Vision in Silver(138)
It took them an hour to come up with a working plan. The River Road Community had forty-five semidetached, two-bedroom doubles with the garages sharing a common wall. Fifteen of the doubles would be set aside for the terra indigene. Twenty-five would be available to humans who wanted to help build this community and who met the approval of both the Intuits and the terra indigene. The other five buildings, the ones closest to River Road, would become the business center. For the time being, the industrial plant would be used for storage.
The Intuits would supply the labor to get the houses in shape as quickly as possible. The Lakeside Courtyard would supply the money to purchase needed materials. Some acreage would be set aside to create allotments so that residents could grow some of their own food, and there would be a fenced common pasture for livestock. But there would still be plenty of open land for those who preferred to hunt for their food instead of grow it.
Officer Roger Czerneda, the official police officer in Ferryman’s Landing, would be offered a house in the River Road Community in exchange for expanding his territory to include the community and the road that ran between it and Great Island.
It would not be easy for humans and terra indigene to live so close to one another. Even in a place like Great Island, where Intuits and Others had worked together for generations to provide food and shelter and protect the island’s residents, they had not tried to live side by side. No one had considered such a thing—until Meg began living in the Green Complex and showed some of the terra indigene that it could be done.
None of them said it, but Simon understood that part of the Panthergard’s and Lynxgard’s interest in Lakeside was the blood prophet who retained the sweetness of a child’s heart. Meg was the kindling that had started a different kind of fire among humans and terra indigene alike—a fire that burned just as bright as the blaze the HFL movement kept fanning.
Hope or hatred? Which fire would light Thaisia?
CHAPTER 39
Moonsday, Maius 14
Alone in the back room of the Liaison’s Office, Nathan tucked the blue checked shirt into his jeans. A T-shirt would have been easier to wear in warm weather, but Michael Debany had told him that would be too casual for an official meeting. And this was business with a Toland police officer who was a stranger and, while not yet confirmed, might well be an enemy.
That was the reason he was attending this meeting: because the Toland police officer might be an enemy. Since Nathan was the enforcer the Lizzy knew best, the Courtyard’s Business Association thought she’d be able to tell her story honestly if she felt safe.
At least he wouldn’t be confused this time if the Lizzy turned into a whiny puppy. Meg wouldn’t be at the meeting, wouldn’t need his protection from the stranger—or from the Lizzy. Not totally the Lizzy’s fault that Meg had needed to cut. But fault or not, being forced to make the cut for Meg had scared him badly, and that made him wary of the Lizzy.
“Why are you growling?” Meg asked as he entered the sorting room.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
He shrugged, not willing to admit that humans were more difficult to deal with when you couldn’t give them a lethal bite or even a sharp nip.
Then he caught something in Meg’s scent and focused on her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You—” Probably shouldn’t say she didn’t smell right. In the books he’d read recently, human females got snappish when a male commented about her smell—unless he said it was a good smell. “You look upset.”
Nathan came around the table, eyeing the catalogs and envelopes. Nothing there that looked dangerous. But the envelope Meg was holding had her name on it. No one wrote to Meg.
“Let me see that.” He held out a hand. Couldn’t grab it from her. Paper could cut too.