Mercifully, Emily slowed and stopped long before they reached the place where the Ro had last landed, their ship shattering the old growth like dried sticks. She looked confused, as if she’d expected a landmark. Mudge came up beside her. Obeying her instincts, not without pity for both, Mac kept back. Sing-li followed suit.
Emily was taller. The breeze lifted her gleaming black hair, with its streaks of white, and played with the panels of her dress so they brushed Mudge’s legs. Her head tilted on her elegant neck to let the sun kiss her high cheekbones and bury her dark eyes in shadow. Her grace was paralyzed, as if she was as much stone as the mauve-gray rock around them.
She was taller, but Mudge, in his shapeless jacket, panting and wiping sweat from his rosy forehead, alive and real, seemed to tower over her.
Their voices carried easily over the desolation. “This was my fault,” Emily began, matter-of-factly. “I don’t ask you to forgive me.”
“Of course not,” Mudge panted. “You want to tell me why they did it.”
Where had that come from? Mac closed her mouth and paid attention.
Emily hesitated, her hands lifting as if warding a blow.
“You want me to understand,” Mudge continued, almost stern. “It’s important that I know why, isn’t it, Emily.”
“Y-yes,” she faltered. “They were yours, these trees. Mac told me, Charlie. She said you put more value on the smallest twig here than her life’s work.”
Mac grimaced. There were some things not worth repeating . . . “Why did they do it?” Mudge’s arm swept outward, but his eyes never left Emily’s. “Why did they have to destroy it all?”
She swayed and Mac started forward in alarm, but stopped as Emily began to speak, her voice now reed-thin and gasping. “This world . . . would be cleansed. They . . . knew it would be. They don’t have patience . . . but time . . . time . . . They own time. Make ready and wait, make ready and wait, make—”
Emily paused; none of them moved.
Then, “They had to destroy the signs . . . signs among the trees that would show what They left behind . . . what They sent into the ocean . . . destroy the signs . . . sweep it all away . . . those who walked for them . . . the signs . . . your trees, Charlie. Into the ocean. Forgive—” Emily sank to her knees, her arms reaching out to Mudge. “Forgive me.”
He sank down with her, gathering her in, holding her tight.
Mac’s eyes sought the cove, its dark blue water sparkling in the sun, its depths hiding . . . what? She was aware of Sing-li speaking urgently into his com, doubtless commandeering teams to rip up the recovering slope, to scour the ocean bed, to look for whatever the Ro had left behind for the moment the Dhryn wiped this world of life.
She stood on an empty mountainside, with nothing but open sky, familiar landscapes, and friends in sight, and had never felt so terrified.
And she’d brought Emily here for safety?
8
PARTINGS AND PERTURBATIONS
IT WAS A MEASURE OF HOW SERIOUSLY the Ministry of Extra-Sol Human Affairs, and Earthgov, took Sing-li’s message that convoys of huge black levs whooshed over their heads toward the outer arm of Castle Inlet before Tie finished securing their skim to the dock at Base.
It was a measure of how little attention Base itself paid to the world that they were surrounded upon arrival not by aroused security but by staff and students wearing shirts that made Sing-li’s downright conservative, several waving opened bottles, and all smiling.
Run away? Mac wondered numbly as she was hauled from the skim with a roar of welcome, or grab the nearest beer?
Sing-li vanished into the crowd, with Tie right behind. None of them had said a word during the ride back. Mac had pulled out her imp and worked. Emily had sat with Mudge, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed. She’d looked exhausted, but at peace.
He’d looked thoroughly horrified—whether by Emily’s revelation or her proximity, Mac couldn’t be sure.
For her part, Mac was grateful. Intentionally or by luck, Mudge had asked the right question at the right time, accomplishing what no one else, including Emily, had managed in all the weeks of trying. She’d finally been able to express a memory of the Ro.
Something less disturbing would have been nice.
She burned inside. What the Ro had done in the past was nothing to this, this violation!
Hide a threat here? In her ocean?
Mac wasn’t sure at what point her fury had turned into something cold and set, her determination into something implacable. She didn’t care. All she knew was that she couldn’t leave this to anyone else.
Here, she wasn’t defenseless.
Of course, the party had begun without them and was now well underway. Mac dodged and ducked her way between gleeful students, keeping an eye fixed on her target, the door to Pod Three and the administrator’s office. She had to talk to Kammie Noyo. She wanted—if not answers, then reassurance. Reassurance that others knew, that the appropriate actions were being taken at all levels.
That this time, they’d listen.
It didn’t help either her progress or her impatience when students started announcing her presence as loudly as possible. “Mac’s back!” “Where?” “Over here!” “Hurry—hide the ribs!!!” “Why do we have to hide the ribs?”
Mac paused to wince.
A chorus bellowed the answer: “ ’Cause Mac’s back!”
“You’d think they’d forget,” she muttered under her breath. “But no.” The story of how she’d eaten the last rib on the barbeque one night—quite by accident—had blossomed with retelling to each new crop of students until every rib night began with a chant of . . . she waited for it, resigned. Easier to stop the tides.
“No Ribs for Mac! No Ribs for Mac! No Ribs for Mac! Mac gets SALAD and BEER!”
Mac shook her head, an unbidden smile twitching her lips. Their joy at her expense was irresistible. “You realize it doesn’t rhyme,” she complained to those nearest, who only laughed and chanted louder. Someone handed her the beer in question. She waited for it, but this time no one had brought salad. Which usually landed on her head.
Emily put her hand on Mac’s shoulder and leaned into her ear. “You should be staying here,” she shouted over the din, “not me.”
“Not if I want ribs,” Mac tossed back. She stopped her futile fight against the human current before Emily could argue, letting herself be drawn with the surge to the line of smoking barbeques on the upper terrace.
It turned out to be the right choice. Mac spotted Kammie’s immaculate white lab coat at the top of the first sweep of stairs and struggled, beer in hand, through well wishers to reach her.
When she did, Kammie nodded before Mac could open her mouth to speak, her face somber. “I’ve heard. Come with me.”
“Just a minute.” Mac looked around for Emily and Mudge. They were coming up the steps, making slower time than she had—in part because Emily was being accosted from every side. The attention made her sparkle, like a vidstar greeting fans.
“Mac!” Case Wilson had acquired more freckles over the summer, but otherwise the deep fisher looked exactly as he had when she’d left: lanky, muscular, and too young for his years. His wide grin faded as he approached. “What’s up?”
Male, breathing, and new. Perfect, Mac decided. She grabbed his arm with her free hand and he flinched. “Sorry,” she said quickly, relaxing her grip. The prosthesis could be overly firm. “Case, I need a favor. See that woman down there?”
“Dr. Mamani.” His pale eyes flicked back to her. “Your friend who went missing. I wanted to say how happy I am she’s okay—”
“She’s not,” Mac interrupted, lowering her voice. “Look after her for me, would you? Just for a little while. Get her a drink, something to eat, breathing space. I have to talk to Kammie. With Oversight,” she added, catching Mudge’s attention and beckoning him to follow. He detached from Emily’s cluster with obvious relief.
“Who’s looking after
you?”
Mac, her mind already on Ro, ocean floors, and how to snag a savory rib or two on the way to Kammie’s office, blinked at Case. “Pardon?”
“You heard me.” He was frowning. Not, she decided, in anger, but with his own brand of thoughtful obstinacy. Case would latch on to what he viewed as a problem like a barnacle to stone.
And be about as difficult to dislodge.
Mac frowned back. “I don’t need looking after. Emily does.”
“Mac—”
“You heard me,” she stressed as Mudge came panting to her side. He paused, giving Case an assessing look. “As I said,” Mac continued smoothly, “don’t eat all the ribs before we get back. Ah, Oversight. This way. Kammie’s waiting for us.”
Mac licked her fingers and looked around for a place to drop the small bone. Without a word, Kammie held out an empty petri dish and took her offering.
“The Ministry’s expecting your full cooperation.” From her tone, ’Sephe wasn’t.
Mac hadn’t been surprised to find the agent sitting in Kammie’s office, although Kammie herself had had something to say about her new statistician invading her privacy—that is, until ’Sephe had pointed out they both represented interests beyond Base, so perhaps they could move on to the topic at hand.
Not a surprise either.
“Let me get this straight,” Mac said quietly. She put her sticky fingertips together and studied ’Sephe. “You don’t want Base evacuated. You want everything to continue as before.” Music thumped through the pod walls and floors. The festivities outside were in full swing. A tiny light was flashing on Kammie’s desk—incoming message. More than one. She ignored the display, intent on Mac.
The agent’s generous lips thinned with distaste. “This isn’t coming from me, Mac. You know that.”
“Nor me,” Kammie snapped. “The IU committee is not in favor of involving untrained civilians. Most of our people are students, Dr. Stewart. We must send them to safety!”
“Where?” Mac asked, receiving startled looks from both. “If the Dhryn come again,” she elaborated in a cold voice, “if the Ro come again . . . where do you think they’ll be safe?”
The music outside had stopped. When would they notice? she wondered.
Mudge stirred in his seat. ’Sephe leaned forward in hers, dark eyes now inscrutable. “Go on.”
“The Ministry wants to keep Base operating as is,” Mac elaborated. “Meaning everyone here remains ignorant while you bring in your experts to search for whatever the Ro dropped in the ocean. Base as camouflage. Everything outwardly normal.”
“That’s the gist of it. Sorry, Mac. I know you’re—”
Mac raised her hand to stop her. “We’ll cooperate—” and over Kammie’s shocked “Mac!” she continued, “—but Base will conduct the search.”
“Impossible.” ’Sephe shook her head. “We must maintain secrecy—”
Mac’s lips twisted. “Secrecy wastes time we don’t have. No one knows these waters as well. Searching this ocean is what these people do for a living. Emily can retune her Tracer. You—” a nod to Kammie “—have sufficient genetic coding to differentiate a Ro walker from anything local.” The little silver vial on the shelf seemed to wink at her. “It’s a running start. Better than anything you have, ’Sephe.”
Kammie’s eyes were glowing. “We’d have to drop everything else,” she warned. “Lose the field season.”
Where on that scale . . . “There’ll be another,” Mac promised, aware she couldn’t.
“I’ll pass this along, Mac,” ’Sephe said unhappily. “But you know Hollans. I can’t see him approving.”
“I wasn’t asking.” Mac rose to her feet, Mudge doing the same, his eyes fixed on her. She pulled out her imp and tapped it lightly against the side of her forehead. “On the way back I dumped all relevant information into Norcoast’s main system, including a Base-wide message cued to announce itself in every way possible.” She indicated the mass of flashing lights on Kammie’s desk. “I’d say everyone’s got it by now.”
“I don’t believe it,” ’Sephe said flatly. “You’re bluffing.”
Kammie’s mouth worked, her eyes swimming with tears. She made a helpless gesture, and Mac smiled. “Go outside and see for yourself,” she told ’Sephe. “Me, I’m leaving the planet.”
’Sephe pulled out her own imp and rushed out the door to the hallway. Mac watched her go, then glanced at the ceiling, transparent to the sky and clouds, doubtless filled with embedded eyes and ears. “Thank you,” she said in Instella, putting her fingertips and thumbs together in a circle.
Anchen hadn’t just sent her here to see her family.
She’d sent her to reconnect herself, and the whole truth, to her home.
The terraces, steps, and walkways were crowded with students and staff. Most sat with their backs to walls. All stared into flickering ’screens, fingers manipulating no-longer-secret data as they talked in urgent hushed tones to one another. The barbeques with their loads of ribs had been turned off, the meat abandoned on the grills.
If it hadn’t been for the lurid party shirts, and the beers in hand, Mac might have thought them cramming for finals.
She stood on the uppermost terrace, seeing the first impact of what she’d wrought, and trembled. To hide it, she gripped the rail and stared seaward. Two levs were coming into dock. Black ones. Did they try to be conspicuous?
“Your people are scientists,” Mudge observed. “They’ll manage.” He leaned on the rail and gave a sad little harrumph . “Shame about the ribs, though.”
Mac gave him a sharp look. “This isn’t funny, Oversight.”
“I know.” He hesitated, then, in his firm, no-nonsense voice, “You did the right thing, Norcoast. Protocols be damned. In this instance.”
She was touched. “You did pretty well yourself, Oversight. Oh, oh.” Mac tensed as she saw who was debarking from the first Ministry lev. No mistaking Martin Svehla, although she’d never seen him this disheveled before a party, shirt half torn from one shoulder, hair mussed, missing a shoe. He saw her and began stalking toward Pod Three, shaking off the hands of his students with a rough gesture. “This can’t be good,” she murmured.
“He won’t blame you.”
“Trust me, Oversight,” sighed Mac. “He will. It’s a gift.”
Svehla wasn’t the only one noticing her presence. Others were starting to stand and migrate in her direction. “Time to go,” she decided.
“What? No rousing speech?”
Emily.
Mac froze.
“Or good-bye? Aie. Coward.”
The last word had bite to it. Mac turned with a sigh. Emily stood there, dark eyes smoldering with outrage. Case was with her, behind and to one side. He looked, Mac judged, equally upset. Just less dramatic about it.
“ ‘Time to go’ was a figure of speech. I’m hardly running off, Em,” she observed. “Our ride’s not here yet.” She checked on Svehla’s progress. Luckily, he’d stopped to talk to Lee Fyock, who was now staring up at them, too.
Emily waved her pearls at him.
“Lara—from biochem?” Mac said testily. “Stop that.”
“You’re the one who’s stopped everything. This was our party, Mac. There was to be—” Emily gave her hips a frustrated twitch, sending the transparent portion of her dress swirling across territory that made Mudge blush. “Dancing!”
“Dancing?” echoed Case in disbelief. “You’re worried about dancing at a time like this? Are you nuts?”
“Si, Senõr! Ask our Mac.”
Given the unlikelihood of explaining to the innocent Case that dancing, preferably sweaty hours of it, was a perfectly normal stress response for Emily Mamani under the circumstances, and equally unable to clarify, in under a thousand words, the state of her friend’s sanity to herself or anyone else, Mac settled for a noncommittal grunt.
Charles Mudge III, however, had a definite opinion. Not that she was surprised. “You will apologize to
Dr. Mamani this minute, young man,” he ordered, in his most officious tone. “She’s had a very trying day. Very trying.”
“Why thanks, Charlie,” Emily cooed, trailing her fingers up his sleeve and slipping one gloved arm around Mudge’s neck. “We’ve always been close,” she confided to Case. Mudge squirmed free with an incoherent squawk of protest. Emily laughed.
Mac shook her head at the three of them, simultaneously warning off a small group of approaching students. “Have you gone over your gear, Em? We should make sure everything’s arrived.”
She watched for the transformation. The Emily Mac had known could switch from audacious flirt to preoccupied scientist in the blink of an eye. Broke a new heart every Monday, Mac would tell her. Emily would shrug and reach for her work.
There. Emily abandoned Mudge, to his relief, and gave her a considering look. “I planned a quick assessment and initial power relay check after the party, Mac, but under the circumstances, I can get to it now—be done before you leave.”
Mac opened her mouth to agree, then something in Case’s face made her hesitate. She paused to take a good look around.
Everyone in sight was looking back at her, those nearest with expressions of confusion and dismay. Six mismatched barbeques stood nearby, stacked with cooling bones, while beer warmed in tubs of melting ice. The breeze caught the edge of the banner draped over the railing, flipping it up so Mac could make out the colorful curves of its lettering, “Welcome Home.”
She’d really done it. “Bother.”
Ignoring Emily’s questioning eyebrow, Mac pulled out her imp, and activated its screen. She drew her finger through the audio control, took a deep breath, then said: “Hi.”
The word boomed from every corner of Base and Mac made a face of her own. She hated loudspeakers. Even more, her voice over loudspeakers.
“You know how much I love talking like this,” she continued, “so I’ll make it brief.”
She had their attention, no doubt about that.
Regeneration (Czerneda) Page 17