Ammonite

She walked away from the fields thoughtfully and punched in Hiam’s code. The doctor was still not talking. She went to find Danner.

Marghe spent the next two days at Danner’s screen, downloading huge chunks of biology and physics data and comparing the information with what she knew of Thenike’s abilities and her own, with Letitia’s and Uaithne’s strange behavior during severe storms, with what she had learned during her biofeedback training. It made for some interesting theories.

Marghe set off for the hospital, trudging through the muggy heat under an overcast sky. There would not be many clear skies again at Holme Valley until spring. She thought of the bright, hard skies of Ollfoss and wished she and Thenike were starting their journey back the very next day.

When she got to the hospital, the doctor was not there, but Lu Wai was, holding Letitia’s hand. Letitia was awake. “Letitia!” Marghe tried to smile, but the technician looked thin and fragile, like a dark brittle stick against the white bed.

“Don’t look like that. I feel better than I look. Pretty good, in fact. I won’t be turning cartwheels for a week or two, but I’m alive, Lu Wai’s alive. And it looks like things are going to get pretty interesting from now on.”

This time Marghe’s smile was genuine. “You do sound better than you look.”

Letitia grinned. Her face was terribly thin. “I hear I missed a good storm.”

“The first one was better.”

“Yes.” She smiled at Marghe, that thin, stretched smile. “The way Twissel tells it, I’m some kind of hero.” But Marghe saw Letitia’s knuckles whiten as she squeezed Lu Wai’s hand, and realized the technician was not really talking to her. Marghe felt as though she was intruding on something private.

“Well, I’d better go find Hiam.”

“No, wait.” Letitia reached out a hand to Marghe. “I haven’t thanked you. You and Thenike. Hiam says you saved my life.”

Marghe did not know what to say. Thenike deserved most of the credit, but Thenike was not here to accept the thanks that Letitia needed to give. “Anytime.”

They were quiet. A machine bleeped softly.

“So, rumor has it you’re pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t look pregnant.” The machine bleeped again. “When’s it due?”

A green light blinked, and Letitia’s eyes rolled. Marghe looked anxiously at Lu Wai. The Mirror held a finger to her lips. Letitia closed her eyes and fell asleep with a faint smile on her lips.

Lu Wai motioned Marghe outside. “She’ll be asleep for about four hours. It’s the only way we can get her to have enough rest. You know what she’s like.”

In the natural light Marghe could see how drawn and tired the Mirror looked. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. It’s just…” She dug her boot toe into the turf, ground out a hole. “I look at her, lying there, and I wonder how it would be if she’d died. I don’t think I could… I don’t think…”

Marghe touched her shoulder. “I know.”

“But she’s healing. She’s tough.” Now Lu Wai smiled, a private, proud smile, and lifted her head. “She’ll wake up still wanting to know when your child is due.”

“Tell her the Moon of New Grass. Next spring. And tell her that if you would both like to come for the birth, for the births, Thenike and I will send a message.”

“I’d like that,” Lu Wai said softly. “I’d like that very much.”

Aoife and Marac, along with the Briogannon, Ojo, stayed a little longer. They wanted to study the ways of the Holme Valley community, Marac said; how they shaped the skelter trees, plowed their fields, used the river. For three days Marghe watched them as they went out and about—the hard, lean Levarch and the younger, softer daughter—fingering an olla bowl, thumping the tendons of a breeding taar, or asking short hard questions on the length of the seasons this far south. Once, she saw them both lift their hands and rub at their chins thoughtfully while Cassil explained a harvest technique. Ojo drifted behind them, a dark-eyed shadow.

But summer was short on Tehuantepec, and Aoife and Marac had to get back north to join their people. “There’s not much time to bring our herds south before the snows. Winter comes early this year,” Aoife said from her horse.

“That’s what Holle said.” The sun was bright, and Marghe had to shade her eyes with her hand to look up at Aoife. Marac and Ojo waited on their small, shaggy ponies some distance away.

Aoife looked diminished, Marghe realized. She wondered how it must feel, to kill a soestre.

“You did the right thing,” she said suddenly. “It’s best for your people.”

“I am Levarch. I always do what is best for the Echraidhe.” Her eyes were bleak. “Sometimes it is not easy. For me or others.”

An apology?

“You were right when you said the Echraidhe must change. I listen to truth and those who speak it. But I’ll never forget that it was you who made me kill my soestre. You will never be welcome in my tent.”

Aoife looked at her without expression, then wheeled her horse and was gone, Marac and Ojo thundering along beside her.