‘Kind of you to come, Liam,' Sinead said a touch sarcastically. 'A bit late, but welcome nonetheless.’
‘I was delayed,' he said, pushing back the parka hood and running his mittens over the ice that had formed in his hair and moustache. 'Nanook had a hairy knicker attack on the way here and wouldn't let us proceed for quite some time. I couldn't get it out of him what was wrong, but once he decided to move he all but left us behind.’
Sean squatted down and held out his arms, 'What's the problem, Nanook?’
‘Don't tell me it talks too?' Dinah O'Neill, the person, asked.
‘Anything wrong with talking cats?' Diego demanded, rubbing Dinah-the-dog's ears.
‘Nothing at all. After what the darling little orange pussycat did for us, I have become a born-again cat lover, especially of Petaybean cats. I suppose export is out of the question?’
Sean looked up and said, 'Here's another first. Coaxtl is sending to Nanook that her cub - by that I take it she means Cita - is in trouble with bad humans. She went down to see Loncie when Johnny and O. O. took the last Cube to Bogota.' He stroked Nanook worriedly. 'While I'm gratified to see that the planet is expanding its communications network to cover the whole globe, I don't have a notion what we can do to help Cita.’
Chumia said, 'That was the other spot on the map in the communion place then, wasn't it? That's what the waves were for and the circles - there's more trouble down south. You're right, Sean. I've never known the planet to tell us anything about what was happening down there before.’
Muktuk shook his head. 'My dogs'd take me anywhere but they ain't real big on winter ocean swimming.’
‘I'd swim it myself,' Sean said, 'but the mental picture I'm getting is of someplace far inland, away from any waterways. I can't imagine how the bears came so far from the ice-pack.’
‘Bears?' Bunny asked. ''Polar bears? Cita's down there with polar bears? Uncle Sean, we've got to save her!’
Sean gave her a small, wry smile. 'Funny, that's what she said when she heard you'd been kidnapped by pirates, and you've come out of it well enough.’
‘I'd take Petaybean polar bears over pirates any time, gatita,' Diego told Bunny, releasing one arm from the dog's neck to hold her hand. 'At least they have the planet to answer to. Whereas Two-Foot Dinah here only has Louchard.’
Dinah O'Neill lifted an eyebrow and said, 'Perhaps. But I do happen to have command of a space shuttle that could be placed at your disposal to solve this little inconvenience. That is, if it could be freed.’
The rescue expedition was mounted forthwith and with great despatch, especially since they now had the means to rescue Cita from the polar bears. Sean, Yana and Bunny were everywhere at once, organizing. The snow had not fallen so thickly that Bunny's trail couldn't be retraced in the darkness and the dog sleds broadened the track. The nights were longer in northerly Tanana Bay than they were even in Kilcoole, but all the drivers and dogs were used to travelling in darkness. Fifteen sleds left the village, containing rope, chain, fishnets, winches, anything that might help free the shuttle. Dinah-Four-Feet and Nanook trotted alongside. Dinah-Two-Foot, the pirate's representative, accompanied the rescuers, but Megenda had been locked inside the communion cave for safekeeping and to recover fully from his narrow escape from frostbite and pneumonia.
‘Let's not get too close,' Bunny called to the sleds as they neared the hole in the ice containing the shuttle. 'It broke with just me.’
‘Make way, clear off the trail,' Muktuk Murphy's voice called from the rear. 'Comin' through.’
Behind his he led a curly mare and behind her trotted three of the wild curly stallions, each sporting a businesslike horn.
‘Where'd you get them, Muktuk?' Sean asked. 'They're beauties.’
‘Part of the Tanana Bay herd,' Muktuk said proudly, with an affectionate slap on the heavy neck of the mare beside him. 'I told her we had a job to do for the smartest so she picked her own get. They can do more for us in this season than fight with each other over who gets what filly. Not that this is the time a' year for breedin'. That's for springtime,' he added with a grin.
‘Hmmm,' Dinah O'Neill said under her breath just loudly enough that Yana heard her. 'That's quite a display they're putting on. Didn't know animals acted like that. Showing off like cadets who've just got their pilot's licences.’
Yana shot her an enigmatic smile, as enthralled by the rearing, bucking, biting antics of the males as Dinah. The sleds with their teams of wagging, howling dogs slewed to either side of the trail and broadened their circle around the hole while Muktuk led his mare forward.
‘Why don't they just use ice-saws?' Diego asked.
Behind her hand Bunny said, 'First 'cos I think Cousin Muktuk is showing off for Cousin Dinah's benefit, and second because it's said that the curlycorns can judge ice so well they can play tag on the icepack during breakup and never once fall in.’
‘Fascinating!' Dinah-Two-Feet said.
Yana was both amused and appalled, watching this laughing tourist who had assisted in their kidnapping, had stood by while Megenda struck both Diego and Bunny, and, according to the kids, had been a party to the murders of the Gal-3 repair crew members. If Yana had anything to say about it, as soon as that shuttle was out of the water and the crewmen out of the shuttle, crew and Dinah O'Neill would be put on ice with Megenda. Never mind'safe passage'. Petaybee had no kind of law and order beyond that which made good sense to most people, but Gal-3 had plenty.
Dinah O'Neill was laughing again. 'Look at those creatures go! I've never seen a unicorn before, Muktuk. Is it true they only like virgins?’
Muktuk snorted with good-natured contempt for her ignorance. 'Curly-coats aren't proper unicorns. They'll mount anything. Our Sedna here is mother to all three stallions and, since she's bell mare for the Tanana Bay herd, they mind her right good.’
To Yana, it seemed as though the activity of the curly unicorns was frantic, driven, and no more purposeful than to break through any random chunk of ice to reach what lay beneath. The remarkable result was that the effects of their seemingly random efforts were beginning to show. They had made it into some sort of game, spurred on by Sedna who went from one to the other, like a foreman, so that every muscular ripple was a challenge to do better: every thrust and gouge of a horn was accompanied by a snort of derision for the others: every stamp of the hoof broke through a newly dislodged block of ice and sent it bouncing off the trapped shuttle into the black waters below.
In less than an hour, during which Dinah, Diego and Yana were bundled into sleds, the shuttle floated free of the ice. It bounced out of its trap in a wobbly fashion. Then the crew forthwith fired up the engines and landed it beyond the ice at the position of the outermost dogsled.
If a shuttle door could open timidly, this one did. Dinah O'Neill was there to greet them.
‘Come on out, gentlemen. Throw down your weapons. I'm afraid we're surrounded by superior firepower.’
A slight variation of the facts, of course, although Dinah did have her own laser pistol pointed at her.
And truth was served when the crew, having thrown out their handweapons, found them turned purposefully on themselves as the Petaybeans augmented their harpoons, drawn bows, hunting knives and the two simple ballistic firearms with the sophisticated weaponry. With the crew in custody, Dinah began to climb the ramp but Muktuk caught one arm, Yana the other.