Mirabile (4 page)

“Dead on,” I told him, while Susan grinned like crazy. I patted her on the shoulder—and gave her a bit of a nudge toward the door at the same time. “You bring Susan a sample of the ones you planted around your place, just so she can double-check for stability. But I think you’ve got exactly what you hoped you had.”

I pointed to the left side of the screen. “According to this, they should come in just about every color of the rainbow. We may have to goose them a bit for that—unless you prefer them all red?”

“Authentic,” said Leo, “I want them Earth-authentic, as long as you’re asking me

.”

“Okay. Tomorrow then,” I told Susan. She grinned once more and left.

I sat down at the computer again. Wrote the stuff on the pansy to local memory—then I cleared the screen and called up everything ships’ records had on otters.

They didn’t eat water lilies, and they didn’t come eight feet long. Pointing to the genes in question, I told Leo this.

“Does that mean there is a monster in the lake?”

“I can’t tell you that. I’m not terribly concerned about something that eats water lilies, Leo, but I do want to know if it’s chaining up to something else.”

“How do we find out?”

“I snag a cell sample from the beasties.”

Again his lips pressed together in that wry way. “May I offer you what assistance I can?” A sweeping spread of the hands. “I’m very good at keeping out of the way and at following orders. I’m also a first-rate shot with a rifle and I can tell the difference between a monstrosity and a monster. I promise no shooting unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Let me think on it, Leo.” Mostly I wanted to ask Elly if what he said was true.

He must have read my mind, because he smiled and said, “Elly will vouch for me.

I’ll see you in the morning.”

That was all. Except maybe I should mention he kissed my hand on his way out. I was beginning to like Leo more and more.

After he left, I did some thinking on it, then I trotted downstairs to talk to Elly. I leaned against the countertop, careful not to get in the way of her cleaning, and said, “Tell me about Leo.”

Elly stopped scrubbing for a moment, looked up, and smiled. “Like you,” she said.

“That good or bad?”

The smile broadened into a grin. “Both. That means he’s stubborn, loyal, keeps a secret secret

, plays gruff with the kids but adores them just the same.”

“Any permanent attachments?” It popped out before I knew it was coming. I tried to shove it back in, but Elly only laughed harder at my attempt.

“Why, Annie! I believe you’ve got a crush on Leo!” Still laughing, she pulled out a chair and sat beside me, cupping her chin in her hand. “I shouldn’t be surprised.

All the kids do.”

I gave one of Susan’s patented sighs.

“Okay, okay,” she said, “I’ll leave off. I like it, though. I like Leo and I like you and I think you’d get along together just fine.”

“Is he as good a shot as he claims to be? And as judicious about it?”

That sat her upright and looking wary.

“No panic,” I said firmly. “You have got something in the loch that I want a look at—but it’s an herbivore and I doubt it’s dangerous. It’s big enough to overturn a boat maybe, but—”

“Are you calling in the team?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. They could all do with a break—”

“That’s what you came for. That’s hardly fair.”

I waved that aside. “Elly, you should know me better by now. I wouldn’t have taken this up as a profession if I weren’t a born meddler. And I asked about Leo because he offered to give me a hand.” I know I scowled. “Money and equipment I

can always get—it’s the hands we’re short.”

“You’re going to make off with half my kids one of these days.”

I couldn’t help it. I jerked around to stare at her. She was smiling—and that laugh was threatening to break out all over again. “Annie, surely it’s occurred to you that half those kids want to be just like you when they grow up!”

“But—!”

“Oh, dear. Poor Mama Jason. You thought I was raising a whole passel of little Ellies here, didn’t you?”

The thing was, I’d never given it any thought at all. More than likely I just assumed Susan and Chris and Ilanith would take over the lodge and…

Elly patted my hand. “Don’t you worry. Chris will run the lodge and you and the rest can still drop by for vacations.”

I felt guilty as hell somehow, as if I’d subverted the whole family.

Elly gave me a big hug. “Wipe that look off your face. You’d think I got chimerae instead of proper kids! The only thing I ask is that you don’t cart them off until you’re sure they’re ready.”

“You’ll worry yourself sick!”

“No. I’ll worry the same way I worry about you. Do I look sick?”

She stood off and let me look. She looked about as good as anybody could. She knew it, too.

Just grinned again and said, “Take Leo with you. Susan, too, if you think she’s ready. I warn you, she thinks she is, but she’ll listen to you on the subject.”

And that was the end of it as far as Elly was concerned. I walked back to my room, thoughtful all the way.

Damnify knew how I could have missed it. And there I’d been aggravating the situation as well, calling Susan “my assistant,” letting her do the gene-read on Leo’s pansies. Then I thought about it some more.

She’d done a damn fine gene-read. If she’d heard Leo talk about the pansies, she’d have no doubt thought to try that second as well.

The more I thought, the more I saw Elly was right. It was just so unexpected that I’d never really looked at it.

I crawled into that comfortable bed and lay there listening to the night sounds off the loch and all the while I was wondering how soon I could put Susan to work. I drifted off into sleep and my dreams were more pleased by it all than I would have admitted to Elly.

I woke, not rested enough, to an insistent shaking of my shoulder and opened my eyes to see a goggle-eyed something inches from my face. Thinking the dream had turned bad, I mumbled at it to go away and rolled over.

“Please, Mama Jason,” the bad dream said. “Please, I

gotta talk to you. I can’t tell Elly, and I’m afraid it’s gonna hurt her.“

Well, when a bad dream starts threatening Elly, I listen. I sat up and discovered that the bad dream was only Jen, the nine-year-old. “Gimme half a chance, Jen,” I said, holding up one hand while I smeared my face around with the other, trying to stretch my eyes into focus so I could see my watch. My watch told me I’d had enough sleep to function rationally, so I levered myself up.

Jen’s eyes unpopped, squinched up, and started leaking enormous teardrops. She made a dash for the door, but by then I was awake and I caught her before she made her exit. “Hold on,” I said. “You don’t just tell me something’s out to hurt Elly and then disappear. Ain’t done.”

Still leaking tears, she wailed, “It’s supposed to be a secret

…”

Which she wanted somebody to force out of her. Okay, I could oblige, and she could tell the rest Mama Jason made her tell. I plopped her firmly on the edge of the bed. “Now wipe your nose and tell me what this is about. You’d think I was the chimera the way you’re staring.”

“You gotta promise not to hurt Monster. He’s Susan’s.”

I did nothing of the sort. I waited and she went on, “I didn’t know he was so big

,

Mama Jason!” She threw out those two skinny arms to show me just how big, which actually made it about three feet long tops, but I knew from the fingertip-to-fingertip glance that went with the arm fling that she meant much bigger. “Now I’m scared for Susan!”

“What do you mean, he’s

Susan’s

?”

“Susan sneaks out at night to feed him. I never saw him, but he must be awful

.

She calls him Monster and he gurgles.” She shivered.

I gathered her up and held her until the shivering stopped. Obviously all this had been going on for some time. She’d only broken silence because of Stirzaker’s panicky report. “Okay,” I said, still patting her, “I want you to let me know the next time Susan sneaks out to feed this Monster of hers—”

She blinked at me solemnly. “She’s out there now, Mama Jason.”

“Okay,” I said. “Out there where

?”

The bellow off the loch cut me short and brought me to my feet. Unlike Leo, I knew that hadn’t been part of a dream. I was already headed for the window when the sound came again. I peered into the night.

Mirabile doesn’t have a moon, but for the moment we’ve got a decent nova. Not enough radiation to worry about, just enough to see glimmers in the dark.

Something huge rippled through the waters of the loch. I stared harder, trying to make it come clear, but it wouldn’t. It bellowed again, and an answering bellow came from the distant shore.

Whatever it was, it was huge, even bigger than the drifted otters I’d seen earlier.

Had they chained up to something already? There was a splash and another bellow. I remember thinking Elly wouldn’t hear it from her room; she was on the downside of the slope, cushioned from the loch noises by the earth of the slope itself.

Then I got a second glimpse of it, a huge head, a long body. With a shock, I realized that it looked like nothing so much as those blurry flat photos of “Nessie.”

I turned to throw on some clothes and ran right into Jen, scaring her half to death.

“Easy, easy. It’s just me,” I said, holding her by the shoulders. “Run get Leo—and tell him to bring his rifle.” I gave her a push for the door and that kid moved like a house afire.

So did Leo. By the time I’d got my gear together, double-checking the flare gun to make sure it had a healthy charge left, he was on my doorstep, rifle in hand.

We ran down the steps together, pausing only once—to ask Jen which way Susan had gone. Jen said, “Down to the loch, she calls it your favorite place! I thought you’d know

!” She was on the verge of another wail.

“I know,” I said. “Now you wait here. If we’re not back in two hours, you wake Elly and tell her to get on the phone to Mike.”

“Mike,” she repeated, “Mike. Two hours.” She plopped herself down on the floor directly opposite the clock. I knew I could count on her.

Leo and I switched on flashlights and started into the woods. I let him lead for the time being—he knew the paths better than I did and I wanted to move as fast as possible. We made no attempt to be quiet at it, either. In the dark and shorthanded, I’ve always preferred scaring the creature off to facing it-down.

We got to the boats in record time. Sure enough, one of them was gone. Leo and I pushed off and splashed across the loch, Leo rowing, me with the shotgun in one hand and the flare gun in the other.

Nine times out of ten, the flare gun is enough to turn a Dragon’s Tooth around and head it away from you. The shotgun’s there for that tenth time. Or in case it was threatening Susan.

A couple of large things rushed noisily through the woods to our far right. They might have been stag. They might not have been. Neither Leo nor I got a look at them.

“Duck,” said Leo, and I did and missed being clobbered by one of those overhanging branches by about a quarter of an inch. Turning, I made out the boat Susan had used. There was just enough proper shore there that we could beach ours besides it.

“All right, Susan,” I said into the shadows. “Enough is enough. Come on out. At my age, I need my beauty sleep.”

Leo snorted.

There was a quiet crackle behind him, and Susan crawled out from the undergrowth looking sheepish. “I only wanted it to be a surprise,” she said. She looked all around her and brightened.

“It still is—you’ve scared them off!”

“When you’re as old and cranky as I am, there’s nothing you like less than a surprise,” I said.

“Oh.” She raked twigs out of her hair. “Then if I can get them to come out again, would you take your birthday present a month early?”

Leo and I glanced at each other. I knew we were both thinking about Jen, sitting in the hallway, worrying. “Two hours and not a minute more,” Leo said.

“Okay, Susan. See if you can get ’em out. I’ll want a cell sample too.” I rummaged through my gear for the snagger. Nice little gadget, that. Like an arrow on a string.

Fire it off without a sound, it snaps at the critter with less than a fly sting (I know, I had Mike try it on me when he jury-rigged the first one), and you pull back the string
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with a sample on the end of it.

“Sit down then and be quiet.”

We did. Susan ducked into the undergrowth a second time and came out with half a loaf of Chris’s bread. She made the same chucking noise I’d heard her use to call her otters. She was expecting something low to the ground, I realized. Not the enormous thing I’d seen swimming in the loch.

I heard no more sounds from that direction, to my relief. I wish I could have thought I’d dreamed the entire thing but I knew I hadn’t. What’s worse, I picked that time to remember that one of the Nessie theories had made her out a displaced plesiosaur.

I was about to call a halt and get us all the hell out of there till daylight and a full team, when something stirred in the bushes. Susan chucked at it and held out a bit of bread.

It poked its nose into the circle of light from our flashes and blinked at us. It was the saddest-looking excuse for a creature I’d ever seen—the head was the shape of an old boot with jackass ears stuck on it.

“C’mon, Monster,” Susan coaxed. “You know how much you love Chris’s bread. Don’t worry about them. They’re noisy but they won’t hurt you.”

Sure enough, it humped its way out. It looked even worse when you saw the whole of it. What I’d thought was an otter wasn’t. Oh, the body was otter, all eight feet of it, but the head didn’t go with the rest. After a moment’s hesitation, it made an uncertain lowing noise, then snuffled at Susan, and took the piece of bread in its otter paws and crammed it down its mouth.

Then it bellowed, startling all three of us.

“He just learned how to do that this year,” Susan said, a pleased sort of admiration in her voice.