“What do you mean, put it in water?”

He pointed to the ricket where it ran a stream of yellow-brown water, then to the puddles where they dotted the tunnel floor. “We had places where the aquajade was constantly in standing water. You know about the veins in the wood, right? The ones you can tap? Drink from if you’re lost in the forest?”

“Uh, yeah. But it’s not a healthy practice because of the heavy metals that accumulate in the tree.”

Talovich ran a weary hand over his short-cut hair. “Those same veins suck up the water, ma’am. Act like suction tubes and saturate the wood. In that environment, it accelerates the bacterial action, which denatures the cells and weakens the polymer bonds in the cell walls. In short, it takes a seasoned timber and, over a couple of months, turns it into a sort of sponge.”

Kalico experienced a sick feeling deep in her gut. “How did we miss this?”

“We’re still learning, ma’am. But I swear on Alia and Stana’s graves, we’re never going to make this mistake again.”

52

Talina sat on a low basalt outcrop and studied the clear waters where the South River spilled over boulders in a set of Class III rapids. She had come here to make a decision about her “Dek problem.” It was a good place for soul-searching. Below the outcrop and crashing white water, the gradient flattened, the current still whirling and welling. To either side, the forest rose to varied heights, the trees moving slowly, their branches and leaves following Capella as the primary traced its way across the afternoon sky. The chime rose and fell, mocking in its predictable search for a nonexistent harmony.

Talina cradled her rifle across her lap, her hair pulled back, butt half-asleep from sitting on the angular basalt. She’d opened the fastening on the front of her coveralls, allowing the breeze to cool her chest as she baked in the sun.

She kept scanning the skies, looking for any sign of the mobbers. Her hope was that after she’d blasted the column, the survivors had been scared enough to flee the area. But then, no one had data on how the fearsome predators thought or behaved. Some dim part of her memory recalled that the more biologically efficient a predator was, the less intelligence it needed. That, back on Earth, that explained why ravens and crows were so much smarter than eagles or owls, or why wolves had to be smarter than cheetahs.

But who knew if any of that held true on Donovan?

She needed only look at the surrounding forest. From the height of the trees, she could tell where the soil was deepest. There, the largest and most powerful of the forest giants stood; it was only as the soils shallowed that the smaller trees were jostling for space, wrestling, trying to topple each other.