Ammonite

There was silence. One of the women coughed and the herd bird humphed and raised its crest.

“That’s all of the message?” Marghe asked.

”All concerning you.” Weal tucked the cord into her pocket, gesturing for Thenike to go on.

Thenike continued with the story, but Marghe no longer listened. What had happened to change Danner’s mind? Sixty Mirrors was a lot of firepower; she must intend serious fighting.

Later, when Marghe and Thenike were lying side by side, too hot for nightbags, Marghe was still wondering what had happened to involve Danner with the tribes. “I don’t understand any of this. But I want to find out.”

“Then we’ll head north in the morning.”

“Gabbro won’t like it.”

“No. But we don’t need Gabbro from here. I know the way to Singing Pastures.”

They were quiet for a long time. Just before she fell asleep, Marghe asked, “Were there really ever nine soestre?”

“Maybe there were, somewhere,” Thenike said, and Marghe knew she was smiling in the dark.

Chapter Sixteen

« ^ »

DANNER STOOD OUT on the glaring white concrete, waiting for the gig. She was hot, and getting a headache, which she made worse by looking up into the bright summer sky even though she knew they would hear the gig a long time before they saw it.

Day was there, and T’orre Na—it had seemed polite to ask them as guests—and a small honor guard: Lieutenant Lu Wai, Sergeant Kahn, Officers Twissel and Chauhan. Teng should have been there, but the deputy was miles away, investigating a promising site in the southwest at the foot of the Kaharil hills.

Danner made a deliberate effort to not shift from foot to foot. Anything could happen. When— if, she amended, if—the Kurstfound out that the orbital station was being abandoned, they might blow the gig out of the sky. Even if they did not, then its passengers were by no means safe: autopilot was fine for landings not involving people, but risky for human cargo, and although Nyo had basic pilot skills, she had not flown anything in over six years.

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.