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moment over that
incubator? He’d talked about hard decisions. He’d used the word
"can't?" That didn't just mean able to; it could mean allowed
to.
    She cornered him just outside the room.
    “ Could you have saved little
Hal?”
    He looked at her, eyes sunken. “Yes.”
    “ What?”
    He put fingers over her lips. “Not here.”
    He grabbed her arm and drew her out of the
house, into the street. “There are rules, Jen. We can’t fix what
shouldn’t be fixed.”
    “ Who says? Who says what shouldn’t be
fixed?”
    He shook his head as if it buzzed. “The
rules. There’s a difference between one thing broken and a systemic
problem. Nature must rule in the end.”
    She stared at him. “You let your father die
because of rules?”
    He didn’t answer, but she knew it was
true.
    She turned and walked away, walked home to
find her parents talking about it being too long since they'd
visited Cousin Mike in Erin. Obviously the soothing reports of
"progress" and "imminent solution" weren’t working anymore.
    Or the soothing had stopped. When she turned
up the sound on the screen she heard the announcer say that the
blighters were "swarming". It made them sound like maniac bees.
    Where then was the honey?
    “ Clearly we will soon see victory in
the Hellbane Wars.”
    That was the first time Jenny had heard it
described as war.
    She knew war. They'd studied it in school.
Armies and battles, diplomats and negotiations. One side knew what
the other side was, knew what the enemy wanted. If this was war,
what did the enemy want? Where were the negotiators with whom they
could bargain for mercy?
    Then one day a news camera accidentally
caught an ashing. The camera was panning a deserted settlement, but
then switched to a person in the distance, walking toward the road.
The woman, in dusty shirt and trousers, a knapsack over one
shoulder, waved and hurried forward, probably hoping for a
lift.
    Then she looked around as if they'd heard
something, or caught something out of the corner of their eye. And
she became afraid.
    Jenny watched, tasting that fear as the woman
began to run, calling for help, but constantly turning and twisting
as if trying to track an attacker. She stumbled, scrambled up, but
then froze, mouth wide in a scream of terror. There was nothing to
see of the blighter, not so much as dust stirring in a breeze.
    The picture juddered, though, showing the
operator's fear. The mike caught his mutters along with the scream.
"Can't do anything. Can't help. God help us. Gotta go. Gotta
go..."
    But he stayed, holding the camera as steady
as he could, to record the anonymous victim's abrupt translation
into empty clothing and that small pile of ash.
    No explosion, no fire, no wind.
    Just dissolution.
    Jenny’s mother broke down in tears, then
declared that they were all leaving, now.
    Jenny protested. "I don't even know Cousin
Mike."
    "That's not the point and you know it!” Her
mother turned to Jenny’s ashen fifteen-year-old brother. “Charlie,
grab some clothes. Not too many."
    "I have work to do," Jenny said.
    "Gaia can live without another brochure or
handbook. No you can’t take all those books. Bill!” he yelled to
her husband. “Pack for Charlie, will you? Jenny, love, please. You
saw that film. You want to stay for that?"
    "I don't think we can run from it, Mum. If
the fixers can't stop them, the blighters are going to eat us
all."
    "Not my family, they aren't." Her mother
dashed around, gathering little things -- photographs, documents.
"Of course the fixers'll fix it. It’ll just take a little more
time. And during that time it's stupid to stand in the way!"
    "You're probably right, mum, but I can't go.
I'm sorry."
    She realized then that part of the reason was
Dan. She was so angry at him, but she couldn't abandon him.
    She helped them pack and went with them to
the station, and bit back tears as she waved them off. She didn’t
regret her decision, only her mother’s tearful despair.
    She wandered