Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

The sky cracked with sound. Danner jumped, along with everyone else except Twissel. Good woman under pressure, Danner thought, and filed that knowledge away. The cracking came again, a broader sound this time, then again, and again, until the noise widened into a flat sheet of sound that climbed the register to a roar, then a scream, then a thin, piercing shriek.

“There!”

They all followed Day’s pointing finger. A tiny black speck to the northwest, getting rapidly larger. The two sleds detailed as emergency vehicles hissed up onto their cushions of air as their drivers fed power to the motors. Lu Wai signaled to her three officers, and all four snapped down visors and stood to attention.

And suddenly the gig was tearing a tunnel through the air and landing, and Danner grinned, for the immediate worry was over and now here she was, getting ready to meet in person for the first time a woman she had come to know well over the last few months, who had listened when she had needed an ear, had talked when she needed advice, had faced hard decisions without flinching. An ally and friend.

A friend who was coming to stay. A friend.

The gig landed in a ball of heat and noise, adding a black carbon streak to the dozens already crisscrossing the concrete. Its power systems whined. One of the sleds hummed over grass, then concrete, and a tiny figure leaned from the cab to flip open a small panel on the still-warm hull of the gig, then yank a handle. The hatch popped and hissed open. The Mirror pulled down a ramp. Three figures climbed out shakily and onto the sled. One of them waved, and Day and T’orre Na waved back.

They were the only ones who did; Danner and the other Mirrors, after hundreds of hours of parade-ground training, did not think to respond. It saddened Danner. What else had been trained out of them? How many other things, human things, would they have to relearn?

The sled hummed back over the concrete and settled five feet from Danner. Sara Hiam climbed down a little unsteadily. Danner saluted, then dropped her hand and smiled instead.

“Welcome!” She held out both hands. Sara took them. She seemed smaller in real life than on the screen, and thinner. She was trembling.

“Hell of a journey.”

“Looked like a good landing.” Nyo and Sigrid climbed out of the cab like old women. They, too, looked too thin; Nyo’s skin was gray, like hot charcoal. Sigrid was so pale Danner could see the blue lines of veins around her neck and eyes. They both looked as unsteady on their feet as newborn foals. “Welcome,” Danner said, troubled, and turned to Sara Hiam. “Is this the gravity?”

“That’s part of it, though we’ve done nothing but exercise this last month.” She drew away from Danner gently and looked up into the sky. “I hated to leave. Five years’ work up there. Who knows what those bastards will do with it now.”

Four days later Danner was sitting in her office with the newly returned Teng.

“As you can see,” Teng was saying, as she pointed to the screen, “precipitation patterns look favorable. This site in the foothills would be ideal for grain production and for grazing herd beasts.”

“Yes. I see.” The deputy was looking tired from her trip, and was being more than usually pedantic. “I hear that this site has a name already.”

Teng smiled a little. “My team have been calling it Dentro deun Rato.”

“In a while,” Danner translated. “A nice enough name, with a good feeling.

Sounds like home. But in just four days it already has an Anglo corruption: ‘Dun Rats.’ What does that say to you?”

Teng said nothing.

Danner sighed, and wished her deputy was someone with a little more imagination, someone she could talk to. Like Sara Hiam. Or even Day and T’orre Na. She made a quick note to talk to the viajera later in the day, find out if there was any reason using this site would antagonize the natives. “Continue.”

Teng looked relieved. “Well, there are several springs. Fa’thezam says they’re deepwater springs that won’t dry up except in the most severe and prolonged drought. In which case we could always run a line from the Ho.” She tapped a key.

The map widened to include half the continent. “These blue arrows indicate major native trade routes. We can use the Ho to transport our goods for barter; upstream past Three Trees and Cruath, all the way to Holme Valley; downstream to Southmeet and the coastal trade.”

“The soil?”

“McIntyre gave the all-clear,” Teng consulted her notes, scrolling rapidly. “Rich, well-drained, well-protected by root systems. That means not much danger of erosion. Apparently the—”

“Give me a separate report on that. Let’s keep this general. Anything else?”

“It’s easily defensible.” The map changed to show elevations. Danner nodded.

“Plenty of natural resources: clay, wood, workable stone. Olla.”

“Has Gautier finished her report on that?”

“Not yet.” Again, Teng scrolled busily. “But it looks promising. She says that the chemical valences of the olla are such that if—”

“Later. All I need to know is that progress is being made, and things are looking good. That there are no substantial snags.”

“That about sums it up: the more we know about Dentro de un Rato, the better it looks.”

Danner turned off the screen. “Tell me, Teng, do you think we could live there if Company cuts us off? If something happened like, oh, say, we lost all our equipment here.”

Teng sucked at her lower lip, but Danner made no sign that it was a habit that had always irritated her. Teng was slow, but methodical. Danner had never known her to make a single major mistake: everything was checked and double-checked before Teng would commit herself. Danner trusted Teng’s judgment, no matter how impatient she became with her methods.

“Hard to say.”

“Take a shot at it.” Don’t think , she wanted to say, react. Tell me your gut feeling . But that would only confuse her stolid deputy.

“Well…” Teng sucked her lip some more. “If we could start sowing crops now, and if nothing untoward happened—no fires or floods or droughts—and if we had help from the natives: seed stock, a breeding herd, advice, good trade relations…

then, maybe. Maybe we could.” She looked pleased with herself. “Yes, I really think we could.”

Danner smiled. “Good. That’s good. I want a copy of every report, with your comments. I’ll read them tonight. I’ll also consult with Day and the viajera T’orre Na, see if we can get a guarantee of that native cooperation.” She drummed her fingers a moment. “Yes.” She stood up, decisive. “Teng, if you’re not too tired, I’d like you to put in some time today and tomorrow laying down a preliminary evacuation plan. I’ll rely on you to deal with the broader logistics. If it turns out we hit a major flaw with this site, though I don’t think we will, much of the planning could be translated for another site.”

Teng did not stand up but shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“There’s something else?”

“Yes.”

Danner sat down, gestured for Teng to go on.

“Several people have approached me about… about leaving. About taking the gigs up to the Estrade .”

“Ah.” Danner had hoped this would not happen, but there were always those to whom reason meant nothing, who would not believe what they did not want to be true. “How many?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen? That’ll strain Estrade ’s life-support systems to the limit.”

“They understand that.”

Danner sighed. If they did not want to stay, she did not want to keep them. “Very well. But only one gig goes, the other stays here. If they can stand the overcrowding once they’re up there, they can sit on top of each other on the way up. If they don’t like those arrangements, then tough. We keep one gig here. You never know.” Why did she insist on hanging onto these hopes? When Company went, the gig would be useless. Still… “Who wants to leave? Anyone we can’t afford to lose?”