Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
can be expressed as... well, the shape suggests a spiral and it matches your map.
I knew about the spiral part already even if nobody believed me.”
He sat on the edge. “You mean Manny?” He'd gotten a bio on him as well.
Older by ten years and with ten years more of indecipherable papers to his credit,
and not just on Terra, but on Zimmer as well. Visiting professor.
“He's the only one here capable of following the calculations. Really, for
anyone else, it comes down to who has the most credibility. I don't have much.”
Not in Hegemony certainly, not eighteen years old, unmarried and pregnant.
And not to the Zimmer, they were worse, if that was possible. “How'd they get
you involved in the dig?”
She shrugged. “They wanted someone local. Local to Alisim, I mean. The
government said they had to, but left the choice of whom up to the Zimmer and
they left it up to Manny. He had read my undergraduate thesis... he asked for
me, he insisted. I said yes, of course. I'd... left the university. I needed the job.”
When she moved her foot again, he bent over to check the rug. No changes,
he was getting paranoid. Rose vines, just like he'd woven it back in Palace. By the
time he'd gone to repack the mess that Rit had left, the last of the ni'at tree in
the rug had disappeared. Likely about the time that Alicia had killed Anga. One
lizard scurried out as he rolled the rug but Tika got it, bit the head off and ate it.
He hadn't thought at the time that Alicia had noticed, she was busy being noble
but when Hic'lic picked up the cat, she noticed that and didn't interfere as the
Wa'tic carried it out to the sand garden Rit and Ulanda had disappeared from.
Between one blink and the next, the Wa'tic and the cat were gone.
He'd half expected Alicia to have vanished when he looked back. “You plan on
staying here?” he asked her.
Alicia had looked around as though 'here' was much more than kindling. The
golden light - storm tossed for the short while it had taken Rit and Ulanda to do
whatever it was they had done - had a red tint to it. The scent of sugar had
replaced the musk of the niat.
“What do you keep looking for?” Leaning on one hand, she was bending over,
looking at the rug with him.
“Nothing.” He straightened.
“I don't have a rug like that in my room.”
“Did I ask?” he growled loud enough that she jumped. “So you're working for
the Zimmer now?” he added a little more politely.
“For Manny really, not for them.” Her tone said that the distinction was
important. The basket was abandoned on the bed, she was picking at the beer
label, a mess of curling strips already on the bedspread. “He's got a lot of pull. I
think the Zimmer lump mathematics right in there with their religion. They don't
expect too much tangible to come of it, but it makes them feel good.”
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca