Page 51 of Challenged

When we arrive back in the dreamspace, the room around us is a human one - large and as white as my Angie’s home. There is a table in the centre of it big enough to sit maybe ten raskarrans. At the edges of the room, there are tables withmachineslike the ones in the Mercenia hut underground.

“This is my office,” my Angie says. “Where I work.”

There is a hint of longing in her gaze and voice, but it is twisted up with other emotions. Sharper ones. After a moment, she shakes her head, takes a seat at the table.

“Wonder if I’ve brought us here because I’m still thinking about everything I’ve talked about with Liv, or if it’s because I’m going to miss this place.”

“Both, perhaps.” I watch her carefully as I speak. “Your conversation with the other females earlier seemed a little…”

“Heated?” my Angie says, arching a brow at me. The sharpness I expect to be in her expression and tone is absent.

“I was looking for a word that implied less anger. I could not understand what you were saying, but it did not seem like an angry conversation. Sally said you were discussing Mercenia’s business here. That you asked questions that they did not think to.”

She grimaces. “I worked with people on science tier. People like the ones who ran this base here. I know stuff the others don’t, that’s all.”

“That is a good thing, though?”

She shrugs. “I don’t think anyone really cares about the answers to my questions. They just want to know that Mercenia isn’t going to come back.”

“And were you able to find that answer for them?”

“Yeah, pretty quickly. I just checked Farrow’s emails. Uh, like messages that can be sent to another person using the computers.”

I do not fully understand, but I understand enough.

“And what did his messages say?”

“Not a lot. It’s funny. Farrow was messy as all hell with his files, but his emails were tidy. Suspiciously so. God knows what he deleted to cover up his incompetence, or maybe even his corruption. But there was a memo that had been sent all-to-all sitting in his inbox. A message to everyone at the base, that is. It was announcing an emergency evacuation and lockdown. For the last three days they were here, no one left the base. They were trying to avoid exposure to the disease that was killing raskarrans at the time.”

My stomach churns at the mention of it. “They saw us dying and were afraid they would die also?”

“Yeah. I don’t know if you know… certain diseases - how they spread.”

“I know that being close to an afflicted person can cause you to become afflicted. The humans here knew this also and hid in their huts until they could leave?”

“Basically.” She grimaces. “I hate to say anything about the sickness that killed so many of you is a good thing, but this is good news. If they were looking to resume operations here, they would have come back after a year, maybe two. It would probably have been safe for them again by then.”

It was not long between the first raskarrans passing and the last. Once a tribe had it in their village, it spread amongst them rapidly.

“The sickness was gone inside of a season,” I say. “And we have not suffered its like since.”

My Angie nods as if she expected this. “It’s the same in human populations. A flu or some other virus crops up once every few decades that’s more dangerous, more deadly than regular illnesses. For a while, things are awful, but then it calms down again. Goes back to normal. Science tier would know that, would expect similar to happen here. If they were going to come back, they would have known they could after a year or so. There’s no reason they would have waited nearly twenty. They aren’t coming back.”

Joy fills my heartspace, bright and fierce, but I do my best not to show it on my face. News that delights me could well be difficult for my Angie. I know she longs for the home she can never return to.

“I am sorry that there will be no rescue for you.”

Surprise fills her expression, her lips parting, brows rising. But she shakes it off quickly, gives me another shrug.

“Liv’s right, you know. If Mercenia came back, they would take the kids. I’m sad to be stuck here, but I’m not sorry. If it means the kids are safe, I can’t be sorry about it, you know?”

There’s something a little defiant in her manner as she says this, as if she expects me to challenge what she is saying. I only smile. Reach across the table and brush my thumb across her cheek.

“Fierce little female,” I say, allowing some heat to slip into my voice. “Already you protect the tribe.”

She snorts dismissively. “I don’t think not being evil counts for much.”

Still, she blushes, and when I sit back in my chair, her hand goes to her cheek, fingers tracing over the place I touched her. I wonder if she realises she is doing it.

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