Survival

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Emily assessed people in an instant and was rarely wrong, an ability Mac now envied. Her own way was to avoid such judgments, to wait and watch while time spent working together revealed the quality of a person, or its lack. A luxury she no longer had. There was only the seeming sincerity of this man’s voice and expression, his actions over the past two and a half days, and a supposedly counterfeit-proof message, carefully transferred to her pant pocket because nowhere in her home was safe.

  Like rolling a kayak, Mac decided. You had to believe your first drive of the paddle would bring you up again. Without that confidence, the timing never worked and you stayed head down and flailing underwater. Embarrassing at best. Deadly at worst.

  “Words matter, Nik,” she disagreed. “I’ve one for you. Lamisah. Allies.” Mac poked him in the chest with two fingers. He feigned a grab for the railing and she almost smiled. Almost. “Taking your advice, lamisah, I won’t shut down Base unless there is another incident. But if there’s so much as a hint of a Null around, I’ll empty this place and raise the pods so fast your head will spin.”

  He looked relieved. “More than fair, Mac. Meanwhile, I’ll deploy more officers. For what it’s worth.”

  “Appreciated. Now. Where do we go from here? How do we find Emily?”

  An eyebrow lifted. “We?”

  Mac shoved her hands in her pockets and stood braced against the now-gusting wind.

  Nik considered her for an instant; perhaps, Mac thought, forced into his own quick judgment. Then he nodded. “We.” His hazel eyes picked up some of the ocean’s chill blue. “We start searching for your invisible intruder,” he told her. “But first, I think it’s time we woke our sleeping beauty.”

  Nik hadn’t exactly lied to her, Mac thought ruefully. He’d merely neglected to tell her they’d be making a brief stop on the way to see Brymn.

  Would a warning have made this moment easier?

  She stepped inside Emily’s quarters, hearing the police barrier hum back into place behind her, and seriously doubted anything would have helped.

  “What are—what do you think I’ll see that you haven’t?” she asked Nik, who was moving carefully through the remains of Emily’s glass table toward her desk. Focusing on him, a person who didn’t belong with her memories of this room, was better than remembering how it used to look. How it should look.

  Emily defined her space, Mac thought, picking her way among pieces of brilliant fabric her eye refused to recognize as a wardrobe. The delay Emily had coaxed from her on arriving? In part so she could, as every year, disappear into her new assigned quarters to “scent mark the place” as she’d call it. One or more of her travel cases would contain oddments from home: a new ceramic sculpture, a rug, a watercolor, a colorful woven throw. Once it had been a set of stuffed llamas, in striking white and black, adorned with magenta sunglasses. The only commonalities from year to year were the confusion of cosmetics in the bathroom and satin sheets on the bed. The end result, regardless of scheme, was a space that had nothing in common with those of the other scientists in the pod, something that suited Emily Mamani very well.

  Mac didn’t look up again. She didn’t dare. Looking at the floor was bad enough, littered with treasures become debris, glistening with hardened slime. Her first involuntary glance around the room had been trapped by the marks on one wall, a combination of deep gouges and a single, blood-red handprint. The marks had been linked within an irregular black outline, as if a child had thought to frame them.

  There were other signs of the forensics team at work: labels and code numbers stuck seemingly at random around the room, vidbots hovering in every corner to record any evidence tampering, accidental or deliberate.

  Mac fought the urge to show her empty hands to the nearest lens.

  Nik was looking through what was left of Emily’s desk. “See anything that doesn’t belong?” he prompted.

  She considered several replies to this, settling for: “You’re joking.”

  He glanced over at her, his face inscrutable. “I mean it. Look around. If something isn’t right, you’ll notice. Trust your instincts.”

  “How can you be—” Mac stopped what she was going to say and gave a nod. “I’ll do my best,” she said, wondering where or when he’d had occasion to prove that for himself. She probably didn’t want to know, Mac told herself, raising her eyes at last.

  It helped that the marks were behind her now. She pushed the emotions crowding her behind as well. Time later to worry about Emily, to be angry at the defilement of her things, to be afraid.

  Fear was the hardest to dismiss. Slowly, insidiously, it sucked the moisture from her mouth and disrupted the rhythm of her heart. There could be another of the creatures clinging to the ceiling above her head, or in the shower stall. The walls could be crowded with Nulls, silent and waiting.

  Let them wait, Mac told herself fiercely.

  Nothing in the living room drew her attention. Mac made herself walk into Emily’s bedroom. She felt Nik’s presence at her back, as if he offered support but wouldn’t interfere. Scant comfort, she thought. He couldn’t shoot what he couldn’t find.

  Even prepared by the state of the outer room, Mac gasped. The bedroom, half the size of the living room, had been the site of battle. Streaks of slime crisscrossed others of rust-red. Numb, Mac bent and picked up a fragment of blue and yellow, all she could see that looked familiar. It was from a lamp Emily had “borrowed” from her office. A lamp that had been shattered against a wall—or a body.

  “They left through the window.”

  Mac ignored the words as she ignored any attempt by her mind to reconstruct what had happened here. She edged around the mattress, sliced as had been the one in her quarters, hurrying her inspection over every surface. Almost done . . .

  “What are you doing here?” she muttered in surprise, tugging at a piece of brown plastic that peeked from beneath a fragment of chair leg. The piece tore free and she brought it to her nose. The soufflé had smelled much better two days ago.

  “What is it?”

  Mac frowned in puzzlement as she held out the scrap to Nik. “Dessert.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She dropped to her knees, digging after more pieces. “Leftovers,” Mac clarified as she searched. “Brymn brought this bag of soufflé to my office that night. He didn’t know I’d eaten . . . said he picked this to bring me because others praised it. I don’t think he eats what we do.”

  Nik squatted beside her, helping to move aside the rest of the broken chair. “Dhryn diet aside, why does it matter that the soufflé ended up here?”

  Impatiently, Mac pushed her hair behind one ear. She had a small pile of bag pieces now, several attached to dried clots of egg, chocolate, and cream. “It matters because the soufflé wasn’t edible anymore. Em must have taken the bag to recycle it for me. I’ve had some—well, sometimes old food hangs around in my office.” She coughed. “That’s not important. Nik, what if whoever was spying on us through the window stayed nearby and saw her take the bag from my office. Maybe he—it—assumed it held something important, something secret. That could be why Emily . . .” She didn’t finish the statement. The room around them did it for her.

  “Not an unreasonable assumption,” Nik replied approvingly, then made a clucking sound. “It doesn’t explain why Dr. Mamani would bring a bag of dead soufflé all the way back to her quarters. I saw recycle chutes in every hallway.”

  “I don’t know.” Mac rocked back on her heels. “We were both tired. We’d said things, argued. I didn’t even notice her taking it. She must have gathered it up with her sweater.” Mac started to look around for the garment, but stopped herself with a shudder.

  Nik produced a clear sheet from a pocket, unfolded it, then laid it over a fairly clean section of carpet. “Put all the pieces here,” he ordered. “I’ll have the forensics team reconstruct what they can.”

  Mac stared at him. He looked serious. “The soufflé?”

&nbs
p; “And whatever else might have been in the bag.”

  She shook her head. “I looked inside—”

  “Can you swear there was nothing else in it?” he interrupted. “Did you take it out?”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “That’s why we’ll have this analyzed.”

  Mac shook her head. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that Brymn actually put something else in the bag? I was only speculating—”

  Nik lifted the end of a drawer and exclaimed with satisfaction as he found another, larger mass of bag bits stuck to one another and to the floor. Rather than try to remove it, he drew out a knife and began cutting the carpet around the mass. “Speculating is part of good detective work, Mac,” he informed her as he worked. “As a scientist, you should know that.”

  She knew she didn’t like where this particular speculation was leading. Mac put her fingers on Nik’s arm. “Wait.” When he looked at her quizzically, she bit her lip, then went on: “What aren’t you telling me about Emily, Nik? What’s going on? Tell me what you know—what you think you know. Please.”

  The knife blade drove deep into the carpet to stand between them. “I know she’s your colleague and closest friend, Mac,” he said evenly, meeting her eyes. His were troubled. “But that’s not all she is. I can’t explain here-—” a deliberate glance at the hovering vidbot, “—but I believe she might have taken the bag from your office because she suspected Brymn of trying to pass you a secret message—”

  “Whoa! Stop right there, Mr. Trojanowski.” Mac snatched her fingers back as though his skin burned them. “Why would Emily want to intercept a message from Brymn? She didn’t even know he existed until you brought him to the field station! I involved her in all this. She knows nothing about his species, or—” His stillness penetrated her fury. He was waiting for her, for something from her. What?

  Mac took a steadying breath, then another before asking as calmly as if after the weather: “Why would you believe such a thing?”

  He bent his head, lifting only his eyes to hers. The regret in them made her pulse hammer in her throat, an ominous drumbeat underlying his next words. “Because Emily Mamani has lied to you, Mac. By omission if not more. She visited at least two Dhryn colonies in the past year; three the year before. I’m quite sure she knows more about Brymn and his species than either of us.”

  A pause, and his regretful expression turned into something more akin to warning. “And, Mac? It’s never just one lie. Not once you start digging.”

  “No change, Mac.”

  “Thanks, Tie.” Mac curbed her impatience. After Nik had passed the wrapped bundle of dried soufflé and bag bits to the officer who’d been waiting outside Emily’s door, they’d come straight here, to her quarters. No time to process what Nik had told her. No time to do anything more than shove all thoughts of Emily Mamani out of her mind. “We’ll watch him for a while, Tie. I’ll let you know when we need to be spelled.”

  While she talked with Tie, Nik was heads-together with the police officer who’d been guarding Brymn. If that’s what she was, Mac wondered abruptly. She’d never asked for any identification. She was reasonably certain Kammie wouldn’t have bothered either. You had an emergency, you called for help, real police came. Who doubted that?

  Suddenly, she did. If the police at Base weren’t real, and the Wilderness Trust no longer ruled the landscape around the inlet, and Emily had lied . . .

  “Mac?”

  “Sorry, Tie,” Mac said quickly, quite sure her expression had been a study in itself. “Distracting day, as you can imagine. What were you saying?”

  His rough, round face puckered in distress. Tie was at his best with engines, not people, but he’d done an admirable job keeping cool and focused through this crisis. An unconscious alien on the floor of her quarters was about the only thing he couldn’t handle. Mac knew how he felt all too well. “I’m saying, Mac, we should’ve moved our ‘guest’ yesterday. This isn’t right, you not having your own quarters.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Tie.” Mac put her arm around his shoulders and gave him an affectionate squeeze before letting go. “The last place I want to stay right now is in here. It’s going to take weeks to clean this up—let alone put everything together again.” She didn’t bother adding that her office was worse. He knew. “Did you get all our gear packed up?”

  “Done by noon.” He found a smile for her. “Only problem I had was convincing McGregor and Beiz to stop sunbathing so we could get back to Base. If it wasn’t for the situation—” Here his voice finally faltered.

  “It’s okay, Tie,” Mac said softly. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Nik and the “officer” were finished with their private chat. “I’m heading to the mainland this evening anyway. They’re putting me up in a fancy hotel, with room service. What do you think of that?”

  He brightened. “I think it’s a great idea, Mac. You make sure you take full advantage. Just don’t be gone long.”

  Something she couldn’t promise. “Kammie has the reins,” Mac assured him instead. “You keep things working for her until I’m back. Deal?”

  This didn’t sit well at all. She could see it in the unhappy look in his eyes. But Tie wouldn’t argue, not with Outside Authority in the form of the bureaucrat and police officer now moving their way. He ducked his head to her in mute agreement, then started to leave, only to turn back. “Mac. I’m sorry. I don’t know where my head’s been. Your dad called again.”

  Mac blinked, then remembered. She’d promised to call him back—what was it now, last night? Something so normal and sane as talking to her father seemed improbable. She’d have to do it, though. “Thanks, Tie. You didn’t say anything about what’s been going on, did you?”

  He looked offended. “ ’Course not, Mac. You know me better than that. I told him you were resting.”

  Mac hid a wince. Now she’d really have to call, and soon. Resting? Her Dad wouldn’t believe that even without the bonus of an alien guest during her field season. She’d be lucky if he didn’t show up on the next t-lev out of Vancouver. “Perfect,” she told Tie, forcing a smile.

  “Everything all right?” Nik asked, coming up as Tie made his exit.

  “Perfect,” Mac echoed, but gave the word a more appropriate intonation. When Nik looked interested, she gave a noncommittal shrug. “Nothing to do with this.”

  The officer, a stocky woman whose dark eyes, coppered skin, and straight black hair spoke of a heritage along this coast almost as old as the salmon themselves, gave Mac a look that likely memorized everything from braid to shoe size before saying to Nik: “If that’s all, sir, I’d like to check on Simeon’s progress.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Dismissed, the officer nodded and left without another word.

  “So,” Mac said as soon the door closed and they were alone. “What did your friend have to say?”

  “Friend? Officer LaFontaine? There’s been no change in Brymn’s condition.”

  A shade too innocent, Mac thought, but didn’t press the issue. “Tie said that, too.” They both looked at the unconscious alien.

  The Dhryn wasn’t moaning anymore. Mac hoped that was an improvement. Otherwise, he lay exactly as she and Nik had left him, his arms curled over his torso, his thick legs bent back at their main joint and splayed. The sheet over him had soaked through with dark blue exudate in several spots. More liquid of that color puddled down Brymn’s left side, the one closest to where they stood, flowing off the mattress onto the floor. It hadn’t dried or congealed, suggesting it continued to flow. On the other hand, there wasn’t enough of it to suggest the alien had lost a significant amount of a vital fluid.

  Or maybe he had. Mac thought wistfully of the xeno course in her imp and promised herself time to read it before much more took place.

  Unlike Emily’s quarters, some effort had been made to push the remains of furniture and torn bedding aside. Mac assumed this had been to accommodate the various doctors and other Human ex
perts trying to puzzle out the Dhryn’s comatose state. There was only one vidbot, aimed at Brymn.

  “However,” Nik continued, “The officer did pass along one bit of news. The police think they’ve found your eavesdropper.”

  Mac looked at him, eyes wide. “And?”

  “Human. Career thief. Several recent names. Born Otto Rkeia. He didn’t come in with the media crush, but I imagine all the unfamiliar faces let him move around pretty much as he pleased. Probably swam in under cover of darkness.”

  “If he did,” Mac said confidently, “we’ll have a recording. We may not have much in the way of security from intruders, but we pay a great deal of attention to what moves in the water under the pods.”

  “Good. I’ll have it checked. The more we can find out about Rkeia’s movements, the better.”

  “You can’t ask—” Mac stopped at his thumbs-down gesture. “Oh. Where did they find the body?” she asked, momentarily aghast at the calmness of her own voice. Maybe she was learning to deal with repeated shocks. Maybe this is how the police—how Nikolai himself—dealt with such things as violence.

  “Your eager rescuers found it under Pod Six.”

  Yuck. Mac flinched. “I don’t suppose it was an accident.”

  Nik snorted. “Not unless you can accidentally glue yourself to a support strut, thirty meters down. They’re estimating time of death now.” He shot a look upward, to where the remains of the adhesive netting still starred the ceiling. “Not too much of a stretch to believe our invisible friends were responsible.”

  “So they kill people.”

  “They took Emily, Mac,” he responded, understanding her fear. “If they’d wanted her dead, there was no need for that.”

  As comfort, it was as cold and dark as thirty meters below the pod, but Mac made herself accept it. “Jirair—Dr. Grebbian—can help you determine when the body went in the water, if that helps.” At Nik’s interrogative look, she added: “He studies zooplankton, particularly those with a sessile component to their life cycle. Mr. Rkeia’s body will have been colonized by several species. Jirair can tell how long each has been growing.”