This dreary aspect didn’t seem to lessen their regard for each other in the slightest, however, and the villagers crowded as cheerfully as ever into Clodagh’s tiny house and began discussing what was to be done.
“We need to have another latchkay,” Eamon Intiak said. “We should have one and invite the people who don’t understand. Petaybee would speak to them and then they’d know.”
“You’d think they’d know already by now,” Sinead Shongili said.
“Now, Sinead,” her partner Aisling said reasonably, “such things take some folks longer. Their worries about the everyday things in their lives get in the way of understanding what’s here.”
‘We’ll each go away and think about these things and make songs,” Clodagh said. “Then we’ll go talk to the other people. Sinead, you and Sean and the Maloneys must go the farthest because you’re the best travelers. I would like to send Frank with you, Sinead, and young Diego with Liam. Yana, you go with Sean. We need you people who know about the company to make talk with the neighbors who are taken in by the promises, too.”
With that, everyone began to leave. Yana was ready to leave, too. She was tired. She wanted to rest and eat and bathe in the hot springs and make love to Sean, not necessarily in that order. But Sean laid a restraining hand on her arm and lingered a moment.
“And how about the other pole, Clodagh?” Sean asked gently. “How do we reach those people?”
“Can you not do it, Sean?” Clodagh asked.
“Sure, I could, but it’d be a long journey no matter how fast I went. The PTBs would already have been there and found out what we need to know. Besides, I hate to leave Yanaba for so long at a time like this.”
“What do you mean, Sean?” Yana asked. “I’m barely a month along. I wouldn’t even know I was pregnant if you hadn’t found out via your hot line to the planet. Other women have had babies before …”
“Not,” Sean said significantly, “my babies. If only my sister and Rourke had been able to map that passage.”
“Sinead?”
“No. Our sister Aoifa and her husband, Bunny’s parents. They were trying to map some of the planet’s inner passages. Bunny was barely eighteen months old”
“And that Aoifa was pregnant again!” Clodagh said fondly. They hadn’t been named long, but that girl was a real Shongili. Not even pregnancy hampered that one, and her as curious as one of the cats!”
“What happened?” Yana asked.
Sean shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“Couldn’t you find out? From the planet, I mean?”
“You’ve been with it. The information you got isn’t usually that specific. And Aoifa and Mala had this theory that some of the special places that lead from one river and lake to the next here on the land lead under the sea in the same way. I searched but I never found them. Never even got a glimmer.”
Clodagh made a sound like “Yuh.” Then she said, “They must have gone very far. Much farther than anyone has ever gone.”
“On foot or by sled or horse maybe,” Yana said. “But there are other ways to travel and other ways to get to the south, if the planet doesn’t mind the intrusion too much. If I can reach Captain Greene or that O’Shay fellow, maybe they can give us a lift.”
“Ah, you spoiled modern woman,” Sean said with a kiss to her cheek. “I love you.”
“I know it’s not the Petaybean way, Shongili, but until you come up with a mutant bird to match your cats and horses, we have to make do with what poor mechanical means I can muster.”
“I’m workin’ on it, Yana. I am. But until then, you’re quite right. We’ll have to use company equipment to fight its masters. Now then, what say we go meditate at the hot spring and come up with something to say to these people once you finesse the pilots into transporting us?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said.
It was small; it was warm and wet and its pelt was of a most extraordinarily tattered nature, fine flapping threads and matted bits interspersed in an unkempt coat. It smelled like food, but not the superior sort.