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students had attempted to transfer elsewhere, an effort that resulted only in attracting further scrutiny (Mac had heard the phrase “scoured to their toenails” used and didn’t doubt it), and the reputation of the scientists left rocked by Emily Mamani’s wake best described as “tenuous.”
    The “officials” had claimed to be hunting clues to Emily’s disappearance. Mac wondered how long anyone would continue to buy either the excuse—or its truth. Emily’s younger sister, Maria, wouldn’t take Mac’s calls anymore. Not that she had news to give her.
    Mac’s troubled thoughts must have shown on her face. Mudge came back and sat in one of the two chairs in front of her desk, eyes fixed on her. “This place is what I expected, Norcoast. Not you.” His eyebrows drew together. “You’ve changed.”
    Somehow, Mac knew he didn’t mean her new haistyle or lack of The Suit. “People do,” she said noncommittally.
    “It’s more than that.” His frown deepened, acquiring puckers beside his eyes. “But I didn’t come here to pity you.”
    Ouch . Mac almost smiled. “You came to revoke my license,” she reminded him.
    His eyes gleamed. “I would if I could, believe me.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “They’ve taken the Trust away. Surely you knew?”
    Mac was grateful her desk was close enough she could put her hip to it for support. “There was,” she ventured, “some talk of emergency measures during the—incident—last year.”
    “Some talk?” Mudge slammed his palm against the arm of the chair. “The government—don’t ask me what branch, because I get a different set of names every week—took control then and kept it. I get no reports. Your Dr. Noyo’s applications went over my head . . . approved without my so much as seeing them. I spent months waiting for the one person I could expect to tell me the truth about the Trust, only to find I wasn’t permitted to talk to her. In all but name, Norcoast, there is no more Trust.”
    Her heart fluttered in her chest, as if looking for a way out. If this was some favor from Nik, it was no favor at all . “I didn’t know,” Mac said. “I—I’d assumed Kammie was a better negotiator than I’d been. Or that, under the circumstances, you’d been unusually—” she changed kind to “—amenable to this year’s projects.”
    “Convenient, your being away.”
    Provoked, Mac lunged to her feet. “I was looking for my friend—”
    Mudge waved his hand placatingly. “Sit down, Norcoast. You might be pigheaded and narrow-minded, but I never believed you were a willing part of this.”
    Sorting a compliment from that could cause a headache. Mac settled for a testy: “Thanks. Given you can’t revoke my license, for which I won’t deny I’m grateful, why did you come?”
    “I want to see for myself.”
    “See what?” Mac asked, dreading the answer. Sure enough, Mudge thrust a thick finger in the direction of shore. “No. Absolutely not. I can’t possibly—”
    “Why? If there’s nothing wrong, what will it hurt?”
    “With you,” Mac pointed out, “there’s always something wrong.”
    He leaned back in the chair and didn’t quite smile, although Mac sensed Mudge felt close to victory. “I’m willing to overlook your people’s usual transgressions,” he said generously. “The footprints, the broken limbs, the misplaced sample vials. Picnics.”
    How about the massive scar from a Ro landing site—the tracks from teams of investigators—the doubtless intact passage left by a panic-stricken Dhryn carrying her up the slope? Aliens where they didn’t belong. Not part of Mudge’s worldview.
    Or, until recently, her own.
    Mac swore under her breath.
    “Pardon?”
    “I said it’s not possible.” As his face clouded, she temporized, “Yet. The webbing lines to the shore haven’t been set up. No way to get there. You’ll have to come back in—” Mac gauged the limit of Mudge’s patience and doubled it for negotiating