Survival

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “That could be useful.” Nik went to the com on the wall and passed a message to the forensics team to contact Grebbian. “Done,” he said, coming back a moment later. “Thanks, Mac.” He gave her a searching look. “How are you doing?”

  She licked dry lips and gave a curt nod. “Better than he is. What can we do?”

  He joined her in staring down at Brymn. “We have next to no data on Dhryn. Any thoughts?”

  “I study—”

  “—salmon,” Nik finished for her. He smiled slightly. “Think of it as having no preconceptions in your way.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied slowly, but obediently walked around the alien on her floor. The first thing Mac noticed was a modest, regular expansion and contraction of his upper torso. Great, she mocked. I can tell he’s breathing. There was a monitor on the floor connected to a sensor affixed to what corresponded to a chest. Its display was a confusion of peaks and valleys that bore no resemblance to any electrical rhythms Mac had ever seen in a vertebrate.

  As she walked around a second time, she undid the knot of braid on her neck, then the braid itself. The third time, she started braiding her hair again, then stopped, fingers paused in mid-twist. “Play Jabulani’s recording,” she suggested.

  Nik, who’d stood by watching her pace, obediently pulled out his imp, but didn’t activate it. “Do you have a scientific basis for this experiment, Dr. Connor?”

  Mac finished her braid and dropped it down her back. “Not really.”

  His mouth quirked. “Stand back, then. In case it works.”

  Scurry . . . scurry . . . skittle!

  No reaction from Brymn that Mac could see, although her heart jumped. From the look on Nik’s face, he wasn’t too happy with the sound either.

  Thrummmm . . .

  Nothing.

  “Here comes the last one,” he warned her.

  Spit! Pop!

  A quiver raced along those of Brymn’s arms Mac could see, starting from each shoulder and ending with a spasmodic opening of his fingers. Then nothing.

  Spit! Pop!

  An identical quiver. Nothing more.

  Before Nik could play the sound again, Mac raised her hand. “That’s it!” she exclaimed. “The missing part. I knew there was something between the ‘spit’ and the ‘pop.’ It wasn’t something our ears could detect—but his should. It might make the difference.” She hurried to the com. “Dr. Connor. Put me through to the Pred lab.”

  As she waited, she explained to Nik: “The Preds listen to infrasound all the time—from whales. They’ll have something we can try.”

  “Predator Research, Seung here. What can we do for you, Mac?”

  “I need you to play a single pulse, ten Hz, through the com for me. Fifty dB will do.” She waved her companion over to the com. He understood, holding up his imp to catch the sound.

  “Just a minute.” A muttering of voices, some incredulous, then something bounced along the floor. Likely a basketball—the Pred lab wasn’t the most formal. Mac shrugged at Nik’s look. After “just a minute” stretched into three, Mac was about to signal again when Seung said: “Ready. Pulse in three, two, one . . .” The following silence made Nik look at her in question. She nodded confidently as the com came alive again. “There you go, Mac. Glad to help. Any word on Em?”

  Mac met Nik’s eyes. “Not yet,” she said into the com. “Thanks, guys. Dr. Connor out.”

  “Now what?”

  “I’m convinced Brymn’s speech includes infrasound—sounds below the frequency detected by the Human ear. If he utters it, he should be able to hear it. When Jabulani was trying to recreate the ‘spit/pop’ sound I’d heard, that’s what was missing.”

  “A sound you couldn’t hear. How can you know?” he asked with a slight frown.

  Mac stroked the hairs on her forearm. “If you’re close enough to the source of infrasound, you feel it,” she said, remembering. She pulled out her imp. “Send me your ’screen,” she ordered, walking closer to Brymn. “I’ll key the sounds through mine.”

  When nothing appeared in front of her eyes, Mac turned to frown at him. “I know what I’m doing,” she argued.

  “I’m sure you do,” Nik countered, “but our devices aren’t compatible. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.” He approached, the ’screen from his imp disconcertingly afloat to the left of his face.

  It looked like an ordinary enough imp to her, and he’d used it with Denise’s equipment, but Mac didn’t waste time arguing—although she did think dark thoughts about spies and their toys. “Play just the ‘spit’ of sound number three followed by Seung’s pulse. We’ll add the ‘pop’ later if necessary.”

  He nodded, drawing the fingers of his left hand through the display. “Now.”

  Spit! . . .

  They might not hear a difference, but the Dhryn certainly did. As Nik played the sounds, the body on the floor convulsed upward, arching from neck to foot. Mac stepped back as the wire to the monitor ripped clear. Brymn’s six arms stretched out as if grabbing for holds. His seventh arm shot straight up through the sheet, ripping it as if it were paper. An instant later, he went limp.

  “I’d say that had an effect,” Nik said dryly.

  Mac walked over to the Dhryn and pulled the remains of her sheet from his body and arm, avoiding contact with any of the blue stains. “Insufficient. Didn’t wake him,” she said, shaking her head. “Add the final component of the sound.”

  “We don’t know—”

  She shot a look at Nik any of her students would have recognized in an instant. “That’s the reason we’re here, isn’t it? Play the sequence.”

  “Move away first.”

  Mac obeyed.

  Nik raised his hand to the ’screen in midair, then jabbed one finger into its heart.

  Spit . . . pop!

  For a terrifying moment, Mac thought they weren’t alone.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  Brymn let out a roar and surged to his feet. Nik leaped back, having come close to underestimating the reach of the Dhryn’s wildly moving upper arms. For a moment, all Mac could tell was that the alien was alive and awake; she wasn’t convinced he was sane or safe.

  Then, like the branches of a great tree swaying in a storm, the six paired arms began to move in unison, from side to side, lower and lower, gradually coming to a rest at Brymn’s sides. The seventh, always moving in opposition to the rest, tucked itself under an upper armpit. Then, finally, his eyes snapped open—along with his mouth.

  Mac grinned at Nik as they both covered their ears. “I never thought I’d be happy to hear that again!” she shouted at him over the din.

  As if her voice had been a switch, Brymn stopped keening. His eyes came to rest on her. “Mac—?” Then he folded at the knee joints, dropping into his tripod sit with a suddenness that probably hurt.

  “Lamisah,” she said quickly, hurrying up to him but stopping short of touching any body part. “Are you all right? Can you talk to us?”

  “Us?” He appeared to notice Nik for the first time.

  That worthy turned off his ’screen and gave a quick bow. “Honorable Delegate. Is there anything you need?” Mac had no trouble interpreting the look he sent her: let’s be sure he’s stable first.

  “A drink, maybe?” she added helpfully, looking in vain around her ruined quarters for an intact cup.

  Brymn’s eyes followed hers. Mac felt the floor vibrate. He must have made one of his low frequency sounds. “What has happened to your room . . . ?” his voice rumbled into silence as he looked up at the ceiling and saw the remnants of the adhesive webbing overhead. “Aieeee!” His shriek rattled everything loose in the room. “The Ro are here! We must run for our lives!” Even as he attempted to stand, he lapsed from English to what sounded to Mac like more of the Dhryn’s own language, only so rapid that none of the words were remotely familiar.

  They were going to get some answers at last. Satisfied, Mac leaned against the wall that had once
held a set of shelves, the shelves in turn once holding a shell collection now shattered at her feet, and waited with some interest to see how Nikolai Trojanowski handled a bear-sized case of alien hysterics.

  - Portent -

  A STORM WITHOUT cloud brought the rain, sudden and hard. Its drops pockmarked the smooth rise of swells bringing the new tide, drops that tinted the ocean a deeper green.

  Thrice daily, the tide brought life to life. Its return woke those who bided their time within airtight casings or hidden in moist crevices, so they might feast on the flood of organics. It drew to the shallows those from the depths who would, in turn, feed on the feasters. Yet they would leave their eggs behind in the protected pools, to begin a new cycle of life that would wash out with another tide.

  Until this tide came in, storm-wracked and bringing only death.

  First to succumb were those who opened their casings and extended fragile arms in anticipation, those arms dissolving with the ocean’s tainted kiss.

  Next were those who had risen in their multitudes to feed and breed in the shallows. Even as they tasted the layer of death above and would have fled, their flesh rotted from their bones, their bones washing into the tide.

  The tide paused at its zenith, having filled the pools with quiet green.

  Only those waiting onshore for the tide’s departure were spared. They peered, bright-eyed and bold, from their holes in the rock face above. Some leaned farther out, into the daylight, tiny feet holding firm to the edge of the stone.

  Shadows cut the sun.

  In reflex, those leaning winked inside their shelters. Those who felt safe kept watch, chittering among themselves, then grew utterly quiet as the shadows surrounded what had been a tidal pool.

  And began to drink.

  11

  INTERROGATION AND INVASION

  IN THE END, it was the ruined mattress, not any particular heroics from Nik, that saved the day.

  As Brymn prepared to run for his life, the man calmly reached down and pulled one end of the mattress. Hard. The mattress, already shredded, gave way entirely—taking one of the Dhryn’s pillarlike feet with it. The alien toppled on his side like a crab tossed by a gull.

  Before he could wriggle himself up again, Mac cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed over his piteous—and loud—exclamations: “It was only a recording! You’re safe. Brymn! Calm—” She found herself yelling into a quiet room and shut up.

  Mac walked to where the Dhryn could see her. His small mouth was working, as if he couldn’t help trying to speak. The vivid blue membrane flickered across his yellow-irised eyes with almost strobelike speed. She found it disconcerting and was glad when Nik joined her, going to one knee so he was face-to-face with the alien. “It’s been two days since you were attacked,” he informed Brymn, talking slowly and distinctly. “Do you require any care, Honorable Delegate?”

  The flickering slowed. “Mackenzie . . . Winifred . . . Elizabeth . . . Wright . . . Connor . . . ?” the words came out punctuated by faint gasps. His eyes seemed to be searching for her without success; she wondered if the moving eyelids impaired his sight. “Mac?”

  “I’m here,” Mac assured him. How remarkably tempting, she thought, to take his question for a Humanlike concern.

  Nik leaned forward, in range of those still-restless arms. Without the suit coat to disguise it, he was built like a swimmer, with that distinctively rounded cap of muscle on each shoulder and strong curves along both back and upper chest. Emily would approve, Mac knew. For a Human, his was not a small or insignificant form, yet he was dwarfed by the more massive Dhryn.

  Mac restrained the urge to pull Nik back a safe distance. Trained spy or whatever, she told herself inanely, while poor Brymn was, after all, an archaeologist.

  A very large, very anxious archaeologist. The eyelids slowed to a mere nervous-looking twitch. “Nikolai Piotr Trojanowski,” Brymn said earnestly, his voice softer but prone to tremble. “We are not safe here. None of us. The Ro . . .” The violent shudder that accompanied the word seemed a reflex. “They are dangerous, evil creatures.”

  “Don’t worry. These rooms were swept and sealed, with guards and a repeller field at every access.”

  He could have told her that, Mac grumbled to herself, feeling a knot of tension easing between her shoulders she hadn’t noticed until now.

  “Help me sit up, please.”

  It took both of them to steady the Dhryn as he rose, then settled back down more comfortably, two hands searching for and finding a bare patch of floor on which to balance his body. Touching his torso and arm was like taking his hand, Mac found. The skin was like sun-warmed rubber, dry and with an underlying musculature. This close, he had a delicate, floral scent. Mac recognized it. Her bottle of lily of the valley must have been a casualty of the attack.

  “What happened?” she blurted. “After you left my office, I mean. And why did you leave?” she added, earning a slight frown from Nik, doubtless about to conduct his own, more professional interrogation.

  Brymn folded his arms in an intricate pattern. Sitting, his face wasn’t much higher than Mac’s own. Right now, she couldn’t read any expression on it that made sense to her. At least his eyelids had stopped flashing that blue blankness across his eyes. “I left because you did, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor.”

  “I did?” Mac considered this and felt herself blush. “Well, yes, I suppose we did. But we were only on the terrace for a moment—you thought we’d left you?”

  “I did not think you had left. You did leave. Was I not to assume this meant our meeting had ended?”

  Nik spoke before Mac could attempt an explanation. “Where did you go after you left, Brymn?”

  “Here. I had a great deal of reading to do. The opportunity to access—” his voice faded, then strengthened, “—my apologies for my condition. I will require a few more hours to recuperate fully.” A look of surprise. “You must have disturbed my hathis, healing sleep.”

  “Sorry,” Nik said tersely. “As you were saying?”

  “Ah. I was saying, I came here to read the Human journals I’d requested. When attempting to reconstruct the development of theories, I prefer to study the research in the original language of the author.”

  Implying he read more than English and Instella, Mac decided. Her species might appear—and act—united to those from other worlds, but there had never been a homogenization of cultures or tongues at dirt level. Part stubborn habit and part a celebration of distinctiveness. She’d read somewhere that humanity’s extra-Sol settlements were pretty much the same: Instella with company and tradition at home.

  The biologist in her approved. Just as a population’s survival improved with a variety of inheritable traits, Mac suspected a civilization’s ability to cope with change was enhanced by having a choice of approach. She’d lost the debate to Emily when she’d admitted to not comparing data on humanity with that of other sentient species. As usual, her friend had scoffed at what she called Mac’s parochial attitude. There was more to the universe than opposable thumbs and nose hair, she’d insist.

  What had Emily been trying to tell her?

  Where did she break her arm . . . where had she been . . . ?

  Why would she lie?

  Mac snapped her attention back to the moment. Nik had continued his questioning. “What happened after you arrived in these rooms?”

  “I do not wish to think of it.” This with a tone of complete finality.

  Nik sent her a warning look before Mac could say a word, then crossed his arms over his chest. Meaningful mimicry of the Dhryn or thoughtless gesture? Mac felt like tossing dice.

  “We respect your wish, Honorable Delegate,” the man told the Dhryn.

  Brymn blinked and Mac thought he looked startled. So was she. She narrowed her eyes and studied Nik. He looked solemn, almost grave, but she thought there was a bit of smugness in his expression as well.

  “Thank you,” the Dhryn boomed, his voice clo
ser to normal. “I—”

  “It is, however,” Nik interrupted without missing a beat, “my duty to inform you that your visitor’s visa has been revoked—effective immediately. You will be escorted from Earth and Sol System within the hour.”

  “You can’t do that. Mac?”

  Mac nodded. “He can do that,” she told the shocked alien.

  Rather than distress, Brymn’s face assumed a look of great dignity. He unfolded four arms and spread them widely. “You see, Mac? I told you your government considered my mission of great importance. They have assigned an erumisah—a decision maker of power—as my companion and guide.” He proffered Nik one of his rising bows. “I am most gratified.”

  Mac wasn’t surprised to see Nik take this in stride. He must be used to dealing with cultures as varied as their biologies. “Then you will understand, Honorable Delegate,” he said, “why I cannot permit you to remain here, potentially drawing more dangerous attention from these ‘Ro,’ unless you are willing to provide whatever information you can to help us.”

  The arms wrapped back around the torso and Brymn looked at her, then at Nik, then at her again. “It is not permitted to speak of them,” he began. Mac felt the vibration through the floor as he uttered something more in the infrasound and held up her hand to silence the Dhryn.

  “We can’t hear that,” she advised him, then remembered what Brymn had told her about the lack of Dhryn biologists. “Our ears are not adapted to respond to the same range of sound frequencies as yours, Brymn.”

  He looked startled and glanced at Nikolai as if seeking confirmation. The man nodded. “We feel vibrations that tell us you are making certain sounds, but not what you are saying. If we need to hear them to understand you, Honorable Delegate, we’ll have to bring in the appropriate audio equipment.”