She laid her hand on the cool white roughness of the outer wall. “Request.” The air might not hear, but a touch on any wall, plus the word in Instella, gained the attention of the hordes who serviced the consulate. “I need to see the Sinzi-ra. Immediately.”
Mac strode through the doors to her quarters, into the bedroom, to be exact, unsurprised to find a member of the staff already waiting. She was beginning to suspect they had their own, equally discreet, doors and hallways. The staff, a female humanoid with the characteristic brush of red-brown hair shaved into elaborate whorls over her scalp, bowed slightly. Her uniform, like those of her fellows, was the same earthy tone as her hair, a change from the bright yellow they’d worn when Mac first arrived.
Sinzi seemed incapable of offering knowing offense to any visitor, even their common enemy, the Dhryn.
There had been other changes, less obvious. The consulate had swarmed with alien construction workers for a time after the Ro were found to be misusing the Sinzi-ra’s fish tank. Guests were welcome. Uninvited ones were not. Mac didn’t know the details; she accepted Sing-li’s assurance she could sleep at night.
Most nights.
“The Sinzi-ra has been informed,” staff announced calmly. “She will attend you later this afternoon, Dr. Connor.”
By which time she’d have lost her nerve. Mac shook her head. “Is Anchen in her office?”
“The Sinzi-ra does not have an office, Dr. Connor.”
Taken aback, Mac realized she should have known. The Sinzi had always come to her, or to where she worked. More formal meetings were in the Atrium or the larger room down the hall. “Then where is she? Right now.”
“The Sinzi-ra is in her quarters, Dr. Connor.”
Good. She knew where those were. “Thanks,” said Mac, heading for the door.
The staff’s eyes widened in an alarm response they shared. “Dr. Connor—where are you going? There are protocols.”
Mac smiled over her shoulder. “I’m sure there are. Remind me on the way.”
The consular staff knew Mac by now, well enough the other being didn’t attempt to argue.
Her sigh, however, was almost Human.
The Sinzi-ra occupied a suite of rooms almost identical to Mac’s. Glazed French doors from the hall opened into a large bedroom. There was a similar set of doors, clear this time, to a terrace overlooking the sound and ocean beyond. To the left, as Mac entered, was the archway leading into what she thought of as a sitting room. Mac’s version was now distinctly her office, complete with anything that could be carried from Pod Three—her friends were literal sorts. The Sinzi’s was white on white, simplicity itself, four jelly-chairs facing a white stone table, deep creamy sand on the floor, white walls windowed to the sky beyond.
The perfect frame for complexity. Mac stopped so quickly the unhappy staff behind her almost ran into her back.
The Sinzi-ra was busy.
Her left hand—or rather the trio of meter-long fingers that constituted the Sinzi equivalent—was adding blue and clear gems to a circular mosaic on an easel, the result scintillating like cold fire. Her right hand, meanwhile, worked some type of keypad. The faint outlines of three workscreens flickered in front of her face, each angled to favor a different segment of her eyes. Not that Mac’s Human eyes could make out details. The Sinzi—and their servants—had a broader spectrum available to their sight.
To top it off, Anchen was humming in a minor key.
Normally, Mac would have been fascinated. The alien rarely gave any indication of the distinct individual minds, six in number, inhabiting her willowy form. Only the changing attention of her complex, compound eyes hinted at how many were participating in a conversation. Anchen: Atcho, the precise and careful administrator for the consulate; Noad, the curious physician, interested in all things alien, particularly the mind; Casmii, who preferred the background, not least on the IU Judicial Council; Hone, youngest or most recent, as such minds went, but already a notable transect engineer; Econa and Nifa, scientists who currently shared a passion for Earth, the former a gemologist, the latter a cultural historian, studying, to Mac’s dismay when she’d heard, the incidence of familial homicide among Humans, with a side interest in cannibalism between neighbors.
You tidy the house for company, and they trip over the dirty laundry every time.
“The Sinzi-ra must compose her selves,” said a quiet voice from behind. “Please do not speak, Dr. Connor, until she addresses you by name.”
Mac nodded. She could use some composure. It was one thing to charge forward, sure she was right.
Quite another to be reminded who she had to convince.
“Feel free to enjoy the Sinzi-ra’s collection while you wait, Dr. Connor.” With this, the staff touched a portion of the plain white wall.
“What col—” Mac started to ask, then closed her mouth as every wall turned dark blue, honeycombed with small, bright openings. She stepped closer.
The openings were cubbyholes, each containing one object suspended in its midst, gently lit from every side. As Mac looked into the nearest cubby, the object inside seemed to jump at her. In reflex, she stumbled back a step, shoe filling with sand, then realized it was an illusion.
Entranced, Mac experimented. She found if she looked directly at any one object, it would become enlarged until she looked elsewhere. A technology well-suited to the Sinzi’s multipart eye, she decided. Personally, she found it disconcerting to have item after item appear to launch itself toward her face.
It didn’t help that the items were hardly art. A mug advertising a pastry shop. A crumpled snakeskin. A nondescript coin. A purple alligator with a snow globe stomach. A pebble. A pink kazoo. The entire room was walled in an eclectic array of Human trinkets, souvenirs, and odd devices. There was no apparent order. A studded cat collar was displayed beside a vial of sand. A ticket stub from a museum accompanied a package of candy.
Mac winced involuntarily as a miniature Human head in a bottle—hopefully a replica—invaded her personal space. She quickly stared at a section of harmless dark blue wall.
“My dear Mac,” Anchen greeted her, coming to stand at Mac’s side. “I apologize for being preoccupied.” Her fingertips played with a sapphire and Mac spared an instant to wonder which personality might still be preoccupied. Her guess was Econa, the gemologist. “What do you think, Mac?”
She started. “About what?”
“About my collection.”
“I’ve never seen junk treated so well,” Mac admitted, then winced for the second time. Tact. She needed lessons.
“Junk?” Anchen’s fingers rippled in a laugh, their coating of silver rings tinkling against one another like rain. “One species’ junk, Mac, is another’s treasure.”
Really? Mac glanced into another cubby. Its contents, a tiny plastic fish bottle with a dark sauce inside and a bright red nose, obligingly enlarged itself to palm-sized for her inspection. “So long as no one charged you for them, Anchen,” she said fervently. “I’d hate to see you cheated.”
“Worry not, Mac. These—” Anchen spread her fingers out to their full length, as if to gather in her collection. “— were gifts. As for their value? To me, objects derived from a particular journey are beyond price.”
Mac imagined the regal, distinctive alien wandering a beachfront souvenir shop and grinned. “I didn’t think you left the consulate.”
“Too rarely,” Anchen told her. “These are from Nikolai. Whenever he travels on my behalf, he brings me a treasure. Thus.” A languid fingertip indicated a cubby on the next wall. Mac walked over to look inside. A salmon leered back at her. A cross-eyed lime-green rubber salmon, to be precise, with the name of a restaurant glowing down one side.
Probably where he’d taken Mudge to find out more about a certain salmon researcher. Forgetting the illusion, Mac reached out her hand, only to curl her fingers around empty air.
She found herself utterly distracted by the knowledge that Nik had selected each of t
hese things. He’d carried it here, in a pocket, in a pack. He’d explained its place in his past as he gave it to the curious Sinzi.
There was more of Nikolai Piotr Trojanowski in this alien’s collection than Mac knew herself.
Not hard. Mac gave herself an inward shake. Spy, remember? Mysterious past, tendency to consider anything a secret until proved otherwise. Annoying as hell.
And she missed him, Mac realized with some astonishment, the way she missed her salmon.
The walls turned white again. “Forgive me, Mac,” the Sinzi-ra said as Mac blinked at the change. “I should not waste your time with indulgences. Please, let us sit and you can tell me why you needed to see me right away.” She led the way to the jelly-chairs.
Mac blushed at the polite reminder. “My fault,” she explained, taking the chair indicated by the elegant tilt of the Sinzi’s tall head. “I was in a hurry. Not that this is urgent.”
Anchen settled herself, the pleats of her white gown falling perfectly over her long toes. Her eyes blinked. “A contradiction.”
Score another for interspecies communication, Mac sighed inwardly. “Yes,” she said, then corrected herself: “No. What I mean is—I need to speak with you. It couldn’t wait. It’s about Emily.”
“You should feel no anxiety, Mac. Noad examined her last night following your return. She was tired, but otherwise fine. Overall, he believes your excursion was beneficial.”
“I know.” Mac wiggled so she could lean forward, wishing the alien chairs weren’t so all-encompassingly comfortable. “Em’s downstairs now, working with the others. That’s why I’m here. Last night, Emily made me listen—” Mac couldn’t subdue the twinge of guilt: to what her best friend wouldn’t listen to before . . . “I understand now how the Ro involved her. The Survivor Legend. She was obsessed by it. I think she still is.”
“The legend is speculation at best, Mac,” Anchen said, her small triangular mouth tilted down in mimicry of Human disapproval. “I remain unconvinced this is a worthy line of inquiry, despite Dr. Mamani’s persuasion.”
Mac shrugged. “One thing I’ve learned. Living things are messy. They do the unexpected. In some ways, I find it more incredible that the Ro could completely eradicate life from the Chasm worlds than one species might escape them.”
“This has become your obsession also?”
“No, Anchen. I’ve riddles of my own, starting with the Dhryn themselves.” Mac took a deep breath. “I agree the Survivors could be wishful thinking—but they’ve been Emily’s focus, her passion, for decades.” With a side interest in salmon, Mac reminded herself. Kammie would approve of such cross-pollination of fields; poor Case Wilson, the deepwater fisher she’d plopped into a study of tidal ecosystems, would doubtless sympathize with Em.
Anchen’s fingers rose to her shoulders, a positioning Mac had learned to read as mild distress. “She has asked for a probe. I have delayed a response. It has not been our way, to attempt to contact an unknown species by giving them the means to reach us in return. The risk is incalculable. And you, Mac, appreciate the moral obligation. Opening a transect gate may well doom any life there.”
“You’re opening new gates right now.” Mac might not like meetings, but she valued the information they—rarely—provided. Such as the continuing expansion of the transect system to new worlds in every direction. The Sinzi might not approve, but they were involved. Every system connected by a transect became part of the Interspecies Union. To be part of it meant hosting an IU consulate—with a Sinzi-ra in residence to oversee the transect gates, because key parts of that crucial technology remained theirs alone.
Mac didn’t concern herself with the details. Someone had to have a hand—or finger—on the switch. And the diplomatic, pragmatic, irreproachable Sinzi had the only fingers every other species trusted.
The Sinzi inclined her head in acknowledgment. “It has not been forbidden.” The “yet” was implied. “Other species within the IU may expand the transect system from their gates, but they do so only where there is evidence of a thriving civilization capable of space travel.”
And good manners. That Sinzi attitude permeated the IU: from the adoption of Instella, the common language used between species, to ships’ hatches that matched regardless of origin, to the use of their consulates to indoctrinate visitors on local customs, before those customs could be violated. You could muddy your own backyard, but please wipe your feet before stepping inside the house.
The transects didn’t carry war.
Until the Ro had unleashed the Dhryn.
“There is no such evidence from this world of Dr. Mamani’s,” Anchen finished. “I see no purpose to a probe without it.”
“I’m not here to ask for one.” Mac sensed confusion and pressed on: “Anchen, Emily’s request—it means she wants to help. We couldn’t stop her if we tried. I’ve had her working with my team, but what we’re doing—what I’m doing—is a constant reminder of the Ro. Of what they put her through—of her mistake in trusting them. But what if she continued her work on the Survivors? Whether they exist or not—it doesn’t matter. So long as she believes . . .” Was any of this getting through?
“I see.” Two fingertips met, forming an arch. “I have been concerned how best to occupy Dr. Mamani’s excellent mind during her recovery. Her Tracer device is part of her search, is it not?” At Mac’s nod, she continued, “A novel application of life-form scanning techniques. Quite impressive. As is her incorporation of relevant principles from Myrokynay technology. While we have yet to discover any clues from that technology, the effort continues.” The Sinzi dipped her head in a slight bow. “I applaud your wisdom in this matter, Mac. Dr. Mamani may have any resources she requires.”
Mac swallowed and sat up straight. “Not here,” she said. “At Norcoast.”
“Why?”
That was the crux of it. Mac hesitated. It was the right answer for Emily. She knew it. But she couldn’t explain why to herself—let alone to another Human. How could she explain to the Sinzi? She blurted out the first reason that came to mind: “She’ll need an aquatic ecosystem to further develop her Tracer.”
Brilliant.
Of course, Anchen lifted a long finger to indicate the view out her window. “Is this an insufficient body of water?”
“No,” Mac sighed. “And before you say it, Sinzi-ra, I realize you can provide all the facilities Base has plus some. Emily’s original equipment is already here, in my closet.” In several pieces. A minor point.
“Then why risk moving her?” Anchen’s head tilted so the eyes Mac had come to associate with Noad, the physician, were most directly aimed her way. “I have concerns. Both for her recovery, and what she may yet remember.”
Mac nodded. “I know. I share them, believe me. But if you could have seen her . . . she was happy last night, Anchen. Her old self, mostly. For the first time since—since coming back. In that crowded, smelly bar—” She stopped, unable to read compassion or confusion in those sparkling amber eyes.
“Where everyone around her was Human,” Anchen finished. Ever the consummate diplomat, the Sinzi formed a gentle, Human-looking smile. “What could be more natural, Mac? We can accommodate anyone you wish to invite here. A wonderful idea. I will arrange for an entire building to be Human-only, until Dr. Mamani is more comfortable. Is this acceptable?”
She should have expected nothing less; Anchen took particular pride in being a good host. Even so, it was an overwhelming offer.
Too bad.
Mac took a deep breath. “No, Anchen. I’m grateful, but what Emily needs isn’t just to be around Humans—she has me and Oversight, Kanaci and his people, Sing-li, ’Sephe, and theirs. She needs a Human place. Base . . . it will be familiar, she’ll have friends, distractions. Her sister could visit.” Mac tried to keep the urgency from her voice. This was right. “Nik told me you have someone there,” she went on. “ ’Sephe has a job waiting for her. It’s protected from the media. It’s—”
�
��This is where you wish to be, Mac, is it not?”
Irrelevant, Mac told herself and almost believed. “This isn’t about me. Emily’s been told what the Ro did to Base—the attack on the pods; the earthquake on shore. She knows she helped them do it. She might rationalize it wasn’t her fault, realize people have gone on with their work and their lives, but that’s not enough, Anchen. Humans—we have to be in a place, touch it, breathe its air, in order to know it.” She firmed her voice. “That’s why I have to go as well. But not to Base, Anchen. To the Chasm, to Myriam. With the Origins Team.”
The Sinzi rose to her feet with a swiftness that suggested some strong emotion. “Mackenzie Connor,” she started, her voice unusually high, then stopped, fingers lifting well above her shoulders. Distress? “You strike at the essence of my selves.”
She’d done it now. “I didn’t mean to offend—”
“Offend?” Anchen’s triangular mouth shaped a tremulous smile, imitating the Human expression with devastating accuracy. “My dear Mac. I am overcome . . . the harmony of what you would achieve . . . I ask your patience while I compose my selves.”
Mac’s confusion must have been apparent even to the alien, for she waved her own comments aside with a long finger, sinking back to her seat. “This is what I have longed to propose to you and Dr. Mamani, but did not dare.”
“You did.” Mac closed her mouth, guessing she’d been gaping like a fish out of water. So much for marshaling arguments. “Why didn’t you?”
“I had to assume you would resist this, as you have resisted every suggestion you be separated. Yet now, you offer to make a personal journey to achieve community.” The Sinzi-ra gave an almost orgasmic shudder. “Can a Human possibly appreciate the significance of this to Sinzi?”
This Human? Mac resisted the urge to laugh. “Em at Base, me with the team—it just feels the right thing to do. I know it’s not thoroughly logical or rational.”
“Both admit limits,” Anchen dismissed. “Limits are not useful in accommodating disparate ways of thought.” She seemed calmer, though still intent. “Based on my studies of your species, I see your proposal as a Human need to put affairs in order. You plan a leave-taking, a change of magnitude and risk. Part of this plan deals with what you leave behind, so you are free to go. Is this accurate, Mac?”
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