Edward Willett - Marseguro(2008) by Anonymous Author

Author:Anonymous Author
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epingsoft
Published: 2011-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

THE REST OF EMILY’S journey to Jumpoff Station passed uneventfully, compared to the first part: no boats, no strange landlings, no multitentacled killerbots tracking her down to blow her into pink froth . . .

She shook her head. Dahlia. Maybe John, too . . .

My parents . . .

How many are dead?

They’ll know at Jumpoff.

Wishing she could somehow make the sputa go faster, she pressed on.

The station first appeared on her navigation screen, but just a few minutes later, she also saw its lights, and felt relieved. Until that moment, she hadn’t wanted to admit her greatest fear: that the attackers had already destroyed the station and everyone in it.

She was even more relieved to detect two other sputas heading out from the station to intercept her.

Their headlights blinded her to everything else as they approached, but when one swung in front of her, she glimpsed the helmetless operator. Selkie, she thought. The station must still be intact, and still in our hands.

But the greatest relief of all came when she swam up into one of the entry pools—Jumpoff Station consisted of a dozen habitats the size of Dahlia’s family’s, all linked together and surrounding a truly enormous sphere bigger than anything in New Botany Bay—and saw who was waiting for her. “Mother! Amy!” And then, without any warning at all, she burst into tears.

An hour later, with a sub already on its way to the habitat where she had left poor John, she sat on a bed in the hospital habitat, sipping blueblad tea and wrapped in a warming cloak. Amy sat beside her, her arm around her back, which would have been uncomfortable except that her multiple scrapes and cuts had just been cleaned, desensitized, and spray-sealed by the doctor who had just left the room. As it was, she welcomed the addition of Amy’s body heat to that of her cloak. Selkies rarely suffered from hypothermia, but she’d almost managed it. She suspected it had more to do with shock than the temperature of the water.

Her mother had just delivered a different kind of shock, telling her in short, bald sentences what the Body

Purified had done to Marseguro and its people—so far.

Casualties had been horrendous, she had said. Nobody knew how horrendous, because they didn’t dare radio for fear of giving away their location. But they had heard the other towns talking before they, too, fell silent. “We think a lot of Selkies have made it to the emergency deep-sea habitats, or are en route to them,” Emily’s mother said.

Dr. Christianson-Wood looked tired, and somehow older than Emily had ever seen her look, even though Selkie faces didn’t wrinkle as landlings’ did when they aged. “We don’t expect to see very many of them here, though, because we’re so far offshore and most Selkies think this is just a tiny research hab.”

“Dad . . . ?” Emily said in a small voice, dreading the answer. Amy squeezed her hand.

Her mother shook her head. “I just don’t know.

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