.
She’d been so busy with her new duties as Petaybee’s administrator over the last two months that she hadn’t had enough time to enquire as fully as she would have liked into the rite or folkways of the Petaybean marriage ceremony before it was upon her. Sean’s niece, Bunny Rourke, one of Yana’s chief informants on matters Petaybean, had told her that it was a special sort of latchkay with a night chant at the hotsprings. Yana had attended the break-up latchkay when she first arrived. This occasion differed in that the night chant was at the beginning of the latchkay instead of at the end. As at all latchkays, there would be much singing, although probably more at this particular one. Both Sean and Yana were to prepare a song for each other. Songs were how Petaybeans celebrated or commemorated all their most noteworthy experiences. The mode was mostly either a rhyme scheme to some ancient Irish air or a free-verse poem chanted Inuit style to the accompaniment of a drum. Yana, whose heart was full but whose mind was too crowded with administrative details while her body was having to make physical accommodations to her pregnancy, had finally created her song. Other than that, she simply hoped that things would go well and allowed herself to be led through the proceedings by the people she had trusted more than once with her life.
Two hours earlier Kilcoole’s première couturière, Aisling Senungatuck, had arrived with the gown she had created for Yana – rabbit hides crocheted together with woollen yarn in a long, panelled design with a flared skirt, scooped neck and long sleeves. The crocheted lace inserts were heavily decorated with beads made from scavenged wire and the little Petaybean pebbles found in certain streams. Tumbled, polished, and drilled, the stones were lovely and translucent. The gown was yellow, the Petaybean wedding colour, Aisling explained, ‘Because most of the plants make yellow dye.’ The rabbits were contributed from the collecting places of all the village hunters. Sean’s vest was a darker shade of the yellow, trimmed with beaver fur and blue and white beads.
Now the motes of light formed a circle around the two, and Clodagh Senungatuck, Aisling’s sister and village healer, stepped into the centre with Sean and Yana. Yana noted with some amusement that as many of Clodagh’s orange striped cats as could crowd around her feet did so, their eyes eerie and iridescent in the candleglow.
‘Sean Shongili and Yanaba Maddock, we’ve come here because we understand you got somethin’ to say to all of your friends and kin here where the planet hears you best, is that right?’
‘It is,’ Sean said. ‘I have a song to sing for you all.’
‘Sing for us,’ soft voices said from the shadows, accompanied by an underlying rumble of throaty feline purrs, the whicker of the curly-coats, and the affirmative yips of the dogs.
‘Sing,’ the echo said.
Yana had no idea how many bodies were clustered into the cave that day. The line seemed to stretch clear back to the village and included every man, woman and child, horse, cat, the larger track cats, everybody’s dog teams. She could have sworn that she saw wild game emerge from the brush and join in the procession just before Clodagh led them into the darkness of the cave behind the hotsprings waterfall.
Sean cleared his throat. The candleflame shadowed the chiselled planes of his face and softened the outline of his mouth as he began speaking.
‘Yanaba, she met the enemy
Coming to us, she met friends as well
And honoured them.
She met me, and I met love.
Aijaiji.
‘With her friends, here around her
With her lover, I who take her hand,
For these people and this world embracing us
She met the enemy again and again.
It is in her name to do so.
Aijaija.
‘Yanaba, who knows my aspects
Yanaba, who has my heart
Yanaba, who honours my world and my people
Yanaba, who carries our future in her body
Yanaba, you are already part of my life
Yanaba, you already possess my heart
I tell you this here, with our world as witness,
I want you with me for ever.
Ajai.’
Yana’s mouth went suddenly dry. Something soft and furry rubbed against her bare ankles. Her stomach gave a heave and she wondered could the baby be moving so soon, pushing her to speak. She took Sean’s hands as much for support as encouragement and clung to them so tightly that she was afraid she’d leave bruises, except that he returned the strong grip. That gave her the courage she needed. She felt suddenly light-headed and needed to hold on to him to keep from floating to the top of the cave.
‘Sean Shongili, my truest friend and love.
Here I am, a woman whose only song
Was of war and death.
How can I sing what I feel for you?
You gave me life when I was dying,
A home when I had known none in
Many years of wandering,
A family when all of mine is dead,
A life to bear
When I thought I could give only death.
You showed me a new world and
Invited me to make it my own.
‘And I do.
In old songs by better singers
They say, “You are all the world to me.”
I say so too.
Sean Shongili, you are all the world to me
And the world to me is you.
I love you. Take me as I take you.
As they used to say on Earth, “I do.”’
Sean took her in his arms then, and kissed her, letting his body rest against her belly which, although firm and a bit fuller and rounder than usual, wasn’t that noticeable yet.
Then Clodagh clapped her hands and everyone dispersed leaving Yana and Sean alone in the cave but not in darkness. As the candles departed, a warm soft glow pulsed throughout the cavern and he eased her to the rock which seemed to melt into a comfortable bed as she and Sean made love. They always enjoyed that occupation but here, now, in the cave, where the planet was also part of this communion, she felt as if she had never before been so consumed by the passion that always fired up between them in the act of love. Sean felt it too, for his hands were tender, possessive in a fashion she would once have resented, exciting in ways she had never experienced. The climax was so extraordinary that she wept and knew, from the wetness of the cheek he pressed hard against hers, that he also had been rocked by the intensity of their consummation. For a moment, she thought she had died.
This time they did not sleep afterwards or dress as they left the cave to join the throng waiting outside at the thermal pools.
Cheers and laughter greeted them from the people and animals in the springs’ three pools. Overhead the stars and moons, real and man-made, lit the sky while the candles planted along the sides of the pool garlanded it with ribbons of light. The big cats sported rather clumsily in the water while the dogs fetched various things thrown by their masters. The smaller cats sat disdainfully on the edge of the pool. Yana laughed when one of the curly-coats took a running jump and dived into the pool making a whale-sized wave that swamped the shore and wet several disgusted felines who began furiously to lick themselves dry.
Then Sean pushed her in and a moment later, a seal appeared among the splashing, laughing, naked company. This activity continued till daylight and was the merriest, raunchiest festivity she had ever attended. Periodically, someone would hoist themselves out of the water and run bare-assed to the baskets beyond the candles to fetch something to cram into their mouths before diving back into a pool. Fortunately, all the food had been prepared in bite-sized portions, was easily chewed and swallowed, or was fruit that wouldn’t be harmed if it got wet.
At daylight, everyone went ashore and dressed and walked limply home except Sean and Yana, who rode double on one of the curlies while Bunny led the village girls who spread flower petals and seeds on the path before them.
‘I’m starving,’ Yana muttered up into Sean’s chin.
He nuzzled the top of her head. ‘Good, you’ll like this part then. The feast was prepared before we left. But don’t eat so much or you’ll be too full to dance with me afterwards.’
‘Dance? You have to be joking! My legs feel like noodles. Umm, noodles. Do you suppose Clodagh made hers? The ones with the smoked fish and dried tomato sauce?’
‘I have it on good authority that she did. Is all you think of your stomach?’
‘I’m eating for two!’
‘So you are. Forgive me,’ he said, lifting her down from the curly-coat’s back.
During the feasting, she had ample chances to rest and gaze into Sean’s eyes and messily feed him and receive food from him, also part of the wedding protocol. The food was arrayed in the middle of the meeting house, and Sean and Yana as well as the other adults sat on benches along the wall while Bunny led the youngsters of Kilcoole in offering them food.
Meanwhile, everyone occupied themselves by singing the songs they had written for Sean and Yana. Bunny sang of her first meeting with Yana and their wild ride down the river. Sean’s sister, Sinead, told how she knew Yana would be one of them from the time she went on her first hunt. Adak sang of the hiding of Sean in the snocle shed with Yana, and making frequent clandestine trips which the powers that be did not know anything about.
Even Steve Margolies, now residing in Kilcoole with his partner, Frank Metaxos, and Diego, sang of how Yana and Sean had reunited him with his family. And Yana’s neighbour across the street had a hilarious pantomime song about Yana throwing Colonel Giancarlo out of her cabin with the burned fish. That was one of the few songs rhymed and sung to an old Irish air instead of chanted to drums. Clodagh said she believed the tune went originally to a song called ‘The Charladies’ Ball’.
As the other young people began to clear away the empty serving plates, Diego took his newly crafted guitar and joined the drummers, Old Man Mulligan on his whistle, and Mary Yulipilik on her handmade concertina. All together, they wheezed up a quite respectable dance tune.
Sean took Yana’s hands in his, led her out onto the floor and then swung himself opposite her at the top of the cleared hall. Two by two came Dr Whittaker Fiske, who had returned especially to dance at the wedding, partnering Clodagh, followed by Sinead with Aisling, Moira and Seamus, Bunny and her sister Cita, Frank Metaxos and Steve Margolies, Liam Maloney and Bunny’s cousin Nula to form a complete reel line. Captain Johnny Greene, who had extended his shore leave for the occasion, had Captain Neva-Marie Rhys-Hall from SpaceBase as his partner for the dance in another reel line while his fellow copter pilot, Rick O’Shay, gallantly led old Kitty Intiak on to the floor. Orange cats tiptoed daintily to the food which had been put on the side for them, while the dogs went home to their kennels to eagerly await scraps from the feast. Track cats lounged by the doors and on top of the roof and the curlies grazed in the last of the green fields left by the unusually long; warm summer, now turning to fall.
Somewhere in the middle of the third dance, Terce, who was minding the snocle shed, tapped Adak on the shoulder and he in turn tapped Johnny on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. The two men left, accompanied by Captain Rhys-Hall, and returned in time to rescue Yana from a fifth dance.
Marmion de Revers Algemeine and two Company corpsmen in dress white uniforms were with them.
Yana and Sean stopped dancing to greet their friend, elegant as usual in a royal blue tunic with a purple underdress, the top heavily embroidered in jade and silver, matching Marmie’s earrings and rings.
‘Marmie! How wonderful that you could come!’ Yana cried and Marmion kissed both her cheeks, then Sean’s.
‘Yes, and in addition to your wedding present, I’m afraid I’ve come to take you away from all this. The CIS court is reconvening a week from now and your testimony will be necessary to augment Commissioner Phon Tho Anaciliact’s decision on Petaybee. I thought you’d want to do it yourself, since going off-planet would be lethal to native Petaybeans.’ She glanced down briefly at Yana’s middle and a look of consternation flowed over her classic features. ‘Oh, my. Time flies, doesn’t it?’
Yana smiled. ‘It does indeed. But I see no reason . . .’
‘I don’t think it’s wise for you to go off-planet this far into your pregnancy, Yana,’ Sean said, his hand on her shoulder tightening protectively.
Others in the room had joined them by now. Clodagh and Whit Fiske also greeted Marmie with kisses on the cheeks and Bunny pushed her way through to them, trailed closely by Diego, who had stopped playing and slung his guitar across his back as soon as he saw the newcomers arrive.
‘How long does she need to be gone, Marmie?’ Clodagh asked.
‘Not long, I should think. Counting the journey, two weeks your time, three at the most.’
‘Huh,’ Clodagh said. ‘I’d never last that long. Sean neither.’
‘I mean to be there too, Yana, though as an Intergal board member,’ Marmion said, ‘my testimony is assumed to be biased and self-serving in one of those peculiarly bureaucratic fashions that people can’t really explain anyhow. It’s too bad there’s no qualified native Petaybean to testify.’
‘I qualify and I think I could go too,’ Bunny said, pulling at her sleeve. ‘I’m young enough to go off-planet without any ill effects and I know everything that’s happened. I could sing them the song I made about it. Though Diego’s songs are better.’
‘If you’re going, I’m going,’ Diego said. ‘Now’s my chance to show you all those technical things you keep telling me couldn’t possibly work! Besides, I wouldn’t want your head getting turned by all those guys in uniform. And I could see my mom,’ he added with a glance at Marmion, as if the more conventional reason might sway her where his desire to be with Bunny might not.
‘We need Colonel Maddock – or is it Shongili now?’ Marmie asked with a twinkle.
‘I think for courtroom purposes I’d better remain Maddock for the time being,’ Yana said.
‘Yana, you’re four months pregnant,’ Sean said. ‘With my child.’ The emphasis, Yana knew, was not merely possessive. Because of Sean’s dual nature as man and seal, he was concerned just how many of his traits his children would inherit and how deeply an off-planet experience would affect them.
‘Many women are on duty right up until delivery now, Sean,’ she said, dropping her hand to his arm and giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘And you heard Marmie, it will only be three weeks. If I have Bunny along . . .’
Clodagh touched Sean’s hand. ‘It should be OK that long, Sean. And Petaybee needs her to do this.’
‘I suppose so. I only wish I could accompany her.’
‘I’d take good care of her, Uncle Sean. You know I would,’ Bunny said, throwing her arms around his waist.
‘And I’d take care of both of them, Dr Shongili,’ Diego said, with a challenging look at Marmion.
Marmion smiled at him and said, ‘With you as adult guardian, I see no problem in Bunny and Diego accompanying you, Yana. In fact, I’m sure CIS Anaciliact would appreciate all the support he can get. I don’t suppose little Cita . . .?’
But Sean denied that choice with a firm shake of his head. ‘After all she’s been through she’s much too fragile in my opinion. Cita stays here. Besides, Coaxtl frets herself into moulting mountains of hair if the girl is out of sight for any extended period.’
‘I can tell what needs to be told, to anyone who asks,’ Bunny said at her staunchest.
‘Sean,’ Yana said, turning to look into his dear, worried face. ‘Duty does have a way of calling regardless of personal convenience, love.’
‘I wouldn’t stop you from doing what you think you need to do, even if I thought I could get away with it, Yana.’ His grin was slightly strained and anxious and so were his eyes. She understood his concern, and maybe more than just ‘understood’ after their union in the cave. ‘But be careful.’
Two hours later they were ready to depart, though Yana deeply regretted the necessity of leaving her new husband so precipitously. She consoled herself with the knowledge that what they had between them would keep, on the ice and in the heat, come what may.
Clodagh gave each of them an almost ritualistic kiss and embrace, putting a little leather bag on a thong around their necks.
As she hung Yana’s around her neck, Yana asked, ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s dirt,’ Clodagh said simply.
‘Dirt?’
‘Yes. Petaybee wants you to have something to remember it by. The dirt’s from the cave.’
Not long before, Yana would have been stymied how to receive such a statement, but now she squeezed Clodagh warmly in an embrace of her own. ‘This makes me feel a lot better.’
Then Sean clasped her in a farewell embrace and she, Bunny and Diego boarded the Company shuttle that would take them to Marmion’s executive spaceliner, waiting in orbit. In Yana’s carryall was Sean’s wedding vest, to sleep with, and a hastily made town recording to Petaybean relatives in Company service. Bunny carried a frozen fish for her cousin Charlie from his parents and a basket of pemmican from the wedding feast for homesick Petaybeans. Diego carried letters from his father to his mother and a basket of his favourite Petaybean foods plus nutrients to keep himself and Bunny healthy on the journey.
Once aboard the spaceliner, Sally Point-Jefferson, Marmion’s aide, tenderly placed Charlie’s fish in the freezer. Bunny remained glued to the viewscreen, watching Petaybee shrink into a tiny point of light in the vastness of black space. She bent and unbent her fingers against the port in farewell as her home disappeared altogether.
BUNNY TURNED AWAY from the window, a little gasp of dismay escaping her throat, her eyes misty with suppressed tears.
‘I never thought I’d see the last of Petaybee,’ she said in such a mournful tone that Diego immediately took her into a warm embrace, murmuring reassurances and some of the silly names that he had created for her.
‘Now, gatita,’ he said, the name meaning ‘little cat’ or ‘kitten’, ‘it’s not as if you won’t be coming back, or anything. It’s only for a little while. And I bet that no-one from Kilcoole has ever seen Petaybee from space like you just did. Looks like one of those stones Aisling polishes up, the bluey ones with the white bands.’
‘Yes, I guess it does at that,’ Bunny said, sniffling until Marmion handed her a tissue. ‘Oh, sorry. Didn’t bring anything to blow into.’
‘What the well-appointed vessel has in quantity – things you don’t remember to bring with you,’ Marmion said kindly. ‘I forget how hard it is to leave a place you love. Only think how excited you’ll be to see it in the viewscreen on your way back. The better view!’
Marmion then organized everyone into doing things: like settling into their cubicles, getting food, getting comfortable. ‘I’ve had Sally acquire clothing for you or you’ll all be over-warmly dressed where we’re going. It’s also very important, I think, that we choose garments that will seem appropriate to our mission.’
‘What’s wrong with what we’re wearing?’ Bunny wanted to know for she was wearing the beautiful Gather Blouse Aisling had made out of the material Yana had gifted her with. The blouse made her feel very elegant and adult, and Diego said it was the nicest thing he’d seen her in.
‘I’m not suggesting you change your style, dear,’ Marmion said in a conciliatory tone, ‘and that blouse is certainly lovely but you can’t appear every day in it. So Sally and I scrounged around to see what would be you as well as ah . . . not too conspicuously different. Oh,’ and she gave an exasperated sigh as she saw the defiant look on Bunny’s face, ‘for all I’m supposed to be so diplomatic, I’m not putting this in the right words, am I? But then, where we’re going, one is not often judged by what they are, but what they seem to be. You know what I’m talking about, Colonel Yana dear, don’t you?’ And Marmion appealed to Yana on more than the one count she was trying to explain.
‘I do, indeed, Marmion . . .’ Yana tried to pull a fold over her belly from the material of her one-piece suit and failed with a laugh. ‘I’ll need a size larger, I know.’
‘Oh, you’re easy to do, Yana,’ Marmion said. ‘Wasn’t she, Sally?’
The aide laughed and nodded. ‘With trouser pleats for expansion,’ she said. ‘And a tunic tailored just that little bit fuller across the . . . ah . . . hips.’
‘It isn’t my hips that worry me,’ Yana said with a grin, hoping to clear Bunny’s troubled expression.
‘Diego, we’ve ordered you the very latest,’ Marmion went on and then giggled in one of those displays of amusement which charmed her friends. ‘In fact, the whole operation was a great deal of fun. Why don’t you and Bunny go see what’s in your wardrobes? We’ll still have time to discard what you really can’t possibly be seen in before you have to be seen in it.’
Diego escorted Bunny firmly to the cabins they’d been assigned. Only when the panel had slid shut behind them did Marmion’s expression alter to one of concern.
‘You do know what I mean, Yana?’
‘Oh, yes, Marmion. I know precisely what you’re trying to do and so does Diego. He knows the drills. So do I. So, now what? Or do we wait for the others to return before you tell us the bad news?’
‘How ever did you know there is some?’
‘Because you’re taking such especial pains to make us seem normal, look normal and yet different enough so we’ll still be “original” as well as acceptable.’
Marmion, hands loosely clasped in her lap, considered that. ‘It will not be smooth sailing, although I have every confidence that common sense, at least this once, will prevail. Intergal, as well as other holding companies that have vast numbers of star systems held in fief as Petaybee is, will be watching. The scientifically acute are fascinated by the idea of a sentient planet. You must know that, with all the paper that’s flooded your desk since they got a name to send messages to.’
Yana nodded ruefully. ‘No kidding. There’s been so much of it I haven’t even begun to read it all, much less answer it. Sean’s been doing a lot of the footwork, I suppose you’d call it, and that leaves Diego as the only other literate person in the north, other than his father and Steve Margolies, who are busy enough with their own work. Loncie Ondelacy is able to do some in the South. Diego’s been teaching Bunny to read and write but, fast as she is, she can’t learn enough in a couple of months to do more than help with alphabetical filing. Most of the letters seem to be from people who want to come to Petaybee for some reason or other – I can’t believe there’s so many out there all of a sudden when the planet’s been so quiet for years.
‘We’ve had several enquiries from drug companies too and I have no idea how Clodagh’s cures can be reproduced at this point. Even with a good growing season this year, the planet so far has provided just about enough to keep native Petaybeans supplied – if we’re actually going to try to farm some of Clodagh’s plants and produce her cures for a wider population we’ll have to do it in some way that doesn’t overtax Petaybee. Clodagh’s not even sure, at this point, if some of the ingredients can live off-planet. I knew this was going to take a lot of work, but it seems to me that someone’s been broadcasting outside the committee a lot of what ought to be classified information about the planet’s sentient nature. It’s pushing us to go much faster than we’re equipped to do at present.’
Marmion said, ‘I understand your concern, and discretion certainly has been urged on all parties where Petaybee is concerned. I’m afraid what you’re dealing with now is only, if you’ll pardon the expression, the tip of the iceberg. Some of our board members are expressing concern that other colonized worlds might try to claim similar status. They’re worried that Petaybee will set a precedent. If there were some way to reassure them that this is a one-off case of planetary sentience . . .’ and she cocked her head hopefully at Yana.
‘You expect me to be able to answer that, Marmion? I can barely cope with the knowledge that there’s one . . .’
‘And that’s exactly the attitude you ought to take, if I may make such a suggestion. Reaffirming it whenever asked just as you did to me now.’
‘But suppose Petaybee isn’t a one-off . . .’ Yana liked to know she was telling the truth, inadvertently or otherwise.
Marmion sighed. ‘All the more reason, from the board’s standpoint, for keeping information about Petaybee hush-hush. They’d just as soon not give inhabitants of other terraformed planets any ideas but, at the same time, I expect CIS is going to want some sort of poll to try to determine if other worlds formerly considered habitats are indeed sentient beings.’
She gave a gusty sigh. ‘It all seemed so easy back there,’ and she flicked her fingers in the general spatial direction of Petaybee. ‘Lots of things seemed easy back there.’
‘Mostly because there weren’t so many things to cloud perceptions,’ Yana said.
‘Well, that’s item one, Yana,’ Marmion went on briskly. ‘We have no way of knowing if there are more sentient planets so we’ll pretend Petaybee’s an exception. As such, it will make our job that much easier. I think.’
‘What’s item two?’
‘Matthew Luzon is recovering from his injuries and . . .’
‘Determined to somehow make us all pay for the indignities he suffered?’ Yana supplied when Marmion hesitated.
‘Yes, not to refine too much on it. That’s why I’ve put some precautions in train. Sally . . .’ and she gestured to her aide who immediately handed Yana a slim device which had a variety of depressible keys. ‘This is precaution number one. Carry it with you at all times and as inconspicuously as possible. It’ll fit nicely in your brassiere. Put it on the left, depression side up and memorize the positions of the various function keys so you can just . . .’ and she placed a casual hand over her left breast ‘. . . signal what’s needed.’ She grinned. ‘As you’ll see, it’s got a sensitive recorder and a few off-stage tricks that can be implemented. Rather handy.’
‘Have you needed such a device?’ Yana examined it, noting the icons as well as the abbreviations like REC and MAY which were self-explanatory.
‘Not “needed” precisely,’ Marmion allowed, ‘but I always felt more . . . secure . . . when I was in unknown space as it were, with that gadget in place. Then I’ve also appointed you “assistants”,’ and now she did look slightly embarrassed.
‘Assistants?’ Yana cocked her head at Marmion.
‘Yes, well, everyone who is anyone has them . . .’
‘And I must appear to be “everyone” or “anyone” . . . And who’s my assistant?’
‘You have three, Sally and Millard Ephasios for show, and someone you don’t need to have named as undercover guardian,’ Marmion explained, finishing with her charmingly ingenuous smile immediately counteracted by a sly wink. ‘And you won’t know who that is.’
‘Hmm. All these subversive measures—’
‘Discreet, my dear Yana,’ Marmion corrected her.
‘—Are necessary, you feel?’
‘I don’t like the weather report,’ Marmion said.
‘Have you minders for Diego and Bunny?’
‘I do and I know they’ll suit right down to the ground.’
‘Are you giving Bunny one of these?’ Yana held up the slim device, which was no more than two fingers long and two knuckles wide. ‘She loves gadgetry.’
‘No, their bracelets should be adequate. As I’m sure you noticed, Bunny’s unsettled enough about the venturing forth. I don’t want to upset her further. She’s naturally shrewd anyway and what she doesn’t know about human nature, Diego knows about space-faring ways.’
‘This trip will do her understanding of the galaxy a world of good,’ Yana remarked and, when Marmion gave her a startled look and started to laugh at her choice of words, she joined in. ‘Where’s the galley on this boat? You’d think the way I eat, I hadn’t seen food since break-up!’
‘You go with Sally to see your wardrobe and I’ll just fix a little something to tide you over to dinner time,’ Marmion said.
‘You? Cook?’ Yana said.
Marmion smiled a trifle archly. ‘Actually I’m rather good, aren’t I, Sally?’ And when her aide nodded affirmatively, ‘But I only do it for very special people.’
‘So you get to bear-lead me, huh, Sally?’ Yana said as she followed Sally to her cabin.
They passed the ones assigned to Diego and Bunny and heard the spirited discussions within.
‘And people wear things like this? I’d freeze . . .’
‘You’re not going to be on Petaybee and it’s a great colour for you, gatita . . .’
‘Well, I dunno about the way it clings . . .’
‘Trust me,’ Diego said, ‘it’s terrific.’
Yana grinned to Sally as they passed.
The selection made for Yana quite took her breath away. She’d never had many occasions to dress up and the extent of the apparel displayed for her approval ranged from severely tailored to rich formal attire.
‘Whenever would I wear something like this?’ she asked Sally, holding out a gore of the garnet synthisilk full skirt, even as she was mentally trying it on. Then she noticed the decorations – copying Petaybean designs – on the neck and sleeve bands.
‘There will be one or two formal occasions when you’ll need to be extra elegant,’ said Sally, taking another fold and holding it up to Yana’s face. ‘Yes, I thought this would be a good colour for you.’
‘I’ve never had anything so . . . so soft and . . .’ She couldn’t resist stroking the fine fabric against her cheek.
‘Feminine?’ asked Sally. ‘About time, then.’ Then she went to the more tailored semi-uniform garments. ‘You’ll have more use of these and—’
‘Oh,’ and Yana’s wondering fingers caught at the Petaybean designs discreetly worked into the pocket flaps.
‘Marmion was so taken with the Petaybean designs when we first arrived on the planet that we asked Aisling to do us some treatments. Subtle but noticeable and definitely smart. That woman has an excellent clothes sense. Too bad it’s been limited to rabbit skins and handwovens, not that’ – and Sally hastily corrected the impression that she might be disparaging – ‘those haven’t been handsome fabrics – just more . . . ah . . . practical than you’d need on Station.’
‘Which are we going to, by the way? Marmion didn’t say.’
‘Oh,’ and Sally tossed out this bombshell as non-chalantly as she could, ‘Gal-Three, of course.’
Yana gulped and her mind raced from one consideration to another: it was the largest of the Space Cities, certainly in this sector of inhabited space, the headquarters of half a dozen of the more massive and prominent diversified enterprises as well as CIS, Gallegal, Gal-naval and other galactic agencies. It was immense and was constantly updating its facilities with state-of-the-art technologies. Bunny would be totally overwhelmed and Yana understood why Marmion was going to such lengths to dress them – clothes can give you confidence just as uniforms can bestow anonymity at times – and why they would need hidden alert devices and ‘assistants’. Yana hoped that Diego knew something about Gal-3 – at least its reputation.
‘Baptism into civilization by total immersion?’ she quipped at Sally to cover her uneasy chagrin.
‘She’ll be well protected, Yana.’ Sally was deadly serious.
‘Then who’ve you got riding herd on her?’
‘Riding herd? Oh, yes. Good term.’ Sally grinned. ‘Marmion has roped –’ Sally grinned to ease Yana’s tension, ‘– a pair of her young relatives . . . not too young, though, and very knowledgeable . . . to help out. And a very competent person as the discreet guard. She’ll have fun, too. This is going to be quite a learning experience.’
‘Not just for her,’ Yana said with a sigh.
‘Well, do you approve?’ Marmion asked, coming in to the cabin with a loaded tray.
‘I’ll never be as well dressed again,’ Yana said, on the end of a sigh. ‘Oh, that smells divine . . .’
‘Good natural foods always do. This is earth chook.’
‘Chicken?’
‘Prepared from a much coveted family recipe known to the famille de Revers as the Colonel’s Southern Fried Chicken,’ said Marmion, snatching off the cover of the main dish with a dramatic gesture. ‘The colonel was my many-greats ancestor who fought in some sort of early war on Earth.’