"Look, this might take hours," Bunny said, and Yana glanced sharply at her. "I've got to tend the dogs."
"Could I help, so I'll know something about their care?" Yana asked, hoping to delay the onset of bleaker hours alone.
"Sure." Bunny grinned, pleased at her offer. "It's not all that hard."
"If you say so," Yana said, and bundled back up in her winter gear to walk beside the team as Bunny drove it back over to the kennels at her Aunt Moira's.
It wasn't hard, exactly, but it required Yana to concentrate as she followed Bunny's example in removing the harness, checking it for wear, oiling it, and hanging it up properly, then checking the dogs' paw pads for any cuts and applying an ointment concoction of Clodagh's between the toes before chaining the animals up.
"You're lucky," Bunny told her. "I cleaned the dog yard and put down fresh straw this morning already, so you don't have to do that part."
Having shown her what to do, Bunny retrieved some pre-chopped chunks of fish and other meat from a barrel outside her door and went into the house. When Yana had finished the dogs, she went inside and saw that Bunny was boiling the preboned meat, mixing with it what looked like hardened bread dough and fat. She finally crumbled up some suspiciously familiar pink-and-green tablets that looked like vitamin-mineral supplements of the kind issued to company troops. While the mixture heated, Bunny thawed snow on the back of the stove. Once it was melted, she and Yana used the same container to water each of the dogs in turn. By then the mixture was cooked to Bunny's liking, and they distributed it to the hungry animals.
Some of the dogs picked at their food like company diplomats at a high-level formal dinner; others wolfed it down with great gusto, growling over it, their jaws snapping as they ate.
'They-uh-seem to enjoy their food," Yana observed as the dog nearest her savagely gulped down his carefully prepared meal as if it were a bear, just-killed.
Bunny shrugged, grinning at the vagaries of her charges. "They do, right enough. And if one doesn't get it down fast, another'll try to snag it. That's one reason we chain them apart. Cuts down on meal fights."
"That cat of Clodagh's that followed me home seemed to want to eat the fish Seamus gave me frozen solid," Yana said.
"Nah! He might bat it around a little and gnaw at the edges, but he'll wait for it to thaw, or better yet, for you to cook it for him."
"The same way you cook for the dogs?"
"Of course not. The same way you cook for yourself."
"I don't," Yana admitted. "I'm ship-bred, you know. Food supplements and healthful nutrient bars for rations. Occasionally we get something else, but only the crew members assigned to cook for special functions learn to cook. So, how would you cook it to feed yourself and, uh, guests?"
Bunny grinned at the folly of the people who ran her world but didn't know how to feed themselves, then patted Yana on the hand and said, "Don't worry. It's not hard. I just stew it with a handful of my aunt's herbs and it makes right good eating."
Yana thought that over for a moment. Then, taking a breath, she asked, "Tell me which herbs make that sort of fish palatable."
"Sure, but you ain't had a chance to get any yet. So I'll scrounge enough. Meetcha at your place."
Yana had her stove fire going nicely when Bunny arrived with a small sack of the things she had filched from her aunt's kitchen.
"Aw, don't worry about a pinch of this and that," Bunny said when she saw Yana's worried expression. Then in short order, she demonstrated the art of concocting a fish stew from the herbs, a handful of rice, and chunks of what cooked into edible root vegetables. Bunny used all the fish from the string. "Because a stew gets better the longer it's alive. All you gotta do is freeze what's left overnight and thaw it on the back of the stove when you're getting hungry. I'll also show you how to make pan dough."
She did, and Yana ate a gracious sufficiency. Bunny was still mopping up the stew juices with some of the pan dough when Sean's unmistakable voice called out, "Slainte, Yana!"
Bunny was closer to the door and, at a nod from Yana, went to open it.
"Ah! Any left in the pot?" he asked, sniffing expectantly.
"Wouldn't Clodagh feed you?" Bunny asked, catching a plate and a spoon from the shelf on her way to the stove.
"She had enough, and I needed a little space," Sean said, undoing his coat and hanging it neatly beside the others on the door pegs.
"Who got out this time?" Bunny asked as he settled at the makeshift table so comfortably that Yana stifled the apologies she was about to make.
He paused long enough to ingest a spoonful before he answered.
"The Yallup group," he said, jamming a piece of pan bread down into the juices. "Lavelle, Brit, and Sigdhu made it; they'll be grand with some rest and decent eating, though Siggy lost another toe. The odd thing"-Sean wriggled his spoon about as if the movement would solve the oddity-"is that two of them made it."
"Yeah!" Bunny looked awed by that.
Shouldn't outworlders survive on this planet if their native guides were efficient? Yana wondered.
"Who?" Bunny went on.
"The team geologist the Yallups sent, father and son, Metaxos by name, Diego and Francisco. Damn fool brought his kid along for the experience." Scan spaced his phrases, eating in between gouts of information. Bunny snorted at the folly of folk's notions of experience; Scan grinned, light from the mare's-butter lamp on the table dancing in his silver eyes. "The son'll sing about it. The father… now, that's where the trouble begins. He's aged. The boy said his dad was mid-forties. Looks closer to ninety."
"Ohhhhh!" Bunny drew out her exclamation, rounding her eyes, apparently finding great significance in this.
"Does hypothermia age you?" Yana asked.
"On Petaybee it can," Bunny said tersely. "So did they find anything?" She leaned conspiratorially close to Sean, her eyes glistening with eagerness in the lamplight. "The usual?"
Sean snorted, sopped up more stew on a piece of bread, and ate it before he answered. Yana thought he deliberated over his reply.
"More or less the usual. The kid gave some pretty concise descriptions. Caves, glistening lakes of free water, horned animals, sleek water beasts-you know, the usual." He broke off more bread, affecting keener interest in the business of eating than telling.
"Ahhhh!" Bunny let out another of her pregnant syllables.
"If you're deliberately speaking in parables, I'll go walk the cat," Yana said, rising.
Sean's arm reached out and pulled her back down to her chair, grinning an apology.
"People lost for weeks, gripped by hypothermia and close to the edge of starvation, tend to hallucinate."
"But you say he gave concise descriptions…"
"Vivid ones, though not necessarily accurate," Sean said, but Yana had the feeling he believed them. "Then the Spacebees arrived and took them all away. Rounded on Odark's people for not bringing them directly in to SpaceBase. But Terce was at the base and you were with me out at the lab, so what were they supposed to do? Clodagh's is certainly on the way, and closer." Sean took a deep breath, suppressing his disgust. "They needed aid as soon as could be. They got it. I'm not sure the geologist will pull through, though."