Read Online Survival by Julie E. Czerneda - Free Book Online

stretched out on her stomach, laying the mem-sheet on the floor in front of her. Unconfirmed rumor or crackpot notion, Em was right—this scale of threat had to be taken seriously until proven otherwise. Obviously, she and Em weren’t the only ones to think so.
    She was, however, the only one to poke the scientist she was supposed to help in the midriff, shoo him from her field station, then attempt to drown the man sent by the Secretary General to assist them both.
    Not the most auspicious start to their relationship.
    Resisting a quite remarkable level of guilt, Mac began to read.

    Mac tapped the com. “Dr. Connor to Pod Three, please.” While she waited, she frowned at Emily, who’d settled on her outfit of choice with unusual alacrity and was now resplendent in a black evening jumpsuit that oozed sophistication and personal style. She’d given up on the sling and wrapped the cast in matching fabric. At the moment, the other biologist was holding out a similar garment in red, a gleam in her eye. Over my dead body, Mac mouthed at her.
    â€œPod Three.”
    No mistaking that voice. “Tie? What are you doing on coms?”
    â€œOh, it’s you. Hi, Mac. Yeah. Everyone else has headed for the gallery to get a good seat—I pulled short straw, having met our guest. Should be quite the affair. Why aren’t you down there yourself?”
    Emily shook the red jumpsuit suggestively; Mac stuck out her tongue. So much for her hope to arrange a private meeting with—and apology to—both Brymn and Mr. Trojanowski before supper. “We’ll be there shortly,” she said. “I wanted to check that everything was on schedule.” Emily rolled her eyes.
    â€œOn schedule?” Tie’s laugh was a bark worthy of a sea lion. “No problem. It’s been the Pied Piper and his rats around here. Last I saw, that Dhryn was walking through Admin, collecting people as he went. Cooks will have to hustle to be ready, that’s my guess.”
    Disrupting everyone else’s research, Mac thought, changing her mind about the apology as she closed the connection. “Let’s go.”
    â€œDressed like—that. You can’t be serious. Now that we know it’s for supper—”
    â€œSupper?” Mac raised both eyebrows. “Em, it’s Pizza Tuesday.”
    Emily appeared to struggle with the concept, then spat out something frustrated in Quechan. “You’re meeting with a scientist of another species and a representative of the Ministry of Extra-Sol Human Affairs! What kind of impression will you make in those?”
    Mac brushed nonexistent dust from her borrowed coveralls. “No worse than I’ve made already. You impress them. I want to get this over with so we can get back to work.”
    The rejected jumpsuit sailed across the room to drape itself over the couch. “So you’ve made up your mind about this so-called threat to humanity.” Emily’s voice was studiously neutral. She’d read the reports after Mac and had had nothing—yet—to say.
    Not knowing what to do with the pieces of the secret envelope, Mac had slipped them over the refolded mem-sheet, intending to save all three. To her astonishment, the two halves had immediately mended themselves into an unblemished whole, once more winking with her name. The envelope now seemed to burn a hole in Mac’s hip pocket. “What threat?” she asked. Mac walked over to the window wall and stood peering out through the droplets, then refocused on them. With a finger, she traced imaginary patterns between drops picked at random, touching each as she recited the list from memory. “A group of climbers disappears from a mountain on Thitus Prime. A cruise barge on Regellus drifts ashore, empty. Balloonists never land on N’not’k. An eco-patrol vanishes from a forest in Ascendis. A harvesting crew isn’t seen again on Ven