Regeneration (Czerneda) (24 page)

The reality of regrowth without her lifted a load she hadn’t noticed she was carrying until now.
Complete with otters.

While part of her wanted to stay and see more, Mac could feel time flying by. “This shouldn’t take long,” she promised, as much for Mudge’s sake as anyone else’s.

They lengthened their strides to reach the others. Mudge, Mac noticed, had stayed apart. The distancing hadn’t reassured Svehla, who was standing somewhat futilely in front of his pile of unapproved mem-wood. “There you are, Mac,” Emily sang out. “I told Marty he has to stop all this and get to our party.”

The students, dust-coated and sweaty, looked hopeful.

“Hi, Mac.” Svehla screwed up his grizzled face, apparently trying not to smile at the radiant woman in front of him. “Em, you know I’d like to, but there’s only so many hours of daylight this time of year and we’ve a spore census to complete—”

Much as it pained her, Mac made herself say: “There’s always tomorrow, Marty.” His look of astonishment was almost worth it. The students’ wide grins, however, made her worry about setting a trend.

“Meet you back there, Marty. Em? Lead the way.”

She’d guessed correctly. Emily turned with a flourish to take the walkway that now replaced the one she and Mudge had walked that fateful morning in May.

Mudge followed Emily, Mac followed Mudge, finding Sing-li’s presence behind their little group no comfort at all, not when she could see the tension hunching Mudge’s shoulders, not when she knew as well as he what should be here, and wasn’t.

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.

 

 

 

I
T 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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?”