Survival

by Julie E. Czerneda

  They stared at one another, Brymn shifting unhappily as if he wished to say something but didn’t dare. In this instance, Mac realized, she had an advantage over her friend. He was too used to revering the Progenitors, handicapping his ability to challenge different viewpoints.

  Mac, on the other hand, was well past caring about protocol, and her only feeling about the Progenitor was a familiar awe for the way biology managed to work around civilization.

  “Very well.” The Progenitor pursed her small lips. “Our past has not been destroyed, although it has been made inaccessible to most Dhryn, including curious academics such as Brymn Las. Progenitors live a very long time. The three who survived the attacks of the Ro to settle this world lived long enough to share their knowledge with the next generation of successful Progenitors. That knowledge has been passed to those of my generation. Thus, we know what has been, what is, and what may be the consequence. Other Dhryn do not need to think of it.”

  “So the Ro are responsible for the destruction in the Chasm?”

  “We barely escaped them,” the Progenitor acknowledged, her eyes closing. “Had we not discovered technology to defend against theirs, we would have been destroyed again.”

  “Then why the transects?”

  Her eyes opened in a flash of yellow-gold. “Before the Ro found us again, we had reached a point at which our oomlings must have new homes or suffer the consequences of overcrowding this one. We cannot change what it is to be Dhryn, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol. Our colonies are essential to our survival.”

  Population pressure. Mac had to give the Dhryn credit—from what she’d seen, they’d made thorough use of this planet before venturing outward to others. If the Progenitors were physically incapable of slowing the birth rate—and culturally unwilling to find a biological way out—new worlds were the only answer.

  The last of the three. Mac tilted her head as she asked: “Why did you permit me, a Human, to meet you?”

  The Progenitor’s eyes, though embedded forever in this mountain of flesh, could still sparkle. “Young Brymn Las is not the only curious Dhryn, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol. I wished to see an alien with my own eyes, not through sensors and vids. At the same time, only one who is deemed Dhryn may be allowed in this chamber. You are both.”

  Mac pressed her hand against the palm supporting them. She doubted its thickened surface could feel something so small, but the Progenitor could see and hopefully understand the gesture. “I hope I haven’t been a disappointment, Progenitor.”

  “In no sense, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol, though I fear I must now disappoint you. One final question, if you please. I tire easily.”

  One? Mac almost panicked. What if she asked a question that received only the stock answer? What if she missed the most important one?

  For no reason, Mac thought of the envelope in the pouch around her waist. She settled herself, abruptly sure what Nik would want her to ask. “If the Ro are beginning to attack other species as they did yours in the Chasm, what can we do to protect ourselves? Will the Dhryn share their effective defense?”

  Two questions, but they would be one if the only answer was the Dhryn technology. Mac chewed her lower lip as the Progenitor deliberated. At least, Mac thought, the delay meant it wasn’t going to be another “we don’t think of it.”

  It wasn’t. The palm shifted beneath them, sending both Mac and Brymn to their feet, staggering to keep their balance. “We remember!” the Progenitor cried out in a pain-filled voice, eyes wild. Mac heard cries from below as the torso landscape shook with emotion, churning the pools, spilling oomlings. “There is no protection! No safety! There is only emptiness and regret!” The wall in front of them became stained with yellow as mucus boiled from the huge nostrils above. Quieter, but no less intense: “The gates between worlds will close again and the only hope is to run before they do. Tell your species to run, Human! Run while you still can!”

  The hand swept them away from the grief-stricken face before Mac could open her mouth to reply.

  Mac had worried the distraught Progenitor would mean equally upset guards. But the Dhryn escort waiting at the doorway might not have noticed, Parymn nodding a greeting and beckoning them forward. Perhaps, Mac thought, eyeing their impassive faces, the emotional turmoil of a buried Progenitor was another aspect of Dhryn life they chose not to think about.

  She could think of little else, silent and self-contained throughout their journey back to the tube trains, offering no more than a nod of farewell to Parymn and his guards at the station, curling up in a luggage rack without a word to Brymn.

  The Progenitor knew what life had been like for the first of her kind on this world. The three survivors must have arrived on ships, but then? Mac tried to imagine such huge, fragile creatures lying out in the open, desperate to repopulate their species, utterly vulnerable until they had established themselves. The fear of the Ro following and finding them, despite the closed transect, must have been horrific.

  No wonder they had spared their children that nightmare. No wonder, Mac thought as they passed from the area protected by shroud and rock, they had reacted as they had to the Ro’s return. Hiding here, sending only the newly adult outside the system. The Progenitors must have been nearly hysterical at the news that the Ro had begun attacking other species again—that the nightmare from their past was coming to life, exactly as they’d been told.

  No wonder they’d sent Brymn to Earth. They must be trying everything.

  “Mac. Are you in pain? Should we hurry? Do you need your case of special supplies?” The concerned whisper from a being cradling a mutilated arm shook Mac from her preoccupation.

  “I’m fine, Brymn. How about you?” The wound itself was covered in a pale blue membrane, but Mac couldn’t imagine the underlying damage had already healed.

  Brymn looked tired but found a smile. “A Dhryn is robust or a Dhryn is not. I have been honored beyond my dreams, Mac. What we gave the Progenitor will inspire the coming generation of oomlings.” At her puzzled look, he explained. “Grathnu is required for a Progenitor to perform her function. Only adult Dhryn such as ourselves can provide what is needed.”

  Mac studied Brymn’s chubby three-fingered hands with new interest. Sexual reproduction in many Earth species involved the female receiving a packet of sperm contained in a male body part. It offered the convenience of allowing the sperm to be stored for later use, not to mention dispensed with several potentially unsuccessful methods of exchange. “Will it grow back? Your hand, I mean.”

  He looked shocked and tucked all his hands under the silk banding his torso. “Certainly not!”

  “Sorry. Just curious.” Mac combed her fingers through the remains of her hair and hoped the pufferfish Dhryn could detect that her gift didn’t have quite the same potential. “Was that your Progenitor?”

  “Of course. All Progenitors are mine—as they are for all Dhryn.”

  She’d definitely disturb him if she pursued this, Mac realized, longing for a good DNA scanner. She changed the subject. “We need to take another look at all the reports, Lamisah, now that we’ve confirmed your theory about the Chasm and the survival of the Dhryn. I don’t understand why the Ro have suddenly stepped up their attacks—against others as well as your people. Perhaps there’s a clue we’ve missed.”

  “We shouldn’t talk of private matters here, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol.” Brymn freed one of his hands to wave at the lone ’bot still hovering at the other end of the train car. “This one has come with us from the Chamber. It could have more capabilities than the others.”

  Startled, Mac stared up at the thing. It looked like all the rest, a featureless globe, but then again, she’d stopped noticing them. Parymn probably set it to follow them after he and his guards put them on this car. She restrained the impulse to stick out her tongue.

  “When we get home, I’m going to trim this,” Mac said instead, flipping bac
k the hair that seemed intent on falling into her left eye.

  She was as good as her word. A pair of Dhryn scissors—which took two hands to use—and an underlying anger at a universe out of control had proved a potent combination. Mac dug her fingers into her scalp and ruffled its minimal covering, unexpectedly pleased. Who knew there was still curl? The stuff was out of control, of course, twisting in any direction it chose, but it couldn’t get into her eyes now. She pulled a few pieces down over her forehead, unsurprised to find some were gray.

  Mac studied her reflection, comforted by a stronger resemblance to her Mom than ever. There had been a lady who could cope with the strange and alien.

  She sighed. Coping. That was a word to live by. Mac pulled out Nik’s imp and entered as complete a description of the past few hours as she could. She had to believe such things mattered, that what she was learning would make its way to others.

  Done, she headed for the “place of refreshment.” Mac tossed the last of her shorn locks into the biological accommodation and watched them flash into nothing, thinking of Emily’s story about the Sythian living with Humans, who’d cremated her mandible trimmings every night. Sitting in a tent on her own world, Mac had judged the behavior amusing and more than a little pathetic. Now the shoe was firmly on the other foot. Mac didn’t want any Dhryn to find samples of what she’d given in grathnu. Although she hadn’t really served, as Brymn, she appreciated the significance of the Progenitor’s request. It seemed—impolite—to leave extras lying around.

  Mac discovered Brymn had been busy while she’d tamed her hair. Having learned which foods suited her, he’d prepared a meal for them both. As usual, however, while waiting, he’d nibbled his way through most of his portion. Mac imagined the stress he’d endured was taking some toll, even if he’d never admit it.

  “Ah!” he exclaimed, staring at her. “A healing process?”

  The hair? “Of a sort,” Mac answered, her stomach growling. Her head felt strangely light, something she chose to attribute more to hunger than haircut. “Let’s get started.”

  Shoving a piece of what she’d come to call “bread” into her mouth, Mac made room on the table—Human and thus not slanted—for an assortment of items. Prime among them was the shimmering envelope that had drawn her into all of this. Brymn added the tablet of news reports. “I don’t hold much hope for more information from these sources, Mac,” he rumbled. “We’ve gone over them all.”

  Mac chewed and swallowed, managing not to make a face at the bitter aftertaste. “Interpretation is affected by other knowledge,” she reminded him. “I analyzed these without knowing the connection between the Chasm, the Ro, and the Dhryn—or the time frame involved. Information about your biology might also influence what we find in here.”

  “How?”

  She gulped something yellow and lunged for water, having forgotten the heat the innocent jellylike substance contained. Eyes watering, Mac gasped: “If I knew how, I wouldn’t need to look through this again.”

  “You are not savoring your meal, Lamisah. These can wait until you are done.”

  Mac shook her head, then tried to explain the driving anxiety she’d felt since leaving the Progenitor. Had it been the utter vulnerability of the creature and her offspring? “We can’t assume we have time to spare. We don’t know for sure what’s happening outside this system. I—” She stopped, staring at the water in her glass.

  Ripples stirred its surface.

  Within the same heartbeat, Brymn surged to his feet, turning toward the window.

  “What is it?” Mac asked quietly, standing as well.

  “I’m not sure.” He headed for the door to her terrace. Mac started to follow, then, muttering a curse at her own paranoia, changed her mind. She grabbed what she’d brought to the table, returning the imp and envelope to the waist pouch, tucking Brymn’s tablet into her shirt. She even took a bottle of water with her, feeling like a fool.

  Better a fool now than sorry later, she told herself.

  Mac caught up to Brymn at the door. It was raining outside, of course, and he hesitated to step out in it. She patted his shoulder as she went by, starting to offer: “I’ll take a look—” Suddenly, the vibration intensified, shaking loose objects inside the apartment, making Mac clutch at the doorframe for safety.

  “Quake?” she shouted.

  Brymn was holding on to the door with all five hands. “Alarm!”

  The shaking stopped and Mac stared at Brymn. “That,” she said in the eerie silence, “was an alarm? For what?”

  The flash and concussion swept away his answer—was the answer, Mac knew with despair as she whirled to look out.

  A fireball had plunged into the midst of the Dhryn city, sending gouts of flame and debris—whole buildings—into the air. No—not a fireball—the tip of an unseen torch that continued to burn its way down, down, as if seeking the core of the world.

  Not the core of the world. Mac knew the area under assault. They’d come out of the tube tunnel right there. The core of the Dhryn!

  “The Progenitors!” Mac gasped. “The Ro are attacking the Chamber.” She found herself at the railing of the terrace, staring out at a violence all the more terrifying because she knew its target.

  “How could they?” Brymn was beside her, his entire body vibrating with distress. “How could they know where to dig?”

  It was as if horror had heightened Mac’s senses. She spotted the gleam from the shadow of the leaning wall. “Brymn. Brymn!” He answered to her tug on his arm, followed her pointing finger to the vidbot hovering harmlessly above.

  “What—? Those are Dhryn.”

  “Not that one! We have to get it,” Mac said desperately. She threw her water bottle at the thing, but it only dipped aside. “Brymn!”

  Whether the Dhryn’s outrage at the attack helped or if he was always this accurate, Mac couldn’t guess, but he spat at the ’bot, striking it dead center. Metal hissing to vapor, the device plummeted from the air, landed on the terrace, and rolled to Mac’s feet.

  Wincing at the sounds of destruction from behind her, guided by a red, glowing light that wasn’t from the sun, Mac bent to study the half-melted device and saw what she’d feared. She tried to speak, to tell Brymn, but her voice trapped itself in a sob. She tried again.

  “I led them!” She had to scream to be heard over the rain of bricks and girders, tile and rock. The words tore from her throat like vomit, scalding as they came. “It’s one of Emily’s Tracers! She used it to track me into the Chamber. I led them there, Brymn!”

  Emily and the Ro had wanted Mac on the Dhryn home world for only one reason. To get them past the Dhryn shrouds and protections. To guide them to their helpless quarry.

  To help them kill the Progenitors as they’d failed to do three thousand years ago.

  Another vibration, deep enough to shudder through Mac’s heart.

  “Mac! Mac! Hurry. We must get below.”

  Still crouched, Mac blinked through the ash now filling the air. The torch tip had sunk below the surface now, the sky darkening. The world hissed in pain as the true rain fought the fires clawing toward them. “Below?” she echoed. “What can we do? We can’t fight—that—” a wave at the crater growing before their eyes.

  “The alarm has been given. The Progenitors want all from the surface below. There isn’t much time.”

  When she simply stared in confusion, he gave a deep thrum and picked her up. “Below, Mac!”

  Another shake—sharper, shorter.

  It meant they were already too late. Mac knew by the way Brymn’s movements abruptly stopped. He put her down again, steadying her with his hands. “I am sorry, Lamisah.”

  Mac looked outward, expecting—what? What did you see when attacked by an invisible foe?

  You saw death, she told herself numbly, holding onto her friend.

  - Portent -

  “OVER HERE! Quick! We have a survivor!”

  The sounds had no meaning. The world had en
ded; how could there be a survivor?

  “Take it easy. Help’s here.”

  The words had no truth. There could be no ease, no help. All was over; all was lost.

  “There’s the transport. Careful. Don’t hurt him.”

  The voice had no future. Had they thought it was safe? Had they thought the mouths gone?

  The wordless screams made more sense.

  22

  RESCUE AND REDEMPTION

  LIKE HER aunt’s terrier, the Ro were single-minded in their violence, expending all their force against a hole in the ground. Mac and Brymn huddled together on the terrace, feeling that force through the ground beneath their building. Mac tried not to imagine the carnage and destruction deeper still, in the tunnel system, but her breath caught in her throat at the thought of the helpless oomlings and their caregivers, the Progenitors and their pufferfish, even the Wasted hiding in their tunnels.

  She wasn’t proud to hope she might not die, too.

  Brymn had his own opinion, expressed in a doleful bass. “The end is near, Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol. I am grateful to spend my last moments with you.”

  Mac used the hand not trapped against the Dhryn to thump him gently. “I won’t admit to last moments just yet, Brymn Las. They seem to be confining their attack to one area. We may be safe here—”

  “It is not the Ro which will end our lives, but the Progenitors.”

  “The Progenitors? How?” Mac rubbed soot from her eyes, already stinging from the acrid Haven rain, and tried to see anything through the low clouds of smoke. At least the constant downpour was washing the lighter particulates from the air, making it possible to keep breathing and watch for falling objects. She’d dared to relax, very slightly—until now. “What do you mean?”

  “It will be a spectacle, Lamisah, worth dying to see.”

  “I prefer living, thank you.”

  His arms tightened. “As do I. But I see no—ah. It begins.”