Survival (7 page)

“Nice butt, though,” Emily countered. “Not that you noticed.”

Mac snorted. “The day I check out someone like—” She shut her mouth and smiled despite herself. “You are impossible.”

“Of course. Now that we have both formed our opinions of the meddlesome Nikolai, what's next?”

The t-lev took its time coming to rest, the pilot knowing exactly the reaction he'd get from onlookers if he so much as rocked the landing pad, let alone dumped anyone in the inlet. Mac leaned back on the bench, gazing at Emily.

They were both filthy as well as barefoot, with streaks of gray mud running from toes to thighs. Em's knees were only muddy; hers were scraped and bloody, like some kid coming in from street hockey. Their rain gear was clean enough; underneath, though, their clothing was, to put it kindly, ripe. Emily's hair was so black as to have blue highlights; she wore it short and snug, a style that not only accentuated the fine lines of her neck and high cheekbones, but also forgave a few days of living in the bush. It really wasn't fair. Mac tried to poke a finger through hers but couldn't reach her scalp. Despite the braid, the stuff had reached the point of feeling like lichen. Tangles were doubtless the least of what rode her head.

“What's next?” Mac repeated, contemplating the disturbing message lying against her stomach and the expectant crowd below.

“A shower.”

Mac and Emily, backpacks on their shoulders and the rest of their gear to follow when the t-lev was unloaded, disembarked with every intention of simply walking past those waiting. The first person they encountered, the bureaucrat, seemed to grasp that point. He met Mac's warning scowl with no more than a searching look, then stepped aside, holding his umbrella high so she and Emily could pass without having to duck under it. Annoyingly, he was impeccably clean and dry, wearing what had to be the twin of the suit and cravat he'd had on at the field station. His eyes, now visible through clear dry lenses, were hazel; his hair was light brown, thick, and prone to curl.
Doubtless,
Mac thought,
Emily would have something to say about both
.

For her part, she was grateful not to be delayed, more determined than ever to set her own pace regardless of the business at hand. She needed privacy to read the message. Not to mention the fact that she wasn't going to conduct any business whatsoever without a shower. But as easily walk on water as evade the curiosity of grad students. As they pressed closer instead of giving way, Emily thoughtfully let her lead.

As if she could simply push past them all.
Mac sighed, taking in the intensity on those young faces, and slowed her pace. Jumping in the water and swimming to the next pod would only encourage them to do the same, probably turning it into a race pitting Preds against Harvs, with the rest cheering. She'd seen it happen more than once.

Of course, the instant they knew they had her attention, questions began flying from every direction, interspersed with hugs of welcome and offers to carry her bag. Mac returned the hugs as quickly as was polite, held on to her bag, and kept up a running patter of answers. She reassured Cecily and Stanislaus that the other field stations were running as usual, then achieved two full steps before having to stop and tell Roman that no, this didn't mean there would be weekend passes to Prince Rupert or any other shoreline destination with restaurants. A glower and five steps brought her face-to-face with Jeanine Duvois, who looked about to cry.

“What's wrong?” Mac asked involuntarily.

The sudden hush wasn't reassuring.

“I didn't have any choice, Dr. Connor. They made me do it.”

“Do what?”

Definitely close to tears. “You won't hold it against me, please? I know my grades aren't the best, but I've been trying—”

“Hold what against you?” Mac demanded.

A hiccup and a wild-eyed glance around for nonexistent help. “I—I helped move the Dhryn into your quarters this morning, Dr. Connor.”

“The Honorable Delegate needs a fair amount of space,” said an unapologetic and by-now familiar voice in her ear. “Yours were the biggest available, Dr. Connor. I'm sure you understand.”

Grad students had a finely honed instinct for when to become invisible, while staying close enough to catch the juicy details. The light slap of seawater against the floats underfoot was suddenly louder than the rain.

Mac gritted her teeth and stared longingly at Pod Three, where her admittedly spacious quarters waited, complete with shower and clean clothes. “What about my things?” she demanded, turning to glare at Trojanowski.

The bureaucrat eased back a step, a move that put him against the railing. “The furnishings are satisfactory,” he assured her warily. “Brymn is very accommodating about such things.”

“Your personal stuff is piled in the main hall,” Jeanine sniffled in Mac's ear. “Beside the spare generator. We didn't have time to do anything more with it.”

First Brymn in
her
river, the envelope, being summarily dragged back to Base, and now this?
Ignoring Emily's alarmed protest, Mac planted both hands against the dry fabric of Trojanowski's suit and shoved with all her might. The bureaucrat was over the rope rail of the walkway and into the water before he could do more than tighten his grip on his umbrella.

As the students cheered, Mac resumed walking to the pods. No one else got in her way. Emily kept up, making a few strangled noises as if testing her voice.

“What?” Mac growled.

“Think he can swim?”

“Think I care?”

“Point taken.” Another few steps. “You realize the poor man probably lost his glasses.” Em lifted her cast. “We old-fashioned types are at such disadvantage.”

“He had a spare suit. He'll have spare glasses,” Mac said, resisting a twinge of remorse. She paused at the intersection of the walkways to Pods Three and Two, then resignedly turned away from “home.” “Mind if I borrow your shower?”

“And some clothes, no doubt. I've a nice little number in red that should fit.”

The walkway became a ramp, shifting gently underfoot as they climbed in synchrony. There was another splash in the distance. Mac presumed either the bureaucrat was being rescued or her helpful students had tossed him in again. “Base coveralls will do. You were issued three pairs, remember?”

Emily made a sound of disgust. “Fit for scrubbing bilge.”

“That could be what I'm doing.”

“Not with what you're carrying.”

Mac wiped her hand dry on her shorts before slapping it on the entry pad. “We don't know what I'm carrying,” she said in a low voice as the door opened. “We don't know anything yet—but I intend to get some answers. And my quarters back.”

“No argument here. No offense, but having you for a roomie would seriously cramp my lifestyle.”

“Spare me the details, please.”

Each pod had two floors above sea level and one below. The submerged space was used for wet labs and as bays for the underwater research equipment and vehicles. The first floor above the surface was divided into dry labs and offices, while the uppermost held residences and lounges.

Pod Six, the newest addition to Norcoast, was the only exception to this plan. Larger and broader than the others, its interior was hollow and flooded, an isolated chunk of ocean protected from the elements. Entire schools of fish could be herded inside, scanned, then released. They'd even housed a lost baby humpback whale until acoustic and DNA samples could locate his mother and aunts.

Pod Two was reserved for visiting researchers, like Emily, so its walls were free of the bulletins, vids, and outright graffiti that adorned the student habitats: Pods Four and Five. Pod One held the fabrication and repair shops, while Pod Three held Norcoast's administration and archives—as well as Mac's year-round home.

Until now
. Mac let Emily lead the way up the stairs that ringed the inside of the pod's transparent outer wall. Mac found it perfectly appropriate that the stunning view of inlet, coast, and mountain was opaqued by rain.

“His being here has to be a secret,” Emily said, halfway up.

“Brymn's? What makes you say that?”

Emily rapped the wall with her knuckles. “No tiggers mobbing a crowd; I didn't see any vidbots either.”

The “tiggers” were the automated warn offs that discouraged kayakers and other adventurers from venturing into Castle Inlet. They looked more like herring gulls than the real thing, which added to the shock effect when they flew over a trespasser's head and began intoning the hefty fines and other penalties for entering a restricted wildlife research zone, or worse, the Wilderness Trust itself. If ignored, a tigger would deposit an adhesive dropping containing a beacon to summon the law. If someone were foolish enough to try and evade the dropping—or shoot at the tigger? Suffice it to say there were other droppings in its arsenal, and a flock was a serious threat.

Vidbots didn't belong here either, though they were a familiar nuisance in cities. The little aerial 'bots were the eyes and ears of reporters—local, planetary, and, for all Mac knew, they reached other worlds as well.

“That doesn't mean it's a secret,” she protested, unhappy at the thought of more conspiracy. The envelope was bad enough. “Maybe a Dhryn visiting a salmon research station isn't news, Em.”

At the top of the stairs Emily palmed the door open. They passed into a corridor with thick carpet, blissfully soft and dry underfoot. The ceiling was clear, though patterned by now driving sheets of rain. Supplementary lighting glowed along the base of the walls and around each residence door. Norcoast provided superb accommodations for its guest experts, even though they rarely had time to use them before heading into the field. It looked good on the prospectus.

It had looked good to Mac, her master's thesis on St. Lawrence salmon stocks under her belt and her new professor willing to send her west to Norcoast's pods for the season. Mind you, her first quarters hadn't quite been like Emily's.

Tie had been the one to welcome Mac to Norcoast, although it hadn't seemed much of a welcome at the time. Mac hadn't known what to make of him. The tool belt over torn shorts said one thing; the casual first-name basis with which he greeted everyone another. As he'd led her down sidewalks that bobbed alarmingly, he'd lectured her dolefully on the proper care of equipment she'd never used in her life, seeming convinced scientists and students were equally inept with any technology and it being his thankless duty to make sure it all worked regardless.

At the residence pod, Tie had broken the unpleasant news that Mac would share her living quarters with four other students, the new pod being delayed in construction, that delay caused by other individuals also hopelessly inept with any technology whatsoever. Mac hadn't dared venture an opinion.

“You'll miss all this, soon enough,” Tie had pronounced as he'd watched her thread her way among the shoes, bags, and general paraphernalia of the others to reach the bed with the least number of books stacked on it. Hers, supposedly.

Mac had desperately wanted to appear dignified and knowledgeable; she was closer to homesick and anxious. “Miss what?” she'd asked. “Why?”

“A bed. A roof.” Tie had laughed at her expression. “They didn't tell you? A tent and sleeping on the ground. That's the routine here, while the rivers are free of ice. You live with the salmon.”

Mac brought herself to the present with a shake of her head.
Tie had been right, as usual. What was she doing, worrying about something as trivial as where she slept? Must be getting old.

“Brymn isn't news?” Emily scoffed, as if unaware Mac's thoughts had wandered. “I'd say he's more news-worthy than that delicious graphic opera star you entertained here last year. Weren't you the one telling me you had to call in the coast patrol to get rid of the reporters who followed him?”

“Two years ago,” Mac corrected, waiting for Emily to unlock her door. “And there was no entertaining involved. He claimed to be making whale documentaries and had heard about our work. I offered him a tour.”

“Tour.” The word oozed innuendo. “Really.”

“Dibs on the shower,” Mac said quickly, taking advantage of her smaller size to squeeze by Emily and dash for the washroom.