CHAPTER SEVEN SCAR TISSUE
ROWAN
Shaarr climbed a vertical root face with one arm around me. I decided the carrying rule could survive an emergency exception. There was a Rootmaw chewing through the passage below. I was flexible.
Under pressure. We reached a narrow shelf halfway up the ridge. Shaarr set me down. I pointed at him.
"Emergency only."
He looked toward the shaking wall.
"You were falling."
"Acceptable."
"Good."
I caught myself before saying anything else. He was learning loopholes. Dangerous. The shelf led to an old guard alcove wedged between massive roots. Dry.
One opening. Just enough room for two people who currently had several reasons not to sit close together. I pulled out the scanner. Shaarr sat.
I stared.
"What?"
"You didn't argue."
"I am bleeding."
"Very mature."
"Do not ruin it."
I cleaned the reopened wound along his side. The Rootmaw had torn the seal from yesterday. His armor shifted under my fingers with each breath. Biological plating still bothered my sense of anatomy. Too warm for armor.
Too responsive for bone. His chest light remained steady. Until my hand moved higher. Then it brightened.
I ignored that. Mostly. The scar under his damaged lateral eye was worse. Inflamed tissue.
Branching neural interference. Old burn. Old damage. I moved the scanner toward it. Shaarr caught my wrist.
Not violent. Not gentle either.
"No."
"Inflammation increased."
"Still no."
"It affects the receptor pathways."
His grip did not change. I waited. He studied me. Finally, his fingers loosened.
"Limited."
"Specific purpose."
His primary eyes narrowed.
"Juno taught you the terms."
"I read the emergency medical appendix."
"You said you avoided his paper."
"I did."
"Selective."
"Efficient."
His jaw plates shifted. There. Definitely amusement. I brought the scanner closer. The scar lit the display in familiar lines. Three-point burn.
Neuromuscular discharge. My stomach turned. I knew that pattern. Not academically.
Through a targeting screen. My hand stopped. Shaarr noticed.
"What?"
"Scanner lag."
Lie. Small. Immediate. His gaze sharpened.
I hated how well he read bodies.
"Rowan."
The root shelf shook. Dust fell from the alcove ceiling. Both of us looked toward the entrance. Saved by a giant subterranean predator. Not my proudest moment.
"Later," I said.
Shaarr's eyes stayed on me a second longer. Then he turned toward the vibration. I finished the scan. Residual neural damage surrounded the receptor network.
"Your eye injury is amplifying activation pain."
"Can you stop it?"
"Maybe dampen it."
"How?"
"Electrical suppression."
His face closed.
"No."
I understood before he explained. Preybridge. Electric restraint. Neuromuscular control.
"All right."
That surprised him.
"No argument?"
"Medical refusal."
"Even if it helps."
"Yes."
He studied me. I packed the tool.
"Don't look so shocked."
"I expected persistence."
"I save that for people who haven't said no."
Something in him settled. Not the receptor. Him. Outside, the vibration faded. We waited.
Then moved. The first dead nursery tree appeared near dusk. It had not fallen. It had been hollowed.
Half the lower trunk was missing, consumed from underneath until the living structure simply gave up. Old carvings lined the surviving wall. Shaarr crossed to them. His claws hovered.
Did not touch at first.
"Young?"
"Moved."
"Before this?"
"Yes."
Relief. Then grief. The place mattered. I recognized that without needing explanation.
"How old?"
"Thirty-one rotations."
"Can it be rebuilt?"
"Another nursery can."
Not the question. He knew. I knew. Neither corrected it.
We found a human shell casing twenty minutes later. Half buried under root mulch. Old. Preybridge manufacture.
I picked it up. Shaarr's attention sharpened.
"You recognize it."
"Standard suppression round."
"Personally?"
The casing suddenly weighed too much.
"Military issue."
"That was not what I asked."
His damaged eye faced me. My memory supplied the rest. Pale armor turning through smoke. Blue discharge.
My arm moving without me. I closed my fingers around the casing.
"I need more than memory."
Shaarr's body became very still. He understood that I was withholding something. I expected anger. Instead he said:
"Then find the evidence."
That was worse.