Regeneration (Czerneda) Read Online Free PDF Page A

to our friendship, with that incomparable will of yours. It saved me; I love you for it. But it isn’t real—”
    “How can you say that?” Mac whispered, feeling the burn of tears. “Emily—”
    “It’s not—not if you can’t bring yourself to admit the Emily you thought you knew was someone different. Mac, if you can’t understand me, and still call me friend, you might as well give in to that anger you’re holding just as tight.”
    “I’m not angry—”
    “And I’m a cod. Honestly, Mac, you’re the only one who doesn’t see it. You’re furious with me. You’ve every right to be! Look what I’ve done!”
    “No,” Mac exclaimed. “I know it wasn’t your fault—”
    Emily’s voice turned cold: “No, Mac, you don’t. You’re hoping it wasn’t my fault. You’re doing your utmost to avoid any evidence that might prove you wrong. Damn poor science, if you ask me.”
    “I didn’t ask you,” Mac lashed out.
    “Which is why we’re here,” Emily responded with equal passion. “I can’t stand to have you like this, Mac. Clinging like grim death to an Emily you fear never existed. Refusing to find out if this Emily—” a low thud as Emily thumped her chest with a fist, “—is the friend you thought you had. Gods, Mac. Anyone else would have demanded answers the instant I was conscious. I waited. I wondered if it was that place—being among aliens, strangers. But even here, by water . . . ?” Emily stopped, then went on in a husky voice: “Must you always do things the hard way?”
    Mac licked her lips, tasting salt. “I lost you once.”
    A heavy sigh from the dark. “You haven’t found me yet.”
    The words were half accusation, half challenge. Mac rubbed her eyes with her real hand, feeling abruptly weary. Hadn’t found her? Nonsense. Her friend was standing right there.
    Or—was she? Wasn’t that the root of Mac’s reluctance to know more about Emily and her past?
    That she didn’t know this woman at all?
    “Give me a minute,” she pleaded. “I need to think.”
    “That would be a nice change.”
    “Shut up, Em,” Mac muttered distractedly. She focused on one thing at a time, did her best to keep her thoughts free of emotion.
    A brilliant, ambitious mind . . . a seemingly intractable puzzle. Emily and the mystery of the Chasm. A good fit, attracting the support of Sencor.
    Perhaps good enough to attract the Ro as well. There was irony for you.
    Mac flinched, circled back to Emily’s obsession. Why switch to fish biology? Why that particular field . . . unless . . . She crowed: “You believed the Survivors were aquatic! You built the Tracer to find them!”
    “Must you shout?” Emily complained.
    “The sheep won’t care,” Mac observed dryly. “I thought you wanted me to react.”
    “React. Just no shouting.” From her tone, Emily was making a face. “Humor me. It’s not easy giving up my ace, even to you.”
    Ace? Mac shifted restlessly. More old news. The real Survivors had been found. “It’s not easy sitting on this rock.”
    “I’m trying to unburden my soul here.”
    Wasn’t her idea. Mac made her own face, but settled again. “What made you so sure the Survivors existed in the first place?”
    “There was evidence from the Chasm itself, if you knew where to look. I did. You have to realize, Mac, at that time research was devoted to planets with ruins or potential for mining. Interest was sporadic at best; support, the same. It’s not as if the IU lacks living worlds to explore, thanks to the Sinzi. And the Chasm—it’s not a comfortable place.”
    Neither was a rock. “What evidence did you find?” Mac prodded, thinking wistfully of the warm, crowded pub. Not to mention barstools. Easier to stop that hint of rain in the air than Emily on a roll. Especially when that roll was for Mac’s enlightenment.
    “The anomaly,” Emily said with relish. “The only system connected with the rest of no interest to archaeologists or miners. Chasm System