Free Power Lines by Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

and Aisling, who went visiting Shannonmouth, closest to Kilcoole of the three villages on the route. Although Sinead could ride all day, Aisling did not travel as well, especially on horseback. Most of the time she preferred to walk and lead her curly-horse, chatting to the mare as frequently as she addressed Sinead, Sean, Yana, Bunny, or Diego. The mare seemed oblivious to the burdens she carried: bundles of blankets, sewing things, and decorating materials, as well as a backpack and a bale of finely tanned furs from Sinead’s winter hunt.
    Bunny thought it was aces traveling with this particular group. She was so used to Diego now, she’d be lost without his company, and she had liked Yana Maddock since Day One and looked forward to having her as an auntie when she and Sean got hitched. And both Sinead and Sean knew all sorts of special places where they could sleep under cover. With the people traveled Alice B, Sinead and Aisling’s lead dog; Nanook, one of the track-cats who lived out at Sean’s lab; and Dinah, the Maloneys’ lead dog, who had taken such a shine to Diego that she preferred his company to Liam’s. She also liked Bunny: when Bunny stroked her, she could even receive Dinah’s somewhat frenetic communications.
    After leaving Sinead and Aisling in Shannonmouth, the group continued on, following the river that snaked uphill past McGee’s Pass. There the river was joined by the Iffy, so called because it was iffy if it ran or not, depending on the season, and how frozen it was or how dry the weather had been. The Iffy was in full spate now, pouring its glacial white waters into the clear Shannon; the two mingled murkily all the way to Harrison’s Fjord.
    As Bunny and Diego parted from Sean and Yana, Sean said, “Listen, you two. By all means, visit the Connellys and, if you can do so, find out what’s going on. But, if feeling is very strong in favor of the mines,
leave
and come find us, and we’ll all do it together. I want you to meet us at Harrison’s Fjord in three days’ time. It’s only a day to the fjord, so that gives you two days to suss things out. Okay? I’d like to have more time, but with the PTBs arriving soon, Yana and I have got to catch a ride down under as soon as we’ve finished our business and Johnny or Rick are free.”
    “Can we go down under, too?” Bunny asked.
    “I doubt if the aircraft will be big enough to hold four passengers,” Yana said. “Using one of the smaller copters is wisest. Now, get going so you’ll reach the Connellys in time to be invited for supper. Sean and I have a ways to go yet.”
    Later, when the adults disappeared around the base of the next hill and Bunny and Diego steered their curlies toward the pass, Bunny said, “Did you hear? They didn’t say no! We might get to go down under, Diego!”
    “What’s it like?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. Never been. Different from here though, I think. I’ve never heard of anyone coming up from the southern pole. You have to cross a whole big ocean, and that just isn’t smart to do in our little boats. I guess they don’t have any bigger ones down there or we’d see more of them up here. My parents were trying to prove a theory about an undersea passage from the caves near Harrison’s Fjord when they disappeared. Hey! What if they got through and the passage—you know, something went wrong with it, so they couldn’t come home, but when we get down there we’ll
find
them?”
    “I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Diego said. “It’s been how many years now?”
    “I dunno. Over ten. I was real little when they left.”
    “I’d think in all that time they’d have found
some
body to bring word back, knowing how worried everybody would be. Of course, if it was my mom,” he added, his tone turning wry, “she’d get so involved with her work she’d never notice she forgot to bring me with her, but you people aren’t like that.”
    “Well, thanks a lot. But I prefer to hope, if it’s