Ammonite

Which meant the same thing, Marghe thought bitterly. If they did not want her to meet Jink and Oriyest, there was nothing she could do. She was angry, and did not bother to hide it. “I don’t know why you don’t want me to find them, but I’m not stupid enough to waste my time trying to force you. Perhaps on my way back.”

She pushed her way past Letitia and stared out across the burn. A faint speck hovered over the western horizon: a herd bird. Marghe watched it for a long time, feeling like an outsider again.

The wind was strong, driving tall, sail-heavy clouds across the gray sky. Lu Wai and Ude were both asleep, and Letitia was making notes on her wristcom.

Marghe held the sled’s stick in both hands. In the west water flashed silver, surrounded by large dark shapes. She eased the stick left and the sled veered. Letitia looked up.

“Ah. The river Ho.”

Marghe ignored her. She was still angry.

“The people around here call those tall things skelter trees. When you get nearer, you’ll see why.” She must have sensed Marghe’s hostility, and went back to her calculations.

The Ho was broad and flat but the banks were steep. Long-fronded water plants trailed downstream like bony green fingers. Something leapt into the water with a plop, Marghe slowed the sled to an easy glide and cruised up to a skelter tree. It was tall, over fifty feet, and she could see where it got its name: branches of uniform thickness grew in a spiral up and around the charcoal black trunk, like a helter-skelter. The single-fingered leaves were arranged symmetrically along both sides of the branches and were broad as Marghe’s outstretched hand, the delicate green of lentil sprouts. They hardly moved in the wind. She brought the sled to a hovering standstill and reached up to touch one.

Something shrieked and chittered, shaking the branch until the leaves shivered.

“It might be a wirrel,” Letitia said. “I think they live in these trees. They’re small, but they’ve been known to bite.”

Marghe wondered if Letitia was waiting to see if the SEC rep wanted to touch an alien leaf badly enough to risk a bite from an equally alien animal. Well, Letitia would be disappointed; there were other trees, and she would not always have an audience. She backed up the sled.

“The river winds a bit, but it runs all the way to Holme Valley,” Letitia said. “If you want to see lots of wildlife, just follow the bank.”

“No.” Lu Wai was awake and looking at the sky. “That would add hours to our journey, and I don’t like the look of these clouds.” She clambered into the front and gestured Marghe aside. “I’ll take the stick. Things are going to get rough.”

Clouds gathered on the northeastern horizon, greasy and heavy, an army wearing unpolished mail. Marghe relinquished the controls. Lu Wai slammed the stick as far forward as it would go. Marghe lurched and had to cling on. Once again she felt like an outsider, a stranger who did not know what was happening, what to expect.

Letitia scrambled into the front. “I don’t think we’re going to make it to Holme Valley before the storm.” Marghe wondered why she was grinning so hard.

The wind grew stronger. It flattened the grass and slid its hand under the sled, tilting it sideways on its cushion of air until it skittered like a bead of water on a hot skillet. As they headed north, outcroppings of gray rock became more frequent and Lu Wai had to ease back on the stick to maneuver safely. Ude woke up, took one look at the sky, and started to tie down the cable coils and clip lids on the storage bins.

They raced over the grass; the rotor hum deepened and the sled slowed as they began to climb a steady incline. Halfway up, the turf was scattered with rocks.

Lu Wai hardly slowed. She took them right over the first few, cursed as she swerved around the boulders. Letitia tapped Marghe on the shoulder and pointed ahead to a grayish red clump of rock.

“See it?” She had to yell over the wind. Marghe nodded. “She’s making for that crag. We’ll ground the sled there, take shelter.” She grinned again. “You’ll get a good view.”

A good view of what?

They both clutched the siding as the sled bucked and twisted and narrowly missed scraping its hull on a jagged overhang. The incline was steep now, and the sled groaned and rumbled, vibrating through Marghe’s bones and making her teeth ache.

They edged past a tumble of broken boulders and between two leaning stacks of sculpted and striated stone; the wind followed them, thrusting its tongue into every hollow and crack, making the rock sing and scream like a crazy woman in restraints. Lu Wai backed them right up against the rock. Then the wind died.

“Do you feel it?” Letitia sounded eager; her head was tilted back as though she were drinking rain.

Marghe began to say no, but then she did. It was like being lowered slowly into water, feet first: the hairs on her ankles lifted, then on her legs, her stomach, her arms, the back of her neck. Electromagnetic disturbance.