Ammonite

Her screen chimed and displayed the face of Officer Vincio, her administrative assistant.

“Representative Taishan is here and wishes to see you at your earliest convenience, ma’am.”

“Give me two minutes.” She slid the dossier into a drawer. She had time to push her desk against one wall and pull two chairs into a more informal setting around a low table before Vincio rapped on her door and ushered in a tallish, stocky woman with thick, dark hair.

Da

“You’re well rested?” Da

“ Estradekeeps Port Central time.”

“Of course.”

The representative wore the plainest clothes available in Company issue: soft trousers in a dark green weave and a loose‑fitting brown padded shirt. No adornment. Da

“Is your time limited?”

Marghe’s tone seemed neutral enough. Da

Her words seemed to run off Marghe’s smooth exterior and Da

“As you say, they’ve made a fundamental mistake.” The file remained unopened in her lap.

Vincio tapped on the door. Da

Da

Marghe traced the smooth rim of her cup with a fingertip.

“The pottery was made by one of our cable technicians.” She sipped at her own cup, rolled the aftertaste around her mouth. “It reminds me of dried apricots, though everyone finds something different in it.”

Marghe took a small sip. “It tastes like comfrey.” She moved the still‑unopened dossier from her lap to the table.

“I want you to keep that,” Da

“I don’t understand.”

“I want you to read it, as I’ve read yours, so that we at least have a basis for communication. I want–” She stood abruptly, crossed to her desk, and keyed her screen to a slowly turning representation of Jeep. “Come here. Look. A whole planet. I’m supposed to oversee the safety of every single human being on this planet, and at the same time lay cables, set up communication relays, initiate geographical surveys. Hard enough. What makes it infinitely harder is the fact that I’m operating on one‑third staffing levels–under a hundred Mirrors and less than three hundred technicians to do the work of over a thousand. More than half my equipment is missing or not functioning properly. Add to that the fact that the social structure here is even more out of whack than usual because every single member of my staff is female, then add to thata virus that might mean none of us ever leaves this place again. ”

Ba

Marghe poured herself more dap–to buy time, Da

“I’m not asking you to forget. I’m asking you to put aside your wariness, just for awhile. I know what happened to you on Beaver, but this is Jeep. I don’t want to hurt you in any way–just the opposite. I need you to be willing to try. I need you on my side.” Da

Marghe had one hand in her pocket. Da

“Don’t decide anything for now. Just take the dossier with you and think about it this evening.” She opened another drawer in her desk. Disks glittered. ”You’ll need these. Janet Eagan left them for you. Read them, call me in the morning.”

Marghe walked alongside the ceramic‑and‑wire perimeter of Port Central, trying to think. Somewhere behind the clouds that at this time of year almost always covered Jeep’s sky, the sun was setting, turning the gray over the living mods into a swirl of pearl and tangerine. The evening breeze faltered, then changed direction, hissing through the grass around her ankles. The grass stretched to the horizon, broken only by the occasional low bush with black, hard‑looking stems and pale trails of seed fluff. There were no trees. The location had been chosen for its open aspect: easily defended.

That was typical of the way a Mirror’s mind worked. Attack, Defend. Advantage. Disadvantage. Always looking for the edge, looking for a lever.

Three years ago she had walked like this for hours over the hills in Wales, seeking to forget the way her mother had tried to smile as she coughed and coughed and finally stopped breathing. Some new kind of viral pneumonia, they said. She had been sick only three days.

Walking like this when she was unused to the gravity was not helping at all. It had not helped much then, either. She walked slowly back to her mod.

It was easy to override the door controls. She sat with her legs sticking out onto the grass and her back warmed by the air streaming from inside. A woman stepped from a mod further down the row and raised a hand in casual greeting. Her hair was still wet from a shower and she wore what looked like a homemade skirt. Marghe waved back, glad they were too far away to speak. The woman walked past the mod with the handmade brick doorway and followed the path around a curve and out of Marghe’s sight.

She reached down and pulled up a blade of grass. It was a flattened, hollow tube. Cautiously, she put the broken end in her mouth. It did not taste like grass, but she chewed on it anyway.

Ba

Who are you, Da