Wasteland of Flint

The 'Observatory' Base Camp

The Gagarin shuddered to a halt, wings creaking as they sagged, bereft of the lifting wind. Gretchen let go of the stick, grateful to be on the ground again, and tried to uncramp her right hand. Clouds of fine dust drifted past, gilded by the early morning light, obscuring scattered bunkerlike camp buildings. Groaning a little — all of her bruises were throbbing today — she reached up and toggled off the ultralight engines and power plant.

Outside, the camp had a familiar air of abandonment. The usual litter was missing — no discarded cans or forgotten clothing, no shutters banging in the wind, no stray half-feral dogs pacing stiff-legged in the streets — but Gretchen could feel the emptiness crawling between her shoulder blades.

I hate this kind of place. On edge, she swung out of the cockpit. Despite how things had gone in the slot canyon, the Sif-52 was slung forward under her left armpit, the pistol-grip only an instant from her hand. The weight of the gun was balanced by a bandolier of ammunition canisters. Gretchen turned on her heel, scanning the buildings for any sign of movement. Nothing caught her eye. The wind was gusting, smudging the sky white with dust, but nothing seemed out of place.

The camp felt dead, an abandoned toy cast aside by careless children.

Wrapping the kaffiyeh tight across her breather mask, Gretchen ducked under the wing and made short work of setting the sand anchors. Hummingbird approached, djellaba snapping around his legs in a dark, sand-mottled tail. He too was muffled tight, the glow of morning simmering in his goggles.

A hiss of static, then "Is there a hangar?"

Gretchen pointed. The largest above ground building in the camp. "Tight fit for two aircraft, but we'll manage. Better get them inside quick — the wind is picking up."

Turning away from the wind, they both hurried across the quadrangle toward the maintenance sheds and the hangar building. Gretchen kept a wary eye out — her dislike of recently-abandoned places had not faded with age and time, only grown stronger.

If I have this sight, she realized, trying to suppress a chill of apprehension, then I might see whatever is left behind. The thought was not pleasant. Her curiosity only went so far.

"Locked," Hummingbird said, gruff voice nearly lost in the hiss of the wind.

Gretchen knelt, checking the mechanism. A bolt and bar assembly, sliding into a quickcrete footing and secured with a cheap padlock.

"Just like our barn at home," she said in amusement, rising and pulling a hexacarbon prybar from her belt. The tube extended with a snap of her wrist and a metallic clank. "Just a moment."

The lever slid in between the padlock and the vertical bar. Gretchen rotated the hexacarbon tube with a sharp, hand-over-hand motion and there was a groaning squeal as she put her shoulders into the turn. The soft steel of the padlock deformed like taffy and then parted with a ringing ting! "Help me with the door."

With both of them pushing against the articulated plating, the hanging door rattled up into the roof of the hangar, spitting sand and rust out of the tracks. Gretchen stepped inside, her lightwand raised high, and nodded in tight-lipped satisfaction to see the cavernous space empty.

"Good. Let's get yours inside first." Gretchen turned back into the wind. Both Midge s were straining against their anchor lines, wings rippling like salmon skin under a heat lamp. "It's getting stronger. Hurry."

Heads down, they ran across the field, gossamer veils of dust rushing past. The still-rising sun was bloated half-again its usual size with rust.

"So." Gretchen pulled a pressure door closed behind her, shutting off the tunnel leading to the hangar building. Taking care to keep dust from spilling onto the recycler apparatus around her neck, she unwound the kaffiyeh. Hummingbird had done the same, leaving his cloak and scarf and other gear stacked up beside the door. "We're here at last, and better off than I expected."

Without a dozen people milling around and the smell of bacon frying and coffee perking, the base's common room was cold, echoing, and unsettlingly empty. Hummingbird sat on the nearest table, feet bare, running an electrostatic vacuum over his boots. Gretchen pulled up a chair — the plastic was badly discolored and the legs were streaked with a calcitelike crust — and sat down. She stared down at her own shoes, grimacing at the ragged edges of the soles and the general ruin of the uppers. Even Fitz couldn't fix these.

"I am going to go outside," Hummingbird said, banging his left boot against the edge of the table. Reddish grit rained down onto cracked quickcrete. "Before the weather gets any worse. I am…a little worried."

"Huh! Why? We've finally reached some shelter, where we can refuel and resupply and you're worried?" She pointed a finger at the roof. "We're even out of the wind. That tent was starting to smell."

"Yes." Hummingbird looked around, his expression becoming almost morose. "That is the problem. I had no idea the camp here was so extensive."

"Ah." Gretchen ran the edge of her thumb against the boot sole. The material was porous and spongy. Bits of glittering crystalline mica spilled out. She felt a little ill at the sight and dialed her lightwand into UV and stuffed it inside the boot. My feet feel fine…sort of. I hope.

"Well," she said, trying not to stare in sick fascination at her socks, "humans get kind of busy sometimes — I mean, they planned on being here for two, three years. A camp for a long-term expedition isn't just some tents or a carryall. It's a little town."

"I can see." Hummingbird fingered the goggles hanging around his neck. The glassite looked like it had been attacked with a power sander or a steel rasp. "I think — no, I am afraid we are too late. Man has been here too long, put too much of his mark on the land. Even our passage across the world has stirred up rumors, echoes…"

"You mean the Russovsky-thing I spoke to." Gretchen swallowed, preparing herself for the worst, and tugged off one sock. The moisture-wicking, thermally insulated fabric disintegrated in her hand, leaving a blue ring of elastic material around her ankle. Suddenly, she felt light-headed. "Oh, oh sister…"

"You saw more than a rumor." Hummingbird was staring out the portholelike windows. Sodium-tinted shadows turned his face to graven brass. "I know it was gone when we went back — but such things are real. We're a stone, cast into a still pond. Though we sink and disappear, the wave from our entry propagates through this world. Some of the waves turn back upon themselves — well, you saw the effect — and the memory of our passing through this place is retained. Layers build on layers…" His voice trailed off, wrinkled old face growing stiff in anger.

"Sure." Gretchen forced down a surge of nausea, bile tainting her throat. She felt faint, but gripped the edge of the table and waited for the sensation to pass. Hummingbird was saying something, but the words were far away and indistinct, unintelligible. Jerkily, she swung her leg up and put her foot across the opposite knee. In the muted yellow light from the windows, the sole of her foot was shiny and slick, almost glassy. "Uhhh…"

A trembling finger reached out to touch the discoloration — she felt a hard, smooth surface and jerked away again. "Oh blessed sister, deliver us from all the fears of the world, from evil, from want…" Is it deep? Why didn't I feel anything? Is it my whole foot? Oh, Sister, how deep does this go!

"What happened to your foot?"

Gretchen looked up, sweating, and saw Hummingbird looming over her, eyes narrowed.

"I — it ate right through my boots."

The nauallis knelt beside her, firm hands grasping her ankle and toes, turning the sole into the light so he could see. Gretchen slumped back into the decaying chair, fist jammed into her mouth to keep from crying out.

But there was no pain. Hummingbird squinted, turning her foot this way and that. She could feel the strength in his fingers, immobilizing the offending limb better than a surgeon's vise. White-shot eyebrows gathered over dusky green eyes and then his face became still, wrinkles fading, a sense of release and settling peace washing over his countenance. After a moment, he reached into his vest and produced a small folding knife.

Gretchen's eyes widened and her leg tried to jerk violently away. Hummingbird's hand tightened and her movement was stillborn. "Hold still," he said, eyes focused on some unseen distance. The blade snapped out of the handle with a sharp click and he put a mirror-keen edge against the heel of her foot. Gretchen felt the world swim again, vertigo surging around her.

"You should start counting," he said, eyeing her with interest. "Or look away."

There was a scraping sound, but Gretchen felt nothing more than a tugging. She blinked, surprised. Shouldn't it hurt? The old man made a hmm sound and his fingers tightened. This time, Gretchen could feel more than a tugging; there was a sharp, piercing bolt of pain.

"Ayyy! Oh, sister…is that blood?"

"Sorry," Hummingbird said, cleaning the blade on his thigh pad. "Nicked you a little."

"How bad is it?" The pain parted a cloud of nausea. Her medband reacted, flooding her arm with a pleasantly cool sensation. Gretchen looked down and her teeth clenched. Hummingbird was carving away a slice of her heel; metallic, glistening skin peeling back from the edge of his knife. "Guuuhhh…why — why isn't that bleeding?"

"Dead skin," he said, lips pursed in concentration. "Whatever got into your boot doesn't seem to have done much more than eat up your calluses."

The nauallis finished with the heel and cleaned the blade again. Gretchen could feel her foot start to throb, but realized the sensation was more from the tight grip he had on her ankle than anything else.

"Now let's see…" He switched the blade around to hold as a scraper and began to work on the instep. Gretchen's leg jerked again and the chair gave out with a little groan as she moved. "Ticklish, I see."

"Just pay attention," she hissed, hoping his hand didn't slip again. Her fingernails squeaked on plastic. "I've only got the one left foot."

The view from the second floor windows was no better than from downstairs. The sun was gone, reduced to a muddy flare in the sky. A sickly yellow fog had swept across the camp, driven by wild, intermittent winds. Gretchen perched in a deep window embrasure, bandaged foot sticking out into the room, her eyes fixed on a narrow view of the quadrangle. Hummingbird had gone out into the storm — she'd seen him open one of the airlock doors and hunch out into the blowing dust — but he'd vanished from sight almost immediately. Grimly nervous, Gretchen kept one hand on the grip of the Sif at all times. Their gear was piled downstairs, but the echoing vacancy of the common room set her on edge.

Out in the blowing murk, the gritty fog parted for a moment. Anderssen stiffened, searching for the nauallis, and caught a glimpse of a dark-cloaked figure near the lab building. She frowned — the shape was moving strangely, a sort of duck-walked sideways shuffle. The head bobbed from side to side — and then the dust closed in again.

"What is he up to?" Gretchen spoke aloud, depressed by the leaden silence in the abandoned room. The echoes of her voice fell away, leaving another bad taste in her mouth. It's almost worse to speak, she thought in disgust. A frown followed. He can't "align" an entire building, can he?

A gust roared past outside the window, rattling the heavy pane. Even the bright patch of the sun had disappeared in a gathering darkness. There was an intermittent glow from the east, but the light was far too low in the sky to be the sun. Gretchen checked her chrono. Not quite midday. She put her hand against the wall, cheap plaster cracking away from the concrete backing at her touch. The entire building shivered in the storm. Snatching her hand away, Gretchen swung around on the window ledge and gingerly tested her bandages. Her left foot, which had suffered the most damage, was completely shrouded in healfast gauze, medicated antiseptic cream and a layer of spray-on dermaseal from Hummingbird's medical kit.

Her boots had been a complete loss, which left her slopping around in a spare pair of mulligans Hummingbird had found in a downstairs locker. These would fit Tukhachevsky…okay, let's see about walking.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Dammit." Trying to walk very lightly, Anderssen limped down the stairs to the lower floor and began checking each of the rooms. She didn't think there were any ground-floor windows besides the portholes in the common room, but a queer prickling feeling urged her to check. The kitchen was entirely dark, as were the storage rooms behind the grill.

"We need to get the power working," she muttered after banging her knee on a chair. The circle of radiance from her lightwand seemed very small in the thick, heavy air. A handful of the precious glowbeans broke up the dimness, though they seemed very lonely once they were shining from the ceiling.

Moving carefully, she forced open a maintenance door on the far side of the ground floor. A sloping tunnel led down into close-smelling darkness. Gretchen paused — a low, extending rumbling sound penetrated the heavy walls — and she turned in time to see the portholes lit by the stabbing brilliance of a lightning strike. Almost instantly, the building shook and the crack was clearly audible. Dust sifted down from the ceiling of the tunnel.

"Okay. Time to stick close to home." Gretchen retreated to the pile of gear in the middle of the room and shoved two of the tables together to make an L-shaped work area. Putting down the Sif so she could unpack was a struggle, but her nerves settled a little after checking — and locking — all of the doors.

The intermittent rumble of thunder continued to grow, until the noise faded into the background of her consciousness as a constant rippling growl. The windows stuttered constantly with the flare of yellow-orange heat lightning. Squatting beside the little camp stove, watching a pale blue flame flicker in the heating unit, she was very glad the buildings were quickcrete rather than metal-framed.

The tea finally consented to boil, which reminded her far too much of a particular storm on Old Mars. She'd ridden that one out in an abandoned building too — a mining camp shaft-head in the barrier peaks around the Arcadia impact crater. Too many tricky memories, Gretchen thought, rather sullenly. "Why do all these places seem haunted?"

"Because they are," Hummingbird said, appearing out of the darkness, his step light as a cat. "Is there tea? Ah, good."

Gretchen lowered the Sif, though her heart was beating at trip-hammer speed. "Where…"

The door into the tunnel was still slightly open. She glared at the old man, who was stripping off his gloves, crouched over the tiny flame. "Well? What did you do?"

"I went here and there." Hummingbird dug out some tea, packets of sugar and a steel cup. "Seeing about the destruction of this place."

Gretchen's eyes narrowed. "You going to tell me how?"

"Doors." He said, stirring his tea. In the pale blue light of the glowbeans, his eyes were only pits of shadow, without even a jade sparkle to lighten his mood. There was a distinct air of concern about him, hanging on his shoulders like moldy laundry. "Opening and closing vents. In some places I moved those things which could be moved. Tidying up, as one of my teachers used to say."

"Opening…oh." Gretchen looked sharply at the partly-open door. Her stomach was threatening to churn again. I'll have an ulcer out of this, if nothing else. "Including the one at the other end of the tunnel?"

Hummingbird shook his head. "Nothing in this building. Not yet. We'll save that for last."

"What about the hangar?"

"No. I supposed we might need the ultralights again."

"That's very wise," Gretchen said with a sigh of pure relief. "Please don't destroy our means of transportation."

"Is there anything to eat?" The nauallis looked around hopefully.

Gretchen scowled. "Do I look like a cook to you?" She nudged one of the bags with her too-big boot. "Vanilla, chocolate, grilled ixcuintla, ham surprise, miso, all the usual flavors. And if you want any of my hot sauce," she said in a waspish tone, "you will have to ask very nicely."

Hours dragged by — measurable only by the tick of a chrono, for the storm-dimmed light in the windows did not seem to change — and Gretchen's feet began to itch terribly. Hummingbird had gone to sleep, leaving her to watch in the darkness. The afternoon dragged by and finally, when her stomach was starting to grumble about supper, Gretchen poked the nauallis with a long-handled spoon from the kitchen.

"Crow. Crow, wake up!"

One eye opened and the old Mйxica gave her an appraising look. "Yes?"

"How many teachers did you have?" Gretchen was curled up, leaning back against the baggage, two stolen blankets draped around her shoulders. "Is there a school for judges?"

"Not so much so." Hummingbird clasped both hands on his chest and looked up at the ceiling. "My father was a judge, so there were things I learned 'from the air' as he would say. When I graduated the clan-school, the calmecac, he took me aside." His face creased with a faint smile. "He was a strict man — much given to fairness and justice — but on that day he took the time to ask me if I wished to enter the service of the tlamatinime or not."

Hummingbird turned his head, giving Gretchen a frank look of consideration. "You should understand one does not become tlamatinime by intent. There are no civil exams, no waiting lists, no quotas. There is no one to 'talk to' about a promising son. The judges are always watching, listening, considering. We find you.

"So I was surprised when my father broached the subject. I think — looking back in memory — he was a little embarrassed to do so, because he was a judge, as his father, and his father's father, had been. Later, I learned the examiners found me suitable on their own and he'd learned of their decision from a friend." Hummingbird's smile remained only a faint curve of the lips, but Gretchen had watched him long enough to feel the depth of his emotion.

This is a precious jewel. Conviction grew, as Gretchen watched the old man speaking, that the crow's father had never shown him any special consideration beyond this one moment which was so clearly etched in his memory.

"He wanted me to consider the matter before they cornered me. To make my own choice. To escape the burden of family duty. To be free, if I wished."

Gretchen nodded, feeling a familiar weight of expectation pressing on her own shoulders. "But even so, you said yes?"

"Eventually." Hummingbird's smile vanished. "They were as patient as I was impatient."

"You?" Gretchen lifted her head in a sly smile. "You were the black sheep? The reckless, irresponsible child? Were you in a band?"

Hummingbird made a snorting sound and looked away.

When he did not turn back, Gretchen pursed her lips in speculation. So sensitive!

"What do I need to learn?" she asked, after some endless time had passed. "How do I learn — if there's no school — "

"There are no books," Hummingbird said in a stiff voice. "No tests. No sims. Only a teacher and a student, as it has been for millennia."

"Are you my teacher, then? Can I even be a student? I mean, you said women aren't accepted into the tlamatinime."

The nauallis sat up, jaw clenched tight. "There are women who learn to see," he said in a rather brusque voice. One hand made a sharp motion in the air. "But there are two…orders, you might say. One — the men — the tlamatinime, the other — the women — named the tetonalti. By tradition — more recently by law — the two are kept separate in all matters."

"So," Gretchen said, watching his face, "there are no female judges serving the Empire. They are…soul-doctors, is that what you said?"

Hummingbird's lips compressed into a tight, stiff line. "The tetonalti are not what they once were, in the time of the old kings. Though they too serve the Mirror, I prefer not to speak of their purpose." He made a pushing-away motion with both hands. "You are burden enough, just by yourself, without bringing them into the situation."

"How much trouble will you be in?" Gretchen tried to be nonchalant about the question, but Hummingbird's eyes narrowed at the light tone in her voice. "I mean, if women aren't supposed to learn these things — "

"Not enough trouble," he said, rather guardedly, "to see a certain cylinder back in your hands."

"So cynical," Gretchen said, hiding momentary disappointment. "I get the idea. I even understand," she made a face, "a little. It will hurt my children, that's all. That said — will I be in trouble if it's known I've started to gain this…sight?"

The nauallis nodded and rolled up to sit opposite her. "You will not be troubled by the Imperial authorities," he said. "I will not tell them what has happened. If you keep this to yourself, no one will trouble you."

"Will you show me more? Can you train me to control this clarity? You say some students have become 'lost-in-sight'. Will I become lost too?"

The old Mйxica hissed in annoyance. His fingers tapped on the crumbling floor for a moment, then fell still. "It might be best for you to forget all this, put these matters from your mind, turn your back on clarity and sight and all the rest."

"And how," Gretchen said, irritated, "do I do that? Right now I see double or triple most of the time — very disorienting. And then the hallucinations — I mean, I can almost perceive things in this room — people and voices — that aren't here!"

The old Mйxica looked around casually, then back at Anderssen. "Men talking? The smell of cooking? The half-heard chatter of music? The buzz of machinery?"

"Yes." Gretchen felt suddenly cold and turned abruptly, looking behind her. "Upstairs is better — it doesn't feel so crowded. But down here…"

"You're seeing," Hummingbird said quietly, "the shadows of man. The impression left on this room, this building, by the scientists who worked and lived here for the past year. We will leave shadows too, if I don't clean them up before we go. Right here." He made a circular motion with his finger. "Two indistinct shapes sitting on the floor, talking."

Gretchen felt a little sick again. "How long do these shadows last?"

"Usually," Hummingbird said, searching through his pockets, "they fade. Someone else comes and sits in the same chair, eats at the same table. The shadows interfere with one another and dissipate. Have you ever entered a dwelling where only one person lived for a long time? Where they died? A house left empty afterwards?"

"No." Slow rolling creeps slithered across Gretchen's arms. She could feel every single hair on her arms and neck stand on end. "I don't like abandoned places."

"It is dangerous," Hummingbird said, finding what he was looking for, "for a person to live alone, in the same house or room, for more than a few months at a time. Shadows accumulate. A living person needs to move, to change, to see new things. Say a man lives in the same room, eats at one table, sleeps in the same bed in the same orientation for years on end. Shadows reinforce. The mind is affected by shadows — you're feeling the effects of this empty room right now — sometimes the shadows become more real than the living man."

"Oh." Gretchen managed to smile. "I'm pretty safe then — the Company moves us every year or so."

Hummingbird nodded, turning a square of folded paper over in his hands. "You don't believe me. But think about your children — how many times have they changed their room around? Put the beds under the window, away from the window, asked for bunk beds, didn't want bunk beds? Decided to sleep in the living room instead? Changed rooms, if they had the option? Didn't you do that when you were younger?"

The world seemed to gel to a sudden, glassy stop. Gretchen licked her lips.

"Now," he continued in the same implacable voice. "Do you have an elderly relative? Stiff, old, strangely frightening. A house filled with things you must not touch? Rooms filled with furniture no one uses and which must never be moved? Strict rituals of the home — dinner at the same time, always the same prayer beforehand, things done in just such a way? Do you remember how you felt, when you were a child in such a place?"

"I was afraid," Gretchen whispered, almost lost in memories of her great-grandfather's tall, dark house. "I couldn't breathe."

"It was dark, even when the shutters or drapes were open. Musty. It smelled of shadow."

Hummingbird's eyes were limpid green, sunlight falling through leaves into still water.

"Memory," he continued, "is a physical change in the human brain. So too are skills laid down by repetition. Perception is governed, interpreted by pathways created by experience. A child's mind is loose, chaotic, filled with a hundred, a thousand paths from source to conclusion. But as a man ages, as he grows old — "

"I know," Gretchen said abruptly. "I took some biochemistry at the university. Neural pathways in the brain become consolidated. Fixed. Memories are lost or discarded, replaced by different sets of connections. There are diseases which attack the pathways, trapping people in repeated time."

Hummingbird placed the packet of paper on the ground between them. "Lost in memory. Or they lose the ability to form new pathways, gain new skills, see the world afresh. Trapped in routine, bound in shadows. The mind becomes rigid. A quiet, unseen death — long before the body runs down to silence."

Gretchen roused herself, lifting her chin. "Don't the tlamatinime have homes? Families?"

"Of course." The corners of Hummingbird's eyes crinkled. "They are very lively and we rarely remain in the same physical building for more than a year or two. And in the course of our business, we are always in motion. We have restless feet."

"And this?" She pointed suspiciously at the paper packet. "This is like what you gave me before?"

"This is different." Hummingbird considered her with a weighing expression. "The first packet was a helper to 'open-the-way'. This…this is 'he-who-reveals'. For most students this substance will let you find a…a guide, would be the best description. A guide who can help you control the sight."

"What kind of a guide?" Gretchen's suspicion deepened. "Aren't you my guide or teacher in this business?"

The nauallis shook his head slightly. "He-who-reveals is already within you, but in most men and women he is sleeping. Sometimes, if a person is troubled or under stress, the guide will speak to their dreams, more rarely in waking life — a voice which seems to come from the air, offering guidance. The guide is outside yourself, yet privy to all you know, see and do."

"That is disturbing." Gretchen scratched the back of her neck. "A stranger inside my head? Will this…drug…let me communicate with 'he-who-reveals'?"

"This will wake him up." Hummingbird pushed the packet toward her with the tip of his finger. "For a little while. What bargain you strike with him is upon you to effect. No one else."

"And what does he give me in return?"

Hummingbird shrugged, an obstinate look growing in his lean old face. "Such things are none of my business."

"How can there be another…anything…in my mind?"

"You misunderstand. He-who-reveals is the self which looks upon self with clarity. You are one being."

"What?" Gretchen felt another chill. The nauallis's words seemed slippery, their meaning darting away from her consciousness, silver fish vanishing into dim blue depths. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Hummingbird folded his hands. "He-who-reveals is the honest mirror. In your terms, he is the self without affect, without deception, without delusion. Have you ever tried to see yourself from outside? Perhaps, at the edge of sleep, you've seen yourself from above, as though your mind were separated from the body, able to look upon you with a stranger's eyes?"

"Yes." Gretchen rubbed her arms. "When I was a kid — I was scared to death I wouldn't be able to get back inside my own head. I'd be lost forever and I'd die."

"Fear," Hummingbird said, rather smugly, "is a barrier to sight."

"Fine." Gretchen gained a very distinct impression the old man was laughing at her. She picked up the packet. "I just put this on my tongue?"

Hummingbird reacted quickly, catching her hand before she could open the paper. "You should lie down first. There will be a physical reaction. And drink something. This is thirsty work."

The storm continued to rage outside. Violent yellow lightning flared among the roaring clouds and drifts of sand crept towards the windows. Visibility dropped to less than a meter. Hummingbird's chrono told him sunset had come, yet there was no apparent difference outside. The flare and crack of lightning stabbed through the murk. The building shivered with thunder.

Hummingbird waited, half asleep himself, while Anderssen lay on the floor, covered with blankets, a makeshift pillow under her head. The woman twitched and shuddered. Sometimes she spoke aloud, but even the nauallis could not understand the words.

Near midnight, with the wind howling unabated outside, Gretchen began to cough. Hummingbird rolled over and lifted her head. Her eyes opened wide, staring up at the blue-lit ceiling.

"Huhhh…" She doubled over, hacking violently. Hummingbird crouched down, supporting her arms. "Uhhh…it's too hot. Too hot."

Gretchen shoved the blankets aside, panting, her hair lank with sweat. Without thinking, she tugged the collar of her suit open, gasping for breath. Hummingbird scooted back warily and stood up, a worried frown on his old face.

"I can see," Gretchen said abruptly, her hands raised and trembling in the air. She stared at Hummingbird. "I can see your face, a sun hiding in clouds, your eyes brilliant jade, your face marked with red bands." Her expression twisted in horror, pupils dilating. Sweat flushed from her skin and ran in thin silver streams down her neck. "You're not a human being!"

"I am," Hummingbird said, remaining very still. "You are seeing the nechichiualiztli — a mask of purpose and duty — not me! You must be careful or this kind of sight will blind you. Can you see your own flesh, your own hand?"

Gretchen looked down and her face contorted, the skin stretching back from her teeth. She began to shake, muscles leaping under the flesh like snakes squirming in a calfskin bag. "I can see I can see I can see."

Hummingbird moved carefully to the side, quietly, without disturbing the air. "What do you see?"

"Nothing! There is nothing there! Darkness!" Gretchen was shouting, though her whole body was frozen into trembling immobility.

"Where is your hand?" Hummingbird said, his face close to hers, watching the flickering tic-tic-tic of her eyelids from the side. "See your hands. Here they are. You can see them."

Gretchen's neck stiffened like a log, the tendons and veins standing out like wire. "My hand is gone. I am gone. There is nothing here. Nothing here." Her voice had the quality of a scream, though it was soft, not even a whisper.

"Remember your hand, remember what you saw when we were sitting in the desert? Do you remember how clear it was, your hand, so fine and distinct?"

"Yes. Yes. I remember." Gretchen slumped into his waiting arms, her body loose, each muscle exhausted. By the time he laid her down, she was sound asleep. Hummingbird breathed out, a long, slow, even breath, and a fine mist of smoke hissed from between his teeth, settling over the woman's body.

Sometime after midnight the sound of the wind changed. Hummingbird roused himself from meditation and padded to the window. The rattling hiss of sand against the porthole had tapered off. He could see the sullen flash of lightning far away.

"Hmm." The old man checked Anderssen, sleeping deeply under all the blankets he could find. Her skin was cold and clammy. Worried, he fished a stout wrist out of the covers and examined the medband with an experienced eye. Her body was suffering a toxic reaction, so he keyed a series of dispense codes into the metal bracelet and then tucked her hand away, out of the chill air.

The pressure doors on the main airlock had frozen shut, forcing the nauallis to detour around through the machine shop and out through a hatch jammed open by a chest-high drift of sand. Squirming out into the night, Hummingbird took care to adjust his goggles to the near-absence of light.

The smaller buildings — the lab bunker, the ice house, the sheds for the tractors and carryalls — had vanished under lumpy dunes. Hummingbird turned right and half-walked, half-slid down into a trough in front of the main building. He headed toward the hangar, peering out at the sky and horizon.

There were no stars. The storm had lifted for the moment, but it had not passed. Stray winds eddied between the buildings, throwing sand at his legs. Out on the plain, he made out vague twisting shapes. Lightning stabbed in the upper air, flickering from cloud to cloud. In the intermittent, brilliant light, Hummingbird made out roiling, swift-moving clouds rushing past. A white-hot spark flared in the middle distance and the nauallis saw, throat constricting in atavistic fear, a monstrous funnel cloud snake down from the boiling sky.

More heat lightning flared above and the bloated tornado danced across a range of dunes a half-dozen kilometers away. Millions of tons of sand sluiced up into the sky, the entire ridge vanishing. The air trembled, a shrieking sound rising above the constant wind, and Hummingbird began to run.

The main door of the hangar building was stuck again, the bottom of the articulated metal plating buried in a meter of sand. Hummingbird dodged around the side, feeling the ground shake, and found a service door that opened inward. The reflected glare of lightning threw the entrance into deep shadow, but Hummingbird did not hesitate. He threw his full weight against the locking bar and was rewarded with a deep-throated groan of complaining metal. Two hard jerks managed to unlock the mechanism and he stumbled inside.

Less than a kilometer away, the funnel raced past, shaking the air with a stunning boom. Sand rained down from the raging sky. Hummingbird shoved the door closed, fighting against dust spilling in between his feet. Luckily, the pressure door had a counter-rotating weight and once in motion the door closed itself.

The still, quiet darkness of the hangar was a bit of a shock. The heavy walls muted the roar and thunder of the storm to distant grumbling. Hummingbird switched on his lightwand and made a circuit of the big room. Both Midge s were still in place, wings folded up, engines and systems on standby. The faint smell of idling fuel cells permeated the air. More out of habit than anything else, the nauallis shone his light inside the cockpits, into the cargo compartments, ran his hands across the engines and peered underneath.

And he stopped. His light shifted back, focusing on the forward landing gear of his Midge.

Most of the wheel was invisible, obscured by a dull gray coating — as if the quickcrete floor had grown up to engulf the landing gear. Hummingbird circled around to the front of the ultralight and found all three wheels encased in stone.

"Well," he said, jaw tightening. In the questing gleam of his lightwand, he saw Anderssen's Midge was similarly afflicted. He lowered the light, clicking his teeth together in thought. "I'd better check my boots again."

The funnel cloud broke apart far to the south of the camp, splintering into dozens of smaller vortices and then dissolving into a rush of sand and grit and sandstone fragments. The storm continued to move west, obscuring the plain with towering walls of dust. Clouds thinned, but did not part, over the camp. Stray winds gusted between the buildings, though in comparison to the violence which had just passed relative quiet reigned.

Russovsky stood on the crest of a dune, tangled blond hair whipping around her head, eyes fixed on the low, rounded shapes of the camp buildings. She wore neither mask nor goggles, though the apparatus of a rebreather and recycler clung to her back and chest. The once-glossy black skin of the suit was matted and dull, abraded by the constantly prying wind. Her boots had crumbled long ago, shredded by rocks or eaten away by the tiny, blind maiket.

At a distance, she could feel the presence of the human machine like the warmth of the sun-which-kills, hot and sharp, pressing against her face. The pattern of its movements, the residue of its passage, was clear in the air and upon the ground. There was familiar comfort in the humid smell humanity left behind, the traces of exhalation and sweat mixing in the cold sharp air. Far different from the clean, distinct impressions of the hathol or the furry blaze of the deep-dwelling firten.

A rumbling crack echoed from the north and Russovsky turned her head — a slow, methodical motion — to feel the twisting power in the storm building again. A vortex was building in the upper air, swirling currents rushing into a knot of power building from hundreds of kilometers in every direction. Soon the wave front would smash across the plain, pummeling everything in sight with unbounded rage.

Russovsky felt steadily building disquiet — not at the pending violence, for the pattern of the storm was as familiar to her as the shape of the camp buildings or the spreading stain of the hathol in the dune below her feet — but at a sense of disassociation creeping through ordered, clearly defined thoughts.

Black clouds staining a clear blue sky. Plunging ebon tendrils which flattened and distorted in the summer air, driven by winds at great heights.

Her memories of the-life-before were dying, fading, replaced by confused, diffracted images of things she was sure did not exist in her world, events she had never experienced herself.

A night sky so flushed with stars, night was barely different from day. A bloated, dim sun the color of rust. Obsidian mountains rising to unimaginable heights, rectangular black slabs shimmering against an ochre sky. Fields of silver flowers which constantly turned to face the sun. A sense of impossible age.

Did she see these things herself? Were they dreams? Russovsky examined memories of her life before this life and found them rife with the sensation of dreams and phantoms and half-seen images whelped from confusion or exhaustion. Yet there were no cyclopean towers, no vast cities dreaming under the cruel, brilliant sky of her human memories. These new memories felt strange, foreign.

They felt as things she'd seen with waking eyes.

Disturbed, she turned her attention away from such disorderly matters. The slow, comfortable song of the hathol permeating the dune slope drew her attention. Here was respite from the storm, from the bleak thoughts, from tormenting phantoms, from the nagging pressure of the distant machine. Russovsky knelt, hands flat on the unsteady slope. Her fingers sank into the muted glow of the sand-dwellers. A darker hue spread from her contact, spilling through the delicate threads and spongiform clusters forming the hive. Her own skin became tainted with the reddish radiance of the slow ones.

Russovsky became still, her body locked in position, and the red glow mounted through her arms, into her chest, flooding down into her torso. Even as her body began to crumble, flaking into translucent fragments, skinsuit hardening to stone and dissolving, the darker stain spread across the dune face, rushing through the fragile circulatory system of the hive.

The Russovsky-shape shuddered into a rain of dust, sand and stone fragments. Wind rippled across the debris, anointing the darkened hive with glowing red dust. A second wave of radiance flooded through the hathol, picking out the threads and tendrils in bright new colors.

At the base of the dune, where the dust gathered, where the heart-clusters of the hive dwelt under meters of hard-packed sand, the dark stain pooled, thickened, began to build toward the storm-tossed sky. An outline formed with visible speed, sand and dust and grit knitting into bone, sinew, flesh, blood, the triply-insulated rubbery layer of a skinsuit. In the fullness of time, long, ragged blond hair.

Russovsky flexed her arms, brushing husks of dead hathol away from her fingers. Bare feet broke free of an encasing shell and she turned toward the encampment. The suit was glossy and dark again, made new, refreshed.

The strobe-flare of distant lightning washed over her face. A muttered growl of thunder stirred the air, fanning her hair.