They were moving steadily to one side of the smoldering cone. Smoke or steam was windborne away from them to the east, so that the air was not so clogged with ash and sulfur stench.
Seen from this safe distance, the volcano didn't, to Bunny's way of thinking, look all that dangerous. It was actually not very big.
"It doesn't have to be big to be dangerous," Steve said when she voiced her observation. "I'm no expert on vulcanism-Petaybee is not supposed to be labile," he added in a sourly amused tone, "but, on a world which does have considerable activity, a volcano can rise up one day and disappear the next. After raining ash, lava, rock, or whatever all across a landscape. We're just lucky this is only an ash-and-mud type. Some rise for the one blowoff and then remain dormant."
"Is this one dormant now?" Bunny asked, eyeing it nervously.
"We hope," Steve said with a grin.
"Clodagh?" Bunny persisted.
Clodagh shrugged and plowed on tirelessly. Nanook skirted a vast lake of hardening mud that steamed more than did most of the rivulets and puddles of the stuff.
The volcano was almost out of sight behind them, obscured by the foothills, when Nanook suddenly picked up the pace, from an amble to a working lope. Then, abruptly, he halted at a fast-running stream to lap up the clear water. The others were glad to follow his example.
Clodagh did more than drink: she immersed her face in the stream. She was so long about it that Bunny got worried, but when she finally lifted her dripping head, she wore a broad smile.
"That way," she said, pointing uphill in a more northerly direction as she wiped her face, leaving dark gray smudges on her forehead and down her cheeks.
Ash clung to all their clothing and rendered their complexions ghostly gray.
"Let me see if I can get a message through, Clodagh," Steve said, starting to unsling his radio equipment.
"Not now," she said, shaking her head, and began to follow the stream. Steve shrugged and resettled the radio equipment.
The stream disappeared into a narrow opening at the bottom of the first terrace of the cliff. When Clodagh indicated that they would have to climb, they discarded the snowshoes. Bunny marveled that Clodagh calmly prepared herself to climb, hitching her skirts high enough so that her sturdy legs, clad in woolen pants knitted in a variety of quite lively colors, were visible. She was slow, true enough, but she made certain progress upward. Nanook reached the top of the terrace in three graceful leaps, Dinah scrabbling close behind him. Fortunately they didn't have all that far to go. On the second terrace, Nanook turned to his right and led them around an escarpment, ducked into a hole in the stone, and disappeared from sight. Only then did Clodagh groan, for she would have to go down on hands and knees to follow the big cat. She did.
Once inside, they could all stand up again. Clodagh paused, leaning against the wall to catch her breath. Bunny thought the pace was telling on the large woman. It was certainly beginning to wear Bunny down a bit, and she was much more used to running about than Clodagh.
"Hey, this is like the other place," Diego said, looking about him. A curious luminescence gave enough light for them to see.
"Quite a few subterranean networks did appear on the last scan that was made of this planet," Steve was saying as he examined the rock walls, wiping off a light film, which he rubbed between his fingers. "They weren't on previous ones, but they do account for the subsidences. Or do they? Most unusual. I wish Frank had been well enough to travel with us. He's more familiar with such geological anomalies than I am." He walked on a few more strides before he stopped completely, forcing Diego, walking behind him, to hurriedly step aside. "Or perhaps there was a flaw in the original terraforming that has produced unforeseen long-range crustal defects. A shame that Dr. Fiske was killed on the shuttle crash."
"We don't know that for certain," Bunny said. "Only that Captain Fiske was going to try to find his father, so he could still be alive."
"Is Fiske's father the company big shot who's supposed to know more about Petaybee than anyone else?" Clodagh asked, pausing to lean against the stone.
"Yes," Steve said. "He's Dr. Whittaker Fiske, grandson of the Dr. Sven Whittaker-Fiske who developed the Whittaker Effect, the process that perfected the accelerated terraforming technique used to make Petaybee habitable." When Clodagh gave Steve a long and thoughtful look, he corrected himself. "Or at least he thought he had perfected it."
"Why didn't he name it the Fiske Effect then?" Bunny asked.
"He named it for his mother, Dr. Elsie Whittaker. I guess he thought it was appropriate, considering the generative nature of the project."
Clodagh gave a satisfied grunt and, pushing herself off the wall, was about to move forward again when she stopped, holding her hand up for silence. "Listen!"
The sounds were muted but obviously human. Bunny and Sinead dashed forward, Diego, with Dinah at his heels, just behind them. The voices had suddenly risen in excitement, and as Bunny turned the next bend, she stopped in surprise. Nanook had found Yana and was attempting to lick any part of her he could!
"Yana! You're alive!" Bunny cried, but she had taken no more than one step before she realized that Yana was not the only inhabitant of the large, low cave. And judging by the way the camp had been set up, Yana and her companions had been here a few days. "Who're all of you?" she demanded.
A sturdy man in a torn uniform and a bandage covering almost all his black hair stood up by the fire, where he had been stirring a pot. "Captain John Greene of the shuttle Sockeye," he said with a wry smile. "Who're you?"
"Buneka Rourke of Kilcoole," Bunny said in stunned courtesy.
"From Kilcoole? Of all the bloody luck," groaned a disgruntled voice, and a battered, blistered, half-naked, filthy man barely recognizable as the dapper Torkel Fiske rose painfully from his seat on the ground. He placed himself protectively between the rescue party and an older man, who had one arm bound across his chest.
Before either Bunny or Sinead could respond to Torkel's hostile reaction, Steve Margolies, and Diego, and an excitedly barking Dinah rushed into the cavern, followed more slowly by Clodagh.
To the man behind him, Torkel said, "Just keep calm, Dad. I'll handle this. These are the rebels I was telling you about. The ones who brainwashed Maddock into helping them."
"Nonsense, son," the older man said, stepping gently but firmly past his tottering son. "That's Steve Margolies there, and Frank Metaxos's boy, Diego. They're no more rebels than I am."
"Dr. Fiske," Steve exclaimed, rushing toward the older man and pumping his good hand excitedly. "I can't believe you survived."
"Neither can I," the older Fiske replied in a droll voice.
"Dr. Fiske, in the past few days, Diego and these people have showed me the most amazing developments. You simply won't believe what I have to tell you…"
"I'll be the judge of that," Dr. Fiske said. "Stop posturing for a moment, son, and sit down before you fall down." He gently pushed Torkel back to the floor. "And for the love of Mike let these people clean you up and dress your wounds. You're no damned good to me dead. You, young Diego, lend me a hand here to clean up my son's wounds before they fester. I've only got the one that's useful now, myself. I'll debrief Dr. Margolies."
"Yes, sir," Diego said, taking over the bowl of water and the cloth. Having learned a few things from caring for his father, Diego went about the duty both gently and conscientiously, cleansing the portions of Torkel's body that Torkel couldn't have reached. The captain wearily protested every dab, as if Diego were deliberately trying to inflict more pain than was absolutely necessary. Diego's private opinion was visible on his face: the captain was acting like a big baby.