Survival

by Julie E. Czerneda

  She couldn’t bear to think otherwise.

  Now, Mac headed left along the terrace, the long way around, since the section outside her office was still off limits.

  Dr. Kammie Noyo’s office and lab was on the opposite side of the pod from hers, affording a stunning view past the tip of the inlet to the open ocean. Not that you could see it from inside. Rumor in the student pods was that the venerable chemist had opaqued her window wall because she was afraid of water.

  Mac knocked perfunctorily on the door, propped open to the sunshine with an earthenware pot containing a surprised cactus, and walked inside.

  Rumor, as usual, was untrustworthy. Afraid of water? Mac shook her head at the notion. Kammie Noyo was a deepwater sailor and had picked this very office for its view. Unfortunately, all that was left of the view was through her open door. She’d covered her walls with shelves to hold her growing collection of soil samples, adamantly refusing to move so much as a single precious vial out of her sight. “You never knew when you’d need one to compare,” she’d say in her cheerful voice, hands shoved into her brilliant white lab coat. The window wall? Permanently opaqued simply to protect the samples from daylight.

  Mac let her eyes adjust to the interior lighting, then followed voices through the empty office to the lab to find Kammie, hands in her lab coat, holding court with her latest crop of postdocs. They were a matched set: three gangly youngsters who had faith the pale fuzz on their chins would be worthy beards by the end of the research season and their theses would change the world. Months working with Kammie, whose head barely topped Mac’s ear, had given them a distinctly stooped posture. Kammie professed herself pleased with their individuality and brilliance. Mac still couldn’t tell them apart, but she trusted Kammie’s judgment.

  She needed it more than ever now.

  Quite sure Kammie had seen her—the woman’s peripheral vision was legendary—Mac waved to show she could wait, then went back into the office. She punched her codes into Kammie’s desk interface to bring up her own main workscreen, directly linked to Norcoast’s, then found a chair with fewer periodicals than usual, and sat carefully on top. Everyone at Base, starting with the cleaning staff, knew better than to mess with Dr. Noyo’s furniture-based filing system.

  Mac leveled her bottom with a careful wiggle, grumbling automatically over the chemist’s continued fondness for paper, then tapped the air where her workscreen had decided to float. She brought out her imp and initialized its personal ’screen—smaller, self-contained, and able to reference only data carried within the imp itself. Layering one over the other, Mac got to work.

  Kammie bustled in half an hour later. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mac,” she apologized cheerily in her soft, high-pitched voice. “The boys had an interesting problem.” She stretched to tuck a small aluminum vial box back into its place on a shelf behind her desk, then, as if struck by a thought, she stayed there, tracing the labels of its neighbors with her fingers.

  “You okay?” Mac asked, glancing up through her ’screens. Unlike yesterday, when she’d been so distraught in the hall of Pod Three, the other woman appeared back to normal, hair smoothly coiffed, round face wearing the patented half smile that Kammie joked she’d inherited from a wise grandfather.

  “I’m supposed to be asking you that, aren’t I?” Smile fading, Kammie turned and sank into her chair. Whatever she’d left on it raised her to just the right height for her desk. Her almond-shaped eyes were troubled as she called up her own ’screen in preparation for their briefing. “I’m worried about my students. Is it wrong to send them back to work so soon?”

  “Look at us.” Mac poked a finger through her ’screen. “I’d say it’s the only productive thing we can do, Kammie. And Em—you know she’d be the first person to take our heads off for moping around.”

  The chemist looked wistful. “No argument there. So. What can I do for you, Mac?”

  “This.” With a slide of her hand through the air, Mac sent her Admin codes, schedules, everything she had pending on Base to Kammie’s ’screen. “I want you to take over for me, Kammie. Indefinitely.”

  “You’re kidding. I’m in the middle of—”

  “I’m very serious, Kammie. I need you to look after all the admin, not just your half.”

  Kammie Noyo leaned back in her chair, studying Mac over her steepled fingers. “No offense, dear lady, but didn’t you just say work was the only productive thing we can do? I don’t see you, of any of us, taking a break right now.” Kammie’s delicate eyebrows met. “Which means you’re up to something. What?”

  Mac almost smiled. She’d never joined Kammie’s sea-faring adventures or visited her extensive family; she was well aware that Kammie, for her part, considered Mac an eccentric workaholic who must be reminded at regular intervals that others had real lives. But when it came to what mattered, each knew the other very well indeed. “I was a witness.”

  Kammie’s eyes widened. “Your office?” she breathed, moving forward again. “You were there? But—”

  “I chased one of them out of it. Don’t give me that look, Kammie Noyo. It seemed perfectly safe at the time. And turned out to be, except for some sore muscles. As a result, while I don’t know how much help I can be to the—investigation,” Mac had trouble with the word. “There’s no doubt I’m going to be called away from my duties. In fact, I may be asked to leave Base without notice. We’ve been disrupted enough. I won’t let my absence jeopardize anyone’s work. I won’t have the entire season lost.”

  Norcoast had never lost a season, although it had been a near thing the year of the “almost perfect” storm. Mac watched Kammie remember it. How could she not? To anyone who’d been there, it had seemed like the end of the world.

  The storm had slid toward them from the southwest, a late October mass of subtropical moisture and wind the weather controllers had decided to leave alone. The tides would be unusually high, but the storm track was northward, so the predicted surge was minimal. Such storms had immense natural value, stirring the depths of the ocean to bring up nutrients, and flushing rivers as it drove up the coast. Coastal communities had been warned to prepare for several days of heavy rain and strong sustained winds. Many had viewed the chance to experience a major storm as a rare adventure. It was dubbed the “almost perfect” storm by those who didn’t know better.

  Some at Norcoast had been eager to document the storm’s impact on marine life. Mac had viewed it as a major inconvenience. She’d been working on her post-doc, lingering at Base through the fall months to help ready the pods for the winter, store samples and data, and generally earn her keep while waiting for her next projects to be approved. But nothing was going to get done outdoors until the storm passed through.

  It was more than inconvenient. The first day, 15 centimeters of rain fell, carried on winds that hit 100 kilometers per hour. Weather controllers admitted they’d let a hurricane slip through their net and began remedial efforts. Too little, too late. The second day, gusts reached 289 kilometers per hour, blowing down trees like sticks in sand, and another 30 centimeters of rain landed on the coast. The third day 20 centimeters fell . . . The fourth . . .

  There was no need to pack up the pods for winter. The original four that had made up Norcoast’s Base had been nestled against the mainland at the mouth of the Tannu, protected by surrounding islands from wave action, but directly in the path of both landslide and flood.

  Students, staff, and scientists had huddled together on transport levs to watch the pods tip and sink within a thick soup of snapped trees, gravel, mud, rock, and water. Then they’d gone to work. It hadn’t mattered what your credentials or research plans that winter. Everyone had pitched in to ensure the first replacement pod was constructed and anchored—in a new, safer location—in time for the spring salmon runs. They’d succeeded. In Mac’s estimation, that winter’s catchall phrase had come to define Norcoast: “we’ll get it done.”

  The new pods in their new location had weath
ered far worse since without incident. It remained to be seen, Mac thought, if its people continued to have that kind of determination.

  Mac waited anxiously as Kammie, never one to make a snap decision, scrolled through the data on her ’screen without changing her expression from that slight frown. With her in charge, the others should be able to continue. Mac didn’t have students of her own this summer, other than a shared project with John Ward. Kammie could stand in her place as his adviser, if need be. “Well?” she asked finally.

  The frown was replaced by a somewhat surprised look. “Of course, Mac. I was only checking who from Wet could assist with your stuff. John looks available.”

  Mac and Kammie split the administrative duties of Base along practical lines: dry versus wet. Dry included those researchers who worked on land, but also those who conducted aerial surveys, retrieved remote sensing data, or worked primarily in the labs at Base. Kammie’s highly technical criterion was that her people never had wet socks. Wet was thus everyone else, and Mac’s responsibility.

  “He can be,” Mac admitted with an inner wince, although Kammie was right. The bulk of Ward’s analysis work could be left for the coming winter. His reaction, though? she grimaced. Mac knew he’d arranged classes at Berkeley, in California, but this would mean he’d have to stay on Base another six months. Surfing, skiing. Both sports where you rode on something flat, right? Mac keyed the message to John Ward’s workscreen before she could change her mind. “Anything else?”

  “Why does that sound final? I will be able to contact you—I won’t,” Kammie corrected herself as Mac shook her head. “Well.” She sat a little straighter. “In that case, I’ll go under the premise you’ll approve anything I decide.”

  “Within the operating budget,” Mac cautioned, but with distinct relief. She hadn’t felt the weight of keeping up with the concerns of Base and its researchers until this moment, when it was no longer hers to carry. “I’ll do my best to keep you informed, Kammie. I—I never wanted to dump all this on you.”

  Kammie made a rude noise. “Tell me that next spring when you fly off to a field station and leave me to settle the new arrivals.”

  With a chuckle, Mac got to her feet. “There’s one more thing.” She put away her imp, ’screens winking from sight, and drew out a vial, identical to any of the thousands in the boxes lining the walls around her.

  Kammie rose and came around her desk, hand reaching out as if the tiny thing were a magnet. “What’s this?”

  As much truth as she dared, Mac thought. “There may be something unique about this soil,” she said. The idea that such secrecy could be for Kammie’s protection didn’t help. “I’d like to know what you think of it. Between us for the time being, please.”

  From the speed with which the tiny chemist withdrew her fingers, Mac might have offered her poison. “Oh, no, you don’t. If this is something that could help find Emily, it should go to the forensics—”

  “No. No. Nothing like that,” Mac insisted. Did lying become easier with practice? She could ask “Nik” Trojanowski, doubtless an expert. “It’s something I’ve been carrying around in my pocket for you.” All too easy to sound frustrated. “I’d like to know at least something of my work is getting done.”

  Kammie’s transparent features eased from skeptical to sympathetic. She took the vial. “Not a problem, Mac. Sorry I jumped on you. You leave this with me. I’ll get on it right away.” A smile. “Well, after I deal with the ‘A for At Once’ on the list you dumped on me. What kind of category name is that anyway?”

  “I thought it was more tactful than ‘A for Annoying.’ ”

  A laugh that made Kammie wipe her eyes. “Oh, dear. I suppose there’re more gems waiting in here. Thanks a lot, Mac.”

  Mac rested her hand on the other woman’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “Thank you, Kammie.”

  Kammie’s fingers, callused and warm, captured hers. “They’ll find her, Mac,” she promised, eyes brimming with tears that now had nothing to do with laughter. “And she’ll be okay. Emily’s smart and she’s tougher than any of us. You know she is.”

  All Mac could do was nod.

  During lunch, while a police officer from nearby Kitimat stood at the gallery entrance and politely resisted all attempts by incoming Pred students to inspect his weaponry, Mac sat alone. Literally. The gallery’s tables were deserted, its few visitors opting for a bag lunch to take outside while the sun still shone.

  The privacy was welcome. Mac alternated absent-minded bites of her sandwich with glances at the small ’screen hovering over her plate. She’d finished copying what she and Emily had found into her imp, whether about Brymn or his species. Now, as she awaited her summons from Trojanowski, she reviewed the list of everything else she’d grabbed, in case she had to abandon her resources at Base for any length of time.

  “Anyone reading this would consider me certifiable,” Mac mumbled around a mouthful of fluffy barbequed salmon and bun. One of the distinct advantages to eating in the gallery were the samples brought in by the Harvs; any extras turned up on the grill.

  Oh, her list did include reasonable, logical things: summaries of the most recent Chasm research, a simplified spatial geography of the Naralax Transect complete with traveler “must see” suggestions, and a copy of Seung’s course materials on xenobiology. Mac could no longer afford the luxury of thinking in Earth-only terms.

  Emily’d tried to tell her.

  She’d tucked the more eyebrow-raising entries under the heading “Groceries:” reported sightings of Chasm Ghouls; the latest popular theories, scholarly or not, on the existence of the Chasm; a report on the feasibility of invisibility from one of last year’s exchange students, inspired by another too-close encounter with grizzlies; occurrences of invisible aliens on Earth—more than Mac had ever dreamed—and, last but not least, Emily Mamani’s personal logs.

  Mac took a sip of tea, her hands wrapped around the mug to seek its warmth. It had only taken a quick call. Maria had sent Emily’s logs without question, although she’d admitted to denying their existence to “those officials who have no right coming to my home, prying into private family business when they should be looking for my sister.” Knowing Emily’s passionate temper, as quick to fade as it was to flare, Mac guessed Maria had regretted her lack of cooperation the moment the “officials” left. It probably relieved her conscience to send the logs to Mac. Certainly they all believed in doing anything that could help the investigation. . . .

  That damn word again. Mac knew why she hated it. You investigated a crime that had already happened, searching for the culprits, not the victim. But she couldn’t deny that finding the culprits seemed the only way to find Emily.

  The only way Mac accepted, ignoring the fact that search teams were still out, following the tide, scouring the shoreline, and bumping around underneath the pods.

  As for the logs? She’d received them directly on her imp, keeping them away from Norcoast’s systems. Now? Mac flicked a finger through the ’screen to turn it off. She sipped more tea, gazing out the window at the novel spectacle of white-capped mountains cutting into a blue sky, unable to deny what troubled her most. Was there something in those logs Emily would prefer not be known, even by a friend?

  She’d asked Mac for forgiveness. And now Trojanowski’s questions about Emily were like splinters Mac couldn’t reach to pull out.

  Thinking about him made her impatient as well as uneasy. Mac pushed to her feet, tucked away her imp, and grabbed her lunch tray to take back to the kitchen.

  “There you are, Dr. Connor!”

  Think of the devil, Mac said to herself. Outwardly, she gave a polite nod, waiting as Trojanowski, again resplendently civil in suit and cravat, came walking toward her. Then Mac saw he was accompanied by a very dark, very round man in an ancient yellow rain suit who began smiling the instant she did.

  Mac dropped her tray on the table with a clatter. “Jabulani!” She launched herself into his arms, her hands bar
ely reaching around his sides. Almost as quickly, she pulled back, needing to feast her eyes on one of the dearest, most brilliant, people she knew.

  Jabulani Sithole had hardly aged. His tight curls had silvered before they’d met, she remembered fondly. His dark eyes still twinkled. And the raincoat. Jabulani had decided long ago the only way to beat the coast weather was to always dress for its worst. Sweat pearled his brow and beaded his generous nose, but Mac knew from experience nothing would pry the heavy coat and sweater from the man if he thought they’d be going outside again soon. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “You said he could do incredible things with sound,” Trojanowski said, standing to one side.

  “Did you really?” Jabulani planted a kiss on Mac’s forehead. “You were always kind, Mackenzie dear. A treasure.”

  “Because I kept you in sandwiches,” she corrected, with a fond smile, “so you’d let me listen to my salmon.”

  Jabulani turned to Trojanowski. “Even then, so young, she called them ‘hers.’ Is it any wonder she’s in charge now?” His voice softened and he gazed down at her, wide mouth losing its smile. “Mackenzie, I am so sorry—”

  Before the sympathy of her old friend could do more than mist her eyes, Mac patted Jabulani once more to make sure he was real, then said simply: “If anyone can replicate what I heard, Jabulani, it’s you.” If she could bear to relive that night with anyone, it was him. She shot Trojanowski a look of gratitude. “Thank you.”

  He nodded, once. “If you’re ready, Dr. Connor? Dr. Sithole? We should start as soon as possible.”

  Mac caught Jabulani’s longing look at her tray and snorted affectionately. Some things never changed. “We can pick up a bag in the kitchen,” she assured him.