Fiske raised his hand to silence Torkel, but he looked directly into Yana’s eyes.
“Are you guilty as charged, Yanaba Maddock?”
“Me, sir? No, sir,” Yana replied with a wry smile. “Trouble is your son didn’t like hearing what I had to report.”
“Sir, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the situation,” Torkel continued in a low, strained tone, his eyes boring into Yana as if his stare could force her to silence. “It’s not what it seems!”
“I’ll go along with that,” Yana said fervently.
“Sometimes when you create life, it does not fit the form you chose for it,” Clodagh said with an enigmatic smile at Whittaker Fiske.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dr. Fiske asked, frowning.
“You’ll be given to understand that soon.” She rose, putting an end to that subject. “Come, Yana, we must speak to Sinead. She, and perhaps Bunny, better drive those curly-coats back. They won’t find much to eat around here now that volcano’s finished.”
“The volcano’s finished erupting? How can you know that?” Fiske tried to get up, but he was stiff from sitting so long and couldn’t stop her.
“She’s bad as the rest of them, Dad,” Torkel said, looking rather pleased that Clodagh had damned herself out of her own mouth.
“Bad?” Whittaker Fiske exclaimed. “Bad doesn’t come into this, son! Margolies, a word with you!” He limped over to Steve, who, with Diego, was helping get some of the injured ready for transfer.
Yana remained near Clodagh. Captain Greene snagged Torkel to organize an orderly transfer of the survivors from their cave refuge to the nearest possible copter landing site, and that kept the captain occupied. There was a flurry of activity when the copters arrived, stretcher bearers whipping back and forth, people getting loaded. Yana noticed Clodagh in deep conversation with Sinead, Greene, and Bunny, but she thought nothing of it. She just made damned sure she stayed out of Torkel’s way, a task made easier
when Greene strong-armed the exhausted man aboard the copter while insisting on giving him a preliminary report.
“I left my medicine bag in the cave,” Clodagh said just as the last folk were waiting to load up.
“Sure thing,” Yana said, turning back to the cavern entrance. But inside, she found Sinead, apparently gathering up the last of the debris. Sinead smiled at her, an odd sort of smile, and then Yana heard voices in the passageway.
“It is something that you must see right now, Dr. Fiske,” Clodagh was saying as she entered the cavern, the scientist limping impatiently beside her, “to begin to understand what Petaybee is beneath the surface you folk gave it.”
“Beneath the-what are you talking about, woman?” Fiske, anxious to return to SpaceBase, was getting grumpy. “Are we going to miss the copter?”
“It will wait,” Clodagh said easily, and Yana realized that the big woman had come on a mission that had an urgent purpose extending beyond the initial search and rescue.