She took a deep breath and began confronting the issues that disturbed her concerning Lavelle's physiology. "Let me get this straight. You folks here on Petaybee are all Earth stock, right?"
"That's right," Clodagh said. "My ancestors were sent here from County Clare, County Limerick, County Wicklow, and Point Barrow, Alaska. Scan's and Sinead's are from Kerry and Dublin and northern Canada."
"You know all that?"
"If you'll remember right, Yana, I told you most of us can't read or write. It's part of my job here to remember these things." Clodagh grinned. "An old Irish profession."
"Well, tell me this: if you're Earth stock, like me and like most of the company corps, how come only you people can't be moved from where you were sent? I mean, even if the young can go and the older ones can't, it hasn't always been that way, has it? Why is that brown fat stuff affecting you now and it didn't to begin with? Surely at first the company occasionally recruited people who were a little more… mature."
It was Scan's turn to look perplexed-and somewhat worried. "Yes, they did. But mostly they've preferred to recruit the youngsters, and it's never seemed to do them more harm than military service does anyone, that we know of. And you have to understand, Yana, that our people have been adjusting to the planet and the planet to us for a couple of hundred years now. The physical changes found in Lavelle's body were adaptive changes to this world. Some people adapt more readily and more completely than others-and the more exposure they have, the longer the period they have to become accustomed to something, the greater the chance of a profound adaptation. Lavelle was very much a woman of this planet. She lived most of her life outdoors, she ate only what she caught or grew, like many of us, and she was well into her fifties. Here, she was very tough. But her body was used to cold weather, Petaybean midwinter cold, far colder even than you've experienced so far, to clean air and pure water and real food. I'm afraid she had lost whatever resistance she had to other conditions in the process of becoming suited to the extremes of Petaybee. Our peculiar weather conditions would never have killed her, but in exchange for that protection, her body relinquished certain other immunities. Besides which, she had a very strong emotional attachment to her home place."
"I hardly think emotional attachment alone could have caused her death," Yana said.
"It's possible, Yana," Clodagh said. "It's possible. It's hard to explain to you when you've been here such a short time but maybe when you witness the night chants, you'll understand a little better. With Lavelle being the kind of woman she was, I knew, Sean knew, really all of us knew, that she was as unlikely to survive away from Petaybee as that colonel would out in the mountains without a parka. If we'd known that they'd planned to take her offplanet, we'd have protested, tried to stop them somehow."
"Lavelle would have protested," Sinead said in a bitter voice, her small rough hands knotted at her sides. "She must have told them. She didn't need to know what her insides looked like lo know she would die offplanet."
Yana gave a gusty sigh. "And much as 1 hate to say so, she could've told them till the sun turned cold and they wouldn't have believed her."
"Now they do?" Clodagh asked, her face impassive.
Yana shook her head, in anger, frustration, and a whole lot of other conflicting and negative emotions. She was tired. She was confused and disappointed and even somewhat disillusioned, something she had never thought would be possible again. This had seemed to be such a simple, happy place, and now it had a secret. All she wanted was to get some rest.
"It's time to go now," Sean reminded the others as he tucked his hand under Yana's elbow. "You haven't missed the chanting, Yana. It will revive you."
Feeling the familiar surge of attraction for him mingle with all of the doubts, fears, and unanswered questions rolling through her mind, she wondered if he could be lying, if in spite of his protestations he was somehow tampering with these people's genes so that they would never be able to leave. She had the oddest feeling that he was definitely hiding something, and that worried her more than any of the other secrets Petaybee held. Was Sean responsible for the problems Giancarlo had mentioned when she had first arrived? And if these people knew they were being changed, as some of them seemed to believe, why did they put up with it?
Yana regarded Sean for a long moment as his silver eyes appealed to her. Gazing up at him, she tried to see him as some sort of psychopath mad-scientist monster, and all she could think of was how wonderful it had been to dance with him tonight, and before that, their encounter at the hot springs. His expression grew less sad and serious as he watched her face, and she knew he could see her resolve to stay detached melting.
Then, with her voice wavering with unaccustomed indecision as much as weariness, she said, "Oh, frag, Scan. I'm really bushed. Nothing short of eight hours' sack time is going to revive me."
A sly smile kindled in his eyes and curved his lips. "Wanna bet?"
Clodagh unexpectedly touched her shoulder, her eyes gentle with sympathy. "You come, Yana. You'll see."
The cat came out with an authoritative "meh!," provoking Yana to an exasperated laugh. She rubbed her forehead with an impatient gesture.
"You guys are bent on brainwashing me into a proper Petaybean, too, aren't you?"
"Something like that," Scan said in very good humor. He knew he had won. If he hadn't exactly convinced her, she would at least let her wishful thinking override her better judgment for the time being. With a deft movement he closed the opening of her jacket, flipped her parka hood onto her head, and started pushing her hands into her gloves.
"Lemme do that," she said, feeling a surge of almost childish rebellion. She didn't want to feel completely manipulated just because she was willing to be reasonable. But she didn't resist as he guided her along, following Bunny, Clodagh, Sinead, and Aisling back to the hall, which was still resounding with the sounds of merriment within.
Outside the door, a girl stood chatting with a man who was stirring the contents of a huge metal drum, set up over a small, fierce fire. As they passed, the man nodded, smiled, and smacked his lips appreciatively at the odors wafting up from the delicious-smelling concoction, soup or stew, in the big barrel. Clodagh took an exaggeratedly deep sniff, fanning the aroma toward her with both mittens.
When they entered the meetinghouse, Yana had to pause to adjust to the temperature-and the odor-of the hall, which had been packed solid with energetic folk for the past eight or nine hours.
If these dancing, singing, talking, gesticulating, laughing, crying people were really the cruel victims of a malign curse that doomed them forever to bondage to a hostile planet, they were either blissfully unaware of it or they plainly didn't give a rat's ass.
And suddenly, neither did she. She liked this lot better than the whole Intergal company corps and the board of directors put together, and if there was something wrong with them, well, she had been told to investigate and that was what she was doing. Sort of.
The room was hot, but she didn't mind; it was redolent with food, sweat, and other odors, but there was also a sensation that defied a name, although she thought it had something to do with the great good humor, the fun, the joy these people were projecting. How they had kept it up the whole time she had been gone, she didn't know. But patently they had! She grinned up at Scan and saw that he was sweating; she felt the first moisture beading her brow, too.
As if their entrance were a signal, the music ground to a wheezing stop and the dancing couples stood looking toward them expectantly. Clodagh, Scan, and the others stripped off their parkas, and Yana removed hers. In a corner of the room a bodhran rumbled like marching thunder and a banjo began playing in a minor key. Someone began singing in a husky tenor, as if his throat had endured too many cold winds and the smoke from too many fires. He sang a lonely, homesick sort of song about the green fields of planet Earth, then followed with a rollicking, humorous parody contrasting Earthbound living to life on Petaybee. The next song was a similarly silly one about the last man on the planet who could read, which Yana knew was an exaggeration since at least the company-sponsored people read memos and orders and such.