’Peel opened his collapsible chair and sat down with a thump. “Idiot. You said the same thing yesterday.” The Myg pulled out his imp, preparing to add to his list. “Let me see. I’m at two hundred and twenty-four, the smell of Frow breath in the tent. No, Two hundred and twenty-five, the way Frow leftovers always rot. This will be—”
“It’s time!” Se Zali plummeted to the canyon floor, where he tilted upright cautiously, both hands reaching out in agonizingly slow motion for the support of nearby boulders. He kept shouting. “The winds are dying. The creatures will free themselves at any moment. Call the others!” he ordered. “We must set the nets. Get the processing units ready. They won’t stay soft long!”
’Peel glared through his workscreen at the Frow. “Irrelevant. Irrelevant!” Their camp had been made in cooling shadows, but the constant wind-driven grit had made sleeping outdoors impossible. The other five, two more Frow and three blissfully quiet Dainaies, were still in bed. “Wait for the monitoring station to confirm it.”
“If we delay, we could be too late. Any emerging Loufta will go through its ascension and be useless.”
“Number two hundred and twenty-seven,” the Myg crowed. “Making up ridiculous names for alien biology—geology. Whatever it is.”
“The name fits.”
“ ‘Ascension?’ It’s a word about climbing. You climb. Do they climb? No. Idiot!”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Calling you what?”
Neither noticed the wind settling around them, their argument loud in an ominous stillness.
But both felt the rain.
The Loufta sensed the change in the wind as well.
They shuttered their ebony eyes and dug themselves deeper into stone. Perhaps in another thousand years conditions would be right. And they would pull themselves from the veins of the mountains, crawl across the hushed plain, and build the next rank of standing ones from their own hardening flesh in honor of their god.
Another time.
The desperate mouths drank what they could find.
It wasn’t enough.
The Progenitor was starving.
The oomlings had been sacrificed. All that was Dhryn must follow.
Nothing mattered but that the Progenitor survive the Great Journey.
They hurried to fulfill their destiny.
9
DELAY AND DIVERSION
“PERFECT TIMING, AS ALWAYS, MAC.” Sebastian Jones, Earthgov wildlife liaison for this portion of the remote northwest, grabbed their bags and effortlessly tossed them into the back of his battered skim. He grinned at her. “Chinook’ve started up the Klondike. Looks to be a big run.”
“I’d love to say that’s why we’re here,” Mac answered, fastening her jacket against the evening’s bite, “but we’re just passing through.” Though why here, in Dawson City, was a question she’d like answered. The public transit system connecting to the Arctic launch fields stopped in Whitehorse on the way, where there were year-round facilities.
The Ministry lev, for reasons not explained to its passengers, had touched down instead at the business end of the narrow paved strip that had first served Dawson City as an airport. It wasn’t that anyone had intentionally preserved the entire strip, although it was handy for keeping levs, freight, and passengers out of the summer mud. It was more that the unassuming length of flat pavement was useful—a place to learn to ride a bike, land a glider, or race skims. What did get removed, regularly, were the signs prohibiting such activities due to the hazard of incoming lev traffic.
The Yukon was like that, Mac remembered fondly. Regulations subject to reality. And who, or what, could survive on its own was entirely welcome to do so.
What couldn’t? “Thought you had a new skim, Sebastian.”
He looked chagrined. “Locked up on me the first time it got chilly. Took it back to Edmonton for my mom. This one—” he gave the old machine a proud smack that shook something loose underneath, “—keeps going. Shouldn’t have let them give me another.”
Mudge had been talking to their lev pilot, no doubt bonding. After some mutual nodding, he came over to Mac, cautiously avoiding Sebastian’s wheezing vehicle. “He’s leaving. There’s been some delay in our orbit connection,” he said, sounding irritated. “We’re to be picked up by another lev in the morning, rather than continue to the Baffin spaceport.”
“Did he say why?” Mac shook her head to stop his answer. “Of course not.” Not that it mattered whether they faced some bureaucracy or mechanical failure. Delay was delay. Could have lingered at Base. But the moment that thought crossed her mind, she dismissed it. Longer would only have made it more difficult.
What to do next was another question, Mac thought, looking around. They were standing in the overlapped pools of light that illuminated the landing area, the small building that, during office hours only, housed the ticket office and washrooms, and Sebastian’s battered skim. The moisture from their breath fogged in front of their faces. Not quite below freezing, Mac judged. She didn’t mind the temperature; it kept her awake. Mudge covered a yawn and she sympathized. Being in the dark might suit their body clocks, still on New Zealand time, but Mudge hadn’t slept on the way to Castle Inlet and she had only slept a little. They were both down one night’s sleep already.
“Where are you taking us, Sebastian?” she asked, stifling a yawn of her own. “Dawson?”
“Unless you prefer to stay here for the night.” He made it sound a perfectly viable option, which to him it was, and Sam’s eyes widened into saucers.
“Not this time, thanks,” Mac said before the poor student thought she’d make them camp out on the tarmac. “We’ve a long trip ahead and I, for one,” she yawned again, “could use a rest. In town would be great.”
“But not in that, Norcoast, surely,” Mudge protested, pointing to Sebastian’s skim. “It’s worse than yours.”
The skim’s engine had settled into an anxious mutter. The skim itself, however, was vibrating up and down—which, since it was floating atop a repeller field and the pavement beneath their feet wasn’t moving, was, Mac admitted, somewhat alarming. “Few too many summers over gravel beds,” Sebastian drawled. “Hop in. She’ll smooth out.”
“Don’t worry, Oversight,” Mac told him, climbing in first. “There are seat belts . . . oh, wait. Not anymore. Best hold on.”
Sebastian kept the roof open during the ride and didn’t use lights, relying on the feel of skim to keep them centered over the old road, made of coarse gravel dredged up during the heyday of mining. Such a road around Castle Inlet would have disappeared in a season without use. Here, regrowth took centuries and the stone remained exposed.
The vibrations, though teeth-chattering at first, vanished once the skim picked up speed. She knew the road followed the curved bank of the Klondike River, but the landscape was hidden in darkness. Mac leaned her seat back and watched the sky, picking out old friends. She’d missed the northern constellations.
She’d neglected to look at Myriam’s stars, having been a bit preoccupied on the ground. She’d have time now.
She heard Dawson City before they got there, and smiled. The ghosts of the past were feverishly reliving their era before summer’s end. Player pianos and other antique instruments hammered out tunes from the first, great gold rush; tourists and those who entertained them filled the dirt streets and danced along the wooden boardwalks, swelling the local population a thousandfold. Under a sun that spent most of summer in the sky, and surrounded by a sweeping landscape dominated by ice, water, and rock, it was a party setting like no other.
With one drawback.
“Are you sure there’s room for us?” Mac asked doubtfully.
Sebastian gave his quiet laugh. “Not lying down. You’ll stay at my place. I’ve turned out the dogs for the night.”
“Thank you.” Mac followed this with a gentle kick to Mudge’s shin, having heard him take a deep breath as though planning to comment. Their host w
as a private person, despite his easy charm, more comfortable alone in the wilderness than with anyone else. Mac counted herself fortunate that Sebastian had taken her under his wing since she’d first come to sample Yukon salmon metapopulations a decade ago.
Then again, she thought, we’re both capable of going for days without a word. Not like some.
At that, she poked her toe into Mudge’s other shin for insurance.
Sebastian’s home overlooked the Yukon River, downstream from its junction with the Klondike and Bonanza Creek at Dawson itself. Mac, having seen his place in daylight, knew it for a simple, sturdy wood building with a wraparound screened porch, nestled within a copse of twisted conifers. Smaller than her family’s cabin, with only two rooms, but more like a home, with every centimeter crowded with personality. She remembered the rafters of the living room/kitchen had been laden with pale wood, waiting to be carved into paddles during the winter night. Two walls had been lined with shelves of physical books, like those she’d read for practice, while the third had boasted a mammoth wood stove, old enough for a museum. But it worked, so it was used. A small counter, with sink and cupboards; a big table, with one chair. For her previous visit, Sebastian had provided a folding stool.
Arriving now, in the dark, all that could be made out was a flickering glow in one window.
And barking. There had to be over two dozen huge huskies in the pack contributing to that enthusiastic part-welcome, part-warning.
“Back into trekking?” Mac shouted over the din. “Didn’t think you had the time.”
“My housemate’s team.”
Housemate? Mac shook her head in disbelief. Leave the planet and look what happens. “Anyone I know?”
“Not a salmon person.” As if this settled it.
A little stung, she defended herself. “I do know people outside my field, Sebastian.”
“Gloria McNeal? Polar bear endocrinology?”
“Maybe not that far outside my field,” Mac conceded.
Sebastian kicked on the skim lights while they grabbed their bags, the wash of illumination passing over gray stone, swathes of sand, and low tufts of spent alpine flowers. The huskies, silenced as if by a signal, blinked their glowing eyes and yawned to show white gleaming teeth, before jumping back on the roofs of their doghouses. Sebastian had set wider, flat stones in a path leading into the house and they followed these to the porch. Sam’s head twisted to look at the dogs. “Think we’ll have time to see them run?” he asked her as they climbed the steps.
“Need I remind you, Dr. Schrant, that we’re already behind schedule?” Mudge answered testily. “And what’s wrong with your power?” This as Sebastian opened the door and the light within was revealed as coming from the stove’s banked fire.
Their host lit the lantern on the table before answering. “We don’t get broadcast here. Part of the charm.”
“Charm?” Sam said faintly, hugging his backpack as if the devices inside were endangered.
Mac grinned. The lantern’s rich warm light filled the room, revealing quite a bit of charm as far as she was concerned. Sebastian’s housemate had added her touch in the presence of thick braided rugs on the floor, an artful mosaic of pelt samples hanging on the wall by the door, and a second chair at the table.
“Gloria’s still in Tuktoyaktuk. You two can sleep there.” Sebastian indicated the door to the bedroom. “Mac. Couch. I’ll take the porch.” He paused. “Anyone hungry? No? Then g’night.” With that, he grabbed a blanket from a chest and went out.
Mudge looked at the couch, a sagging tapestried giant almost as old as the stove, then at Mac. She smiled at his expression. “It’s more comfy than it looks,” she promised, tossing her bag on one end. “Good night, you two.”
Sam eyed the dark doorway and didn’t move. “I didn’t bring a light,” he said, still clutching his bag.
Mudge harrumphed, pulling one from a pocket. “Come with me.”
“Is there—?” Sam looked from one to the other. “Will we have to—”
Mac managed to keep a straight face. The meteorologist wasn’t a camper—his data came from remotes and his idea of rough living likely included having to leave his desk to get a drink. Probably imagined leaves and grizzly bears. “There’s a bathroom off the bedroom,” she said, “with plumbing. And a very nice sauna. Sebastian lives independently. He doesn’t do without.” She didn’t bother mentioning the solar panels he’d installed for his imp and skim battery.
A little northern mystique never hurt.
After the others disappeared into the bedroom, Mac turned the lantern down and sat in the new chair. She listened, chin on her hands, to the hushed but clear argument over who would have which side, the brief debate over the best way to light a lantern, and finally the exhausted muttering about trying to sleep and people who needed lights on and there was a schedule. The light under the door went off shortly after the voices stopped.
She smiled and blew out her light.
Outside, the view was forever. Mac sat on the bottom step, out from the porch roof so the stars made a dome overhead, and pulled the thick blanket around her shoulders.
Quietly, from the dark behind her. “Company?”
“Up to you,” she replied.
Sebastian came and sat one step above her, easing his long frame back to rest on his elbows. His legs stretched past Mac, ending in white socks.
Without effort, she added him to her overwhelming awareness of the world around her, as intensely real as the long bare hills rolling like waves to the southeast, the black ribbon of water below in the canyon it carved, the crisp cedar-scented air she drew into her nostrils. A dog twitched in its sleep, its feet scratching furiously along the roof of its house. Closer, a scurry as something small dodged their feet to head under the step.
As if to remind her not all things were small or close or needing a roof, a howl sliced the night. The huskies gave low woofs of interest, then their heads thudded back down.
“Polar bears,” Mac said finally. “How’s that work?”
The man beside her gave a low chuckle. “Until pack ice, she helps with the grizzly census. Populations overlap near here.”
“Handy.” Mac pulled her knees up so she could wrap them in the blanket too, trying not to be envious. Here he was, in an area as remote and isolated as humanly possible in the modern world, and he’d found a fellow biologist to share his life.
While she had—what—an offworld spy who usually wore a suit.
As for sharing anything, that remained part of a future Mac wasn’t interested in contemplating. Not now.
Not during her last hours on Earth.
“What’s it like?” Sebastian asked unexpectedly. “Out there.”
She considered the question. “Like here,” she answered after a moment. “You watch your step. And everywhere else becomes—smaller.”
He fell silent, as if she’d said enough.
Mac counted shooting stars for a while, then watched a pair of tiny lights trace out the river below. Probably the ferry making its night run. She followed the lights until they disappeared around the next sharp bend.
She looked up in time to see a luminescent sheet of green unfurl across the sky. With a gasp, Mac threw off the blanket and started to rise to her feet. She sank down again as pink joined the display, then purples. “Mouse,” she lied, her teeth chattering with more than the chill. Ashamed, she fumbled to rewrap herself.
But it was the same color. The same . . .
“Admit it, Mac. You’re cold.” He sounded amused. “That’ll teach you to live in the tropics and lose your conditioning.”
Before she could protest she’d done nothing of the sort, Sebastian slipped down to the step she was on and gathered her up, blanket and all, so she could lean back against his shoulder and still see the stars.
Mac let herself relax into his so-Human warmth.
A shame it couldn’t take away the fear.
“Dr. Connor.”
The strange whisper woke her, but she froze, eyes shut, wondering why her name was the only sound she heard. Why weren’t the dogs barking?
“Dr. Connor. We don’t have much time.” The voice became distant, as if speaking to someone else. “Why isn’t she waking up? Is there something wrong with—”
She recognized that impatient snap, even muffled. Hollans?
Mac opened her eyes, finding herself nose to nose with a hulking silhouette.
“Good,” she heard Hollans say. “Would you come with me, Dr. Connor?” The silhouette moved back.
As she sat up, the arm that had been around her fell away.
“Sebas—?” Mac lost the word, her mouth too dry. What had Hollans done? She moved her tongue around, found some moisture. “Sebastian!”
She reached out and found him. He was lying beside her on the steps, body flaccid, head back. Mac gave him a gentle prod but he didn’t stir, snoring quietly. She glared at the silhouette and didn’t bother to whisper. “What did you do to him?”
“Your friend will be fine.” A hand appeared in her way, and Mac resisted the urge to slap it aside as she climbed to her feet on her own.
She felt normal. A little cramped and with a sore hip, but nothing that couldn’t be explained by falling asleep on a cold rustic staircase. Except she hadn’t fallen asleep.
No sign of dawn yet. A faint red glow illuminated the ground between their feet. An invitation. “This way, please, Dr. Connor.”
“I’m certainly not leaving him like this.”
“Someone will watch. Please, Dr. Connor.”
Hard to argue with someone insistently polite. Giving in, Mac tarried to roll up her blanket and wedge it under Sebastian’s head and shoulders, taking in as much of her dark surroundings as she could. No sign of Mudge or Schrant. Hollans must have come for her.
Wonderful.
Using the light to find the stony path, then to avoid larger stones once they’d left it, Hollans led Mac past too-quiet doghouses to the looming bulk of a waiting lev. Its door opened, the interior dimmed so she didn’t have to squint to see there was no one waiting inside.
Regeneration (Czerneda) Page 20