Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
“You could,” she said, backing up. Her beer bottle was on the bed, at the end
of a growing wet spot. Both her hands cupping the swell of her belly, protecting
the children.
He picked the bottle up. “Don't take it so seriously.”
“No, I mean, you wouldn't even have to start at that level. There's a
resonance...” She bumped against the door, her eyes wide open, blank and still
staring.
He'd used the end result of what Alicia was talking about, but he'd used it like
he breathed air. What was she seeing? “Squiggles,” a small voice said in his mind
and he heard Cassa laugh. “Will you weave me a blanket?” it added in the noise
of the door slamming. “Rose and gold? Black and white?” He spent an hour on his
hands and knees searching the rug for any change and finding none, not sure if it
was that or the line of empty beer bottles on the top of the vid screen that made
him feel better.
The breeze came out of the grasslands and carried the scent of spring to the
ice and stone. Bolda made a slow go of it on the glacial rubble and Alicia must
have heard him coming but her eyes didn't leave the lake.
“You'll freeze your butt off dressed like that,” he said. A leather jacket, her
hands in the pouched-out pockets. Jeans, a cheap local knock-off. They were all
the rage on Alisim, an import from Terra, same as Manny. No hat. She didn't
react to his words except to push her hands deeper in the pockets.
Clouds had come in at about the same pace he had, backing up against the
peak. The fog obscuring the lower ice fields was thicker, halfway to the lake. The
weather service was as wrong as usual.
He tried again. “If it starts snowing, you could be dead before reaching the dig.
Does anyone even know you're here?”
“You do.”
“Well, now I'm here too.”
“What you were talking about...” she said without taking her eyes off the green
surface of the water, “... I sometimes feel that if I could just turn my head the
right way, I'd see it.” She faced him as she took one hand out of her pocket. A
flat stone the size of her palm. Smooth quartz, frosted from the grinding action of
centuries of ice. “I picked this up... I think I expected bones underneath.”
He took it and with a flick of his wrist, skipped it across the water. Three
bounces and it sank. “You'd have to turn more than your head.” The ripples took
their time disappearing. The breeze didn't show on the surface at all. “Do you
remember anything?”
She shook her head. He was getting the same look as the water had.
“Just woke up pregnant one morning?”
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca