Dr. Fiske settled down to one side of Torkel, and Steve hunkered down and began talking in a rapid-fire explanation full of words Bunny didn't understand even when she could make them out.
Yana caught Clodagh's eye and urgently beckoned the healer over, indicating Giancarlo's bundled figure on the ground by her feet.
Clodagh examined the colonel's terrible burn wounds briefly, pursing her lips at the irremedial damage.
"I can do something to make him comfortable, no more," she said, shaking her head. "Intergal may know something." She started to work, pulling various unguents and potions, bandages and splints from her knapsack.
Yana would never have expected to be sorry for a man like Giancarlo, but she was. Hurting as badly as he was, he had not uttered a sound.
For herself, Yana was so glad to see Clodagh and the others from Kilcoole that she could have cried. She and Torkel had made it to the cave several hours before, and she had been unutterably relieved to see the shuttle crash survivors. However, once Torkel had reassured himself that his father was safe, he began ranting about Yana's treachery and warning the shuttle crew to ignore anything she might say and to watch her. Considering the fact that Yana had obviously taken on most of the physical burden of dragging Giancarlo, as well as supporting Torkel, as they staggered into the cave, the shuttle crew didn't pay much attention to his ravings. Still, the atmosphere had been extremely tense. Even the cave itself seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for something. The calm before the storm? Yana wondered. A lull before the mountain blew again? It didn't feel exactly like that, and she was too tired to analyze the feeling, but it definitely added to the tension.
Once Clodagh finished ministering to the unconscious Giancarlo, she rounded on Yana, clucking over the scabby sores crusting Yana's left arm and over her appearance in general.
"When did you eat last, girl?" Clodagh demanded.
"I had a piece of ration bar just before we got here," Yana said.
"You look like you could eat a whole moose by yourself and sleep for a month. You were skinny as a skeleton when you got to Kilcoole, but we fattened you up good. Now you look like a lame doe after a hard winter again."
Yana jerked her arm away from Clodagh. "Don't fuss over me. I'm all right. There are others who could really use your help, Clodagh." She nodded beyond her to others wearing makeshift bandages. "The shuttle survivors have been here for three days, and they've had zip to look after themselves with. All they could do for Dr. Fiske was immobilize his arm and wash off his wounds."
"Is that him over there Steve's talkin' to?" Clodagh asked. When Yana nodded Clodagh said wryly, "He looks better off than Torkel to me."
Sinead joined the two women then, her face anxious. "Have you seen him?" she asked Yana. "I thought he'd be with you."
"No, if you mean Scan," Yana said with an odd smile. "But I'll tell you both something. We didn't find them"-and she gestured to the crash victims-"we were led to them."
Hope bounced back into Sinead's eyes. "Led to this place?"
Yana nodded. "What's more, they swear they were led here, too. I can only think of one person not here at the moment who might have engineered this rescue, and I've been wondering, Sinead, how the hell he did it." Her eyes were keen on the other woman's face. "Dr. Fiske told Torkel he believes that there's an underground network of rivers. That's why there were so many subsidences when the mining charges weakened subterranean supports. If there's a network, one river flowing into another, then someone who knew his way around could go from one end of the system to the other without ever being seen-couldn't he?"
Sinead gave Yana a long look. "If there was such a network, that's possible, I suppose. I don't go underground much. 1 like horizons." Then she reached to heave her pack off her back and began rummaging in it. "I've got spare clothes you can use. And some stuff Clodagh will want."
"No one looked beyond this cavern?" Clodagh asked with quiet urgency.
Yana shook her head. "We'd enough to do without going exploring!"
"That's as well," Clodagh said with a satisfied snort, and asked Yana who was the worst of the injured. She cleansed, stitched, anointed, and listened as gradually the two separate incidents were reported in detail.
The shuttle had been on the point of landing when the volcano blast had caught it, throwing the vehicle heavily to its side. Nine passengers had not survived the impact, but the others, hastily mobilized by the resourceful young pilot, Captain Greene, had got the living out of the shuttle before the air locks were submerged. They had managed to leave the area, the hot mud only centimeters from their heels as they plunged out of the western end of the valley. They had paused only to distribute supplies and attend to burns, scalds, and broken bones, before force-marching themselves as far from the erupting volcano as their strength would take them. The wind was easterly: they had picked the only safe direction to flee. And that had been only by chance, since the pilot had thought he was directing them toward the mining site that had been their destination, but a knock on the head, from the crash landing, had skewed his sense of direction.
"Remarkable that we were all led to this particular spot," Steve Margolies said. "This appears to be the opening of a vast system of caves. The two parties could have ended up in widely separated spots. Are there other entrances to this particular cavern?" he asked, glancing toward the back of the cavern.
Greene shrugged. "Could be. We didn't need to explore with that fresh stream right outside."
"We'll return later, properly equipped, and do a thorough investigation," Dr. Fiske said in a firm command tone. "Right now, we'd better report these coordinates and get our wounded back to SpaceBase. I believe this may be one of the places for which our teams have been searching all these years. Dr. Margolies, I trust you brought some means of communication with the base, didn't you?"
"Of course, of course," Steve said. He jumped to his feet. "We'll have to go outside and get some height for the best possible signal-" Then he stopped, as Torkel latched on to the comm set at his belt and hauled himself wearily to his feet, using Steve to balance himself.
"I initiate any communications," Torkel said curtly. Then he caught his father's frown and managed a ghost of his old diplomatic smile for Margolies. "That is, I'll report in while you and my father continue the debriefing."
Captain Greene nodded to the least injured of his crewmen, a short black man, who helped Steve and the rumbling Torkel untangle the comm set from Steve's belt.
"And while you're exercising your jaw, Dr. Fiske, I'll just see to your arm," Clodagh told the scientist. She crouched down in front of him and began untying the sling.
"Dama, I've waited this long," Fiske said with great dignity, resisting her ministrations. "I can certainly- Ouch! How did you do that?" He stared at his newly set arm and then at Clodagh, eyes wide with respect.
"It's a knack I've developed," she said. Then she dipped a length of bandage in a pot of her boneset potion and quickly and deftly wrapped the area about the break. By the time she had done that and rinsed her hands off, the bandage had hardened. "This will be more comfortable for you until you get back."
"But this hardened… I don't believe this," Fiske said, tapping the shell experimentally.
Gently but firmly taking his arm again, she replaced it in the sling and tied it across his chest. Then she began to undo the blood-soaked bandage on his thigh.
"This wants stitching," she said, examining the gaping wound.
"It's been cleaned and dressed," Fiske said testily, inhaling quickly at the sight of his parted flesh.
"That was well done," Clodagh agreed, and let a handful of a moist salve slip onto the wound.