Migration (11 page)

Mac lifted the tissue to her cheek. “What’s the rush, Oversight?” she asked, holding his gaze with hers. His face was flushed with effort.
No surprise.
They were both too warm in their rainsuits and had their hoods down, even with the light drizzle falling. Drops collected in the creases beside his eyes and erased what hair he had.

“Was I rushing?” All innocence.

Mac waited.

“Oh,” Mudge gave an embarrassed-sounding harrumph. “I—Sorry about that, Norcoast. It’s all a bit—much, you know. Being here.” He looked up and around, eyes wide, then back to her, his expression somehow desperate. “I must make as complete an inspection in the time we have—” he raised the hand holding the recorder, “—but there’s no way to see it all. No time.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mac commented.

“Beautiful?” Mudge blinked raindrops from his eyes. “Of course it is.” She merely gazed at him, letting silence speak. Finally, he heaved a sigh and lowered the recorder. “Of course, it is,” he repeated, more slowly and with emphasis. “Thank you, Norcoast.” He looked past her again. “It’s worth everything we do, isn’t it,” he said softly.

Mac nodded, drinking in the sights, sounds, and smells for herself.

Spring. Regrowth, renewal, reproduction. They stood encompassed by living things answering those imperatives, urgently, impatiently. Birdsong, from hoarse to heartbreakingly rich, filled the air. Pollen powdered highlights of yellow on the bark of trees. Green shoots burst through the dark soil below like fireworks exploding in a night sky, their color so vivid, so intense, it seemed to leave a taste. Anywhere sheltered from the tiny raindrops, the air was filled with motes, some in flight, some adrift, all intent.

Mac drew a deep breath through her nose, savoring the rush of molds and damp wood, of distant flowers and brand-new leaves.
Regeneration
. She could feel it, just being here. She would know it, when she was at the field station, waiting for the first migrating salmon of the season. Her life would regain its purpose, its balance—

“It’s stopped working.”

“What’s stopped working?” she echoed.

“This thing.” Mudge banged his recorder against the palm of his other hand. “It’s gone dead on me.”

Mac couldn’t pull air into her lungs. Her eyes searched the surrounding maze of crisscrossing branches and shadow. Not that those she feared would trouble to hide.
The Ro.
Masters of stealth, when they wished.

And their favorite tactic? To interfere with power supplies, broadcast or stored.

Their strange allies.
Who could be close enough to touch, and neither she nor Mudge would know.

Mac didn’t dare look up. If there were any above them, it was already too late.

Mudge’s annoyed “Well, Norcoast? Where’s your imp?” made her jump.

“My—” Her voice caught.

“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded, but went on without waiting for an answer, hoarse with frustration. “You did bring it? Oh, I know it’s not ideal. This—” a wave of the recorder, “—would be better, much better, more complete and reliable.” He shoved it into a pocket, the rubber protesting. “Piece of junk. I assume your imp has at least basic data recording capabilities, ambient conditions, that sort of thing? I have to collect as much as I can . . . make notes.”

Nodding, Mac took out the small device and laid it on her palm, unable to help stealing glances in every direction. She tapped in her code with a finger, lower lip between her teeth.

The workscreen formed before her face, its display so bland and normal she gasped with relief.

“Good,” Mudge said, either oblivious or assuming Mac’s emotions reflected his own. “Let me use it.”

Without warning, the current display, a checklist of her field supplies, disappeared. In its place, a string of incomprehensible symbols tumbled among the raindrops in the air, flaring yellow, then red.
A message?
Mac jabbed a finger through the ’screen to save it.

As she did, the symbols were replaced by a flicker of light that, so briefly it could have been her imagination, formed a face.

Then the display winked back to its list of equipment, tents, and rations.

Mac closed her fingers over her imp. Rain washed her cheeks, conveniently hiding the tears she couldn’t control. Of joy or terror?
Interesting question,
she told herself. But whatever she was feeling, Mac knew she hadn’t imagined what she’d seen. Or rather who.

Emily
.

“Well? Are you going to let me use it or not, Norcoast?”

“What? Oh. Not. Sorry.” Mac opened her rainsuit and secured the now-precious gadget in the upper zipped pocket of her coveralls. “Old model,” she said smoothly. “Forgot it doesn’t have direct data recording. Try yours again.”

His expression was the familiar “are you nuts?” one she’d grown accustomed to ignoring over the years. Presumably hers was the equally familiar “willing to wait forever” one, because Mudge didn’t bother arguing. Instead, he grabbed out his recorder and activated it one more time, grumbling under his breath all the while. Then his eyes widened. He gave her a shocked look. “It’s working!”

Why
wasn’t
that reassuring?
As Mac suspected the answer involved the Ro, or at least their technology, neither far enough away, she was proud of her calm: “Oh, good. Shall we proceed?”

“I expect you to show me what’s been happening here, Norcoast,” Mudge scowled fiercely. “No tricks.” He started moving without waiting for an answer, the walkway edges flashing green with each impatient step.

So much for sharing the beauty of the place,
Mac sighed to herself. “I don’t know what you think you’ll find, Oversight,” she informed his back as she followed behind. “There’s been no one here since the last field season and you’ve seen those reports.”

The walkway climbed with the mountain, each step etched in light. Mac forced herself to stop looking for Emily at every turn. She’d been given a message, that’s all. ’Sephe and company would help her find out what it meant. At least now, there was hope.

Mac and Mudge soon reached the section where the walkway spiraled both up and around a series of mammoth tree trunks, each wider than a transport lev, rising vertically as if they were columns supporting the unseen sky.
An otherworldly place,
Mac thought, trying to shake free of the aftermath of Emily’s message. There had been a time when being here gave her a sense of permanence, of safety, of life that needed nothing but itself to continue.

Having walked on one of the lifeless worlds of the Chasm, she knew better.
The trees were something else at risk
.
Something else to lose.

The rain collected in the dense canopy of leaves, branches, and moss far above their heads, so drops continued to fall long after cloudbursts ended for the day, an absentminded deluge that skewed time the way the scale of the trees skewed perceptions of self and importance. Mac could see it affecting Mudge. His pace gradually slowed from impatient to reverent, the recorder in his hand lifting until he held it like a torch.

They were still some distance from the Ro landing site, and well away from the trampling done by, well, several individuals including herself last year, which was why Mac didn’t pay attention when Mudge disappeared from view around the next trunk. He was only footsteps ahead. Besides, the bark on that tree trunk was festooned with a string of amorous slugs, so Mac paused to do a quick count, admiring their glistening yellow and brown.
Quite dapper beasts
. Five . . . six . . .

Snap
. It was such an ordinary sound, Mac didn’t bother glancing up. Branches cracked all the time. Eight . . . nine . . . There was a red velvet mite, vivid and soft, climbing up the back of the tenth slug. Mac peered closer, curious as to how it was managing to find traction in the slime.

“What the . . . ?” Abandoning her slugs and muttering under her breath, Mac hurried around the tree trunk, light flashing underfoot with each step. A bell-like metal-to-metal clang wasn’t ordinary.
What was Mudge doing?

She stopped in her tracks.

Mudge was standing in the middle of the next rise of the walkway. His arms were being held by two large figures encased in the Ministry’s black armor from head to toe. Even their faces were hidden behind gleaming visors. A scuff mark on one of those visors, and the sad condition of the recorder lying at Mudge’s feet explained the
clang
.

The rip through the forest ahead explained everything else.

Another new Ro landing site. This time, they’d knocked over giants, flattened centuries’ old growth, scraped soil to expose the mountain’s very bones. Not a large area, as if they’d lost control and crashed, but of a certain size, a certain shape, as if they’d come down and shoved aside whatever was in their way.

Levs, the silent, expensive, probably-always-work type, hovered between the standing trees. More figures, twin to those confining Mudge, moved through the debris on the forest floor. Mac sniffed. There was a faint charred smell to the air.
Gone,
she reasoned.

After Emily sent her message.

Had the Ro ship been waiting for
her
? Had they spied and known she was coming? Or had they been here all along and only now been chased away, the message a last minute attempt—at what?

Mac shook her head free of questions. They only served to make her more anxious, not less. “Let him go,” she told the guards holding Mudge. “I’ll take him to Base.”

“You know about this, Norcoast?” Mudge struggled, futilely, against his captors. “I demand an explanation! Do you see what’s—what’s—” words appeared to fail him as he looked out at the destruction. Then, eyes brimming with tears, he turned to her. “What have you done?”

Mac winced. She wasn’t sure what was worse: the horror on his face, the ravaging of the forest, the return of the Ro . . .

“Tomorrow,” Mac said loudly and clearly, so there could be no possible misunderstanding by anyone or anything in earshot, “I am leaving for Field Station Six. To study my salmon.”

How many times and in how many ways had the Ministry told her they didn’t want her involved any longer?

Fine
. She’d give them Emily’s message. As a bonus, she’d also let them explain a major Anthropogenic Perturbation of a Class Three Wilderness Trust to its Oversight Committee.

“Your Mudge is not a happy man.”

Something she had no authority or ability to change,
Mac thought sadly. She tilted her office chair back so she could rest her bare feet on her desk. Her toes complained about their time in wet socks and she wiggled them slowly. “What will happen to him?”

’Sephe shrugged, her loose-fitting yellow shirt bright enough to use as a signal flare. If she’d been one of the black, visored entities on the ridge, there was no sign of it.
Unless,
Mac told herself dourly,
you counted snug black jeans
. She’d come quickly enough when Mac sent for her.

Which had been after Mac had had the dubious thrill of hiking all the way down the ridge walkways to her lev, finally getting it started during the worsening rain, and somehow keeping it running until it squatted safely on the roof of Pod Three. Where the machine had given every indication of coughing out its last breath.
One day,
Mac vowed,
she’d get a ride home
.

Oh, they’d have taken her in one of their levs had she mentioned the message in her imp,
Mac knew, spinning the device in circles with pokes of her big toe.
But likely not back to Base.
She’d learned a few things about the spy mind-set by now.

“I can’t speak for my superiors, Mac, but Mudge was in the wrong place at the wrong time—and so far he’s refusing to keep quiet about it. He’s been taken home, but with a security blackout on his communications.”

“That can’t last.”

“Maybe he’ll give in—see how important it is to cooperate with us.”

Mac snorted.

“It’s to everyone’s advantage,” ’Sephe insisted. “The consulate’s satisfied with our reports, but if news of a Ro landing here gets out to the public, we’ll have to allow who knows how many IU representatives to come and inspect the site. Then there’s the media. Think they’ll respect the Trust? You know the stakes—”

“Oversight won’t care.”
You are such clever little toes,
Mac congratulated her feet as they managed to roll her imp back and forth.

“You do.”

Mac couldn’t stop the look she gave ’Sephe.

“Sorry,” the other woman said quietly. “If I’d known about the new site, Mac, I’d never have let you go with him.”