Survival

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “The last sound.” She looked up. The ceiling was low enough to touch if she were standing. “It’s what I heard when—” she swallowed hard. “—when it was hanging onto the pillar at the gate, right over my head. I was worried I’d lost it, so I was standing with my back against the pillar to listen. I heard what I thought was its breathing.”

  “How did you feel at that moment?”

  “Feel?” Trojanowski’s tangential question surprised her. Mac took a moment to consider before answering. “Triumphant, I suppose. I thought I’d cornered it, could talk to it. But when I tried, it made sound number two—the spit/pop—then took off into the woods.” She shrugged to herself. “At that point, I switched back to feeling annoyed.”

  “You never felt in any danger.”

  “No. Why would I? It was running away from me. What are you getting at?” Mac wasn’t sure she liked being cross-examined by a disembodied voice.

  “I don’t know. But it could matter to the interpretation of what we re-create here. Thank you. Please continue with the last sound.” His voice sharpened. “Doctors! When you’re ready?”

  Mac stifled a laugh, well able to imagine what was going on—not that the two couldn’t restrain themselves, but they’d enjoy Trojanowski’s discomfiture.

  He shouldn’t have worn the suit.

  “Are you ready?

  “Impress us, Genius-Man.” Mac, cross-legged on the audio lab floor, grinned up at Jabulani. He might have stripped off his raincoat and sweater, but the crowded space had been warmed by bodies and busy equipment to the point where even her shirt was sticking to her skin. The big man’s well-worn khakis were drenched in sweat, but he was smiling from ear to ear. Denise played a tiny fan over the back of his neck, alternating with her own flushed face.

  Trojanowski, Mac decided, sneaking another incredulous look, couldn’t possibly be Human. His suit and ridiculous cravat were immaculate. There wasn’t a drop of moisture on his skin. It made it impossible to argue with his insistence on keeping the door closed and locked. He repaid her look with a raised eyebrow, saying: “Oh, I’m ready, too.”

  “I’ve tweaked it so we should hear the creature as if it were here, with us.”

  Mac braced herself. “Go ahead, Jabulani.”

  They listened together, Mac watching Trojanowski for any reaction to the sounds filling the lab. His expression showed intense interest, nothing more. As if he’d let his face reveal anything he didn’t want it to, Mac reminded herself.

  The final sound. The thrumming. Mac’s hands tightened around her knees in frustration. “I was so close,” she said.

  “Too close,” Trojanowski commented grimly. “Move the sound files to my imp, please, Dr. Sithole. Thank you for your work.”

  Mac stirred herself. “Denise, erase any copies or records. This never happened, okay?”

  “I’ll do no such—”

  Jabulani cupped Denise’s angry face in his big hands and kissed her lightly on the nose, but there was nothing light in his voice. “Yes, you will, Sweet Thing. For all our sakes. Trust me.”

  Denise pulled away and began smacking switches to power down the lab, muttering something that sounded like “same old government covercrap.” Mac pretended not to hear as she got to her feet and stretched.

  Trojanowski studiously ignored the agitated audio researcher as well, getting the files from Jabulani and pocketing his imp. “Time to go,” he announced briskly. “Thank you again, Dr. Pillsworthy.”

  Before Denise could utter whatever was about to spill from her thinned lips, Mac interjected: “This could help us find Em.”

  Denise’s fingers fussed at the nubs of her implants. “Not arguing with that, Mac,” she said grudgingly, then scowled at Jabulani. “It’s erasing records I don’t countenance and you know it, Jabby.”

  “Of course I do, but sometimes it’s necessary to protect those—”

  Trojanowski went to the door and unlocked it, as if to avoid further argument. Mac, drawn by the rush of cool, ocean-scented air as the door opened, followed close behind. She was almost through the doorway to the platform when his hand shot back to hold her in place. “Shhh.”

  Mac knew better than to ask. Instead, she strained her every sense to catch what had alarmed him.

  The platform was empty except for themselves. Amazing, Mac told herself, as the hairs on her neck rose, how between one breath and the next, a place you knew as home could feel like a trap. She could barely see over the rail to the stairway and down, but the activity below seemed normal enough, a reassuring cacophony of footsteps, equipment, and voices rising to where they stood. Mac lifted her gaze along the wall’s curve. The next platforms were behind this one, out of her sight.

  Meanwhile, Trojanowski was turning his head, so slowly and smoothly that Mac hadn’t caught the movement until she glanced back at him, turning it so he could look toward her . . .

  No, she thought, her heart pounding in her ears, so he could look above her.

  A low, regular, familiar thrumming, from overhead and behind. Mac held her breath as Trojanowski completed his movement, his eyes tracking upward. She’d have taken more comfort from his calm expression, if his face hadn’t been deathly pale.

  His eyes lowered to hers; in the platform’s lighting they seemed dark pits behind their lenses. Back inside, he mouthed.

  She’d been wrong, he hadn’t stopped moving for an instant. His shoulders were almost perpendicular to her now and she could see one of his hands pulling something out of his suit coat.

  Mac eased her weight to the foot still inside the doorframe. It flashed through her mind to argue that they had a chance to capture it, to demand answers—as quickly, she remembered the two unknowing people behind her in the audio lab, and the dozens working below on the ring, and hoped Nikolai Trojanowski was as good with his weapon as he was at secrets.

  Scurry . . . skitter . . .

  Flash!

  Even as Trojanowski drew and fired, Mac heard footsteps behind her and threw herself around to stop. Jabulani and Denise from coming out the door. Fortunately, they were so startled by the sight of Trojanowski and his weapon that they halted of their own accord, both shouting questions. “Stay there!” Mac ordered, whirling back to see what was happening.

  “Did you—?” She shut her mouth on the words, seeing Trojanowski rush to lean over the rail.

  “I don’t know. It fell,” he added unnecessarily as she came up beside him and could see for herself the commotion below. “Or jumped.”

  This side of the floating ring was being lifted and dropped with a smack by waves originating where the water was still churned white from an impact. Students and their supervisors were scrambling to keep equipment from bouncing into the ocean, yelling questions at one another. A couple jumped in, ruining whatever experiments were underway, but obviously concerned someone might be drowning.

  Trojanowski’s elbow bumped Mac’s as he put his weapon away.

  “Shouldn’t we stop them?” Mac demanded, worrying about the would-be rescuers.

  “They won’t find it,” her companion predicted.

  He was right.

  10

  SEARCH AND SHOCKS

  THERE WERE clouds forming on the horizon. Mac hugged herself tightly and watched them blur the line where wave met sky in a spectrum of heaving gray and black. Where she stood, outside Pod Six, the mid-afternoon sun scoured to a hard-edged gleam every section of mem-wood walkway, every rail, every ripple of ocean surrounding them all.

  It did nothing to expose an invisible foe.

  “They worried they’d have to stop looking at dusk,” Trojanowski announced. “Then someone volunteered to rig lights.” He’d removed his coat and cravat sometime in the last hour, pressing the mem-fabric of his shirt sleeves to hold them above his elbows. Mac hadn’t seen him put his hands into the water, but they dripped on the walkway as he approached her.

  As “they” referred to a cobbled-together team of enthused students and supervi
sors using skims and whatever diving gear was at hand to search the water within and around the pod, Mac was less than impressed. “You told me yourself there’s no point,” she protested, pressing her lips together. Finally: “I should stop this.”

  “And how will you explain why?” he asked mildly, shaking droplets from his fingertips and squinting at the line of skims. “Too many heard something fall in the water. A stubborn bunch you have here.”

  Enough was enough. Mac took a deep breath, then said: “I won’t bother with explanations. They can be as stubborn as they want at home, where I don’t have to worry about them. I’m going to order Base evacuated.”

  The look he shot her at this was anything but mild. “No. Under no circumstances are you to do that, Dr. Connor. That would be—”

  “What? An act of treason against my species?” He might be taller by a head, but Mac had no trouble glaring at him. “I have no problem being bait for our intruder, Mr. Trojanowski, if that’s what it takes. I draw the line at risking the people of this facility in any way.”

  He met her glare with a resigned sigh. “I know. But—”

  Just then, a skim swooped to a stop above the water in front of them, disgorging a pair of soaking wet and begoggled students who waved happily as they jumped onto the walkway. Between them they carried a seaweed-coated length of pipe, with links of chain dangling from each end, that they dropped at Mac’s feet. “Look what we found, Mac!” one exclaimed with glee. “Part of the old goal post!” Without waiting for an answer, they dove back in their skim and headed for the others.

  Mac nudged the pipe with the toe of her shoe. “Well, you’ve been missing a while,” she scolded, to keep her voice free of either laughter or sob. Then, to the silent man beside her: “These people have no idea what we’re up against. Even if they did, they’d still try to help. We can’t protect them here. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Dr. Connor. Mac. Walk with me, please,” he said, a command more than invitation. “I’ve some things to tell you that shouldn’t be overheard.”

  “Is one going to be a damned good reason why I shouldn’t send my people to safety—right now?”

  “You’ll have to judge that for yourself.”

  Without another word, Trojanowski led Mac to the very end of the walkway, away from searchers and spectators, to where the mem-wood slats broadened into a platform that ramped down on either side to meet the now-empty slips of Norcoast’s small skim and t-lev fleet. He stood with the sun and the end rail at his back. To hide his expression or illuminate her own?

  “Well, this should be private enough,” Mac commented, raising her voice to be heard above the slap of water and the raucous chatter of gulls roosting on the slips. She adjusted out of habit to the sway of the walkway as it rode the incoming swells, then tapped her foot smartly on the mem-wood. “Or is it? We’ve no way to know, do we?”

  “No way to know,” he agreed, but didn’t seem unduly concerned by this or the shifting surface underfoot. He rubbed his hands together as if to finish drying them, then spread them wide apart. “But this isn’t the first time. It’s been like chasing a ghost, Mac. No images on record. A few traces of slime that contain no genetic information or cells. No clues, beyond the type of encounter we’ve just had. We call them ‘Nulls,’ for want of anything better.”

  “So there have been other—encounters,” Mac said, finding his word choice unsettling. What would they call murder? A meeting? “Where? Was anyone else taken? Harmed? What—”

  “Nothing as tangible as this, until now,” he answered, cutting her list short. “Nothing as bold. The Nulls themselves were only a name until you heard one. We’ve been able to spot their ship landings, some anyway—damaged vegetation and disturbed earth. If we’re lucky, there’s slime.”

  Mac wondered how anyone could say that with a straight face, but didn’t interrupt.

  Trojanowski went on: “Neither the Ministry nor the IU is ready to make a direct connection between these beings and what’s been happening along the Naralax Transect—the disappearances—”

  “But you—you personally—think there is,” Mac stated, shading her eyes to make out more of his face.

  His shoulders lifted and fell. “Anyone who goes to this much trouble to hide themselves has a reason. And there have been landing sites in systems along the Naralax, on worlds where and when such events have taken place.”

  “ ‘Events.’ ” Mac shook her head in disgust. “ ‘Missing person reports.’ ‘Disappearances.’ Why don’t you say what really happened? The eradication of all life, of every living molecule, as if it had never existed—just like the worlds in the Chasm. A minor detail I had to learn from an alien! Why wasn’t it in the report?”

  “I’m sure the Ministry would have briefed you more completely had there seemed a need from the start.” Almost by rote.

  “You mean if they’d taken Brymn seriously.”

  “Yes, but it was more than that.” He shook his head. “The decision to keep a lid on this was made in order to prevent panic. We didn’t want to alarm you or anyone else, unnecessarily.”

  The wind, previously soft and steady from the west, chose that moment to send a spray-laden gust over the end of the walkway. Mac had already tucked the portion of her braid escaping its knot into her collar, but sufficient drops landed on her face and head to steal the sun’s warmth. She licked salty lips. “I’ll tell you what’s alarming me, Mr. Trojanowski, the idea of my people being stalked by these creatures. I think that’s more than enough reason to close this facility immediately and send everyone home.”

  A sliver of steel entered his voice. “And I say that would be premature. They’ve only shown interest in you, Dr. Mamani, and possibly Brymn. There’s every indication they’ve attempted to prevent inadvertent contact with anyone else. The power failures, the late night intrusions. If we change the routine at this facility, we might spook them into disappearing for good—or into more direct action.”

  “Not good enough,” Mac snapped. “A pile of conjecture that does nothing but serve your interest in finding these Nulls.”

  “They are after you,” he repeated, as if she hadn’t spoken. “The obvious conclusion is that, despite all our security, somehow they’ve found out you and Brymn are looking into the—eradications. But why Emily? You know something, don’t you?” His voice softened. “I’ve seen it in your eyes, Mac. You’re blaming yourself. Why?”

  Mac walked around Trojanowski so he had to turn to the sun in order to keep her in view. As if sensing what she wanted, he took off his glasses, put them in a pocket, and waited, a patient, if determined, compassion on his face. Each time they had stood like this, face-to-face, Mac realized with a small shock, something fundamental between them had changed. Was it only the circumstances? Was it him?

  Was it her?

  This time, it felt natural to say to him what she could hardly bear to think. “Emily was trying to tell me something, the last—the last time I saw her. She wasn’t angry at me. I know it sounded like it, when we were together on the stairs, but she wasn’t. She said I needed to understand that we—she meant Humans—weren’t the only people investigating the disappearances. She said we had our parts to play, but they were small and we’d be back to normal soon. She said all this as if to reassure me.” Mac paused to firm up her voice. “But I think it was to reassure herself.” Tears spilled over her eyelids; she let them fall. “She was afraid, Nik. I didn’t see it until too late.”

  “What was she afraid of?”

  “Something that hadn’t happened yet. Something—maybe something she was going to do. Emily asked me to promise to forgive her, but wouldn’t tell me why.”

  Nikolai Trojanowski put his hands on either side of her face, then brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, once, ever so lightly, to wipe away her tears. “Did you promise?” he asked gently.

  “I didn’t need to promise that,” Mac sniffed. “I told her friends always forgive friends. What could she hav
e meant? What was she talking about?”

  “I don’t know. To figure this out, I need you to tell me everything you can, Mac.” Nik lowered his hands. “It’s your choice.”

  A gull complained about ravens. A fish jumped in the distance, visiting an alien realm. Mac weighed promise against reality, and knew there was no choice left.

  “I understand. Brymn. He called me his lamisah,” she told him. “Do you know the word? He said it meant that we were allies.”

  “I haven’t heard it before. But please. Go on.”

  “Emily was his lamisah, too.” Mac turned and gripped the rail in both hands, staring out at the simplicity of the inlet’s life, and then told Nikolai Trojanowski everything she knew, from sharing the Ministry’s message with Emily, to Brymn’s desire to speak to her privately and what he’d said, ending with the meeting between the three of them in her office. The only time she sensed a reaction from the silent form beside her was his stiffening when she mentioned the figure watching the three of them from the terrace.

  “Emily thought it was you,” Mac told him.

  “Hardly. I was waiting for ghosts on the mountain.”

  Mac’s hands tightened on the rail until she felt twinges of pain up both wrists. “You should have been here protecting us! Protecting Emily!” The fury of her own sudden outburst shocked her. She put one hand over her mouth, then drew it down slowly. “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known. I’m sorry. . . .”

  “Don’t be. You aren’t wrong, Mac.” His tone brought her eyes around to look at him. A muscle jumped along his jaw and his mouth was a thin, stark line. “I wish I’d been here,” he said grimly. “I wish I hadn’t completely underestimated Brymn and the situation I placed you in. I thought he was a joke. I thought having to come here with him was a waste of my time and my superiors were fools to let him convince them otherwise. Oh, I did all the right prep—made all the right motions. Backgrounds on you and your people. Checked, what I could, on the Dhryn.” Twin spots of color appeared on his cheeks and his voice lowered. “Getting that call to watch for a Null ship felt like a reprieve—until I found out what had happened while I was gone. It’s I who owe you an apology, Mackenzie Connor. As if words matter now.”