Migration by Julie E. Czerneda Page A

pupils were dilated. Otherwise, she looked calm enough. Mac glanced along the corridor. Everyone in sight looked reasonably comfortable, if a bit nervous. Understandable—the floor was tilting beneath them and, from the feel of her stomach, the pod was dropping at the same time. Mac raised her voice. “Hope you like roller coasters, folks. At least none of us has had breakfast yet.”
    A few laughs at that.
    “There’ll be a few more tremors—aftershocks. And probably a few wave events—” The pod gave a sharp roll back and left, its pinned occupants gasping in reaction. Mac waited until everything settled, then continued. “Like that. The foam will be dispersed once the sensors—” This time the swing of the pod was to the right and up, putting Mac and those with her temporarily where the ceiling should be. Several students now below her hooted and waved as the pod rocked back to level, trying their best to intercept someone’s hat as it tumbled along the foam’s surface. Beside Mac, Kammie shook her head in disgust.
    “—once the sensors say everything’s settling down,” Mac finished. “Meanwhile,” she grinned at Kammie. “You might as well enjoy the ride.”

    “Three skims are still missing, but I ’spect those will turn up on shore someplace. You can see for yourself the condition of the walkways. They’re a total loss. Otherwise—Mac, are you listening?”
    Skims. Walkways. As if those mattered . Mac rested her chin on her fists, elbows on the cowling of the lev, and tried to pay attention to Tie’s briefing. They were circling the pods, assessing damage, and it was all she could do not to cry.
    Base had survived. The pods had bobbed like so many corks, and several people had to be treated for nausea, but the foam had vanished under the mist of dispersal agent and very little had been shifted, let alone broken.
    She couldn’t say the same about the landscape.
    The ridge that stretched between Castle Inlet and the strait beyond had been scraped clean, as if the coating of forest and soil had been a frosting licked away. Close enough. The quake had momentarily liquefied the sandy substrate beneath, creating a downward sag and flow rather than a landslide’s bump and tumble. Now only rock showed in a swatch stretching from the highest point to the shoreline, the fresh dark line of a fault plain to see. The shore? It was a confusion of mud and debris, leaves and branches sticking out at random as though a child had decorated a mud pie. Scale was impossible. What appeared twigs from this distance were giant tree trunks, snapped and torn. What appeared lines of gravel and sand were boulders. Mac spotted an eagles’ nest, half covered by the remnants of a mem-wood dock. Streams and river mouths would be choked, some completely dammed.
    The air stank of ruined trees and rotting kelp.
    The sea hadn’t been spared. It was brown and clouded as far as she could see, dotted with drowning bits of land-adapted life, sediment quietly smothering what aquatic life couldn’t swim away.
    At least it had been a minor earthquake, 4.3 on the revised Barr-Richter scale, barely rattling cups in Prince Rupert, unnoticed in Vancouver or Anchorage. A local event. Hadn’t brought down anything more than this slope. Hadn’t seriously affected rivers beyond this side of the inlet.
    Hah , thought Mac.
    One of her first priorities would be to assemble a team of researchers to record the state of land and water, to monitor the successional stages as the ecosystems rebuilt. Some of the scientists were, very quietly, overjoyed by the opportunity. It was rare to have such access to the destruction of a well-studied area, to be the first to see life restore itself. Their work would have immense value.
    Mac watched as a gull settled on a root now aimed skyward, perhaps attracted by the line of silent, unmoving tiggers perched on a nearby scar of rock. The servos were still on guard, protecting what was to come.
    “Mac. Stuff