"Hmph." She laid her hand on the back of the bench, but made no move to sit. "I don’t remember anything about your father."

"Come on," I said. "A complete blank?"

"You know what I mean. I don’t remember anything special."

"Nothing that took you by surprise?" I asked.

"Well…" She turned her eyes away from me, back toward the house. I had the impression she was running through a dozen memories and censoring them all. "There’s this place," she finally said.

"Which place?"

"Mummichog. The house, a good-sized tract of rain forest and cleared fields… I never knew he owned it until he died."

"Dads owned this estate here?"

"Surprising, isn’t it?" Mother said. "But property was cheap after the plague. I’ve always thought he bought it as a present for me and was just waiting for my birthday to give me the news. Heaven knows, I would have been happy for a place to escape from Great St. Caspian winters."

"So he bought it after the plague? After he found the cure?"

"That’s what the lawyer told me when she read the will. Does it matter?"

"Maybe." I couldn’t believe it was empty coincidence my father bought property in Mummichog — one of Iranu’s favorite spots to visit. Dads knew something about this place. "Is there anything special here, ma?"

"It’s warm and quiet. Like heaven after Sallysweet River."

That could have been another shot at me — testing, to see if I’d get pissy. After Dads died, Mother was stuck in Sallysweet River because of me: because I refused to leave, and because the law wouldn’t let her abandon me while I was underage. We spent a few years there, inventing ways to torment each other… me picking on a frail-nerved woman, her grinding away at a jagged-edge girl whose soul was bleeding. Perfect partners in desperation, both acting as if we could ease our own miseries by making the other feel worse.

I got out by getting married. Mother got out the very same day, just up and left the church the instant I said, "I do." In the years between Dads’s death and her escape, Mother never once mentioned she had this place in Mummichog waiting as a getaway. Her secret inheritance. Five months after she left, a text-only message reached me (IN ARGENTIA, LIVING WITH AN OOLOM PHARMER, WON’T BE BACK)… and that was that.

If Mummichog was heaven, we’d both done our best to make Sallysweet River hell. A mother-daughter project, showing rare fine solidarity.

I glanced at her for a second, the way she looked so much like me in a mirror. She met my stare… maybe seeing the similarity too, I don’t know. Or maybe seeing the old teenage Faye, who’d hurt her and hurt her and hurt her.

Best to stick to business.

"Is there anything special about the land, Ma?" I asked. "Something that might interest an archaeologist?"

"You’re an archaeologist now, Faye?"

"I told you, I’m a proctor." Was she trying to catch me in a lie? Christ, I must have been a piss-awful liar in the old days, if I could be caught as easy as that. "I’m a proctor investigating the movements of an archaeologist, and he visited Mummichog now and then. A Freep named Kowkow Iranu."

"A Freep?" She frowned. "We’ve had Freep trespassers over the years, back in the rain forest part of our property. Voostor sees their tracks now and then; he’s heard they own land on either side of ours and take shortcuts through our jungle."

Probably the Iranus, buying land close to ours. But I suspected that Dads beat them to the most important part of the site.

"Are there any old mines in that area?" I asked. "Like the mines near Sallysweet River?"

"You’ll have to ask Voostor," she answered. "I haven’t spent much time back there. Too many insects. Poisonous creepy-crawlies." She gave a theatrical shudder. "Shall we head back to the house?"

"Your choice."

We walked back through the grove. From time to time, I stopped to look at more wee orchids, growing out from the trunks of trees or dangling on long threads from somewhere up in the canopy. Each time I paused, Mother did too… watching me out of the corner of her eye, trying not to be caught doing it.

Sizing me up. Wondering who I was. Or perhaps just wondering when I’d go away.

At the edge of the grove I suddenly turned to her. "You drove me crazy," I said, "and I drove you crazy, but that was long ago. It’s witless, both of us acting like ice."

She bit her lip. "You’re sure you aren’t on a recovery program, Faye?"

"When you join the Vigil, you stop being able to ignore the obvious. Like the way I acted the slut just to drive you frantic. That was flat-out childish. I’m sorry."

"Oh," she said. "You’re sorry. That’s all right then. Or is this where I say I’m sorry too, and we have a big hug?"

"Watch it, Ma — if we start trying to hurt each other again, we might see how much we have in common. We’ll end up bonding in spite of ourselves."

"Do you think so?" She glanced toward the house as if she was considering whether to run away inside. Flee, or stay and be brave a little while longer. Finally, she gave me a sideways glance that skipped past my eyes without meeting them. "You are looking good, Faye. For someone your size. I always said you could be a pretty girl if you’d just cut down the debauchery."

"You never said that in your life."

"True. But you’re looking good. You’re…" Suddenly, she spun away and started across the lawn. Without turning around, she murmured, "He glowed."

"What?" I hurried along behind her. "Who glowed?"

"Your father. At night. In bed. After he discovered the cure." She was moving fast, not looking in my direction. "Now and then," she said, "he glowed with faint colored lights."

She ran up the back steps and into the house, refusing to say another word.

SIREN-LIZARDS

Oh-God was still alive, but only thanks to machines — while Mother and I were in the grove, his diaphragm had futzed out, slack as a sack of potatoes. But the heart-lung was ready and Oh-God barely lost a breath. He was packaged up now, inside a clear plastic shell that would protect him till the emergency team arrived from Pistolet. Once our smuggler friend was in their hands, he could be kept alive mechanically for as long as it took to find a cure.

If a cure existed. And if Pteromic B didn’t flare so wildfire rampant that our medical system crashed in flames.

Demoth would be all right as long as the disease stayed Freeps-only. The world-soul told me we had 3,219 Freeps currently on planet — more than I expected, but our hospitals could manage the load. Barely. On the other hand, if Pteromic B hopped home to Ooloms, or even to Homo saps… hey, kids, the Circus is coming back to town.

Meanwhile, Oh-God was the most advanced case on Demoth. Other members of the Freep trade team tested positive for the microbe, but hadn’t showed symptoms yet. They’d all been bunged into hospital, of course, but Oh-God was going to be the star attraction for medical researchers. Total slackdown. He’d have the best specialists in the world looking after him, searching for a way to fight the disease before the full outbreak struck. He’d be poked and prodded and proctoscoped, but at least they’d keep him alive.

As for Tic, Festina and me… did we have to call the feddies? Tell them what Oh-God said about Iranu and Mummichog? Report that the dipshits had attacked again, firing illegal bazookas and what-all? Damned right we did. Yes, we might have felt a twingey temptation to hot dog, to jaunt around solo like dashing VR adventurers: but the stakes were too high to Indulge our vanity.

"I’ll call it in," Tic said. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall of Voostor’s medic room. His pouchy old face went distant: in communion with Mom-Xe.

"What’s he doing?" Voostor asked.