Again, they scrambled over ridges sharper than their axes, and the country behind them burned, then melted, consumed by a lake of iron and slag.
Nomadic blood had taken hold.
When they settled again, no one expected to linger. Miocene asked for simple houses that could be rebuilt anywhere in a ship’s day. She ordered Aasleen and her people to build lighter tools, and everyone else stockpiled food for the next migration. Only when those necessities were assured could she risk the next step: they needed to study their world, and if possible, learn to read its fickle moods.
Miocene put Washen in charge of the biological teams.
The first-grade captain picked twenty helpers, including the five from her first team, and with few tools but keen senses and their good memories, they fanned out across the nearby countryside.
Three months and a day later, every team brought home their reports.
“Breeding cycles are the key,” Washen reported. “Maybe there are other keys. But certain cycles are pretty close to infallible, it seems.”
The captains were packed into the long narrow building that served as a cafeteria and meeting hall. The central table was a block of iron dressed with gray wooden planks. Chairs and stools were crowded around the table. Bowls were filled with grilled flame ants and sugarhearts, then ignored. Cold tea was the drink of choice, and it smelled acidic and familiar, mixing with the tired oily sweat of women and men who had been in the field too long.
Miocene nodded, at Washen and at everyone. “Go on, darling. Explain.”
“Our virtue trees,” said the first-grade. “Those gold balloons are their eggs, just as we assumed. But they typically make only one or two in a day. Unless they feel the crust becoming unstable, which is when they use all of their stockpiled gold. In a rush. Since the adults are about to be torched, and the land will be remade—”
“If we see another show,” Diu interrupted, “we’re being warned. We’ve got a day, or less, to get out of here.”
In a grim fashion, the other captains laughed.
Miocene disapproved with a look and a cold silence, but nothing more. Normally, she demanded staff meetings that were disciplined and efficient. But this was a special day, and more special than anyone else had guessed.
Washen’s team spoke about the species worth watching and each warning sign of impending eruptions.
During stable times, certain winged insects transformed themselves into fat caterpillars, some longer than any arm. If they grew new wings, the stability was finished.
At the first sign of trouble, crab-sized, highly social beetles launched themselves in fantastic migrations, thousands and millions scrambling overland. Though, as Dream noted, the herds often went charging off in the very worst direction.
At least three predatory species, hammer-wings included, would suddenly arrive in areas soon to be abandoned. Perhaps it was an adaption to the good hunting that would come when locals rushed out of their burrows and nests.
In dangerous times, certain caterpillars sprouted wings and took up the predatory life.
And slight changes in water temperature and chemistry caused aquatic communities to panic or grow complacent. Just what those changes were, no one was certain. It would take delicate instruments and years more experience to read the signs as easily as the simplest black scum seemed to manage it.
Everything said was duly recorded. A low-grade captain sat at the far end of the table, taking copious notes on the huge bleached wings of copperflies.
Once finished, it was Miocene’s place to invite questions.
“How about our virtue trees?” asked Aasleen. “Are they behaving themselves?”
“As if they’ll live forever,” Washen replied. “They’re still early in their growth cycles, which means nothing. Eruptions can come anytime. But they’re putting their energies into wood and fat, not into gold balloons. And since their roots are deep and sensitive, they know what we can’t. I can guarantee that we can remain here for another two or three, or perhaps even four whole days.” Again, the grim laughter.
Washen’s confidence was contagious, and useful. Losing her would have been a small disaster. Yet years ago, the Master had sent this talented woman to the far side of Marrow, doing her accidental best to get rid of her.
Miocene nodded, then lifted a hand.
Quietly, almost too quietly to be heard, she said, “Cycles.”
The closest captains turned, watching her.
“Thank you, Washen.” The Submaster looked past her, and shivered. Without warning, she felt her own private eruption. Thoughts, fractal as any quake, made her tremble. Just for the briefest moment, she was happy.
Diu asked, “What was that, madam?”
Again, louder this time, Miocene said, “Cycles.”
Everyone blinked, and waited.
Then she turned to the leader of the geologic team, and with a barely hidden delight, she asked, “What about Marrow’s tectonics? Are they more active, or less?”
The leader was named Twist. He was a Second Chair Submaster, and if anything, he was more serious-minded than Miocene. With a circumspect nod, Twist announced, “Our local faults are more active. We have nothing but crude seismographs, of course. But the quakes are twice as busy as when we arrived on Marrow.”
“How about worldwide?”
“Really, madam… at this point, there’s no competent, comprehensive way for me to address that question…”
“What is it, madam?” asked Diu.
Honestly, she wasn’t absolutely certain.
But Miocene looked at each of the faces, wondering what it was about her face that was causing so much puzzlement and concern. Then quietly, in the tone of an apology, she said, “This may be premature. Rash. Perhaps even insane.” She swallowed and nodded, and more to herself than to them, she said, “There is another cycle at work here. A much larger, much more important cycle.”
There came the distant droning of a lone hammerwing, then silence.
“My self-appointed task,” Miocene continued, ‘is to keep watch on our former base camp. It’s a hopeless chore, frankly, and that’s why I don’t ask for anyone’s help. The camp is still empty. And until we can find the means, I think it will remain abandoned.”
A few of the captains nodded agreeably. One or two sipped at their pungent tea.
“We have only one small telescope, and a crude tripod.” Miocene was unfolding a copperfly wing, her long hands gently trembling as she told everyone, “I leave the telescope set on the east ridge, on flat ground inside a sheltered bowl, and all I use it for is to watch the camp. Five times every day, without exception.”
Someone said, “Yes, madam.”
Patiently, but not too patiently.
Miocene rose to her feet, spreading out the reddish wings covered with numbers and small neat words. “When we lived beneath the camp, we rarely adjusted our telescopes. Usually after a tremor or a big wind. But now that we’ve moved here, fifty-three kilometers east of original position… well, I’ll tell you… in these last weeks, I’ve twice had to adjust my telescope’s alignment. I did it again just this morning. Always nudging it down toward the horizon.”
Silence.
Miocene looked up from the numbers, seeing no one.
She asked herself, “How can that be?”
With a quiet, respectful voice, Aasleen suggested, “Tremors are throwing the telescope out of alignment. As you said.”
“No,” the Submaster replied. “The ground is flat. It’s always been flat. I’ve tested for that exact error.”