Lucy by Susan Forest

Author:Susan Forest [Forest, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-2297-6
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2011-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Morning brought spring sunshine and, once they left the stink of char behind, the scent of terran plants. It also brought the eerie feeling of being watched.

They found a light, two-wheeled cart to use for cuttings, and wheeled it to a garden by the edge of the village. Jerry tried to help her collect plants, limping to fill pots they found in a shed, until Tian stopped him. “You’re driving me nuts. Get out of here.”

He peered up at her from the edge of the garden.

“I’ll have to throw out half of what you’ve dug up. Just let me select the plants and seeds.”

He scanned the fields nestled into the valley.

“I’m not worried about the coyotes.” And, whatever had moved Jerry’s pack last night…Nothing. Rabbits.

“Really?” There was a hopeful note in his voice.

“Go on. You came to research terran-alien crosses. Go set a trap for those escaped rabbits. We’ll want a pair to breed.”

He glanced toward the colony. “If you’re sure…”

“In four months we’ll all be sick of rabbit meat.” Which, Tian reflected, she wasn’t sure she wanted to eat. Did the rabbit stop glowing when it died? Coyote scat didn’t glow, so she supposed so.

She tossed Jerry’s weevil-infested peas and gathered carrot flowers as he disappeared toward the buildings. If it was a choice between glowing rabbits and starvation, people would adapt. Wouldn’t they? Still, if that were so, why did the colonists of Orchard die? There were rabbits everywhere.

She pulled pea pods dangling from last year’s vines and dug potatoes left in the ground in preparation for spring transplanting. Jerry said the scientists of Orchard created the rabbits four years ago. Four years! Watching not to step on koeshmar, she filled pots with seedlings and old flowers, and by noon, the cart was full. The sun had climbed high overhead in a blue sky. Tian gathered her shovel and empty pots, and tramped down the road to the shed.

Something behind the shed—taller than a coyote—

She halted. “Jerry?”

No response. Her heart galloped.

Peas in the garden rattled in the breeze. The shed, a small affair of laminated Falean wood and scavenged sheets of rusted iron, baked in the sun.

She gripped the shaft of the shovel. Whatever the thing was, it was smaller than her.

Tian eased her pots to the ground and took the shovel in two hands, her mouth dry. She watched the side of the shed for the thing to reappear.

Filaments of hair floated downwind of the shed. A curve appeared, attached to the hair, revealing an eye. A person!

Sweat sprang from Tian’s pores. Someone knelt behind the shed, observing her. Who?

The eye disappeared. Tian breathed, and adjusted her grip on the shovel. A breeze fanned the sweat on her back.

Not Jerry. No one from Plain—surely no one had followed them across the prairie. They would’ve seen them.

A survivor in Orchard? Or more than one? Someone who’d followed them into the lab and tried to take Jerry’s pack. Who’d followed them out to the fields this morning. And stayed to watch her, rather than follow Jerry back to the colony.

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