Talina glanced up at Talbot, Su, and Dya as they followed her down the shuttle’s ramp and onto the hard-baked ground. Saw the worry in their eyes as they glanced around, half desperate, half afraid. The damp air carried the perfumed smells of forest mixed with the green scents from the agricultural fields.
The chime was rising as if in response to the pinkish-orange glow of morning as Capella’s first rays tinged the highest treetops on the eastern horizon.
Talina looked back where Lawson, Hofer, and Sheyela Smith stood at the top of the ramp. “You continue with the removal of the dome’s lab equipment. Keep an eye out in case we need the aircar.”
“Sure you don’t want us to come along?” Sheyela asked.
“You don’t know the property,” Dya answered. “And someone has to keep an eye on the kids. We’ve already lost two, don’t let any more wander away. Food’s in the kitchen. Damien will help.”
“Just find them,” Damien called where he stood beside Hofer. “I’ve got the rest.”
Good kid that Damien. He was doing his best to look like he wasn’t frightened half out of his mind.
Talina turned, saying, “Okay, as per the plan: Talbot, you and Su take the north end, Dya and I will take the south. First one to find anything, fire a shot.”
Talbot had the old bolt-action rifle over his shoulder. Talina had her pistol and service rifle.
“Let’s go,” Dya told her. The woman took off at crisp walk, a grim set to her jaw.
Talina gave a final wave to Talbot and Su, had to trot to keep up with Dya as she led the way past the old tractor and between the shops.
“Think they might have made it back after that final pass I made last night?” Talina asked. “Should we check the shops again?”
“Went through them just before sunset,” Dya replied. “If she got that close, Rebecca would have headed for the dome. If she’s there, Hofer and Lawson will find her as soon as they take the aircar up.”
“You really think they went into the forest, huh?” Talina kept shooting wary glances to each side. Checked every shadow cast by the buildings. She couldn’t get over the notion she’d caught glimpses of quetzals the night before.
Now she was vigilant. Over the years, she’d developed an eye for the slight wavering edges of her vision where a quetzal, bem, or skewer might be lurking. As good as Donovanian beasts were at camouflage, it was always the edges that gave them away. Or the smell.
“I don’t know,” Dya’s near-cry was tinged with exasperation and fear. “I’ve been trying to think this through all night. This isn’t like Kylee. And it sure as hell isn’t like Rebecca, let alone Shantaya.”
Dya hesitated, her face contorting in the pale morning light. “I’m scared like I’ve never been in all my life.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Talina told the woman with more assurance than she felt.
They passed between the last of the sheds and slowed. The fields looked blue-green in the half light, leaves silvered from the morning dew.
As the chime rose and fell, nothing moved in the fields. They looked perfectly still, peaceful. The sort of bucolic image therapists projected on the wall of a mental institution to reassure and soothe patients.
“Rebecca!” Dya shouted. Her voice carried across the fields, the chime rising in response.
Nothing.
“Come on,” Dya said at last, leading the way down the causeway that separated the fields.
Talina eased her rifle from her shoulder, left hand supporting the forearm, index finger of her right on the rest above the trigger as she flexed her hand around the grip.
Her senses tingled, every sound coming to her ears, her nose taking in the rich morning air, catching just a trace of . . .
“Yes,” the quetzal in her belly whispered.
Even as she identified it, she stopped short, pointing with the rifle. “Dya? Stop. See them?”
Dya froze, eyes on the moist dirt. “Tracks. Quetzals. Two of them.”
“Full adults,” Talina added as she squatted, head cocked to study the tracks. But no. Could it be?
“Got a girl’s tracks here. Real faint, see? Like a heel strike. And here’s a rounded toe print. Kylee wears those soft-leather boots.”
“She’s walking between them?”
“That or she either went this way first and they followed, or they went first and she followed them.”
Dya stared around, cupped her mouth, and called, “Kylee? Rebecca? Shantaya? Where are you?”
The chime shifted its tremolo, as if in response.
Talina’s heartbeat picked up as she straightened, trying to see in all directions. “You see a lot of quetzal tracks around here?”
“Just Rocket’s. Haven’t seen an adult since Rocket and Kylee bonded.” Dya was pulling at her hands, her nervous eyes scanning the tree line.
“And then you suddenly get two?”
Her quetzal wiggled where it lurked down by her spleen. She could feel the thing’s anticipation. But what was it waiting for?
“If those are Kylee’s tracks, this is the way she went,” Talina said as she stood and started down the causeway. Step by step, she led the way. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She was experiencing that eerie sensation, the intensity of being watched by unseen eyes. She shivered from a tickle of premonition. The danger was close.
Where?
To either side the tangle of intermixed crops stretched away like a green mat; they changed color as the first of Capella’s rays topped the eastern forest and cast shadows from the leaves.
Two quetzals. They could have taken Kylee, used her as bait, knowing any rescue would come this way. And if they were hiding down in the squash, beans, okra, and cabbage? It would be the edges, the three gleaming dark eyes, that would give them away.
Come on, Tal. They’re quetzals. You should be able to sense them.
“Yes,” her quetzal whispered, and she could feel its elation.
“Waiting for me to get killed, you piece of shit?” she asked under her breath.
“Soon now.”
“Fuck you.”
“Talina?” Dya asked unsurely.
“Talking to my damn quetzal. They’re here. The ones who took Kylee. They’re close, Dya. You be ready to get behind me. Understand?”
“Yeah,” the woman breathed, fear heavy in her voice.
Step by step. Talina’s mouth had gone dry. She tried to see everything, desperate to know where the danger would come from. The prickling of her scalp was almost an itch.
“Close.”
“I know.”
They were approaching the end of the field where the causeway ran between the berry bushes, through the fruit trees and under the interwoven pines.
“If there’s a place for an ambush, this is it,” Talina said through a dry mouth. Her heart might have been a hammer as it pounded in her chest. Adrenaline and fear had every muscle in her body charged.
She slowed, rifle up, advancing a step at a time. In the dirt before her, the maddening tracks were clearer. Two quetzals and a little girl. Kylee? Or Shantaya?
Talina took two attempts before she could swallow. Her nose picked up the scent. Richer. Two quetzals, their odors intermingled.
It might have been forever. Probably no longer than a couple of minutes, but Talina made her way through the tree band. The muzzle of her rifle swept in time with her gaze as she searched every shadow, every inch of the pine duff and lower branches.
And then they were through, passing out into that narrow gap between the pines and Donovan’s native forest. It loomed up into the sky before them, implacable, like a wall between worlds.
The ripped fabric lay there on the red-brown dirt. Torn. Bloody.
Dya bent down, lifting what was left of a shredded dress. “This is Rebecca’s. Look. See the stitching? This is the one she was wearing yesterday.”
Almost frantically, Dya plucked up the smaller garment, bloodstained, damp from the dew.
“Kylee’s?” Talina asked, her heart sinking.
“Shantaya’s. See the little squash flower? She embroidered it on all of her clothing.” Dya seemed to waver on her feet, looking sick. “Dear God, please. But . . . but where would their bodies be? I mean, look around. You don’t see them, do you?”
“No. No bodies.” Talina swallowed hard. Too many times she’d seen clothing like this. Quetzals didn’t eat cloth.
This is going to be bad.
Her quetzal flexed itself where it lurked just under her ribs. The beast sent a flood of energy through her muscles. Talina’s heart began to pound.
“Sending me a warning, huh?”
“Close. Beware.”
“It’s not Kylee’s. They took my little girl,” Dya whispered miserably. “Walked right in and stole her out from under us. We’ve got to find her.”
“Yeah, we’ll find her. These aren’t the first fricking quetzals I’ve hunted. Haven’t had one yet that . . .” Talina stopped short, no more than two paces into the forest.
She froze, rifle up, finger hovering over the trigger.
“Oh my God!” Dya cried, starting forward. “Kylee!”
“Dya,” Talina snapped. “Don’t fucking move! Not another step!”
To her surprise, the woman obeyed, whether from Talina’s order or the recognition of the two huge quetzals who stood in the shadows to either side of Kylee.
But there they were. Maybe two meters tall, their triangular heads were lowered for the attack, front claws extended. The expanded collar ruffs kept pulsing with patterns of indigo and orange. The beasts had fixed their three-eyed stares on Talina. Sensing, no doubt, that she was the dangerous one with her raised rifle. The tongues kept flicking out like lashing snakes.
Talina squirmed, feeling as if the damn things were looking right through her like lasers.
Can I kill them both before they can hurt Kylee? Am I that fast?
“Kylee?” Dya whispered, one hand to her breast. “Sweetie, are you all right?”
Talina spared a good look at the little girl. She was wearing the same homespun dress, blonde hair hanging around her shoulders in tangles. Her face looked fuller now. The vacancy had gone from her eyes to be replaced with a feral, half-manic glitter.
“You have to go now,” Kylee said, her voice sounding bruised.
“Come here,” Dya coaxed. “Just ease your way forward, baby. It’s going to be all right.”
Dya took a step toward her daughter; the quetzals bristled, hissing, their collars flaring crimson in threat.
“Dya, don’t,” Talina warned. “They’re a heartbeat away from killing us all.”
Talina almost leaped out of her skin when a third quetzal hissed from behind.
She whirled, barely kept from firing as the beast—even bigger than the two at Kylee’s side—blocked any retreat. Not more than four meters away, the huge quetzal flashed orange, blood-red, and indigo through its collar and down its sides.
Talina watched it hunch down, digging in with its rear feet. She knew that posture. The beast was preparing to spring.
“Baby?” Dya asked, glancing back and forth between her daughter and the surrounding quetzals.
“You have to go,” Kylee repeated, her voice taking on that old tone, the one that brooked no argument.
“Kylee, we’ll work something out. You need to come back with me. We have to find Rebecca and Shantaya. We’re going to have to—”
“We’re tasting Rebecca. Trying to learn her,” Kylee said.
“Learn her?” Dya asked as she wadded the bloody dresses in her hands. “I don’t understand.” Dya was craning her neck, staring back into the inky-shadowed depths of the forest. “Is she with you?”
Talina’s quetzal uttered that amused chitter.
And as quickly, a terrible realization sent a shiver through Talina. Tasting? Learning? She felt sick, understanding, and wishing she didn’t.
“Dya, step back.” To Kylee Talina said, “Rebecca? And Shantaya, too? Both of them?”
“They must have seen us leaving. Came after us. We wanted to know why the experiment failed. Maybe learning Rebecca would tell us.”
Us?
Talina lowered the rifle slightly to lessen the threat, hoping it would be enough as she forced herself to ignore the quetzal behind her, and took a step Kylee’s way. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Talina glared at the quetzals watching her from either side. Then to Kylee she said, “You’re a biologist? Like your mother? Then you know that quetzals share molecules. Like Rocket shared with you. Like I shared my quetzal’s and Rocket’s with you. That’s how they taste and learn, but it only goes one way, Kylee. Our molecules are different. You can’t share a human’s knowledge, or their experiences, with a quetzal. They can taste all they want, but they can’t process our DNA. They’re not going to learn anything from Rebecca or Shantaya.”
Talina took a halting breath. “Kylee, Rebecca and your sister Shantaya are dead. And worse, they died for no reason. You should have known.”
The little girl didn’t even flinch. “You’re wrong. You have to go now. All of you.”
“Kylee?” Dya asked in growing horror as she worked out the meaning behind the girl’s words. “Listen, you come home with me now, and we’ll—”
“The experiment is over.” Kylee reached out, fingers tracing the quetzal’s hides on either side of her. Patterns of rainbow colors seemed to flow from her touch.
“You’re leaving now,” Kylee said. “You are no longer welcome here.”
Dya protested, “Rocket wouldn’t have wanted—”
“Rocket’s dead!” Kylee screamed in a wounded little girl’s voice. “Those people killed him. Now leave, or we’ll taste you all!”
“Kylee, please!” Dya cried, knotting the bloody cloth and reaching out.
“This is no longer your place,” Kylee said as she turned. “You had your chance.”
The quetzals whirled, impossibly fast, and vanished into the shadows. The way they whisked Kylee away with them might have been magic.
Talina whirled, rifle up, only to find the quetzal behind her, too, had disappeared. How silent? How un-fricking-nerving?
Talina just stood there, fought to catch her breath, and tucked her rifle close. The forest gloom might have been lifeless, dark, and empty.
“Kylee!” Dya shrieked, starting forward.
Talina leapt, grabbed the woman by her arm. “Let her go! Damn it, Dya, you heard her. If you follow, they’ll kill you. Eat you.”
“She’s my daughter,” Dya pleaded, tears leaking down her face. “She’s my little girl.”
“Yeah, I know,” Talina relented, glancing around nervously. “They’re watching, waiting, seeing what you’re going to do.”
“I have to go after her.”
“Tusk and Shine need you. So do Damien and Tweet. Rebecca’s dead. So’s Shantaya. Along with your death—assuming you charge off into that forest—you going to drop that entire load on Su’s shoulders? On Mark’s?”
Dya was staring into the gloom. “But she’s . . .”
“Theirs now.” Talina stepped close. “Think it through. They sent Rocket. You heard Kylee’s words. ‘The experiment is over.’ From their perspective, it died when Spiro shot Rocket.”
Dya swallowed hard, closed her eyes as she struggled with herself.
“I understand,” Talina said softly. “It’s a shitty choice. You go in there, they’ll kill you. Dead, you still don’t save Kylee. You come back with me, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life, wondering if you could have saved your daughter. But by coming back with me, you’ll save Mark, Su, and your remaining children from mourning for the rest of their lives.”
Dya nodded her understanding, but still stood, torn between her imperatives as a mother and her responsibilities to the rest of her family.
“Your people need you. They’re already dealing with the loss of the dome. How are they going to feel when they learn Rebecca and Shantaya are dead? That they have to abandon the base as well?”
Dya glanced unsurely at Tal. “Do we really have to leave? I mean, Kylee’s here. She might be coming back. And there’s the experiments and research. We can’t just—”
“You can’t hold this place, Dya. Not just you, Mark, Su, and the kids. You and I just survived being surrounded by three adult quetzals. Intelligent alpha predators that can come and go, hunt you day in and night out. You don’t even have a fence.”
“But we’ve been able—”
“Stop lying to yourself. You’re a scientist. Look me in the eyes and tell me how long your family can last if those quetzals really want to kill you?”
Dya fixed her miserable gaze on Talina’s. Struggled with herself, arguments rising and falling in her quick mind. And in the end, she nodded in defeat. “Nothing we can do, is there?”
“Nope.” Talina took a deep breath, staring woodenly into the forest’s dark shadows. “Donovan just struck back. Get used to it.”
“But Kylee . . .”
Talina ground her teeth, turning. “Yeah, I know. Rebecca, Shantaya, and Kylee. Three people you love. Gone. In one way or another.”
“Maybe it’s just a matter of time. Maybe Kylee’s human half will eventually win out and she’ll come back.”
“Maybe.”
Bitterly, Talina led the way back across the gap between Donovan and Mundo Base, knowing as she did that each step was a symbol of defeat.