”Slainte, Whittaker,” she said without looking up.
“Slainte yourself, my dear. What the devil are you trying to do?”
“I’m pullin’ weeds,” she said.
“So I see,” he responded dryly. “Are you just pulling these particular weeds around the springs, or did you plan to personally defoliate the entire area between here and Kilcoole?”
She stood up, hands planted on her broad back. “Just these,” she said, smiling. “I could use a hand. I’m kinda in a hurry.”
“Be glad to. I’m afraid, however, that I’ve come as the bearer of bad tidings.”
“You going to tell me about that guy that sealed up some of the communion places? Silenced the planet and fooled all those people at McGee’s Pass and so on?”
“Well, yes.”
“Yeah, well, I heard about that.”
“You did?” he asked, dumbfounded at first and then shaking his head as understanding set in. “Of course. I suppose your usual informants told you.
“Kinda. It took the cats a long time to find out, because he killed all but one of ‘em. But that one got word out to mine and they told me. They say he put some white junk on the inside of the cave that fuses the rockstuff they use to shore up walls in mines.”
“Yes. Petraseal. Johnny Greene also reported that to me. It’s very bad news, Clodagh. If our adversaries at Intergal learn that there is something that can defeat your communication with the planet, they’re apt to go overboard on using it.”
“Yeah,” she nodded gravely. “That’s what I thought. I was pretty worried about it, too, so I came out here to talk to Petaybee.”
“I don’t suppose it’s very happy about all this.”
“It’s sure not.”
“Did it have any ideas?”
“Well, not in so many words. Except, I just started wondering, what if this stuff doesn’t always work? What if there’s something stronger than it is, that can go through it? And you know, all of a sudden, I looked down and saw where this coo-berry bramble was growin’ right up through the floor of the cave, and when I came out here, why I noticed what I hadn’t seen before. You know how that is?”
“I do,” Whit nodded.
“Anyway, we never had a problem with coo-berries here before. And coo-berries are a problem. Just about impossible to destroy and they’ll go through anything. You see what I’m getting at?”
“I think I do. You’re sure it’ll work?”
She shrugged, then directed him where to pull. The berries had sharp thorns. “After we get a bunch pulled up, we wrap ‘em in leaves and our bigger, faster friends here will see that they get delivered.” She nodded at the animals.
It was Whit’s turn to shrug as he buttoned down his sleeves and started pulling.
Satok had no problem eluding the trackers from McGee’s Pass. For one thing, he was wily, with a lot of friends and resources. For another thing, one of those resources was a shuttle hidden in a secret camouflaged shed about a half hour from his house, close enough that he could get to it in a hurry, and far enough away from the center of things that it was unlikely to be found.
He flew first to Deadhorse, then Wellington and Savoy. There former shipmates of his, all of whom he had set up as replacements for the recently expired shanachies, were in various stages of converting the people in the towns to their version of “what the planet wanted.”
“I don’t see what the problem is,” said Reilly, Savoy’s new headman, as he sat drinking with Satok. “These people believe anything they’re told. Just tell ‘em the people at McGee’s Pass have gone nuts or something.”
“Your problem is you don’t think far enough ahead, Reilly,” Satok said. The brats got away. The McGee’s Pass people scattered to a lot of places. They know about the cave. Now, the problem is not so much what they think of us as the possibility of competition. Using the Petraseal was my idea. Finding out how to use the Petraseal without the planet freaking us out of our fraggin’ minds was my idea. I want credit and credits. You boys will get yours, as well, of course. But if this committee that’s investigating things sees the Petraseal before we claim our finders’ fee, Intergal will have everything and there’ll be nothing for anybody else.”