Michaela figured that enough of them were finished with the evening meal that she should speak. She took a deep breath and stood, calling, “If I could have your attention. I know it’s a horrible shock. Lara was, in many ways, the best of us. Her loss is a terrible blow, not only to us personally, but to the project itself.”

“How did it happen?” Dik cried out, as if her telling of it this time would be any different than the last.

Aguila stood. “She didn’t obey orders.”

“What orders?” Bryan Atumbo asked. “As I hear it, she was right beside you.”

Mumbles of assent filtered through the room. The children were staring wide-eyed, looking, well, somehow strange. Even little Toni, normally a self-absorbed three-year-old boy, was watching her with the most peculiar focus. The eerie, half-possessed-and-almost-alien stare sent an uneasy shiver through her.

Kalico rose from the table and stood at ease, hands behind her, rocking back and forth on her feet as she said, “Dr. Sanz was told to go no farther than a couple of paces from the seatruck. The spot where she was taken was a good fifty meters away, less than ten meters from the edge of the pad. Whatever grabbed her was most likely hidden in the tumble of trees and overburden. No clue as to what it was, and being on freshly scraped bedrock, there were no tracks. Best guess as to the predator? Step Allenovich and I suspect a quetzal.”

“How come you didn’t see it?” Varina Tam demanded. “It had to be right there! It grabbed her out in the open!”

“Could have been there the whole time, watching, camouflaged to match the piled rock, soil, and trees.” Kalico raised her hands to stifle any protest. “People, this is Donovan. It plays for keeps. Get it through your heads that you have to think differently. Act differently.”

“We’re not trained for this!” Anna Gabarron snapped from her chair by the door. “I’m an aquatic chemist, not a space marine. I’m here to do science, not bundle about carrying a big gun and looking to shoot things before they eat me. You’re the Supervisor. It’s your responsibility to ensure that we can do our work without danger. So instead of standing up there lecturing us about rules, why don’t you call your Corporate Mine and dispatch some people out here who can take care of us? That’s your responsibility to us as citizens.”

To Michaela’s disquiet, her people began to applaud, nodding in affirmation.