Minutes to Burn

Derek grabbed her shoulder gently to steady her. She laughed, a high-pitched, unnatural stutter. "Just sitting down too long," she said.

Derek looked at her with concern, then bent over and picked up the canteen, causing the mockingbird to flutter off to a nearby saltbush. It called to him in a shrill burst of annoyance. Rex leaned over, beginning to pack up the installing equipment.

Derek offered the canteen back to Cameron, but she shook her head. His eyes dropped from her face to her stomach briefly, and she turned away self-consciously.

"We'd better get you out of this sun," he said.

Chapter 31

Breathing hard, Szabla and Diego swung a cruise box down onto the grass beside the others. Justin followed suit with an armful of can-teens and two kit bags. It had been their third trip hauling gear up the slope from the beach, and they were ready for a break. Savage had been surprisingly quiet, working with the steady assurance of a mule.

They'd been stacking the supplies in the middle of a large field on the east side of the road, about a hundred yards from the Scalesia line up-slope. The balsas along the road cleft the two fields, blocking Ramon and Floreana Estrada's house from view.

"Introduced species," Diego said, pointing with a grimace at the twinning strips of trees along the road, taller and thicker than their endemic counterparts. "Balsas. Planted here by voyaging Norwegians close to seventy years ago. They cut down the Scalesias to clear pastures but left those aliens to spread." A lone quinine stuck out from the alley of balsas, its smooth, reddish bark striking a contrast with the gray balsa trunks. "I hate those goddamn trees." He went back to his bag, digging for his can-teen.

Tank limped over to a giant tortoise and sat on it heavily. It settled on the leathery stumps of its legs, retracting its head sleepily into its shell and emitting a hiss. Tank glanced down the road, past the watchtower to the sea.

"Get off the tortoise," Diego snapped.

Tank struggled to rise but could not. He kneaded the muscles of his thighs, the sun catching his scalp through his flattop. Diego turned away in anger.

"You'd better heal your shit up," Szabla said to Tank. "You're sup-posed to be our workhorse. All this pulled muscle crap's getting old real fast." She crossed her arms, appraising the others. "Since I'm the bitch in the group, I'm gonna play housekeeper and get camp up." She pointed to Savage and Tucker. "Why don't you two run a quick surveillance, edge of the forest? Get the lay."

Savage looked up. Spit. "Why us?"

"Because I'm the ranking officer and I don't feel like doing it," Szabla said. She flashed a dead grin. "Move your shit."

Savage and Tucker walked side by side to the front rank of Scalesias. As they rose, the trees seemed to spread to bouquets, green, intertwining sprays that resembled broccoli tops. Vines twisted their way down the thin, scrubby trunks as if seeking out Amazonian waters. Small pepper plants waved in the breeze. Savage stopped.

Tucker rotated his Iron Man watch around his wrist to clear the sweat from beneath it. "What is it?"

Savage closed his eyes. Behind them, the wind hummed through the watchtower. Two dragonflies zoomed together in a crazed dance, and a cow mooed somewhere in the distance. The heat came off the ground in waves. Opening his eyes again, he stared into the forest, seeing how it grew dense and claustrophobic just a few paces in.

"Nothing," he said. He stepped forward, and Tucker fell in behind him. Though they'd never called wind for each other, and though they were both years from their last mission, they fell into a recon step by force of habit, patrolling about fifteen meters apart-the distance of a frag grenade's casualty radius.

The trunks leaned and bent; one even swooped in a loop-de-loop before rising up and sprouting branches. In places, the bark was overrun by bright, red-orange lichen. Thick with yellow butterfly leaves, passion-fruit vines hung from the trees like scarves. Where they'd died, they were thin and brittle, holding the trunks in fragile embrace.

Savage made his way through the dense terrain, assessing the wilder-ness around him. Elsewhere on the island, the creatures were curious and unafraid, having evolved to lounge in safety. Marine iguanas could be picked up by their tails; hawks could be pushed from trees with shovel handles; turtles could be piggybacked to deeper waters. There was even something frank about the vegetation of the other zones; the solitary sil-houette of the cactus against the sky, the vulnerable stands of man-grove, the exposed dots of the palo santos spaced like trees in an orchard.

The forest alone held secrets. Treetops dusted with mist. Strange calls from unseen birds. Large rocks that rumbled and walked away on tor-toise legs.