The kitchen was even more filled than usual with good smells, but these did not emanate from the pot that normally sat simmering on her stove. Instead, the earthy odors came from tiers of warming trays raised above the stove and stacked with stones. On the trays were tiny clay pots holding shoots of greenery, and it was from these the smells came. The kitchen table was also covered with little pots and soil and bundles of dried flowers and piles of seeds.
“Slainte, Sean, Yana,” she said, looking up from where she sat spread-legged on the floor, her skirts hiked up above her moon-shaped pale while knees and colorful hand-knit stockings. Between her knees and her feet and all around her were more pots, more seed packets, and trays of potting compost. Inspecting with critical sniffs all the interesting items laid out to be worked on were various members of the orange-marmalade cat battalion. Two had curled up to sleep in one potting tray not quite large enough for their bulk: they spilled over like immense orange alien plant-forms. “Did you two think of any songs?”
“Quite a few,” Sean said, fondly leering at Yana.
‘Nothing we could repeat in polite company though,” Yana said. “How about you?”
I got a couple. Mostly though, I thought I ought to make these plants ready to send out to the other villages, and see if while we’re sendin’ folk around, they could collect starts from other places.”
“I was just commenting that we’ll have a longer than usual growing season,” Sean said.
“Prob’ly,” Clodagh said. “Unless Petaybee has other ideas.”
Bunny poked her head in the door. “Slainte, Uncle Sean. Slainte, Yana and Clodagh. For cat’s sakes, Clodagh, don’t most people garden outside?”
“Only some of this is for my garden, Bunka. The rest will be presents. But right now, help me clean this up or there won’t be room for anybody to stand when the rest of the village gets here.”
“Okay. C’mon, Diego,” the girl said. Diego stepped shyly inside. In one hand was a piece of wood, in the other a knife. He closed and pocketed the knife and set the billet down by the door.
“It’s very considerate of you to bring your own firewood, lad, but I’m not usin’ so much these days as to need it.”
“That’s going to be his guitar,” Bunny said.
“Oh, really?” Clodagh asked, widening her eyes in mild query.
“Only part of it,” Diego said. At sixteen, he was a shy dark boy with beautiful eyes and an unruly lock of black hair that kept falling over them. When he had first come to Petaybee, he’d suffered from the skin blemishes common to young adolescents, but the planet’s dry air had cleared them up. His voice had already changed to a most satisfactory baritone, and he was rapidly becoming gorgeous. “This woodUncle Seamus said it was well-seasoned cedarprobably will be good for the neck. I haven’t found anything for the body, but …”
“The planet will come up with something, don’t you worry,” Clodagh told him, beaming up at him with that wide sunny smile that, along with the cascade of wavy black hair now tied back with a thong, was her other greatest beauty. “Come now, give me a hand.”
From the doorway came another familiar voice. “I can take some of those outside for you now, Clodagh, if you’re ready.”
Yana turned to see the eminent Dr. Whittaker Fiske, major company stockholder and board member, sticking a hammer back in the heavy webbed belt he wore strapped over dark gray fatigue pants. Clodagh’s bone-knit medicine and the modern ministrations available to company elite had, in the last six weeks, largely healed his broken arm and injured leg: now he merely wore a light bandage for support and walked with the slightest of limps. He wore a navy blue rib-knit sweater and a matching light stocking cap rather rakishly perched over one ear and stood with his hands on his hips, grinning widely and looking immensely pleased with himself.
“Dr. Fiske!” Yana exclaimed. “How’d you get here?”
“Walked,” he said. “Great therapy, walking. I used to walk the hills around Trondheim all the time when I was stationed back on Earth. Takes years off you.”