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faded blue coveralls twin to those Mac wore. “Don’t they give you living quarters?”
    Mac waved at the lab end of her office. “I like to stay with my work.” He gave the worktables loaded ceiling-high with boxes and storage bags a doubtful look. “Incoming postdocs,” she lied, unwilling to admit she’d had no students apply to work with her this season. Why would they? She’d abandoned Base last year, produced no results, attended no conferences, ignored messages, missed interviews. Unreliable. Unproductive. Unworthy. Mac was counting on the coming season and its results to set things right.
    The boxes and bags were Emily’s. Her belongings kept being sent here, without warning, from wherever they were found. Thoroughly searched and documented before Mac saw them, with no explanation or advice on what to do with them; she let them pile up. Archaeologist’s tools and flamboyant jewelry from the dead home world of the Dhryn. Slashed silk and broken furniture from guest quarters on Base. Sleeping bag and tent from Field Station Six. A collection of erotic novels and exotic kitchen gear from the Sargasso Sea. Mail-order llama statues.
    Flotsam from a woman’s life. How far could you drift before being lost? Mac wondered.
    The Ro had taken part of Emily’s flesh and somehow traded it for no-space, so she could travel with them, talk to them. How long could a body endure that connection? How long could a mind?
    Well aware of that connection, the IU and the Ministry desperately wanted to find Emily Mamani and any like her, to reestablish communication with the Ro. The real reason for their attention to Base. To Mac. Emily’s things?
    More bait.
    Forgive me, Emily had asked, the night she’d left.
    She was a hero now, of sorts. To those who knew. A Human who’d given up everything to try and stop the Dhryn. She’d known the truth; tried in vain to tell Mac.
    Forgive me, Mac thought, then tensed as Mudge laid his hand on a nearby crate, one of several forming a lopsided pyramid in the center of the large room. The stack, Emily’s equipment from Field Station Six, looked regrettably like a shrine. No guarantees any of it still worked. The Ministry had left it in pieces. Mac had reassembled the console as best she could, but Emily would have to rebuild the tracers, test everything first.
    It had been Mac’s decision to keep Emily’s field equipment at hand and ready, a decision those who’d been here last year acknowledged with silent, dismayed looks whenever entering her office. Especially Lee, once hopelessly smitten with Emily’s lush looks and boldness, who’d found the love of his life in quiet, shy Lara Robertson-Herrera from biochem a mere month after Emily’s disappearance. When he saw the crates, he’d actually flinch.
    Did they think she didn’t notice? She was stubborn, not blind.
    The waterproofed gear she’d use this field season was stacked outside on the terrace, ready for pickup by t-lev. Mac was simply ready for Emily’s return.
    Whenever that might be.
    Mudge tapped one crate with a stubby forefinger, as if he’d guessed its contents from her reaction. “Haven’t you found a replacement for Dr. Mamani yet? Surely she had collaborators.”
    Oh, yes. Invisible aliens, able to sidestep space, utterly ruthless and bent on genocide . Mac shook her head. “No. No one available, that is,” she qualified. His skeptical look made her fumble for an explanation. “The tracer technology we were using was imported.” The present euphemism for anything alien, although eager innovation rapidly blurred whatever was in Human hands for more than a week. Patent law was a booming business. “Em—Dr. Mamani was working with it on her own.”
    As far as Mac knew. From scuttlebutt through academic channels, she’d heard how “officials” had swept through the Sargasso Sea Research Outpost, Emily’s other home, with such fierce thoroughness that lawsuits had been filed and lost, five doctoral