Power Play by Anne McCaffrey Page A

soft reproof carried out of the blanket chest from which she was busily flinging bright woolly throws onto the bed. “They’re offworlders, and freeze-up has begun. Even if they were poachin’, sure it won’t look good if they freeze to death their first night here. What are you cookin’?” Aisling was always suspicious when Sinead cooked. Aisling Senungatuk was a very good cook, but Sinead’s repertoire was limited to spitted small game over a campfire. And that she was likely to get half-done if she was too hungry, or incinerate if she became preoccupied. “Fox,” she said.
    “Fox?”
    “They killed it, they’re gonna eat it.”
    “But nobody eats fox,” Aisling said.
    “Not as a rule. But they don’t need to know that.”
    “At least let me add a few spices.”
    “Not a one,” Sinead said with an evil grin.
    “Well, take them out a few of these blankets. They’ll need ’em.”
    “What? With all those warm pooches around? Nah, I don’t think so.”
    “Sinead . . .” Aisling let her voice take on the tone her partner would recognize as signaling impending doom.
    “Oh, all right. But you worked so hard making those pretty blankets and they’re gonna end up smelling like dog.”
    “Then you can help me wash them later. Call those men in to eat now.”
    “No, we’ll eat out front.”
    “Sin
ead
.”
    “There’s not enough room in here, Aisling. Come on out and join us. You can give the fox-killer advice on how to sew up the pelt so it won’t show the holes he made skinnin’ it.”
    The next morning, before first light, Liam Maloney and Seamus arrived to a howled greeting from the dog team. The clamor from the dogs woke their guests, who rose painfully, stretching stiff joints and complaining of the cold. Dr. Ersol was scratching.
    “If I turn out to be allergic to fleas, madame, I’ll have you before the company court,” he told Sinead.
    “There aren’t any fleas on Petaybee,” Aisling told him. “Too cold. But if there were, you could’ve as easily got them from the fox, so don’t go blaming the dogs. Sinead takes better care of them than she does herself sometimes.”
    “We won’t be after botherin’ the dogs this mornin’, though, sure we won’t,” Sinead said in the broad brogue she put on with outworlders who annoyed her. “No snow for them, y’see. No, Mr. Maloney here and Mr. Rourke and me will be takin’ the curlies. I’m afraid you fine gentlemen will need to walk.” She eyed the three men Liam and Seamus had brought with them. She was not impressed, despite all the fine equipment and special clothing they were sporting.
    Seamus looked at her as if she were daft. To the men he said, more jovially than anyone had addressed them since they’d arrived on Petaybee, “Ah, that girl missed her callin’, sure she did. She shoulda been a general in the company corps, she’s that hard.”
    “Them as abuses animals can do without their services, I say,” Sinead defended herself.
    But Liam said, “True enough, but they’ll only be slowin’ us down if they walk, cheechakos that they are. They can use Mother’s Sidhe and Da’s Oosik.”
    “Come to that,” Aisling said, “one of ’em could use Darby. She’s gentle.”
    “Fine then,” Sinead said. “You three newcomers can take the curlies first shift. The poachers here can walk for a spell.”
    After rounding up the horses in question, the eight of them rode—and walked—away into the sunrise. Two hours later Sinead was forced to relent. The two poachers had suffered hard treatment at her hands the day before. Neither of the outworlders had been able to sleep well among the dogs, at first because the men feared the dogs, and later because as soon as the dogs stopped licking their visitors’ faces or sniffing their behinds, they managed to steal the blankets. When the poachers began to stumble and fall more often than they walked, Sinead had two of the newcomers dismount and allowed the walkers to