Clodagh shrugged her broad shoulders. “You can always be wrong about anything. Sure, I think a lot of them would feel loyalty for us and for the planet. But they’ve been out there”she nodded toward the heavens“for a long time. They’re used to the kind of stuff you’re used to. Some of ‘em have prob’ly forgot how to cook, too, like you, and how to hunt. How to take care of themselves. And if the company decided to punish them and us by dumping them here and pulling out support, well, that’d be pretty hard on them, pretty hard on us, and pretty hard on the planet. I figure if all the Petaybee troops still working for Intergal got sent back here, it’d triple our population. At the least! I don’t know how many kids those troops have had. Course they’d be welcome and the planet would provide, but it might be as hard on it as some kinds of mining operations.”
Frank cleared his throat. The ecosystem in these icy regions is quite fragile.”
“You know it and I know it, but Intergal seems oblivious to the fact,” Sean said.
“Are those villages one hundred percent in favor of selling out? Yana asked.
Clodagh smiled patiently. “Now, Yana. You’ve been around the universe a few times. When did you ever meet any group of people who were one hundred percent in favor of anything?”
“Exactly. So presumably there are some people there who aren’t in favor of the mining. And probably, in the remaining villages, a few who are. I think we need to know who’s fer us and who’s agin us, as they say in the Wild West vids, and maybe try to convert some of the unaffiliated. I thought everybody had the relationship with the planet you do.”
Clodagh shook her head. “Not everybody wants to. Those who have enough respect to follow the rules and live wisely survive better though, so even if they don’t acknowledge the presence of the planet, they get by as long as they keep out of the special places. The others, the foolish ones, don’t live so well or so long. Those people would much rather try to please the bosses than forces they don’t want to understand Fortunately though, around here there’s not much to do except pay attention, so the planet gets through to most folks.”
“Well, sounds to me like we need to do a little campaigning,” Yana said.
“We will make them songs so they understand,” Clodagh said.
“Cool,” Diego said. “Just like the old radical songs from Earth. Ah, if only I had a guitar.”
“What’s that?” Bunny asked.
“A musical instrument. All of the old protest singers had them. There’s some wonderful mining songs in the memory banks backback at my old place.”
“I wish you had one then,” Bunny said loyally.
“Me, too. Except I don’t know how to play.”
“I bet you could learn.” Bunny told him. “You make better songs than some people who’ve made them all their lives.”
“Bunka,” Clodagh said sharply. “Each song is a good song if it says what the singer means it to say.”
“Course it is, Clodagh. I know that. But Diego’s sound better. He says what he means to say so everybody can understand it. That’s all I meant.”
Clodagh smiled, a slightly bawdy smile, with a wink to Sean and Yana. “That’s all right then, alannah. He does make good songs.”
In the short distance to Clodagh’s house, they discussed the finer points of what needed to be said to the villages, both those which dissented and those which Clodagh felt sure could be counted upon to support the planet.
When they reached Clodagh’s, what seemed to be the entire village was waiting outside in her yard. Yana found, looking at the yard, that she missed the snow. The village looked like a garbage dump, with its stores of winter provisions half-thawed in the snow, the trash that had been buried, the salvaged equipment lying around the yard, all of the items that had been lost throughout the long winter. Not to mention the leavings of the various dogs and cats and horses housed in the village. Also, without the snow, the roofs of the houses looked patchy, the siding worn despite its gay pastel colors. And everything and everyone was smeared and splattered with mud.