Torkel shook his head, half denying, half agreeing. "That's not enough for me, Shongili. What happened to us in there? It wasn't brainwashing-not as I know it," he added, puzzled.
"The planet was telling you how it felt about what you've been doing to it," Scan said.
Torkel twitched, grimacing, seemingly unable yet to accept that explanation. "Well, I still don't understand how you got the planet to do what it's been doing over the past few days. Starting volcanoes, earthquakes, breaking up the rivers six weeks too soon…"
Scan shrugged. "I didn't get it to do anything, Fiske. It planned its own defense. I've done nothing but see that its messages are delivered."
"Which only you can interpret?"
Scan shook his head. "You and I had the same experience there in the cavern, Fiske. You can interpret it as well as I can, if you just stop trying to deny what you felt. You can't deny what you personally experienced, can you? If you had rejected it as completely as you're trying to, you'd be in the same shape as Frank Metaxos. All I did-all any of us did-was to try to protect you from your own stubborn idiocy and put the right people in the right place at the right time for Petaybee to deliver its own message. It did that in the cave."
"And what, exactly, was the message that we both received, as you understand it?" Whittaker Fiske asked, his face full of lively curiosity rather than challenge.
"The message is that Petaybee is a living and sentient entity, Dr. Fiske," Scan answered imperturbably. "It does not wish to have its skin blown open, its flesh dug and taken away, its substance reduced, its children hunted, harried, or removed against their will. It is pleased to have been awakened, and it is more than willing to share itself: including, I might add, some valuable processes, which can benefit you and your superiors, that you're not even aware exist on this planet."
"Like Clodagh's medicines," Yana chimed in. "I'd think the company would have a lot of use for a cough medicine that can actually heal lungs as badly damaged as mine were."
Torkel regarded her with surprise, then turned thoughtful while his father nodded sagely.
"Not to mention that boneset stuff," Dr. Fiske added, running his fingers across the hardened cast. "Simple things that have multiple applications and no side effects. Go on, Shongili."
"Petaybee has been particularly distressed," Sean said, "by the increase of traffic at the SpaceBase. The planet was able to buffer the area under SpaceBase to allow a certain amount of necessary comings and goings, but that amount has now exceeded the safety margin and must cease. Petaybee does not wish to have to feed and supply the numbers now massing in the SpaceBase, as these numbers would be a burden on its resources, especially this time of year, before the growing season."
"It was glad to see that some of us who left here as kids have come home, at least to visit, though," John Greene said. He and O'Shay had been wolfing down a casserole Aisling brought over earlier. "I was given a real welcome in the cave. Didn't know it remembered me."
"You and O'Shay have a lot to answer for, Captain," Torkel said. "Like why you didn't place everyone under arrest when you saw that we were being detained in the cavern."
O'Shay shrugged. "Like the man says, Cap'n, we're native-born. We got more sense than to interfere when a latchkay's starting."
"You're natives?" Torkel stared at them. "No wonder I didn't get the support I required." He rounded on Sean then with a resurgence of his old belligerence. "Did you arrange that, too, Shongili?"
Sean shrugged. "You give me more credit than I deserve. The presence of Captains Greene and O'Shay is pure serendipity, Fiske. No harm's come to you, so I don't see that the personnel involved matters."
"I don't put anything past you, Shongili," Torkel said, and striding to the door, he opened it and beckoned a guard inside. "I want one of those portable comm links from headquarters. Bring it here on the double. We'll just check out a thing or two about the disposition of Petaybeans on this project."
The guard snapped a salute, and Yana thought she saw a little smile playing at the edges of his mouth. Yana wondered about that, and began to suspect what Torkel would find about the disposition and composition of Intergal troops currently on duty in Petaybee. She noticed that Steve Margolies was looking exceedingly thoughtfuclass="underline" he kept glancing from Torkel to Sean to Dr. Fiske, but whatever was worrying him he kept to himself.
"You keep speaking of these adaptations, son," Dr. Fiske said to Sean, with an air of getting back to important matters. "Just what do they consist of?"
"The most important," Sean said, his voice filled with the sort of excitement that the other two scientists, more than anyone else in the room, were best equipped to understand and share, "is how Petaybee-not I or my grandfather-improved, beyond their previous capabilities, the perceptions of some of the more intelligent species."
"Like the pussycats here with Frank?" Steve Margolies asked.
"Yes, and like this," Scan said, and lifted his hand and closed his eyes. In a moment there was a scratching at the window and a whining at the door. One of the guards opened the door to admit Dinah, who was leading a weakly smiling Francisco Metaxos, followed by Aisling. Clodagh opened the window to admit Nanook, who jumped down across the sill in one fluid motion, walked calmly over to Whittaker Fiske, put one saucer-sized paw on the man's uninjured arm, and said "Meh," quite clearly.
"My word!" Dr. Fiske leaned away, staring at the cat. "You asked it to come and do this?"
Scan nodded while Nanook gave a burst of purr, marched to Torkel, and repeated the performance.
Torkel started to shove Nanook away but stopped, giving Sean a puzzled look. "It's telling me that Giancarlo is resting well, thanks to it."
"Him," Sean said. "Nanook is male. And he likes his ears scratched. Most of the felines here have the ability to soothe troubled, or sick, minds. They'll carry messages, lead people across dangerous terrain, and hunt when that's necessary."
Dinah, tongue lolling from her open mouth, waited until Metaxos was safely deposited in a chair between Diego and Steve, then pranced up to Fiske. She gave a bit of a whine before she pushed her nose at his arm and held it there a moment.
"Talking cats and dogs?" Dr. Fiske asked, eyes round with amazement.
"Telepathic, actually," Sean said. "When they choose to be. Dinah, as a lead dog, had no trouble communicating about trail conditions and finding her way across frozen wastes. She had bonded most effectively with Lavelle, the woman who died when
Captain Fiske and Colonel Giancarlo had her removed from Petaybee. Nanook has a close bond with me, but is actually a pretty |j| social creature."
"And Clodagh's cats-" Yana began, but Clodagh shot her a look and she subsided. No need to tell the offworlders everything. Not more than they needed to convince them. Not just yet. So Yana made no mention about unicorned curly stallions, intelligent seals, and trained ravens. Scan's hand dropped to the back of her neck and kneaded it gently as he watched the reaction of the Fiskes and Margolies.
"Telepathic sled dogs and felines…" Dr. Fiske said, shaking his head.
'Tour granddad was one busy guy." Torkel snorted. Nanook dug his claws into Torkel's leg, ever so slightly. "Ouch!"
"Grandfather developed several types of large felines and canines suitable to this icy climate, but, as I said, Petaybee improved on his work many times over the years. Give Petaybee a chance, and it will improve on anything you ask it to. Isn't that much better than blasting the planet apart for mere minerals and ores which the company can surely find on lifeless asteroids and planets?"