By that point, anything flat would have worked.
So she was vaguely surprised some unknown time later to find herself lying flat on her back, wide awake. It was dark, without even stars glowing overhead. Darker than it should be. The light rimming the doorframes was gone, as were the pinpricks of green and red from the indicators on various gauges she should be able to see in her lab.
Power failure?
She must be dreaming. Norcoast didn’t have power failures. It broadcast its own power and there were backups and redundant systems galore—more than most major medical centers—necessities in an environment subject to hurricane winds and the vagaries of summer students.
Her stomach mentioned breakfast.
Not dreaming, Mac decided, coming fully awake. Instinct kept her still.
Something scurried across the ceiling.
Mac’s heart began to pound. She fought to keep her breathing quiet and even, as if she still slept.
She wasn’t alone.
She had no idea what else was in the room with her.
Scurry, scurry.
Not a mouse or Robin’s pet monkey, Superrat. The movement she heard had more in common with something insect or crablike. No. Too large for anything of that nature.
Skitter, scurry.
Silence. Sweat trickled maddeningly down Mac’s neck and chest, but she didn’t dare move to wipe it away. She’d always loved the dark; now, it had a weight, a suffocating thickness.
Her fingers walked across the floor, found a sandal, then threw it.
Water hitting a red-hot pan made that kind of hard spit! and pop! Right after those sounds, Mac heard the door to the terrace open and close.
The door?
Mac lunged to her feet, stumbling in the direction that should lead to the same door, her hands outstretched. Desk edge. Feel along it. Desk end. The door should be straight ahead. Two steps. Nothing.
She froze in place, then stretched out one foot. It touched the smooth irregularity of gravel and she sagged with relief, knowing where she was. A turn and three steps to the right. The door control was under her hand. Mac followed the cold night air outside.
Overcast. Not raining, but moisture immediately condensed on her lips and eyelids, beaded her hair. The morning fog was forming. Dawn couldn’t be far off. Mac blinked, trying to see anything.
Again, her ears were her best sense. Scurry . . . spit! Pop! From the roof, this time, as if her unwanted visitor had climbed the curve of the pod wall. Why not? Mac thought numbly. It had been running along her ceiling. She hadn’t imagined it.
Whatever it was.
She knew one thing. It wasn’t getting away from her that easily.
Back inside, hands groping in the dark. Mac found her desk, pulled open the second drawer, and grabbed the candle lantern she kept in there. There were matches in the base. She closed her eyes to slits before striking one and lighting the candle. The wick caught, burning brightly. Mac waited until the flame was steady before lowering the glass shield. “Thanks, Dad,” she whispered. The lantern had been a birthday gift.
Mac played the lantern’s light over the interior of her office, shaking her head in disbelief. Trails of clear, glistening slime, a half meter in width, lay over the floor, walls, and ceiling. Some passed between the suspended salmon, a couple over her desk. Mac lowered the beam to the floor, following a trail that led over the bed where she’d slept. She checked her legs. Sure enough, the material below her knees shone with slime.
“I’m getting well and truly sick of alien biology,” Mac muttered, using a clean section of blanket to wipe her pant legs.
She ignored the confused pile of her belongings stacked against the far wall, refugees from her purloined quarters, hurrying instead to the storage cupboard. Putting the lamp where it would shine on the cupboard’s contents, Mac pulled out what she wanted. Slicker. Hiking boots. That really old wool sweater that had belonged to her brother William which she kept for winter nights when she was too busy to head upstairs to her quarters. Warm, too big, and itchy as could be.
Mac tried to activate her imp. Nothing, despite its supposed decade-worth of stored power. “Neat trick,” she told her quarry, tossing the device aside.
It took Mac only seconds to bundle up—a side effect of innumerable excursions in the dead of winter to chip off ice and help unload surface or air transports. They’d never listened to her recommendation to bring in supplies underwater, where weather wasn’t a factor.
Back out the door to the terrace. Mac opened the lantern and blew out her candle, tucking the unit into a pocket, then stood perfectly still, listening.
She knew her responsibility. To catch whatever had invaded her office and Norcoast—or at least get close enough to identify it. The too-convenient power failure had to be a ruse by the creature; waking up the rest of Base’s inhabitants would only add a crowd of confused students, sure to get in her way.
Scurry.
Fainter. The sound was different. “Gotcha,” Mac said to herself, making the connection. It was on the walkway below.
She ran along the terrace, guided by memory and one hand on the pod wall, heading for the stairs. Stealth wasn’t as important as speed, but speed wouldn’t matter if she broke her neck in the dark.
Her feet knew every centimeter, every rise and fall along the walkways.
A whiff of roses. Dr. Reinhold’s rooftop planter. She was passing Pod Two. Scurry . . . scurry. It wasn’t stopping. Mac wasn’t surprised. Her boots made a solid drumming on the walkway. She wanted it that way. Keep her quarry moving, panicked. With luck, she’d corner it against one of the pod doors.
Ambush seemed unlikely—given its reaction to her sandal. Mac was sure her visitor was a thief or spy. Maybe even one of the media, sliming around for a story. She should have asked if all had been Human. Not a question that would have occurred to her yesterday.
Whether it knew her plan or not, the creature wasn’t cooperating. Mac kept stopping to listen; the susurrations continued to move straight ahead. Not to a launch pad and waiting escape vehicle, as she’d feared, but retracing the path she and Brymn had taken that afternoon.
Toward land.
Mac kept her fingertips sliding along the top of the right-hand rail, moving as quickly as she dared through the darkness. There were sounds behind her now—perplexed voices as people began questioning one another about the power failure. A glow of new lights reflected on the water, candles and lanterns caught on each upward swell, enough to etch out the darker line of the walkway in front of Mac’s feet, so she risked starting to run.
If the creature reached land first, it might be trapped by the web gate.
If it wasn’t, it would have the entire coastal forest and a continent beyond in which to lose her.
- Portent -
THE FIRST drop hissed into the snow, its remains a crater, stained green, like a dead eye staring back at the sky.
Another embedded eye. Another.
The pristine snowfield became pocked with green, rotting under unseasonable rain. Rivulets began to form, eating deeper as they flowed.
More drops fell.
Beneath the snow, those asleep in their shells knew only the regular, once-weekly beating of their hearts, dreamed only of the coming warmth, when their world danced closer to its partner sun. Under the open fronds of the Nirltrees, they would teach their offspring. It had always been thus. It would always be thus. The Great Sleep was their salvation, the snow their protection.
They were wrong.
The green rivulets melted deeper and deeper. Soon, they flowed over what seemed a bed of immense pebbles, each regular in form and smooth, as if polished.
The pebbles were seamed, the edges held by ligaments laced together like so many fingers in prayer. Admirable defense against cold and predator, but the ligaments rotted away as the rivulets touched them. The halves of every pebble fell open, exposing the flesh within, flesh that dissolved in the flood before it could awake to screa
m.
The shells melted almost as quickly, washed away with the dormant stumps of the Nirltree grove, even the roots of the trees dissolving as the green drops penetrated the frozen soil. Drops and rivulets joined into a widening river, washing away the snow, dissolving all life that had sheltered beneath it, scouring the mountainside until all that remained was rock.
Where the river flowed into a cirque, becoming a limpid pool of green, mouths gathered.
And began to drink.
7
CHASE AND CONFRONTATION
MAC SMACKED her hand against the lock on the pillar. Of course it didn’t respond. No confirmation signal for her code could come from Norcoast until Base’s power was restored. The webbing of the gate remained in place, a default that would have pleased Mac immensely had her quarry seen fit to be delayed by it.
But no. She’d arrived at the gate between the holdfasts to find herself alone.
Maybe.
Remembering how easily the creature had hidden in her office, Mac put her back to the pillar and stared outward until her eyes burned. Warm yellow marked activity around the pods. Someone had already strung a series of lanterns along the walkway leading to Pod Three, probably anticipating breakfast. Which would rely on the ingenuity of those on duty if the power remained off. Mac wasn’t worried. Enough students had stashed grills in their rooms to cook for the entire crew, if need be.
She willed herself silent, wanting to hear what was around her.
Waves licked the rocks. The fog was condensing in the forest, producing a combination of drip and sigh as leaves released their burdens. A cone dropped on the moss. A salmon leaped and splashed in the inlet. All sounds she knew. Mac listened for the unfamiliar and was rewarded.
A low, regular thrumming. If she hadn’t lived here for years, Mac would have dismissed it as the call of an insect, perhaps a large cricket rubbing its legs together.
Even as she became convinced she was hearing the creature breathing, she realized the sound was coming from over her head.
Mac swallowed, then took one step forward and turned around, keeping her movements slow and cautious. “I know you’re up there,” she said, hoping her Instella wasn’t completely rusty. “Come down and talk to me.”
Spit! Pop! The same noises as when she’d thrown her sandal. Surprise? Mac peered upward, wondering if she was imagining being able to see the outline of the holdfast pillar against the trees. Dawn must be fighting its way over the mountains. The fog would delay true light another hour yet. “I won’t hurt you,” she ventured, hoping for the same attitude.
“Dr. Connor!” The call came from Base, echoed by a series of anxious voices. Someone had probably gone to alert her about the power failure, Mac realized, and discovered the condition of her office.
She was reasonably sure shouting in answer would cost her any chance of seeing her visitor. There was definitely more light every minute now. If she could only keep the creature here . . .
It might have had the same thought. Scurry . . . thump! The odd clattering of its movement on the pillar ended in a rapid rustling through the underbrush. It had climbed over the gate and left the walkway for the forest floor.
“Damn it!” Mac smacked her hand against the lock again. Nothing.
“It broke the rules first, Oversight,” she muttered, then felt her way to the edge of the walkway membrane and sat, boots dangling in midair. The walkway guide lights inside the Trust would stay off, since no access code had been confirmed to the gate. But, with the sort of luck Mac was coming to expect tonight, the repeller field was still active, being powered—like the tiggers—from an inland broadcast source owned by the Wilderness Trust. As she sat down, the field vibrated unpleasantly through her pelvis and up her spine, setting her teeth on edge, but its intensity was meant to discourage bats, wasps, and jays, not an adult and determined woman.
And probably a foolish one, too, Mac told herself, but that didn’t stop her from jumping into the dark.
Scritch . . . whoosh.
Mac let out the breath she’d unconsciously held while striking the match. She lit her small lantern, then carefully wrapped the tip of the spent match in wet moss before tucking it into an upper pocket. Minimal presence, she reminded herself. The light was more welcome than she wanted to admit.
Its tiny flickering reminded her of another hunt through the dark.
Her dad hadn’t been sure about bringing a very young Mackenzie on his owl survey. Her older brothers had talked him into it, probably so they needn’t feel any guilt over choosing not to come. Mac hadn’t cared about their reasons; she’d been hoping to go as long as she could remember. After all, what was the fun of staying in town with her aunts while the rest of her family went camping in the dark and perilous northern forests?
Not that they were either, but at seven, Mac had been nothing if not imaginative. To her, trees traded stories about you behind your back and, if they didn’t like you, they would move to confuse your path. Moss-covered stones were worse. The little ones would try to trip you. The big ones would wait until you passed before turning into something else, something with long, thin fingers and sharp nails, something that snacked on children who didn’t know the magic words. Mac was very proud of her ability to make up such words, each having proved most effective on past walks through the park near her aunts’ house.
She’d been ready for anything the northern forest could offer. Until her father lost himself.
“Poppa?” Mac had been sure he was outside their tent, putting up the pack for the night, but he’d been nowhere in sight. She’d stopped shouting immediately, careful not to draw the attention of tree or stone. In this wilder forest, both were larger and stranger than any she’d seen before. Where could he be? She’d noticed her father was easily distracted. Why the very first day, he’d sat transfixed by the huge eyes of a large white owl, until she’d had to grab his hand to remind him he had a daughter to feed.
Glow in hand, she’d set off to find him, careful to say a magic word each time she passed a threatening stone, careful not to step on the exposed roots of trees and give them reason to spread dislike about her.
Mac had walked all night, longer than she’d ever walked in her life, a girl on a heroic quest. Her glow had dimmed until the moonlight was brighter, if only in clearings where there were more stones. Her voice had grown hoarse, then faded to a whisper, but she’d kept uttering the magic words, knowing she had to keep herself safe if she was to help her father.
And when she’d finally found him, surprisingly close to their campsite, his own voice had been strained to a whisper, his face pale and lined with fear. Tight in his arms, feeling him shake, Mac had decided not to scold him for getting lost. It could happen to anyone, alone in a dark forest.
Mac shook her head, smiling at the memory. Gossiping trees and hungry stones? At least she hadn’t made up her visitor, invisible or not. She glanced up. The drop hadn’t been far. If she stretched, she could brush the bottom of the walkway with her fingertips. It didn’t show to her light.
It didn’t matter. Mac needed to see the forest floor, not where she’d been. She hurried over moss-covered stones, grateful for her boots, holding the lantern low. There. A couple of meters past the holdfast pillar, lines of moss had been peeled up in a series of loops, as if the tines of a large fork had scooped them from the soil. Mac refused to speculate what body parts would leave such a mark, instead raising her lantern to look for more tracks. If the thing could climb from tree to tree, she’d never be able to follow it.
Another rip in the moss. Another beyond that. They led her to a row of similar marks scoring the top of an immense nurse log that loomed like a tanker out of the mist. Mac set her lantern on top and clambered over, her hands sinking into the decaying wood. She whispered an apology to Charles Mudge III under her breath as a clump broke free under her boot.
She wiggled on her belly over the log, no doubt damaging the tiny saplings growing there, and retrieved her lantern
to hunt for more tracks. There. Leading upward. Away from Base.
Where they didn’t belong, Mac thought, welcoming the anger that warmed her body. Bad enough she was ripping through the vegetation.
At least she was from this planet!
Hiking through a coastal rain forest was never a straight-line affair at best, even in full daylight. Myriad tiny streams, ice-cold and swift, flowed down every crease in the rock. The rocks themselves were the jagged shoulders of a new mountain range, untamed by time and unsympathetic to anyone who chose to climb them. Hunched over the spot of light from her lantern, moving from one track to the next, Mac felt as though she crawled across the forest floor like a slug.
The slope increased in jagged steps, but luckily never so steep that Mac couldn’t follow the creature’s spoor. Still, she often had to plant one foot firmly, then reach with her free hand for a branch that wouldn’t come loose. Then pull. Her shoulders began to burn.
Abruptly, the tracks ended. Mac hunted with her lantern for a few moments, careful not to move too far from the last impression. Nothing. Finally, she sank to her knees to rest and consider what to do next. How long until dawn? she wondered, and closed the front of the lantern to assess the light.
Dawn might be touching the mountaintops by now, but not here. She hadn’t expected it yet, not under the fog-laden mammoth trees and certainly not deep within this fold of land. “But what’s this?” Mac breathed, staring at the ground. A faint, green fluorescence shone from under her knees, leading up the next rise. The slime, Mac exulted, surging to her feet.
Now she raced against the dawn. The fluorescence remained visible, barely, for mere seconds after her lantern activated it. She proceeded in sprints now, waving her light to memorize the terrain as well as energize the slime, then covering it so she could run along the glowing path.
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