Ammonite

“…up, Marghe. Wake up.”

She tried to say something but her throat was too dry.

“Good,” Hiam said. “I want you to get off the bed. Come on, that’s it. Good. Now get a drink of water. A whole glass. Drink it all. Slowly, Marghe, slowly.” The room swooped. “Fill the glass up again. Take it to the bed. Sit down. Good. Sip it slowly.”

Marghe did. The warm water tasted metallic.

“Your reaction was more severe than I’d anticipated. I was begi

Marghe looked over at the medical hood. “I’m glad you didn’t.” Speaking made her breathless and hurt her throat.

“I still might have to if you get any more dehydrated.”

Marghe sipped until her glass was empty.

“If you feel up to it, go to the slot and eat what you find there.”

An apple. Marghe stared at it, confused. Had Hiam been inside her dream? She picked it up. It was cool. She felt deathly tired, too tired for subterfuge. “Are you trying to poison me?”

“Oh, Marghe. No, I’m not poisoning you. Try and eat the apple.”

She woke up thirsty but clear‑headed. “How long this time?” she asked the ceiling.

“Almost seventeen hours.”

She sat up cautiously. She still felt a little dizzy, but that could be lack of food. The food slot hissed. It contained a glass of water and one watery pink softgel.

She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. It was her choice; nobody had forced her to come here. The slot closed automatically when she lifted out the glass and the pill. After a moment, it slid open again. A small portion of fish, still steaming, with a bean sprout salad and another glass of water.

When she finished, she was tired again. She lay down, trying to remember if those conversations with Hiam about genocide had been real or delirium. Marghe fell asleep trying to remember what exactly Hiam had said.

The lights around the door to the outer access lock flared warning red, then dulled. The door hissed open. Janet Eagan was small, naked, and coughing so hard she did not have the breath to greet Marghe.

Marghe brought her a glass of water and pulled a sheet from her bed. While Eagan drank the water, Marghe draped the sheet around her shoulders. They were bony, and pale except for freckles, but her hands and face and legs were weathered. The coughing eased.

“Better?”

Eagan nodded. “For now. Thanks.”

“I’m Marguerite Taishan. Marghe.”

Eagan did not offer to shake hands.

Marghe gave her a cliptogether. While they ate, she found herself watching Eagan’s hands, which were brown and hard, callused across the palms. She had not seen hands like that since watching a carpenter at a demonstration of old‑style skills. Eagan noticed and laid them on the table palm up.

“Rope calluses,” she said. “For a while I crewed a ship working the coast around the southern tip of the continent. I learned a lot.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

“Most of it’s on disk at Port Central. I couldn’t bring it with me.”

“Is there anything I should know before I leave?”

Eagan laughed harshly, “Yes. It’s not like anything you can possibly imagine. If I had it to do again, I’d never set foot outside Port Central, just invite the occasional native in to tell me her story. If you have any sense, that’s what you’ll do. I’m glad to be out of it.”

Marghe said nothing. Eagan shrugged and picked up her fork. They ate in silence.

Marghe got up to get their dessert. She hesitated. “I’ve heard some rumors, I can’t vouch for their validity, but once you’ve heard them, you might want to give up on the decontamination and return to Jeep with me.”

“No.”

“Listen, anyway.” Marghe realized she sounded like Hiam. Was she begi

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Take some time to think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it.”

“Eagan, I need you down there. I need what you know.”

“It’s all on disk.”

“I don’t want just what’s on disk. I want your private thoughts, your theories, the ones that are too crazy to be put on record.”

Eagan looked at her for a long time. Marghe saw the lines around her eyes. Formed by months of squinting at light reflecting on the water? “You’re assuming I have some theories. I don’t. Wi

“Tell me what you know.”

“She decided to go to the plateau of Tehuantepec.”

“Tehuantepec?” Marghe frowned.

“The same. Though the name is about as appropriate as ‘Greenland’ was. It’s cold up there, nothing like the climate of the Gulf of Mexico.”

Marghe went over to her terminal and punched up a large‑scale satellite map of the planet. Jeep was encased in huge spiral banks of water vapor. The whole world glowed like milk and mother‑of‑pearl, like a lustrous shell set in a midnight ocean.

A few keystrokes removed the clouds. Marghe rotated the naked world. “Come and show me.”

Eagan pointed to Port Central, on the second largest continent, then tapped a raised area several hundred miles to the north. “Here. Wi

“Enlarge.” The screen displayed a more detailed map. Much of the plateau was forested and contour lines showed it at an elevation of almost three thousand feet. “Can you show me’the location?”

“I’m not a geographer. But I ’ll give you some friendly advice. Don’t go. Wi

Marghe stared at the screen. “How long has she been missing?”

“Fourteen months.”

“She was wearing a wristcom?”

“Of course. But most places out there they’re useless: few relays, and weather interferes with everything.”

“What about the Search, Locate, and Identify Code?”

“A SLIC’s only any good if there are enough satellites out there to scan for it. And if the Mirrors are willing to come and get you.”

Marghe absorbed all that. “Do you have any ideas what might have happened?”

“Anything could have happened.”

“You said that one of the reasons you wanted off was because the natives would just as soon kill you as say hello. Or words to that effect.”

For the first time, Eagan looked uncomfortable. “That’s not strictly true. I exaggerated, to rationalize my need to get off the damn world. They’re just… ordinary people.”

“But–”

“No.” Eagan cut her off abruptly. “Wi

“She went on her own?”

“Yes,” Eagan said. “I let her go out on her own. I told her she was crazy to try. So I let her go on her own, and now she’s dead. And if you go, you’ll die too.”

Chapter Two

THE GIG TAXIED to a halt. Marghe stretched to relieve the adrenaline flutter of her muscles and waited for the light over her seat to show green. She stood up and fastened her disk pouch around her waist, patted the thigh pocket of her cliptogether for the vial of FN‑17. Systems whined as they powered down, and from outside she heard the scrape and trundle of a ramp being maneuvered into place. The doors cracked open and leaked in light like pale grapefruit squeezings, making the artificial illumination in the gig seem suddenly thick and dim.