Connelly and Sven exchanged looks and shrugged. The woman, with an anxious look at Yana's gun hand, darted over and extracted a small sack from the pile, skittering back to the protection of her colleagues.
"Might as well. There's not that much there," Connelly said, "and if the company'll make good…"
"Of course, the company will make good," Giancarlo snapped. "Your equipment was company issue to begin with. Who else do you think would replace it?"
"I promise you it won't be debited from your pay," Torkel said quickly. "And any personal effects you've lost will be replaced, as well. The company takes care of its own."
O'Neill flicked him a resentful glance. "The way you were going to take care of the wounded?"
"Frag it all, O'Neill, I'm not some kind of a monster," Torkel said, even as he gestured for Giancarlo and Ornery to help him collect the packs. "I told O'Shay to radio for another bird for your wounded and for yourselves. A few minutes would have made no difference to them. You'll all get out safely. My father, and the crew of that shuttle, are still out there in that inferno."
Yana couldn't believe Torkel's gall, trying to guilt-trip the survivors. He sure was a company man: give with one hand, shuffle the shells, and take with the other! But she had no objections to him going after his father, as long as he didn't fore* anyone else to do it, too.
"Knowing how important it is, won't even one of you guide us?" he implored one more time as the air began throbbing with the sound of an approaching copter.
"Captain," Connelly said, "we really couldn't help you. All landmarks will have been destroyed by now, and none of us saw where your father's craft actually crashed. You've got the compass and the coordinates of where it was originally supposed to land." He scanned the sky anxiously with reddened eyes. "I hope you find him."
The unmistakable sound of the approaching copter grew louder: it was a Sparrowhawk, if Yana read the sound of it right. Those usually had room to seat the crew members and three more, but there was ample room for others to sit on the floor. Maybe, with a little luck, she could just manage to squeeze herself on board, too.
She relaxed her guard just enough to glance up at the sky, and that was when she was jumped. She had been so busy watching Torkel, Giancarlo, and Ornery that she hadn't paid any attention to the survivors, and Sven used the distraction of the chopper to grab her gun hand and twist. Before she knew it, she was on the other side of the weapon, nursing a numb wrist.
"Good man!" Torkel cried, leaping forward to relieve Sven of the gun, only to be waved to a standstill.
"He is that," O'Neill said. "Too good to let you get the drop on us again and try to get this helicopter away from us as well, for all the good it would do you."
Sven was evidently in agreement, for he backed over to the rest of his colleagues in a show of solidarity.
"I wouldn't have let them do that," Yana told Sven. "I made them surrender the other copter, didn't I?"
Sven grunted and shook his head, waving her back to the others.
"We're sorry, dama," O'Neill said. "You did help before and we're that grateful, but maybe you were only doin' it to get clear of them? Maybe you'd be after commandeerin' this bird for yourself to make your getaway. We can't chance it, and we don't need any more trouble today."
"At least take me with you," Yana urged.
But at that moment Giancarlo hooked her left arm and whipped it around and up under her shoulder blade, leaving her far more occupied with pain than argument.
"You're not going anywhere, Maddock," he murmured in her ear. "We haven't finished with you yet."
O'Neill and Connelly looked as if they were about to jump in and defend her, but Torkel spoke up again.
"You people go on. Take the copter, but leave her with us. She knows more than she's telling, and maybe when she sees what her rebel friends have unleashed, she'll have the good sense to help us save this planet."
"If she knows where other charges are planted, we'll get it out of her," Giancarlo said grimly.
"It is true that there wasn't supposed to be any natural seismic activity where we were setting up the mine," Connelly replied cautiously, with a glance first at Sven and then at the approaching copter.
"Right!" Torkel said, yelling over the copter's noise. "Everything that's happened is unnatural. You tell them at SpaceBase that there's a massive conspiracy afoot on Petaybee, and that Mad-dock's changed sides. She's in league now with the perpetrators. If you hadn't disarmed her, she would have gotten away, and who knows what trouble she would have caused."
The copter was slowly settling to the ground a discreet distance from the knot of humans. The survivors began backing toward it, Sven keeping the weapon trained on the company tableau of Torkel, Giancarlo holding Yana prisoner, and Ornery,
"They're nuts," Yana yelled, appealing to O'Neill. "You said yourself, nobody can jumpstart a volcano!"
O'Neill shot her a guilty glance, and he and Connelly exchanged looks, but the woman laid her hand fearfully on Sven's arm and he shook his head.
"No," he hollered. "We've risked our butts enough for one day. I'm not risking my job any further for someone in trouble with the management. You got into this mess, dama; you get yourself out without our help. You people sort it out among yourselves."
When the survivors were aboard the copter, Torkel leaned in the open door to yell at the pilot.
"You tell them at SpaceBase that I said this volcanic eruption is part of a plot to undermine our investigation and to kill a member of the board. And you get them to send out ground transport as soon as possible. Get it to the volcano site! We'll meet them there! Tell them that my father, Dr. Whittaker Fiske, is out there and it's vital we rescue him. Absolutely vital!" The pilot began lifting off and Torkel jumped down and backed off slightly, but repeated himself, yelling through cupped hands. "Tell them we've gone ahead to rescue my father. They're to follow us!"
The pilot gave him a thumbs-up signal and waved him away from the rising aircraft.
They all watched as the copter whisked away, disappearing into a maelstrom of wind, ash, and smoke. Giancarlo released Yana abruptly when it was out of sight, and she fell to her knees. As she rose, she gingerly worked her shoulder to be sure Giancarlo's enthusiasm hadn't wrenched muscles. As near as she could tell, she was still in good functioning order-at least for now.
Without so much as an eye blink, Torkel tossed her one of the packs he had been filling.
"Grab the rest of those ration bars, Maddock," he ordered.
She didn't mind. It gave her the chance to get something in her own belly. She couldn't fault the survivors, but she sure hoped they didn't believe the crap Fiske had been shoveling in their ears: that she was "in league with the perpetrators," "had caused all these unnatural phenomena." Trouble was, she thought with a snort, those poor devils were shocked enough to believe every word. Rather ungrateful of them, though, especially when O'Shay had made it plain that she was the only reason the copter had been able to land to pick up their wounded. Whatever! Torkel had turned them against her sufficiently to banjax her one chance of getting free. Free-and she had a private grin-to foment riot and rebellion back at the SpaceBase, or even with all those dangerous allies she had joined forces with.
She hoped they were all right at Kilcoole. Then Giancarlo brought her back to the present with a shove in the direction of the valley filled with blistering mud and smoking ash. Torkel was leading, then Ornery with Giancarlo behind her: not exactly where she preferred him, but she was in no position to make requests, was she?