Free Migration by Julie E. Czerneda Page B

this shed and out of his workshop.
    Which kept it out of inventory, too. More problems for ’Sephe and crew, Mac rejoiced.
    Much to Mac’s surprise, the engine started on the first try. No death rattle or strange clanking marred the steady hum. That slightly strangled wheezing? Hardly noticeable.
    “You get in first,” Mudge said after a moment’s thoughtful consideration.
    “Brave man,” Mac quipped, not entirely sure herself. Then she looked out at their destination, the outstretched arm of Castle Inlet, where mist hung like dust-gray garlands around the deep green trees. “Let’s go.”
    Besides, she told herself optimistically, it wasn’t far.

    Mac shut down the lev’s engine, which continued to wheeze and gasp noisily as if to prove its rise into the air, plunge to a handbreadth above the ocean, and subsequent erratic hobble over the boulders and logs of the shore to land here had been a fluke.
    “WE COULD—” the last wheeze died and Mudge stopped shouting to be heard over the racket, “—swim back,” he finished.
    Mac patted the lev. “It just needs a rest.” Not a bad landing, she congratulated herself, hands sore from holding the controls perhaps a little tighter than useful. The tendency of levs to simply drop if their antigrav failed had crossed her mind on the way here. Several times. Over a combination of height, wave, and rock that didn’t make such a drop appealing in the least, given the high probability of deer mice in the safety chutes. This was much better.
    Much. Mindful of the Trust, and her companion, Mac had brought them down on a bare outcropping on the ocean side of the ridge, close to one of the pathways leading up the ridge. The minimal damage caused by landing here would be easy to record. Mudge couldn’t fault her on this. Could he?
    Rather than ask, Mac looked out over Hecate Strait, the cool, salt-fresh wind playing with her hair and teasing the hood on her shoulders. Clouds were getting organized for the day, small puffs scudding above the waves as if on parade, longer wisps holding court above, a tumultuous line forming in the distance. There would be salmon beneath it all, driving through the depths. The young smolts preoccupied with filling their own stomachs while avoiding being food themselves; the mature, powerful adults who would never eat again, guided by the tastes and scents of home, answering that one final call, to spawn—
    “Ahhh.”
    The soft exclamation drew her around. Mudge had his back to the ocean. His arms were outstretched, his head tilted, his body dwarfed before the rising ranks of trees that began mere footsteps away. To someone else, Mac thought, he might look foolish . A man past middle age, wearing a faded yellow rainsuit that had doubtless fit better several kilos earlier, what hair he had tossed by the wind like stray grass. Standing in what could only be called worship.
    Mac felt a tightness in her throat. She didn’t interrupt. Instead, she looked where he did, tracing the underlying ridge in the arrogant skyward thrust of pine, cedar, and redwood with her eyes, understanding one thing at least.
    She’d been right to bring Mudge here.

    “I should never have brought you here,” Mac snapped, catching the branch whipping toward her face in the nick of time.
    They were walking three meters above the forest floor, using the suspended walkway set up by last year’s researchers. That forest floor was visible beneath their feet, the walkway of a transparent material which allowed the passage of not only light, but rain and small objects. Minimal presence . It conveniently glowed a faint green with each footfall, so they knew where to step next. Repellers kept the surface clear of spiderwebs and other nests.
    Repellers didn’t stop branches from growing or leaning across their path. Mac fended another from her face. Mudge either didn’t realize that what he pushed out of his way would spring into hers, or didn’t care.
    His voice floated