At least, the professors helped out if the emergency was the sort magic could deal with. Magic couldn’t do much to replace the oats and Scandian wheat and meadow rice and soybeans the mirror bugs had eaten, and that spring, eighteen settlements failed. A lot more were right on the edge of failing. The only small bit of good news was that the bugs had driven back a lot of the wildlife and had cleared a whole bunch of land that the settlers could plant. If we had a good growing summer, maybe the shaky settlements would get back on a solid footing again.
Meantime, the government in Washington had put a hold on building any new settlements until they’d studied up on the situation. That made a lot of folks in town very cross, including some of the people from the Settlement Office.
“We’ve solved the mirror bug problem,” I heard one of them tell Papa. “And there are acres and acres of land that the bugs wiped clean, just begging to be filled up. But by the time those imbeciles in Washington realize it, the prairie will be back and it’ll be twice as hard to expand. Wildlife always comes back stronger after a fire clears an area, and this will be no different.”
Papa just hmphed at him, which meant he didn’t really agree with the Settlement Office man but didn’t want to start an argument right then.
I was busy most of April with the young mammoth at the menagerie. The McNeil expedition had brought him back as a baby, along with a few other samples of wildlife. He wasn’t a baby anymore; in fact, it was hard to think of him as only partway grown. He was half again as tall as a tall man, and his tusks were three and a half feet long and as big around as my arm. He could split a rail fence with one blow of those tusks, and he’d done it a time or two, which was why his pen had a high fieldstone wall around it now, outside the rail fence. We still needed the wooden rails, because when he got edgy he’d charge at the wall and do himself an injury if there wasn’t something in between for him to take out his mad on.
The mammoth always got restless in spring and fall, when the mammoth herds out on the plains were migrating, and that year was the worst ever. Professor Torgeson had to help out with the calming spells a time or two, and once even Professor Jeffries joined in. “It’s because he’s growing,” Professor Jeffries said.
“That may be true, but it won’t make any difference to the college or the people who live around it if he gets loose,” Professor Torgeson snapped. She was a tall, rangy, red-haired woman with a marked Vinland accent, and she spoke her mind to anyone, which had already gotten her into difficulties with some of the other professors.
“I think we’ve been taking the wrong tack,” Professor Jeffries said. “He doesn’t need calming down; he needs exercise.”
“Ride him North and feed him to an ice dragon,” Professor Torgeson suggested. She had strong opinions about wildlife, most of them unfavorable.
“An ice dragon would eat the rider first,” Professor Jeffries said absently. “They prefer the taste of people to just about anything else.”
Professor Torgeson sniffed. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she said, and her accent was especially strong, like she wanted to remind him that Vinland was a whole lot closer to ice dragon territory than the North Plains Territory of Columbia was.
Her tone didn’t put Professor Jeffries out one bit. “Professor O’Leary is planning to teach a class on poetry for magicians next year,” he replied. “He thinks our students need more literary background than they’ve been getting.”
Professor Torgeson looked startled, then laughed. “All right,” she said. “But you’re going to have to put this thing down eventually.”
“Possibly,” Professor Jeffries said, still staring at the mammoth. “But not just yet. Certainly not until we run out of other options.”
“Is he always like this?” Professor Torgeson asked me.
I could see she didn’t actually expect an answer, and right then the mammoth whacked the inner rail fence so hard the top rail splintered and we had to step smart to keep it contained.
By the time the mammoth calmed down, we were all hot and damp and thirsty. As we walked toward the offices, we saw Dean Farley standing outside Professor Jeffries’s office. “Professor!” he called as soon as he saw us. “We’ve heard from the Frontier Management Department! We have funding.”
Professor Jeffries stopped mopping his forehead and smiled. “Excellent! Professor Torgeson, would you join us? This may concern you.”
Professor Torgeson’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded. Professor Jeffries turned to me. “Miss Rothmer, I think that will be all for today. Tell your father the good news, if you please, and let him know I would like to stop by tomorrow evening to discuss it, if that would be convenient.”
Professor Jeffries and Professor Torgeson both showed up late the following day. I thought they’d disappear into the study with Papa, but instead Papa had us all sit down together. And then they explained.
For years and years, ever since the McNeil expedition got back in 1850, Papa and Professor Jeffries had been trying to persuade people that we still didn’t know enough about the wildlands in the West. The plague of mirror bugs and the failure of eighteen settlements had finally convinced the Assembly in Washington that something needed to be done right away, but they were still arguing about what. Until they decided for sure, they were asking the land-grant colleges in the North, Middle, and South Plains Territories to do wildlife surveys out in the settlements, so they’d have some baseline to compare to.
“Pity they didn’t think of this before the mirror bugs showed up,” Professor Torgeson said in an acid tone.
“It would have been far more useful, certainly,” Professor Jeffries conceded. “On the other hand, this should give us a very clear picture of the way wildlife returns to an area after such devastation. I’m sure you’ll do a stellar job, Professor Torgeson.”
“The newest person in the department always gets the worst assignments,” Professor Torgeson said, but there was no heat in her voice and her eyes had a gleam that said she was looking forward to it.
“We would like to offer you the position of record-keeper and assistant, Miss Rothmer,” Professor Jeffries said.
My mouth fell right open. The corners of Papa’s mouth tucked in, the way they did when he was trying not to smile, and suddenly I knew why Mama had been so cross when I’d said I wanted to go West one day.
“Papa! You’ve known about this for months!” I said, and then I remembered that this was supposed to be business and not family. “Excuse me, Professor Jeffries.”
“That’s quite all right, Miss Rothmer.” Professor Jeffries looked like he was enjoying himself. “The stipend is rather less than your current wages, I’m afraid, but the direct costs will be part of the survey’s budget. That would be things like food, lodging, feed and stabling for your horse as required, and so on.”
“I—” I swallowed hard. “Yes. I accept, Professor Jeffries.”
“Excellent,” Professor Torgeson said. “We’ll be leaving as soon as Mr. Morris returns from Belletriste.”
“Wash is in Belletriste?” I said. “I thought he was going to New Orleans for the winter.”
“I believe he did,” Professor Jeffries said. “But when I tracked him down last month, he was in Belletriste, visiting friends.”
“Visiting — oh.” Triskelion University was in Belletriste, which meant that was where Miss Ochiba was now. Also William, but I wasn’t sure Wash would think of William as a visiting sort of friend.
“Mr. Morris will be our guide,” Professor Torgeson said. She frowned slightly, as if she weren’t quite happy about that for some reason. I thought maybe it was because she didn’t think she needed a guide, but everyone who traveled across the Mammoth River into the West had a guide, even Papa and Professor Jeffries, who’d been doing it for years.