"'Fraid not. Opening negotiations. Somebody had to break away from the Colony first."
Stu looked down at them from his seat, his grin cutting through the dust and sweat, and shook his head. "Just glad you're both back, man." His expression grew somber. "I'm so sorry for what happened."
"Yeah." Cadmann looked decidedly uncomfortable; then Mary Ann hugged him and patted her stomach.
"Stu! Think I've got a piglet in the pen!"
"Oh! Whoa! Well, this is an occasion. M'lady!" Stu swung down from the tractor and offered a hand to Mary Ann. She looked back at Cadmann, who just picked her up by the armpits and hoisted her aboard the tractor.
"You know how to drive one of these things, I believe?"
"Betcha," she said happily, and swung up into the seat. She gunned the engine. The tractor made a great, lazy circle. The two men followed it at a short distance.
For a while there was companionable silence, and then Stu broke it. "We've done a lot of rebuilding since you've been gone. Not just buildings, Cad. We've got the defenses up, and stronger. Stupidity. Just stupidity." He seemed to need to hear something in return. "We got blind-sided once, but it's not going to happen again, I can guarantee it."
"Good to know that."
Stu was almost as tall as Cadmann, but somehow at the moment he seemed much smaller. "Do they know that you're coming back? Did you radio?"
"No, I sent a homing pigeon."
Stu looked stricken, and Cadmann felt a little disgusted with himself.
"Look, Stu—if you did what you really felt was right, then fine. I have no interest in seeing or hearing anyone crawl. What's got me twitchy—skip it." They have defenses. Great, but where do I come in? Can they make me inspect them? Damn.
There was a general shout of greeting ahead of them as Mary Ann and the tractor passed the first of the outer pens. Within moments Cadmann was the center of attention.
I've only been gone for five weeks...
But any momentary discomfort was quickly drowned in a sea of reaching hands.
"Cad! Welcome back!"
"—to see you—"
"—things haven't been the—"
And other fragments piled one atop another, overlapping, irritating and at the same time deeply soothing.
Mary Ann stopped the tractor by the machine shops and dismounted with Cadmann's assistance. She melted into his hands with a calculatedly sensuous grace that put him on guard.
What was she projecting? She was using that "forced float" that insecure women use when...
When presenting themselves before a rival.
Sylvia.
She wore her lab smock, which was freshly pressed and looked like nothing so much as a maternity gown. And a maternity gown that she wouldn't be wearing much longer. She waddled a bit when she walked, and was carrying the baby low in her belly.
She smiled at him, at them both, and there was something very like a wall of glass between her emotions and the smile.
Her pageboy haircut was a little longer than the last time he had seen her, and needed a trim around the edges. She held out her hands to him, then, not quite smoothly, shifted positions to offer them to Mary Ann first. "Mary Ann. You look wonderful."
"So do you. I'm hoping to get some of that glow pretty soon now."
"You mean... ?"
"Yep."
Sylvia hugged Mary Ann hard, then held her hands out to Cadmann. He took them, fighting to follow her lead, to maintain the distance between them. Some sense of proportion was called for here, but the instant he touched her skin, something inside him melted. He ached for her.
"Cadmann." Her mouth tweaked in an attempt at a casual smile. "Is Mary Ann right? You haven't been shooting blanks?"
"Nope, someone slipped a live round in there. At least, that's what we're hoping. At least, that's what we came down to find out." He hesitated. "Would you take care of my lady for me?"
"You know it." There were tiny moist jewels forming at the corners of her eyes, and she squeezed his hand. "Hey, big man—are we going to be seeing more of you? I'm going to be losing a passenger in a month."
It had to be his imagination, but her hands suddenly flushed with warmth. He released them, embarrassed by the strength of his reaction. "I wouldn't miss it. As soon as you're in labor, I'll head back down. Promise. Aside from that... I've got livestock now, and crops. I just don't know."
She nodded, unwilling to pressure him. "Listen... I'll take Mary Ann for a full checkup. Stay for dinner?"
"Count on it."
Mary Ann hugged Cadmann and planted a long, proprietary kiss on his mouth, pressing herself against him, to the appreciative guffaws of the crowd.
Then she and Sylvia linked arms and marched off together.
Cadmann shifted his pack around until the pain in his ribs eased (and a fresh ache started in the bone of his right hip). He continued on into the camp. A zigzag walkway through the minefield was painted bright green, and he followed it, noting the guns placed to cover that path. He nodded approval.
None of the children were walking yet. We'll have to fence off the minefield when they get older. And—No! Not my department!
He grinned when a small pink face passed him carried in a papooseka backpack.
What the hell. He didn't have to live here to love those little faces. It wasn't the children's fault that their parents were idiots. Dammit, these were his children too.
The veterinary lab had been repaired. Its side was a mass of patches welded in great discolored blotches at the corners. The structural damage to the quad had been repaired. Nothing could hide the scorch marks, but there were strings of colored ribbon wired up around the edges, and the beginning of a banner painted in bright orange and green.
In the center of the quad was something new that glistened in the morning light. Cadmann bent to read it. Set into the concrete was a metal tablet, tinted to look like brass, that said simply:
"Day 295, Year One. REMEMBER." Following those words in a silent tribute were etched thirteen names. He traced them with his fingers. Alicia: gone. Barney, Jon, Evvie Sikes: gone.
Jesus.
"I didn't know what else to do," Zack said behind him, and Cad turned to greet him, clasped his hands strongly.
Zack didn't look tired—he looked hard and wiry and serious. He had trimmed his mustache short, and there was a partially healed burn scar along the inside of his forearm. "We were wrong—you were right. I'm sorrier than I can say."
"Don't bother being sorry. Just don't let it happen again."
Zack took Cadmann by the arm. "Come on. Let me show you Monster
Watch."
"The mine field—"
"We turn it on at night."
"And new fences along the gorge. I like it."
"You'll like it better."
Zack held the door of the com shack open as Cadmann shucked his backpack. Pain eased in ribs and hip.
Two extra screens had been mounted in the room, and there was a cot in the corner that looked recently used. Andy, the big man from Engineering, sat in a swivel chair, his dark face speckled with crawling dots of reflected light. He distractedly waved a hand in greeting.
One of the six flat video screens was dark, but three others viewed the Colony from varying local angles, and two scanned their island from the geosynchronous satellites.
"We've got the ocean-observation program going—this is the long view. We're also analyzing weather patterns to attempt to build up a model. But we've got optical and infrared sensors working. We should be able to track anything man-size moving close to the surface. If the computer scans an object moving in our direction, it'll call our attention to it."
The picture abruptly changed to a high-altitude view of the ocean itself. Endless gentle white waves rolled in from the west. The ocean seemed deeply and peacefully azure. The illusion was one of guileless transparency. Of an ocean without secrets, welcoming their inspection, soothing away their fears.