The Archangel Chronicles Part Two: The Blood Mosaic

Dr. Portia Greer leaned over her desk and scowled at the numbers floating in front of her. She sighed and fell back, forgetting that her chair had no back. She caught herself on the desk’s edge and let out a howl of frustration.

"Mother?" inquired her aide from the other side of the lab.

"This is not working," Portia yelled. "None of these cultures are showing any type of trend response."

Rhian Greer finished dropping vials full of nutrient into the last row of ivy. " But that’s not a surprise, is it? You didn’t expect it to take root in this generation."

"No," Portia replied. "But my early numbers looked very good and I got my hopes up. I’m more angry at myself than I am at the plants."

Rhian washed out the vial and placed it in its clamp to drip into the sink. She listened to her mother’s grumbling as more data blinked into amber life in front of her. Apparently, none of it was any more to her liking than the last batch had been.

"You need to rest for a while," Rhian said. "You’re getting too tired to think about this anymore."

"I just don’t understand why this worked so well with Rathal, but with Irian-something really important-nothing. No response at all. They’re the same basic viral forms."

"When do you leave for Caduceus." Rhian wanted nothing more than to change the subject. "For the ceremony?"

Portia groaned. Obviously, this was not the subject to bring up. "I’m hoping they’ll let me accept in absentia. I don’t want to leave right now."

"You need a vacation," Rhian replied. "And you could take me with you. I’d like to get out of here"

"And if the ceremony was on Tidewater, I’d agree with you. But it’s Caduceus, and I’ve seen more than enough of that. Why do you think I moved to Botasi?"

"And you’re sure Dad will be there," Rhian continued.

"To be honest, yes."

"I thought things went well a few months ago," Rhian said. "He seemed to think so."

"This is really none of your business," Portia replied. She’d turned around in her chair and regarded her daughter with a smirk. "But yes, I thought so too. Which is why I don’t want to see him right now."

"You don’t want him to see you in your moment of triumph . . . ?"

"You father knows me well enough to be able to tell what a moment of triumph this is not. He just brokered the Chiune treaty. I don’t want to see him again until I’ve cured Irian. Or, at least, I’m well on my way to doing so."

"That’s petty," Rhian observed.

"Petty, yes," Portia agreed. "But I have the right to be petty."

Rhian shrugged. This was an old argument between them. Portia and Veriden Greer had been more in love with each other since their divorce than they ever had when they were married. That was probably why Portia avoided the obvious-if they did get back together again, she was afraid they would fall back into their old habits of their married life. Cycles of bickering followed by silence and then a few days of bliss. It had been a difficult environment for Rhian to grow up within, especially by herself. She could never tell how bad it was going to get when the fighting started, or how long one of them would be gone in the days following, which was why she refused to push either of her parents toward reconciliation, no matter how obvious it was that each one wanted it.