Bunny called back, glad to hear the cat. Did that mean that Clodagh was behind? But no, the cat was alone, appearing off to the right of her like a little pinpoint of orange flame at first, crying impatiently for her to hurry forward. When Bunny backtracked to get the others, the cat sat at the end of the trail she had made, waiting for them.
‘We're saved!' she told Yana. 'A cat came for us!’
‘Good,' Megenda said. 'How do you cook 'em?’
‘You don't,' Diego said. 'You follow them.’
‘I've heard of a wild goose chase but this is ridiculous,' Dinah said. Bunny turned her back on them and returned to the end of her trail. As soon as it saw her, the cat sashayed forward, tail held low to protect the tenderest parts and brushing the snow. Single-file, they slogged forward after it.
The distant lights of Tanana Bay appeared just about the time some of the party were thinking that perhaps they'd do better for a bit of a rest, despite the fact that night had already fallen and the air grew colder by the minute, knifing through their skin until at last it was too numb to pain them. Only the luminous eyes of the cat guided them when it turned in its tracks to regard them with impatience. Didn't they realize it had supper waiting and a nap to take?
The feeling in Bunny's legs had drained away some time ago though she continued to piston them in and out of the snow while the others followed. Once they spotted the cabins, the cat cast her a glance, then scampered away to disappear into the town.
The welcome sight of cabins in the trees revived the flagging energies of everyone in the party. It helped that the snow closer to the settlement was already trampled into trails and they followed one of these easily to the outermost cabin.
It was empty, though smoke still poured from the chimney. They all gratefully crowded inside to warm themselves by the fire. When Megenda would have crawled into the fireplace, Bunny hauled him back so he wouldn't scorch himself. She did grab a fur cover from the nearest bunk and draped it around his shoulders. He could not seem to stop the shivering. There was soup in the kettle on the hob so Bunny ladled him out a cup which he could barely hold in his hands without spilling.
‘Don't know how much of someone's supper we can take without them going short,' Bunny said by way of explanation when she saw the hopeful expression on Dinah O'Neill's face as she, too, crowded into the fireplace. Bunny was right proud that neither Diego nor Yana seemed to need the fire. Just being in out of the cold was sufficient. 'No-one would object to Megenda having a cup of soup to stop those shivers. You all get warm while I go see where people are,' she said, taking a parka off the peg on the back of the door. The temperature would be dropping like a stone from a height.
Tanana Bay didn't boast half as many cabins as Kilcoole did but Bunny had been in several empty places before she came to the Murphys, where the cat sat beside the fire cleaning the snow from between its pawpads. The cat glanced up at her, then returned to its cleaning. She saw the raised trapdoor and the open hole in the floor. Leaning over the opening she could hear voices, excited voices, lots of them.
‘Hallooo down there?’
There was no immediate response, except an echo of her call, probably because everyone was talking so loudly. After waiting a moment, Bunny descended. She'd never seen a communion place entrance so bright, which would certainly have provoked a lot of discussion on any occasion.
What she didn't expect to see were men and women armed with all kinds of homely weapons: axes, staves, nets, pitchforks as well as the usual bows, lances and knives.
‘What's happening?' she cried, touching the first man on the arm.
‘Glad you could make it,' he said, giving her a scant look. 'We got big trouble coming to Tanana Bay and we'll need everybody we can get to turn 'em back.’
‘Turn who back?' And Bunny felt a gelid spurt of fear. What had happened while they were off-planet? Had Intergal gone back on its word?
‘That pirate! Louchard!' Someone else explained, leaning around the first man to put in his quarter credit.
‘Hey, you don't come from around here.’
‘No, I'm from Kilcoole but…’
‘Buneka!' said the Voice.
‘Buneka?' and that shout came from Sean's throat.
Bunny was so astonished to hear the Voice come out with her own real name that she didn't react until Sean had her in his arms and was whirling her about, laughing and crying.
‘You're free. You're all right,' and he was feeling her over to be sure she was, his eyes both glad and anxious, then he looked around her. 'Yana?’
‘She's all right, too, Sean, really, she's fine.’
Sinead pushed through the crowd then and embraced Bunny as warmly as Sean had done, also asking where Yana was.
‘Hold it down,' Sean said in a loud voice because everyone in the communion place was trying to understand who the newcomer was that the Voice had recognized so unexpectedly.
So it took minutes before Bunny could explain and then minutes more before she made it clear that the pirate was not on Petaybee, only his first mate and Dinah O'Neill were. Then she had to calm Muktuk and Chumia down because they were so astonished, and gratified, that their kinswoman was right in Tanana Bay. Immediately, they were in a quandary about welcoming her if she wasn't bringing good news about Louchard and his kidnap victims.
‘A moment's hush, please,' Sean said in a loud authoritative voice. He was instantly obeyed as he bowed his head to consider what to do next. Everyone tried not to fidget.
‘So,' and now Sean was ready to recap, 'you've all been released and everyone is safe?’
‘Thanks to the cat upstairs,' Bunny said. 'I don't know how it managed to find us - maybe it was out hunting and heard me call, I suppose.’
Sean and the others exchanged sheepish glances. 'We all had a map,' he admitted with a thumb jerked back to the still-glowing wall of the cave. 'But the cat acted on it while the rest of us were gathering a force to protect ourselves from the pirates.’
‘The only two that are here are warming themselves near by. There's a couple of others on ice, you might say, about where the map says,' she indicated the slowly fading spiral and line, dribbling away as the microscopic animals forming the phosphorescence deserted the map to go on to more important matters. Chumia busily sketched the whole map on the back of her hand. The portion of the map that crossed waves remained as bright and deliberate as it had been when Bunny first arrived.
‘Yana talked Dinah into getting Louchard to release Marmie and Namid too, since they're afraid to return Marmie to Gal-Three and can't get any ransom for her.’
‘Wait, wait! Who's this Namid?' Sinead asked.
‘An astronomer Louchard's also got imprisoned.' Bunny didn't explain about Namid being divorced from Dinah because it wasn't really an important detail. 'We came in the Jenny's shuttle, only the damned fool landed right on the edge of the ice so they're about to take a dive off the ice into the inlet…' At Sean's gasp of horror, 'Oh, Yana, Diego and me as well as Dinah O'Neill and the first mate got ashore OK, but there are crewmen still inside and they can't go nowhere right now.’
‘And they'd have nowhere to go here either, so crowded we are,' Sinead said sourly.
So everyone started talking at once again until Sean, in mid-flight up the stairs on his way to Yana, stopped and held up his hands.
‘OK now, folks, let's just calm down. If the ship's disabled, we can relax. There's just two people to be considered and I think we can handle this, Muktuk, Chumia, Sinead and me. Go on back to your homes and your dinners. And thank you very much for being so ready to stand on the line. Sure do appreciate your support.’