Sean caught her arm as she went by. “Tell her he died quickly.” She nodded and left.

“Hey!” Peter Semling picked up a covered clipboard from the littered floor of the laboratory. “Looks like notes,” he exclaimed, examining the thin sheets of film covered with notations in a cramped hand. “This is botanical stuff.” He shrugged, held it out to Kathy, and picked up another. “This is … biological? Humph.”

“Let’s collect any notes,” Sean said. “Anything that would tell us what kind of creature killed him.”

“Hey!” Peter said again. He flipped the cover back on a portable bio-scan, complete with monitor and keyboard. “This looks like the one that went missing from the vet lab a while back, along with some AI samples.”

Meticulously they gathered up every scrap of material, even taking an engraved plate with the cryptic message Eureka, Mycorrhizal which had been nailed to the splashboard of the sink unit. Dave carried out several sacks to be brought back to Landing. Then Sean and Peter collected enough flammable materials to make a pyre that could be lit once Mary and the children had gone.

“Sean!” David Catarel called. He was hunkered down by a wide green swath that was the only living thing in the raddled and ash-littered plot, though its color was dimmed by the pervasive black ash. “How many Falls has this area had?” he asked, glancing about. He ran his hand over the grass, a tough hybrid that agro had developed for residence landscaping before Thread had fallen.

“Enough to clear this!” Sean knelt beside him and pulled up a hefty tuft. The dirt around the roots contained a variety of soil denizens, including several furry-looking grubs.

“Never seen that sort before,” David remarked, catching three deftly as they dropped. He felt in his jacket pocket, extracted a wad of fabric, and carefully wrapped the grubs. “Ned Tubberman was yakking about a new kind of grass surviving Fall down here. I’ll just take these back to the agro lab.”

Just then, Sorka, Pol, Bay, and Peter, each loaded with bundles, came out of the main house. Sean and Dave began to load the eight dragons.

“We can make another run for you, Mary,” Sorka suggested tactfully when the woman joined them with two stuffed bedsacks.

“I don’t have much besides clothes,” Mary said, her glance flicking to the compound. “Kathy said it was quick?” Her anxious eyes begged confirmation.

“Kathy’s the medic,” Sean assured her smoothly. “Up you go now. David and Polenth will take you. Mount up. You kids ever ridden a dragon before?”

Sean made a game of it for them and passed quickly over the awkwardness of the moment. He saw them all off before he and Pol ignited the funeral pyre. Then they took off in yet another shower of the volcanic dust which would eventually bury Landing.