Part 10 (1/2)
Cell membranes strengthened all across the graft. New ki-nases and cyclins burst into action. Cells became skin that divided and grew into a new, transparent layer, separate from the artificial graft. Skin bound to skin; cells became flesh. Dead blood in the open wound was broken apart, then swept away by her capillaries. Tiny phages acted as vectors for the proteins that spurred her blood vessels to grow. Within the hour, the graft would release its calcium and the other growth factors to the wound. The axons of her nerve cells would turn and grow toward each other, creating new pathways through which they could communicate. Within two days, the thin layer of tissue would develop to its full sensitivity and thickness. Within four days, the graft would die and flake off like a sunburn, killed by one of its own coded proteins.
She stroked the graft across her flesh, ignoring the broad pain that washed her leg while she sealed its edges with pressure. She placed the second graft below the first, covering the lower edge of the gouges. Ruka, his nose twitching, moved forward, and Tsia let him sniff. The cat's tongue licked out. Its roughness finally made Tsia flinch, but she held still so that the cub could taste the graft. ”It will become part of me,” she told the kitten. ”Like new skin. In an hour, its smell will be more like mine.”
It took a moment to use the seam-sealer on her trousers; when she was done, the only evidence of the tears was a slight irregularity in the iridescent cloth. She got to her feet and pulled on the rest of her clothes, stretching her toes hedonisti-cally inside the boot liners as she felt the warmth of the dry and grit-clean fabric. When she shrugged her harness back on, she fingered the flat slot where her enbee had been stored, then turned and searched for a replacement in the e-packs along the back wall. Her fingers were steady until she put the new enbee in the slot; then a wave of guilt swamped her guts like nausea.
She eyed the cub without expression, then motioned toward the door and built the image of the outside deck and the skimmer's shape in her head. Ruka's body became very still, as if the threat had returned with the pictures. Coaxing him to the door, she turned out the lights and stepped out of the hut. As the door slammed into the wall with the wind, Ruka bolted straight into the dawn. In her gate, she felt him skid around the corner of the hut as clearly as if he had taken her with him. She hesitated, then shrugged. He couldn't go where she could not now find him.
She shut the door and stood for a moment with only the wind in her ears. She could feel nothing of Tucker at all now. No scent. No visual memory from a room or piece of gear. His biofield did not exist, and his body was buried in jellies. She tilted her head to the sky so that the rain dripped from the eaves of the hut to her lips. Bitter, the taste of the sky, she thought. Bitter as her gate was sweet.
Where one of the flight-deck supports rose from the loose sponge ma.s.s, two shadows moved in the gloom, catching her attention. They had their backs to the hut, but Tsia felt them clearly. Nitpicker's shape was obvious from her voice, and the club-fisted Wren, with his overlong arms, could not be mistaken. ”Tell me about Tucker,” Nitpicker said quietly.
Downwind, Tsia heard her voice clearly.
”He drowned,” Wren said simply. ”His safety line was loose. It caught in the bloom and pulled him down. He drowned. That's all there is to it.”
”That's all? There's nothing else?”
Wren hesitated, and Tsia could almost feel his uneasiness. ”Van'ei,” he said, using Nitpicker's real name,
”you know Feather. You know the way her biogate sits with her. She was a rogue gate ten years ago.
Her senses are even stronger now-if more controlled-than they were back then.”
”You think Tucker's death had something to do with her link to the cats?”
He shook his head. ”No...”
”Then what did she do?”
”I'm not sure she did anything,” he said slowly, then added, ”I don't see how she could have done anything.”
Nitpicker's voice was dangerously soft. ”Explain.”
He hesitated again. ”When we missed the weedis at the southern leg, she went up the lift before I could
clear the safety line and follow. She reached the middle leg a full minute before I did. But it didn't budge. Wouldn't go up or down.”
”You think she locked it?”
”h.e.l.l, Nitpicker, she only had a minute. And she might know how to run a tight web in the node, but
she's still only a guide. She knows nothing about control codes for lifts.”
”She's been a mere for ten years,” the pilot returned sharply. ”You know the odd information you can pick up just by doing your job.”
”Yes, but this...” He seemed to shake his head again. ”She was really angry when it would not go down.
She hit it. Almost hit me when I finally got there and couldn't get it down either.”
”It wasn't a cover?”
”No. I'm sure of that.”
”And Tucker?”
”He could have locked the lift to hold his line steady.”
”You don't sound like you believe that.”
”At the time, I thought that was what happened.”
”But now?”
”Now, I've had time to think. Why he would lock the extra lift? It would have remained stationary
whether he had his safety line tied to it or not. Locking it in place would have been superfluous. But the kid was new to this planet-had never seen a bloom before, or a wild cat. Maybe he just wasn't thinking.”
Nitpicker was silent for a moment. ”Any chance Feather deliberately let him drown?”
Wren did not hesitate. ”No. She was hysterical when I pulled her up.”
”That could be faked.”
”Not like this.” He hesitated. ”You ever looked into her eyes when she's got her gate wide open? She
wasn't faking anything. If you ask me, I think she felt his death as he went through it. There was a blank horror in her eyes that was very... realistic. She could not have helped trying to save him any more than she could help being caught up by the cats themselves.”
”What about the enbees? They're not made for salt water, but they should have worked for a while- long enough to keep him alive.”
”He lost his enbee the first time he went into the brash. Probably tangled in the weeds and jerked it out himself. Feather took mine and hers down when she went in after him. Tucker had one in his nose when he came to the surface after she reached him. After that, it either clogged, or he lost it in the jellies.”
”And Feather's?”
”She had hers for a while, then lost it. She was half-drowned when I pulled her back up. Did you catch the sting marks along her cheek? Kind of hidden by the scars, but they were there. I think she lost it to
the jellies that hit on her face and neck.”