Fiske started to hiss and then stopped in surprise. "That didn't hurt."
"Medicine need not hurt, or taste bad, to be effective. Never did know who started that stupid old superstition," she said with all the scorn of an experienced practitioner. From another packet she took a needle already threaded and began to make neat sutures.
Despite an initial distaste, Fiske gradually became fascinated by her swift movements. "Where did you get your training?" he asked respectfully.
"Living on Petaybee teaches you many useful things," she said serenely, and tied off the last stitch. "Not perhaps what your medical folk might use, but it works. That's all we ask of any medicine, isn't it?" she added. "Anywhere else?"
He had a less serious laceration farther down the leg, and she put in two neat sutures to close that. Then she applied a wet aromatic compress to the swollen, bruised flesh of his ankle.
While Torkel and the crewman called for a copter and Clodagh fussed over Dr. Fiske, Yana helped Bunny warm up some of the provisions the rescue party had brought with them. By the time a rich meaty stew had been reconstituted with water and was simmering in a flight helmet stripped of its lining, Clodagh had finished administering to Whittaker Fiske. Yana offered the old man some of the stew, and he thanked her without a hint of his son's surliness.
Yana had tood for Clodagh, as well, and put it into the healer's hands with a firmness and a look in her eye that told Clodagh that she had better eat or else!
"Is it just that I am very hungry and tired of energy bars, or is this really as good as it tastes?" Whittaker Fiske asked amiably.
"Hunger is a good sauce," Clodagh said. "Here's a spot of seasoning that'll add an extra zap to it." From her capacious medicine bag, she took an herb bottle and sprinkled some powder into his bowl and hers, then offered it to Yana.
Settling down beside her, Yana grinned around her spoon. "Clodagh's far too modest, Dr. Fiske. Food generally tastes better on Petaybee because most of it's fresh! Even the frozen stuff."
"I thought the growing season was a little short for that," Whittaker Fiske said, chewing thoughtfully.
"Yes," Clodagh said. "But we get more daylight than usual during our growing season, so things get big fast. And the fishes and animals we eat grow all year round."
"And maybe you have a lot of access to hydroponic gardens on the space stations, Dr. Fiske," Yana said, "but to me anything that hasn't been freeze-dried and stored in a food locker for several ship-years tastes downright ambrosial."
They had just finished eating when Torkel and the crewman returned to the cavern, Torkel's step somewhat more confident than it had been.
"All right, everyone, gather what you want to take with you," he began.
"Not much of that," one of the crash survivors muttered.
"There's a jumbo copter on the way with medical staff," he continued, frowning as he tried to identify the wit. Then he saw that Yana was sitting next to his father. "Maddock, you're to consider yourself under arrest."
Yana looked up at him quizzically.
"Oh, come now, Torkel," his father said with some asperity. "Surely you can't hold any of these people, least of all Major Maddock, responsible for Petaybee's geological vagaries! I tell you quite frankly your allegations have no scientific foundation."
"Sir, you manage the planet and I'll manage the investigation. Maddock's turned against the company and is actively aiding the-"
"Who, you say, make their headquarters in Kilcoole?" Fiske asked in a mild tone, looking up at his son who towered over him. "The same town that organized this very efficient, if unorthodox"-and he smiled at Clodagh-"rescue party? I find that hard to believe."
Clodagh chuckled, and Torkel gave a deep, disgusted sigh and sank down beside his father.
"You wanted me to get to the bottom of the team disappearances… sir," Torkel said with exaggerated patience in a hoarse weary voice, "and the biological anomalies on this planet. You saw that big cat that came with these people, the one that's even now sunning itself on the ledge outside this cave? And keeping watch, I wouldn't doubt. That cat's one of those same anomalies. It's one of Shongili's little pets, and there'll be no mention of such a breed in your files. Major Yanaba Maddock's been thick with Shongili since shortly after she arrived here, and I believe she's fallen under his influence and become his accomplice. I don't have Shongili, but I do have Maddock, and with her in custody I'll get my hands on Shongili, too."
Fiske raised his hand to silence Torkel, but he looked directly into Yana's eyes.
"Are you guilty as charged, Yanaba Maddock?"
"Me, sir? No, sir," Yana replied with a wry smile. "Trouble is your son didn't like hearing what I had to report."
"Sir, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the situation," Torkel continued in a low, strained tone, his eyes boring into Yana as if his stare could force her to silence. "It's not what it seems!"
"I'll go along with that," Yana said fervently.
"Sometimes when you create life, it does not fit the form you chose for it," Clodagh said with an enigmatic smile at Whittaker Fiske.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Dr. Fiske asked, frowning.
"You'll be given to understand that soon." She rose, putting an end to that subject. "Come, Yana, we must speak to Sinead. She, and perhaps Bunny, better drive those curly-coats back. They won't find much to eat around here now that volcano's finished."
"The volcano's finished erupting? How can you know that?" Fiske tried to get up, but he was stiff from sitting so long and couldn't stop her.
"She's bad as the rest of them, Dad," Torkel said, looking rather pleased that Clodagh had damned herself out of her own mouth.
"Bad?" Whittaker Fiske exclaimed. "Bad doesn't come into this, son! Margolies, a word with you!" He limped over to Steve, who, with Diego, was helping get some of the injured ready for transfer.
Yana remained near Clodagh. Captain Greene snagged Torkel to organize an orderly transfer of the survivors from their cave refuge to the nearest possible copter landing site, and that kept the captain occupied. There was a flurry of activity when the copters arrived, stretcher bearers whipping back and forth, people getting loaded. Yana noticed Clodagh in deep conversation with Sinead, Greene, and Bunny, but she thought nothing of it. She just made damned sure she stayed out of Torkel's way, a task made easier
when Greene strong-armed the exhausted man aboard the copter while insisting on giving him a preliminary report.
"I left my medicine bag in the cave," Clodagh said just as the last folk were waiting to load up.
"Sure thing," Yana said, turning back to the cavern entrance. But inside, she found Sinead, apparently gathering up the last of the debris. Sinead smiled at her, an odd sort of smile, and then Yana heard voices in the passageway.
"It is something that you must see right now, Dr. Fiske," Clodagh was saying as she entered the cavern, the scientist limping impatiently beside her, "to begin to understand what Petaybee is beneath the surface you folk gave it."
"Beneath the-what are you talking about, woman?" Fiske, anxious to return to SpaceBase, was getting grumpy. "Are we going to miss the copter?"
"It will wait," Clodagh said easily, and Yana realized that the big woman had come on a mission that had an urgent purpose extending beyond the initial search and rescue.
Chapter 17
Trailing behind Clodagh and Fiske, Yana heard the copter lift off. She paused, listening until the sound was barely audible, then turned back to follow Clodagh. As she started walking, she became aware that the atmosphere inside the cave had subtly altered and lightened: the whole cavern was flooding with a sense of release-the exhalation of the breath she had felt it holding since she had first arrived.