“I admire your positive attitude, son, but that will never happen.”
He was right. As soon as the words left my lips, I knew it was a false hope. The Mayir were not known for either their altruism nor their dedication to science.
“We have two days’ worth of work, collecting the last samples from our various sites. Then a day to pack up, and then we say goodbye to the Basin forever.”
“My father is painting a much grimmer picture than necessary,” Kira said. “If we can keep our samples intact during the journey back to Devariin, we’ll have more than enough material to keep us busy for the next five years.”
“That is a big ‘if,’ my dear.” Thastus Lark turned to me. “Beck, perhaps you could earn your supper by helping us out with the collection process. If you are amenable, that is.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’d love to help, but I’m afraid I am not really trained in field research.”
He let out a guffaw. “And even if you were, we wouldn’t trust you with the samples. Sorry, that sounded a bit harsher than I intended.”
“No problem.”
“What I meant to say is that if you accompany Kira, perhaps carry some of the equipment, she’ll be able to cover a lot more ground.”
“I don’t need Jannigan’s help,” Kira said. “I got this. No offense, Jannigan.”
“Of course I’ll go with you,” I said. “Worst comes to worst, I’ll be keeping you company.”
She just grunted her assent and went off to prepare the gear, while I finished my breakfast.
We set off about a half hour later and Kira still seemed a bit cranky.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Sorry to take it out on you.”
“No problem. You want to talk about it?”
“Not really. Same old shit with Biella and Thastus.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Your parents are great!”
“Uh huh. Maybe if you don’t have to live with them.”
I didn’t really have a response to that, so we trudged through the jungle in silence for a while. We were heading roughly east, away from the river.
Finally, Kira decided that she wanted to talk after all. “Do you get along with your parents?” she asked.
“Well, my mom passed away when I was a little kid.”
“I’m sorry,” Kira said. “That’s tough. How old were you?”
“Nine.”
“Do you mind if I—”
“Shuttle accident. She was traveling for work. A bunch of her co-workers died too.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry. What about your father?”
I didn’t say anything, just took a deep breath.
My dad. That was complicated. He was still out there, in Sean bot form. At least I hoped he was still out there. But my flesh and blood dad, the dad I had fought so hard to save, was dead. At the hands of the Mayir.
“Touchy subject?” Kira asked.
“Kind of. He’s around but we’re not really very close. “
“Gotcha.”
“He became kind of distant after my mom died.”
“But you guys work together, right?”
“Not really. Yeah, we both work for the family business, but he does his thing and I do mine.”
I forced myself to snap out of the dark cloud I was falling into. “Hey, we were supposed to be talking about your parents, weren’t we? How horrible they are, right?”
“No, they’re not horrible at all,” Kira said. “It’s just that they still treat me like I was sixteen.”
“Oh.”
“It’s my own fault. I shouldn’t have joined their lab.”
“Why not? Aren’t you interested in those larvon things?”
“Larchions, actually. And yes, it’s probably the most interesting field of study within exo-biology. I love it. I just don’t love working with my parents. They cast a long shadow, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s what you said about your grandma.”
“Yeah, it runs in the family.”
A crack of thunder interrupted our conversation. Up above us the skies began to darken and swirl.
“Do you get bad weather here?” I asked.
“Generally, no. A lot of thunderstorms, but the canopy is so thick, you barely notice it.”
She was right. When the rain hit a half hour later, we were shielded from most of it by the umbrella-like leaves over our heads.
We arrived at the first collection station just after noon. The rain had stopped and the sun was burning its way through the clouds, but this deep in the jungle, it was still dark and gloomy.
“That is a serious tree,” I said.
And it was. The trunk was easily ten meters in diameter, with a large mass of exposed roots that formed a cage at the base of the tree. But the most striking thing was not the tree itself. It was the glowing magenta-colored fungi that clung to the side of the tree’s trunk.
“What are those things?”
“Salaceae,” she said. “A type of polypore.”
“Is it radioactive?”
“No, that’s bio-luminescence. It’s actually bacteria in the Salaceae that glows. The Salaceae has a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria.”
“Okay, but this is not that fungus you were telling me about that turns your brain to jelly, right?”
Kira laughed. “Definitely not. Salaceae is harmless.”
“Cool.”
“As far as we know,” she deadpanned.
“What?”
“Kidding. Anyway, you stay here. I need to just climb up and grab my samples.” She removed a small kit from her bag and started clambering up the root structure.
“What am I supposed to do?” I called after her.
“Keep an eye out for Bondril.”
“I thought this wasn’t their territory.”
“It isn’t, but better safe than sorry.”
Great. I wasn’t armed with anything other than a judder knife.
“It goes pretty quick,” Kira said. “I’m actually almost done.”
I watched as she worked at a small metal box mounted beside one of the fungi rings. She was right. It didn’t take her long at all, and soon she was back on the ground beside me.
“One down. Five more to go.”
5
The next collection site also involved fungi, although these were called Basidicus and they were big, free-standing, sculptural mushrooms that towered four or five meters over my head. Their stems branched off into thick arms that looked like tendons stretched across the underside of the caps.
“How high can you jump?” Kira asked.
“That’s random.”
“You said that you
