Regeneration (Czerneda) (28 page)

A somber group awaited Mac at the dock’s edge, consisting of Kammie, John, Tie, and, of course, Mudge. A slightly larger and noisier group of students surrounded their fellow who, thanks to Mudge, would accompany them. ’Screens hovered in the air as they hurriedly exchanged critical information at this final moment.

Mac’s eyes widened when she saw Tie wearing what appeared to be an oversized flare pistol in a holster belted to his waist. “Where did you get that?” she demanded, keeping her voice down.
Not that the students appeared interested.
There was another sticking out of his pants pocket. “Those,” she corrected.

Tie looked abashed but determined. “They’re mine. A little old, but they work.”

“You don’t carry weapons,” she objected. “That’s their job.” A nod to Sing-li

The agent wasn’t smirking now, his face drawn in grim lines. “We can’t be everywhere at once. We did thorough backgrounds, Mac. Tie, a few others, are qualified and we contacted them. What did you expect, when you made Base a target?”

“But—” Mac closed her mouth on what was, in truth, a meaningless objection. Instead, she gazed at Tie and tried to imagine Base’s opinionated mechanic as a warrior.
Having seen him defend what he considered his fleet of vessels from neglectful students,
she decided,
it wasn’t much of a stretch after all
.

Tie put two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute. “Did a stint in the military—before you were born, Mac,” he told her. “Don’t worry. My favorite discussion-closer is still a wrench.”

At that moment, Sam Schrant, his friends having left—a couple in tears, walked up and offered Mac his hand. “Hi, Mac. I appreciate this.”

His dark hair flopped over his high forehead, almost hitting the tops of his glasses.
She’d tucked Nik’s in her bag.
Despite bruises of exhaustion lining his eyes—Sam was infamous for his all-nighters—he looked ready to go. A neon-orange backpack hung from his shoulders, its seams ready to burst.

“We’ll see if you thank me once you’ve been to Myriam,” she said, but smiled and took his hand. “Welcome to the Origins Team, Sam.”

His eyes, tired or not, gleamed. “I’ve been doing some prelim work, Mac. That’s one incredible orbit. I can’t wait.”

She could.
Mac indicated the waiting lev. “Be my guest.”

After Sam said his farewells to the rest and boarded, Mac faced Kammie and John, wondering what to say.

It didn’t help that Kammie, always quick to tears, was quietly sobbing into a handkerchief, or that John Ward, for the first time since they’d met, had no expression on his face at all.

A quiet
harrumph
shook Mac from her paralysis. “Schedules, Norcoast, schedules. We can’t keep the pilot waiting.”

“Yes, of course.” She looked toward the well-lit pod and waved. Several of the figures milling on the terrace waved back.

One, standing on the walkway below, didn’t.

“Good-bye,” Mac said, as much to Emily as Kammie and John, then walked up the ramp into the lev.

She didn’t turn around again.

THE WINDS CURLED AROUND the standing ones, washing their feet with red sand. Their ranks were legion; their patience greater still.

If patience was felt by stone.

Beyond, where the landscape fractured into a maze of rock cuts and channels, dark eyes watched and measured from the shadows. When the winds paused, when the first rank could be seen through clearing air, then would begin the span of days in which the clicks of poet and penitent could be heard. Only then . . .

Only then, would the Loufta come forth to build.

Others waited, too.

“Remind me how rich we’re going to be,
Se
Zali.”

The Frow scampered headfirst down the sheer cliff face, fingers finding and releasing holds so quickly
se
appeared to be falling. “Stinking rich,”
se
assured
se’s
partner on reaching the bottom. Rather than stand,
se
hung like a crawling Myg
sketlik,
albeit with skinlike web stretched taut between
se’s
limbs.
Se’s
head twisted at an unlikely angle to show
se’s
smug expression.

“I don’t see why you can’t stand up properly. Idiot. You realize you accomplish Numbers Two and Three on my list of why I should never have crewed with a Frow.” Oonishalapeel’s list was long and still growing, though since his encounter with a Human medic, he now had a word for Number Two, arachnophobia, and a drug to dull the symptoms.

Putting up with the smugness of any Frow came with the territory. “You’re sure we’re safe from the Dhryn?”

“My
mater’s
fifteenth sib-cousin serves the home world station where all incoming data on attacks and sightings are processed, my anxious friend. You read Se Lasserbee’s latest report. No attacks. No sightings. No Dhryn. The mighty Myrokynay have destroyed them. Calm your fears, ’Peel.”
Se
Zali touched the solitary point on
se’s
hat, the Frow equivalent of polite self-deprecation. “You would do well to remember I am a soldier, capable of ensuring our safety at all times.”

“Irrelevant. And your irrelevant hat is Number Fifteen,” ’Peel proclaimed. “Though I’ll keep in mind you’re willing to die first.”

“Hush.” The Frow swung about and scuttled up the cliff in a heave of membrane, uniform, and fingers. Grit rained down. “Do you hear that?”
se
asked, stopping a short distance up.

’Peel made a show of dusting himself. “Making false alarms is Number Ten.”

“Forget your boring list, ’Peel. Attend. Is the wind quieting?”
Se
climbed a bit higher and leaned out, neck ridges unfolding.
Se’s
eyes closed as
se
listened intently. “Yes . . . I think so.”

’Peel opened his collapsible chair and sat down with a thump. “Idiot. You said the same thing yesterday.” The Myg pulled out his imp, preparing to add to his list. “Let me see. I’m at two hundred and twenty-four, the smell of Frow breath in the tent. No, Two hundred and twenty-five, the way Frow leftovers always rot. This will be—”

“It’s time!”
Se
Zali plummeted to the canyon floor, where he tilted upright cautiously, both hands reaching out in agonizingly slow motion for the support of nearby boulders. He kept shouting. “The winds are dying. The creatures will free themselves at any moment. Call the others!” he ordered. “We must set the nets. Get the processing units ready. They won’t stay soft long!”

’Peel glared through his workscreen at the Frow. “Irrelevant. Irrelevant!” Their camp had been made in cooling shadows, but the constant wind-driven grit had made sleeping outdoors impossible. The other five, two more Frow and three blissfully quiet Dainaies, were still in bed. “Wait for the monitoring station to confirm it.”

“If we delay, we could be too late. Any emerging Loufta will go through its ascension and be useless.”

“Number two hundred and twenty-seven,” the Myg crowed. “Making up ridiculous names for alien biology—geology. Whatever it is.”

“The name fits.”

“ ‘Ascension?’ It’s a word about climbing. You climb. Do they climb? No. Idiot!”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Calling you what?”

Neither noticed the wind settling around them, their argument loud in an ominous stillness.

But both felt the rain.

The Loufta sensed the change in the wind as well.

They shuttered their ebony eyes and dug themselves deeper into stone. Perhaps in another thousand years conditions would be right. And they would pull themselves from the veins of the mountains, crawl across the hushed plain, and build the next rank of standing ones from their own hardening flesh in honor of their god.

Another time.

The desperate mouths drank what they could find.

The Progenitor was starving.

The
oomlings
had been sacrificed. All that was Dhryn must follow.

Nothing mattered but that the Progenitor survive the Great Journey.

 

 

 

“
P
ERFECT TIMING, AS ALWAYS, MAC.” Sebastian Jones, Earthgov wildlife liaison for this portion of the remote northwest, grabbed their bags and effortlessly tossed them into the back of his battered skim. He grinned at her. “Chinook’ve started up the Klondike. Looks to be a big run.”

“I’d love to say that’s why we’re here,” Mac answered, fastening her jacket against the evening’s bite, “but we’re just passing through.”
Though why here, in Dawson City, was a question she’d like answered.
The public transit system connecting to the Arctic launch fields stopped in Whitehorse on the way, where there were year-round facilities.