Chapter 12
Dr. Whittaker Fiske received the coded messages from Johnny Greene with concern and no little dismayparticularly the second one, the one Johnny sent him after he first returned to the north. He had quickly approved the pilot’s scheme and given him all due assistance. By calling in a few personal favors owed the pilot and promising the supply sergeant R&R to the tropical planet of her choice, he had ensured that all Petraseal available at and to SpaceBase had been urgently requisitioned elsewhere. At Johnny’s suggestion, the Petraseal cans had been emptied into a single tank for immediate shipment, while the empty containers still labeled “Petraseal” had been filled with the last consignment of white paint, which was rarely used on Petaybee except for camouflage purposes. However, between implementing Johnny’s scheme and work at SpaceBase, he had been too fully occupied to be able to return to Clodagh to warn her of the grave implications of what had taken place at McGee’s Pass.
He was concerned about how Clodagh would take it. She was an amazing woman, unconventionally beautiful, intelligent, wise, and kind, but she felt everything that happened to Petaybee personally. Maybe if everybody did the same, there wouldn’t be any problem, but even after his experience in the cave, he still retained a detachment that kept him from that sort of bond with what he had once thought of as the creation of his family. He did, however, feel a bond with Clodagha closer one than he had with anyone in a long timeincluding, maybe especially, his own son.
He walked into Kilcoole the morning after Greene’s second transmission. The river was down a bit now that much of the initial thaw had already taken place, but it was still full and fat with water.
He knew Clodagh wasn’t at home before he knocked on the door. No cats in the windows, on the rooftop, or perched on the various objects in the yard. He peeked through the open door into the neat, empty house and looked down Kilcoole’s one muddy street. The town seemed even more deserted than it had before. He called Clodagh a couple of times, but when he received no answer, he strolled down to Yana Maddock’s place. There, at least, her cat Marduk sat on the stoop, and sprang up as if it had been waiting for him. Well, knowing these cats, maybe it had been.
At that point, the door of the house across the street opened and Frank Metaxos poked his prematurely white-haired head out. The man’s speech was still a little slow, but he was a far cry from the wreck he had been only a few weeks earlier.
“How’s it going, Frank?” Whit asked.
“I hate being stuck here,” Frank told him. “You heard anything of my boy?”
“Matter of fact, I did,” Whit replied affably. “He’s doing fine. Been a great help to everybody. Say, you haven’t seen Clodagh, have you?”
“She went out to the springs, I think. Marduk there”Frank nodded at the cat“knows the way. Though you’ll have to walk. All the curlies are carrying the people to visit the neighbors.”
“Visiting the neighbors” was the term the Kilcoole people were using to describe their mission to the other villages. Whit wasn’t overly surprised. After all, these people were half-descended from the Irish who had described their own centuries-old guerrilla conflict as “the Troubles” and a massive international war as “the Emergency.”
He followed Marduk through knee-high weeds that had been lying in ambush under the snow, waiting for the thaw.
Birds sang and dived overhead, both small, pretty songbirds and swooping, squawking ravens. Small creatures rustled the underbrush; a red fox darted across his path. Marduk scurried up a tree when the fox passed, and hissed and spit at the silvery wake the creature cut in the tall grass.
Whit found Clodagh beside the springs, surrounded by not only her cats but all sorts of animals, including a large, strong curly-coat. They stood, lay, or sat and watched her as she pulled and separated, pulled and separated a profusion of plants growing rampant around the hot-springs banks. Her bountiful wavy black hair was braided and coiled on top of her head; sweat ran down her face and neck as she worked.