Before se replied, the three Frow went through a great deal of neck ridge unfolding and looking about, which made them totter like broken twigs about to fall. Apparently satisfied they were alone with their quarry, they stopped and looked at Mac. “You are escorting Dr. Mamani to her new place, Dr. Connor,” se said. “I must accompany her. Take me with you.”
To Base? “You know I can’t,” Mac replied far more mildly than she felt. Damn aliens. At least here, this time, she had the rules firmly on her side. “The IU must petition the Ministry for Extra-Sol Affairs for any nonterrestrial to leave the consular grounds.”
“We’ve filed such petition. Ah. But these things take time, Dr. Connor. We are aware you leave tonight. You can include me. I have a cloak.”
Mac blinked. “A cloak,” she repeated.
One of the lackeys volunteered: “A large one.”
If the Frow thought a cloak, large or otherwise, could disguise their shape or movement for an instant, they’d been reading the wrong brochures. Or a certain Myg was involved—Mac stopped her train of thought right there. This was serious. “I might be willing to convey a message to Dr. Mamani on your behalf, if I judge its contents worth her time—and that’s generous, Se Lasserbee. The Sinzi-ra set strict protocols for future interviews. Emily’s been through enough.” This last with a ferocity Mac couldn’t help.
Whether this particular species, or this individual, could detect the emotion in her voice was debatable. Not that she could detect any change beyond volume in se’s tone either. Still, she had to believe those representatives sent to Earth were given some training in humanity.
“Ah,” another of those breathless sounds, this time more pronounced. A request for attention? New topic? Gas? “Indeed generous, Dr. Connor,” the Frow told her, “and we thank you. But we have no message. We do not wish to talk to Dr. Mamani. What recollections she has of the Myrokynay have been passed to our superiors by the Sinzi-ra. And, as you say, she’s been through a significant ordeal. Ah. We would not wish to be responsible for causing her further stress in an effort to recall more.”
Mac tilted her head to better line up se’s angled eyes with hers. The pupils were black, slicing through an iris of pale green. Attractive eyes. In fact, without the black spiky hat, the Frow was quite a handsome being, in se’s own gaunt way.
And a politician.
She couldn’t afford to trade subtleties. “If you don’t want to talk to her,” Mac growled, “why do you want to come with us?”
“Ah.” All three Frow repeated their look-around behavior before se continued. “Above all else, we desire contact with the Myrokynay. We believe they will take advantage when Dr. Mamani leaves the protection of the Sinzi—”
“Never!” The alien staggered back a step and almost fell. Se obviously understood that Human tone. Mac took a breath and calmed herself, though her hands shook. “You misunderstand,” she said more quietly. “Dr. Mamani isn’t bait. She remains under Anchen’s protection—and ours—no matter where she is. More to the point, Se Lasserbee, the Ro aren’t interested. She was a tool they used and discarded.”
“In your opinion of events,” se countered.
“My—” Mac’s mouth fell open. Then she sputtered: “They did their best to murder her!”
“Ah. Conceivably a miscalculation. We Frow believe the Myrokynay could be beyond life and death as we experience such things. Ah. They could represent the next stage of all our futures.” Se touched two points on se’s hat. “How can we interpret their actions, using only our limited knowledge? How can we possibly guess their great plan?”
“The Ro’s ‘great plan’ is to be the last ones breathing,” Mac ground out. “Not interpretation. Not guesswork. That’s what they told me, Se Lasserbee, while they waited for me and all of us to be killed by their Dhryn.”
“Ah. The conversation not recorded by any means at the Sinzi’s disposal.”
“I heard it.” Mac silently dared the alien to utter one more breathless ‘ah.’ That was all the excuse she’d ask to turn on her perfectly path-adapted heels and leave. Quickly.
The Frow did have a point. She’d wished for a corroborating recording every day since. But the Ro’s terrible ‘voice’ had somehow been focused inside her body and Emily’s.
And Emily didn’t remember.
“I don’t doubt you, Dr. Connor,” Se Lasserbee said, unwittingly prolonging their conversation in the woods. “Don’t take offense. I’m a soldier, not a mystic. I know protocols and procedures. Forms. Any form you like. I have a talent.”
Mac’s lips twitched at this.
“I have difficult—nay, impossible orders,” the Frow went on. “I’m to go where I will have the best chance of encountering one of the Bless—one of the Myrokynay. Encounter invisible beings who live in no-space? That no one else can find? Yet my superiors expect me to succeed. You have been gracious to listen to me.”
Se stretched out se’s long arms and flapped the membranes from finger to hip, then dramatically wrapped se’s arms to hide se’s face. The others exchanged a look Mac couldn’t interpret, but stayed as they were.
Se did appear miserable.
Mac frowned, aware she was extrapolating from Human. Always a mistake.
None of them moved or spoke. The minutes dragged. Bad as relaxing, Mac thought. “Se Lasserbee,” she prompted finally. At this rate, they could be here past sunset. “Se. Please. There’s nothing I can do. I’ve my own questions, believe me, but I don’t know how to reach the Ro. No one does.” The Atrium had an entire section devoted to analyzing the modification to their communications system provided by the Ro. Linguists from the original Gathering were working on the code used to convey the instructions for that modification.
Without success; so far, the Ro kept their secrets.
As for replaying the call that had brought the Dhryn to Sol System? Anchen had reassured Mac that the IU had sent a blunt warning to the Trisulians, the only ones outside the Gathering to possess that ability, not to employ it. They weren’t ready to set a trap they couldn’t, as yet, safely spring. The Trisulians had obeyed.
So far, Mac echoed, wishing again that Cinder had stayed behind. Nik was the alien expert, no doubts there. But he hadn’t been the one Cinder had begged to take her weapons because she hadn’t trusted herself not to commit murder.
In Mac’s opinion, said weapons shouldn’t have been given back, but Cinder had been as fully armed as her partner when they’d departed.
Not a topic for current company on any level. Mac knew better than to mention Trisulians to the Frow, both former military powers, both edgy where their historical spheres of influence now overlapped. Long memories. Their partnership within the IU rested on peace and prosperity, not friendship.
A little louder. “Se Lasserbee. Did you hear me?”
“Ah.” A green eye peered over a fold of membrane. “Dr. Connor? Why are you still here?”
He’d dismissed her?
Mac didn’t know whether to stamp her foot in frustration or laugh. She’d been given a polite exit and missed it. Next time, she vowed.
Now, however, she was stuck and hurriedly fumbled for something non-committal. “What will you do now?” she ventured.
“Do? Ah. I do have an alternative in mind, but I hesitate to reveal it at this time.”
Fine by her, Mac sighed with relief. Then she frowned, remembering a certain elevator full of cider-obsessed Grimnoii. “You do know Myriam is flat,” this with a suggestive kick of her foot along the path.
Silence.
Mac’s frown deepened as she tried to read anything but polite attentiveness on the part of the Frow. “With no trees,” a gesture to their surroundings. “It’s a desert. A flat desert.”
“With the most magnificent rift valleys, Dr. Connor,” one of the lackeys burst out enthusiastically. “Sheer, comfortable cliffs. We’ve seen stunning images—”
“Let me guess,” Mac interrupted, eyes on the individual with the most poin
ts on his hat. “Your government has an interest.”
Se Lasserbee answered. “Every government has an interest in the origin of the Dhryn plague.”
Mac resisted the urge to pull at her hair. Gods only knew what that gesture might mean to a Frow. “Of course they do,” she acknowledged. “But this is a scientific expedition.”
“I’m sure, Dr. Connor, you don’t mean to imply Frow lack qualified experts to contribute.”
Definitely a politician, Mac decided. Given shouting was statistically unlikely to be diplomatic, and she had nothing worth saying that didn’t involve volume, there was only one reasonable response.
Mac untied her coat from around her waist, took her time shaking it out, then draped it over her head.
And waited.
There was a hush she gleefully thought of as shocked.
A hush followed by rapid stumbling footsteps. Mac crossed her fingers. The way back to their transport was uphill. If they fell again, it could be messy. Sparks at the very least.
Not to mention she’d have to hide under her coat until they untangled.
She counted to a hundred after the last clear footstep, in case the Frow had stopped to see if she meant her dismissal.
At last, Mac pulled off the coat, taking a relieved breath of cooler air. A few sunbeams raked low through the trees, catching in the mist. No sign of the Frow. She was either getting the hang of this interspecies’ communication thing . . .
Or the Frow had thought she was nuts and left.
“Whatever works,” she muttered aloud.
First the Grimnoii and now the Frow implying they, too, were heading for Myriam. It was as if her decision to move to the field had been a signal to everyone else around here.
Mac started walking back to the consulate, deliberately admiring the plants she hadn’t had time to name.
Let them come along.
If any of them thought they’d interfere with her team, they didn’t know this Human very well at all.
6
FAREWELLS AND FINDINGS
THE REST WOULD LEAVE in the morning via the walkways outside, joining their equipment and supplies on the consulate’s landing field. Emily was already in the more protected launch hangar, overseeing the stowage of her gear. Mac, after her walk under the trees, had decided on a different route.
“You could tell me why we’re going this way,” Sing-li protested half under his breath as they rode the lift to the basement. Mac, her hand on the wall control, grinned and shifted her bag to her shoulder. He gave that a glum look as well, having tried, unsuccessfully, to take it from her. “And why I have to wear this?”
Her grin widened. “Looks good on you.”
He plucked the fabric. “There had to be something else.”
“Blame Fourteen,” Mac replied. “I just said cheerful.” And anything but black. Everyone knew the Myg regularly shipped Human clothing back home—and not just any clothing.
“I’m a dessert tray.”
“And a very cheerful one,” she assured him, admiring the parade of dancing cake slices, happy-faced cookies, and improbable grapevines now stretching across the large man’s ample chest and shoulders. True, the overall color scheme was painfully flamboyant and, to top it off, the artist had filled any gaps with dots of bright orange-red, making it appear from a distance that Sing-li had recently been splattered with overripe tomatoes. “At least you’re inconspicuous.”
“In what possible sense of the word?” he sighed, plucking at the offending shirt again.
The lift door opened. Mac paused before walking out, searching for a tactful answer to his question. Sing-li laughed ruefully before she could find it. “What am I worrying about?” he said. “We’ll be at Base. I’ll blend right in.”
And can’t possibly loom. Mac kept that satisfied thought to herself as she shot him a grateful smile. She had one day. Was it asking too much to try and make that time as normal as possible?
As for their destination, she wasn’t sure herself why she’d had to come down here, only that she needed to walk this long white corridor once more. Not to the Atrium, with its preoccupied researchers and reconfigured spaces. She passed those access doors, Mac taking little hop-steps to keep ahead of Sing-li’s longer strides, both of them nodding automatic greetings at the varied aliens stationed at security checks along the way. Fewer than there had been, she noticed. The consulate had other defenses now.
Here. Mac paused in front of another door. Sing-li didn’t say anything as she reached for the control and pressed it.
The room was empty, an expanse of Sinzi white that might never have held a cage, might never have sheltered a Dhryn guest. Stepping inside, Mac glanced upward, seeing only an unremarkable ceiling that might never have opened into the Atrium itself, that might never have supported a mass of recording and transmitting equipment, so every move, every word could be seen and heard across the Interspecies Union, by more beings, and types of beings, than she could imagine.
There might never have been blood, Dhryn-blue, Human-red, on the floor.
She shivered, though the room was pleasantly warm. Parymn Ne Sa Las had been difficult and opinionated, but left all he knew to sacrifice himself in service to his Progenitor. The Vessel he’d become had harbored a new personality, Her personality, charming and strangely comforting.
Who was the Vessel now?
Mac sighed. She hadn’t had much luck with Dhryn. She hoped Nik was doing better.
Sing-li had entered with her. He didn’t say a word, but his fingertips brushed her elbow so lightly she might have imagined it.
He was right. No point lingering. Mac shook her head at herself and led the way back out to the corridor, heading for the next. The underground complex on this level twisted with the cliffs beyond, eventually connecting to the hangar.
She would have come here even if it hadn’t, Mac realized, her feet slowing to a stop again in front of another door. It was closed.
Likely locked.
“Mac. You know we can’t go in there.”
She frowned, but not at her troubled companion.
“Mac.”
She thrust her bag at him. “Here.”
“Dr. Connor. The lev’s waiting.” More resigned comment than complaint. Sing-li had learned to read her by now.
“This won’t take long,” Mac promised absently, putting her hand on the door itself and giving a tiny push.
For some reason, she wasn’t surprised when the large door swung noiselessly out of her path. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, muffling Sing-li’s unhappy protest.
Her eyes needed a few seconds to adjust from the brilliance of the corridor to this shadowed place. Impatient, Mac lifted her hands as she walked forward in case they’d rearranged the walls, something the consulate was prone to do. She’d rather not arrive at Base with a red nose or black eye to explain.
Although that would be easier than anything else from these past weeks.
This had been the tank room, a simple name for an extraordinary feat of engineering. Here, in this cavernous space, the Sinzi had built the first known permanent and accessible enclosure of no-space, a dimension beyond, behind, above, or after—whatever confusion you liked—normal reality. For no-space allowed certain liberties with time and distance, including winking a ship and its contents between connected star systems.
With Sinzi practicality, they’d used this marvel to house a block of shrimp-rich ocean, so their favorite delicacy could be instantly accessed from any room with a connected table tank. With Sinzi forethought, this not coincidentally provided an immediate demonstration of this breakthrough’s potential for selected consulate guests.
The shrimp? Although tasty, they hadn’t fared as well—direct exposure to no-space still meant what went in alive, came back dead. Albeit fresh.
The Sinzi were working on that.
No-space was at the core of everything Ro, who had no difficulties surviving it, or bringing along friends. T
he Ro hadn’t, until encountering the Sinzi’s little demonstration, found a way to directly observe areas of real space from inside their realm.
Small wonder the Ro had been drawn to the Sinzi’s toy.
Mac’s nose twitched. They’d cleaned up the flood of water and its dying life, released when she’d fought to save herself from the Ro. Destroying the main tank had been an inevitable side effect, but no one blamed her. To everyone’s relief, the table tanks had been replaced overnight with burnished slabs of local stone, presumably spy-proof.
She hadn’t been here since.
Her eyes caught a glimpse of light and Mac moved in that direction, hands still up.
They met something cool and slick and hard.
And familiar.
“Gods, no,” she breathed as she stopped. Mac stared ahead until her eyes burned, gradually making out details.
She might have been looking through a porthole into abyssal depths. The lights she could see were indicators on shapeless panels, pulsating greens and blues and yellows. They were stacked in a pyramid arrangement, the other sides and top beyond her view. The dim flickers reflected from the waving arms of anemones, the lacy fronds of sea fan and tube worm, flashed from the back of a small white crab. They were residents of a rising mound of pale bone, stacked before the pyramid like an offering.
Whalebone, Mac identified, sagging with relief.
Some of the glow marked the edges of swaying spirals of kelp. The immense plants grew up into the darkness. Between, darker shadows teased, sending back glints of moving green or blue or yellow, as if the artificial lights caught knife blades slipping through the forest.
Salmon.
Mac pulled back, only now aware of the throb beneath her feet, and braced herself.
The Sinzi-ra had rebuilt her tank.
She’d counted on it.
“I’m here,” she announced, proud of her clear, firm voice. “Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Connor Sol.” She wasn’t talking to the trapped things. She was talking to what she couldn’t see. Yet.
Silence. A curious octopus tiptoed toward her, its huge eyes unblinking. After a long moment of mutual scrutiny, the mollusk made its decision about the Human and suddenly jetted backward into the dark.
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