Chapter 11
Yana, Diego, and Bunny were recovering from their often treacherous uphill climb back to the cave entrance at Harrison’s Fjord. Ardis told them they had missed Johnny Greene’s return, so they spent two more days anxiously waiting before his copter set down again. They ran out to meet him, ducking under the still-whirling rotors. He looked very tired, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
When the noise of the blades stopped, he said, “I know I’m late, but there was something I had to get done, pronto, schnell, fast. And I got news, too.” He hauled his backpack from under the pilot’s seat. “First let me have a hot bath and get eight hours.”
“Where’re you fitting a decent meal in?” Ardis asked, scowling at him.
“While I’m bathing, Ardis, love, and anything you have ready’ll suit me fine,” he said with his charismatic smile. “You’re back soon, or did you go?” he asked Yana as she, Diego, and Bunny started back down to the Sounik house. “Oh,” he added, noticing the sudden tears form in Bunny’s eyes, and he threw a comforting arm about her shoulders.
“My father,” Bunny said in a choked voice.
“Cave-in,” Yana added.
“My sympathies, Buneka,” Johnny said formally.
“It’s not as if I knew him as a father,” she said and gave a little shrug.
‘Sean’s gone on, hoping to find traces of Aoifa!” Yana said.
Then Johnny grinned with pure mischief. “Marmion Algemeine took her folks and the five assistants Matthew made the mistake of leaving behind to the cave where the planet spoke to us after the volcano erupted.”
“What?”
He grinned again at the astonished chorus that comment elicited ”Yup.”
“And?” Diego demanded.
“Well, they were gone thirty hours …” Johnny said, and paused, his eyes twinkling as he deliberately lengthened the telling of his story. “And Seamus Rourke and Rick O’Shay said it was one of the nicer visitations they’ve ever had.”
“Yes, but what happened to Luzon’s guys? And Marmion? And Sally and …”
“Marmion took Millard and Sally. Faber was off doing some other errand,” Johnny supplied when Yana faltered.
“Seamus swears there-s been very subtle changes in all of them. Can’t see it myself, but Seamus is more in tune with the planet’s ways than I am. Says their hearts are altered even if they don’t think their minds have been, and we’ll have to wait and see what happens. As far as they’re concerned, they spent only a half hour or so in a misty cavern and lost thirty working hours.” Johnny’s grin was as broad as it could get, his eyes almost lost in the folds of his cheeks. “I’ll have to trust him on this one. This is one time the planet’s too sly even for me.”
“Nothing at all noticeable? They didn’t have the dream?”
Yana asked. The dreamactually, a sort of experiential emotional history of what the planet had undergone during its relatively short lifetimethat she had shared with Johnny, Sean, the Whittakers, and others shortly before they were rescued would have been quite a revelation for Matthew’s physically fit boyos. She would have liked to have heard that they’d got the full treatment so they’d know beyond a shadow of a doubt how the planet felt about what was being done to it.
“I wouldn’t worry, Yana,” Johnny said, and Bunny, still closely embraced, nodded wisely, too.
”I just hope so. Because …”
Johnny shook his head, released Bunny, and stopped. “Lemme get a bath, some food, and some sleep, and we’ll talk when my head’s clearer. Okay?”
So they relented and tried to find other things to do to occupy themselves while Johnny slept, so tired that Ardis swore he didn’t move arm or leg from the moment he lay down on the bed.
The curly-coats needed grooming, which took a good hour and a half while Nanook sunned himself on the terrace. That seemed to be the focal point for all the felines of Harrison’s Fjord. Even Shush the Survivor was there, the recipient of many rubbings and strokings and lickings.
Yana, easing back muscles for a moment as she was tackling the matted underbelly of her pony, wondered at the attentions Shush was receiving.