Power Lines Read Online Free

than a woman being greeted by overly fond pets.
    Frank Metaxos, in whose healing process the cats had had a rather unusual role, remained behind, too, along with his son Diego. The two were returning to Kilcoole without Frank’s partner, Steve Margolies, who, still on the company’s payroll, had stayed on at SpaceBase.
    Both cats and Clodagh waited for the rest of the village to parade past before the mewing and chirruping began.
    Ordinarily the cats would have sat down to impart what was evidently a long story, but the mud offended their dignity. So they prowled around her, twitching their tails high, as they communicated their messages. The humans waited patiently.
    Sparks of uncharacteristic anger flickered in Clodagh’s eyes as she looked up at Sean and Yana. “We got all kinds of trouble now.” She gave a disgusted snort. “Seems like some villages want Intergal to come down and mine, while the mining’s good and they can get paid for working.”
    Sean frowned and Yana told her heart to stop racing. “How many dissidents?” she asked.
    “Four towns that the cats know of.” Clodagh’s usually merry face was solemn.
    “Which ones?”
    “Deadhorse, McGee’s Pass, Wellington, and Savoy.”
    Sean let out a burst of sour laughter. “That figures.” Clodagh had named villages which in recent years spurned contact with the others. He sighed deeply. “Have the cats any good news?”
    “Yes, but the bad news is they haven’t had a chance to check everyone out. If four villages oppose us . . .”
    “How many more might be disaffected and looking to please Intergal for the sake of wampum?” Sean asked.
    “So, the good news?” Yana prompted with a sigh.
    “Well, we do have at least twelve communities behind us solid. Tanana Bay, Shannonmouth, New Barrow, Twin Moon Village, Little Dublin, Oslo Inlet, Harrison’s Fjord, Kabul, Bogota, Machu Picchu, Kathmandu, and Sierra Padre.”
    “Most of the closest ones,” Sinead said, looking encouraged.
    “And the ones,” Clodagh went on with a pessimistic expression, “that have the most Petaybean boys and girls in company service.”
    “What bothers you about that?” Yana asked. “Wouldn’t they be on their folks’ side in this?”
    “Might be, if they weren’t required to lean on their folks to do what the company asks,” Clodagh said gloomily.
    “Oh!” Yana sighed. Dirty tricks department. Farringer Ball and Matthew Luzon would pull every one they needed out of storage to see that their interpretation became the official one. “Could you be wrong about which side of the blanket the Petaybean troops would fall on? The pilots, O’Shay and Greene in particular, gave us some support during the volcanic crisis.”
    Clodagh shrugged her broad shoulders. “You can always be wrong about anything. Sure, I think a lot of them would feel loyalty for us and for the planet But they’ve been out there”—she nodded toward the heavens—”for a long time. They’re used to the kind of stuff you’re used to. Some of ’em have prob’ly forgot how to cook, too, like you, and how to hunt. How to take care of themselves. And if the company decided to punish them and us by dumping them here and pulling out support, well, that’d be pretty hard on them, pretty hard on us, and pretty hard on the planet. I figure if all the Petaybee troops still working for Intergal got sent back here, it’d triple our population. At the least! I don’t know how many kids those troops have had. Course, they’d be welcome and the planet would provide, but it might be as hard on it as some kinds of mining operations.”
    Frank cleared his throat. “The ecosystem in these icy regions is quite fragile.”
    “You know it and I know it, but Intergal seems oblivious to the fact,” Sean said.
    “Are those villages one hundred percent in favor of selling out?” Yana asked.
    Clodagh smiled patiently. “Now, Yana. You’ve been around the universe a few times. When did you ever