Mac tucked her imp into its pocket, and surveyed her room. Strange how putting a few personal belongings around had made this alien space hers. “Okay, more than a few,” she admitted aloud, eyeing the salmon swinging overhead and the filled shelves on every wall. She hadn’t asked for all of her belongings from Base. They’d just . . . arrived. Sing-li’s doing. “It’s going to take a while to pack all this.”
If not now, when?
Mac heaved a sigh of resignation and went into her other room. The bed beckoned—too risky, given the struggle she’d had to leave it this morning. The jelly-chair by the door was promising, but it lacked a certain privacy.
Which was the problem, she abruptly realized, fingers wrapping around the tiny device.
A moment later, Mac sat on the floor of her closet, its door closed, content in the knowledge that, while undignified and likely silly, she was as alone as she could manage. She leaned against a storage bag, wiggling until its contents stopped digging into her spine. From the feel, tents.
Now.
She took the ring between forefinger and thumb, lifting it—
“Mac! What on Earth are you doing in here?”
Closing her fist over the ring, Mac glared up at the man in the doorway. “I’m meditating,” she said stiffly.
“Meditating.” Lyle Kanaci gave her a doubtful look. “In your closet?”
“I thought it would be peaceful,” she grumbled, climbing to her feet. “What is it?”
“Not even you would call a meeting of this importance and not attend.” His voice rose and he waved his hands. “Weren’t you even planning to be there?”
Mac held back any number of retorts. While she’d known Lyle to be testy—and Fourteen knew he had a temper, although the alien had deserved what he’d got, using Lyle’s depilatory cream that way—he’d never burst into her rooms before. Not to mention she usually heard about her attendance, or lack of it, from Mudge.
“I don’t need to be there, but I was coming.” Eventually. “What’s wrong?” She waved him out of her closet and followed behind. “Besides, you’re better at those things than I am,” she added honestly. And enjoyed being in charge.
Like Mudge, Lyle Kanaci was Mac’s height, but with an academic’s tendency to slouch that made him appear the shorter of the two. It also made it easy to see the red mottling the pigmentless skin of his scalp and neck. Something’s definitely up, Mac decided.
He whirled on her the moment they were through the door. “You could have at least warned me!”
“About what? Oh.” Mac nodded. “The move offworld. Things fell into place—” she made a helpless gesture “—fast.”
“I don’t like it.”
Déjà vu. She felt like grabbing Lyle by the shoulders and giving him a good shake. While she was at it, Mac decided grimly, she’d shake the rest of the universe with him. “You’ve been complaining for weeks about not returning to Myriam,” she pointed out. “I’d have thought you’d be thanking me.”
“Not when it’s some trick by the Sinzi to make you cooperate.”
Was he worried about her? Mac wondered. She scowled. “This was my idea. There’s no trick, the Sinzi-ra—” the emphasis on the honorific a rebuke, “—and I are in complete agreement as to the benefits to everyone, especially Emily, and what made you walk into my closet anyway?” Oh, for doors that locked, she thought wistfully. Just once.
“You weren’t anywhere else.” He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Emily said you were still in your quarters.”
She scowled a moment longer, just for effect. “I’d better have privacy on Myriam.”
“You’ll have your own tent,” he promised, then half smiled. “Middle of a sandstorm, you’ll be alone for days.”
Mac rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me.”
“Mac.” Lyle lowered his voice. “Are you sure about this? Myriam, the Chasm. It’s not what you’re used to—we’d understand—”
Ouch. She decided to be equally blunt. “I do my best work in the field, Dr. Kanaci. As do you. A little—a great deal—” she amended, “—of sand doesn’t change that. We can’t learn what we must about the Dhryn here.”
This drew a measuring look from his pale eyes, followed by a short, quick nod. “Then let’s get going. Charles has the specs for the flight—if you’re finished meditating?”
“All done,” she assured him serenely, feeling a growing impatience herself.
Field season. Not to a river or her salmon, but the potential for discovery was there nonetheless. It quickened the heart, steadied priorities into one. Move.
“Let’s go,” she told Lyle.
If she replaced the ring around her finger, turning it twice with regret, that was no one’s business but her own.
Familiarity couldn’t breed apathy. Not here. As always, Mac slowed when she entered the Atrium, taking a good look at its remarkable space. The vast underground research facility beneath the IU consulate deserved it.
Aerial platforms filled the inverted cone that was the Atrium’s core. Most were rooms without walls, linked in various temporary configurations to better serve the needs of the researchers using that space. Some were docked against the steplike levels that formed the outer walls, if you’d call a wall what resembled more the side of a giant pyramid under excavation, studded with entrances to still more rooms and facilities. Other platforms were in motion in every direction. Mac had yet to see a pattern to the traffic, although she had to admit she hadn’t seen a collision either. A few near misses.
The ceiling, high enough to feel like sky, was the underside of the stones forming the patio, itself in the lee of the main consulate building. Tree roots formed wisps of brown cloud, the plants seemingly unharmed by finding air rather than rock beneath. Mac suspected extra care by the gardeners.
Space, bustle, changing shapes, but what Mac noticed most each time was the din. Her ears rang with voices from varied throats, machinery, and the incessant beeping of whatever felt obliged to beep. She’d only experienced silence here once, when they’d waited together for the Dhryn.
When they’d expected to die.
The Origins Team, as they styled themselves, had been granted space between the permanent researchers here, those who looked for the best fit between approved alien technologies and humanity. And vice versa. The trade in knowledge and invention went offworld as well. To reach their little pocket of xenoarchaeology, one had to take a platform into the center, then rise to the far back, uppermost level.
Mac reconsidered its location from her new understanding of Anchen’s perspective. If the farther you traveled to consult, the greater importance that consultation had . . . ? “In that case,” she mused aloud, trailing Lyle to the waiting platform, “she thinks pretty highly of our work.”
“Who thinks highly of it?”
“Anchen.” Mac shook her head at his incredulous expression. “Don’t ask. I’m not sure I could explain.”
One of the advantages to being the last remnant of the Gathering was, to Mac’s not-so-secret delight, a reduction in ceremony and fuss. They weren’t expected to hold their meetings at the Sinzi-ra’s long table—although Mac herself continued to be called there far too often. For Origins, meetings had become practical affairs. Staff would bring food, she and her group would curl up in jelly-chairs, and they’d finish discussion and dessert at roughly the same moment. Relaxing and effective.
Except, obviously, for today. Mac and Lyle stepped from their platform to confront a maze of crates and bags, most stacked in piles reaching well over their heads. They exchanged a look. “Oversight,” Mac guessed; Lyle nodded in complete understanding.
Consular staff were busy removing items from the maze to waiting platforms docked to either side, forcing the two of them to thread their way between. The entrance to the research area was equally cluttered. Its door had vanished, along with most of the wall to either side, to allow larger equipment to be rolled through.
“Is this a meet
ing or are we already packing?” Lyle shouted at her over the clang and clatter.
“Staff are packing,” Mac observed, then lifted her hand to return a wave. “Looks like we’re meeting.”
The wave had been Fourteen’s, whose head, shoulders, and wildly moving arm could be seen over the ranks of shifting crates. Mac used him as her guide, the room they’d worked in these past weeks being essentially gone.
Including the comfy chairs.
Luckily they still had a table, Mac discovered once she and Lyle passed the remaining obstructions. Fourteen was jumping on it, as if to be sure she’d seen him. “Idiots!!!!” the Myg shouted cheerfully. “Over here!”
“Do we have to take him with us?” Lyle whispered in her ear.
“Oversight would miss him,” Mac whispered back. She’d already spotted Mudge, seething in the background. Given the alien’s onslaught on the furniture, she was relieved he was only seething. “Fourteen,” she called out before worse could happen. “Don’t break the table. I need it.”
“Bah!” the alien grinned down at her. “You are trying to stop Charlie from strangling me with his bare hands.” But he obliged.
Like other Mygs of Mac’s acquaintance—granted, a small number, including six tiny offspring, the xenopaleoecologist who might be their mother, and Fourteen’s uncle, who’d visited last week—Fourteen was a stocky humanoid, similar enough in body plan to shop locally. Currently, he was challenging the optics of every other species in Origins by wearing fluorescent green, yellow, and mauve striped pants with an orange tank top emblazoned “Go Native!” in red across its stretched chest. He’d taken off the formal wig the moment his uncle had left; his brush of reddish-brown hair spiked wildly in all directions.
Mac was quite fond of him. So long as he stayed away from her things. Her family cabin on Little Misty Lake would never be the same after one of Fourteen’s creative spells.
Lyle’s words ran through her mind just then. Leave him? Not an option. Fourteen had declared some kind of Myg debt to her. He’d probably buy his own ship and follow anyway. Or hand her an offspring.
Who were cute—just not that cute.
Mac sighed. Ever since he’d failed to stop the Ro signal, for which she’d never blamed him, he’d been worse.
“About time you showed up, Norcoast,” Mudge accused. He looked harassed, but in the “busy moving the world, coming through” way that meant he was enjoying himself thoroughly. Not that he’d admit it, Mac smiled to herself. “We had to start without you.”
“Oh, I never mind that,” she said calmly. “Hi, everyone.”
The chorus of “Hi Macs” that ensued ranged from bass to soprano, with a “Hiiii Maaaaac” elongation in the tenor offerings. Extra vowels meant the Sthlynii were not enjoying themselves. No surprise there. She’d learned they didn’t care for change, not at the pace Humans moved, anyway. The switch to the Atrium, even with better facilities, had twisted Therin’s mouth tentacles into a foul knot for days.
You couldn’t please everyone, Mac reminded herself, silently counting heads. Speaking of which . . . “Where’s Kudla?” she sighed.
“Irrelevant!”
She sent Fourteen a quelling look. The Myg didn’t play tricks on the author or his followers. It wasn’t a compliment. “You can brief him later, then,” Mac ordered, hopping up to sit on the near end of the table. When no one else moved, she made an impatient summoning gesture to gather them around her in a semicircle.
A semicircle Mudge immediately burst through in order to confront her, brandishing his imp like a miniature sword. “I protest, Norcoast. Even by your standards, this is no way to run a meeting!”
Mac brought a finger to her lips. He subsided, barely, and the others grew still, obviously expectant. “Oversight has the transport details,” she informed them. “I dare say you’ve gone ahead without us to calculate the optimal allocations of effort and resources for everyone?” This directed at Mudge. He gave her his patented defiant scowl; Mac smiled peacefully back. “There,” she exclaimed, rubbing her hands together. “Who needs a meeting? Oversight will give each of you your assignments, send any bills and additional requests to consular staff as usual, and then? We’re out of here.”
There was a verbal explosion as everyone tried to talk at once. Mac ignored them, swinging her legs back and forth. After a moment, the uproar sputtered, then died away. “You know we’d come around to his way by the end,” she reasoned. “Think of all the time I just saved.”
The easy victory clearly upset Mudge, doubtless armed with arguments for every point and particular. He harrumphed vigorously. “We should at least discuss sleeping quarters on board the transport. At least!”
“Really?” Mac raised an eyebrow at those assembled, collecting a few chuckles and one interesting hue change. “I think they can handle that. Now. If that’s all?” She jumped down. “See you in orbit.”
The wall of bodies didn’t budge. Mac stood, confronted by anxious looks—or body tilts of the same meaning—and realized what was bothering them.
Emily.
She’d made quite an impact, even while recovering. Some here were smitten. Others, friends. And others . . .
Mac focused on Fourteen’s small, flesh-enclosed eyes.
Others saw Emily as a tool.
They’d have their separate reasons for worrying about Emily being removed from the team.
Not one of which mattered now, Mac told herself grimly.
As if warned by some change in her expression, those blocking her path silently moved aside.
Mac stalked through the opening, thought, and turned abruptly. For the friends and the smitten, and as a warning to everyone else. “The Dhryn have been quiet. Do any of you think that’s going to last?” She kept it calm, but some of them flinched. Easy to forget fear, safe in the Sinzi-ra’s snow-white palace. “Dr. Mamani has work to do,” Mac continued, letting them see her exasperation. “Work backed by the Ministry of Extra-Sol Human Affairs, as well as the full resources of the IU consulate on Earth. As do we.”
With that, she left.
Or tried. Mudge caught up to her in the midst of the maze of crates. “Norcoast. Norcoast! Wait.”
Mac stopped, narrowing her eyes at him. “You’re ruining a great exit line, Oversight. I don’t get many of those.”
“Giving me carte blanche to make arrangements. Yes, yes. But what kind of an example do you set by not waiting for your own assignment? Hmm?”
She blinked. “Pardon?”
“Hold out your imp and I’ll transfer your duty list.”
Wordlessly, Mac did as asked. Mudge in this mood? As well argue the arrival of spring.
They shifted closer to a stack of bags to avoid being run down by a hand lev. Mudge leaned toward Mac as he fiddled with their small workscreens, presumably sending her the list. Presumably, because he seemed to be more interested in who was nearby, sending anxious looks in every direction. Then, as if satisfied, his hands stilled and he met her eyes. “I’m scheduled on the shuttle with the rest.” A hoarse whisper. “I should be going with you, Norcoast.”
Mac frowned. “Do any of the others know I’m taking Emily to Base myself?”
“No. They’ll find out on the shuttle. But I must—”
“I’ll meet you at the way station, Oversight,” Mac assured him, resisting the urge to lay her hand on his arm. Such gestures made Mudge break out in a sweat, entertaining but hardly kind. And he deserved kindness. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. They aren’t letting me stay more than a few hours. A day at the most. You can contact me anytime.” Unless she switched her com off, but Mac didn’t see any point in bringing up that habit. “Sing-li will be his annoyingly overprotective self.”
He pursed his lips, eyes still troubled. “The defenses here, on the transport—I don’t like you being outside them. Bad enough last night.”
“Last night went quite well, all things considered,” Mac asserted, pocketing her imp now that the transfer was compl
ete. If there’d been one at all, and all this wasn’t a ploy to keep her listening to Mudge’s protest. The spy mentality was catching.
“The Ro won’t have forgotten you. It was a foolhardy risk, Norcoast. Foolhardy!”
“No, it wasn’t.” She paused to let three staff pass, arms filled with empty bags. “A little secret, Oversight, between you and me. Last night? An experiment.” She watched the color drain from his florid cheeks and gave a curt nod. “Everyone believes the Ro are waiting for something. No one knows what—yet. I needed to convince certain pigheaded committee members it wasn’t for Emily or myself to be in easy reach. Or we’d wind up virtual prisoners here.” Or bait.
“What if you’d been wrong?”
She shrugged. “Worth knowing.”
“Norcoast!”
Mac gave a tight smile. “If it makes you feel better, I was sure nothing would happen. The Ro pulled out, remember, taking their technology with them.” Leaving twenty-three Progenitors and millions of their kin dead. “I have no reason to think they’d bother with two Human scientists.”
“One came to watch you die. I’d call that ‘bothering.’ ”
There had been something personal, or its alien equivalent. She wasn’t a fool. But Mac shook her head again, dismissing Mudge’s concern. “The Ro have more on their minds,” she said, to him and to herself, “however sane or insane those might be. Our little encounter could have been nothing more than an opportunity—a voyeur’s chance handed to the Ro by the Sinzi’s new no-space technology. We can’t attribute Human reactions to the alien. Believe me, I’ve learned that lesson.”
“You’ve learned a great deal more, Norcoast,” Mudge agreed, surprising her, then predictably: “but not enough by a long shot.”
She reached out and poked him in the chest with a forefinger. “Which is why I have you.”
He harrumphed, color returning to his cheeks. “We’ll have to work flat out to be ready by the Sinzi-ra’s launch date.”
“There’s a date?” Mac demanded, startled. The trouble with making suggestions to Anchen was how quickly she acted on them. The floor suddenly felt like a river, rushing by underfoot. “When?”
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