Ammonite (43 page)

The sky cracked with sound. Danner jumped, along with everyone else except Twissel. Good woman under pressure, Danner thought, and filed that knowledge away. The cracking came again, a broader sound this time, then again, and again, until the noise widened into a flat sheet of sound that climbed the register to a roar, then a scream, then a thin, piercing shriek.

“There!”

They all followed Day’s pointing finger. A tiny black speck to the northwest, getting rapidly larger. The two sleds detailed as emergency vehicles hissed up onto their cushions of air as their drivers fed power to the motors. Lu Wai signaled to her three officers, and all four snapped down visors and stood to attention.

And suddenly the gig was tearing a tunnel through the air and landing, and Danner grinned, for the immediate worry was over and now here she was, getting ready to meet in person for the first time a woman she had come to know well over the last few months, who had listened when she had needed an ear, had talked when she needed advice, had faced hard decisions without flinching. An ally and friend.

A friend who was coming to stay. A friend.

The gig landed in a ball of heat and noise, adding a black carbon streak to the dozens already crisscrossing the concrete. Its power systems whined. One of the sleds hummed over grass, then concrete, and a tiny figure leaned from the cab to flip open a small panel on the still-warm hull of the gig, then yank a handle. The hatch popped and hissed open. The Mirror pulled down a ramp. Three figures climbed out shakily and onto the sled. One of them waved, and Day and T’orre Na waved back.

They were the only ones who did; Danner and the other Mirrors, after hundreds of hours of parade-ground training, did not think to respond. It saddened Danner. What else had been trained out of them? How many other things, human things, would they have to relearn?

The sled hummed back over the concrete and settled five feet from Danner. Sara Hiam climbed down a little unsteadily. Danner saluted, then dropped her hand and smiled instead.

“Welcome!” She held out both hands. Sara took them. She seemed smaller in real life than on the screen, and thinner. She was trembling.

“Hell of a journey.”

“Looked like a good landing.” Nyo and Sigrid climbed out of the cab like old women. They, too, looked too thin; Nyo’s skin was gray, like hot charcoal. Sigrid was so pale Danner could see the blue lines of veins around her neck and eyes. They both looked as unsteady on their feet as newborn foals. “Welcome,” Danner said, troubled, and turned to Sara Hiam. “Is this the gravity?”

“That’s part of it, though we’ve done nothing but exercise this last month.” She drew away from Danner gently and looked up into the sky. “I hated to leave. Five years’ work up there. Who knows what those bastards will do with it now.”

Four days later Danner was sitting in her office with the newly returned Teng.

“As you can see,” Teng was saying, as she pointed to the screen, “precipitation patterns look favorable. This site in the foothills would be ideal for grain production and for grazing herd beasts.”

“Yes. I see.” The deputy was looking tired from her trip, and was being more than usually pedantic. “I hear that this site has a name already.”

Teng smiled a little. “My team have been calling it Dentro deun Rato.”

“In a while,” Danner translated. “A nice enough name, with a good feeling.

Sounds like home. But in just four days it already has an Anglo corruption: ‘Dun Rats.’ What does that say to you?”

Teng said nothing.

Danner sighed, and wished her deputy was someone with a little more imagination, someone she could talk to. Like Sara Hiam. Or even Day and T’orre Na. She made a quick note to talk to the viajera later in the day, find out if there was any reason using this site would antagonize the natives. “Continue.”

Teng looked relieved. “Well, there are several springs. Fa’thezam says they’re deepwater springs that won’t dry up except in the most severe and prolonged drought. In which case we could always run a line from the Ho.” She tapped a key.

The map widened to include half the continent. “These blue arrows indicate major native trade routes. We can use the Ho to transport our goods for barter; upstream past Three Trees and Cruath, all the way to Holme Valley; downstream to Southmeet and the coastal trade.”

“The soil?”

“McIntyre gave the all-clear,” Teng consulted her notes, scrolling rapidly. “Rich, well-drained, well-protected by root systems. That means not much danger of erosion. Apparently the—”

“Give me a separate report on that. Let’s keep this general. Anything else?”

“It’s easily defensible.” The map changed to show elevations. Danner nodded.

“Plenty of natural resources: clay, wood, workable stone. Olla.”

“Has Gautier finished her report on that?”

“Not yet.” Again, Teng scrolled busily. “But it looks promising. She says that the chemical valences of the olla are such that if—”

“Later. All I need to know is that progress is being made, and things are looking good. That there are no substantial snags.”

“That about sums it up: the more we know about Dentro de un Rato, the better it looks.”

Danner turned off the screen. “Tell me, Teng, do you think we could live there if Company cuts us off? If something happened like, oh, say, we lost all our equipment here.”

Teng sucked at her lower lip, but Danner made no sign that it was a habit that had always irritated her. Teng was slow, but methodical. Danner had never known her to make a single major mistake: everything was checked and double-checked before Teng would commit herself. Danner trusted Teng’s judgment, no matter how impatient she became with her methods.

“Hard to say.”

“Take a shot at it.”
Don’t think
, she wanted to say,
react. Tell me your gut
feeling
. But that would only confuse her stolid deputy.

“Well…” Teng sucked her lip some more. “If we could start sowing crops now, and if nothing untoward happened—no fires or floods or droughts—and if we had help from the natives: seed stock, a breeding herd, advice, good trade relations…

then, maybe. Maybe we could.” She looked pleased with herself. “Yes, I really think we could.”

Danner smiled. “Good. That’s good. I want a copy of every report, with your comments. I’ll read them tonight. I’ll also consult with Day and the viajera T’orre Na, see if we can get a guarantee of that native cooperation.” She drummed her fingers a moment. “Yes.” She stood up, decisive. “Teng, if you’re not too tired, I’d like you to put in some time today and tomorrow laying down a preliminary evacuation plan. I’ll rely on you to deal with the broader logistics. If it turns out we hit a major flaw with this site, though I don’t think we will, much of the planning could be translated for another site.”

Teng did not stand up but shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“There’s something else?”

“Yes.”

Danner sat down, gestured for Teng to go on.

“Several people have approached me about… about leaving. About taking the gigs up to the
Estrade
.”

“Ah.” Danner had hoped this would not happen, but there were always those to whom reason meant nothing, who would not believe what they did not want to be true. “How many?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen? That’ll strain
Estrade
’s life-support systems to the limit.”

“They understand that.”

Danner sighed. If they did not want to stay, she did not want to keep them. “Very well. But only one gig goes, the other stays here. If they can stand the overcrowding once they’re up there, they can sit on top of each other on the way up. If they don’t like those arrangements, then tough. We keep one gig here. You never know.” Why did she insist on hanging onto these hopes? When Company went, the gig would be useless. Still… “Who wants to leave? Anyone we can’t afford to lose?”

“Here’s a list.”

Danner took the flimsy. It was in alphabetical order in Teng’s usual methodical style. A name, second from the end, leapt out at her as if it were in thicker, darker print than the rest. “ Vincio? Vincio—you’re sure?” She felt as though she had been jabbed lightly in the stomach with stiff fingers. She could not believe that Vincio—her loyal assistant, the one who brought her tea every day, who never seemed to sleep, who always knew when Danner could be disturbed and when she needed to be left alone—was leaving. Abandoning her.

She took a deep breath. If Vincio wanted to go, she would not stop her. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, looked at the list again, frowned. “Relman’s not on it.”

“No.”

Danner sighed. Life never worked out the way it should. “Recommendations?”

“Let them go. Let Relman stay. She’s a good officer. She’ll be especially eager to please, now.”

But we’re not officers anymore, not any of us, Danner wanted to say. But she did not, because if they were not officers, then what, who, were they? She knew she was not yet ready to face that question; none of them were. They would live the fiction a little while longer: in confused times, people, especially militarily-trained people, liked orders, firm leadership. If she could provide it.

“Give them ten days to think it over. Meanwhile I’ll talk to Sigrid and Nyo about making the platform’s functions tamper-proof, accessible only from our uplink station. We’ll need those facilities, especially the satellites, as long as we can get them. I don’t want a bunch of disaffecteds screwing with the programs. If we can lock those systems in, then let’s let them go.”

After she dismissed Teng, Danner read the geologists’ reports on Dentro de un Rato. Her thoughts kept wandering. Why did Vincio want to leave? Why did she think she had anything to gain by going up to an orbital station where she had a good chance of dying, either immediately, courtesy of the
Kurst
, or later, due to failed life support? And if—a big
if—
Company did take them all off, where did Vincio expect to spend the rest of her hopelessly contaminated life?

Danner contemplated calling Vincio into her office and asking her why straight out, but in the end decided not to; she was not sure she could face the answer.

Danner walked slowly across the grass from Rec, her face still red from Kahn’s fencing workout. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. It came away sticky with pollen. Damn this planet. It just kept getting hotter—thirty-eight degrees Celsius according to her wristcom.

Her mod was blessedly cool. She had a fast shower, resisting the temptation to stand under the revitalizing water for longer, and pulled on summer-weight fatigues.

Her stomach growled, and she glanced at her wristcom. She would have to eat while she talked to Gautier, the ceramicist, about her report. There were not enough hours in the day.

She had just stepped back out into the muggy heat when her wristcom bleeped.

“Danner,” she answered, walking toward the cafeteria.

“Vincio, ma’am. Another message from SEC rep Taishan. Do you wish to follow code-five procedure?”

Banner was already changing direction, angling toward her office. “Yes. I’ll pick it up personally.”

Day and T’orre Na were sitting on the bench along the far wall of the outer office when Danner got there. She nodded to them both. The viajera was running a knotted cord through her fingers; bright threads flickered through her tanned hands. “It came on a herd bird,” she said.

“My office.”

They sat. Danner felt a vast irritation. She did not have time for this. “What does it say this time?”

“
From Marghe Amun to Commander Danner, greetings. Hannah, you
must,”—
Thenike looked at Danner—“there’s great emphasis on that word,
you
must accede to Cassil’s trata demands. Even if you only send half-a-dozen officers.

You must be seen to do something. Please review my report. I’m on my way to talk
to you personally
.”

“But she’s pregnant!”

T’orre Na looked at Danner blankly, and Day grinned.

“I mean… Oh, curse the woman! This is the last thing I need! A pregnant SEC

rep who’s gone native, swanning in here stomach-first and telling me what I must and must not do! Well, I can’t stop her, she can come and she can say what she likes. But I’m just too damn busy.” Danner felt foolish at her outburst, then angry at feeling foolish. Damn it, the day was just too hot for this. “I have an appointment.”

Then she remembered she needed to talk to the viajera. “If you two could meet with me for dinner? Good.”

She got out of the office and took four strides across the grass toward her appointment with Gautier and her lunch before her wristcom beeped again.

What the hell was it now? “Danner!”

“Dogias here. We’ve got trouble. The northern relay has just gone from the grid.”

“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

“Gone. Phht. Kaput.”

Danner felt like strangling the woman. “Explain,” she said through gritted teeth.

“The northern relay is no longer accessible. Diagnostics show it does not exist.”

“Theories?”

“None. What I need is a satellite scan, or to go up there personally and take a look.”

It took Nyo two hours to send signals through the Port Central uplink to
Estrade
ordering a satellite to scan the right area and send down a data squirt. Sigrid took another half an hour to collate the information. The delay did nothing to soothe Danner’s irritation.

The room was crowded: Dogias, Danner, T’orre Na, Sara Hiam, Lu Wai, Day, Nyo; Sigrid at the screen.

“It’s a bit fuzzy, but the best I could do with the cloud cover. This is the Holme Valley. Here and here”—she circled areas to the north—“are native dwellings.

Here”—further to the north—“is the area where the relay is.” She magnified. And again. “Or was.”

“Sweet god.” Danner stared at the tangled structure that had once been the northern relay.

“Someone trashed it,” Dogias said. “They must have fired it first. Only way to bend those plastics. Can you enlarge it once more?” Nyo did. Dogias studied it intently. “Looks like they’ve even smashed the dish. See? Those shards there. I can’t put that back together. Build another, maybe, but that one’s history.”