"Slainte, Uncle Seamus!" The girl waved back and cut the motor. The man's eyes flicked up through his personal icicles to glance at Yana, a searching look for all its brevity. "This is Major Maddock, Uncle. She's going to be staying at Kilcoole."
"Is she now?" He included Yana in his wave, and she nodded at him.
"Do you have some thermos or two for me to take to Auntie, since I'm passing her way?" Bunny asked.
"Now, that would be very good of you, Bunny. I've two now, and I'll have more later when Charlie and the dogs come along. This dama doesn't mind stopping on her way, does she?"
"Nah! She won't mind. Will you, Major? You wanted to see how we got water. Come look in the shed."
Moving a little more slowly than she would have liked, Yana climbed from the snocle. Out here, on the river, the cold immediately clenched its fist around her face and thighs, the only parts of her that weren't encased in synfur. She hoisted the muffler around her nose, but the sweet smell of wood smoke still came through. She wondered if it would set her coughing again. But there was Bunny, encouragingly holding up the flap of the tent and pointing to the fire burning in a circle around the rim of a long black hole in the ice. An insulated container on a length of line stood beside the hole, along with two other containers, which Seamus now gave Bunny.
Yana took a couple of steps toward the tent before the smoke from the fires wafted toward her. She felt her throat seizing up and stepped back, silently cursing her weakness. How the frag was she going to survive on a cold planet if she couldn't breathe in the presence of fire?
Bunny, her shoulders bowed as she hauled one of the thermoses with both hands so that the container bumped against her shins, nodded to Yana to return to the snocle. Yana was relieved not to put her lungs through any further ordeal. She turned with more enthusiasm than was prudent and her feet promptly slid on the ice underlying the thin covering of drifted snow. She placed her feet more cautiously then, and managed to make it back to the snocle without falling.
Seamus set the other water thermos in beside her and ran a mitten across his face, an accustomed gesture that dislodged some of his facial icicles. "Welcome to Petaybee, such as it is, Major. You need something, you just ask Bunny here."
Yana nodded. "Thanks." It was just possible that, if her official guide turned out to be anywhere near as inept as she herself was in this environment, she would find Bunny's unofficial assistance more useful.
They arrived at Yana's new quarters long after darkness had fallen, though by Yana's calculation it was no more than late afternoon. She looked at the small single house standing alone on pilings beside others of similar construction. It had one window and one door that she could see in the gloom, and the window was small. Whatever. It was bound to be roomier than some of the berths she'd had, and compared to her place on the ward at the space-station hospital; it looked palatial, as well as incredibly private.
Bunny hefted her duffel out of the snocle for her and pushed open the door. The interior was spare, white as the outdoors, and contained a cot, a small table on which rested her survival pack, a chair, and a stove for heating and cooking.
"It's too late for you to inprocess today. Sorry it took so long," Bunny said. "Look, wait here and I'll get some blankets. You'd better take this water, too. No one's given you your ration." She nodded toward the thermos on a shelf beyond the stove. - "That's for your auntie, isn't it?" Yana asked. "And I can scarcely take your blankets, too."
Bunny shook her head. 'They won't care about the water, and I can spare the blanket. You'll be issued your own tomorrow."
She drove away in the snocle and, in a short time, returned on foot, carrying a bundle of puffy cloth and a packet. "Smoked salmon strips," she said, indicating the packet.
"What?"
"Fish. It's good," Bunny said patiently. "You'll like it."
Yana's day had started back at the station hospital nearly thirty hours earlier, and she couldn't face anything more taxing than rolling up in blankets and going to sleep as fast as possible. "Thanks," she said.
"Okay, then. Shall I pick you up in the morning to meet your guide? I could get the blanket then, too."
Aha, Yana thought, a little blackmail here to ensure the continuing custom. Very enterprising. "That'll be fine," she said with a weary lift of her eyes that would have to pass for a smile. Bunny showed her how to light the stove before she left and promised to help her organize more fuel the next day.
Without waiting for the room to warm up enough for her to remove her outerwear, Yana arranged the chair at the head of the cot, sat down, and stretched her legs out on the bed. She had chewed only a couple of bites of the oddly spiced salmon strip before she fell asleep, as she had for the last few weeks, sitting up.
Bunny Rourke returned to her aunt's house after delivering the blankets to her client and returning the snocle to its special shed.
"I'll need to check it out again in the morning," she'd told Adak O'Connor, the dispatcher and guard.
"No shuttles due from SpaceBase for another week," Adak said, removing his headphones and turning away from the radio that connected him to SpaceBase and the few other places on Petaybee that had such advanced equipment. He scowled at his record book, which contained the schedules for the port and kept track of the whereabouts of the vehicles-both of them. Bunny was licensed to drive one, Terce the other: they were the only authorized drivers to and from Kilcoole. The shuttles belonged to InterGalactic Enterprises, known as Intergal, the omnipresent if not omnipotent corporation responsible for the existence of Petaybee, and the boss of all Bunny's people. Bunny had qualified for her license only because one of her uncles was an important man and owned his own snocle as well as dogs. When Bunny's parents had disappeared, Uncle had taught her to drive the snocle to help her make her own way in the village so she wouldn't be a burden. She was Uncle's driver on the rare occasions when he preferred the snocle to his team. She also made the trip out to his place to keep the machine running for him and repair it when it broke down- usually from neglect. Her uncle was a brilliant man but not mechanically inclined. Bunny took after her Yupik granddad: she could fix anything. And six months ago, on her fourteenth birthday, she had obtained her license to ferry passengers from Space-Base to Kilcoole and back.
"I know there's no shuttles," she told Adak, "but my fare has to inprocess in the morning."
"Can't she walk or go by sled?"
"Nah. She's an important dama. An officer. But she's puny. Said something about being at Bremport."
"The massacre where the Shanachie's boy was killed? Ah, the poor dama. And how is she puny?"
"She coughs. Bad. But she seems nice. Anyway, the snocle is authorized for official functions, so I want to take her round to the outpost as quick as possible so she can settle in, like."
"Good child. You've taken to this dama, have you?"
"She's sleepin' this night under the quilt Auntie Moira made me."
'Then by all means lake the snocle in the morning, but mind you, no sight-seein'."
"Thanks, Adak," she said. "I'll bring you one of Auntie Moira's cakes in the morning when I come, shall I?"
"That would be very welcome, Bunny. Good night now."
"Good night," she said, and headed back to the shed behind her aunt's house.
Ever since her older male cousins had turned a little too inquisitive about her development, Bunny had preferred to sleep out here, in back of the kennel where Charlie kept his team of noisy and protective dogs, who warned her of anyone approaching. She wasn't really scared, though. Most of the people who came to see her brought her things-fish or moose chops, zucchini or tomatoes in the summer-though some came just to visit. She was personally related to a large percentage of the village, and she knew who would help her and who to avoid. There were a few people she didn't want coming to her place-Terce, for one, but he was scared of Charlie's dogs. Mostly, everyone looked out for her. That would have made her feel like a child except that she looked out for them, too. That was how it was in Kilcoole. She was actually very adult for someone her age, trusted with the responsibility of living on her own and holding down her own job.