Twenty-three years since I’d seen her… except that looking at her was half like sizing myself up in a mirror. Blond her, blond me. Blue eyes, blue eyes. Amazonian, Amazonian. Vigil training had given me a titch better muscle definition, but Mother had obviously kept herself active; in shorts and sleeveless blouse, she looked fit enough to wrestle a shanshan. How old was she now, sixty-eight? As if that mattered with YouthBoost. She could pass for thirty. The same way I could pass for thirty. And we could pass for each other’s sister. Not twins, but not near as different as I’d been telling myself the past two decades.

We both did our hair the same way now — basic bangs’n’butch. Coincidence enough to scare the bejeezus out of me. It was a common style these days, and supposedly flattering to the shape of my face… which meant it suited the shape of her face too.

But still. Christ Almighty.

When she first came into the room, she didn’t notice me — all her attention was centered on the examination table and Oh-God’s slackening body. Mother had done her share of time under the Big Top; she could recognize Pteromic Paralysis as easily as any person alive. A pitiful sound came out of her throat: part gasp, part choke, part sob. She wheeled away from the sight of Oh-God lying slack on the edge of death… and her eyes lit on me.

Twenty-three years since we’d seen each other. I’d changed a healthy lot more than she had, enough so I could see her wavering on the lip of doubt; then her gaze dropped to the scars on my arms, and that was that.

"Faye." Her voice was pure ice.

"Hello, Mother."

"Mother?" Festina blurted. Voostor twitched in surprise, but Tic broke into a pouchy grin. The daft old bugger was just the sort to love coincidences… which is to say, he probably didn’t believe in them. When you’re at 1.0001 with the universe, synchronicity follows you around like a spaniel.

"Why doesn’t this surprise me?" Mother asked. "Voostor’s first-ever emergency, and it’s my daughter bringing in a case of plague. You’re a curse, Faye. A walking evil."

"Then let’s walk," I told her. "We can talk while your… husband… looks after his patient."

She stared at me a moment. A hard stare, as if it were nigh-on impossible for me to say anything she would ever want to hear. "All right," she said at last. "We’ll have a homey little mother-daughter chat."

She motioned me toward the door. As I passed in front of her, she pulled back to make sure I didn’t accidentally touch her.

We strolled out the back door, across another brazenly green lawn and into a shady grove of trees — tropical trees of a breed I didn’t recognize, with big clumps of rubbery leaves prodding out close to the path. The leaves were all soaked with dew, like fat wet fingers that slapped against you as you walked. Since I was still carrying my parka, I held it out in front of me; let it get soaked instead of me.

The air was almost liquid with orchid perfume now… and suddenly I realized the grove was filled with flowers, tiny ones, as short and slender as bean sprouts. Some hung from branches just over my head, thin white stems curled to corkscrews; some hid behind tree roots beside the path, their blossoms small and red as blood drops. A few sat in special planters, sections of small trees with the pith scooped away and filled by soil, enough to support a single dainty bud of pale yellow, or mauve, or pure jewel blue. But most of the tiny orchids were planted the way they’d be found in open jungle: in whatever nook or cranny let them set down a foothold.

The effect was subtle — subtle enough to rip your breath away. Not flashy, but exquisite. The more you looked, the more you saw. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of miniscule blooms, quietly congregated and meticulously maintained. "This is Voostor’s pride and joy," Mother said — the first words she’d spoken since we left the others. "We have greenhouses farther back on the property, and fields where we grow crops; but this is where Voostor spends his time. Planting new species that he finds in the rain forest."

Her voice was carefully neutral. I couldn’t tell what she thought of her new husband’s hobby — whether she took pride, or thought it a daft waste of time. My mother was the sort of woman who could go either way; you never knew what she’d respect and what she’d disdain.

"I love this place," I said. "An honest-to-God masterpiece."

"Hmph." Not ready to let herself care about my opinion. "Why did you come here, Faye?"

"It’s complicated," I told her. "Not mother-daughter complicated, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t want to borrow money, and I’m not in trouble… well, not my usual sort of trouble anyway. Do you listen to the news?"

"No. We don’t get it here." Her answer had a hard edge to it. When Dads became the hero of Demoth, Mother had shuddered under the media limelight. Reporters hounded her cruelly for quotes about the great Henry Smallwood, especially after his death. Her nerves were too chip-brittle for the barrage; one morning she just didn’t get out of bed. The next two weeks I played nurse for her, almost like a dutiful daughter, even if I bitched and backbit for fear of getting too close… and even if Ma spent those two weeks accusing me of taking pictures of her while she slept and selling them to the news services.

In time, that bad spell passed; but it didn’t surprise me she’d settled in a place like Mummichog, where news didn’t happen and didn’t get burbled in the street. It didn’t surprise me either that she’d chosen a husband who cared more about the planting of miniature flowers than catching suppertime broadcasts. My mother would rather float undisturbed in a placid backwater than heed the ripples and streams of current events.

Or at least that’s how she’d been when I was a teenager. Perhaps she’d become less fragile over the years, because she now turned to face me with a direct question. "Has the plague broken out again?" Mother asked.

"A new strain," I said. "It only attacks Freeps and may be resistant to olive oil."

"Really. Let’s hope they discover another cure soon." She paused, then added, "Maybe that will make the world forget your father."

She waited to see how I’d react to that. Did she expect me to get upset? To defend his sacred memory? Once upon a time, I would have jumped at any chance to scream that I wished she’d died instead of him; but no more. That desperate old need to hurt her had burned out its rage long ago. "Lately," I said, all calm and mild, "I’ve been learning queer things about Dads. Events surrounding his death. And something the world-soul let him do that should have been impossible. Do you know anything about that?"

"Why should I know anything about anything?" She sounded more tired than angry. "And why should you show up on my doorstep, suddenly interested about your father after all these years? Have you joined a recovery program, Faye? Going down a checklist of psychological baggage… things you’re supposed to clean up before you get a membership pin?"

"I’m a proctor now, Ma. With the Vigil. And believe it or not, I’m investigating something important."

"About the plague?"

"That seems to be part of it."

We’d reached a bower on the edge of the grove: a wooden bench under a dozen small plant baskets hanging from the trees. The orchids inside them were plain forgettable white, but they gave off a head-swimming smell, like fruit on the cusp of decay. Mother waved for me to sit on the bench. "You go ahead," I told her, but she didn’t.

We stayed there, both standing, each waiting for the other to sit first.

"You’re really with the Vigil?" she finally asked.

I nodded.

"Do they pay you?"

"Some," I said with a slight smile. "Nothing extravagant."