“I know there’s no shuttles,” she told Adak, “but my fare has to inprocess in the morning.”
“Can’t she walk or go by sled?”
“Nah. She’s an important dama. An officer. But she’s puny. Said something about being at Bremport.”
“The massacre where the Shanachie’s boy was killed? Ah, the poor dama. And how is she puny?”
“She coughs. Bad. But she seems nice. Anyway, the snocle is authorized for official functions, so I want to take her round to the outpost as quick as possible so she can settle in, like.”
“Good child. You’ve taken to this dama, have you?”
“She’s sleepin’ this night under the quilt Auntie Moira made me.”
‘Then by all means lake the snocle in the morning, but mind you, no sight-seein’.”
“Thanks, Adak,” she said. “I’ll bring you one of Auntie Moira’s cakes in the morning when I come, shall I?”
“That would be very welcome, Bunny. Good night now.”
“Good night,” she said, and headed back to the shed behind her aunt’s house.
Ever since her older male cousins had turned a little too inquisitive about her development, Bunny had preferred to sleep out here, in back of the kennel where Charlie kept his team of noisy and protective dogs, who warned her of anyone approaching. She wasn’t really scared, though. Most of the people who came to see her brought her things-fish or moose chops, zucchini or tomatoes in the summer-though some came just to visit. She was personally related to a large percentage of the village, and she knew who would help her and who to avoid. There were a few people she didn’t want coming to her place-Terce, for one, but he was scared of Charlie’s dogs. Mostly, everyone looked out for her. That would have made her feel like a child except that she looked out for them, too. That was how it was in Kilcoole. She was actually very adult for someone her age, trusted with the responsibility of living on her own and holding down her own job.
Approaching her house, she was greeted by the hounds, who set up a good welcoming howl as she walked quickly through them, unclipping the lines from Pearse and the lead dog, Maud.
She was pleasantly surprised to see smoke rolling up from her chimney to the sky. As she followed its path she saw the lights were on display tonight: a simple pale green band whipping across the black sky, dancing and twisting and sequined with stars. The smoke from the chimney smelled grand-nutty and warm. Maud whined and stuck her long muzzle in Bunny’s pocket. The dogs were more used to Bunny, who had time for them and who usually fed and exercised them, than they were to Charlie, who was their owner. Bunny petted Maud absently. Even with her stove getting a head start on the chill, without her quilt she would need the dogs for warmth tonight. She would let them in to get toasty by the fire while she ate her supper.
The big red dogs with their thick soft coats took up most of the floor space in the little shed. It contained her berth, a scrounged unit cut out of one of the dead ships at SpaceBase, a shaky tabletop pegged into the wall and placed so she could sit on her berth to eat, plus the stove and the shelves she had built from old storage crates to hold her few belongings. She had the three books left her by her parents, a set of tools-a gift from her uncle upon obtaining her license-and a selection of shells, rocks, and mushroom-shaped tree tumors, as well as hand-me-downs from the cousins and what little gear she had. On the table was a mare’s-butter candle; it gave a fairly bright light, though it didn’t smell very good. Her shed was built of stone, of which Petaybee had plenty. She had caulked it with mud two breakups earlier and reinforced it with some plasti her cousin Simon had scrounged for her at the SpaceBase when he first joined the corps, before he shipped out. The plasti had originally been used to repair the bubble around the SpaceBase garden, and it did well in the cold, never cracking or contracting.