He stood, bowed elaborately to his former chief petty officer, her spouse and brood, gave the child a bit of a salutewhich Luzon returned, the ass, with a sharp dismissive oneand returned to his copter. He didn’t enjoy flying it half as much on the way back as he expected. Quite aside from the lingering stench of Braddock’s puke, it felt contaminated.
Although this southern continent should have been deep into the autumnal season and its ground surfaces well frozen up for smooth snocling, the Big Freeze had not yet occurred, a matter which caused considerable concern among the Sierra Padreans. This bunch were of very mixed ethnic origins; some, like Loncie, were of Central and South American origin, mainly from the Andes, and over time they had mixed with the few volatile high-mountain Basques, the combination tempered by a great many of the imperturbable Sherpas. Pablo, despite his resemblance to one of the characters in a painting by Goya, was half Sherpa, half Basque. While Loncie, as a retired corps member, kept her birth name of Ondelacy, the family name was actually Chompas.
All of this information Matthew Luzon and Braddock skillfully extracted from the family after the meal was over and Johnny Greene had departed, a very good thing since his presence definitely interfered with the rapport Matthew wished to establish with this family and, in particular, the girl they now called ‘Cita.
One thing that particularly excited Matthew was that the girl in no way resembled any of the Chompas/Ondelacy family. Nor could he see her gray eyes and light hair as placing her among the African or Afghani residents of this sector. No, she belonged to a different ethnic group than he had seen down here thus far, and he was eager to learn if others at the Vale of Tears were as differentboth in appearance and outlookas she seemed to suggest.
He took polite leave of them that night, and spent all the next day, with only Braddock to help him, trying to find alternative air transport. Finally he settled for a snocle. He was warned that, since the thaws of autumn had lasted unusually late this year and winter was not yet fully upon the continent, they might require many detours.
“Planet should be colder in the high country though,” granted the man who rented them quite a battered machine. Luzon suspected that the man had no right to have access to one at all and, to add insult to injury, he charged them a Large enough deposit to buy a small space station. Matthew smiled sourly but paid, knowing he could easily confiscate the machine if he so desired. But just now he desired to keep a low profile.
In his preparations. he had already gathered that Sierra Padre would be as fruitless as Bogota in his quest for those who didn’t speak of “the planet” or “Petaybee” as if it were a friend or neighbor or possibly a close relative. Such superstitious idiocy! He had high hopes for the girl’s Shepherd Howling, however, whose nonsense was no less superstitious but in a more useful vein for Matthew’s purposes.
Once provisions and other appropriate gear had been acquired and stowed in the machine, Matthew awaited the moment to acquire the final piece in this phase of his investigation.
The girl played right into his hands. While the other children in the huge woman’s huge family played at building a snow fort from the new snow of the night before, Goat-dunghe, at least, would give her the proper name bestowed upon her by her culturesat alone beside a spindly birch next to the pen containing goats. Maybe there was more to her name than just a convenient identity.
Matthew strolled up to her casually, saying, “Goat-dung. I require your assistance.”
“Sir, I am told my name is now ‘Cita.”
“By those who mean it kindly but do not know the significance of your true name, yes. But you and I know that their kindness is nevertheless a falsehood, do we not? You were given your name for a reason.”
She dropped those pale calf-eyes of hers and said in a tiny voice, “Yes, sir.”
“I wish to speak to this Shepherd Howling.”