Mirabile (15 page)

I patted him on the shoulder. “You do me a full gene-read on the Earth-authentics you want to introduce. I’ll go do the EC on Milo’s Ford.”

“Great!” Mike slid his chair back in a whole helluva lot faster than he’d slid it out.

I glanced at Leo and finished, “If I’ve got a volunteer to help me?”

Leo nodded, as I knew he would, but then his onlooker spoke up as well. “I’ll help. I need a lift back to Milo’s Ford anyway. I’ll be glad to help any way I can.”

Leo was shaking his head vehemently. “Not yet, Jongshik. Give things a chance to shake down a bit first.”

“But Leo, I didn’t start the fire! I swear it!”

“I believe you. But the entire population of Milo’s Ford is a tougher proposition.

As of today, they’ll likely still be too exhausted and too angry to think straight about you.”

If Leo believed Jongshik Caner Li, it was a good bet he hadn’t caused the fires. I looked him over, now that I had the chance. He was anxious and thin, and he had the palest skin I’ve ever seen on a human being other than an albino—took me a moment to realize that part of that paleness was the anxiety. Still, the genes were clearly interesting enough that I wasn’t about to risk his ass in his home town just yet.

“Sit,” I said to him. “You’re going to stay here and gofer for Mike. He needs your hands more than I do just now.”

“But—

“No buts. Sit… and tell me about the two previous fires you and Pallab Hatcher Brahe saw start up.”

He sat so abruptly I knew it was just as well I’d leaned on him. He was still in shock. The mouth opened but nothing came out.

“You and Pallab went for goldrushes. Tell me what happened next,” I prompted.

“I didn’t—”

“I didn’t say you did. Tell me what happened next, before I get too cranky to listen.”

Leo said, “You don’t want to see her cranky, Jongshik. Believe me. And she’s asking because she needs the information.”

I was already cranky. Leo’s calmer approach, bless him, worked much better.

Jongshik took a deep breath, frowned a bit, as if thinking back that far was tough work. “I can’t tell you much, Jason Masmajean. I know Pallab thinks I was being careless that first time. But I wasn’t, I swear it. I know how dry the brush is this year.”

“Tell me what you saw, that’s all.”

“I don’t smoke, I hadn’t lit any kind of a fire, and there was nothing in my equipment that I can figure would have caused a spark—” He stared at me, willing me to believe him. “I looked down and there was a fire at my feet. That’s all!”

Leo said, “You were using a scythe for the canes, right? Any chance the scythe struck sparks off a flint outcropping?”

“No, Leo, no chance. I wasn’t using the scythe. I was tying up canes I’d already cut.”

“Spark might have smoldered a bit before it brought up flames,” I said. “I like your theory, Leo.

It’s a possibility—if there was flint in the area.”

Jongshik spread his hands. “I don’t know.”

“Something to look into,” I told Leo. Then I said to Jongshik, “How about the second incident?”

Jongshik slumped. Not much, just enough to let me know he didn’t think I was going to believe him this time.

“Try me,” I said.

That startled him upright. Again, he took a deep breath. “I was”—he stood suddenly to demonstrate—“bending down to gather up canes. I looked back to see where Pallab was.

You… please understand that I was looking at things almost upside down. I think… I think

I saw a plant burst into flame. I was so surprised that I couldn’t do anything for… it seemed like a long time. Then Pallab yelled and I realized I hadn’t been imagining it and I went to help him beat it out.”

Leo said, “You think Pallab set it?”

“No. No, of course not. Unless it was like you said—sparks from the scythe.

Pallab was cutting cane when it happened. But it looked to me like the plant just caught fire from nothing.” He drew a hand across his forehead and sat down again.

“I know this is stupid of me, but all I could think of was those old stories about people who can start fires just by thinking about them? I couldn’t tell Pallab that. I don’t even believe it myself.”

“That makes several of us,” I said, noting the dubious look on Leo’s face. “So far I like Leo’s theory best. Come on, Leo. Let’s go see for ourselves.”

Jongshik gave me one last pleading look. “Not yet,” I said again. “Mike needs your help.” I gave Mike’s name just enough emphasis to goose him into looking up, catching on, and saying,

“Yeah, I could use it.”

Leo and I left Mike to handle that one. When we were out of earshot, I told Leo, “Anybody asks at Milo’s Ford: Jongshik’s under house arrest until we get this sorted out.”

“Right.”

I wouldn’t have recognized the place. At least, not the far side of the river. I’ve seen the results of forest fires before, but it always stuns me. The town side of the river was soot blackened and covered with a two-inch layer of ash. The other side—well, the other side was gone. The fire had
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burned right to the bank and there was nothing left but ash and charred tree spars. A fog of soot-black smoke still clung to the barren ground.

Seeing that, it’s easy to think that nothing’s left. I could read that reaction in the faces around me.

I couldn’t share it, though. I

know what’s happening under that scorched ground— underneath there are millions of seeds just waiting for a chance at sunlight and at all those nutrients the ash puts back into the soil.

Meanwhile, even over the sound of the river, I could hear the cracking noises of charred trees cooling, the flurry of insects come to take advantage of those that had already cooled, the beating wings of the thousands of chatterboxes come to take advantage of the insects… They were wonderfully gaudy against the grey of the burned woods.

“Making out like pirates,” I said to Leo, indicating the chatterboxes.

Leo chuckled—one of my favorite sounds in this world—and said, “And you complain Mirabile doesn’t have enough insectivores?”

“It doesn’t. The chatterboxes won’t eat anything Earth-authentic. Just as well.

Most of our imports would poison them.

Meanwhile, they do just fine at keeping down the native insects.“

“Jason Masmajean! Annie!”

The voice from behind us made us both turn. It was Thomas Finest Irizarry, which meant I could have safely brought Jongshik back with us. Irizarry was damn good at his job, which was seeing that the right person was arrested for a crime and that his suspect made it to trial alive.

With him was Pallab Hatcher Brahe. Given the expression on Brahe’s face, Irizarry had read him the same riot act I had.

Irizarry looked from me to Brahe and said, “Here, Annie, you can always use extra hands. He’s yours for two months total.”

“I’ll keep my persuader handy,” I said.

“Ouch,” said Irizarry. He knows what I load the persuader with—I used it on him once. To Brahe, he said, “Now I

know you’ll mind your manners.” To me, he said, “I want a word with you in private.”

“Fine. Leo, you and Pallab get started on those samples. This won’t take but a minute.” I gave Irizarry the look I use to tell people it had better not.

He nodded. Together we retired a short distance away. I sat down on the stump of one of the ballyhoo trees Catalan had cut down so short a time ago. “Pull up a chair,” I said, patting the spot beside me. The stump was downright striking, the rings being extremely well defined.

He did. “I hear you spirited away the suspect last night.”

“Susan did. I just reminded the mob there was a fire coming their way.” I held up both hands.

“Before you get stroppy—I’m not convinced he had anything to do with the fires. If you want to talk to him, he’s under house arrest, helping Mike out back at the main lab.”

He nodded again. That obviously took care of the thing foremost on his mind.

“You don’t think he was responsible for the fires, Annie?”

“Leo doesn’t think he’s responsible for the fires, which is a point in his favor.” I grinned and added, “But then I’m biased. Officially, I don’t think anything yet. I need to know more. Still, if you’ll be staying here for a time, I’ll bring Jongshik home.” Lest Irizarry give me an argument, I added, “This his home.”

is

“Annie, you’re my favorite liar. You don’t think Jongshik responsible or you’d never have leaned on that ‘home’ bit.”

I had to admit he was right, though I hadn’t thought it through. So I took the time to tell him everything I’d heard, both from Pallab and from Jongshik, about the first two incidents. I added in Leo’s theory for good measure.

Irizarry looked thoughtful. “I’d like to see both spots they talked about. I like Leo’s flint theory, too. First, though, I think I’ll go have a talk with Jongshik Caner Li.”

“Good. Then I can get back to my job.” Figuring the interview was over, I turned my attention to the tree rings. I was gouging out a cross sample, when Irizarry said, “Annie? What on earth is so interesting about a tree stump?” Irizarry’s the nosy type—just as well in his chosen profession.

“What is so interesting about this tree stump,” I said, “is that this area seems to have gone up in flames about once every”—I paused to count the lighter rings between the darker ones—

“fifteen years or so.”

He stooped to follow my point.

“And it’s been doing it for a lot longer than there have been humans on Mirabile.”

“Natural fires,” Irizarry began.

“

Regular fires,” I said. “Count ’em for yourself. Every thirteen to fifteen years.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I find out. Now scoot and let me do my job.”

I honestly thought that would be my most interesting find until I’d had a chance to analyze the samples we were taking. Instead of slogging across the river, this time we took one of the town kayaks. Using the hover, we’d already found, stirred up too much ash to permit continued breathing. Even a bit of wind added to the sting in the air.

A lot of the volunteer fire fighters from the previous night were still ranging on the far side of the river, checking hot spots. Not my idea of a fun job—they checked hot spots by putting a hand down at the edges of them, to see if they were still so hot as to restart the fire.

I didn’t think it likely myself: there wasn’t that much left to burn.

Leo and Pallab had already set to work collecting soil samples, so I did my bit with what plant life remained. It was a tricky business—some of the trees were still glowing and you had to keep your eye out for toppling trees and falling branches.

More than once I got steered away from sampling a tree because the fire fighters knew from experience that one would come down—and soon.

They may be volunteers, but they are professionals. We’ve had to reinvent almost every skill locally. Ships’ records contained detailed instructions for doing just about anything they knew how to do back on Earth, but that doesn’t give the first generation any practical experience at the matter. You don’t get practice fighting forest fires aboard a generation ship.

These folks had reinvented fighting forest fires. I’ve got a great deal of respect for them, you can bet!

So I picked one I’ve known a bit—another one of Elly’s kids, name of Clelie Spinner Belile—and followed her around, gathering my samples in her wake. After about a minute, she caught me at it.

“Hi, Annie,” she said, “Bet I’ll be spinning tales about you again! Crossing the river to the fire side to cut down trees. I wish I’d been here to see it.”

“If you’d been here,” I pointed out, “I wouldn’t have been doing it, you would have.”

She laughed. “Maybe so. But tell me all about it, not leaving out Susan’s part, and tell me how you knew about the ballyhoos. That was a stroke of genius.”

“That was pure observation.”

She shrugged, meaning I wasn’t going to get off that easily. Then she said, “Let me show you something.” She called to another fire fighter to keep an eye on her position, then she led me
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much deeper into the burned area.

There were still trees standing. Not that you could tell from one look what kind they were—the charring made everything look alike. But there were groves of trees still standing.

We skirted a tree whose trunk was still burning. From what was left of the branches, I’d’ve said it had been a popcorn tree. Overdone popcorn, if you ask me.

Clelie led me right up to the grove that was still standing. She sniffed and patted a moment, then thumped it hard enough that a layer of charred bark dropped to the ground, raising ash all around us. “Have a close look, Annie.”

I did. The core of tree had not been touched by the fire—it lived still. That made me stoop down to examine the burnt bark. It was maybe three inches thick. How thick it had been before it caught, I couldn’t guess.

Clelie had moved on to a second tree in the grove. Again she did everything but taste it—then delivered another thump, with the same result. Living core beneath charred bark.

“Clelie? Get me a chunk of the core?”

“Sure thing.” She laid into it with her axe and popped me out a few good-sized pieces.

“Enough?”

“Plenty,” I said, gathering up the pieces to examine them more closely. The grain was unmistakable—they were my ballyhoo trees—the ones that had gone up like torches.

“Ballyhoos,” I said aloud.

“Yes,” said Clelie. “And just about every one we’ve found is still alive. So what made you cut down the ballyhoos?”

I opened my mouth to explain but she said, “Never mind, Annie. I know. I saw a couple torch myself. I’d have had the same impulse. I just thought you ought to know—the damn ballyhoos seem to like fire.”

I closed my eyes and saw it all over again. “What’s more,” I said, “they do their best to spread it.”

Every fifteen years? I wasn’t ready to talk about that yet, but it was well worth thinking about.

I paid her back for the samples and information with everything I remembered from the night before. As I talked, I gathered as many samples as I could. We didn’t have much time until dark fell.