Survival by Julie E. Czerneda Read Free Book Online Page B

above sea level and one below. The submerged space was used for wet labs and as bays for the underwater research equipment and vehicles. The first floor above the surface was divided into dry labs and offices, while the uppermost held residences and lounges.
    Pod Six, the newest addition to Norcoast, was the only exception to this plan. Larger and broader than the others, its interior was hollow and flooded, an isolated chunk of ocean protected from the elements. Entire schools of fish could be herded inside, scanned, then released. They’d even housed a lost baby humpback whale until acoustic and DNA samples could locate his mother and aunts.
    Pod Two was reserved for visiting researchers, like Emily, so its walls were free of the bulletins, vids, and outright graffiti that adorned the student habitats: Pods Four and Five. Pod One held the fabrication and repair shops, while Pod Three held Norcoast’s administration and archives—as well as Mac’s year-round home.
    Until now . Mac let Emily lead the way up the stairs that ringed the inside of the pod’s transparent outer wall. Mac found it perfectly appropriate that the stunning view of inlet, coast, and mountain was opaqued by rain.
    â€œHis being here has to be a secret,” Emily said, halfway up.
    â€œBrymn’s? What makes you say that?”
    Emily rapped the wall with her knuckles. “No tiggers mobbing a crowd; I didn’t see any vidbots either.”
    The “tiggers” were the automated warn offs that discouraged kayakers and other adventurers from venturing into Castle Inlet. They looked more like herring gulls than the real thing, which added to the shock effect when they flew over a trespasser’s head and began intoning the hefty fines and other penalties for entering a restricted wildlife research zone, or worse, the Wilderness Trust itself. If ignored, a tigger would deposit an adhesive dropping containing a beacon to summon the law. If someone were foolish enough to try and evade the dropping—or shoot at the tigger? Suffice it to say there were other droppings in its arsenal, and a flock was a serious threat.
    Vidbots didn’t belong here either, though they were a familiar nuisance in cities. The little aerial ’bots were the eyes and ears of reporters—local, planetary, and, for all Mac knew, they reached other worlds as well.
    â€œThat doesn’t mean it’s a secret,” she protested, unhappy at the thought of more conspiracy. The envelope was bad enough. “Maybe a Dhryn visiting a salmon research station isn’t news, Em.”
    At the top of the stairs Emily palmed the door open. They passed into a corridor with thick carpet, blissfully soft and dry underfoot. The ceiling was clear, though patterned by now driving sheets of rain. Supplementary lighting glowed along the base of the walls and around each residence door. Norcoast provided superb accommodations for its guest experts, even though they rarely had time to use them before heading into the field. It looked good on the prospectus.
    It had looked good to Mac, her master’s thesis on St. Lawrence salmon stocks under her belt and her new professor willing to send her west to Norcoast’s pods for the season. Mind you, her first quarters hadn’t quite been like Emily’s.
    Tie had been the one to welcome Mac to Norcoast, although it hadn’t seemed much of a welcome at the time. Mac hadn’t known what to make of him. The tool belt over torn shorts said one thing; the casual first-name basis with which he greeted everyone another. As he’d led her down sidewalks that bobbed alarmingly, he’d lectured her dolefully on the proper care of equipment she’d never used in her life, seeming convinced scientists and students were equally inept with any technology and it being his thankless duty to make sure it all worked regardless.
    At the residence pod, Tie had broken the unpleasant news that Mac