Cadmann squeezed her hand. "I don't think so. Justin, you're there. Do you see the baby?"
"Baby!" Mary Ann shouted. "Justin, go find him!"
"Cadmann." It was Aaron's voice this time. "You're wrong. The sensors did pick up motion before. Wind. Dust storm. Probably some kind of mineral powder, something that confused the sensors. We have to go down."
"Roger. Be careful. Secure Robor first."
"We will."
"Is that safe?" Zack demanded.
"They're on the spot," Cadmann said. "And without Robor they can't get the Scouts off the mainland."
"Oh—"
"Cadmann, what's happened to Linda?" Mary Ann wailed. "Justin, where's the baby!"
"Father," Jessica said. He almost didn't recognize the voice. He had never heard his daughter sound like that before. "I don't see Cadzie." Her voice was beyond ice, somewhere out in deepest space. The clearing juddered on the wall. "Father, that's Linda down there. And Joe. They're dead. But one dog is missing, and I don't see Cadzie. " He was searching for something to say. What hope was there for his grandson's survival? Almost none. And yet, if there was any chance at all...
"All right," he whispered. "We'll keep watch from here." Then he turned, and held Mary Ann. When it came right down to it, there was really nothing else to do.
Justin watched Jessica touch down without a bump, taking that last couple of inches as carefully as a man stepping onto thin ice.
Aaron dismounted, carrying a grendel gun. Jessica bore a regular hunting rifle, its safety off.
Justin hovered overhead, watching. He wiped his moist hands nervously on his pants. He strove to starve his imagination, to keep focused on each individual moment. Now and Now and Now, and after that, the Now to come.
One careful step at time, Jessica and Aaron Tragon crossed the twenty feet between the autogyro and the skeletons. After each single footstep, she stopped to sense her surroundings. There was no sound except the steady shoop shoop of Justin's skeeter blades above them.
Aaron's gaze locked with hers for a cold moment, and then slid past. Neither of them was willing or able to speak. Her heart thundered loudly in her ears.
Three skeletons—two human and one canine—lay in a rough circle of flattened grass, as if they had thrashed around crazily, fighting, maybe. Fighting what? Where were their clothes? Could they have come running out naked? Naked but with sandals on... and Joe's hat, but not Linda's woven straw bonnet.
Aaron kicked over a small rock that lay beneath the smaller skeleton:
Linda's, the one with no hat. There was a tiny bloodstain under the rock.
"No blood," Aaron said. "Little spots like this, but no blood! How long since—the attack started?"
"Twenty-eight minutes since we heard the skeeter alarm," Justin said.
Aaron looked around warily, rifle at the ready, but there was nothing to shoot at. "And it was all over before we got here."
Jessica couldn't move her eyes away from the three skeletons. The bones were stripped bare of clothing and of meat, but all were in place, as when an archeologist opens a grave. Nothing had broken or scattered the bones. She picked up Joe's hat and rubbed it in her fingers. Inside the brim it looked etched, or chewed.
Bones stripped of cloth, of meat, of sinew, ready to be mounted for biology class. Eyeless sockets glared up at her. Something gleamed. "Linda's chain," Jessica said. She pointed. A chain of tiny gold links encircled the neck of one of the skeletons. The next thing she knew she was bent over, stomach contracting violently. She felt it squeeze and pump, heard her own gagging sounds as from a distance, as if that other part of her were above the glade, watching as the tall blond woman tried to turn herself inside out. Aaron laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. She very nearly hit him. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. No time for emotions, you sniveling bitch.
"Cadzie," she whispered.
"What?"
"He's got to be here somewhere. Whatever did this was in a feeding frenzy. It wouldn't have taken him somewhere else."
Stripped clean. Plucked bare.
"Where's the other dog?"
"Hope to God it ran away. Ran far enough." They headed toward the mining shack.
Her collar buzzed. It was Justin. "What do you see?"
"It's Linda and Joe and one dog."
Aaron's voice was flat. "We're going over to the processing plant. The... door's open. Still no sign of the baby. Continue to record."
"Be careful," Justin said.
"Right."
Jessica was ahead of him, rifle at the ready. The ground was bare, not even dust. Jessica stopped short and pointed.
"Another small skeleton," Aaron said carefully. "Probably an immature Joey."
Jessica reached the processing plant. The door was open. There was an aroma of burnt plastic within, and an ancient, oily musk. The door creaked on its hinges as she pushed it back.
The interior was deeply shadowed. Slivers of light slanted through holes in the roof. Her breath sounded like slow thunder.
"Nothing," she reported. "There isn't any sign of..." She spun at a sudden clatter behind her. Wind against the corrugated steel door. There was nothing, nothing here at all. She heard Aaron's voice from outside. "You had better come here."
Her heart was a stone in her chest. She went outside, dreading what she was about to find.
Aaron closed the door. Behind it was the skeleton of the missing dog. Next to it was a bundle in a blue blanket. It made a coughing sound, and began to cry.
Jessica watched motionless as a tiny pink fist thrust out of the blanket and waved, more fiercely now, crying, calling for a mother who would never come. "He's alive!" she shouted. She touched the collar button, then changed her mind. Instead she ran to pick up the baby.
Cadzie clutched at her. She dropped his deep blue blanket in the dust and held him at arm's length. Cadzie was furious. Cadzie was—
She hugged him with her left arm so she could touch her collar button.
"Cadzie is alive! Dad, you hear? He isn't even marked!"
"We have found the baby," Aaron said. "He is apparently unharmed."
"Tragon, this is Weyland." Her father's voice, flat and unemotional, came from her collar tab. "Would you repeat that?"
"Yes, sir. We have found the baby. Jessica is holding him. He appears to be alive and unharmed." ‘
"Thank you. Advice."
"Yes, sir."
"Jessica, get the baby into the skeeter and stand by. Aaron, we've got good photographs. Grab anything you think might help us understand this and get out of there."
"Sounds good to me." Aaron nudged Jessica. "Go to the skeeter. I'll cover you," he said. "Get inside and close the doors."
She nodded vigorously. She wanted to run, but she was afraid she would drop Cadzie. It felt good to be in the familiar skeeter seat.
"Justin, do you see anything?" Aaron asked.
"Nothing on either side of the pass."
"Then I'll chance gathering the bodies," Aaron said. "But I don't get it. Something hit this camp. Fast and hard. Killed everything. Except a baby. It couldn't find a child wrapped in a blanket."
"Maybe it wasn't hungry by the time it got to Cadzie."
"No, that's not it," Aaron said. "It stripped a dog next to him, right down to the bones."
"Aaron, this is Zack. We think you should get out of there. You can gather evidence later."
"Agreed." Aaron ran across the dry ground to the skeeter and leaned in. "Give me five minutes, Jessica. Freeze Zack---I've got something important to do."