‘Right you are, guv.’
Sean was impatient to get the 'welcoming' organized, but Chumia was firm that he needed to be fed and dried properly. While doing that, he could still tell them what he had in mind…
‘We don't want to be rash and hurt the poor girl if she's only running scared,' Chumia said. 'Perhaps her boss made her hit Adak. Maybe that other man was her boss and she's still tryin' to get loose from him.’
‘You've seen no sign of a shuttle? Or any strangers walking in?’
Muktuk snorted at that latter possibility and shook his head over the former.
‘Well, either way,' Sean said. 'I need to visit the communion place.’
‘Sure thing, guv. Chumia, you get that end of the rug and I'll get this,' he said and together the O'Neills pulled away the thick rug woven in shades of green and gold in a stair-step pattern. A trapdoor was revealed, and well-worn steps which led to the permafrost cave Sean remembered from three former latchkays. The first time he'd come to Tanana Bay for a latchkay and had seen three villages' worth of people pouring into the O'Neills' tiny cabin, he'd been astounded, until he'd seen a line of folks disappearing into the floor.
Now he and Sinead descended the stairs carved out of stone and ice. Chumia held a lamp for them while the family cat scampered ahead, nearly tripping them. 'It'll be dark down there,' Chumia said.
But it wasn't. One entire wall of the entrance chamber was glowing with a pattern of phosphorescence similar to the sort which Sean had seen in the under-river grotto.
‘My goodness, will you look at that?' Chumia clucked while the cat rubbed against the wall then stretched so that its paws touched the lower part of the design. 'You're going to think I'm a terrible housekeeper, guv, letting mould grow in the communion place. It's never done that before. Didn't think it could, permafrost being ice and all.’
‘Never? These aren't here from the last latchkay?’
‘No, sir. What's all these wiggles mean?’
‘Looks like waves,' Sinead said, peering closely. 'Here and here.’
‘Waves…' the cave repeated.
The cat chirruped as if it too was trying to say 'waves'.
‘It is,' Sean said, pointing to the apex. 'This must be where we are now - near these waves, and this circle represents the rest of the North - then more waves outside and the outer circle.’
‘Waves, circlessssss…’
‘What about the lines that end in circles here?' and, ignoring the echo, Sinead pointed to the spiralled figure somewhat to the left of the midpoint between the lines. 'And here? This one's clear down beyond the waves. What do you suppose it means?’
‘Trouble spots?' Sean guessed. 'Like before?’
This time the echo didn't repeat itself. 'Means trouble spots like before,' it said distinctly.
The cat jumped as if someone had thrown water on it and bolted back up the steps and into the house. They could hear the cat-flap still flapping as they continued studying the diagram.
Dinah O'Neill was not happy about leaving her shuttle stranded on the ice, like some sort of monstrous sea animal.
‘It's watertight, isn't it?' Bunny asked her and shrugged when Dinah had to admit it was. 'Then even if it falls into the water, they're all right in there, aren't they?’
‘Sink?' Dinah cried aghast.
‘Well, not really,' Bunny said and there might have been some who thought she was deliberately teasing Dinah O'Neill but she was merely talking out loud. 'Besides, I think that hole'll freeze over as soon as it turns dark and the shuttle'll be OK. Frozen in, of course, but safe. Speaking of freezing, we'd better get going. Yana, I'll scout ahead. You keep the others moving, OK?’
Yana flipped her a salute. 'Aye, aye, ma'am. We're right behind you.’
What Bunny didn't say - nor did either Yana or Diego mention - was very obvious to her: the sun was westering and they hadn't much daylight left to get where they wouldn't freeze. Bunny struck out at a good pace in the general direction of Tanana Bay. She would have preferred to go straight across the frozen inlet towards the main trail but that would waste time which they didn't have that much of. So she headed towards the nearest high ground. Maybe there she could get a good look at the lay of the land and correct their path.
She was also aware - though she didn't mention it -that her little pouch was like a miniature hot-bottle and the warmth from it was keeping her warm.
Humans were so dense and so slow. Punjab didn't know how the planet put up with them sometimes. Even drawing them a big picture wasn't enough.
Obviously that business across the water would have to be delegated - if humans were too thick to understand, perhaps birds or walruses would have to explain it to them - but it was not a job for cats. This simple task clearly was, however.
With satisfaction, Punjab felt the snow freezing to ice with each warm touch of his heavily furred paw, Home co-operating with its chosen messenger - the feet of the planet, as his kind considered themselves. Confidently, he trotted on towards his quarry.
Bunny devoutly wished for her snowshoes as she blazed a trail through the two-foot-high drifts, her foot sinking through to the knee with each step. She deliberately squashed down as much snow as she could every time she made a track, but it was laborious going. After a short time, she returned to the others to encourage them and see if she could help them.
Megenda was shivering so much he staggered with the shakings. She thought of giving him her jacket, since she could stand the cold better than he could, but it was far too small for him. As was everyone else's. And the pouch which was doing such a fine job and making her feel warm wouldn't do the first mate one damned bit of good.
When they reached the first copse, she did consider starting a fire to dry him out but that would take too much time out of the little daylight they had left.
Bunny gave Megenda full marks for keeping up, despite his shuddering chills. It was Dinah O'Neill who was having the worst time of it, being rather short in the leg and having to take little running steps to keep up with the others. But she grimly plodded, skipped, hopped on and didn't fall more than a step behind.
Diego was beginning to puff, too. He wasn't as fit as he had been, what with lounging around Marmion's apartment on Gal-3 and then the kidnapping. Those walks around the pirate ship had not been any substitute for proper exercise. He was grumbling and acted annoyed that Bunny didn't seem to be as affected as he was. But he noticed that Yana was clutching at her side from time to time.
Bunny knew she couldn't help Diego or the others by slowing down. She trudged back up the path she had made and then began laboriously cutting through the snow once more. It was heavy work and she was soon so weary of it she felt like crying but the tears would only freeze and make her more miserable. Wouldn't it be weird to have been freed from the pirates and finally return home, only to freeze to death before she could be found? Actually, with the new-falling snow masking the fading horizon, help could be quite close by and they'd never know until they found her frozen corpse. And the others. It had happened more than once.
‘Helllooo, anybody!' she called into the gathering darkness. 'Slainte! It's me, Bunny! Is anybody there? Hellooo! Come and get me now!’
Then something that wasn't supposed to be possible happened. She was right out there in the open air, not in a cave or a valley or anything and an echo picked up her voice, like it had done a few weeks ago when Phon
Tho visited, like it had done at Yana and Sean's wedding.
‘HELLOO, IT'S ME, ME, ME, ME…' the echo said.
And then it blended with a somewhat smaller voice, 'MEOW MEOW meow!', a cat's meow complaining over and over again.