“You mean… like environmental activists,” he said, very slowly.
“Ecoterrorists. Exactly. And then what if Duncan figured out what they were up to? Wouldn’t they have tried to get rid of him?”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.” She heaved a long breath, her soft cheeks puffing out. “I don’t know. I liked Duncan. He was a good guy, a real community-minded fellow. I miss him. And maybe I’m just wound too tight with all this terrorist shit. Seeing connections that aren’t there.” She shook her head. “There’s a lot of pressure coming down on me from Songheuser right now.”
Peter got to his feet. “Hey, we’re the ones who pay your salary. Let Songheuser’s security guys do the worrying.”
She closed the file folder with a snap. “I wish that were true. Most folks don’t realize that the law gives Songheuser full access to all publicly managed forests — in exchange for providing forty-two percent of all local law enforcement and school budgets. And with the Believers talking people out of that last tax increase, it’s more like Songheuser pays fifty-nine.”
“Those assholes.” Peter shook his head.
“Do you mean the company or the Believers?” Vargas picked up her hand unit. “Don’t answer that. Thanks for coming in, Peter. Always good to see you.”
He stepped outside into the dampness of early evening. After Vargas’s office, the air felt chilly, cold enough to give him goose bumps. Or maybe it was just her words. What if Vargas was right? What the hell had Duncan gotten himself into? And had he dragged Peter into it without Peter even knowing?
Christ, he needed a beer.
Despite its role as an agricultural center, Canaan Lake has had a difficult relationship with dogs. Other communities on Huginn have had few if any incidents of dog violence and a negligible incidence of feral dog packs, but in its hundred-plus years of human settlement, Canaan Lake has reported more than thirty cases of wild dog attacks. In every case, the dog involved has escaped capture.
— from DARK SHORES: A HISTORY OF CANAAN LAKE, by Remy Welser
CHAPTER SIX
LITTLE FERNY-looking plants grew out of the corners of the sign above the door, but the name still stood out legibly enough: Heinrich’s Place. That was the name Niketa had sent to Standish’s hand unit, but she still wasn’t sure she wanted to go in. On the principle of “don’t shit where you eat,” Standish usually avoided partying with her coworkers. She reached down to rub Hattie’s neck.
A hand clapped on her shoulder and she jumped. “Working late tonight, Standish?” Joe Holder grinned at her.
“Got a bit turned around on a maintenance call,” she admitted. She’d lost plenty of time at the Whitley house.
“Well then, you’ve more than earned your beer. Let’s get Belinda to start you an account, shall we?” He pushed open the door and half-shoved her inside. If she had to guess, she’d say he’d started drinking before he’d arrived.
Most of the faces at the bar looked familiar from the coffee welcome. Standish nodded at a waving woman and followed Joe to order, where a blond bartender scanned Standish’s banking and employee information from her hand unit and got her set up with “auto-pay.”
“Perks of a company town,” the bartender, Belinda, said with a wink. Standish had to agree.
A beer appeared, and a half-dozen people approached to pet Hattie; Standish felt a pleasant mellowness creeping over her. Brett the Hot Security Guard took a place at the bar beside her, giving off ripples of aftershave. He was deep in conversation with a knot of people who had moved along to stand beside him.
“Look,” someone said — a big man she hadn’t yet met, still wearing a security officer’s uniform and looking a bit rumpled, “I’m not saying it’s Nagata Company’s fault that those treehuggers blew up their mill. I’m just saying it wouldn’t happen at a Songheuser shop.”
Joe Holder laughed the loudest at this.
Standish put her beer down. “Their mill blew up?”
Brett folded his arms across his chest. “Somebody boobytrapped their degasser. The saws started cutting and KABOOM!”
A middle-aged woman with red hair leaned in. “You don’t know, do you? The horsetails — they get pockets of this gas, nitrogen something something. You’ve got to let the gas out before you cut them.”
“Sounds like a giant pain in the ass.”
“Welcome to Huginn!” the redhead laughed. “Ninety-nine percent annoying ninety-nine percent of the time!”
Standish reached for her beer and knocked back half of it. She recognized the value of cultivating a relationship with the office gossip, even if she didn’t enjoy it. “You were at coffee yesterday morning.”
“I helped with the pastries. Julia. From accounting.” The woman squeezed in closer so she wouldn’t have to shout. “You staying in company housing?”
“Yeah.” Julia opened her mouth to ask, so Standish added: “Duncan Chambers’ old place.”
Julie made a face. “What a dump. I got out of company housing as fast as I could. Renting a nice little place out past the cemetery.”
Brett leaned in, his breath very beery. “Sure you’ve got plenty of room, but is dealing with the Fleshies really worth it? Can you even use your hand unit out there?”
“They don’t care what I do inside my own house.” Julia rolled her eyes. “Brett’s been throwing me shit ever since I moved into the place. It’s a bit of a pain, since the Believers won’t let me park my cruiser out in front, but I don’t mind leaving it up the street. No one’s going to steal it.”
“Hey, who’s up for a pool tournament?” Brett bellowed. “I’m betting a week’s beer money none of you asslumps can beat me!” He grinned down at Standish. “You don’t want to miss this. Milton always cries when he gets his butt kicked.”
The door swung open and Peter Bajowski paused on the threshold, his I+ glasses fogged over. Standish looked back at Brett. The others were pushing into the darker game room. “I’ll just be a sec. Gotta feed the dog.”
He shrugged, and Julia waved before they disappeared. Standish knocked back the last of her beer and hastily stood up. Bajowski was headed to the bar, one hand absently tucking his glasses in his shirt pocket. His heavy brown pants and jacket were spattered with mud. Standish moved over to join him.
He hopped up onto a bar stool. He was shorter than Standish by a few centimeters, and didn’t seem to notice her arrival. Neither did Belinda. “Is there any of that vegetarian chili left?”
“You look like you’ve had a good day in the forest,” Belinda replied. “You’re so lucky you get to spend your work days hiking. Wish I could.” She slid a dark beer across to him with a more-than-professional smile that the biologist missed — he was too busy reaching for a bowl of peanuts. “I still have chili, and I might even have some of that vegan cheese in the freezer,” the bartender added.
“I’ll take a bowl.” He caught sight of Standish. “Oh. Hello.”
“Hi. What are you drinking? It looks better than the stuff the rest of the Songheuser crew was swilling.”
“He’s got the new stout the Believers in Watsonville are putting out. Want to try it?” Belinda was already reaching for the tap.
“Yeah, that’d be great. And can I get a burger? With a patty on the side, rare, no salt, for Hattie?”
Belinda paused. “You’re not supposed to have a dog in here.”
“She’s licensed and chipped.”
“It’s a health code thing. I’m sorry, but—”
“She’s not going to get into the food or piss on the floor.” Standish set her jaw. “Can’t you just pretend she’s not there?”
Peter frowned. “Hey, stop giving Belinda a hard time. It’s the law. No animals unless they’re service animals.”
“This isn’t about you, Bajowski.”
Niketa slid between Standish and the scowling biologist. “Peter. Kate.” She nodded at Belinda. “Can I get a mojito?”
“Sorry, we’re out of limes.” Belinda fo
lded her arms across her chest. “Look, you like your dog, I get it. But the law is the law. No pets.”
“A whiskey sour, then, Belinda,” Niketa cut in. “Standish, didn’t you explain that Hattie is an assistance animal? The paperwork’s on file at the office.”
Standish flattened her palm against the bar. She could feel Bajowski’s and the bartender’s expressions melting into pity as the words “assistance animal” sank in. Her first instinct was to throw Niketa across the room. “I guess I was just too hungry to think straight.”
“Well, no one knows if you don’t tell them.” Niketa gave a tinkling laugh.
“A whiskey sour, right?” Belinda asked. She held out a glass.
“Thanks!”
Belinda smiled kindly at Standish. “Your burger and your dog’s patty will be right up.” She hurried toward the kitchen.
Standish wasted a minute fussing over Hattie. Then she stood up and turned to Bajowski, who was focused on opening peanuts. “You and Duncan Chambers were good friends, weren’t you?”
He grunted. Standish resisted rolling her eyes.
Belinda hurried by, slipping their plates across the counter as she passed. The speed of its arrival suggested heavy use of a microwave, and Standish expected the worst. Hattie bent her head to her meat and ate half of it in one messy bite. Standish folded a long stick of french fry onto her tongue, wondering how she was going to get Bajowski to talk. The potato dissolved in a pleasing cloud of starch and fat, better than anything she’d had in years.
“Yeah, he and I went way back,” Bajowski said, finally. He stirred the cheese into his chili and she saw tired smudges under his eyes. “Why?”
“I found some stuff of his last night. A box in the crawlspace. I thought it was from work, but some of it looks personal.”
He looked up from the chili. “I never looked there. What is it?” He still gripped his spoon, his wrist stiff, his shoulders and neck, too. He knew something about Chambers, she thought, something he hadn’t told anyone else. Something that made him uncomfortable, especially around someone he didn’t know.
“Hard to explain,” she said. She bit into the burger and lost her train of thought in the hugeness of its flavor. This was what it was like to eat real food grown in real dirt, probably with no LEDs or hydroponics involved, and definitely no soy isolates or cultured yeast strains. Her heart swelled with gratefulness. If Songheuser hadn’t helped her find Hattie, hadn’t brought her on here at Huginn, she’d be sitting in some shitty dive on Ganymede or Luna, drinking filtered piss and eating something unidentifiable.
“You all right?”
“This is just really delicious,” she admitted. “I’d forgotten what food could be like. God, I’m lucky Songheuser brought me here.”
He turned his gaze back to his chili. “Yeah. Lucky. You and half the idiots in this town.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” He shoveled in a bite. “It’s just that this is a beautiful place, and most folks are only here to pillage the trees for whatever they can make.”
“That’s a harsh way to put it.”
“And accurate.” He looked her up and down. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You haven’t been here long enough.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” She folded her arms across her chest. Was he going to treat her like she was stupid because she had an assistance dog? Was he sitting there thinking she was some dumb gimp or a nut who couldn’t be bothered to understand his PhD-level thoughts? Jesus, she just wanted to sort out his friend’s crap. “I thought you’d want to know about Duncan’s stuff.”
He shifted on his seat, putting his shoulder between the two of them. “I’ll check it out sometime.”
She grabbed her glass and her plate. Hattie had already finished. “Come on, Hattie. We know when we’re not wanted.”
She strode across the room without looking back. Peter Bajowski might have been Duncan Chambers’ friend, but he was definitely a dick.
HUGINN, Day 17
We’ve all been working so hard I haven’t had a chance to even pick up a pen, let alone write in my diary. I was starting to feel lonely about it. I’ve always been a diary writer, even as a little girl, so going wordless runs against my nature.
I have to reckon most things about this place go against my nature, but like everyone, I am trying my hardest. We had some problems bringing the draft horses out of cryo, and with the cold and wet, they took some time to recover. The others have been clearing land by hand while I’ve tended the horses. The going is slow. Shane and Mei Lin were cutting a horsetail tree in the first field, and the bottom of one just blew out. Mei Lin’s stuck in the hospital tent, a thousand splinters dug into her skin. Doc says she’s lucky she didn’t lose her eye. It was an example, I guess, that we’re not on Earth, and not even the trees are like Earth trees.
We’ll have to wait until the fields get planted before we bring any of the embryos out of cold storage. There’s just enough hay and grain for the draft horses, not the ordinary livestock. Once the horses start working, they’ll need to keep up their strength.
This morning, I caught Vonda Morris stealing from the horses’ molasses bucket, and I slapped her across the face. She broke down and told me she’s pregnant. We all knew the dangers of traveling in cryo during pregnancy, but she and Orrin couldn’t stand the thought of staying behind. She’s lucky she hasn’t lost the baby yet.
I promised her I wouldn’t say anything about it to anyone, not until she and Orrin are ready to tell the others. There’s like enough chance the little thing won’t make it to the halfway mark after all her body’s been through. I know Vonda’s scared for her baby.
And she’s right to be scared. I’m scared, too. This world is no Eden. It’s not even an Earth. I feel like it doesn’t want us to be here, and that it fights us with all its strength.
I look for God’s grace in every small goodness, as if a rare sight of the stars or a glimpse of an afternoon rainbow is a sign we’ll be all right. I could really use a sign, no matter what it is.
“WHAT WERE you talking about back there with Bajowski?” Brett twisted the cube of blue chalk on the tip of his pool cue, the same gesture she’d seen in bars across the entire solar system. Even halfway across the galaxy, it was one of those neat little motions that suggested a certain pleasing competence of the fingers and wrists. Standish had lost count of the number of men she’d picked up over a game of pool.
She raised an eyebrow. “You noticed, huh?”
He leaned closer. His eyes were brown, and his aftershave smelled like artificial pine trees. “I’m just keeping an eye out for you. Since you’re new.”
She played along. “That’s awful gentlemanly of you.”
“I do try.” His expression grew more serious. “I’d watch out for Bajowski, if I were you. He likes trees more than he likes his job, if you know what I mean. And he was always moping after Duncan, practically begging him to take him back, before he rebounded on poor Niketa. The guy’s trouble.”
“Bajowski was Duncan Chambers’ boyfriend?” That was news to her.
“Some people just can’t let go of the past.”
“Enough about Bajowski.” She stepped closer to Brett and brushed her fingers across his collarbone. “Like you said, I am new here, and it is very dark outside. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find my way home by myself.”
“I could probably help.”
He was almost too predictable, but then again, she was looking for a lay, not a scintillating conversation. A security guard at the office made a good selection for her first conquest on Huginn — someone she wasn’t necessarily going to see too much of, but easily accessible if he proved himself worth another outing. “Let’s get out of here, then.”
Brett racked his cue and followed behind her. The lights flickered and for a second the bar went completely dark. Fingers closed around hers.
“Just a power outage,” Brett breathed in her ear.
/> A generator rumbled on, and half the bar’s lights flickered back on, casting deep shadows around the room. The sound system stuttered and came back to life. Probably on batteries.
“I sure hope there are candles in my new place,” Standish said.
“I’ll help you look for them.” Brett tugged her toward the door. Standish smirked when she caught Bajowski watching them.
Hattie bounded outside. They stood on the doorstep for a moment, the door swinging shut behind them, the sounds of music and laughter diminishing until the door thudded closed entirely, and the three of them stood in the silence of Huginn’s night. The air smelled very clean. It had completely stopped raining for the first time since Standish had arrived.
“I’m going to have to go back to work for a second to make sure the night guy’s got the backup generator going,” Brett warned her. “But I’ll walk you home first. You live in Duncan Chambers’ old place, right?” He traced a circle on the inside of her wrist with his thumb.
Standish felt her skin prickle with anticipation. She may have been unconscious out there in outer space, but cryo or no cryo, her body knew a year was too long to go without sex. She pulled him close and pressed her mouth to his. The taste of beer and salt shifted from his palate to hers as his tongue moved behind her teeth. She pulled away with a pop of suction. “Yep.”
“This way, then.” He kissed her again, closed lipped, and the door pushed open behind them, thumping into Standish’s back.
“Excuse you,” she sniped.
Peter Bajowski turned sideways to squeeze past them. He didn’t say a thing. To their right, a dog howled.
Brett took Standish’s elbow and steered her onto the street. A few battery-powered lights showed in windows, but other than that the town was dark. “Let’s pick up our pace.”
“Are you really worried about a dog?” She glanced at Hattie, whose ears stood at attention.
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