Migration by Julie E. Czerneda Page B

collected in the dense canopy of leaves, branches, and moss far above their heads, so drops continued to fall long after cloudbursts ended for the day, an absentminded deluge that skewed time the way the scale of the trees skewed perceptions of self and importance. Mac could see it affecting Mudge. His pace gradually slowed from impatient to reverent, the recorder in his hand lifting until he held it like a torch.
    They were still some distance from the Ro landing site, and well away from the trampling done by, well, several individuals including herself last year, which was why Mac didn’t pay attention when Mudge disappeared from view around the next trunk. He was only footsteps ahead. Besides, the bark on that tree trunk was festooned with a string of amorous slugs, so Mac paused to do a quick count, admiring their glistening yellow and brown. Quite dapper beasts . Five . . . six . . .
    Snap . It was such an ordinary sound, Mac didn’t bother glancing up. Branches cracked all the time. Eight . . . nine . . . There was a red velvet mite, vivid and soft, climbing up the back of the tenth slug. Mac peered closer, curious as to how it was managing to find traction in the slime.
    Crash, snap, CLANG!
    “What the . . . ?” Abandoning her slugs and muttering under her breath, Mac hurried around the tree trunk, light flashing underfoot with each step. A bell-like metal-to-metal clang wasn’t ordinary. What was Mudge doing?
    She stopped in her tracks.
    Mudge was standing in the middle of the next rise of the walkway. His arms were being held by two large figures encased in the Ministry’s black armor from head to toe. Even their faces were hidden behind gleaming visors. A scuff mark on one of those visors, and the sad condition of the recorder lying at Mudge’s feet explained the clang .
    The rip through the forest ahead explained everything else.
    Another new Ro landing site. This time, they’d knocked over giants, flattened centuries’ old growth, scraped soil to expose the mountain’s very bones. Not a large area, as if they’d lost control and crashed, but of a certain size, a certain shape, as if they’d come down and shoved aside whatever was in their way.
    Levs, the silent, expensive, probably-always-work type, hovered between the standing trees. More figures, twin to those confining Mudge, moved through the debris on the forest floor. Mac sniffed. There was a faint charred smell to the air. Gone, she reasoned.
    After Emily sent her message.
    Had the Ro ship been waiting for her ? Had they spied and known she was coming? Or had they been here all along and only now been chased away, the message a last minute attempt—at what?
    Mac shook her head free of questions. They only served to make her more anxious, not less. “Let him go,” she told the guards holding Mudge. “I’ll take him to Base.”
    “You know about this, Norcoast?” Mudge struggled, futilely, against his captors. “I demand an explanation! Do you see what’s—what’s—” words appeared to fail him as he looked out at the destruction. Then, eyes brimming with tears, he turned to her. “What have you done?”
    Mac winced. She wasn’t sure what was worse: the horror on his face, the ravaging of the forest, the return of the Ro . . .
    Or the way every visored head in view was now aimed right at her, as if waiting for something.
    “Tomorrow,” Mac said loudly and clearly, so there could be no possible misunderstanding by anyone or anything in earshot, “I am leaving for Field Station Six. To study my salmon.”
    How many times and in how many ways had the Ministry told her they didn’t want her involved any longer?
    Fine . She’d give them Emily’s message. As a bonus, she’d also let them explain a major Anthropogenic Perturbation of a Class Three Wilderness Trust to its Oversight Committee.
    Who would never talk to her again, anyway.

    “Your Mudge is not a happy man.”
    Something she had no authority or ability to change, Mac