Read Migration for Free Online Page B

room, “—say, two weeks.”
    He pursed his lips, then shook his head. “Too long. The undergrowth will be up, obscuring details. You have skims, levs. I’d settle for a kayak.”
    Feigning shock, Mac widened her eyes. “I can’t believe you said that, Oversight. After all the precautions, the truly extraordinary care Norcoast insists on using to protect the Trust lands—”
    “Where were you?” With a quickness as surprising as his change in tactic, Mudge lunged forward to try and capture her left hand. Her new hand . “How did that happen?”
    Mac stepped back, putting her fingers out of reach. “A skim accident.”
    “You don’t lie well, Norcoast. Not to me.”
    “I’ve never lied to you,” Mac protested.
    “Until today.”
    Was this some bizarre test of her obedience? Had Oversight been part of what happened last year? Was his arrival within the same hour as one of the few of the Ministry’s agents she knew on sight, ’Sephe, a coincidence or by plan?
    Her head hurt. Spies and lies . If it weren’t for the stakes involved, she’d gladly forget both. “You’ve missed the last transport, Oversight,” Mac informed him. “I’ll have someone set you up with quarters for the night.”
    Mudge stood, looking as dignified as possible considering he was still dripping wet despite his rainsuit and patently frustrated. And angry. Possibly even betrayed. Oh, she knew that mix. “We’ll find you dry clothes,” Mac offered. With an inward shudder at the thought of Mudge in conversation with anyone else at Base, she continued: “But I’ll have to ask you to stay in your room. Supper will be sent up. There’ll be a t-lev at dawn to take you back to Vancouver.”
    “Don’t bother. I’m not leaving.”
    Mac blinked at him. This was her tactic, not his. Salmon tipped and touched overhead, music on the damp sea breeze coming through the partially open door. “There’s a time to be stubborn, Oversight,” she began, “and a time—”
    “Would you?”
    She didn’t dare hesitate. “Yes. In your place, I’d go home.”
    “Lying. I told you that you aren’t good at it, Norcoast.”
    They glared at one another. Mudge’s usually florid face was pale and set. His thick fingers fussed at the fasteners of the raincoat he’d kept on, as if confident they’d be leaving at any minute now to head out in the rain. That she’d give in.
    The worst of it? Mudge only asked for what was right and due . Mac thought of the interminable arguments they’d had through the years. Those she’d lost had been exactly like this one, where the moral high ground hadn’t been under her feet, but his.
    She steeled herself. The landscape had changed. The stakes weren’t research proposals or summer funding. She owed loyalty to more than a single stretch of glorious wilderness.
    “Go home, Oversight,” Mac said very gently.

    These days, Mac’s office boasted a couch that could reassemble itself into a bed. A handy place to dump her coat in the daytime; convenient at night, for the long hours she’d been keeping in order to catch up with her work. Comfortable enough, given sleep had become a duty she’d rather avoid. It went without saying that the security team applauded her decision to stay in one location, instead of reopening her separate living quarters upstairs. Equally obviously, her friends and colleagues trusted this wasn’t a lifestyle choice she planned to foist on them, too. As far as Mac could tell, they’d at last abandoned hope she’d return to normal herself.
    Tonight, as usual, Mac didn’t bother changing the couch to a bed. She shrugged off her coveralls and left them on the floor. Turning off the interior lighting, she padded barefoot to the door to the terrace. She pushed it wide open with one hand, stepping around the half-drawn curtains, and stood gazing out.
    No stars in sight, but the rain had taken a rest, leaving drops to line the undersides of every surface. The drops sparkled, refracting