A breeze blew against her, but it was a warm breeze, soft and friendly. She took off her hat and mittens and stuffed them in her parka pocket, unbuttoning her outer sweater as she walked.
There was another distant explosion, and the ground bucked under her feet as if the whole planet had writhed in agony. Why did they have to do that? It occurred to Bunny that somehow the planet was generating the unusual heat, the early breakup, in response to the assault on it. Such a thing had never happened in Petaybee's inhabited history, but then, that history was relatively short.
The ground continued to tremble as she walked, more cautiously now, through the woods. Here she could keep close enough to the riverbanks to avoid getting lost. Where the snow hadn't drifted too deeply against the riverbanks, she even caught glimpses of the snocles through the trees.
How long had it been since she had taken Yana out to SpaceBase? Only a few hours, surely, and already the river had changed. The ice looked patchy now, long blue streaks showing where the runners had carved their tracks. And it didn't look like the rest of the ground anymore. It was shiny, with a glaze of melted snow over the top. She didn't remember the river ice ever melting so fast, but then, she didn't remember ever seeing as much traffic on the river, either. All that friction and weight surely added to the melting process. And this was the warmest day for this time of year she could recall in her whole life.
She was across the river from where Seamus usually set up his ice-fishing tent when she heard the sharp Crack! as if someone had fired a pistol right beside her head.
Some of the people in the speeding snocles were trying to brake on the ice, others slowing, veering in confusion. Yet others who had experience with such treacherous conditions were trying to pilot.
She ran closer to the bank, plunging into the snow up to her knees. Seamus was running from his tent, at first moving wildly about, then stopping, staring at the ice, and finally darting out in front of the snocles waving his arms, urging them toward the banks. Two yards beyond where he stood, between him and the oncoming snocles, the ice parted in a foot-wide gap, the side nearest town already buckling under the weight of the snocles that had just passed over it.
"Get off! Get off!" Seamus was yelling to the snocle drivers. "Drive onto the banks!"
A giant icy chunk broke off and plunged into the blue water bubbling up between the slabs. The ice, which had been substantial enough on the drive to SpaceBase with Yana, looked glass-thin! Along the edges of the river, it was creaking and she saw cracks forming there, too. The level of the river seemed to be rising.
One driver, either not understanding or not believing Seamus, zoomed straight for him, and plunged nose-first into the crack, the snocle runners and windshield submerged in the swirling water and wedging the crack even wider.
Seeing the tail sticking up out of the river alerted the next few drivers, but unfortunately not before three more, two coming from SpaceBase and one from Kilcoole, skidded out of control. The one from Kilcoole ran into a snow bank on the edge of the river. Bunny plowed through the snow to reach it, hopping over a two-inch-wide crack in the ice, feeling the surface, which only hours before had been solid, bouncing under the sopping soles of her boots.
The other two snocles had both torn into the back of the partially submerged vehicle, sending it deeper into the river. Fortunately, snocles had reinforced cabins and the drivers of the two that still had their runners on the ice scrambled unhurt from their seats. But Seamus was leaning across the crack, trying to pry open the sinking vehicle's door to extricate the driver.
Bunny pushed the snocle on her side of the crack back toward the center of the river. The vehicle slid easily on the ice, even laden as it was with equipment. Bunny knew the trick of it, having had to haul hers from deep snow or off black ice.
The driver clumsily wrenched open the door and spilled onto the ice, scrambling ineffectively to gain his feet.
"Get back in!" Bunny yelled to him. "Go get help from town!"
"No way am I gettin' back in that thing, babe!" the soldier yelled at her and ran for the bank.
More snocles were jamming to a stop just short of the crack, which was widening by the minute as pieces crumbled into the river. The drivers crowded toward the crack, trying to help Seamus save their comrade.
"Lie down! Form a chain!" one driver yelled-the first smart thing one of them had done, Bunny thought.
Torn between climbing in the snocle to drive to the village for help and going to the aid of her uncle and the driver, Bunny chose the latter. She dove into a belly flop, skidding across the ice faster than any of the other would-be rescuers could walk, and grabbed one of Seamus's ankles just as he managed to snag open the door of the imperiled snocle. The driver half jumped, half fell out of the vehicle and into the river just before the ice cracked wider. A piece of ice broke off, and the turbulent waters enveloped the rest of the snocle, the outstretched arms, head, and upper torso of the driver on the other side of the crack, and all of Seamus except the ankle to which Bunny was clinging.
His momentum dragged her forward but she held on, flailing in the water with her other hand, trying to grasp some other portion of him. She knew her actions might be holding his head underwater, but at least she could keep him from being pulled under the ice.
Something grabbed at her hand then and she caught her uncle's arm, letting go of the ankle to grab his forearm with both hands. It was then that she suddenly realized that the water was warm! Not ice cold, as it ought to be, but almost hot. She had no time to think about what had caused that, because Seamus's headbroke the surface just as Bunny felt the ice under her chest loosen.
"Here! Over here!" cried the soldier on the other side of the crack. By then they had already hauled the driver of the sunken snocle out, and some of the other soldiers were hurrying him up the bank. "Come over here, old man, that little gal can't handle you."
Seamus, nodding in agreement, lunged away from Bunny and over to the soldier, who was immediately joined by a second man. Together they pulled Seamus from the river.
Bunny slithered backward until she felt more solid ice under her. She slid until she came up against the abandoned, still-running snocle. Levering herself onto the driver's seat, she gunned the snocle down the softening ice so hard it flew across the gap at the side of the river and up onto the bank. She kept to the woods on the way back to Kilcoole to warn the village of the unseasonably early breakup, all the time wondering how that had happened.
After Bunny's precipitous departure, Diego Metaxos and Steve Margolies headed back to their quarters.
"So, what is it with you and this girl?" Steve asked in a kidding tone. "Are her intentions honorable?"
Diego felt himself flushing uncomfortably. He had thought once Steve got here everything would be okay, but even with Steve, he felt edgy and uncertain. The only time he had felt good was that day in the village, when he had chanted his poem and all of the people had understood it. After he had met Steve, and Steve had spent some time at Dad's bedside, Steve, Captain Fiske, and Colonel Giancarlo had spent hours closeted together, and that bothered Diego. The last couple of days, except for short visits with Frank at the hospital, Steve was occupied in organizing what he called his expedition.
Diego hadn't had a chance to talk to him about that and seized the moment.
"What are you planning to do when you go back out there?" he asked Steve when they were safely back in their quarters.