Although Bluebell is a little scared of the Progenitor ruins, she’s still willing to help us get there if that’s what I really want. Scared… and disturbed, as if something there isn’t right. Well, given that Marina’s friend might have been killed there, I’m inclined to agree it won’t be a great place. But we still need to check it out. Bluebell clacks her claw a couple times, accepting my decision.
“Are you okay just leaving the rover locked here while we follow the craws?” I ask Cleve.
He shrugs. “Might depend on how far we need to go,” he says. “They can get in it,” he reminds me. Bluebell and Shroomnuts are probably not the only craws in the neighborhood.
Bluebell clacks to catch my attention. She stamps a lot in place with all her little legs, indicating the ruins are some distance away. So maybe walking is out of the question. She points at the rover. Shroomnuts is climbing up onto the hood. Okay, problem solved. They saw us drive into the area, so they know what the shiny box can do. And they are excited to go for a ride on it, even if the final destination is a scary one.
We humans head over to the car ourselves. “We’ll fix that scratch before we return it to Tenoch,” Cleve mutters as he observes what the little craw legs have done to the hood. He gets in the driver’s seat. Marina and I trade places so that I can stay closer to our craw hood ornaments. I’ve done this before, maintaining a link with an animal for a long time on a drive, and it is much easier with proximity.
Bluebell and Shroomnuts don’t block Cleve’s view as he drives, but they are definitely distractions. Their legs and claws keep tapping on the glass. They provide direction on where to drive, but they also point out other items of interest. Bluebell gives a swift double-clack whenever she wants attention, and then when I focus on her, she points out another sight. I act as the tour guide inside the rover, relaying the points of interest to the other humans. Usually it’s some small remnant of Unity, a glint of metal or an overgrown artificial shape that would have been hard to discern without the craws’ help. Their eyes probably see in a different spectrum than human eyes do. Perhaps these things would stand out to me more if I slipped into miasma-vision, but I don’t want to try juggling that along with my connection to Bluebell. It’s very possible she’s only being so helpful because of the link between us. I don’t feel like it gives me any particular sway over her, but maybe it makes me more interesting to her. It certainly makes me more interesting to Marina; she is furiously taking notes the whole time, despite how bumpy the ride is.
A flurry of clacks draws my attention back from introspection to exterior concerns. The craws are pointing up at storm clouds rolling in. A huge monsoon is rapidly approaching, larger than any we experienced on jobs for Data Haven. Cleve grimaces. This section of terrain was easier to navigate, but that’s because it’s a gully that’s been washed clear a few times. We’re in a flash flood zone. Cleve concentrates on keeping us moving as large drops of water begin to plummet from the sky.
I suddenly have a horrible thought. If it starts raining really hard, the craws could get washed off the rover. I lower my window, and they eagerly flee the now-falling drops, squeezing through one at a time, only just barely fitting. They clamber over me, between the front seats, and into the back. There they occupy the empty seat next to Marina. I raise my window quickly before too much water comes in and then turn around to make sure they’re settled.
Marina is looking at the craws with wide eyes. It was one thing to be outside and observing them from a few paces away, but now there are snapping claws larger than her hands just a few feet from her exoskeleton-lacking flesh. And Shroomnuts still has the taser. Hopefully she’ll have enough sense not to play with it under these conditions. I see Marina slide a hand into her pocket again, but then she lets out a long slow breath and pulls it back out without a stick of gum. Good for her! Maybe helping Arx work through their addiction has given her some insight into her own.
Bluebell snatches Marina’s recorder and holds the button down, filling the tape with the sound of clacking claws. I’m sure some xenobiologist at the Stepdaughters of Chiron will be excited to analyze that later. When Marina bravely reaches out a hand to take it back, Bluebell gives up the recorder without an argument, realizing that no trade has taken place.
It’s gotten really dark outside now, and the windshield wipers are going at full blast. Cleve tries to take us up the side of the gully, seeking higher ground and muttering about getting us all killed. We’re nearing the top of the slope when we become firmly lodged in mud. The craws clack at us, pointing the direction we need to drive and encouraging us that it’s not that much further. But it’s no use. When Cleve steps on the accelerator, the wheels just kick up mud.
We might be able to push the car free, but anyone out there when a flash flood comes rolling down the gully would get washed away. Is it worth the risk? Cleve knows way more about weather and terrain than I do. “If there’s a flash flood, is it better for the vehicle to be loose or to be stuck?” I ask him.
“Doesn’t matter,” he answers pessimistically. “It’ll all be the same.”
I presume he means dying. “Uh, you know what? Let me try to unstick us without leaving the car. I might be able to alter the terrain.”
Cleve gives me a sharp nod. “I’m going to put it in low gear,” he tells me.
I take a deep breath, steadying myself for what I’m about to attempt. I’m going to have to get a lot of roots moving in order to give us enough traction. “Marina, this is filtered air,” I say.
“Yeah, Mariah?” She’s still fending off craws interested in her equipment. “Put that down!”
“Is there a place inside this vehicle that’s particularly resonant?” I don’t want to go out into the storm and the mud. Cleve encourages me to just open my window, but I don’t think drenching us all is a good idea. Having a storm literally in my lap while doing this would just add another level of distraction I don’t need. If I need to climb over these seatbacks myself, so be it.
As it turns out, the back is where the best location is. “There’s an unusually high concentration with your craw friend,” Marina reports.
Fortunately, I can reach that spot simply by reclining my own seat all the way. The craws reposition themselves, not wanting to get squashed. Shroomnuts crowds Marina. I get Bluebell to just crouch down in the footwell underneath my back, in case she’s specifically what makes this area resonant. Reclined as I am, I can only see the rain and wind-whipped plants out in front of the rover, not anything surrounding us. That’s fine—it’s what’s under us that truly matters. “Cleve, just be ready to drive if you feel the rover come free,” I tell him. Then I close my eyes and slip into miasma-vision, sensing the roots below and the plants around us, feeling what they feel and encouraging them to just budge a little this way and a little that way. Enough that when taken together, we’ll have something underneath for our tires to take hold of.
There is no wind within the rover, but the filigree of the Progenitor brooch I’m wearing ripples nonetheless. Eyes still closed, I feel it through these resonance senses. The whole thing is vibrating against my chest.
I hear Marina gasp, “You’re… Well, essentially, you’re terraforming!”
I just wanted the ground under us to be drivable so that we could get out of the way of the flash floods. What happens, though, is so, so much more. The rover lurches free, but once it gets going, the path is smoother than it has any right to be out here in the wilderness. Roots stretch underneath us, providing a level path with enough traction to get up the slope. At the same time, soil shifts around, changing the grade to give us an easier time of it. I know it sounds like I’m attributing intention to the planet, which might be crazy—or might be right. There are those visions I’ve had that I still have no explanation for.
But if it’s not Chiron, then it’s my intentions doing all this, mine and maybe Bluebell’s as well. I open my eyes, and with my own regular vision, I can see her poking up in between me and Cleve, clacking one claw wildly and pointing out to him which way to drive. I push myself up onto my right elbow to get a better viewing angle out the front windshield. All the while, the movement of soil, roots, and filaments echoes in my consciousness, responding to my need for stability and access. In the distance ahead of us, dirt and vines slough away from the Progenitor ruin, exposing an entrance on the lower end of the tilted structure. Rain continues to pelt down around us, but we’ll be safe and dry if we get in there. It’s high ground; water will flow away from the opening.
“What the hell?” Cleve swears as he watches the land reform itself without the benefit of experiencing the resonance fields.
“I said I was going to try to get the car free…”
“Yeah?”
“I may have done a little more than that. But you should drive there. Now. I’ve got it clear for the moment, but I don’t know what the weather’s going to do.”
“That was half-buried under the hillside,” Marina marvels. She’s seen more of what was going on than I have. Maybe the resonator I wear as a brooch called out to the technology in that building or somehow helped me key in on that location. I don’t understand how any of this is happening, just that it is, and it is so much.
“You didn’t do the storm, right?” Cleve asks.
“No,” I answer quickly, “not that I know of.”
“You can’t—?”
“I don’t think so.” I don’t want to try experimenting with weather manipulation right now. I’m controlling these resonance fields for the moment, but I am playing with a lot of energy, and it could so easily go so wrong. ¡Dios mío! I hope to heaven I do not draw a siege worm here.
“The bioscanner is maxed out,” Marina observes breathlessly.
“I’ll try not to kill us,” Cleve says, steering us toward the ruins.