Two curly-coats broke out of a nearby copse and trotted up to them.
"Local transport," Scan said. When the curlies stopped beside them, he lifted Yana to the back of one before he vaulted astride the other.
"You just called and they came?" Yana asked, bubbling with laughter, as she laced her fingers tightly into the mane. She knew little about riding, but she felt no fear.
"Sure thing," Scan said, grinning like a fool. "Let's go!"
To her surprise and delight, Yana found the curly-coat's rocking gait to be extremely comfortable, its fur soft on bare skin. She tried not to see how fast the terrain sped by as they went hell-for-leather down the forest track to the hot springs.
They reached their destination in moments, sliding off the mounts, who then wandered away as amiably as they had come. Sean was discarding his clothing and stood before her, sleek, faintly silvery-tan, waiting for her to shuck off the tatters she wore. Then she held out her arms toward him.
Smiling with luminosity to his silver eyes that made her breathless, he enfolded her in his arms, pressing her head into his chest so that she could hear the beating of his heart.
"You've heard what Petaybee had to say. Now hear what I have to say to you, Yanaba Maddock." He tipped her head back to look at him. "You are courage, you are beauty, you are honor, you are strong and kind. You are also loved. By more than I." He bent to kiss first one eye and then the other, then her forehead. "Petaybee healed you because it had need of you. I have my own need of you, and of the child you carry for both of us." He touched her breast then, gently but as if in benediction.
"Child?" She tried to struggle free, appalled and aching with hurt and disappointment. If he wanted a mother for his children, he would have to find someone else and she couldn't bear that thought. "Sean, I'm past all that. It may have escaped your notice, but a person doesn't become a senior company officer until middle age. My body is just not-"
"Well, love, as long as we're talking about what bodies are and are not, I think you should be aware of a thing or two about mine. So much has happened, I didn't want to spring it on you all at once, but back in the cavern, when we were all joined with Petaybee, I knew…"
"Knew what? Sean? Scan!"
But he dove into the water, and as it sluiced over his skin, instead of the gray-brown ashy color subsiding, it deepened, blurring his skin so that she felt she was looking at him through mist. Sean rolled himself into a ball, dove under the water, and when he surfaced again, his silver-brown hair covered not just his scalp but his face-and his form had changed!
Before she could say anything, the seal who was Sean climbed back out, playfully flipped her with the water on his sleek hide, and unfolded once more into her lover.
She took one involuntary step backward, then stepped toward him. "What-exactly-happened there?"
"My grandfather did, as Torkel suggested, go a little far. Actually, a lot far. There are some special notes in his personal diaries, which I have hidden in a safe place. He was fascinated by old Native American and Celtic tales of men who could change their shapes to protect themselves and suit their environment-of course, these were magical tales, but he always maintained they were just an extreme form of adaptation. Of course, he wasn't supposed to experiment on people at all-he didn't realize at the time that the planet was already producing substantial adaptive alterations in us-but he did do a bit of manipulation on himself that has carried down in my chromosomes, so that I, at least, adapt-er, quite a lot more drastically-than others on the planet. I 'adapt' or actually, in most ways, transform, at times into the marine animal most suited for this climate. I'm what they call in the old Celtic folklore a selkie; a man on land, a seal in the sea, or in my case, in the water."
"And your sister?" Yana asked. "Does she transform, too? I wondered why she bit my head off when I mentioned seal hunting."
He shook his head. "Not that I know of, and I think she would have told me. She's the only one who's actually seen me change, except for you, though Clodagh knows. As you saw, the seal shape can be very useful when it's necessary to navigate the underground riverine network." He gave her a half-uncertain, half-rakish smile. "Clodagh and Sinead even seem to feel it makes me one of the more versatile individuals on the planet. But the woman whose opinion on the subject matters the most to me is you and-I wasn't sure how you'd feel about it, which is why I hesitated to make love to you the first time we came here, although I wanted to very badly. I meant to tell you all of this before we made love after the latchkay but…"
She laid her hand on his cheek, and he caught it and held it as if she were throwing him a lifeline. He took another deep, ragged breath. Obviously confiding this secret to her scared him as none of the dangers they had braved together had done.
"I-hope-that after what you've seen, you can see that it's this dual nature of mine that gives me my particular special bond with Petaybee. And that because of it, when we were all joined with the planet, I sensed that within our common union there was an extra person present, the child you carry. Our child."
"But I can't have a child," she said, still trying to absorb his astonishing revelation. A little dizzy with all the changes taking place, she leaned against his water-slick body, her cheek damp against his shoulder. "I can't."
"You can and are having our child," Sean said in such a fiercely tender voice that she melted against him. "Petaybee healed that part of you, too, because our children will be even closer to it than most. The planet wants your children-and mine." He turned her in his arms, and again she saw the anxiety-no, fear- cloud his silver eyes. "Or do you not want mine?"
Yana gulped. "I think…" she began unsteadily; then she cleared her throat so what she could manage to say was audible. "I think that first 1 need a bath. After that, anything you want, I want, too!"
"Then you don't mind?"
"Being pregnant? No, I thought I'd never get the chance."
Relief mingled with the anxiety in his face now. "Then you do want the baby? You don't mind that I sometimes… change into a seal?"
She searched his face, so strong and full of integrity, intelligence, and humor. She thought of their lovemaking and his strength and kindness through everything they had endured together. She shook her head slowly, rather amazed to find that in the face of all of that-in the face of her love-she had damn few fears, and even fewer doubts. She put her arms on his shoulders, looked into his face with a quizzical little smile, and gave a small shrug of nonchalance.
"A seal? A man? Whatever," she said. "Nobody's perfect."
ABOUT THE COLLABORATION
The inspiration for the arctic background of Powers That Be came several years ago when Hugo and Nebula award-winning bestselling author Anne McCaffrey visited Fairbanks, Alaska, at that time the home of (future) Nebula-winner Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. When the two weren't working on a writers-in-the-school project for the Fairbanks Arts Association, Scarborough saw to it that McCaffrey tasted the adventures Fairbanks in the winter had to offer: a dogsled ride, the northern lights, a movie about dogsled racing, and (thanks to her friend Hilda's hospitality) moose spaghetti.
In the beginning of 1992, McCaffrey invited Scarborough to Ireland to conduct some folk music research. Inevitably, the two writers talked about writing, and folk music and the Irish, and the idea for Powers Thai Be "just growed" despite McCaffrey's busy schedule and Scarborough's exploration of Irish music. The manuscript bounced back and forth down the hall at McCaffrey's new home in County Wicklow, with story conferences occurring over the breakfast table before the milkman arrived. The two took turns writing and rewriting the manuscript to make the transitions smooth, each section being written in turn by whoever was most excited about that particular passage. The book was completed before the end of Scarborough's '92 visit, and McCaffrey's editor, Shelly Shapiro, who was visiting at the time, promptly put dibs on the joint project for Del Rey. The story will continue in two more volumes, which are to be written in the next two years on subsequent visits.