Migration by Julie E. Czerneda Read Free Book Online Page A

beneath.
    He would pick the middle of the damned night, Mac growled to herself. There was barely enough glow from the walkways to pick out the pods on either side. That wasn’t a problem; Mac could have piloted through any part of Base with her eyes closed. But she wouldn’t find Mudge that way. Fortunately, Tie had rigged this skim with searchlights. Mac aimed two over the bow as she slowed, sparing an instant to hope everyone else was in bed sleeping.
    The fool should be right there .
    And he was. Mac let out the breath she’d unconsciously held as the light passed over the sweep of an arm against the black water. She brought the skim down in front of the swimming figure and leaned over the side, steadying herself as the craft rocked from end to end with each swell. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded as quietly as she could given her mood and the water.
    Goggled eyes aimed up at her. Mudge had come prepared; she gave him that, noting the wet suit and hand flippers. One of those flippers waved at her. “Get—out of my—way.” Gasping, but not out of breath. Mac was impressed. Not always behind a desk, then.
    It didn’t change anything . She glanced over her shoulder, checking for any sign they’d been noticed. All quiet, but Mac knew it couldn’t last. “Get in the skim, Oversight.”
    His answer was to put his head down and start swimming around her.
    Mac muttered a few choice words and restarted her engine.
    It was worse than arguing with him face-to-face. They played a game in the dark, under the dips of walkways and around the massive curves of pods. Mac would circle ahead; Mudge would have to stop. Then he’d duck beneath the night-black water, swimming under or past the skim, and Mac would have to circle again to get ahead of him.
    After her third try, sorely tempted to use the boat hook to knock some sense into the man, Mac admitted defeat, along with a grudging respect. “Get in,” she told him, “and I’ll take you to shore tomorrow.”
    Mudge bobbed in the water like a dubious cod from some myth. “Your—word—Nor—coast.”
    The boat hook had such potential . Mac sighed. “Yes, yes. I promise. Just get in. Please?”
    With an effort that had them out of breath by its end, Mac managed to get Mudge onto the skim’s bench. For all of his bravado and wet suit, he was shaking and alarmingly cold to the touch. She wrapped a self-warming blanket from the skim’s emergency chest around his shoulders, laying another over his lap. “Damn you, Oversight, you could have drowned,” she accused, rubbing his back as hard as she could.
    “Ther-rre—ther-re’s worse—things,” he sputtered.
    Mac’s hands stilled for an instant on the blanket.
    “Yes,” she agreed numbly. “There are.”

    Either Mudge had believed her, or he’d swallowed enough ocean for one night. Mac didn’t particularly care which, so long as he stayed in his room. She yawned her way down the night-dimmed corridor to her office. With luck, she’d get a few hours’ sleep before having to deal with what she’d promised.
    It wasn’t going to be easy . They’d somehow avoided being noticed tonight, but tomorrow, with all of Base awake and moving, it would be a different story. Not to mention the tiggers, the automated pseudo-gulls which reacted to any unauthorized intruder with an arsenal ranging from ear-piercing alarms to adhesive droppings containing any of a variety of unpleasant and increasingly debilitating substances. Mac didn’t put faith in Mudge’s assurance the tiggers should still be programmed to let him pass into the Trust lands. She’d have to find some way to circumvent them.
    But how?
    “I study salmon,” Mac protested out loud as she let herself into her office. She didn’t bother with lights, aiming straight for her couch after closing and locking the door behind her. The night was going to be short enough.
    The lights came on anyway.
    Somehow beyond surprise, Mac squinted