Mac didn’t know who else had scrambled aboard the shuttle with Nik and the Dhryn. Couldn’t have been many.
Didn’t matter.
“This isn’t about the Dhryn at all,” she said abruptly. “A Trisulian ship at Haven, causing trouble . . . you’re worried about Cinder, aren’t you?”
If she’d thought she’d seen Hollans’ face wrinkled into grim lines before, she’d been mistaken. His eyes were like sparks set in pale, eroded stone. “This goes no farther, Mac.”
She hated being right. “I’ve had the talk. What’s going on?”
“What do you know about Cinder?”
Mac hadn’t reported how an impassioned Cinder had begged her help to keep from murdering the Dhryn. She’d bet Cinder hadn’t shared that moment either.
Some things weren’t about saving the universe.
“She’s Nik’s partner,” Mac hedged. “However that happened.”
“Was,” corrected Hollans. “The Ministry pairs field operatives with other species whenever possible. Experience for us, exposure to our ways for them. Trojanowski and Cinder were an exemplary team until his retirement.”
She didn’t think she imagined the slight hesitation before “retirement,” but nothing in Hollans’ expression or this situation encouraged her to ask about the past. “Things change,” Mac observed cautiously. Secrets went both ways.
“Indeed. Cinder is, to all extents and purposes, now a widow, as is her species. Which is nothing new.” At her startled look, Hollans nodded. “That’s right. Floods, disease, war have decimated their male populations before now. Mated females respond by impregnating themselves, then seek out new, safer territory before their offspring are born. By whatever means necessary. Wherein lies our problem. The Trisulians are looking outside their systems. And the means . . . ? They stole it from you.”
She could be shocked after all. “You think—they’d use the Ro signal?” Mac sputtered. “Call the Dhryn?”
“Yes.”
She licked dry lips. “Have they?”
“Not yet. Not that we know,” he clarified soberly. “And the posturing by the Trisulians at Haven could be nothing more than heightened territoriality—to be expected.”
He didn’t look like a man who believed that.
“What does Nik say?”
“That, I need you to tell me, Mac.”
She could almost feel the lamnas on her finger and resisted the urge to touch it in front of those keen eyes. “You read his message to me, I’m sure. ‘Continuing as planned; situation nominal.’ I could have used more.” She managed a stiff shrug. “That’s a spy for you.”
“There was more.”
Mac froze in place. “What do you mean?”
Hollans turned his hands palm up. “The Sinzi-ra didn’t send me to see you, Mac. Trojanowski—Nik—did. Before he left orbit, he urged me not to trust even secured channels, concerned we don’t have a handle on the Ro’s capabilities. He said he’d arranged a safe way to reach you.” He reached into a pocket and brought out a small wooden salmon, holding it out on his thick, callused palm. “I was to show you this.”
Betrayal . . .
Or the most profound trust.
Mac found herself too tired to guess. She took the carving from Hollans and put it away in her pocket, then held up her right hand. The lamnas gleamed. “Did he send me another of these?”
“Yes.” Hollans looked relieved as he took a gleaming circle from an official-looking envelope. He passed it to her. “I was hoping this was the message, but my people couldn’t find anything on it.”
The silver didn’t show any damage, so Mac refrained from pointless comment about private gifts and privileged information. After all, who had the coffee-soaked socks? “You wouldn’t. The lamnas is for me.”
“What’s a lamnas?”
Mac lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”
“Nik was consular liaison. He’s been deeper in the Sinzi-ra’s confidence than any other Human—until you, Mac.” Hollans glanced at the ring she held up between two fingers. “It’s some kind of communication device, isn’t it?”
She considered him for a long moment, then snapped her hand closed over the ring. “It’s more. And less. It gives me fragments of Nik’s memories, layered one over the other. Hard to sort out; not random. Memories that matter to him. It’s—” She took a deep breath and let it out, eyes roving the inside of the lev compartment. Their two seats, a door, curved blank walls. And Hollans. “I have to go outside.” She stood.
“But—”
Mac headed for the lev door. “You do want me to try to read it now, don’t you?”
“Yes.” He rose to his feet as well, but seemed to change his mind as he met her eyes. “How long will it take?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” Staff had packed her entire apartment while she’d peered through the first one. Either they were incredibly efficient, or it had taken a while. “It might depend on what’s in here,” she speculated, lifting the fist with the ring.
The door didn’t open to her touch on the pad. What did he think she’d do? Run? Tight-lipped, Mac let Hollans reach past to key in a code. “You’re sure?” he asked in a low voice, giving her a look she couldn’t interpret.
“About going out, yes. I have to be alone. The rest?” She shrugged. “These days, I make it up as I go.”
“That’s hardly reassuring, Mac.”
His aggrieved tone made her laugh. “I thought you liked it when I was blunt.”
“I prefer my experts wallowing in self-confidence.” Hollans gestured to the now-open door.
“So you,” she rejoined, “can leave them stuck in it when they’re wrong? Politics. No thanks. I’ll stick with blunt and ‘hardly reassuring.’ ”
Mac stepped down the short ramp to the mossy ground, doing her best not to shiver at reencountering the cool Yukon night. She paused to let her eyes adjust, a task made easier as the light from the compartment dimmed to a faint glow behind them. There’d been an old tipped stump not far from the lev. She spotted the dark mound that marked it and walked along until she found a more-or-less level spot within its dry exposed root mass. She sat on top, wiggling to settle herself between bristled sprouts of new growth, and took out the ring.
She was startled when Hollans, who’d followed, took off his suit coat and laid it over her shoulders. It was heavier than it looked, and warm. “Thanks,” Mac said, pulling it close. “Now . . .”
“Alone,” he acknowledged. “That much, okay?” A brief shaft of light from his hand slid over black armor: a guard stationed at the nose of the lev. Doubtless, Mac reminded herself, equipped with night vision.
“No.” With regret, she took off his coat and passed it back. Probably bugged. “I get privacy for this, Hollans, or you can leave.”
She couldn’t see his face, but she heard his quiet order. “Expand the inner perimeter by fifty meters.” And the result. An astonishing number of footsteps moved away in every direction, doubtless snapping twigs and scuffing sand for her benefit.
“You, too,” Mac insisted, the ring warm in her hand.
“Of course.” He took two steps away, then stopped. She could hear him breathe.
“What?”
From the dark. “I trust you saw the final report on the Ro attack on Haven.”
“I saw it,” Mac admitted. Which was technically true. She just hadn’t read the thing, given it was jammed with jargon and offered footnotes on particle physics. “The Ro fired some weapon at the planet. Your ships disrupted no-space around the Ro ships, exposed them, and they left. I was,” she reminded him dryly, “there.”
“Whatever else they accomplished, it’s clear now the Ro wanted that one Progenitor dead. The targeting was precise. They almost succeeded.”
“As I said. I was there.” Despite the bite to her reply, Mac winced. If she closed her eyes, she’d see it. The immense flame burning through buildings and pavement, penetrating deeper and deeper undergrou
nd . . . the death cries of a world. “She escaped.”
“The point is that She attracted the Ro’s attention, whether through Brymn’s actions or yours. She has ours now. This being may be our only chance to negotiate with the Dhryn. This has to work, Mac. We must have a reliable source of information the Ro can’t intercept.”
A rustle from somewhere beneath the log made Mac hold her breath; only when frenzied squeaks added punctuation did she let it out again. “What if they’re here, listening?”
“That,” Hollans declared with surprising confidence, “we’d know. Trust me, Mac.”
That word again. “Reliable, maybe,” Mac said quietly. “Information? That I can’t promise,” she warned, running her fingers over the ring. “The last time—there wasn’t much, Hollans. Things were the same. Everyone was the same.” Nik’s despair at his own feelings was her business. “Nik understands Cinder. He’s—he’s willing to use her anger at the Dhryn. I saw that.”
She thought he nodded, but it was too dark to be sure. “Maybe this time,” he said “there’ll be something more. I’ll wait in the lev. If you’re sure about being out here alone?”
“I’m sure.”
Mac waited while Hollans’ red light traced his path back to the lev, the even fainter glow from inside the craft marking the opening and closing of the door.
She waited an instant longer, stroking her palm along the corded smoothness of the wood. It was like muscle, frozen beneath her hand.
Finally, she brought the lamnas to her lips, breathed once, and lifted it skyward until she saw three stars within its circle.
And then . . .
CONTACT
INDECISION/
“Mac . . . I have to believe this . . . working . . . I will believe it.” /determination / Need you . . . /loss/ concern/
Concentrate, fool. “Hollans . . . Hollans . . . he’s got to know, Mac.” /shame/ Couldn’t tell you . . . not then. /heat/confusion/effort/ “Forgive . . .” Doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters. “. . . tell him.”
Concentrate. “ . . . sabotage . . .” /rage/frustration/fear/ “Ship okay . . . casualties . . .” friends, colleagues . . . part of me still slips away . . . what if it were you? /despair/emptiness/
/effort/ “Vessel safe . . . systems okay . . . suits . . . most gone . . .” /irony/ “. . . same boat . . .”
* layered over *
—She smells soap—
The Vessel hooted. “Do not worry so, Nikolai Piotr Trojanowski. We shall soon be with the Progenitor and safe from harm.”
I’ll believe that when we head for home . . . but Mac believes . . . /wistful/ . . . wish she was here.
“You’re sure about the protocols.”
“Yes, yes. They are simplicity itself, my lamisah. Your ship will approach and dock, I will offer greeting, all will be well. You’ll see.”
/resignation/ Those of us who live that long. Glad Mac isn’t here. Radiation’s not a graceful death.
“Here. This is a recording of what I’d say to your Progenitor. I want you to keep it with you at all times.”
A distressed thrum. “Do you fear more violence?”
I fear dying too soon. /determination/ “A precaution.”
“All will be well. You’ll see.”
* layered over *
—She tastes blood—
“Hurry!” “This way!” “Aiiiiieee!!” “I’m hit!”
/agony/
The words merged with thudding footsteps, explosions, and anguished cries, a staccato sequence.
Followed by silence.
/calm/focus/ Don’t reply . . . don’t reveal . . . /flutters of pain/endure/
“Nik! Where are you?” Cinder’s voice, anxious and sharp. “Anyone?”
/patience/
Footsteps. A sharp ping. Then another. And another.
/emptiness/ It’s come to this . . . /dread/
“Stop!”
A roar, followed by a splatter. A crunch.
/pain/
* layered over *
—She feels blood, slippery and wet—
Concentrate . . . “Hollans has to know, Mac. Lost . . . Murs . . . Larrieri . . . dead.” /urgent/need/denial/ Can’t tell you, Mac . . . can’t let you know what I did . . . had to do . . . “Cinder . . . dead. Saboteur . . . dead.”
A piece of me slips away . . . /anguish/grief/
“Ship okay . . . next stop . . . the Progenitor.”
/guilt/ She couldn’t help herself . . . I should have known . . . stopped her somehow . . . /failure/despair/ It’s only the beginning . . . will fall apart . . .
Concentrate. “The Vessel misses you . . .” /need/loneliness/
/resolve/
10
JOURNEY AND JOLT
MAC SLIPPED THE RING on her finger, to join its mate.
It was dark; the lev door was closed. When she eased to her feet, her left leg tried to fail, afire with pins and needles from hip to toe. Answering the question of time, she thought ruefully, rubbing her thigh.
Her cheeks were ice-cold. Drying tears, she discovered when she touched her face.
The message . . . “Gods, Nik,” she whispered out loud as the horror of it surfaced. What had he done?
Fought a battle. Killed a friend. Made a decision to risk all their lives.
Day on the job, she told herself, and didn’t believe it.
Again, the lamnas had revealed more than he’d intended. Far more. “He’s hurt,” she whispered to the dark. Outside and in. Mac didn’t need to try and imagine what it had cost Nik. She could feel it, like a fever eating at every part of her body; taste it as ash in her mouth. “ ‘Part of me slips away,’ ” she repeated, without making a sound.
She stumbled toward the lev, hands out in case she fell. Before she’d taken more than a few steps, its door opened and Hollans came striding down the ramp. Before he reached her, forms materialized from the darkness on either side and swept her up between them. Mac wondered if these were people she knew.
Were they her friends?
Were they Nik’s?
She rested her hands on their armored shoulders and silently wished them safe.
“I was hoping for information, Mac.” Hollans’ responsible wrinkles had settled into tired and old. “I didn’t expect anything like this. Are you sure?”
Mac shrugged, feeling tired and old herself. “How can I be? Whatever words Nik wanted to pass along are mixed up with conversations he remembered. I could be mistaken about a great deal. What seems clearest? An unsuccessful attempt to sabotage their ship. Some of your people were killed.” She’d given him the names she had: Murs. Larrieri. Cinder.
“The evacsuits.” He circled back to that again. “Were all of them damaged?”
That was the crux of it. And she didn’t know. “There was something about the suits. It—it wasn’t good. Nik’s sending the ship in anyway. He wanted me to tell you that.”
“It’ll reduce their safety margin. They won’t all make it.” He rubbed his face with one hand, then looked at her. “This is a disaster. Was the Trisulian responsible?”
Mac felt like one of her salmon. Fish ladder or waterfall? Without seeing the top, it was a leap into the unknown. The wrong guess meant failure and death.
She had the ear of a powerful individual. A wrong word in it now could precipitate a crisis—perhaps start a war. Emily’d warned her. So, Mac realized, had Anchen.
And what did she know? Only those fragments of Nik’s memories and feelings. He’d done his utmost not to reveal more.
That should tell her something.
Mac held up her hand, the pair of lamnas sparkling around her ring finger. “From this? I can’t say.”
He gazed at her. Done talking, Mac slumped deeper in her seat and yawned so broadly her jaw cracked. Exhausted biologist at your service, she quipped to herself. Just try getting me to make sense much longer.
The last time Mac had left home, she’d been tossed into orbit in a box, caug
ht by a freight shuttle, then ferried to a warehouse in one of the great way stations. Despite all this clever misdirection, the Ro—and Emily—had almost ambushed her there.
Which probably explained why there’d been no arguments made to an upgrade from box to proper passenger shuttle, complete with viewports and the in-flight vid of her choice.
Now, thanks to Hollans and some abandoned Dhryn ships, they were sealed in a compartment of a Ministry courier shuttle, with no view or entertainment.
Yup. Another box.
Schrant was curled in his seat, sound asleep. Not a side effect of Hollans’ little ploy, Mac decided, since Mudge was anything but sleepy.
“This is most irregular, Norcoast,” he announced. Again. With harrumph.
She closed her eyes and wiggled a little deeper into her seat.
“Norcoast!”
Mac cracked open one eye. “What?”
“I said, this is most irregular. We had prearranged transit. I don’t understand why we aren’t using it.”
“Are you going to keep repeating that all the way there?” she asked wearily.
He gave her a strange look. “I fail to see why you don’t find this all very irregular, too.”
Much as she’d hated doing so, she’d agreed to Hollans’ insistence that his visit be kept secret, even from Mudge. She’d gone back to the cabin, sat on the step beside Sebastian, who, true to Hollans’ word, was sleeping soundly, and had waited while her visitors left. After a few minutes, to no signal Mac could detect, the dogs had stirred enough to stretch and roll over on their rooftops. Seconds later, Sebastian’s left foot had dropped off the stair and his eyes had opened.
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