I warned Matthias, but he refused to see that people were unhappy. Matthias might have been able to convince everyone to come here, but he can no longer make them want to stay. The anger inside me burns brighter and brighter, and I’m not sure who I’m angrier with: Matthias or Alex Perkins.
At least Matthias isn’t gloating over his mistakes. Perkins boasted about what he had done. Bragged right to our faces.
Matthias and some others are taking Alex to the spaceport tomorrow — to leave him there for good, shunned from the community. I don’t know yet if Mei Lin will go with him. Matthias is taking the last of our money to buy supplies. It’s an eighty kilometer hike through territory nobody knows and every last inch of it forest and mountains. If he makes it back alive, it will be by the blessing of God.
We could use one of those.
STANDISH TURNED RELUCTANTLY AWAY from the lake and headed toward the path to the office. She’d spent the drive back from Space City turning over the events of the last few weeks, coupling and uncoupling ideas without getting the engine of her thoughts under control. She had seen a man killed by wild dogs. She had found the dead body of the man who had hired her, the man who should have been her boss. She couldn’t believe people in town were still more worried about the sabotage at the Nagata mill than either of these deaths.
She paused beside a shoulder-high fern frond. The mill was the heart of the town. Without the mill, there would be no Canaan Lake, no matter how many Believer farms there were. The town was as much a monument to Songheuser Corporation as its art deco skytower in Space City.
The rain sifted between the fronds of the small trees to mist her face. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep draft of the soft, moist air. Even here, just meters away from her office, the air smelled wild and free. To her left, Hattie’s collar jingled. The dog was probably sniffing the base of the ferns and reveling in the smells.
Standish opened her eyes. It wasn’t just the fresh air and the comforting gray sky. It wasn’t just the beauty of the lichens and the horsetails. She felt more alive on Huginn. There was space enough for her and Hattie to do what they wanted, when they wanted. There was soil and sky instead of sidewalk and manmade structures. Standish hadn’t been anyplace as real as Huginn since her family stopped taking camping trips, and she’d nearly forgotten how much she craved that authenticity.
“I don’t want to get deported,” she said aloud.
She set her shoulders. That was what mattered: staying on Huginn. She would take Dewey’s warning and stay away from the mystery of Duncan’s death. She would ignore the hidden road in Sector 13. She would get to work and do as she was told, because there was no way she was going back to Earth.
She broke into a jog and ran the rest of the way to the office. She was eager enough to get to work she nearly forgot to get her morning cup of coffee. She ran up the stairs at twice her usual speed, pulled out a mug, and filled it as quickly as she could.
“Hi, Kate. We missed you at the memorial service.”
“Oh, Julia. Hi. I had a doctor’s appointment in Space City. I’m sorry.”
“Of course, you didn’t really know Rob,” Julia said in a mournful tone. Then her face brightened. “Did you hear the news? An operations honcho is coming down from HQ. I guess the company wants to make sure our mill is better prepared in case those ecoterrorists decide to target us.”
“I thought I heard something. Do you know when he’s getting here?”
Julia squeezed past her to plug in the tea kettle. “Oh, it’s a woman. And she’s not expected until Thursday or Friday. I bet Brett’s going to be super busy this week.” She raised an eyebrow.
Standish ignored the obvious dig for information about her sex life. “Is it just the one VIP, or are there others coming, too? I heard that last time the company sent bigshots, it was a whole team of biologists who spent their free time living it up with Duncan and Peter at the Night Light.”
Julia scoffed. “Not Peter. He got eighty-six’d from the Night Light two years ago. He, like, punched the owner in the face when he realized they were trying to run some kind of ground scooter fighting ring.”
Standish put down her coffee. “Eighty-six’d?”
“Yep. That guy is kind of crazy.” Julia tore open a packet of tea. “I can’t believe Niketa ever went out with him.”
“Well, love is blind, right?” Standish picked up her mug again. “I guess I should head down to my office.”
“Oh, yeah. Work.” Julia paused. “You know, now that I think about it, I remember those guys. Only one of them was a biologist. He was a real nobody, not even from Space City. A specialist in horsetail cultivation — kind of cute, if you like them nerdy. The rest were operations types. And it wasn’t Peter hanging out with them and Duncan. It was Rob McKidder. I remember, because I swear all those guys were like Rob clones.” She sighed. “Rob was so much fun.”
“Sounds like you’ll really miss him,” Standish said.
Julia blinked hard. “Oh gosh, I need a hug.”
She threw her arms around Standish, sloshing the coffee in her mug. Standish tried not to grimace. The woman’s shoulders shook.
“There, there,” Standish murmured. She couldn’t help replaying Julia’s gossip in her mind.
So there was a connection between the two dead men: the project Duncan had been worried about before he died. Matthias had thought Peter was a part of it, but Songheuser had clearly left him out of the loop.
Peter. She had to tell him about this.
But if she told Peter, she’d be drawn back into the mystery despite Dewey’s warning.
She patted Julia on the shoulder, immobilized by her own indecision as much as the accountant’s tight embrace.
PETER WAS JUST SLIPPING into his field jacket when his hand unit buzzed on his desk. He thought about it ignoring it, but kicked his desk chair out of the way to reach the stupid thing. It was Mark Allen.
“Hey, Mark.”
“Peter! Nice to hear you, buddy. Life treating you well?” Mark leaned in, smiling broadly. There were pouches under his eyes and patches of grayish dry skin around the corners of his mouth. Even his shirt looked wrong, the collar unstarched.
The heartiness seemed excessive even for Mark. “Fine,” Peter answered cautiously. “What can I do for you? I was just about to head into the field.”
“Glad I caught you, then. That’s why I’m calling. The company has a new project they’d like you to add to your work in Sector 14, and I’d like you to get started right away.”
Peter reached for the chair behind him and slid into it. He reached for his stylus. “OK.”
“I’m going to need you to do some small-scale field tests with a new compound I’m sending over on Friday with Victoria Wallace. You know, the operations veep. The compound’s designed to be used on horsetails — a pre-treatment to prepare them for cutting.”
Peter made an educated guess. “A degassing agent.”
“Yep. The Holy Grail of Huginn lumber production: something to improve safety in the woods and hopefully even eliminate the degassing process in the mills. After what happened in Jawbone Flats, I think we’re all looking for some better solutions.”
“So if the compound’s not coming until Friday, what do you want me to start on?”
“I want you to set up the field study sites. I’ll send over the specs in a minute, but basically, I need at least a dozen — twenty would be best — discretely sized test plots containing a variety of flora. Everything we’ve seen in the lab says this stuff is safe enough to bathe in, but I’m not going to hose down the forest in anything that kills rock-eaters and tree scooters. I want this done right.” Mark paused. “I trust you to run this right, Peter. Some of our people want to rush this through. The mill safety issue alone has the execs champing at the bit.”
Peter had a feeling Mark wasn’t telling him the whole story — the man looked like squeezed shit. But he knew better than to pry. “You know me, Mark. The science always c
omes first.”
“That’s why I picked you.” Mark’s phony smile dissipated. “Keep me posted, right? On everything.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Everything,” he added.
“Gotcha.”
The call disconnected. Peter sat back in his chair. He had a bad feeling about all of it: the compound, the pressure the company was heaping on Mark, his own role in the whole situation. If the company was going to roll over on anybody, it would be Peter. He was a low man on the totem pole, a field biologist with a reputation for environmentalism. This could all go south in an instant.
Someone knocked on his office door. Peter jumped. For a second, he didn’t answer, but the pounding sounded again.
“It’s not locked,” he called out.
The door swung open. For a second no one entered, and then a very slight girl stepped inside. She closed the door behind her. Peter had never met Olive Whitley, but he had heard enough from Standish and other folks in town to recognize her.
“What brings you to my office, Miss Whitley?”
She looked around the room a moment. Her eyes lit on the terrariums and she hurried toward them. “I like your collection.”
“Thanks.”
“I kept a terrarium in my room, but my mom made me get rid of it. Everything got moldy so fast, she said it wasn’t good for my lungs.”
“They’re a lot of work,” he agreed.
She stooped to see inside the tank with the chrysalis. “You’re interested in butterflies, too.”
“Is that why you’re here? To talk about butterflies?”
“Yes.” She turned to face him. Her eyes moved over his face, examining it with the same care and intensity Peter might have brought to a study of a new type of fern. “Chameli gave you the blue ones I found.”
“I still have them.” He tapped the plastic box on his desk. “They’re a great deal like the blues the Believers brought to Huginn, but there are some interesting adaptations. The coloring is the most obvious difference, of course.”
“The gold sparkles.”
“Yes.” He paused. “Do you have any idea what kind of caterpillar they come from?”
She shook her head. “I don’t see many caterpillars. They’re usually just on the Believer farms. Even for insects, a hundred years is barely enough time to start adapting to this alien an environment.”
He laughed. “You sound like a fellow biologist.”
“I’ve been studying.” Olive moved to his side, still looking at him carefully. She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “I wasn’t sure about you.”
“Why not?”
“I had to see for myself, even though Chameli said you were the best person to look into the butterflies.” She smiled. “You’re a lot like me, I think.”
Peter scooted down in his seat so he could meet her eyes. They were darker than his, even, and difficult to read. “What do you mean?”
“I bring Chameli samples of anything I find in the woods that she’d think was beautiful. But you? I could bring you anything, and you’d want it.”
He sat back in his chair. He’d been given a compliment, he knew, and probably the best one she could give. “Then we are alike.” A thought struck him. “Olive, have you ever seen a caterpillar living in a tree scooter nest?”
Her eyes widened. “You have?”
He nodded his head toward the tank with the chrysalis. “That one did. I don’t know why the scooters brought it into their nest, but I think it means something. If I could find more, it might be important.”
“It might mean the world is changing,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. “That the differences we brought from Earth are fading away. I think… Huginn is in us, Mr Bajowski. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s changing us in ways we never could have imagined.” She hurried toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
She turned to look at him. “I’m going to find you more of those caterpillars. Don’t worry, Mr Bajowski. I won’t let you down.”
Goose flesh prickled on Peter’s arms. Her words were very nearly what Mark had asked of Peter. He raised a hand to wave at her, but she was already gone.
MUNINN’S pallid light slid across the surface of the lake, casting the crests of the waves white and the troughs a secretive black. A light rain clung to Standish’s exposed skin, and she worked her hands deeper into her pockets, glancing from the lake to the dog. Hattie sniffed at a stick that had washed up on the beach.
The waves lapped softly on the stony shore, but Standish could hear the music of one of the bars just as clearly. It was payday.
She picked up the stick and tossed it for Hattie. The dog gave a puppyish leap and raced after it. There was no one else to see such undignified behavior. The rain kept most people away from the beach, and there was rarely anyone out fishing or boating or just enjoying the waters. Human instinct had brought the settlers to build their little town beside the lake, but the coldness of the waters kept most people turned landward. Standish wondered if she could buy a kayak in Space City. It would be nice to paddle toward the far side of the lake and see things from a new perspective.
A few people actually lived over there. One of the engineers at the mill was working on his dream home, hauling loads of lumber and supplies on a barge he’d built himself. On the weekends, his friends went back and forth with gear and crates of liquor. He’d been working on the house for three years. Given the amount of liquor crossing the lake, it would probably take him at least another three to finish.
Standish threw the stick for Hattie again, this time away from the lake. Muninn was setting. She’d better get to bed soon, or she’d be worthless at work tomorrow. Outside the house, Hattie made sad eyes at her, so Standish let her carry the stick inside. Hattie settled down in front of the sofa to gnaw it as Standish pulled off her boots and slipped into her pajamas.
For a moment, Standish lay in bed, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, certain she would never sleep. She couldn’t help thinking about the connection between Rob McKidder and Duncan Chambers. It meant something, and she knew it, even if she didn’t want to. She began a tedious breath-counting exercise to distract herself from the situation. Eventually her eyes crept shut.
A whine pulled her out of sleep. The dream hung heavily on her, the same dream she’d had before, the dream of running through a landscape composed of scents and perfumes, the wind ruffling the sensitive hairs on her shaggy white limbs.
She sat up in a rush, pawing at the blanket with hands that felt misshapen and hairy. Who was she? Where was she? Parts of her had gone missing, leaving her body half-unmade. She gasped for air, anxiety rushing to fill in the empty spaces.
Hattie’s whimper jolted her into normalcy.
“Hattie? What’s wrong?” The room was dark, the light of Muninn entirely gone.
Hattie’s nails screeched on the plastic of the front door.
Standish got out of bed. “Hattie?”
The dog whined again. Standish turned on the lamp beside the couch. Hattie did not turn away from the door; if anything, she clawed at it harder and faster. Her whine crept up in pitch.
Standish’s mouth had gone dry. “What’s out there?” she whispered. She took a few unwilling steps to the dog’s side. She pressed her ear to the door.
She heard nothing, just the clack and scrape of the dog’s nails. Standish straddled the dog and gripped her paws with her left hand. Hattie squirmed, but Standish held her tight. Standish listened.
A tiny sound came from the other side of the door, the sound of air snuffed up into wet nostrils. Standish pushed the blinds aside a few centimeters and pressed her cheek to the door, squinting into the darkness. The plastic felt horribly flimsy.
The faint light of the street lamp on the corner barely made it to this end of the block. She could just make out the neighbor’s UTV, a sleeping elephant in front of their house. A shadow moved beside it and then disappeared into the darkness beyond.
Something thumped aga
inst the door.
Standish took a step backward. Hattie whimpered and yanked her paws free of Standish’s grip. She jumped up on her hind legs and began to bark, her voice huge in the small space.
“Hattie! Hush!”
As if in response, a deeper bark came from the other side of the door. Hattie threw back her head and howled.
Standish covered her ears and backed away from the dog, nearly falling over the back of the couch when she hit it. She slid to the floor, keeping her ears covered and her eyes fixed on the door. Had it shook in its hinges when that thing out there hit it? Would it hold? She realized how weak and exposed she was and jumped to her feet.
A voice raised in a howl outside, and then another and another. The sound clawed upward in pitch as if it could rip its way into heaven.
And then it stopped.
Standish stood frozen. Nothing. No sounds. No thumping against the door. She wished like hell she had one of those air bolt guns. She waited. And waited.
Then Hattie turned away from the door and pushed her head into Standish’s hand.
“Good girl, Hattie. Good girl.” She could feel the dog tremble.
During the early twenty-first century, agricultural production was threatened by the near-disappearance of bees, one of the most important terrestrial pollinator species. Habitat destruction, neonicotinoid insecticides, and the mismanagement of commercial hives were all blamed. But all of these were symptoms of a much larger disease: agriculture and landscape management based on industrial strategies.
Living things cannot be treated like cogs in a machine.
— “We Are All Green,” GreenOne pamphlet, anonymous
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HUGINN, Day 186
The house is so very, very empty. Matthias and the others haven’t come back yet, and those of us waiting drift like boats without anchors. We gather together for meals and huddle close around the tables. The soup I make now is as thin and salty as my tears.
An Oath of Dogs Page 17